Robot Adept Page 23

  Then she stalled.

  Mach agonized as she pondered, while Sharp tried one thing after another. Sharp would find the key, if she didn’t do something!

  Then Mach reminded himself that her objective was not to win, but to play like a unicorn. That she was accomplishing!

  Then she evidently reread the options at the bottom of the screen. She touched AUTHORS: DESCRIPTION.

  TYPE DESCRIPTION, the screen printed, and displayed a keyboard.

  She went at it hunt and peck: AUTHORS ENDING IN (TH).

  Stroke of genius! In a moment she had WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. The letters checked, and she had a number of new ones—and she hadn’t had to draw from her memory a name Fleta would not have known. Now her cryptogram looked like this:

  M I L T O F!—T H O U—S H O U L D ‘S T

  1 2 3 4 5 6!—4 7 5 8—9 7 5 8 3 0 ‘9 4

  _ E—L I _ I F _—A T—T H I S—H O U R:

  (11)(12)-32(13)26(14)-(15)4-4729-758(16):

  E F _ L A F D—H A T H—F E E D—0 _—T H E E!

  (12)6(14)3(15)60-7(15)47-6(12)(12)0-5(17)-47(12)(12)!

  W I L L I A M—W O R D S W O R T H

  (18)2332(15)1--(18)5(16)09(18)5(16)47

  She pondered, then filled in B above (11) for BE. Then she put N over (17), making ON.

  FEED ON THEE? Mach doubted it, and so, evidently, did Fleta. (He knew it wasn’t her, but she was playing the role so well, he kept slipping.) She pondered, then in another fit of brilliance reversed F and N, making it NEED OF THEE! She corrected her bad F’s elsewhere, and now the quotation was almost complete:

  MILTON! THOU SHOULD’ST BE LI-IN- AT THIS HOUR: EN-LAND HATH NEED OF THEE! WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

  Sharp, meanwhile was starting to get on track; he had asked for the AUTHORS list, and after a tedious search from A to W had spotted Wordsworth. Had he chanced to start from the other end of the list, he would have been there much faster. He had no trouble with MILTON, but couldn’t make sense of THOU and THEE.

  Fleta filled in LIVING, and suddenly, to her surprise, she had won. She had no notion what kind of creature ENGLAND was, but that wasn’t necessary. What a perfect portrayal of the unicorn!

  Then it occurred to Mach that Agape probably didn’t know England either; it was not part of her heritage. Neither was Wordsworth, or Milton. She might have proven herself to be Fleta—by being herself.

  Next day she was up against a young serf woman of about her own apparent age. Agape got the letters, so chose C. MACHINE. The other woman chose 3. CHANCE. They wound up with the game of number bracketing. This required three players, but the Game Computer simply generated random numbers for the third person.

  The object was to choose a number from 1 to 100 that was between the two numbers chosen by the others, or, if two numbers matched, to be the odd one out, the one that didn’t match. It was a very simple game, but a nervous one nevertheless. Obviously the best strategy was to go for the center, because the fringes were losers—but every player had the same notion. Thus it might be better to choose one near the edge, and let the other two jam up in the center, perhaps duplicating their numbers and yielding the victory. But every player would reason that way, too. What was the better strategy?

  But it wasn’t Mach’s decision to make. He did not like games of chance, as was the case with most competent players; chance was the refuge of incompetence. At least there was no problem about unicorn strategy here; the game was too simple.

  Agape chose 1, and the other player chose 50. The random number was 22, making it the winner. Therefore they played again.

  This time Agape chose the other player’s prior number, 50, while the other took 75. The random number was 63. Again they had no decision.

  The third time Agape went for 75, taking her opponent’s last number again. The other, gambling that she would do just this, took 74, bracketing her toward the edge. But the random number was 90, and Agape won. It was of course sheer luck—but the other woman had elected to win or lose by chance, and had paid the price, when she might have won by skill.

  Agape had now won the sixth round, and would compete next in the seventh—one of only sixteen survivors in the Tourney. Mach was amazed: how far would this go? Suppose—just suppose—that her luck continued? Four more victories would make her the winner of the Tourney, and she would become the first unicorn Citizen. What then?

  Her Round Seven match was against another Citizen; not one of the Contraries, just a game buff who enjoyed the challenge and the privilege of dashing the hopes of serfs. He was a healthy man in his forties who was the most dangerous of players: the kind who truly understood the Game. He would make no mistakes and would have no mercy. Mach, watching from his chamber, felt the dread of likely loss; Agape was about to be put out of the Tourney.

  She got the letters and chose TOOL, following her set strategy. He chose PHYSICAL, craving the greatest immediacy. In the subgrid she chose COOPERATIVE, while he went again for immediacy and challenge; FIRE, or variable surface.

  They settled on a “team” sport—that was how COOPERATIVE translated here. In this case it was a variant of mountain climbing, with five-person teams roped together, descending into the rumbling crater of a volcano.

  Well, he thought, Fleta was fleet of foot. She could navigate any slope with confidence. Except that this wasn’t really Fleta, and she wasn’t alone. She had four android teammates who were “neutral”: neither apt nor clumsy. What would count was teamwork: how well she organized and directed them for the descent into evermore-challenging territory. The victory would go to the player who brought his party safely to the bottom first. If any teammates were lost, that was a liability but not necessarily defeat, depending on the state of the other team.

  The screen showed the crater: a truly impressive setting. The walls of the upper inner rim were almost vertical, the slope modifying below and finally becoming level. But there were ridges and irregularities, and vents issuing smoke and steam, and sometimes lava. The whole thing shuddered at irregular intervals, and there were occasional mini-eruptions of rocks and dust and gas. Verisimilitude was excellent; on the screen, it really did seem like a living volcano crater.

  There were four established paths of descent: north, south, east and west. These varied in detail, but had similar hazards, and had been established as equivalent in difficulty. Lot determined the assignments. The Citizen’s team was given the north slope, and Agape had the south. Mach’s screen could be set up to watch the whole crater, with the tiny figures at either side, or to watch one at close range, or split to watch both parties at intermediate range. He checked the AUDIENCE indicator, and discovered without surprise that it was huge. There were relatively few games being played now, and the unicorn had captured the public fancy; also, the volcano was always popular.

  Mach knew that the Citizen would have played this course before, many times, and would have every path memorized. The Game Computer changed details with each game, to prevent this kind of advantage, but there was only so much it could do. The advantage of knowledge of the course was definitely with the Citizen.

  Agape looked down her path, then took a daring and most unicornlike step: she detached herself from the safety rope. A unicorn, of course, would prefer to climb alone, regarding the other members of the team as a liability rather than an asset.

  She started down, using chinks in the rim-wall for handholds, until she could stand on the less formidable slope below. She found a safe-seeming vantage by a projection of solidified lava, and called directions back to her remaining team. She had to get them down safely too; she could not leave them behind. They followed her route, descending in order, until they rejoined her. It was a decent start.

  Meanwhile the Citizen was proceeding conventionally and efficiently. He too led his party, not trusting the androids to be good judges of the route. He barked orders to each, moving them along. His team made the first “landing” before Agape’s did.

  Then the first shudder came. The rocks s
hook, and several fragments of rock became dislodged and slid down. No damage was done to either party; it was merely a warning.

  Agape went ahead again, spying out the best descent. She had a choice at this stage: one reasonably safe but long path, and one short but treacherous one. She gambled as a unicorn would, taking the shorter one. The Citizen took the safe one. That made Mach nervous; the Citizen surely had reason.

  That reason soon manifested: there was another tremor, worse than the first. Gas hissed up from vents—and there were more such vents along Agape’s fast path than along the Citizen’s slow one. But Agape had had her team wait again while she explored, and she was watching; she lay flat as the vents expressed themselves, and had no trouble. Then she jumped across a minor crevasse, found another staging point, and brought her team down. She was now ahead of the Citizen.

  Was there an upset in the making? The Citizen, seeing himself behind, hurried his team—and one of his androids misstepped and fell. The safety rope prevented him from being lost, but he took an injury, and now was limping. That was another point for Agape: all her teammates were safe.

  But as she explored for the third leg of her descent, a lava vent just behind her spewed out molten rock, splattering her body. It was not real lava, of course, but jellylike emulation. Nevertheless, she had received a direct strike on the torso, and was deemed to have been burned beyond the ability to continue. The Game Computer issued a STAY IN PLACE directive; Agape was not permitted to go on.

  If the Citizen suffered a similar mishap, then points would be assessed and the winner determined. But he did not. Relieved of any need to hurry, he took his time, and brought his slightly incapacitated party safely to the bottom. Thus, anticlimactically, Agape lost the match, and was out of the Tourney.

  Mach felt a pang of regret. He reminded himself that she had done it correctly, playing the way a unicorn would; moving alone, gambling with her own safety rather than that of her teammates. Had she sent an android ahead, and had the android taken the incapacitating lava-splat, she would have been allowed to continue. The Citizen might have taken a greater loss of personnel, giving the victory to her. But she had done it Fleta’s way, and lost, and that was the right way to lose.

  Still, Mach wished she had won. He knew that the great majority of the audience felt the same.

  Agape was returned to her planet, banned from Proton because of her loss in the Tourney. She had made it safely, and Mach knew the Contrary Citizens had no trap remaining there. The administration of the Tourney seemed to have no concern for the fact that if she really had been Fleta, as she had “proved” herself to be for her qualification as a player, this exile would have been inappropriate at best. But what of her relation to Bane?

  He had no acceptable answer for that. In order to communicate or exchange with Bane, Mach had to overlap him geographically, and as far as he knew, that could only be done on this planet. If Agape was forever exiled from Proton, how could Bane get together with her?

  There were two answers, as he saw it. Either Bane would have to make frequent trips to Planet Moeba, or Agape would have to be allowed to return. Suppose they worked out a compromise: cooperation with the Contrary Citizens, in exchange for this exception to the law of Proton. Would Bane go for that? He wasn’t sure.

  Now, belatedly, he realized that the Contrary Citizens had never challenged Fleta’s identity, after challenging her registry in the Tourney. That meant that the tapes of the chamber had never been requisitioned. Now she was safely back on her own planet, and it no longer mattered. He had not had to make love to her, to preserve the pretense.

  Still, Agape had done such a good job of imitating Fleta that he was satisfied to leave the recent past as it was. For an hour he had just about been with the filly. What others might think of the situation he wasn’t sure, and didn’t care.

  The Tourney proceeded, and a serf woman won it, becoming a Citizen. How nice for her, Mach thought. But what of Agape? Neither she nor Bane deserved this enforced separation.

  He spent his time doing research in the computerized Proton Library. Could a machine breed with an amoeba? Suppose a genetic pattern were crafted in the laboratory, living tissue modified to fit the attributes of a living man who occupied the body of a robot…

  But why do that, when Bane had his own genetic pattern? What was needed was to send Agape back to Phaze to—

  No, for then she would be in Fleta’s body. There seemed to be no way to get the physical Agape together with the physical Bane. Or the physical Mach together with the physical Fleta. No way except magic.

  No way except magic. And that existed only in Phaze, while one partner in each couple was physically locked here in Proton. There was the intractable problem.

  Then, abruptly, Bane contacted him. The touch was fleeting, but he got the gist: do not exchange yet. Bane was trying to spring a trap, and needed just a little more time.

  Mach waited, wondering what was happening. Then Bane contacted him again, with news of a new truce. The picture had changed significantly in Phaze. If the rival factions of Proton agreed, they would have a way to settle this matter, and the two couples could be together regardless of the way it went.

  That appealed to him. He agreed without hesitation. He knew Agape would feel the same.

  Chapter 11

  Magic

  Mach found himself standing near the Red Demesnes, with Fleta nearby, and three others. One was Trool the Troll, the Red Adept, whom he had met when he sought Fleta, to prevent her from committing suicide. The second was the Translucent Adept. The third was a sharply pretty young woman who looked familiar. In fact, it was Tania, the sister of their employer in the office in Proton! There she had been naked, and cold; here she was attractively clothed in a tan gown, and that made a significant difference. What was she doing here?

  None of them spoke. Evidently they were waiting for him, being uncertain whether he had yet exchanged with Bane. “I am Mach,” he said. “I gather something has happened here, and that there is a new agreement, but I don’t know what it is.”

  Fleta approached him. “Be it truly thee, Mach?” she asked. She looked concerned.

  “Thee,” he murmured, letting his love for her come through. He had wanted her so much, in Proton, and Agape playing her role had been only a suggestion of the real person. How good it was to be with her again!

  A trifling wave passed through her hair: the suggestion of the splash. Then she was in his arms, hugging him almost painfully hard. “Thee!” she echoed.

  Translucent glanced at Trool. “Tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Aye, Adept,” the Troll replied.

  Translucent glanced at Tania. Abruptly a watery ball enclosed her. It lifted from the ground, carrying her with it, and floated rapidly westward. Then Translucent himself vanished.

  “Welcome to be guests of the Red Demesnes, an the two of ye prefer,” Trool said. “Or not, as desired.”

  Mach hesitated, not knowing what was involved. “We thank thee, Adept, and accept,” Fleta said.

  The three of them walked toward the red castle. “I know only that there was a trap Bane sprung,” Mach said. “And a new arrangement, that will make things easier. I would like to know more.”

  “The Tan Adept’s daughter attempted to fascinate Bane, thinking him newly arrived,” Trool said. “This were a breach that countered Bane’s breach in deceiving and spying on the Adverse Adepts. Translucent knew not of it, nor I of Bane’s device, prior. Now will Translucent and I work to train thee in magic, that thou mayst rival thine other self in a private tourney, and the victor will determine for whom the two of ye work.”

  Mach had trouble assimilating this. “I am—to play against my other self? Against Bane?”

  “Aye. Thou for the Adverse Adepts, and he for Stile and Blue.”

  “But you are with Stile!”

  “Aye. Yet do I honor the pact. This matter must be settled, and the imbalance between frames corrected, lest great harm come to all.”


  Mach nodded. “I am conversant with the Game, in Proton. But Bane isn’t. And since the two of us can never meet in the same frame—”

  “Thou willst rival him across the curtain, thou with magic, he with science.”

  “But I hardly know magic, and he—”

  “Translucent will train thee, with the Book of Magic, and Blue will train Bane, with the Oracle. We deem it fair.”

  Mach was silent. He wasn’t sure it was possible, let alone fair. But if the two sides were satisfied, then he could not disagree.

  They reached the castle and entered it. A woman came to meet them, stunningly beautiful. “Suchevane!” Mach exclaimed, remembering her from his canoe trip. “What are you doing here?”

  “What, indeed,” the troll murmured with fond awe.

  “I be keeping company with the Adept,” she said demurely. “Thy creature friend from Proton did help me broach him, and her do I now call friend.”

  Agape had had a hand in this? There had indeed been much she hadn’t told him! He remembered how Suchevane had brought him to this castle, when he was in pursuit of Fleta, and how the Adept had reacted to the vampiress. Evidently Suchevane had been similarly struck by the Adept.

  They had a meal together, the four of them, and Mach felt completely at home. Suchevane and Trool had helped him rescue Fleta; it seemed fitting that they be together now. There had been much mischief in the conflict between Adepts, but also some benefit, and this was that.

  Fleta brought him to a private chamber for the night. “And how was the amoeba filly?” she inquired with a slight edge.

  Mach’s jaw dropped. Then she laughed, and he realized she was teasing him. “And how was Bane?” he returned.

  “I love thee,” she said, abruptly sober. “But I like him, and would help him how I could. He had need to seem to be thee—”

  “And Agape had need to seem to be you,” Mach said.