Cluster

9. Daughters of the Titan

*notice: multiple mattermissions to hyades open star cluster, including 200 kirlian enemy entity*

—hyades! that means they’ve found it! send agent immediately—

*she is only just freed from spica her kirlian is down*

—I know mattermit her there—

*to another galaxy? the energy expense*

—call for concurrence, all available entities—

^o_o :: CONCURRENCE

—that satisfy you? this is an emergency! mattermit her NOW!—

*(sigh) POWER*

—CIVILIZATION—

“We have another mission for you,” the Minister of Alien Spheres said as Flint animated his own, restored body.

“Not today, Imp,” Flint said. “My Kirlian’s so low I’m ready to phase into the next host I animate. I must have been six months on the road.”

“Three months. Your aura intensity is down to fifty percent, still the highest we have. You’re not in trouble yet. But in this case you’ll use your own body, because there are no hosts where you’re going. In fact, no life there at all.”

“What kind of a Sphere has no life on it?” Flint demanded, intrigued.

“An Ancient Sphere.”

The Minister paused to let that sink in. Flint knew about the Ancients, of course. Some of their earthworks were on Outworld, and others were scattered across the galaxy. The Ancients had had the hugest interstellar empire ever known, perhaps three million years ago; they had possessed secrets of technology that modern Spheres could only glimpse. “You have my attention,” Flint said.

“We have located a well-preserved Ancient colony in the Hyades, a hundred and thirty light-years from Sol,” the Minister said. “Do you know what that means?”

“Taurus Constellation. The Horns of the Bull.” If there was one geography Flint knew well, it was that of the near stars.

“The horns of a dilemma. The Hyades are at the approximate intersection of four Spheres: Sol, Polaris, Canopus, and Nath. All have colonies there, but these have their own primitive mores and we prefer not to involve them. This is a matter for the Imperial Planets—but, none of these four exercise specific authority in that region.”

“Because none want to. A hundred or so stars jammed into a cubic parsec of space. Hard to get a night’s sleep with all that starlight.”

“It’s not that bad. It’s an open cluster, not a closed one. The question is, which Sphere has jurisdiction now? This Ancient site may be the most important find in the galaxy. Who excavates it?”

“What makes you so sure there’s any more there than there’s been anywhere else? Three million years make a big difference.”

“This one’s on an airless planet—and it hasn’t been touched.”

“Airless!” Flint said. “No deterioration?”

“Almost none. It’s the best-preserved Ancient site ever discovered, we believe. A peppering of meteorite pocks, but apparently its location in the cluster protected it pretty well even from space debris. Otherwise, it’s intact.”

“Which means there may be a functioning machine, an Ancient machine—”

“Or an Ancient library that would enable us to crack the language barrier and learn all their secrets,” the Minister said, his pale face becoming animated. Flint had regarded the Ministers as basically devoid of individuality, but now a bit of character was beginning to show. This one really cared about his alien Spheres. “The Ancients had no Spherical regression; they were able to maintain a galactic empire with uniform culture and technology, as far as we can ascertain. They solved the energy problem. If we had that secret—”

“Then I could retire,” Flint said. But the notion no longer filled him with enthusiasm. He had had himself put in the records as officially dead, so that Honeybloom would have his pension. There was no longer any life to retire to. And this business of traveling to strange civilizations had slowly grown on him; this was his type of adventure.

“You could retire, having saved our galaxy,” the Minister agreed, not aware of the irony. “We have elected to compromise. We have sent message capsules to all our neighbors with the news. The potential significance of this discovery transcends local Sphere boundaries. The other Spheres of this cluster have agreed to a cooperative mission, with all discoveries to be shared equally, for the good of the galaxy. They are notifying their neighbors, and we hope several of these will participate also. We have of course also advised Sphere Knyfh of the inner galaxy, but naturally they cannot afford to mattermit a representative five thousand light-years on speculation.”

Flint nodded. “If all the Spheres mattermit their own physical representatives to the Hyades that will be some menagerie!”

“That’s why we’re sending you. You have had direct experience with some of these creatures. You will be able to recognize them and deal with them despite their strange or even repulsive aspects. Other humans would be at a severe disadvantage.”

“That’s true,” Flint agreed, remembering the way human beings had seemed to him when he occupied a Polarian host. He had been shocked and nauseated, and so had blundered badly. Of course, he still suffered some from an aversion to illness or deformity—his recent excursion in the body of a one-armed boy had been a real exercise in control!—but alienophobia was a nearly universal phenomenon. This Hyades group would not be the most compatible assemblage!

Yet the prospect remained intriguing, and not merely because of the monstrous potential of the Ancient site. To deal physically, in his own body, with all the alien sapients he had known only in transfer…

He arrived at Gondolph IV at night. Four bright stars were visible in the sky, overwhelming the more distant field. They were Gondolph’s neighbors, II, III, V and VI, all within half a light-year, but they had the aspect of stars, not suns. No perpetual day here after all; the cluster was not that tight. Maybe someday he would visit a closed or globular cluster; then he’d see something!

The cluster of civilizations was not that tight, either, he thought. Each Sphere functioned independently of its neighbors, with only minor interactions. Together the massed Spheres made up the disk-shaped cluster of the Milky Way galaxy, like so many cells forming a creature. The Milky Way had also operated largely independently of its neighbors in the cluster of galaxies. Until recently…

Flint was in a spacesuit, and it was no more awkward than adapting to an alien host-body. This was not like the old Luna spacesuits, clumsy and suspect; the material of this suit fit him like a sheath of exterior muscles. It yielded wherever his motions required, but maintained comfortably normal atmospheric pressure. A porous layer next to his skin permitted the transfer of fluids and gases necessary to his health. His body would not suffocate from lack of oxygen or drown in its own sweat. It had discreet airlocks for intake and outgo, so that all natural functions could be accommodated readily and safely. The suit was tough—but it had limitations. If it were perforated and not immediately patched, he would quickly die of exposure and decompression. Therefore he carried no power weapon; it was too possible for it to be used against him. He was, however, armed—unobtrusively.

He looked about. The Hyades, mythologically, were the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the nymph Aethra, and they were half-sisters to the Pleiades. There were two ways to relate that to the present situation; the Titan was the Milky Way galaxy, and his daughters the Spheres, perhaps seven of which would be represented here. Or the Titan was the empire of the Ancients, and his daughters were the scientific and cultural artifacts left behind—each one of immense potential significance to the contemporary scene.

At a time like this, he longed for the ability to journey back into the time-frame of the Ancients. Not merely to penetrate their technological and cultural secrets, but just to get to know them as individuals. Surely they had been something very, very special!

But now to meet his companions—and commence the archaeological research. A Nathian lifeship had discovered the site and set down the first mattermitter. For reasons comprehensible only to the Nath mind, that device had sat on the planet unused for twenty Earth years. News of galactic peril brought by micromessage from Sphere Polaris, and the quick transmission of transfer information had brought this site back into awareness. The Nath government had recognized the possible relevance and finally revealed the existence of its device. After that, things had moved rapidly. More mattermission units had been sent through the first and attuned to their Spheres of origination. Thus all representatives could be shipped at a common time.

They were to meet at a designated staging area within the site. Flint wondered why the units hadn’t been grouped together to begin with, but assumed it was to provide a certain initial privacy. The shock of coming face to face with alien monsters—yes, it was better to allow some spacing and nominal adjustment room. But the Nathian organizers might have had some quite different notion.

Flint’s eye was attracted by a surprising but familiar form: the disk of a Canopian flying saucer. He had thought these craft were airborne, but evidently they used another mechanism. At least this one did, for it traversed the vacuum effortlessly. It spotted him, and coasted down to hover close above. “Conveyance, Sphere Sol?” its speaker inquired in the standard language of Imperial Earth.

“Sphere Canopus comes in style,” Flint observed, grasping the flexible ladder that descended for his convenience. “You mattermitted the whole craft?” That would have cost tens of trillions of dollars worth of energy, unless they had worked out a really economical system.

His benefactor turned out to be a Master: facet-eyed, mandible-mouthed, with wings forming a cloak, and half a dozen spindly legs. It looked like a monstrous insect, and perhaps it was—but it was also highly intelligent and of inflexible nerve. In Sphere Canopus these were the Master species, while humanoids were Slaves—and Flint had learned the hard way not to interfere with that social scheme. In fact, he had developed a lot of respect for the Masters. “What we do, we do properly,” it said in its melodious voice. “This does not imply any pleasure in the task.”

Of course. The Canopian Masters wanted to be left alone to run their Sphere in their efficient fashion. Slavers generally did not appreciate the cynosure of dissimilar cultures. But the one in charge of Flint’s case when he had visited there in transfer, B:::1, had yielded to the inevitable, and Canopus had joined the galactic coalition. “I am Flint of Outworld. I visited your Sphere a few months ago.”

The Masters seldom showed emotion, but something very like surprise made this one’s mandibles twitch. “I regret I did not recognize your specific identity, in your natural host. I am H:::4, of Kirlian intensity forty-five.”

“Your government risks a high-Kirlian entity on a mattermission mission?”

The Master extended one thin leg to touch Flint’s shoulder. Even through the suit, Flint felt the power of the aura. It seemed higher than forty-five—unless his own reduced aura made the differential seem less. “The secret of the Ancients necessarily involves some aspect of Kirlian force. I suspect all representatives here will be Kirlian, even as you and I.”

A good answer. Obviously the Council of Ministers had had more than Flint’s experience in mind when they selected him.

“If we discover what we hope,” Flint said, “the mutual threat will be considerably abated. With the science of the Ancients, whether Kirlian or otherwise, our galaxy should be invulnerable.”

“Perhaps. Yet the Ancients perished.”

“After maintaining their empire for a million years or so.”

“Strange that they should fade so suddenly and completely, after such longevity,” the Master observed.

“Yes. That is one of their fascinating mysteries.”

“We regard it as ominous rather than intriguing.”

The saucer dropped down, and Flint climbed out from the visitor’s well. “Thank you for the lift,” he said.

“It has been an honor to serve.” The craft set off to locate a new entity.

Flint stood where he was for a moment, pondering. The exchange had been perfectly amicable, but the Master had shown him that it had come thoroughly prepared. An excellent ally—or an extremely dangerous enemy. The Canopians evidently were convinced of the importance of this site!

Thanks to the ride, Flint was first at the rendezvous. He looked about, concentrating on the ground rather than the sky. Here, more than anywhere, he ran the danger of stepping over a material cliff while gazing at the ethereal heavens, like the Fool of the Tarot deck.

All around were the preserved ruins of an advanced civilization. Not the pottery shards and stone arrowheads of Earthly archaeological sites, but actual buildings of a former city, no more strange in design than similar constructions of modern Sol, Polaris, or Canopus. It seemed almost as if an Ancient sapient were about to walk out.

Flint had not expected much, knowing that most Ancient sites were evident only to the trained eye: an unnatural mound here, a pattern of depressions there, sometimes a vague depression overgrown by jungle. Or even a mountain slope, the site a victim of orogeny, mountain building, now tilted and perhaps buried or even inverted. Some-times construction crews discovered deeply covered strata with the Ancient stigmata. But three million years was a long time; it was evident that the Ancients had been phenomenal ground-movers, but that offered little insight into their culture. Until this moment…

There was motion, down near the ground beyond a collapsed building. Flint, suddenly nervous, unlimbered one of his special weapons, a telescoping spear. This required human hands and skill for proper application, and as a Stone Age man and flintsmith, he was expert in its use. It was unlikely that any other creature could turn this against him. He could attack or defend, and if he lost it, he was also adept at defense against it. He doubted that the other creatures would be mechanically equipped to balk it. Of course they would have their own weapons. He wanted no quarrel, for both personal and Spherical reasons, still, something strange was coming toward him, and he wanted to be ready.

The motion manifested as a traveling patch of brambles. Flint studied its approach, and realized that it had to be sentient and sapient; there was no native life on Godawful Four, as he called this planet. The only thing that could move were the mattermitted, spacesuited representatives of the Spheres. He was being unreasonably jumpy. He put away his spear, though his primitive inclination was to step on the thing, squishing it like a centipede.

It was legless and had thousands of projectile-spines, like the barbed quills of an Earth porcupine or the spurs of sandspur grass. These shot out on tiny threads to hook into anything, even the dust of the airless desert. These were then reeled in, winching the main mass forward. At any given moment, a number of tethers were in every stage of the process—retracted, shooting out, catching, drawing in. The overall effect was, once he adjusted to the notion, rather graceful; the creature traveled across the rock smoothly.

It had to be in a spacesuit, for no lifeform Flint knew of existed in a vacuum. But what a suit! Each tiny hook and tether must be enclosed and pressurized. This bespoke a fine technology. Probably those myriad little members had exquisite detail control.

“Hello, comrade,” Flint said. There was no air to carry his voice, but he knew the sound would be transmitted through the ground. He also had a translator keyed into a radio transceiver in his suit.

He was answered by a staccato of faint taps, as of tiny anchors dropping. He turned on his unit, letting it orient on whichever language this was. In a moment it spoke. “Sphere Nath.”

“Sphere Sol,” Flint said. His unit did not translate his own words. For simplicity, each creature’s unit would handle all incoming messages, rendering them into the native language. There had been no direct human-Nathian contact before, though the two Spheres were adjacent. The expense, risk, and delay of inter-Sphere contact had been too great, until this galactic crisis.

“Arrivals?” his unit inquired as the Nathian tapped again.

“Sphere Canopus,” Flint said. “With a flying craft. No others I know of, yet.”

“Message from Sphere Bellatrix. Cannot attend, but information relayed to Sphere Mirzam, who attends.”

Flint visualized the map of the Vicinity Cluster of Spheres. Bellatrix was a small Sphere, about Sphere Sol’s size, adjacent to Nath. It was about five hundred light-years from Sol. Mirzam was two hundred and fifty light-years out. Bellatrix had been invited to attend; Mirzam had not, as contact had not yet been made. Evidently the chain of contacts was still extending, and that was good. Soon this entire section of the galaxy would be alert to the Andromedan threat.

“We of Sphere Nath have held long discourse with Sphere Bellatrix,” the creature continued. Flint knew the translation was approximate, as there had to be fundamental distinctions of concept. “Discourse” could mean war or slavery or cohabitation. But there were limits to what a hastily jury-rigged multiple translation system could do. “They are very shy of strangers, so could not attend. But they are affinitive to Mirzam, with whom their contact parallels ours, so they relayed transfer, and Mirzam attends.”

Could be. On the map, Sphere Bellatrix overlapped both Nath and Mirzam, so that as with Sol and Polaris, they could have had centuries of interaction, cooperative Fringe colonies, trade, and so on. Their refusal to interact immediately with a group of unfamiliar entities was understandable. Flint had seen Solarians as others saw them, there in Sphere Polaris, and it was a lesson he hoped never to forget. He still had trouble adjusting to new forms—in fact was having trouble right now—and he was Sol’s most experienced agent.

“We of Sphere Sol understand,” he said. “We appreciate the message.”

“Pull-hook,” the Nathian said.

Oops, a mistranslation. Obviously, to hook and pull was an expression of affinity, of motion or success; acquiescence. But since there were literal meanings to the terms, the machine had oriented on them, taking the simplest route. Which was one reason inter-Sphere relations could not be trusted entirely to machines.

“Perhaps we should wait on the others,” Flint said. “We want to coordinate the search.”

“Meaning clarification: occupy what position in relation to others?”

Flint reviewed his phrasing. “Remain inactive until the representatives of other Spheres arrive,” he said. Yes, he would have to watch his own language. These literalisms could be troublesome, even deadly. To wait on an alien creature might be to squash it, and his word might have been taken as a direct threat. His mass could do a lot of harm to a low-spread-out, thread-limbed creature like this. “We have translation problems; please verify all questionable remarks without taking offense.”

“Pull-hook.”

“Are you familiar with Sphere Mirzam?”

“I would recognize a Mirzam entity by sonar—they are jumpers somewhat like yourself—but we have had very little direct contact. The expense of mattermission…”

“Yes.” That was a universal problem. By the map it was some five hundred light-years from Nath to Mirzam. “Irritation to be avoided,” the Nathian said. Meaning “No offense?” Probably a personal question. “Comprehended, no irritation.”

“How would you like to bash your head in?” Hm. “Clarification,” Flint said.

“Apparent danger of collapsing with damage, perched endwise.”

Oh. “Solarian sapients have a sophisticated balancing mechanism. By being alert, we avoid falling and bashing in our heads. And we gain the advantage of perception from an elevation.”

“Credit deserved, overcoming obvious handicap,” it said.

“Pull-hook,” Flint agreed.

The Nathian rippled its threads in seeming acknowledgment, shooting out burrs and snapping them back unanchored. A nice gesture—or maybe it was merely laughing. Flint saw no sign of eyes, and realized that elevation would have little bearing on hearing, so maybe his explanation had been gibberish to it.

“I understand—” Flint caught himself, realizing what a literal translation would sound like. “I have been informed that Sphere Nath discovered this Ancient site. Why didn’t you explore it earlier?”

“There was no need for this technology,” it explained. “Technology in advance of culture becomes detrimental. But when we were apprised of the Andromedan threat, we realized that a preemptive need now existed. So we offered this site in exchange for transfer.”

Evidently Nathians saved information the way Solarians saved money! Well, why not? “It is a fair exchange.”

The Canopian craft reappeared. This time it deposited a creature resembling the business end of an Earth-farm disk harrow. “Sphere Mintaka,” H:::4 announced.

“Sphere Mintaka!” Flint exclaimed. “I didn’t know they were in this party!”

“Their invitation was extended by Sphere Mirzam, which borders Mintaka,” the Master explained, using both human sounds and Nathian staccato. “From this chain of contact they have learned the technology of transfer and the communicatory mode of Mirzam, Bellatrix, and Nath. The Mintakan utilizes flashes of light, and will code them in the Nath manner so that your translators can handle it.”

Flint visualized the map again. Sphere Mintaka was just a huge, ill-defined arc in the direction of the galactic rim. Humans had no direct knowledge of it, only that it was big—a radius of some five hundred light-years, larger even than Sador—and far away. Star Mintaka was one of the three that formed the constellation of Orion’s Belt, and it was fifteen hundred light-years distant from Sol. The Sphere might be decadent, like Sador, just the shrinking husk of former greatness, but how then had it been so alert about this expedition? The Sphere Knyfh envoy who had brought transfer to Sol had suggested as much: that it was fading. That might have been an error. Had Knyfh known this region well, it would not have needed to recruit Sol for the coalition mission.

The Nathian was silent, and Flint felt momentary camaraderie with it, knowing it had similar reservations about the Mintakan.

“I shall search out new arrivals,” H:::4 said, and took off again.

That left the three of them. The Mintakan rolled forward on its circular blades, leaving deep parallel creases in the dust, and Flint noted how readily those edges could slice up a spacesuit or anything else. This was a combat-creature! Its lights flashed from lenses between the blades, blinking on and off so rapidly it was a mere flickering.

“Greetings, Sol and Nath,” the translator said on the Nath band. “Much appreciation in this invitation, and in the secret of transfer, which transforms our society already.”

With a five-hundred-light-year radius to that Sphere, or a thousand-light-year diameter, transfer would be a boon indeed! Regression must be ferocious, Flint thought. A hundred light-years in Sphere Sol carried man all the way back to the Old Stone Age; what would five hundred years do? Homo Erectus? Presapience? How could a Sphere even achieve such monstrous size without transfer? Surely it would soon fragment into smaller sub-spheres oriented on its most aggressive colonies, as the Earth British Empire had fragmented into America, Canada, India, and others.

That brought him back to this mission: How did the Ancients manage a Sphere that embraced a sizable segment of the galaxy? Well, maybe they were about to find out.

“We welcome any who care to join us in our effort,” Flint answered politely. “Are you acquainted with our larger mission?”

“To save our galaxy from Andromeda—and to utilize whatever Ancient science we can recover toward this end. Sphere Mintaka, though no longer expansive, is quite concerned to protect its continuing well-being. So we participate.”

“A fair response,” the Nathian agreed. “Are there Ancient sites in your Sphere, too?”

“Many sites—but all corroded. We suspect the Ancients spread not only across our galaxy, but across other galaxies as well. Surely Andromeda obtained its expertise from some similar site as this. We marvel at the Ancients’ boundless energy, and desire to know its source.”

“We, too,” Flint agreed. There certainly seemed to be a harmony of motive here, and that was good. “Whoever rediscovers Ancient technology might well achieve power over as great an expanse of the universe as they did.”

“Hence we cooperate,” the Nathian added, “so that no single Sphere may draw in unduly.”

“As one of our luminaries said,” the Mintakan flashed, “if we do not draw in together, we shall assuredly be drawn in separately.”

“Interesting coincidence,” Flint said. “One of our own early philosophers made a similar statement about hanging together.”

“I doubt they knew each other,” the Mintakan remarked, its lights flashing with evanescent humor.

“A universal truth,” the Nathian said.

Now a new figure rolled up. Flint recognized it with gladness. “Polaris!”

“How circular to meet you, Sol and Nath,” the Polarian replied politely. It was not, of course, Tsopi, the female Flint had known and loved; that would have been too much to ask. But it was like meeting an old friend anyway, and Flint was reassured at its recognition of the Nathian. It was through such intersections of Spheres that they could verify the identity of the members of this crew. If Polaris vouched for Nath, Flint trusted that.

The Canopian craft returned, this time depositing two entities. “Sphere Antares,” the Master announced, and left.

Flint had forgotten about Antares. Sol had dealt with that Sphere long ago, trading controlled hydrogen fusion for matter transmission. Antares had had transfer for centuries, but refused to divulge it to any other Sphere until very recent events had made that policy pointless. There had been no ill feeling about this, as all Spheres had protected their technological secrets until the Andromedan threat had forced better cooperation. Thus the forms of Solarian and Antarean were known to each other. Flint just hadn’t seen one of these aliens in the flesh before. And flesh it was: Antareans were protoplasmic entities, moving by extension and consolidation. They were versatile, but lacked the speed and power of the skeletal and muscular creatures.

“Push-hook irritation to be avoided, Antares,” the Nathian said.

“Anticipating your irritation, an explanation,” one of the protoplasms said.

It communicated by erecting a pattern of small temporary extrusions along the topside of its body. As a result, Flint had to aim his translation optic lens directly at it to pick up the meaning. These creatures, too, had to be in spacesuits, though again these were not evident. But of course Flint would not know suit from skin until he had had more experience with particular entities.

“I am of Sphere Spica,” the creature went on, “contacted recently by Sphere Sol and granted transfer. Since we are waterborne entities, we cannot go on land. Therefore we cooperate with our longtime associate Sphere Antares. I am a transferee to an Antarean host, mattermitted here. Trusting no objection by other parties.”

“Glad to have you.”

“Pull-hook.”

“Circularity.”

The Mintakan flashed amenably.

The Canopian saucer returned, but this time it was empty. “I suspect an unfortunate occurrence,” H:::4 announced. “Please follow my craft.”

“What is it?” Flint demanded.

“I prefer not to speculate.” And the Master proceeded slowly back the way it had come.

They followed. Flint walked, the Nathian pulled, the Mintakan sliced, the Polarian rolled, and the two Antareans extruded. The last was especially interesting: They flung out globs of flesh in snakelike extensions, then humped the main mass of the body through the connecting tube into the forward extension. It was a bit like an inchworm, and a bit like siphoning water from one cup to another. Though it was slow, Flint realized that few barriers would stop such an entity long; it could pour itself through a tiny hole or fling a blob across a chasm without risk. Commitment was gradual.

The Polarian was the fastest traveler, then came Flint and the Mintakan. The others bunched to the rear. This was no race, but Flint made another mental note: Should he have to get somewhere ahead of any of these creatures, he knew his chances. He was glad the Polarian was the only entity faster than himself, for he had a basic trust and liking for Polarians. Of course the saucer-mounted Canopian was the speediest of all, but there would be places the saucer could not go. At any rate, rapid transit was not the only asset; it was likely that there would be different rankings for other tasks.

The saucer settled. Flint and the Polarian drew up at the spot indicated and saw the body of a creature. It appeared to be about the same size as the members of the group—there seemed to be a fair similarity of size, as though this represented the sapient optimum—but differed in detail. It was solid, with a tripod of extensions projecting from stout tubes.

“A prospective member of our party, defunct,” the Polarian said, his ball touching the ground beside the corpse. Flint realized that the Polarian spacesuit had to be very cleverly designed to allow ball and wheel to function properly. But of course Earth had no monopoly on technical ingenuity. “Its suit has been punctured.”

“But from which Sphere?” Flint asked. The defunct entity’s suit did indeed appear to have been torn open. There must have been explosive decompression, too rapid to allow the creature to stop it before death occurred.

The Mintakan sliced up. “That’s a Mirzamian!” it said. “What happened?”

H:::4 looked around from his craft as the other entities arrived. “If I may make my supposition now: there would seem to have been an accident—or murder.”

“Sapiencide!” the Antarean exclaimed.

The Nathian approached the body. “All that we understand about our sister Sphere indicates that Mirzamians are extraordinarily careful. They propel themselves by vigorous jumping, so pay extreme attention to their surroundings lest they be damaged on impact.”

Impact. That reminded Flint of the three-sexed Spicans: the Undulants, the Sibilants, and the Impacts. He glanced at the Spican/Antarean, but noted no reaction. Of course he could not be sure there was any equivalence in that language. No sense in searching for clues where none existed.

“I observe no outcroppings of rock or other natural features that could account for such an accident,” the Master said.

Flint remembered his experience with the power hopper on Luna. His mode of transportation there would have been rather similar to that used by the Mirzamian. There had been many rough natural features on Earth’s huge moon, but he had not been in any immediate danger from them. This seemed to rule out accident.

“Yet if there has been slipshod anchorage—” the Nathian began.

“There must be a murderer among us,” one of the Antareans finished. Flint observed it covertly, trying to distinguish it more certainly from the other. This was the larger, more translucent one, shot through with whitish strands Flint presumed were nerve fibers. The other, who claimed to be the Spican transferee, was milky throughout, and seemed more delicate: feminine. Not that that was applicable. How did the three-sexed Spicans react in transfer to a two-sexed form? Or were Antareans two-sexed? He should have checked that out.

The seven diverse creatures began to draw apart. “One of us”—the Mintakan flashed, paused, and resumed—“is a spy or traitor.”

“Not surprising,” Flint said. “News of this Ancient site has spread rapidly, and the Andromedans always have been aware of our activities. One of their agents tried to kill me in Sphere Canopus.”

“Sphere Canopus resisted membership in the coalition,” H:::4 said. “But we do not stoop to inter-Sphere sabotage, and are as cognizant as any of the mutual threat. Once we joined, we cooperated fully.”

“I meant no criticism of Sphere Canopus,” Flint said. “In fact, it was the intrusion of that Andromedan agent that brought Canopus into the coalition. My point is that we have since ascertained that it was an Andromedan agent, a female I have known as ¢le of A[^th] or Llyana the Undulant, who animated those hosts, attacked me, and provided Canopus with specialized transfer information rather than betray her true identity.”

“Pardon my misapprehension,” the Master said.

“I trapped her for a time in Sphere Spica, but now I suspect she is one of our present number.”

“You speak of a female,” the Nathian tapped. “Our findings indicate that transfer cannot be made to a creature of a different sex from the original. This offers an avenue of investigation.”

“But we are sexless,” the Antarean objected.

“And our sexes are interchangeable,” the Spican/Antarean added. “This is why this host is compatible: it is neuter. Transfer to a sexed species would be problematical.”

“Neuter or interchangeable means no restriction, then,” Flint said. “But Nath is correct: Where two sexes exist, sexual crossover is not possible in transfer. So a quick survey may succeed in eliminating some of us from suspicion. I, for example, am male.”

“This is not circular,” the Polarian said. “I too am male, but how am I to demonstrate this to those unfamiliar with my species? How can the rest of us be certain of the accuracy of statement by any one of us?”

“I am familiar with your species,” Flint said. “I settled a debt as a transferee to your Sphere.”

“Then you can name the defunct party of the debt-settlement,” the Polarian said.

Flint snapped his spear into full length and raised it, orienting on the other. “You are in a Polarian body, but you could be an alien transferee. I believe I can puncture your spacesuit with this weapon before you can either attack me or escape—and if you attempt either, the others will know you are an impostor.”

“Solarian, this is gross hook repulsion,” the Nathian protested. “This entity has given no—”

“Debt-settlement is very special,” Flint said, maintaining the poise of his spear. “There is no dead party.”

The Polarian stood still. “That is my other point. Any or all of us could be transferees, and are therefore suspect. The Andromedans surely have male agents as well as female ones. Even if we verify sex, how may we know the true identity of each of us?”

“I assure you—” the Antarean began.

“You have not abated my suspicion,” Flint said to the Polarian. “This is not based on sex, but on information. How do you settle debt?”

“This is not a matter we discuss lightly.”

The Mintakan cut forward slowly. “The Solarian has challenged the Polarian. It seems likely that one or the other is false—but how should we know which one? I am familiar with neither entity, and do not know about debt settlement, so can not verify the validity of any given answer.”

“I am familiar with the Polarian system,” the Nathian said. “I begin to see the Solarian’s point. It is a matter of—”

“Do not say it!” the Canopian Master interrupted. “You must serve to verify the answer given. It is true we have no direct way of knowing, on an individual basis, which of us is valid. But each Sphere overlaps at its fringe with one or more others. This is how we established initial contact with each other. We can employ that network to isolate the intruder… perhaps.”

“I agree,” Flint said. “Maybe this investigation should be handled by H:::4. We can put it to vote.”

There was a general flurry of a confusion. Flint did not relax, but he realized belatedly that the Polarian’s reference could have been a trap for him, unmasking him if he agreed. He really did not have much of a case, and should not have acted so rashly.

It was the Polarian who spoke. “Nath and Sol and Sador—unfortunately not present—intersect Polaris, and Nath and Sol, also intersect Canopus. Exchange of interviews should verify the reality in circular manner.”

“But Sol and Nath are suspect too!” the Spican protested. “And so am I, for I am a transferee.”

“We have to decide on a course of action,” Flint said, growing impatient. “We can vote—”

“What is a vote?” the Mintakan asked.

Oh—so that was the source of some of the confusion. The human concept of voting was as opaque as the Polarian concept of debt.

“It means each entity says yes or no, and all abide by the decision,” Flint explained.

“Impossible,” the Spican said. “There must always be three sides to any question, no majority. As the maxim goes, it takes three to mate.”

“Push-hook,” the Nathian agreed. “No entity can decide for another.”

Flint saw that they were in danger of dissolving into chaotic debate and indecision. “Then I must act unilaterally. Polarian, I accuse you of being a transferee from Andromeda, murderer of this Mirzam entity and threat to this expedition. What refutation do you offer for me and Nath?”

“Your thrust is dismaying, but typical of your kind,” the Polarian replied. “Permit me to round it off. I will satisfy your query—then query you myself.”

“Fair exchange,” Flint said, hoping the Polarian could vindicate himself. “Now stop stalling.” The others were silent, waiting too.

“My prior statement was misleading,” the Polarian said. “The Sol system of thrust abates debt by conflict. It would be natural for a Solarian to assume this was true in Sphere Polaris. Thus this Solarian’s challenge to me verifies his stated Polarian experience.”

“This does not pull,” the Nathian said. “The push is to Polaris, not Sol.”

“I abate it now. Please forgive my necessary indelicacy. Debt between male and female normally is abated by the mating of the two individuals concerned, and the transfer of the male’s seed-ball to the female as her new wheel. This involves—”

“I am satisfied,” Flint said with relief, lowering his spear. “I apologize for my suspicion.”

“Now I pose my return query, completing the circle. How is debt abated between Polarians of similar sex?”

Flint’s mouth dropped open. “I have no idea,” he said. “I never thought of that!”

“Yet you actually abated debt as a transferee?”

“I don’t expect you to believe this in the circumstance,” Flint said, feeling the cynosure of the eyeless creatures around him. “I was in Sphere Polaris, but I never—”

“You, Nath?” the Polarian inquired.

“Two males with debt must seek two females with similar debt,” the Nathian replied promptly. “One male then makes formal exchange of obligation with one female. He now abates her debt by mating with her debt sister. The other pair proceeds similarly. This is known as ‘squaring’ debt, one of the few examples of non-circularity in Polarian custom, the subject of ribaldry. There are special conventions for debt between juveniles, or when one party to debt dies before abatement—”

“Obvious, now,” Flint said. “I should have known—”

“Demurral,” the Polarian said. “This verifies that even extended transfer cannot replace native knowledge or long-term acquaintance. A transferee cannot deceive one who is truly familiar with the culture.”

“I stand ready to verify my own identity similarly,” H:::4 said. “I am satisfied with this mode of—”

“I am not satisfied,” Mintaka said. “Sol fouled up his own question, and Nath merely applied logic. Who would I exchange questions with? The representative of our neighbor Mirzam is dead.”

“Impasse threatens,” H:::4 said. “Let Sol challenge the others of us as he did Polaris. At least this accomplishes something. We cannot debate interminably, or we fail in our mutual mission through default.”

“Now wait,” Flint said. “This is a murder mystery, and I hardly know how to—”

“Agreement,” the Polarian said. “Sol’s forward thrust and linear thinking seem best here.”

“Pull-hook. Sol gave us all transfer; Sol will not betray us.”

“Solarian, you said you transferred also to Spica,” the Spican quivered.

Flint sighed. It seemed he had been nominated, regardless. “Yes. But of course I know no more about Spican culture than about Polarian. So I can’t—”

“We shall exchange questions. Please define the Spican mating system.”

It always came down to sex, he thought. That was a fundamental drive in any species, and the most subject to social restrictions. So it was a good tool for verification. “That I can do. You have three sexes, the Impacts, the Sibilants, and the Undulants. The confluence of the three leads immediately to an explosive mergence. The third entity on the scene assumes the role of catalyst—”

“A moment,” the Mintakan said. “Did you not say that the Andromedan also transferred to Spica?”

“Yes. In fact, the two of us became part of a mating trio.”

The Canopian saucer wobbled momentarily as if suffering brief loss of control. “You met and knew the enemy—and mated with her?”

Flint spread his hands in a useless gesture. “Ridiculous as it sounds, I did. You see—”

“Then you informed the Spican authorities of her identity so they could kill her,” the Nathian suggested. “No. I—well, you see the situation—”

“My point,” the Mintakan said, “is that she therefore knows as much about Spica as you do—perhaps more.”

“That’s right!” Flint agreed, surprised again by the obvious. “So this is no—”

“In fact, you could give an accurate answer to the question and still be the Andromedan spy.”

“Not that particular one,” Flint said with a smile. “The spy and I are of different sexes.”

“I submit that the spy could be male,” the Mintakan persisted. “Spica is irrelevant, but can Canopus assure us that the spy transferee there was the female?”

The saucer wobbled again. “We cannot,” H:::4 admitted. “We dealt with two transferees, but knew them only by their auras, both extremely high, and their statements. Both claimed to be from Sphere Sol.”

“So the female who provided the transfer information, after the male had failed, could in fact have been the real Sol envoy. She tried to kill the impostor, who in turn sought to discredit her.”

“This is possible,” the Master agreed.

“Yet this Solarian is true to his type,” the Polarian argued.

“Unless the Andromedan is also of that type. Do you suppose Sol is the only thrust-culture in the universe? It would be natural for the Andromedan to transfer to the most similar species.”

“Pull-hook,” the Nathian agreed.

“Objection,” the Spican quivered. “We have observed a circumstance, and postulated an explanation, but have omitted the third aspect. There may be no murderer among us; our comrade of Sphere Mirzam may have been dispatched by the Titan.”

“The Titan!” Flint exclaimed. “Surely there is no living Ancient here!” but he looked about nervously.

“We do not know what their powers were, except that they were greater than ours.” the Spican pointed out. “We believe they were land-borne creatures, yet even on our Spican planets, beneath deep and long-enduring oceans, we have found their stigmata. Indeed, these formidable evidences of past life and civilization provided the incentive that took us into space to search for new waters. The Ancients could have left an inanimate guardian, a machine—”

“A robot!” Flint said. “Or boobytraps, the way the pyramidal Egyptians did on our home planet, to stop intrusions.”

“We remain at an impasse,” the Antarean signaled. “I suggest we give up this futile search for a guilty entity within our number and form into pairs, each entity in charge of its partner. Anyone who fails to act in a manner conducive to the welfare of our own galaxy will be suspect—and we shall all gather here before any of us leave. Perhaps the Ancients will provide the solution for us.”

“Good thinking!” Flint agreed. “The Andromedans obviously think there is something here, and they’re afraid of it. When we discover it, they will have to act—or let us gain the secret.”

“Which connections?” the Nathian asked. “Which entities pair?”

“Random is best,” H:::4 said. “Let each entity pair with the one most nearly opposite it, here in this circle.”

As it happened, Nath was opposite Mintaka, Flint opposite Spica, and Polaris opposite Antares. Canopus, suspended above the corpse in his craft, was isolated. “With your agreement,” H:::4 said, “I will pair with the defunct Mirzam. Were I the one who killed it, I could do no further damage, and I will not be able to interfere with your search. If the spy makes its move elsewhere, the partner can summon me for help. I will hover here and remain in radio touch.”

There was no demurral. Despite the murder, all parties were weary of the fruitless quest for the criminal. The three pairs set out in three directions, at last on the trail of the secret of the Ancients.

“I really don’t know what we’re looking for,” Flint admitted. “This may be a wild goose chase.”

“There is no native life here,” the Spican in Antarean guise reminded him, the bumps on its back rippling as it oozed into its forward extrusion. It was able to make fair progress. Flint had to walk slowly, but this was not burdensome. “Thus there can be no flying fish, not even untame ones.”

“Figure of speech,” Flint said, smiling. “I mean there may be nothing we can use.”

“Yet we must search.”

“Yes.” The others were already out of sight, except for the high Canopian craft.

Now the ruins of the site seemed to loom larger, almost threateningly, as though haunted. Flint dismissed it as nervousness resulting from the shock of discovering the murder. His companion might be an alien agent—no, that was unlikely, for the two Antareans had come together. And how would such a creature have punctured the suit of a jumping entity? There seemed to be no weapon. In fact, his spear was the most likely prospect.

His spear. Had the killer tried to frame him? That had failed—or had it? The Mintakan obviously suspected him…

They came to a tall structure, an almost-intact dome rising out of the sand. There was just one hole in it, where air had evidently blasted out at the time of decompression. Yet if the loss of pressure had been that fast, killing every creature there instantly, why weren’t there any bodies? No, no mystery there; an expedition would have come to pick them up. Recovery of the dead was common to sapience; it tied in with belief in the afterlife, laying ghosts to rest. Flint did not sneer, even privately; he believed in ghosts.

“This requires exploration,” the Spican said. “Yet in my present body, I hesitate to traverse such territory.”

“Which sex are you?” Flint inquired.

“Impact. It was thought this would be better for land traverse than Undulant or Sibilant, and perhaps this is so, but the mode is hardly comfortable. I must admit too that it is strange indeed to come close to so many types without mergence. I remain somewhat nervous.”

“I can understand that. I was an Impact too, and know the correspondence of limbs is only very general. And of course you are not using limbs at all now.” Flint was now reassured that his companion was legitimate—though the Mintakan’s point about the Andromedan’s knowledge of the Spican system was valid. He would have to trust his intuition—and keep alert. “Since I am in my own body, and it is an athletic one, I shall climb inside, and relay news to you.”

“This is kind,” the creature agreed.

Flint stepped gingerly over the jagged sill. His fragile-seeming suit was tough, but he didn’t want it scraping against the diamond-hard fragments. He came to stand inside the dome.

It was bare but beautiful. The complete night sky was visible through its material. No… Flint’s excellent visual recall told him that it was not the sky. It was an image, painted or imprinted holographically inside the dome so cleverly that it looked authentic. As he moved, it moved, as though he were traveling at some multiple of light speed, the near stars shifting relative to the far ones. The effect was awe-inspiring, technologically and esthetically—and intellectually, for it showed a configuration similar in general but completely different in detail from anything he had viewed before. Flint knew the stars as only a Stone Age man could know them; there were no correspondences here. Was it even any part of this galaxy? He would have to check it out when he got back to Sol, if need be querying Sphere Knyfh and any other major Spheres that were now in reach. This could be extremely important.

“The home sky of the Ancients,” he breathed. “From this, we can determine their Sphere of origin…”

He could have stared at the splendor of that strange sky interminably, but tore his eyes away. He looked around the floor of the chamber. It was bare—no machines, no furniture, no bodies. So he still had no clue to the physical aspect of the Ancients. But of course this was only one structure of hundreds. Possibly they had come here to gawk at the vision of the far-distant ancestral home, recharging their spiritual vitality. They must have had eyes, at least. It suggested something fundamentally good about the Ancients; they were, in their fashion, human. They had colonized much of the galaxy, yet they longed for home, and kept its memory fresh. Probably this had been a desolate outpost, a supply station, with forced tours of duty: a necessary function of empire.

Yet it had been wiped out, and suddenly. Perhaps some terrible beam from space had voided their pressure shield, releasing their bubble of atmosphere, killing them all. Maybe an enemy had landed, sacked the post, and removed all artifacts of potential value. In which case there would be nothing left for the archaeologists. Too bad.

“Sol. Spica,” the Canopian Master’s voice said from Flint’s unit, interrupting his musings. “There has been a development. Please return immediately to the collection site.”

“What happened?” Flint asked, certain he would not like the reply.

“The representative of Sphere Antares has been killed. I am holding its partner Polaris under guard pending group assembly.”

“Oh, no,” Flint groaned. “I thought we’d cleared Polaris.” He ran for the opening, scrambled out, and landed beside the Spican. “You heard?”

“Dehydrated!” the creature replied in evident horror. To a water entity, dehydration would be a hellish concept on several levels, an obscenity. “Now we know there is a murderer among us.”

“But neither you nor me,” Flint said. “I was within the dome, with no other exit—and you could not have moved fast enough to do the job, even had you chosen to kill your friend.”

“Agreed. We two are innocent—but four suspects remain.”

“Polaris, Nath, Mintaka, and Canopus,” Flint said. “We must hurry. Would it be permissible for me to carry you?”

“In the circumstance, permissible. But be careful.”

“Yes.” Flint put his two arms around the glob and heaved it up, feeling the associated Kirlian aura. H:::4 had been right: All entities on this mission were high-Kirlian types. Not just five or ten times normal intensity, but fifty or a hundred. The best their cultures had to offer. High Kirlians for high stakes!

The creature weighed about as much as Flint did, but it shaped itself to the upper contours of his body comfortably and was easy to carry. He ran as fast as he could toward the rendezvous.

The Polarian was there, the Canopian saucer hovering close overhead, as Flint tramped up with his burden. The Mintakan and Nathian had not yet arrived. “What happened?”

“I am under suspicion again,” the Polarian said. “My partner of Sphere Antares is defunct.”

“I challenged you before,” Flint said, setting down the Spican carefully. “But you satisfied me that you were legitimate. I do not believe you would have done it.”

“That is most circular of you. But unless you can identify a more immediate suspect—”

“I think we’d better all establish alibis,” Flint said. He had a suspect, but didn’t care to name it at the moment.

“Alibis?” the Spican inquired.

“Each entity must explain where he was at the time of the murder,” Flint explained. “If he were elsewhere, he cannot have been there, so would be innocent.”

“Most ingenious,” the Spican agreed. “You Solarians do have a marvelous directness. We must also ascertain the mode of demise.”

Mintaka and Nath arrived. “This is very bad,” the Nathian clicked.

Flint explained about alibis, giving his own and the Spican’s.

“Demurral,” Mintaka flashed. “We have not verified that there is no other exit to your dome. And if the Spican were the spy, the Antarean would be the first to know it, and would therefore be marked for death. And that death prevents us all from knowing how rapidly that type of entity can move. It could be the fastest among us all.”

Devastating logic. Flint and the Spican were back under suspicion.

“However,” the Mintakan continued, “the element of velocity is relevant. My companion of Sphere Nath certainly cannot move as rapidly as some of us, and furthermore must leave a typical trail in the dust. Even were I not able to testify that Nath went nowhere without me, the absence of the trail would vindicate him.”

“And I assent that the Mintakan was always in my perception,” the Nathian said.

“Perception,” Flint murmured. “You don’t have eyes. How can you be sure—”

“I possess acute auditory and vibratory perception,” the Nathian replied a bit tersely. “This is equivalent or superior to your optics. When light fails, you are blind, whereas my sonar—”

“I accept your word,” Flint said.

“Nath speaks accurately,” the Polarian said. “Their perception of physical objects is excellent. We must accept that alibi.”

“You know where that leaves you,” Flint said.

“It would be uncircular to misdiagnose any suspect; we must ascertain the truth. We are all suspect, and none of us can alibi the Canopian.”

“Correct,” H:::4 said. “My craft could readily have traversed the necessary distance and returned, and it is armed. I could certainly have done it, and I am thus a suspect. I suggest, however, that were I the Andromedan agent, I could kill you all now, and could have done so at the outset. I am well armed and have no need to act covertly.”

This was exactly what had occurred to Flint. He had avoided a direct accusation because if he proved his point, one pellet or ray from the saucer could wipe him out. But why would the Master bother to kill in secrecy?

Perhaps because he could not safely leave his craft, and had to wait on the explorations of the others. If the secret of the Ancients were discovered here, it had to be salvaged or destroyed, according to the Andromedan view—and salvage would naturally be best. So it was simplest to eliminate any entity who caught on to the spy’s identity. Or to keep cutting down the size of the expedition, until the one or two survivors could be controlled.

Flint believed the Polarian was innocent, and doubted that the Spican, handicapped as it was by an unfamiliar body, could have done it. Since the others had alibis, that left Canopus, with all his mobility and armament.

“May I remind you that there remains the possibility of some Ancient agency,” H:::4 said. “Perhaps it lacks the power to eliminate all of us, but seeks to sow dissent by selective killings.”

There was that. “Let’s get together to investigate the crime,” Flint said. “Whoever or whatever is stalking us, it seems to strike only isolated entities. If there is safety in numbers, let’s take advantage of it.” And maybe there’d be a chance to get away from the Canopian craft.

They trekked along the route marked by the Polarian’s wheel. The dust was undisturbed here, except for that. No way to conceal the trail. The absence of a trail could only implicate Canopus again.

They approached the mouth of a large runnel angling underground. It seemed to be an avenue for vehicles. That suggested the Ancients did not fly or run rapidly; they preferred to ride.

“We discovered a sealed airlock below,” the Polarian explained. “I notified Canopus, who asked me to emerge and show my location so that he could establish it specifically for the other members of the expedition. My companion, Antares, had investigated the lock and informed me that there was operative equipment within. Therefore we felt the discovery was significant.”

“When I located Polaris visually, I followed him back to this tunnel, which I could not enter,” the Master said. “He entered, then reported the demise of his companion. As you can see, there are no tracks besides those of Polaris and Antares. I therefore placed him under temporary detention and summoned the other members of the expedition.”

Flint looked at the tracks. There was no question: There were three wheel-treads and one pattern of splotches formed by the motion of the Antarean. Polaris had come, gone, and come again, while Antares had come—and stayed. It looked bad for the Polarian: no other tracks, and the Canopian saucer too wide to enter the tunnel.

“It is my turn to remind you that we approached operative Ancient machinery,” the Polarian said, applying his ball to his own suit. “That airlock could have opened in my absence…”

“Does anyone on the ground have a power weapon?” Flint inquired. “If that portal should open again—”

There was no response. He knew why: Personal defense was now critical, and a hidden weapon could be more effective than one that was known. “Well,” he continued, “be ready to fight or flee, all of you. I’ll have my spear, but it has limits.”

They entered the tunnel. The Spican began to glow, illuminating it; so did the Polarian. Flint walked first, spear poised, with the Spican close behind; Nath was third, Polaris fourth, and Mintaka brought up the rear.

The passage curved, and terminated at the lock. There was the body. The Antarean’s spacesuit had been punctured, just like the suit of Mirzam, and the creature’s gelatinous substance had burst out through that round aperture. Explosive decompression, quickly and horribly fatal.

“As you can perceive, I lack the capacity to make a wound of that nature,” Polaris said.

“Your ball could vibrate rapidly, abrasively, against a given spot,” Spica said. “It would take time to make a hole of that size, but if Antares were unconscious—”

“My spear might make a similar hole,” Flint pointed out. “Or a laser beam. Or a conglomeration of sharp little hooks.”

“Could Canopus have dismounted from his craft?” Spica asked. “While Polaris was absent?”

“Yes,” Flint said. “And Canopus may be able to fly on his own. He is of insectoid derivation, with wings—”

“Not in vacuum,” Mintaka pointed out. That popped that bubble. Mintaka had a way of doing that; very sharp mind. Wings needed atmosphere in order to function.

“But a jet pack?” Flint inquired.

“Then we all remain suspect,” Nath said. “Any one of us could have hidden a flying device.”

“Not so,” Polaris said. “Such devices create turbulence, especially in confined spaces, and the prints are undisturbed.”

“It becomes difficult to separate circularity from suicide,” Nath remarked, since the Polarian seemed to have brought suspicion on himself again. “But I believe I can exonerate Polaris. I noted three wheel-tracks. Do your perceptions concur?”

“Yes,” Flint said. “What’s your point?”

“There should be four.”

“That is correct,” Polaris said. “I arrived with my companion, left to notify Canopus of the route, re-entered to discover the murder, and reemerged. Four tracks.”

“Prior to our present entry,” Flint agreed. “You must have used one track twice.”

“I did not. The taste of one’s own trail quickly palls. That is a maxim among my kind, with philosophic undertones but nevertheless also literally true. My wheel is encased in its own suit, but it is not my habit to repeat a specific route exactly. I made four trails.”

“Yet there are only three,” Nath clicked. “Therefore one must have been erased.”

“How could that happen in this dust?” Flint asked. “And why would anyone bother?”

“Perhaps it was the killer’s own trail being erased, and the Polarian’s trail was coincidental. Sonic application could do this.”

Flint’s eyes narrowed. “Could you do it?”

“Yes.” And Nath demonstrated by clicking his hooks together in such a way as to cause the nearby dust to jump and resettle around it, wiping out its own trail.

“But Nath did not,” Mintaka said. “He remained with me—and there are no gaps in his own trail.”

“More than can be said for mine,” Spica said. “My partner carried me partway.”

“We now have a possible method,” Flint said. “But it doesn’t help much. Any of us, including Canopus, might have done it; it is evident that we hardly know enough about each other’s capacities to be assured otherwise.”

“Were I the guilty party,” H:::4 said in their translators, “I could bomb the entrance to the tunnel and destroy you all. I admit the capability; I deny guilt or intent. Judge me unfairly, and you only strengthen the position of the actual spy.”

“Maybe we’d better agree that there is an Ancient robot stalking us,” Flint said, glancing nervously at the tunnel entrance. He had thought they would be safe from Canopus here, but obviously they weren’t. There was no way out but forward—through the Ancient airlock. “It killed Mirzam, but could not catch the rest of us alone, until it found Antares. It is now outside, having erased its trail, waiting for us to separate again.”

“This seems to be a satisfactory hypothesis,” Mintaka flashed. “But it does not alleviate our peril. If it has laser armament, even Canopus is not safe.”

“Why wait for it to strike again?” Flint asked. “Let’s force open this lock and plumb its secrets. We have nothing to lose.”

“Pull-hook.”

“Concurrence,” Mintaka said.

“Agreement,” Spica finished.

“I, too, am amenable,” H:::4 said. “I shall remain on guard. My apologies to Polaris; my suspicion was premature.”

“Circularity.”

Flint examined the lock. “This is a simple gear-and-pinion system,” he said, glad of the dull training he had been given on Earth. “The Ancients must have had hands like mine.” Could the Ancients have been humanoid? No, that was too much to expect of coincidence. He took hold of a half-wheel and turned.

To his surprise, it moved. Something clicked; then a blast of air shot out through a vent, almost knocking him over despite the baffle that inhibited its force. “Depressurization,” he said. “For three million years it held its air—that’s some mechanism.” Truly a Titan, he added mentally.

“Evidence that the Ancients can retain operative mechanisms today,” Mintaka said. “We are surely very close to significance.”

Now the lock swung open to reveal a fair-sized inner chamber. “Canopus, we are entering the inner sanctum,” Flint announced. “If our communications cut off, you had better return to your Sphere and issue a report.” And if you are our spy, we are safe from you, he thought. And you won’t get the secret of the Ancients. That’s why none of us can afford to go home: We might miss the crucial discovery of the millennium.

“Understood. I will maintain contact if this is feasible. Under no circumstance will I dismount from my craft.”

“Right.” They crowded into the lock, and Flint pulled the door closed.

Immediately the locking mechanism clicked it tight. Air hissed in, pressurizing the chamber. “But let’s keep our suits on,” Flint said.

“It is helium gas, almost pure,” Nath said. “Inert, but not suitable for normal life processes.”

“I thought as much,” Flint said. “Normal atmosphere on any world has corrosive properties.”

“Sentience is corrosive,” Mintaka remarked.

When pressure was up to about twenty pounds per square inch, making Flint feel as if he were in water, the hissing stopped. He worked the half-wheel on the inner door, and it opened.

It was a large chamber, illuminated by a gentle glow from the walls, with several passages radiating out from it. In the center was a circular platform enclosed by a pattern of wire mesh. There seemed to be an elevator or hoist within it, the cage suspended about twice Flint’s height above the floor. That was all.

“Empty,” Flint said, disappointed. “They must have cleaned it out before they closed up shop, after the wipe-out. Took all the bodies and equipment.”

“Yet machinery below and around us is functional,” Spica said.

“Oh? Where are the machines?” Flint asked. “I mean, specifically.”

“Below me, here. Operative but not mechanical,” Nath replied.

“Electrical in nature,” Spica said. “I regret I am unable to utilize the full propensities of this body. The native Antarean could have read the flux precisely.”

“You can perceive magnetic flow?” Nath asked.

“Yes. And the finer manifestations such as the Kirlian aura. Not merely as a presence, but as a specific pattern, typical of any given entity. This is a good body.”

Something fell into place in Flint’s mind. Sphere Antares had possessed the secret of natural transfer for centuries, so would be long familiar with related nuances. “Can you distinguish between a native entity and a transferee?”

“This is simple for Antares. Difficult for me, since—”

Flint kept his body relaxed, his voice casual, but he was ready to explode into action. “Are any of us transferees?”

“No. Only myself. My friend Antares verified this at the outset, and intended to inform you, being concerned that—”

“Including Canopus?”

“Canopus is native. This is assured.”

So there were no transfer traitors among them after all. They were all the creatures they appeared to be. Had the Spican been the spy, it would have accused one of the others instead of exonerating them.

“Caution,” Mintaka flashed. “Antares was within range of operative Ancient circuitry, detecting its function and pattern. The Ancient equipment should similarly be able to detect capacities in us. Antares was quickly killed. You, Spica, may now be in similar danger.”

“We’re all in danger,” Flint said. “But I agree we’d better keep close watch on Spica.”

“Triple appreciation,” the Spican said. “I shall try to analyze this alien field further. I do not think it is capable of physical action, however.”

Such as puncturing a spacesuit? That was certainly no magnetic phenomenon. Unless: “Electric engines are magnetic, and we have magnetic pistols in Sphere Sol. Could an Ancient circuit have—?”

“That was one of my considerations,” Spica said. “As I orient on the fields of this site, I verify: The operative element is not capable of physical action. The currents are very fine, akin to those of living nervous circuits. No motors or heating units.”

“Surely the Titan wasn’t a pacifist!” Flint murmured dubiously. But he remembered those fascinating stars, obviously esthetic rather than practical, there in the dome. Had the Ancients’ culture been as far beyond the contemporary scene as their technology?

“The system is”—Spica paused in evident surprise—“is Kirlian.”

“Jackpot!” Flint exclaimed. “The Ancients did have advanced Kirlian technology—and now it is ours!”

“We should not tabulate our gains until hooked,” Nath warned.

“Canopus, can you hear us?” Flint asked.

“I hear you, Sol,” H:::4 replied immediately. “And I now confirm with the instruments aboard my craft that there is a diffuse Kirlian aura emanating from that region. It does not pulsate in the manner of a living aura; it appears to be inorganic. Inanimate.”

“But the Kirlian aura is a function of life,” Mintaka protested. “This is the distinction between life and death.”

“Not any more,” Flint said. “So now we know the Ancients had the secret of inorganic Kirlian aura generation. I’m not surprised. I’ll bet this is what Andromeda is using against us. They are able to imbue matter and energy with a Kirlian field, then transfer that field to their home galaxy. Now we will be able to stop them. This is exactly what we have been looking for.”

“Concurrence,” Mintaka said. Something nagged at the fringe of Flint’s awareness. It was the second time the creature had used that expression. But of course it was only a translation. None of these entities used human idiom or construction; its translator did that. “We must investigate this equipment thoroughly, and make report to our Spheres.”

“This has the aspect of a Tarot temple,” Nath remarked.

“Tarotism has spread to Sphere Nath?” Flint asked, surprised.

“And to Sphere Bellatrix,” Nath said. “Perhaps further. I understand it originated in your Sphere.”

“Yes, about five hundred years ago, in the time of Sol’s ‘Fool’ colonization period. We almost bankrupted our origin planet, Earth, mattermitting the entire population to other worlds, as though that would solve the problems of increasing population and wastage of natural resources.” He was merely parroting part of the indoctrination he had received after making his report on his experiences in Sphere Polaris. But it was amazing to discover how fast and far this cult had spread, more than humanity’s own interstellar explosion. Would it survive mankind, as Christianity had survived the Roman Empire?

Flint continued: “One planet had a natural animation effect that a religious scholar, Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision, investigated and described. He had no intention of starting a pseudo-religious cult, but the notion of animation captured the popular fancy, and it went on from there.”

“This Sibling Solarian of the Arrangement of Hallucination must have been a redoubtable figure,” Nath said. “Tarotism has much pull in our Sphere, and we honor it without ridicule. And perhaps the Sibling is serving us well now, for animation is a function of the Kirlian aura. I suggest that we may profit most rapidly by drawing on the Ancients’ equipment from this vantage.”

“This might in fact be a communications station,” Polaris agreed. “Perhaps we can animate the presence of an actual Ancient. This would be most circular.”

“Amen,” Flint agreed. “In fact, I would even call it ‘most direct.’ But we run the risk of evoking the killer who is stalking us—if it really is that Ancient ghost.”

“At risk of antagonizing,” Spica said, “I reiterate that the killer strikes by direct physical means, and this is not within the compass of the Ancient mechanism.”

“Unless the Ancient mechanism generates a Kirlian field of sufficient power to override that of a living entity,” Mintaka flashed. “It could then temporarily preempt or transform the individual consciousness, or otherwise influence it to implement physical action, even as your own transferred identity controls your Antarean host.”

“This is most perceptive,” Polaris said. “Sphere Mintaka, so new to transfer, has been remarkably quick to appreciate its intricacies.” Flint had thought the same, and recognized this as a roundabout challenge.

“Merely ordinary intelligence that would have occurred to you in a moment,” Mintaka flashed. “However, we have long been aware of transfer, and have maintained a cadre of potential hosts, hoping for the technological breakthrough. We are a large Sphere, and normal means of maintenance are cumbersome. Thus when the envoy of Mirzam came, we were very quick to implement the information provided. Though at present we know of no involuntary hosting, if this is indeed possible, it would seem to have been within the capability of the Ancients.”

The Mintakan was very well coordinated, intellectually, Flint thought. But of course all the Spheres would have sent smart representatives, as well as Kirlians. This was a most select archaeological group, well versed in everything but archaeology.

“We become enmeshed in dialogue,” Nath clicked a bit impatiently. “We are naturally hesitant to pull on the main problem—but pull we must. I suggest that two of us explore the Ancients’ Kirlian arena while three maintain guard. Assuming that the aura is hostile, it still does not seem to strike openly. We may be able to ascertain what we wish without further loss if we act boldly and carefully.”

“I agree,” Flint said. “If the Ancient force can take over an individual life form and use it to kill, there are still certain limitations. Spica cannot readily make the kind of puncture we have noted, unless it carries a weapon we have not perceived, and I think similar attack would be difficult for Nath, and not easy for Polaris. That leaves Mintaka and me—”

“And me,” Canopus said from the translator. “I am compelled to advise you that if I should be taken over, I possess enough weaponry in my craft, including pain-generating units and explosive devices, to eliminate all of you and destroy the site. I would not voluntarily employ it, but faced with this potential, I can only recommend that you treat me as a potential enemy of most serious nature.”

Friendly advice—or a threat? “We are all potential enemies,” Mintaka pointed out. “We may be forced to destroy the Ancient site in order to escape it. But first we must understand it, or our mission is pointless.”

Flint was paying lip-service to the Ancient-malevolence theory, but he was skeptical. Why hadn’t Canopus already been taken over, if that were possible? And why should the Ancients set such a boobytrap? All he really knew of them was their star-dome, but that indicated that they had been artistic, philosophical, peaceful entities, not warriors. Spica had said the equipment could not act violently, and Flint had the impression that included taking over the mind of another entity by force. It was safer to assume that one of the creatures here was an Andromedan spy. By elimination, he had a strong notion of who that was. Except that it had an alibi.

“Pursuing my prior line of reasoning,” Flint said, “I suggest that those of us most able to kill in the fashion shown should be most suspect, and should therefore be treated with utmost caution. So Mintaka and I should enter the animation arena—if that is what it is—and try to make contact with the Ancients. The others should maintain close perception, and if only one of us emerges, that one should be immediately incapacitated, or killed if necessary.” That put it on the line. If the Mintakan balked…

“An excellent suggestion,” Mintaka flashed. And rolled toward the great central plate below the suspended cage.

So much for that ploy! Flint suddenly realized that if Mintaka were the spy, it could try to kill him in the guise of self-defense, claiming that he, Flint, had attacked it, so Flint must have been the spy. Or that one of them had been taken over by the Ancient aura. Who would be able to prove otherwise? By a similar token, if Mintaka were the spy, and attacked him, and he killed it he would be suspect as the survivor. He had fashioned a trap for himself! But he was committed now, and hurried after. Together they entered what they presumed to be the animation arena.

Nothing happened. But why should it? It was necessary to imagine something. So he thought of Honeybloom, as he had known her: voluptuous, vibrant, lovely, her green body moving in that distracting way it had.

And she formed, ghostly at first, then more firmly, as if the mind’s artist were strengthening the key lines—except that her eyes were like lenses, and they flashed laser beams. An imperfect rendition, but definitely animation. He even saw the emblem of her Tarot card, the Queen of Liquid, with a brimming cup—

“It strikes!” a voice cried in his translator.

Flint charged out of the arena. The girl-figure faded.

Polaris and Nath stood facing each other. Between them Spica lay puddled. Its suit had been holed, and though chamber pressure kept it from decompressing, the creature was obviously dead.

Flint hefted his spear. “Which of you did it?” he demanded. And realized that this approach was futile; each would accuse the other, preventing him from ascertaining the truth. Impasse, again. Unless he could bluff: “I’ll spear you both, if I have to!”

“No, friend Sol,” Polaris said. “I am innocent, and I know Nath would not do this thing.”

“And I know Polaris would not,” Nath clicked. “Our Spheres have known each other long. We trust each other.”

“And we trust you,” Polaris said. “A laser beam emerged from the swirl of the arena. Neither of us perceive specific light well, so could not ascertain its precise orientation, but there was no question.”

His vision of the flashing eye lenses! “It could not have been real!” Flint exclaimed. “An imaginary creature, a mere image, could not project a real—” Or could it? An image might clothe the shaping of existent forces. Had he inadvertently killed Spica?

Then he realized: “Mirzam was the only one who could directly identify a true Mintakan—and it was the first one killed. Antares and Spica could have detected any additional transfer activity, such as an Andromedan transfer message—and they died. Our Mintakan must be a fake.”

“No,” Polaris said. “The Mintakan is a genuine, physical representative of its species. But that species is not—” Suddenly he launched himself at Flint, his wheel screeching against the floor in the sheer velocity of takeoff.

Flint dodged aside, bringing his spear about, but he was not quick enough. Polaris struck him, bowling him over—and simultaneously there was a flash.

Flint flipped to his feet, raising his spear as the creature’s wheel spun again. “Push-hook!” Nath clicked. “Polaris protects Sol!”

About to spear Polaris, Flint realized it was true. The creature had not been attacking him, but knocking him out of the way of the laser. He shifted his weight and hurled his spear at the creature just emerging from the arena.

They had all assumed that if a creature were a genuine Milky Way resident, it would be on their side. But if a creature were brainwashed or corrupted—

His shaft bounced harmlessly off the metallic disks. Another beam shot out, creasing the fingers of his loft hand. The material of his suit melted, and his air leaked out.

Flint clenched his fist tightly, closing off the leak. In a vacuum this would have been a useless expedient, but the chamber was pressurized by helium. “Polaris! Nath!” he cried. “We know our enemy now. You investigate the Ancient equipment. Get yourselves out of laser range. I’ll tackle the spy.” And he leaped toward the Mintakan.

He had been face to face with his enemy all the time, and not known him. But now the battle had been joined.

“What is the situation?” the voice of Canopus asked.

But a laser caught Nath. The creature convulsed, its hooks firing out randomly, then lay flat. Apparently its central nervous complex had been burned out. Another down. Those beams were deadly.

And Mintaka was already rolling after Polaris, who fled across the room and through a far doorway. “I will distract, you search!” it cried to Flint.

Not much choice, now! Polaris could move faster than any human being could. Flint stepped onto the animation plate and made a wish for an Ancient. There was a swirl of mist, but no form developed.

“Mintaka is our Andromedan spy,” Flint explained while he concentrated on the animation.

“But Mintaka had an alibi.”

“So it seemed. But those lasers are devastating. I’d say he can beam any potency from conversational to killing. He must have stunned Nath before, gone and killed Antares, used some device—maybe a specialized laser—to erase his trail, and returned before Nath recovered. Nath only thought Mintaka was with him all the time; Nath had been unconscious or in a trance. This is another resourceful, unscrupulous agent, and we’re in trouble.”

“Sphere Mintaka cannot support Andromeda,” Canopus protested. “Our entire galaxy will disintegrate! It must be a renegade, not representative of the government of Sphere Mintaka.”

“A traitor to its species,” Flint agreed. “Maybe a condemned criminal, with nothing to lose, desiring vengeance. If any of us survive this, the authorities of Sphere Mintaka will have to be informed. Now let me concentrate.”

The Master was silent. Flint worked on the animation image, but it remained formless. The problem was, he had no idea what the Ancients had looked like, so could not re-create them.

But their appearance was irrelevant! He had a notion of their spirit, for they had loved the stars of their home region as he did. And it was the Ancient science he wanted—and he had a fair notion of that. It was similar to contemporary transfer science, only more advanced, and this field itself was an example. “Define yourself!” Flint whispered to that field.

“Explain, please.”

Flint jumped. But it was not an Ancient voice answering him, but H:::4, who had overheard his remark.

“I’m talking to the Kirlian field, trying to get its secret,” Flint explained.”

“Try visualizing the equations.”

“Good idea!” Flint animated the complex formulas he had memorized eidetically for spreading transfer technology. They took form in midair, the symbols of mathematical, engineering, and symbolic logic chains. He spread out the whole thing, then willed the complex calculus forward in thrust—beyond what he had in his mind.

Suddenly the equations spread. Perhaps through some kind of animation-enhanced telepathy he was drawing the answers from the Ancient equipment, reducing the field itself to its conceptual expression. Perhaps the equipment was geared to provide this sort of information. Maybe the Ancients had wanted this technology to spread! At any rate, here it was.

And Mintaka sliced into the room. Polaris was not in evidence; he had either been lost or killed. There was ichor on one of the disks: Polarian blood?

It took Mintaka only a moment to appraise what he was doing. Then the laser beam flashed.

Flint was a sitting duck. He threw himself to the floor, rolled, and flipped about to come at the disk-harrow feet first. It tried to move aside, but he caught the creature by surprise, and it was not made for sideways travel. His feet struck the disks, shoving them to the side. One of the end-tentacles wrapped around his left ankle and hauled his foot toward the nearest disk. The entire creature rolled, trying to pin his foot between the floor and the cutting edge.

If Mintaka were represented by a Tarot suit, Flint thought amidst his desperate effort, it should be Solid; otherwise known as Disks.

Flint had worked out a general plan of combat against this creature beforehand, in case of need. He had similar contingency plans for all of the group. It was the kind of thing he did automatically, as a Stone Age hunter who liked life. He jammed the reinforced heel of his right foot down between the first and second disks, forcing them apart in what had to be a painful hold. Then he grabbed the tentacle with his right hand and bent it at right angles. Like a pinched water hose it lost power, and he drew his left foot free.

But now the body twisted. From between the farthest two disks another laser flashed, similar to the communications signal, but more intense. The beam missed him—but the next one wouldn’t.

Flint realized that the creature was too tough for him. Mintaka could finish him with a laser before he could knock him out. But at least he had bought time for his allies.

His allies? Only Canopus remained, and H:::4 was not in immediate danger. Flint was fighting for his own life and information, nothing more.

Yet there was more, something highly significant. But he could not identify it in the throes of this battle.

He shoved violently with his feet, making the creature slide cross the floor. Before it could orient on him again, Flint leaped into the animation stage. And thought of himself.

Suddenly there was another Flint beside him, his duplicate. Then two more, and four more. In moments a score of Flints were running around the arena, capering like monkeys. The Mintakan’s ray speared one, but had no effect. “You can’t hurt me, nyaa, nyaa!” that image mouthed. “I’m only a Doppelgänger.”

The laser struck another image. Then a third. It seemed the spy had plenty of power, and was prepared to wipe out every image in order to nail him in the end. The law of chance dictated that this effort would succeed in time.

“Canopus!” Flint cried, and all his images mouthed it with him. Good thing the spy’s translator couldn’t orient specifically on the origin of the sound!

“Sol,” H:::4 replied. “How may I assist?”

“Use your armament. Demolish this entire site. Kill every creature in it.”

“Do not do it!” Mintaka cried in translation. “Sol is the spy. He wants to prevent us from acquiring the Ancient’s secrets.”

Time and again, Flint realized, this creature had raised seemingly valid points that had led them astray. Even the agreements had been camouflage, making it seem to be a true Mintakan in spirit as well as in body. But it had given itself away by that “Concurrence,” which Flint now recognized as an Andromedan transfer-message convention. “I commence action,” the Master said. “I am recording our dialogue, since I will be obliged to defend myself from suspicion as the sole survivor. Can you provide the key formulations?”

“Yes,” Flint said. He concentrated, and the equations appeared again, superimposed on the moving images of himself. “This is terrific! The Ancients had complete mastery of inorganic Kirlian aura: How to set up a field around energy that enables it to be transmitted any distance instantly, how to orient on any Kirlian transfer—”

“Begin with that one,” H:::4 said. “I shall ensure its arrival at all our Spheres.”

“Keep firing,” Flint said. “If this spy survives me—and if any survive, it will be the Mintakan—it will ray you down. Destroy everything, and don’t let anything you may see dissuade you. It will probably be an animation image calculated to deceive you.”

“I understand, and commend your courage,” the Master said. Already the shaking of his bombing could be felt. “I shall not fail. No living thing will emerge from this site.”

“Orientation on transfer,” Flint said. And he read off the array of symbols.

A laser struck him dead center, holing his suit. Flint moved with seeming casualness, so as not to attract attention to himself by reaching. His stomach burned ferociously, but it was not a mortal wound; either his flesh was too solid for the beam to penetrate far, or the spy was losing his power, after all that firing. There had to be some fatigue! Flint dared not even make all the images imitate his action, for then Mintaka would know the critical one had been hit. He put his left fist over the puncture and pressed it tight, inhibiting the leakage of vital gases.

It worked. The agent of Andromeda thought he was merely another image, and moved on to the next. And he continued reading off the equations without break, so that his voice would not give him away. He also made one of the images gesticulate and collapse when rayed, drawing several more beams: a decoy.

He completed the readoff for transfer orientation—so that was how the enemy had always located him before!—and started on the Kirlian-energy formulation. He could not rush this, for any mistake would make the whole effort a waste.

Meanwhile, the Canopian’s bombing progressed. The chamber shook with increasing violence. The walls and ceiling cracked. H:::4 had not been bluffing about his armament!

Now Mintaka gave up with the laser, having struck every image, and entered the arena physically. The harrow charged through the images, slicing them with the disks.

Flint kept the figures moving around, but the spy would surely catch him soon. He was already handicapped by the two holes in his suit, and was in no position to renew physical conflict. All he could do was keep dodging and reading off formulas until the end. If he made it through a couple more concepts, he would have given his galaxy the key to victory.

The ceiling split open. But instead of falling in, it blew out, as the gas dissipated into the vacuum of the surface. Then it imploded. Debris funneled down, dropping through the images. His life-air hissed out around his pressing fist.

“You’re right on target,” Flint said, interrupting his reading. “Drop one right down the hole and finish it. The Mintakan is right here.”

“But the formula is incomplete,” the Master protested.

“What, are you wavering?” Flint demanded. “We can’t let Andromeda escape with this stuff. I’ll try to get out the last—”

And Mintaka caught up with him. The devastating blades sliced into his feet, cutting off his toes. His remaining air exploded out, jetting him up momentarily; then he fell across his enemy. He made a last effort to call in H:::4’s final bomb to finish them both, but his mind suffered a short-circuit. All he could remember was the need to inform the authorities of Sphere Mintaka what had happened, to warn them—

Mintaka! he thought with all his being as he died.