Piers Anthony: Chaining the Lady

He drew upon his host-memory information and ascertained that this was a chamber within a Disk of Sador. The host-mind, unconscious at the time, had no memory of being brought here, but Melody was able to figure it out by reference to the older memories. Victorious Admiral Hammer of :: must have boarded the derelict Ace of Swords and salvaged all useful equipment, especially the serviceable hosts. He evidently knew enough about magnets and magnetism to handle Slammer and his companions, too.

Melody, in control of this body without Hammer’s knowledge, could do some damage, maybe even taking over the ship. Then…

He went to a water nozzle and activated it. A jet of cold, refreshing fluid spurted into his face, Sador didn’t worry about the inefficiency of such mechanisms; the surplus water was reclaimed, and an automatic cutoff prevented the device from operating in null-gravity conditions. Sador was a huge, degenerate Sphere; creature comforts had intruded on many of the military vessels. He was feeling better already.

He touched the door-button, and the round door opened. This ship was of course designed for globular, wheeled Sadorians; push-buttons were satisfactory, but not pull-levers. It was no problem for this bipedal, twin-handed host, however.

Melody emerged into a great central level, with ramps leading up and down. The wheeled creatures preferred the open range. But within the ordered physical system was chaos. The Sadors were hunched, unmoving; their wheels drawn in, as though in shock. He walked among them, unchallenged.

What had happened? This whole ship was nonfunctioning!

“Captain!” a Solarian voice called.

Melody turned, his human ear orienting on the sound —his two ears; they gave him an immediate sense of direction. He spied a screened cell containing two men. “Skot! March!” he exclaimed, concentrating so as to avoid slurring his words. Those teeth were a problem!

“Well, half right,” March said, satisfied. “But—who are you?”

Melody smiled. “You may have some trouble believing this, so I’ll come at it obliquely. I’m not the Andromedan. Remember the Service of Termination?”

March’s eyes widened. “Captain Boyd wouldn’t know about that! Only—”

“Only Melody of Mintaka could know,” Skot put in. “Feel that aura!”

How did Skot know about that? He hadn’t been there! Melody leaned closer, probing for the man’s aura—and it was not Skot of Kade. Yet it was familiar…

March glanced across at him. “Maybe such things aren’t significant to you, Slammer, but I can’t feel the aura, and Melody is a female. She can’t—”

“ Slammer? ” Melody demanded.

Skot’s head nodded. “Admiral Hammer didn’t trust me in my natural body, so he transferred me to this ungainly thing. Poor Beanball is locked into another cell with my body; he must think I’m dead.”

“But Skot—what—?”

“He is gone,” Slammer said. “His ship was blasted. This is an empty host.”

Add Skot of Kade to the growing list of entities to mourn! If only he hadn’t insisted on going on that mission…

“We’ve been getting to know each other,” March said. “Slammer’s a nice guy; I never realized how smart the magnets were. But just now all hell broke loose. The hostages keeled over, then you came out. Who are you, really?”

“The anti-hostage mechanism!” Melody exclaimed. “It worked! ”

Quickly Melody explained about his effort at the Ancient site in Andromeda. “Transfer is instant,” he concluded. “And so is this, it seems. I animated this host because the original personality is gone, so there is no host-mind to preempt it, and I am male, now.” He explained about that as he activated the cell-release.

March shook his head in amazement. “I thought meeting a magnet in human form was the limit; now I have to get used to a beautiful girl in male-captain form.”

“I never was a beautiful girl,” Melody said. “That was merely my host, Yael of Dragon.”

March nodded thoughtfully. “I’d like to know—her.” Then he remembered something. “What was the Ancient secret? Why did they suicide, and why were you so horrified, even after three million years?”

“Aposiopesis,” Melody said succinctly.

“What does that mean?”

“I will never tell,” Melody said with absolute seriousness. “If the truth were known, much of the drive of our own contemporary civilization would dissipate. We might, like them, give up. I don’t think we would, but we might . I refuse to gamble on it—and I doubt Dash Boyd will gamble either.” Then he returned to the business at hand. “Admiral Hammer and all the other hostages must have been nullified; that’s why they collapsed. Their host-minds may have taken over, but it’s too soon to—you know how the hostages suppress their hosts, even destroying them…”

“Then we’d better get control of this ship fast,” March said. “Because pretty soon those hostages may be back on their wheels, if their hosts are really dead or dying.

We’d better herd them into these cells until we’re sure.”

“Yes,” Melody agreed.

But already the Sador hosts were moving. A large one rolled up. Melody reached for a weapon, but found he had none, so waited alertly.

“I am Rollo of Sador,” he said formally. “Former Rotary Officer of this ship. I now control the aura of Hammer of ::, though I am very weak.”

Could he believe him? It might be that Hammer was pretending to have succumbed. But that would have been pointless. If he retained control, he should act to assert control of the ship. It was possible that the :: had not repressed his host-aura as viciously as some, so that Rollo remained sane. If so, Hammer was not only competent, but pretty decent for an Andromedan. Melody decided that the risk was worthwhile. Apparently the human auras had faded out only after the oppressive Andromedan auras had departed, as though beaten into such dependency they were helpless without alien support. But there was a difference between individuals, and there could, indeed, be native host-personalities to take over. Those who were mad would now plunge their erstwhile masters into hell; those who had been treated more kindly would respond in kind.

He did not know what a Rotary Officer was in Sadorian terms, but since Sador was a circular culture like Polaris it seemed appropriate. It was probably equivalent to Captain.

“I am Melody of Mintaka, temporary Admiral of the Etamin fleet,” he replied. “I believe we have won the war by recovering all hostages. But we shall have to take stock and reorganize.”

“My guest aura informs me that there is one you will wish to meet,” Rollo said. “A companion of the Milk of Way. Please wheel along this vector.”

Melody hesitated again, but decided to go along. “Free all prisoners and ascertain their identities,” he told March. “See if you can locate Slammer’s natural body. Be alert.”

March nodded. “Yes, sir.” He knew as well as Melody did that the situation remained highly flexible; some hostages might remain in power. But due care should suffice.

Melody was sure that a similar confusion existed all over the Milky Way galaxy as the counterhostage impulse took effect. But out of this chaos would emerge victory, the salvation of his galaxy. Again he marveled: What powers the Ancients had, yet how carefully guarded!

Melody accompanied the Sador to another level of the ship. Here, alone in a cell, sat a breathtakingly lovely woman in a simple, ragged dress. Her hair was long and brown, her features even, and her body lithe yet full-fleshed. There were some bruises on her, as if she had suffered a beating in the past few days, and one leg was bandaged. But these imperfections seemed only to enhance the general splendor of her person. Melody had never seen such beauty in a Solarian female before, and it did something to him. He experienced a nascent urgency.