Tania smiled brilliantly, flouncing her hem so that a petticoat flashed. “How nice to see thee, Mach! Hast come to play a game with a real woman?” Mach heard something like a squeal in the back of Fleta’s throat.
“A game of table tennis,” he said carefully. “The Translucent Adept said you have a magic paddle.”
“Aye, and that be not all, rovot.” She delivered a brief but intense glance, and he felt the power of her evil eye. Fleta’s head moved slightly, as if orienting a horn for action.
“I brought a good paddle carved by the Red Adept,” he said. “It has perfect heft and balance, and I can play well with it.”
“We shall see,” she said. “Let me change into something more comfortable.” She spun around, her skirt flaring, showing her legs up to the thickening region of the thighs, and walked to the tanion tree. Mach, accustomed all his prior life to naked serfs, was amazed at how much a little clothing could do for a woman.
Tania had not looked nearly as enticing naked in Proton.
Fleta’s foot came down, just missing his toe. “What be thou looking at, machine?”
“Uh—”
“She knew we were coming,” she hissed. “Why did she change not before?”
“Remember, I’m supposed to get her to lend me the paddle,” Mach said. “I have to seem interested, though of course I am not.”
“Thou couldst have fooled me,” she muttered. Soon Tania reappeared, garbed in tight tan shorts that made her nether portion seem almost bare, and a translucently loose blouse. “This be better, methinks,” she murmured.
“She thinks!” Fleta sniffed.
After a moment Mach noticed that Tania carried a paddle. She was evidently ready to play.
There was a chamber in an alcove of the tree, and the table was there. Tania took a stance at one end. “Do it to me,” she invited.
“Nay, an I could…” Fleta breathed wrathfully.
There was a ball on the table, wedged by the net. Mach fetched it, and served it. He had not played this game in this body, but his motions were good; either his experience or Bane’s reflexes made the play easy.
Tania jammed her paddle at the ball somewhat jerkily; it was obvious that she was not an apt player. But the ball came back; she had made the return.
He struck the ball again, getting the feel of it and the paddle and his body. Again she was somewhat awkward, but returned it. Obviously she would soon miss, though.
He struck it the third time, angling it across the table. She stretched, almost losing her balance, and he thought she was going to hit the ball well wide—but it returned neatly enough.
Curious, he slammed it off the right corner. She blocked it in a pure reflex of self-defense—and the ball looped back to the center of his side of the table, another fair return. How had she done it?
In the course of the next several volleys, he discovered that no matter how awkwardly she moved her paddle, the ball always made a good return. He finally missed his own shot, trying too hard to make her miss. The skill was not in her, but in the paddle: that was its magic. It would not miss a point.
He lost the game, winning no points at all. He could not prevail against the magic paddle.
Tania smiled as she won. “What wouldst thou give for this paddle, rovot?” she inquired, her bosom heaving. “To use ‘gainst Bane in thy tourney?”
She had a double score to settle with Bane, he realized: he was on the other side, and he had resisted her attempt to fascinate him. She would lend Mach the paddle; she was just trying to see what else she might profit from the transaction. Meanwhile, he had Fleta to contend with.
“Nothing, Tania,” he said gruffly. “There will be three games; it could only win one of them for me. If I depend on magic, I will lose. I need to hone my playing skill, and you are unlikely to do that for me.”
Tania’s face transformed in the course of his speech from self-satisfied to furious. “Take it then, golem-brain; I care not!” And she hurled it at him.
He caught it. “If you insist, Tania.”
She glared, evidently ready to use her magic on him. He snapped his fingers, and a full-length mirror appeared before her, reflecting her outraged visage back to her. Then he turned his back and walked with Fleta away from the table and the tree.
“Methinks that were not wise, Mach,” she said, satisfied.
“Better an angry woman than an angry unicorn,” he said. “She was supposed to demonstrate the paddle, not try to vamp me. I tried to be polite, but she pushed her luck.”
Fleta was silent, but her anger was gone.
Mach found practice with the animal heads. Most of these supported Stile, but one aberrant faction did not, and one of the best table tennis players of the frame was a member of that faction. This was an elephant head, who held the paddle in his trunk, and manipulated it marvelously well.
Against Eli the elephant head Mach used his regular paddle, the one Trool had carved. It had no magic, but was an excellent instrument. Mach played well, very well, for the reflexes of Bane’s body were good. But Eli tromped him; his control was superlative. This was the one who could teach him improved play without magic.
But Mach used magic, not to make returns, but to improve his own perception and stamina. To enable himself to learn, to become a better player.
They played again. At first Mach, distracted by the nature of his adversary, had made easy misses. But pride soon caught up with him, and now he played with better precision—and still lost points. That trunk was so limber and controlled that the paddle seemed like a living part of it. The spins it imparted seemed magical, though they were not. When Mach tried to analyze them, he missed worse than ever. Eli’s serves were especially bad; Mach could handle them only by playing extremely conservatively and defensively, which only set him up for further trouble.
Little by little, he discovered the key: Eli’s paddle motions were complex, shifting direction and angle with blurring facility. Sometimes the paddle literally spun in his grasp, so that it was difficult to tell which side struck the ball. Since the two sides had different surfaces that imparted different qualities to the flight of the ball, this could be devastating.
“I must learn to do that,” Mach said.
“Aye,” Eli agreed. Rather, he snorted musically through his trunk, making the affirmative; human speech was difficult for him.
They played constantly during the following days and weeks. Eli had the patience of a pachyderm, and the endurance, and was pleased to have such a willing student. He demonstrated all his best shots, and showed Mach how to counter them. Mach, realizing that he would be up against a high-tech Proton paddle in at least one game, was happy to work on his defense. A good defense could not win the game for him, at this level, for it left the initiative to the opponent; but that defense had to be tight before he could score with his offense. The best defensive players took the offensive the moment a suitable opportunity offered; their opponents knew that it was folly to ease up, and so were under pressure that could cause errors.
By the time the month was done, he was giving Eli some excellent games. He was vastly improved, and ready to tackle his other self in any of the three games. He had not used the magic paddle, as that was pointless; it was already incapable of making a bad shot. In fact, he felt slightly guilty, knowing that this was one instrument Bane could not match. Only by winning both the other games could Bane prevail.
Meanwhile, Fleta had special news for him. “Dost remember my heat?” she inquired diffidently.
“Oh, no—is it coming again?”
“Nay, hast not noticed it came not again?”
Mach paused. “You mean—?”
“Aye. I be with foal.”
Mach had no idea how to react, so he simply reached for her and embraced her, so cautiously that she laughed. She was a mare; her condition did not make her delicate. She was as happy as he had ever seen her.
But she was not willing to let it rest at that. “This be my co
mpensation, an I be separated from thee. But how much better will it be if we separate not.”
“If something can be worked out,” he agreed. “To save the frames, and still be together.”
“Aye. And raise our foal ourselves.”
“To be perhaps the best of unicorns—”
“Or the best of men.”
“Perhaps like both: able to change form freely, yet able also to practice magic.”
“Flach, the Unicorn Adept!” she exclaimed.
Why not? “Why not unite our species with a truly superior composite?”
“And needs must we set up a house, for I fear the Herd will welcome him not.”
“Why not a castle? I am Adept now; I can make what I choose. Our son should have the best.”
“The Rovot Demesnes,” she said, smiling.
She wasn’t serious enough, so he kissed her again. Whatever the outcome of this round, they would have that success together.
It was the day of the first game. Now at last Mach discovered how they were going to make it possible to play across the frames. As before, the two selves would overlap, standing together at one end of the table. Each would play his side. But the ball, instead of passing through the no-longer-existent curtain, would fly across the net to a simulacrum of the other player at the far end.
To Mach, it looked as if Bane were standing there, paddle in hand, in Mach’s robot body, but it was probably a golem provided by the Brown Adept. The golem would not literally play; it would merely emulate Bane’s motions.
But the ball could not physically cross between the frames. What would the golem be striking?
This might be an irrelevant detail, but Mach wanted to know, as it could affect his attitude and therefore his play. He didn’t want to ask openly, which he realized was foolish; he was adapting increasingly to living ways, as he spent more time in this living body. Living creatures had awareness of pain, both physical and mental, and tended to be much more careful about things they did not quite understand than machines were. Mach was now far more sensitive than he had ever been in Proton, and he liked to believe that was an asset. So he wanted to know whether a hornet’s nest was inhabited without getting stung during the investigation, and to know the exact nature of the appearance of his opponent without suffering any embarrassment about his naïveté in asking. So he practiced another aspect of personality that came more readily to the living than to the machine: innocuous deception.
He went to Fleta for one more embrace. “Is that a golem?” he whispered to her ear.
Her ear twitched. She did retain some unicorn mannerisms in her human form! “Nay, it has no smell,” she replied. “It be a wraith.”
“Thank you.” So the whole thing, ball and player, was merely an image, a projection from the information coming through him. Trool’s spells from the Book of Magic could readily accomplish that; indeed, Mach himself could do something similar, at need.
“That be all thou dost want of me?” Fleta inquired.
Oops. “All I can ask in public,” he said, giving her backside a squeeze.
She sniffed, but she was mollified.
He returned to the table and took up his paddle. It was the standard one that Trool had made for him, without magic. In this first game, the equipment was equivalent, with each paddle meeting set specifications. The idea was to see how well each played with no advantage of equipment. “Let’s rally a little first,” he suggested.
“Aye,” Bane agreed. “This be a strange arrangement.”
Suddenly Mach wished that the two of them could be together like this when not opposing each other. That they could do without illusion what now required illusion. Maybe, after this contest was settled, they could see about that.
He picked up the ball and served it, throwing it up from his left palm in the prescribed manner, so that it was evident that his hand imparted no spin to it. It bounced on his side of the table and crossed the net. He knew that it became illusory at that point, transformed by magic to an image, while in the frame of Proton the Game Computer introduced a physical ball with the exact velocity, azimuth and spin of the one in Phaze. In Proton Mach was the image, generated holographically, seeming as real as Bane did on this side. It was an amazingly sophisticated interface, to make the appearance of an ordinary game.
Bane returned the ball, seeming at ease. It crossed back over the net. Was there a flicker as it did so? Mach could not be sure. In any event, he should not allow himself to be distracted by the intricacies of the system; he had to play as well as he could. If he even started wondering how he could move freely about, to play the ball to either side or far back from the table, without losing his overlap-contact with Mach, he would start fouling up! How much of his own motion was also illusion?
They played for a few minutes, becoming acclimatized. All was in working order. “Time for business,” Mach said, with both excitement and regret.
“Aye.” Bane caught the ball in his hand, put his hands behind him, brought them out closed and held them just below the level of the table. Mach pointed with his paddle to Bane’s right hand. Bane lifted it: empty. That meant that Bane had the first serve.
Bane served. The ball came across the net, low and fast, striking Mach’s right corner. Mach fielded it with a chop, using a short, sharp downstroke to return the ball with a backspin. This tended to slow its progress, causing it to drop to the center of Bane’s table rather toward the back edge. But the backspin did more than that. It changed the nature of the bounce, so that the ball tended to lift and fall short; an incautious player could have misjudged it and missed it for that reason. And more yet: when the other paddle touched it, the spin would tend to carry the ball down, perhaps into the net, for a miss.
But Bane now knew all that Mach did about the dynamics of play. He met the ball with a chop of his own, that countered and reversed the spin, sending the same kind of shot back.
Mach, ready for this, touched the ball lightly with his backhand, so that it bobbed up over the net and down just the other side: a shot that could be far more troublesome than it appeared, because normally a player stood back from the table.
But Bane was there, and with a quick flick of his wrist plunked the ball down and to Mach’s right, so that it bounced near the edge of the table and dropped to the side. Mach leaped to intercept it, but the table was in the way, and he could not get there in time to do more than flip it way up in a high arch over the net.
That, of course, was a setup. Bane slammed it off the far side, and Mach had no way to return it.
One-love, for Bane. Now the game was truly under way!
Mach recovered the ball and tossed it back. Bane caught it in his hand and took his stance for the next serve.
This one was backhand, cutting across to Mach’s left side. He returned it the same way as he had the first, with backspin. Mach’s return was similar again; the machine body and mind tended to stay in familiar channels. That was apt to be a weakness.
Mach followed through with the same sort of shot he had made at this point in the first rally, nipping the ball gently over the net to the center of the table. And Bane replied as he had before, with the dropshot to the side, only this time to Mach’s left. Again Mach was caught in a squeeze, and made a poor return, and got it smashed past him. Two-love for Bane.
But Mach was verifying what might be weaknesses in his opponent; that was more important than the points, at the moment. Mach had qualities of imagination he had lacked as a machine, and now he was using them for what he hoped would be his advantage. If he charted Bane’s weaknesses, he could exploit them before the game was done.
Bane’s third serve was forehand, to Mach’s backhand. One forehand crosscourt, one backhand crosscourt, one forehand downcourt—the next should be backhand downcourt, and the fifth a new variation. If so, Mach would know what to expect later in the game, and that would help immensely.
He returned it with a high looping sidespin shot, the kind that could utterly
befuddle a neophyte but would be a lost point against an experienced player. Sure enough. Bane compensated for the spin and slammed it off the corner. Three-love. A lost point, but confirmation of the reaction. It was not possible to put ultimate spin on a ball with the standard paddle surface, but in a later game it would be another matter.
However, he could not afford to get too far behind. He played to win on the fourth point. As anticipated, Bane served the ball backhand, to Mach’s forehand, and because he was ready for it, he slammed it right back where it had come from. It was a beautiful shot, and it caught Bane by surprise; the paddle was late, and the ball went flying to the side, out of play. Three - one.
Bane’s fifth serve was a drop shot, as Mach had thought reasonably likely. He dropped it back, and gained the initiative, which in due course won him the point. Three - two.
Now it was Mach’s serve. He tested Bane’s reactions on different types, and verified that Bane’s skill was basically Mach’s own—before he had come to Proton. He was thoroughly familiar with that style of play, by no coincidence, and knew its strengths and weaknesses. A defensive game would never prevail, because the robot made no unforced errors, and would outlast any other opponent. But the right kind of offense, initiated at the right occasion, could force errors. Mach was about to find out whether what he had learned from Eli the elephant head was the right kind.
It was, but not by much. Mach found that by making wild alterations in his play he could cause Bane to lose track momentarily and become vulnerable—but that same wildness made Mach’s own shots unreliable. He missed more than he should have, by taking risks, playing low-percentage shots. As a result, the score seesawed. He caught up at 9-9, fell behind to 13-10 (the server’s score was always given first), went ahead at 16-17, and tied again at 19-19.
It was make-or-break time. Mach, as the robot, would not have gambled; Mach, as the living creature, did. It was his serve, and he had no better occasion to seize the initiative. He used the Eli special, thinking of his right arm as a flexible trunk, using it to put on the backspin that looked like a topspin. He spun the paddle; both sides were the same, for this game, but the spin helped mask the particular angle and motion as it contacted the ball. If it fooled Bane the way it had himself—
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