Phaze Doubt

by Piers Anthony

  “Do the two women get along?” he asked.

  “Yes, well.”

  “Then Purple means to use Tsetse as a lever against Brown. She will have to serve the Hectare.”

  “Brown wouldn’t do that!” Nepe protested.

  “She will have to. How did you exit?”

  “I asked Brown what of me, and she looked at me and told me to go to the storage chamber. So I did, and sneaked out from there. No one saw me.”

  “How did you know where the storage chamber was?”

  “Silly! I’ve been there many times before!”

  “But you were supposed to be a Proton guidebot.”

  Now it sank in. “I shouldn’t have known! The machine shouldn’t have known!”

  “Which means Brown caught on to your identity.”

  “But she wouldn’t give me away!”

  “I’m afraid she would, Nepe, now.”

  “But why? She’s on our side!”

  “She is being blackmailed.”

  “What?”

  “Her sexual preference is for women. Trool knew, but kept his counsel until he realized that Purple and Tan were catching on. Then he told me. Neysa was going to help her, but the invasion came too soon. Now they are forcing her to cooperate with the Hectare, lest her secret be publicized.”

  “But who cares what she likes?” Nepe demanded. “She’s not the only one! Tsetse—” Then it came clear. “That’s why Purp sent her! To—”

  “To make clear that he knows her secret, and will not only keep it, but give her a lover—if she cooperates,” Mach said. “Carrot and stick. She can keep her Demesnes and nominal freedom, and have a truly lovely and obliging woman—or she can suffer the humiliation of exposure and unkind imprisonment. Rape by males would no doubt be part of that punishment. She is a good woman, but sensitive and alone. She can not withstand that combination.”

  “But do the rest of you really care? I mean, you tied in with an alien blob and a unicorn; what do you care about who she cares about?”

  “Nothing. We can accept her as she is. But she can’t believe that. Had we realized how it would be used against her, we would have made our position plain before the Hectare investment. But of course most of us simply didn’t know. She was once smitten with Stile; we had not questioned beyond that. We should have.”

  “Grandam Neysa—that’s why she hurried us on,” Nepe said. “Why she went back. Maybe she told Brown it was all right.”

  “Neysa is conservative. It took her almost ten years to accept Fleta’s relationship with me.”

  “So she wouldn’t go for it,” Nepe said. “So Brown thinks that’s how we all think!”

  “It is an irony of the situation. We were distracted by the coming conquest, and didn’t realize how this would relate.”

  “So Brown will tell on me, because she has to. I wish I hadn’t given myself away! What do we do now?”

  “We shall have to move quickly, before the golems stake out the Poles.”

  Nepe was baffled. “What are you saying?”

  “Something I preferred not to, before. We have set two counterploys in motion. One is the Magic Bomb which Black and Green have made.”

  “The what?”

  “Its detonation will destroy the planet and all on it. So if we lose, we will take the Hectare with us. But we prefer not to lose.”

  Nepe was daunted by the horror of the notion. “I had no idea!”

  “We preferred to shield you from that sort of reality,” he replied. “But it is time for you to know, so that you understand the importance of your own role.”

  “But I’m just a messenger!”

  “Your messages are critical. You will have three, and you dare fail in none. Soon all of us will be captive except you. Here is the message capsule. Do not attempt the second until the first is done, or the third until the second is done.”

  “I’ll try,” she said. “But—”

  “I have erased my own knowledge of the plan,” he said. “I was the only one who knew the full course. Now none of us can betray it to the enemy. I can only say that its details will be completely surprising. If you are caught, destroy the capsule without reading it.”

  “But then we will all be destroyed!” she protested. “By the Magic Bomb!”

  He cracked a small smile. “Get offplanet if you can.”

  “But Daddy—”

  “You are on your own, alien flesh.” It was an endearment he used on her, referring to her Moebite ancestry. “On your way, and do not communicate with me again.”

  She knew he meant it. She scooted away from him, the weight of the planet suddenly on her little shoulders. They were playing what in the game was known as hard ball.

  When she was safely alone, she activated the capsule for the first message. It was simple: GO TO NORTH POLE.

  That was all. She waited, hoping that there would be some explanation, but was disappointed.

  She pondered it, her mind whirling. Tsetse had been delivered to Brown, and suddenly to save the planet Nepe had to go to the North Pole! How could she make sense of that?

  Well, she could make a little piece of sense of it. Brown now understood what was at stake for her. Brown had also caught on to Nepe’s presence. That meant that the enemy would be on her trail. But maybe not immediately. Brown might take a few hours to realize what she had to do, and Purple might have trouble tracing Nepe after that, even with magic. So maybe there would be no pursuit. But the Hectare might have devices that no one else knew about, that could sniff out even a magic trail, with a little advice from an Adept. So they couldn’t take a chance. So Mach had given Nepe the full dose, on the assumption that they would trace him down through her, and take him out of the game. He could not afford to assume otherwise.

  So before she went to the North Pole, she had better mask her trail. But quickly, because she didn’t know how much they already knew. Mach had said they might have Brown’s golems stake out the Poles. What did the Poles have to do with all this? Probably the answer was in the Book of Magic, which Mach had taken somewhere. He must have hidden it where it wouldn’t be found by the enemy, because with it they could overcome anything any Adept tried.

  Where would that Book be? Where else: the North Pole! So if she went there and got it, maybe she could use it to do whatever else was needed.

  Nepe moved about within the city, crisscrossing her trail so that it would be excruciatingly difficult for anyone to track her by any normal means. She was good at hiding, as good as any creature could be, but there remained that lurking doubt: if Brown had told immediately, and Purple had put a magic tracker on her, that would be impossible to shake by physical means. So she might be wasting her time here.

  Still, Flach was experienced at magical hiding, and he could do his best to nullify that tracker spell. So after she was done here, she would turn it over to him, and he would complete the job.

  It all seemed reasonably simple. But she very much feared it wasn’t.

  Chapter 8

  North

  Flach put together such a combination of moves and transformations that he doubted that anyone or anything could untangle them. He even assumed bug forms and spied on any Hectare that were outside of their antiseptic chambers. All seemed quiet, apart from the grim business of the takeover itself.

  In the course of this, Flach got a fair notion of what the Hectare were doing. They were setting up to exploit the resources of the planet. Crews were being assembled to cut the greatest forests for exportable lumber. That would destroy the environment, and many wild and magical creatures would die. It had been exactly that type of ruinous exploitation that had ruined Proton before, so that life was possible only within the force-field domes, with all else a noxious desert. Other crews were to mine out all the remaining Protonite. That would destroy the magic, leaving the planet completely mundane. What would happen to the starving, magic-gelded creatures? It looked very much as if their flesh would be melted down for protoplasm banks
.

  Mach was right: it was better that the planet be destroyed, than that the Hectare have their way with it.

  The Hectare themselves were true bug-eyed monsters; indeed, the serfs and ordinary folk of Phaze had instantly named them BEMs. It seemed that there were two or more major alliances in the galaxy, one of which was the humanoid. Proton had once been in the humanoid sector, but the pattern of colonization had in due course left it stranded with a few others in alien territory. So there was no hope of rescue by human forces; it would be too costly for them to penetrate this deep with sufficient force to accomplish anything—and even if they did, the Hectare might simply destroy the planet rather than give it up. So Proton was on its own—just as any alien planets were on their own when they had the misfortune to find themselves within human territory.

  The Hectare themselves were simply one of a number of species in their alliance. They were the closest, so on them had fallen the chore of exploiting the planet. They had not bothered before, but when it became evident that it had magic now, they had moved it up on their schedule. It wasn’t that they understood magic, but it made the planet intriguing. It was about as easy to take over the planet as to investigate it, so they moved in.

  The Hectare of course didn’t think of themselves as bug-eyed monsters, or even as monsters. They thought of human beings as asymmetric few-limbed worm segments. A Hectare was symmetrical, having no front or back or left or right; its eyes surveyed the entire hemisphere (the flat ground and dome of space above it) simultaneously. Its tentacles circled its body like a mantle, and its tread-feet took it immediately in any direction. Flach could appreciate their point of view, though a Hectare remained a BEM to him. According to Nepe, planets colonized by nonhumanoid creatures that found themselves in the human sector of the galaxy were being exploited and reduced just as savagely; there was no special virtue in being human, when it came to galactic power tides. On such planets, the horrible menace was FTS—few tentacled slugs, or human beings. Her sympathy was with the natives, there.

  Once Flach was satisfied that there was no pursuit, he started on his mission. He could not go directly to the North Pole, for several reasons. Other planets, he understood, were hot at their equators and cold at either north or south poles; nothing was said about their east and west poles, oddly. But Phaze (and Proton) was hottest at the South Pole and coldest at the North Pole. A trip to the south would be difficult because of the constantly burning heat; a trip north was a similar problem, because of the intense cold. If he conjured himself directly there, he would freeze before he could do anything, unless he was all bundled up or invoked a protective spell. But that was academic, because he couldn’t conjure himself there. His magic was operative mainly within the “normal” range of Phaze, roughly between the White and Purple mountain ranges. Beyond that, the hostile magic of the demons interfered. He might be able to learn snow magic, as his Grandfather Stile had, but that would take time and practice. To the south, below the Purple Mountains, it would probably be all right; as far as he knew, nothing but dragons dwelt there, and they didn’t interfere with magic. But the more potent exercises of magic made larger splashes, similar to those of emotional commitment, that could be detected by others. With the Purple Adept searching for him, a self-conjuration of that magnitude would be folly; Purple would zero right in on it. That was why he had kept his maneuvering small-scale so far; each splash was below the threshold detectable from a distance.

  So he would have to make his way to the White Mountain by a series of small conjurations, or by swift physical travel. Once there he would have to enlist the aid of the snow demons, and travel physically the rest of the way to the Pole. Then he would have to see what offered; the message hadn’t told him what he would find there, probably so as not to give it away to the enemy. He didn’t expect the trip to be fun, but it had to be done.

  He started out. He assumed his unicorn form, which he could do without any splash of magic, because it was natural; he was half unicorn. He was privately proud of his pretty blue hind socks and glistening black coat. As he trotted, he played his horn to the cadence of his hooves; this enhanced the pleasure of the motion. A unicorn could trot for a long time to its own music, because there was magic in music, and it restored much of the energy expended by the body. Nepe said his horn sounded like the science instrument called the recorder, which was a woodwind related to the flute; it was blown from the end instead of the side, and had a mellower tone. The folk of the science frame tended to classify things in their own terms. His dam Fleta could play two or three notes at once, making duets with herself; that was unusual. He wished he could run with her now, or with his Grandam Neysa, sharing harmonies. Fleta was captive of the Hectare, and Neysa was playing dumb animal so as to be ignored by them. They were depending on him to save the world—or to let it be destroyed.

  As night came he assumed his bat form, and used sound to track his course north. He snapped up night bugs as they offered, for though he had magically assumed the form, it didn’t fly by magic. It needed food energy. What he ate as a bat would sustain him in his other forms too, if he consumed enough. Since he could feed without pausing in this form, it behooved him to stuff himself for the next day. He was not a natural bat; he had adopted it as an alternate form, completing the normal unicorn roster of three. Thus this one also was neutral, because it was the unicorn way, and would not make a splash. The nonsplash forms were repeatable, while individual magic was not. Once a unique spell was done, it was finished; if the same thing needed to be done again, it had to be by a different spell. So even Adepts were careful not to waste magic. Fortunately, human ingenuity could devise many spells, so the limitation normally didn’t squeeze.

  He had mastered other forms, however, extending his unicorn range. Grandpa Stile had trained him for this, making him the Unicorn Adept. This ability had enabled him to hide from the Adverse Adepts for four years, making a critical difference in the contest for control of Phaze. Now he hoped it made a similar difference, in this contest for the survival of Phaze.

  As dawn approached, he shifted to wolf form, and ranged on through the diminishing forestland. He was making excellent time, but he was tiring, for all the forms required rest and sleep eventually. He hoped the ice demons were hospitable, so that he could get some rest there.

  Being in wolf form reminded him of his Promised, Sirelmoba. What a fine little bitch she was! He almost wished he had not made the commitment to her, because once they came of age and mated, they would separate and never mate with each other again. If he had taken some other bitch as his Promised, and exchanged name syllables with her, then he would have been free to establish a permanent liaison with Sirel. But of course he wouldn’t have come to know her so well then. The wolf way was a good way, but sometimes hard. And, he had to remind himself, he was not really a wolf; he had joined the Pack when in hiding, but he was more truly a unicorn, or a man.

  Finally the great White Mountains loomed beyond the scrub. Now he was glad he was moving rapidly, because even in his furry wolf guise he would have had some trouble with the cold here. Natural wolves got acclimatized, but he had spent his life in the temperate zone and was soft. Also, he lacked his full growth. In the necessary alignment of things, the unicorns and werewolves and vampire bats lived the same ages as humans; a nine-year-old human boy was as young in proportion as a ‘corn or wolf or bat. It had been a job, carrying Lysan! He had had to use supplementary magic to lighten the load.

  He came to the base of the mountains. Grandpa Stile had told him of one of the tribes of snow demons he had come to know, because he had played chess against the demon champion, Icebeard. Even demons loved good games! They had been on opposite sides in the Adept struggle, but demons did not take human altercations too seriously. In any event, they should all be on the same side now: the side of Phaze.

  He found the pass leading to the demon caves. He started up, his paws feeling the ice. Soon he would have to change to boy form and invoke a
spell of warmth.

  A snow demon appeared, and roared a windy challenge. “Away, wolf, ere bury thee!” It was no bluff; the creature could set off a snowslide in a moment.

  “I be friend!” Flach called in growl-talk. Not all creatures understood all languages, but there was some interaction between wolves and snow demons. With magic he could do for himself what he had done for Lysan: make their languages compatible.

  “Demons have no friends!” The demon made ready to start the slide.

  “I be grandpup to Adept Stile, come to see Icebeard.”

  The demon paused. That name was known here. “Prove it.”

  Flach assumed his unicorn form, then his boy form. He made a minor conjuration of clothing, lest he freeze. “Dost see the resemblance?” For he did have a family resemblance to his grandfather, one he had cultivated from pride.

  “Aye,” the demon said grudgingly. “An thou dost be faking it, we shall make o’ thee a statue o’ snow.”

  “As would be proper.” Flach agreed.

  The demon led him on into a cave farther up the pass. Soon he stood before the demon chief, who was a fearsome figure. He was made entirely of ice, with wild icicles for hair and of course matted ice for a beard. He gazed coldly at Flach. “Thou claimest to be the ‘Corn Adept?” he demanded, his breath a freezing fog.

  “Aye. An thou wishest, I will perform small magic.”

  “Why small? An thou dost be he, thou canst make big magic.”

  “And have our enemy spy my location.” Flach replied. “That were not kind to thee or me.”

  Icebeard considered. “Dost play chess?”

  Flach laughed. “Aye! But I be far from Grandpa’s league—or thine.”

  That was a good answer. “What willst thou here?”

  “Knowest thou o’ the Hectare?”

  “Word reaches e’en the hinter. Thou hast dealings with them?”

  Here was the crux. If the demons had sided with the enemy, he would have to risk strong magic to escape. “Aye. I be dealing to destroy them.”