The Metal Maiden Collection (33 page)

“Singing a song?” Elasa asked.

“Not exactly. We’re establishing the rules of engagement.”

“I must be missing something,” Elasa said.

“Now we shall play cards,” Mona said brightly. She turned on the monitor and touched the buttons to put the cards on display. “This is the ancient standby, Klondike. You know the rules?”

“Sure,” Brian said. “Never saw it on the screen before. Back where I came from, we have physical decks of cards.”

“You’re not where you come from, dear,” she said, kissing him. Indeed, on his home planet he would be in his own body, while Mona would occupy the body of an appealing elf woman. Here he was in a borrowed body, while Mona was in her own superlatively endowed one, to his evident constant amorous delight. That was the nature of exchange romance.

Meanwhile Elasa downloaded the rules for the game. It was straightforward: seven rows of cards were dealt with one to seven cards in a row, the bottom card of each pile face up. 28 cards in all, with the remainder of the deck of 52 in a separate stack. There were places for four aces, which were supposed to be built up in suits to kings, to win. Cards could be placed on the next higher number, the colors alternating. This particular deal had the ace and two of spades turned up; they went immediately to the first stack, exposing a black seven and black six.

“Play, Elasa,” Mona said.

“But this is solitaire, limited to a single player. I assumed we would play an interactive game, like Rummy or Bridge.” Though the problem there was that Elasa would play flawlessly, giving her an unfair advantage. This whole business seemed largely pointless.

“We’ll watch you play.”

And the Lamb sent her a go-ahead thought.

Elasa shrugged and moved a red six to the seven and a red five to the six. There was nothing else to do, so she turned over the first card of the talon, as it was called. This was a black seven, unplayable. The next was a red five, also unplayable. The third was a black two, unplayable. Eventually playable cards turned up, but in the end the game was lost with only five cards built on the foundations. It was not much of a game, because there was very little actual skill involved; the chances for victory depended overwhelmingly on the random deal of the cards.

“Did you notice the Game Solver indication?” Mona asked.

“It indicated the obvious: that the game was questionable from the beginning, and in the end could not be won.”

“Now try Free Cell,” Mona said. “The cards are all laid out face up, and every game there can be won.”

“But just try to do it,” Brian said. “The route can be obscure as hell.”

“The solver helps,” Mona said. “Because it informs you the moment you go wrong. It’s the ‘analyste,’ the program that constantly analyzes the potential moves. It doesn’t tell you how to win, just when you go wrong. Then you back off a move and try another. Eventually you will get there.”

Elasa played the game, and it was so. “But I do that anyway,” she said. “I’ll always win.”

“In cards,” Mona agreed. “But the game we are in to save Earth is beyond your computing capacity.”

“Yes, of course,” Elasa agreed, nettled. She was not comfortable with things that were not answerable to her logic.

“Now the relevance,” Mona said. “According to Bunky and the Awares, you are the Player. The Awares are the Analyste. The Maggots are the cards. You must deal with them without ever going wrong, lest Earth be lost. The Awares can’t tell you how to play or even give you a strategy; all they can do is warn you when you leave the correct path. Sometimes even they will be uncertain, so it will be your judgment.”

“My judgment? I’m a machine!”

“You’re a woman deriving from a machine. There’s a difference, as you know.”

Indeed she did. Mona had been her friend throughout, helping her to be the woman she longed to be.

Elasa thought of something else. “Meanwhile Kop is cavorting with the Awares. Are they telling
him
how to play?”

“Yes, in their fashion. He has to thread the deviously narrow course between his necessary duties as an enemy agent and his private desire to please you and somehow get back at the Maggots for destroying his world.”

“Getting him to love me—that’s part of the plan?”

“Yes. You are central, throughout.”

“He’s a decent guy, for an alien agent bent on destroying our planet.”

“So the Companions and Awares informed me,” Mona agreed.

“But he knows they are his enemy.”

“They are the Maggots’ enemy. There too is a difference, as you also know.”

“But if the Maggots know whatever he knows--”

“They’re not paying attention. That’s the arrogance of power.”

So it might be. As an Aware Kop should know what he could get away with. Or was he simply gambling, since he did not have very much longer to live anyway? “How is it that you got roped into this awful business? I thought to spare you.”

“Bunky loves me, as I love him,” Mona said. “He couldn’t keep it from me, so the Awares made the best of it. After all, I’m the one who brought the news of the big threat to Earth that started all this, with the sheep’s image of the giant flytrap. I’m okay as long as I don’t know the details of the path.”

“Let’s hope that none of us ever have to learn the full details.”

“Let’s hope,” Mona agreed.

But still Elasa wondered: how did Venus relate, and what was the point of calculating the odds of success, whether in cards or life? What they needed was an effective course of action.

Chapter 8:

Cutoff

Adela appeared. “Tomorrow, for your regular date, take the Plant to each of the key personnel we visited before.”

“That’s impractical,” Elasa said. “That was a tour Pauling made. He couldn’t justify making the same trip again.”

“Kop will arrange it.”

“In violation of his duty to the Maggots? That will attract their attention. We can’t afford that yet.”

“It is time.”

Bunky nudged her, sending a mental impulse. Yes, it was time. “Tomorrow,” she agreed. “Will you be along?”

“Yes. To be sure the timing is right. The Plant is primed, but it will be better if I guide it.”

“Better,” Elasa agreed, relieved. At least the Aware would have some notion what was happening.

Elasa made desperate love to Banner that night. “Tomorrow it starts,” she whispered.

“I love you.” Which was all the answer she needed. She had first encountered him as a sex object, but had become much more in the course of her association with him, and she remained forever grateful.

In the morning she took Bunky, packed the heavy pot in the car, and drove to the hotel for the regular rendezvous. She toted it up the stairs to the suite. No one seemed to notice, maybe because Adela was along and subtly guiding her.

Kop welcomed her, as usual, with a hug and kiss and a feel. “What is that?”

Elasa hesitated, but then she saw Adela standing there with Bunky, nodding affirmatively. She could tell the truth. “This is Venus Flytrap, a vampire plant I tamed on Colony Planet Jones and had shipped to Earth.”

He gazed at Venus. “She’s telepathic!”

“Yes. She feeds by luring men into having sex with her, and sucking blood from their penises. She uses pheromones and projective illusion.”

“So I see. She has assumed the form of the world’s most sexy woman, present company excluded. Even though you and Adela have given me marvelous good times, Venus is even more alluring. She resembles my sibling lover Kess. Were I not an Aware, I would likely succumb despite knowing her nature.” He leaned toward the Plant, intrigued. “Since I do know her nature, I will not try to have sex with her. She does not have power over me. Yet she was surely brought here for a reason. I would like to fathom that reason.”

“So would I,” Elasa said.

Adela and the Lamb came close.

Kop looked up, startled. “What just happened?”

“We just freed you,” Adela said.

“I have lost my connection to my home base!”

“Yes,” Adela agreed. “But it will be a week before the Maggots know. We waited until just after your regular report. We have much to do in that time.”

“I must report!” Kop said, agitated. “I don’t wait on routine when something significant occurs.”

“Report,” Adela agreed.

“But I can’t reach the base! There’s no connection!”

“I’m confused,” Elasa said. “What did happen?”

“Venus projected an illusion that scrambles the access code in Kop’s mind,” Adela said. “He can no longer dial out, as it were, or receive incoming calls. The system remains in place undisturbed, but his memory is flawed. In effect he has forgotten his password.”

“But if I don’t report on schedule, they will assume I have been corrupted and cut me off from my body,” Kop said. “Then my identity will slowly fade away.”

“You will die,” Adela agreed. “In the course of perhaps six months. Then there will only be Pauling in this host. But look at it this way: you would have died about that time anyway, as your mission on Earth was completed; they will dump your body into the grinder regardless. We have not actually shortened your life, but we have freed the last part of it.”

Kop assessed the situation, using his Awareness. “The Plant is the key. It was not on Earth before, and without it Earth is lost, so the Maggots were assured of victory. Had I picked up on Venus’s arrival on Earth, I would have had to destroy her immediately. But I was not paying attention. I never thought to run a routine telepathic or precog check. I was distracted. By you.”

“It was some party,” Adela agreed. “We made sure you thought of nothing beyond the moment. I must confess, it was fun for us too. You are some lover.”

Suddenly Elasa understood. While she and her Companions were welcoming Venus, Adela and the Awares were distracting Kop. Lonely for his own kind, as the Awares were in spirit, he had enthusiastically participated. And never caught on to the new presence of the key element in the game. He had later made his routine report, lulling his alien masters. Now the Awares had struck, using Venus. The battle for Earth was on. Timing, as the Awares had stressed, was everything.

“Congratulations,” Kop said. “That was well played.”

“Thank you,” Adela said.

“I did not know of this,” Elasa said. “Only that I should bring Venus to you, and that she was in some manner the key to our campaign. It is as if we are playing a game of cards, and Venus is my tool for progress. I don’t necessarily know what I’m doing.”

“You are innocent,” he agreed. “That is not a fault.”

“I have a question. Are you now a captive enemy agent, or are you with us?”

Kop laughed. “I am both. I have hated the Maggots from the outset, but was powerless to oppose their will. Now perhaps I have a chance to make them pay, to some slight degree, for the grief they have inflicted on me. I will make you this deal: be my lovers, the two of you, and I will do everything in my considerable power to facilitate your mission. Working closely together we just may succeed in saving your planet.”

“That is the object,” Adela agreed, stepping out of her clothing to stand with nymph-like sex appeal. As an Aware she was quite ready for this.

Elasa realized that the Awares had played for this too, by giving him a taste of the pleasure they could offer him when they chose: not merely Kop’s nullification as an agent, but his enthusiastic cooperation. That would immeasurably enhance their chances of success.

There followed another sandwich with the man in the middle. As Elasa knew, men put inordinate store in sex, and would often put their entire careers in jeopardy for its transient pleasures. Men could be utter fools. But Kop had little to lose long term, and much immediate pleasure to gain by helping them. Both Elasa and the Awares had freely played on that to convert him to their side, and he knew it. Now they freely delivered.

Then they got to work on the mission. There were a number of important government figures to be nullified, but to do it they had to get Venus Flytrap close to them. They had been primed during Elasa’s prior tour, so that the Plant, guided by the Lamb, guided in turn by the Aware, could readily locate the spot and fudge the settings. It was painless, actually imperceptible to the men, until they tried to communicate with the alien home base. Then they were on their own. They could join the Earth defense effort if they chose, as Kop had, or remain aloof; in either event they would remain cut off from the Maggots.

Kop turned the body over to Pauling, who promptly organized a spur of the moment duplicate tour to update the prior one. No one questioned him; Pauling remained a top official, and Kop remained, as far as the other Maggot agents knew, a top enemy agent. Elasa accompanied him as his personal secretary, as before, and Adela and Bunky came along too, unlisted. Plus one decorative plant, Venus. During the long flights they had frequent sex interspersed by discussion, while Bunky communed companionably with Venus. As a wether, a neutered sheep, Bunky had no interest in sex, which also protected him from Venus.

“Now you know the Maggots are not going to accept this without objection,” Kop said. “When a number of agents fail to report, they will try to send clarifying directives, and when those fail, they will realize that something is wrong. There are two ways they may proceed: if they conclude that the human form is fundamentally unstable, so that transfer agents are subject to random elimination, they may conclude that this world is too awkward to process conveniently, and will bypass it and move on. In that event Earth will be spared, for now. But more likely they will be suspicious, and will send a Maggot to investigate physically. That would be mischief.”

“I presume we can’t simply lay an ambush and assassinate the Maggot when it arrives,” Elasa said. “How would they react to the death of a Maggot? Would they blow up the whole planet?”

“And waste all that good meat?” Adela asked.

“Wasting good meat is anathema,” Kop said. “They will either harvest Earth, or bypass it, because there is also the potential for a future harvest. But because a bypass represents a certain loss of productive energy and postponement of gratification, they are likely to investigate first. The Maggot’s report will govern: proceed with the harvest, or bypass this world. But yes, you can’t simply lay an ambush. The Maggot will have more mental power than a thousand local inhabitants, and all of them will be immediately under its sway. All of them will defend the Maggot to the death. In fact several will give up their lives, screaming, as it feeds on them. No living thing will get close without being taken over and serving the Maggot’s purpose. It will soon know the situation, and make the decision.”

“So if a Maggot lands, Earth is lost?” Elasa asked. “Since human hosts aren’t unstable, and we would not be able to nullify any that the Maggot is directly controlling, if they have not been zeroed in.”

“Correct. If a Maggot lands, Earth is surely lost. And I judge that to be the likely choice.” He lifted an eyebrow in tacit query. “Unless your Lamb or Plant have some other ploy available.”

“We have Elasa,” Adela said.

“Whose mind can’t be read or taken over,” Kop agreed. “She could at least make an effort to take out the Maggot. But when it discovered that it could not control her, it would orient the living captives on her, and they would attack in a coordinated mass, heedless of losses. She would have to mow them down with a machine-gun, and probably would run out of bullets before they stopped coming. They would converge and tear her apart, literally.”

“If I had a machine-gun,” Elasa said, “I would use it to mow the Maggot down.”

“Good thought,” Kop agreed. “But meanwhile the captive folk would be throwing themselves between you and it, to take the bullets, and a number would be firing at you, aiming at eyes and legs so as to disable you. Even well armed, your chances of killing a Maggot are remote. It is not a situation you should seek.”

“Are you saying we can’t stop the Maggot if it comes here?” Elasa asked.

“I’m saying that killing it would be no easy task. It might be better to do what I attempted to do: nuke it. A missile fired from a safe distance might do it.”

“But the other casualties!” Elasa protested.

“This ain’t beanbag,” Kop reminded her. “Anyway, chances are that the key personnel required to make a nuclear strike would be under Maggot control, so that wouldn’t work either.”

“So our best course is to persuade the Maggots that Earth is not suitable for harvesting at the moment,” Elasa said. “Is that possible?”

“It is unlikely, because Earth is eminently suitable for harvesting. Only if there were some suggestion that it would cost more to reduce than it would be worth, would they decide to bypass it. The mysterious disappearance of their agents, suggesting that Earth has ways to spot and eliminate them, might do it. But I suspect they will send the Maggot.”

“Which will likely doom us,” Elasa concluded.

“Exactly. You have a nice touch here, cutting off their agents, but it’s not enough in itself. You need something more.”

“We’ll work on it,” Elasa said.

They met with the first foreign official, and sure enough, he had been possessed by a minion of the Maggots. He was telepathic and precognitive, but not using either talent at the moment, for reasons Kop had clarified before: short-range precog was too changeable, and other minds were messy. “What’s this about, Kop?” he demanded. “We’re busy here, about to go into harvest mode.” He eyed Elasa, surely aware from his host of her prior visit. “Not that a brief pause would be unwelcome.”

“There is a complication,” Kop said. “We’re not going into harvest mode.”

“Surely you jest.”

“I have something to show you,” Elasa said, carrying the Plant toward him.

But now the agent’s Awareness registered. “That thing is dangerous!”

Elasa stood and opened her shirt to display her breasts. The man looked, momentarily distracted. In that moment, Adela and Venus struck.

The man froze. “You cut me off,” he said, surprised.

“Your best bet is to put your host’s mind back in charge, so he can start reversing the preparations for the harvest,” Kop said. “You have plenty to do, just not what it was.”

“Yes, of course,” the man agreed, looking somewhat dizzy. His Awareness was stabilizing him, showing him the best course through this new reality.

They moved out, heading for the next meeting. Elasa knew they had to keep moving, because once the Maggots caught on that they were losing their agents, they would immediately act to safeguard the remaining ones.

“Can we get them all in time?” she asked.

Adela put her hand on Bunky’s back. “We think so. But we can’t be sure of the ones not on our immediate circuit. Other Awares traveled with Bunky to set them up, but there is no clear indication of complete success.”

“And Bunky is with us now,” Elasa said. “And Venus. They can’t be everywhere at once.”

“Yes. Anticipating this problem, we primed the others slightly differently.”

“Differently?”

“It’s a cruder setting. When they try to contact the Maggots, their memories will short circuit, throwing them into convulsions. Some may die.”

“Won’t that attract attention?”

“Yes. That’s why it’s not the preferred mode. But we could not allow them to continue to function as Maggot minions.”

“I suppose not,” Elasa agreed. She didn’t like it, but as Kop had said, this wasn’t beanbag. Beanbag was a cloth bag filled with dried beans, used in children’s games. They were playing for much higher stakes. At least the ones they nullified personally would be able to retire peacefully, making no waves, and their hosts would emerge in due course, perhaps not badly scathed.