Piers Anthony: Chaining the Lady

Dash was already at work on it. A disciplined series of pictures appeared on the screen: Sphere Dash entities. No—these were merely his animations of the Ancients. Not knowing their actual nature, he rendered them in his own image. But the message was what counted. He was trying to fathom the ultimate secret of these mysterious people, and thus gain some hint of their technology. Otherwise he would not even know what questions to ask, just as a creature of a civilization of three Thousand years ago would not have known how to ask for Transfer. Had such knowledge been offered. As of course it had been, via these same sites.

Melody watched. It gave her time to wrestle with her own problems of host-rejection and Galaxy-salvation. Maybe there would be some key here.

Dash did an excellent job of zeroing in on the later stages of Ancient history. The network was extremely complex, because the Ancients had spanned the entire cluster—some twenty assorted galaxies and fragments. It had been the most extensive Empire ever known, with no Spherical regression. How had they managed that?

Expertly, Dash located the key lines. Slowly the mechanisms of the Ancient disappearance emerged. There had been no invasion from any other galactic cluster; the Ancients were supreme. No devastating pandemic, no holocaustic war, no precipitous decline in the reproduction rate. They simply… resigned. They shut down their myriad bases carefully, returned to their home, and… faded out. Trillions of sapients disappeared from the universe.

Why?

Dash swiveled his eye to meet her gaze. On this they were united: The rationale of the Ancients remained as confusing as ever.

He returned to the animation, questing for the reason, not the fact. This time he centered on it faster.

And as the rationale came clear, Dash and Melody stared and listened and experienced with mounting incredulity and horror.

Suddenly the animation cut off. Melody wasn’t certain which one of them had terminated it; it could have been either. Far better never to have known this terrible Ancient secret! Aposiopesis indeed!

Melody blanked it from her mind. She had no intention of letting her own culture die, no matter what the alien psychology of the Ancients had been. Through Ancient science she could certainly redeem her galaxy.

The problem was how to get what she needed without giving it first to Sphere Dash. No doubt she could learn from this globe how to build invincible spaceships that would conquer a galaxy, jumping from Sphere to Sphere by inanimate aural transfer—but Sphere Dash would build them first. She could discover how to mattermit whole planets across millions of light years, using minimal power—but Sphere Dash would do it first.

What possible secret could she learn that would save her galaxy—without being subject to prior nullification by the enemy?

She tried to concentrate. But the progression of pregnancy in her host was affecting her. She had mated; she was turning male. Her whole aura was reacting with the knowledge, suffering hostile incompatibility. It was a peculiar, awkward sensation; soon she would simply have to leave, no matter what.

If only she could arrange to put Dash in a similar situation, to force him to vacate any hostage he took. If it were only possible to make hostaging itself impossible, so that only voluntary hosting could occur. The Andromedan effort would collapse, and Milky Way would be forever secure.

More than that: She would have to do it retroactively, so that the damage already done could be undone. For Galaxy Milky Way had already fallen.

Then it came to her. There was one secret Dash could not counter even if he shared it.

This site was not merely informational. It was the key. Flint of Outworld had discovered that the Hyades site was one big transfer unit, controlled by thought. This £ site had to be another.

In moments Dash would catch on, for he was not stupid, and he was almost as fiercely motivated as she was. She had to act now .

“Oh Aposiopesis, God of the days of the Ancients,” she thought, couching it as a prayer because that was what, in essence, it was. The intensity of her need made it so. “Modify your transfer mechanism. Make every hostage entity dominate the invading aura—wherever transfer is used.” Her internal verbalizations were crude; the essence was her will. “Let the host-aura dominate, regardless.”

But Dash had now understood the situation. He emanated a blast of negation that fuzzed the image in the globe; Melody’s thought could not get through.

She fought him with her fading aura. Already it was down to his level; her own hostile discordance was phasing her out. She was 175 and declining; soon he would be stronger. Stop the hostaging! she willed.

The picture changed back and forth. Light and dark thrust against each other, symbolic of her aura and his, evenly matched, neither prevailing. But slowly, inevitably, the darkness gained, absorbing more of the globe.

Desperate, Melody cast about for some device, some insight that would help her. Her galaxy depended on her success! But the picture kept darkening. She hit him with aural :: blows, but he absorbed them; she set a o otrap, but he avoided it. He was thoroughly experienced in aural combat, and she could not overcome him.

Better to destroy the whole site than to give him this victory. That was what Flint had done.

She sent a blast of despairing hate at the globe—and it puffed into vapor.

Amazed, she stared at the fading wisps of smoke. Beside her, Dash was umnoving, as surprised as she. Could the machine itself have been an illusion of animation?

The answer came: Yes! This was the nature of animation. Their thoughts not only animated the pictures of the globe, they were the globe. And the entire city. All that really existed here was the oubliette—and the animation transfer unit and bank of information that surrounded it. Which was worth more than any city.

Melody acted immediately. Under her guidance, the entire city exploded ferociously. The acrid odor of destruction was painful. The site seemed to be collapsing, burying them.

And while Dash stood confused by the sheer threat and fury of the falling buildings and leaping flames, not certain how much was real, not yet aware that it was merely the dissolution of the animation, Melody thrust forward her overwhelming thought-urge-prayer: reverse hostaging!

And her world dissolved.

COUNCIL INITIATED PARTICIPATING * — / :: o o

—aposiopesis has spoken—

*andromeda is fallen*

/the lady is chained/

o othe monster strikes o o

:: shame! ::

CONCURRENCE

Melody opened his eyes and sat up. His body felt stiff, and he had a headache, but he could function.

He licked his lips. The flesh was raw, and one or two front teeth were missing. “Mush have veen some fight!” he muttered.

He was in a round room. He was clothed—a Solarian affectation. Next to him several other Solarian males and one female lay on pallets. Melody recognized them: They were the hostages that had taken over the Ace of Swords of the fleet of Segment Etamin. He knew them only by their hostage identities: Hath of Conquest, Tiala of Oceana, all of the entities he had unsuccessfully tried to salvage from Andromedan domination. All were there except Captain Dash Boyd.

For he was Captain Boyd! Melody had changed sex, and animated a male host. He must have had the subconscious desire to return here to the Segment Etamin fleet, and the Ancient unit had picked up that wish and transferred him here. What miracles of science the Ancients had!

But what of his main intent, to abolish hostaging? Now he governed another hostage body! Well, he might still be able to do something.