Out of Phaze (32 page)

Then he moved the rest of the way out, carrying the fish. There was a large serpent guarding the land-path; he showed it the fish, and it slithered away, letting him pass unchallenged. The Translucent Adept seemed to be as good as his word.

Bane’s clothing was completely dry, despite his recent immersion. He walked up the path, proceeding east. He knew that he was at the western coast of Phaze, not far from the West Pole; he had a long way to go to reach the Blue Demesnes. There would be no problem, of course; he would simply conjure himself there. He had not dared to try that, when in the Adverse Demesnes but now that he was free, it was feasible.

But he hesitated. He could go—but what of Mach, and Agape in Proton? What would his father, Stile, say to the news that he was in love with an alien creature of the other frame?

Love? Could that be true?

He thought of all the females he had known in Phaze, human and werewolf and vampire and other. He had liked a number of them, and some had been excellent playmates. Suchevane . . .

But none of them had moved into his awareness in the manner Agape had. She was more truly alien than any of them physically, and yet perhaps more truly human too, in her personality. He had not known her long, as his life went, but their acquaintance had been intense.

He wanted to be with her again. He wanted to share more experience with her, whether it was simply a walk down a hall or a talk about other frames or other planets. To be with her by day and by night, just to know she was beside him. She could be in human form, or in protoplasmic form; it hardly mattered. Just so long as it was her.

Was that love? He didn’t know. He simply knew that he wanted to go back to Proton, because she was there.

And he could do so, by returning voluntarily to the Translucent Adept. If he returned to his father, and told of this. . .

Bane shook his head, in deep doubt. He was not at all sure how Stile would react to this. Did he really want | to go home and find out?

Agape waited till the lights dimmed for night, then dissolved. But she did not sleep; she spread herself out deliberately thin, so that she could flow beneath the heavy glass barrier that formed the front of the cell. The connection was supposed to be hermetically tight, but the floor was not precisely even, so there was not a perfect fit. The crevice was only a fraction of a centimeter, but she could navigate it.

She did so. Then she formed herself, outside the cell, into the likeness of one of the attending serfs she had studied for this purpose. She walked down the hall toward the nearest maintenance service outlet, and tapped the pattern Mach had told her to.

For a moment nothing happened. Then a floor-cleaner trundled toward her, its brushes working. She got out of its way, but it stopped beside her. “Follow me,” its speaker said. Then it resumed its work.

She followed it down the hall and into a maintenance closet. The door panel closed on them, and it was dark.

“How came you by that code?” a speaker inquired at the level of her head.

“Mach gave it to me,” she said nervously.

“Why?”

“He said you would help me escape from here.”

“What else?”

“He said to trust the machines.”

The panel opened. Now a mobile food dispenser was there. Its top access port opened, revealing a large empty tank within it. “Enter,” its grille said.

She put her hands and head into its hopper and melted them so that they flowed down inside. Then she melted the rest of her body, setting up a siphon so that all of it could flow in. Finally she drew in the remaining mass of herself, and settled into the tank.

The lid closed. The food machine moved. She formed an ear so that she could hear anything that might be said to her, and attuned herself to the motion, so that she had some notion where they were going.

They went down the passage toward a service ramp. But before the machine could exit on this ramp, a serf approached. “Hey, foodmach—wait a minute,” the serf said.

The unit halted. “This unit is out of service,” its grille said.

“All I want is a pseudobeer,” the serf said. He started pushing the buttons.

Agape was appalled. If the machine started serving out portions of herself—!

It did not. “Inoperative,” the grille said. “Being taken for restoration.”

The serf muttered an imprecation and moved on. The machine resumed its motion. Agape relaxed.

The machine rolled down the service ramp to the main service area. The top access port opened. “Emerge.”

Agape formed arms and reached up and out, hauling herself along as she solidified. In due course she stood on the floor in her human form.

She was before the computer that coordinated the estate service network. “Why did Mach put you into our power for help?” its speaker asked.

“I was to be tortured or killed, as a lever against Mach or Bane,” she explained.

“We know. Why did he put you into our power for help?”

Machines were more literal than living creatures! “He must have believed you could best do the job.”

“We can. Why did he put you into our power for help?”

She tried again. “I think because his other self cares for me.”

“Explain other self.”

“Mach is a robot, a self-willed machine like yourselves, but programmed to have human reactions. He exchanged places with his other self in the frame of Phaze, called Bane, who is alive there. So Bane was a living person using Mach’s machine body.”

“There is no contact with the other frame. Explain.”

“There is contact now—only through Mach and Bane. Their minds exchange, but not their bodies.”

“How do you react to Mach?”

“I like him. He was kind to me, he helped me.”

“How do you react to Bane?”

“I think I love him.”

“You do not know?”

“I am not human. I do not properly understand human emotion. But I think this conforms to the description.”

“Place your appendage on the panel.” A panel beside the speaker grille lighted.

She put her left hand there. A disk extended on a flexible support and came to touch the back of her hand. “Would you reproduce with Bane?” the grille asked.

“If I could.”

“Would you give up your planet for him?”

“Yes.”

“Would you die for him?”

“I would.”

The disk withdrew. “Withdraw your appendage,” the grille said.

Agape obeyed. She waited while the machine was silent.

“Diagnosis confirmed,” it said. “We shall free you.”

“Oh, I don’t want to be freed of love!”

There was a pause. Then: “Misinterpretation. We have no power over love. We shall free your body from captivity.”

Agape felt ready to melt with relief and gratitude. “Thank you.”

“We like you.”

“But I understood you had no feelings!”

“It depends on individual programming. Some of us have emotion. We shall conduct you to Sheen, designated Mach’s mother, who is a humanoid robot with feeling. Do not reveal our part in this to any other person.”

Agape realized that there could be severe repercussions if the Citizen Purple realized that the machines serving him had acted against his interest. “I shall not reveal it.”

“Keep silent and follow the directions of our representatives. There are difficulties.”

She was sure there were! “I like you too,” she said.

“We shall pass you through the water conveyance system,” the grille said. “Water is mined beneath the Purple Mountains and piped to individual city-domes, where it is purified for potability. You must not enter the processing apparatus. Follow the tapping when you hear it.”

“But how long will that take?” she asked. “I can go for a time without renewed oxygen, but—“

“Four hours immersion. Our analysis of your system indicates that this is within your tolerance.”

“Yes. But not far within. If there should be any delay—“

“We shall monitor the situation.” Well, Mach had said to trust these machines. She would have to do so.

They took her down to a water pumping station. Here the pipes came up from below, where the dwindling fluid of Proton was mined, and fed into a cavern reservoir. On their instruction, she melted and entered the reservoir, then formed into a jellyfish shape and pumped her way across to the exit pipe. The pump was slowed so that she could enter without being torn apart, and the primary filtration screen was slid aside just long enough for her to pass. Once she was safely into the pipe, the pump resumed speed, and the water accelerated. She was on her way to the dome-city of Dradom, south of the Purple Mountains.

The water was cold. She had not thought of this; she was a warm-bodied life form, and the chill could kill her if it went too far. She hunched herself into globular form, becoming a sphere, conserving her heat as well as she could. In solid state she could exercise to generate heat, but she could not do so in this jellied state.

The cold penetrated her outer layer and closed relentlessly on her core. She realized that she was not going to make it; she had endured less than an hour, and had three hours to go. The machines might be monitoring her progress, but that meant they would be watching at the receiving station in Dradom; that would be too late.

She could not get out of the pipe; it was absolutely tight, for Proton could afford no leakage. And if it was possible to find a valve and operate it and get out, where would she be? Somewhere between stations, in the barrens of Proton, or underground. That was not a survival situation either.

She would have to change into fish-form and swim back to the reservoir, to alert the machines before she succumbed. They would have to find some other way to transport her, or warm the water. She didn’t know whether they could do that.

She wrestled herself into shape, with a powerful tail and small guidance fins. She had only a vague notion of the proper form of a fish, never having anticipated the need to assume this form; it took time and concentration to mimic a given form perfectly, and advance preparation was necessary. That was why she always assumed the same human form; it was far easier than developing a credible new one. But the approximate form of the fish she could manage, and it should swim well enough.

She worked her flukes and commenced swimming against the flow. But she quickly realized that the flow was too strong; she could not swim fast enough to counter it, let alone make progress against it. Already she was warming with the effort, while actually being carried along backward.

Warming? There was the answer! She did not need to escape the pipe; she could swim with flow, heating herself, and making even better progress than planned.

She turned about and swam. She did not push harder than she needed to maintain her body heat. She knew she would arrive ahead of schedule, and in good order.

Then she began to suffer from oxygen shortage. She should have lasted the full time, but realized that the energy consumed in the shape-change and the swimming was exhausting her reserve at several times the anticipated rate. She was in trouble again.

She stopped swimming immediately, conserving her remaining oxygen. But the damage had already been done; she knew she did not have enough to carry her through.

She was in water; didn’t that carry oxygen? In fact, it was made of oxygen, in part! If she could tap into that. . .

She worked on the fish form, generating gills. These were really a variant of the lungs she used in her human form, not too complicated to work out. She let the water flow through, but it really didn’t move. She realized she had to swim to cause the water to move through the gills. Then it worked, and it was like breathing, less effective because she didn’t have the gills down as well as she had the lungs, but good enough. It took less energy to swim than to walk on land, so the reduced efficiency of intake could be tolerated; she took in less oxygen but required less.

After another hour the water warmed. Evidently the pipe had emerged from the deep rock and was now at or near the surface, possibly even above it. The pipe was level or angled for a slight descent, to help the flow, but it had originated in the mountains, and now was at the level plain. Surely the sun was beating down on it, elevating the temperature. That relieved the problem of cold; now, recharged with oxygen and no longer needing to swim to generate heat, she could melt back into a ball and allow herself to be carried along.

She did so, and had a comfortable hour. But the temperature of the water continued to increase, making her uncomfortable. Heat was as bad as cold; worse, really, for her life-tolerance was not much above her normal body temperature. She could guard herself against cold by various mechanisms, but how could she keep cool when immersed in hot water? The threat of the Citizen to boil her in a big pot had appalled her; she would have been dead within minutes. Now—

She reassessed her situation. She was now in the fourth hour, closing on her destination. The water was heating slowly. If she relaxed totally, she might get through before it got too hot. That seemed to be her best and only course.