“They couldn’t eat you anyway,” Demeanor said. “You’re not of this world. All they’d get would be a mouthful of film. But the pass is in their realm. That they can take.”

  “That’s what you were trying to warn us about,” Ike said. “But you weren’t allowed to tell us directly.”

  Blue hissed agreement. “We want to help, but are constrained,” Demeanor said.

  “I should have paid more attention, fool that I am.”

  “No, you’re doing very well,” the parrot said. “They raised the ante on you. That’s why Blue didn’t want you to come here.”

  Felony was pulling herself together. “As if he’s at fault. I lost the pass.”

  “Ante?” Ike asked.

  “They want to know your limits. They don’t do that for dull prospects.”

  “So they sent smart snakes after us,” Ike agreed. “Now they know our limit.”

  “And we’re stuck without a pass we earned,” Felony said. “That annoys me all to pieces.”

  Blue hissed twice. “Don’t be annoyed,” Ike translated, smiling briefly. “They have their reasons.”

  Felony turned to Demeanor. “What reasons?”

  Demeanor looked at Blue, who hissed once. “We can tell you this much: nobody knew those swords could be turned to tractor beams. They want to recruit you.”

  “Funny way they have of showing it,” Felony said. “Suppose we wind up without passes?”

  “You’ll find passes if you really want them.”

  “And why wouldn’t we want them?”

  “You may not, once you find out what Pomegranate is.”

  “It’s not a college?” she asked sharply.

  “Not exactly. Call it an educational institution.”

  “I’m not sure I like the education we’re already getting.”

  “Precisely.”

  Ike had stayed out of it, interested in the interrogation Felony was performing. For one thing, the parrot was revealing significantly more of herself and the nature of the examination. These familiars were anything but simple animals. They were probably more like guardians. But now Felony seemed ready to explode. It was time to intercede. “Tomorrow we’ll try for another pass,” he said.

  “Tomorrow,” Felony agreed grimly. “And what of today?”

  Ike smiled. “Today we relax.”

  She shook her head. “You’re seeing me at my worst.”

  “I like you that way too.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to put on my luscious form and make savage love to you, right here in Blue Hell?”

  “Not at all sure. But let’s get our passes first.”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Thank you.”

  Then at last she smiled.

  Chapter 7:

  Bird Seed

  They met at the usual intersection. “Which seed next?” Felony asked.

  “I’m thinking the Bird Seed. Miss Demeanor can be our guide.”

  “I don’t recommend it,” Demeanor said.

  “Our alternative is a completely new one, with dangers none of us know about,” Ike said. “Why don’t you like your own world?”

  “Because it puts me in conflict with my own kind. There may be dangers I’m not allowed to warn you about. Also, those birds are too smart. Best to stay clear.”

  “What kind of dangers?” Felony asked.

  “The birds know of Pomegranate College. They may want to get in on the action. They may not much care how they do it. We don’t want to just walk into their talons.”

  “So it’s a choice between the known evil and an unknown one,” Felony said.

  Demeanor looked at her. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you! And they call us bird brains.”

  “If we don’t find our pass there, then we can check an unknown seed,” Felony said.

  “Well, I tried.”

  “You tried,” Felony agreed.

  “First some background,” Ike said. “We figure that the world of the reptiles suffered a collision with a comet that stained things blue and messed up the magnetic field so that they were able to use magnetic repulsion to fly. But birds already fly. So what happened there?”

  “The comet was olive drab. It messed up the trace electrical currents so that the intelligence of mammals was reduced and that of the birds enhanced. So we became the smart ones, while your ancestors went back into their woods. I think some of my kind resent the fact that birds did not dominate similarly on all other worlds. The idea of talking apes is, frankly, repulsive.”

  “So why did you join us?” Felony asked.

  “I’m small. My kind is treated with contempt by the larger, smarter birds. So when the professors offered me enhancement in exchange for my service, I took it.”

  “And you don’t want to return to the world where you will be treated again with contempt.”

  “I don’t. Would you?”

  “No. But for me, Pomegranate represents freedom from the kind of contempt I face: for my plain face and lean body. Here I can enhance my body, but I think Ike likes me anyway.”

  “I do,” Ike agreed.

  She flashed a smile. “I think you have no idea how excruciatingly I value that. I would do anything for you.”

  “What, anything?” he asked with a mock leer.

  “Well, almost anything. But that’s certainly included.” She returned to the parrot. “So here is where I want to be, threatening to seduce him, knowing he’s really interested and not just playing me along.”

  “The way that I can be genuinely useful here, and no one sneers at my size,” Demeanor said. “You do understand.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And you still want to visit my seed.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You are managing me.”

  “Of course.”

  “But you really don’t need my approval. I am committed to support you to the best of my ability as long as you are a candidate.”

  “I want you to want to. Same as I want Ike to want to, in another venue.”

  “And you are managing both. You’re pretty shrewd.”

  Ike realized that this was about more than merely getting the job done. It was about emotional validation. Felony and the bird truly did understand each other. And Felony had persuaded Demeanor to participate with pleasure instead of reluctance. Just as she had won Ike over. She was some woman.

  “And what about you, Blue?” he asked. “Why are you working for the Yankee dollah?”

  Blue hissed. “He says it’s the same thing,” Demeanor translated. “In Blue Heaven he’s nobody. Here he’s important. You saw how it is in his seed.”

  “I saw,” Ike agreed. “So are we ready to go?”

  “Almost,” Felony said. “Demeanor, you said that the professors had raised the ante on us. Are they likely to pull some stunt this time, to see what we’re made of?”

  “That is my fear, yes. They want to make you really work for whatever you get.”

  “Because they feel we’re worth pushing.”

  “Yes.”

  “So this may be a worse challenge than we like.”

  “Yes.”

  “And suppose their raised ante succeeds in washing us out of contention? By getting us killed or at least without passes?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Can’t say or won’t say?”

  “Forbidden to say,” the bird said uneasily. “We familiars are supposed to help you, but there are limits. We don’t necessarily agree with all of the program.”

  “I think I can answer that,” Ike said. “The professors see real potential in us, but they need to know that we don’t have corresponding liabilities. We could be geniuses, but also crazy. That would be dangerous for their program, and they can’t risk it. It’s like having the ability to conjure fire, without the common sense not to burn down the campus. So they are trying to fix it so that if we have some critical liability, we’ll get eliminated. The decision remains in our hands, depending on what we are.”

  Felony nodded. “And again I had the question, you had the answer. We do make a team, don’t we!”

  “We do,” Ike agreed. “Felony, maybe we’re unsuitable for this program, and will wash out. But I think we’re suitable for each other. If we do wash out, let’s try to get together in the mundane world. The professors can keep us out of Pomegranate, but they can’t keep us out of real life.”

  “Yes! There are two things I have come to want, these last few days. One is Pomegranate. The other is you. Of those, I want you more.”

  She wanted a serious relationship that will might include marriage. Ike realized that he did too. “Ditto, both.”

  “That’s so romantic,” Demeanor said, and Blue hissed agreement. “Could have been phrased more colorfully, though. ‘Ditto both’?”

  “We’ll try to add color,” Felony said. She came to Ike, and they embraced and kissed. The ardor practically radiated from her. Ike wasn’t sure that it was love, for him, but it was certainly passion pointing the way. She was definitely the woman for him, even if donning her luscious form turned out not be feasible in the real world.

  “That will do,” Demeanor agreed. “For now.”

  Then they went to get their lasers, and set out for the Bird Seed. This turned out to be an olive drab monochrome, another world where a meteor collided, this one greenish, and messed up whatever electrical or magnetic currents that enabled higher intelligence. So the birds became smart, and the apes did not.

  Felony paused at the entrance, looking at Ike. “I’ve been sort of leading the way. If you’d rather not do this, tell me now.”

  “I’m ready for it. I tend to let life go by, and concentrate only when I have to. You are providing direction, and that’s fine with me.”

  “But it’s not really the feminine thing to do. For you, I want to be feminine.”

  Ike saw that she was looking for more than just his acquiescence. “There are different ways to be feminine, just as there are to be masculine. You’re fine as you are. If we get in trouble, then I’ll focus. It’s my nature to wait until I have to, then bear down as hard as I need. I think the professors are trying to put us in a situation where we’ll both have to work our posteriors off to get through it unscathed. Then they’ll really know what we’re made of.”

  “Are you finding a diplomatic way to say I’m pushy and you’re okay with that?”

  “Let me rephrase that: you are an independent thinker, and I admire that.”

  She shook her head. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. One hundred, two hundred...”

  He laughed and spanked her bottom, knowing that was part of what she wanted from him. “Let’s go.”

  They went on in. It was impressive from the start. Here the trees had not been cut for fuel and construction; instead they had been encouraged, and there were giants: Douglass Fir, Redwood, White Pine, Sequoia, admixed with lesser but still formidable other trees.

  Ike halted, staring at a tree with many trunks, like a giant spider. “What’s that?”

  “Banyan,” Demeanor said. “Grown to size. We value living trees, here, especially large ones.”

  “So I see. I never saw such giants as these before.”

  “Your seed demeans trees.”

  “Let’s not forget the birds,” Felony said. “I see nests galore. As a general rule, I think birds are pretty and harmless. But not here, I think.”

  “We’re all shades of green,” Demeanor agreed. “And hardly harmless. Keep your lasers ready.”

  “Will you have a conflict of interests?” Ike asked. “If we have to fight birds.”

  “No. I was pretty much de-nested when I enlisted with Pomegranate College. They regard me as a traitor.”

  “So you’re in danger too?” Felony asked.

  “Probably not. They know I am under the protection of the college, and they don’t want to provoke it. So they should pretty much ignore me. But I won’t be able to return here to live in any comfort.”

  Ike marveled again at the elaborateness of this setting. The background rationales were worked out to an amazing degree. All for the sake of verisimilitude, making it seem real.

  They saw a rabbit, then a small snake. So there were mammals here, and reptiles, but probably not predators that would menace birds. Just as very few creatures who were a danger to mankind remained on Earth, apart from the parasites.

  “Now there should be a pass we can find,” Felony said. “And not readily get. Part of the game.”

  “It’s the game I fear,” Ike said. “It should be set off when we go for the pass. We won’t be able to avoid it.”

  “We’ll just have to try to win it.” Felony smiled. “But this time you carry the pass.”

  “I still want you to have it.”

  “Then preserve it for me. Don’t let them get it from you.”

  “That is the challenge,” he agreed.

  They followed a winding little path through the forest. Soon the land sloped down. Then the forest ended and they stood at the edge of a valley with a river running through it. A herd of goats grazed on the tall grass. It looked quite peaceful.

  Blue hissed warning.

  “I agree,” Demeanor said. “It’s treacherous.”

  Felony shaded her eyes with her hand. “What’s that in the river?”

  “An island,” Ike said.

  “On the island.”

  “A single tree.”

  “On the tree.”

  “A pass!” Ike said, seeing it now.

  “So we have to get to that tree on that island and take that pass. Knowing it’s the bait for the trap.”

  “If we can figure out the nature of the trap, maybe we can nullify it,” Ike said.

  “A big bird swooping down and grabbing us in its talons, maybe?”

  “That would be a roc,” Ike said. “A fantasy bird that can fly away with an elephant in each claw. We’ve seen nothing to suggest that anything like that exists here.”

  “Still, we had better be prepared to repel an attack from above.”

  “One of us can wield a shield, the other a sword,” Ike said.

  “You’re better with both than I am.”

  “Okay. Set up your shield for protection, and I’ll set up my sword. You watch the sky for any danger, and I’ll try to beam it.”

  Blue hissed twice.

  “No?” Ike asked. “Other way around?”

  “No,” Demeanor said. “He thinks that the danger is more sophisticated, just as it was when the serpents mobbed us but only wanted the pass. You’re setting up to fight the wrong battle.”

  “Then what is the right battle?” Ike asked, nettled.

  “We don’t know. That is for you to figure out.”

  “I have an idea,” Felony said. “Those goats are grazing, unperturbed. So it seems there’s no danger to goats at the moment. Why don’t we try to emulate goats, as we approach the island? With luck we won’t be noticed.”

  Neither familiar was keen on that, but they had no better suggestions. So Ike and Felony hunched forward, almost touching the ground with their hands, trying to look like goats, at least from above. They moved into the field.

  Nothing happened, so they kept going. The goats continued to graze, undisturbed. Ike doubted they would be able to approach the goats, but they didn’t need to; they just needed to make it to the river, and thence to the island. So far so good. The familiars remained nervous.

  Then, when they were well into the field, far from the cover of the forest, mischief struck. Not from the sky, but on the ground. Four giant running birds charged from the forest, orienting on them. The same kind as the one that had chased them near the campus, the first day. Blue hissed and Demeanor screamed together, their warnings coming too late.

  “Those aren’t ostriches!” Felony cried. “They look more like—I can’t remember the name, Phora-something, long extinct predator.”

  “Phorusrhacus,” Demeanor said. “The running carnivore. Top predator for thirty six million years, until almost recent times. Seven feet tall, massive beak, powerful legs and deadly claws. They herd the goats. This is a protected hunting range for them.”

  Indeed, the birds were the height of a man and had proportionally large heads, with cruelly powerful beaks. They were obviously designed to make short work of any flesh they chomped.

  “Now you tell us,” Felony muttered.

  “Now I am allowed to. We tried to discourage you from exposing yourselves.”

  “And forfeiting the pass,” Ike said sourly.

  “You just needed to find a better approach. One that wouldn’t alert the guardians.”

  Meanwhile the birds were closing the distance between them. “Keep your shield tight and run toward the island,” Ike said. “They don’t look like water birds.”

  “They’re not. They merely fish in the river,” Demeanor said.

  “Big help,” Felony said.

  “Run!” Ike repeated. They ran, but the predators were rapidly gaining. They were not going to reach the river before the birds caught up with them. The charge had been timed to catch them at their most vulnerable point, too far from any possible cover.

  “I’ll try to stop them,” Ike said. “You go on. Try to find cover.”

  “Not without you!”

  “I’ll follow. Go!”

  She ran on. Ike set his shield carefully, then focused his sword. He lasered the lead bird in the chest. It squawked and fluttered its vestigial wings, but continued its charge. It was too massive for the laser to bring down at this range.

  Ike aimed carefully. His second beam played across the bird’s face, bouncing off its beak and catching an eye. Now the bird stopped, temporarily blinded.

  But the three others were still charging. They were upon Ike before he could orient on another.

  And their feathers charred as they touched the shield. They squawked and flung themselves away from it.

  “Heard about the shield, but didn’t believe it?” Ike asked. “Now you know.”

  They walked around him, studying the shield. They did not seem to be afraid of it, merely wary, now that they had felt its power. They were looking for some way to get through it.