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I'd have if you live. The Competition Authority would not have honored our deal."
"I think they would!" Heem sprayed. "The rationale of the relay race, of more than one contributor to
the victory-I believe such a compromise is better than the alternative of condoning murder! I accepted
your rationale-why can't you?"
"You are charming, Heem, in your naivete." She extended a section of herself toward the machine's
globe.
Heem rolled for her, but she was too fast. She banged the activator-globe. Power lurched out from the
lens, bathing him, but a flashback also bathed Swoon. There was a terrible wrenching.
In a moment-perhaps more than that, for Heem could not judge how long he had been unconscious, if
indeed at all-he recovered his orientation. He remained on the floor, and Swoon remained at the
machine. His aura had not been abolished! The neutral setting-
Then he became aware of something else. He was whole, yet there was an absence, a loss-
"Jessica!" he sprayed desperately.
There was no answer. He felt for her presence in his being, and found nothing. He was alone.
"Oh, alien female!" he sprayed. "That Ancient machine did function-weakly! It did not abolish me, it
abolished the less-entrenched aura. It wiped you out!"
Yet self-preservation still motivated him. No, not that; rather it was the need for vengeance. Swoon
had murdered Jessica; Swoon must pay the penalty, Heem surveyed the physical situation. Swoon still
hunched by the machine. A backlash of power had encompassed her; she had evidently been stunned.
He could kill her now. He did not care about his own ultimate fate. He intended to punish Jessica's
murderer. He would needle her at close range, without mercy.
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He rolled in close. Swoon stirred. He readied his needles-but had to orient carefully, because now he
lacked the visual coordination he had come to depend on. He was blind. His needles would not have
their former accuracy and timing. He must do this with extreme concentration-
"Heem," she sprayed weakly.
"Do not plead for mercy," he sprayed savagely. He knew he should simply needle her, but was
compelled by his nature to communicate, to justify himself, even to his enemy. "You killed my love; I
shall kill you. You took the light from my perception; I shall destroy your perception. You betrayed-"
"Heem-wait. I am Jessica."
"Do not seek to deceive me again!" he raged, his spray so hot it vaporized close to his body. "I
believed you once. I am not twice a fool!" Then he froze. How had she known of Jessica?
"Heem-I was retransferred," she sprayed. "The machine setting-the two-balled line-it must have meant
not neutral, but exchange."
He hardly dared believe, yet he so much wanted to. "Prove this to me."
"Your nightmare of the Squam-your illegal memories-"
"You could have guessed of those! You may have suffered another incomplete metamorphosis!"
"Then my nightmare, as a Solarian-clone masquerading as a male-a strange man tearing off my garb,
betraying my secret in public-"
Heem's doubt collapsed. "No one else could know of that! Yet how could you have been exchanged,
and not me. And not the two female auras of Swoon's host? They are not with me."
"Because we are all females, Heem, and you are male. The two other auras bounced; they remain here
in this host, stunned by my forced arrival. You also bounced, having no male host available within the
focus of the machine. Only I was female, with a female host to transfer to. Only I was able to move
when compelled. You and I have been through something like this before; we recovered from the
shock more quickly. I have assumed control of this body."
A tremendous relief washed through him. Jessica had survived! He had revenge on Slitherfear. He
had won the competition, and would be restored to favor among his kind. All his frustrations had
abruptly been abated. Never had he felt so good!
"Oh, Heem!" Jessica continued. "Now at last I can spray love with you! Quickly, before the
Competition Authority arrives and transfers me back to Capella. Come, my love-"
But Heem's awareness was fuzzing, the tastes overlapping each other. The Ancient complex seemed
to be rotating around him, expanding and contracting, its strange half-flavors confusing him.
"Heem-what's the matter?" Jessica sprayed, alarmed. "Are you badly injured? Oh, Heem, I'm sorry! I
didn't mean to tax your energies beyond-"
He marshaled himself with a desperate effort. "It is the metamorphosis," he sprayed. "It was
incomplete before, because I had unresolved compulsions. Slitherfear-" He found himself sagging
into incomprehensibility, and tried again. "Murders not avenged, would not let go, undermined the
memory-blank of maturity. Vengeance is immature, yet there is justice. I became a juvenile
masquerading as adult, much as you masqueraded as male. Now all is resolved, and I am whole, and
my metamorphosis is becoming complete-"
"But then you will forget all that has happened here!" she protested.
A third, fading effort. "I-will forget. The rigors and complexes of the juvenile state are too strong to
permit maturity, must be cast aside. But you must inform them-"
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