Awares by Piers Anthony Page B

chances are that the key personnel required to make a nuclear strike would be under Maggot control, so that wouldn't work either.”
    “So our best course is to persuade the Maggots that Earth is not suitable for harvesting at the moment,” Elasa said. “Is that possible?”
    “It is unlikely, because Earth is eminently suitable for harvesting. Only if there were some suggestion that it would cost more to reduce than it would be worth, would they decide to bypass it. The mysterious disappearance of their agents, suggesting that Earth has ways to spot and eliminate them, might do it. But I suspect they will send the Maggot.”
    “Which will likely doom us,” Elasa concluded.
    “Exactly. You have a nice touch here, cutting off their agents, but it's not enough in itself. You need something more.”
    “We'll work on it,” Elasa said.
    They met with the first foreign official, and sure enough, he had been possessed by a minion of the Maggots. He was telepathic and precognitive, but not using either talent at the moment, for reasons Kop had clarified before: short-range precog was too changeable, and other minds were messy. “What's this about, Kop?” he demanded. “We're busy here, about to go into harvest mode.” He eyed Elasa, surely aware from his host of her prior visit. “Not that a brief pause would be unwelcome.”
    “There is a complication,” Kop said. “We're not going into harvest mode.”
    “Surely you jest.”
    “I have something to show you,” Elasa said, carrying the Plant toward him.
    But now the agent's Awareness registered. “That thing is dangerous!”
    Elasa stood and opened her shirt to display her breasts. The man looked, momentarily distracted. In that moment, Adela and Venus struck.
    The man froze. “You cut me off,” he said, surprised.
    “Your best bet is to put your host's mind back in charge, so he can start reversing the preparations for the harvest,” Kop said. “You have plenty to do, just not what it was.”
    “Yes, of course,” the man agreed, looking somewhat dizzy. His Awareness was stabilizing him, showing him the best course through this new reality.
    They moved out, heading for the next meeting. Elasa knew they had to keep moving, because once the Maggots caught on that they were losing their agents, they would immediately act to safeguard the remaining ones.
    “Can we get them all in time?” she asked.
    Adela put her hand on Bunky's back. “We think so. But we can't be sure of the ones not on our immediate circuit. Other Awares traveled with Bunky to set them up, but there is no clear indication of complete success.”
    “And Bunky is with us now,” Elasa said. “And Venus. They can't be everywhere at once.”
    “Yes. Anticipating this problem, we primed the others slightly differently.”
    “Differently?”
    “It's a cruder setting. When they try to contact the Maggots, their memories will short circuit, throwing them into convulsions. Some may die.”
    “Won't that attract attention?”
    “Yes. That's why it's not the preferred mode. But we could not allow them to continue to function as Maggot minions.”
    “I suppose not,” Elasa agreed. She didn't like it, but as Kop had said, this wasn't beanbag. Beanbag was a cloth bag filled with dried beans, used in children's games. They were playing for much higher stakes. At least the ones they nullified personally would be able to retire peacefully, making no waves, and their hosts would emerge in due course, perhaps not badly scathed.
    In the course of the excursion, Elasa got to see the formidable processing stations being set up. The local one was a slaughterhouse, but that was only one element of a multi-pronged program. Walking meat could be marched into the station and fed into the grinders, but what of sea, insect, and plant life? They visited a huge underwater center designed to generate a major ocean current that would sweep in all swimming things and chop them up and can them with the flow of