Robot Adept (3 page)

“No right at all!” Mach agreed, feeling a pang. “Yet if remaining with you means destruction for us both, and the frames themselves, what can I do? We lose each other either way.”

“Nay, there be proffered compromise,” Furramenin said. “That be the completion o’ my message: an thou agree to exchange back for equal periods, that the frames may recover somewhat, truce will be extended for that.”

“The families accept our union?” Fleta asked eagerly.

“Nay. They merely recognize an impasse, and seek to prevent further damage while some solution be negotiated.”

“If I return to Proton for a time, they will accede to equal time here with Fleta?” Mach asked. “A month there, a month here, with no interference?”

“Aye, that be the offer,” the bitch said.

“That seems to be a good offer,” Mach said to Fleta.
 
She gazed stonily into the ground, resisting the notion of any separation at all. Unicorns were known to be stubborn, and though Fleta was normally the brightest and sweetest of creatures, now this aspect was showing.
 
Her dam, Neysa, was reputed to be more so.
 
Mach looked helplessly at Furramenin. The werebitch responded with a shrug that rippled the deep cleavage of her bodice. “Mayhap thou couldst offer her something to make up for thy separation,” she murmured.

Mach snapped his fingers. “Offspring!” he exclaimed.

Fleta looked up, interested.

“Grant me this temporary separation from you,” he said, “and on my return I shall make my most serious effort to find a way to enable us to have a baby, and shall pursue it until successful.”

They waited. Slowly Fleta thawed, though she did not speak.

Mach addressed the bitch again. “What of the Adverse Adepts? Do they accede to such a truce?”

The watery bubble appeared, floating at head height.
 
“Aye,” the Translucent Adept said. “Our observation in this respect marches that o’ the other side. The frames are being eroded. We profit not, an the mechanism o’ our contact destroy our realm. But the two o’ ye can communicate regardless o’ the frames occupied. Hold to thy agreement with us, and we care not which frame thou dost occupy.”

“I cannot implement that agreement unless my other self concurs,” Mach reminded him.

“And the other side cannot profit from the connection unless thou dost concur,” Translucent agreed.
 
“The impasse remains—but an Bane appear here, mayhap we can negotiate with him.”

“I suppose that is the way it must be,” Mach said.
 
“I must seek my other self and offer to exchange with him. I hope I can devise a spell to locate him.”

“Surely thou canst,” Translucent agreed, fading out.
 

“I must return to my Pack,” Furramenin said. She became the wolf, and exited at a dogtrot.
 

Mach pondered. To do magic, he had to devise a bit of rhyme and deliver it in singsong. That would implement it, but the important part was his conception and will. If he wished for a “croc” verbally, he could conjure an item of pottery or a container of human refuse or a large toothed reptile, depending on his thought. He had very little experience with magic, and was apt to make awkward errors, but he was learning.

What he wanted was an unerring way to locate his other self. He did not want to risk any modification of his own perceptions, because if that went wrong, he could discover himself blind or deaf or worse. But if he had an object like a compass that always pointed to Bane’s location on Proton, he could follow it, and if he made some error in Grafting it, he could correct it when the error became apparent. Was there any type of compass that rhymed with “self”?

He quested through the archives of his Proton education, but came up with nothing. How much easier it would be if that word “croc” fit! Rock, mock, smock, lock, flock—

Then it came to him: delf. Delf was colored, glazed earthenware made for table use in the middle ages of Earth. A kind of crockery, not special, except that it proffered the rhyme he needed. If he could adapt pottery to his purpose ...

He worked it out in his mind, then tried a spell: “Give me delf to find myself,” he singsonged, concentrating on a glazed cup.

The cup appeared in his hand. The glaze was bright: brighter on one side than the other. Mach turned the cup, but the highlight remained on the east side.
 
“I think I have it,” he said, relieved. He had been afraid he would have to try several times before he got it right. Apparently the effort he had made to work out both rhyme and visualization ahead of time had paid off. He could do magic adequately if he just took proper pains with it.

“All I have to do is follow the bright side, and I should intersect Bane.” For Bane’s location in the frame of Proton would match the spot indicated in the frame of Phaze; the geography of the two worlds was identical, except for changes wrought by man. The separation of the two was of another nature than physical; the two overlapped, and were the same in alternate aspects, just as many of the folk were the same on each. Otherwise it would not have been possible for Mach and Bane to exchange identities, with Mach’s machine mind taking over Bane’s living body in Phaze, and Bane’s mind taking over Mach’s robot body in Proton.
 
Fleta did not respond. She was evidently still pensive because of the prospect of even a temporary separation.
 
But he believed she could accept it in due course. Even unicorn stubbornness yielded on occasion to necessity.
 
Or did it? The following day did not ameliorate her reservation. Fleta did not want to go. She agreed that the compromise was valid and the- measured separation necessary, but she made no effort to mask her dislike of it.

“How can I be sure thou willst return, once thou art gone?” she grumbled.

“Of course I will return!” he protested. “I love you!”

“I mean that the Citizens or Adepts will not let thee back. They interfered before; hast thou forgotten?”

 
“It was the Adverse Adepts and the Contrary Citizens who interfered,” he reminded her. “Now they support us.”

“Until they find some other way to achieve their purpose,” she muttered. “Mach, I like this not! I fear for thee, and for me. I fear deception and ill will. I want only to be with thee fore’er. E’en if we must constantly kiss.”

“So do I,” he said. “But I am willing to make some sacrifice now, in the hope that things will improve. Perhaps our families will agree to our union, in the course of this truce, so that you will be able to return to your Herd without being shunned.”

A glimmer of hope showed. “Aye, perhaps,” she agreed.

“Now I must follow the highlight on the delf. I hope you will come with me, so that our separation can be held to the very minimum.”

She tried to resist, but could not. She converted to her black unicorn form, proffering a ride for him.
 
Mach mounted her, and for a moment reached down around her neck to hug her. “Thank you, Fleta.” She twitched an ear at him in an expression of annoyance, but it lacked force.

They left the island, passing through the water as the bitch had. The Ordovician flora and fauna ignored them, having gotten to know them. Mach knew that it would have been otherwise, had the Translucent Adept not invited them; these creatures might be several hundred million years old, geologically, but this was their realm, and they were competent within it. So Fleta’s hooves avoided trampling the sponges and fernlike graptolites, and the squidlike nautiloids watched with out reaction. Translucent had promised a place where Mach and Fleta could dwell safely together; this was certainly that!

They emerged to the normal land, and the past was gone; it existed only in Translucent’s Demesnes, and these were in water. Now Fleta could gallop freely, knowing the general if not the specific terrain. They traveled for a day, avoiding contact with other creatures, and camped for the night by a small stream. Fleta changed to girlform so that they could make love, having thawed to that extent, then returned to mareform to graze while Mach slept alone.

She was avoiding him, he realized. Not overtly, but significantly, by spending most of her time with him in her natural form. She denied the implication by assuming girlform for his passion, but he knew that this was tokenism; she felt no sexual need when not in heat, and did it only to please him. So he was left with no complaint to make, yet the awareness of their subtle estrangement.

She didn’t want him to return to Proton. She had agreed to it, knowing the necessity, but not with her heart. Perhaps she felt he had compromised in this respect too readily. She lacked the type of training he had had in Proton, that made it easy for him to accept the rationale of frames imbalance. She was a creature of the field and forest, while he was a creature of city and machine. Perhaps the root of his love for her lay in that. Her world represented life, for him, and that was immeasurably precious.

She thought he sought some pretext to leave her, after having won her love. How wrong she was in that suspicion! He sought a way to make their liaison permanent, recognizing the barriers that existed.
 
He gazed out into the night, where she grazed in pained aloofness. How could he satisfy her that her hurt was groundless? He realized that the differences between them were more than machine and animal, or technology and magic; they were male and female. He had assumed that rationality governed; she assumed that emotion governed.

And didn’t it? Had he acted rationally, he would never have fallen into love with her!

“Thee, thee, thee,” he whispered.

A ripple of light spread out from him, causing the very night to wave and the stars overhead to glimmer in unison. It was the splash, again, faint because this was not its first invocation, but definite.
 
Suddenly Fleta was there, in girlform, in his embrace.
 
She had received it, and must have flown, literally, to rejoin him. She said no word, but her tears were coursing. There was no separation of any type between them now.

On the third day they caught up to Bane. He was evidently in Hardom, the Proton city-dome that was at the edge of the great southern Purple Mountain range.
 
In Phaze it was the region that harpies clustered. Thus the Proton name, reflecting the parallelism: HARpy DOMe, Hardom. But there were no harpies in Proton, of course, other than figuratively.

They paused to pay a call on the harpy they had befriended during their flight from the Adverse Adepts and their minions the goblins. That had been before the Translucent Adept’s intercession and their change of sides. This was Phoebe, who had by virtue of Mach’s fouled-up magic gained a horrendous hairdo that she liked screechingly well. It had enabled her to assume leadership among her kind, having before been outcast because of an illness. Fleta had cured that illness, which was the real basis of the unusual friendship; harpies generally had no interest in human or in unicorn acquaintance.

Phoebe was perched in her bower. Her head remained the absolute fright-wig that Mach had crafted, with radiating spikes of hair that made her reminiscent of a gross sea urchin. “Aye!” she screeched. “The rovot and the ‘corn. I blush to ‘fess it, but glad I be to see ye again!”

“We were passing, and thought we would pay our respects,” Mach explained. “I must return to my own frame for a time.”

“So? Methought thou didst have a thing for the ‘corn.”

“I do. I will return to her. But there is business I must attend to meanwhile.”

“Be there any aid I can render?” Phoebe asked. “Ye be mine only friends among thy kinds.”

“You have done more than enough for us. We merely wished to greet you again, and be on our way.”

“As thou dost wish,” the harpy said, shrugging. “But let me give thee another feather to summon me, in case thou shouldst have need o’ me.” She plucked it from her tail with a claw and extended it to him.
 

“Thank you,” Mach said, touched. Harpies were in a general way abominable creatures, but this one they had befriended seemed quite human. Probably the others would be too, if the animosity between species could be overcome. He tucked the feather into a pocket.
 

“Yet it be late,” Phoebe continued. “The night be cool, and my nest be warm. If ye two would stay the eve—“ Mach exchanged a glance with Fleta. This nest had fond memories for them. They decided to stay.
 
In the morning they continued to the spot where Bane was, on the edge of the plain just north of the Purple Mountains. The glow on the delf cup became so bright it was as if the sunlight were reflecting from it, but the sky was overcast. When the glow spread to circle the cup, Mach knew that this was where he could overlap his opposite self.

He turned to Fleta, who now changed to girlform, wearing her cape and shoes. Her mane became her lustrous black hair, a trifle wild and wholly beautiful.
 
He embraced her and kissed her. “You must explain to Bane, if he doesn’t already know,” he said.
 
Mutely, she nodded. They disengaged.

It was time. But though he had to leave her, he sought some way to make the parting less absolute. He wanted to say something, or to give her something. But he could think of nothing to say, and had nothing to give.
 
His hand went to his pocket, reflexively. His fingers found the feather.