Robot Adept

If the Citizen suffered a similar mishap, then points would be assessed and the winner determined. But he did not. Relieved of any need to hurry, he took his time, and brought his slightly incapacitated party safely to the bottom. Thus, anticlimactically, Agape lost the match, and was out of the Tourney.

Mach felt a pang of regret. He reminded himself that she had done it correctly, playing the way a unicorn would; moving alone, gambling with her own safety rather than that of her teammates. Had she sent an android ahead, and had the android taken the incapacitating lava-splat, she would have been allowed to continue. The Citizen might have taken a greater loss of personnel, giving the victory to her. But she had done it Fleta’s way, and lost, and that was the right way to lose.

Still, Mach wished she had won. He knew that the great majority of the audience felt the same.

Agape was returned to her planet, banned from Proton because of her loss in the Tourney. She had made it safely, and Mach knew the Contrary Citizens had no trap remaining there. The administration of the Tourney seemed to have no concern for the fact that if she really had been Fleta, as she had “proved” herself to be for her qualification as a player, this exile would have been inappropriate at best. But what of her relation to Bane?

He had no acceptable answer for that. In order to communicate or exchange with Bane, Mach had to overlap him geographically, and as far as he knew, that could only be done on this planet. If Agape was forever exiled from Proton, how could Bane get together with her?

There were two answers, as he saw it. Either Bane would have to make frequent trips to Planet Moeba, or Agape would have to be allowed to return. Suppose they worked out a compromise: cooperation with the Contrary Citizens, in exchange for this exception to the law of Proton. Would Bane go for that? He wasn’t sure.

Now, belatedly, he realized that the Contrary Citizens had never challenged Fleta’s identity, after challenging her registry in the Tourney. That meant that the tapes of the chamber had never been requisitioned. Now she was safely back on her own planet, and it no longer mattered. He had not had to make love to her, to preserve the pretense.

Still, Agape had done such a good job of imitating Fleta that he was satisfied to leave the recent past as it was. For an hour he had just about been with the filly. What others might think of the situation he wasn’t sure, and didn’t care.

The Tourney proceeded, and a serf woman won it, becoming a Citizen. How nice for her, Mach thought. But what of Agape? Neither she nor Bane deserved this enforced separation.

He spent his time doing research in the computerized Proton Library. Could a machine breed with an amoeba? Suppose a genetic pattern were crafted in the laboratory, living tissue modified to fit the attributes of a living man who occupied the body of a robot…

But why do that, when Bane had his own genetic pattern? What was needed was to send Agape back to Phaze to—

No, for then she would be in Fleta’s body. There seemed to be no way to get the physical Agape together with the physical Bane. Or the physical Mach together with the physical Fleta. No way except magic.

No way except magic. And that existed only in Phaze, while one partner in each couple was physically locked here in Proton. There was the intractable problem.

Then, abruptly, Bane contacted him. The touch was fleeting, but he got the gist: do not exchange yet. Bane was trying to spring a trap, and needed just a little more time.

Mach waited, wondering what was happening. Then Bane contacted him again, with news of a new truce. The picture had changed significantly in Phaze. If the rival factions of Proton agreed, they would have a way to settle this matter, and the two couples could be together regardless of the way it went.

That appealed to him. He agreed without hesitation. He knew Agape would feel the same.

Chapter 11 Magic

« ^ »

Mach found himself standing near the Red Demesnes, with Fleta nearby, and three others. One was Trool the Troll, the Red Adept, whom he had met when he sought Fleta, to prevent her from committing suicide. The second was the Translucent Adept. The third was a sharply pretty young woman who looked familiar. In fact, it was Tania, the sister of their employer in the office in Proton! There she had been naked, and cold; here she was attractively clothed in a tan gown, and that made a significant difference. What was she doing here?

None of them spoke. Evidently they were waiting for him, being uncertain whether he had yet exchanged with Bane. “I am Mach,” he said. “I gather something has happened here, and that there is a new agreement, but I don’t know what it is.”

Fleta approached him. “Be it truly thee, Mach?” she asked. She looked concerned.