Phaze Doubt

by Piers Anthony

  “Give me back my love, but do not play games with me,” he said.

  Weva’s natural likeness reappeared. “Thou canst gain from that only if thy mission fails,” she pointed out.

  “And if it fails, I will be a criminal in the new order,” he agreed. “I have no future here, either way. But until then, I choose to live honorably.”

  “I fathom that not!”

  “You have a Hectare component. Surely you understand honor.”

  “Nay, that were not in my syllabus.”

  That was interesting. Apparently this Hectare protocol did not manifest full-blown. Perhaps it had to be evoked by contact with other Hectare as the individual developed. He did not remember how his own honor had developed; it seemed always to have been part of him. He was learning something about his own nature, by seeing the effect of an alien upbringing on her. “I’m not surprised. Your whole life must have been taken with learning to play the flute and becoming Adept and integrating your several components and preparing for whatever it is you will do to try to save your planet. There would have been no time for such subtleties as the concept of honor.”

  “Aye. Teach me of honor.”

  She had taken him by surprise again. “You want to take time with a subtle concept that can only inhibit your immediate benefit as it inhibits mine?”

  “Aye, Lysan. My thirst be to know what I know not. An thou dost prefer not to play with me, teach me instead.”

  “All right. Give me back my love for Echo.”

  “I can not.”

  “What?”

  “Magic works but once in Phaze, an it be not inherent. I nulled the potion, but it be a far cry greater to null the null, and I fear it would be not the same.”

  “But what will I do, when I am with Echo again?”

  “I know not, and care not. Teach me honor.”

  It was, he saw, a thing she needed to learn! She had carelessly changed his life in a way she could not reverse. An honorable person would not have done that.

  He was Hectare. She was Hectare, in a sense. It was proper to provide what her alien tutoring had lacked. That might even have an effect on his mission, if he could make her appreciate her Hectare heritage.

  “Then listen, child,” he said grimly. He started in.

  The golem marched tirelessly south, through the day and night. Lysander talked, and slept, and talked again, with hardly a murmur from Weva, but she was listening and learning. He was surprised by the amount he knew of the subject, but realized that he had been thinking about it because of the awkwardness of his own position as an enemy of Phaze that a prophecy claimed could help save the planet. It was not that the definition was complicated, but that the nuances were. Weva wanted example after example, of what was honorable in a theoretical situation, and what was not, and why. She seemed fascinated by the subject, and he realized that he was abating a lack she had not before been aware of. She was Hectare, in this respect, and becoming more so as she absorbed the lesson.

  “But how canst thou call it integrity, an thou dost prevaricate?” she asked.

  “My loyalty is to my mission, in a hostile camp,” he explained. “I must complete it, and if telling the truth to an enemy would endanger it, then I must lie. However, in all things not related to my mission, I tell the truth. And when I make a deal, I honor it, even with the enemy.”

  “Mayhap I fathom that,” she said.

  Meanwhile it grew hotter as they neared the Pole. The dragons had long since been left behind; perhaps they could handle the heat, but it was too far from their hunting range. There was just a sea of baking sand. Weva took off her cloak and fashioned it into a canopy to shade them from the sun; that, and the air rushing by, cooled them almost enough. But they needed water, so she risked a small conjuration to fetch a jug of it for him, and assumed the form of a humanoid robot herself, so that she didn’t need to drink. Throughout, she continued to listen to his discourse on honor, and to question it. Evidently the Hectare component intended to get this quite straight, and to live by it, in future.

  There was something odd on the horizon. Weva, as the robot, saw it before he did, and inquired. “Be there a storm, here? Flach said naught o’ that.”

  Lysander considered, fearing that it was a sandstorm, then realized what it was. “We are approaching the South Pole. There is an anomaly that would show up here, and perhaps also at the North Pole if a snowstorm doesn’t obscure it. That is the night.”

  “But it be near noon!” she protested.

  “Time for a small planetary physics lesson. The light comes to this planet from its sun, as is the case elsewhere, but it makes a right-angle turn, and—”

  “Because o’ the black hole,” she said. “Phaze be but a shell round the hole, and the light be bent. Now I fathom it!”

  “Black hole?” he asked blankly.

  “Thou didst not know?”

  He realized that she probably did know what she was talking about. “You mean what we take as a planet is something else? You say a shell—?”

  “Aye. Half shell, now that the frames be merged. Canst not see it from space?”

  “It looks just like a planet, from space.”

  “Aye, a planet with only one side! Saw thou not the missing half?”

  He tried to visualize what he had seen during his approach to the planet, but his normally clear memory let him down. He had no picture of the far side of Proton/Phaze. Probably he had seen only the near side, and not questioned it. That might be the case with all travelers; the effect that turned the light at right angles might also deceive the eye about what else was seen or not seen. This place was stranger than it seemed, and that was saying much.

  Weva guided the golem to the edge of the night, sparing them the further ravage of the sun. They walked in shadow, and it was a relief. They had no trouble seeing ahead, because of the sunlight just to the side.

  Lysander glanced up, cautiously. The sun was glaringly bright in its sphere, but stars twinkled in the adjacent sphere. There was no hint of the mechanism by which the light was bent; it was either full day or full night.

  They came to the South Pole. It was a simple marking on the ground, across which the shadow fell: the shadow of night. That would rotate counterclockwise, always covering half the Pole as it did half the planet—or half the shell.

  They dismounted. “Thank thee, Franken,” Weva said, donning her robe again. “What thou seekst be beneath the Pole, but it be protected by magic, so thou must wait for it to emerge.”

  The golem stepped into the light and became immobile. It would wait until the end of the world, quite likely. Weva brushed off the Pole, and there was a small spiral stake. It had evidently been taller once, but broken off. She pulled, and it came up, revealing another chamber below.

  “Is it safe to go in there?” Lysander asked. “If time is changed—”

  “Aye, time be much changed, but needs must we go in.” She paused. “I apologize to thee, ‘Sander, for taking thy love, and will make amend an I be able. I acted before I fathomed honor, but after learning from thee, I know it be in my nature. Thou didst give me as much as I took from thee.”

  “Echo will be here?” That would put him on the spot.

  “Aye, they took another route. We went apart so that they could decoy pursuit from me. Mayhap Flach can help thee.”

  “No. Say nothing. I’ll play it through as seems best.”

  “There will be time, for it be magnified greatly here. To others it may seem but one day before the end, but we shall have nigh five years.”

  “Five years! One day is five years?”

  “Aye, almost. So hurry not.”

  He nodded. Then he followed her down into the hole.

  He was not aware of any time change, but did not question that it was happening, because he had seen how Flach and Sirel and Alien had aged in one week under the West Pole, and how Flach had aged again in a mere day. Weva had come into existence and become a dominant young woman in a b
it over a month. Now she told him that time was much further accelerated here at the South Pole, and he had to believe her. The Adepts had needed something like this, to give them time to forge their weapon.

  “Hello, Weva!” a voice called. It was Flach, looking another notch taller and older. “Methought to worry lest thou be lost.”

  “Nay, Flach, merely distracted,” she said. “How long hast thou been here?”

  “Six months.”

  “So thou didst come two and a half hours before me,” she said. “Thou couldst have waited.”

  “Nay, I wanted to meet the elves.” Flach glared at Lysander. “Didst enjoy thy session with her?”

  “Yes, actually,” Lysander said.

  “I drew from him all I desired,” Weva said. “Now do I know all about honor.”

  Lysander had the satisfaction of seeing Flach startled. “Honor?”

  “Aye. What didst think I meant?”

  “Me feared for him,” Flach admitted. “When I spent time with Icy the demoness, she—but that be long ago. Be he ready work with us?”

  Weva shrugged. “Ask him.”

  “No,” Lysander answered. “You know I represent the other side.”

  “Then needs we must tell thee the whole o’ our plan,” Flach said, seemingly unperturbed. “I will bring thee to Chief Oresmite o’ the Iridium Elves.”

  Iridium Elves! That explained the flutes. But what were they doing under the South Pole? The elves normally mined under the mountain ranges. “There is iridium here?”

  “Nay,” Flach said as he led the way. “But their expertise were needed, so they came with the Adepts Clef and Tania.”

  “The Adept Clef!” Lysander exclaimed. “So this is where he came!”

  “Aye. But he be with us no longer.”

  “What happened to him?” Lysander was concerned. He had liked the Adept, with his beautiful and evocative music, and he had liked Tania, who was merely beautiful.

  “They died o’ age. It were a hundred and fifty years ago they came here.”

  “A hundred and fifty years!” But he realized it was true. The two must have come here before the Hectare came, anticipating the investment. The accelerated time scale—he did a quick calculation, and realized from the hints they had dropped that the ratio was about 1,728 to one, or 12 cubed, just as it was 144 to one under the West Pole. The East Pole was probably a mere 12 to one, and the North was the opposite, slowed by one of those factors. There was indeed a pattern to the Poles!

  “Their descendants be here now,” Flach said. “They have ne’er seen the outside.”

  Lysander thought of the couple he had met so recently. They had not died in untimely fashion, so he did not need to mourn them, yet they were gone. Did it matter that they had lived their full lives, perhaps quite satisfactory ones, and had done what they did voluntarily, to save their planet from alien occupation? They were still suddenly dead, and there was a hurting in his mind where they had been.

  They came to a pleasant chamber wherein sat an old elf whose beard was the color of iridium. Behind him was a bank of indicators whose nature he recognized: this was a large computer. Yet the other walls of the chamber were rounded stone. Obviously high technology existed here, but the elves did not care about appearances. Or perhaps to them rounded stone was the proper appearance.

  “Sir, this be Weva, mine analogue,” Flach said respectfully, and Weva made a little bow. “And Lysander, o’ the prophecy.” Lysander nodded.

  Flach turned to the two of them. “This be Chief Oresmite o’ the Iridium Elves, who governs here. I leave thee here with him, Lysander, while I take Weva to introduce to the local community. Any deal thou dost make with him be binding on us all.”

  Flach took Weva’s hand and led her from the chamber. She went without protest, like a docile maiden. Lysander was privately amused; she was anything but that!

  Oresmite wasted no time. “Have a chair, Lysander. I know thy nature, so I will tell thee mine. I be the last surviving elf in these Demesnes to have known the Adepts Clef and Tania personally; today their great-great-great-great-grandchildren be with us, those o’ the sixth generation of descent, though in thy frame little more than a month has passed. Our life here be not ill, merely accelerated. Hast questions before we proceed to business?”

  “Yes,” Lysander said, still relating with difficulty to the time change. He had no reason to doubt it, but also had had no evidence of its reality, here. “How could they have descendants, if there were no others of their kind?”

  The old elf smiled. He was in every sense a man, but only about half Lysander’s height. “Others came with them, several families, to establish the community. They be closely inbred, and eager to gain fresh blood; I must warn thee that thou willst be a target for their damsels.”

  “But my body is android! I can not reproduce.”

  “Aye. But the urge for fresh blood takes little note o’ that. Since thou be already committed—”

  “There’s a problem there. May I speak in confidence?”

  “Aye. We be here to come to an understanding.”

  “Is Echo the cyborg here?”

  “Aye. She has waited impatiently for thee, despite being pursued by the local males.”

  “Weva is a creature of extraordinary skills. She nulled my love for Echo, and now I fear my meeting with Echo. If there are other women pursuing me, for whatever reason, I fear for our relationship.”

  Oresmite stroked his beard. “So Weva truly be Adept?”

  “I believe so. Certainly her incidental magic was potent.”

  “And she made a play for thee?”

  “Yes. I talked her out of it.”

  “Why?”

  “It would not have been fair to Echo.”

  “But an thou hadst no further love for Echo—”

  “It was, as I explained to Weva, a matter of honor.”

  The elf gazed at him for a moment, evidently pondering. “Tell me aught o’ honor.”

  “That would take all day! It did take a day, and a night, to explain it to Weva. It’s no simple concept.”

  “I be not a nascent girl. Give me one sentence.”

  “Honor is integrity with a moral dimension.”

  “And so it were not proper for thee to dally with another, when one who loves thee waited on thy return,” Oresmite said. “E’en in the absence o’ love and presence o’ one who could compel thee. E’en with the planet ending in a day.”

  “Yes.”

  “How canst thou feel thus, and thou an agent for the enemy?”

  “My brain is Hectare, and Hectare are honorable. I have an assigned mission, which I shall complete to the best of my ability. My relationship with Echo is incidental to that, despite the intent of the Adepts, so my honor applies separately to her.”

  “Then surely can we deal. But first I offer thee this notion: wouldst thou find it fair an Echo be also nulled o’ her love for thee?”

  Lysander snapped his fingers. “Yes! I never thought of that! It would make us even.”

  “Then let me do this now.” The elf turned to the bank of equipment behind him. “Mischief, contact Weva, and suggest that she offer to do for Echo what she did for Lysander.”

  “Aye, Chief,” the computer replied through a grille.

  “Mischief?” Lysander inquired.

  “It be a machine with an elfin humor.”

  “Thank you, Chief. When I talk with Echo, and have her leave to separate, I will not have a problem with the local maidens.”

  “Now come we nigh our business,” the elf said. “Thou knowest the prophecy?”

  “It suggests that only the cooperation of an enemy agent can enable the planet to free itself from the Hectare investment. It does not specify who the individual might be, but there is a strong likelihood that I am the one.”

  “Aye. An thou be not the one, we be lost, for there be none other here. But we need to guess not, for we can have the answer.” He turned again to the computer.
“Mischief, be he the one?”

  “Aye, Chief.”

  “Now wait!” Lysander protested. “How can that machine know such a thing?”

  “Answer, Mischief,” the Chief said.

  “I be what thou didst know as the Game Computer,” the grille said. “ ‘Cept that I ne’er met thee, Lysander; I were gone ere thou didst come to the planet. Before I left, I was in touch with the Oracle, who knew the prophecy, and it gave me information that enabled me to know thee when I encountered thee. I verified it with the Book o’ Magic, which be my current reference.”

  “The Game Computer!” Lysander exclaimed. “The one that stopped functioning when the frames merged!”

  “Aye, Bem brain. We knew o’ trouble coming when the mergence occurred, and set about dealing with it then. The formerly deserted Pole caverns were occupied and stable communities established barely before the invader came. A lesser machine was put in my place, unable to handle the complete complexity o’ the games, but assisted at need by the Oracle, and I came here to fathom the technical aspect o’ the effort.”

  That explained a lot! A concerted planetary effort had been made from the outset of the planet’s vulnerability, so that the investment could be nullified before the planet was reduced to trash. It was impressive, but probably futile; the power of the Hectare was overwhelming.

  “What identifies me as the one of the prophecy?”

  “Thine honor.”

  “Then you know that I will not help your side, regardless of any inducements you may proffer.”

  “Nay, not so,” Oresmite said. “The prophecy shows thou mayst do it, an thou choose.”

  “Honor dictates my choice.”

  “Aye. So must we deal.”

  “We can not deal.”

  The Chief leaned forward persuasively. “We need thy help now. An we wait longer, all be lost regardless. Willst not yield the accuracy o’ the prophecy so far?”

  “So far,” Lysander said grudgingly. “But not only do I have no intention of helping you in the key moment, I have no certainty that I can. I assure you that if I went back to my people now and asked them to depart the planet, they would not heed. I have no authority; I am only a special agent of a type routinely employed.”