Split Infinity

He was not. An alert gardener challenged him before he had taken twenty steps. “Halt, intruder! You’re not of this estate.”

“I—came from outside. I—got lost.” Stile doubted he could afford to tell the truth, and he would not lie. “I had to come in; I would have died.”

“You look half dead,” the serf agreed.

Another serf hurried up. “I’m the garden foreman.  Who are you? What were you doing outside without equipment? What are you carrying?”

That was a foreman, all right! “I am Stile, unemployed, formerly a jockey. I thought my life was threatened, so I tried to hide. But—“ He shrugged. “It’s a different world out there.”

“It sure as hell is. Were you trying to suicide?”

“No. But I nearly died anyway. I have had no food or water for two days.”

The foreman ignored the hint. “I asked you what you are carrying.”

“This bundle—it is medieval Earth costume. I thought it would help me, in the other world.”  He was skirting a fuzzy line, ethically, and didn’t like it. But again: wouldn’t the truth convey less of the situation to this man than this half-truth did? What serf would believe a story about a magic world?

The foreman took the bundle and spread it out on the ground. “A harmonica?”

Stile spread his hands silently. He was now in a position where anything he said would seem a lie, including the truth. Suddenly Phaze seemed like a figment of his imagination, the kind of hallucination a man exposed to oxygen deprivation and gaseous pollutants might have. Especially if he had also suffered from hunger, thirst, and cold. In the past, men had undertaken similar deprivations as rites of passage, provoking similar visions. What had happened to him, really?

“I’ll have to notify the Citizen,” the foreman said.  Stile’s hopes sank; this surely meant trouble. Had the man simply told him to clear out to serf quarters—

“Sir,” the foreman said.

“What is it, gardener?” the Citizen’s voice responded.

It sounded familiar.

“Sir, a stranger has intruded from outside, carrying medieval Earth costume, including sword, knife, and a musical instrument.”

“Bring him to the viewer.” The voice gave Stile a chill. Where had he heard it before?

The foreman conducted Stile to a booth with a holo pickup. Stile stepped inside, knowing his whole body was being reproduced in image in the Citizen’s quarters.  He was dirty and abraded as well as suffering from hunger and thirst; he must look awful.

“Name?” the Citizen snapped.

“Stile, sir.”

There was a pause. The Citizen would be checking the name in the computerized serf-listing. “The jockey and Gamesman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Play that instrument.”

The gardening foreman quickly located the harmonica and jabbed it at Stile. Stile took it and put it to his mouth. This was his proof of identity; an impostor could probably not match his skill. He played a few bars, and as it had a few hours before, the emerging beauty of the music transformed his outlook. He began to get into the feel of it—

“Very well. Stile,” the Citizen said, having no interest in the art of it. “Your present employer vouches for you. Wait here until his representative picks you up.”

His present employer? What could this mean? Stile did not respond, since no query had been addressed to him. He rejoined the foreman, who solemnly handed back the rest of his bundle.

Suddenly Stile recognized the voice he had heard.  The Black Adept! This was the Proton-self of that evil magician, having no knowledge of the other frame, but very much like his other self. It made sense—this dome was very near the site of the Black Castle. Stile’s conjecture about Adepts and Citizens had been confirmed.  Had this citizen any reason to suspect him—

Stile breathed a silent sigh of relief. There was no reason for such suspicion, and Citizens hardly cared about stray serfs. Since another Citizen was taking Stile off his hands, that ended the matter. Stile would have to make his explanations to his own employer, instead of wasting the time of this one. And if one of the Black Adept Citizen’s serfs ever got lost, other Citizens would return the favor similarly. Serfs were hardly worth quarreling over.

A woman arrived, very well formed. As her face turned to him—“Sheen! How glad I am to see thee!” Oops—wrong language.

She frowned. “Come on. Stile. You had no business wandering outside. Suppose you had damaged the costume? It will go hard with you if you stray again.” She turned to the foreman. “Thank you. He was supposed to bring the costume to our employer’s isolation dome, and must have lost the way. He’s a klutz at times.”

“He tried to tell me he was unemployed,” the foreman said.

She smiled. “He used to be a jockey. He must have taken one fall too many.” She made a little circle about one ear with one finger. “These things happen. We apologize for the inconvenience to you.”

“It brightens the night shift,” the foreman said, ad-miring her body. Inconvenience became more tolerable when it brought a figure like this to the scene.