Robot Adept

She chose the letters, and touched B, the center column, because that had the horse riding in it. She was lucky; he chose 1, and the highlights overlapped at HORSEBACK RIDING. She had her first choice, which meant a good chance.

ADJOURN TO RIDING AREA, the screen said. FOLLOW THE LINE.

She looked at the floor. A new line showed, leading away from the console.

They followed it. It brought them to a corral where a number of people were riding horses. It terminated at a check-in office.

The bored attendant glanced up. “Whatcha into—easy, rough or show?” he asked.

“I don’t mind losing, but I don’t want to get dumped,” Shock said candidly. “I bruise easily.”

“Easy,” the attendant said. “Saddle or bareback?”

“Your turn,” Shock said.

So they were still taking turns on choices. “Bareback,” Fleta said.

In due course they found themselves on two sedate horses, bareback, with reins. The one who guided his horse most accurately along a set course would be the winner.

Fleta didn’t like reins, so she dismounted, went to the horse’s head and removed the bit and the reins. The man who had brought the horses looked surprised, but did not comment.

She remounted, and they proceeded along the course. Shock was evidently barely familiar with horsemanship; had the course not been long familiar to the animal, he would soon have been lost. Fleta leaned low, embraced her horse with legs and arms, and spoke to it in its own language: a low whinny. Her body might be alien, but her nature was equine, and now it came strongly through. She felt a sudden surge of homesickness for her homeland, and knew that this captive horse felt the same.

The horse’s ears perked. She stroked its neck, reassuring it, explaining by pressures of her legs how it should react. Soon she had it responsive, and the horse obeyed her commands when they were neither verbal nor visual. She really did understand horses.

Thereafter, the horse stood tall and proud, and moved so precisely along the course that others stopped to look. One of the keepers, alarmed, challenged this: “You do something to that animal? No tether, no halter, no bit, no reins—you drug it?”

“No drug,” Fleta said.

“Bring it over here; I want the vet to see.”

So they had to interrupt the contest, while the horse walked to the side where the robot vet rolled up. The machine ran sensors across the horse’s skin and flashed little lights in the animal’s eyes and mouth. “This horse likes this rider,” the robot said, and rolled away.

“You sure have the touch!” Shock said. “Or did you just get a happy horse?”

“We can exchange horses if you wish,” Fleta said.

“Yes, let’s do that!”

So they dismounted and exchanged. Fleta addressed the new horse as she had the first, and removed the bit and reins, and soon it was as cooperative, while the first, feeling the ignorance of the new rider, became surly.

By the time they finished the ride, there was no question of Fleta’s victory. “Serf, you’re new on the register,” the corral manager said, hurrying up. “You looking for employment? You’ve got a touch with those animals I never saw before!”

Fleta dismounted, put her arm up around her mount’s head, and kissed it on the nose. “I do relate well to animals,” she agreed. “But I am trying to qualify for the Tourney.”

“But once you enter that, you’re gone, unless you win!” the manager protested. “Look, this spread is owned by a pretty savvy Citizen. If he sees how you are with his animals, he’ll give you good employment and treat you right. It’s a lot better risk than the Tourney!”

It surely was—for an ordinary serf. But Fleta knew that she could not remain in this guise indefinitely without being discovered, and then she would be in instant trouble. “I wish I could do it,” she said with genuine regret. “But I am committed. I must enter the Tourney.”

They left the corral. “I think you should have taken it,” Shock said. He shrugged. “Well, you bumped me down a rung on the ladder; you’re number one-four-two on the Leftover Ladder.”

“Why is it called the leftover? I thought there was a ladder for each age group.”

“There is, and the top ten of each ladder qualify. But some don’t fit well, being underage or overage or alien or handicapped or whatever, so there’s a special ladder for us. I guess they sent you here because you’re too new to know the ropes.”

That was not the reason, Fleta realized. It was because she was an alien creature masquerading as an android of the opposite sex. She could not qualify for a regular ladder without giving herself away, so the self-willed machines had set her up with this all-inclusive one. They did know what they were doing.

But she was on the 142nd rung! How could she ever make it to the top ten rungs?

Shock showed her where to verify her ranking: the Game Computer had a special screen that would show the placement of whomever approached it. Sure enough, FLETA was now listed 142 on LEFTOVER. SHOCK was 143. He shrugged and departed, satisfied.