Llume placed her ball against Melody’s human throat. It vibrated gently. “This cannot be heard beyond your flesh,” the Polarian/Spican said, the words sounding like a voice in the brain. “If you will subvocalize, it will be private, unless there is a spy-beam on us. I do not think that is the case.”
“Thank you,” Melody said, speaking almost as silently as she did to Yael. She was now aware of Llume’s aura, a really strong one of about one hundred, very attractive. “How did you identify my native Sphere?”
“Alien cultures are my avocation. There are typical nuances of expression and viewpoint. Yours conform to the pattern of Mintaka. But you conceal it very well. No one not trained as I have been would recognize this, and in some moments your reactions are so perfectly human that I marvel.”
Those moments would be when Yael’s reactions came through. This was a most observant Spican! “That’s a relief. You read my mannerisms, just as I read your lack of circularity.” Melody brought out the Hermit card from her deck, the same face Tiala had seen. “What do you see here?”
Llume ran her ball over the card’s surface. Polarians lacked sharply focused vision, as did Mintakans. The designs of these cards were in trace relief, however, so they could be read by tactile means. The Polarian ball was a very sensitive communication organ. “This is a stylized Undulant swimming toward a star. I believe it is myself.” The sperm celclass="underline" it was in fact a tiny swimming creature, in its element! That was what would naturally strike the attention of a true Spican first. “Strange,” Melody said. “I see communication.”
They were in physical contact; Melody was aware of the fluctuations in the other entity’s aura. There was no significant deviation in response to this loaded remark.
“I suppose a star can be considered so,” Llume offered. “It bears light that all may see.”
“I mean the beams.”
“The beams?” Still no ripple. Llume was genuinely perplexed. “Do they form a significant pattern?”
One more test. “It occurs to me that we may be related,” Melody said. “Do you have any alien ancestors?”
“Yes. I have two. A thousand years ago, Flint of Outworld, a Solarian transferee to our home planet, raped a / agent of Andromeda. He had manifested as an Impact, she as an Undulant, and together with Sissix the Sibilant as catalyst they generated the infant Liana the Undulant. I descend from her. We are most interested in genealogy in Spican waters.”
“We also, in Mintakan fields,” Melody said. “I descend from the same two aliens—manifesting as Mintakans. But my loyalty is to Sphere Mintaka.”
“And mine to Sphere Spica—and Galaxy Milky Way,” Llume said.
“Our auras are of the same family,” Melody said. “Very close, the closest affinity I have ever encountered. We are as sisters.”
“Yes. Our aural linkage is much more intimate than our physical ancestry, though it is amazing that we are related.”
Melody chuckled. “Illusion. In the thousand Sol years since Flint of Outworld thrust his favors so widely, there has been ample opportunity for every member of each of our Spheres to become related through him. A brief calculation will show that if we allow twenty-five years for an average generation, there would be forty generations in that period. If each female or equivalent produced two offspring, the descendants would now number approximately one trillion entities. Since the average Sphere supports about a hundred billion sapients—”
Now Llume laughed—an intriguing effect, in its silent vibration. “And I supposed I was so special, possessing those illustrious historical ancestors! The remarkable ones are those who do not share this ancestry!”
“On the other hand, the nongenetic affinity of aura is quite significant,” Melody said. “I have encountered no Mintaken aura as intense as yours, so closely allied to my own.”
“Perhaps we are guided in some fashion,” Llume said. “I do not subscribe readily to coincidence.”
“Coincidence would have it that at certain stages like entities will meet, as well as unlike entities,” Melody said. “This ship represents a deliberate concentration of extremely intense auras, and some will naturally be related.”
“For one who subscribes to Tarot, you are very practical,” Llume observed delicately.
“Tarot is practical,” Melody assured her.
“Apologies; no disparagement of religious views intended.”
Another miscue, but not worth correcting. “Accepted. I believe I can accept you as a genuine Milky Way galaxy entity.”
“Of course! And I accept you. Why—”
“There are hostages among us.”
“Hostages?”
“Involuntary hosts, controlled by Andromedan auras. I am here to nullify them.”
Now Llume’s aura veered wildly. “Andromedans! Aboard this ship?”
“Yes. Tiala of Oceana is one; it has been verified. She is a / entity of Andromeda. There may be others. I suspect that is the source of this present commotion. Will you work with me?”
“I must ask the Captain first,” Llume said uncertainly. “I never guessed—hostages!”
“By all means ask the Captain. But not over the ship’s phone system.”
Llume laughed again at Melody’s throat. “Of course not! I am not quite that ignorant.” She looked down the hall at the magnet. Melody could tell she was looking by her attitude; her skin changed color and brightness slightly. Large objects were visible to Polarians, and of course this Spican intellect had Polarian-host talents. “But assuming the Captain approved, how could I help? I don’t know how to identify a hostage.”
“I would like to tell some fortunes,” Melody said.
Again the aura flexed. “I do not comprehend Mintakan humor.”
“Of course not. No Spican would. Or Solarian. Or Polarian or Canopian or Nathian. But especially, no Andromedan.”
“No Andromedan,” Llume said, catching on. “You can identify an Andromedan through the Tarot?”
“I believe so. With your cooperation. If you can tell a transferee by his home-Sphere mannerisms, you should have a good notion who our suspects are. If you can bring them to me without suspicion—”
“Now I understand! This is how you verified that Tiala was a hostage?”
“She was already known to be a hostage. I used the Tarot merely to distract her, but found it to be a better tool than I had imagined. As long as I’m confined to this ship, this is a worthwhile application of my skill.” For Melody now doubted she would get off this ship as rapidly as had been promised. Not if it was infiltrated by a number of hostages.
“I agree. If there are many more hostages aboard, we must neutralize them promptly.”
“No. We must identify them—without their knowing it. Otherwise we place ourselves in peril.”
“But if we let them go—”
“An enemy known is an enemy neutralized—when the appropriate time comes.”
“Yes, you make sense. Probably that detonation in the hold was the work of a hostage.”
Melody wondered about that. No one on the ship besides herself and Captain Boyd had known her mission. How could a hostage have struck so rapidly and accurately?
“Captain to Llume,” the shipvoice said, startling Melody out of her reverie.
Llume’s tail went up to answer. “Awaiting.”
“All magnets have been advised not to molest our guest, Yael of Dragon. Pass without hindrance.”
“Understood. Captain, may I—”
But the connection had already been broken.
Llume made an elegant boneless shrug. “I was about to inquire whether I could courier you for the duration; I could not have been more specific at this time. Yet he did not say negative.”