Robot Adept

“I know thy magic be not yet great,” she continued.  “But the Red Adept doth have the Book o’ Magic, and methinks a spell might be there. My time o’ heat be coming in due course, and if thou couldst breed me then—“

A pretext to visit Trool the Troll! Now he had the gist. “If I promised, I promised,” he said. “We shall ask the Red Adept for a spell.”

“Aye, I thank thee!” she exclaimed, and kissed him with such conviction that he realized this was no ploy.  She really did want Mach’s baby, and thought she could get it.

On the following morning they set out, Fleta in her natural form. Bane riding. Translucent did not interfere; the Adept was satisfied that Mach was in his camp regardless where he might travel. That much was true, and when Mach returned, he would continue to represent the Adverse Adepts. Bane really had no quarrel with that—and none with Translucent, who was be having decently. Had Tania caught Bane in his masquerade, it would have been fair play: he had tried a deception, and paid the price.

In Proton, Citizen Blue knew of the masquerade, but would not try to hold Mach captive; that was understood. This was a ramification of the truce: to let things be until they could be better resolved. Bane hoped that Mach was not having too much trouble maintaining the pretense with Agape.

And what if he was? It was no bad thing, making love to Agape! Bane could not hold that against his other self any more than Mach could hold Bane’s act with Fleta against him. It was understood that this was necessary.

Still, it bothered him. Not the act itself, but his attitude about it. He had tried to make himself believe that it was Agape he embraced, but he had known it was not. He had made love to Fleta, and it had been wonderful. That was the problem. Exactly why had it been so good?

She had been his companion in childhood, and in young adulthood. He had always liked her, and she had liked him. But he had never loved her. She was, after all, an animal.

Now Mach had fallen in love with her, and she with Mach. That caused Bane to see her differently. In what way was Fleta inferior to a human woman? He needed no thought to answer that: the answer was no way. Just as Agape was not inferior to a human woman. Perhaps he loved Agape as an unconscious analog to Fleta: the nonhuman creature who seemed human.

Now he was back with the original, his emotional barriers down. Had he merely done with her what he had always wanted to do? Had he used this masquerade as a pretext to do it?

What had he accomplished in his spying mission?  Only the discovery of Tania’s threat—which would have been no threat at all, had Mach been with Fleta. In short, he had accomplished nothing—except sex with his alternate’s beloved.

So Bane’s thoughts ran, as he rode the unicorn from the Translucent Demesnes. He had no doubt of Fleta’s constancy; she had done only what she agreed to do, 2her heart not in it. But his own was suspect. He might as well have raped her.

No, even that was not the whole of it. The sex had been a concomitant of the mission, supposedly of little importance in itself. Certainly Fleta had no use for it, when not in heat, except as a way to please her lover or to maintain a masquerade. It should have been little more for him: a pleasure of the moment, done for other than emotion. Instead he had been eager for it, and had found it not only physically satisfying, but emotionally fulfilling. As though he had truly meant the words of love he had spoken to her.

Was he falling in love with Fleta?

Bane closed his eyes, trying to drive away the specter of that forbidden emotion, but could not. He knew he should never have undertaken this foolish spying mission; he should have stayed well away from his other self’s chosen. Now it was too late.

Fleta turned her head, glancing back at him with one eye. She was aware of the reactions of his body, and knew that something was bothering him.

And what could he tell her? Nothing! She was innocent; he could only bring her grief by expressing his illicit passion. So he simply petted her shoulder. “You are a truly good creature, mare,” he said. “I would not cause you harm for all the frame.” That much was true.  They camped for the night near a stream. Instead of grazing, this time, Fleta became the hummingbird and filled up on the nectar of flowers, while he made a fire and roasted wild potatoes he dug out. Then she assumed girlform and came to join him for sleeping.  “But I thought thou wouldst graze,” he protested weakly.

“Nay, I prefer to be with thee, Mach,” she said, removing her cloak and spreading it as a blanket for them.

Another night with her body warm against his? He owed it to her and to his other self to avoid that! But what could he say? The Adepts were surely still checking on them.