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  "The Hermit and the Queen of Energy," Flint played musingly. "Neither able to prevail or to trust the other, playing at potential love. What would the cards say?"

  Yet her sentiments paralleled his, keyed by the music that acted as virtual telepathy. "Even though he raped her as Merope, and cost her much pride and much time, she recognized in him a force and intelligence that matched her own. Her culture forbade it, but he was her ideal mate, and the call of the aura had to find expression. Then she became revolted at her own suppressed passion, and knew she had to kill him, though it was really that element within herself she hated. So she summoned the scorpion—or perhaps forced him to summon it—but she really died with him."

  "You flatter my intellect without believing in it," Flint played harshly, denying his own urgings. "You are trying to seduce me, not kill me. You want the secret of involuntary transfer-hosting for your galaxy, and I alone possess it." But he was bluffing, though he knew there was truth in his words; she had moved him by the insidious appeal of her melody, making his strings vibrate sympathetically, and his drums and tubes follow. They were indeed ideal mates, despite grotesque distinctions of form, and now there was little reason to fight it. He, too, felt superior because of his Kirlian aura; he, too, had a fundamental urge to produce offspring with a Kirlian aura intensity that matched his own. Left to chance, a similar aura might not appear for a thousand years; this way, a new, high-Kirlian strain might be initiated immediately.

  Yet of course their Mintakan host-bodies carried none of their original genes. Still, phenomenal things happened in the diverse universe, and the limits of Kirlian potential were not known. "You could have locked me in here alone and let me die while you transferred home to make your report. Why didn't you?"

  "We both are dead," she played sadly. "That is irrevocable. But there will be no other chance to establish our kind. We, you and I, are Kirlians, not Andromedans or Milky Wayans. I had hoped that before we expired—"

  He understood her perfectly. Yet there was also that in him that made him resist. "It may come," he played. "But only if you play me the truth. You are the professional huntress, well able to live and die without romance. What do you really want of me?" Maybe he was just trying to establish his male dominance. They both knew the stakes: the formulas in his mind. Whichever galaxy got them would win. He could not allow her to seduce him into giving that information to Galaxy Andromeda.

  She played an intricate little tune of submission that was thoroughly alluring. "You have eidetic recall."

  "Yes, of course. Don't you?"

  "No. I have many talents, but lack that one. Otherwise I would have instantly memorized all the equations you evoked in the Ancient field and broadcast them to our relay station."

  "There was more there than you possess?" He knew there was, but he wanted her to admit it.

  "Much more. The Hyades site was the best-preserved one yet discovered in the galactic cluster. In those equations are techniques millennia ahead of anything we know. Perhaps the whole answer to the energy problem is there. If we had that, there would be no need to draw from other galaxies...."

  "And so you want me to spell out those equations for your technicians."

  "And yours too! There need be no further strife between the galaxies!"

  This caught him by surprise. Not one galaxy or the other, but both, joined in one superior civilization, the ethic of energy now unifying them instead of dividing them? It was a mighty vision, and an appealing one. "Why didn't you just tell me this at the outset?"

  "I knew you would not believe me—"

  "Unless you softened me up first. Very calculating." And that was his true objection. Her intellectual and aura appeals struck him as valid, but he did not appreciate being used, manipulated, or deluded. As long as she tried to use one technique to soften him for another, she was practicing deceit, and he would not have it that way.

  "There was also—" She lost her tune, and had to start over. "Orion and Diana. I used the political situation as a pretext to enable the personal one. There is so little time remaining. I don't know how to—"

  "How to love?" he asked. This inversion undercut his position abruptly. If she were not playing at love for the sake of politics, but was playing at politics for the sake of a love she could not confess.... "And you wanted to?"

  Her music stopped completely, making an awkward silence. He remembered that she had been conditioned, and he was sure her galaxy had fiendishly efficient techniques for that. But if that conditioning remained in force, he certainly could not trust her.

  At last a single, faint, half-muted chord. "Yes."

  Could he believe her? Conditioned or not, she was a devilishly clever and ruthless huntress. Yet the Kirlian quest might override all other considerations. They could not have interfered with her aura without destroying her. "Prove it."

  "I don't know how." Now her tune was pleading.

  "I can show you how to love, once I figure out the Mintakan system. I've had experience." In several Spheres. But in his mind he saw Honeybloom's body laid out for the carrion-feeders, symbol of the loss of his love for her through no fault of hers; an awful vision. Honeybloom's love had been true, his flawed. "I mean, prove your sincerity about galactic cooperation."

  She played the key tune, and the door opened.

  "I am free to go?" Flint inquired dubiously.

  "Only if I am allowed to broadcast the information to my station before your aura fades entirely and you forget the knowledge of the Ancients."

  "I don't trust this."

  "Then you make both broadcasts. I will give you the code for my station, betraying its location."

  The bait was too tempting. Where was the trap?

  "Address it to the Available Entities of the Council of Andromeda: *, —, ::, oo or to the head / of my own Sphere. * is always on duty. Tell them you are providing the information to both galaxies on condition that they cease hostilities. If the Council gives concurrence, they will honor that."

  "They might launch a last-ditch attack instead."

  "Lock me in here, then. You can reset the door to your own tune. Do what seems best; I trust your judgment."

  "All right," Flint agreed, still not crediting this seeming victory. With his host-memory guiding him, he reset the lock and closed the door. Andromeda made no protest.

  He summoned a wirecar. In a moment one drew up. He got in, knowing that he never had to return.

  / of Andromeda had extended her trust to him.

  He got out, returned to the privacy chamber, and sung it open. Andromeda made a little trill of query and hope.

  "I forgot the equations," Flint played.

  "Why lie? I gave you freedom."

  "I believe you, now. I don't trust the galaxies—yours or mine—with this technology. There is parity as it stands. Why meddle further?"

  "Maybe that is best."

  "And before our auras fade—"

  "We must name it 'Melody,' " she played.

  He closed the door.

  Epilogue

  Flint the Hermit or King of Gas of Planet Outworld of Sphere Sol of Galaxy Milky Way made beautiful music with the Queen of Energy, agent of Sphere / of the Concurrence of Galaxy Andromeda. Their melodious union budded a completely normal neuter sapient sentient of Sphere Mintaka; there was no transfer of high-intensity Kirlian aura to the offspring. Melody was raised by both parent entities, who never played the tunes of distant stars they no longer remembered, but remained deeply in love until mutual expiration. Melody grew and made music and budded according to the Mintakan cycle of life, and her offspring did likewise. All were normal.

  Meanwhile, the single facet of Ancient technology was conveyed by Sphere Canopus to the galactic coalition of Spheres. They methodically routed out the Andromedans among them, eliminating the threat to the Milky Way. Andromeda, deprived of its exterior sources of energy, stagnated, slowly breaking up into lesser Spheres, yet remaining at a high overall level of civilization. Sph
ere Sol's influence expanded in the Milky Way until it was the hub of a confederation extending from Mintaka to Sador, almost five thousand light-years in diameter.

  But crowded, resource-depleted Earth could not handle this huge para-empire. The limitations of inadequate energy remained prohibitive. For a time the nexus of power shifted to Sphere Polaris but it also proved inadequate. At last, after a century-long economic and social revolution, the power lodged in the newest and brashest of the worlds: Planet Outworld.

  Outworld, in the course of these six centuries, had progressed from the tribal leadership of Honeyflint in the Old Stone Age to the neo-transfer or modern Super-Spherical Age. Its population was small, its planetary and system resources great, and its dual Solarian/Polarian species vigorous. It now possessed the most modern technology combined with its primitive vitality. Representatives from many Spheres transferred to the small army of host-bodies in order to bring their problems to the attention of Imperial Outworld. Action was generally rapid and decisive, in the human manner, or circuitous and satisfying, in the Polarian manner. It became fashionable to employ Solarian or Polarian hosts for all official functions.

  In the next three centuries, Sphere Etamin extended its influence well beyond the old Solarian perimeter, until at last it bordered the demesnes of Knyfh, a Sphere that had undergone similar growth. Finally, Spherical expansion was no longer feasible, and in any event the sophisticated mechanisms of transfer made this unnecessary. Growth became irregular, but always with the vital nerves of communication leading back to Outworld. It finally stabilized as a Segment of the galactic disk, ten thousand light-years from edge to edge.

  There was slow progress in Kirlian transfer technology. By utilizing inhabited hosts in voluntary transfer, the period a given entity could occupy a foreign host was finally extended to ten times what it was formerly. Thus only one Kirlian unit was lost in ten days of transfer. This enabled high-Kirlian administrators to undertake months-long transfer tours of duty, facilitating organized uniformity of government suggestive of that of the Ancients. The Society of Hosts protected host rights.

  Then Galaxy Andromeda, chafing for a thousand years under the frustrations of parity, achieved another breakthrough. It learned how to initiate involuntary hosting. That meant high-Kirlian auras could take over alien bodies, suppressing the original personalities against their will. This was called possession; the body taken over was a hostage. In this manner Andromeda infiltrated key elements of Milky Way Segment governments and wreaked havoc. There was war between the galaxies, and the Milky Way was in serious trouble.

  During this period of crisis the most intense Kirlian auras had to be marshaled for action. By an anomaly of transfer and regressive mutation that transcended ordinary genetics, the greatest aura intensity ever measured in the modern galactic cluster imbued the person of a lineal descendant of Flint and Andromeda, with no prior manifestation in the intervening line. It was 223, and the entity's name was Melody of Mintaka, and she was ten Mintakan years old, a reader of Tarot, with a mind as fiercely individual as her amazing aura. Chaining the lady would be quite a task!

  Sol Sphere

  As viewed from Polaris

  Rings marked at 30-light-year intervals

  Regression effect:

  within 30 light-years of Sol—Machine Age

  within 60 light-years of Sol—Renaissance

  within 90 light-years of Sol—Dark Age

  within 120 light-years of Sol—Stone Age

  Figures following star names refer to positive or negative (-) declination: i.e., elevation above or below the disk shown (example: Etamin and Kaus Australis are not close together, but separated by 86 degrees, or about 150 light years)

  Vicinity Cluster

  Dominant Spheres of the Galactic Segment