Blue Adept (29 page)

It became apparent to the audience that there was unlikely to be a winner here; neither party could hurt the other. Stile was satisfied with that; they could negotiate a reasonable extension of Neysa’s time.

Stile outfenced the Stallion again, the Stallion shifted to dragon-form. Stile’s sword became the bow ...
 
And the dragon became the man-form, who plummeted toward Stile. Stile flung himself aside, his grip on his weapon slackening, and the man-form snatched it from Stile’s grasp. He hurled it far across the arena. In air, the bow reverted to its natural state, the Flute, and bounced on the grass. Stile had been careless, and abruptly disarmed.
 
His first impulse was to run for the Flute, for he had no chance without it. His mass had reverted to normal the moment he was separated from the Flute. The ring of unicorns now deprived him of his magic. How foolish he had been not to retain his grip; he could never have been disarmed had he willed himself not to be.
 
A large hand caught his shoulder. The man-form was preventing him from going after the weapon.
 
Stile reacted instantly. He caught the hand on his shoulder, whirled about, and applied pressure to the man-form’s elbow joint. It would have been a submission hold, ordinarily—but the form shifted back to equine and the hold was negated.

Freed, Stile sprinted for the Flute. But the Stallion galloped after him. No chance to outrun that! Stile had to turn and dodge, staying clear of that horn.

But he would not be able to dodge it long! Stile made a phenomenal, acrobatic leap, feeling his weakened knees giving way in the effort, and flipped through the air toward the Stallion’s back. If he could ride the animal long enough to get near the Flute—

Then, in the moment he was in the air, he saw that terrible unicorn horn swinging about to bear on him. The Stallion had reacted too quickly. Stile would land—directly on the point.

He landed—in the arms of the man-form. The creature set him down carefully. “I seek not to injure thee. Adept, for thou hast been kind to my kind. I merely deflect thee.
 
Thou’rt disarmed of thy weapon and thy magic. Dost thou yield?”

It had been a fair fight. The unicorn had outmaneuvered him. Stile might be able to hold his own against the man-form, but not against the equine-form or dragon-form, and he refused to stoop to any subterfuge. He had lost. “I yield,” he said.

“Fetch thy weapon ere hostile magic comes,” the man-form said, and shifted back to unicorn-form.
 
Stile walked across the arena and picked up the Flute, then rejoined the Stallion before the main judging stand.
 
The Stallion did not speak, so Stile did. “We have met in fair encounter, and the Stallion defeated me. The Blue Adept yields the issue.”

Now the Herd Stallion blew an accordion medley on his horn. Neysa’s brother Clip trotted up. “The Stallion says the Adept is more of a creature than he took him for. The Adept had magic to win, and eschewed it in favor of equality, and fought fairly and well, and lost well. The Stallion accepts the pride of that victory—and yields back the issue.” Then the applause began. Unicorns charged into the field, forming into their discrete herds. Neysa found Stile and carried him away separately to rejoin the Lady Blue.
 
The Unolympics were over.

So all the Herd Stallion had really wanted was the notoriety of defeating the Blue Adept and redeeming the pride he had lost during their prior encounter at the Blue Demesnes. Granted that, the Stallion had been generous, and had granted Neysa the extension she wanted. All Stile had lost was a little pride of his own—and that had never been his prime consideration.

In future, he would pay better attention to the hidden motives of the creatures of Phaze—and to the pitfalls of battling a shape-changing creature. These were useful lessons.

Sheen took Stile to a private chamber deep in the maintenance section of the dome they lived in. He carried his harmonica and the Platinum Flute with him in a small bag, not being willing to leave them elsewhere lest he have sudden need for them, or risk their theft.
 
He spoke with an anonymous machine through a speaker. This reminded him of the mode of the Oracle—but of course the Oracle could not be a machine. It was evident that Sheen had not brought him here without reason. “What is your interest?” he inquired.
 
“We have a partial report for you concerning the recent attempt made on your life.”

“Partial,” Stile repeated, excited and disappointed. Any progress was good, but he needed the whole story.
 
“The message from your Citizen Employer was legitimate, but the address was changed. A chip had been modified in the message annex to substitute that address for the proper one in any message directed to you from a Citizen, one time. It was a one-shot trap.”

“Sending me to intrude on a Citizen who didn’t like the Tourney and was apt to exterminate intruders,” Stile said, thinking of the Black Adept in Phaze, who acted similarly.
 
“Correct. We conclude this was the work of other than a Citizen.”

“Because a Citizen would not have had to bother with a hidden trap,” Stile said, realizing that he should not so blithely have assumed his enemy was a Citizen.
 
“Correct. We were unable to trace the instigator. We remain alert for more direct devices, but your enemy is evidently no machine.”

He hadn’t even thought of having a machine-enemy! “Because my enemy has more imagination than a machine does.”

“Correct. Like you, that person is a quick and original thinker.”

“This helps,” Stile said. “A serf is considerably more limited than a Citizen. A serf’s motives should differ from those of a Citizen. But could a serf have lasered my knees or sent Sheen to me?”

“The knees affirmative. Sheen negative. She had to come from a Citizen. That Citizen covered his traces carefully; we can trace her manufacture but not the identity of the one issuing the directive that sent her to you.”

“So already we have a seeming divergence of elements.
 
A Citizen sent Sheen to protect me from a serf.”

“Correct.”

“Why didn’t the Citizen simply eliminate the enemy serf?”

“We have no information.”

“And why are you self-willed machines helping me? This increases the risk of your discovery by the Citizens, so is dangerous for you.”

To his surprise, the anonymous machine answered. “At first we helped you because one of our number, the robot Sheen, wished it, and you took the oath not to betray our interests. There was also an anonymous imperative favoring you. This also we have been unable to trace, but we have ascertained that it originates from other than Citizen or serf. We were aware that a chance existed that you would eventually be useful to us. Now that chance has expanded. Perhaps this is what the anonymous imperative intended. Should you win the Tourney, as we deem a one in ten chance at this moment, you will become a Citizen.
 
As such you could help our cause enormously.”

“As such, I could,” Stile agreed, intrigued by their estimate of his chances in the Tourney, and by the notion of the “anonymous imperative” that favored him. Strange elements operating here! “But you know I would betray neither my own kind nor the system. I do not support revolution, or even significant change. I merely seek to deal with my enemy and improve my personal, private situation. I’m just no crusader.”

“We seek recognition for our kind within the system,” the machine said. “No revolution is desired, only modification. We wish to have the status of serfs. A Citizen could prepare the way.”

“I could support that,” Stile agreed. “But that would necessitate revealing the secret of your nature.”

“We are not ready for that. We would be destroyed, were our nature known prematurely.”

“But to prepare the way without the revelation—that would be very slow.”

“We estimate the process will take approximately seventy-five years. To move faster would be to increase the risk unacceptably.”

“You have patience,” Stile said.

“We are machines.”

That, of course, was their ultimate limitation. They had intelligence, consciousness and self-will, but lacked the impatience of life. Though Sheen was coming close! “I thank you for your help, for whatever motive, machines,” Stile said. “I will help you in return—when the occasion offers.”

He returned with Sheen to their apartment, not speaking further of this matter. He never spoke directly of the self-willed machines where his words could be recorded, lest that betray their nature to the Citizens of Proton. Most places were bugged, and often continuous recordings of serf activities were made at the behest of individual Citizens. Thus only a place cleared by the machines themselves was safe for such dialogue. Elsewhere, he simply called them “Sheen’s friends.”

Stile did appreciate their help, and he wondered whether they were really as machinelike as they claimed. Why should they care about their status in the society of Proton? To become serfs only meant to serve Citizens—as they already did—to be allowed to play the Game, and to be limited to twenty years or so of tenure on the planet. If they left the planet, they might lose whatever status they gained on it, since the galactic society was just as human-oriented as was Proton’s. Yet obviously they did have desires. Sheen was certainly an emotional, person-like being; why not others like her? But the machines would let him know what they wanted him to know, when they deemed appropriate.

It was time for his next Game. Round Five—the number of entrants was shrinking now, as more players lost their second match and were washed out, so things would move along faster. But there remained a long way to go.
 
This time he was paired with a child, an eleven-year-old boy, not one of the good ones. “Your tenure can’t be up!” Stile said.

“My folks’ tenure is up,” the boy explained. “I’m leaving with them anyway, so why not go out in style?” So he had nothing to lose. Just in it for fun, to see how far he could go. And he had gotten to Round Five, perhaps helping to eliminate three or four entrants to whom this was a matter verging on life and death. It was the irony of the Tourney that many of those who had no need should win, while those who had to win—lost.

Their turn came, and they went to the grid. Stile got the letters, and was afraid the boy would go for CHANCE—and was correct. It came up 3C, Machine-Assisted CHANCE. Any CHANCE was bad; Stile had tried to mitigate it, but ultimately it remained potential disaster.
 
If he could steer it into one of the more complex mechanical variants, a pinball machine—for a person like him, with experience and a fine touch, one of those became a game of skill.

But it came out wrong, again. The lad played with luck and the uncanny insight of the young, making mischief. It settled on an ancient-type slot machine, a one-armed bandit. One hundred percent chance. Each player pulled the handle, and the kid came up with the higher configuration.
 
“I won! I won! I won!” he shrieked. “Hee-hee-hee!” Stile had lost. Just like that. A nothing-Game, against a dilettante child who had nothing to gain—and Stile was suddenly half washed out. His nightmare had happened.

Sheen found him and got him home. Stile was numbed with the unfairness of it. It was a demeaning loss, so point-less, so random. All his considerable Game-skills had been useless. Where did his chances of winning the Tourney stand now? One in a hundred?

“I know it hurts you,” Sheen said solicitously. “I would suffer for you if I could, but I am not programmed for that. I am programmed only for you, yourself, your person and your physical welfare.”

“It’s foolish,” Stile said, forcing himself to snap out of it.
 
“I comprehend the luck of the Game. I have won randomly many times. This is why the Tourney is double-elimination—so that a top contender shall not be eliminated by a single encounter with a duffer in CHANCE. I simply have to take my loss and go on.”

“Yes.”

“But dammit it hurts!”

“Of course.”

“How can you understand?” he snapped.

“I love you.”

Which was about as effective a rebuttal as she could have made. “Your whole existence is like a lost Game, isn’t it,” he said, squeezing her hand.

“Yes.”

“It seems as though luck is turning against me. My Games have been running too close, and in Phaze I lost a contest to a unicorn, and now this—“

They were home. “There is a message,” Sheen said as they entered. She went to the receptacle and drew it out.
 
“A holo-tape.”

“Who would send me a tape?” Stile asked, perplexed.

“Another trap?”

“Not with my friends watching.” She set it in the play-slot.

The holograph formed. The Rifleman stood before them.
 
“I pondered before relaying this edited report to you, Stile,” the Citizen said. “But a wager is a wager, and I felt this was relevant. I suspect this tape reveals the general nature of the information you would have given me, had you lost our ballgame, so I hardly feel cheated. I was not able to ascertain who has tried to hurt you, but it seems likely that you were the intended victim of this sequence, and there-fore this does provide a hint.” He frowned. “I apologize for acquitting my debt in this manner. Yet it is best you have the detail. I hope that this at least forwards your quest.
 
Adieu.” The Citizen faded out with a little wave.