Piers Anthony - Chaining the Lady

Of course many of these ships had not been constructed within the Spheres with which they were associated. It would have taken the Mintakan craft three thousand years to travel at half-light speed from Mintaka to Etamin— and that was longer than the segment had existed. Mattermission would have done it instantly, but was prohibitively expensive for an entire space ship. Transfer was instant and cheap, but of course it was not possible with inanimate objects. It was strictly an energy phenomenon: living energy in the form of Kirlian auras, dead energy in the form of magnetic power or “strong” atomic force. Some theorists thought that the Ancients had been able to imbue physical objects with auras so they could transfer them cheaply to far parts, but few really believed that. Except, perhaps, the military entities who had conceived of these segment fleets all over the galaxy. Regardless, that technology did not exist today. So the ships had to be constructed right here in System Etamin, by transferred entities from other Spheres. Mind, not geography, was the guiding factor: a Mintakan ship was made by genuine Mintakans, though they used human or Polarian bodies. Any Mintakan spacefarer would be at home aboard it. Except someone planetbound like Melody, who had never even seen a Mintakan spaceship before.

Then she did a double take, surprising herself again by this human mannerism. It was a kind of backing up and second inspection with a sensation of mild amazement. “That’s Tarot!” she exclaimed.

“That’s what?” Yael inquired, and March’s head turned slightly. Each thought the remark had been directed at her/him, since Melody had spoken out loud.

“The Mintakan ship; it’s shaped like the Broken Atom of the Tarot Suit of Aura. At least it looks that way on the screen.”

“It’s to provide spin while gathering light-energy,” March explained. “I was briefed about the fleet before I was exiled. The ships from Segment Knyfh are similar. An outer shell to collect the light, and an inner nucleus for the crew. The whole thing rotates just fast enough to provide proper gravity.”

“How ingenious!” Melody said. Then they both paused for breath again, and she wondered: What was this about his being exiled? But she was sure it would be inappropriate to inquire, and at the moment she was more intrigued by the shapes of the ships, now so clear in the screen.

Some were like great wide-bladed swords, others like monstrous coins, still others like wands or cups. “To think it’s been right there under my strings—I mean nose —all this time, all my life, and I never thought to look!” Melody exclaimed to Yael. “All these ships of space— we are a Tarot-symbol segment!”

Yael was diplomatically silent. She knew little of Tarot, and less of symbolism, and hardly saw either the relevance or significance of such a connection. So what if a sword was used as the shape of a ship and the symbol on a card? What was wrong with that? So long as each design could collect the light, as March had explained, and spin up enough gravity…

And this in turn gave Melody further pause for thought. There was not only a substantial aura differential between them; there was an intellectual gulf. Yael was just below the human norm in intelligence, moderately below in education, and well below in intellectual experience. Melody was between 1.5 and 1.7 on the Mintakan intelligence scale, roughly analogous to the human scale, and possessed a Segment Doctorate in General Learning. And she had a full lifetime behind her. Yet she realized now that there were fundamental equivalencies between her mind and that of her innocent host. They were both female, despite the technical asexuality of Mintakans, and both were novices in this particular situation. Given that basic set of similarities, Melody was able to appreciate the human girl’s view—and to grasp for the first time in her life what it meant to be intellectually handicapped. Yael genuinely could not appreciate the insights to be obtained from the observation of the parallelism of designs. But she didn’t feel stultified, did not suffer directly; she was literally too stupid to know what she was missing. Yet she was in every sense a person, a conscious, feeling entity.

It was a lesson in perspective that Melody hoped never to forget in the few years remaining to her. For she knew most of the sapients in the galaxy were more like Yael than like Melody. Melody had existed in an ivory tower, and it was now being blasted apart by new experience, exactly as the applicable Trump of the Tarot suggested. She had never realized how specifically it could pertain to her —which was part of this very experience. The strike of the lightning bolt enabled her to understand the nature of that lightning bolt.

Now the shuttle’s deceleration had eased off, and it was orienting on the hull of the mighty flagship, the Ace of Swords . The handle of the sword had seemed small from a distance, but it was a Solarian mile in diameter. This huge rotating mass resembled a veritable planetoid! The ship’s magnetic tractor field took hold of the shuttle and guided it into the end of the handle, where there was no gravity right at the axis of rotation. In virtual free-fall the little craft settled into a huge airlock, and a metal covering slid over it. They had docked.

Gas flooded the compartment, and Melody was reminded of her Tarot yet again: Naturally there was gas, since war and all things military were associated with the Suit of Gas whose symbol was the Sword. Solarians as a species were identified with the same suit. Not for nothing was it said throughout the segment: “Trouble, thy name is Sol.”

Pressure equalized. Melody unstrapped herself, discovering that she could stand, though gravity was minimal here. The port opened and she stepped carefully out, as March deferred to her in a reflex of Solarian etiquette that thrilled Yael. Half floating, Melody came to rest on the deck of the big ship. She found herself in a roughly hemispherical chamber formed by the inner curve of the hull and the dimly illuminated airlock panel above. “So this is the Ace of Swords ,” she murmured.

In a moment a door phased open and a space officer strode in. He was a handsome Solarian of middle age, the blazon of Imperial Outworld on his chest: a neat superimposition of the ancient letter symbols O and W, the straight lines of the latter segmenting the former into five subsections:

These stood for the five neighboring Spheres, each with a curved side and one or two straight sides. Curve as in curve of Sphere, straight as in communication between points. Curve as in Polarian circularity, line as in Solarian linearity. The fundamental elements of Outworld society, the mergeance of two Spheres to form System and Segment Etamin. The combination of thinking that had made this a galactic power. All vested in this simple symbol.

There was a chill of terror that half paralyzed the host-body. Melody realized that it stemmed from the host-mind. “What is the matter , girl?” she demanded as the man approached.

“The magnet!” Yael screamed.

Now Melody saw something behind the man. It was a brilliantly colored glob that floated, yet it seemed quite solid. It was like a three-dimensional model of the Outworld emblem—a sphere with lines zig-zagging on it. “I see it, but it doesn’t look dangerous,” Melody said to Yael.

But the Solarian was upon them before Yael could explain. “How pretty you are, Yael of the Dragon World,” he spoke, extending his hand as he glided to a stop. “Welcome to the Ace of Swords .”

Of course they had not informed him of her real identity. The Society of Hosts protected the anonymity of those who wished it, and no one outside the Society could be completely trusted. So she used her host’s identity as a cover, which delighted the real Yael. Here was adventure, in name as well as fact!