At the foot of the mountain Fleta showed the way to a tree that bore huge and delicious-looking apples. Eagerly, Mach reached for one, but she put her hand on his arm, cautioning him. “That be no joke even I can abide,” she said.
“Joke? I’m hungry!”
“Bane, that apple be poison! Mayhap thou dost mean to denature it before thou dost eat, but this be not humor I abide.”
Mach paused. “Mach, not Bane. I can’t denature anything, I told you!”
“Mach,” she repeated, again stifling her mirth. Then she sobered. “But tease me not further; take of the good fruit.”
Mach reached for a different apple, and glanced at her; when she nodded, he plucked it. “You promised to tell me why you think I could heal myself or conjure food.”
She plucked an apple of her own, and nibbled at it delicately while she spoke. “We have known each other since I was a foal and thou a baby,” she said. ‘Thy father, Stile, and my dam, Neysa, be oath-friends, and so she raised me near the Blue Demesnes, and I did learn the human tongue even as thou didst. We wrestled together when little, and later I carried thee all around Phaze. Only these past three years, when we became grown and thou studied the magic and I the antimagic of my kind, have we been separate, and though it had to be, I missed thee, Bane. Now for a moment we romp again, and ne’er would I have it end.”
She had a funny way of referring to herself! “But what about magic?”
“Thou’rt the son of the Blue Adept!” she exclaimed. “One day thou willst be lord of the Blue Demesnes thyself. That be why thou hast been studying thy magic. Already thou canst do conjuration no ordinary person can match. Hard be it for me to understand why thou didst not summon a sword and stab those roach-heads, or transform them to slugs.”
Mach stared at her. “You’re serious! You think I can do magic!”
“Bane, I have seen thee do magic many times,” she said. “E’en when we were little, thou wouldst tease me with thy conjurations, but always I forgave thee. My dam likes magic not, but I have no aversion to it, for how could I love thee and not thy nature?”
Mach shook his head. “Fleta, you must understand this: I am not Bane. I can’t do magic. The first time I met you was last night.”
“Thou certainly dost look like Bane, and sound like him, except for thy funny affectation of speech, and smell like him,” she said. “Else would I not have come to thee.”
“I’m in Bane’s body. But I’m from the other frame. My name is Mach, and science is all I have known.”
“If thou wouldst have me believe thee, let me touch thee,” she said.
“Touch me?” She came to him, and took his hand, and brought it to her forehead. She pressed it against the gem in her forehead.
“Speak,” she said.
“I am Mach, from Proton,” he said firmly. “I exchanged bodies with my other self in Phaze, with Bane. Now I am here and he is there, and I’d like to change back.”
She lifted his hand away from her head and brought it down before her, staring at him over it. ‘Truth!” she exclaimed, wide-eyed. “No joke!”
“No joke,” he agreed.
‘Thou’rt not the man I know!”
“I am not.”
She dropped his hand and backed away. “And I spent the night with thee!” she said, appalled.
He had to smile. “Nothing happened, Fleta.”
“And I kissed thee!” she continued. “Oh, had I known!”
“And a nice kiss it was, too,” he agreed.
“And now I stand naked before thee!” she said, seeming shocked.
“It’s the natural way.”
“Not for grown folk!” she said. In a moment she had gotten back into her robe.
“But you’re no Citizen!” Mach said. “If anyone catches you in that—“
“This be not Proton!” she snapped.
He had to smile. ‘Touche! No Citizens here.”
“No science here.” She squinted at him as if trying penetrate his disguise. “But if thou really canst not do magic—“
“I really cannot,” he agreed.
‘Then there be hazard here,” she concluded. “Best I change form and carry thee back to the Blue Demesnes before any learn!”
“Change form?” he asked. “What are you talking bout?”
She hesitated. “Ah, now I remember! Thou dost not ke—Oh, what must I do?”
Mach spread his hands. “I don’t know why you’re so upset. Why don’t you just show me where these Blue Demesnes are, and maybe there I can learn how to return to Proton. Then you’ll have your friend Bane again.”
She still seemed doubtful. “Bane—Mach, this be no garden within thy demesnes! Here there be monsters, and as we be—we cannot travel through the fell swamp.”
Mach remembered the swamp. He realized what she meant. If it had not been for the unicorn, he would have been lost.
That unicorn! What had been its intent—and where had it gone? What would it do when it returned and found him gone? “Is there any other route? One that doesn’t go through the swamp?”
“None we would care to take,” she said.
“Worse than the swamp?”
She nodded soberly.
“But how did you get here, last night?”
‘Thou really dost not know!” she said, as if verifying something she couldn’t quite believe.
“All I know is that I slept, and when I woke, you were beside me. You must have had some safe route.”
“Not one I care to use at the moment.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Surely thou dost not,” she agreed. “But mayhap we have another way.”
“Another path?”
“Another way. Thou must use thy magic.”
“But I told you, I have no magic!”
“How dost thou know?”
“I come from a scientific frame. I don’t even believe in magic!”
“Well, I don’t believe in thy science,” she retorted. “But if I were in thy land, I would at least try thy way.”
Mach realized that there was some justice in her position. “Very well, tell me how to do magic. We’ll see what happens.”
“Always before, thou hast sung a ditty.”
“Sung a ditty?” he asked incredulously.
“A little rhyme, and it happens.”
“This is ridiculous!”
‘Thou didst promise to try,” she reminded him, pouting.
So he had. “What ditty do you want me to sing?”
She shrugged. ‘Try some simple spell, first.”
“No spell is simple, to my way of thinking!”
“Conjure a sword, mayhap. That can slay a monster.”
“A sword.” Now Mach shrugged. “I just make a rhyme, and sing it?”
“About what thou dost want.”
Mach’s experience in the Game on Proton had made him apt at quick challenges. He could sing well, and he could write poetry, including nonsense verse. That last was an achievement he was proud of, for no other robot he knew of could do it. In a moment he had fashioned some doggerel verse: “I’ll be bored, without a sword,” he said.
Nothing happened. “Nay, thou must sing it,” Fleta reminded him. “And I think thou must concentrate, make a picture of it in thy mind.”
Mach pictured an immense broadsword. “I’ll be bored, without a sword!” he sang.
There was a puff of smoke and an acrid smell. Something was in his hand. As the air cleared, he looked at it.
It was a toy sword.
“Dost thou still mock me?” Fleta demanded. “What canst thou fight with that?”
But Mach was amazed. “I conjured it!” he said. “I actually did conjure it!”
“Of course thou didst conjure it!” Fleta agreed acidly, stamping a foot in rather cute frustration. “But I did mean a real sword!”
“I tried for a real sword,” Mach said. “But I really didn’t believe it would work.”
“It did not work, numbskull! In years of yore, thou wouldst have wrought a truly adequate blade.”
“In just a day of yore, I wasn’t even here,” he retorted, nettled.
She softened. “Aye, sirrah, I forget! Well, try again.”
That seemed sensible. Mach set down the toy, concentrated on an image of a yard-long blade formed of stainless steel, and sang: “I’ll be bored without a sword!”
There was a swirl of fog before him. It dissipated, leaving—nothing. Not even a toy sword.
“Art sure thou art really trying?” Fleta asked.
“I thought I was,” Mach said, baffled. ‘The first must have been a fluke.”
“Canst not get through without a weapon,” Fleta said.
“I could make a weapon.”
“And conjure another toy? This be tiresome!”
“I mean by hand.”
“By hand?”
“To craft it from a natural object. A stone, or a pie of wood.” He looked about as he spoke. There were many stones along the slope they had just descended, and old branches littered the ground between the trees.
“An thou dost try to bop a dragon on the snout with a mere stone, thy hand and half thy arm will pay the forfeit,” she pointed out.
“Unless I threw the stone.”
“Then thou wouldst not have thy weapon anymore.”
“Urn. Maybe an axe, then.” He walked back to the slope, peering at the offerings. He found several nicely fragmented stones with sharp edges. When he found one of suitable shape, he kept it and started his search for a handle. “Are there any vines around here?”
“Vines? Thou meanest to tie up the dragon?”
He laughed. “No. To tie on my axehead.” He found a stout stick of suitable size.
She wended her way among the trees, and soon found a vine. She tugged at it, but it would not come free from the tree. He joined her, setting his hands above hers and hauling down hard, but only succeeded in hauling himself up. He lost his balance and fell into her. She let go, and they both tumbled to the ground.
“Clumsy oaf!” Fleta exclaimed, trying to extricate herself from his involuntary grasp. “Willst tear my cloak!”
“Sorry.” He helped her get free, somewhat diffidently, because she kept reminding him of a Citizen. Nevertheless, the brief contact reminded him forcefully how nicely endowed she was, in the feminine sense. His breakup with Doris in Proton still stung; it would be nice to—
But of course he knew almost nothing about this pretty young woman. She seemed to know a lot about him, or about Bane, so lacked that disadvantage. She had come to join him in the crater, apparently intentionally, because she took him for her old friend. Yet there were ways in which that association seemed other than ordinary friendship. She had kissed him, and gone naked for him though it was not her normal state. Yet again, she had not signaled any actual sexual involvement between them. It was almost as if she were his sister, or perhaps half-sister, close enough to have no secrets or shame, yet distant enough to be aware of him as a male. Of Bane; this intimacy obviously did not extend to Mach. Mach found himself jealous of that intimacy, of whatever nature.
Meanwhile they had a challenge in this vine. It was good that it was tough; he needed strength. But how could he get a suitable length of it for his purpose?
Aha! He brought over his axehead stone. He held the vine firm with one hand, and sawed with the sharp edge of the stone. In a moment the vine parted. He had his cord.
He used the stone to split the end of the stick, then wedged the stone into that cleft, so that the sharp edge was at the side. He wound the vine around and around this joining, drawing it tight. He pulled the tag-end into the crevice below the stone, so that it was caught firmly. Fleta surveyed the result dubiously.
“That be an axe?”
“A crude one. It will have to do.”
“It will take more than that to stop a dragon.”
“Then I will use it to make more than that.” Mach took his axe and chopped at a sapling. The head started to work out of its cleft, and the cord tried to unravel; he had to rework both more carefully. But he managed to fashion a pole about two and a half meters long. “A staff,” he announced.
“A dragon would chomp it off,” Fleta said. But she seemed halfway impressed.
Mach checked the ground again, picking up a number of smaller stones. “And what be these for?” Fleta inquired.
“For distance operations. I’ll throw them to keep monster away.”
“Canst throw well?”
“In my own body I have perfect aim; it comes from long experience in the Game,” he said.
There was a swirl in the air, and vapor formed. Bud in a moment it dissipated. “What was that?” Fleta asked alarmed.
“It resembled the effects when I tried to do magic,” he said. “But I wasn’t—“
“Thou didst speak in rhyme!” she exclaimed.
“. . . aim,. . . Game,” he agreed, remembering. “But I had no magic in mind; it was an accident.”
“If thou canst do magic by accident, why canst thou not do it on purpose?”
“But I tried to do it on purpose, and got nowhere.”
She tilted her head thoughtfully. ‘There be things we know not about thy magic. Many a time I heard Bane conjure, but when I copied him, it worked not. Methinks it be a matter of person and of form, and if thou beest not he, yet dost thou possess the talent. Thou didst not even sing that time, yet the magic tried to come.”
Mach sighed. “I’ll try it again.” He held up his hand. “I thirst; I think—I want a drink,” he singsonged, visualizing a nutra-beverage.
The fog swirled, and the tall cup appeared in his hand. “It worked!” he exclaimed.
“It doth look more like mudwater,” Fleta commented.
“Nutra is opaque.” He brought it to his mouth and sipped.
He spat it out. “That is mudwater!”
Fleta laughed. “I told thee!”
“So I bungled it again. But I did conjure it!”
“Methinks there be much learning to thine art.”
“Surely so! Maybe I should practice.” He set down I the cup, held his hand up again, and repeated his incantation.
This time the fog swirled, but all that came to his hand was a splat of mud.
Fleta laughed again. “What a clumsy Adept thou beest!” Mach flipped the mud at her. He did not intend to have it hit her, but his aim was better than intended; the mud scored on her neck just above her robe, and slid down her front.
‘Thou monster!” she exclaimed, scooping up a handful of moist dirt where the mudwater had spilled.
“Now wait! I didn’t mean to—“ Her heave caught him on the forehead.
“Now we be even,” she said with satisfaction.
Mach decided to let it go at that. “But how do we get clean?”
“We wash in the stream,” she said. She showed the way down through the forest to a tiny stream. There was a pool just big enough to dip a hand into.
Fleta hesitated, then shrugged and pulled off her cloak. “Methinks I was foolish to react as I did, when I learned thou wast not the man I knew. I have no need for modesty before thee.” The mud had soiled the skin between her breasts. She cupped her hands and scooped up water, splashing it against her torso. Mach had found her more alluring when she had donned the cloak, because in Proton covering was the mark of power and privacy; now he reacted even more to her renewed nakedness. There was something about the water and the way she washed herself off.
Fleta, clean, shook herself. Her breasts seemed to move independently of her torso. Then she paused, looking at him. “And what be that?” she asked, smiling impishly.
Mach abruptly felt himself flushing. He turned away.
“I said not it was wrong!” Fleta exclaimed. “Me-thought I moved thee not, Bane, since we achieved maturity.”
“I am not Bane,” he said tightly. How could this have happened to him? As a robot he reacted sexually only when he chose to, never by accident.
“Aye, that thou art not,” she agreed softly. “I thought to tease thee as we did each other, when we were young. We—Bane and I—played games we ne’er told the adults.”
“And we of Proton,” he agreed. “But I did not mean to—I did not realize this would happen.”
“Nor I, Mach. But would I offend thee if I confess I be not grieved it did?”
His flush, by the feel of it, seemed to be fading, but not the rest. “Fleta, I really don’t know. Exactly what was the relationship between you and Bane?”
“Friends,” she said. “Good friends, as good as can be though we ne’er made oath on’t. Secrets we had, only with each other. But then we grew apart.”
“Friends—so close you even—?”
She came and set her cool hand on his shoulder. “Mach, there be naught that human man and woman can do together that we did not do, or try. But we were too young; it meant naught. Today it would be another matter, for we are grown.”
“So I should not—react this way—to you,” he said with difficulty.
She sighed. “Thou shouldst not,” she agreed. “We be too old for such games now, methinks. But Mach, fear not; ne’er will I tell.”
“We—you and Bane—are related?” he asked.
She burst into laughter. “Related!” She reached around him from behind and hugged him. This did not help his condition, for her breasts pressed hard against his back. “Thou dost not know, really?”
“Of course I don’t know!” he said, trying to be angry, but wishing he could turn and embrace her. How could he be so far out of control?
“Then shall I tell thee not,” she said, releasing him.
“You said you would not tease me!”
‘This be other than teasing,” she said. “I fear thou wouldst like not the truth.”
“I always like the truth!”
‘Then accept this, Mach: now I understand somewhat better the case with thee, and I be flattered, not annoyed, and would preserve it a little longer. Come, face me as thou art; I have seen thee thus before, and will speak of it not further, an that please thee.”
He seemed to have no choice. He turned, and she neither laughed nor frowned, though she did look. He knelt by the pool and dipped out water to wash off his face.
“We be not related,” Fleta said after a moment. “But naught more than games between us was e’er possible.”
“I wish you would tell me why!”
“When I tell thee, thou willst be angry with me, and that I seek not.”
“I promise I won’t be angry! I just want to know.”
But she shook her head, knowing better than he. “Methinks thou wouldst be more comfortable in clothing,” she said in a moment. “It be the custom here.”
He realized that she was correct. To go naked in a culture where clothing was the norm was not sensible. He would have to suppress his natural aversion to misrepresenting his status, and become a normal person of this frame, at least until he learned how to return to his robot body. Likewise, he could not afford to presume too much on the fact that she had seen Bane in a state of sexual excitement when young; obviously Fleta was no such playmate now.
Suddenly he realized why he was having trouble controlling his reactions: he was in a living body! He breathed, he had a heartbeat, he had to eat and drink and eliminate—of course he reacted sexually too! This was not, he now understood, entirely voluntary; when a stimulation came to him, his body reacted even when he did not wish it to. He had assumed that he would have no special interest in sex until he chose to, as was the case in Proton, but the sight of Fleta’s wet and moving anatomy had bypassed his intellect and made his body react. Thus his surprised embarrassment. The circuits of living creatures were to an extent self-motivating.
No wonder the folk here wore clothing! Not only did it prevent unwanted stimulation, it concealed unwanted reaction.
“I’ll wear clothing,” he agreed. But still he wondered: if Fleta was, as she said, flattered rather than embarrassed by the evidence of his reaction, why did she say that j there should be no such action between them? If they had done it as children, and they were not related (and why had she found that notion so hilarious?), why was it wrong now? Were they promised to other partners? Yet she had not said that; she acted as if there were some more fundamental reason why nothing serious between them was possible. And she feared he would be j angry when he learned.
He cast about, looking for something that could be fashioned into clothing. All that he could see that had any such prospect at all was the large leaves of some trees. Well, they would have to do.
Fleta helped him gather some good leaves. Then they used his axe to make slits in a vine, and passed the stems of the leaves through, with long-stemmed leaves overlapping short-stemmed ones, forming a kind of skirt. They wrapped the vine about his waist, and the leaves hung down to cover him to an extent.
But already there was another problem. His shoulders were turning red. “Sunburn!” Fleta said. “I forgot—thy kind suffers from that; it be another reason you wear clothing.”
His kind? Wasn’t her kind the same?
“I suppose we could make a collar to suspend a shirt of leaves,” he said, not enthusiastically. As it was, the leaves brushed constantly against him, stirring awareness of a region he preferred to tune out.
“Mayhap thou couldst conjure some cloth.”
He tried: “I’ll be wroth, without some cloth,” he sang, visualizing an enormous bolt of cloth.
He got a fragment of cloth about the size of a Citizen’s handkerchief.
He grimaced. “And if I try it again, I’ll get a thread or two,” he muttered. “It never works the second time.”
“Mach! That be it!” Fleta exclaimed. “Ne’er did I hear Bane use the same spell twice!”
“Good for only one shot,” he said, gratified by the revelation.
“Canst try the same, with other words?”
“Why not?” He pondered a moment, then sang: “Cloth: I implore, bring me some more.” He visualized an even larger bolt.
And the fog swirled, and deposited twice as much of the same type of cloth as it had before.
Now they understood the system. Mach invented a number of rhymes, garnering needle and thread and more cloth so he could sew a shirt. Fleta seemed to have no knowledge of sewing. He found that variation of melody also facilitated the conjurations, and that he got more of what he visualized if he built up to it by humming a few bars first. He was learning to be a magician!
It was close to midday by the time they were ready to travel. Mach had considered trying a spell to move them directly to the Blue Demesnes, but decided not to; he would probably drop them in the swamp instead. If the magic was going to foul up, let it foul up on details that didn’t affect their living processes!
He now wore crudely fashioned sandals, and a ragged broad-brimmed hat, to protect his feet from abrasion and his head and neck from the sun, and in between was as strange an assemblage of clothing as he could have imagined. Swatches of cloth, leaves, vines and even a patch of leather, all fastened together haphazardly. But it covered him, protecting him from both the burning of the sun and the embarrassment of possible involuntary reactions. He would get out of the costume the moment he returned to Proton, of course; rather, Bane would, for Bane would be back in his own body, and surely would recover his normal clothes. In fact, Mach himself would recover those clothes when he got back to the glade he had started from.
Mach spied a huge shape in the sky to the south, where the horizon was a ragged purple range of mountains. Those mountains existed also in Proton, of course; the natural geography of the two frames was supposed to be identical. “What’s that?”
“A dragon,” Fleta said. “Hide if it come near.”
“They are in the air as well as the water?”
“Aye, everywhere, and always hungry. Few other than an Adept fear not their like.”
Mach could appreciate why. He kept a wary eye on the sky thereafter.
The path reached the swamp. Now Mach hefted his crude weapons nervously, remembering the dragon that had been here. Maybe it would be asleep.
They had no such fortune. Fleta knew the path, and led him along it without misstep despite the murkiness of the water, but when they were too far along to turn readily back, the monster reared up.
Gazing at it, Mach abruptly wished he were elsewhere. His axe and staff seemed woefully inadequate. The dragon was so huge!
“I can help, if—“ Fleta said.
“My job. You get on to safety while I hold it off.” That sounded a good deal bolder than he felt. Still, his Game experience had acquainted him with different modes of combat, mock-dragons included. This was more nervous business than that, as it was real, but the same principles should hold. The dragon should be vulnerable in a number of places, and a bold enough challenge should dissuade it. The thing was, after all, an animal.
First he tried his stones. He fired the first at the dragon’s left eye. His aim was good; he knew his capacity here. But the monster blinked as the stone flew in, and it bounced off the leathery eyelid. So much for that.
Mach threw the second stone at the dragon’s teeth.
This one scored, but the tooth it struck was too large and strong; a tiny chip of enamel flew off, but the damage only aggravated the creature without hurting it.
The third stone he aimed at the flaring nostrils. It disappeared inside—and the dragon sneezed. The target was too big and spongy, and the stone too small, to do sufficient damage. But it did verify what Mach wanted to know: that the tissue there was soft, not hard. Few animals liked getting their tender tissues tagged.
Vapor swirled as the dragon warmed up. Mach hoped his clothing would shield him from the worst of the heat if he got blasted by steam; meanwhile, he would do his best to prevent the dragon from scoring with it.
Mach lifted his long staff. As the dragon’s head loomed close, he poked it with the end of the pole. Surprised, the dragon snapped at the pole, but Mach swung it free. He was accomplishing his intent: he had the dragon trying to attack the weapon instead of the man.
When the dragon’s teeth snapped on air, Mach reversed the pole and smashed it into the nostrils. The dragon reared back; that blow smarted!
Then the dragon heaved out steam. But the range was too great, and the aim was bad; no steam touched Mach. He aimed the pole at an eye and rammed; again the dragon blinked, but the pole scored, and pushed in the eye before rebounding. This time the eye was hurt; some blood showed as the dragon jerked back and the pole fell away.
“Thou’rt beating it!” Fleta exclaimed, amazed.
“I intended to,” Mach puffed, discovering that this effort was tiring him. He had forgotten, again: this living body lacked the endurance of the machine.
The dragon, hurt, vented a horrendous cloud of steam, then charged back into the fray. So sudden was the thrust that Mach didn’t have time to swing the cumbersome pole back into position. The dragon bit at it sidewise and chomped it in two.
Mach drew his axe. Suddenly he was worried; he hadn’t wanted to resort to this, because of the close contact required. But apparently the dragon had forgotten to use the steam, and just charged in with jaws gaping.
Mach stepped aside, and bashed his axe violently down on the dragon’s nose as the jaws closed on the spot he had occupied. The stone blade sank into the right nostril, hacking through the flesh. Blood welled out.
But Mach was now on uncertain footing, and his step and blow had put him off balance. He took another step—and found no path. He splashed headlong into the water.
The dragon was thrashing, really hurt by the blow to its nose, but it remained alert enough to spot the sudden opportunity. It whipped its snout about to pluck Mach out of the water. Fleta screamed.
Without purchase on the path, Mach could not strike another blow, or even escape. He was helpless before those descending teeth.
“Without aplomb, bring me a bomb!” he sang with sudden inspiration.
Fog swirled. The bomb appeared in his hand. He heaved it into the opening mouth. In a moment it detonated.
The dragon paused, closing its mouth. Vapor seeped out between its teeth. Mach realized that he had again failed to conjure what he really wanted; the bomb had been a dud, or at least too small and weak to do the job. The one he had imagined would have blown the monster’s head apart.
The dragon lifted its head. Thick vapor jetted from its uninjured nostril. Its near eye bulged. The bomb had not really hurt it, but evidently the vapor bothered it. Mach remained in the water, watching.
Then he caught a whiff of the vapor. It was insect destructant! He knew the smell from the times he had visited one of the garden domes in Proton, where they had occasional insect infestations, and flooded the domes with this vapor. It was supposed to be harmless to larger creatures, but human beings tried to avoid breathing it.
Instead of a real bomb, he had gotten a bug-bomb. Now it was spewing its noxious vapor into the dragon’s mouth—and the dragon didn’t have the wit to spit it out!
In a moment the dragon plunged under the water, but a trail of evil-smelling bubbles showed that the monster still hadn’t let go of the bomb. Mach smiled as he clambered back to the path. His bomb had done the job after all!
“Oh, Mach, I feared for thee!” Fleta exclaimed, coming into his arms as he stood. She kissed him, then drew back. “Oh, I should have done that not!”
“Why not?”
“I think I like thee too well.”
“But you won’t tell me why that’s wrong?”
“Aye,” she agreed with a rueful smile.
“You’re stubborn!”
“My kind be that.”
“Well, I like you too,” he said. “I think you’re a great girl, and I wish—“ But he had to break off. What did he wish? That he could stay with her? That he could take her with him to Proton? Neither was possible, as far as he knew.
She drew away. “I was minded to—to do what I had to to save thee, but it happened so suddenly, and then thou didst vanquish the dragon alone. Thou art a hero, Mach!”
“Well, I wasn’t going to let it eat you,” he said.
“Yes, thou didst urge me to safety, whilst thou fought. No man of Phaze would have done that for my like, except perhaps the Blue Adept, and that be different.”
The Blue Adept. Mach’s father had been that before transferring to Proton, where his magic didn’t work. She referred to the other one, of course. But the two were alternate selves, and yes, either would have done the same to save a damsel in distress.
“We must go on, before more come,” she said.
“There are more water dragons?” he asked, alarmed.
“Many more,” she agreed.
He hurried after her, anxious to depart this swamp.
Bane stared. The landscape was absolutely barren. There were no trees, no bushes, no plants at all. There was only dry sand and grayish mist as far as he could see. It was dusk, but he realized that even by full daylight he would not have seen much more.
‘The country—where be it?” he asked, horrified.
‘This is the country, Bane,” Agape said through speaker-grille in her helmet.
“But it can’t be! There be no life here!”
‘There is no life on Proton,” she said. “Except with the domes. Did you not know?”
“I—I thought it would be like Phaze, only less so,” he admitted. ‘This—how did it happen?”
“I do not know much about the history of this planet, but I believe it was once alive. But the residents paid no heed to the quality of its environment, and so gradually it became as it is now, with good air and life in the dome-cities, and bad air outside. It is not this way where you live?”
“It be all sunshine and forest and meadows where the unicorns graze and rivers and magic,” Bane said. “Oh, what a horror be here!”
“But that means that the one you seek is comfortable, for he is there,” she pointed out. “You can seek him as you intended.”
“But—this,” he said, baffled by the desolation.
“We can walk, or perhaps ride.”
“Ride? There be no animals here!”
‘There are vehicles. I think serfs are permitted to utilize them.”
“Vehicles?”
“I do not know the specifics, but I am sure some are near, for the residents of the domes do not like to walk far outside. Let us look.”
Bane let her take the lead. She moved around the curve of the building they had just exited, and there was an alcove with several squat shapes within. She trudged to one and lifted its glassy upper section. Inside there were two deep holes. She climbed into one. ‘This will do,” she said. ‘Take the other seat, Bane. I think I can drive this.”
He climbed into the other hole. The transparent top settled down, shutting them in. Then there was a hissing, and gas swirled up. He tried to scramble out, but Agape restrained him. “It is not evil, Bane! It is air, so I can breathe without the helmet. When the light shows green, it will be all right.”
And in a moment a green light appeared before them, on a panel in the vehicle. Agape removed her helmet. “It will not release until I reseal my suit,” she said. ‘The gas out here would be harmful to my metabolism.”
“But I want not to stay in here!” he protested. “I want to look for mine other self!”
She smiled. “I think it is good that I am with you. I will make this machine perform.” She touched buttons before her, and took hold of a handle, bringing it out and down toward her.
Suddenly the vehicle lurched forward. Bane almost leaped out of his seat, but this time padded straps appeared and restrained him.
He peered out the forward glass. The terrain was coming toward him, as though he were riding a horse. “This—this be a wagon!” he exclaimed. “It moves by itself!”
“Yes, it is a machine, like your body, but not as intelligent as yours.”
“A machine,” he repeated, assimilating the concept. “Like a golem, or an enchanted object.”
“I think your world is as alien to this one as is mine,” she said.
“My world is natural. This be the alien one.”
“With that, too, I can agree.” She glanced at him. “Where would you travel, Bane?”
“I—I hadn’t thought. I mean, I had expected to circle in the forest, seeking to intercept mine other self. But now I know not.”
“The forest remains there, for him,” she reminded him. “I can circle if you wish.” And she guided the vehicle into a broad loop.
“No, I have other thoughts, now. I think he would not have remained in the glade. There be dangers.” He peered out again. “The night be closing rapidly. He would seek shelter.”
“Would he know where to find it?”
That question did not ease Bane’s mind. “I fear not. He could follow the path, but it forks, and the one fork goes to the Unicorn Demesnes, while the other— Oh, I hope he took that one not!”
“Where does it go?”
“To the swamp, where there be monsters. Of course, if they took him for me they would stay clear.” He brightened. ‘The clothing marks me as of the Blue De-menses.”
“Clothing?”
“Yes. We wear clothing there. So—“
“But he is of Proton,” she pointed out. “Would he wear clothing?”
Bane’s heart sank. “Nay, I fear not. But if he followed that path naked—“ He shuddered.
“If he should follow it, and wear his clothing so he was not harmed, where would he finish?” Agape asked.
“It goes to an old empty crater the ogres used. But we cleaned them out. Sometimes Fleta and I would go there to play.” He smiled privately.
“Who is Fleta? A girl-companion?”
He laughed. “Companion, yes; girl, no. Tell me not thou’rt jealous of her, Agape!”
“I am your companion, and I am not a girl,” Agape said. “Am I permitted to be jealous?”
He mulled that over. “I suppose there be a parallel, after all. Fleta and I were very close, as children, though I have seen not much of her recently. Thou mayst be jealous if thou dost wish.” He smiled.
‘Thank you.”
Suddenly he realized something. “I have reverted to mine own mode of speech! I should have talked to thee— to you not thus!”
“Please, Bane, do not change your speech for me. I like it as it is. I know what it is to be in a strange society.”
“But if others realize mine origin, there could be trouble.” He was also embarrassed to think that it had probably happened because he had been distracted by her voluptuous body.
“I will not tell others,” she promised.
He believed her. He had no magic here, but he had a sense about people, and he liked her. “Then let’s find mine other self.”
“Of course.”
“But let’s assume he followed the correct path. That would take him to the Herd, and they would recognize him with or without clothing, and bear him home to the Blue Demesnes.”
“The herd?”
‘The local unicorn herd. They be all oath-friends with Neysa, and Neysa is oath-friend to my father Stile, so none would e’er do me harm. They would believe that Mach is me, under some hostile spell, so would take him home right away.”
“And home is these blue demesnes? Where are they?”
“North of the herd demesnes. In Phaze every type of creature of any significance has its own region, called its demesnes, and so do the Adepts, the leading magicians. Of course there be a number of unicorn herds, just as there be many werewolf packs, but the important ones to us be the oath-friends.”
“Wolves too?”
“It all dates back to when my father made the Oath of Friendship with Neysa, so powerful it embraced all the members of the Herd and the Pack too. Because I be the child of Stile, I can safely go anywhere in those demesnes, because no unicorn or werewolf would harm me, and no lesser creature would dare to, for fear of the Herd and the Pack. So Mach will be safe.”
“If he took that path,” she said.
“He has to have taken that path!” he said vehemently. “Otherwise—“
“Surely he took it,” she agreed.
“So we can go to the Blue Demesnes, and find hij there,” he concluded.
“And these are north of here?”
“Should be northeast of here.”
“But—“
“They be north of the Herd, but the Herd be east of the glade where we exchanged identities. That glade coincides with Mach’s room in the dome; that be why I was able to locate him there, and finally to achieve rapport with him. Since the two geographies be identical, I can find the spot here by taking the same route I would there.” He peered again into the darkening gloom. “I hope.”
“There should be a map,” she said.
“A map?”
“A map of Proton. All planets have maps.” She touched buttons, and a screen illuminated. Soon the map appeared.
Bane stared at it. ‘That be Phaze!” he exclaimed.
“It says it is Proton,” she said. “See, here is our city, Hardom, with our vehicle location glowing.” She pointed to the blinking spark of light on the map.
“That be the Harpy Demesnes!” he said. “Right above the Purple Mountains.”
“Harpy Demesnes? Was the city named after the harpies?”
“Impossible! There be no harpies in Proton.” But then he reconsidered. “Still, that does sound like har as in harpy, and since it be a dome—Har-dome. Hardom. I wonder.” He focused on the other points of the map. “Down here be the Mound Folk of Phaze—and here be Moudom! And here, farther to the east, be the demesnes of the Gnomes—and here be Gnodom! They do match!”
“It really is a map of Phaze? This seems remarkable, if there has been no contact between the frames.”
“Maybe not. Up until twenty years ago, the frames were more closely connected. There was a curtain that some folk could cross. My father crossed it, to woo my mother. How long ago were these cities named?”
She touched another button. “It says three hundred years ago, for most.”
‘Then that’s it! They were named when Phaze and Proton were one, before they separated, and long before that separation became complete. The original settlers knew they were the same!”
“This is very interesting,” she said. “My own planet has only one aspect.”
‘That’s probably the case with most—you call them planets?”
‘The satellites of other stars, far away.”
He was distracted for a moment. “How far away be thine?”
“About fifty light years.”
He shook his head. “That means naught to me.”
She smiled. “Magic means nothing to me, but I accept your information on it.”
He returned the smile. “I question not thy word, Agape. And thou art not a human being?”
“I am not. I assume this form so that I may participate without offense in this human society.”
“Just as Fleta assumed human form to play with me,” he said. “I have no trouble with that.”
“I am most pleased that you do not. Though my form in its natural state does not resemble yours, my protoplasm is similar and my emotions similar too. I wish to be your friend.”
‘Thou art my friend, Agape. Thou art helping me greatly.”
“I am pleased to do so. Do you wish me to program this vehicle for the Blue Demesnes?”
“Program it?”
“To give it a directive that will guide it there without further guidance from us,” she explained.
“But there be no Blue Demesnes here! Just the spot where they be in Phaze.”
‘The map shows a location titled ‘Blue,’” she said. “Does this coincide?”
He looked. “It does! But how could that be? Sure I be that the Blue Demesnes have been there not for three hundred years!”
“I do not know; I have been only briefly on this planet.”
“Well, go ahead and send the machine there. This is not much different from magic.”
She operated the buttons. The vehicle turned, assuming the new course, and accelerated.
It was full night now, but no stars showed; the gloom masked whatever light might have tried to shine through. The vehicle’s front lamp shone forward, showing nothing but sand rushing past. This seemingly mindless progress made Bane nervous, so he averted his gaze.
That brought Agape into view. “How long will it take to reach the Blue Demesnes?” he asked.
She touched another button. “About fifteen minutes. The vehicle is very fast.”
“Fifteen minutes to accomplish a trip that would require a horse two hours!” he exclaimed.
“Space travel is much faster.”
That reminded him of her origin. In the dim light of the interior of the vehicle she looked completely human, and beautiful. Her hair framed her face with the color of a pale sunset, and her eyes seemed preternaturally deep. ‘Thou really art alien?” he asked, finding this hard to believe.
“Completely,” she agreed. “In physical form.”
“Thou art the loveliest woman I have seen!”
‘That is because I have shaped myself to be what your kind considers attractive. You would not find me so, in my natural state.”
“Canst thou assume thy natural state now?”
“I can. But I think I would prefer not to. Your machine self perceived me in that state, and was not repulsed, but you are human, and I want to attract you, not repulse you.”
“Why dost thou care how I react to you? If thou art as different as thou sayst, I must appear to be a monster to thee.”
“Oh, no, Bane!” she protested. “You are a fine figure of your species, to me. I would like to be your girlfriend.”
“Just because mine other self helped thee?”
“I like him well for that, but now I know you better, and I like you better. You are more alive.”
“How could an alien creature be a—a girlfriend to me?”
“I was hoping you would be able to show me that.”
He shook his head, still having trouble reconciling her words with her appearance. She was infernally beautiful, and he liked her personality; it really did not seem alien. “Methinks I could show a real woman. But an alien might understand not at all.”
She leaned close to him. “Please, Bane, I want very much to learn! I will do anything you suggest.”
Still that nagging doubt. “Why dost thou want to learn? The human means of association and—and the rest should not concern a completely different creature.”
“My species is amoebic,” she said. “Your kind calls our world Moeba. We have had no experience with the pairing of sexes. We pair any with any, as we choose. But we observe that most other species of the galaxy are twin-sexed, and this appears to confer an advantage in evolution, so that they achieved technology and space before we did, and now we are dependent on them for interplanetary trade and travel between the stars. We can learn whatever they teach us, so now we are constructing our own ships of space, but we believe we should also master their secret of evolution. This is one reason I have come to the Planet of Proton. To learn about the sexes. I have assumed the female form because it is relatively passive; I believe I can learn better this way. But learn I must, so I can report to my kind and they can judge whether this is a feasible course.”
“I thought thou didst plan to stay here,” he said finding himself disappointed.
“I do. I will stay just as long as I can. I will become a Citizen if I can. I will send my reports by spacemail. I will remain here. There is more to learn here than sexual reproduction.”
“Then thou willst be a human being for the rest of thy life, or seem to be.”
“Yes, Bane. Already I feel somewhat human, with you.”
“Willst thou show me, at least a little, thy true form?”
“I do not wish to revolt you, Bane.”
“I will make thee a deal,” he said. “Show me thy true nature, and I will show thee how to—to be a human woman. Some.”
“Some? Bane, I must learn it all!”
“But these things are not done just as a business,” he protested. “It—I have never done it all with a human woman, actually. Just games with Fleta and the like.”
“Show me a little, and I will show you a little,” she offered.
He laughed, somewhat uneasily. “Fair enough, Agape. Here be a little.” He leaned farther toward her, tilted his head, and touched her lips with his own.
Her lips were unresponsive. It was like kissing mush.
He drew back. “That was it?” she inquired.
“Thou dost have to kiss back!” he exclaimed.
“You mean, to purse my mouth while you purse yours?”
“Aye. Only with some feeling. This be supposed to be an emotional contact, knowest thou not?”
“Ah, now I understand. To feel desire during the act.”
“Thy kind does feel desire?”
“It does. It merely expresses it in another fashion.”
“Shallst try again?” He leaned forward, and touched her lips with his for the second time.
And this time hers were firm and highly responsive. He found it easy to get into the spirit of the kiss. He reached his arms about her, and she emulated his action. He pressed her in close, and she pressed him in close, and it was several times the experience he had anticipated, despite the bulkiness of her suit.
Except for one thing. She was doing what he did— too perfectly. She was like a three-dimensional mirror image. Nothing originated with her; it all was a reflection of him.
He drew back. “Much improved,” he said. “But thou must not copy me in every detail. That makest thou seem—like a machine.”
She laughed. “I understand! One must not be mechanical.”
“Perhaps Mach would have had different advice,” he agreed, smiling.
“I did not know you had changed identities, but I think I will know the difference hereafter. Though your body is a machine, your mind is alive.”
He nodded. “I wonder how that be possible? I certainly feel not like a machine.”
“I believe our forms determine our natures to a degree,” she said. “I do not feel like an amoeba, either.” She sighed. “And now I must make my small showing, and perhaps you will never kiss me again.”
“I’ll make the effort,” he promised.
She peeled back her suit, so that she became bare to the waist. “Watch me.”
“I be watching thee.”
“My hand, not my torso.”
“Oh.” He modified his gaze accordingly.
She held up her left hand. It was a fine, esthetic extremity, with four slender fingers and an opposed thumb, each nail delicately tinted. But slowly it changed. The fingers lost firmness, becoming floppy balloons. They sank back onto the body of the hand, which melted into a glob.
Bane stared. ‘Thou hast no bones?”
“No bones anywhere in my body. Only tissue that I make firm, patterned after human bones, to support the structure.”
“When Fleta changes, she does it instantly. One moment she be a pretty girl; the next she be a hummingbird. Of course that’s magic.”
“I cannot do that,” Agape admitted. “It does require a little time for me to change, and I must melt into my natural state before assuming an alternate form. And— I do not know the hummingbird. Is it of similar mass to the human form?”
Bane snorted. “Hardly! It’s a tiny thing, hardly bigger than my thumb. Size matters not, with magic.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I think anyone in Proton would find it hard to believe.”
“My mass remains constant. I could assume the form of a bird, but it would be of my present weight, and could not fly.”
‘Thy hand—it could become something else?”
For answer, she concentrated. The lump of protoplasm at the end of her arm grew projections, each of which sprouted further projections, until she had about thirty thin fronds there. “A Formican appendage,” she said. “I remember that form from the time I visited their planet.”
“So thy magic be limited in speed and size, but unlimited in form,” he concluded. “I think thy ability be as good as Fleta’s.”
‘Thank you—I think,” she said. The new appendage dissolved, and the human hand began to reform. “You are not revolted?”
“Agape, I be used to shape-changing. Once did I envy the werewolves their ability to change from human form to canine form, and have all the powers of the animal. And I liked Fleta in all three of her forms.”
‘Then I am relieved. I will change form for you, when you ask me to.” She leaned toward him, and he, understanding her desire, kissed her. This time she was responsive without mirroring him. She was a rapid learner!
The vehicle slowed. They broke. “We are there,” Agape said, hauling up her suit and restoring her helmet. “We shall search for your other self now.”
Bane was almost disappointed. He cared less about shapes than about personality, thanks to his experience with the magical creatures of Phaze, and both her human form and her attitude were easy to accept. It was too bad he would lose contact with her when he exchanged places with his other self and returned to Phaze.
They opened the vehicle and stepped out. They found ruins. There had evidently once been a small dome here, with a castle in it of the same type as that of the Blue Demesnes in Phaze, but all was wreckage now. The desert sand was doing its best to bury the remains.
But there was no wreckage in Phaze. Bane walked around the oddly familiar premises, seeking some hint of his other self. If he overlapped the space, or even came close, he would know. It would not work for any other person; he could be walking right through others in Phaze, and never know. But his own self he could not miss.
It wasn’t here. There was no sign of the self at all. Bane criss-crossed every part of the ruin, finding nothing.
“He didn’t get here,” he said at last.
“Surely some delay,” Agape said quickly. “Proceeding afoot, unfamiliar with the terrain—it might require days.”
“It might. It also might mean he’s dead.”
“We must not believe that!” she said. “I—I have no experience with this phenomenon of dual selves, but I conjecture—wouldn’t you feel something if there were demise? Is there not some continuing connection between the two of you?”
“I suppose there should be,” Bane agreed thoughtfully. “I tuned in to him in the first place by going with the flow. The closer I got, the more I felt it, when I listened.”
“Listen now!” she urged.
He stood and listened. He tried to extend his awareness out, to become perceptive to the soul of his other self, wherever it might be. He could almost see his ambience reaching out in a great circle, sensitive to the ambience of his other identity in Phaze.
He found it! Faintly in the distance, like an echo, he felt the rapport. “He be alive!” he exclaimed. “There!” He pointed to the southwest.
“Back the way we came,” Agape said. “Or a little west; the vehicle curved eastward.”
“We can go directly toward him!” Bane said, relieved. “Oh, thank thee for the notion, Agape!” He took hold of her, intending to kiss her, but discovered it was impossible while she was in suit and helmet.
They returned to the vehicle. The dome of it sealed, and the air came in. Agape lifted back her helmet. “Did you have something in mind, Bane?”
“Just to go toward my other self until we intercept him,” he said. Then, becoming aware of her expectant attitude: “Oh, yes.” He leaned over and kissed her. This time it was about as good as it seemed likely to get, in this circumstance.
That gave him pause. “When I—thou willst be left here, with Mach.”
“I know you must return to your own land,” she said. “For you, Proton is more alien than it is to me.”
“Dost thou know, Agape, I almost wish I could take thee with me.”
“I almost wish I could go,” she agreed. “But even as your place is there, my place is here. I have a duty to my species that I must fulfill. So I think that even were it possible, I would not go with you to your magic realm. I remain glad to have been with you these hours.”
There didn’t seem to be much more to say. Agape started the vehicle moving, and guided it in the direction he indicated, this time keeping it under her own control. They proceeded slowly toward the rendezvous with his other self.
After an hour of travel through the wasteland, they were startled by a voice from the vehicle’s speaker grille. “Directive: Serf Mach return immediately to base at Hardom. Serf Agape return immediately to base at Hardom.”
“They are addressing us!” Agape said. “I must acknowledge.”
“Wait!” Bane snapped. ‘Thou meanest we can speak to them?”
“When I invoke the communication code,” she said. “It will only require a moment.” She reached for the panel.
He blocked her hand. “Nay! If we speak to them, they will know we hear them. I must find my other self before we leave this course.”
“But to disobey would be very bad,” she protested.
“To obey might cost me my rendezvous! We have been getting closer; I can feel it. I can quit not now!”
“But there will be punishment.”
‘They can punish me not after I’m gone!” Then he reconsidered. “But thou willst still be here—and Mach too. That be bad.”
“Serf Mach and/or serf Agape,” the speaker said. “Your vehicle is occupied and moving. If you are alive and conscious, respond immediately.”
“We must answer!” she said.
“But if we don’t, they’ll think we be dead or unconscious, and I can reach mine other self.”
“I should not do this,” she said, keeping her hands away from the panel.
“I’ll make it up to thee!” he said. “I’ll show thee all I know about—about being a girlfriend.” |
She smiled with a certain resignation. “Before or after you return to Phaze?”
“Before, of course! I can do it not after.”
“Then that must be now.”
Now he realized the significance of her question. If he took time now, he might lose his chance to achieve rapport with his other self, because there was no way to tell what threat the other might be under in Phaze. He couldn’t afford to wait a moment longer than he had to. But if he didn’t do it now, it wouldn’t get done at all.
“Mayhap thou canst tell the vehicle to move by itself, as thou didst before,” he suggested.
“I must give it a destination—and I think there none it will understand, for this.”
She was right again. He had to tune in on the other self, and she had to direct the vehicle to the spot he indicated. They could not let the vehicle run itself.
“We shall have to stop for a while, then,” he said heavily.
“No, Bane, I would not interfere with your desire. Go to meet your other self.”
“And leave thee here, without thine information, to be maybe sent back to thy world because thou didst help me,” he said. “I can do that not.”
“I think Mach would show me, if I explained. Do not delay.”
“I want to show thee myself!” he said. “It be my job.”
“I release you from it.”
“Nay, what be right be right. Anyway—“ He paused with realization. “I really do want to do it myself. I mean, not because I said I would. I—“
“Do not forget, I am an alien creature,” Agape said.
“Thou’rt a nice person, in human form,” he said. “Stop the vehicle.”
“But you must not delay! I understand that.”
“We have a conflict of interests. My father taught me to do what is right, no matter what the cost. Thou mayst have cost thyself thy stay on Proton, by helping me; I must risk my return to Phaze, helping thee. It be right. But more: I haven’t known thee long, Agape, but I like thee very well already. I want to do what thou dost want me to.”
She had a notion. “Perhaps we could keep the vehicle going, on a semi-automatic course, and you can tell me when to correct it. So no travel time would be lost.”
“Will that work?”
“We shall find out.” She adjusted the buttons on the panel, then settled back. The vehicle kept moving.
“Oh, Agape, I wish I had met thy like in Phaze!” he exclaimed, leaning over to kiss her. This time the experience was intensely rewarding.
In moments she was out of her suit and hugging him hungrily. But the seat restraints would not release their lower extremities while the vehicle was moving, and threatened to confine their upper portions too whenever there was a bump. This severely limited the action.
“I will deactivate the restraints,” Agape said, touching the panel again.
“Serf Mach and/or serf Agape,” the speaker said, startling them both. “Vehicle safety restraints have been deactivated. This indicates conscious activity. Acknowledge status immediately.”
“Canst silence it?” Bane asked.
“Serf Mach return immediately to base at—“ the speaker said, cutting off as she touched another button.
“What should I do now?” Agape asked.
“Come join me in my seat—no, I’ll join thee in thine—“ Bane hesitated, finding neither location suitable. Each place was made for one person; there really was not room for two, especially not for this type of activity. They needed more space.
“In my natural state, there are no such problems,” Agape said. “But of course our forms are not fixed.”
“Don’t change thy form!” Bane cried. ‘There has to be a way!”
They tried for some time to find a way, but the confines of the vehicle were simply too restricted. Kissing and some handling were all they could manage.
Then there was a crash. Both were thrown against the front panel. The vehicle tilted and tumbled. It came to rest abruptly, and the smell of the polluted air outside came in.
“Dome’s cracked!” Agape exclaimed, scrambling desperately back into her suit.
“We watched not, and we hit something,” Bane said, chagrined.
They forced up the canopy and climbed out. The headlamp shone off at an angle, but the beam of light was enough.
‘The Lattice!” Bane cried. “I forgot the Lattice!”
‘This is an interruption in the terrain?”
“Worse than that! It be a pattern of cracks in the ground, very deep. Demons lurk in their depths. Only a unicorn can cross it without falling in, and not all of them. I forgot that the same pattern exists in Proton, only without the demons. We be lucky we crashed in the shallow part of it!”
Agape leaned into the vehicle and caused the map to appear. “Yes, it is there—LATTICE,” she said. “I should have checked for hazards of terrain. Now I see why the vehicle traveled in a curve going north.”
“We’ll have to go around,” Bane said.
“I fear not, Bane. The wheel is broken, and we have not the means to repair it. We shall have to walk.”
“Around the Lattice? That would take forever!”
“Will your other self cross it? How will he do it?”
“He would have to skirt it to the south,” Bane said. “But I want him not to do that, because the demons watch the path. They’ll come out and grab him. I need to intercept him before he gets here.”
‘Then won’t the demons grab you?” she asked, alarmed.
“Me? Hardly! I would float them into the river. But Mach won’t know magic; it takes years to learn to do it properly, and only a few even have the talent. He may not.”
“Then I suppose we had better walk,” she said.
“Will help come for thee, if thou dost ask for it in the vehicle? Thou couldst wait there, out of danger, while I go on.”
“The cracking of the canopy would have caused an automatic distress signal to be launched,” she said. ‘They will be on the way already.”
‘Then I’ll get caught!” he said. “I must get going!”
“I will come with you,” she said. “There may still be some assistance I can lend.”
Bane doubted this, but liked her company, so he agreed. At the same time he felt guilty, because he had made her a promise he was unable to keep. She was likely to pay heavily for her involvement with him. He wished again that he didn’t have to leave her.
They walked, skirting the network of cracks, still homing in on the other self. Bane now judged it to be in the region of the crater; evidently Mach had taken the wrong path, but somehow made it through the swamp to relative safety. But there was no way out of the crater except back through the swamp, and if he tried that path again, the monsters would be twice as ferocious as before. Bane had to intercept him and make the exchange before Mach started moving again.
Something glittered in the air. “Oh, no,” Bane said. “A night dragon!”
“Or a flying machine,” Agape said. “I fear they have discovered us.”
“We must hide!”
“We cannot; it is my suit and the metal in your body they orient on. Oh, Bane, I am sorry you were not able to complete your quest.”
Bane took her suited form in his arms, unspeaking He discovered that he was not as sorry as he thought he should have been. They waited for the flying machine to capture them.
Evidently the news had spread among monsters that Mach was a creature to be reckoned with, for no others threatened them on the path through the swamp. They returned to the glade where he had left the clothes, but the clothes were gone. ‘The pigheads,” Fleta muttered. “They root for aught not held by spell.”
So he would have to continue with his makeshift outfit. Mach shrugged. After the amount of effort he had put into it, he might as well use it!
“Now this path bears south,” Fleta said, indicating the one he had left before. “But it leads to the Herd Demesnes, and once in that open country, we can trek north as far as the Lattice.” She glanced sidelong at him. “Mayhap we can get a unicorn to carry thee.”
“I’ve already been carried by a unicorn!” Mach exclaimed. “Look where it got me!”
“Aye, then shall we walk,” she said, somewhat wearily. “Never fear, we shall see thee safely to the Blue Demesnes.”
They walked the path. It was pleasant enough, now that they were clear of the swamp. The great trees leaned over to spread their shade graciously, and the ferns seemed to keep the ground clean.
Fleta paused to sniff the air in the fashion of an animal. “Methinks I smell aught foul,” she remarked. “Best we not pause.”
The path followed a ridge, then curved to the east and dropped down to a stream. Mach was ready to wade through, but Fleta held him back. “Not this one; there be poison in it. We must touch not the water.”
“But it is too broad to jump over,” he said.
“There be a ladder of rope. We merely pull it across and tie it in place.” She pointed, and there across the stream was a thick coil of ropes.
“How do we pull it, without first crossing?”
“There be a string.” She reached up near a branch, her fingers questing for it. Then she stamped her foot with sudden anger. “It be not here!”
There was a raucous cackle from the bushes at the far side. “Thou dost bet it be not there, nymph!” a voice cried.
“Methought I winded garbage!” Fleta snapped.
“Smile when you say that, cutie-pie!” the other responded. “Thou’rt in Harpy Demesnes!” And the speakerl came into view: a gross, filthy creature, with a woman’s head and bosom, and a vulture’s wings and tail and legs. The odor became stronger.
“And thou’rt in ‘corn Demesnes!” Fleta retorted. “Didst mess with the ladder? Thou knowest that is not to be, by the pact ‘tween species!”
“What dost the like of thee know of any pact?” the harpy demanded. “Dost think canst trot thy stud past Harpy Demesnes w’ impunity? Stay, filly, an we’ll goose thee across in our own fashion, after our sport with the other.”
“What sport?” Mach asked, not liking the harpy’s attitude.
“Their kind be e’er shy of males,” Fleta muttered. “I’ll say no more.”
“Well, I’ll say more!” the harpy screeched. “First we’ll strip the leaves off thee, my fine morsel, then we’ll hold thee down while our choicest hen has at thy—“
But Mach had grasped enough of the picture by this time. He hurled his axe at the obnoxious body. The harpy spread her wings and sailed upward with a desperate screech, barely in time; the axe knocked loose several greasy tailfeathers.
“Wait and see, stupid man!” she screamed, gaining altitude. “Dost not know thou’rt already the plaything o’ an animal? We’ll show thee some real piny, an I bring my siblings back in a moment!”
Furious, Mach hurled a stone at her, but the creature was already flapping her way between the trees to the west.
He turned to speak to Fleta, and paused with dismay. She was gone.
Astounded, he cast about. She couldn’t have returned along the path, for he had been on it and she hadn’t passed him. She couldn’t have hurdled the stream; she was too small. She must have gone into the bushes along the bank of the stream, searching for some other way across. But so quickly and silently; he had never seen her go!
What had that harpy said about Harpy Demesnes? Mach suddenly made a connection. He had lived in Hardom, a city named, it was claimed, after the mythical harpies of Phaze. All the cities of Proton had similar designations: the first three letters of some creature, and the appendage “dom” for dome. He had taken it to be an innocent affectation. Now, abruptly, he realized that it could be more than that. There really were harpies, every bit as ugly as described in the myth, and apparently this was their region. Thus, perhaps, the geography of Proton did correspond with that of Phaze, to this extent. There could be a great number of the filthy birds in the vicinity!
Then he heard a humming. He looked, and there was a bright little hummingbird, hovering over the path.
Then it darted across the stream, touched the coil rope ladder, and took hold of a thread there. It carried this thread back across the stream, right to Mach himself.
Amazed, he lifted his hand and took hold of the thread. The tiny bird let go and darted away, its errand done.
Mach pulled on the thread, and it became a string, and then a stout cord that finally enabled him to haul the uncoiling ladder across. He tied its two loose ends to the broad branch, making sure it was firm.
Now he needed to find Fleta, because he certainly was not going to leave her to the mercy of the harpies. Where had she gone?
He peered into the bushes. “Fleta?”
“Yes, Mach?” she said right behind him.
He jumped. “Where were you? I was afraid—“
She shrugged. “A girl needs some privacy sometimes.”
“She does?”
She laughed. “Wait till thou dost have to do it! I’ll stand and watch.”
“Do what?”
‘They don’t have to do it in thy frame?”
“Don’t have to do what?”
“Defecate.”
“Of course they defecate! Why do you ask?”
Her mirth became genuine curiosity. “But thou dos not?”
“I’m a robot.”
“Thou seemst much like a man to me. What be a rovot?”
“Robot, not rovot. A—“ He paused with belated realization. “Defecation! You mean you had to—“
Her amusement returned. “I had not dreamed it such a well-kept secret! All those who eat must cast their leavings, e’en young females.”
Now he found his face burning again. “I did not—“
‘Truly, thou’rt not the one I knew!” she said merrily. “He ne’er had such confusion!”
“Well, he had functions I don’t.” But as he spoke, Mach realized it wasn’t true. He was in the living body now. In the night he had had to urinate, and now he felt an increasing abdominal discomfort. He realized that it had been building up for some time, but because he had no prior experience with digestion, he had dismissed it. He had been lucky that he had understood the process of urination; he could have become quite uncomfortable otherwise.
Fleta shook her head with a certain understandable perplexity, then brushed it aside. “Come, we must cross before the dirty birds return.”
“Yes, indeed!” he agreed.
She showed him how to navigate the ladder. She climbed nimbly on it, then crossed over the river by using her hands and feet in the rope rungs. He followed, quickly adjusting to its give and sway, and scampered to the other end. He found his fallen axe and picked it up.
“Now must roll it again,” she said.
“But I tied it on the other side!” he said.
She smiled, and untied it on the near side. As the second rope was freed, the ladder rolled itself up, as though guided by invisible hands along an invisible floor, and finished in one tight coil against the far tree. Only a thin thread remained behind, anchored to the rear tree. It was ready for the next user.
“Close thy mouth, Mach,” Fleta said. “Else folk might think thou hast ne’er seen magic before.”
Mach closed his mouth. They faced down the path. “Uh, if we can wait a moment,” he said.
“Wait? Whatever for?” she asked brightly.
His intestine was becoming quite urgent now. ‘The— privacy—“
“Rovots need no privacy,” she reminded him.
‘That’s changed. Why don’t you go on ahead, and I will rejoin you in a moment.”
“Oh, no, I must keep thee company, else thou dost get edgy.”
He thought he was about to burst, and not from emotion. “I can spare your company for this moment.” |
“Well. . .” She took a step down the path, and he started to take one toward the bushes.
Then she turned back. “No, I really must not leave thee unattended, Mach. This wood be not familiar to thee. Who knows what mess thou mightst get into, if—“
“Go!” he cried.
Suppressing a smirk, she resumed her progress down the path. The minx had known all along!
He plunged into the bushes, heedless of scratches. He found a halfway suitable place and set about n moving the necessary portion of his clothing. But he had harnessed it about him so effectively that this was difficult; it didn’t want to come off. He had to wrench out his waist-vine, and then the leaves of his costume fluttered down, loose.
He squatted and let living nature take its course. Then he remembered that the living people of Proton clean themselves after this act, so that no soiling or odor would occur. They used special paper for this purpose, or sonic mechanism. He had neither here.
He cast about, seeking some substitute. Nothing seemed to offer. He didn’t want to use any of the cloth of his costume.
He heard a heavy flapping. The harpy loomed. H tried to duck down out of sight, but she spied him. “Ho what have we here? The bare essence!” she screeched
“Get out!” he exclaimed, embarrassed.
“Hey, girls, we’ve found him!” she screamed. “I spotted him by the stench!” She laughed with a cackling sound.
Now there was a whole flock of them, flapping in to see. Mach realized that he had indeed gotten into a mess. Those dirty birds were after more than laughter; their narrow eyes gleamed and their talons convulsed and drool dripped from their open mouths.
He realized that he couldn’t escape them by running.
His clothing was falling apart, and the bushes hampered him, and they were airborne and numerous. They would have him in a moment.
He lifted his axe, but they hovered just beyond its range, screaming imprecations. He could throw it, but then he would be without a weapon.
“Fresh meat!” a harpy screeched, diving down from behind. He whirled and swung the axe, but she sheered off.
Another dived from behind, and a third. Whichever way he faced, there were several behind him, ready to attack.
Mach lunged to a tree, setting his back against it. Now he could defend himself better. But he couldn’t get away, and when his arm tired—
In the distance was the sound of hoofbeats. There was music, too: the melody of panpipes.
“Oh, damn!” a harpy cried.
The beat and music got louder as the source approached rapidly. The ground shook with the hoof-strikes. The pipes played a militaristic air. The harpies scrambled up through the air, shedding feathers in their rush.
The unicorn appeared, charging through the brush. Her horn speared at the last harpy, but the bird was already out of reach. “There’ll be another time, ‘corn!” she screeched.
The unicorn stomped about, making sure that all the birds were gone. Then she leaped back toward the path, and the sound of her retreating hoofbeats faded.
Mach relaxed. That creature had rescued him before, then disappeared; she had just done it again, and left again. Evidently she had no ulterior motive. Maybe she was just a guardian of the path, routing whatever monsters intruded on it. That was fortunate for him!
He took a large leaf with which to clean himself off, then pulled his remaining clothing together as well as he could. He was even more ragged than before, but after the scrape with the harpies, he knew when he was well off. He made his way to the path.
Fleta was coming back along it. “Oh, Mach!” she exclaimed, spying him. “I feared for thy safety!”
“So did I,” he admitted. “But the unicorn saved me.”
“Aye; I summoned her. These be the Herd Demesnes.”
“You summoned the unicorn? How could you do that?”
She shrugged. ‘There be more to magic than conjuration. That creature is no enemy of thine, Mach.”
“Apparently not. But I wish I understood her live.”
“Who can e’er know the true heart o’ another?”
“Who, indeed!”
She peered at his outfit. “I see—“
“Never mind what you see!” he snapped, trying to adjust a swatch of cloth.
“. . . that thou hast lost thy leaves,” she finished, returning to her normal impishness.
They walked on along the path. It took them east for perhaps two kilometers, then debouched onto a broad grassy plain. Mach stood and stared.
“Hast ne’er seen grazing land before?” Fleta inquired.
“Never before,” he agreed. “This is marvelous! This whole world is green and growing!”
“And thine is not?”
“Mine is not,” he agreed. “Outside the domes there is only barren sand and air that living people can’t breathe.”
“Air not to be breathed? How can that be?”
“Pollution. The mines and factories pumped their wastes into the ground and water and air, until virtually all natural life was extinguished. The only suitable environment for life is maintained within the domes.”
She shook her head. “Methinks I would not like thy world!”
“I never thought about it. But now that I’ve seen this—I think I do like it better than Proton.” Actually, it was life he was coming to like, despite its inconveniences. He had never before experienced the sheer feeling of it. Even the discomfort was a pleasure of a sort, because it was an aspect of the new responsiveness of his body. When he made an error and suffered pain, that represented a far more effective feedback than the cautionary circuits he had known. A robot, for example, could chew a hole in his own finger, and some did, because there was no pain. That was unlikely to happen with a living person.
“Dost like the taste of thy finger?” Fleta inquired teasingly.
Mach jerked it away from his mouth. Had he been about to test that pain reflex?
“Thou’rt funny,” she said.
“And you are lovely,” he said. He reached for her, and she did not avoid him, and he brought her in to him, and she did not hold back. He kissed her, and she kissed back.
“Ah, Mach, this be foolishness,” she said. “But I do like thee. I shall miss thee sorely when thou returnest to thy world.”
Mach thought again of Doris, the cyborg girl with whom he had kept company. He had evidently liked her better than she liked him. He had known Fleta less than a day, yet already he felt a greater emotion for her than he had for Doris. That could be accounted for by his living system, whose functions and emotions could be stirred on an involuntary basis. But it seemed to him, objectively, that Fleta was a nicer girl than Doris, even after all reasonable allowances were made for the differences between their frames and their states.
“Fleta, is it really forbidden for us—for you and me— to like each other?”
“Mach, I think it is. I—there are things about me that—an ye knew of them, I think thou wouldst not hold me this close.”
“Yet you know of them—and you do not object?”
“Mayhap I be more foolish than thee.” And she kissed him again. The kiss became intense, and he knew that whatever else might be the case, her feeling for him was genuine. She believed that he would not like her, once he knew her secret; he doubted that this would be the case, but the knowledge that he could not remain with her after he learned how to return to his own frame restrained him. She was forbidden, not because there was anything wrong about her, but because he was no of her world. He found that deeply disturbing.
“Be these tears thine or mine?” she inquired.
“Mine,” he said. “My first.”
“Nay, mine too, and I think not my last.”
“Fleta, I like you because you are a lovely girl who has helped me face this strange world. I lost my girlfriend in the other frame. Therefore my foolishness is understandable. But if you know we are not for each other, why do you waste your time with me?”
“I should not answer,” she said.
He smiled sadly. “But I think you will.”
“I will. My—my mother loved thy father—I me; Bane’s father, but always knew he must wed Bane’s mother, the Lady Blue. And so it was, and rightly so.”
‘The Lady Blue?” he asked. “Citizen Blue is my father.”
“Aye. He married first the Lady Blue, and then he died, and then he went to thy frame and begot thee. Adept Stile stayed here and begot Bane. And I, even as my dam, seem partial to thy line. Bane knew better; ‘twas e’er a game with him. But thou dost not know, and—and O, I do thee such wrong!”
“Then tell me the wrong you are doing, so I can judge for myself!”
She shook her head. “Too soon thou willst know, and then it will end. I lack the courage of my mother; cannot tell thee yet.”
“You are married to another!” he exclaimed.
“Nay, Mach!”
“Then I am! Or about to be. Something like that.”
“Nay, we both be free, that way.”
‘Then I just don’t understand!”
“For that give I thanks.” She kissed him again, then separated. “We must on to the Blue Demesnes. But it be noon; we must eat, ere we grow weak from hunger.”
“You’re changing the subject!” he said.
“Aye.”
“I wish you would just tell me, and let me judge.”
“What dost thou think of animals?” she inquired.
“Animals?” You mean like—like dragons?”
“Aye. And pigheads and such.”
“I don’t see the relevance, but very well, I’ll answer. I’m a robot, so I haven’t had much experience with animals of any type. But I know they are living creatures, and so they have needs and feelings, and that is to be respected. That unicorn, for example; twice she has saved my life, but I don’t know her motive. But regardless, she’s a beautiful creature, and I respect her view of her life. As long as an animal doesn’t attack me, I—well, what are animals except other kinds of living creatures? The least of them has a greater personal reality than I do.”
She embraced him again. ‘Thou’rt lovely, Mach.”
“Now will you answer my question?”
She smiled. “Nay.”
“But I answered yours!”
“Aye.” She disengaged, giving him no further answer. He sighed with frustration. There was so much he had yet to learn about the ways and motives of living creatures, Fleta especially.
She found them more fruit, and they ate. Then they trekked north across the plain. Mach’s living legs were tiring, but he did not complain; after all, if delicate Fleta could keep the pace, so could he.
Progress was good, because of the open and level ground. But in midafternoon Fleta paused. “Mach, we have a choice,” she said. “The most direct path to the Blue Demenses be straight north from here, but the most secure path be toward the east.”
“What is the difference in time?”
“We might be there by nightfall, an we take the left through the Lattice. An we take the other, we must night on the trail, and arrive tomorrow noon.”
Mach was tempted to specify the right path, so as to be the night with her, but discipline prevailed. ‘The left, then.”
She nodded, and he realized that she had hoped he would choose the other path. He was coining to understand her quite well by the nuances of her gestures. But his machine heritage provided him a type of discipline that many living folk lacked.
They went left, and within the hour reached the Lattice. This turned out to be a huge network of cracks in the earth. At the fringe the cracks were shallow, but soon they became formidable, several centimeters across and quite deep, extending in endless zigzags. They had to step carefully to avoid wedging their feet in them.
The cracks became larger yet, until they were chasms in themselves. “Now must we be silent,” Fleta said.
“Silent? Why?”
“So as not to rouse the demons below.”
Mach peered down into a crack. Demons down there? After the monsters he had already seen, he didn’t want any more.
They proceeded to a region where the cracks were so extensive that they covered more area than the ground did. Mach found this nervous business; one slip could plunge him into the darkness below. But Fleta evidently knew where she was going.
They came to a dead end. Ahead and to either side the crevices closed them in; only behind was there a jagged path.
Fleta gestured. Mach saw that the path resumed beyond a narrow part of the crack. They would have to jump.
Fleta showed the way. She took a running start, then leaped, landing neatly on the other side. She moved back out of the way, giving him room.
Mach followed suit. He had trained for jumping in the Game, and this body was the same as his own, apart from the fact that it was alive. It was healthy and responsive. He could handle this readily, even when tired.
They went on, winding through the maze. Mach wondered how such a configuration of terrain had come about. Was there an equivalent feature in Proton? He had never really explored the exterior world there; now he wished he had.
They came to another jump. Mach realized that Fleta knew exactly where the gaps were narrowest; otherwise they would soon have been lost amidst impassable cracks.
But just as she was about to leap, a grotesque head popped up from the chasm. “Hhaarr!” it growled.
“The demons!” Fleta exclaimed with dismay. “Me-thought we would not rouse them!”
Other heads appeared from the cracks to the sides and rear. The two of them were surrounded!
“Seems more like a trap to me,” Mach muttered. “We weren’t making a lot of noise.”
Now the demons were scrambling to the surface. Each had a body as misshapen as its head. Short legs, huge long arms, bulbous chest-barrel, horns and tail. And gaping mouths bulging with yellow teeth.
“There be no reasoning with demons,” Fleta said. ‘They eat our kind.”
Mach did not see much hope, but he was ready to fight. “Stand back to back with me,” he said, drawing his axe. “I’ll club any that come close.”
‘That will not stop them; they feel not much pain. O, Mach, I fear the time has come to let the secret be known.”
“Your secret?” he asked, watching warily as the circle of demons closed in about them. “I think it had better wait until we have fought off this crowd.” But he had severe misgivings about that; each demon was approximately his own size, and there were many of them. Unless he could figure out an effective spell. What rhymed with “demon”?
“I be the unicorn,” Fleta said. ‘Thou must ride me to safety. Now!”
“You—what?” But as he looked at her, she vanished. In her place was the black unicorn who had saved him twice before.
The closest demon lunged. Mach swung his axe, catching the creature in the face. The blade cut right through, splitting the head in two—but there was no blood, and the demon kept coming. Now he understood Fleta’s reluctance to fight these things; they were truly inhuman.
He dodged the demon, then leaped to the back of the unicorn and grabbed a handful of black mane. ‘Take off!”
She started moving. A demon grabbed for her, but the long horn whipped about and speared the thing, shoving it back and over into the chasm behind it. Then the unicorn started trotting back along the path, where there were fewer demons; progress forward was impossible, because there was a phalanx of the creatures.
The demons pursued, but they could not match the velocity of the unicorn. In a moment the two of them were clear.
But more demons were climbing from the cracks back along the path. There seemed to be an endless number of them. Another phalanx of them formed up before the other jump, grinning.
But now the unicorn had velocity and inertia. She charged straight into them, bowling them over. At the brink she leaped, carrying Mach and a clutching demon with her. Mach twisted about and clubbed the demon on the head; when that had no effect, he chopped at the arm it had clutching the mane, and severed it. Then the demon dropped away, leaving the hand and part of the arm still locked on.
Now the crevices became too small to hide demons, and that threat abated. The unicorn charged on, her hooves striking the firm places with precision. She knew what she was doing; she must have traveled this route many times before!
In an amazingly brief time they were back at the fork in the path, alone. The unicorn stopped, and Mach dismounted.
Without any intermediate stage, the animal vanished and Fleta reappeared. She looked at him sadly. “Now thou dost know,” she said.
Suddenly it all made sense. He had called in the swamp, and the unicorn had heard, thinking him to be Bane, and had charged to the rescue of her long-time friend. She had taken him to the safety of the crater. Then, when he acted strangely, she had left him, only to return later in human guise. She had learned that he distrusted the unicorn, and that he was not the friend she had known, so she had concealed her nature from him.
When the harpies had attacked, she had had to change to the equine form again, to rescue him. Then back to the form of the woman, to be his companion. And now, unable to save him any other way, she had revealed her secret at last.
Now he remembered stray remarks. “Wouldst rather have me neigh?” and “Wait till I tell the fillies of the herd!” And the warning of the harpy that he was with Ban animal. And her reference to her “dam.” So many little hints, none of which had he understood.
And her attitude about their acquaintance. She liked him—but could not afford to love him. Because she was I an animal, and he a man. She had played games with Bane, who knew her nature, as children would; if the “games became more intimate than those of normal children with normal pets, it was only because a unicorn was no normal pet. Fleta had human intelligence and feelings.
So much she had done for him, knowing it to be futile as far as any enduring relationship went. Knowing that he would be leaving her, returning to his frame, helping him to do that. Knowing too that even if he remained here in Phaze, his attitude toward her would abruptly change the moment he learned her identity.
Except that he was not precisely what she evidently thought he was. She believed he would reject her for being an animal. How would she react to learning that he was a machine?
“Let me tell you about me,” he said.
“I know about thee,” she said. “Thou’rt the son of the one who was the Blue Adept before Stile, his other self.”
“I am more truly the son of Sheen,” he said.
“Who?”
That was what he had suspected. The story of Blue’s marriage in Proton had not spread about the frame of Phaze. “Sheen is a machine,” he said. “A humanoid robot. Do you know what that means?”
“Why dost thou talk about such confusion, when I have at last revealed myself to thee and await with fear thy reaction?”
“Because I think I have a secret that will affect your attitude as much as your secret affects me.”
“Thou’rt an animal of Proton? I know thou’rt not!”
“I am a machine, the son of a machine. A creature of metal and plastic and other inanimate substances.”
“Thou’rt flesh and blood!” she protested. “I have seen thee bleed!”
“This body is flesh and blood. I am not the one to whom it belongs. In Proton I am a robot.”
“A rovot,” she agreed. “What type of person be that?”
“A creature who resembles a man, but is not alive.”
“A golem!” she exclaimed.
Mach considered, then agreed. “Close enough. A creature who has been made rather than birthed. Who does not have to eat, or breathe, or sleep. Who cannot feel pain. Who can walk indefinitely without tiring. Who can imitate the ways of a man, but is not a man.”
“A golem,” she repeated, staring at him.
“In Proton, in my own body, I am that,” he agreed. “I could cut off my finger, or my arm, or my head, and still function.” He smiled briefly. “Of course I would have some trouble seeing or hearing or speaking without my head. But I wouldn’t die, because I am not alive.”
“A golem,” she said again. “A thing without feeling.”
“Well, I can feel; I have tactile sensors. And I can feel mentally, too, because I am programmed for it. For consciousness. But it’s not the same as living.”
She seemed stunned. She approached him, looking him up and down. Her lower lip trembled. “O, what a fool I be, baring myself to thee, who canst not care.”
Not care?
Mach enfolded her and kissed her. Suddenly all that had been revealed in the past hour ceased to have meaning. He was a machine and she was an animal, and they had known each other only a night and a day, and during most of that they had misunderstood each other . . . and they were close to being in love.
The flyer carried them northeast across the wasteland at high velocity: the direction opposite to the one they wanted. The prospect of rendezvous became increasingly remote.
Bane shook his head. “If only we had wrecked the vehicle not!” he muttered.
“My fault,” Agape said. “I asked you to show me—“
He put his fingers against her lips, silencing her. “It was something I wanted to do. Still want to do.” He put his arms around her, and she rested her head against his shoulder. She was out of the suit now, naked in the serf manner.
“Perhaps if we explain to your family, they will help you,” she said. “Are they not good people?”
“Surely they be so,” he said. ‘They must be very similar to mine own parents. Probably I should have done that first.”
“Then you would have been back in your own frame by now, and I would not have met you, Bane.”
“And I would not have met thee,” he agreed, and hugged her closer. She was what she called an amoeba, a completely flexible creature, yet this did not differ much in his view from the way of any of the werefolk. She could be quite at home in Phaze. Of course he would probably not have been attracted to her, had he encountered her in Phaze. Fleta was as pretty in her human form as any true human woman, and as nice a person, but he had never been romantically interested in her. In Phaze, human beings could be friends with animals, and could play some rather intimate games with them, but they did not love them or marry them. His father’s friendship with Neysa, Fleta’s dam, had raised eyebrows in the old days, Bane understood. But Stile had married the Lady Blue, of course, and Neysa had returned to her Herd to be bred by the Herd Stallion. Thus Bane himself had come to be, and Fleta, and their lifelong association and friendship.
He faulted none of this—but he would have perceived Agape as a form of animal, and that would have made a critical difference. She was not, of course; she vas an intelligent and talented creature from another world. Because he had been introduced to her as that, or as a human being at first, his fundamental perception of her had differed. Then, when she had helped him so loyally, when he needed help most—but he couldn’t say all this. Not now, with the serfs of the flying machine listening. He just held her close and wished that she could join him in Phaze. For the truth was that though he had always understood he was to marry a human girl, he had found none he liked well enough for that. The village girls tended to be wary of Adepts, with reason, and avoided him whenever they could do so without giving offense. He had needed a relationship with a girl of some other Adept family—and the only ones of his age were in the families of the Adverse Adepts. Thus certain of the animal folk had been better company for him, though he had known this to be a dead-end association.
In due course the craft landed. They passed from its lock directly into a dome, where serfs guided them to cleaning stalls and then to a residential suite. “Eat, sleep,” the foreman serf said. “Tomorrow Citizen White will have an audience.”
“Citizen White?” Bane asked. “I thought we were being taken to Citizen Blue.”
The serf shrugged. “Perhaps the Citizen will explain. Meanwhile, rest.”
That seemed to be it. Bane understood that in Proton, Citizens governed, and no serf could question the actions or motives of a Citizen. He chafed against the delay in his search for his other self, but knew he could do nothing. They might as well have been prisoners.
But he remained with Agape, and that was a considerable compensation. Now, without further guilt or distraction, he could complete his understanding with her.
They went to the food dispenser in the suite, and Agape got a nutro-bev. Bane found that he wasn’t hungry, not because of any tension or fatigue, but because his robot body did not require food. So he simply watched her eat. That turned out to be a remarkable experience in itself.
Then they adjourned to the bedroom. “I can show thee now,” he said, though somewhat shaken by the recent spectacle of her meal. Still, she had warned him. “There be room enough here.”
“Oh, Bane, I do want to know,” she said. “But I have been up and active for so long—it is past midnight now— I do not think I can hold my form much longer. I fear I would melt in the middle of it.”
That could be awkward, Bane had to agree. “Rest, then; we can do it in the morning.” He was privately relieved. He was, as he had told her, used to observing shape-changing in others, but this had been not exactly that.
“You might not like to see me sleep,” she said. “I return to my natural state.”
“Thy natural state should not bother me,” he said, hoping he spoke accurately. “But what will I do, while thou dost sleep? This body be not tired at all.”
“Use the computer access to gain entertainment or education,” she suggested. “Here, I will show you how.”
Soon Bane was seated before a screen, watching three-dimensional moving pictures within it. He found this fascinating, so very much like magic that it seemed pointless not to call it that. He could cause the pictures to change merely by telling them to.
He directed the screen to fill him in on the history of Proton. He wanted to know what had happened here after the frames had separated. He knew from what his father had said that once there was fairly free travel between the frames; each permanent resident of one frame seemed to have an other self in their other frame, who resembled him exactly. But only when one self died could the other cross what was called the curtain to the other frame. Stile had crossed when the Blue Adept died, and Stile had taken Blue’s place in the Blue Demesnes. But Blue had not been quite wholly dead; he had taken Stile’s body in Proton and taken up residence there. Stile himself had animated a golem body, which performed just like the original one. Such magnificent magic had been possible in those days. Then the fundamental stuff of magic, the rock Phazite, had been diminished; half of it had been transferred to Proton for the sake of some complex but apparently necessary balancing of the frames, and magic had forever lost much of its potency. The frames had been fully separated, so that no one could cross over anymore.
All this Bane had known all along. What he didn’t know was how Proton had fared in the interim. Since he had to remain here a while longer anyway, this did indeed seem to be the ideal occasion to learn about this. He knew that his father would be most interested in the information.
But acquiring the information turned out to be more complicated than he had supposed. There was so much of it! When he asked for the “History of Proton,” the screen went back to the planet’s discovery more than four hundred years before by an explorer-ship from the Empire of Earth: a beautiful world much resembling Phaze today. But there were creatures already on it, Earthlike creatures, including a few human beings. This indicated that there had been contact before. Since there had been a number of private expeditions to space, and not all of these made proper reports, it was concluded that one of these had colonized the planet, and the descendants of the colony had then forgotten its origin. This could have happened hundreds of years before.
Then it seemed that the planet was somehow double. There was reference to magic, which was of course impossible—
“Impossible!” Bane snorted. “You idiot!”
The narration froze in place. “New directive?” the screen inquired.
“Just skip it up to the past twenty years,” Bane said, deciding not to wrestle with this aspect.
Even so, it was more than he could grasp. History turned out to be not a single and straightforward process, but a complex tapestry of events. Citizens lost their positions, and new ones came into being; the mining of Protonite, the key resource of the planet, suffered a severe readjustment as cutbacks ordered by Citizen Blue took effect.
Citizen Blue! “Follow him!” Bane exclaimed.
So Mach’s father appeared. It seemed that he had more money or power than any other Citizen, so could make his will felt most effectively. He married Sheen, the humanoid robot female; this caused a furor. He required that the self-willed humanoid robots be granted serf status. Later he did the same for the most advanced humanoid androids, and for the humanoid cyborgs. Each such step was fought resolutely by the Contrary Citizens. Most recently he had done it for the aliens: those sapient creatures who could assume human form and mix with human beings on an equal intellectual and social basis.
“Agape,” he murmured, understanding her position in this at last.
The screen heard him. “Agape,” it said, showing a picture. “Sapient creature of Planet Moeba, first representative of this species participating in the Experimental Culture Project.”
“I didn’t mean to show her; I was just commenting,” Bane said. The screen returned to its prior business, describing the things that Citizen Blue had initiated in the past twenty years in Proton. It was an impressive listing; more changes had occurred in this period than in the prior two hundred years. The Experimental Culture Project was intended to enable the diverse types of sapient creatures to integrate their society without adverse pressures. Ordinary serfs were required to become the employees of individual Citizens at maturity, and were thereafter subject to the arbitrary will of those employers. The Experimentals had no such requirement; they were considered to be the employees of Proton itself, with no requirements. They were free to do what they wished, within their own section. When they went beyond it, they had to observe the normal forms, deferring in all things to Citizens, and not interfering with the activities of ordinary serfs.
“But what is the point?” Bane asked. He knew that idlers would not survive long in Phaze, and doubted they would be tolerated long in Proton.
‘The point is to ascertain whether the diverse species can successfully integrate,” the screen replied. “If this is affirmative, the entire society will be similarly integrated. There will be no distinctions between species or types, only between serf-status and Citizen status. Machines and aliens will have equal access to the benefits of Proton society.”
Bane nodded. This made sense to him. He would not have known how well unicorns and human beings could get along together, after centuries of noninvolvement with each other, if he had not known Neysa and Fleta.
Now he was learning how pleasant it could be to know an alien creature.
He glanced at the bed where Agape lay—and paused, astonished. She was there, but her form was not. She had become a mound of dark jelly that spread across the bed like so much spilled pudding. Only its cohesion and continuing quiver distinguished it from inanimate substance. She really was an amoeba: a blob of protoplasm.
Should he be revolted? He decided not to be. He had seen Fleta change to her natural unicorn form many times, and to her other hummingbird form, and back to girl form. That was interesting, not revolting; why should this be different? Agape had not concealed her nature from him, she had only tried to spare his feelings, because it seemed that other human beings had been upset by her true form. But he had come to know her mind and her personality, and he liked these. She was quite different from himself, physically; what did it matter?
He had had enough of education for now. He asked the screen for entertainment, and was rewarded by a “light-show” of phenomenal color and complexity. The lights brightened and dimmed, radiated out and in, changed shape and color, and assumed odd and fleeting shapes. Sometimes Bane, the viewer, seemed to be flying into a rapidly expanding bank of clouds; sometimes he seemed to be swimming in strange water. The configurations never repeated; he kept being surprised by what happened next.
Finally he told the screen to turn itself off. He walked about the room, thinking, trying to assimilate all that he had learned. One impression came through strongly: he liked this frame of Proton, despite its appalling degradation of the wilderness outside the domes. It had more than enough scientific magic inside the domes to make up. True, it had serious problems—but those represented not so much a liability as a challenge. Citizen Blue, who had been reared in Phaze, seemed to be Bane’s own kind of man. It would have been nice to work with him to complete the necessary changes in the society. In time, perhaps, even the pollution could be cured, and Proton could become green again outside. Of course he had to return to his own frame, but he would always be glad to have had this experience in this one.
Many hours had passed, but Agape still slept and he did not wish to disturb her. He experimented with his body, discovering that though in the rush of events he had not been aware of many differences between his own body and this one, those differences were significant. It was not just a matter of not getting tired and of not needing sleep; his involuntary physical reactions had become voluntary. He could elevate his reactions at will, becoming keyed up or relaxed simply by so directing his body. He could make himself sexually excited instantly, and turn it off as readily. It was helpful to know, since it could have been embarrassing with Agape if he depended on natural reactions.
At last he turned himself down to standby state, and this was very like sleep. He could, after all, have slept, had he realized how to do it! He just had to turn his body close to off for a period.
An alarm jolted Bane out of his simulated sleep. ‘The Citizen will see you in ten minutes,” the voice of a serf came from the screen.
“Uh, right,” Bane said. He turned to the bed.
Agape was stirring; evidently the alarm had awakened her too. Already her protoplasm was changing its shape. Legs and arms grew out at the ends, and her head. None were well formed; they most resembled the appendages a child might tack on a homemade doll. But once the size was right, the specific features developed. In just a few minutes she was herself—or rather, that artificially human form he had come to know.
She sat up, gazing at him. “Now you have seen me as I truly am,” she said.
“I think thou hast marvelous magic,” he said. “I could not change my form as thou dost.”
“You’re not an amoeba.”
“I am an Adept—or will be one,” he said. “I can change the forms of others, but not my own.”
“You really are not disturbed?”
“I really am not,” he said. And now it was true; the screen had provided him with the proper perspective, so that he understood the rationale of her nature and her presence, and approved of it. She was a nice person who was trying to accommodate herself to what was for her an alien situation. She needed support, not objection.
She stood, then stepped up to him and kissed him. “I fear I will not encounter your like again,” she said sadly.
“Nor I thine.”
“Two minutes,” the screen announced. “Present yourselves at the exit to your chamber.”
“We must not delay,” Agape said. “I have not been on Proton long, but I know from my briefing that serfs must always address Citizens as Sir and obey them implicitly. Perhaps I should talk, if it can be arranged.”
“Aye.” They presented themselves at the exit. The wall opened.
The serf conducted them quickly to a smaller chamber. They stepped in, but the serf did not. The door slid closed.
Suddenly the four walls vanished. They were in an enormous room. They stood on a beach whose sand spread endlessly to either side. Not far behind were palm trees, their fronds shimmering in the breeze. Ahead crashed the restless breakers of the fringe of a mighty ocean.
They stood staring, both awed by the scene. Then Agape put out her hand. “It is holo,” she murmured. “The walls still enclose us.”
“Holo?”
“Pictures, like those on the screen you watched last night. Very realistic.”
Bane touched the wall, verifying its presence. It seemed
as if they were in an invisible box set on the beach, but he understood what she meant; the box was real, the beach illusory. “If this be not magic, what need have Citizens for it?” he asked.
On the ocean appeared a sail, and the sail expanded. It showed up as a sailboat, blown quickly by the wind toward them. On the boat, operating it, was a ruddy, heavyset man. He guided it to the beach, then quickly furled the sail and dragged the small craft right up before the place where Bane and Agape stood. He lifted out a chest and set it on the sand. He brought out a key, put it to the big old-style lock, and unlocked it. He lifted the lid of the chest.
From the chest rose a head. It kept rising, until a complete woman stood in the chest. There could not have been room for her within it. She seemed quite young, possibly fifteen, and her hair was as white as snow, set with a silver tiara. She wore a white gown set with bright gems.
The woman glanced at the boatsman, who was now standing at attention. “Sir,” he said, “these are the refugees.”
This was the Citizen! Bane realized. He had expected an old man, not a young woman, but obviously Citizenship knew no age or sex.
“Your identities?” Citizen White inquired.
“Agape of Moeba,” Agape said immediately. “And this is Mach, the son of Citizen Blue. Sir.”
The woman frowned. “I think not,” she said. She stared at Bane. ‘Tell me your identity in your own words.”
Somehow she knew about the exchange! “I be Bane, son of the Blue Adept, also called Stile.”
“And how came thee here?” she inquired.
For a moment Bane was too startled to speak. ‘Thou— thou knowest?”
She smiled. “How long since thou hast been to the White Demesnes?”
“The White Adept!” he exclaimed. “But—“
“But she be old and ugly?” the woman inquired with a smile. She made a gesture, and abruptly she was old and fat. Then she reappeared in her young edition. “Since when be the son of an Adept deceived by appearances?”
“But there be no connection to Phaze!” Bane cried. “I be the first in a score of years to come to Proton, and that only in a body not mine own!”
“Really,” the woman said, smiling condescendingly. She turned to the serf beside her. “Set me adrift again, Grizzle, and open the window to Phaze for these two serfs.”
“Sir!” the man agreed.
The Citizen lost height. She sank back into the chest. When her head disappeared, the serf closed the lid, locked the lock, and lifted the chest back into the sailboat. He turned back to Bane and Agape. “The floors-man will take you there,” he said. Then he dragged the boat back to the water, stepped into it, unfurled the sail, and commenced tacking into the wind.
The scene vanished. They were back in the box. The door opened, and they stepped back into the hall.
“This way,” the serf said.
They followed him down the hall to another door. “You’ll need clothes,” he said, bringing out a white shirt and trousers of the Phaze variety for Bane and a white dress for Agape. “We don’t usually send others through, so white’s all we’ve got. You can change them when you get where you’re going.”
“But I am a serf!” Agape protested. “I can’t don clothing here!”
“We do wear it in Phaze,” Bane told her. ‘Thou wouldst be as out of place there naked as here in clothing.”
“I suppose,” she agreed uncertainly. She got somewhat awkwardly into the dress and slippers provided. The serf helped her get her outfit adjusted, and in a moment she looked, by Phaze standards, quite nice.
Bane completed his dressing, bending to fit the shoes to his feet. They fit well enough.
“This way,” the serf said, showing them on down the hall to still another door.
They entered another cubicle. This one closed on them, then abruptly ascended, startling them. Its walls were transparent; they could see the dimly illuminated walls of the region through which it passed.
It came up into a forest. It halted at ground level, and the panel on one side opened. They stepped out onto the forest floor. The cubicle closed itself up and descended back into the ground; a lid closed, making the ground complete.
“This is Phaze?” Agape asked.
“It seems like it,” Bane said. “It be hard to believe that return could be so simple!”
“But I—I am not magical!” she said. “How can I be here?”
“The same way I be here,” he said. “I exchanged bodies not; I be still in the robot body. We made a physical crossing!”
“All the time the Citizens knew this route!” Agape said. “It was not your imagination!”
He glanced at her. She was very fetching in her dress; it fitted her beautifully. “Thou didst doubt?”
She spread her hands. “I know that robots can be programmed and reprogrammed. They must believe what they are programmed to believe; they cannot do otherwise. I was sure that you believed, but not sure that you really came from Phaze. I apologize, Bane.”
“Accepted, Agape!” he said. “I could prove my origin not as readily as thou didst.”
“If this really is your frame, where should we go? I really don’t belong here.”
“I think thou dost belong with me,” he said. “Thou didst help me wend my way through Proton; now it be my turn to help thee in Phaze.” He brought her in to him and kissed her. “And how glad I be that this be not our separation, Agape!”
She clung to him. “Oh, Bane, I told you I wanted to learn how your species indulges in sex, and I do, but I think that was only part of it. What I really want is to be close to you. I felt so alone, so—so alien when I came to Proton, and you have made me feel like a person.”
“Thou hast made me feel wanted,” he said. And that, he realized, was the essence. He preferred to be genuinely wanted and needed by an alien creature, than to be routinely accepted by the most human of women.
They walked through the forest. ‘This must be near the White Demesnes,” he said. ‘That would be northeast of the Blue Desmesnes, and some distance away. I recognize this particular region not, but if we go southeast we’ll get home.”
“Home to you, perhaps,” she said.
“Thou dost not want it?” he asked.
“Oh, Bane, I am not your kind! I have a task to accomplish—“
“But after thou dost accomplish it, and make thy report—what then?”
“Oh, Bane, I just don’t know! This is all so sudden, so strange!”
“Meanwhile, come and meet my family,” he said. He looked at her appraisingly. “And let’s see how thou wouldst be in blue.” He paused, considering, then sang: “Turn me blue, and her too.”
There was a flash, and abruptly both of their outfits were blue instead of white.
Agape looked at him, and at herself, astonished. “Magic! You did it!”
“I be an apprentice Adept,” he said. But privately he was bothered by a detail; there had never before been a flash when he performed magic. Was he losing his touch?
They walked on. Suddenly there was a commotion to the side. Gnarly little men appeared, about half the size of Bane.
“Goblins!” he said. ‘They be usually trouble!”
“Are they human beings?” Agape asked. “They seem so small!”
“They may be descended from human stock, but they be hardly human anymore. Mostly they interfere not with our kind, but they can be ugly on occasion. I want not to waste magic; I’ll see if I can bluff them off.”
The goblins charged up. “Fresh meat!” they exclaimed, licking their twisted lips.
“Back off, goblins!” Bane cried. “Else I transform you all to worms for the birds!”
“And who dost thou think thou art?” one of them challenged him.
“I think I be the son of Blue,” Bane said.
“Blue be far from here,” the goblin retorted. “We’ll roast thee and thy buxom wench for dinner!”
“Goblins be worms,” Bane sang. “As birds want—“
“We’re going!” the goblin cried, and all of them scurried back the way they had come.
Agape was impressed. “Could you really have turned them to worms?”
“Methinks so; I have tried to transform that many not simultaneously before,” Bane said. “My father could readily do it, of course. But we prefer to employ magic only as a last resort.”
“Oh, why is that?”
“Because a given spell only works well once. I have to figure out a new one each time. So if I use magic when I don’t need to, I be cutting down my options for the future. That could make me pretty much impotent, later in life.”
“Ah, now I understand!” she exclaimed. “So life is not entirely easy, even with magic!”
“Not necessarily easy at all,” he agreed. “Because there be also hostile magic.” He paused. “Speaking of which—the White Adept really has never been very friendly with the Blue Adept, not since the separation of frames. Why would she do us this big favor now?”
“Perhaps she is a nicer person than you thought.”
He laughed. “Adepts aren’t nice folk! They are concerned only with their own powers.” Then he reconsidered. “No, some are all right. The Red Adept owes his position to my father, so he’s always friendly, and Brown Adept’s all right too. She helped Fleta and weres a lot. She’s the one who makes the golems.”
“The golems?”
“They be like robots,” he said with a smile. “ look and act like men, but they be dead sticks. Generally.”
They went on. “Mayhap I should conjure us directly there,” Bane said. “So thou dost not have to walk so far.”
“Save your magic,” Agape said with a smile. “I don’t mind walking with you.”
They came to a mountain. There was a large cave visible at its base. “The vampires!” Bane exclaimed.
“Vampires! The kind that suck blood?”
“They do, but not indiscriminately. It be part of special rituals they have for coming-of-age and such. We have nothing to fear from them.” He walked toward the cave-entrance. Agape followed, not at all at ease.
A man in a gray cape stood guarding the cave, though bats wheeled in the sky nearby. He came alert as the two approached. “Who be ye?” he challenged.
“I be the son of Blue,” Bane said. “This be my friend, a shape-changer. I come to see my friends.”
“Who be thy friends?” the man asked.
“Vanneflay,” Bane said.
“Sorry, he be away these three days.”
“Vidselud, then,” Bane said.
“Him, too.”
Bane considered. “Then Suchevane.”
The man shrugged. “That be a coincidence! He, too.”
“All away?” Bane asked, surprised.
“But thou’rt welcome to join us in a meal,” the guard said. “Any son of Blue be welcome here.”
“Uh, Bane—“ Agape whispered uncomfortably.
Bane smiled. “My friend be nervous about vampire viands. Thank thee, but we shall move on.”
The guard made a negligent wave of his hand.
They returned to the forest and walked on toward the west until they were well clear of the vampire’s mountain. Bane was deep in thought.
“I’m glad we didn’t stay there!” Agape said. “The thought of eating blood—“
“That bothers thee? Is blood not easier to imbibe than solid food?”
“We don’t consume flesh,” she said.
“Actually, the vampires wouldn’t have offered us blood. It’s too valuable, and they always take it fresh. That isn’t what bothers me.”
“What bothers you, Bane?”
“This be not Phaze.”
She halted in place. “What?”
“When I changed the color of our clothing, there was a flash. My magic ne’er did that. Be there a way science could have done it?”
“Changed the color? Oh, yes; some material is sensitive to certain types of radiation, so that when it flashes—“
“Methought so. And true goblins bluff not so readily; must always destroy a few ere they give over. But mainly, the vampires. They were not.”
“But the fact that we did not see them change form does not mean—“
“Oh, they might have changed form, by some device. But the friends I named—“ He shook his head.
“But they really could be away,” she said.
“The first, yes. But the second, Vidselud—he be the son of Vodlevile, for whom my father did a favor. Vidselud be six or seven years my senior, but we be friends because with me he can safely travel.”
“He can’t with his own kind?”
“Nay. He has a problem with the assimilation of blood that crops up every so often. They keep a potion in the cave that cures it, and they never let that potion go out, because it cannot be replaced. So he flies ne’er beyond walking distance of the cave, unless with me, because I can conjure him home if need be.”
“But then he should be home!” she said.
“He should be home. Yet the guard said he was not.”
“Still, that’s not proof—“
“And the third one, Suchevane.”
“He could also be—“
“She.” Bane said succinctly.
“Female? But the guard said ‘he’—“
“Precisely.”
“Maybe the guard forgot.”
Bane smiled. “No male forgets Suchevane!”
Agape looked sharply at him. “She is—?”
“Almost as lovely as thee, in girl form. And still married, when I left Phaze. If there be any male he doth not turn when she goes by, that head be blind Even the werewolves howl for her.”
“But how, then—“
“No way,” Bane said with finality. “This cannot the vampire mountain I know, and since there be only one like this, these be other than vampires, and this be other than Phaze.”
“But why would—“
A bat flew down from the sky. As it neared the ground, it changed abruptly into a beautiful woman. “Lovelier than I?” she demanded.
Bane gazed at her. “Nay.” Then, after a pause, “Sir.”
The woman changed appearance, becoming the young-seeming Citizen White, then a woman about twenty years older, still garbed in white. “So you cannot be fooled, young man,” she said.
“No, sir.”
“It is true; this is all a setting. I was able to make it authentic because when I was a child, I did visit Phaze, and knew the vampire colony. But in twenty years the personnel have evidently changed, and without contact, we cannot change with them.”
“True, sir,” Bane agreed.
“So this is pretense, agreed.” She gazed hard at him. “But you are not. You really are from Phaze; you have demonstrated that.”
“But sir, why?” Agape asked, disturbed. “Why bother to play such a cruel game with two serfs who intended you no harm?”
“That you are about to discover,” the Citizen said. She snapped her fingers, and the entire setting disappeared, leaving a large empty chamber. She smiled, and it was not a pretty smile.
“I think we be in trouble,” Bane murmured.
“Not necessarily,” Citizen White said. But the cruel lines that manifested about her mouth gave her words the lie.