Viscous Circle (21 page)

"Good idea!" he agreed. "She's the only other person who has been there. But why would you be reticent about suggesting that?"

"I understand she is a remarkably attractive woman."

Now Ronald laughed. Trust a woman to think of that first! He knew he had a certain reputation for a wandering eye, so she would prefer to keep temptation out of his way.

Helen moved in to him. Flesh was all over her, wrapped around bones and shifting under tendons, and her eyeballs were indeed liquid-filled and glistening moistly as though they had sprung leaks, and the red fibers of her head were all over. Yet despite his sharpening memories of the Bands, he found himself reacting positively to the Solarian female.

He was, indeed, a Monster.

 

 

 

Chapter 11:

Tangent

 

 

It was not easy to arrange his talk with Tanya Coombs. Her Station was in a planetoid on the far side of the System; it would take hours to travel there by shuttle. He could do it instantaneously by Mattermission—except that the prohibitive expense meant the authorities would never authorize it. They would throw away horrendous amounts of energy mattermitting a whole fleet of warships to a distant Sphere, but none for one person within the System. And Transfer to a host at that other Station was out; the Society of Hosts kept too close track of all such transactions.

No, a physical meeting with her was not feasible, and perhaps not desirable. What did she know of him, or he of her? Only that each had survived. Did she share his new concern for the Band society? Did she care whether a species was about to be incidentally exterminated? If not, it would be foolish of him to make known to her his own questions. The very fact of his sneaking out to meet her privately would betray him; he might blurt out his treason to the universe. For treason was really what was in his mind: he wanted to help an alien species at the expense of his own.

He would have to call her. But here too were problems. All calls to and from military Stations were monitored. There would be no privacy. In fact he could not even place the call without clearance from the Transfer authorities. It might be possible to have Helen place a call to a friend of hers at that Station, who could then contact Tanya Coombs—but this would be tedious and uncertain, would not enable him to learn what he needed to about her private attitudes, and might not escape the notice of the authorities anyway, even if Tanya did not turn him in. And if she
did
share his concern for the Bands, how could she trust him? She could take him for an administration agent testing her loyalty. She would tell him nothing of her true sentiment. Not by vid. So he was effectively blocked off; he had to keep his concerns to himself.

Meanwhile, there was Helen to think about. Would it be smart to renew his term marriage to her? How little he had known her, these years of the first term!

He had thought there had been no connection between his professional life and his personal one, when all the time she had been trying to reconcile the two. She wanted to align their philosophies so as to fashion a harmonic situation for their child. He had thought she had simply lost interest. She had proved that she had not—and had also proved
he
had not. He now saw himself and her as Monsters—but just as a person could adapt to changed circumstances, he could adapt to an alien host—or to his own host body experienced as alien. Monsters, too, could love.

Helen was right: after this mission was over, and the Ancient Site was in Solarian possession, he would remain a Monster, and have to deal with Monster things. Band Heaven was merely a tantalizing interlude, impossible for a Monster to join permanently. A devil could gaze upon an angel only in envy; he could not change his own nature. So if Ronald did not arrange to procreate by Helen, he would have to do so with some other Monster female. Was there really a better one on his horizon?

Yet could he conclude he still loved her? His emotion remained with Cirl, the alien female. Why was that? It really did not seem to make much sense. He had to resolve the question before he recommitted himself to Helen. And perhaps before he saw Cirl again. He could not be fair to either if he did not know his own mind.

What did a military man with an emotional problem do? Standard Operating Procedure had the answer: he went to see the chaplain. Anything discussed with a chaplain was confidential. In fact the chaplain might help him contact Tanya Coombs privately. It was certainly worth a try.

Ronald walked out to the residential launch platform and set himself in place. When he touched the proper button, the platform moved forward and upward, accelerating him in the direction opposite the great cylinder's spin. Thus he found himself in midair, seemingly rushing across the landscape, but actually hanging without momentum while the cylinder spun around him. He extended his fins and stroked toward the central exit, aiming sidewise just enough to counter the drag of air that sought to carry him along with the spin. The air was viscous, moving with the cylinder at the edge and remaining almost stationary at the center. He was far more conscious of viscosity than he used to be.

Around him the cylinder-world came clearer as he rose. Ronald had lost his sense of elevation when he became weightless; now he was more or less the center of a world that rotated around him. He always noticed this effect, and always enjoyed it. Perhaps this did suggest his basic narcissism, his tendency to see himself and his species as the center of the universe. His experience with the Bands had shown him that there were other centers, perhaps more valid than his own. Yet his delight remained.

The colors of the yards and roofs of the houses made an irregular pattern; when he narrowed his vision, so that his eyes did not automatically track, those colors blurred by like animated pictures. This was a huge kaleidoscope: the roofs like bits of glass, the river like a blue-gray wash of paint. The amount of fall of the water was not great, only a few meters, but it held to its channel faithfully and clung to its little lake at the base, from where the water was filtered and pumped to its "mountain" origin for recirculation. Small children were swimming in the lake; he heard their faint glad cries and saw their splashing. Ah, yes—this was as close to paradise as Monsters could get. The Monster version of the Viscous Circle.

Ronald reached the center and had to take the exit, lest he obstruct the traffic. Feeling a gentle nostalgia for this imitation Heaven, and for the real one the Bands believed in, he caught the rim bars and launched himself through the tube. Now he thought of himself as a flying shuttle rocket, zooming through locks and buoyed channels that marked the only safe route through a planetoid belt. It was childish fancy—but one he could afford to indulge within the sanctity of his own mind. System Band had many more planetoid belts, around their suns and around their planets and perhaps even around their larger moons; there one could really play dodge-the-chunks. Maybe that, too, attracted him there. Perhaps hindsight was making his assorted motives come clearer.

He swung abruptly around a corner and zoomed toward the chaplains' quarters. Everything had its place, here in the Station; one had only to know where these places were. There were no signposts, no guidelines; this was part of the security system of the base. No stranger could readily find his way around it, and certainly no alien creature would be able to move with facility. Only natives developed the necessary expertise, knowing where every handhold was, and knowing which handholds were rigged as alarms. Natives became unconscious of all the deliberate little pitfalls while avoiding them, and that was the way it was supposed to be.

Now he reached the smaller, faster-spinning Neutrals, Aliens, and Chaplains cylinder. There was no great panoply here; the chambers opened directly off the free-fall chute, unmarked. The first was Polarian, the second Nath, and so on down the line of Spherical allies of Sol. Any alien detachment, no matter how small, had its right to its own chaplain or equivalent. It was part of being a Registered Alien. Humans did not interact much with alien allies, because of differing atmosphere and gravity preferences—the notion of alien planetary conquest was ludicrous, because who would try to conquer at great expense a planet the species could not use?—but many different species were stationed together here in space. Space was equally inhospitable to all creatures—except, he remembered with a renewed pang, the Bands, who lived in space. Here among the Monsters it was never possible to predict what particular skills would be required in a war emergency, so most available creatures were represented. The military spared no expense for its preparedness.

He paused by the aperture for Magnet, which was next to the one for Sol. The Magnets were a spherical metallic species using magnetism to propel themselves. They were not really sapient, as he understood it; they served as guards or watchdogs, and were excellent at that. A Magnet in attack flight most resembled a fired cannonball, smashing all before it. It occurred to him that the Magnets also resembled the Bands, because of their mode of propulsion and ability to survive in deep space.

But there was much more to a creature than propulsion. The Magnets were really floating engines, consuming coal or other combustibles to generate their magnetism, but the Bands drew their power from the magnetic lines. The Magnets had to be near metal; Bands could travel best in deep space. In an analogy of machines: the Magnets were like ancient Earth-planet steam locomotives, while the Bands were like modern electric-ion spaceships. Maybe there was a kinship between the species, but it was no closer than that of bipedal dinosaurs to man.

Ronald drifted back, finding himself at the Polarian entrance before he realized where he was going. Surely he did not want an alien chaplain.

No? If he contemplated treason against his own species, what could be more objective than a third species, neither Solarian nor Band? The Polarians were renowned for their circular reasoning, incomprehensible to many Solarians, yet often productive of positive results. Polarians had spread into Sphere Sol as a result of the enormously waxing power of System Etamin, on the border between the Solarian and Polarian Spheres. In fact the present thrust for the Ancient Site was a ploy to stave off the shifting of power within the empire from System Sol to System Etamin. The logic of men could not, it seemed, compete with the logic of men and dinos—the contemptuous slang term for Polarians, based on their supposed resemblance to the droppings of the dinosaurs on the Etamin planet of Outworld.

What about approaching the matter at a tangent? Talk with the Polarian chaplain. Maybe nothing would come of it—but who could say?

Ronald nudged himself down the Polarians' hole. Soon weight manifested itself as he reached the outer portion of this spinning cylinder, and he had to catch hold of the bars set for this purpose so that he would not fall too swiftly. He reached the bottom and stood on the smooth walk there, his head feeling a trifle light. This was because, in this small cylinder, his physical height made a difference; his head was moving more slowly than his feet, so really was lighter. Some people could develop nausea from this effect.

He walked along the passage until he came to the chaplain's door. It opened as he stood before it. There was the Polarian, shaped like a man-sized teardrop, a massive spherical wheel below, a tiny ball at the end of his trunk above.

The little ball touched the nearest wall, causing vibrations that sounded like human speech. The adaptation was so precise that Ronald glanced at the wall, almost expecting to discover an intercom unit there, though he knew better. "It is possible to lose one's way in a Station of this complexity," the creature said diplomatically. Polarians were seldom direct; they preferred to be circular, and their speech reflected this.

"In this case, sir, no accident," Ronald responded. One addressed officers "sir" regardless of their species, though Ronald, as a semicivilian agent, did not have to honor this convention.

"Then you may wish to enter. I am Smly of Polaris Sphere, counselor to those in need." The alien did not inquire whether Ronald had a need; that would have been uncircular.

Ronald did not introduce himself, as he preferred to keep this interview anonymous. The Polarian could readily run down his identity; Ronald's reticence was merely a signal. "I want to commit treason against my species," he said, without preamble. Ronald wondered idly whether Solarians normally pronounced this Polarian's name "Smiley" or "Smelly." Polarians' names generally were easily lent to parody, and the creatures seemed not to object. Presumably they reserved their emotion for things of greater significance.

"This might be considered a natural urge, if there were justification for it," Smly remarked obliquely.

Ronald explained the circumstances. The Polarian rolled about his small chamber, listening thoughtfully, his wheel making a faint track of moisture. His motion was graceful, in contrast to the jerky movements of the Solarian form.

"So that's it," Ronald concluded his discourse. "I think I love the alien female more than I do the wife of my own kind, and my ultimate loyalty seems to be with that alien species. I fear this is treason."

"Our definitions may differ from yours," the chaplain said, this time buzzing his ball against the ceiling. Had Ronald's eyes been closed, he would not have been able to tell it was not a human being speaking, albeit one who seemed to flit about from floor to wall to ceiling. "To us the welfare of the individual is paramount. In a conflict of interest with the apparent welfare of society, the individual governs."

"What's good for one is good for all," Ronald said, putting it into perspective.

"There may therefore be no treason."

"But I'm not a Polarian!"

"Polarian custom is now a legal option for military personnel. This relates to the composition of, and balance of interests in, the larger sphere of interest of our empire. Should your kind bring you to trial or court-martial for treason, you might invoke our law and be exonerated."