"I thought thou didst plan to stay here," he said finding himself disappointed.
"I do. I will stay just as long as I can. I will become a Citizen if I can. I will send my reports by s.p.a.cemail. I will remain here. There is more to learn here than s.e.xual reproduction."
"Then thou willst be a human being for the rest of thy life, or seem to be."
"Yes, Bane. Already I feel somewhat human, with you."
"Willst thou show me, at least a little, thy true form?"
"I do not wish to revolt you, Bane."
"I will make thee a deal," he said. "Show me thy true nature, and I will show thee how to-to be a human woman. Some."
"Some? Bane, I must learn it all!"
"But these things are not done just as a business," he protested. "It-I have never done it all with a human woman, actually. Just games with Fleta and the like."
"Show me a little, and I will show you a little," she offered.
He laughed, somewhat uneasily. "Fair enough, Agape. Here be a little." He leaned farther toward her, tilted his head, and touched her lips with his own.
Her lips were unresponsive. It was like kissing mush.
He drew back. "That was it?" she inquired.
"Thou dost have to kiss back!" he exclaimed.
"You mean, to purse my mouth while you purse yours?"
"Aye. Only with some feeling. This be supposed to be an emotional contact, knowest thou not?"
"Ah, now I understand. To feel desire during the act."
"Thy kind does feel desire?"
"It does. It merely expresses it in another fashion."
"Shallst try again?" He leaned forward, and touched her lips with his for the second time.
And this time hers were firm and highly responsive. He found it easy to get into the spirit of the kiss. He reached his arms about her, and she emulated his action. He pressed her in close, and she pressed him in close, and it was several times the experience he had antic.i.p.ated, despite the bulkiness of her suit.
Except for one thing. She was doing what he did- too perfectly. She was like a three-dimensional mirror image. Nothing originated with her; it all was a reflection of him.
He drew back. "Much improved," he said. "But thou must not copy me in every detail. That makest thou seem-like a machine."
She laughed. "I understand! One must not be mechanical."
"Perhaps Mach would have had different advice," he agreed, smiling.
"I did not know you had changed ident.i.ties, but I think I will know the difference hereafter. Though your body is a machine, your mind is alive."
He nodded. "I wonder how that be possible? I certainly feel not like a machine."
"I believe our forms determine our natures to a degree," she said. "I do not feel like an amoeba, either." She sighed. "And now I must make my small showing, and perhaps you will never kiss me again."
"I"ll make the effort," he promised.
She peeled back her suit, so that she became bare to the waist. "Watch me."
"I be watching thee."
"My hand, not my torso."
"Oh." He modified his gaze accordingly.
She held up her left hand. It was a fine, esthetic extremity, with four slender fingers and an opposed thumb, each nail delicately tinted. But slowly it changed. The fingers lost firmness, becoming floppy balloons. They sank back onto the body of the hand, which melted into a glob.
Bane stared. "Thou hast no bones?"
"No bones anywhere in my body. Only tissue that I make firm, patterned after human bones, to support the structure."
"When Fleta changes, she does it instantly. One moment she be a pretty girl; the next she be a hummingbird. Of course that"s magic."
"I cannot do that," Agape admitted. "It does require a little time for me to change, and I must melt into my natural state before a.s.suming an alternate form. And- I do not know the hummingbird. Is it of similar ma.s.s to the human form?"
Bane snorted. "Hardly! It"s a tiny thing, hardly bigger than my thumb. Size matters not, with magic."
"I find that hard to believe."
"I think anyone in Proton would find it hard to believe."
"My ma.s.s remains constant. I could a.s.sume the form of a bird, but it would be of my present weight, and could not fly."
"Thy hand-it could become something else?"
For answer, she concentrated. The lump of protoplasm at the end of her arm grew projections, each of which sprouted further projections, until she had about thirty thin fronds there. "A Formican appendage," she said. "I remember that form from the time I visited their planet."
"So thy magic be limited in speed and size, but unlimited in form," he concluded. "I think thy ability be as good as Fleta"s."
"Thank you-I think," she said. The new appendage dissolved, and the human hand began to reform. "You are not revolted?"
"Agape, I be used to shape-changing. Once did I envy the werewolves their ability to change from human form to canine form, and have all the powers of the animal. And I liked Fleta in all three of her forms."
"Then I am relieved. I will change form for you, when you ask me to." She leaned toward him, and he, understanding her desire, kissed her. This time she was responsive without mirroring him. She was a rapid learner!
The vehicle slowed. They broke. "We are there," Agape said, hauling up her suit and restoring her helmet. "We shall search for your other self now."
Bane was almost disappointed. He cared less about shapes than about personality, thanks to his experience with the magical creatures of Phaze, and both her human form and her att.i.tude were easy to accept. It was too bad he would lose contact with her when he exchanged places with his other self and returned to Phaze.
They opened the vehicle and stepped out. They found ruins. There had evidently once been a small dome here, with a castle in it of the same type as that of the Blue Demesnes in Phaze, but all was wreckage now. The desert sand was doing its best to bury the remains.
But there was no wreckage in Phaze. Bane walked around the oddly familiar premises, seeking some hint of his other self. If he overlapped the s.p.a.ce, or even came close, he would know. It would not work for any other person; he could be walking right through others in Phaze, and never know. But his own self he could not miss.
It wasn"t here. There was no sign of the self at all. Bane criss-crossed every part of the ruin, finding nothing.
"He didn"t get here," he said at last.
"Surely some delay," Agape said quickly. "Proceeding afoot, unfamiliar with the terrain-it might require days."
"It might. It also might mean he"s dead."
"We must not believe that!" she said. "I-I have no experience with this phenomenon of dual selves, but I conjecture-wouldn"t you feel something if there were demise? Is there not some continuing connection between the two of you?"
"I suppose there should be," Bane agreed thoughtfully. "I tuned in to him in the first place by going with the flow. The closer I got, the more I felt it, when I listened."
"Listen now!" she urged.
He stood and listened. He tried to extend his awareness out, to become perceptive to the soul of his other self, wherever it might be. He could almost see his ambience reaching out in a great circle, sensitive to the ambience of his other ident.i.ty in Phaze.
He found it! Faintly in the distance, like an echo, he felt the rapport. "He be alive!" he exclaimed. "There!" He pointed to the southwest.
"Back the way we came," Agape said. "Or a little west; the vehicle curved eastward."
"We can go directly toward him!" Bane said, relieved. "Oh, thank thee for the notion, Agape!" He took hold of her, intending to kiss her, but discovered it was impossible while she was in suit and helmet.
They returned to the vehicle. The dome of it sealed, and the air came in. Agape lifted back her helmet. "Did you have something in mind, Bane?"
"Just to go toward my other self until we intercept him," he said. Then, becoming aware of her expectant att.i.tude: "Oh, yes." He leaned over and kissed her. This time it was about as good as it seemed likely to get, in this circ.u.mstance.
That gave him pause. "When I-thou willst be left here, with Mach."
"I know you must return to your own land," she said. "For you, Proton is more alien than it is to me."
"Dost thou know, Agape, I almost wish I could take thee with me."
"I almost wish I could go," she agreed. "But even as your place is there, my place is here. I have a duty to my species that I must fulfill. So I think that even were it possible, I would not go with you to your magic realm. I remain glad to have been with you these hours."
There didn"t seem to be much more to say. Agape started the vehicle moving, and guided it in the direction he indicated, this time keeping it under her own control. They proceeded slowly toward the rendezvous with his other self.
After an hour of travel through the wasteland, they were startled by a voice from the vehicle"s speaker grille. "Directive: Serf Mach return immediately to base at Hardom. Serf Agape return immediately to base at Hardom."
"They are addressing us!" Agape said. "I must acknowledge."
"Wait!" Bane snapped. "Thou meanest we can speak to them?"
"When I invoke the communication code," she said. "It will only require a moment." She reached for the panel.
He blocked her hand. "Nay! If we speak to them, they will know we hear them. I must find my other self before we leave this course."
"But to disobey would be very bad," she protested.
"To obey might cost me my rendezvous! We have been getting closer; I can feel it. I can quit not now!"
"But there will be punishment."
"They can punish me not after I"m gone!" Then he reconsidered. "But thou willst still be here-and Mach too. That be bad."
"Serf Mach and/or serf Agape," the speaker said. "Your vehicle is occupied and moving. If you are alive and conscious, respond immediately."
"We must answer!" she said.
"But if we don"t, they"ll think we be dead or unconscious, and I can reach mine other self."
"I should not do this," she said, keeping her hands away from the panel.
"I"ll make it up to thee!" he said. "I"ll show thee all I know about-about being a girlfriend."She smiled with a certain resignation. "Before or after you return to Phaze?"
"Before, of course! I can do it not after."
"Then that must be now."
Now he realized the significance of her question. If he took time now, he might lose his chance to achieve rapport with his other self, because there was no way to tell what threat the other might be under in Phaze. He couldn"t afford to wait a moment longer than he had to. But if he didn"t do it now, it wouldn"t get done at all.
"Mayhap thou canst tell the vehicle to move by itself, as thou didst before," he suggested.
"I must give it a destination-and I think there none it will understand, for this."
She was right again. He had to tune in on the other self, and she had to direct the vehicle to the spot he indicated. They could not let the vehicle run itself.
"We shall have to stop for a while, then," he said heavily.
"No, Bane, I would not interfere with your desire. Go to meet your other self."
"And leave thee here, without thine information, to be maybe sent back to thy world because thou didst help me," he said. "I can do that not."
"I think Mach would show me, if I explained. Do not delay."
"I want to show thee myself!" he said. "It be my job."
"I release you from it."
"Nay, what be right be right. Anyway-" He paused with realization. "I really do want to do it myself. I mean, not because I said I would. I-"
"Do not forget, I am an alien creature," Agape said.
"Thou"rt a nice person, in human form," he said. "Stop the vehicle."
"But you must not delay! I understand that."