He stood in the center of the chamber, before the door, and waited. In a few minutes there was the sound of someone approaching, and the door opened.
Brown stood there. She stared at him, evidently astonished. It was a sentiment he could appreciate.
“Thou needs must come—” she started, faltering as her eyes continued to travel over the apparition. Lysander realized that she had sent Tsetse away somewhere, so knew this was someone else, yet could not verify it by sight.
Now his lips felt pressure, and he knew it was time to speak. He said the most neutral thing he could think of, knowing that his voice would ruin the illusion. “Yes, of course, Brown. Whatever you say.” And was astonished again, himself. The voice he heard was not his own, but that of a woman. The illusion changed the sound, too!
The Hectare had sadly misjudged the power of magic! Lysander had not even believed in it, when he arrived, and though the Hectare in charge had surely researched it, they could hardly have appreciated its nuances. For the first time, Lysander suffered a twinge of doubt about the certainty of continuing Hectare hegemony here. Magic was a game that could change the rules of any other game!
Brown recovered. “Something has come up. I am to be Purple’s second in a game against a Hectare.”
The lip pressure came again, so again he spoke the obvious. “A game against a Hectare! But don’t they make natives—?” He broke it off deliberately, as he wasn’t sure how much Tsetse would know.
“Aye. Needs must we help Purple win. Now come.” He followed her out of the chamber and out of the castle itself. A small airplane waited there, and Citizen Purple was there, in his purple robe. “You can keep your clothing, Brown,” he said as they climbed in, “but she’s a serf.”
Now he understood why Nepe had taken the trouble to fashion a complete illusion. He wormed his way out of the robe and became the gloriously naked serf woman. Brown helped him, and he knew by her fleeting expression that when she touched his real flesh—rather, Nepe’s coating of flesh over his—she felt his real size, and knew the nature of the illusion. But of course she would protect the secret. He knew only that Nepe had to get past the Hectare guard devices to fetch something, and that Brown was helping.
The clothing resumed its original appearance as he doffed it. He wadded it up into a ball and wedged it under the seat; he should be able to pick it up on his return. If not—well, Purple probably wouldn’t pay attention to it anyway.
They flew to the city, then got a ride to a Citizen transport chamber. Citizen Purple paid no attention to Lysander; evidently he had been so completely fooled that he wasn’t challenging anything he didn’t have to. If he caught on, Nepe would be done for—and she knew she was depending on a Hectare agent for the success of her ruse. The child had phenomenal nerve!
Purple touched a button. One wall of the chamber became a video screen. It showed Purple himself challenging the particular Hectare he worked with to a game.
Hoo! As an act of foolhardiness, that could hardly be surpassed. But of course Purple hadn’t done it; he had been framed. Lysander understood now how apt Nepe was at emulations; she could have made herself resemble Purple and recorded that challenge, and had it sent to the Hectare when she was safely away.
She had a grudge against Purple; Lysander hoped she never had a grudge against him!
Purple nodded. “Flach/Nepe,” he said. “I’ve tangled with that brat before. If I don’t kill her, she’ll kill me.”
Obviously Nepe could do that, any time she chose. But she wasn’t attacking Purple, she was using him. His understandable nervousness about the high-stakes game with the Hectare was causing him to be careless, as she had anticipated, and she was pulling a stunt Purple didn’t dream of.
But it seemed that Purple had coerced Brown into putting her golems at the disposal of the Hectare invader, and to serve him personally without trying to do him direct harm. Brown had evidently agreed because Purple was blackmailing her—but also because this allowed her to help Nepe. What a devious interaction this was!
They proceeded to the Game Annex, where the Hectare and its second waited. Its second was Tan. That gave Lysander a momentary start, but he realized that it made sense; the Hectare were playing the game by local rules, and needed competent local advice. So the two quislings were on opposite sides in this matter, but united in their support for the invader. Another interesting situation!
The game proceeded. The irrepressible Game Computer discarded their grid choices, as was its wont, and assigned them a competitive play set in ancient Crete, of planet Earth’s history. The chamber assumed the likeness of the old stone palace.
Too bad he had been unable to obtain access to the game source code. He could have found out why it aborted the regular grid, and corrected the malfunction. But now that he knew that the Adepts had known his nature, he understood why Blue had given him make-work instead of real work. That malfunction must relate in some way to the Adepts’ plotting.
The Hectare selected an actress by picking her up and carrying her away. She was a robot, but she screamed protest and kicked her feet, seeming exactly like a ravished maiden. Lysander thought of Echo, and could believe it. The robots of this planet were extremely sophisticated, emulating human beings almost perfectly.
He would have liked to watch the game, but his lips and legs felt Nepe’s pressure. That meant she had somewhere else to go, and he would have to make an excuse. “I don’t care to watch this,” he said in Tsetse’s dulcet voice, and backed away. Brown saw her, and did not protest. No one cared about a serf servant when there was more interesting business afoot. In a moment he was out of the chamber and on his own.
Nepe had achieved the first part of her plan: she had gotten them past the Hectare alerts, that would have stopped them had they not been an authorized part of Purple’s party. But what was next?
Guided by her pressure on his legs and backside, he walked down the hall, not to the concourse, but to a service area. When there was no one to observe, he ducked into the machine passages, and caught a rubbish cart to the Hectare district. Nepe was playing a dangerous game!
They came to a particular apartment. Suddenly Lysander realized whose it must be: the Hectare who was playing the game with Purple! Not only was Nepe using Lysander to assume grown human form, and using Purple to get past the alerts, she was raiding the Hectare’s den itself, while the game kept it occupied.
They came to a service access panel. Now there was pressure on his hands and on his back: she wanted him to go forward through the panel. But of course he couldn’t do that; it was closed, and any attempt by an unauthorized party to force it open would set off a strident alarm. In fact, entry by the wrong party would do the same, even if no force was used. Only the Hectare code would do, here. Which meant that Nepe knew about that, too. The Adepts had done a real job of investigation on him!
Very well. He had to cooperate if he was to get to the root of their plot, even if he facilitated that plot along the way. Nepe’s nervy plot had him in thrall too. If he didn’t do it, they would find someone else to, or some other way; he knew that the Hectare had seriously underestimated the cunning of the resistance. Which was, of course, why agents like him were assigned. He represented the backup, to make sure that there were no devastating surprises. He had already learned enough to justify that policy.
He tapped in the code pattern. The panel slid open. He stepped into the apartment, setting off no alarm.
Nepe guided him to an antechamber, where a special unit sat on a table. She made him use the Hectare code to open it. Inside, carefully aerated and protected from all shocks of motion or temperature, lay a set of small, intertwined tentacles.
Lysander stared. Oh, no! Only now did he appreciate the full daring of Nepe’s mission. This was a Hectare seed!
Lysander’s brain had been taken from a living Hectare whose body had suffered irreparable damage. His memories of his prior life had been eliminated, but his knowledge of Hectare custom
and culture had remained, so that he would never lose his fundamental identity. He knew the significance of this seed, and knew that Nepe knew it too. The Adepts must have done meticulous research, and acquainted her with exactly what she needed to know.
Human beings reproduced in the fashion of their mammalian kind: the male, when amorously inclined, used his organ of intromission to insert a number—a considerable number—of viable seeds in the receptive chamber of the female. The species was so organized that there was continual interest in this activity, so that such insertions were made even when there was no reasonable prospect for viability. This was what he had done with Alyc, and thought to do with Jod’e, and had done most recently with Echo. He knew that his android body did not produce viable seed; it would never merge with the female seed and form a new living entity. Only with the help of laboratory enhancement could an android produce offspring. Female androids generally served as brood mares for the embryos of living human women who preferred not to interrupt their social schedules by being gravid. Humanoid robot females could do the same, to a lesser extent. How magic affected this he wasn’t sure; strange things were happening on the planet, and perhaps strange crossbreeds were occurring. Nepe herself was an example.
Hectare reproduced differently. They were of one sex, but did pair off to breed. Under their mantle of tentacles, normally concealed from exterior view, were their appendages, which were small and immobile tentacles. Periodically one of these would ripen, at which time the Hectare would seek a compatible Hectare with a similarly ripened member. The two would approach each other and if the compatibility persisted, engage in what the human kind would term a sexual encounter. Their two ripe tentacles would twine around each other, and in the ecstasy of the experience, the Hectare would separate and break off the members. The interlocked tentacles, each containing the chromosomal complement of the parent, represented the nucleus of a new Hectare.
But the course of development was not automatic. The Hectare seed had to be planted in the soil of the home planet, the only place where it would grow. It could survive in stasis for a time, originally brief but with the aid of modern technology up to a year, if the proper environment was maintained. That was the purpose of the housing unit: it provided the environment of stasis, so that the seed could be shipped to the home planet for planting. Hectare did not have families; all seeds were treated equivalently in the protected nursery. They sent out roots to gather nutrients, and drew energy from the sun. They also developed their mantles of tentacles to catch insects and other prey, and their eye complexes, that gave them their beauty. In time they achieved the mass and resources to enable them to become mobile. As they did so, they were captured by the nursery caretakers and brought to special chambers for education. In due course they would emerge as adult Hectare, ready to participate in Hectare civilization, and to help extend it to other planets.
What did the human resistance want with a Hectare seed?
The covering of flesh that made him resemble the woman Tsetse rippled and changed. Nepe’s main mass was overlaid at his chest and hips; this now drew the thinner sections into itself, forming a single mass at the region of his stomach. As it slid away from his legs and arms he saw nothing: he remained magically invisible, even to himself.
A mouth formed in the bloated belly he now carried. “Lift me to the seed, then carry me away from here swiftly.”
Lysander did not like this at all. He was after all Hectare himself, despite the human body and human attributes he had assumed. How far did his mission require him to go? To interfere with a Hectare seed would be to provoke a ferment that could bring about extraordinary mischief.
But if he did not, Nepe would probably turn him in, and his chance to fathom the Adept plot would be gone. She was putting him to the test, and there would be no evasion.
He made his decision. Better to sacrifice one Hectare seed than the mission, because the mission could affect the Hectare dominance of this planet. What was one seed, which might not survive, compared to the planet, which was important in its small fashion to the alliance dominance of the galaxy?
He put his hands on the ball of flesh that was Nepe and heaved it up and over the unit. She weighed about half as much as a grown man, and probably never would get beyond three-quarters man-weight, but what a creature she already was! The Hectare, if they but could know it, should be thankful that there was only one of her on the planet. As it was, even that one might be more than they could handle. Two would swamp them!
A pseudopod extended from the mass, depending toward the seed. It touched the seed, and enfolded it, and then retracted, carrying the seed. In a moment he held the ball again, with the Hectare seed hidden inside it.
He moved the glob to the side and down; his arms were tiring. He didn’t know whether Nepe wanted to clothe him again, or do something else, and hesitated to inquire. There was probably an aural monitor that would set off an alarm at the sound of his voice. Nepe had spoken, but she might know of the monitor and how to avoid triggering it. She seemed to know everything else, including exactly how to use him to achieve her mission.
There was pressure on one side of his hands, from protoplasm that wrapped around them, so he carried her that way. It was toward the service access panel they had used to enter. He put a foot through, then carefully shifted to bring Nepe through. But the extra weight was awkward, and his shoulder brushed the edge of the opening.
Immediately an alarm sounded. A device in the ceiling spun about, searching for the intrusion; the moment it spotted him, a laser beam or worse would strike. They were in for it now!
Lysander jammed his body through the hole and shoved to the side, to get out of the line of fire. But there wasn’t room for them both; Nepe would get tagged. So he heaved her into the darkness beyond like a big bowling ball, rolling her out of danger. Then he tapped the Hectare “At Ease” code on the wall.
The alarm silenced. The Hectare codes overrode all else. But the brief sounding of the alarm would alert the Hectare security force, and there would be a prompt investigation. He had to get far away from here in a hurry!
He closed the access, so that their mode of exit would not be immediately apparent, and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He knew there was very little time to waste.
Where was Nepe? She had disappeared, and he just had to trust that she would know how to manage; he would only get them both caught if he searched for her.
He would probably get caught anyway! He heard a machine coming his way, and there was nowhere to scramble out of its way. He huddled against the dark metal wall, waiting for whatever offered.
It was a delivery wagon, self-propelled and empty. It evidently did double duty as a cleanup unit, sent automatically when the alarm went off. It came to the dead-end that was Lysander’s niche, and flashed a beam directly on him.
And through him! The magic still made him invisible, and the machine didn’t see him! It spun around and rolled away. He had assumed that the effect was limited to the perception of living creatures. He had underestimated it again.
How far did this magic extend? His shoulder had set off the alarm, and Brown had felt his real body (as covered by Nepe), so obviously touch was not included. Nepe had told him not to speak, so sound probably was not included either. But could he walk with impunity among the machines, as long as he did not touch them? It was worth trying.
He walked, and the machines ignored him. He made his way down the dark passage, walking between the tracks of the delivery system. It was working!
Then he heard a larger machine coming—and there was no room to get out of the way. If it did not see him, it would run him down. He turned and sprinted for the last alcove, but the machine was too fast; he knew it would overhaul him first.
Then it slowed, and he made it to the alcove and swung himself out of the way. The machine moved past, picking up speed, and in a moment was gone.
Lysander had to pause to think about that. There had been no reason for
the machine to slow; it was a level track, and it had the programmed right-of-way. No reason to slow—except to avoid hitting Lysander.
The machine had known he was there, yet given no other indication. What did that mean?
Nepe’s father Mach was a self-willed machine. He must have given a directive, that the machines obeyed. To ignore Lysander as if they did not see him, but not to hurt him. So that he could complete his mission for the Adepts. The magic did not after all affect the machines, but their orders did.
He felt a shiver. He was sure the Hectare did not know about this. How much else was going on under their noses? If a machine could be instructed to ignore a spy, why couldn’t it be instructed to assassinate a Hectare leader?
He was right to pursue his mission, even though it facilitated the opposition. He had to get down to the fundamental ploy of the resistance. The Adepts might let him do that, because they believed they could not win without his help. He was now less certain about that than they were. This planet was deviously dangerous.
He made his way to an exit panel near the concourse. He would have to get out, trusting his spell of invisibility to humans and avoidance by machines to protect him, and try to find Nepe. She still needed his help, for she could not masquerade as Tsetse alone.
He opened the panel and stepped out. He took one step—and a serf blundered into him. Lysander had done the most elementarily foolish thing: he had assumed that other people would automatically avoid collisions. But they couldn’t, because Lysander was invisible to them. They were not machines.
“Hey, there’s a man here!” the serf exclaimed, groping as he caught his balance. “I can’t see him!”
Citizen Tan’s voice came over the speaker system. “Hold him! We want him!”
Lysander brought up his hand and pinched the man’s neck, making him gasp with pain and let go. But half a dozen others were now closing in. These were serfs who had volunteered to serve in the new order; they wore the identifying arm bands with tentacle pattern that denoted lesser collaborators. They spread their arms, to prevent anyone unseen from passing by them, and more were converging from beyond. Lysander knew he would not be able to fight his way clear of this. All because of his completely stupid mistake!