Robot Adept

Chapter 2 Proton

They took their places on either side of the console. Bane’s screen showed a grid with sixteen boxes. Across the top was written 1. PHYSICAL 2. MENTAL 3. CHANCE 4. ARTS, and down the left side was written A. NAKED B. TOOL C. MACHINE D. ANIMAL. The numbered words were highlighted, which meant that he was supposed to choose from among them.

But his mind drifted, conjuring different interpretations for the terms.

Physical: He looked across at Agape, who was naked in the serf mode of Proton, as was he. She was beautiful, with curling yellow tresses, wide-spaced eyes with yellow irises, and erect breasts. It was hard to believe that she wasn’t human.

She met his gaze. Her hair lengthened and turned golden, then orange. Her eyes nudged closer together, as did her breasts, and her nipples brightened to match the new hair and eye color. She smiled.

Mental: “Thou hast no need to change for me,” he murmured, smiling back. “I be smitten with thee regardless.” But now it was easier to believe that she was alien. Agape, accented on the first of the three syllables, meaning “love.”

Her hair continued to grow, becoming red, and it curled down across and around her breasts, which were gaining mass. “Make your move, Bane,” she said.

He looked again at his grid, pondering. His mood was lightening, as perhaps she intended, but it was not easy to set aside the gravity of their situation.

Chance: Bane was with the creature he loved, but he had little joy of it, because she would soon be leaving the planet and his life. Citizen Blue had made it plain: as long as Mach and Bane represented the only contact between the frames of Proton and Phaze, and the Contrary Citizens and Adverse Adepts desired such contact, the boys were probably safe. But their girlfriends were at risk, because they could be kidnaped and used to put pressure on the boys. Therefore the relationships had to be sundered, lest much worse occur. It was risky for them to maintain their association.

Agape had agreed to return to her home planet, Moeba. But the Contrary Citizens were watching, and would surely try to intercept her at the port and take her captive. So for the nonce she remained with the experimental group, and Bane had the benefit of her company. Every day might be the last together, so they did their best to make it count.

Arts: Today they were playing the Game. They had had a bad experience with it on the estate of Citizen Purple, but now they had the chance to play it as it should be played, unrigged, for fun instead of for life. It was fairly new to each of them, because Bane was from another frame and Agape was from another world. Neither was what either appeared to be; each was fashioned artistically to be on the appealing side of ordinary.

Her breasts caught his eye again, just above the level of the console. Now they were huge and purple.

He laughed. “Thou be trying to distract me!” he accused her. “So I may make a bad choice!”

“Curses, foiled again,” she muttered. She had studied hard to learn human idiom as well as custom, and seemed to enjoy showing off her increasing mastery of both.

“I want to make love to thee,” he said, experiencing a reaction.

“You did that this morning,” she reminded him. “Have you forgotten already?”

“Nay, I remember! That be why I want it again.”

“Well, defeat me in the game, and you can do with me what you will.”

“But what if I lose?” he asked.

“Then I will do with you what I will.”

He reflected on that, and his erection doubled its growth. A passing couple noticed. “I’d like to know what game they’re getting!” the man said.

Too late, Bane remembered that he was now able to control such reactions. He thought the correct thought, and his member subsided. But his desire remained, for he could not control his mind as readily as his body.

He touched the number 1. PHYSICAL. He wanted to get physical with her, in or out of the game.

She had already made her selection. It was B. TOOL. Was she teasing him with another idiom, because of the reaction he had just quelled?

He grimaced. The way his thoughts were going, he would have preferred A. NAKED. Of course that wasn’t literal; it simply meant that the players were relegated to their bare hands. All serfs of Proton were unclothed; that had no significance here. It had taken him some time to get used to this, but now he accepted it.

A new set of boxes appeared on his screen. This was the Secondary Grid, and its numbers across the top were labeled 5. SEPARATE 6. INTERACTIVE 7. COMBAT 8. COOPERATIVE. Down the side were E. EARTH F. FIRE G. GAS H. H2O. The letters were highlighted for him this time.

He looked at her again. She had reverted to a more normal figure and color, except for her nipples and eyes, which were now electric green. What would she choose? 8. COOPERATIVE? Maybe he could still get close to her. “Earth” meant a flat surface, as opposed to the variable or discontinuous surfaces of the following options, or the liquid surface of H20. Cooperation on a flat surface—that might be good.

He touched the E panel. Again, her choice was ready.

She had chosen 5. SEPARATE. So much for that. Was she teasing him again? No, she was merely playing the game, unaware of his thoughts. They would do what they would with each other after the game; they had no need to do it in the game. He was being foolish.

They were in 1B5E: the category of tool-assisted physical games, individually performed on a flat surface. That did not sound very appetizing to Bane.

This time the grid was only nine squares, with the numbers 9, 10 and 11 across the top and the letters J, K, and L down the left side. There were no words there, but there were a number of choices listed to the right. These consisted of ball games, wheeled games, and assorted odds and ends games that had perhaps been lumped into this category because it was the least irrelevant place for them.

Bane hesitated, not sure where to go from here. “Now we place games,” Agape explained. “May I have the first turn?”

Bane shrugged. “Thou mayst.”

She put her finger to her screen and evidently touched KNITTING, for that word brightened on his screen. Then she must have touched the center square of the grid, for abruptly the word was there.

“Knitting?” he asked. “What kind o’ game be that?”

“A woman’s game,” she said smugly. “I am not good at it, because we do not have it in my society, but I had to learn its basics in order to come here; I suspect that you, being arrogantly male, have never had experience with it.”

Bane opened his mouth, and shut it again. She had him dead to rights.

“Now you place one,” she said.

“Ah.” If knitting was a tool-assisted physical game of the female persuasion, there were many others of the male persuasion. He put his finger on BALL: Throwing. She would have trouble throwing a ball as far as he could! He touched the upper left square, and the expression appeared there.

She put SEWING beside it in the top row.

He scowled. If she got three lined vertically, then got to choose the numbers, she would be guaranteed one of her choices! But no, he remembered now that the turns alternated; the last person to place a game, which on this odd-numbered grid would be her, had to yield the choice of sides to the other. So he could choose the vertical and avoid that.

All the same, he played it safe. He put ICE SKATING in the middle of the bottom row.

She put BAKING in the left center, or 9K square. He quickly filled in the other end of the K row with BICYCLE RACING so that she would not have a horizontal line. He was beginning to enjoy this; he had thought they would not play the game until the grids decided what it would be, but realized that they were already in it. This was the aspect of strategy, where the game could be virtually won or lost, depending on the player’s cleverness in choosing and placing.

Agape put COOKING in the lower right corner.

Bane put SHOT PUT in the lower left.

She put SOAP BUBBLES in the upper right square, the final one. The grid was complete.

He chose the numbers, though there did not seem to be much difference. Then he wrestled with the decision over which column to choose. If he took the first, he had two chances to win one of his sports: Ball-throwing or Shot-putting. But she would anticipate that, so take the middle row, winning her choice of Baking. So he should take one of the other columns… where the odds were two to one against him. Except that if she figured him to take the first column, so she chose the middle row, he obviously should take the third column, putting them in Bicycle Racing. So the odds weren’t really against him. Unless she realized this, so took one of the other rows, so as to win. So he should—

He shook his head. He was getting confused! There was no way to be sure of victory; it was an endless maze of suppositions.

He decided to go with the odds. He touched Column 9.

This time she had not chosen before him, for the chosen box did not illuminate. His row highlighted; that was all.

At last she chose. The 9K square lighted, then expanded to fill the full screen. She had won it after all: they would play the game of Baking.

“Do you concede?” she asked.

It was only part of the ritual, but he was tempted. What did he know of baking? His mother, the Lady Blue, had always handled that. But he didn’t like quitting, even when it was only a game. Even when it really didn’t matter who won or lost. “Nay.”

“Will you accept a draw?”

That was a generous offer! He knew he should take it, but he decided to take his loss like a man. “Nay.”

She sighed. “I thought to bluff you,” she admitted. “I know nothing of baking.”

“Then methinks we both should learn,” he said. “The loser must eat the winner’s effort.”

“But you don’t even need to eat,” she reminded him.

“Aye, but I can. Mayhap I will not have to.”

She looked at her screen. “Oh, there is a list of baking choices. What do we want?”

“Something simple,” he pleaded. “Something we ne’er can mess up too much.”

“I agree.” She addressed the console. “What is simple, and tastes all right if poorly made?”

BROWNIES, the screen replied.

Agape looked at Bane. “Do you know what brownies are?”

“Nay, if they be not a species o’ the elves.”

“Neither do I. So we’re even. Let’s do it.”

“Aye.”

There was a message on the screen: ADJOURN TO KITCHEN ANNEX, BOOTH 15.

They had committed themselves. They made their way to the kitchen annex.

The booth was ready for them. Two chairs were at consoles, their screens lighted.

Agape took one seat. Bane the other. Both consoles faced the wall. Bane’s screen said: TOUCH WHEN READY TO PROCEED.

He reached out and touched Agape on the shoulder.

“It means the screen!” she exclaimed. But she leaned over and kissed him.

He had known that. Satisfied, he touched the screen. Nothing happened. “Thou hast to touch thine too,” he reminded her.

“There’s someone watching us,” she murmured. “You can see him in the reflection of the wall.”

He looked. It was a middle-aged serf, apparently one of the caretakers or troubleshooters of this section. He ran it through his brain’s storage bank, and culled a positive reference. The serf was legitimate. “He be an employee, likely assigned to watch lest some minion o’ a Citizen molest us,” he murmured back. “Blue be not one to let us be taken hostage again.”

“Oh, of course,” she said, relaxing. She touched her screen.

Now the game was on. A menu appeared on his screen:

1B5E 9K BAKING BROWNIES MACH (R) VS AGAPE (A)

1. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS 2. OPTIONS 3. RECIPE 4. LIST OF INGREDIENTS 5. TERMINATE

“What be ‘R’ and ‘A’?” Bane inquired.

“Robot and android,” she replied.

“But—”

“This is a standard unit. It cannot distinguish between a robot and a human being inhabiting the body of a robot. See, you are also listed as ‘Mach.’ Similarly, it cannot distinguish between an android and an alien; it knows only the distinction between Human, Robot, Android and Cyborg. So I count as an android.”

He smiled. “Yet we be two other people.”

“Two aliens,” she agreed. “From Phaze and Moeba. That is what brought us together.”

“I would not change it.”

“Nor would I.” She returned his smile. They were doing a lot of that, now. “But let’s get cooking.”

“Aye.” He returned his gaze to the screen.

He did not understand much of it, so he decided to start at the beginning: GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS. He touched the number 1.

The original menu contracted and retreated to the upper right corner of the screen, evidently remaining functional. New words took over the left and center:

MOST COOKING AND BAKING IS DONE BY REMOTE INSTRUCTION. ALL DIRECTIVES INDICATED ON THE SCREEN WILL BE IMPLEMENTED IN THE ACTIVITY CHAMBER IMMEDIATELY BEYOND THE CONSOLE. IF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH YOUR OPTIONS AND RECIPE, PROCEED DIRECTLY TO THE LIST OF INGREDIENTS AND MAKE YOUR SELECTIONS. IF NOT, PROCEED TO 2. OPTIONS.

Well, that was clear enough. Bane touched 2. OPTIONS in the corner. He wondered how Agape was doing. She had come to Proton only a day before he had, but had been better prepared for it.

OPTIONS: YOU MAY GO DIRECTLY TO THE LIST OF INGREDIENTS IF THE RECIPE IS ALREADY FAMILIAR.

YOU MAY SPECIFY THE SYSTEM OF MEASUREMENTS EMPLOYED IN THE RECIPE AND LIST OF INGREDIENTS.

YOU MAY SPECIFY A MULTIPLE OF THE STANDARD RECIPE. WARNING: THIS MAY AFFECT THE BAKING TIME AND THE QUALITY OF THE PRODUCT.

YOU MAY SPECIFY VARIANTS OF THE STANDARD INGREDIENTS. WARNING: THIS IS NOT ADVISED FOR NOVICE PRACTITIONERS, AS IT MAY AFFECT THE QUALITY OF THE PRODUCT.

YOU MAY SPECIFY VARIANTS OF OVEN TEMPERATURE AND DURATION. WARNING: THIS MAY AFFECT THE QUALITY OF THE PRODUCT.

The list of options continued, but Bane had seen enough. He decided to stick with the standard recipe and ingredients. He touched 3. RECIPE.

There it was: the listing of the materials that were to go into the production, with brief instructions on integration and processing.

60 GRAMS UNSWEETENED CHOCOLATE

60 CUBIC CENTIMETERS BUTTER

Oops! He was in trouble already! He was not conversant with the metric system used in Proton; he thought in terms of ounces and pounds and cups and quarts.

But he had the solution. He touched OPTIONS again, and when its listing reappeared, he touched SPECIFY SYSTEM OF MEASUREMENTS. A sublisting of measurements options appeared: the various systems used by the other planets and peoples and creatures of the galaxy. That wasn’t much help either!

However, there was at the bottom a place for OTHER. He touched that, and when it asked him to PLEASE SPECIFY, he said, “The system used in the Frame o’ Phaze.”

The screen blinked. For a moment he was afraid that this was not a viable choice, but then it replied OLD ENGLISH SYSTEM OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES INVOKED.

Well! This was just about like doing magic in Phaze. He returned to the RECIPE. Now it listed:

2 OUNCES UNSWEETENED CHOCOLATE 1/4 CUP BUTTER

1 CUP SUGAR

2 MEDIUM EGGS

1/8 TEASPOON SALT

1/2 CUP WHEAT FLOUR

1/2 CUP WALNUT FRAGMENTS

1 TEASPOON VANILLA FLAVORING

This he was able to make some sense of. He glanced across at Agape, and saw that her activity chamber was in operation: things were happening in a lighted box in her section of the wall.

He read the assembly instructions. He was supposed to melt the chocolate and butter together, then stir in the other ingredients. He should be able to manage.

He touched 4. LIST OF INGREDIENTS. This turned out to be the master list of everything available. There were dozens of types of chocolates, and similar variety for the others.

He returned to INSTRUCTIONS and read beyond the point he had before. Sure enough, it mentioned that there were several types of options, including automatic selection of standard variants. He went to OPTIONS, found the place, and touched STANDARD VARIANTS. Then he returned to INGREDIENTS.

Now the listing was much contracted. There was only one type of chocolate. He touched that, and the screen inquired QUANTITY? followed by a graduated scale of measurements. He touched the scale at the two-ounce point.

Now his activity chamber came to life. Two ounces of chocolate landed in its floor.

Um. Perhaps he had overlooked another instruction. He reviewed, and found it: he needed a container. He specified one of suitable capacity, then specified in a SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS option that the available chocolate be placed in the container. The chamber turned dark, then lighted again: the chocolate was in the pan. The mess on the chamber floor had been removed.

He added the butter, then instructed the chamber to heat it to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Almost immediately the mixture started boiling violently. Goo splatted on the window of the chamber. Oops!

He turned off the heat and reviewed his general instructions and his recipe. He discovered that at this stage he was only supposed to heat enough to melt the chocolate and butter, not to bake it. He decided to start over.

ERROR the screen blazoned. It seemed that he had to make do with what he had; no second starts. He should have known; no one would ever let any mistakes stand if restarts were permitted. He could have gotten in trouble with his first loss of chocolate; evidently the system tolerated that amount of spillage.

Meanwhile, Agape’s project was well along. She might be an alien creature, but she had a much better notion of cooking than he did!

His start was a mess, but a good deal of the chocolate/ butter solution had been saved. He marked 100° F heat, and got the degree of melt he needed. Then, following instructions, he stirred in the remaining ingredients. The sugar was no problem, but the eggs were in translucent packages, and he had to do spot research to discover how to open these by remote control. He managed to bungle it, getting half an egg splattered across the outside of the pan.

When he had everything stirred in, he had a rather thick brown mass in the pan. Now he set the heat for 400° F and let it bake for a nominal half-hour. Actually it didn’t take that long; the game computer used microwave energy to do the equivalent in just a few minutes, because otherwise the booth would be tied up too long for each game and would not be able to accommodate all the game players.

The two finished products were brought out, and for the first time Bane and Agape could smell and touch their brownies.

His was burned, so dry and hard that it would be a real effort to consume it. Hers was underdone, resembling a pudding; she had evidently set the heat too low, and perhaps included some fluid by mistake.

“Who wins?” he asked.

“We can get the machine to judge,” she said unhappily.

“Nay, no need,” he decided. “Thy concoction resembles thee: amoebic. I like it best.”

“But yours resembles you,” she countered. “All leather and metal. I like it best.”

“We’ll eat each other’s,” he said. “We both have won.”

“We both have won,” she echoed, smiling.

They leaned into each other and kissed again. Then they had the machine pack their wares in plastic bags, so that they could leave the booth for the next players. As they departed, both their activity chambers were in chaos; the game computer was trying to get them clean, and on this occasion that was a considerable challenge.

They retired to the private chamber they now shared, and opened the bags. Bane took a bite of pudding, but found it tasteless. This was not because it lacked taste, but because his body, having no need for food, had no taste sensors. What he chewed and swallowed went to a stomach receptacle that he could evacuate subsequently, either by vomiting or by opening a panel and removing the soiled unit. Eating was a superfluous function for a robot, but the ability had been incorporated in order to enable him to seem completely human. He was glad of it; he wanted to reassure her by eating what she had baked. Digestibility was irrelevant.

Her mode of eating differed. She set the brownie lump on the table, leaned over it, and let her top part melt. Her features blurred and became puddingy, indeed resembling the consistency of what she had baked. She drooped onto the food, her flesh spreading over and around it. Her digestive acids infiltrated it, breaking it down, and gradually the mound subsided. When all of it had been reduced to liquid and absorbed into her substance, she lifted her flesh from the table. Her head formed, and her shoulders and arms and breasts. Her eyes developed, and her ears and nose and mouth, assuming their appropriate configurations and colors. She had a human aspect again.

“I hope it doesn’t poison thee,” Bane said, not entirely humorously.

“It was solid and burned, but not inedible,” she reassured him. “You made it; that is all I need to know.”

He took her in his arms. “I have never before known a creature like thee.”

“I should hope not,” she said. “I am the only Moebite on this planet.”

“I wish I could love thee in thy natural form.”

“I have no natural form,” she reminded him. “I am merely protoplasm. I assume whatever shape pleases you.”

“And I am pleased by them all. I never loved an alien amoeba before.”

“And I never loved a terrestrial vertebrate before. But—”

“Say it not!” he protested. “I know we must part, but fain would I delude myself that this moment be forever.”

“If we continue speaking of this, I will melt,” she warned him.

“And thou leave me, I may melt,” he said.

“Perhaps, when I am safe among my own kind, you could visit?” she asked hesitantly.

“Let me go with thee now!”

“No, you must remain, and communicate with your opposite self, and return to your own frame. Our association is only an interlude.”

“Only an interlude,” he repeated sadly.

“But we can make it count. Tell me what to do, and I shall do it for you.”

She was not being facetious. She had come to Proton to learn human ways, including especially the human mode of sexual interplay, because the Moebites wanted to work toward bisexual reproduction. They understood the theory of it, but not the practice. They believed that their species development was lagging because they lacked the stimulus of two-sex replication, and they wanted to master it.

But in the pursuit of this quest, Agape had run afoul of another aspect of such reproduction: she had fallen in love. Now she had much of the information, but lacked the desire to return to her home world and demonstrate it to others of her kind. She wanted only to remain with Bane.

Now that it was feasible to do, Bane found that he had lost the desire for sexual activity. Part of it might have been her sheer accommodation; no challenge remained, when she was completely willing and malleable. But most of it was his foolish gut feeling that once Agape had learned all that he might teach her in this regard, there would be no need for her to remain with him. Thus he wanted to conserve the experience rather than expending it, to keep her with him longer. He knew this was nonsensical, but it unmanned him for the moment.

“Let’s play another game,” he said.

She gazed at him in surprise. “Another game? But I thought—”

“Thou didst think rightly! But I—I find I be not ready. I want to experience more things with thee, a greater variety, while I may. I want to build up a store o’ precious memories. Or something. I know not exactly what I want, only that I want it to be with thee.”

“I see I have much to learn yet about the human condition,” she said, perplexed.

“Nay, it be not thee, but me,” he reassured her. “Only accept that I love thee, and let the rest be confused.”

She spread her hands in a careful human gesture. “As you wish, Bane.”

They went out to play another game, and another, and another, the victories and the losses immaterial, only the experience being important. So it continued for several days, with physical, mental and chance games of every type. They raced each other in sailcraft, they played Chinese checkers, they bluffed each other with poker, they battled with punnish riddles. Sometimes they cheated, indulging in one game while nominally playing another, as when they made love while theoretically wrestling in gelatin. Whatever else they did, they lived their joint life to the fullest extent they could manage, trying to cram decades into days.

They found themselves in machine-assisted art: playing parts in a randomly selected play whose other parts were played by programmed robots. Each of them was cued continuously on lines and action, so that there was no problem of memorization or practice. It was their challenge to interpret their parts well, with the Game Computer ready to rate their performance at the end. They had specified a play involving male-female relations, of a romantic nature, with difficulties, and the computer had made a selection from among the many thousands in its repertoire.

Thus they were acting in one by George Bernard Shaw titled You Never Can Tell, dating from the nineteenth century of Earth. Bane was VALENTINE and Agape was GLORIA CLANDON. They were well into the scene.

“Oh, Miss Clandon, Miss Clandon: how could you?” he demanded.

“What have I done?” she asked, startled.

“Thrown this enchantment on me…” And as he spoke the scripted lines, he realized that it was true: she had enchanted him, though she had not intended to.

“I hope you are not going to be so foolish—so vulgar—as to say love,” she responded with uncertain feeling. According to the play, she had no special feeling for him, but in reality she did; this was getting difficult for her.

“No, no, no, no, no. Not love; we know better than that,” he said earnestly. “Let’s call it chemistry…” And wasn’t this also true? What was love, really? But as he spoke, he became aware of something that should have been irrelevant. They had an audience.

“Nonsense!” she exclaimed with more certainty.

They had not had an audience when they started. Several serfs had entered the chamber and taken seats. Why? This was a private game, of little interest to anyone else. “…you’re a prig: a feminine prig: that’s what you are,” he said, enjoying the line. “Now I suppose you’ve done with me forever.”

“…I have many faults,” she said primly. “Very serious faults—of character and temper; but if there is one thing that I am not, it is what you call a prig.” She gazed challengingly at him.

“Oh, yes, you are. My reason tells me so: my experience tells me so.” And his reason and experience told him that something was wrong: there should be no audience.

“…your knowledge and your experience are not infallible,” she was saying, handling her lines with increasing verve. “At least I hope not.”

“I must believe them,” he said, wishing he could warn her about the audience without interfering with the set lines. “Unless you wish me to believe my eyes, my heart, my instincts, my imagination, which are all telling me the most monstrous lies about you.”

“Lies!”

Yet more serfs were entering the audience chamber. Were they players waiting for their turn? “Yes, lies.” He sat down beside her, as the script dictated, but wasn’t sure he did it convincingly. “Do you expect me to believe that you are the most beautiful woman in the world?”

Now she was evidently feeling the relevance! “That is ridiculous, and rather personal.”

“Of course it’s ridiculous…” His developing paranoia about the audience was, too! He wished they could just quit the play here, and get away; he didn’t trust this at all. But as they exchanged their lines, his apprehension increased. Suppose the Contrary Citizens had managed to divert Blue’s minions, so that there was no protection for the moment?

“And I’m a feminine prig,” she was saying.

“No, no: I can’t face that: I must have one illusion left: the illusion about you. I love you.”

She rose, as the cue dictated, and turned. Then she spied the audience. She almost lost her place. “I am sorry. I—” Now she did lose it, and barely recovered. “What can I say?”

What, indeed? Now it seemed sure: the Citizens were about to make their move. But how could he get away from here with Agape, without setting off the trap? They needed a natural exit, to get offstage, out of sight.

“…I can’t tell you—” he was saying.

“Oh, stop telling me how you feel: I can’t bear it.”

And he saw that the scene was coming to a close. Here was their chance! “Ah, it’s come at last: my moment of courage.” He seized her hands, according to the script, and she looked at him in simulated terror, also scripted. But their emotions were becoming real, for a different reason. “Our moment of courage!” He drew her in to him and kissed her. “Now you’ve done it, Agape. It’s all over: we’re in love with one another.”

Oops—he had used her real name, not her play name! But he couldn’t change it now. It was time for his exit.

“Goodbye. Forgive me,” he said, and kissed her hands, and retreated.

But now the men of the audience were advancing on the stage. Bane ran back, grabbed her arm, and hauled her along with him offstage.

“It is happening!” she exclaimed as they ran for a rear exit.

“I think so. We must get back to the main complex, where Citizen Blue is watching.” For this particular chamber was outside the region of the Experimental Project of humans, robots, androids, cyborgs and aliens living in harmony. Most facilities were set within it, but when particular ones were crowded, the Game Computer assigned players to the nearest outside ones. Thus it seemed that Bane and Agape had inadvertently strayed beyond the scope of Citizen Blue’s protection, and the Contrary Citizens had seized the moment.

There were serfs in the hall outside. They spotted Bane and Agape and moved purposefully toward them.

They retreated back into the play complex. But they could hear the serfs in pursuit here too, coming through the stage region.

“The service apertures,” Agape said. “Go there!”

Bane obeyed. Maybe there would be an escape route there.

There was not. The service door led only into a chamber in which an assortment of maintenance machines were parked.

“We be lost!” Bane exclaimed.

“Maybe not!” She hurried to a communications panel, activated it, and tapped against it with a measured cadence.

“Approach the cyborg brusher,” the speaker said. The lid lifted on the top of a huge cleaning machine.

“Come, Bane!” she said, running toward the device,

“What—?”

“The self-willed machines are helping us! Trust them!”

Bemused, he followed her. “Remove the brain unit,” the speaker said.

There was a pounding on the door. Evidently it had locked behind them, barring access by the serfs. That could not last long, for all doors had manual overrides.

Bane saw that there was a complicated apparatus just below the lid, with wiring and tubing and plastic-encased substance that looked alive. He took hold of the handles at either side and lifted. He had to exert his robotic strength, for the unit was heavy, but it came up and out.

“Set it here,” the speaker said. A panel slid aside, revealing a chamber set in the wall.

He carried the brain unit across and shoved it into the chamber. The panel slid shut. Evidently this was a servicing facility for the living cyborg brain.

“Stand for dismantling,” the speaker said. Another machine rolled toward him.

Bane hesitated. Then he heard an ominous silence at the door. They were setting up for the override! He stood for dismantling.

Quickly, efficiently, and painlessly the machine removed his arms, legs and head. It carried these to the big cyborg husk and installed them in the bowels of it. Then it stashed his torso in a refuse chamber in its base. Finally it separated his head into several parts, and his perceptions became scattered. The chamber seemed to wave crazily as one of his eyes was carried across and set into a perceptor extension. He had no idea how it was possible for him to see while his eyes were disconnected from his head, or to remain conscious while his head was apart from his body, but evidently it was. The machines of Proton had strong magic!

Meanwhile, Agape was doing something; he heard fragments of the instructions to her. It seemed she was required to melt into a new brain-container that was being set into the machine.

All this occurred extremely rapidly. In less than a minute the two of them had been installed into the cyborg. His accurate robot time sense told him it was so, despite the subjective human impression.

The entrance to the chamber opened. Bane saw this with his two widely separated eyes, and heard it with his buried ears. Six serfs charged in.

“Search this room!” one directed the others. “They have to be in here!”

They spread out and searched, but could not find the fugitives. They did find a panel that concealed a service tunnel leading to another drama complex. “Check that complex!” the leader snapped. “They must have crawled through.”

Four men hurried out. But the leader was too canny to dismiss this chamber yet. “Check these machines, too,” he snapped. “Some of them are big enough to hold a body.”

They checked, opening each machine and poking inside. They checked the cyborg, and found only its brain unit and operative attachments. At length, frustrated, they departed.

DO NOT REACT. Bane saw these words appear briefly on a wall panel, and realized they were for him. The hunt remained on; this could be a trap.

After a few minutes the speaker said: “Cleaners ten, twelve and nineteen to the adjacent drama chamber for cleanup.”

“We are nineteen,” Agape’s voice came faintly to him. “I will direct you; you must operate the extremities.”

So they were now a true cyborg: a living brain and a mechanical body! Bane discovered that when he tried to walk, his legs were wheels. He started a little jerkily, but soon got the hang of it, and propelled them after the other contraptions toward the door.

Outside the serfs were waiting. Obviously they expected Bane and Agape to walk out, thinking that they were safe.

He took them around and into the drama suite the two of them had vacated. “Brush the floor,” Agape said.

Bane tried to reach with an arm—and extruded an appendage whose terminus was a roller brush. He lowered this to the floor and twitched his fingers. The brush spun. He started brushing the floor.

DO NOT REACT, a panel flashed.

Then a serf wearing the emblem of Citizen Blue entered. “Good thing I got here in time!” he exclaimed. “They had us blocked off. Come on; we’re going home.”

Bane continued brushing.

“Hey, you’re safe now!” the man said. “At least, you will be when we get you to the Citizen’s territory. Come on!”

Bane ignored him, playing the dumb machine.

Disgruntled, the serf departed.

They continued brushing the floor. In due course the job was done. The two other machines had cleaned off the chairs and dusted the walls. “Return to storage,” the speaker said. They returned to the storage chamber. There they parked and waited for another hour. What was going on? Obviously the self-willed machines were protecting them, but could the chase still be on? Where was Citizen Blue?

The panel flashed. REACT.

Then Citizen Blue walked in, followed by Sheen, his wife. “Is this chamber secure?” Blue asked.

“Yes, Citizen,” the speaker replied.

“I owe you.”

“No. Your activities benefit our kind.”

Blue faced the cyborg brusher. “Are you in good condition?”

Now at last Bane felt free to answer; Blue was evidently legitimate. “Yes,” he said through his mouthspeaker, which was now set near the top of the apparatus.

“This is a respite, not the end. You will assume our likenesses. Keep alert.”

Then the dismantling unit approached, and reversed the prior procedure. It extracted Bane’s arms, legs, torso and head and assembled them, so that soon he was back to his original condition. Agape was removed from the brain chamber, as a mound of jellylike flesh, and she stretched out and up and became herself in human form.

“You will assume our forms,” Blue said. “We shall not be challenged in the halls, but you would be.”

Agape began to change again, orienting on Sheen.

“No,” Blue said. “Emulate me. The sensors can distinguish between flesh and machine.”

“But I am alien,” she protested. “They will know I am not human. I can emulate only an android, if they test.”

“They distinguish human from android by fingerprints,” Blue said. “The self-willed machines will give you my prints.”

She nodded. She shifted until she looked so much like him that Bane was startled. Then she went to a unit in the wall where a unit overlaid her blank fingertips with pseudoflesh molded in the likeness of Blue’s prints. Blue got out of his Citizen’s robe and set it on her. The emulation was complete.

Meanwhile Sheen was attending to Bane. She simply had the dismantling unit remove her brain unit and exchange it with his. Abruptly Mach was in her body, and she was in his. This one would certainly pass inspection!

“Go to my private residence and remain there until we return,” Blue said. He was applying pseudoflesh the self-willed machines provided, remolding his face and body to resemble Agape’s. He had done this before, when he had rescued Bane from the captivity of Citizen Purple; he was good at emulations himself.

“But thou—when they find thee and take thee for Agape—” Bane protested.

“They will discover they are in error,” Blue said. “Sheen and I will serve as diversion until the two of you are safe. This is a necessary precaution; they want you very much.”

“Do not be concerned for us,” Sheen said from his body. “We are immune to molestation.”

Bane hoped that was the case. He faced the door.

“And let her do the talking,” Blue said from Agape’s apparent body.

Bane had to smile. It would not do to have the seeming Sheen speaking the dialect of Phaze!

They left. There were serfs, but those stood respectfully aside, eyes downcast. The two of them walked down the hall to the nearest transport station. Agape, as Blue, lifted her right hand to the panel. The prints registered. In a moment the panel slid to the side to reveal a blue chamber: Citizen Blue’s personal conveyance. They stepped in.

The chamber moved, first rising, then traveling horizontally. There was no challenge, no delay; they were being transported to the Citizen’s residence.

Bane wanted to take Agape in his arms and kiss her—but even had this been in character in their present guises, he would have found it awkward when she looked like Citizen Blue, who almost exactly resembled his own father Stile.

She looked at him and made a wicked smile. Then she took him in her arms and kissed him. Any watcher would have sworn that it was male kissing female, rather than vice versa.

The transport delivered them directly to Citizen Blue’s suite. There were no servants there, so no awkwardness about identities.

Should they maintain their emulations? They realized that they had to, because Bane had Sheen’s body. It was strange, seeing himself in the mirror, looking so like his other self’s mother! So they settled down and watched news features on the screen, and waited.

An hour passed. Then the entrance chime sounded. The entry vid showed Bane and Agape.

“They’re back!” Agape exclaimed, hurrying to the entrance. She touched the admit button as Bane came up behind her.

Suddenly Bane froze. His body had gone nonresponsive; it was as if it had been disconnected. He couldn’t even speak.

Agape stepped forward—and the two figures jumped up to take her by the arms. Astonished, she tried to draw back, but they put a bag over her head.

Bane realized that these were not Citizen Blue and his robot wife, Sheen. They were impostors, similar to the serf with Blue’s emblem—but he could not act.

“When you are ready to cooperate, send word,” the Citizen figure said to Bane. “Then you may see her again.”

Appalled, he watched them haul Agape back to a waiting vehicle. They had used a ruse to capture her after all!

Then a new figure showed up—and this one also looked like Citizen Blue. “Now there are two ways we can do this,” he said.

The Sheen-figure whirled and leaped at him.

A net shot from the wall and wrapped about her, lifting her up and suspending her in the air.

“That was the second way,” the Blue figure said.

The first Blue figure tried to run, but another net trapped him similarly.

Bane recovered use of his body. “Agape!” he cried, running to her.

Serfs appeared. They hauled away the two netted figures. “I wanted to catch them in the act,” Citizen Blue explained. “Now I have proof.”

Agape had dissolved into jelly, but when she felt Bane’s touch she recovered and reformed, this time assuming her normal female shape.

Sheen appeared. They returned to the suite, and a machine servitor approached to transfer computer-brains. Bane had his own—or rather Mach’s—body back.

“We have been watching, but until they made their move, it was pointless to act,” Blue explained. “They were watching all the planetary ports, and indeed, all the exits from Hardom; there was no chance to get Agape out. But they gained nothing by keeping her bottled up here; they had to gain direct possession of her. So we tempted them by arranging a game beyond the protected region, and they finally took the bait.”

“The bait!” Bane exclaimed, horrified.

“The seemingly vulnerable pair,” Blue said. “Unfortunately, they were more determined than we expected; they arranged to send false signals of normalcy, so that we believed they had not struck. It was a good thing you thought to seek the help of the self-willed machines.”

“They helped us,” Bane agreed, feeling somewhat dazed as he remembered. “I knew not that this body came so readily apart!”

“Now that they have made their move, they will be trying more openly,” Bane continued. “They have shown a certain cleverness in their efforts. We shall have to hide Agape until we can get her offplanet.”

“Then hide me with her!” Bane exclaimed.

“Yes. But you may not enjoy the manner of concealment.”

“I enjoy not the need for separation,” Bane said. “Needs must I be with her while I can.”

“I believe we have worked out a situation in which you can be together without suspicion,” Blue said. “But you will have to be careful and alert, because it is risky.”

“It be risky just acting in a play!” Bane exclaimed, and they laughed.

“We shall set the two of you up as a menial robot and an android girl,” Blue explained. “You will be substituted for the ones assigned to go to a common location. The self-willed machines control placements; they will arrange it. Such assignments occur constantly; there should be no suspicion.”

“But won’t they be watching us?” Agape asked.

“They will. They will continue to see you here.”

“Oh.” It had been demonstrated how facile such emulations could be.

So it was that the two of them were smuggled out, while another robot and android took their places as guests of Citizen Blue. They found themselves assigned to a young Citizen who was opening a new office in the city and required a humanoid robot and humanoid android to maintain it during his absences. It promised to be a routine and rather dull matter. But at least they would be constantly together, and in the off hours no one would care what kind of relationship they had. It was possible that they would never even see the Citizen himself.

The employer turned out to be Citizen Tan. Bane felt a shock when he learned of their assignment. Perhaps the self-willed machines considered this citizen to be a harmless nonentity, as Citizens went. But Bane suspected that he would be parallel to the Tan Adept in Phaze, and that meant he was in the Adverse or Contrary orbit.

If Citizen Tan caught on to their true identities, they would be already in the power of the enemy.

And Citizen Tan very well might, for if he was the other self of the Tan Adept of Phaze, he had the potential for a most devastating ability: the Evil Eye.

But they had no choice, now; they had to go. And it seemed they were lucky, for Citizen Tan made no appearance. They ran his office, with Agape receiving messages and smiling at vid callers—naturally her features had changed, so that she did not resemble the girl he had known—while he handled mechanical chores. He, too, no longer resembled the original Mach; his brain unit had been set into another body.

At night, when no business was to be done, they lay together and made love. They knew that permanent separation could occur at any time; that made love constantly fresh.

Then, in the early morning, Mach contacted Bane. Mach had amazing news.

Stile, Bane’s father, had ascertained that their exchange was generating an imbalance that was damaging the frames. They had to exchange back—but the Adverse Adepts had welcomed Mach and Fleta to their Demesnes. So now Mach represented them, as far as communications between the frames were concerned. When they exchanged, Bane would not be pursued by the Adepts; he could go where he wished. But they wanted to talk to him, to try to persuade him to their side. He could trust the Translucent Adept.

All this was transferred on one gob of thought and impression; it would take him hours to digest the ramifications. Meanwhile, he was sending his own information back: how he and Agape had agreed to separate, though they loved each other, and the Contrary Citizens were trying to abduct her to use as a lever on him. How they were now hiding in a place the Citizens should not suspect, until Agape could be smuggled offplanet.

“Don’t leave me!” Agape cried, realizing what was happening. She clapped her arms around him and clung close, almost melting into him. “I love you, Bane!”

Then the exchange occurred.