Piers Anthony: Cluster

A fringe of familiarity came. Here was a large red giant, like Betelgeuse, just about the same magnitude he knew. There was a cluster of—could it be the Pleiades? But they were over four hundred light-years away from Sol, whereas this cluster was twice that distance by the aspect of it, even after allowing for his changed perception, if it were of the same absolute brightness, and there was no Taurus constellation associated with it. Here was one like Rigel, but a bit brighter, therefore closer? And—yes it was! The Great Nebula of Orion, not in Orion at all, but brighter, in the correct position relative to Rigel and Betelgeuse.

Abruptly it clicked into place. This was Sphere Mintaka! Naturally the Great Nebula was not in this constellation now; he was in it, looking back five hundred light-years toward Sol, where the Nebula was. He was well beyond Rigel and Betelgeuse, on a planet in the Belt, fifteen hundred light-years from Sol.

So this had to be a Mintakan host. The Ancient animation arena had really been a transfer station whose destination was controlled by the thought of the transferee. He was thinking of Mintaka as he died—and here he was!

So his life had been returned to him—for a while. For his Kirlian aura was at reduced strength, and his human body had been blasted apart. No one at home would know what had really happened to him. He had, in his fashion, gone to heaven.

Well, he would communicate from the dead. He retained the remaining formulas, and this added revelation of the nature of the Ancient equipment would enable the Milky Way galaxy to overcome the Andromeda galaxy. He had perhaps sixty Earth days, maybe more, before his Kirlian aura faded below the threshold of human individuality. That should be time enough, considering that Sphere Mintaka had already been contacted by Sphere Mirzam and given transfer. Providing that was not a lie told by the renegade Mintakan.

Renegade Mintakan? How was that possible, when this musical body was the true Mintakan form? The spy could not have been any form of Mintakan. Yet it had not been a transferee either. Paradox!

No—merely erroneous conclusion. The representative from Sphere Mirzam had been the first killed, for it would have known the spy was no Mintakan. Yet if neither Mintakan nor transferee, what could it have been, so fierce in the defense of the interests of Andromeda?

Who else but his nemesis, ¢le of A[ th] or Llyana the Undulant, native of Andromeda? Now he remembered: The creature he had fought in the Hyades had had extremely high Kirlian force, parallel to his own. He had not been able to make the connection in the midst of the battle, but now it was obvious. The Queen of Energy!

She had been mattermitted in her own body all the way from Andromeda. The cost—beyond belief. Which was why he had not believed it. What value the enemy had put on that site!

Now she was dead, and it was doubly important that he get his information to his galaxy. Andromeda had set that value, and Andromeda was in a position to know. It was, literally, the ransom of a galaxy.

All right. Mintaka would have transfer technology now , because he would provide it. Then he would get in touch with Sphere Sol, making a complete report that would change the face of this section of the universe. This cluster of stars known as the Milky Way would survive. Then he could fade out, satisfied that he had done his job. His galaxy had been saved, and Honeybloom would live happily in her Stone Age idyll, and Tsopi the Polarian in her circular one.

A nurse approached. Her Castanet feet made a pleasant clatter, and the lines of her tubing were esthetic. Flint always had acute perception for feminine allure, whatever form it happened to take, and this was a good specimen. “Welcome to Sphere Mintaka,” she played.

And that was literal. Her strings and tubes played an intricate little melody counterpointed by the beat of her drums. The meaning was in the music itself. “From what Sphere do you sing?”

No need for concealment! “I am from Sphere Sol,” Flint played in reply. The music came automatically, for it was inherent in this entity’s nature; still it was a pretty melody. “I am pleased to discover Mintaka so well provided with hosts.”

“We are pleased to possess at last the secret of transfer,” she fluted. The music for the concept of transfer was a complex chord with undertones of technology and overtones of spirituality: a completely fitting definition. Already Flint liked this mode of communication better than any of the others he had experienced, including the human. Every entity an expert musician and orchestra combined! “And we owe it all to Sphere Sol, who released the information to the galaxy. We regret very much that we are not suited to vacuum maneuvers and could not participate in the Hyades exploration, but we are most interested. Please come with me.”

Flint followed her, relieved that contact was so easy right when he needed it. It had been similar in Sphere Polaris, but he had messed that up with his own unwarranted suspicions. Now he was in the final Death/Transformation stage of his Tarot reading—how apt that was!—and had no cause for anxiety. His clapper-feet made a tapdance of satisfaction-syncopation. His paraphernalia, at first so strange, was becoming normal. Music was the most natural thing, so why not make it naturally?

They emerged into an open walkway. Here there were many similar creatures, varying in colors, size, and tonal quality, and a few Mintakan animals. The sapients kept their music sedate, exuding noncommittal harmonies, but the animals made constant sounds of low-grade meaning, akin to the barking of Earth dogs. There were plants spaced decoratively that were shaped like musical instruments but these could not make music.

His nurse-guide brought him to a vehicle. It had a low sill so that it was convenient for their little feet, and high sides to support their upper frames comfortably. It extruded myriad fine wires beneath and brushed along its channel. It was somewhat like a boat and somewhat like a car and somewhat like a magic rug. Flint explored his host-knowledge and ascertained that the wires vibrated under the guidance of special frequencies. As they moved in their almost imperceptible patterns, the vehicle was impelled forward. It was a sophisticated yet basically simple mode of transportation that reflected both the level and the type of civilization here. This was another Sphere in advance of Sol—as it had to be, to maintain so huge a volume of influence.

Soon they left the city. The large structures of the central metropolis shaped to reduce untoward acoustical vibrations gave way to simpler residential dwellings. Their shapes were quite different, being oriented on acoustic principles, but they resembled in their fashion the individual family houses on Earth, or lean-tos on Outworld. The plants became larger: tree-lyres, thicket-drums, flute-vines. Though they were not musical singly, they became so in concert; they did not make music but they became music.

At length the brushcar entered a region of massed bubbles. The two of them stepped out and approached one, their feet evoking melodic echoes. Flint tried to break his pattern of walking experimentally, to disrupt the adumbration, the foreshadowing of his own sounds by prior echoes, and found he could not comfortably do so. Music was ingrained; to be unmusical was anathema, fundamentally uncomfortable.

The nurse played a special tune Flint could not quite hear, and the portal opened. They entered, and the door fastened firmly behind them.

It was a well-appointed private apartment. There was a basket of wormlike wires Flint recognized through his host-memory as a Mintakan food delicacy, a vapor spray for thirst, an assortment of powders for detuned anatomy, and a disposal tube for wastes.