True.
AFTER Darius killed the monster in properly heroic fashion, according to the news release, she called him. “Oh, Darius,” she pleaded in distraught maidenly fashion, “please give Ddwng the Chip! It’s the only way we can be together!”
He seemed taken aback, as well he might be. But she was serious. She did want him to agree. “It’ll be all right! Honest it will! Please, Darius!” She even managed to put a quaver of earnestness into her voice, which would have been excellent acting except that it was real. She was absolutely sincere in this, and she wanted this entire reality to know it. Darius had to make the pledge!
He promised to consider. Evidently he did, because soon he did call Ddwng and agree to guide him to the Chip, with certain manly honorable reservations. It was done.
Colene was the dishonorable one. She dreaded to think of the reckoning she would have with Darius when she did what she hoped to do. But it was better than the choice between lobotomy and loosing the DoOon on the realities. Sometimes deceit was the only way.
DDWNG took her to a far planet elsewhere in the galaxy. She had given up trying to wrestle with the concept of faster-than-light travel; it was contrary to the physics of her reality, but evidently just fine here. The same went for instant communication across the galaxy, antigravity, and all the rest. Super-science, another name for fantasy, in her home town.
They would attend an elegant ball in their honor at the chief city of Planet Kyvrn. Mare got Colene garbed for it in a rehearsal, and Horse drilled her on spot protocol. She was the Emperor’s newest and youngest consort, and as such the object of much interest. She would be rather quiet in the Emperor’s presence, and rather haughty when alone, for her status on this planet was second only to his. She would dance with him once, and thereafter with any man she chose. Stallion went through the steps with her, making sure she would not misstep.
“But what’s my mission here?” she asked.
“This is a rebellious planet,” Horse explained. “You will need to restore it to harmony with the Empire.”
Colene was aghast. “A rebel world? And Ddwng is setting foot on it? And I’m supposed to tame it? Why doesn’t he just stick his head in a running meat-grinder while he’s at it, and I’ll just pick up a section of the galaxy and shake some stars loose!”
All three Equines laughed. They had learned early that she made jokes, and accommodated themselves to it. She liked them very well. They were nominally subhuman, but actually they were intelligent enough, with Horse perhaps being smarter than she, and they were perfectly comfortable to be around. She wished there were some way to have such companions with her always, without the degradation of such permanent servitude. She had always liked horses, but would have thought that horse-headed human beings would be disgusting. That was not the case at all; they seemed quite natural now.
“This is not that kind of rebellion,” Horse said. “This is a retirement colony. Most of the residents are former Empire officials. Here they are out of power, with no requirements, and discover that they are restive. They would never actually rebel, but their discomfort would be an embarrassment were it known, as this is supposedly an ideal world. It will be your task, in the course of the next three days, to make them comfortable with their situation.”
“It’s still preposterous!” she exclaimed. “Does Ddwng expect me to perform magic? I don’t know anything about this, and if I did, what could I do? And if I could do anything—three days? I mean, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and—”
“Rome?”
“Famous ancient city in my reality. Forget it. The point is, this is like—like—impossible!”
“Evidently the Emperor has much confidence in you,” Horse said dryly, twitching his furry ears.
Colene only wished that Seqiro were here. He might have been able to read the minds of the people, and get a notion how to satisfy them. But he was thousands of light-years away, reverted to his dumb animal stage, awaiting her return. She was on her own, and she didn’t like it one bit.
Or was she? If telepathy existed, and faster-than-light travel existed, and Provos could remember the future here, showing that it was her talent, not restricted to her reality—why couldn’t telepathy and FTL merge, and enable her to commune with her friend regardless? Where was it written that the powers of one reality were nullified in another? Maybe some were and some weren’t. Maybe Darius couldn’t do magic here, but Seqiro could project his thoughts instantly across interstellar reaches. She had a receptive mind for him, for sure! If anybody could receive him here, she was the one!
She lay down, theoretically resting the hour before the ball, and closed her eyes. But she didn’t relax, and she didn’t care what the monitors thought; they could assume that she was all twisted up by the enormity of her mission. She opened her mind to her true friend.
Seqiro! Seqiro! Do you read me?
At first there was nothing. Then there was the faintest response. She focused on that, willing it to become stronger. It had to be him! Seqiro! Read me! I need you!
Faintly, faintly, she felt his mind.
I have to find a way to make these folk feel better about being retired and useless. You must read their minds for me, if you can, to get a glimpse of what will do it. That’s my only chance not to blow this mission out of space!
The faint reassurance came. He would do what he could.
IT was a pretty planet. The terraforming had evidently made it into one big garden, with neatly laid-out cities set up like parkland, so that the houses hardly showed through the trees. Small lakes were everywhere, set between hills, with paths between them. There seemed to be no motorized vehicles; if there was mass traffic, it was out of sight. This was the sort of place she would like to retire to with Darius, if that ever came.
Of course that was just the image in the screen. She was sure there were slums and garbage and all the rest of the seamy side of civilization. She knew how it was; she remembered Panama. But the illusion was nice, even so.
Then it was time to get ready. All three Equines pitched in, without regard for modesty; Stallion was drawing something like support stockings up her legs while Horse was fitting her invisible bra for proper uplift and Mare was doing her hair. It was all right; there were no secrets from a person’s nulls. In a surprisingly short time they transformed her from ordinary messed-up teenager to a vision of unbelievable loveliness. Each time they garbed her, they seemed to exceed prior records for success. Then Stallion took her to the matterport and via it to landfall.
She went in a daze through the halls of the receiving complex, feeling the slightly diminished gravity and breathing the slightly strange air. This was a foreign planet, all right; her body knew it. Ddwng was waiting for her at the entrance, resplendent in his own uniform robe of the day. He was actually rather handsome in his brute fashion. She pictured his Swine doing him as the Equines had done her: support stockings, transparent bra, and hair. She had to bite her tongue lest she let slip an indiscreet titter.
The ball was every bit as opulent as Colene had feared. In her wildest dreams of the distant past—circa one month ago—she had pictured occasions at which she would be the cynosure of all, impressing the ladies with her courtly presence and the men with her sex appeal. Now it had come true, and it wasn’t nearly as delightful as her fancy.
The problem was that she had to watch her manners. She couldn’t pick her nose or scratch her bottom or say an uncouth word. Maybe full-grown ladies never even thought of doing such things, but she was fourteen, which was sort of on the verge. There were a number of pleasures of childhood that she wasn’t sure she wanted to give up just yet, like computer games, and multi-decker ice cream cones with nuts and fudge on top, and putting whoopee cushions under the padding of seats in houses of worship. Every time she remembered that joke about the man breaking wind in church and having to sit in his own pew, she broke up. In short, she just wasn’t quite ready for ladyhood.