Robot Adept

Stumpy looked at Fleta with new appraisal. “You weren’t guessing,” she said flatly.

“I understand animals,” Fleta said.

Stumpy turned and walked away.

Fleta walked back to the Ladder screen. There was her name, on the eighth rung, with Stumpy just below it. She had qualified for the Tourney.

Chapter 5 Spy

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Bane felt the girl in his arms sag. He steadied her, realizing that Fleta had been in Mach’s embrace, just as Agape had been in his own embrace, at the time of his exchange with Mach. Fortunately this had not disrupted the process.

Bane looked out over the grassy plain. It was good to be back in Phaze, after the horrors of the pursuit by the Proton Contrary Citizens! Mach had told him briefly of the discovery by Stile, his father, that their exchange was causing a dangerous imbalance, so they had to spend more time in their own frames. Thus he was back for that reason—but the love of his home frame smote him, and he knew he was glad that this need had developed. It was early morning, just as it had been in Proton, but here it was beautiful.

Except for his separation from Agape. He loved her too, and wanted to be with her—and could not, here.

The girl blinked, recovering equilibrium. “We have exchanged, Fleta,” he told her. “I be not Mach.”

There was a little pop behind him, and a trace of vapor passed, evidently lingering from the mist of the dawn.

She stared at him. “You are alive!” she breathed. “Aye, filly.” Then he asked her about the nature of the truce Mach had told him about, but she seemed confused.

“Where are we?” she asked.

He laughed. “Where thou hast always been, mare! In Phaze, o’ course.”

Still she seemed perplexed. “Please—do some magic,” she said.

He realized that she had suffered some kind of shock, perhaps because of her proximity to the exchange he had made with Mach. He conjured a basket of oats for her.

“I am not the unicorn,” she said. “I am Agape.”

“Be thou joking, mare?”

She claimed she was not. There followed some confusion, as each doubted the other’s identity, but soon she convinced him that she was indeed Agape. He could not, however, convince her that he was Bane. Finally they compromised: he gave her a spell she could invoke for protection and left her. He would know if she used the spell, so he could check on her, for it was his magic.

Then he conjured himself to the Blue Demesnes.

His mother, the Lady Blue, welcomed him, of course. It was his father Stile he was concerned about.

He need not have been. They met privately in Stile’s office, protected from observation by a careful spell. “I made a mistake in judging you,” Stile said, speaking in his original dialect, as he was apt to do when serious. “Or perhaps in judging your other self, Mach the Robot. I should have remembered how Sheen was—and how Neysa was. Their offspring—” He shrugged. “I shall not err like that again.”

There was a faint ripple in the air. Bane was startled. The statement had seemed incidental, but that was the splash of truth. Stile was deadly serious.

“As you may know, Fleta sought to kill herself,” Stile continued gravely. “And Mach rescued her in a manner reminiscent of my own Oath of Friendship to Neysa, proving his love and his nascent power. Were you aware that he overrode an Adept’s spell in the process?”

“I had not much time for news,” Bane said. “Trool’s spell?”

“Trool’s spell. He always was too decent for his own good, and when he couldn’t talk her out of suicide, he gave her what she asked, reluctantly. It was incidental magic, for him—but no ordinary person overrides any Adept magic! The doing of it shook the frame, and suddenly all of us knew that a new Adept was in the process of coming into being. Translucent pounced on the opening, and won Mach’s trust, leaving us in a very bad situation.”

“Aye,” Bane agreed. “Dost know that I have found love in Proton-frame?”

“The parallelism of the frames made that likely. We were so blinded by our concern for the continuation of our line that we lost sight of other realities. Our opposition to your union as such is at an end. Do what you must do; I’m sure you have found a worthy companion.”

“As such?”

Stile laughed. “We still must oppose it—for different reason. You cannot remain in Proton without aggravating the deadly imbalance.”

“Ah, aye,” Bane agreed. “So it be the same.” He grimaced. “I sought not love there,” he continued. “I knew not I was going there, when first it happened. But e’en as thou didst find love across the frames, so did I.”

“I was concerned about the future,” Stile said. “Now I am concerned about the present. The Adverse Adepts are marshaling their forces, seeking to use their advantage to achieve complete victory. If they can establish communication between the frames, merging Proton analytic techniques with Phaze magic, they can dominate this frame. You and Mach are the key; if you cooperate in that, the power is theirs.”

“I seek not to give them that!” Bane protested.

“But if they take possession of your woman?”