Cluster (13 page)

“It seems you were mistaken about her mindlessness,” Flint said.

“We were not mistaken. Bring her in to the examination room.”

Q
iw held back. “Sir, I may not enter–”

B:::1 turned his faceted gaze upon the Slave. “You may do what I tell you to do.” Flint recognized this as a forceful rebuke. The Master's word was law.

Q
iw bowed his head, acknowledging. He had, at any rate, erred in the right direction. Then he picked
C
le up and carried her into the building.

Flint followed thoughtfully. So the Masters were not hidebound about their own rules.

At the examination room the technician tested the girl's Kirlian aura. The indicator rose to the top of the scale.

“Another transferee,” B:::1 said. “You are fortunate.”

“But she tried to kill me!” Flint protested. “If
Q
iw hadn't acted–”

“This is what is strange,” the Master agreed.

C
le stirred. Her eyes opened.

“Alien, there is a pain inducer attuned to your body,” B:::1 said to her. “Do not attempt any further aggression.” He turned to Flint. “Question her.”

Yes indeed! “Who are you?” Flint demanded.

“I came—to seek you,”
C
le said.

“You're from Sphere Sol?”

“From Sol, yes.”

Flint shook his head. “I didn't know they were transferring another envoy.”

“It is a common enough procedure,” B:::1 assured him. “A backup agent sent without the knowledge of the first. The first cannot betray what he does not know, yet the second is available to help in case of adversity. We employ similar safeguards.”

Flint realized he had been naive. He didn't like it. “Then why did she attack me? I was true to my mission.”

“I did not know you,”
C
le explained. “I found myself imprisoned, and you touched my body. I mistook your intent.”

After that magic contact of Kirlian auras? Some misunderstanding!

“An understandable error,” B:::1 said. “But the question of her intent can be removed by her performance in transfer technology.”

Smart, smart! “You are primed with transfer information—that differs from mine?” Flint asked her.

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“Go with the technicians,” B:::1 said.

One of the Masters handed the punishment box to
Q
iw; such tasks were normally delegated to Slaves. But B:::1 made an unobtrusive gesture, and the other Master took the box back and departed with the girl.
 
Q
iw, left with no specific task, stood awkwardly where he was. He was obviously extremely uncomfortable, here in the Master's sanctum.

B:::1 turned to Flint. “Analysis of the female's pattern reveals substantial differences from your own,” he said, reading a printout one of the technicians had given him. “Almost as though she were not only a different individual, but of a different species. We do not question your own motive, but we are less certain of hers.”

Sharp! The Masters had not put any dummy in charge of alien operations. It had not occurred to Flint to have the specific Kirlian pattern analyzed. “Maybe she
is
an alien,” Flint said. “I thought there was no Kirlian aura above ninety-eight in Sphere Sol, but we are in contact with the Polarians and others informally. If one of those Spheres helped...”

“Perhaps so. Ninety eight is within the margin of error for our equipment. I did not mean to cause you undue concern.”

“The margin of error in your equipment is in not being able to measure higher than a hundred,” Flint said. “I am able to judge relative strengths of Kirlian aura, crudely, and this one seems parallel to my own. Close to two hundred. So I doubt she's human.”

“We merely look out for your welfare so that there will be no reason for any future contact between our Spheres, or between ours and any of your allied Spheres.”

“I appreciate that,” Flint said dryly.

B:::1 turned to
Q
iw. “Your comment.”

“Master, I trust him, not her,”
Q
iw said. “She attacked him without sufficient provocation. Keep her within range of the box.”

“Would your opinion be influenced by the fact that the female,
C
le of A[
^th
], was one of our agents, possessing information deleterious to your own welfare? There can be no carryover of personality; however, the present entity would have complete access to
C
le's memories and talents.”

Q
iw considered the loaded question. “Perhaps that influenced me. I know little of these matters, sir.”

“Yet compensating for that aspect, you would not see fit to trust her as you trust this man of Sol? Both are transferees.”

“That is correct, sir.”
 
Q
iw's discomfort was not abating. “
O
ro acted in an ethical manner; the female attempted to kill him. Perhaps she was confused—but she did not
seem
confused at the time.”

B:::1 turned to Flint. “In this matter we are as Slaves, glimpsing portents whose wider significance we do not comprehend. Hence the opinion of a Slave has relevance. It is possible that the possessed
C
le cooperates only because of the punishment-box, and will turn against you when given opportunity. It is also possible that she is indeed of Sol or allied to Sol, and suspects that we have tortured you to gain your compliance with our own designs. We leave the decision of her disposition in your hands; we do not wish to become involved in Spherical intrigues.”

“Ship her back to Sol with me,” Flint said. “If her original body is human, that is the only place she can go.” Then he reconsidered. “No. Ship her one day later. I will have a thorough investigation made. If she is false, we will be ready for her when she arrives.”

“If she is not of your Sphere, where will she arrive?” the Master inquired.

Flint shrugged. “If she has no host-body available in our Sphere, she probably won't transmit at all. There has to be somewhere to go, or the process doesn't work. So if she does not transfer when you attempt to send her, you'll know she's no friend of ours.”

“Your Sphere would not then object if we interrogated her?”

Flint knew it would be an extremely thorough interrogation. “We would not object.”

B:::1 faced
Q
iw. “We have acquainted you with private matters of galactic scope. Return to your position, suffering no further stricture than this: if ever you overhear anything relating to this subject, make immediate report to me.”

“Master,”
Q
iw said, relieved.

Flint nodded thoughtfully. This was
Q
iw's true penance. He was now in effect a spy for the Masters. Yet the assignment had been couched in such manner as to make it seem that the Slave had been promoted to the level of political counselor. No torture, not even any overt reprimand, yet the job had been done. This was supreme skill in management.

After the Slave departed, B:::1 said: “In view of this development, and our uncertainty of decision, we feel we can no longer maintain our prior policy of disengagement. We shall participate in your coalition.”

Flint's jaw dropped in purely human reaction. “Because Sol sent another transfer agent, you're change your minds?”

“One such visit is an anomaly. Two suggest a pattern. Were we certain that both emanate from Sphere Sol, we would not be concerned. But we cannot ignore the possibility that a third, possible inimical Sphere has chosen to participate, perhaps competitively. There may well be others, in an expanding effort. We therefore choose to control to some extent the manner of our interaction with other Spheres by officially committing ourselves to this effort. We shall make a thorough search of our region of space in quest of aliens. Thus it will not be necessary for any other Spheres to seek us out to urge participation.”

Just like that, success! Flint did not delude himself that any special competence on his part had been responsible. The Masters of Canopus had seen the way to cut their losses and maintain much of their isolation, so they had acted. Flint had blundered his way into it.

He did not belong in the business; if he ever transferred from Sphere Sol again, the odds were against his success or even survival. What a comedy of accident! At least he had discovered his inadequacy in a nonfatal fashion.

 

*
 
*
 
*

 

The end was routine.
C
le's knowledge sufficed; the technicians were able to convert the Canopian mattermitter for transfer, invoking fairly minor but critical modifications of detail. The settings were arranged for the center of Sphere Sol.
C
le was held under guard with the punishment-box, scheduled for later transfer.

Flint stepped into the transfer chamber.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4:

Lake of Dreams

 

 

*notice initial mission destroy 200 intensity threat entity failed*

–detail?–

*own agent 200 intensity dispatched contact made owing to suspicions of natives of canopus unable to eliminate sol transferee necessary to provide transfer information to sphere canopus in order to*

–WHAT?!–

*to protect identity of agent origin and allay suspicion per directive judgment call on part of operative we intercepted agent at time of retransfer from canopus*

–judgment call? more likely operative stunned by allure of equivalent aura and lost imperative for mission
 
what gender agent?–

*female*

–precisely and target entity male route her through spot reorientation to ensure next time duty before pleasure and reassign for next available intercept unfortunate we have to work through these high-kirlian types never can be quite certain of their loyalties–

*POWER*

–CIVILIZATION–

 

*
 
*
 
*

 

Flint hopped rapidly over the surface of Luna, Planet Earth's huge moon, putting the mining station at Posidonius Crater behind him. The hopper's single plunger smacked into the bleak surface of the crater floor, compressing like a pogo stick, then thrusting him upward in a broad arc. He was only a fraction of his normal weight because of the reduced gravity, but the old-fashioned heavy-duty mining suit was twice his mass. The net result was a jumping weight of about two thirds his nude body normal. He needed the powered hopper to make real progress.

He bore west, searching out the gap in the crater wall. The station was inside a subcrater within Posidonius, capped over and pressurized. Nature had excavated the pit; now men used it as convenient access to the high concentration of aluminum, titanium, magnesium, silicon, and iron there. It had cost a lot, a century or three ago, to emplace the first Lunar mines; they had paid their way many times over. Posidonius Mine was about worked out, as were most of the digs of the quadrant, and in fact the moon itself, but as long as the diminishing ores were worth more than the cost of operation, the mines continued to function. Today the planet Mercury of Sol and the larger moons of the outer Solar System—Ganymede, Titan, and Triton—were more important resources. Luna was largely forgotten.

Security was slack, which was why Flint had been able to pose as an itinerant miner and steal a suit and hopper to make a much better chase of it. By the time Imperial Earth traced him this far, he would be impossible to trace further. The lunar surface was so pocked with the marks of other hoppers—and each mark was permanent the instant made, since there was no weather, no air to erase it—that his trail was not discernible. Once he got beyond the crater, beyond direct visual range, he would be lost. Bless that jagged rim!

He made it. The crater itself was fifty to seventy-five miles in diameter, depending on which way it was measured, and the mine was off-center, so he had about twenty miles to go. The hopper enabled him to do it in just about an hour without getting winded. Time enough; his next on-shift would not be for another two hours.

The crater rim, so fragile-looking from telescopic distance, was actually a phenomenal mountain ring several miles thick, though not tall. It had been formed millions or even billions of years ago by the impact of a large meteor, the material of the crater center scooped out and dumped in that circle. Not volcanic; there was very little volcanic activity on the moon. Here at the western pass the wall was broken, and he navigated the rubble without difficulty. It was against Sphere law to deface the visible landscape of Luna, but anonymous miners had blasted out an ascending channel at the narrowest part to facilitate passage from the central depression. It was too small to show up on most photographs taken from Earth, so no investigation had been made. Anyway, that had been in the heyday of the mine, when metals worth millions of Sphere dollars had been extracted every few hours. Miners were tough, ornery men and women; even the Imperium tended to let them alone, as long as they produced. The profession of mining, freed from the cave-ins and black lung threats of ancient times, had become the stuff of adolescent fancy. Miners were heroes, prized and well paid and bold, and planet lubbers sought them avidly.

Now he emerged onto the broad
Mare Serenitatis
, the Sea of Serenity, an expanse of almost-level rock some four hundred miles across. The early Solarians, staring at their great moon from the vantage of misty Earth, had pictured these lava plains (here in the
mare
there had been volcanism, long ago) as oceans and seas and bays, and named them accordingly. The illusion had been banished when Luna was physically explored, and perhaps even before then, but the intriguing names had remained. “Hope I don't get my feet wet,” Flint muttered. His suit radio was turned off, of course; he would be a fool to let them trace him through his broadcast emissions.