He drew from her. “Oh!” Nona gasped, appalled, seeming to wilt. He turned her loose, and she leaned against a tree, reeling.
Then he sent out the joy. Colene felt it, suddenly being much improved. And Nona felt it too, recovering. But she looked shaken.
“So what’s the verdict?” Colene demanded. “How is she?”
“I feel the same,” Nona said. “But that—that was an awful experience. My very being—”
Colene bore on Darius. “Tell me.”
“It is too soon to be sure,” he said, seeming surprised.
“Not with Seqiro, it isn’t. Horseface, is her joy depleted?”
No.
“So she can take it without losing joy,” Colene said. “She’s a cornucopia, always full.”
Darius stared at Nona. “This is my impression. You have some magic of this type.”
“So you could marry her for love, and not deplete her,” Colene said victoriously. But she tasted the ashes.
Nona’s eyes widened. “I never thought—but perhaps—”
Darius nodded. “It could be done.”
And Colene knew that she had lost again. Because Nona could win Darius’ love without even trying. The Wedding Scene was feasible. Once they sorted it through and realized how much sense it made. Colene, lacking both magic and joy, could not cut it. She was doomed.
Then Colene was screaming again—and again found herself riding on Burgess, holding the contact points. It had been yet another bad dream, more plausible than the others.
This time it was Seqiro who checked on her. Your mind goes opaque when the mind predator gains control. What was the vision this time?
“I dreamed that Darius tested Nona, and she had enough joy. You know, she wasn’t depleted, even a little. You verified that, by checking her emotion before and after. So she could marry Darius, and be his ideal wife, because of the joy and because she’s beautiful and nice and obliging and magical and all. I mean, why should he want a twisted underage thing like me, a vessel of hurt and depression, when he can have a wonderful creature like her?”
But he does not wish to marry her, and she does not wish to marry him.
Colene laughed bitterly. “Darius would love to have an affair with her, because she’s got the universe’s most ideal body and she’s a good person. But she wouldn’t just do that without marriage. So he would do the honorable thing, and marry her.”
Yes, he would. But not if she did not wish it, and she does not. She likes him as a figure of competence and adventure. She does not wish to settle into marriage with him any more than with a man of the Julia Mode.
Colene knew that was true. Nona really had no designs on anyone. She just wanted to explore the Virtual Mode forever. But she was such a luscious thing that men were simply not going to leave her alone. And the closest man was Darius. Sooner or later the fox was going to notice the goose. This was the nature of things.
True. Propinquity causes interest in members of your species. He will become increasingly interested in her, and that will bring her return interest. The passage of time makes this inevitable.
“And it will happen before I get old enough,” Colene said. “Even if I could be old enough right now, I couldn’t compete with her. My only hope is to get us to Darius’ Mode right away, with no delay. But we have to stop at Julia, because of this damned mind predator, and that delay’s going to be fatal.”
Yes, that seems to be the case.
“Oh, Seqiro, let’s you and I just gallop off somewhere and be free!” she cried, knowing her wish was vain. “You don’t care if I’m a vessel of dolor.”
I don’t know where we would go.
“Just anywhere! Anywhere far away from here! Maybe we can outrun the mind predator.”
We can try. Get on my back.
She climbed off Burgess and climbed onto Seqiro’s back, using the harness to get up there, because his back was well above the top of her head. Then he started to move, cutting away to the side, across a Mode boundary, and farther to the side. He broke into a trot, and then a canter, and finally a full gallop. Soon they were lost in a jungle, where the ground was almost clear under hugely spreading trees. No one could find them here!
“This is great, Seqiro!” Colene exclaimed. “Do you like it as well as I do?”
There was no answer. The horse slowed to a walk, picking his way between the trees.
“Hey, what’s up, horseface? Why don’t you answer me?”
He just kept on walking.
Colene felt a small thrill of concern. Was something wrong? She reached for his mind with hers, using her own telepathy—and found nothing.
Alarmed, she put her whole mental force into it. Seqiro! But still there was no response.
She climbed down and jumped off. Seqiro stopped walking. She went to the horse’s head, putting her hands on his nose to compel his attention. Seqiro—where is your mind?
The horse merely stood there. There was no response from his mind. Indeed, all her mind found was dull equine thoughts of vague hunger and awareness of her hands. He was waiting for her to give her next command.
Seqiro had become an ordinary horse. His telepathy was gone, and with it his seemingly human intelligence. The major companion of her life on the Virtual Mode had become a mere animal.
“Oh, Seqiro!” she said, the tears coming. “I never meant for this to happen!” Now she realized that she had been concerned about the wrong thing. Darius would not betray her. But if Seqiro had lost his telepathy, so that he could no longer draw on her human intelligence and became equivalently smart himself, her life on the Virtual Mode would become chaos. Seqiro linked them all, forging them into a perfect group, or hive. She had become so accustomed to that mental linkage that now, without it, she felt horribly naked and inadequate. Which was an exact description of her condition.
“Without you, I don’t want to live!” she cried. “Your mind sustains me. You were never just a horse. I can’t stand to have you this way.”
Seqiro lowered his head and began to graze.
Colene wept.
She found herself riding on Burgess. This time she hadn’t screamed, but it had been another bad dream. The implacable siege of the mind predator remained, still inching up on her consciousness.
“And what if I think about you, Burgess?” she asked. “Will you, too, turn bad?”
Burgess’ intrunk came up. It started sucking air. It grew larger, and more air flowed in. Then it oriented on her head. Suddenly the suction became overwhelming. She was ripped from her hold and drawn into the internal void.
Yes, this was her Burgess nightmare. Only this time she knew it for what it was. So she flowed with it, letting it happen. That made it easier.
In a moment she was shot out through the outtrunk. She flew through the air in an arc. Then she saw the ground coming. It was time to get out of this dream, before she made a bruising landing. But she couldn’t.
She crashed into the ground headfirst. Her neck broke, and her skull cracked open. Red blood and gray matter got scrambled with brown dirt and green grass. She was dead, of course, and not prettily. Well, that was one way to end her travail.
The others hurried across. “Colene!” Nona cried. “Are you all right?”
Here she was, with her brains stirred into the ground, and the idiot asked that?
“She’s unconscious,” Darius said. He got down and wedged his arms under her body, picking her up. Chunks of brainy dirt fell out of her skull and plopped on the ground.