Phaze Doubt

Flach took his own flute and joined in, after a few bars, playing extemporaneous counterpoint. The music was beautiful, but he had to stop soon, because the magic was gathering. The BEM had no magical power, and its music was merely sound, but Flach could summon magic when he played, and it was dangerous to do that without turning it to some particular task.

Weva reappeared in mid note- “Teach me that!” she exclaimed.

He had assumed she realized how he used music. He realized that there was more to cover. They got to work on it.

In all too brief a span, their “day” was done, and it was time to go back out into the ordinary realm and make the journey to the South Pole. There, they hoped, the mystery of their mission would be clarified at last.

13 - South

Lysander remained uncertain whether he was doing the right thing. So far he seemed to be forwarding the cause of the enemy more than that of the Hectare. Yet what else was he to do? The members of the planetary resistance knew his mission, and allowed him along only so long as he was useful to them. If he balked, they would drop him. If he turned them in, the secret plan they were implementing would never be discovered, for they themselves did not know it.

So he went along, knowing that the cunning child Nepe/Flach was using him. But he had one saving hope: that the prophecy they believed in was valid, and that only he could in the end give the natives their victory. That meant that their effort would fail without his participation and cooperation, which they could not in the end buy. Their magic had been effective in causing him to love Echo, but that love would not make him abandon his mission. So he retained the trump card, and eventually they would have to give him the chance to play it.

Unless this whole business of the prophecy was a lie, to make him cooperate. Yet that seemed unlikely, because their entire framework was marvelously consistent; everything they had told him had turned out to be true. Even the matter of the spell of invisibility: why make your enemy invisible, giving him enhanced power to snoop on you, unless you really need him? Why make one of your own partisans love him, unless you expect him to join your side?

Actually, the invisibility was wearing off now. He could see himself, translucent. So he now wore clothes, and smeared dirt on his extremities, making himself completely visible; it was better than the halfway state. It remained impressive enough, as magic: a single quick spell lasting for two weeks before beginning to weaken. He had no doubt that Flach could have changed him into a toad with similar longevity.

He stroked Echo as she lay beside him, sleeping. Her body was a machine powered by a pellet of Protonite, but her brain was living human, and it did need sleep. When it slept, the rest of her system shut down, and she was responsive only to significant physical shocks. His touch meant nothing to her now. In addition, his love for her was artificial, brought about by magic. But it was authentic. The magic had somehow reached into whatever senses his android body had, and his Hectare brain, and made those connections that natural love would have, and done them more securely than nature would have. A person who was killed by artificial means was just as dead as one who died of natural causes; similarly, his love was just as thorough.

It was interesting, though, that the love spell was not wearing off the way the invisibility spell was. Perhaps they were different kinds of spells. But it was possible that the spell was wearing off—only to be replaced at the same rate by natural love. He might be able to work his way out of love if he tried, by magnifying any doubts that seeped in. But he didn’t care to try; there was no reason, when he enjoyed the emotion so much.

Would he have to give her up, when the time to implement his mission came? He was very much afraid he would. He felt grief for the action he knew he would take, betraying her along with the rest. But his discipline as a Hectare required it, and in this respect their effort of making him love a native woman had been wasted. It would not make a traitor of him. He did love her, but he loved honor more, for that was inherent in his Hectare nature. Never in all the history of the Hectare species had one of them betrayed its agreement on even the slightest matter. The protocols of honor were refined to a degree virtually incomprehensible to other species. Thus the Hectare guard, having made a deal with the enemy, honored it in letter and spirit, absolutely. True, it was betraying its species in the process—but had it won the wager, it would have helped its side similarly significantly. The protocols allowed for this; as long as the wager was fair, and the stakes equivalent, it was legitimate.