burying the exposed seed and egg. Satisfied, it flew off to a nearby flower and buried its head in the flower’s center. They watched it carefully, both for intent and out of curiosity. Finally it seemed satisfied and backed out, flying over to them and hovering menacingly in front of them, darting from one to the other. They stayed still, but Hain’s antennae radiated, “If that thing makes one wrong move, I’ll eat it regardless.”
Finally the creature got to Vardia, flew all around her, then suddenly jumped on her head, and before she could make a move it pushed its sharp, mosquito-like proboscis into the top of her head just under the leafy growth. They were all too stunned to move for several seconds. Suddenly Hain said, “I’ll zap it.”
Vardia had no pain centers but she did have sensitive nerves, and they felt the thing enter and probe until it touched a particular set of nerves, the ones that sent messages to and from her head and brains.
Quite suddenly everything went dark, and a strange voice much like her own thoughts, only stronger, asked, “Who and what are you and what are you doing here?”
She could think of nothing but answering. The alien thought was so powerful it was hypnotizing. It was more demand than question.
“We are just passing through your hex on our way to the equator.”
She felt the proboscis withdraw, and the lights came on again. She was in control and saw the thing heading away at high speed.
“Va— Chon,” Skander corrected. “What happened?”
“It… it spoke to me. It asked who we were, and I said we were just people going through the hex toward the equator. Man! It’s strong! I have the strangest feeling that I would have to answer anything it asked—and do whatever it said.”
The Rel drifted over and lifted itself up so it could examine her head with whatever it used for sensory equipment. As it drifted just a few centimeters from her up to her head, she felt a strange tingling. Obviously it did not float—something supported it.
The Diviner and The Rel seemed satisfied and floated back down. “No sign of a wound of any kind,” the creature said. “Amazing. One of the flowers got curious, and since you were the only member of the vegetable kingdom around, it picked you. Stay still and let it happen again. Assure them we’ll do no harm and get through as quickly as possible. Tell them we’re following the coast and will take care.”
“I don’t think I can tell them anything they don’t ask,” Vardia responded weakly. “Oh, oh, here it comes again!”
The creature did not have to probe the second time; it went straight to the proper nerve endings. “readout!” came the command, and suddenly she felt herself being drained, as if that which was her very essence was being sucked up into a bottle through a straw. The process took several minutes.
“Look!” Skander cried. “My god! She’s rooted! Unmoving in bright daylight! What did that thing do to her?”
The insect moved back into the mass of flowers.
“We can’t do anything but wait,” The Rel cautioned. “We don’t know the rules here. At least those insects seem to be dominant only on the plants. Take it easy and let things run their course.”
Hain and The Rel both moved toward her, where she stood rooted and motionless. Hain pressed against her skin, and got no response, nor any from the blank eyes.
“Are we going to have to camp here?” Hain asked at last in a disgusted tone. “Why not just leave her?”
“Patience, Hain,” The Rel warned. “We can’t afford to proceed until this drama plays itself out, even if it takes hours. We have only a little more than two hundred kilometers in this hex but we want to survive it.”
They waited, and it took hours.
Vardia felt suspended in limbo, unable to see, hear, feel, or do anything else. Yet it wasn’t like being asleep—she knew that she existed, just not where.
Suddenly she felt that sucking feeling again, and suddenly she was aware of someone else. She couldn’t understand how she knew, but something else was there, all right. Suddenly that force of thought she had felt when the insect had first penetrated her head was all around her.
“i meld what is yours to me and what is me to you,” the voice that was pure thought said, and it was so.
There was an explosion in her mind, and she clung desperately to control, to her own personality, even as she felt it being eroded away, mixed into a much larger and more powerful, yet alien, set of thoughts, memories, pictures, ideas.
Why do you resist? asked a voice that might have been her own thoughts or someone else’s. Submit. This is what you have always wanted. Perfect union in uniformity. Submit.
The logic was unassailable. She submitted.
“It’s coming back!” Skander yelled, and the other two followed the path of the insect to Vardia’s head and watched it bury its sharp proboscis as before. This time it stayed an abnormally long time—perhaps three or four times longer than it had the last trip. Finally it finished and withdrew, buzzing off back to its home flower. They watched as her body came back to life, the eyes moving, looking about. She uprooted, and moved her tentacles around, shook her legs.
“Chon! Are you all right?” Skander called out, concerned.
“We are fine, Dr. Skander,” replied Vardia in a voice that was hers yet strangely different. “We may proceed now, without any problems.”
The Diviner’s little flashing lights became extremely agitated. The Rel said, “The Diviner says that you are not the one of our party. Who or what are you? The equation has been altered.”
“We are Chon. We are everything that ever was Chon. The one you call Chon has been melded. It is no longer one but all. Soon, as even now it happens, all will be Chon and Chon will be all.”
“You’re that damned flower!” Hain said accusingly. “You swapped minds with the Czillian somehow!”
“No swap, as you call it, was involved,” it told them. “And we are not that damned flower as you said, but
“And you merged with the Czillian?” The Rel said more than asked. “You have all of its memories, plus all that was you?”
“That is correct,” the creature affirmed. “And, since we have
Skander shivered. Well, Vardia got her wish at last, the mermaid thought. And we’ve got problems.
“Suppose we refuse?” Skander shot at the new creature. “One gulp from Hain here and you’re gone.”
The creature in Vardia’s body stepped boldly in front of Hain and looked at the big insect’s huge eyes.
“Do you want to eat me, Hain?” it asked evenly.
Hain started to flick her sticky tongue, but something stopped her. Suddenly she didn’t want to eat the Czillian, not at all. She liked the Czillian. It was a good creature, a creature that had the interest of the baron at heart. It was the best friend she had, the most loyal.
“I—I don’t understand,” Hain said in a perplexed tone. “Why should I want to eat it? It’s my friend, my ally. I couldn’t hurt it, never, or the pretty flowers and insects, either.”
“It’s got some kind of mental power!” Skander screamed, and tried to free herself from the saddle in panic. Suddenly Hain spread out, lowering her shell to the ground, legs extended outward.
Skander was free of the harness and looked around for a place to leap. Her darting eyes met the lime disks of the Czillian, and suddenly all panic fled. She couldn’t remember why she was afraid in the first place, not of the
