There were too many names in a rush, but this did help clarify things. Tilly the robot had told him he had been dumped by Doris the cyborg, who had gone to an android male. Apparently it had been because of a misunderstanding involving this female. An easy misunderstanding to have, considering her appearance! And this one was apologetic. Maybe she could help him.
"I bear thee no malice," he said carefully, still keeping his eyes clear of dangerous territory. If only she had some clothing on! "I know it was an-an accident. I-I misremember thy name."
"Agape," she said quickly. "I chose it because it means instant love, such as I feel for this society, that lets me participate though I am an alien. Perhaps I should have chosen more carefully, but I was so eager-"
"It's a perfect name," he said, looking down the hall. "Thou art-alien? From-elsewhere?"
"You know I am alien!" she exclaimed. "You saw me imbibe! And you did not wince! I am so grateful! I arrived only yesterday, and you helped me so much! And then I hurt you so much, without ever knowing! I wish there could be some recompense I could offer, but-" She spread her arms in a helpless gesture that attracted his gaze before he could stop it. He turned away.
"As it happens, there is," Bane said, realizing his opportunity. "If thou couldst show me the way outside."
"Outside? But that is unlivable!"
"I be a machine. Methinks I can survive it."
She smiled. "That must be so. Mach, I do not know the way, but surely I can find it. We have but to inquire of a maintenance unit."
"Maintenance unit?"
She glanced at him with the same perplexity the others had. "Why do you act as if you do not know? And why do you avert your gaze from my body? Have I become repulsive to you because of what you saw at noon?"
He had tried to tell the truth to Tilly, and had made no headway. He decided to try again. "Agape, I must tell thee something thou mayst believe not."
"I will believe!" she exclaimed.
"I be not Mach. I be his other self, a living person using his body. I be called Bane."
"You are not making humor?" she inquired. "I am not supposed to laugh?"
"No humor. No laugh," he agreed.
"Then this is the reason you cannot find your way around these premises," she said. "You are totally new here!"
"That be it exactly."
"Just as I was yesterday."
"So does it seem."
"But why don't you look at me?"
Time for more honesty. "I be accustomed not to seeing women without clothing. I fear embarrassment."
"From me?" she asked, amazed.
"Thou art an extremely, uh, attractive creature."
"Oh, what delight!" she exclaimed. "I never imagined! But I confess I do not know exactly how your species manifests this type of interaction."
Bane started walking, wishing that he could get away from this subject. Agape came right along with him. "I be sure I know not how thy species does, either," he said. "But if thou canst help me get outside-"
"Oh, yes!" she said enthusiastically. "Let me inquire of a menial!" She crossed to a panel set into the wall, and touched a button. "Please, some directions?"
"Aid required?" a voice came.
"We wish to find the outside."
"Follow the mouse."
A small panel slid aside at the level of the floor, and a thing very like a mouse emerged. But instead of legs it had little wheels, and instead of a tail it had an upward spike. It zipped down the hall.
They followed. The mouse careened around a corner, then moved to a blank section of wall. Its spike emitted a beeping sound.
"This must be it," Agape said. She touched the wall with her hand, and it fogged. They stepped through it,
into a chamber containing bulky suits suspended on frames.
A large wheeled object approached them. "Serfs wish egress?" Its voice came from a grille on top.
"Wish to go outside," Agape said. "Is this permissible?"
"Permissible," the machine agreed. "The robot can go as is; the android must don protective gear."
"Oh, he is not really a robot, and I am not an android," Agape said.
The machine considered. "What definitions are applicable?"
"Call me robot," Bane said quickly. "I be the only one who needs to go out."
Agape turned to him, her lovely face seeming to melt a little. "You do not wish my company? I had understood that you found me attractive."
There seemed to be another misunderstanding here! "Thou dost wish to come outside?"
"I wish to help you, as you in your other guise helped me. And if you continue to find me attractive, I wish to do with you what the females of your species do with the males."
Bane paused. It was evident that the mores of Proton differed somewhat from those of Phaze. But the fact remained that he needed help, and that she was willing to provide it, and he liked her company more than he thought was appropriate, considering that his other self might not feel similarly. If he found Mach, and exchanged places, and Agape tried to be too friendly with the robot-
"I be trying to return to my frame," he said. "When I do that, it will be Mach in this body again. I know not whether he would desire thy company."
She nodded. "I have no knowledge either. I thank you for your caution, Bane. But while you are here, I would like to be with you, because I understand how you must feel. You are an alien in this world, as I am, even though you look normal for your species."
Fairly spoken! "Then don some gear and come along!" he said. "I shall be glad to have thy company a while longer."
The menial machine selected a suit for her, and soon Agape was ready. Then they stepped into a tiny chamber she called a "lock" and the door closed on them. In a moment, Bane knew, another door would open, and he would finally see the outside.
4. Magic
At the foot of the mountain Fleta showed the way to a tree that bore huge and delicious-looking apples. Eagerly, Mach reached for one, but she put her hand on his arm, cautioning him. "That be no joke even I can abide," she said.
"Joke? I'm hungry!"
"Bane, that apple be poison! Mayhap thou dost mean to denature it before thou dost eat, but this be not humor I abide."
Mach paused. "Mach, not Bane. I can't denature anything, I told you!"
"Mach," she repeated, again stifling her mirth. Then she sobered. "But tease me not further; take of the good fruit."
Mach reached for a different apple, and glanced at her; when she nodded, he plucked it. "You promised to tell me why you think I could heal myself or conjure food."
She plucked an apple of her own, and nibbled at it delicately while she spoke. "We have known each other since I was a foal and thou a baby," she said. "Thy father, Stile, and my dam, Neysa, be oath-friends, and so she raised me near the Blue Demesnes, and I did learn the human tongue even as thou didst. We wrestled together when little, and later I carried thee all around Phaze. Only these past three years, when we became grown and thou studied the magic and I the antimagic of my kind, have we been separate, and though it had to be, I missed thee, Bane. Now for a moment we romp again, and ne'er would I have it end."
She had a funny way of referring to herself! "But what about magic?"
"Thou'rt the son of the Blue Adept!" she exclaimed. "One day thou willst be lord of the Blue Demesnes thyself. That be why thou hast been studying thy magic. Already thou canst do conjuration no ordinary person can match. Hard be it for me to understand why thou didst not summon a sword and stab those roach-heads, or transform them to slugs."
Mach stared at her. "You're serious! You think I can do magic!"
"Bane, I have seen thee do magic many times," she said. "E'en when we were little, thou wouldst tease me with thy conjurations, but always I forgave thee. My dam likes magic not, but I have no aversion to it, for how could I love thee and not thy nature?"
Mach shook his head. "Fleta, you must understand this: I am not Bane. I can't do magic. The first time
I met you was last night."
"Thou certainly dost look like Bane, and sound like him, except for thy funny affectation of speech, and smell like him," she said. "Else would I not have come to thee."
"I'm in Bane's body. But I'm from the other frame. My name is Mach, and science is all I have known."
"If thou wouldst have me believe thee, let me touch thee," she said.
"Touch me?"
She came to him, and took his hand, and brought it
to her forehead. She pressed it against the gem in her forehead. "Speak," she said.
"I am Mach, from Proton," he said firmly. "I exchanged bodies with my other self in Phaze, with Bane. Now I am here and he is there, and I'd like to change back."
She lifted his hand away from her head and brought it down before her, staring at him over it. "Truth!" she exclaimed, wide-eyed. "No joke!"
"No joke," he agreed.
"Thou'rt not the man I know!"
"I am not."
She dropped his hand and backed away. "And I spent the night with thee!" she said, appalled.
He had to smile. "Nothing happened, Fleta."
"And I kissed thee!" she continued. "Oh, had I known!"
"And a nice kiss it was, too," he agreed.
"And now I stand naked before thee!" she said, seeming shocked.
"It's the natural way."
"Not for grown folk!" she said. In a moment she had gotten back into her robe.
"But you're no Citizen!" Mach said. "If anyone catches you in that-"
"This be not Proton!" she snapped.
He had to smile. "Touché! No Citizens here."
"No science here." She squinted at him as if trying to penetrate his disguise. "But if thou really canst not do magic-"
"I really cannot," he agreed.
"Then there be hazard here," she concluded. "Best if I change form and carry thee back to the Blue Demesnes before any learn!"
"Change form?" he asked. "What are you talking about?"
She hesitated. "Ah, now I remember! Thou dost not like-Oh, what must I do?"
Mach spread his hands. "I don't know why you're so upset. Why don't you just show me where these Blue
Demesnes are, and maybe there I can learn how to return to Proton. Then you'll have your friend Bane again."
She still seemed doubtful. "Bane-Mach, this be no garden within thy demesnes! Here there be monsters, and as we be-we cannot travel through the fell swamp."
Mach remembered the swamp. He realized what she meant. If it had not been for the unicorn, he would have been lost.
That unicorn! What had been its intent-and where had it gone? What would it do when it returned and found him gone? "Is there any other route? One that doesn't go through the swamp?"
"None we would care to take," she said.
"Worse than the swamp?"
She nodded soberly.
"But how did you get here, last night?"
"Thou really dost not know!" she said, as if verifying something she couldn't quite believe.
"All I know is that I slept, and when I woke, you were beside me. You must have had some safe route."
"Not one I care to use at the moment."
"I don't understand."
"Surely thou dost not," she agreed. "But mayhap we have another way."
"Another path?"
"Another way. Thou must use thy magic."
"But I told you, I have no magic!"
"How dost thou know?"
"I come from a scientific frame. I don't even believe in magic!"
"Well, I don't believe in thy science," she retorted. "But if I were in thy land, I would at least try thy way."
Mach realized that there was some justice in her position. "Very well, tell me how to do magic. We'll see what happens."
"Always before, thou hast sung a ditty."
"Sung a ditty?" he asked incredulously.
"A little rhyme, and it happens." "This is ridiculous!"
"Thou didst promise to try," she reminded him, pouting.
So he had. "What ditty do you want me to sing?"
She shrugged. "Try some simple spell, first."
"No spell is simple, to my way of thinking!"
"Conjure a sword, mayhap. That can slay a monster."
"A sword." Now Mach shrugged. "I just make a rhyme, and sing it?"
"About what thou dost want."
Mach's experience in the Game on Proton had made him apt at quick challenges. He could sing well, and he could write poetry, including nonsense verse. That last was an achievement he was proud of, for no other robot he knew of could do it. In a moment he had fashioned some doggerel verse: "I'll be bored, without a sword," he said.
Nothing happened. "Nay, thou must sing it," Fleta reminded him. "And I think thou must concentrate, make a picture of it in thy mind."
Mach pictured an immense broadsword. "I'll be bored, without a sword!" he sang.
There was a puff of smoke and an acrid smell. Something was in his hand. As the air cleared, he looked at it.
It was a toy sword.
"Dost thou still mock me?" Fleta demanded. "What canst thou fight with that?"
But Mach was amazed. "I conjured it!" he said. "I actually did conjure it!"
"Of course thou didst conjure it!" Fleta agreed acidly, stamping a foot in rather cute frustration. "But I did mean a real sword!"
"I tried for a real sword," Mach said. "But I really didn't believe it would work."
"It did not work, numbskull! In years of yore, thou wouldst have wrought a truly adequate blade."
"In just a day of yore, I wasn't even here," he retorted, nettled.
She softened. "Aye, sirrah, I forget! Well, try again."
That seemed sensible. Mach set down the toy, concentrated on an image of a yard-long blade formed of stainless steel, and sang: "I'll be bored without a sword!"
There was a swirl of fog before him. It dissipated, leaving-nothing. Not even a toy sword.
"Art sure thou art really trying?" Fleta asked.
"I thought I was," Mach said, baffled. "The first must have been a fluke."
"Canst not get through without a weapon," Fleta said.
"I could make a weapon."
"And conjure another toy? This be tiresome!"
"I mean by hand."
"By hand?"
"To craft it from a natural object. A stone, or a piece of wood." He looked about as he spoke. There were many stones along the slope they had just descended, and old branches littered the ground between the trees.
"An thou dost try to bop a dragon on the snout with a mere stone, thy hand and half thy arm will pay the forfeit," she pointed out.
"Unless I threw the stone."
"Then thou wouldst not have thy weapon anymore."
"Um. Maybe an axe, then." He walked back to the slope, peering at the offerings. He found several nicely fragmented stones with sharp edges. When he found one of suitable shape, he kept it and started his search for a handle. "Are there any vines around here?"
"Vines? Thou meanest to tie up the dragon?"
He laughed. "No. To tie on my axehead." He found a stout stick of suitable size.
She wended her way among the trees, and soon found a vine. She tugged at it, but it would not come free from the tree. He joined her, setting his hands above hers and hauling down hard, but only succeeded in hauling himself up. He lost his balance and fell into her. She let go, and they both tumbled to the ground.
"Clumsy oaf!" Fleta exclaimed, trying to extricate herself from his involuntary grasp. "Willst tear my cloak!"
"Sorry." He helped her get free, somewhat diffidently, because she kept reminding him of a Citizen. Nevertheless, the brief contact reminded him forcefully how nicely endowed she was, in the feminine sense. His breakup with Doris in Proton still stung; it would be nice to-
But of course he knew almost nothing about this pretty young woman. She seemed to know a lot about him, or about Bane, so lacked that disadvantage. She
had come to join him in the crater, apparently intentionally, because she took him for her old friend. Yet there were ways in which that association seemed other than ordinary friendship. She had kissed him, and gone naked for him though it was not her normal state. Yet again, she had not signaled any actual sexual involvement between them. It was almost as if she were his sister, or perhaps half-sister, close enough to have no secrets or shame, yet distant enough to be aware of him as a male. Of Bane; this intimacy obviously did not extend to Mach. Mach found himself jealous of that intimacy, of whatever nature.
Meanwhile they had a challenge in this vine. It was good that it was tough; he needed strength. But how could he get a suitable length of it for his purpose?
Aha! He brought over his axehead stone. He held the vine firm with one hand, and sawed with the sharp edge of the stone. In a moment the vine parted. He had his cord.
He used the stone to split the end of the stick, then wedged the stone into that cleft, so that the sharp edge was at the side. He wound the vine around and around this joining, drawing it tight. He pulled the tag-end into the crevice below the stone, so that it was caught firmly.
Fleta surveyed the result dubiously. "That be an axe?"
"A crude one. It will have to do."
"It will take more than that to stop a dragon."
"Then I will use it to make more than that." Mach took his axe and chopped at a sapling. The head started to work out of its cleft, and the cord tried to unravel;
he had to rework both more carefully. But he managed to fashion a pole about two and a half meters long. "A staff," he announced.
"A dragon would chomp it off," Fleta said. But she seemed halfway impressed.
Mach checked the ground again, picking up a number of smaller stones. "And what be these for?" Fleta inquired.
"For distance operations. I'll throw them to keep a monster away."
"Canst throw well?"
"In my own body I have perfect aim; it comes from long experience in the Game," he said.
There was a swirl in the air, and vapor formed. But in a moment it dissipated. "What was that?" Fleta asked, alarmed.
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