Neysa arrived back at the Brown Demesnes, in the same chamber as before. She knocked on the wall, signaling her return, and waited. In a moment Brown was there.
“I thank thee for coming back so soon,” Brown said. “I be distraught for lack o’ company.”
“Needs must we talk alone,” Neysa said. “I fear that can not be here, near the Adepts.”
“Aye. They be under geis, but they hear.”
“Will thy castle keep, in thine absence?”
“A few hours.”
“Then march us to my Herd.”
“Aye.” They walked to the front storage chamber of the castle, where assorted wooden golems stood idle. “Franken,” Brown said.
A huge and spectacularly ugly golem stirred. It was in the likeness of an ancient Earth monster said to have been crafted in a laboratory. The name was a misnomer, because it was the doctor, not the monster, who had been called Frankenstein, but for this offhand use it sufficed.
Franken picked Brown up. Neysa assumed her firefly form and flew up to perch on the golem’s head. Franken tramped out of the castle, faced the setting sun, and proceeded at cruising velocity. That was faster than a unicorn could run, because the golem was big and indefatigable. The landscape passed at a horrendous rate. To Neysa, perched on the head and hunching down to avoid the rush of wind, it seemed most like an image in Agnes’ mind: that of an airplane flying low over the terrain, coming in for a landing at a dome. Such machines were fewer now, because of concern about pollution; less wasteful means were employed to travel. But Agnes had been in Proton during the old days, and ridden such machines many times. She remembered.
At dusk they reached the spot where the Herd was grazing. Clip charged up, but recognized the golem and relaxed. Neysa flew down, assumed her nature form, and conferred with her brother in horn talk.
“Brown and I needs must converse in private for a time.”
“Graze in the center; none will hear.”
“Our thanks to thee, sibling.”
“There be an ill wind coming.”
“Aye.”
She trotted back to the golem, now waiting like the wooden statue it was. She assumed human form. “Walk with me within the Herd,” she told Brown. “Magic penetrates not there, an we will it not.”
Brown dismounted. They walked among the unicorns, who ignored them, each grazing a particular section. In the center was a broad area, already grazed.
“Thou dost be pensive, and the prisoners be flip,” Neysa said. “Be the geis slipping?”
“Nay, it be tight,” Brown said. “They can harm me not.”
“But there be aught. I felt it as we arrived, and when I saw them, I knew. Thy strait be dire. Willst tell me?”
“Mayhap I will harm myself.”
Neysa shook her head, unpleasantly perplexed. “At their behest? How can that be?”
“Willst make oath o’ silence?”
“Be it that bad?”
“Not to thee, mayhap.”
“I make the oath.” And from her proceeded a tiny ripple, barely visible in the twilight, but significant: the splash of truth.
“Then will I tell thee what may please thee not,” Brown said. “It be with relief I tell, for the secret consumes me. Yet, an thou have patience, needs must I tell it mine own way.”
“Then ride me while I graze,” Neysa said. “My patience be endless then.” She assumed her natural form.
Brown mounted her, and began to talk. Neysa listened, and let her mind clothe the narration with the details she knew. It was a tale that should have amazed her, yet somehow did not, for it answered much that would have puzzled her had she thought to ponder it.
Brown was a child of eight when she ran away from home. That was not her name then, but her name didn’t matter. It wasn’t because her mother beat her; all the children of her village were beaten as a matter of policy. It wasn’t that she often went hungry; that too was common, when the goblins raided the village stores. It wasn’t that her father intended to betroth her to a fat merchant’s son; that was a satisfactory placement as such things went. It could have been that the gang of boys was making her take off her clothes and do things with them she neither understood nor enjoyed; but that happened to any girl they caught; and hardly a girl escaped at least one such session before she came of age to marry. Some had been caught many times, because their houses were beyond the lighted fringe of the village, and the boys lurked in ambush. Some even claimed to like it, though Brown suspected they were merely covering the hurt with bravado. Brown made no bones about not liking it, but it didn’t matter; if they caught her, they did it. She had become canny, so had been caught only three times. She often walked home through the woods, because she liked the trees, and the trees liked her. When the boys tried to ambush her there, a tree would arrange to snap a dropped branch under one of their feet, alerting her. Then she would reroute, and avoid them, and if they set out in direct pursuit she would shinny up a tree, knowing how to do it without getting scratched. If they tried to climb after her, they would snag seemingly by accident on the twig stubs and thorns, and the tree-ants would bite them. The trees were her friends, and the trees were not the boys’ friends; that made all the difference.
No, none of these things drove her out. It was when she started making things from the wood of the trees that the trouble came. Because she liked trees, she liked wood, and the trees did not mind if she took their deadwood and worked with it. She made herself a doll from an old curly knot, and it kept her company at night; they told each other stories. She fashioned a pretend dog from a twisted fragment of a stump whose roots projected like legs and a tail. She had always wanted a dog, but never had one. So she adjusted the legs, and used charcoal to paint fur, and affixed old buttons for eyes, and wooden pegs for ears, and splinters for teeth, and she had her pet. She named it Woodruff.
It was when she started taking Woodruff for walks that the trouble began. The boys ambushed her, and Woodruff growled them off. When that got around, her father got nervous. He tried to throw the dog out, but it hid under the bed and growled. He used a broom to push it out, and kicked the dog, and Woodruff bit him on the leg. So he smashed it to pieces with the axe. Brown came home from lessons and found the sundered pieces. That was when she ran away, blinded by tears, taking only her doll.
But it was evening when she left, and night in the forest. The trees did not seem nearly as friendly at night, and it was cold. Her strait, as Neysa was later to put it, was dire. She had either to return home and take her punishment, which would be horrendous, or continue on, and perhaps perish in the wilderness. She could hear big animals prowling, and was terrified.
The animals were wolves, who ranged these parts and did not get along with the villagers. But they were werewolves, and Brown was obviously a child in distress. A bitch changed to human form and took her in. When they learned that Brown had run away and would die rather than go back to the village, because her brute father had killed her pet dog, the other wolves became more friendly. But though they could succor her for a night or two, they could not keep her. She was not a were, and would not be able to hunt with the Pack. Their leader, Kurrelgyre, was in exile because he had refused to slay his aging sire in the werewolf way, and things were in disarray already.
But there was someone who might be able to take her in. He was the Brown Adept, who lived in a wooden castle not far off. “Adept!” she cried, terrified anew. Everyone knew how terrible the Adepts were.
The wolves assured her that this one was kind to animals, as was the Blue Adept. He would not hurt her, and if she did not want to stay, he might help her go to the Blue Adept, who they understood had a beautiful and kind wife, the Lady Blue.
The huge golems were a forbidding sight, but they let the bitch and girl pass. The Brown Adept was a gnarled old man, his long brown beard turning white. “But I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a child!” he protested.
Brown, catching on that he was a woodworker, turned positive. “I can feed myself, if there be food,” she said. “I will be not much bother, honest, if thou dost mind not my playing with thy wood dolls.”
Wood dolls? The golems were huge and ugly, a sight to frighten any normal child. The Brown Adept reconsidered. Perhaps he could let her stay for a few days.
That was the start of a friendship that quickly became an apprenticeship. The Brown Adept recognized in the child the talent to work magically with wood. He had no family and there was no one to take his place. He had thought that his Demesnes would simply fade away after his death; now he saw that they could continue. He showed the girl how to fashion the wooden golems, the way their bodies were pegged together so that they could move without falling apart. He showed her how to supervise the existing golems in their foraging for the proper kinds of wood. No live tree was ever taken, but a freshly dead one was harvested as soon as possible, so that the wood would not rot.
Soon she made another wooden dog—only instead of adapting this one from a gnarled stump, she made it from solid wood, with strong and jointed pegs. He showed her how to make the dog heel at her command, so that it would not bite anyone unless she told it to. As for her doll—that had been his first clue that she had the necessary talent, because it had taken him years to make his golems talk, yet she had done it with her first one.
It was a great time, for a year. But the Adept was old and growing older. He had been hanging on to his health with the help of amulets he had traded from the Red Adept, but even these could not keep him going forever. “I am going to die,” he told her. “Thou must be the Brown Adept. Do not let others know I be gone, until thou hast grown into thy full strength, else they may try to destroy these Demesnes in thy weakness.”
“But I be not ready!” she protested tearfully. “Thou must live longer, Grandpa Brown!” For so she called him now, having adopted him in lieu of the family she had thrown away.
“Alas, I can not,” he told her. “But this I needs must say: thou has made my last year a delight, and banished my loneliness. For that I thank thee, lovely child.”
“Thou has been good to me too!” she said. “Ne’er didst thou beat me or starve me or do to me what the village louts did.”
“An I had known o’ those things, I would have sent my golems into the village to slay those evil folk,” he said, grimacing.
“Grandpa Brown, I beg thee, leave me not!”
He squeezed her firm little hand in his worn brown hand. “It were not my choice, O sweet girl.” Then he died.
She wept. Then she told a big golem to take him out and bury him under the garden. It was the onset of her Adept status—and her awful loneliness, which he had unwittingly bequeathed to her.
She had her doll and dog and the other golems for company, but none of them were alive. She did not dare let it be known that the old Adept was gone, for fear of an attack by others, as he had warned her. She didn’t even tell the werewolves, though they were her friends; she pretended she was merely running errands for her master, who was busy making more golems. She managed, but she wasn’t happy.
So it was for a year. She learned to make and handle the golems better, but knew she had more to learn. She longed for living company, but even when she dealt with others, trading golems for food and other staples (in the name of her master), she never got personal. She didn’t dare.
Then the Blue Adept raided her Demesnes. At first she was afraid of him, and tried to drive him out, but he destroyed her defenses with his magic and had her at his mercy. But then he turned out to be a nice person, and helped her. He had somehow thought that she was a bad Adept who had attacked him, because one of the golems had been fashioned in his likeness and tried to take his place. He was a very small man who called himself Stile, and he was even newer as an Adept than she was. He had a small unicorn with him, the first she had met up close, and she was nice too. Her horn sounded like a harmonica, and her music was wonderful.
“And that were the onset o’ our friendship, Neysa,” she said. “Thirty years gone. Much has it meant to me.”
Neysa, grazing, blew an affirmative note. She remembered their meeting, but had never heard it from Brown’s point of view before.
“I were just ten then, but suddenly I knew love,” Brown continued. “I loved the Adept Stile, but kept it secret, knowing it were laughable. He had the Lady Blue.”
“I loved him too,” Neysa said in horn talk. “And I an animal.”
“Child and animal—how could we compete?” Brown asked rhetorically, and Neysa agreed.
Stile went on about his business, in due course, destroying the Red Adept, who had killed his other self. In those days only a person who had lost his otherframe self could cross between the frames; that was why Stile had been able to cross from Proton. Then Stile became a Citizen in Proton, and the Contrary Citizens opposed him, as well as the Adverse Adepts. Brown of course helped him all she could. She would have done anything for him, but he treated her with perfect courtesy like the child she was, never knowing her love. Finally he saved the frames from the depredations of the bad Citizens and Adepts by separating Phaze from Proton. He restored the body of his other self, the original Blue Adept, and made ready to return to Proton and to the robot lady Sheen, who loved him (of course!) but whom he did not love. (How could he love any other, with the Lady Blue? How well they all understood!) Here it was that Brown betrayed him in her fashion. She had temporary access to the great Book of Magic, and made a spell to reverse things so that it was Blue who went to Proton, and Stile who stayed in Phaze, where he longed to be.
There, separated, the frames remained, for about twenty years, until Stile’s son Bane exchanged places with his other self, the robot Mach. That set off a complicated sequence, and renewed the warfare between Citizens and Adepts, as the bad ones tried to grab power. After most of another decade, Stile went the opposite route: he summoned the Adept Clef, and the Platinum Flute, and they merged the frames.
But in the long quiet periods between Adept wars, Brown remained alone. She no longer had to hide the loss of her predecessor, and she mastered the control of the golems, but her life was mostly empty. For now she found that isolation was not just a temporary state; it was standard for Adepts. Those few who were married were extremely fortunate; the others existed in increasing private bitterness, for all normal folk were afraid of them.
With reason. After the third assassination attempt against her, Brown knew better than to trust any stranger even slightly. She associated only with other Adepts, whom she mostly detested, and with the werewolves of the local Pack. They, at least, could be trusted. But that did not mean they were close. They were invariably polite and accommodating, but they had their own lives and commitments, and she realized that she was imposing when she visited them too often.
Then she broke her foot. It was a stupid accident with a golem. She had had it carry her to the Red Adept’s castle—Stile had arranged to install Trool the Troll in those Demesnes, and to her surprise the troll turned out to be an excellent Adept and excellent man—so that they could make arrangements for further exchanges of magic that benefited both. But on her return trip the golem had stumbled and fallen, and her foot had been caught. She had needed healing and assistance, and had to go to the wolves for it.
They had helped, of course. They assigned a bitch to care for her and manage the castle under her direction, until she mended. This was Lycandi, fifteen years old, the same as Brown. The bitch was nice enough, and attractive enough in both her wolf and woman states, but was something of an outcast because she had rejected first mating and never achieved the final syllable of her name. This was probably why she had been assigned to this chore: she would hardly be missed from the pack.
The healing of the foot was slow, but Lycandi was patient. Indeed, it became evident that the bitch liked this assignment, for here there was no pressure on her to do what she chose not to. They talked, and Brown learned the bitch’s concern.
A werewolf was not considered mature until he or she indulged in a first, ritual mating, and exchanged syllables with the partner in that mating: the Promised. Thereafter those two would never mate with each other again; each would find another to pair with. Lycandi had come into her first heat two years before, and had received offers from several wolves, but had turned them down. In the ensuing time she had steadfastly refused to mate, though it locked her into juvenile status.
“But why not, ‘Candi?” Brown asked. “It be a simple thing to do. I were not able to fend off the village boys e’en when a child, while thou—“
“Didst thou like it, when they forced thee?” ‘Candi asked sharply.
“Nay. I hated it. But—“
“I, too.”
“But that were because they were louts. Were it the Adept Stile who sought me, or e’en a handsome wolf in man form—“
“I like not wolves or men, that way.”
“But surely the mating urge, the companionship—“
“Companionship, aye, and mayhap the urge. But not with wolves.”
“Then with a human man. That may count not toward the completion o’ thy name, but I have heard they can be fine temporary lovers.”
“Why didst thou not take such a lover, then?”
“I can trust no human man. Three tried to kill me.”
‘Candi nodded. “Thou hast reason, then. Me, I wish no lover, nor man neither wolf. That be my shame.”
Brown was amazed. “But an thou hast the urge—“
“Any bitch would tear my throat out.”
Brown stared at her. “A bitch...”
She saw the bitch, in her girl form, sitting beside her, suffering. She reached out to comfort her, then drew hastily away lest she be misunderstood, then moved again. Something in her own life was coalescing, a mystery she had not fathomed before.
“Wouldst settle for one who were no bitch?” she whispered.
Lycandi gazed at her, her eyes wet. “Thou—Adept—“
“And woman.” Brown caught her shoulder and drew her in.
Then they were together, kissing, their tears mixing. Brown had never imagined love of this nature, but now she discovered what it offered. The ambushes of the boys had soured her on males in a way she hadn’t fathomed, and the assassination attempts had soured her on adult males. Now she realized that it was more than that. She had loved Stile, in part, because he was unavailable; he would never seek sex with her. The violence of the male, the urgency, the cruel brevity—this was not to her taste. But this, gentle, sensitive, understanding of her nature, with a female...
And so they were lovers. Lycandi did not depart when Brown’s foot healed; she became servant and guardian, and Brown paid a wage to her Pack, for the loss of one of their members. Neither of them ever stated the true nature of their association to any outsider, for neither the wolf nor the human cultures would have accepted it. The problem of companionship had been solved, for them both.
But in time Lycandi had sickened with an intractable distemper that sometimes affected wolves. Magic could ameliorate it only so far. Two years ago she died, and Brown was alone again.
The horror of her isolation closed in on her once more, not one whit abated because she was now a mature woman. She missed her lover, and grieved for her, but that would gradually pass. The lack of companionship would not. Brown saw no end to that other than death.
That was why she had volunteered to host the two Adept prisoners. She wanted nothing of them as men, and she had no sympathy for their plight. Both were evil men who deserved death. But Stile had been loath to kill unnecessarily, so had spared them. Trool had bound them with the geis, but only an Adept could be sure of keeping them out of mischief. So she had done the other Adepts a favor, and garnered a bit of company for herself. For whatever else these men were not, and no matter how much she despised them, they were human presences. That was a quarter loaf, but far better than none.
At first the men had been barely aware of her or their surroundings. The mergence which had put the Purple Adept into the same body as Citizen Purple, and the same for the Tan Adept and Citizen, had set off a struggle for mastery of those hosts. They were selfish, unfeeling men; neither of their aspects was accustomed to considering the wishes of any other party. That was why the good Citizens and Adepts had taken over after the mergence: they were able to get along better with others and themselves.
But gradually the evil men came to rough terms with themselves. Perhaps they had set up a system of alternating days, giving each self his turn in control. Perhaps some other device. The effect was that they began to take an interest in their surroundings, and their demeanor and manner improved.
They began to talk with Brown. At first they cursed her as a foul captor who would one day be tortured to death. She responded by letting the golems handle them, remaining clear herself. The golems were immune to insult, having no feelings. The men soon enough saw the futility of their effort, and apologized and promised to be more civil. Brown resumed personal attendance, and the two were as good as their word, being meticulously polite. It was as though they were guests, and she the hostess; they thanked her for her hospitality. It was of course insincere, but even the semblance of appreciation was better than nothing, for them as well as for her.
Gradually this changed. The appreciation seemed to become more sincere. Tan especially was attentive to her. He complimented her not only on the food, but on her dress and then on her person. Finally she realized what he was up to, her understanding perhaps delayed by her revulsion of the notion: he was attempting to seduce her.
So was Purple. But there was no evident conflict between the men. They were operating in tandem, the one giving way to the other. One was a good decade older than Brown, the other a decade younger; they would settle for whichever type she preferred. Their object was not sex, though evidently they would not object to it if the opportunity offered, but power: they wanted to corrupt her away from her commitment as prison guard. If they could make her love one of them, they might prevail on her to release them. Thai would only be part of their effort, for the geis would remain on them; only the Red Adept could remove that. They would remain unable to use their magic for any hostile purpose, or to harm any other person physically. But once they were free, they would set about nullifying the geis, probably with the same determination. Maybe they would find a way to sneak into the Red Demesnes and look at the Book of Magic, finding the spell that held them, and its antidote. Maybe they intended to persuade her to send a golem to steal the Book, so that they could gain complete power.
She was bitterly amused, once her outrage subsided. They were trying to seduce a woman whose romantic interest was not in men! Since they were unable to use any kind of force, even verbal, because of the geis, their chances of success were nil. But sober consideration caused her to realize that she had two excellent reasons for concealing her immunity. First, the last thing she wanted was for these enemies to discover her private nature, which she had kept secret from all but her lover Lycandi for so many years. She would be mortified to have that exposed! Second, even though she had no use for either man, she appreciated their civility and attention far better than she appreciated their anger and discourtesy. She could at least pretend she had some company worth having. Her need was for the semblance of companionship, not romance, but if she had to pretend susceptibility to the latter to achieve the former, that was better than the alternative.
So she responded guardedly to their overtures. She was courteous to both but paid slightly more attention to Purple, not because she found him more attractive, but because she found him less attractive. Tan, even under the geis, was dangerous; his eyes could work no evil now, but looked as if they could, and sometimes illusion was a significant part of magic. Also, his twin sister Tania, now the wife of the Adept Clef, was quite another matter; had that lovely woman approached Brown with amorous intent, Brown would have been lost in an instant. Tan resembled his sister as closely as was possible without a change of sex; it was easy to picture him clean-shaven, with his hair grown long, as Tania. Therefore she guarded herself from him, and favored Purple, who was fat and ugly and totally devoid of appeal for her.
The equanimity with which Tan accepted this loss of favor confirmed his motive: had his suit been real, he would have been jealous. Given his choice of women, a forty-year-old spinster would have been the very last he would take. Purple, older, seemed more practical: any woman would do in a pinch. He would gladly have an affair with her—and as gladly drop her the moment he was free. She felt far more at ease with that attitude, ironically.
But as the months passed in this subtle game, she came to appreciate another hazard. She was playing coy, as befitted one who was not supposed to be corrupted. But she did not care to overdo it, lest they catch on that there was more to her diffidence than mere duty. In the process of judging her calls, she realized that she might have to choose at some point between actually succumbing to a sexual encounter she did not want, or betraying her secret. Which would it be? If she actually lay with Purple, she would have to school her revulsion not to show, and her secret would be safe, for men could not conceive of a woman preferring anything other than sex with them, once it was tried. But she would feel absolutely filthy and ashamed. Could it be worth it? She was in horrible doubt.
The men were prisoners, and powerless. But if they learned her nature, they would speak of it to others. This she would be unable to prevent, for periodically other Adepts did come to make sure that all was under control here. This was the one nonmagical, nonphysical way they could hurt her—and they surely would do so, if it suited their purpose. Could she bear the shame?
She seemed doomed to shame, either way. The matter pressed on her awareness, day and night. She dreamed of fat Purple coming down on her body, saying, “Do this, bitch-lover, else I tell!” He might tell anyway, if he caught on that she wasn’t enjoying it in the fashion of other women.
At this point in her dilemma Neysa and Flach visited. Brown’s relief at seeing them was immense. All the loneliness of her situation abated—and returned with added force with their departure, thought it was temporary. She needed advice from a friend, desperately.
“And now, if friend thou still dost be,” she concluded, “I lay on thee the burden o’ advice: what needs must be my course?”
Neysa, grazing as if unaffected by the narration, controlled the welter of her emotions. Her friend Brown—a woman’s woman? Desperately lonely, all these years? How could she, Neysa, have missed the signs?
They had to move those prisoners elsewhere! Yet if they did, thus abruptly, Purple and Tan might realize why. Also, where could they be moved? How could Neysa ask for this, without giving reason? She could not give reason, for she had given her oath of secrecy, which she would not abridge. And if she found some other pretext to move them out, what then of Brown, thrown into complete isolation again?
Then she caught a glimmer of a notion. She played a warning note on her horn, to advise Brown to dismount. Then she changed to woman form. “Methinks thou dost need out o’ this mess. An a need come for golems, many golems in a far corner, made from the wood there, thou couldst be called away, and some other put in charge o’ thy Demesnes for the interim.”
“But Neysa—“ Brown protested.
“I would break not mine oath! I would find other way to justify the project.”
“But what I needs must know—“
“No word o’ thy shame! It will be hidden.”
Brown paused. Then she nodded. “I thank thee, Neysa. An thou canst do that, my concern be eased.”
They walked back to the standing golem. Soon they were on their way back to the wooden castle, charging along under the starry sky.
Once Brown was safely home, Neysa set out for the Red Demesnes afoot, where she knew Flach would remain until she rejoined him. She ran well in her natural form, but not as fast as in her youth. Still, it was a pleasure; she had always liked to run. She remembered the old years, with Stile, and her hopeless love for him, never spoken. Later her filly-foal Fleta had done what Neysa had not dared do, and had openly loved a man. In late retrospect, Neysa could not say that was wrong. Sometimes secret love was better in the open.
And what of Brown’s secret love? The bitch Lycandi was dead, but the love she had indoctrinated Brown with remained. Neysa would help Brown win free of the trap the Adepts had put her into, but how could she free her from her secret shame? “No word o’ thy shame,” she had promised, and Brown had paused, then thanked her.
Why had there been that pause?
Neysa was not the cleverest of unicorns, and age was not improving her mind, but she normally figured things out in time. It was as if Brown had not been entirely satisfied with Neysa’s response. But it had been hard to be reassuring, when the shock of her discovery of Brown’s nature was new.
Then it came to her. Brown had wanted to know how she felt, and whether her friendship had suffered because of the revelation. And Neysa had answered without meaning to: “No word o’ thy shame.” Brown had hoped she could speak without sacrificing their friendship, and had been disappointed.
Yet now, too late, regretting what she had said, Neysa could not deny its truth. A curtain had dropped down between the two of them. How could true friendship survive the knowledge of what Brown was?
Lysander had to admit it was interesting. The child Nepe, who was also Flach, had shown him magic; Alyc was showing him science, and the things of the science frame. Most of the naked serfs were working, but many had free time, and they populated the lounges and the Game Annex. Since food and sex were free, their main entertainment seemed to be competitive games. That of course was a major interest for Lysander, too, but he hesitated to push it, lest Alyc be uninterested. His first job was to cement his relationship with her, so as to remain in Citizen Blue’s favor.
But after they ate—there were machines that dispensed anything desired that was healthy—and covered the premises, there wasn’t much to do. It was night, and though the halls had no closing, he was tiring. “I have had a long day,” he said. “It started on board a spaceship, and included an outdoor tour that had me talking to a unicorn, and now an indoor tour that has shown me more naked people than I thought existed. Is it possible to sleep?”
“The Citizen allocated a chamber for you,” she said. “But if you would like to join me in mine...”
He considered. Her incomplete sentence was evidently an ellipsis, and that meant that something significant had been omitted for his consideration. His preliminary briefing had made clear that whatever else occurred, when a man spent the night with an unrelated woman without other company, he was expected to indulge in copulation with her. If he did not wish to do so, he did not stay with her. His effort to dampen his reaction to her sexual attributes had been effective, and he had no inclination to get into human sex with her at this time. His brief handling of the harpy/cyborg’s legs had evoked temporary interest there, perhaps because Echo was a stranger; that was not the case with Alyc. But if he declined, she might be hurt or suspicious.
Perhaps he could talk his way out of it, this night. “I am new to this culture, and fear giving offense. I think I am not at this time ready for anything other than a night of sleep. May I decline the sharing of your residence without upsetting you?”
“Well, sure, of course,” she said, evidently disgruntled. “I mean, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, unless a Citizen says to. I just thought—“ She broke off. shrugging.
This wasn’t being easy. “I understand—please correct me if I am mistaken—that a man does not stay with a woman unless he copulates with her. I think I would like to do that with you, when I am less tired. So I feel I should not seek the pleasure of your company under false pretense.”
She was studiously gazing away from him, but she peeked. “You mean it’s not that you aren’t interested?”
He was getting it right! “By no means! It’s that where I come from, some experiences are best reserved for ideal conditions, rather than being squandered when things are imperfect.”
She thought about that, and it was evident that the longer she thought, the better she liked it. “Then, maybe, would you like to stay with me, and just sleep?”
“Why that would be very nice, if it is not an imposition.”
“Right this way!” She strode for home at a brisk rate.
Lysander followed, making a perceptual adjustment. He had abolished any sexual inclination by visualizing her as she was. That had to be modified now. So he schooled himself to see her as a human male would, blocking out his natural perception. For example, the way her plush buttocks flexed as she walked was supposed to be interesting and sexually appealing. A human male, contemplating that at length, was supposed to become sexually aroused, so that his copulatory member expanded—
Oops. Hastily he cut off the focus; obviously he had it right. He stared over her head, hoping that none of the other serfs had noticed. But it was evident that they had, and were amused. Well, amusement was harmless.
Alyc’s private chamber was pleasant enough. She had a body-cleaning alcove, a video screen, and a foam bed. “Clean up and lie down,” she told him. “I’ll watch the show.”
Lysander stepped into the alcove, while Alyc lay on her bed and watched the screen. There was some kind of entertainment program on, resounding with people slipping and falling, getting whacked on their posteriors, and loudly protesting indignities. Alyc laughed, evidently enjoying it. He would have to study her reactions, so as to key in the normal human pattern. There was much his training had not properly prepared him for.
He had assumed that the cleaning alcove would employ sonics, but this seemed not to. Instead there were handles whose purpose was opaque. This, too, had been omitted from his training: the details of variations of human hygienic devices. He hesitated just to turn the handles, lest he misuse the equipment.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I don’t wish to interrupt your entertainment, but I am unfamiliar with this mechanism.”
“They don’t have showers on Planet Grenadier?” she asked, surprised.
“They have sonic cleaners. Do you mean you clean with water?”
“Sure.” she said, bouncing off the bed. “Why not? It’s recycled. You turn on the water here—“ She reached past him to work a handle. Water blasted down from the ceiling, startling him. It was hot, but not unpleasantly so. “And soap here.” She worked another handle, and got a handful of foam. “Then you just spread it on and rinse it off, like this.” She smeared the foam on his chest.
“But you are also getting wet!” he protested.
“Well, I need to get clean too. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. It is your chamber. But—“
“You can soap me, then.” She guided his hand to the foam spout, and he got a handful of the frothy stuff.
He smeared it on her shoulders and back and breasts, and she covered him similarly, while the water descended on them both. She reached around him to massage his back, in the process pressing in close and slippery. His hands slid down to the same buttocks he had contemplated before. They had been visually intriguing; now they were tactilely intriguing.
“Is it permissible to reconsider?” he inquired.
“It’s too late to skip the shower!” she cried, laughing.
“About indulging in copulatory activity. It occurs to me that this occasion might after all be suitable.”
“I thought it might,” she murmured, satisfied. Then she reached up and hauled in his head for a wet and steamy kiss.
Belatedly he realized that this had been her intent throughout. She was an expressive, open woman, and she liked full interaction. She had known the human condition better than he; not only was their sexual encounter feasible, it was quite positive. His reservations about the human form faded away; this was a human body, and this activity was natural for it.
Finally, both clean and sated, they emerged to lie on her bed and watch the show. He followed her cues, and began laughing when she did. Soon enough his mind followed, and he found himself genuinely enjoying it.
In due course they slept. But he woke in the night, discovering that she was stroking his body. There was a certain art to it, and before long it occurred to him that another episode of sexual interaction might be appropriate. So it turned out to be.
In the morning she woke him again, kissing him and rubbing her body against his suggestively. She was evidently interested in yet another copulatory encounter. “About this time, most men begin to get tired of me,” she said. “Are you tired?”
“Not yet,” he said. He regarded this as excellent experience.
Later in the day she showed him how actually to play the game. “There are these consoles,” she explained, approaching one. “We stand on opposite sides, and it has a grid. Or it used to, before the mergence. Now sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.”
“The rules have changed?”
“Not exactly. I mean, the grids shift a little each year, and sometimes the numbers are down the side, and new games get added and old ones subtracted, but that’s routine. But now it’s really different. Maybe I can show you.”
Perplexed, he stood opposite her. Before him was a screen, on which was a diagram.
PRIMARY GRID
1. PHYSICAL 2. MENTAL 3. CHANCE 4. ART
A. NAKED B. TOOL C. MACHINE D. ANIMAL
“Ah, I believe I follow,” he said. Actually, he had been trained in this type of grid, and knew it well, but he preferred to let her have the pleasure of showing him. It might even turn out that she would have some pleasant surprises for him, as she had during the night. It would take a phenomenal effort to convince himself that she was an unappealing creature, physically, now that he had indulged in the human copulatory ritual. She did seem to feel that there was something special about this game. “One person selects a number, and the other a letter, and where the two intersect defines the nature of the game to be played. Or am I mistaken?”
“Not exactly,” she repeated. “I mean, that’s how it’s played, yes, only sometimes it doesn’t work. You’ll see, maybe.”
“Then let’s play it,” he said. He saw that the numbers were highlighted for him, so he touched 3. CHANCE. She would have no chance against him in any ordinary game, so this was the only fair way, as it largely negated skill.
“I’m choosing A. NAKED,” she said, touching her screen.
“But are you supposed to tell me? I thought the point was that the choices are hidden until the result is manifest.” Indeed, that was the essence of gaming: the hidden strategy and counterstrategy.
“Well-“
She broke off, and he saw why. Instead of highlighting the 3A box, the screen was flashing words. SOME TALK OF ALEXANDER, AND SOME OF HERCULES; OF HECTOR AND LYSANDER, AND SUCH GREAT NAMES AS THESE. GOOD MORNING, LYSANDER! HAVE YOU MADE ANY RECENT CONQUESTS?
He looked over the console at Alyc. “This is a joke?” he asked, uncertain whether to laugh.
“Not exactly,” she said. Her cheeks showed a becoming hint of a flush. “I mean, I didn’t do it. It’s the Game Computer.”
“The computer recognizes me?” But obviously it did, using the ubiquitous sensors of Proton. It was already talking again.
LYSANDER: NAVAL AND MILITARY COMMANDER OF SPARTA, WHO ENDED THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR IN 405 B.C. BY DESTROYING THE ATHENIAN FLEET AND REDUCING ATHENS TO A SECOND-RATE POWER.
“I am no military commander!” Lysander protested. But he wondered: could the computer know of his true mission?
LYSANDER: A CHARACTER IN SHAKESPEARE’S MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM WHO FALLS IN LOVE WITH HERMIA, WHO FLEES WITH HIM TO THE WOODS IN ORDER TO AVOID MARRIAGE TO HER FATHER’S CHOICE OF MEN. HAVE YOU TAKEN A WOMAN TO THE WOODS, LYSANDER?
“Well, actually she took me,” he said. “Her name was Belle, and she was a unicorn. She spoke to me musically on her horn, telling me of the recent history of the planet and the mating of ‘rovots’ and the unwelcomeness of goblins. But she had no human form.”
YOU ARE PLAYING CAT AND MOUSE WITH ME, LYSANDER. THEREFORE I GIVE YOU THE GAME OF FOX AND GEESE. DO YOU KNOW IT? A pattern appeared, showing thirty-three dark circles arranged in lines of three and seven.
“I know it. But this is not the type of game we selected.”
IT IS CLOSE ENOUGH. REPORT TO THE GAME CHAMBER SHOWN BY THE BLUE LINE. A line appeared on the floor, leading away from the console.
“See?” Alyc asked. “It does what it wants. It won’t let us play any game but the one it chooses for us.”
“Intriguing. Do you think the magic affected it?”
“It must have. Now it’s a self-willed machine.”
“Well, let’s see what it’s like. Do you prefer to be the fox or the geese?”
“I have no choice. It marked you the fox.”
“Oh. I hadn’t noticed. Very well, I’ll play the fox. You have played the game before?”
“Yes, it’s fun, the way it’s set up. Only I don’t like the way other women cut in.”
“Women cut in? Are we talking about the same game? This should be a board, with marbles—“
“You’ll see.”
Something was definitely askew. Lysander shut up and followed the blue line.
The chamber was larger than necessary for a table and board game; indeed, neither was there. Instead there were rows of human-sized neuter mannequins standing as if ready to march to war.
“I think we have the wrong room,” Lysander said.
“No we don’t. It’s a life-sized game. Those are the geese, and you’re the fox.”
“But in the game, the fox tries to jump the geese and remove them, while the geese try to block in the fox so it can’t move.”
“See, the places are there,” she said, pointing to the floor. Sure enough, it was laid out in the game pattern—and each mannequin was standing in a circle. “You don’t literally jump the geese, you just touch each one so she gets orT the board and you step beyond her. It’s the same, only larger.”
“She? Those mannequins are neuter.”
“No they aren’t.” She stepped up to the center of the forward line, which had one blank circle. As she did so, things changed. Suddenly all the mannequins were clothed in frilly dresses that were padded to make them look female, and all had wigs that contributed to the effect. So did Alyc—and in the dress and wig, she looked astonishingly like the others. Rather, they all looked like her. It was a transformation that seemed almost magical.
Almost? Now he knew that magic was literal, here; it could indeed be involved. “But you’re in clothing! I thought only Citizens—“
“In the games it’s okay. It’s costuming. But we would never go like this outside!”
He nodded. Special license for costumes made sense. It also gave serfs a chance to act out whatever fantasies they might have. He was coming to appreciate why the Game Annex was so popular among those who might not otherwise have been game-minded. It represented therapy on unspecified levels.
“Now play,” Alyc said. “You move first.”
Lysander saw that there were instructions playing on the screen, for any who happened not to be conversant with the details of the game. He discovered that this was the archaic version: thirteen geese, and moves were allowed in any direction, including slantwise. He had not played that variant, but could adapt readily enough.
He stepped to the board, before the ladies. Abruptly he became clothed himself, in a fine coat of brown fur, reminiscent of a wealthy fox. The coat was real; he felt its pleasant heft. Now, zeroed in, he stepped diagonally toward the geese. He knew he was at a disadvantage; the geese could win every time, if played correctly. That was why the archaic form had given way to the modern form, where the geese could move only forward or sideways, while the fox was unrestrained. But the moves could be tricky, and Alyc was not the brightest person, so he should be able to win anyway. Not that winning was important, in this instance; he was just letting Alyc show him around.
He had taken his turn. Now she took hers. She could not jump him or attack him; she could only try to box him in. But she had thirteen pieces, and as few as six could box him, if the position was right, and eight otherwise. So he had to eliminate a sufficient number of geese to make her win impossible. If he got her down to five, that was it; she could not claim a draw by skulking along the sides. A draw was possible if both players were conservative; that, again, was reason to modify the old form of the game.
It was odd, seeing thirteen women just like Alyc. She had remarked that clothing was a sexual turn-on for serfs, instead of nudity; already he was coming to accept that. Alyc nude was an interesting figure of a woman, as he had come to appreciate during the night. But Alyc clothed was exciting. When she walked, the dress swung about her legs and accented her hips, making the legs seem more shapely and hinting at further marvels beyond. The bodice nominally covered the bosom, but somehow showed a fair amount and made the remainder intriguing. The woman was now twice as appealing as she had been before.
In fact, all the women were appealing. The mannequins had assumed the mannerisms of life. Each was breathing and blinking, and a girlish tremor went through any one of them he looked at. In fact, they were warm and soft, as he discovered when he tagged one for removal; he had caught her unflanked and “jumped” her. She gazed at him with muted hurt and walked sadly off the board, making him feel guilty—and she was only a mannequin. There had to be magic!
Alyc was not a skilled player, as he had suspected, and he won the game handily. The last one he removed from the board was her; he had almost lost track as the positions changed during the game. It had been an experience quite different from what he had anticipated.
The mannequins lost their clothing and returned to their immobility. Lysander and Alyc became as they were, naked serfs. The whole thing was a bit hard to believe.
They were about to depart the chamber, when another serf woman stepped up. “I wish to challenge the winner,” she said.
Lysander looked at her. She was spectacular, with golden hair, deep green eyes, and a figure that made Alyc’s look somewhat dumpy. “Is that permitted? We were assigned this game by the computer.”
“It is permitted if there is no other assignment for the chamber,” the woman said. “Let me introduce myself. I am Jod’e, android; I work for Citizen Troal.”
“I am Lysander, android, working for Citizen Blue,” he said. “This is Alyc, who also works for Citizen Blue. She is showing me around, and I’m not sure—“
“It’s the custom,” Alyc said with disgust. “They can cut in if they want to, and you have to play a challenger one game.”
He sympathized with Alyc’s annoyance. Apparently a handsome new serf was fair game for the sharks. It surely was worse when the new serf was a shapely woman. But he did not want to make a scene. “One game, then,” he said shortly.
“A variant,” Jod’e said. “I will be a goose. You must kiss each goose you jump, and if you jump me without recognizing me, I win regardless of the position.”
He looked at Alyc. “A variant?”
“She challenged you,” Alyc said grimly. “You can insist on the same rules as the prior game. But usually a serf goes along. It’s all supposed to be fun, after all.”
Lysander was not pleased. He was a spy, true, and his loyalty was not to this planet. But apart from that, his sense of fair play was straight. It was a matter of honor, a concept which was ingrained in the Hectare brain. He had made a commitment to Alyc, and he did not care to abridge it. Jod’e was trying to lure away Alyc’s boyfriend, and that seemed less than right at this stage. Evidently this sort of thing had happened before, and Alyc was used to it, but he did not like being a party to it. Let his association with Alyc run its natural course; if later they agreed to break it up, then he was fair game for predatory women. Also, Alyc was a useful contact with Citizen Blue, so he had reason to remain with her.
Well, he would play the game. But the interloper would get nothing from it. “I agree,” he said. “Your variant.”
Jod’e smiled. It was a phenomenal smile, crafted to impress, and he was impressed. At the same time he wondered why she was making this effort to vamp him. Was it just because he was here? Or to spite Alyc? But Jod’e seemed not to know Alyc, or to have known of Lysander before seeing him at this game. Was she a shark who simply took whatever offered and threw it away when finished?
Jod’e stepped into the key circle, and the mannequins walked to their places. The transformation occurred again. This time all looked like Jod’e, and a stunning collection it was. Every one of them was a vision of delight.
“Turn your back a moment, while I shuffle,” Jod’e said.
He turned away. When he turned back, the assembly looked the same—but he knew that Jod’e had switched places with one of the mannequins, so that he could not identify her by location. He thought it would be easy to pick her out from among the mannequins, but discovered it was not; he did not know her as well as Alyc, and there was nothing to distinguish her. Those mannequins were amazing!
He made his move, and a figure made the counter. He saw right away that Jod’e was a more experienced player than Alyc, and knew how to press her advantage. Now he wondered how the figures knew when and where to move; there was no separate layer giving directions, because she was right there among them, as silent as they. He would have to ask Alyc about that, later; there was indeed more to this game than he had thought.
They maneuvered, each side taking turns. Then he got a chance to trap and jump one of the figures. He suspected that Jod’e had done it deliberately, for she had played flawlessly until then. True to the new rule, he kissed the doomed figure.
She felt exactly like a woman. Her lips were warm and soft, and he felt the tickle of the breath through her nose. Her breasts messed against him enticingly. He let a hand slip down behind her, out of Alyc’s view, and squeezed a buttock through the cloth; it felt exactly like living flesh. This must be the real Jod’e, presented because she wanted to kiss him. But he had already seen amazing things, when there was magic, and there had to be magic here; how could he be sure it was her?
So he pressed in with his fingers, not only squeezing the buttock but feeling as far as he could into the cleft between buttocks. How far could a neuter mannequin emulate a living woman? It still felt real. He hooked a finger, giving a slow, personal goose, no pun. How long could a living woman keep from reacting to this impertinence? Alas, he found evidence neither way; she seemed to be perfect, physically, and she didn’t react.
But he could delay his decision, and announce his guess when he game ended. So he released her, and she walked to the side, off the board.
The play continued. The geese had been reduced by one, but in here were still more than enough to barricade him against the side, and he was hard-pressed. Then another opportunity offered, and he stepped up to kiss another figure off the board. He came in slowly, looking down into the décolletage of her dress, to see whether the padding that made the figure look female was visible. What was there was visible, but it wasn’t padding; the dress covered a very firm pair of heaving breasts, with an extremely nice cleavage. He pressed against that bosom as he kissed her, and it still felt genuine. If this were not the real woman, he was up against a much stiffer challenge than he had realized.
He released her without a word, and she walked away to join the other. The two of them stood motionless at the side, not seeming much more like dummies, despite their costumes.
There were more moves, and still he was hard-pressed. Then a third opportunity came, and he took it. He was now far more intrigued by the riddle of identity than about the game itself There had to be some way to tell!
This time he placed himself so that his body blocked most or hers from the view of Alyc, and as he bent to kiss her lips the fingers of his right hand gathered in the back of her dress until he hauled up the hem and was able to get in underneath. Slowly kissing her, he reached into her cleft and felt most intimately She wore no panties; the costuming was only external. He ex-plored until he found the aperture he sought: damp and hot. She definitely had the equipment of a living woman.
Yet so had the other two, as far as he had been able to ascent tain. Could the magic have made the mannequin alive, just for the game? Or was it illusion, so detailed that it was complete She had tolerated his exploration with the patience of the inanimate; she never flinched or reacted in any way. He was inclined to believe that all three were mannequins, because of their lack of reaction, but he wasn’t sure. He released her, and she joined the others.
On the fourth one he tried a deep kiss. He opened his mouth on hers, and forced his tongue between her lips. He met her tongue, completely human and ready, matching his, move for move. This had to be real—yet maybe not. If magic could trans-form a boy into a unicorn, why couldn’t it give a mannequin functioning mouth? Or an anatomically correct cleft? Or were the mannequins fashioned as complete android women who seemed lifeless between games, but could animate their bodies for the game? Still, he had seen them without breasts before the game started, yet now they all had them.
He let her go too. As far as he could tell, all of them were complete, and were in every way alive. Yet they could not be. He was baffled.
Desperate, he tried one more thing, when she gave him his chance at the fifth one. He moved to kiss her, but instead of meeting her lips squarely he caught her lower lip between his lips, sucked it into his mouth, and bit it. If he tasted blood—
“Mmmph!” she protested, jerking back. “You win, you guano!” Then she became a large bat, and flew away.
Astonished, he stared after her. “A—a—“ he stammered.
“A vamp-girl,” Alyc said. “How clever of you to figure that out! She had me fooled; I thought she was a werebitch.”
“But I—“ It was still too much to grasp.
“A vamp can’t handle blood, even her own,” Alyc continued. “I mean, they eat it only for very special ceremonies, and it sends them into frenzy. She had to get out of here before she went wild.”
“But they all seemed alive!” he said. “I was just guessing; I didn’t know that was the one. I couldn’t tell them apart at all!”
Alyc smiled. “Then you lucked out. She pulled a double whammy on you. They were all her.”
“But they were all different!”
“No, I saw what was happening, because I was outside the game. She used magic all right, but just on you. To make you think you were taking five different figures, when it was really the same one each time. That’s pretty easy magic, for Phaze folk, if they work at it. Each time, you kissed her, and then one of the dummies walked off, and you thought it was the same. I was so mad! But I couldn’t say anything. I just had to hope you would see through the trick, and make her pay—and you sure did, Lysander, you sure did! That was a stroke of genius!”
“It was luck more than genius,” he confessed. “I was trying to test for the real one, but every one of them seemed so authentic. You mean I kissed the real one five times?”
“Yes. I was getting good and jealous, but you know I was laughing too. When you goosed the goose—!”
So she had seen enough to figure it out. But she was laughing, and he laughed with her. “And she had to stand there and take it, so as not to give herself away. I thought it was a dummy I was goosing!”
“Maybe it was,” she said cheerfully. “Then when you b her—oh, Lysander, I was worried, but you sure came through Let’s go back to my room and you can do it all to me, except the biting.”
“Good enough!” he agreed. He was getting good at schooling himself not to react sexually in public, but now that he realized what he had been doing to a real woman, the notion was getting ahead of him. “Hurry!”
They ran down the halls. Soon they got to her chamber, where they proceeded to passionate sex without bothering with the preliminaries.
After that, things were quieter. He played other games with i Alyc, and enjoyed her frequent sexual favors. There was much to be said for enthusiasm!
He saw Jod’e again, and she did not seem to hold his bite against him.
“You beat me,” she said. “I thought I had you beaten, but you turned the ploy. I have to respect that.” She did not make any further move on him, but he encountered her often enough, because her off-shift was the same as his. He would have been quite intrigued by her, had it not been for his prior association with Alyc, and Jod’e’s too-bold opening move with the game.
He got into the work that Citizen Blue had for him. Blue was trying to fathom exactly what had gone wrong with the Game, Computer; he suspected that the arrival of magic in Proton had infected the computer and given it full self-awareness. Even the self-willed machines were not usually independent; they had awareness and desire, but were satisfied to honor the existing order. The Citizen’s son Mach had been special—and now it seemed the Game Computer was, too.
But the Game Computer was complex and canny. It seemed to have borrowed something from the Oracle, which was a self willed machine whose ultimate motives were at best uncertain. Lysander needed to learn more about both of these, because both were integral to the functioning of the planetary society, and could generate significant problems for the occupying force;-after the conquest. He asked to see the source code for the game-, grid program, but it seemed that this was sealed off, to prevent any possible cheating. He had to figure it out from the field, as it were.
He played game after game, exhausting Alyc’s patience. “You’re a gameoholic!” she complained.
“You have me dead to rights,” he confessed. “But at least I am working for Citizen Blue while I indulge my fell appetite. I am searching for some pattern that will offer an insight into the change in the Game Computer. It isn’t in the circuitry; it has to be in some interaction between the program and the magic of Phaze. Something that makes the machine not only conscious, but independent. I think it must be a tricky kind of feedback—“
“Yes, yes, I know; your specialty. Let’s make love.”
“That is an attractive counteroffer,” he said. He had learned the code terms: “making love” meant copulation.
They retired to her chamber. He had by this time lasted longer with Alyc than any of her prior boyfriends, and he knew why: he wanted no disruption in his relation with Citizen Blue’s household. That was the center of the governance of the planet, and the likely center of any resistance to the conquest. As long as he remained with Alyc, that association was secure. But it was also true that once he had attuned himself to the sexual activity of the human body, it was a pleasant enough diversion. Serfs were treated to eliminate any chance of disease or conception, so sex was free. Those who wished to marry and have offspring had to petition their employers, who might or might not grant them the treatment that enabled conception. Neither Lysander nor Alyc (or, as the Phaze forms would put it, nor Lysander neither Alyc) wanted that, so were content with the normal indulgence. Actually he, as an android, was infertile anyway. So if she wanted it twice a day, he was satisfied to oblige. He gave all other women short shrift, which further pleased Alyc.
Thus his life settled in, for a month—until the investment.
It happened with stunning swiftness. Lysander and Alyc were in the Game Annex, between games, about to punch a beverage from the food dispenser. Jod’e approached. “May I join you?” she inquired, politely enough.
Alyc, having long since ascertained that Lysander had no sexual interest in Jod’e, was amenable to her company. It served to show every serf on the premises that she, Alyc, had nothing to fear from even the most beautiful competition. Jod’e had more of a taste for games than Alyc did, so often played them with Lysander, whose interest was insatiable. So the three of them were about to drink—when the announcement blared from all the speakers.
“This is Citizen Blue. An alien fleet has surrounded the planet without warning. It has the capacity to destroy all life and industry here. We have no choice but to yield to superior force. Hold your places for superior force. Hold your places for the announcement by the Coordinator of the Hectare.”
Jod’e stared at them, astonished. “Can this be a joke?”
“No joke,” Alyc said. Her face was assuming a more serious mien, unsurprising in the circumstance.
After a moment a harsh, computer simulated voice spoke.
“The Planet Proton is within the sector controlled by Alliance forces. Investment by the Hectare is proceeding. The following personnel will report to the central concourse for internment: all Citizens, Adepts, and government functionaries. If in doubt, report. Any eligible personnel who fail to report will be declared surplus. All interested in serving the new regime in a supervisory capacity report to the Game Annex. All others will proceed about normal business until directed otherwise. There will be minimal disruption.”
“Report for internment?” Jod’e said. There was a murmur all around; the other serfs were as amazed and confused.
“Exactly,” Alyc said. Now her bearing had changed completely; she was no longer the enthusiastic, slightly low intellect serf. “I am an agent of the Hectare, sent to perform advance reconnaissance. I will identify all the members of the leading Citizen’s household and family and see that they are apprehended. I advise you, Jod’e, to volunteer for service in the new regime; the Hectare will find compatible use for all who do volunteer.”
Jod’e shook her head. “I am amazed! I never figured you for a traitor, Alyc! I’m not about to become one myself. I’ll take my chances with the old order.”
Alyc shrugged. “As you wish.” She turned to Lysander. “But you, I am sure, are more sensible. You have expertise that the Hectare can use as readily as the Citizens could; the Hectare are game fanatics, and will want to correct the Game Computer malfunction promptly. I can guarantee you an excellent position—and it hardly needs clarifying that you will remain my paramour.”
Lysander was astonished. He had never imagined that Alyc could be a Hectare agent! But she was not the type of agent he was. His duty required a response she would neither understand nor appreciate.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been fun with you, Alyc. But though I have been here only a month, I have come to respect this culture for what it is, and I shall not betray it to any alien usurper.” That was an outright lie, required by his mission. But what followed was the truth. “Had I known you were an enemy agent, I would have turned you in at the outset. You fooled me, and I am disgusted.”
“The Hectare do not employ incompetent agents,” she said. “The longer you take to change your mind, the less advantageous it will be for you.”
“I’ll take that chance,” he said, rising from the table.
Jod’e rose with him. “I think we had better vacate the premises quickly,” she said.
“It will make no difference,” Alyc said. “If the Hectare want either of you. they will find you and take you. But it will be better for those who volunteer.”
Why was she so sure? She was correct that the first and most sincere volunteers would be treated best; she, as one of the very earliest, would have her pick of lovers, so she didn’t need him. But she acted as if he himself would be rounded up immediately, when that was obviously impractical. Lysander didn’t have time to ponder; he wanted to get well away from her and this region. Already the serfs were milling, as the majority sought to get out before they were mistaken for volunteers.
He did not look at Alyc again. He had been true to her, but in a devious fashion he felt she had not been true to him. This was a foolish sentimentality, for she had offered him a good position in the new order. He had evidently assimilated more of the local culture than he realized.
Lysander and Jod’e joined the throng crowding toward the nearest exit. “I don’t like this,” he muttered. “Suddenly there’s an alien takeover, and we’re supposed to cooperate?” He was saying what he knew was on the minds of most serfs, testing her for reaction. It had occurred to him that Jod’e had been conveniently close—indeed, had been close to him throughout. Had she known this was coming? If so, what was her purpose?
“She worked for Citizen Blue,” Jod’e said. “It won’t be safe for you to go there. I can help you get outside.”
The jostling crowd gave them better privacy than could be had elsewhere. “Why? Why should you bother with me?”
“I’ve been trying to make a play for you throughout!” she said. “Now’s my chance.”
“I don’t buy that. You’re beautiful. You don’t need me. You know I’m no changeling. I can’t convert to bat form and fly away with you. If I go outside, I’ll just be a liability to you. Make your own break; I doubt they’ll want you. But Alyc may feel she has a score to settle with me.”
“Women do not judge on appearance alone.”
“You’ve been interested in me, but not because of any encouragement I gave you. I’m not messing with you at all unless I know your real interest. I’ve already been betrayed by one girlfriend!” This was not precisely the case, but his mission required him to say it.
She glanced at him sidelong. “Oho! You think I’m another foreign agent?”
“You could be. Exactly why did you come after me?” They had squeezed out the Annex gate and were now in the concourse. Lysander didn’t want to be there, either, though he saw no Citizens.
“Crowd’s thinning,” Jod’e said. “Can’t talk here.”
“Yes we can,” he said. He grabbed her arm and swung her into an alcove. He embraced her and put his mouth against her left ear. “Tell me.”
“How clever,” she murmured, her mouth beside his own ear. “You tell me you don’t want my love by getting fresh with me. I remember a similar technique in that first Fox and Geese game.”
“Never again, if you don’t stop stalling!”
“Very well. Citizen Troal sent me.”
“Troal! Your employer. Isn’t he close to Blue?”
“Very. And we vamps are close to the Adept Trool.”
“Does this have anything to do with the prophecy that Clef told me about?”
“Prophecy?”
She didn’t know about that? “Never mind. So Troal sent you to me as a favor to Blue?”
“Yes, I believe so. You had better kiss me or do something with your hands; someone’s looking.”
He slid his hands down her back. He remembered their first encounter, of which she had mischievously reminded him, when he had explored her torso so intimately, thinking it was a mannequin. The memory excited him now; she did have a perfect body. “Why, when I was already dating Alyc?”
“Maybe they knew what she was.” She shifted against him, bringing more of that body into play.
Suddenly it made sense. If Blue had known Alyc’s mission, he would not have said so. He would have sought quiet ways to nullify it. If he really believed that Lysander had a key role to play in the support of the planet, he would have tried to protect him from subversion by an enemy agent. So he could have arranged to send an attractive counteragent in. Unfortunately, Lysander had misunderstood the ploy.
“You don’t know why Blue might care about my corruption?” he asked, his hands stroking memory-familiar contours.
“No. My guess is that he really wanted the Game Computer fixed, and not for the aliens.”
He decided she was to be trusted, partly because she didn’t seem to know any more than a pawn in a chess game would know about the motives of the king. “Then let’s get out of here.”
“I know a way out,” Jod’e said. “Then maybe we can get Phaze help. The aliens may not know much about magic.”
Surely true, for he had been quite unprepared for it. He separated from her and started down the concourse—and stopped.
“Serves you right, lover,” Jod’e said, laughing. For he had gotten too involved in their diversionary activity, and his masculine member had responded.
But Alyc had shown him how to handle that. “Run; I’ll chase.”
She took off, and he pursued her with evident amorous intent. But such was the distraction of the other serfs that they paid no attention, this time. By the time Jod’e brought him to the exit she knew, his ardor had subsided.
They crouched by a machine service entrance. “Must wait for a robot,” she said. “Then walk out in its shadow, so the scanner doesn’t catch the human form. I’ll turn bat and perch on you.”
“Just don’t do anything on my shoulder,” he muttered.
She laughed again. “Speaking of which—did Alyc scratch you, when?”
“When what?”
“Some women get very excited, when. They can claw a man’s back.”
“No, she’s not that type. No scratches. Why should you care?”
“I felt a bandage on your back, when I was stroking you.”
“A bandage? I have no bandage!”
“Yes you do. A flesh-colored tape. Effectively invisible; if I hadn’t been touching you, I wouldn’t have known. Here, feel.” She took his hand, twisted his arm behind his back, and brought his fingers to the place. It was at the most difficult part for him to reach alone.
Now he felt it: a smooth section that was not his own skin. “She must have put it on me, when—I mean, there was a lot of physical activity, and she liked to touch me in the night.”
“I suspect she had some reason to touch you,” she remarked with the hint of a smirk. “Want me to take it off”?”
“Yes. No. It could be—“ He was abruptly angry, as the realization came. “An identifier. Something an enemy agent would use to mark someone.”
“Then you had better get it off!”
“No. These things—I understand they can be used as beacons. To show where a person is. I don’t want her to know I’ve caught on.”
“But how can I sneak you out, then?”
He sighed. “You can’t. Maybe you had better leave me; I think I’m dangerous for you.”
“But if the aliens want you that bad, you shouldn’t be allowed to fall into their hands.”
“It’s probably just Alyc who wants me that badly. I doubt the aliens care.”
She nodded. “She wants to hold on to you. Maybe she anticipated your reaction to the invasion, so made sure she could find you. If she’s truly their agent, they may give her what she wants. It would be a perquisite of the office.”
“Yes. I liked her, and I didn’t like you trying to cut in. But now—“ Again the irony: he was a spy for the Hectare himself, but had to argue the case of the opposition—and found himself believing it. His respect for Alyc had plummeted the moment he learned her nature. Now Jod’e was far more intriguing, and not merely because she represented a prospective route to the core of the true resistance that would be forming. She had been sent at the behest of Citizen Blue, so even if she didn’t know why, she would be able to make contact with the organization he needed to infiltrate. But she was also a true patriot for her culture, and that integrity of motive was appealing. Her beauty hardly diminished the effect.
“Me too,” she said. “You were just an assignment, but you are becoming a person.”
“Thanks.” He regretted that the loyalty she saw in him wasn’t genuine. “But we’re in a bind. If she claims me, she’ll make sure that you are in no position to get near me, now that we have declared ourselves united in opposition to this invasion. Now that I have taken notice of you. You can’t afford to associate with me.” This was a deeper truth than she could know at this point.
“But I can’t let you be taken by the enemy!” she protested. “If the Citizens knew the invasion was coming, and wanted to protect you from it, then it’s my job to do that.”
“But you can’t help me. You might as well save yourself—by disassociating with me.”
“And betray my employer? My culture?” She turned to face him, putting her arms around him. “Lysander, you took some liberties with me, when I was pretending to be a mannequin. Now I’m going to take one with you.” She drew him into her, her arms reaching around him.
He yielded to her, because he expected to send her on her way in a moment. It was true: he had handled her about as intimately as it was possible to do, short of all-out sexual engagement. If she wanted a kiss in return—
Her fingernails scraped across his back. They caught in the tape. They ripped it off. “Now we make our break!” she said. “The tape stays here; we go to Phaze!” She threw the bit of tape away.
“You bitch!” he said, half admiringly.
“Nay, I be no werebitch,” she said. “I be a vamp. Now tread in the shadow o’ yon rovot, Lysan, and I will guide thee out.” She became a bat, and leaped to perch on his hand.
Lysander found himself committed. He could not say it was wrong. He had simply wanted to spare her from being implicated in his break, and from being subsequently betrayed by him. But he had also known that she would not desert him, because she was as committed to her mission as he was to his.
The machine she had indicated was a walk-brusher, evidently going out to clean the walk to a garden at the edge of the dome. He ducked down and ran beside it, letting it shield him from the lens-eye that covered this exit. The machine ignored him; it was equipped only to do its job, not to inspect its surroundings.
The bat in his hand peered to the right. Lysander went that way, finding an offshoot from the main path. He ran through dwarf palms down to a tiny artificial stream that originated in a fountain. Then on into the channel of the stream, which turned out to be stone, not mud. Then he waded through a small pool and scrambled over a decorative wall.
Beyond was the wild vegetation of Phaze; they were now beyond the dome environment. The bat flew up, evidently searching for something. Lysander ducked down beside a tree whose leaves were in the shape of floppy stars, waiting for Jod’e to complete her reconnaissance.
Then he heard hoof beats. He looked—and spied an old horse trotting toward him. The bat was on its back.
Clear enough! He stepped out as the horse arrived. It was a mare with a dark, almost reddish coat. He got on her back, and she turned and headed directly away from the dome.
The problem with this was that they were exposed. Anyone who looked would be able to see them. But maybe nobody would care about a man riding a horse.
Then the horse changed. Now a shining spiraled horn projected from her forehead, and her mane was iridescent. Her coat had deepened into a deep purplish red.
“Belle!” he exclaimed.
There was a tinkle of assent. Then she picked up speed.
He hung on. Bareback riding was not his favorite mode, and the unicorn had more power than a horse might. They were zooming through the high grass at a dizzying pace.
He discovered something as the run continued. Belle was getting hot, but she wasn’t sweating. Instead she was dissipating the heat in her breath, which was turning fiery, and her hooves, which were throwing off sparks. So that was how unicorns cooled themselves!
Something caught his eye. It was a shadow in the shape of a disk. Oh-oh. He craned his neck and saw the origin: a small Proton flyer. The pursuit was on, already!
Belle dodged to the side, seeking the cover of a copse. But the flyer angled to intercept them, and it was much faster than any animal could be.
“They’ll use stun rays!” Lysander cried. “Change and scatter! They’ll only go after me!” He flung himself off the unicorn, taking a trained fall and rolling through the brush.
They changed and scattered, but not the way he had intended. While he ran for the cover of the trees, the bat headed straight for the flyer. The unicorn became a heron and also flew for the flyer.
The bat lighted on the top of the flyer. Then it was the woman again, her weight bearing the machine down. But it wasn’t enough; the flyer remained aloft.
Until the heron landed on it—and returned to unicorn form. Now the flyer crunched down to the ground.
Lysander was amazed, but not reassured. “Get away from that thing!” he cried. “It can send the rays in any direction, or detonate a stun bomb—“
Too late. There was a dull explosion, and a burst of radiation from the machine. Jod’e and Belle collapsed, and then Lysander, who was farther out and hit with less intensity, but still unable to escape it. He saw the ground advancing toward his head.
It seemed only an instant, but the sun had moved; it had been about an hour. Lysander woke to find a second, much larger flyer beside the first. A trainer robot was before him, its treads flattening the grass. “Identity?” it demanded.
Lysander knew that his retinal patterns would give him away soon enough anyway; there was no point in trying to give a false name. “Lysander. I work for Citizen Blue.”
“Confirmed. The identities of your companions?”
Were their patterns on file? Jod’e’s yes, but maybe not Belle’s. He might be able to help the unicorn go free. “Jod’e, employee of Citizen Troal. The mare has no human identity; she’s just a steed.”
“A unicorn steed,” the machine said. “They will be registered too.” It turned its lenses on Belle. “Stand, mare.” A beam touched her.
Belle, freed from the effect of the stun beam, climbed to her feet. She stood, uncertain what more to do.
The machine ground toward her. Suddenly another beam speared out. There was a sizzle, and a puff of smoke.
Belle screamed almost in the manner of a woman. She leaped up, but could not escape the pain. She had been burned on the flank. It was evident that though her hooves were adapted to heat, her hide was not.
She hit the ground running. In a moment she was far across the field.
“Why did you do that?” Jod’e demanded of the machine. “There was no call for—“
“All human forms will be registered by retinal pattern,” the machine said. “All animals will be branded. None will escape identification.”
“Branded!” Lysander exclaimed. But there was no more he could say; the deed was done, and he didn’t want to get Belle into any more trouble. It was better if they thought of her as only an animal.
“Enter the craft,” the machine said.
Jod’e hesitated. “Do it,” Lysander said. “We have seen that the invaders—or whoever is giving the orders now—have no compassion. They will stun us again if we don’t obey.”
She nodded. She knew it was true. They climbed into the flyer. There was barely room for the two of them, and none for the robot it had brought.
The panel closed. The flyer jerked aloft. They clung to each other to shield themselves from the buffeting.
“You can change form,” Lysander murmured in her ear. “Fly away. You’ve done all you could.”
“They know my identity,” she reminded him. “They’d only search me out, and punish anyone who helped me.”
He was silent. It was true. She was probably in for it, because she had tried to help him escape, and Alyc wouldn’t like that.
“I should have agreed to serve the Hectare,” he said. “And walked out when I had a chance.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” She leaned forward and kissed him.
“We’ll both pay for this break, as Belle did, but at least we tried.”
He kissed her back. “As romances go, this has been extremely brief. But if both of us should later find ourselves free...”
“Agreed,” she said. “Maybe this is just a temporary occupation, and the invaders will move on to another planet.”
“Somehow I fear not.” And such was his identification with his role that he felt real regret. He knew that the occupation was to be permanent. The Hectare needed the planet’s supply of Protonite, which was the finest known compact energy source, and they regarded the game setup as ideal for relaxation. They would desert the planet only when there was nothing remaining to make it worthwhile to exploit.
But his private requirement was clear: he had to escape the captivity of the Hectare and seek sanctuary with the native resistance movement. Once he had fathomed its nature and had identified all the key personnel, he would betray it to the authorities, and the planet would be secure. He was sure that there was such a movement; there always was. If the Citizens had known that Alyc was a Hectare agent and left her alone, it could only have been because they were hiding their true effort. Jod’e might have led him there, but they had been intercepted too soon.
That was surely Alyc’s fault. It was another irony that she had unwittingly allowed her personal desire to interfere with the larger plan of her true employer, the Hectare. If the resistance movement made mischief because the counteragent was nullified by a superficial agent—but it was his job to see that that did not happen. He had special training which would enable him to escape, but he would avoid drawing on that as long as he could, to maintain the semblance of untrained loyalty to the native culture.
Meanwhile he was truly regretful that he would be unable to have a fling with Jod’e. Alyc had been entertaining, in the human fashion, but Jod’e would have been delightful.
“I think I have fallen in love with you, this past hour,” Jod’e said.
“If you have, banish the notion!” he said, alarmed. “They could use it against you by threatening me!”
“Yes, that would be the way of the despot,” she agreed.
“But had things been otherwise, I think I could have returned the sentiment,” he said, kissing her again. That was probably true, if some very large allowances were made.
The flyer landed at the dome. A disciplinary robot was waiting for them. It herded them to a cell in the holding section adjacent to the spaceport, where fired serfs were normally held until deportation was arranged. There was a bunk and shower and video screen, and that was all.
“They left us together?” Jod’e said, surprised. “This is a cell for one.”
“Three conjectures,” Lysander said. “One: this is only temporary, until they dispose of us shortly. Two: no one told the machine otherwise, so it dumped its load in the nearest cell. Three: they are so crowded with new detainees that they have to jam us in double.”
“Four,” she said. “They want to give us a chance to talk together, so they can listen and learn what we were doing out there. Five: the thing you said.”
He nodded. He had warned her how one of them could be made to do what the captors wanted, if the other was threatened. Both her conjectures seemed good. Still, he was glad to be with her.
How should they play it? The moment Alyc received news of their capture, she would act. She knew the situation. So was there any point in pretending indifference to each other? Maybe a romantic motive would be better than a political one, as far as the Hectare were concerned.
He sat on the bed. “I think they don’t care about us, other than to ascertain whether there is any political significance to our attempted flight,” he said. “Since our association is romantic rather than political, we have no need to hide it.”
Her lips pursed appreciatively. “And we may not have much time together.”
She took three steps and plumped down on his lap, evidently intending to make their time count. He embraced her, finding her body just as intriguing as he had found Alyc’s. The nakedness of serfdom was asexual; it was the expression of sexual interest that made a woman appealing. He knew that Jod’e was a bat, in one of her aspects, but it didn’t matter; he had seen how genuine the mixedbreed folk of this society were. Had Jod’e been a full android, she would have been stupid; it was her vampire aspect that lent her both wit and sex appeal. He himself was a type of crossbreed, with his superior brain in an android body.
She grabbed his head and bent hers down to kiss him fiercely. His hands roamed as they had during the game of Fox and Geese, but this time there was no question about the nature of her body. “I wish we had understood each other better before,” he said, his pulse racing.
She lifted her head, then brought his face into her bosom. That was a move Alyc had lacked, and it electrified him. He no longer cared what other types of creatures they both might be; body to body was what counted at the moment.
The cell door opened. “Sure enough.”
Both Jod’e and Lysander jumped. It was Alyc!
Well, did it matter? He had broken with Alyc when she revealed herself as a traitor to the planet. Jod’e was next in line.
“I don’t suppose I could trust you anyway now,” Alyc said to him.
“I was true to you, until you were false to Proton,” Lysander replied. “If Jod’e had sided with the invaders, I’d have dropped her too. But she declared herself before I did.”
Alyc considered. “Very well. Have your fling. I shall see what can be done to make you both useful to the new order.” She stepped out of the cell, and the door slid closed.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Jod’e said.
“She’s jealous,” he agreed. “She can probably have me gelded and you put on permanent scullery duty.”
“But will the invaders support her, if it’s too much trouble?”
“Probably not. Her job is done. She has betrayed those who befriended her. But if she should find a way to continue being useful to the invaders, they might humor her.”
“So this may remain our only opportunity,” she said. “But if it’s all the same to you, the joy seems to have been deflated.”
“Yes.” He released her, and she got off his lap.
She turned on the video and tuned it to the news channel. They were abruptly locked into ongoing developments.
In the course of the rest of the day, and into the night, they absorbed reports of the landing and takeover by the Hectare. The investment of the planet, as they called it. There were human agents throughout, and these were handling the reorganization. Any Citizens who had not promptly reported to the concourse had been quickly hunted down by robots. The Hectare had evidently concentrated on the robot centers, and taken them over at the outset. But the real reason it was so easy was that the alien spaceships orbited the planet, and periodically blasted small craters out of the landscape, just to show how readily it could be done. Any such blast at a dome would burn thousands. Open resistance was pointless.
One item disgusted them both: the freeing of the two renegade Adepts, Purple and Tan. Lysander had not seen either directly, but had learned their history. They had been part of the Adverse Adept group that had tried to seize power from Citizen Blue (or the Adept Stile), and then they had betrayed even their own side and tried to become dictators. They had deserved execution, but Citizen Blue had been lenient. Now they were free and the loyal Brown Adept was prisoner, under house arrest in her castle. So the evil were being uplifted, and the good cast down. Lysander was a hidden agent for the Hectare, but this was hard to stomach.
What had happened to Tania, the beautiful woman Lysander had met, and her husband Clef? There was no report on them. Probably they had been driven into hiding. Lysander hoped that when he penetrated the heart of the resistance movement that they were not there; he did not want to have to be the one to betray them.
Finally, tiring of the dreary news, Lysander and Jod’e lay on the bunk. They had considered taking turns on it, but decided that if they were to be punished for being lovers, they might as well act like lovers. So they stretched out together, intending to sleep, but got interested so decided to make love—and then fell asleep before getting to it.
All next day they remained confined, with only each other and the video screen for company. A portable food dispensing machine was brought periodically so that they could select their meals, but they saw no living person or even a humanoid robot. They did hear faint sounds in adjacent chambers, and realized that the premises were indeed crowded. Any new regime had many enemies to contend with, and prison or the equivalent was about the only resort until they were all sorted out.
“If they get too crowded, they may have to let us go,” Lysander said. “After all, we haven’t done anything, and we’re hardly a threat to them.”
“Let’s hope,” she agreed. Then, curious, she assumed bat form and flitted out when the mealbot came, flying back unnoticed before it finished serving. “Jammed,” she reported. “They’re going to have to move us out soon.”
But it wasn’t until the following day that they were taken out. A guard machine escorted them to the main hall, where a small cargo transport waited. They climbed in and a sliding panel sealed them in. Then they suffered a fast, rough ride through the city transport system.
When the transporter stopped, they were at the entrance to an attractive estate. In fact, it was that of Citizen Tan; Lysander saw the marking at the entrance.
Indeed, Citizen Tan was there: Tania’s brother, not only freed from confinement but restored to his former status. No need to inquire what had happened to Tania; she must have been interned with the other true Citizens. The Hectare had acted with startling precision and speed to secure their base. The capture of Lysander himself had probably been just one of hundreds of such missions proceeding simultaneously. The Hectare were old hands at planetary subjugation; they allowed no leeway for problems.
They entered the main chamber—and Jod’e’s breath hissed in with shock. A monster stood there.
Lysander blinked and reconsidered. Monster? That was a Hectare! It stood somewhat above the height of a human being, with monstrous multifaceted eyes at the top, many stout little caterpillar feet at the base, and a hairlike greenish mantle covering much of the torso. A perfect specimen of its species. He, Lysander, had become so acclimatized to the human state that he had seen the creature through human perception.
It was probably well that he had done so, for his muted reaction would have been noted. A Hectare saw everything in its vicinity; that was the ability of the eyes. Each facet was individually lensed and controlled, an entire separate eye, and any several could focus on a particular object and perceive it with complete acuity. He had reacted normally, and so had not given himself away. For it was as important that the local Hectare not know his nature and mission as that the natives not know. That way, nothing could give him away.
The man stepped forward. He wore a headdress that looked like nothing so much as a squirming mass of little tentacles. “Serfs, meet your master,” he said. “This is the representative of the Hectare, whose private identity is irrelevant for you. You will henceforth obey any creature of this type as you would a Citizen, implicitly. However, the Hectare will normally work through intermediaries such as myself, identified by Hectare caps, whom you will also obey without question. Early examples will be made of any who cause difficulty.”
He frowned. “Indeed, the two of you, together with an errant unicorn, did cause minor mischief. The male is desired by one of our collaborators, and the female aided him in an attempted break. Examples shall therefore be made of you—but not unpleasant ones, for you. Each of you shall become the love slave of a collaborator. Do you find that appealing?”
There was no answer. Tan made a signal, and rays lanced down to sting both Lysander’s and Jod’e’s bare feet. Both jumped back with exclamations of pain.
“When questioned, you will answer,” Tan said.
“I find that appalling,” Lysander said quickly. His mind was racing. If Tan had the same power of the Evil Eye that Tania had, that meant he could look into the face of a person and compel that person to do anything he wished. Lysander was probably proof against such suasion, because he had been well prepared as a counter resistance agent, but if he showed that, Tan would know his nature, and his secret would be compromised. He had to avoid Tan’s effort.
“So do I,” Jod’e said.
Tan looked at her, his eyes narrowing appreciatively. “You have the vamp aspect, and you are extremely comely. You could have an excellent situation, if you cared to serve the Hectare.”
“I am loyal to the old order,” she said.
“And you, Lysander,” Tan said. “You are an expert games-man, and you have training in computer feedback circuitry. You too could have an excellent situation.”
“I prefer not,” Lysander said.
“The two of you are lovers?”
“Yes,” Lysander answered. They had not actually made love, but they would have soon enough, and wanted to. The cell’s spy lens would have recorded their start in that direction, before Alyc interrupted it.
“Let me make something plain to you both. The Hectare power is absolute. It will remain here indefinitely, until the planet has been exploited to the point that it is no longer worthwhile. You can not change that. But you can affect your own lives. If you join the Hectare, and give loyal service, you will be rewarded with an excellent life. If you do not, you will serve the Hectare anyway, but your position will be less advantageous for yourselves. You may make your choice now.”
Both shook their heads no.
“You are lovers,” Tan said. “Agree to serve, and you may remain so. You will work together, and your free time will be your own. You will work in your specialties, and not be asked to do anything against your consciences. This is a good offer.”
Lysander looked at Jod’e. “I think you should accept. I believe it is as he says.”
She turned to him. “Are you going to accept?”
“No.”
“Then I could not be your lover, because they would not grant you your wish.”
“This is true,” Tan said. “The reward for the cooperation of the two of you is yourselves. If one does not join, you will have lovers, but not each other.”
“I did not intend to accept anyway,” Jod’e said. “The most I could agree to is not to work against the bug-eyes if I am released. But I would never collaborate with them against the true culture of this world.”
“There will be a penalty for the pejorative term,” Tan said.
“Then I might as well make it clear that they will always be bug-eyed monsters to me. BEMs, exactly as in the old stories.”
The Hectare made no reaction.
“This has gone far enough,” Tan said. “Your penalty for failing to cooperate is to be compelled to be the love slave of a collaborator, as I mentioned before. Your penalty for the crass remark is to become my personal love slave. Does this appeal to you?”
“The prospect revolts me,” she said.
Tan’s aspect changed subtly. Lysander realized that the man had shifted to his Phaze identity. “Do thou look at me, vamp.”
She turned her face away from him.
A stun beam came down from the ceiling, evidently set at partial intensity. Jod’e slumped but did not fall.
Tan reached out and turned her head toward him. She was unable to resist. He stared into her eyes. “Thou dost be mine,” he murmured.
The beam shut off. Jod’e recovered. “Aye,” she said.
“Thou mayst kiss me.”
Lysander had expected either extreme reluctance, or a carefully faked effort. He was dismayed at what actually happened.
Jod’e flung her arms around Tan and kissed him passionately. “O thank thee, beloved!” she breathed.
Tan did not respond in kind. “Now kiss Lysander,” he said.
Jod’e froze. Then her head turned toward Lysander. “Needs must I?”
“I wish to demonstrate that thy orientation be completely changed. Kiss him.”
She grimaced. “An I must, I must,” she said with resignation. “I hate him not, but it be thee, sir, I long for.” She stepped up to Lysander and kissed him fleetingly on the cheek.
“That be not sufficient,” Tan said sternly. “Yield to him.” He looked directly at Lysander, and his eyes seemed huge. “And thou, Lysan—I compel thee not, yet. But take her in thine arms and do with her as thou wouldst. Make her respond to thee.”
It was a challenge Lysander was glad to accept. He enfolded Jod’e and held her close for the kiss.
Her body was stiff, and her lips mushy. Either she was a consummate actress, or she had no interest in his attention. She gave him no private signal. She merely tolerated his touch. As soon as he released her, she stepped back toward Tan, her stiffness fading.
“She be thine no longer,” Tan said to Lysander. “I can use my power but once on a gi’en person, but it be permanent. I would spare myself the effort on thee. Thou hast lost thy love, but canst still achieve a worthwhile position an thou accept allegiance now.”
Lysander was impressed. He didn’t think Jod’e was pretending. But his mission prevented him from collaborating with the puppet government the Hectare was setting up. “No.”
“Then needs must I prepare thee for Alyc, as she asked,” Tan said. “Face me.”
Lysander had delayed as long as he could. He had to act. He turned his face slowly toward Tan—then leaped for the Hectare.
He passed right through the creature—as he had expected. It was a holo image, not a physical presence. The Hectare were careful about personal exposure; only when they were quite sure of their company did they risk it.
But beyond the image was a decorative vase he had spied before. He swept it up, turned, and hurled it with precise aim at the lens complex in the ceiling. The vase smashed—and so did the lens. Now he could not be stunned from above.
He leaped back and grabbed Jod’e. He put a nerve hold on her shoulder. She stiffened, realizing that she was helpless; any effort to break free would be prohibitively painful. “Do not move,” he ordered Tan.
The man was not directly facing him, and remained in that orientation. “Thou canst hurt her, but thou canst compel me not,” Tan said. “In a moment will I turn and compel thee with mine Eye. I suggest thou dost desist before thou bringst upon thyself a type of punishment thou willst find really distasteful.”
But Lysander was already backing toward the exit panel. He kept his head behind Jod’e’s so that the Adept could not get a bead on him.
Tan stalked him. Whatever else might be said against the man, he was neither coward nor fool; he was yielding nothing. He was moving slowly but purposefully, closing the distance between them.
“You wouldn’t have bonded this woman to you if you didn’t desire her,” Lysander said as his back touched the panel. “You wouldn’t want her hurt.”
“I want thee hurt not either,” Tan said evenly. “In a moment thou willst be as loyal to the new order as she.”
Lysander squeezed the nerve in Jod’e’s shoulder. She screamed. Tan stopped advancing.
But Lysander wasn’t merely stalling for time; that was pointless. With his free hand he was tapping on the panel. He knew a way to make it open, if the Hectare had been true to form. Hectare, experienced at planetary subjugation, never left things entirely in the hands of the natives; they made sure at the outset that ultimate control was in the tentacles of the nearest Hectare. That meant rekeying the locks—all locks—to be responsive to Hectare hidden codes. One of the standard codes was auditory; a pattern of taps that few others could duplicate if any knew of their existence. Because Lysander’s brain was Hectare, he knew and could perform the cadences.
With one bare heel he tapped with one changing pattern. With his knuckle he tapped with another. As the two converged, interrelating, the Hectare code overrode the ordinary mechanism, and the panel slid open.
Lysander stepped back, hauling Jod’e with him. He saw Tan’s mouth open with amazement. The man had not known of this device, of course; he was merely a quisling, used without being trusted. Then the panel slid back, separating them.
Now he was out—but where was he to go? They were among serfs who were hurrying on their errands. The pursuit would commence in seconds. What was he to do with Jod’e?
That turned out to be easy. “Now you’re free,” he told her “Follow me; he’ll be out in a moment.” He let her go, and started down the hall.
“He’s here!” Jod’e cried, not trying to run. “He’s getting away!”
Lysander came to an intersecting hall and ducked into it. He could not try to conceal himself as another serf; all the serfs here would be checked. He couldn’t run far; the halls would be closed off any moment. The chances of any ordinary serf escaping capture were approximately nil.
But he was not an ordinary serf. He jumped to a private door panel and did a quick double tapping. It opened and he stepped in—just as the rumble of the larger hall-sealer panels commenced. All the serfs in that section of the hall were trapped, and would not be freed until their identities were verified.
He was in another Citizen residence, but it was empty. Its owner would have been interned. He ran through to the kitchen, where the food-delivery apparatus was, and the waste-disposal mechanism. He did not need to use the code tapping here; the conduits were not locked. He climbed onto a garbage cart and touched Us Go button.
In a moment he was zooming through the nether pipes of the city, heading for one of the central processing stations. When the cart slowed, approaching the first sorting stop, he jumped off, surprising the robot. “An error in classification,” he told it. “I will correct it.” The machine would not question a human voice of authority.
He got on the machine trundleway and walked to the human section. From there he exited to the main network of halls. He had escaped, for now; since the bit of beacon tape was gone from his back, they would have to do a citywide search to run him down.
They would do that, of course. No dictatorial government could tolerate dissent. But it would be awkward for them, because they would not want to disrupt the ongoing flow of business, and would not want to admit that any serf could give either a Citizen or a Hectare the slip. The Hectare whose image he had seen would not tell Tan about the code; it would keep that secret, realizing that Lysander was something unusual. Tan would just have to assume there was a defect in the door panel that had released Lysander by chance.
As for Jod’e: he had tested her, and verified what he feared. Tan’s Evil Eye had been effective, and she was now his creature. Had she been faking it, she would have run with Lysander; instead she had sounded the alarm the moment she was able. That had made no practical difference, but had shown him that it was pointless to be further concerned about her.
Perhaps it was for the best. Jod’e would probably be well treated. Had she fled with him, and had they made good their escape from the city this time, she would have lived the life of a fugitive. Eventually he would have betrayed her to the Hectare, along with the people of the resistance movement. It was kinder to have her taken now. He would let others know that it had not been voluntary, and they would respect her.
But it surely would have been nice to be with her for the interval of his penetration of the resistance movement. He had adapted so well to his human body that its delights had become his delights. Loving her. and being loved by her—how he wished that could have been true, for a time. As it was, he had lost his second woman.
But now he had not only to escape the city, but to make contact with the resistance. That meant he needed help to escape: the help of someone who had the appropriate contacts. He had no idea who that might be. This was the trickiest part of his effort. If one of them did not contact him, before the net closed on him, his mission would be cut short prematurely. No, the Hectare would not let him go; they had no tolerance for ineffective agents. His best fate if captured would be a return to Tan for the Evil Eye, and then assignment to Alyc as her love slave. If the Eye wasn’t effective, or if Alyc no longer desired him, they would simply melt him down for protoplasm.
He walked along the passage, back toward the concourse. He had to expose himself to as many serfs as he could, hoping that one of them would know how he had tried to escape, and would be looking for him. Any decent resistance network would have ways of keeping abreast of the news, and would know of the business with Tan. They would know that speed was of the essence.
Someone caught his arm. Lysander jumped, in a purely human reaction; he had been lost in his thoughts, which was another human trait. It was a woman, with feathery brown hair and black eyes. “ ‘Sander!” she said. “Remember me?”
In a moment he made the connection. “The harpy!” He had met her briefly, when little Flach had become a winged unicorn and flown him to the Purple Mountains. Actually, the cyborg, in her Proton form.
“You seemed interested in my legs, as I recall,” she said.
He had been trying to verify the nature of her form changing, by holding on to her as she shifted. “They were good legs.”
Despite their being metal and plastic, crafted to emulate living legs. On this planet, it was practically impossible to tell emulation from living flesh.
“I hear you’re in trouble.”
“You understate the case.”
“Will you trust me?”
“That depends whom you serve.”
“Citizen Powell.”
Not the Hectare. She must be his contact! “Yes.”
“This way.” She turned and led him through the thronging serfs.
Nepe, in the form of a serf boy, was running an errand for one of the quislings. She had planted this identity long ago, and had used it before, just keeping her hand in; no computer check would cast doubt on it.
She was sad that Grandpa Blue had had to report for internment, but understood how it was. The spy Alyc had tagged him and all his family and associates; any who tried to skip out would have been pursued. Of course Blue could have avoided capture, but to what point? They would only have chased him until they got him, and meanwhile started imprisoning, torturing, and murdering his associates to encourage him to cooperate. He preferred to avoid that.
So Blue had reported in, and so had Red and Brown, and the former Adverse Adepts: Yellow with her power over animals, Orange with his plants, Translucent with his water magic, and White with her glyphs. Purple and Tan had been freed, and had immediately joined the other side. But five had not: Clef (Tania no longer counted, since Tan had taken back the title of Adept), Black with his lines, Green with his fire. Robot (Flach’s father), and Flach himself, the Unicorn Adept. So of fourteen now-recognized Adepts, seven were captive, two collaborated, and five were hiding.
Nepe knew why the Robot Adept hid: he had taken the Book of Magic, and if he had not been the strongest Adept before— no one was certain whether that honor belonged to the Red Adept—he surely was now. The Book of Magic was the ultimate compendium of enchantments, and could make anyone Adept in short order. It had to be kept out of the hands of the likes of Purple and Tan, if Phaze was to have any chance at all to throw off the Hectare yoke. So the Robot would hide the Book, and if it ever came to the point where the enemy was going to get it, he would destroy it instead.
Nepe also knew why she hid: she was the most elusive creature on the planet, and served as the messenger for the resistance to the invader. She and Flach had had a lot of experience in hiding, and so were natural for the role.
Clef was hiding in order to protect the other single most valuable thing of Phaze: the Platinum Flute. It had been crafted by the Platinum Elves, and yielded by them only for the most serious reason: to save Phaze. When Clef had played it the first time, the frames of Proton and Phaze had been drawn together and temporarily overlapped and then hurled apart, enabling Blue to take over in Proton and Stile in Phaze. When he had played it the second time, the frames had been permanently merged, a year ago, again enabling the good forces to overcome the evil forces, when all seemed lost.
Now, suddenly, the planet was in trouble again, and it seemed that nothing but the Flute could rescue it. But even that seemed too little, for the Hectare were already in control. The Flute had done its job twice; there seemed to be nothing else it could do. But it represented hope, and had to be kept safe. So Clef was doing that, and as long as Clef and the Flute remained out of enemy power, that faint hope remained.
But why had the two other Adepts hidden? They had been associated with the wrong side before, and never evinced much political interest anyway. Were they merely ornery, or were they up to something?
Nepe’s thoughts were interrupted by Echo. She had found Lysander! They had known the man was somewhere in the dome, and that he was in trouble because he had refused to join the enemy, but he had turned out to be surprisingly good at hiding. They needed him, because of the prophecy. Nepe wasn’t sure she believed the prophecy, or that Lysander was the one it referred to, but Mach had said to rescue him if possible, and she was trying to do that.
She knew that Echo would not have brought him if he wasn’t ready to go. As the two approached, Nepe turned and fell in beside them. “Look for a group of three,” she said. “Man, woman, and boy.”
“Who is this?” Lysander demanded suspiciously.
“Who do you think, unbeliever?” she replied without looking directly at him.
“There,” Echo said, gesturing to three serfs walking the other way. “They’re not a group, but—“
“Turn and close on them.”
They did so, and in a moment were following the others. Nepe turned over the body to Flach, who did not have to pretend being male. He murmured some doggerel verse in a singsong: “Make those front three like he, thee, and me.”
The appearance of the three serfs changed. Now the man resembled Lysander, and the woman Echo, while the boy looked like Nepe in boy form.
Flach spread his hands, holding his companions back. They slowed, letting the mimic-three separate from them. The mimic-boy crossed away from the man and woman, going his own course, but it didn’t matter; it had simply been easier to do the magic on them as a close group.
In a moment Flach guided them into a side passage where fewer serfs walked. When it seemed likely that no one was looking, he uttered another singsong verse: “Take the rest to Oche’s nest.” He willed the implementation, and the two vanished.
Flach walked on, watching for anyone watching him. None seemed to be, but he didn’t trust that. He would wait. He turned the body back to Nepe, who was best at Proton matters.
What would Lysander think, when he found himself back under the harpy’s tree? Nepe wondered. He had just been betrayed by two girlfriends; would he be suspicious of the third? For that was what Echo would be. They had chosen Jod’e for him, but the Tan Adept had gotten her. They had to write her off, as Mach put it. They had feared they would have to write Lysander off too, but somehow he had escaped. The word was that he had banged against the door panel, and it had opened. Tan must have been furious at that malfunction at that critical time! But maybe the prophecy had known that Lysander would squeak through.
But it was more likely that he had simply drawn on his enemy knowledge to make that door open, seemingly by accident. That confirmed that Tan didn’t know Lysander’s nature. Interesting: the Hectare didn’t trust Tan either! They were merely using him, and when he was of no further use to them, they would dispose of him.
But Lysander was dangerous. If it weren’t for the prophecy, they would never have brought him in. would never have brought him in. Suppose he wasn’t the one? Then they were probably lost already, because the prophecy didn’t say there would be one, only that only such a person, alien to the culture and opposed to it, could save it. There might be no such person, or they might have the wrong one, or they might have the right one and he would choose not to save them. It seemed exceedingly chancy.
Chancy—yet their only hope. So she had rescued Lysander, the enemy agent, and Echo would be his woman. Echo didn’t know the truth; she was likely to have a severe disappointment coming up. But if that happened, they would all be lost. If it didn’t, he would save them, and their gamble would have paid off. So Echo would do her best to make Lysander happy, exactly as Jod’e would have, so that when it came to the point of decision, he would be more likely to choose for Phaze instead of for the Hectare.
Meanwhile, she had to check in with others. Satisfied that she was not observed, she ducked into a service niche. “Nepe,” she murmured. “Admit.”
A panel slid aside. She climbed into the rear service area, and the panel closed behind her. The self-willed machines were maintaining a low profile, hoping to escape the notice of the Hectare, but they cooperated with Nepe. That was part of her situation; she had lived among them for years, and her father was one of them, and her grandmother. They trusted her, though her actual flesh was alien.
“Mach,” she said, stepping into a baggage transport cart.
The cart began to move. Nepe focused on her body, changing it slowly from human boy to machine. Flach could change in an instant, but he had to use a different spell each time, so he didn’t waste it. Nepe was slower, but she could do the same form a thousand times if she had to. So she did most of the changing, when it wasn’t an emergency.
She was ready by the time the cart brought her to her father. Actually he was Flach’s father, but it was all complicated, and both Mach and Bane were really fathers to both Flach and Nepe now, since the mergence, and maybe before. She rolled out on small wheels, a spot bag handler.
She rolled up to the larger machine. Mach was in humanoid form, unloading suitcases from a baggage compartment near the airport. Without hesitation he dumped a bag on her, then picked up two suitcases and strode away down the hall. She followed, heeling like a trained canine. The conquest of the planet was fresh, but care was being taken not to disrupt the tourist trade. Many tourists, in fact, didn’t realize that a hostile occupation was in progress. They would not be bothered as long as they didn’t interfere.
“Mission accomplished,” she reported on the machine frequency. Communication of many types and many levels was required to run the complicated society of Proton, and this had not changed with the advent of magic. Anyone in authority could listen in on the machine frequency, but there was little point to it, and there were thousands of exchanges of information going on simultaneously throughout the city. Each machine had limited range, to allow the use of the same frequencies without much interference.
“Tsetse is being assigned to Brown,” Mach replied. “Investigate.”
Nepe detoured into a side hall and rolled up to a disposal unit. Her bag was a dummy. She had the unit take it in, and then herself.
Soon she was connected to the command network. Troubot— status of Tsetse, she sent.
In a moment a message came back: Order just in. Guidebot to take her to Brown Demesnes.
By whose order?
Citizen Purple.
The renegade Citizen! That meant that some sort of mischief was afoot. Yet what would Purple’s interest be in the Brown Adept? She was harmless to the Hectare, now that she was under house arrest.
Could this relate to Grandam Neysa’s odd behavior, when she had hustled Flach from that wooden castle? Well, maybe Nepe could satisfy her curiosity while performing her investigation.
Assign me.
Done. Reach this location ASAP. City coordinates followed.
Nepe disconnected and got moving. Troubot would do anything for her, even if it weren’t business. As she caught a machine transport and zoomed to the address, she reflected briefly on that.
Troubot was a machine she had associated with for years. She considered him male, and he considered her female. He was in love with her. That might have seemed ludicrous to anyone offplanet, but it was feasible on Proton, where the self-willed machines could have feelings. But in Phaze, Troubot became Sirelmoba, the pretty little bitch who was Flach’s Promised. There, the sexes were reversed. But for years it had been assumed that alternate selves had to be of the same sex, and almost always they were. Why was it different here?
She had pondered this before, many times, but could come to only one conclusion: the sexes did match, either male to male or female to female. The only exceptions were when one of the selves was neutral. Troubot was neutral, because a machine had no inherent sex. Troubot thought of himself as male, so he was male, but there was nothing else to substantiate it. Nepe’s father Mach (technically, Bane in Mach’s body) thought of himself as male, so he was male. Her Grandmother Sheen thought of herself as female, and indeed she looked and acted female. But all were in essence neuter machines. All could be set up with other bodies and other programming and be of opposite sex. So there really wasn’t a change of sex, just a change of perception.
Nepe herself, like her mother Agape, was also neutral in essence. Her living component was Moebite, whose species was sexless, but assumed sexual identities when visiting other planets, in deference to the prevailing standard. So she, like the machines, simply assumed a sex, and remained with it because she preferred it. So when she became Flach it wasn’t any true sex change, only an apparent one. He was male and she was neuter, technically.
Yet it certainly felt different!
She reached the location. A gray-eyed, silvery-haired serf woman of about thirty sat in a shipment station. The hair was no sign of decline; it had been permanently tinted. She was an extremely pretty woman despite being past the flush of youth. This was Tsetse, formerly Tania’s obliging receptionist, then Citizen Purple’s mistress. Beautiful, complaisant, and not unduly smart: she had been ideal for her positions.
Nepe had known Tsetse for five years, and privately liked her. The woman was fundamentally innocent, amenable to whatever was required of her. But since she was now Purple’s serf, if no longer his mistress (he knew her age), she was not to be trusted. It was important that Tsetse never suspect Nepe’s identity.
“Guidebot for serf Tsetse,” Nepe said through her speaker grille.
The woman stood. “Here.” She looked nervous, and her eyes were a bit puffy. She had evidently been crying.
“Follow.” Nepe rolled down the hall at a comfortable walking pace. There were many means of transport, but serfs typically walked unless the distance was far or their assignments were urgent; that was why the halls were usually filled. Normally a serf did not rate a machine guide, but if the mission was important it could happen. Anything could happen at the whim of a Citizen, of course, and that was evidently the case with those who served the new masters. It was also possible that the assignment of a guide was a reminder to a perhaps reluctant serf that the directive was to be obeyed without question.
Since Tsetse was the most docile of serfs, why was such a reminder considered to be in order? She should simply have been given the order to report to her assignment at a given hour, and left to find her own way there. All transport was free for serfs, on the presumption that they were serving the interests of their employers, and directories of routes were available at convenient locations. She could have gone alone.
The woman was evidently unhappy. Had there been a falling-out? Yet this was hardly a punitive assignment. The Adept Brown was a good woman. For many years she had had a werewolf servant whom she had treated well. She would surely treat Tsetse well.
But there was another mystery. Purple had been Brown’s prisoner, and now she was his. Why should he not only allow her to keep her residence, but assign a pleasant servant to her? Purple had never been noted for generosity to anyone.
Nepe rolled up to the airport entrance. “I’m going out?” Tsetse asked forlornly.
“Yes,” Nepe answered, as any machine would. Suddenly she had her answer: Tsetse didn’t know where she was going! That was why she needed the guide—and why she was afraid. She thought she was being punished for some infraction!
Nepe pondered briefly, and decided to take a risk. It might even lead to valuable input. She overstepped the nature of a normal guidebot and volunteered information. “To the residence of the former Brown Adept in Phaze.”
Tsetse pounced on the news with pitiful hunger. “To be his servant there?” She thought Purple had taken over the Brown Demesnes.
“To be her servant there.”
“Oh, if only it’s so!” Tsetse breathed, the tension going out of her.
Nepe was glad she had spoken. Tsetse might not be much intellectually, but she didn’t deserve unkind treatment. Purple was a hard master who evidently used her and abused her without concern for her feelings. He could have told her where she was going, but perhaps had preferred to make her suffer. This was true to his form.
Nepe led the way to a seat on the small airplane available. There were no other passengers. “Brown Demesnes,” she told the control panel, and the plane started moving. Its flight would be coordinated with others, controlled from the ground. They were merely passengers.
“But why should I be assigned to the Brown Adept?” Tsetse asked. “The Purple Adept doesn’t even like her!”
That was exactly what Nepe was wondering. But she was in no position to hold a dialogue on the subject, lest she betray her nature. She did not respond.
The flight was a short one, and soon the plane came down in a field beside the wooden castle. Brown had a Proton identity, but her Phaze identity was dominant, and her Proton self had effectively disappeared during the mergence.
The plane stopped. They got out. The plane took off without them. They were left in the field, gazing at the castle.
A wooden golem came out and approached them. “Who are you?” it asked.
“This is Tsetse, assigned here by Citizen Purple,” Nepe said. “I guided her here, and now am stranded.” Indeed, Purple had cared no more for the convenience of the machine than for that of the serf.
“Follow.” The golem turned and marched back toward the castle.
“I can not,” Nepe called, for her little wheels were useless here.
The golem turned again, strode back, bent, and heaved her up. It carried her awkwardly, but with the unyielding strength of wood. It made again for the castle, with Tsetse following.
The Brown Adept met them at the front door. “What be thy purpose here?” she inquired somewhat grimly of Tsetse.
“I am to be your servant,” Tsetse replied, surprised.
“I know naught o’ this.” She glanced at Nepe, who had been set on the floor. “What be thy transmittal orders?”
“To guide the serf Tsetse to the Brown Demesnes,” Nepe replied. They had assumed she was to be a servant; it wasn’t specified in the order.
Brown looked again at Tsetse. “Thou dost work for Purple?”
“For Tania, then for Purple,” Tsetse said. “I will do good work for you, if you give me a chance.”
Brown was still for a moment, evidently struck by the woman’s eagerness. It seemed that neither party had been told about this assignment. “What type o’ work didst thou do for them?”
“I was Tania’s receptionist, and whatever. For Purple, whatever.”
“What dost thou mean, whatever?” Brown asked sharply. Tsetse looked down, ashamed to answer.
Then Brown caught on. “Purple had thee for sexual purpose?”
“Yes, for a time.”
“And Tania too?”
“Yes,” Tsetse whispered. “When she had no man.”
“And thou hadst no choice, being a serf,” Brown said. “I understand. There will be not such coercion here.”
“I didn’t mind, really,” Tsetse said. “Tania treated me well.”
“And Purple?”
Tsetse was silent.
Brown put an arm around her. “My dear, mine authority be diminished, since the invasion. I remain here only by the sufferance o’ mine enemies, and I know not how long that will be. But thou needst have no fear o’ me during that interim.”
“Thank you, sir,” Tsetse said, trying to stifle her tears of relief.
“Nay, not sir. I be an Adept, a Citizen not, and in any event my power now be scant. Come, we shall get to know each other. But first needs must we clothe thee; this be not Proton, and thy fair form will be chilled in the drafts.”
“But what of me?” Nepe asked. She did not want to get stranded here; she had other business to do.
Brown glanced at her thoughtfully. “Go to my storage chamber until thy service be needed again.”
Nepe headed into the castle and down the hall, making her way to the chamber where the wooden golems stayed when not animated. The matter remained curious. She still had no hint why Purple, who cared little for the welfare of any other person, had sent a pleasant woman like Tsetse to work with Brown. Why did he allow Brown to have even the semblance of freedom? It was obvious that neither woman knew the answer, and Nepe didn’t either. She hoped Mach could make some sense of it. But she didn’t dare send a message from here; Purple was surely monitoring whatever happened at this castle.
She moved back to the darkest recess of the storage chamber. Then she changed slowly back to human form. There was no activity. The two women were probably comparing life histories. Nepe was sure it was lonely here, and the company of another woman would be a blessing to Brown. But that only heightened the mystery: Purple could have sent anyone to watch Brown: a harridan or a cruel man or a machine. He had sent possibly the most compatible person available. That was completely unlike him. Why hadn’t he simply had her locked in a cell?
When her change was complete, she shifted to Flach. He became a flea and jumped through a crack in the wall, working his way outside. When he got there, he became a small snake and slithered through the grass away from the castle. Only when he was well clear did he conjure himself directly to Hardom, where he returned the body to Nepe.
She wasted no time contacting Mach, joining him again on the baggage route so they could talk. “Report on Brown: Tsetse assigned as servant, unknown to either Brown or Tsetse. Mysterious act of generosity on Purple’s part. He let her keep her Demesnes, too.”
“Do the two women get along?” he asked.
“Yes, well.”
“Then Purple means to use Tsetse as a lever against Brown. She will have to serve the Hectare.”
“Brown wouldn’t do that!” Nepe protested.
“She will have to. How did you exit?”
“I asked Brown what of me, and she looked at me and told me to go to the storage chamber. So I did, and sneaked out from there. No one saw me.”
“How did you know where the storage chamber was?”
“Silly! I’ve been there many times before!”
“But you were supposed to be a Proton guidebot.”
Now it sank in. “I shouldn’t have known! The machine shouldn’t have known!”
“Which means Brown caught on to your identity.”
“But she wouldn’t give me away!”
“I’m afraid she would, Nepe, now.”
“But why? She’s on our side!”
“She is being blackmailed.”
“What?”
“Her sexual preference is for women. Trool knew, but kept his counsel until he realized that Purple and Tan were catching on. Then he told me. Neysa was going to help her, but the invasion came too soon. Now they are forcing her to cooperate with the Hectare, lest her secret be publicized.”
“But who cares what she likes?” Nepe demanded. “She’s not the only one! Tsetse—“ Then it came clear. “That’s why Purp sent her! To—“
“To make clear that he knows her secret, and will not only keep it, but give her a lover—if she cooperates,” Mach said. “Carrot and stick. She can keep her Demesnes and nominal freedom, and have a truly lovely and obliging woman—or she can suffer the humiliation of exposure and unkind imprisonment. Rape by males would no doubt be pan of that punishment. She is a good woman, but sensitive and alone. She can not withstand that combination.”
“But do the rest of you really care? I mean, you tied in with an alien blob and a unicorn; what do you care about who she cares about?”
“Nothing. We can accept her as she is. But she can’t believe that. Had we realized how it would be used against her, we would have made our position plain before the Hectare investment. But of course most of us simply didn’t know. She was once smitten with Stile; we had not questioned beyond that. We should have.”
“Grandam Neysa—that’s why she hurried us on,” Nepe said. “Why she went back. Maybe she told Brown it was all right.”
“Neysa is conservative. It took her almost ten years to accept Fleta’s relationship with me.”
“So she wouldn’t go for it,” Nepe said. “So Brown thinks that’s how we all think!”
“It is an irony of the situation. We were distracted by the coming conquest, and didn’t realize how this would relate.”
“So Brown will tell on me, because she has to. I wish I hadn’t given myself away! What do we do now?”
“We shall have to move quickly, before the golems stake out the Poles.”
Nepe was baffled. “What are you saying?”
“Something I preferred not to, before. We have set two counterploys in motion. One is the Magic Bomb which Black and Green have made.”
“The what?”
“Its detonation will destroy the planet and all on it. So if we lose, we will take the Hectare with us. But we prefer not to lose.”
Nepe was daunted by the horror of the notion. “I had no idea!”
“We preferred to shield you from that sort of reality,” he replied. “But it is time for you to know, so that you understand the importance of your own role.”
“But I’m just a messenger!”
“Your messages are critical. You will have three, and you dare fail in none. Soon all of us will be captive except you. Here is the message capsule. Do not attempt the second until the first is done, or the third until the second is done.”
“I’ll try,” she said. “But—“
“I have erased my own knowledge of the plan,” he said. “I was the only one who knew the full course. Now none of us can betray it to the enemy. I can only say that its details will be completely surprising. If you are caught, destroy the capsule without reading it.”
“But then we will all be destroyed!” she protested. “By the Magic Bomb!”
He cracked a small smile. “Get offplanet if you can.”
“But Daddy—“
“You are on your own, alien flesh.” It was an endearment he used on her, referring to her Moebite ancestry. “On your way, and do not communicate with me again.”
She knew he meant it. She scooted away from him, the weight of the planet suddenly on her little shoulders. They were playing what in the game was known as hard ball.
When she was safely alone, she activated the capsule for the first message. It was simple: GO TO NORTH POLE.
That was all. She waited, hoping that there would be some explanation, but was disappointed.
She pondered it, her mind whirling. Tsetse had been delivered to Brown, and suddenly to save the planet Nepe had to go to the North Pole! How could she make sense of that?
Well, she could make a little piece of sense of it. Brown now understood what was at stake for her. Brown had also caught on to Nepe’s presence. That meant that the enemy would be on her trail. But maybe not immediately. Brown might take a few hours to realize what she had to do, and Purple might have trouble tracing Nepe after that, even with magic. So maybe there would be no pursuit. But the Hectare might have devices that no one else knew about, that could sniff out even a magic trail, with a little advice from an Adept. So they couldn’t take a chance. So Mach had given Nepe the full dose, on the assumption that they would trace him down through her, and take him out of the game. He could not afford to assume otherwise.
So before she went to the North Pole, she had better mask her trail. But quickly, because she didn’t know how much they already knew. Mach had said they might have Brown’s golems stake out the Poles. What did the Poles have to do with all this? Probably the answer was in the Book of Magic, which Mach had taken somewhere. He must have hidden it where it wouldn’t be found by the enemy, because with it they could overcome anything any Adept tried.
Where would that Book be? Where else: the North Pole! So if she went there and got it, maybe she could use it to do whatever else was needed.
Nepe moved about within the city, crisscrossing her trail so that it would be excruciatingly difficult for anyone to track her by any normal means. She was good at hiding, as good as any creature could be, but there remained that lurking doubt: if Brown had told immediately, and Purple had put a magic tracker on her, that would be impossible to shake by physical means. So she might be wasting her time here.
Still, Flach was experienced at magical hiding, and he could do his best to nullify that tracker spell. So after she was done here, she would turn it over to him, and he would complete the job.
It all seemed reasonably simple. But she very much feared it wasn’t.