Juxtaposition (21 page)

“I have decided I like you. Stile,” she said. “Would you care for an assignation?”

“Uh, what?” he asked awkwardly.

She laughed. “Oh, you are so refreshing! It has been decades since I’ve had a truly naive man.” The scope of the image expanded, to reveal the upper half of her body hanging in the air before him like a statuette, her small but excellent breasts shrouded by a translucent shawl. She must have viewed the holographic record of Stile’s recent experience and grasped his susceptibility to partial clothing on women. “You can see that I am moderately endowed, but please accept my assurance that I am expert with what I have.”

Stile proved his naiveté by blushing. “Sir, you catch me unprepared. Uh—“ She actually clapped her hands in glee. “Oh, absolute delight! I must have you!”

“I can’t say I care to have holographs made of me performing in such a situation,” Stile said, his face burning.

Merle pursed her lips. “But holos are the best part of it, so that one can review the occasion at proper leisure and improve technique.”

Out of range of the holo pickup. Sheen signaled imperatively. She did not want Stile to offend the Citizen. Mellon nodded agreement.

Stile took their advice. “Merle, as you can see, I’m flattered to the point of confusion. This is more than I can handle right now. Could you, would you grant me a stay of decision?”

“Gladly, Stile,” she agreed merrily. “I will contact you tomorrow.”

Some stay! “Thank you,” he said, conscious that his blush had intensified. He was thirty-five years old and hardly inexperienced with women, but his underlying awe of Citizens had betrayed him.

The moment the connection terminated, he snapped: “Block off all other calls! I don’t want any more of that!”

“We dare not block off Citizen calls,” Sheen said. “But I’ll ask my friends to make an inoffensive excuse message for you, and filter out as much as possible.”

“Thanks.” He caught her hand. “You’re beautiful, Sheen.”

“I wish I could move you the way Citizen Merle did,” she grumbled.

“She moved me to naked terror!”

“Naked, yes; terror, no.”

“She’s a sixty-year-old woman!”

“In that respect I can not compete. I was made less than a year ago.”

That reminded him. “Sheen, has there been any progress on your origin? Have your friends discovered who sent you to me and why?”

“I will query them,” Sheen said, but paused. “Oops—a call.”

“I told you, I don’t want—“

“From her.”

There was only one person Sheen referred to that way.

“Oh. Put her on, of course.”

The image formed. The Lady Blue faced him. “My Lord, I dislike bothering thee, but I fear mischief.”

“What mischief?” he demanded, instantly concerned.
 
The Lady Blue was no more beautiful, by objective standards, than Sheen, but she had completely captured his love. It bothered him to have the fact so evident in Sheen’s presence, but there really was no way to avoid it in this situation.

“Clip says he winds ogres.” She glanced nervously about.
 
“We know not why such creatures should be on the isle of the West Pole.”

“I’ll rejoin thee,” Stile said.

“Nay, my Lord. Clip will guard me from harm. I merely advise thee, just in case any difficulty arises.”

“Very well,” he agreed reluctantly. “But if there’s any sign of menace, call me right away. It will take me a while to reach Phaze.”

“I love thee. Lord Blue,” she said, flashing her smile, making the air about her brighten. Stile always liked that magic effect. She faded out.

“Nevertheless,” Stile said grimly to Sheen, “I want to get closer to a curtain-crossing point. Or anywhere along the curtain; once I step across, I can spell myself immediately to the West Pole.”

Mellon was looking at him strangely. Stile smiled.
 
“Have Sheen fill you in more thoroughly; you machines need to know this. I go to a world of magic, where I have a lovely wife and am important.”

“Yes, sir,” Mellon said dubiously. “I trust this will not interfere with your program of estate development.”

“Please infer no insult from this,” Stile told him. “But if my Lady Blue is in danger, my entire Citizenship estate can drop into deep space without a ship.”

“Thank you for clarifying your priorities, sir,” Mellon said stiffly.

“Oh, don’t be stuffy,” Sheen reproved the other robot.
 
“You have to take Stile on his own peculiar terms.”

“Of course. He is a Citizen.”

She turned to Stile. “My friends have a report.”

“Let’s have it.” Stile was discovering that a lot of business could be done on the move.

The image of a desk robot appeared. “Sir, the machine of your inquiry was purchased by Citizen Kalder ten weeks ago, programmed to love and protect the serf Stile, and sent to said serf.”

“But why?” Stile demanded. “Why should a Citizen make an anonymous and expensive gift to a serf he does not employ?”

“That information is not available, sir. I suggest you contact Citizen Kalder.” The image faded.
 

“At least now I have a name,” Stile said. He pondered briefly. “How much does such a robot cost?”

“Approximately five grams of Protonite, sir,” Mellon replied. “This is my own value, which is typical for the type.”

“That is quintuple the twenty-year hire of a serf,” Stile said. “Maybe peanuts for a Citizen, but still out of proportion for a throwaway gift. Easier to send a serf body guard.” Another thought occurred. “Has my own estate been docked that amount for you and the other special personnel?”

“We are rented, sir,” Mellon said. “By special arrangement.”

That meant that the self-willed machines had set it up.
 
They were covertly helping him, so that he could help them. “What do your friends think of our engagement, Sheen?”

“Sir, they are amazed, to the extent their circuitry and programming permit. This changes the situation, giving them the chance for recognition much sooner than other wise. There are grave risks, but they are willing to follow this course.”

“Good enough. I would like to secure your recognition as serfs, not merely because of the help your kind has given me at critical moments, but because I believe it is right. Though if each of you costs five grams, I don’t know how it could be economic for you to work for serf’s wages.”

“We can last several times as long as the tenure of a serf,” Mellon replied. “Once we achieve recognition, there may be a premium for the service we can offer. Properly programmed, we could be superior serfs, performing the routine functions of several. Since we do not sleep, we can accomplish more in a given tenure. The Protonite that powers us is equivalent in value to the food that living serfs consume, and our occasional necessary repairs equate to live-person illness. We feel we shall be economic. But even if we are not, we shall at least have the opportunity to play the Game legitimately, and perhaps some few of our number will advance to Citizenship. That prospect is more important to us than mere service as serfs.”

“So I gather,” Stile agreed. He liked these intelligent machines; he trusted them more than he did many living people, partly because they remained simpler than people.
 
A robot could be deceitful if programmed to be—but what was the point of such programming? Mainly he liked their loyalty to him, personally. They trusted him, so aided him, and he knew they would never betray him.
 

“Sir, do you wish me to place a call to Citizen Kalder?”

Sheen inquired.

“Yes, do it.”

But at that point there was another call from the Lady Blue. “The ogres are closing on us, my Lord,” she said worriedly. “I was not sure before that we were the object of their quest, but now that seems likely. I mislike bothe ing thee, but—“

“I’m on my way!” Stile cried. “Sheen, reroute this tub to the nearest intersection with the curtain. Forget about the call to the Citizen; I’ll tackle that later.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. The capsule shifted motion.

The image of the Lady Blue remained. Stile worked his unit controls to survey the area, looking outward from the West Pole. In a moment he spied an ogre.
 
It was a large, hugely muscled humanoid creature, strongly reminiscent of Stile’s late friend Hulk. Stile felt a pang at the memory; Hulk had been an intelligent, sensitive, considerate man, a Gamesman like Stile himself—but he had been betrayed and murdered by Stile’s enemy. Stile had sworn an oath of vengeance, which he had implemented in his fashion—but that had not restored his friend. In any event, the resemblance was superficial; the ogre’s face was a gross muddy morass of nose and mouth, with two little eyes perched slightly above. The ears dangled down like deflated tires.

Clip changed to man-form and approached the creature.

“Ogre, why dost thou come here?” the unicorn inquired.
 

“Blue be mine enemy,” the creature croaked. Its open mouth was like that of a frog with triangular teeth.
 
“Blue is not thine enemy!” the Lady called. “Blue had a friend who was very like an ogre. Blue never harmed thy kind. Why dost thou believe ill of him now?”

“The Oracle says.”

Another Oracular message? Stile distrusted this.
 
So did the Lady Blue. “Another message was altered, methinks, to make Blue seem villain. Art thou sure—“ But the ogre, dim of wit, roared and charged, making the ground tremble by the fall of its feet. Its hamfist swung forward like a wrecking ball. Ogres simply were not much for dialogue.

“I’ve got to get there!” Stile cried.

“We are not yet at the curtain, sir,” Sheen said. “It will be another ten minutes.”

Stile clenched his teeth and fists, watching the scene in Phaze.

Clip shifted back to his natural form and launched him self after the ogre. The Lady Blue, no fainting flower in a crisis, stepped nimbly aside. Ogre and unicorn lunged past her. Clip placing himself between the other two.
 
The ogre braked, its huge hairy feet literally screeching against the turf. But as it reoriented on the Lady, the unicorn barred the way.

The ogre massed perhaps a thousand pounds. The unicorn, small for his species, was about the same. The ogre’s hamfists were deadly—but so was the unicorn’s pointed horn. It was a momentary stand-off.

Then a second ogre appeared. “Look out behind thee, Lady!” Stile cried. She heard him and whirled. The second ogre’s two hamhands were descending on her head.
 
The Lady ducked down and scooted between the monster’s legs. The curtain was now just ahead of her. As the ogre turned, she straddled the curtain and stood racing it.

But other ogres were appearing. Two converged on the Lady from either side of the curtain. Clip charged to help her—but that permitted the first ogre to converge also.
 
As the two pounced, the Lady spelled herself across the curtain, holding her breath. The ogres crashed into each other where she had been. Stile could not see her in the image; it was difficult to see across the curtain anyway, and the holo pickup was oriented on the fantasy side. But he knew she was in extreme discomfort, with the thin, polluted air of Proton and the barren terrain.
 
But in a moment she reappeared, just beyond the brutes.
 
She had avoided them by using the curtain. Clip spied her and rushed to join her again.

Two more ogres came into view. The five lumbered down upon the woman and unicorn. Clip launched himself at the closest, lowering his horn, skewering the monster through the center.

The ogre was so heavy the unicorn could not lift it; Clip had to back away, extricating his horn, shaking the monster’s blood from it. But the ogre was mortally wounded; brown pus welled from the wound, front and back, and the creature staggered and fell with a crash like that of an uprooted tree.

Meanwhile, the remaining creatures had reconverged on the Lady. “Here to me, Hinblue!” she called, and stepped back across the curtain.

“Aren’t we there yet?” Stile demanded. “She can’t hold out much longer!”

“Sir, there seems to be a power interruption,” Sheen said. “This passage needs repair; we must detour.”

“How long?” Stile cried.

“Another fifteen minutes, sir, I fear.”

Stile clapped his hands to his head in nonphysical pain.

“My Lady! My Lady!”

“I love her too, sir,” Sheen murmured.

Stile could only watch the unfolding sequence helplessly. He should never have left the Lady Blue so lightly guarded!

The Lady reappeared beyond the ogres as Hinblue arrived. “Now you can catch me not!” she cried, vaulting on to her 5ne steed, The four ogres nevertheless started after her. Clip raced to join Hinblue.

But as they moved out, readily outdistancing the monsters, a small ravine appeared ahead. “Watch out!” Stile cried.

Too late. The distracted horse put a foot in it. Instantly Hinblue went down and the Lady flew off and forward.
 
Athlete that she was, she landed on her feet, running, unhurt.