“Thanks.” He regretted that the loyalty she saw in him wasn’t genuine. “But we’re in a bind. If she claims me, she’ll make sure that you are in no position to get near me, now that we have declared ourselves united in opposition to this invasion. Now that I have taken notice of you. You can’t afford to associate with me.” This was a deeper truth than she could know at this point.
“But I can’t let you be taken by the enemy!” she protested. “If the Citizens knew the invasion was coming, and wanted to protect you from it, then it’s my job to do that.”
“But you can’t help me. You might as well save yourself—by disassociating with me.”
“And betray my employer? My culture?” She turned to face him, putting her arms around him. “Lysander, you took some liberties with me, when I was pretending to be a mannequin. Now I’m going to take one with you.” She drew him into her, her arms reaching around him.
He yielded to her, because he expected to send her on her way in a moment. It was true: he had handled her about as intimately as it was possible to do, short of all-out sexual engagement. If she wanted a kiss in return—
Her fingernails scraped across his back. They caught in the tape. They ripped it off. “Now we make our break!” she said. “The tape stays here; we go to Phaze!” She threw the bit of tape away.
“You bitch!” he said, half admiringly.
“Nay, I be no werebitch,” she said. “I be a vamp. Now tread in the shadow o’ yon rovot, Lysan, and I will guide thee out.” She became a bat, and leaped to perch on his hand.
Lysander found himself committed. He could not say it was wrong. He had simply wanted to spare her from being implicated in his break, and from being subsequently betrayed by him. But he had also known that she would not desert him, because she was as committed to her mission as he was to his.
The machine she had indicated was a walk-brusher, evidently going out to clean the walk to a garden at the edge of the dome. He ducked down and ran beside it, letting it shield him from the lens-eye that covered this exit. The machine ignored him; it was equipped only to do its job, not to inspect its surroundings.
The bat in his hand peered to the right. Lysander went that way, finding an offshoot from the main path. He ran through dwarf palms down to a tiny artificial stream that originated in a fountain. Then on into the channel of the stream, which turned out to be stone, not mud. Then he waded through a small pool and scrambled over a decorative wall.
Beyond was the wild vegetation of Phaze; they were now beyond the dome environment. The bat flew up, evidently searching for something. Lysander ducked down beside a tree whose leaves were in the shape of floppy stars, waiting for Jod’e to complete her reconnaissance.
Then he heard hoof beats. He looked—and spied an old horse trotting toward him. The bat was on its back.
Clear enough! He stepped out as the horse arrived. It was a mare with a dark, almost reddish coat. He got on her back, and she turned and headed directly away from the dome.
The problem with this was that they were exposed. Anyone who looked would be able to see them. But maybe nobody would care about a man riding a horse.
Then the horse changed. Now a shining spiraled horn projected from her forehead, and her mane was iridescent. Her coat had deepened into a deep purplish red.
“Belle!” he exclaimed.
There was a tinkle of assent. Then she picked up speed.
He hung on. Bareback riding was not his favorite mode, and the unicorn had more power than a horse might. They were zooming through the high grass at a dizzying pace.
He discovered something as the run continued. Belle was getting hot, but she wasn’t sweating. Instead she was dissipating the heat in her breath, which was turning fiery, and her hooves, which were throwing off sparks. So that was how unicorns cooled themselves!
Something caught his eye. It was a shadow in the shape of a disk. Oh-oh. He craned his neck and saw the origin: a small Proton flyer. The pursuit was on, already!
Belle dodged to the side, seeking the cover of a copse. But the flyer angled to intercept them, and it was much faster than any animal could be.
“They’ll use stun rays!” Lysander cried. “Change and scatter! They’ll only go after me!” He flung himself off the unicorn, taking a trained fall and rolling through the brush.
They changed and scattered, but not the way he had intended. While he ran for the cover of the trees, the bat headed straight for the flyer. The unicorn became a heron and also flew for the flyer.
The bat lighted on the top of the flyer. Then it was the woman again, her weight bearing the machine down. But it wasn’t enough; the flyer remained aloft.
Until the heron landed on it—and returned to unicorn form. Now the flyer crunched down to the ground.
Lysander was amazed, but not reassured. “Get away from that thing!” he cried. “It can send the rays in any direction, or detonate a stun bomb—”
Too late. There was a dull explosion, and a burst of radiation from the machine. Jod’e and Belle collapsed, and then Lysander, who was farther out and hit with less intensity, but still unable to escape it. He saw the ground advancing toward his head.
It seemed only an instant, but the sun had moved; it had been about an hour. Lysander woke to find a second, much larger flyer beside the first. A trainer robot was before him, its treads flattening the grass. “Identity?” it demanded.
Lysander knew that his retinal patterns would give him away soon enough anyway; there was no point in trying to give a false name. “Lysander. I work for Citizen Blue.”
“Confirmed. The identities of your companions?”
Were their patterns on file? Jod’e’s yes, but maybe not Belle’s. He might be able to help the unicorn go free. “Jod’e, employee of Citizen Troal. The mare has no human identity; she’s just a steed.”
“A unicorn steed,” the machine said. “They will be registered too.” It turned its lenses on Belle. “Stand, mare.” A beam touched her.
Belle, freed from the effect of the stun beam, climbed to her feet. She stood, uncertain what more to do.
The machine ground toward her. Suddenly another beam speared out. There was a sizzle, and a puff of smoke.
Belle screamed almost in the manner of a woman. She leaped up, but could not escape the pain. She had been burned on the flank. It was evident that though her hooves were adapted to heat, her hide was not.
She hit the ground running. In a moment she was far across the field.
“Why did you do that?” Jod’e demanded of the machine. “There was no call for—”
“All human forms will be registered by retinal pattern,” the machine said. “All animals will be branded. None will escape identification.”
“Branded!” Lysander exclaimed. But there was no more he could say; the deed was done, and he didn’t want to get Belle into any more trouble. It was better if they thought of her as only an animal.
“Enter the craft,” the machine said.
Jod’e hesitated. “Do it,” Lysander said. “We have seen that the invaders—or whoever is giving the orders now—have no compassion. They will stun us again if we don’t obey.”
She nodded. She knew it was true. They climbed into the flyer. There was barely room for the two of them, and none for the robot it had brought.
The panel closed. The flyer jerked aloft. They clung to each other to shield themselves from the buffeting.
“You can change form,” Lysander murmured in her ear. “Fly away. You’ve done all you could.”
“They know my identity,” she reminded him. “They’d only search me out, and punish anyone who helped me.”
He was silent. It was true. She was probably in for it, because she had tried to help him escape, and Alyc wouldn’t like that.
“I should have agreed to serve the Hectare,” he said. “And walked out when I had a chance.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” She leaned forward and kissed him.
“W
e’ll both pay for this break, as Belle did, but at least we tried.”
He kissed her back. “As romances go, this has been extremely brief. But if both of us should later find ourselves free…”
“Agreed,” she said. “Maybe this is just a temporary occupation, and the invaders will move on to another planet.”
“Somehow I fear not.” And such was his identification with his role that he felt real regret. He knew that the occupation was to be permanent. The Hectare needed the planet’s supply of Protonite, which was the finest known compact energy source, and they regarded the game setup as ideal for relaxation. They would desert the planet only when there was nothing remaining to make it worthwhile to exploit.
But his private requirement was clear: he had to escape the captivity of the Hectare and seek sanctuary with the native resistance movement. Once he had fathomed its nature and had identified all the key personnel, he would betray it to the authorities, and the planet would be secure. He was sure that there was such a movement; there always was. If the Citizens had known that Alyc was a Hectare agent and left her alone, it could only have been because they were hiding their true effort. Jod’e might have led him there, but they had been intercepted too soon.
That was surely Alyc’s fault. It was another irony that she had unwittingly allowed her personal desire to interfere with the larger plan of her true employer, the Hectare. If the resistance movement made mischief because the counteragent was nullified by a superficial agent—but it was his job to see that that did not happen. He had special training which would enable him to escape, but he would avoid drawing on that as long as he could, to maintain the semblance of untrained loyalty to the native culture.
Meanwhile he was truly regretful that he would be unable to have a fling with Jod’e. Alyc had been entertaining, in the human fashion, but Jod’e would have been delightful.
“I think I have fallen in love with you, this past hour,” Jod’e said.
“If you have, banish the notion!” he said, alarmed. “They could use it against you by threatening me!”
“Yes, that would be the way of the despot,” she agreed.
“But had things been otherwise, I think I could have returned the sentiment,” he said, kissing her again. That was probably true, if some very large allowances were made.
The flyer landed at the dome. A disciplinary robot was waiting for them. It herded them to a cell in the holding section adjacent to the spaceport, where fired serfs were normally held until deportation was arranged. There was a bunk and shower and video screen, and that was all.
“They left us together?” Jod’e said, surprised. “This is a cell for one.”
“Three conjectures,” Lysander said. “One: this is only temporary, until they dispose of us shortly. Two: no one told the machine otherwise, so it dumped its load in the nearest cell. Three: they are so crowded with new detainees that they have to jam us in double.”
“Four,” she said. “They want to give us a chance to talk together, so they can listen and learn what we were doing out there. Five: the thing you said.”
He nodded. He had warned her how one of them could be made to do what the captors wanted, if the other was threatened. Both her conjectures seemed good. Still, he was glad to be with her.
How should they play it? The moment Alyc received news of their capture, she would act. She knew the situation. So was there any point in pretending indifference to each other? Maybe a romantic motive would be better than a political one, as far as the Hectare were concerned.
He sat on the bed. “I think they don’t care about us, other than to ascertain whether there is any political significance to our attempted flight,” he said. “Since our association is romantic rather than political, we have no need to hide it.”
Her lips pursed appreciatively. “And we may not have much time together.”
She took three steps and plumped down on his lap, evidently intending to make their time count. He embraced her, finding her body just as intriguing as he had found Alyc’s. The nakedness of serfdom was asexual; it was the expression of sexual interest that made a woman appealing. He knew that Jod’e was a bat, in one of her aspects, but it didn’t matter; he had seen how genuine the mixed-breed folk of this society were. Had Jod’e been a full android, she would have been stupid; it was her vampire aspect that lent her both wit and sex appeal. He himself was a type of crossbreed, with his superior brain in an android body.
She grabbed his head and bent hers down to kiss him fiercely. His hands roamed as they had during the game of Fox and Geese, but this time there was no question about the nature of her body. “I wish we had understood each other better before,” he said, his pulse racing.
She lifted her head, then brought his face into her bosom. That was a move Alyc had lacked, and it electrified him. He no longer cared what other types of creatures they both might be; body to body was what counted at the moment.
The cell door opened. “Sure enough.”
Both Jod’e and Lysander jumped. It was Alyc!
Well, did it matter? He had broken with Alyc when she revealed herself as a traitor to the planet. Jod’e was next in line.
“I don’t suppose I could trust you anyway now,” Alyc said to him.
“I was true to you, until you were false to Proton,” Lysander replied. “If Jod’e had sided with the invaders, I’d have dropped her too. But she declared herself before I did.”
Alyc considered. “Very well. Have your fling. I shall see what can be done to make you both useful to the new order.” She stepped out of the cell, and the door slid closed.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Jod’e said.
“She’s jealous,” he agreed. “She can probably have me gelded and you put on permanent scullery duty.”
“But will the invaders support her, if it’s too much trouble?”
“Probably not. Her job is done. She has betrayed those who befriended her. But if she should find a way to continue being useful to the invaders, they might humor her.”
“So this may remain our only opportunity,” she said. “But if it’s all the same to you, the joy seems to have been deflated.”
“Yes.” He released her, and she got off his lap.
She turned on the video and tuned it to the news channel. They were abruptly locked into ongoing developments.
In the course of the rest of the day, and into the night, they absorbed reports of the landing and takeover by the Hectare. The investment of the planet, as they called it. There were human agents throughout, and these were handling the reorganization. Any Citizens who had not promptly reported to the concourse had been quickly hunted down by robots. The Hectare had evidently concentrated on the robot centers, and taken them over at the outset. But the real reason it was so easy was that the alien spaceships orbited the planet, and periodically blasted small craters out of the landscape, just to show how readily it could be done. Any such blast at a dome would burn thousands. Open resistance was pointless.
One item disgusted them both: the freeing of the two renegade Adepts, Purple and Tan. Lysander had not seen either directly, but had learned their history. They had been part of the Adverse Adept group that had tried to seize power from Citizen Blue (or the Adept Stile), and then they had betrayed even their own side and tried to become dictators. They had deserved execution, but Citizen Blue had been lenient. Now they were free and the loyal Brown Adept was prisoner, under house arrest in her castle. So the evil were being uplifted, and the good cast down. Lysander was a hidden agent for the Hectare, but this was hard to stomach.
What had happened to Tania, the beautiful woman Lysander had met, and her husband Clef? There was no report on them. Probably they had been driven into hiding. Lysander hoped that when he penetrated the heart of the resistance movement that they were not there; he did not want to have to be the one to betray them.
Finally, tiring of the dreary news, Lysander and Jod’e lay on the bunk. They had considered takin
g turns on it, but decided that if they were to be punished for being lovers, they might as well act like lovers. So they stretched out together, intending to sleep, but got interested so decided to make love—and then fell asleep before getting to it.
All next day they remained confined, with only each other and the video screen for company. A portable food dispensing machine was brought periodically so that they could select their meals, but they saw no living person or even a humanoid robot. They did hear faint sounds in adjacent chambers, and realized that the premises were indeed crowded. Any new regime had many enemies to contend with, and prison or the equivalent was about the only resort until they were all sorted out.
“If they get too crowded, they may have to let us go,” Lysander said. “After all, we haven’t done anything, and we’re hardly a threat to them.”
“Let’s hope,” she agreed. Then, curious, she assumed bat form and flitted out when the mealbot came, flying back unnoticed before it finished serving. “Jammed,” she reported. “They’re going to have to move us out soon.”
But it wasn’t until the following day that they were taken out. A guard machine escorted them to the main hall, where a small cargo transport waited. They climbed in and a sliding panel sealed them in. Then they suffered a fast, rough ride through the city transport system.
When the transporter stopped, they were at the entrance to an attractive estate. In fact, it was that of Citizen Tan; Lysander saw the marking at the entrance.
Indeed, Citizen Tan was there: Tania’s brother, not only freed from confinement but restored to his former status. No need to inquire what had happened to Tania; she must have been interned with the other true Citizens. The Hectare had acted with startling precision and speed to secure their base. The capture of Lysander himself had probably been just one of hundreds of such missions proceeding simultaneously. The Hectare were old hands at planetary subjugation; they allowed no leeway for problems.
They entered the main chamber—and Jod’e’s breath hissed in with shock. A monster stood there.
Lysander blinked and reconsidered. Monster? That was a Hectare! It stood somewhat above the height of a human being, with monstrous multifaceted eyes at the top, many stout little caterpillar feet at the base, and a hairlike greenish mantle covering much of the torso. A perfect specimen of its species. He, Lysander, had become so acclimatized to the human state that he had seen the creature through human perception.