Of Man and Manta Omnibus

by Piers Anthony

  Every frame for itself. Her Veg would not have agreed; this Veg did.

  Ironically, she preferred the attitude of her original Veg. He had more conscience; he cared. Meanwhile, he was with the other Tamme.

  She had to complete the subloop and get back to the Jungle gym before that enemy Tamme caught on. The bitch would not be slow, either! So long as that other did not locate the projector, her search pattern would continue, and there would be little interaction between the agent and the man. But if they found it and had to wait for the recharge, there would be time.

  And if they found the shirt tied at the point of arrival... there would be two shirts, one from each Veg. A dead giveaway! Why hadn't she thought to recover that shirt?

  It had, after all, been sheer luck, her finding the projector first. She had figured a pattern based on her two sightings of the opposition -- and at least one of those sightings had actually been of her own man! No science in that! But the same sort of coincidence could bring the other Tamme to the same projector. The enemy Tamme would have to wait while this Tamme could move -- if she found the projector on this frame soon.

  Maybe it would be better to avoid contact entirely and go on. No -- that would be deserting her Veg and bringing along one who would surely turn uncooperative when he caught on. And she was trapped on a subloop; there was no way out but through the Jungle gym frame.

  The projector on this subloop would probably be charged. She might complete the trip around within one hour and catch the enemy completely off guard. That would be best. Her vision would not be much improved within that time, but the element of surprise was more important.

  What about this Veg? No need for him to know. He had already served to alert her, and he was no threat.

  "Hey, these aren't the same," he commented, watching a swirl of sparkle almost under his nose. "See, they're smaller, and they don't fade in and out. This one's staying right here in this alternate, as though it doesn't know any better."

  "You study it," she said, casting about for the projector. "The information could be valuable." Maybe it would keep him occupied and innocent.

  He watched it. "You know what I think -- this is a primitive one, like a three-dee R Pentomino. It just rides on a few elements, maintaining itself, not doing anything fancy. Maybe this isn't the sparkle home-alternate, but a fringe-alternate, with animal-patterns instead of advanced-sentient ones. They must have a whole range of states just as we do -- some hardly more than amoebas, others superhuman. Superpattern, I mean." He chuckled. He certainly had been to places she hadn't. R Pentomino? He seemed to have a much better grounding on the sparkles. It showed in his terminology and his attitude. "Maybe you can work out the whole sequence of patterns," she suggested. Where was that projector?

  "Yeah. How they start as little three-dimensional swirls across the elements, like wind rattling the leaves of a poplar, and then begin modifying things to suit themselves. How some turn into predator patterns, gobbling up others, until the good patterns learn to shoot them down with glider guns. But then the bad ones start shooting, too, and they just keep evolving, dog eat dog, only it's all just patterns on energy-nodes. Finally they achieve higher consciousness -- only they don't even know what it is to be physical. They think that the only possible sentience is pattern-sentience. And when they finally meet up with sentient material beings, it's like a nightmare, like monsters from the deeps, impossible but awful. Yeah, I think I can see it, now. Too bad we can't talk with them, tell them we understand..."

  Tamme paused in her search, listening. The man was making sense! Could that be the rationale of the mysterious pattern-entities? The machines called them enemies, but if it were really just a monumental case of misunderstanding...

  Then she spotted the projector and put aside irrelevant conjecture. "Let's go, Veg!"

  One step to the --

  -- orchestra, then another back to --

  -- the Jungle gym.

  "I have your man captive," the other Tamme said, indicating the direction with a minimal nod of her head. "Do you yield?"

  Rhetorical: To yield was to die. But it was true: Veg was efficiently gagged and bound with the two shirts, his legs tied so that he hung by his knees from a bar.

  "What's this?" the free Veg asked, amazed. "Why'd she tie her own companion?"

  Tamme glanced at him. "I am the other agent. I have not been to the bazaar."

  The expected spate of emotions ran through him. A stranger he was, yet he was very much Veg, slow in certain ways, noble in others. "Then why didn't you -- ?"

  "Tie you? What purpose? She is the dangerous one."

  "But she tied me -- and you didn't!"

  "I may have known you longer," Tamme said. And gotten soft! "Though it was not you I knew, precisely." Of course, she should have put him more obviously under her control, as a counter to the alternate-Tamme's threat. Yet another mistake.

  The free Veg looked from one Tamme to the other, disconcerted. Then he spoke to the other. "Listen: I changed my mind. I'm not fighting anyone. This isn't right."

  "Then go untie your double," Tamme said, realizing that her human error had converted to an odd kind of advantage: The alternate-Veg had been neutralized. "You men are basically gentle; she and I are not so hesitant."

  "Yeah." The free Veg went to help the bound one, passing between the two women. Then he halted, facing his own: "Okay -- I can't stop it. But maybe I can make it fair. Get rid of your power weapons."

  "Get out of the way," Tamme Two said. She held a laser in her hand.

  "Or shoot me first," Veg said. "Use that, and you'll sure as hell have to shoot me sometime because I won't work with you anymore."

  He was serious; the signals were all over him. It was a trifling threat to an agent. Still, Tamme knew what was going through the other's mind because it was her mind, too -- her mind as it had been a few days ago when she was tougher, less corrupted by individual sentiment. Veg had been more than neutralized; he was now sympathetic to the Tamme he had not known, more gentle than his own. Liability had become strength. Tamme Two could dispense with him -- but the man had commendable qualities and was proving more useful than anticipated. Why antagonize him needlessly? Especially when she had the advantage, for the other had evidently been injured in the face...

  Tamme Two dropped the laser. Tamme One drew and dropped hers. Because they were agents, they could read each other -- well enough, at least, to know whether a given weapon was about to be dropped or fired. The lasers fell almost together down through the endless shaft of cubes.

  "And don't use any others," Veg Two said. "Just your hands, or hand-powered stuff. Okay?"

  Tamme Two nodded. She would make the sensible compromise to retain his good will, minor as its value was. He moved on.

  Then both girls were moving. Actually, the laser shot would have been risky because it lacked power for instant effect, and there would have been time for both weapons to be used. Direct combat would be more decisive.

  Tamme One swung around her bar, getting out of the direct line of vision. She had the disadvantage, and they both knew it; she had to use evasive strategy, hoping for the break that would reverse the odds. She ran along the topside of another bar toward her opponent.

  But the other had anticipated her. A hand came from below to catch her ankle. Tamme One leaped into space, jackknifing to catch Tamme Two's hair. The other jerked aside and countered with a high kick.

  Tamme caught a bar and swung around it and back to her feet. Tamme Two dived at her, pressing her advantage. Tamme raised a knee to catch her in the chest, but Tamme Two caught her shoulders and sat down suddenly. This was an old judo technique, yoko wakare or side-separation throw. Ordinarily, it was performed on the ground; in this case, there was no ground and no firm footing beyond the bars. The pull was tremendous. Tamme fell forward, somersaulted in air, and caught Tamme Two's ankles.

  Then the telescoping sword manifested. Tamme Two's hands were free; Tamme One was momentarily expo
sed. The first slash caught her on the side, cutting open her clothing and severing the flesh through to the ribs. Her inferior vision had betrayed her; she could have countered as the sword was being drawn had she seen it in time. Now she was wounded, and the advantage was shifting from marginal to gross.

  She let go and dropped, taking a moment to cut off the flowing blood by will power. But Tamme Two dropped with her, slashing again with the sword. Tamme drew her own and whipped it at her enemy -- but her reflexes were slowed by the regenerative effort, and Tamme Two parried easily.

  Tamme reached out and caught a bar one-handed. The wrench was terrible, but her body was brought up short.

  And Tamme Two stopped with her, kicking the sword from her hand and simultaneously stabbing for the heart. Tamme twisted aside, too slow, and the point missed by two inches, piercing her left lung instead.

  Never before had she realized how devastating an opponent she was, how implacable, how efficient. Tamme Two was an agent at par; Tamme herself was an agent at eighty per cent vision, caught by surprise, with diminished sense of purpose. Any one of those differences was critical, and now she was done for. Could she take the other with her into oblivion?

  It took Tamme Two a moment to yank out the sword, for the power of the thrust had projected the point entirely through the body. Tamme took advantage of that moment to club Tamme Two on the side of the neck, preparatory to catching her in a literal death grip.

  Tamme Two dodged again, reducing the effect of the blow, and blocked the clasping arms. Tamme was already dropping down through the cubes -- but her hold was not tight, and Tamme Two slipped through. The double suicide would only kill one.

  This time Tamme Two let her go, knowing better than to come again within reach of those arms. Instead, she drew and threw a fine knife. It shot straight down with unerring aim to embed itself in Tamme's skull, penetrating the brain.

  "I am going to space," he said.

  "If you do, I will kill myself," she said.

  Bunny heard her parents engaging in their solemn, serious dialogue, terrified. Knowing there was nothing she could do. They never fought, never argued; when either spoke, it was final.

  Actually, they had never spoken these words; the words were in Bunny's mind, her nightmares. But they reflected the unvoiced reality, building over the years into inevitable decision.

  Her father went to space, unable to resist the gratification of a lifelong lure. Ocean sailing was in his ancestry; the nature of the challenge had changed, not his response.

  Bunny understood this, for he had told her of space, its myriad wonders only now being revealed, its compelling fascination. Neutron stars, black holes, quasars; alien life, mysterious artifacts of long-dead empires; acceleration, free fall; meteors, comets, craters. She wanted to go, too.

  The day he left, her mother carefully scraped the insulation from the apartment's energy line and shorted it out across her body. Bunny was an orphan.

  "I know your father was lost in space, and your mother died when you were a child," he said. "This is what first attracted me to you. You needed me, and I thought that was enough." He paused to walk around park space, idly knocking his powerful hands together. "I'm strong; I like taking care of things. I wanted to take care of you. But Bunny, it isn't enough. Now I'm ready to marry -- and what I crave is a wife figure, not a daughter figure. It just wouldn't work out, and we both know it."

  She did know it. She didn't plead, she didn't cry. After he left, she followed the model she remembered as closely as was convenient. She jumped off the passenger ramp into the moving line of a major freight artery.

  "Both arms severed at the shoulders, one leg mangled, internal organs crushed. Heart and liver salvageable; kidneys unsalvageable. Brain intact. It would cost a fortune, but we could reconstitute her. To what point? she is medically indigent, no parents, no insurance, no special dispensations, no extraordinary talents, and she obviously doesn't want to live."

  "A suitable prospect, would you say?"

  "Yes. You would be doing her a favor. She doesn't want to remember."

  "Very well, You will authorize the condemnation procedure?"

  "I don't see much choice; it's that or death in hours."

  So Bunny's mangled but living remains were condemned as legally unsalvageable, and the government assumed possession in much the same manner as it acquired the right of way through a slum.

  Two years later, the rebuilt, retrained body and brain were issued under the stamp of an agent, series TA, female.

  Tamme opened her eyes. A snout-nosed near-human leaned over her. "Hvehg!" the woman called.

  A man came, bearded, putting his strong hand on hers. It was a hand very like that of the man Bunny had hoped to marry. "You'll make it, Tam," he said. "We're taking good care of you."

  "Who?" It was hard to speak; she was weak and confused, and she needed... too much. He would reject her if he knew.

  "You don't remember who you are?" the man asked, alarmed.

  She made an effort. "I am TA. You?"

  "You don't remember me?" This seemed to bother him even more.

  "Is this the start of a mission? I don't know how I got here, or who either of you are, or anything. Please tell me." Speaking was such an effort that she knew she would soon have to desist -- and she hardly understood her own words. TA?

  "I am Veg. This is Ms Hmph, near as I can pronounce it. You were badly hurt, nearly dead; I brought you here, and the Hmphs made a place for us. We'd met them before on our trek through alternity."

  "Alternity?"

  "Brother! You really are out of it. Maybe you better rest now."

  The mere suggestion was enough. She sank into sleep.

  Her first mission as a TA was on Earth. She was told nothing, not even that it was the first. As with all agents, her mind was erased and reset between assignments, so it made no difference to her or the computer whether it was the first or the last. This reprogramming was to preserve the series identity; the computer needed assurance that any agent of a given series would respond and report precisely as allowed for. That way there was negligible human distortion; it was as though the computer itself had made the investigation. It was an efficient system, replacing the outmoded FBI, CIA, and similar organizations.

  Had Bunny been aware of the transformation, she would have been incredulous. The weak, frail, insecure girl now was superhuman -- literally. She could run thirty miles an hour and sustain it for miles: twice the world record for normals. She could invert herself and walk on two extended fingers. She was thoroughly grounded in the use of a wide variety of weapons, from bazookas to kitchen knives, and was also adept at barehanded combat. She had the equivalent of college degrees in a number of technical and liberal arts. And she had a stunning face and figure.

  But Bunny was not aware. Bunny was part of the dross that had been erased. Her body and brain had been stripped to their fundamental content, then recycled.

  Tamme found herself in a riot-prone city. She moved among the people, questioning, searching out her mission. She had been given a single name and a probable address, no more. And in due course she found it; there was an assassination plot against a touring official. As the steam rifle oriented, so did she. The assassin died a fraction of a second before he fired, and Tamme returned to her barracks.

  There she indulged in the predebriefing relaxation that was customary, almost mandatory: play being a recognized adjunct of the fit man. It was postponed for the agents until after completion of their missions, partly as additional inducement for performance, partly because that was the time of their greatest divergence from the agent-norm. Freshly briefed agents would have found each other so predictable as to be dull; postmission agents had differing experiences to discuss and were to a certain extent different people. Interaction became entertaining.

  She met a male of the SU series. He was fascinating. He had been dispatched to apprehend a moonshine gunsmith and had been shot in the foot by one of the old-fashi
oned contraptions. She played nude water polo with him, and because of that foot was able to hold him under while she made the first score. But then he had hauled her under with him, and for four minutes they both held their breaths while they made love -- though love was too strong a term for this physical release of passion.

  "Will we ever meet again, Subble?" she asked as she lay in his arms, floating on the surface, enjoying the almost-combatlike exercise of power that no normal human could match.

  "It hardly matters," he replied. "We will not remember or care." And he shoved her head under, brought her bottom up, and penetrated her again... as a subterfuge while he knocked the ball in for the tying score.