The serf guard let Mach in. Agape stood to meet him. "Bane! Didn't it work?"
He took her in his arms. He had not realized what a luscious creature she was! It was evident that she had learned much about human interaction since his brief contact with her.
He kissed her – and felt her stiffen. She realized that something was wrong. But before she could speak, he put his lips to her ear and whispered, "I am Mach. Give no hint. Melt your way out at night, go to the nearest maintenance service outlet, and tap this pattern." He clicked his teeth three times quickly, then three times slowly, then three times quickly again, in the ancient SOS signal he had discovered when researching for a game. He had set it up as a code to the self-willed machines: one that only he would think to send.
"Then trust the machines; they will get you out. Tell Citizen Blue. I will try to distract attention from your cell tonight."
He kissed her again, then separated. "An I see thee not again, think kindly of me," he said, loudly enough for others to hear.
"Oh, you'll see her again," Purple said. "Right here, when you return with my message from Phaze."
"Thou art a hard man," Mach muttered.
They returned to the key section of the passage. "It be very close here," Mach said. "I feel his presence."
"Well, merge!" the Citizen said impatiently.
Mach tuned in, and felt Bane approaching. He stepped up to meet him. They overlapped.
Did you do it? Mach thought.
Aye. And thee?
Yes.
Then it be time.
Time, Mach agreed.
They separated. Mach remained in Proton; they had not tried to exchange frames this time. They had just needed the news of their success to be delayed until now. For Mach had no compelling personal reason to visit Agape, and Bane had none to visit Fleta; the enemy forces would keep the females securely isolated after the exchange. Indeed, this was the only safe policy – as the strategy he and Bane had formulated should show.
Mach looked around, feigning confusion. "Where am I?" he asked.
"Proton," the Citizen replied.
"Then I am back! The exchange worked!"
"That's right, robot."
"Then I have a message for you."
"A message? But I just sent your other self with one!"
Mach smiled. "It seems your opposite number had the same notion you did. His message is this: Contact has been reestablished."
"I know that!" Purple snapped. "What else?"
"Nothing else. He said you would know what to do, and what message to return."
"That's the message I sent him!"
"Evidently great minds run in similar channels," Mach said.
"Don't get cute with me, robot!"
Mach smiled grimly. "How can I be cute with a person for whom I have no respect?"
"I'll have you dismantled and fed into the refuse recycler!" the Citizen snapped.
"And lose your only contact with Phaze? Whom do you suppose you are fooling, Purple?"
The Citizen began to assume the color of his name. "You play a dangerous game, machine."
"Listen, you idiot – this isn't Bane you're talking to! You can't deceive me the way you did him. I am the son of Citizen Blue, and Blue will grind your meaty
posterior into hamburger when he finds out what you have done. How long do you think you can keep it secret?
Purple asserted some control over himself. "Do you forget that I have your alien girlfriend hostage to your cooperation?"
"What alien girlfriend? I broke up with Doris the cyborg before I went to Phaze; I have no girlfriend in this frame."
The Citizen took stock, realizing that he had lost that aspect of his leverage when Bane and Mach returned to their own frames. Then he saw his avenue. "So you do have a girlfriend in Phaze. And if I know my other self – as I surely do – he has that girl in his power. If you don't bring back a message from me, he will take it out on that girl. And that you wouldn't like. Am I correct, machine?"
Mach grimaced, answer enough.
"So you will cooperate – and when Bane returns here, he will cooperate, because I have his girlfriend. We've got you, robot."
"Until Citizen Blue learns. Then you may not like the reckoning that comes."
"By the time Blue learns, there may have been a shift in the balance of power. Then I may like the reckoning well enough."
Mach realized that the cunning Citizen had big aspirations. He was going to use the contact with Phaze to increase his own power, making himself invulnerable to retribution. He could do that only with Mach's cooperation. Therefore the sensible thing to do was not to cooperate. But Fleta was indeed hostage, and until he knew she had been freed – and Bane knew Agape had been freed – they did indeed have to cooperate.
But his resources were not yet exhausted. He needed to distract the Citizen's attention from Agape for about twenty-four hours.
"I'll play you a Game," Mach said. "I will break out of this captivity within twenty-four hours. Then you may do with the alien female what you wish – but my father will settle with you for interfering with the Experimental Project and generating an interplanetary incident. I suspect he will simply ship you to Moeba for alien justice."
"I'll play no Game with you, robot!"
"You can't avoid it, Purple. You have already established it: you have taken me captive. My challenge is to break out. If I fail, I will have to cooperate with you. If I succeed, you will be finished. So it's your gain against your loss. But I'll offer you a draw at the outset: free me and the alien now, and there will be no retribution for what you have already done."
"You try to dictate terms to me, you inanimate contraption? I already hold the winning cards! There'll be no deal but this: you will deliver the message I send, or you will remain locked up forever!"
"So you decline the proffered draw," Mach said calmly. "Then let the Game proceed. Twenty-four hours."
"There is no Game! No time limit!"
"Keep repeating it, and you may even come to believe it."
"You will cooperate! You have no choice!"
"You assume I will deliver the correct message?"
"Don't try to bluff me, machine! You always tell the truth. If you take a message, you will deliver it accurately."
"Yet you assume I'm lying when I tell you the Game is on?"
"You can imagine any Game you want, in your cell! That's all in your circuits."
"We shall see."
A serf conducted Mach to a cell, and he was locked in. Three walls were solid stone, the fourth of transparent glass, too thick and strong to break. He had no privacy, and a serf stood guard on the other side of the glass. This was a tighter cell than the one in which Agape was confined; the Citizen knew Mach was more dangerous than the alien female.
Mach sat on the bare bench and crossed his arms. He tuned out, remaining motionless for half an hour while he planned the details of his action, preprogramming as much as he could. When he was satisfied with his plan, he allowed himself to think about Fleta, back in Phaze. He was back in his robot body, and had control over his emotional circuits, but now he released that control and simply felt. He discovered that his feeling for Fleta was just as strong now as it had been in Phaze. A machine could love, for he did.
All too quickly his preset time was up. Mach came alert again.
The serf still guarded the cell, but was no longer paying full attention. In fact, the serf was snoozing on his feet. That was what Mach had counted on. It was easy for a machine to remain alert indefinitely, but difficult for a living person. Faced with Mach's complete immobility, the guard had quickly grown bored and careless.
Mach did not move his hands, but he did twitch the fingers of his right hand, where they were covered by his left upper arm. His middle finger pressed a stud in a private pattern, and a section of pseudomuscle slid aside to expose an access to the internal circuitry of his torso. Robots had always been constructed with access– panels, but M
ach was of the most advanced type. His brain was the most sophisticated yet devised for this purpose, and his body was as competent and reliable as any machine could be. The interaction of the two gave him potential that perhaps his own designers had not anticipated.
The fingers quested within the circuitry, dislodging certain fastenings, until a small subunit was loose. Watching the serf-guard to be sure the man did not turn his head, Mach removed that subunit, sliding it out and down his body to the bench. Still watching the guard, Mach now used both hands to adjust the tiny unit.
Mach's body was hierarchically organized, with a number of self-powered subunits contributing to the performance of the whole. The particular unit he had removed related to the verification of pressure-feedback from his left arm. It was redundant, and he could operate without it for a time. He closed up the aperture, so that his body seemed unchanged, and made adjustments to the separate unit. It was of a standard design, and could be adapted for several purposes. Now he was adjusting it not for internal feedback, but for external broadcast.
He set the unit on the bench beside him and turned it on. It began emitting a signal. The signal passed through the glass wall and bathed the serf-guard. It was not a strong or far-reaching signal; it just induced a lethargy bordering on sleep. The serf would not even be conscious of it; he would simply not feel inclined to move or react unless strongly prodded.
Now Mach touched the skin under his right arm, keying open a chamber there. He unmade some connections and set up a bypass for a subunit whose normal purpose was to enhance the strength of his motor actions when an emergency arose. The living human analogy was a shot of adrenaline; his robot body had it under conscious control. He removed this unit and adjusted it, converting it, too, into a miniature broadcaster of a signal. Then he took it to the glass panel.
The panel was locked by a mechanism controlled by a computerized identification system. It was supposed to respond only to the presence and command of an authorized person. If anyone else attempted to open the cell, an alarm would sound. But Mach's device sent an override signal that nullified the normal recognition circuit and released the lock. This trick, like the one to immobilize a living person, he had picked up as a child when playing with others. Many of the humanoid robots knew such things, but by tacit common agreement they did not advertise them to nonrobots. It was like the short-circuit route to sexual pleasure: only for their own kind.
He brought the unit near the locking mechanism, and tuned it, seeking the particular band for the override. Suddenly he found it; the glass panel slid open.
Mach emerged, approached the nodding serf, and led him by the hand into the cell. He sat him down on the bench, picked up the pacification unit, then left the cell again, closed the glass panel, and turned off the second unit. The locking mechanism clicked back into force. Mach adjusted the units, then opened his underarm apertures and wired the units back in. There was now no evidence of how he had done what he had done. With luck it would be some time before the serf woke, and longer before he was able to gain the attention of anyone else.
Now he set off down the hall, alert for sensors or alarms. He had some time to pass before he could afford to be actively pursued. Where would be the best place to hide?
It took only a moment to decide: the nearest Game Annex. He could lose himself pretty thoroughly in the right aspect of the Game.
Evidently the Citizen and his staff were occupied elsewhere, though it was midday. Probably this was a forbidden area, to keep the prisoner isolated. Would it be possible to go to the cell where Agape was confined and free her? Maybe, but not worth risking; he intended to stay well away from there.
He found an alarm beam, but didn't even need to nullify it; he simply stepped over it. Then he came to the Game Annex. This was a simple Game pedestal, with a door beyond that would open on the Game chambers. Many Citizens had private annexes, as the fascination of the Game extended to every level of the Proton society, and to every species within it. In fact, that had been perhaps the major lure for the status of serf, for the self-willed machines: the right that status conferred to play the Game. Within the Game, there was no distinction between Citizen and serf; only a player's individual skill counted. The annual Tourney allowed serfs of all types to compete on equal footing for the prize of Citizenship. But even serfs like Mach himself, who had no need for that particular route to Citizenship, were fascinated by the Game. Perhaps, he thought, it represented the expression of man's eternal need to gamble – a need that had been passed on to man's more sophisticated machines.
Mach bypassed the grids, as he knew that any attempt to turn them on would alert the Citizen. He opened the door beyond, and stepped into an elevator. He guided it down, seeking the basement level where the main supplies should be.
He emerged into a chamber in which a number of robots were stored. There was one that resembled a clothed hunter, complete with bow and arrows, and another like a goblin, and another like a harpy. There were also guided machines, such as small airplanes. A fancy Game setup indeed. The main Game Annex had everything, of course, but the small subannexes like this were generally limited to basics. Citizen Purple evidently liked to play in exotic settings. That surely told something about his character, but Mach wasn't sure what. After all, he himself had found love in a most exotic setting.
He sat at a control console and put the helmet over his head. He operated the controls, which were of standard type, and animated the goblin. The ugly little robot walked and turned at Mach's direction. There was a speaker system, so that he could speak through the goblin's head, but he didn't use it. He was satisfied that he had a notion of the type of entertainment Citizen Purple preferred: vicarious participation in fantasy settings.
Well, to work. Mach opened a panel in his abdomen and removed another subunit. This one normally monitored his power usage. His main power source was a chip of Protonite, and it would last for a year if not expended wastefully. When too much power was being used, the monitor warned him, so that he could cut down. But that monitor, like the other subunits, could be turned to other purposes.
He adjusted it, again as with the others, to become a signal generator. It was simply a matter of amplifying and redirecting its normal output. But its new signal was not a normal one; the mechanisms had a feedback circuit, intended to shut down its signal when the monitored energy-use declined to tolerable levels, that in this circumstance had the effect of a random modulation. Both the strength and frequency of the signal would vary unpredictably.
Mach activated this unit, then put it in the clawed grasp of a robot harpy. Then he used the console controls to animate the harpy, and sent her up the access shaft to the main Game-playing site. He watched through her eye-lenses as she came up into the site – and pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. This was imitation Phaze! There were trees all over the Purple Mountains, exactly as was the case in Phaze. He knew; he had recently crossed those mountains with Fleta!
Fleta. Abruptly his mood shifted. He was no longer in the living body, so his emotions were under control, but he had no desire to control this one. All that he had longed for, all his pseudolife as a humanoid robot, had been granted during his sojourn in Phaze. He had experienced the wonder of true life there – and the corollary wonder of true love. That wonder was muted, now – but his memory of both remained.
He wanted both, again. The existence he had in the frame of Proton had lost its luster for him. What future did he have here? Perhaps he would become the first robot Citizen – but what was the point, without Fleta? Better to be a common resident of the magic frame, with her!
But Bane was back in his own body, now, and surely understood the superiority of it. Bane had evidently dallied with Agape, here, but he had known, as Mach had known with Fleta, that it could not be permanent. Perhaps they could exchange again, for visits to each other's frames, but Proton was the one Mach was stuck with for permanent residence. Paradise lost!
He sent the robot harpy
flapping into the sky with the signaling unit. He had her fly over an otherwise– inaccessible section of the mountain, swoop low, and drop the unit in a crevice. That would make it hard to locate and harder to recover. Then he brought her back to the exit ramp and to the nether chamber. He positioned her exactly as she had been before, and turned off the control console.
He left the premises quietly. His luck had about expired; now he would have to hide in earnest.
He found a utility closet some distance removed and got into it. He concealed himself behind cleaning equipment that the serfs used, and tuned out.
Within the hour a commotion commenced. Mach came alert, but did not move; again he appreciated the fact that as a robot, he could remain absolutely still for an indefinite period. Since he was in the lowliest of places, it might be some time before they thought to look for him here.
Serfs hurried along the passage. Soon the Citizen himself huffed past, muttering. Mach attuned his hearing to the voice of the Citizen, so as to pick up what the man said when he reached Mach's vacated cell. This should be fun!
The Citizen reached the cell. "How the hell could he get out?" he demanded. "The damned thing's still locked!"
Evidently the response did not satisfy him. "Well, open it!" he snapped. Then, evidently to the guard-serf trapped inside: "You are fired!" The firing of a serf was a serious business; the chances were that that serf would not be able to get another position, and would have to leave the planet. This serf, of course, was mainly a victim of circumstance.
"He has to be somewhere on the premises!" the Citizen cried. "Our barriers are proof against any unauthorized departure!" Yet the glassed-in cell was supposed to have been secure, too. Mach was privately pleased that he had thought to remove his devices and close the cell. As a robot he should not ordinarily have had the originality for that, and evidently the Citizen had assumed that the normal tolerances applied. Thus Purple had departed to take his meal or nap, leaving Mach to his own devices – and was now paying the consequence. Had he been smarter, he would have realized that the son of Citizen Blue would have to be a rather special robot with the latest technology. And that a robot who had just returned from a genuine experience of life could have been inspired to a certain lifelike originality. Now that minor mystery of the locked cell was buying Mach invaluable time.
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