"Bane-is thy game over?" she asked.
"Game?"
She sighed. "Not over. Then I will play it on with thee. Do thou kiss me, and we shall sleep."
"Kiss?" he asked, perplexed.
She stood, rising lithely to her feet. She approached him, reached up, took hold of his head with both her hands, and brought her face to his. She kissed him on the mouth. "Long has it been since we played thus," she said. "Come, now; sleep." She tugged him toward the nest.
Mach followed, bemused. This girl seemed to know him, and she wanted to sleep. There were several meanings for that word, and he was not sure which one applied, so he simply lay down in the fragrant brush beside her, as she seemed to want. If she intended s.e.xual expression, he could do that; as a robot he had the hardware, and was programmed to-but no, he wasn"t a robot anymore! Still, as a living man he had similar capacities, and she seemed to be an attractive girl; he could do whatever seemed to be called for.
She squeezed his hand, turned her head to the side, and slept. In a moment her gentle breathing signaled her condition.
Relieved, Mach did the same. He wondered whether she would still be there when morning came.
As it happened, she was. He woke to the pressure of her little hand, tousling his hair. "Wake, Bane!" she exclaimed. "What is the game today? Naked through the swamp again?"
That made him realize that though he was properly naked, she was not. She wore a black cloak that covered her body from neck to ankle. He remembered, now, that he had felt cloth about her body in the night; he had a.s.sumed it was a cover, not clothing.
Now he had to ascertain the situation. He had three alternatives. First, she might be in costume, considering this to be a play; indeed she had mentioned a game. Second, she might be a serf masquerading as a Citizen. That was of course dangerous. Third, she might actually be a Citizen.
He had to know. A Citizen always had to be addressed with the proper forms of respect. But a serf in Citizen garb had to be set straight immediately, before real trouble came of it.
"Sir, I must know," he said, erring on the safe side. "What is your status?"
She looked at him, her green eyes seeming to twinkle. " "Sir"? What speech be this, Bane?"
So she was not a Citizen. Just as well! "Then you are a serf?"
"Serf? Bane, if thou willst but tell me thy game, I will play it with thee. But I know not the rules of it."
"What is this "thee" business?" he asked.
She smiled. Her black hair framed her face, and she wore a pearl at her forehead; she was lovely in her joy. "A game of language!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands.
"No game. I just don"t understand. Who are you? Where did you come from? Why do you use the archaic forms? Why are you garbed?"
She c.o.c.ked her head at him cannily. "So we call it not a game. That can I do. As for who I be, as if thou dost not know: I am Fleta, thy companion of yore. I speak as thy kind does; wouldst rather have me neigh? As for my garb-why there be no need for it, if this be the game!" And she reached down, caught hold of the hem of her cloak, and drew it up over her head. In a moment she stood before him naked, for she wore no underclothing. "Be that better, Bane?"
"Yes," he agreed. She was a most comely figure of a young woman, perfectly formed and standing just slightly shorter than he. "But why are you calling me Bane? Do you know me?"
"What wouldst thou be called, then?" she inquired merrily.
"My name is Mach."
She laughed. "What a stupid name!"
He frowned. "Is Fleta a more intelligent name?"
"Certainly! But I will try to keep my laughter down while I call thee Mach." Indeed, she did try, but the laughter bubbled up from her stomach, caused her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to bounce, and finally burst out of her mouth. She flung her arms about him and kissed him, as she had in the night. "O, Bane-I mean Ma-Ma-" A giggle overcame her, but she fought through it. "Mach! What a romp have we here! I feared thou hadst forgotten me in thy serious studies of blue magic; how glad I be to learn not!"
"Fleta, I have to say that I do not know you. What"s this about magic?"
"Ah, wait till I tell the fillies of the herd of this! Never played we music like this!"
"If you would just answer my questions," Mach said somewhat stiffly.
"As thou dost wish," she agreed. "But first may we eat? and O, I see thou art all scratched! Why dost thou not heal thyself?"
"Heal myself?" he asked blankly. "I think only time can do that."
"With thy magic," she explained. "Surely the game be not such that thou must suffer such smarts!"
"I don"t know anything about magic!" he protested.
She made a moue. "Or wouldst thou have the unicorn heal thee instead?"
"The unicorn!" he exclaimed, alarmed. "What do you know about that?"
She stared at him, then smiled again, dismissing his supposed ignorance. "Thy memory seems brief, lately!"
"A unicorn brought me here last night, after rescuing me from monsters in the swamp. I don"t know why; do you?"
She shook her head so that the l.u.s.trous hair swirled. "Who can know the mind of a "corn!" she exclaimed, laughing again. "Mayhap she thought thou didst call for help."
"I did call for help," he agreed. "But-but why should an animal do me any favor?"
"An animal," Fleta repeated thoughtfully. "An thou hadst called her that, mayhap she"d have left thee in the swamp indeed!"
"Oh-are they sensitive about that sort of thing? Good thing she didn"t understand my speech."
"Aye, so," she agreed, twinkling again. "So thou dost not desire the "corn to heal thy trifling wounds with her horn?"
"With her horn?"
"Adepts be not the only ones who do magic!" she exclaimed. "Dost thou not remember the healing of the horn?"
"You mean-that unicorn-when she approached me with her horn lowered-only wanted to-to touch my scratches and heal them magically?"
"Lo, now he remembers!" she exclaimed. "What else would she be about?"
"I wasn"t sure," he confessed. "I was relieved when she left."
Fleta frowned. "There be aspects of this game I understand not," she said. "Thou dost not wish the return of the unicorn?"
"True," he agreed. "But of course I cannot prevent it. Maybe we should get away from here before she arrives."
She sighed. "Be that the way thou dost want it, so let it be. I had not thought to hear thee say the like, though."
"Well, I"m sure unicorns can be perfectly good animals, and I do appreciate what she did for me yesterday. But I must admit I feel safer with you."
"And thou dost not propose to conjure up a repast for us both?"
"What makes you think I could do such a thing?"
She laughed her merry laugh. "Sheer foolishness, Mach!" she said. "Come, I shall find us food." She led him from the crater.
3 - Bane
Bane found himself in a chamber, sitting on a bed. A moment before he had been in the forest glade, seeking rapport with his other self. He had sung a spell to facilitate the exchange of ident.i.ties-and it seemed that it had worked! Here he was in the other frame, while his alternate had to be in Phaze. Wait till he told his father of this success!
He looked about, trying to fix as much of this locale in his mind as possible before he reverted to his own frame. It was not that Adept Stile would doubt him, but that he wanted to have information that would establish the case beyond question. This was the first genuine contact with the frame of Proton since the two had separated twenty years ago. Of course no one else had seriously sought such contact; it had been generally agreed that total separation of the frames was best. But Bane had regarded it as a challenge, and when he had tuned in on the sendings of his other self, he had jumped at the chance to intensify the contact.
This was definitely Proton! Everything about the room was unmagical. The bed was formed of some substance unknown in Phaze, hard like wood but with no grain, and the mattress on it was like one big white sponge. There was a cabinet against the wall with a window in it that opened on blankness. Beside it were several books-no, they seemed to have no pages. But perhaps the folk of this frame didn"t read books. His father would know.
He looked down at his body. It was naked. That, too, aligned; Stile had mentioned that the folk of Proton went naked, all except the rulers. He was really here, in the body of his other self.
But he decided to make sure. If this were Proton, magic would not work here. "Make me rise, to realize," he sang, composing a ditty on the spot, as he had been trained to do from childhood. It was his mind that really governed the spell, but it had to be in the right form: singsong and rhymed.
Nothing happened. He remained firmly planted on the bed. In Phaze he would now be floating above it. This was the final proof: he was definitely out of Phaze.
He clapped his hands, expressing the sheer joy of the accomplishment. What a breakthrough! To transport himself to the other frame, when others had believed it to be impossible. And he would be able to do it again, now that he knew exactly how. What a tremendous opportunity loomed!
But now he had better switch back, so they could each report their accomplishment to their folks. Bane sat on the bed, concentrated-and nothing happened.
Oops! He had used magic to facilitate the exchange- but here magic didn"t work. His other self would have to perform the spell-and would his other self know the spell?
Well, he could explain. All he needed to do was use their rapport to make it clear.
He concentrated again-and discovered, to his horror, that the rapport was gone.
The two selves had to occupy the same site in their respective frames, for the rapport to be achieved. They had to unify in their fashion, seeming almost as one. It had taken Bane a long time to discover the place where he could overlap his Proton self, and to be there when his other self was ready for that rapport. This was that occasion-but now the other self had moved off the spot.
Bane got up, casting desperately about for the other. He knew he could sense the other if he overlapped, or even if he came close-but where was the other?
He moved around the room, seeking that intangible spoor, the otherframe presence of the other self. There was no sign of it. He needed to cast a wider net, but the room restrained him. Where was the door? There seemed to be none.
Baffled, he studied the walls. Finally he decided that the one blank section he saw had to be it. There was no k.n.o.b, no evidence of any aperture, but this was the strange scientific frame, so there could be another mechanism. He walked toward it, putting out his hand as if to push a door open.
It worked. The wall before him fogged and disappeared. He stepped out into a metallic hall.
Naked-outside the room? He didn"t trust this! He turned to go back into the room-but the wall behind him was now opaque and unbroken. He put his hand out, but it didn"t fog. He pushed against it, and it remained firm. It seemed that some other technique was required to enter, similar to a spell that limited access to only those folk who had the counterspell. A scientific spell-and he didn"t have it.
A person rounded a corner and came toward him. It was a woman-naked! Now what was he to do?
He fought to control himself, and found it much easier than he had antic.i.p.ated. It seemed that folk really did go naked in Proton, male and female. So he should be all right. All he had to do was act natural.
The young woman approached him. "Hi, Mach!" she said brightly. "Looking for a game?"
A game. What did she mean? She was a voluptuous creature, as well formed as any he had seen, though of course he had not seen many naked before. Was it safe to say no? She evidently expected him to agree, so that seemed best. Then, after it was done, he could resume his quest for his other self, who had to be somewhere close.
"A game-yes," he agreed. He remembered the games he had played as a child with Fleta. Some of them had become pretty intimate; it embarra.s.sed him to remember, now. Fleta had a nonhuman sense of humor, of course.
"Well, then, let"s go!" she agreed. "I"m going to take you this time, Mach!"
Mach. That was evidently his other self"s name. That was helpful to know. But who was this attractive girl? She seemed to be his own age, nineteen, but that could be deceptive. Well, perhaps he would find out.
They walked down the hall. Bane followed her lead, hoping that his own ignorance didn"t show. He also tried to note the route they took, so he could return to the original spot. He was good at that sort of thing, but he had never tried it in a huge building like this. Was there no end to it? Where was the forest?
They threaded a virtual labyrinth, arriving at last at a strange complex. The girl took a stance before a kind of pedestal with a blank window set into it.
She glanced at Bane. "Well, get on over there, Mach," she said. "You scared to play me?"
He went to the other side of the pedestal, where a similar window was set. But he did not know what was expected of him next.
The window lighted. A crosshatch of lines appeared. Across the top was written a combination of numbers and words, and down the side were letters and words. The top ones were brighter: 1. PHYSICAL, 2. MENTAL, 3. CHANCE, 4. ARTS.
"What"s keeping you?" the girl demanded.
Bane didn"t want to admit that he had no idea what to do, because obviously his other self understood this business, and he didn"t want to give away the fact that he was not Mach. "Why dost thou not make a suggestion?" he inquired.
She smiled. "Oho! The fish is eager! Well, I"ll be direct, Mach. The news is fresh that the cyborg dumped you, so I figure maybe you"ll fare better with your own kind. I don"t want to beat you, I want to win you. If you"ve got any interest, give me the physical. You won"t regret it."
Her words were indecipherable, but her manner suggested intimacy. This girl wanted romance! Bane didn"t want to get his other self into anything he might regret upon his return, but feared that turning down this offer could be awkward. "Just tell me what to do."
She licked her lips. "So it"s that way, is it?" Her voice lowered. "Touch the one, lover."
Bane realized that she referred to the print. He brought his finger to the lighted number 1 and pressed it.
Abruptly the first square of the pattern became bright, and the words PHYSICAL and NAKED. This was like the paper game, that his father had shown him, wherein one person chose from one border, and the other from the other, and where their choices intersected was the decision. The challenge was to outguess the opponent, so that what he thought would bring him success actually brought him defeat.
But what did PHYSICAL/NAKED mean? The girl"s att.i.tude suggested one thing, but since they were already naked, he hesitated to a.s.sume too much.
The square expanded to fill the window. A new cross-hatch appeared, and new numbers and words. Across the top was written 5. SEPARATE, 6. INTERACTIVE, 7. COMBAT, 8. COOPERATIVE, and down the left side, more brightly, E. EARTH, F. FIRE, G. GAS, H. H2O. He recognized the four elements, earth, fire, air and water, which were fundamental to the various types of magic. Of course there was another element, more important- "Come on, Mach," the girl urged. "Make your play."
So he touched a lighted word at random: GAS.
A new square illuminated, on the line he had selected, and in the second column. INTERACTIVE/GAS. He wasn"t sure he liked the notion. Then a smaller pattern of nine squares appeared, with a list of words down side: PILLOW-FIGHTING, s.e.x, TAG, TRAPEZE . .
"You know what Tilly wants!" the girl said. In the center square appeared the word s.e.x. "Make your pick, Macho!"
Uncertainly, he touched the word PILLOW. Immediately it brightened. Then, catching on, he touched corner square, and the word jumped into it. Who said there was no magic in the science frame!