Chaining the Lady Read Free Page A

Yet no Andromedan species was represented in this card of Tarot.
    More locally, Sphere Canopus was a Scepter culture, but this card was not that, either. There was a humanoid species in that sphere, but it was slave. The chains of the lady—could they be indicative of slavery? Doubtful; normally this Queen was not chained. Rather, she was arrogantly free, imperious, fiery. Also, this one was not humanoid, but human , definitely Solarian, itself a pretty arrogant species, by no means slave. A chained Solarian was doubly significant, surely.
    The Solarians were the reputed originators of the Tarot. Versions of the Tarot had been extant on their home planet for several Solarian centuries before the human colonization of space and formation of Sphere Sol. The Cluster deck itself was thought to be the creation of one of their males, the scholar called Companion Paul. There was obscurity about his status, rooted in the human mode of reproduction. Some said there could be several offspring of a single human reproductive unit, called siblings. Others said humans sometimes called each other “Brother” when in fact they were not closely related. Only the Solarians knew for sure.
    At any rate, the attribution of this deck to this Paul of Earth had to be a fond exaggeration; many of the significant aspects of that deck were unknown to Solarians at the time he had lived. The entire matter of the Energy War dated fifty Mintakan years after Paul, for example—that was four hundred Solarian years. She really ought to get used to thinking in those trifling units, because they had become the standard for Segment Etamin. But the habits of an old neuter changed slowly. Still, the nucleus of Tarot concept had certainly been Solarian, and the Temple of Tarot had spread rapidly from Sol to the other local spheres. Melody had suffered an apprenticeship at the Tarot Temple nearest her once, but had not been satisfied with their doctrines and had gone her own way for most of her life.
    Her phone sounded. Melody activated it with a single clap of one foot, her strings vibrating dissonantly because of the irritation caused by the interruption of her morning meditation.
    â€œImperial Outworld of Segment Etamin summons Melody of Planet Counterpoint, Sphere Mintaka, for immediate presentation via Transfer,” the instrument played.
    Melody emitted a musical snort and broke he connection. “These practical jokers never give up,” she played. A female her age just had to be the subject of a certain amount of ridicule. Blat!
    Then she remembered the card. A chained Solarian female: her key for the day. Gould that relate to this call?
    She considered the card again. A human woman, chained in the Andromedan suit. Who had chained that lady, and why? What could it have to do with herself, an entity of quite a different situation? The Tarot was always relevant, but at times she had a great deal of difficulty ascertaining that relevance.
    Well, she would have to come at it the hard way, by going back to basics. She was a sapient entity of Sphere Mintaka, itself a unit of Segment Etamin of the Milky Way galaxy. Each sphere was a number of parsecs in diameter, embracing a hundred or more inhabited worlds, the most advanced ones being near the center. Her own planet, Counterpoint, was in the midrange of a large sphere; it possessed atomic science but not much more. It was a suburban world, where wealthy administrators liked to retire. Toward the fringe things became progressively more primitive, until a hundred parsecs from Star Mintaka the worlds were essentially rural. This was spherical regression, that occurred in all spheres, and could be abated only by the infusion of energy. But there was not enough energy; the Ethic of Energy had already spawned one intergalactic war and might some century spawn another.
    So the Tarot Suit of Energy related to her general situation, though she herself associated with the Suit of Aura. Since every