Robot Adept

“Yes. Win tomorrow, and the essential tool is ours. The Oracle and the Book of Magic, reunited—”

“Aye,” Bane said, feeling better. Now he could do his utmost, and believe that the best would come of it.

The final game was Doublet: played with two balls and four paddles. It was not popular with serious players, because it tended to get wild, but dabblers liked it, as did some specialists.

Each player had one standard paddle, and one freestyle paddle. Play was not required to alternate between them; rather, each ball had to be played with its own paddle. Thus this represented two separate games, played simultaneously. It could be a formidable challenge.

Bane had the first serve, which meant one pair of balls. He was required to serve the standard one first: the yellow ball, with the standard paddle. The second had to follow not before the first cleared the net, and not after the first returned; the window was while the opposite player was playing the first. Thereafter there was no set order; the balls were simply played as they came.

Bane had the standard paddle in his left hand. He tossed up the yellow ball with his right, his fingers also holding the other paddle, and struck it with the correct paddle. Then he tossed the red ball with his left hand, and struck it with his high-tech paddle. Both balls were served crosscourt, requiring Mach to orient on the extremes rapidly.

The first was coming back as he completed his serving pass for the second. He played it back to the same court he had served the red one, and with a shorter stroke, so that it gained somewhat on the other. But Mach played them back to opposite courts. Whether it was better strategy to play them to the same court or to opposite courts was an open question; it depended on the player and the situation. Already Bane felt his robot intellect being extended; this was no easy task for it, tracking two at once.

Now the two balls were crossing oppositely. Theoretically there was the danger of them colliding, and that was a complication in regular play. But for this game there was no problem; the yellow and red balls were on different planes of reality, and would pass through each other without interacting. In fact, that applied to the paddles, too: the wrong one could not touch the ball, literally. Thus there would be no question whether the ball was returned with the wrong paddle; if it returned at all, it was by the right paddle. Bane wasn’t quite sure how this worked; perhaps the seemingly solid balls were mere images, extensions of the images on the far side of the table. They seemed solid, but he had learned not to believe everything that had seeming, in either frame.

Bane played conservatively, concentrating on one ball at a time, so that he could devote his whole competence to it. He put intricate spins on the red ball—only to see them nulled by the magic paddle Mach used. He went for speed and placement with the yellow ball, because the standard paddle was not as sharp on spins. But Mach could handle such straightforward play.

Mach played slow on the red ball, retreating from the table to return it late, and fast on the yellow one. As a result, the two soon came into alignment. Bane tried to separate them in space, if not in time, angling the red one right and the yellow one left.

That was his tactical error. Mach slammed them simultaneously, crosscourt, and Bane was unable to field them both. He had to let one go, and chose to sacrifice the red one. He returned the yellow one.

Love-one. Now it was down to a one-ball game, with standard equipment. Mach had won their prior such game—but Bane had zeroed in on the new tricks and was ready for them. Deceptive spin would not catch him. Also, Mach could no longer use the magic paddle, so could fail to return the ball. This was better for Bane. He played hard, moving the ball from side to side and front to back, until Mach’s fallible living body made the error of sending too gentle a return, and Bane put it away for the point. One-one.

Now it was Mach’s serve, both balls. Because of the special nature of this game, the serve changed each time, so as to prevent a facile combination of serves from generating too great a run of points. He served the yellow ball fast, crosscourt, and the red one slow, downcourt. He was trying to get the two aligned again, so as to catch Bane in the same split as before. But this time Bane had a trick of his own to play.

He returned the yellow fast and the red slow but not easy. He set his paddle to max-tack and sent what was known as the double loop: a high shot with extremely potent topspin. It came down on Mach’s side almost vertically, and bounced away almost horizontally, retaining formidable spin. That would be an extraordinarily difficult shot to return, if it were not for the magic paddle.