Robot Adept Page 30

  He encountered one gravel-strewn section, and scraped with his four feet, sending gravel and pebbles sliding down into the face of his pursuer. That gained him a second or so, and he made it to the top with above five seconds’ leeway.

  He ran directly toward the river, watching for openings. There were none; the mesa was grassy and even. Soon he came to the brink, and scrambled over it, sliding and tumbling down the steep slope.

  Then, down near the river, he spied it: a rock-blocked cave entrance. His skunk body was small enough to wedge in between the rocks, and he squeezed inside before the monkey caught up.

  He didn’t pause; he followed the cave down into darkness. Then he found water. He slid into it quietly, and became an eel. Good enough: the walrus could crush the sting-ray, the sting-ray could sting the eel with its tail, and the eel could shock the walrus. There was the endless circle.

  If his strategy worked, the Predator would not realize that the cave went through to the water, and would waste time either pulling away the rocks that blocked it, or waiting for the skunk to emerge, or throwing stones down into it. There was always a way for the Predator to get through, so there could be no impasse, but that way was not always obvious. Bane had gambled that the cave connected to the one he had spied below the water level of the river, and had won.

  He swam across the river. There was no pursuit. It had worked! He had gained enough time to ensure completion of the course without being caught.

  Unless the monkey waited, and devised a trap for him. That was within the rules; it was possible for Prey to nab Predator if the Prey had time to set a clever snare that injured or delayed the Predator so that it could not complete the course.

  He emerged from the river and became a mosquito. Now how could a mosquito put away a bat? By stinging it, and giving it some lethal disease. Far-fetched, perhaps, but viable for the purpose of the game. All these animal sets were only analogies for the root game: scissors/paper/stone. Scissors cut paper, paper wrapped stone, stone crushed scissors, making the circle. No doubt many current games derived from similarly obscure originals. A mosquito stinging a bat was as realistic as paper demolishing a stone by wrapping it.

  He flew swiftly—more swiftly than any genuine mosquito could have—across the field of flowers, and came back to the land medium. Now he was the panther. He had lapped his opponent, and that made him the Predator. It did not give him the victory automatically, but it certainly gave him the advantage.

  But, wary of a trap, he walked to the foot of the escarpment, and climbed it as carefully and quietly as he could. There was no sign of any trap. Perhaps it had been set in the lower plain, where he might be expected to run; by choosing this route, he might have foiled it.

  He came to the cave entrance. The obscuring stones had been pulled aside, so that a creature the size of a monkey could enter it. Apparently Mach had decided it was a blind cave, and gone down to catch the Prey. Indeed, that would have been the correct decision, had the cave not gone through to the river! It would have been smarter for Mach to go directly to the water, and watch there to see whether any new fish appeared; indeed, he could have lain in ambush, for the Prey could win only by completing the full course, and that meant crossing the river at some point.

  He sniffed the region. The smell of monkey was definitely there—but was the monkey still inside, or had it—

  He heard a noise just above him, on the slope. He looked up—and the blast of the skunk caught him in the face, blinding him.

  Too late, he realized what had happened. He had not lapped Mach; Mach had followed, one medium behind, keeping out of sight, and come up on him while he was distracted by the cave. The slope of the mountain had concealed the Predator, so that he needed only a few seconds’ distraction time to get close enough. Bane had given him that time, and lost the game.

  All he had had to do was keep moving, completing the course. Mach could never have caught him. But, wary of the nonexistent trap, he had fallen into a worse one: the trap of incaution.

  “I saw it,” Agape said. “The Game Computer puts the games on holo. We saw him following you, and creeping up on you at the end.”

  “What a fool I must have seemed!” he lamented.

  “It is always easier to judge the play when you aren’t in it,” she reminded him. “We knew he had not remained, so could not be caught by your lapping him and putting him away so you could finish the course. But you did not know, and we knew that too.”

  But his chagrin went deeper than that. “Could it be that I dawdled because I wanted not to win? That I betrayed my cause?”

  “You wouldn’t do that!” she protested.

  “How can others be sure? How can I be sure?”

  She paused, considering. “There is another game tomorrow.”

  “Aye. Needs must I prove therein I be no malingerer.”

  “You will,” she said. But she could not ease his doubt.

  Bane was Predator again for the third game. This was the critical one; if he won, the match was over.

  Mach stepped through the curtain. Five seconds later, Bane followed.

  He was a dragon. Not a fire-breather, not a flying creature, but nevertheless a dragon, with horrendous teeth and claws.

  Ahead of him was a salamander. That was a far smaller creature, but formidable enough in its own right, because it could set fire to any vegetation it touched, and burn most other creatures. Dragons, however, were immune to heat, because so many of them were firebreathers; even those who were not, like himself, possessed enough of the fire-resistant scales and mouth armor to resist the efforts of the salamander. Thus the dragon could chomp the salamander, and the salamander was the Prey.

  The landscape was fantasy too: exotic enchanted plants grew high, bearing blossoms that natural flowers could never manage. Bane recognized poison sprayers and sleep weeds and illusion spikes. As a dragon, he had little to fear from these, but a man would have had, literally, to watch his step.

  However, there could be aspects of this setting that could damage a dragon, such as clefts in the ground covered by illusion. He would have to watch the path taken by the salamander, and if he saw anything strange, be warned. Meanwhile, because of the prospects for illusion, he could not afford to let the Prey get out of his sight; he could lose critical time trying to locate it through the fog of illusion.

  They wound through a forest whose trees supported monstrous webs. The hidden giant spiders could not hurt either contestant because only a contestant could harm a contestant, but they could impede progress significantly. If the salamander got entangled, the dragon could catch it; if the dragon got caught, the salamander could gain vital time.

  The trees thinned out, and they came to the water.

  This was an inverted lake: broadest at ground level, with the water extending up instead of down in an irregular dome. Effects like this did not exist in Phaze; this magic setting was Grafted of imagination rather than reality.

  The salamander plunged in. Bane followed. He was now a sea serpent, chasing a kraken. The kraken was a monstrous magic weed whose stems and branches were tentacles. They had little stickers that stung and poisoned the flesh of ordinary creatures, but the hide of the sea serpent was too tough to be affected. If he caught up with the kraken, he would simply bite off its tentacles, making it helpless.

  The kraken was aware of this, and propelled itself through the water by stroking with flattened tentacles, making the same speed that the serpent could by threshing its coils. The two of them churned the water, generating myriads of bubbles that sank quickly to the bottom surface.

  Bane was gaining. The kraken could move as rapidly as the serpent, but it took Mach a while to catch on to the most efficient use of his paddle-tentacles. By the time he plunged out of the far side of the lake, Bane was only two seconds behind.

  In air, Bane was a roc: a monstrous predatory bird, said to be able to carry an elephant aloft in its talons. Bane believed that was an exaggeration; nevertheless,
very few creatures on land or in the air debated territory with a roc. Mach was a wyvern: a small fire-breathing flying dragon. He was of course no match for the roc, but dangerous to most other creatures.

  They flew through colored clouds: red, green, blue, yellow, black. These might be harmless, but could also be nuisances; the wyvern brushed by a green one, and its substance adhered, stretching like taffy, fouling a wing. The wyvern whipped back its snout and blew fire at it; the green taffy shriveled and smoked and let go, but Mach had lost time. Bane was now only one second behind.

  Thereafter they both skirted the clouds. Most were probably just vapor, but neither player could afford to take the chance that it wasn’t. Time was at stake, and a shift of a single second could make the difference.

  They plunged through the horizon, and now Bane was the salamander, chasing a basilisk. There was the completion of the circle: the basilisk was a small lizard, but its glance could stun or kill other creatures. It could not hurt the salamander, because the salamander could engulf it in a wave of fire, obscuring its glance in smoke and flame and cooking its body. But it could stun the dragon, who lacked the fire.

  But with only one second separating them, the basilisk had no time to turn and glare back, and the salamander no time to start a fire. They simply ran, both maintaining the pace, keeping to the same path as before, avoiding the devious plants.

  They reached the inverted lake and plunged in. Now it was Bane who was the kraken, and Mach was a siren: a creature with the body of a mermaid and a voice that could lure ships and large creatures to their deaths against great rocks in the water. That would be bad for the sea serpent, who would naturally have a taste for so soft and lovely a creature, and who would be charmed by her eerie voice. But the kraken was tone-deaf, and its appetite was too ravenous to be charmed away by prey, and rocks did not affect its streaming tentacles. It would simply squeeze the siren to death, then suck the body dry.

  Bane knew how to use the tentacles to move the creature forward, but Mach was having no trouble with the siren, so the distance between them did not narrow. They forged through the water and out to the air.

  Bane became the wyvern, and Mach was a harpy. There, again, was the circle: the wyvern could blast the harpy with fire, if it ever got close enough to remain in range while it took a deep breath, but the harpy’s poisoned talons could poison the roc.

  They followed their curving route between the clouds, which had not moved, neither risking any deviation. Mach, again unfamiliar with the dynamics of the new creature, lost another half-second before attaining full velocity. Then they proceeded to the horizon, and through.

  Bane was the basilisk, and Mach the dragon. Now the basilisk could glare forward—but the dragon could not be stunned from the rear, only from the front. Impasse, again.

  But the dragon snagged a claw on a root, and stumbled. The basilisk almost caught up, but still could not get a line on the head, because of the mass of the serpentine body. They plunged on.

  This was the last circuit; if Mach could survive the next two media, he would make it through, and win. But Bane was now within chomping distance. The next medium was the lake, and he would be the siren; she could charm from behind, because it was her voice that did it. Deep in the water, that voice would be distorted, but actual contact would undistort it. Touch the tail of the serpent, sing—and the serpent would be charmed into destruction.

  The dragon dodged to the side, sideswiping a stout tree by the inverted bank, and lunged ahead. Bane, much smaller, gained time by making a leap to the water. He sailed surprisingly high.

  And, in midair, he saw the dragon whip its tail around the tree. Its body reacted like rope; it snapped about, smacking against the other side of the tree.

  Then Bane landed in the water, and became the siren. He was ready; he had actually gotten in ahead of the other!

  And Mach did not follow.

  Then Bane realized that he had been tricked. Mach had let him come deceptively close—and balked. Bane had been tricked into the one-way transformation, and could not return. He could not make the circuit, lapping his opponent, as he had tried to do before; he would be out of the game, because he would have gone through every form in every medium. All he could do was wait for the other to come through—and the other would never do so, now. It was an impasse—and that meant victory for Mach, because he had not been, and could not be caught.

  Bane had lost the game, and the round. The very closeness of his pursuit had done him in, denying him the reaction time he needed to stay clear of the lake. Mach had won by using his mind.

  Bane experienced relief. He knew that he had done his utmost, only to be caught by a trick that would have surprised all the watchers too. He had lost with honor. But there was one more round to go. Nothing had been decided yet.

  Chapter 15

  Table

  Mach stood at the console. He had the numbers, so he chose 1. PHYSICAL; he trusted that more than the others. Bane chose B. TOOL, evidently not trusting NAKED after his loss in the Chase. The truth was, that had been a very near thing; had Mach’s desperate ruse not worked, Bane could easily have won, and finished the match.

  He had the letters on the subgrid. He chose H. H2O, having found that general-surface category compatible the last time. Bane chose 6. INTERACTIVE.

  The square opened out, and the list of games appeared; a number of ball games wherein more than a ball was used, such as tennis, Jai alai and bowling, so that they wound up in this catchall grouping; water games like pedal-boat bumping and underwater volleyball (wherein the ball had to be propelled under the net); and string-ball games such as tetherball.

  They assembled the nine-box grid, and played it, and came up with what each was evidently well satisfied to play: table tennis. There were several variants; Trool consulted with the Oracle, with Mach and Bane relaying the messages, and decided on three variants, one for each game. The first game would be standard, with identical equipment on both sides. The second would be freestyle, which meant the individual paddles could be of any type. The third was to be doublet, generally considered to be the most formidable challenge of a player’s capacities.

  Mach was familiar with them all, and good at them all. But Bane now had his expertise, as well as the sureness of the machine body. Could Mach, in this fallible living body, match that? He doubted it. Therefore his month’s training would be critical. He had to come up with strategy and skill that could defeat the person he had been in Proton.

  Meanwhile, there was the separate challenge of enabling the games to be played. Trool and the Oracle had made the chess games work, and the chase games; but table tennis was a physically interactive game of another nature. How could they hit a ball across the barrier between the frames? He was sure it would somehow be arranged, though.

  He turned to look at the Translucent Adept. “Who are the best players of this game?” he inquired.

  Translucent scowled. “Stile, and certain vampires in manform. We be hoist again.”

  “I have to find players better than I am, who can teach me things, and drill me in new techniques.”

  “We have resources, but thou mayst like them not.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether I like them! I can’t win unless I improve significantly, and even then the outcome will be in doubt, because Bane will improve too, and he won’t make errors.”

  “Aye, thou must practice,” Fleta agreed. “There be naught distasteful in that.”

  “One who can show thee much be Tania.”

  Fleta’s ears flattened back, though she was in girlform. “That creature has shown thee already too much!” Mach had to smile, though he too was startled. “No, that was Bane she showed,” he said.

  “When he were emulating thee!” she returned, as if that made Mach culpable. “And in Proton-frame—”

  “But it was Tan who was making you—”

  “So Tannu be bad for me, and Tania for thee!”

  Translucent nodded grimly. “I
realize that neither of you be partial to those of the Tan Demesnes. But Tania alone has what thou dost require.”

  “What has that harpy that I do not?” Fleta demanded, one hand bunching and moving as if to paw the ground.

  “A magic paddle.”

  Mach’s interest quickened. “A magic paddle? To play table tennis?”

  “Aye. It be a rare device, that she charmed from an elven craftsman of the carbon clan. Methinks thou must in turn charm it from her.”

  “O’er my dead carcass!” Fleta snorted.

  But Mach was already dazzled by the notion. “A magic paddle, of elven craftsmanship! That would be something very special!”

  “Aye. So do thou come to terms with thy filly, and I will make arrangements for thee to visit the Tan Demesnes.”

  Fleta did not seem to be in any mood to come to terms. “This may take a while,” Mach muttered.

  It did. Unicorns were known to be stubborn creatures, and Fleta showed her mettle in this respect. She did not want Mach going near Tania! But finally he persuaded her that if he did not take advantage of every opportunity to improve his game, he would lose, and then the two of them would be separated. “But the only reason I yield,” she said grudgingly, “be because she be also in Proton, and I would be not there to safeguard thee from her clutches.”

  “Good reasoning,” he said, relieved.

  But it was not easy, when they went to the Tan Demesnes. Fleta insisted on carrying him there herself, in her natural form, theoretically to save his magic for more important things, but he suspected she was motivated more by the extra time it took this way.

  Tania was resplendent in a fluffy tan cotton dress that fitted closely about her torso. Her hair was tied back with a tan ribbon and bow, and her feet looked tiny in tan slippers.

  The grass here was excellent, but Fleta was not about to change back to unicorn form and graze.