But as they came to the Pole, they had an ugly shock. There was a Hectare guarding it. Nepe had been ready to handle a golem; the wooden things were not smart, and simple illusion could do a lot. But a BEM—this was disaster!
Alien was the one who spied it, flying ahead in the predawn darkness, scouting the way as he fed on insects. As ‘Corn he had seen the Hectare, when his father turned himself in; ‘Corn himself had been beneath notice, and promptly assumed his Phaze identity so as to remain clear of the invader. The Hectare had been cognizant of the fact that operations would be smoother if households were allowed to maintain themselves, so only the dangerous individuals were impounded. Thus Trool, the Red Adept, was prisoner, his Book of Magic mysteriously missing. But his wife, the beautiful vampire woman Suchevane, and son Alien remained at the Red Demesnes. Similar was true elsewhere. The families remained scrupulously inactive—until this present mission with Nepe.
They halted as soon as Alien returned to give the alarm. None of them could afford to be spied in Nepe’s company by a Hectare, and Nepe hardly dared show herself in recognizable form. But the Hectare was standing directly on the West Pole; there was no way to avoid it.
They took shelter in the lee of a great gnarly blue birch tree and consulted, all taking human forms except Belle, who had none. So she lay and rested in feline form, alert for any intrusion from without, while they focused their lesser human senses on the problem.
“ ‘Sander, you know about Hectare,” Nepe said. “Maybe now is when you fulfill the prophecy. How do we get to the Pole? Can we lure the BEM away, distract it, or something?”
“You can’t do that,” Lysander said from seeming air. “No Hectare has any interest in anything local except its assignment, which is obviously in this case to prevent any native from approaching the Pole. I presume that someone told them that the Pole was important, so they covered it.”
“Mayhap they espied us coming here, so laid in wait,” Sirel said.
“More likely they realized that there was activity at the North Pole, so set guards at all the Poles,” Nepe said. “I think Purp made Brown send golems north, but the West Pole is temperate, so a Hec can handle it. But we have to reach that Pole by the end of today, or we fail.”
“Fail in what?” Lysander asked.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you!” Nepe retorted.
“Now wait, Nepe,” Echo protested. “You want his help, but he has to know how his expertise relates if he is to provide it. Maybe between what you know of the mission, and what he knows of the Hectare, you can find a way through.”
She was right. Echo was a woman in love, but she had a good human mind. “I apologize, Lysander,” Nepe said. “I’ll tell you all I know, if you’ll tell us all you know that relates.”
“It’s a deal,” he agreed.
“I have three messages, which I must listen to and implement in order, not even listening to the next until the first is done. The first was to go to the North Pole. So Flach went. He got the help of the snow demons, and used his magic to keep them from freezing him or him from melting them, and they took him to the North Pole. Under it was a chamber where the Black and Green Adepts were. They had planted a Magic Bomb which will destroy the planet if we don’t stop it. We came back with them, and they gave themselves up to the Hec. My next message was to take a Hec seed to the West Pole, by the end of today, and to bring along whom the wolves sent. I don’t know what’s there, but maybe another chamber. Maybe that’s where the Book of Magic is. So I have to take the seed there, and that’s all I know.”
“That must be all the Hectare know, too,” Lysander said. “If there had been anything there to find, they would have found it. So they posted a guard and are waiting to see what your business here is, if there is any. They are probably guarding all the Poles as a matter of routine precaution, after discovering the activity at the North Pole; they may not know whether any other Poles have activity. So this is probably just a guard, not an administrator. But why haven’t they dismantled the Bomb at the North Pole?”
Nepe smiled. “It’s not possible. It turned out that it’s frozen slow under the Pole. They actually set off the Bomb, but things are so slow there that it’ll take six weeks for the blast to get out of the chamber. When it does it’ll destroy the planet, and all of us with it. So the Hec will never get to exploit this world, no matter what. Maybe Clef is waiting with the Book of Magic to null the Bomb at the last moment after the Hec give up and go home; I don’t know. I just know I have to do what I have to do, or it’s all gone.”
“The Adepts are playing hard!” Lysander remarked, and the others nodded agreement; this had been news to them too. “But it gives me a notion. There must be a similar chamber below the West Pole, that the Hectare can’t enter because it would take them far too long to do so. Similarly, they can’t nullify it from outside, because it is what’s inside that has to be affected; they might destroy it from outside, but if it contains the spell to nullify the Magic Bomb, that would be disastrous. So they are waiting for you, to see how you approach it.”
“But I don’t know how to do that!” Nepe protested. “All I can do is drop the Hec seed in, and then listen to my third message.”
“So if we do nothing,” he said, “your mission will fail, and the planet will be lost. Presumably the nullification process involves the seed, and has to be started today or it will be too late. If your mission fails, so does the Hectare’s mission, because in six weeks they will only have established the apparatus to exploit the planet; they can’t do the job on any faster schedule. So I can appreciate the beauty of the Adept ploy, and I see that I have to help you succeed, for your side and mine.”
“You have the idea,” she agreed. “Now tell me how we can get by that Hec. Can we sneak up on it, or charge it and knock it out?”
“Hardly. The Hectare’s eyes cover the full hemisphere that is the side of the planet where it stands. Those facets are the lenses for its thousand-plus eyes. Each covers one section of the hemisphere, and nothing is missed. It surely saw Alien fly by, but because bats are a normal part of the night it took no action. You can not approach it without being observed as soon as there is a line of sight, and you can not attack it, because the moment you tried to it would recognize the weapon and use one of its lasers to stop you. That single Hectare guard could simultaneously laser all seven of us, because it would orient several eyes on each and coordinate them with the weapons-tentacles. When it comes to observation and combat, no creature on this planet can match the Hectare.”
She had suspected as much, because of the way the Adepts had yielded to the Hectare. The Hectare had their ships threatening the planet, true, but they would not have been eager to destroy it; they wanted to exploit it. So they had to be good on the ground, too. They knew what they were doing, and they were individually sharp. “But there has to be a way!” she said.
“There may be. But it’s a gamble—a big one.”
“Go on. It can’t be worse than the gamble of not getting through.”
“It may be. You will have to approach the Hectare under a flag of neutrality and challenge it to a game.”
“They are gameoholics!” she exclaimed, seeing it.
“And if it agrees, then you can bargain for the stakes. If you win, it must let you and your party through. But if you lose—”
“My left hand!” she said, feeling the pain of amputation, though she would be able to restore the hand from her body mass.
“And perhaps that of any member of your party who wants to pass with you,” he said. “The Hectare like to game, but they like equivalent stakes, too. Since it can stun you and turn you in and gain a commendation for wrapping up the resistance, you will have to offer a lot to balance that out.”
“More than my hand?”
“More than your capture, probably. Since it would know that it is wagering its own betrayal of its side…”
“More than my capture?” This was more serious than even she
had imagined.
“Probably you would have to agree to serve the Hectare loyally, betraying all your former associates.”
Worse yet! “I don’t think I can do that. I mean, the fate of the planet—”
“Yes. The fate of the planet, because it would terminate your mission and mine. But you have to bargain in good faith. If you expect it to do so. It will match your honor. The Hectare are creatures of honor; it is their specialty. So my advice to you, as a commonsense thing, is not to make that wager, because you stand to lose everything if you lose, while if you win, you gain only the chance to complete the second part of your mission.”
“But if I do nothing, and don’t complete my mission, we lose anyway!” she protested.
“Unless there is some other mission you don’t know about.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, troubled. “No, I have to go on with it. But I’m supposed to take Sirel and Alien with me, so the risk is theirs too.” She looked at the werewolf and vampire bat. “What do you two say?”
“We must do it.” Sirel said, looking uncomfortable.
“I agree,” Alien said, evidently feeling no better.
“Then the three of us will approach the Hectare and bargain,” Nepe said. “The rest of you will have to wait for us—if we win. If we lose, you must go back and tell the others to hide from us, because we will be your enemies. You must not delay, because the Hectare will be after you.”
Neysa, in human form, nodded. Echo looked doubtful.
“If Nepe loses,” Lysander said, “Echo joins me, and the unicorns take off. If Nepe wins, we will wait for her return, and continue helping her.”
That seemed reasonable. Lysander was going along with the Hectare wager. This made it easy for Echo to remain with him, without having to betray her culture. “Then you four remain and watch. Lysander can watch without being seen. By the day’s end you will know.”
“We will know,” Echo said grimly.
“I’m not sure what form to take,” Nepe said. She hadn’t thought of this aspect before, because she had never expected to encounter a Hectare here.
“It will know that this can not be an innocent encounter,” Lysander’s voice came. “Best to identify yourself clearly, and bargain honestly. If you try to deceive it, it will refuse to listen to anything else you say.”
That seemed to make sense. Why would three children come alone to the West Pole? The monster had to know it was important the moment they showed themselves.
“Hold something white aloft as you approach,” Lysander said. “The Hectare will know the human parley convention.”
“Something white,” Nepe said, casting about and finding nothing.
“I have a slip Tsetse gave me,” Echo said. She lifted her skirt, took hold of the undergarment, and pulled it quickly down. It was suitably white.
“Thank you,” Nepe said. “I hope I can return it.”
“That means nothing,” Echo said. “You and I will be on the same side either way.”
That was true. Nepe nerved herself. “We must do it now; we do not know how long the game will take.”
Sirel and Alien stepped forward, retaining human form. Nepe suddenly realized that they made a nice couple, this way; it wasn’t evident that they were actually wolf and bat—or, in their Proton identities, robot and human being. Stranger liaisons had occurred; how well she knew!
Nepe took the slip and held it aloft. She walked around the tree and toward the Pole. Sirel and Alien fell into step behind her. The others neither spoke nor moved.
Soon they came into sight of the Hectare. Nepe had seen the creatures before, but this time she felt a special chill, because she knew she was going to have to brace this one directly, and that her freedom and planet were on the line. She had no certainty of winning the game; indeed, she didn’t know what game it would be. Suppose they couldn’t agree on one? Then the Hectare might simply capture the three, and it would be over.
The Hectare gave no sign. It stood there as they approached, unmoving. But the fact that it had not fired on them was a positive sign.
At last the three stood before the monster. The Hectare, indistinguishable from any other of its kind, loomed above the three children. Its eye facets were greenish, as were its central mass of tentacles, but its lower portion was brownish. It seemed to have no front and no back; it was a bit like a giant toadstool. She understood that the Hectare breathed the air, but this was not apparent; probably they passed it continuously through hidden gills.
“We come to parley,” Nepe said. “Do you understand?”
A single tentacle extended, and its end turned up.
“Do you recognize us?” she asked.
Three tentacles extended. The one pointing to Nepe turned up; the ones pointing to the other two turned down.
“Then we shall introduce ourselves,” Nepe said. “I am Nepe, whom you are seeking. The boy is Alien, a vampire bat. The girl is Sirel, a werebitch. Both are my friends of long standing.”
The tentacle toward Alien made a turning motion. Alien nodded, then assumed his bat form, hovering in place. In a moment he resumed boy form.
The tentacle toward Sirel gestured. She became the young wolf, then reverted.
Now all three tentacles turned up. The Hectare knew them as well as it cared to.
“We must go to the West Pole,” Nepe said. “You must let us do this.”
The Hectare neither budged nor signaled—which was answer enough.
“I will play a game with you,” Nepe said. “If I win, you will let the three of us do what we wish, and will not report our presence here. If you win, we shall join the Hectare and loyally serve your side against our own culture. We prefer not to lose our hands, but we shall be in your power for whatever you decide—if I lose.” And there it was: her offer of betrayal, which she would honor if she had to. The notion appalled her, but she believed Lysander: if she did not honestly put her loyalty on the line, she could not expect the Hectare to agree to let them pass, for its loyalty was also on the line. They were wagering for betrayal.
The Hectare did not even pause. The tentacles straightened, then turned up. It had agreed. Lysander was right, so far: they were gameoholics who could not resist an honest challenge, whatever the consequence.
“We must choose the game fairly,” Nepe said, her voice sounding controlled though she was fighting to suppress a feeling of terror. She had no commitment from the monster about the nature of the game; she should have put that in her initial statement.
But the tentacle turned up in agreement. It seemed that the thing desired a fair game.
Nepe used her foot to scuff a line in the dirt. She made a second line, and a third. “We have no Game Computer,” she said. “But we can place choices, and play the grid. One grid. Agreed?”
The Hectare agreed. It remained a bug-eyed monster, but its responses were so sure and just that she was coming to respect it despite her antipathy to its person and all it stood for. Actions did indeed count more than appearance!
“Is a grid of nine enough?” she asked as she made the cross lines.
Four tentacles extended. “Four on a side?” she asked.
A downturn. “A four-box grid?” she asked, surprised. “Two placements by each?”
The tentacle turned up.
“Okay. That’s fair. We can place our choices slantwise, and then choose our columns. Is there an even way to do that?”
The tentacle turned up again. Nepe didn’t know what the Hectare had in mind, but was coming to trust it. “I choose the game of marbles,” she said, and used her finger to write the word in one corner.
The Hectare extended a tentacle, reaching the ground readily. The tentacles looked short, but stretched. It wrote LASER MARKSMANSHIP in a box.
She would be lost if she had to compete in that! She knew how to do it, and surely the monster would lend her a weapon, but she knew that all Hectare were perfect shots with such weapons. Suddenly she doubted that her childis
h game of marbles was a good choice; those tentacles could probably also shoot little glass spheres with perfect accuracy.
She thought a moment, then came up with something that might be impossible for the monster: “Hopscotch,” she said, and wrote it in her other box.
Unperturbed, the Hectare wrote POKER in the final box. Was it good at card games, or did it merely enjoy the challenge? Now she was uncertain. A true gameoholic might want a good game more than a victory.
The box was now complete: HOPSCOTCH and POKER on one row, LASER MARKSMANSHIP and MARBLES on the other.
“How can we choose columns?” she asked.
Tentacles pointed to Alien and Sirel. “Face away and throw one of two fingers!” Nepe exclaimed, seeing it. She used the numbers 1 and 2 to mark both the horizontal and vertical columns. “I will take the horizontals, the one if they throw odd, the two if they throw even. You will take the verticals and the same numbers, in your turn. Agreed?”
The tentacle turned up. The Hectare evidently wasn’t fussy about the details as long as the choosing was impartial.
“Do it,” Nepe said. “This is random, but it always is, really.”
The two faced away. “Now!” Nepe cried.
Both lifted hands. Sirel had one finger extended, Alien two. “Odd,” Nepe announced. “I choose the number one line. Now throw for the Hectare.”
The two threw fingers again. This time Sirel lifted two, and Alien one. “Odd,” Nepe said. “So it is column one for the Hectare.”
Nepe looked at the grid. Box 1-1 was HOPSCOTCH. She had won her choice!
But she couldn’t relax. “Do you know how to play?” she asked the Hectare.
The tentacle extended, first turning up, then down.
“You mean you know generally, but not the variants?”
The tentacle turned up.