by Des Pensable
The difficulty lay in how to move like a slime mould, which wasn’t easy for a newman like Rob, accustomed to relying on legs. He spent two days working at it, but try as he might he couldn’t get the hang of it. Something was missing, and it was Facit who worked out what the problem might be.
‘Rob I have noticed that each time the spontaneous shape changes occur in a part of your body, you also become quite aggressive and angry, and sometimes your eyes change colour. I know you concentrate hard to block it, but have you considered that perhaps you need to be angry when shape changing? Perhaps it is a part of your type of shape changing ability.’
‘I am afraid of losing control when the anger comes. If I lose control and my eyes go black I can hurt people,’ replied Rob. ‘It is too dangerous. When I was a young child I lost control and killed a person. I might harm you.’
‘I am much harder to harm than you think,’ replied Facit. ‘I will take the risk. When next the anger comes don’t block it, but try to flow with it and direct it.’
They took a break and waited. It took him a couple of hours, and then Rob felt the anger rise and his arm turned to jelly. This time, instead of trying to block it, he harnessed the anger, furiously willing his whole body to become like his arm and then melt into a puddle of goo, as if he was using the shape change magic. It worked!
It was a revelation. The anger was the driving force for his shape changing ability. It was the missing component. For years he had been afraid of it and blocked it. Now it was no longer an enemy but potentially a friend. He still felt anger, but not blind rage. Perhaps he could control this anger and use it rather than fight it. He channelled it into learning to move like a slime mould and within a few angry minutes got the hang of it. To celebrate, he slid up the wall, across the ceiling and down the over side to the sound of Facit's cheers.
The whole process was certainly the most exciting thing that he had done for months. He concentrated hard on blocking the anger totally, and to his relief his body changed back to his newman form. The question was, could he bring on the anger then use it to shape change? He thought of things that would make him angry, and to his great delight the anger came in a rush and he flowed with it. His whole body changed under his mental control. It melted like wax into a puddle then reformed as a slime mould. He was ecstatic.
The one problem he found now was that the time he could spend shape changed was limited by the size of his source. In other words he had to use power from his source to maintain his new shape. When this power ran out so did the anger, and his body reverted to its newman shape. This could potentially be dangerous, so he developed the habit of keeping a close watch on his source.
It was strange being in the form of a slime mould. He could taste the floor, smell the air, feel vibrations and see light through the skin on any part of his body. Vision was very poor and mainly sensitive to changes in light such as shadows and movement. Facit explained that in the wild his ancestors had used all their senses to track down prey in the swamps of his home world.
The discovery of the lens was as important to the Logicons as the discovery of fire to newmans. When his people had accidentally found that light could be focussed through clear resin, then later glass lenses enabling them to see the world with more clarity, they had begun to advance intellectually.
Facit showed how they held lenses with their arm-like pseudopodia to enable them to see, but then explained why the body shell was so popular. It had built-in lenses that allowed the Logicon to see in stereovision like a newman, and not be distracted by light on other parts of the body. His ancestors had traded good vision and a protective mobile home for a reduced ability to sense the world around them using their other senses.
Rob slid into Facit’s old body shell and found it intensely claustrophobic at first, but he could see how the lenses allowed relatively good sight. By mentally chanting a calming mantra he was able to keep the claustrophobia at bay while learning to walk, which he found required considerable balance and coordination. It took him another five days to succeed in walking with relative grace.
Now that Rob was confident about shape changing to a Logicon shape, he needed to understand the other's nature. To do this the two were going to swap spirits. In this way Rob could truly feel what it was like to be a Logicon, as his spirit would be in Facit’s body and Facit’s spirit would be in his own body.
The magical spirit swap ritual was complex but considered to be not too dangerous. It took about half an hour, but only lasted for a few minutes, and if they stayed relatively close and within visual sight of each other, when it ended their spirits would return to their own bodies without problems. If they were too far apart when the magical effect ended, then their spirits would stay permanently in the new body until the ritual was used again.
When Facit completed the ritual, Rob had the strange sensation of turning into mist and streaming out of the top of his body. Fortunately, he was told to lie down before it happened, otherwise his body would have toppled over and perhaps been damaged. His spirit was attracted to Facit’s body and flowed into it while concurrently Facit’s spirit flowed into Rob’s body.
The feeling of being in the Logicon body was quite strange. Over the last several days he had imitated the Logicon body but always felt that he was thinking like a newman. In the new body the feeling was changed. Facit’s body was interacting with his newman spirit. He viewed the world and his situation in a different, less emotional, more logical way. He also found that the body shell was no longer claustrophobic but gave him a definite feeling of protection and safety. He preferred darkness to light and liked the taste of the floor and the air when out of the body shell.
Rob learnt about Logicon behaviour both in and out of the shell. He learnt how to recognise their state of mind by their actions and postures. In the breaks between behaviour sessions and allowing his source to recharge, Rob learnt to speak a little of the Logicon language and a lot about their codes of ethics, their love for learning, their political views, and so on.
Rob became so interested and so eager that he asked Facit if he could try to learn to shape shift to look like himself starting from Facit’s Logicon body. This would give him a better understanding of how to mimic another person or creature. Facit agreed with the logic and he and Rob shifted their spirits between the two bodies many times.
To do this they set up a large mirror so that Rob could monitor his shape, and Facit’s spirit in Rob’s body would act as a model to copy.
He spent a day trying to get his jelly like body to rise off the ground, and only after examining some scrolls on the anatomy of animals and newmans realised the virtue of having a bony skeleton. At first it was a strangely unreal feeling, having mental control of his body shape. It was like a weird dream, but very addictive. He spent hours adjusting parts of his body adding hair, changing shapes and skin colours.
It took him a couple of days just to get a good average newman shape and then several further days to perfect it into that of a passable newman. He had many laughs watching himself in the mirror. He could make his legs long and arms short and stubby then reverse the process in seconds having short fat legs and long thin arms that dragged on the ground.
He studied drawings and paintings of people and tried to mimic them. He would place a portrait beside the mirror and work on the subtle facial differences until he became them. Eventually, the novelty wore off. He had reduced changing to a Logicon from a newman and vice versa down to a memorized routine and it was time to show the family.
Rob’s idea was for them to both to go as duplicates of Rob and ask his family members to identify who was who. Later he would show them how he could mimic a Logicon. He knew that they would immediately ask questions that only Rob would know, so after they had done a spirit swap and Rob had shape changed from a Logicon back to an imitation of his own body he created a mindlink between Facit and himself and they both went to see Granddad.
‘Ah at last!’ said Granddad. ‘I se
e you’ve made a lot of progress and are going to challenge me to pick the correct Rob.’
‘Yes, Granddad!’ they said as one.
He smiled and walked around the pair looking for clues, but he couldn’t see any obvious ones. Both duplicates had minor differences but nothing that might suggest which was which, so he asked them to walk around a little, again finding no clues. Next he asked each duplicate several questions which each was able to answer.
‘Very good indeed,’ he said, then Rob felt a surge of mind magic and noticed that Granddad’s eyes glowed briefly indicating that he had modified his vision, probably to detect illusions and other deceptive magic. He looked at them both for a few moments and then figured out what they had done.
‘I wouldn’t recommend using that spirit swap ritual in dangerous situations. It has led to considerable grief at times and is outlawed almost everywhere. However, I’m sure it would have helped you gain a shape changer’s perspective Rob.’
‘Facit has been wonderfully patient and a great tutor, Granddad,’ Rob offered. ‘Where are the others?’
‘They’re all out at the moment except for Melanie who’s around somewhere. See if she can pick the difference,’ Granddad said with a chuckle. ‘Tonight we’ll have a celebration and you can show the entire family how you do it. We’ll also need to have a talk, as some important business has come up.’
Rob and Facit left to find Melanie and found that she was reading a book on a chair in the garden outside the mansion. Rob went to walk out, but Facit asked him to hold back a moment.
‘We shouldn’t leave the house, Rob.’
‘Why? We’ll only be outside for a couple of minutes and I want to see the look on Melanie’s face when she sees two of me.’
‘I’ve been here as your guest for too long. People may have had time to track me down. I have enemies and usually keep ahead of them by moving continually. We have had a wonderful time together I will not forget it,’ said Facit.
‘I have also enjoyed your company Facit, but remember the deal. We must both forget what happened,’ said Rob. ‘Let’s surprise Melanie, then we’ll have some rest and get ready for a celebration tonight.’
Facit thought about it then ventured ‘I guess you’re right, they’ll be looking for me as a Logicon in a cubic body case. It should be safe enough.’ And they went outside to surprise Melanie.
Rob spotted Melanie sitting on a blanket leaning against the base of a statue reading a book as both he and Facit walked over to her.
‘Melanie!’ they called together.
She looked around with a surprised chuckle, dropped the book and came over to them.
‘By the Powers Rob, what are you doing?’
‘Which one of us is the real me?’ Rob asked.
‘It’s me of course,’ Facit prompted.
‘No Melanie, I’m the real me!’ said Rob.
She looked them over, walked around them and sniffed them both and, smiling, walked around in front of them and said ‘You’re the real one’, pointing to Facit. ‘You both look identical but I know how Rob smells.’
She suddenly realised that what she said might be misinterpreted and looked a little embarrassed.
‘I’m sorry Rob, I didn’t mean to say you smell but a woman learns to discern males by their scent and you two have different scents.’ Suddenly her face changed dramatically. ‘Behind you!’ she shouted.
Both Rob and Facit spun around to see a large alien looking newman- shaped figure in dull black plate armour holding a very large sword, standing just ten paces from them. Its eyes glowed a rich golden colour and it announced:
‘I am the Law. I have a warrant for the arrest of Facit the Fleet. You are charged with being a political terrorist and will submit peacefully, or be sentenced to death where you stand.’
A globe of force appeared around Facit.
‘Wait,’ yelled Rob, as anger flooded his mind. ‘I wish to see the warrant.’
The creature looked closely at Rob and said ‘You are also a lawbreaker. You have aided and abetted a known criminal in concealing his identity. You will accompany me as well,’ and a second globe of force appeared around Rob.
Granddad appeared on the lawn beside them. ‘What’s happening here!’ he demanded sternly. ‘This is private property!’
‘I am the Law,’ said the creature. ‘Go about your business citizen. Interference in my duties carries a sentence of death.’
Granddad hesitated as if to think of some excuse to stop Facit and Rob from being taken, but he was too slow. The creature moved to the force spheres, touched them, and they were teleported away.
‘By the Powers Granddad, what was that!’ cried Melanie.
‘That was an archon. They are supposed to be guardians of justice; however, they are often employed by autocratic governments to catch dissidents such as Facit. They are very tough fighters, and not to be treated lightly.’ It then occurred to him that Rob’s spirit had been in Facit’s Logicon body.
‘I hope they swapped their spirits back to their correct bodies. If not Rob could end up in a damn difficult situation here. Come, we’ll have to move fast. I want you to go to the Logicon Embassy and deliver a letter by hand to a person that I know there.’
Chapter 4 Slip Sliding Away
The archon reappeared with his two prisoners at a teleport marker back at his base in the Panmagica Justice Centre. His eye glowed again and he addressed a colleague.
‘This one is the alleged Logicon criminal that I was sent to apprehend. I’ll deliver him to the Logicon Embassy as ordered. The other one was aiding and abetting. We should hold him here until he can be identified and charged. Please place him in a holding area until I return.’ He then teleported away but before he left, Rob noticed that Facit had changed his face. He no longer looked like Rob, so Rob quickly modified his own face.
The globe of force dissipated when the archon left and Rob was led to an officer who searched him and who asked who he was. Rob replied that he was Jon, a servant employed by the Theolaur family. This was duly noted and he was escorted to the local temporary lockup cells and tossed into one. The problem he had was that his source would soon run out and his body would revert to its normal Logicon body shape. Since few had seen a Logicon outside its body shell, he was about to reveal their true identity; that could be very embarrassing to all concerned.
Rob was placed in a small bare stone cell with two other men, both of whom looked quite drunk. He quickly decided that escape was his only option. There was a small latrine hole in one corner of the cell covered with a piece of stinking cloth, presumably there to reduce the smell. That was his route of exit but he couldn’t show his cellmates his true shape, so he decided that it was time for a little mind magic.
While he had never had enough magic in his source to use any powerful mind magic powers, he had learned some very useful powers that required little magic essence. Since a very young age he had been able to use his mind power to adjust the levels of light in the area around him. Later, he had learnt that sound could also be manipulated, at low cost to his source. He used his ability to adjust the light level to darkness; then shape changed back to the Logicon form, pulled out the cloth in the latrine hole, and slithered into it.
He expected his escape through the latrine to the sewer below to be a horrible stinking affair but was quite surprised. Once in Logicon form, instead of the latrine smelling disgusting it actually smelt quite appealing. As he slipped and slithered down the ever-expanding pipes he realised why many of the Logicons in the city were employed as sewer workers - they had free food.
A minute or two later he was down in the main sewer that serviced the city. He had been down here on quite a few occasions while his Granddad had conducted illicit transactions. It was now his lifeline to the mansion, but he would have to travel a considerable distance on foot, and that was hazardous considering he was naked and unarmed.
He checked his source and discovered it was more depleted than he wo
uld have liked. He could shape change to a newman form, but not for long enough to reach the mansion. However, in Logicon form his vision was too restricted to find his way there, and he was too slow to escape very far anyway. A further problem was that when the archon returned and found him missing they would likely look here first. He had to move quickly.
The main sewer tunnels were quite large, a least three paces across and four high. The walls were made from clay bricks held together with mortar. He could roughly tell the direction by the flow of effluent. From general knowledge he knew that all the main channels flowed to a central channel, which then flowed to the south of Panmagica where the waste was treated. He was quickly brought back to reality when he heard noises from the upstream tunnel, and even though it was unlikely that they were onto him this quickly he used most of the remaining power in his source to change to his newman form, and sprinted down the tunnel.
As he expected, his ability to maintain his newman form didn’t last more than about ten minutes, but he had travelled a considerable distance and decided it was time to hide. If he could remain undetected until after dark then he had a chance to get home. He certainly didn’t like his chances in the sewer. It would be filled with newmans, Logicons and possibly other creatures trying to track him down.
His best chance was to flow up the pipes into someone’s latrine pit and spend the time allowing his source to replenish. He changed to his Logicon form and headed up a randomly chosen side junction then continued onwards as the pipes grew progressively narrower. What would happen if his primary shape was human and his source ran out while he was slithering though narrow pipes as a Logicon, didn’t bear thinking about. It would be a horrible death. Fortunately, that wouldn’t happen this time.
Panmagica was a wonderfully progressive city to have a sewer system. Each house had a basement and in the corner of the basement was a latrine. Some houses had seats whilst others had holes in the floor.
