The magnet’s field flexed momentarily. He understood. Like Yael back on her farm, he had been balked by appearance as much as by fact. And he had lacked the ingenuity to devise an alternative.
But Melody wondered how intelligent the magnet was. Slammer understood every word she said, and since it was a nonlinguistic creature, that suggested a very adaptable intellect. Limited by silence and by dependency on metal, the magnets seemed like animals; but granted the resources of the sapient creatures of the galaxy, why wouldn’t they be comparable?
Yes, they could be smart enough. If a magnet slammed through the wooden barrier, his act would soon be known. So it would not do any such breaking without excellent reason. And how could anyone be sure the magnets were not linguistic? They could have their own magnetic language that no human had bothered to learn. Also, it would be the least intelligent magnets who would be lured into spaceship duty; the smart ones would stay clear. Unless they chose to come, and play dumb, until they knew enough to build and operate their own spaceships.
All speculation, probably without foundation. But she would keep working on it. She had to understand the magnets if she wanted to win them over.
They came to a second detour in the wooden hall. This one incorporated dips and rises in the floor, so that a magnet trying to roll through would be trapped. Melody’s arms were hurting now, and she staggered along; she would have to exercise more to build up the human tissues. “Next time, I’ll roll you!” she gasped. The magnet could not roll himself up a slope, but she could push him.
Then the metal hall resumed, to her relief. As they came into it, Slammer’s weight abated. Finally she loosened her grip, and he floated free. “We made it!” Yael exclaimed, as if it had been a great adventure. “But, oh, my arms!”
Now Slammer led the way with impetuous haste. He moved up a ramp, then up another. The passage branched, but the magnet seemed to know exactly where he was going. Melody had to run to keep up.
Abruptly Slammer stopped. Melody drew up, her chest heaving in a fashion she knew would have been an impregnation hazard in the presence of a male Solarian, and looked about.
They were in a storage chamber. Cartons of supplies marked in code were stacked in tall columns. They appeared to contain military hardware. This was deep within the ship, several levels above their starting point. The gravity had diminished slightly as they moved nearer the center. This made it good for storage, as the boxes could be stacked higher with less danger of breakage, were easier to move, and could be delivered to other parts of the ship readily by chute. So this was a well-protected spot, suitable for bombs, laser guns, and such. And isolated from magnets.
Now Slammer hovered nervously. When placid, he was unmoving; here he was doing little spins about a tight axis. What was bothering him? Surely he couldn’t be afraid!
Then another magnet appeared. “Oh-oh,” Yael said, suddenly worried. “If magnets can’t get in here, how come—?”
Melody wondered the same. “Slammer, are we in danger?”
But Slammer had already shot out to meet the strange magnet. The two banged together resoundingly, flew apart, and clanged together again. The sonics were deafening.
Melody covered her ears. Not since leaving Sphere Mintaka had she experienced clangor of this magnitude! But it hurt the less-sophisticated human auditory apparatus.
“They’re fighting!” Yael cried. “We’d better get out of here!”
At first Melody was inclined to agree. But several things nagged at her. If Slammer were protecting its human companion, it would not be politic to desert him. And if no magnet could cross the wooden barrier, what was the other magnet doing here? Slammer had evidently known where he was going, and expected to be met like this. But why would he go to all this trouble for a fight? What was so precious that he had to search it out and fight for it? “That other magnet did not attack us,” Melody pointed out. “It’s smaller, and not brightly painted. Not a warrior-type, I think. This is a magnet-magnet affair; we’re probably safe.” She was hardly sure of that, but she also doubted her human body could get away fast enough to escape an aggressive magnet. “And I want to see exactly what they’re fighting about. It might be important.”
“And you say you don’t like adventure!” Yael said admiringly. “You’ve got nerves of steel!”
“All Mintakans do. Oh—you meant that figuratively! No, I’m extremely uncomfortable. But I honestly don’t think we’re in immediate danger. Slammer can protect us, and it would not have gone to this trouble to lead us into danger.”
So she poked around while the noise of the clashing magnets became even more intense. The ship must be sound-conditioned, otherwise the commotion would already have attracted attention, even from sleeping off-shift officers. The two globes were striking each other faster now, and with unerring accuracy, though they moved so swiftly they were only blurs. What a battle!
Suddenly Melody froze. She had peeked into an alcove in which some electronic equipment had been set up.
It was the retransfer unit, supposedly destroyed in the shuttle sabotage blast. She had been instructed in its use, back on Planet Outworld, because of the importance of her mission. There was no question about its identity; there was only one such unit in the fleet.
Captain Boyd had to have known the unit was safe. Why had he deceived her? Had he also salvaged the mattermitter?
Abruptly the noise stopped. Melody looked around nervously. Had one of the magnets destroyed the other?
Slammer shot into view. His, colors were dulled, but he seemed to be in reasonable health. “So you outbanged your opponent,” Melody said. “Congratulations. What next?”
The magnet dodged toward the hall through which they had come.
“Time to go home, it seems,” Melody remarked. “Didn’t seem like much of a relaxation for you, though.”
They returned through the passages, Melody verifying her memory of the route. Now she had a special reason to know the way! The other magnet must have been assigned to guard the retransfer unit—it was certainly valuable enough to warrant that!—and somehow Slammer had known. And had shown her.
Why? Why should the magnet care? It didn’t quite make sense. A Solarian or Mintakan might have done it because of her interest, in appreciation for what she had done in the hullside fiasco, but the magnets had evinced no signs of such sentiments.
Could Slammer have acted on the Captain’s orders? But Dash could have told her directly. Why go through the charade of deceiving her?
Melody shook her head as they arrived back at her cabin. It was tempting to draw easy conclusions, but she was too old and experienced to do that. She lacked sufficient information.
But it certainly made for marvelous speculations!
Melody reassembled the manual Cluster Tarot deck thoughtfully. She did not use the elegant cubic deck Dash had given her; that was too precious to share with strangers, and there was always the risk of breaking the delicate mechanism. Suppose some dolt dropped it on the deck while shake-shuffling?
But the manual deck sufficed. She had just identified yet another hostage. That brought the total to nine—of nine tested.