Robot Adept

Bane lay still, feeling the change in her flesh. Her breasts lost cohesiveness, and so did the rest of her. She became like a huge pillow, warm and yielding. Then more like a water bag, and then like loose jelly. Her body spread out, making contact with all of his upper surface. The strange effect caused him to develop an erection; her melting protoplasm surrounded it warmly. She sagged, then flowed around him, between his arms and his body, between his legs. She became a padded wetsuit, a layer of warm wax all around him, and as far under him as his contact with the bed permitted. He raised his arms and legs slightly, and she completed the enclosure there; then he pushed back his head and hoisted his torso up, and she flowed around it and merged with herself.

From his neck to his feet, he was encased by her, and it was the most comfortable feeling he could remember. His body, in Proton, was of metal and plastic; it did not matter, for now it felt Alive. Every part of him except his face was in her, and now she crept around his head and across that too, stopping only at the eyes, mouth and nose.

“In this body, I need not to breathe,” he reminded her. “Complete it.”

She closed the remaining gaps. Now he was cocooned by her substance, and it was like floating in warm water, only better, because she pulsed gently against every part of him, as if he had a heartbeat. He drifted in that wonderful alien embrace, and it seemed like an eternity. Truly, he was in her, and if it could only be for an hour, it was a phenomenal hour.

In the second game of the round, Bane was the Prey. He did not know what animal he would become; that was a surprise to both players. How Trool and the Oracle had managed to come to an understanding of such details without either Bane or Mach knowing was hard to guess, since they were the conduits for the information. Perhaps they had code phrases that had meaning only for computers and trolls.

He stepped through the curtain. He was on a broad plain, with a rocky escarpment to the north, that descended from a mesa. He was a monkey. He started running immediately, knowing that whatever form Mach took would be able to destroy the monkey.

Sure enough, in five seconds a panther appeared behind him. He ran straight ahead, giving the big cat no chance to gain on him by cutting comers. But he watched the escarpment. Some of it was clifflike, and some was a jagged slope. From this distance he could not be certain, but he suspected there would be caves. If he could reach a cave, next time around…

What form would he be in? What would lose to a monkey, but overcome a panther? He could not come up with an answer at the moment, but he decided to make for the caves next time, and if his form could take advantage of them, he would do so. He did not slow or swerve to get a closer look; he wanted to give his opponent no hint of whatever strategy he might have in mind. But he considered options. Go directly to the escarpment, circle it, and pop into a deep cave? Climb to the mesa? If he climbed, he might just lose time, but if there were a good cave entrance that could not be seen from below…

He reached the shore of a wide river and plunged in. The river flowed toward the north, curving in a broad meander toward the escarpment and disappearing behind it, but it should be possible simply to swim across it and enter the medium of air quickly. He still had his five-second lead.

He was a sting ray. He swerved to swim downriver, wanting to explore the section that brushed the escarpment. He hoped the Predator would assume the Prey was swimming straight across, and lose a second or two.

No such luck. A walrus appeared upriver, and immediately reoriented and stroked down. But at least he had not lost any time.

He veered to the left, angling up. The walrus matched him, cutting the corner. Then he veered right and down, deep. As a ploy it was no good; the walrus merely matched the maneuver, cutting the corner again, picking up a bit of time.

Then Bane saw what he was looking for: a weedshrouded cave, underwater in the right bank. It could be blind, but it could also lead to the mesa, or somewhere amidst the escarpment.

He swerved back to the left, as if trying once more to shake the pursuit. Once more, it didn’t work. This time he carried across to the left bank, and angled up and out, sailing into the air.

He was a four-winged insect—a dragonfly. He zoomed over a great field of flowers, but they did not tempt him; dragonflies were predators in their milieu, not pollen eaters.

Behind him, by about four seconds, a bat sailed up out of the river. He could not fight that! He flew straight, maintaining his lead, until he plunged through the horizon, completing the first lap.

He landed on the plain as a skunk. So that was what would balk the panther! But why not the monkey?

He angled for the mesa. The ground soon became rocky. Behind him the monkey appeared and pursued.