“I be not surprised,” he said.
They used the food machine to get a meal. Bane paused at it. “This be a different machine! See, it has a colorless bar painted across it; the other had a white bar.”
“The dust has a different flavor,” Agape agreed.
“You can taste the dust?”
“When I sleep, I do not absorb the dust, because I taste it and reject it,” she explained. “I absorb only what is nourishing.” She then went protoplasmic and absorbed her nutri-bev, while Bane pondered their situation.
So they had been moved. Was it just to another suite, or farther? There seemed to be no way to know.
After they had eaten and caught up on routine functions, such as combing hair and trying unsuccessfully to get information from the video screen, they heard someone at the exit panel. The aperture opened and a serf appeared. It was an attractive young woman. “Foreman will see you now,” she announced.
They seemed to have no choice. They followed the serf out. She led them to a chamber with chairs and a desk. An older male serf sat at the desk.
“You may call me Foreman,” the serf said. “The Citizen wishes you to understand your position. You, Bane, have demonstrated that contact between the two frames is possible, and that information can be exchanged. The Citizen wishes to establish regular contact with his opposite number in Phaze. He is prepared to make it worth your while to facilitate this contact.”
“I have no contact!” Bane protested. “I have been trying to find my way back, and have been unable.”
“The Citizen will help you to find your way. All you have to do is explain how you made the exchange with the robot to reach this frame, and how you propose to return.”
“Bane,” Agape murmured. “He says it is a male Citizen. We were in the power of a female Citizen.”
“You are not where you were,” Foreman said. “You were transferred to the estate of another interested Citizen. The identity of that Citizen is not your concern.”
“But this is kidnapping!” Agape protested. “We are members of the Experimental Project! We should not be held here!”
“You will be returned to that project after you have satisfied the Citizen,” Foreman said. “I suggest that you cooperate to the maximum extent.”
“Why should I cooperate with thee?” Bane demanded. “If thou hadst not interfered, I would have been home by now!”
“That is why you were intercepted,” Foreman said. “The Citizen could not allow you to return before making use of your unique ability. For twenty years there has been no contact between the frames; now there can be. This is more important than your private concern; the welfare of the frames can be affected by the restoration of communication.”
“But what good would it be, if Mach and I be the only two who can exchange places? Thou canst not have trade or any dialogue not filtered through this body; I would have to carry any message of thine to any person there.”
“That would suffice,” Foreman said. “The Citizen misses the old days of free contact; he wants to know how his opposite number is doing in Phaze, and catch up on the general history, and provide similar information. There can be nothing tangible, but that need be no bar to social contact.”
Bane was not well versed in the technology of Proton, but he had a fair notion of people. He could tell that this serf was not giving him the whole story. Therefore he balked. “I see not the need for such contact. The frames have gone their separate ways for a score years; they can continue.”
“Still, the Citizen would like to have this contact, and as I said, he is willing to make it worth your while to humor him. It is always best to humor a Citizen.”
“Citizens mean naught to me!” Bane said hotly.
But Agape drew on his arm. “I have not been on Proton long myself, Bane,” she said. “But I know it is terrible trouble to go against a Citizen. I beg you, do not antagonize this one.”
Bane recognized the sensible voice of caution. Still, he knew something was false here. What should he do?
“What do you most want in life?” Foreman inquired.
“To go home,” Bane answered immediately. But he wondered whether it was still that important to him.
“You can go home. Only show us how you do it.”
Again there was an aspect of insincerity in the man. What would happen to Mach when he returned to this body and this frame? Surely the Citizen would not just let him return to the Experimental Project. Still, the Citizen could not make them exchange again if they didn’t want to, so there did not seem to be a serious risk. “I think I’ll wait awhile.”
“You bargain for something? Do not try the Citizen’s patience.”
“Bane, if the Citizen will help you return—” Agape said.
Still it was too pat. Bane remembered how his father Stile dealt with Adverse Adepts whose power paralleled his own. Once those Adepts had tried to kill him, and had killed his other self. There was always a tension in the air when one of those encountered Stile now, and Bane visualized them as dragons who longed to attack, but were restrained by the knowledge that Stile was stronger and had allies who were dangerous to dragons. Yet the words were always courteous; the enmity was muted. One thing was sure: Stile never trusted an Adverse Adept. Bane did not trust this anonymous Citizen either.
“I be not bargaining,” he said. “I just want to deal not.”
“If you do not, as you put it, deal, you will be unlikely to return at all.”
“Bane—” Agape said urgently.
Foreman glanced at her. “What is this amoeba to you?”
“My friend!” Bane snapped. “Sneer not at her!”
“Your friend,” Foreman said thoughtfully. “Then she can be included. Whatever you want for her, she will have.”
“Her freedom!”
“Of course. Show us how you communicate with Phaze.”
“Bane, you do not know how bad the enmity of a Citizen is,” Agape said, distressed. “Before I came to Proton, I knew that no serf must ever oppose any Citizen. It can be immediate expulsion from the planet, or even—”
“Finish your sentence,” Foreman told her mildly. Bane realized that this was a kind of threat.
“Death,” Agape whispered.
Foreman returned his attention to Bane. “The Citizen has been gentle with you because he knows you are not conversant with our culture. The alien speaks truly. Don’t push your luck.”
Bane felt little but contempt for the Citizen and his minion. But it did seem best to temporize. “Maybe—a game,” he said.
“What?”
“Do not folk settle things here by playing games? Let me play a game with the Citizen, and if I win, Agape and I go free immediately, and if he wins I’ll show him how I make contact with Phaze.”
The serf seemed to swell up. “You offer such a deal to the Citizen? No serf has the temerity!”
“I be not a serf,” Bane said. “I be an apprentice Adept.”
“Here you are a serf—and you are in danger of becoming less even than that. I strongly suggest that you reconsider, before—”
A voice cut in, emerging from a grille on the desk. “I will make that wager.”
Foreman’s face froze. “Sir.”
“Conduct our guests to the Game Annex.”
“Yes, sir.” The foreman stood with alacrity. “Follow me.” He walked quickly from the room.
“Citizens like to gamble,” Agape whispered. “It is notorious throughout the galaxy! But I never imagined—”
“I trust this not,” Bane muttered.
“Trust is not a factor when dealing with a Citizen!” she said. “They give the orders, the serfs obey them.”
They arrived at a pedestal similar to the one Bane had played on before, with the female robot. “Wait here,” Foreman said tersely.
In a moment a stout clothed man walked up from the other side. This was obviously the Citizen. His apparel was white, and he wore a ring set with a huge pu
rple amethyst.
“Purple!” Bane exclaimed.
“Say Sir to the Citizen!” Foreman snapped.
But the Citizen hoisted a restraining hand. “You know me from somewhere, apprentice Adept?”
“Aye,” Bane agreed. “Thou art the Purple Adept.”
The Citizen smiled. “So you really are from Phaze! And my other self retains his position there.”
“Aye,” Bane agreed warily. Purple was one of the Adverse Adepts, a dragon lurking. Now Bane was quite sure that this man was not to be trusted. But he did have power, whether as Adept or Citizen, and had to be handled carefully.
“So it seems we have a wager,” the Citizen said, smiling coldly. “One game to settle the issue. I win, I get your secret; you win, you go free.”
“Aye,” Bane agreed, not quite sure of himself. He might have contempt for the idiosyncrasies of the society of Proton, but the power of Adepts he understood and feared. He had in effect challenged a dragon barehanded, and he was apt to rue it.
“Then play, apprentice,” the Citizen said, touching his side of the pedestal.
Bane looked at the grid. The numbers, letters and words were there by the squares.
“But this is wrong!” Agape said. “Both are lighted!”
So they were. Which was he to choose from?
“This is not your ordinary entertainment-type game,” the Citizen said. “In this one, you choose all your parameters, and I choose mine.”
Agape fidgeted beside him. Bane knew she was bothered by this, but he was prepared to play one version of the Game or another. He touched PHYSICAL and NAKED, 1A. He felt most comfortable with that.
“But the Citizen isn’t limited to that!” Agape reminded him.
He hadn’t thought of that. In immediate retrospect it was obvious. He had blundered, but it was too late to take it back. The second grid was already on the screen.
“You choose,” he told her, knowing that her limited experience was more comprehensive than his own.
“I will go with you,” she said, touching 8. COOPERATIVE. “And maybe slopes are best.” She touched F, which covered FIRE or VARIABLE SURFACE.
“And I have chosen 2C6H,” the Citizen said. “Machine-assisted intellectual interactive general-format.”
Bane was baffled by the description. “What meaneth that?”
The Citizen gestured toward the door beside the pedestal. “Enter the Game and find out, apprentice. You and your alien friend are a naked team. If you suffer a Game-death, you lose.”
Bane shrugged. He went to the door, and Agape followed him. It was an opaque panel that fogged at his touch. They stepped through.
They were in mountains. Ahead was a thickly wooded slope. The peak of the mountain had a purple hue.
“The Purple Mountain range!” Bane exclaimed. His confidence increased. He knew this range; he had crossed it several times, by magic and by foot, sometimes with Fleta. This was of course a mere mockup, like the Vampire Demesnes of Citizen White; even so, he was much more at home here than in ordinary Proton.
“Challenges to be mounted singly,” the voice of the Game Machine announced. “Time limit: seven days.”
“So we have seven days to avoid the Game-death,” Bane said. “But how will the Citizen try to kill us? What be a machine-assisted intellectual format?”
“I do not know,” Agape said. “I thought it was a computer, but I don’t see how that can hurt us.”
“I think, as he said, we shall find out.”
“This is made to resemble Phaze? Could the hazards be natural ones of that frame?”
“If they are, I’ll know how to handle them. But there be no computers in Phaze.”
“Sometimes computers run things.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like robots, or—”
“Robots!” he exclaimed. “Like this body?”
She nodded. “Oh, Bane, I fear this will be bad.”
“But singly,” he reminded her. “Since there be two of us, mayhap we can handle them. One can sleep, the other watch.”
“And it’s not real death,” she said, taking heart. “We won’t really be hurt. But if we lose—”
“Then I will show the Citizen what he wishes,” Bane said grimly. “I like that not, for I trust him not, but I gave my word.”
She glanced at him sidelong. “Your word is important to you.”
“It be a matter of honor. My father has honor, and I be his son.”
She nodded. “It’s a good way to be.”
“It be the only way to be. A man without honor be not a man.”
“And what of those who are not men to begin with?”
Now he looked at her. “Elves have honor too, and unicorns and werewolves.”
“Women—or creatures from other worlds?”
He laughed. “If thou dost have it not, tell me now, ere I trust thee to guard me in my sleep!”
“I may define it somewhat differently in detail, but I think the essence is the same.”
They moved on through the forest, warily. “This be not Phaze, so I have no magic here,” Bane said. “That makes me feel naked.”
“You could fashion some clothing.”
He laughed again. “Mayhap thou dost resemble Fleta some! E’er doth she tease. Her dam be always serious, and doth stay mostly in equine form, but Fleta—” He shrugged.
“Then perhaps a weapon. ‘Naked’ in the Game parlance means that you are provided with no tool, but you can make what you want from the surroundings. We don’t know what kind of a robot will be attacking us, but it may not be wise to meet it barehanded.”
“True.” Bane looked about. “I would cut a staff, but have no knife.”
“I can form a sharp edge,” she offered.
“Sharp enough to cut wood?” he asked dubiously.
“I form substance hard enough to serve the function of bone and teeth; I can form harder if I try.”
“That be right! In minutes thou dost go from jelly to full human form. Canst make a metal knife?”
“In facsimile,” she said. She lifted her right hand, and it melted into a glob, then extended into something like a dagger. The edge firmed until it gleamed, looking wickedly sharp.
“Like magic,” Bane breathed admiringly.
“What do you want cut?”
He checked around, and found a suitable sapling. “This.”
She put her blade-extremity to its base and sliced. The edge cut in. She withdrew it and set it again, and in a moment a wedge of wood fell out. She made other cuts, and soon the sapling had been felled.
“Thou dost have thy uses,” Bane said. “With powers like that, what use dost thou have for this Proton society?”
“My kind has individual abilities, but not technological ones,” she said. “We need to learn, so that we do not remain a backplanet species.”
“Methinks I prefer this backplanet,” he remarked.
“I was speaking for my species, not necessarily myself.”
Under his direction, she cut off branches and topped it, forming a long pole. Bane hefted it with satisfaction. “A sword would be better, but this be enough for now.”
There was a stir from the side. Bane whirled about. “Mayhap none too soon!” he muttered.
It was no false alarm. A stocky goblin was approaching. The goblin had a small sword, and he waved it menacingly. “I’ll destroy you, miscreant!” it cried.
“Goblins use not swords,” Bane muttered. “Unless disciplined into an army, and they be more likely to hurt each other than the enemy. And they talk not of destruction; they just attack.”
“It’s the Citizen-using a remote-controlled robot,” Agape said. “Don’t let it get too close.”
“Scant danger of that!” Bane agreed. “Do thou get behind me, so it can attack thee not.” He faced the goblin, his staff ready. He had not used a staff in some time, but his father had required him to train in a number of hand weapons, and he knew how to use it eff
ectively. Normally goblins came in hordes, making them formidable; a single one was not much of a threat.
The goblin simply charged in, swinging his sword. Bane sidestepped it and clubbed the creature’s arm, jarring free the weapon. It fell to the ground.
“Nicely done,” the goblin said in the voice of the Citizen. “Perhaps this will be a pleasant challenge after all.” It stooped to recover the sword.
Bane rammed the goblin in the head with the end of his staff. He intended only to knock it down, knowing that a goblin’s big head was the least vulnerable part of its body and could hardly be hurt by any blow. But the staff stove in the side of the head. Sparks crackled, and the goblin collapsed.
“Ooo, you killed it!” Agape exclaimed. “That is, you put it out of commission.”
“So that was the first challenge,” Bane said, surprised. “A real goblin would die not so readily.” He picked up the goblin’s sword. It was small, but of sturdy steel: a good weapon. “And this be a spoil of war, methinks.”
“But there will be other threats,” Agape reminded him.
“Aye. And if I understand rightly, of different types; we be through with goblins.”
“Let’s get somewhere else,” Agape said nervously.
He found a vine and cut it to length and formed it into a crude belt. From this he hung the sword, so that he didn’t need to carry it in his hand.
They moved on, climbing the slope of the mountain. Its general contour seemed familiar, but he realized that it could be the same mountain in Proton as the one he had known in Phaze, covered by one of the scientific domes and provided with fresh air and planted, so as to duplicate the original more closely. The Citizen had good taste in landscape!
But soon there was another sound, this time from the air. They peered up between the trees and saw a gross bird-shape. “A harpy!” Bane exclaimed.
“Is that worse than a goblin?”
“Depends. True harpies have poisoned talons and can move them very quickly in close quarters. But a robot harpy may be clumsy.”
“I hope so.”
“Clever blow, last time,” the Citizen’s voice came from the harpy. “But you’ll not catch me again that way.”
Bane backed under the canopy of a tree. “Get beyond the trunk,” he told Agape. “If it flies at you, just circle around the tree, staying clear.”
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