Beside her, Dash had to be as bemused as she. Never in all known history of the two galaxies had such a thing been discovered. This planet had numerous Ancient sites, but they were broken-down relics, with few real artifacts. This—this was Aposiopesis Revealed!
This was surely the home base of the Ancient culture. It would take a planetary task force of specialists many years to explore the secrets of this amazing metropolis. Whoever came to comprehend it would control the universe!
Melody felt a chill. Who could investigate this—except Sphere Dash? She could not; she could hardly hold on to this female host.
Better that they both perish here, never emerging! They had not moved from their platform. Where would they go? There was so much here that they could get lost if they attempted to wander. There had to be some point of reference, some way to orient.
Suddenly from the distance came a machine. At first it seemed formless, but then she saw a large screen on it, like a spaceship viewer. Of course: a communication device!
Dash was paying close attention, she knew. The screen—actually a viewglobe—stopped a short distance away. Then an image appeared on it, shifting and chaotic. First it resembled a £, then a Dash. Disorganized sounds were manifested, and there was a peculiar medley of odors. A Solarian biped wavered and faded.
Suddenly Melody caught on. She concentrated—and the figure firmed into the Queen of Energy card of the Cluster Tarot. The lovely bare-mammaried Solarian female, chained to the rock by the restless sea, her hair blowing out in the ocean wind.
Dash’s body quivered. He saw it too! The chained lady resembled Yael of Dragon, whom he surely recognized.
This was an animation globe, similar to those used by the Temples of Tarot, whose images were defined by the imaginations of the viewers. Flint of Outworld had encountered such a device in the Hyades site, and used it to evoke the formulas that brought parity to the inter-galactic scene. Too bad that site had been destroyed; later expeditions had never been able to make sense of the rubble. But this time, this time…
Dash was already at work on it. A disciplined series of pictures appeared on the screen: Sphere Dash entities. No—these were merely his animations of the Ancients. Not knowing their actual nature, he rendered them in his own image. But the message was what counted. He was trying to fathom the ultimate secret of these mysterious people, and thus gain some hint of their technology. Otherwise he would not even know what questions to ask, just as a creature of a civilization of three Thousand years ago would not have known how to ask for Transfer. Had such knowledge been offered. As of course it had been, via these same sites.
Melody watched. It gave her time to wrestle with her own problems of host-rejection and Galaxy-salvation. Maybe there would be some key here.
Dash did an excellent job of zeroing in on the later stages of Ancient history. The network was extremely complex, because the Ancients had spanned the entire cluster—some twenty assorted galaxies and fragments. It had been the most extensive Empire ever known, with no Spherical regression. How had they managed that?
Expertly, Dash located the key lines. Slowly the mechanisms of the Ancient disappearance emerged. There had been no invasion from any other galactic cluster; the Ancients were supreme. No devastating pandemic, no holocaustic war, no precipitous decline in the reproduction rate. They simply… resigned. They shut down their myriad bases carefully, returned to their home, and… faded out. Trillions of sapients disappeared from the universe.
Why?
Dash swiveled his eye to meet her gaze. On this they were united: The rationale of the Ancients remained as confusing as ever.
He returned to the animation, questing for the reason, not the fact. This time he centered on it faster.
And as the rationale came clear, Dash and Melody stared and listened and experienced with mounting incredulity and horror.
Suddenly the animation cut off. Melody wasn’t certain which one of them had terminated it; it could have been either. Far better never to have known this terrible Ancient secret! Aposiopesis indeed!
Melody blanked it from her mind. She had no intention of letting her own culture die, no matter what the alien psychology of the Ancients had been. Through Ancient science she could certainly redeem her galaxy.
The problem was how to get what she needed without giving it first to Sphere Dash. No doubt she could learn from this globe how to build invincible spaceships that would conquer a galaxy, jumping from Sphere to Sphere by inanimate aural transfer—but Sphere Dash would build them first. She could discover how to mattermit whole planets across millions of light years, using minimal power—but Sphere Dash would do it first.
What possible secret could she learn that would save her galaxy—without being subject to prior nullification by the enemy?
She tried to concentrate. But the progression of pregnancy in her host was affecting her. She had mated; she was turning male. Her whole aura was reacting with the knowledge, suffering hostile incompatibility. It was a peculiar, awkward sensation; soon she would simply have to leave, no matter what.
If only she could arrange to put Dash in a similar situation, to force him to vacate any hostage he took. If it were only possible to make hostaging itself impossible, so that only voluntary hosting could occur. The Andromedan effort would collapse, and Milky Way would be forever secure.
More than that: She would have to do it retroactively, so that the damage already done could be undone. For Galaxy Milky Way had already fallen.
Then it came to her. There was one secret Dash could not counter even if he shared it.
This site was not merely informational. It was the key. Flint of Outworld had discovered that the Hyades site was one big transfer unit, controlled by thought. This £ site had to be another.
In moments Dash would catch on, for he was not stupid, and he was almost as fiercely motivated as she was. She had to act now.
“Oh Aposiopesis, God of the days of the Ancients,” she thought, couching it as a prayer because that was what, in essence, it was. The intensity of her need made it so. “Modify your transfer mechanism. Make every hostage entity dominate the invading aura—wherever transfer is used.” Her internal verbalizations were crude; the essence was her will. “Let the host-aura dominate, regardless.”
But Dash had now understood the situation. He emanated a blast of negation that fuzzed the image in the globe; Melody’s thought could not get through.
She fought him with her fading aura. Already it was down to his level; her own hostile discordance was phasing her out. She was 175 and declining; soon he would be stronger. Stop the hostaging! she willed.
The picture changed back and forth. Light and dark thrust against each other, symbolic of her aura and his, evenly matched, neither prevailing. But slowly, inevitably, the darkness gained, absorbing more of the globe.
Desperate, Melody cast about for some device, some insight that would help her. Her galaxy depended on her success! But the picture kept darkening. She hit him with aural :: blows, but he absorbed them; she set a oo trap, but he avoided it. He was thoroughly experienced in aural combat, and she could not overcome him.
Better to destroy the whole site than to give him this victory. That was what Flint had done.