“They figured to sneak her out on a routine supply flight,” Purple’s voice came. “We figure to pluck it like a plum.” He laughed coarsely. “A damned purple plum! Blue’s got a lot of wealth, but precious little common sense! Here he’s trying to figure out how to get you back, and he’s losing his own high card!”
Bane watched, mortified, as the supply craft came into sight. The attack-craft intercepted it, surrounding it.
“They’re signaling for help,” Purple remarked. “Doesn’t matter; by the time it comes, the prize’ll be ours.”
Indeed, the attacking craft brought the supply craft to the sand. Suited men sprang out and swarmed to it. Soon they hauled a figure out, and Bane could tell by the way it moved that it was Agape.
They shoved her into one craft. The screen changed to show the face of a serf. “Sir, we have the alien,” the man said.
“Put her on the screen,” Purple said. “I want to see her myself.”
They hauled Agape up to the camera. She remained in the suit, but now her helmet was off. Her features were slightly melted around the edges, because of her distress. She was still struggling, but ineffectively.
Bane felt his nonexistent heart sinking. They did indeed have her.
“Now you know I don’t care about the amoeba,” Citizen Purple said. “And maybe you don’t too. But you bet your other self does.”
What use pretense? “I be the other,” Bane said.
“Oho! You switched back already?”
“Aye. Mach be free in Phaze; I be captive here.”
“Yeah? How do you figure he’s free?”
“I used magic to free the unicorn. Thine other self was about to slay me, but the Translucent Adept took me instead, and let me go. I returned to find out about Agape.”
“Translucent, eh? Yeah, that’s like him. He uses the soft sell, but he always wins in the end. But how do you figure the machine is free now?”
“Translucent gave his word.”
“Translucent’s one of us!”
“I know. But he honors his word.”
“So do I, boy. And I promise you this: that creature of yours is going to suffer if you don’t cooperate. I want your word: no more tricks.”
Bane was silent.
“Well, we’ll do it the hard way, then,” Citizen Purple said grimly.
Bane tuned out again, as there wasn’t much else to do. What would happen, would happen.
He resumed awareness when people approached his cell. It was the Citizen—and Agape. She was tearful and dispirited, and her details were blurred by trace melting. It was evident that she lacked the will to muster her proper human appearance.
The panel of the cell slid across behind them. “Okay, boy,” Citizen Purple said. “We’re private now. This is nobody’s business but ours. My serfs don’t know what I want from you, but you do. Let’s play a game, you and me. Let’s see who can stand the most heat.”
“I be in a robot body,” Bane reminded him. “I can endure more heat.” He wondered why the Citizen should wish to have this encounter private; did he fear betrayal by his own serfs? Or was he afraid that Citizen Translucent would spy on him, and take over just the way the Translucent Adept had in Phaze? That did seem more likely; it was evident that neither the Contrary Citizens nor the Adverse Adepts fully trusted their own associates.
“Well, we’ll just see about that.” The man brought out a tiny instrument. He touched buttons.
Immediately the heat began. It radiated from the walls, in the manner of an oven, raising the temperature of the air.
Agape made a muffled whimper.
Then Bane remembered: she was vulnerable to heat. It melted her. That was the true thrust. He could withstand more than could the Citizen—but surely Agape could withstand less.
The Citizen was fat. The heat affected him quickly. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He removed his jacket.
Agape tried to remain firm, literally, but her flesh was already melting. She tried to be silent, but a moan overtook her.
What should he do? Bane knew that the Citizen would not relent. He wanted Bane’s cooperation, and he would gladly sacrifice Agape to obtain it. Yet if Bane cooperated, men he didn’t like and didn’t want to support would use him and Mach for their benefit.
Purple removed more clothing, baring himself to the underwear. “Sure is hot in here!” he remarked. Indeed, he looked most uncomfortable.
Bane realized that the man was doing it to show that there was no bluffing about the heat. If it had this effect on a living man, it was having worse effect on Agape’s less-solid tissue. Indeed, her face was becoming shapeless, and her breasts were sagging deeply.
Purple glanced significantly at her. “Now I don’t know the exact tolerance the amoebas have for heat,” he said. “But I’d guess that first they settle into a puddle, then they expire. Seems we’re about to find out.”
“Nay!” Bane cried.
The Citizen looked at him. “Ready to give me your word, boy? No more tricks, full cooperation?”
“No commitment given under duress is valid!” Bane protested.
“Suit yourself, boy. You know how to stop it, before we all fry.”
Agape staggered. Her head was now a hideous mass of flesh, and her body was barely human. She stumbled against the Citizen.
“Get away from me, you jellyfish!” Purple snapped.
But Agape wrapped her melting arms about him. “I’m going to consume you!” she hissed through the slit that was all that remained of her face.
Horrified, the Citizen shoved her away with all his strength. But she clung, smearing her dripping surface against him. The two of them spun about in that loathsome embrace, and fell heavily to the floor.
Then Agape came up with the control unit. She touched a button, and the radiation ceased. “Let’s conclude this charade,” she said, her voice abruptly changing.
“What?” Purple demanded, hauling himself up.
Agape put her free hand to her face and scraped the flesh down and off. Other features appeared beneath. “Do you know me now, fat stuff?” she asked.
“Blue!” the Citizen exclaimed with renewed dismay.
Citizen Blue! Now Bane recognized the likeness of his own father, Stile, emerging from beneath the sagging covering of pseudoflesh.
“Did you think I was stupid enough to leave your monitor in my premises without reason?” Blue asked. “Or to ship the girl unguarded?”
“You suckered me!” Purple said.
“You suckered yourself. Now let’s complete our business, shall we?”
Purple grabbed for his control panel, but Blue held it clear. Purple, considerably larger than his opponent, lunged. “Give me that, you midget!”
Blue seemed only to touch the man, stroking the fingers of his left hand across the right side of Purple’s neck. But Purple stiffened, then collapsed, unconscious. “A duffer should never charge a Gamesman,” Blue said.
“Thou art a Gamesman?” Bane asked. “I thought my father Stile was that.”
Blue came across, releasing the fastenings that held Bane to the wall. “So you exchanged again,” he said. “Does that mean my son is now the captive of the Purple Adept?”
“Nay; Translucent won the wager that he could obtain my cooperation voluntarily, and now leads the Adverse Adepts, and he gave his word that either of us would be free.”
Blue nodded. “I daresay things have changed in twenty years, but I knew Translucent and his young son to be men of their word.”
“The one thou didst know as the son be the current Adept, and aye, he be a man of his word. But his purpose be not my father’s.”
“But if we free thee,” Blue said, reverting to the dialect of Phaze that he had known when young, “then the Adverse Adepts will have neither thee nor my son, and neither Agape nor—”
“Nor Fleta,” Bane concluded.
“Fleta?”
“She be the filly of Neysa, and I believe Mach loves her. As I lo
ve Agape.”
Blue pursed his lips. “He loves a unicorn?”
“I think he knew her nature not, at first. She be a most fetching person, vivacious and feeling, in human form.”
“Neysa seldom took the human form, and spoke little then,” Blue said. “I knew her through mine other self. Yet was she the most worthy of persons.”
“She be still,” Bane said. “Gray of forelock, now past breeding, but well respected in the Herd her brother governs. But Fleta be expressive in all the ways her dam be not. An Mach took her for human—”
“Here in Proton we are practicing tolerance,” Blue said. “I feel not the dismay for such liaison that I might have when young.” He went to bend over the fallen Purple. Bane noticed that he did not bend his knees, and remembered that his father said he had been injured in the knees, in his original body. The body that had sired himself, Bane, before returning to Proton. Blue was, physically, his father.
“But when we return to our own frames,” Bane said, “I love not the unicorn, friend as she may be, and Mach loves not Agape.”
Blue nodded. “There be matters yet to consider. But now we needs must spring thee free of this hole.” He had stripped Purple’s remaining clothing, leaving him naked, and under his busy hands Purple had assumed the appearance of a blob. Pseudoflesh covered his face, leaving only nose-holes for breathing, and his genital region now looked female.
“The Citizen’s minions will think he is Agape!” Bane exclaimed, catching on.
“Aye. And I shall play the part of a Citizen,” Blue said, donning Purple’s clothing. He had to wad and tie some of it underneath, to give the appearance of greater girth, and the loose-fitting shoes did not elevate him to the other man’s height, but the resemblance was becoming striking enough.
“The Game!” Bane exclaimed. “Thou didst learn such mimicry for the Game!”
“Aye. Mine other self was the expert, but I thought it meet for me to study it somewhat also, and teach it to my son.”
“Would I could learn that Game,” Bane said wistfully.
“Thou dost like Proton?”
“It is love of Agape that lures me,” Bane admitted. “But aye, I find this frame more challenging than mine own. It be foolishness, I know.”
“A foolishness I share,” Blue said, smiling. “Now, we both have parts to play. Thou dost remain prisoner, chastened by seeing thy love melt. I am taking thee to safer confinement.”
“That part can I play,” Bane said. “But surely Purple’s minions will not be fooled by thee!”
“There be some distractions,” Blue said with a small smile. “It was necessary for me to wait until I knew they were in place, before taking action here. Now shall we see how the magic of science performs.” He took some of his surplus pseudoflesh and molded it in the corner, against the locked panel. He set a tiny stick in it and pinched off the protruding end of the stick. “Shield me with thy body,” he said, retreating to the far side of the cell. “It be tougher than mine own.”
Perplexed, Bane stood as directed, standing between Blue and the pseudoflesh, facing away from it, bracing himself.
There was an explosion. It shoved him into Blue, and both against the wall. Bits of wall and panel were hurled like stones into the other walls. “What happened?” Bane cried.
They recovered their feet. “A trick of the trade,” Blue remarked, dusting himself off. “Follow me.” He hurried out of the smoking cell, through the shattered panel.
Serfs rushed up. “The alien bitch carried plastic explosive!” Blue roared in Purple’s voice. “Fetch my private plane! I’m taking the prisoner to safer confinement!”
When they hesitated, Blue paused to glare about. It was amazing how aptly he had picked up Purple’s mannerisms. “And find out who was supposed to guard against weapons being brought in here! Didn’t any numbskull think to check for plastic? Look at that cell! Every party responsible will be fired with prejudice!”
Hastily the serfs went about their business; the talk of firing made them extremely nervous.
Foreman hurried up. “Sir, the craft is ready,” he said. Then, startled, he opened his mouth again.
Blue’s hand snaked out and caught the serf’s wrist. Foreman stiffened in pain. “Speak no word,” Blue said. “Guide us there.”
It was obvious that the submission hold rendered the serf powerless to resist. He backed into an elevator, and they followed. The elevator took them up to a landing area, where the airplane waited. Blue and Bane got in.
“The blob in the cell is your employer,” Blue informed Foreman as he took the pilot’s seat. “He may need your attention, before the ignorant serfs dump him in the trash.”
Foreman, about to cry the alarm, whirled and ran for the elevator. His first loyalty was to the physical welfare of Citizen Purple.
Blue started the airplane and piloted it into the air. It quickly rose high, flying above the mountains. He touched its front panel. “Blue here, in Purple’s private plane,” he said. “Escort me home.”
Three other airplanes zoomed in. But immediately half a dozen others appeared, closing in on the first three. Citizen Purple’s defenses were alert.
“If these be like dragons, we be in trouble,” Bane remarked.
“Like dragons indeed,” Blue agreed. “But human cleverness can do much.” He guided the airplane precipitously down. “There be much joy in machines, an thou dost have the temperament.”
And he had a wife and a son who were machines. Bane would have liked this man well enough, even if he had not been so exactly like Stile.
The three friendly craft ran interference, threatening to crash into any of the pursuers who came too close. “Ours be machine-controlled?” Bane asked.
“Aye. Sheen-controlled, by remote. Purple’s be manned by serfs, who have some care for their hides.”
They bumped to a landing by a marker in the sand at the foot of the mountain range. They piled out as the enemy craft dived for them, running to the marker and hauling up on a ring set in it. Blue was panting, for he had no suit to enable him to breathe the polluted atmosphere; Bane, seeing the problem, took over the job and hauled up a portal. A hole opened, and they scrambled in and shut the portal above.
“Service access,” Blue gasped. “Say the code!”
“Code?”
“Oh, that’s right; you don’t know it. Mach does. Damn! We can’t summon the self-willed machines!” He was recovering as the good air here got into him.
“Self-willed machines? I have heard reference to these, and learned that Sheen be one, but I know these not.”
“Intelligent, motivated, self-directed robots of all types, but not granted serf status because that’s limited to those who look like serfs; I haven’t been able to overcome that bias yet. They don’t complain because they want the Experimental Project to prove itself first.”
“The Experimental Project—that allows androids and machines and alien creatures to be as equals?”
“The same. Agape must have told thee.”
“Aye.” They were moving on down along a passage. Already there was noise back at the portal.
“Mach be one of them, of course; he gave Agape the code so they would know she came to them at his behest. I never sought to know that code; it was important that Mach grow unfettered by my domination. But now, if we don’t summon them, we shall shortly be captive again.”
Indeed, there was a swirl of air as the portal was opened above and behind them, and a clamor. Men were piling in.
Bane struggled with the logical brain he now had, as they rushed along. How could he get that code? It should be in Mach’s memory—but he had none of that. His own memories had come with him across the curtain between frames. Was there anything he could tap into?
They came to a dead-end. “Here there is a subway transport station for supplies,” Blue said. “I had thought to take it—but only the SW’s have access. No serfs or Citizens are expected to be here alone, and it isn’t wat
ched. The machines have to be alerted.”
Heavy feet were thudding down the passage. Bane could tell by the sound that there were at least six men. The two of them had no reasonable chance to overcome that number.
Then something occurred to him. “If they accepted Agape—” he said. “Where must the code be given?”
“To one of these intercoms,” Blue said, indicating a small grille set in the wall.
Bane spoke to it. “Accept Agape’s code from Mach!” he said.
And the grille answered: “Accepted. What may we do for you?”
“Save us from those who pursue us!”
A panel slid aside, revealing a cargo capsule. “Enter.”
They climbed in. The panel closed behind them just as the first pursuer came into sight. The capsule began to move. It was cramped, as it was not intended for human beings, but satisfactory.
“You did it!” Blue exclaimed, dropping the Phaze mode of speech. “How did you know they would accept that? You have hardly seen this frame!”
“Principle of transfer. A message can be passed from one person to another, and if it be valid, it is accepted. They knew Agape’s code was valid, so when I invoked it by description, they understood.”
“You thought of something I did not—and thereby saved us some mischief,” Blue said. “I think you have an aptitude for this frame! Now I shall add my own wrinkle.” He addressed the capsule’s intercom. “Deposit us at the next station, then go on empty.”
The capsule slowed. “Why stop?” Bane asked. “They be surely in pursuit.”
“Exactly. They will also have men to intercept us at its destination.”
“Oops, aye!”
The capsule stopped. They hoisted themselves out. It went on. “Now they will be pursuing the decoy,” Blue said. “But we still have to get out of here, and they will be watching all the exits. In any event, we’re still under the desert, and I don’t care to breathe any more of this frame’s air. So we’ll go back.”
“Go back!” Bane repeated incredulously.
Out of Phaze Page 27