The Gentle Seduction (3 page)

Two cruisers, utterly unlike the one I commanded, popped over the mountains just behind me.

An alarm sounded as my ship shook and spun out of control.

There weren't any jumpbelts on Forman ships, I discovered; but there were glidechutes, another relic of past lifetimes. With some trepidation, I grabbed a purple one (I would have chosen something more discreet had I had time to be selective) and popped the hatch.

The ships sailed overhead. My old one left a trail of bright orange flame and dark brown smoke. It made quite a beautiful color stroke against the crisp blue sky. It crashed far down the side of Rightcut, into thick forest. The two other ships curled around, and came back for me.

I was already looking for a way down that was quick but not hard. This is always a difficult combination to find on planets that are not made of foam rubber. Still, I did well enough; as I passed over a lake I slipped from the chute harness and prayed the water was deep but not cold. The chute drifted onward, attracting attention to its graceful, confident descent.

The water was deep as I had hoped. It was also cold. I swam for the shore with enthusiasm.

I dragged myself out of the sucking mud on the bank and lay with my teeth chattering, watching the cruisers that had nailed me as they watched the glidechute. With the flick of a ship's beam, the chute turned to purple smoke. The cruisers departed.

How delightful! Now I could die of hypothermia in peace. I shook quietly, though violently. "Safire," I stammered into my wristcom, "I don't suppose you can get Glitter to me within an hour, can you?"

"No." Safire had such a way with words.

I tried to put myself into an autohypnotic state where I could be more comfortable, and failed. I opened my eyes again.

Clearly, it was autumn here: the leaves were multicolored, red and yellow and green and auburn, and I could smell the pulp of the leaves decaying as I lay upon them.

Yet, it couldn't be a real, Earth autumn. Here in Fallform it was
always
autumn. There was no change of season, no reason for the trees to change colors. The trees had to be like this all the time.

Closer inspection showed that each tree and each type of leaf had a distinct color. They were not changing with the season; they were that color forever.

A pair of mud-spattered boots appeared before me. Looking up, I saw a reddish leather jacket and a yellow scarf. Looking higher still, I saw bright blue suspicious eyes. "Hi," I said with a smile, trying to look harmless for the lady staring down at me.

"He looks harmless enough," one of the men accompanying the brown boots said.

"At the moment, sir, I am so harmless that I may die of exposure. I hate to ask favors of strangers, but do you have dry clothes I could borrow for a day or two?"

"I don't like it," said another voice from the shadows, "He's from Winterform. He's
still
not a friend of ours. Kill him."

"Wait." The woman in brown boots knelt beside me. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at my wristcom.

Telling the truth seemed easiest. "It's a communicator that lets me talk to my ship."

"Your ship just got blown out of the sky."

Silence seemed more appropriate than too much truth.

She touched me. Her mouth widened. "Jurn, get a fire started, and bring a sleeping bag." She stretched out next to me and held me close, bringing me into her win mth. "You were serious about the exposure."

"I intend to survive," I muttered, still shaking, though her cheek was warm against mine.

They bundled me up and fed me hot soup, and I did in fact survive. The lady sent the others away. "Who are you?" she began the interrogation. "Why are you here?"

Never ask a person two questions simultaneously: the person will answer the question of his choice, which will be the one that gets you the least information. "I came here to escape from Winterform. I fear the authorities are eager to preside at my funeral."

"I see." She smiled. "Did you come seeking help from the authorities of Fallform?"

Her smile seemed out of place; I realized I was standing on the brink of a cliff. Calmly, very calmly, I shrugged. "Not particularly. I guess it's too late to ask, but: weren't those Fallform ships that fried my ship?"

"Every vicious bit of them." She trembled with anger, then touched her hand to the side of my head. "You must sleep. In a few hours we must travel fast, and deep, before they come looking for you."

As she touched me, I felt tired. I realized that I'd been up for . . . I didn't know how long.

"Damn these planets that don't have a decent night/ day sequence," I muttered. "How am I supposed to know when I'm supposed to sleep?"

"What?!" Alarm rang in her voice, but I hardly noticed. "What's your name?"

"Gibs. Stelman," I yawned. "What's yours?"

"Sharyn."

"Sharyn. Beautiful." With her name on my lips, I passed into oblivion.

I awoke groggy, from a nightmare.

I smelled cooking.

Rolling out of the bag, I stalked the chef. Jurn turned to me with a plate. "Here," he offered, with only a hint of hostility. It was scrambled eggs (I didn't ask what kind) and coarse bread, and it was the best meal I'd eaten in a lifetime.

"You're an outstanding cook," I commended Jurn.

He turned his head to me, scowling. "You're a leech."

I gagged. Was he right? No. Or at least, he was only almost right. "You're wrong," I said quietly. "Only recently have I been a leech." I had almost forgotten, in my joy of a moment's living.

Today, four more people would die.

I walked away from the fire.

Sharyn stole silently into the clearing. "Get packed," she commanded.

"How far do we have to go?" I asked.

Her head snapped up. "Too far," she said. She turned Eyeward. "Walk with me," she said, signaling. I hesitated for a moment out of philosophical opposition to being given orders; but in this forest she was the boss. We walked together.

Soon we came to a trail and the going became brisk. "I must thank whoever lent me these clothes for being so close to my size," I said. I waved my hands in a theatrical expression of grandeur. "And I must thank whoever designed this incredible scene for us to walk through." I pointed forward. "The sky, forever poised near sunset," I said.

Sharyn looked at me strangely. "We are near the city of Sunset," she granted, puzzled.

I bit my lip. "And the pink backlighting for curling tendrils of clouds. I've never seen anything like it before." Indeed I hadn't. It reminded me of a mackerel sky, but with long, tapered clouds.

"You've never seen a filament sky before?" The more I talked, the more I put my foot in it.

"Not for many moons," I said, then realized what a mistake
that
was: Forma had no moons, and no calendar based on them.

"Who are you?" This time she didn't make the mistake of asking a second question; this time my life hung in the balance.

"I am no one you need fear."

She laughed. "And whom do you think I fear?" she asked.

I looked across at her. She walked lightly, with the grace of one who knew her own power, her eyes uplifted in defiance of the Universe. I had once known her feeling well, the feeling of confidence in your ability to meet your own Destiny. It was a feeling I had almost forgotten.

Suddenly I was in love. "Sharyn," I said, holding out my hand.

"What?" she replied, reaching her hand in turn toward mine.

Startled, I jerked back. "Nothing." I stared intently at the ground.

There was a pause, then curt words. "You must answer my question. You must tell me who you are."

"Yes, I must." I looked up at the filament sky, and refused to let my eyes water. "Who am I? I am the remains of the man whom once I was." I took a deep breath. "A man who was a mortal god. He was one who could save life or bring death."

"Hm." Sharyn didn't know whether to be impressed or not. "Sounds like a doctor to me."

I barked a laugh. "Yes, I was a doctor. But a normal doctor cannot save a man's life."

She looked at me, puzzled.

"The best a doctor can do is save a few more dusty hours to be appended to a man's life. A doctor cannot grant a 60 year old man more than 20 or 25 more years. He cannot grant a 40 year old man more than an equal 40 years." I held up my hands, stretching them wide before Sharyn. "But I, my lady, once I could grant eternity."

"You're the Sirian mindshifter," she said.

"What?"

"We heard that a Sirian mindshifter had landed without authorization. You really are a hunted man."

"I'm not Sirian!"

"Well, if you're not Sirian, then you're Omegaran."

"No."

She shook her head in exasperation. "Then why are you here?"

"I came to find a peaceful place where people were happy, yet where they had never heard of mindshifters or Transfer." My voice turned bitter. "I can see I am too late." I started to reach for her again, and stopped. I smiled. "Instead I found you."

I was deeply confused. I had first learned to recognize love at first sight near the end of my second lifetime; always since then, I had fallen in love with exactly one woman each time I mindshifted. I had never understood the pattern, but it had always run true.

Yet here, in a span of 48 hours, I had fallen in love twice! And I
did
love them both, Keara
and
Sharyn. What should I do?

"You certainly didn't find a
peaceful
place," Sharyn said with bitterness similar to mine. "Fallform and Winterform have been at war for years now. And it looks like Summerform has finally decided to unite with Fallform, since the Sirians arrived."

"What? I don't believe it. I watched Forma from space, and I haven't seen anything like an army anywhere." I thought back on the blizzarcane. "Frankly, the weather here seems more dangerous than the people."

She looked at me in disbelief. "Stelman, don't you remember who we Formans are? This was a
weather research
station! How would you expect us to attack each other?"

"Omigod. Of course." A number of pieces fell into place. Not only did that explain a storm so powerful it could wreck a fortified city like Whitepeak, but it explained why Glitter had been so badly crisped by a mere lightning bolt, when I first landed. "So that's why the Sirians and Omegarans are here." What an extraordinary weapon weather control would be against the rest of the Federation! Throughout history, the winners of wars had been those who used the longest-ranged weapons. But imagine using a weapon your enemy didn't even know was a weapon!

"The Sirians want to trade mindshifts for information on weather control. Both the Sirians and the Omegarans promise to leave a mindshifter here to keep the authorities—whichever authorities give them the best deal—immortal. Needless to say, the leaders of all four Forms are dancing as fast as they can to the Sirian tune."

I snorted. "Whoever wins Sirian support will be in for a big disappointment. The Sirians may be able to persuade a mindshifter to come to the Frontier once to make a few Transfers, but there's no way they'll persuade a surgeon to move out here permanently. The only mindshifters who'll serve Forma on a regular basis are the Frontier mindshifters—and if Forma gives all its best technology to Sirius or Omegar, no Frontier surgeon will touch Forma, because Forma won't have anything worth trading for."

"Well, the leaders of the Forms don't know that, and wouldn't believe you if you told them. The Sirians have them convinced that they'll get a Sirian mindshifter permanently stationed here." She pointed back at her handful of followers. "That's why we're here. Bardon, the President of Fallform, is the most dangerous leader: he's old, and his position is tenured. He's
desperate
to win the Transfer." She clenched her fists. "We have to unite the people of Forma, and we have to start by stopping the people like Bardon."

The scenery had changed as we spoke: the percentage of green-leaved trees increased as we dropped to lower altitudes. More interesting, I noticed a number of clumps of trees that looked suspiciously like they could conceal more technological installations.

So I wasn't surprised when Sharyn stopped. "We're here," she announced.

"You keep your ships well hidden," I commented, pointing at the three closest hiding places.

She turned sharply toward me, then smiled. "You have keen eyes after all."

"I have more than that. I have centuries of experience with societies such as Forma's. I have realigned many of them." The "realignment" of societies came with being a mortal god: at each planet I touched, I chose between life and death for the most influential minds of that planet. And a society reflects the thinking of its most influential minds. "Rather than leading a small rebel force, which is what you seem to have gathered here, why don't you let me simply assassinate the most troublesome individuals?"

She shook her head. "You don't understand. The problem is deeper than that. Even if I killed all the present leaders, the next ones would be just as bad. The whole planet is crazy with Transfer fever."

I waved her objection aside. "An experienced assassin never needs to kill more than twenty people to end a war or unite a planet. It just requires skillful executions. You have to make sure that the next twenty people, the successors to the dead, know three things: First, they must know that the first twenty were killed intentionally. Second, they must know why their predecessors were killed. Third, and most important, they be completely convinced that they are just as easy to kill as the others were."

As I was speaking, I got more and more wrapped up in my words. So I was surprised by the effect I had wrought.

Sharyn's mouth dropped open in awe. "Of course! What a brilliant idea!"

I started to disclaim any brilliance, but she continued.

"I'll get them all," she laughed, so wickedly I was surprised by her malevolence. Then her laughter ran the scales, from light amusement to near sorrow. "I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?" I asked.

"Never mind." She danced close, to kiss me on the cheek. I tried to put my arms around her, but she danced away again. "I have to go," she said, turning.