Macroscope

Suddenly the goat image made sense to her, and the evocative music of the bassoon. These had been her symbols, in the combined context. And love — where the poem had specified Trade for him, it had specified Love for her. And she had felt it—

“What is my symbol?” she inquired, genuinely curious now. “My — ascendant.”

“You don’t want to know it, cutie. You are afraid of it, neurotic that you are.”

“Am I? Or is it that you are afraid to animate my symbol, instead of yours? Would that give me dominance?”

“Lady, I’ll gladly match symbols with you planet by planet. That would put us on an even footing, in spite of my inordinate superiority in overt life. But you would achieve parity only if you are able to face your own nature when you see it objectively — and you aren’t. Your ascendant controls you, and probably your planets do too. It is a contest you would lose by your own prejudice.”

“I’ll take that chance — if you will. I don’t think you know how to compete, on an even basis.”

He smiled, the vicious grin of the warrior tasting blood. “Calling my bluff, Gly

She smiled back, as maliciously as he, though she was afraid of him. “Yes, prettyboy. And if you cheat, you lose.” She wasn’t sure what to expect, or whether Schön would really bind himself to the outcome of a fair competition, but if it nullified the advantage of his intellect…

“Take it, child,” he said, touching the instrument. “Your ascendant is Taurus 15 — A MAN MUFFLED UP, WITH A RAKISH SILK HAT.”

And she was back in the supermarket, the same one she had fled, and she was facing the man beside the checkout counter. She had asked for it — and she was terrified.

Something obscure happened. People backed away from the cash register. The muffled man looked up, around, pausing a moment as though considering. It seemed that he was looming over Afra, and she was very small, very fragile. Something remarkable was about to happen—

The large man moved.

There was the sound of a gun being fired.

She wrenched herself out of it — and was out of the rope enclosure and passing through the door she had originally been ru

This room was thoroughly finite, at least, and well lighted. Banks of what appeared to be electronic equipment stood against the walls, and there were a number of screens flashing what she took to be broadcast patterns. This was, by her reckoning, a communications center. That suggested some kind of occupation of the station, at least at intervals. Automatic machinery would not be set up for viewing like this.

Schön was there ahead of her. He sat on a podium in the center of the room, behind a table whose white cloth extended down to touch the floor. He wore a high turban and stared into a shiny crystal ball. “Man,” he said grandiosely, “has the capacity to bring the entire universe within the purview of his mind.”

She had either to retreat into the original chamber or to pass directly by him. Neither alternative appealed, so she temporized. “I thought you were supposed to be a pugilist.”

“That, my dear, as I so tediously explained, was the ascendant. Now we are with the sun, and it behooves us to be more acute. My sun is in Aries 19, and so I am as you see me: A CRYSTAL GAZER. So it is written in the most authoritative text.” He stared into the ball. “I see that the referee has graded the first round on the ten-point must system: ten points to Fire, no points to Earth, who washed out. An excellent start — though it would be more entertaining if you were to at least put up some show of competition.”

So she hadn’t lost yet! “How do I know that’s an honest score?”

He shoved the ball in her direction. “Witness.”

She stepped up to look into it. Inside was a great-horned ram copulating with a frightened doe.

“Miscegenation is all I see,” she said. Then, saying it, she realized that the animals too were symbols: the ram of Aries and the goat of Capricorn. Schön had played his little prank on her. Two different species — somewhat as the two of them were of different races. A bald proposition, a dirty joke — or a threat. He had said that her own prejudice would cost her victory…

“Too bad nature forbids it,” she said in reply to his mocking gaze. She resented the implication that this was the only use for her — to submit to the sexual assault of the male — knowing it to be a conventional objection of womankind but still stirred by it. There was that about Schön that fascinated her in ways Ivo had not; yet she was not about to encourage his casual lewdness. In her mind was the remark Ivo had made about childhood sexual activity at their project: homo, hetero and group. She would contest the issue more fiercely in the coming rounds.

It was amazing what a difference the mind made. Schön did not resemble Ivo at all, though the body was the same.

“Yes, you would lecture on nature,” he remarked, as though that proved something. “Your symbol for Capricorn 12 is A STUDENT OF NATURE LECTURING.”

“How do you know?” she demanded, nettled again in spite of her disbelief in the personal relevance of such things.

“Dear little Ivo studied your horoscope. Now all that information is mine.” He gri

She controlled her mounting irritation. “How much do you expect to accomplish, depending on astrology?” Again, she had to keep him talking, while waiting for an opportunity to gain some advantage. Genius he might be, but his youthful arrogance might defeat him yet.

“There are many ways to view existence,” Schön said. “Symbols are useful for minds of any potential, and astrology is an organized system of symbols as valid as any. I would accept it as readily as, say, religion. Of course, no symbol has validity apart from the values and qualities assigned to it by the user. What alternative would you prefer for your nuptial?”

“What makes you think the ram is so damned attractive to the doe?”

“What makes you think the ram is trying to be?”

“You imagine your word is my command?”

“Sister, there is no other functioning homo-sapiens man within fifty thousand light-years, and you can’t penetrate the destroyer field by yourself. I can. The question is, am I to be obliged, however clumsily, on my way home, or do I travel alone?”

Could he travel alone? Even if he turned off the destroyer broadcast — a thing he might not be able to do, assuming it had safeguards against interference — he would not succeed in freeing the spaceways of its effect. Earth was in the field of another station, and in any event it would require at least fifteen thousand years for the destroyer to clear itself, limited as it was by light velocity.

Yet he was in control of his body and Ivo’s experience now. That meant he had found a way around the destroyer memory — and, therefore, the destroyer itself.

Or so he wanted her to believe.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “I don’t think you can go home without my help. Otherwise you wouldn’t be chasing me now, or trying so hard to impress me.”

“Or wi

Suddenly she was afraid again, and could not answer. Ivo’s body had been possessed by a demon. How important was this peculiar contest, and how badly was she losing? Evidently the verbal interchange was part of it, and she was at a disadvantage there. Brad had always been able to twist around her statements and confuse her, and Schön had the same ability.