Robot Adept

Color developed in the air, swirling diaphanously. “The Contrary Citizens have agreed,” a melodious voice said. “Agape will be recalled from Planet Moeba, on the technicality that she was never in the Tourney, but served only as the host for the unicorn who was, so cannot be deported for the unicorn’s loss. She will join you here in due course. In the interim, I need to learn from you what has occurred in Phaze during the past fifteen years.”

“I will try to tell thee—”

“Your present body is a machine. Plug in your brain, and I will take a full readout.”

“Readout?” Bane was baffled.

“There is an access panel behind your left ear. Connect this.” A multipronged plug appeared, extending from the wall.

Bane found the panel and slid it open. He plugged in the plug. His awareness changed.

First he felt a kind of draining, as if his mind were pouring out through the connection. Then he felt a return flow, as if other material were entering. He knew he was not losing his own identity; the information was merely being called up and copied. But the process was interactive, and the act of reading his mind generated a lesser return flow, so that he perceived, as in a dream, the memories of the Oracle. At first he resisted; then he realized that this was a remarkable opportunity, and sank into the dream.

There were levels and levels of it, a memory within the dream. Bane, confused, sought the beginning—and found himself in a vision of ancient Earth, when magic was there. In the ambience of magic, things occurred that were not possible with science, such as instant shape- and mass-changing, and the crossbreeding of divergent species. Indeed, crossbreeds nourished, and many such species had stabilized. Their magic was internal; they limited their effects to set form changes and particular talents, such as carving rock. They retained their potency throughout their lives.

But every act of external magic—that which was not natural to the species—depleted the store of magic on the planet, and so its power inevitably diminished. The vacuum was slowly taken up by a new system, later codified as science. At first science was weak and unreliable, but it gained strength in direct proportion to the diminution of magic. In sum: magic waned, science waxed. Those who practiced the new discipline came to doubt that the old one had ever had validity, because they assumed that the fundamental forces of the universe were unchanging. That was their folly—but on Earth it could not be disabused. The old texts of magic were systematically destroyed, for their spells no longer operated.

But in the larger universe, magic remained, and though it was losing its effect throughout, certain nuclei retained their potency. These came to shine like beacons in the thinning ambience, and drew the devotees of the old disciplines who were by their specialized arts able to detect them from afar. One of the strongest was the planet Phaze, where enormous magical energy had imbued its specialized nether rock.

Earth was becoming inhospitable. An oracle, or prophecy, told of a distant locale where magic would be safe. So certain creatures fashioned a great wicker boat they called the Craft of the Oracle, or Coracle. Those who were ready to risk their lives for the sake of such a dream boarded it and set sail, leaving the more conservative majority of creatures behind. The Coracle passed through the fluxes of the universe and came at last to its destination, bringing to this planet the first unicorns, werewolves, harpies, vampires, dragons, elves, goblins, ogres, demons, trolls and others, leaving behind the centaurs, rocs, merfolk, sphinxes and others. The creatures spread out to fill the ecological niches of Phaze, and flourished; in due course there were many herds of unicorns, packs of werewolves, flocks of vampires, hordes of goblins and conclaves of elves. They achieved a certain equilibrium, each dominating its chosen habitat, generally hostile to each other when there was competition for particular territory.

Then, hundreds or perhaps thousands of years later, man came to Phaze. Magic had been all but exterminated on Earth, and the crossbreeds remaining there were extinct. Some had been vicious creatures whose disappearance was little loss, but some had cultivated the best traits of their ancestor species, and their demise was a tragedy. The centaurs had been too arrogant to settle for any region less than Earth itself; now not only Earth but the universe existed without their civilization. Instead it suffered the ravages of man.