They emerged into an open walkway. Here there were many similar creatures, varying in colors, size, and tonal quality, and a few Mintakan animals. The sapients kept their music sedate, exuding noncommittal harmonies, but the animals made constant sounds of low-grade meaning, akin to the barking of Earth dogs. There were plants spaced decoratively that were shaped like musical instruments but these could not make music.
His nurse-guide brought him to a vehicle. It had a low sill so that it was convenient for their little feet, and high sides to support their upper frames comfortably. It extruded myriad fine wires beneath and brushed along its channel. It was somewhat like a boat and somewhat like a car and somewhat like a magic rug. Flint explored his host-knowledge and ascertained that the wires vibrated under the guidance of special frequencies. As they moved in their almost imperceptible patterns, the vehicle was impelled forward. It was a sophisticated yet basically simple mode of transportation that reflected both the level and the type of civilization here. This was another Sphere in advance of Sol—as it had to be, to maintain so huge a volume of influence.
Soon they left the city. The large structures of the central metropolis shaped to reduce untoward acoustical vibrations gave way to simpler residential dwellings. Their shapes were quite different, being oriented on acoustic principles, but they resembled in their fashion the individual family houses on Earth, or lean-tos on Outworld. The plants became larger: tree-lyres, thicket-drums, flute-vines. Though they were not musical singly, they became so in concert; they did not make music but they became music.
At length the brushcar entered a region of massed bubbles. The two of them stepped out and approached one, their feet evoking melodic echoes. Flint tried to break his pattern of walking experimentally, to disrupt the adumbration, the foreshadowing of his own sounds by prior echoes, and found he could not comfortably do so. Music was ingrained; to be unmusical was anathema, fundamentally uncomfortable.
The nurse played a special tune Flint could not quite hear, and the portal opened. They entered, and the door fastened firmly behind them.
It was a well-appointed private apartment. There was a basket of wormlike wires Flint recognized through his host-memory as a Mintakan food delicacy, a vapor spray for thirst, an assortment of powders for detuned anatomy, and a disposal tube for wastes.
“I expected to meet your officials,” Flint played with undertones of mild confusion. “What is this place?”
“A mating chamber,” she hummed sweetly. Now that he had to explore the concept, he realized that Mintakans, like Antareans, were sexless. He thought of his companion as female because she had the aspect of a nurse, and he regarded that as a female occupation. He had encountered several nurses in the course of his initial Earth training. They were generally pretty, and remarkably agile when eluding the male grasp.
“I did not come to this Sphere to mate,” he jangled, though he remembered the confusion caused by the Polarian mode of debt settlement. “However, if it is part of your necessary preliminaries to Spherical business—” How the hell did sexless creatures mate? His host-memory, typically, had that information hopelessly buried in suppressions.
“It is for the sake of complete privacy,” she explained. “No one will disturb us here for any reason. No sound will escape. Therefore we can proceed to our business.”
“But I have no business with you!” The something connected in his melodic mind. “Unless—”
“Concurrence,” she played with an ironic trill.
He was in the presence of Andromeda, the Queen of Energy. She had been with him when the Ancient site collapsed; she had transferred with him. It was obvious, yet it hadn’t occurred to him. He moved near enough to perceive the fringe of her Kirlian aura: yes, it was true.
“You still possess dangerous information,” she played. “Therefore I must finish my task.”
“How did you get away from Spica?”
“When I was emotionally able to part with my offspring, I arranged to have another Andromedan female, of low aura, exchange with me. Her aura faded into the host-identity almost immediately, but the child was not aware of the change, so I was free. This was a complex procedure, details of which I need not go into. You succeeded in isolating me for some time, and I compliment you on your cleverness. You will note a certain musical justice in this present reversal.”
“Trapped in a mating chamber,” Flint played. “Yes, I appreciate the irony, and compliment you in turn on its neatness of concept and execution. Perhaps I can escape it as neatly.”
“Perhaps,” she played with a drumbeat of smugly challenging doubt.
She must be pretty sure her trap is tight, he realized. “You knew what we would find at the Ancient site,” Flint played with harmonies of accusation. This melodic mood-conveyance was extremely convenient!
“Of course. We excavated an Ancient site in Andromeda three centuries ago, though it was not as good as yours.”
“The Ancients colonized Galaxy Andromeda too?” Flint was amazed at this confirmation. He had supposed, comfortably, that the Ancients had been a local phenomenon—local within a few thousand light-years of Sol, at any rate.
“They colonized the entire galactic cluster. Everywhere we go, they have been there first. They were a remarkable civilization.”
“You’ve been to other galaxies?” Flint realized she was only playing freely because she expected to kill him here; but this was most interesting information.
“Via transfer, of course. Looking for new sources of energy. But there are none, only the strong atomic interaction of matter, whose exploitation destroys that matter. So we had to concentrate on taking what was most convenient, with the greatest margin of safety.”
“And destroy our galaxy!” Flint sang with a triple harmony and discordance of outrage.
“It was a hard decision, but it had to be made. There have always had to be sacrifices for higher civilization. Would it be better to have two fragmented, semicivilized galaxies—or one fully civilized one? We judged that, considered in terms of the universe, consolidation warranted the sacrifice. Our coalition of Spheres could not embrace all of Andromeda unless we had virtually unlimited energy to abate the Spherical regression effect. With that energy we could achieve unity rivaling that of the Ancients. Higher civilization was at stake. You Would have done the same, in our circumstance.”
“I would not have done the same!” Flint played back strongly.
“Yet you called down explosive bombing on your own head and destroyed the most valuable reservoir of science in your galaxy.”
“That was to protect my galaxy!”
“What I do is to protect civilization,” she played softly. She had a note, he had to admit. Solarians had practiced destruction and genocide to further their interests—in the name of civilization!—as long as they had had the ability. He remembered how his tribe had killed the dinosaur Old Snort, taking the magnificent creature’s life merely to provide bodily energy in the form of food. How did that differ, except in scale, from what Andromeda was doing? No, his kind was not morally superior, and there was something to be said for spreading civilization. There were many species and many Spheres, but there had been only one achievement like that of the Ancients. To realize that potential again—maybe it was worth the price of a galaxy.