Of Man And Manta - Ox Part 19

HEXAFLEXAGON.

They emerged into a blinding blizzard. Snow blasted Veg's face, and the chill quickly began its penetration of his body. He was not adequately dressed.

Tamme turned to him, showing mild irritation. "Why did you come?" she demanded.

He tried to shrug, but it was lost in his fierce s.h.i.+vering. He did not really understand his own motive, but it had something to do with her last-minute display of decency. And with her beauty and his need to disengage irrevocably from Aquilon.

Tamme removed her skirt, did something to it, and put it about his shoulders. He was too cold to protest. "This is thermal," she said. "Squat down, hunch up tight. It will trap a ma.s.s of warm air, Eskimo-style. Face away from the wind. Duck your head down; I'll cover it." And she removed her halter, formerly her blouse, adjusted it, and fas.h.i.+oned it into a protective hood.

He obeyed but did finally get out a word, "You -- "

"I'm equipped for extremes," she said. "You aren't. I can survive for an hour or more naked in this environment -- longer with my undergarments. So can you -- if you just sit tight under that cloak. After that, we'll both exercise vigorously. We have to stretch it out three hours, until the projector brings us back. We'll make it -- though for once I wish I'd set it for the minimum safe-return time."

He nodded miserably. "Sorry. I didn't know -- "

"That you would only be in the way? I knew -- but I also knew your motive, confused as it might be, was good. You have courage and ethics, not because you've been programmed for them, but because you are naturally that way. Perhaps agents should be more like that." She paused, peering around. Snowflakes were hung up on her eyebrows, making little visors. "I'll make a shelter. Maybe we won't have to go back."

He watched her move about, seemingly at ease in the tempest... in her bra and slip. He was chagrined to be so suddenly, so completely dependent on a woman, especially in what he had thought of as a man's natural element: wilderness. But she was quite a woman!

Tamme made the shelter. She cleared the loose snow away, baring a nether layer of packed snow and ice, a crust from some prior melting and refreezing. She used one of her weapons, a small flame thrower, to cut blocks of this out. Soon she had a st.u.r.dy ice wall.

"Here," she directed.

He obeyed, moving jerkily into the shelter of the hole behind the wall. The wind cut off. Suddenly he felt much better. The cloak was warm; once the wind stopped wrestling with it, stealing the heated air from the edges, he was almost comfortable. He held it close about his neck, trapping that pocket of heat. But his feet were turning numb.

Tamme built the wall around him, curving it inward until she formed a dome. It was an igloo!

"I think you'll manage now," she said. "Let me have my clothing; I want to look about."

She crawled into the igloo beside him while he fumbled with cloak and hood. And she stripped off her underclothing.

Veg stared. She was an excellent specimen of womanhood, of course; not lush but perfectly proportioned, with no fat where it didn't belong. Every part of her was lithe and firm and feminine. But that was not what amazed him.

Strapped to her body was an a.s.sortment of paraphernalia. Veg recognized the holster for the flame thrower she had just used: It attached to her hip where a bikini would have tied -- a place always covered without seeming to be, filling a hollow to round out the hip slightly. There was another holster, perhaps for the laser, on the other hip. An ordinary woman would have padded that region with a little extra avoirdupois; Tamme's leanness only served to delineate her muscular structure without at all detracting from her allure. There was similar structures near her waist, which was in fact more slender than it had seemed. And at the undercurves of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

How artfully she had hidden her weaponry while seeming to reveal all! Her thighs had seemed completely innocent under her skirt as she came down the pine tree. And who would have thought that the cleavage of her bosom had been fas.h.i.+oned by the push of steel weapons so close below! Had she been ready to make love to him that way, armed to the...?

"No, I'd have set aside the weapons," she said. "Can't ever tell where a man's hands may go."

She tore the bra, slip, and panties apart, then put them back together a different way. Evidently she could instantly remake all her clothing for any purpose -- functional, seductive, or other. He had no doubt it could be fas.h.i.+oned into a rope to bind a captive or to scale a cliff. And of course her blouse had become first a revealing halter, then a hood for his head.

The female agent was every bit as impressive as the male agent! It was an excellent design.

"Thanks," Tamme said.

She donned her revised underthings, once more covering the artillery. Veg now understood about her weight: She probably weighed a hundred and fifteen stripped but carried forty pounds of hardware.

She held out her hand unself-consciously. Hastily he pa.s.sed the cloak and hood across and watched her convert them back into skirt and blouse. But not the same design as before; the skirt was now longer for protection against the storm, and the blouse closed in about her neck, showing no breast. Quite a trick!

She scrambled out the igloo door and disappeared into the buzzard. While she was gone, Veg chafed his limbs and torso to warm them and marveled at the situation in which he found himself. He had gone from Earth to Paleo, the first alternate; then to Desertworld, the second alternate. And on to Cityworld, Forestworld, and now to Blizzard -- the third, fourth, and fifth, respectively. Now he was huddled here, s.h.i.+vering, dependent on a woman -- while all alternity beckoned beyond!

How had they come here, really? Who had left the aperture projector so conveniently? It smelled of a trap. As did the blizzard. But for Tamme's strength and resourcefulness, it could have been a death trap.

Yet death would have been more certain if the aperture had opened over the brink of a cliff or before the mouth of an automatically triggering cannon.

No -- that would have been too obvious. The best murder was the one that seemed accidental. And of course their immediate peril might well be accidental. Surely this storm was not eternal; this world must have a summer as well as a winter and be calm between altercations of weather. Tamme had said the projector could have been left five days ago. This storm was fresh. So maybe another agent had pa.s.sed this way, leaving his projector behind as Tamme had left hers at Cityworld.

That meant the other agent was still around here somewhere. And that could be trouble. Suppose the agent overcame Tamme and stranded Veg here alone? She was tough and smart -- and mighty pretty! -- but another agent would have the same powers. Unless --

Veg straightened up, banging his head against the curving roof wall. Suddenly a complex new possibility had opened to his imagination -- but it was so fantastic he hardly trusted it. He didn't want to embarra.s.s himself by mentioning it to Tamme. But he could not ignore it. He would have to check it out himself.

He wriggled out of the igloo. The wind struck him afresh, chilling him again, but he ducked his head, hunched his shoulders, and proceeded. This would not take long.

He counted paces as he slogged through the snow. At a distance of twenty steps -- roughly fifty feet since he could not take a full stride in two-foot-deep snow -- he halted. This was a tissue of guesswork, anyway, and here in the storm it seemed far-fetched indeed.

He tramped in a circle, backward into the wind where he had to, eyes alert despite being screwed up against the wind. His face grew stiff and cold, and his feet felt hot: a bad sign. But he kept on. Somewhere within this radius there might be --

There wasn't. He retreated to the igloo, half disappointed, half relieved. He didn't regret making the search.

Tamme returned. "What have you been doing?" she demanded. "Your tracks are all over the place!"

"I had a crazy notion," he confessed. "Didn't pan out."

"What crazy notion?"

"That there might be another projector here, part of a pattern."

She sighed. "I was hoping you wouldn't think of that."

"You mean that's what you were looking for?" he asked, chagrined.

She nodded. "I suspect we are involved in an alternate chain. We started from the city alternate -- but others may have started from other alternates, leaving their projectors behind them, as I did. One started from the forest. Another may have started from here. In which case there will be a projector in the area."

"That's what I figured -- only I didn't really believe it. Projectors scattered all through alternity."

"Alternity! Beautiful."

"Well, it's as good a name for it as any," he said defensively. "Anyway, if it's all happening like that -- what do you care? No one's trying to torpedo Earth."

"How do you know?" she asked.

"Well, I can't prove anything, but what about the Golden Rule? We're not trying to do anything to them, so -- "

"Aren't we?"

He faltered. "You mean, we are?" He had thought she was just going after one agent, not the whole universe.

"Our government is paranoid about Earth-defense. We're out to destroy any possible compet.i.tion before it destroys us. Remember Paleo?"