Kirlian Quest (39 page)

+Aura,+ Hweeh returned, covering Herald's silence.

+Aura,+ Herald agreed quickly. Too bad this artificial aura could not be used to heal and to Transfer; then the android operatives could really have conveyed the atmosphere of the Ancients.

+You are strangers? I introduce myself: I am Hitherto.+

Herald had not anticipated having to name himself. He really should have taken more time to prepare for this experience! Though this was only a mockup, he was trying to achieve the full spirit of it, and to draw Hweeh into it too. For the sake of anonymity he preferred not to give his real name. It was evident that the operators of these androids were also using alternates.

Again, Hweeh rescued him. +I am Clustergaze,+ he said.

Translation: Astronomer. Herald could use a similar identification. +I am Quester,+ he said.

+Will you require lodging during your stay at our site?+ Hitherto inquired.

Lodging? They were going all out for realism! As though this were one of a million sites of the functioning Ancient community, with travelers passing from one to the other across the Cluster.

+We may not be staying long,+ Herald said. +But it would be nice to relax before we move on.+

+Then allow me to recommend the Kirlian Inn. The sustenance is excellent, and the maid— They do not call her Hellflower for nothing!+

So there were two genders in this enclave, though the true Ancients might have had a hundred. Well, two was convenient. And food. And sex appeal. Only what did androids eat, and how did an android female stimulate an android male? Realism could go only so far!

+We shall certainly consider the Kirlian Inn,+ Herald said.

+Aura,+ Hitherto said, rolling back slightly.

+Aura,+ Herald answered. This was evidently a term for parting as well as greeting. How nice of Hitherto to "happen" by to provide this convenient briefing in manner.

They skated on. The little wheels of the feet were not powered; the motions of the legs provided the impetus. Generally, two feet pushed while the third secured the equilibrium of the tripod, but it was possible for all three to act together for extra power. Since it was feasible to rest while coasting at speed, this was an efficient mode of transport. The wheels could be braked and stalled for sudden stops, or for bracing when climbing. He wondered whether it was coincidence that the android form resembled a compromise between the two major sapients of Galaxy Pinwheel: sticklike legs, as in the Pins, and wheels as in the Wheels. Creation was always a self-image.

"I am feeling very much the Ancient, already," Hweeh remarked.

"They have done a good job of emulation," Herald agreed. Whatever it was they thought they were emulating. "Shall we proceed to the Kirlian Inn?"

"And observe the charms of Hellflower?" Hweeh made a male chuckle, moderately surprising Herald. "I do grow curious."

As they came into the city proper they passed other Moderns going about their business, whatever that might be. With each they exchanged +Aura's+ and obtained further guidance. In one sense it was wasted effort, for they really could find their own way, but it was a pleasant interaction, making them feel closer to this pseudo-culture. Androids these might be, but each seemed to
care
about his neighbor.

The Kirlian Inn was impressive. Its residential chambers were underground, while its main hall was a planetarium-ceilinged dome. Herald recognized the inspiration for this design: Flint of Outworld had encountered such a dome in the Hyades site. Unfortunately that had been destroyed, so that it had not been possible to analyze the stellar projection for an insight into the probable location of the Ancient's planet of origin—one of the tragedies of history. The information might have been obtained from Flint himself, for he had been an experienced stellar observer, but he had already faded into his Mintakan host and knew nothing. This present projection was of Galaxy Pinwheel, and small though it was compared to the giants of Milky Way and Andromeda, it
was
a full galaxy, truly impressive from this vantage.

The floor was smooth, polished, reflective, and gently waved, as though a glassy ocean with fixed waves. Couples were dancing, gliding over the mounds and through the troughs, their forward progress shaping into a kind of syncopation. Herald was intrigued, but also disturbed. By what right did they assume that the efficient Ancients ever consumed time in such pursuits as dancing? In fact, this whole setting was rather medieval in quality. Still, who was to say the Ancients had
not
danced? They must have had
some
form of entertainment. Possibly they had communicated by dancing.

The female Moderns were distinguished from the males by their surface texture, color, and delicacy of torso and limb. They wore sections of material over the upper sections of their legs, concealing the junctions of limbs with torso, making a mystery of what really had no mystery. In one sense ludicrous; in another, intriguing. As far as he knew, the androids had no copulatory organs, but it became easy to imagine that if they had, they would be lurking within the flexing shadows of that cloth.

There was, indeed, a certain attractive grace to the females. Herald felt the impact despite his occupancy of a Sculp host within an android body. The skating-feet made the dancing very smooth, and the round cross section of the torso made rotation easy. The dancing figures wove in and out and spun in place like gyroscopes, forming intriguing larger patterns across the floor. The lighting changed color, dimming slowly, so that the night of the sky seemed to extend downward, until only little globes of glow followed the dancers. Oh, yes, very pretty!

At the height of the dance and depth of darkness, the stars of the dome began to move. It was subtle at first, so that it was hard to be certain that any positions had shifted at all; then it accelerated. The stars spread out, traveling down the base-walls and inward across the floor, which now seemed transparent. The room seemed to be within the Galaxy of Pinwheel, traveling through it, the individual stars progressing to the rear in three-dimensional panoply.

Herald had never traveled in space. He had always reached his assignments via Transfer, stepping from planet to planet without traversing the space between. He had never even mattermitted, though that resembled Transfer far more closely than it did space travel. Thus this was a very special experience for him: to see a galaxy as the pilot of a ship might see it. Not that ships really had pilots; even at half-light speed, it took many years to travel even a tiny fraction of a galaxy. But
if
multiple-light-speed spaceship travel existed, so that pilots would have to steer around stars, this was the way it might be. Ah, rapture!

Hweeh nudged him with a pincer, and Herald reluctantly diverted his attention from the view of space—so like his vision of the Tarot Temple, when he explored the Ghost card to spy the Amoeba—to follow the glance of his companion's forward eye. A brightly colored figure was coasting toward them, her torso swaying as she emerged from the shadow, her skirt shifting suggestively. Hellflower!

Android or not, there was something
about
her. She exuded sex appeal. Herald tried to analyze its components, but they eluded him. She was simply a wildly desirable female Modern Ancient.

She drew up close, her skirt settling about her. +Aura,+ she murmured, and there was a special thrill in her voice.

+Aura,+ both patrons responded. Hweeh was evidently as entranced as Herald. What was it that could turn on males of totally different species even when they knew it was merely a mockup of a conjectural species?

+What is your pleasure?+ Hellflower inquired, performing a small additional twirl.

Through no fault of her own, she had used the wrong word. Pleasure—the child Psyche had intended to bear by him. What was he doing here, reacting to the lure of an imitation female? Even had she been real, she would have had no shadow of the human appeal of Psyche! This was all a play, an imitation of a society that never existed, and the gut-reality of Hellflower's sex appeal was a chassis of metal and pseudo-flesh.

The illusion shattered, as Herald suddenly placed the mechanism: sound. Fringe-auditory sonics accompanied the maid, tuned to the deepest levels of sapient desire. Certain things seemed to be common to most species, regardless of world of origin, as though all life had diffused billions of years ago from a common source. That was another long-standing mystery: whether life
had
a common root, and somehow spread across the cluster long before any sapience had developed, or whether some species had evolved three
billion
years ago and spread life to all habitable planets. Those would be the true Ancients, making the three-million-year Ancients seem like no more than a contemporary ripple of established life. Meanwhile, the fact was that there
were
certain broad bases of species affinity, so that many species could mix physically without poisoning each other by the products of their metabolisms, and one of these affinities was sonic. Hellflower had aphrodisiac sound!

+
You
are our pleasure,+ Hweeh said gallantly.

Hellflower paused momentarily, as though sensing Herald's negation of her artful, artificial charms, then made a suggestive gyration. +What is your pleasure worth?+

Herald wanted to warn his companion of the mechanism here, to ensure that Hweeh not embarrass himself, but didn't want to speak in Quotes in the presence of the maid. Still, why should he be concerned? Hweeh was no immature innocent, and there was no way this could go beyond propriety. Androids had no primary sexual equipment.

But again he wondered: or
did
they?

+I am ignorant of the going rate,+ Hweeh said. +But if it is within my means—+

Ouch! The Weew had not caught on!

+Then accompany me,+ she said with another alluring spin, buttressed by a strengthened beat of that evocative sound.

Hweeh spun after her, across the waving floor. He seemed to be flying through space, obscuring constellations of stars as he moved.

Folly! But Herald, still unwilling to speak openly, followed. What were they getting into? It was one thing to appreciate the atmosphere of the Ancients, but
this
...
 

Hellflower slid out of the inn and onto an elevated ramp that wound upward between the sinuous buildings of the city. Herald's host performed the slide-and-brake skating necessary to travel up the incline without difficulty. Hweeh had to copy Herald's motions as well as he could. They fell somewhat behind the maid.

Now Herald voiced his concern. "Sonics," he murmured low. "Evoke the fundamental instincts. Artificial."

Hweeh lost his stride and almost took a spill despite the stability of the form. "You're right! This time
I
was the blind one!"

The maid slowed, one eye peering back at them. Herald felt the need to cover up. +Hellflower, where are we going?+

+I am S-Anity,+ she said.

+
Not
Hellflower?+ Hweeh asked, chagrined.

+It seems we made an error of identification,+ Herald said. +Apologies.+

+The positive identification is aural,+ she replied after a pause. +I am sure you are the one I want.+

+
I
am the one?+ Herald demanded. +Surely it is my companion who—+

Again that odd little pause. +No.
You
have the aural generation.+

Oh, another conquest of aura. S-Anity's own artificial aura was 150, and the operator was evidently able to spot Herald's higher one. Well, perhaps this was exactly the way true Ancients would have reacted. Find a higher aura, mate with it. Considering his forced betrothal to Flame of Furnace, and his reaction to Psyche when she became enhanced, he could not claim that this was any extraordinary reaction. So the game went on—how far?

Now another Modern joined them, intercepting from a side ramp. +I am S-Elect,+ she announced. +May I augment your party?+

+Since my companion seems to have preempted my female, you are welcome,+ Hweeh said.

A double date? There was something doubly strange about this. What were these females with the different name-codes up to? But Herald did not protest, as he was now quite curious to discover how far such things could go.
Strange
did not necessarily mean
wrong
. Maybe the enclave personnel wanted to show off their talents for the visitors, though it still seemed unlikely that these talents could actually include what was being implied.

S-Anity led them into an upper aperture of a small building. The door shut behind them. A private trysting-spot?

They faced a ring of male androids. There was nothing frivolous in the attitude of these strangers. Herald abruptly realized that he and Hweeh were in trouble.

+Meet some of the members of Unit Nine,+ S-Anity said. +Be-nine, Sta-nine, Leo-nine, Qui-nine.+

+I don't comprehend,+ Hweeh said.

"These creatures are not Moderns," Herald told him tersely. "They are from the Amoeba."

"The Amoeba! How—?"

"Now don't go into shock! We have to get out of here! The Amoeba has intercepted the control beams of the androids, so they are now operated from an Amoeba ship. Hence their delay in responding. It takes time for the signal, since it must travel at light speed. They mean to destroy us."

"But
why?
"

"Because they believe we can tap the science of the Ancients. And if
they
believe that, perhaps they have reason."

"So they have taken over the enclave just to abolish us?"

"This part of the enclave, at any rate. They seem to be trying to act covertly. There must have been a reprimand about the blatant laser attack on the Mars site. If they took over the whole enclave, the Pin and Wheel officials would be suspicious. So the Amoeba intercepted only a few androids, and lured us into their power."

"That is correct," S-Anity said.

"Now they have deciphered our code," Hweeh said. "That is why they stood idle and let us talk; they are studying us."

Herald surveyed the situation. There were six Amoeba-controlled androids, counting the two females, against two of them. "The ship must be orbiting at some distance, to remain undetected. Planetary detectors should pick up anything within a quarter light-second. So these androids must suffer a lag of half a second in reaction to any action of ours, unless they anticipate us. They can't have any weapons, for those are not part of the enclave."