Robot Adept

Yet how could her mind have been transferred to another living body? She was not a robot or cyborg; her mind was a part of her entire physical being, inseparable from the flesh. If she had accompanied Bane to Phaze, it would be an aspect of the exchange; Fleta the Unicorn would now be in Proton with Mach the Robot. But that might be just what the Citizens wanted her to think. Perhaps they did have a technique for transferring consciousness of an android body, perhaps maintaining an electronic link to her natural one. How could she tell the difference? Or they could simply have drugged her and given her hypnotic suggestion, to cause her to dream a programmed dream and believe that her body as she now found it was real. In that case, there would be no real danger to her—but the Citizens might go to extremes to make her think there was danger.

As if on cue, a great hulking shape appeared in the air: some monstrous flying creature. It looked very like a dragon.

Should she try to hide from it, or should she ignore it? If this were a setup, it wouldn’t matter. But if this were real, she could be in serious trouble.

She decided to play it safe. She ducked, trying to hide in the high grass.

But the dragon, evidently questing for prey, had already spotted her. It flew directly toward her. It came close, circled her once, then made a strafing run. Fire shot from its mouth, coming straight at her.

She threw herself aside. The fire ignited the grass. behind her, and scorched her backside. Indeed, her cloak was burning, and she felt the flame as if it were roasting her own flesh. She threw herself down flat, to roll, to crush the blaze out, but it continued stubbornly.

Meanwhile the dragon was looping about, readying itself for a second run. This time she knew it would not miss.

Then she remembered the spell that Bane had given her. Maybe it was all part of the fakery, but she would have to use it! “Agape, Agape, Agape!” she cried.

The dragon, orienting on her, hesitated. It peered down, perplexed. It flew over her without firing, then looped back and searched again. It sniffed the air. Then, frustrated, it flew away, trailing a small, angry plume of smoke.

The spell had worked—or had seemed to. The dragon had not been able to see, hear or smell her. But she was perfectly perceivable to herself, and she still cast a shadow. So if the spell was genuine, it operated only on the perceptions of the predator. If it was fake, then the dragon, or dragon mock-up, had simply been feigning.

That fire was real, though! There was a smoldering patch of grass, and her cloak had a hole in it near the pocket. Indeed, the feather had been scorched.

“Who calls? Who calls?” someone screeched.

Agape looked up, startled. It was another flying creature. This one was much smaller, being a gross womanheaded bird. She smelled awful, and had a fright-wig head of hair or feathers. She was a harpy, one of the creatures in the human pantheon.

Was Agape still unperceivable? How long did the spell last?

“I smelled thy signal, but I see thee not!” the harpy screeched. “Where dost thou be?”

Smelled her signal?

The harpy circled. “Damn!” she muttered. “Mayhap the dragon got him, ere the smell of my burned feather reached me!”

Burned feather? That was the signal? If Fleta had kept that feather, knowing it would summon the harpy when burned, that harpy must be a friend.

“Here I am,” Agape called, almost before she realized she was doing it.

The harpy whirled in air and peered down at her. “Ah, now I see thee, mare! Glad am I thou wast not hurt! Yet why didst thou summon me, an thou escaped the dragon?”

“The dragon’s fire burned the feather,” Agape explained.

The harpy screeched so violently with laughter that she practically fell out of the air. “Aye, don’t that beat all! An accident! But how earnest thou to run afoul o’ a dragon? Why not change form to thy natural state and pipe it off?”

This harpy, however gross of humor and person, seemed friendly, so Agape decided to speak frankly. “I am not Fleta. I can’t change the way she could.”

“Not Fleta?” the harpy screeched, amazed. “How can that be? Thou hast her body, and the feather!”

If this was Phaze, the truth should not hurt. If Proton, it was known already, such as it was. “I am Agape. I exchanged with Fleta. I have her body, but do not know how to use it.”

The harpy peered cannily down at her. “It be true thou dost speak not like her. But Mach! Where be Mach?”

“He exchanged too. Now Bane is here.”

“Then how came a dragon near? Mach be a burgeoning Adept! He prettified my hair! Next to that, banishing a dragon be mere chick’s play, and Bane be more than Mach.”

“I sent him away.”

The harpy flapped heavily in place, considering that. “Nay, I can make sense not o’ that! Why send him off, an thou helpless ‘gainst a dragon?”

“So I could learn where I am, by myself.”