Unicorn Point (39 page)

She changed to ‘corn form and trotted out and around until she spied an especially big and ugly ogre, poking his way along a bit to the side of the others. She changed to girlform, while Clip assumed hawkform and perched in a tree, watch ing.

“Hey, lady-snout!” Fleta called to the ogre. “Dost put thy hair in curlers and paint thy face to make it so pretty?” Irony was of course lost on the creature. It took her words literally—and was furious, because no ogre could afford to be considered pretty. It roared and stepped toward her, but hesitated, because of the fear for pitfalls and ambushes. Its beady eyes searched the forest, and it hefted a giant stone menacingly.

“Slow, too!” Fleta taunted. “Why, I could outrun thee in this form!”

That was another potent insult, for she was a mere slip of a creature compared to him. The ogre watched for ambushes, but was just barely smart enough to realize that if he pursued her along the exact route she took, there would be no pitfalls she did not fall into first. He took off after her.
 
Fleta ran, and now Clip saw reason for her name: she was buxom and pretty (for those who might like the human type), but also fleet of foot. Her black hair-mane flung out behind as she moved, and her buttocks twinkled in a manner that made the ogre’s mouth water. Ogres loved to eat humanform flesh, and giriform flesh was acknowledged to be the tastiest.
 
She was the best possible lure, to make the ogre forget what little caution it might possess and pursue blindly. It would be easy to trap or waylay this ogre!

Yet she had demanded that this wait until after the ogre got the flag. Clip flew after, flitting from tree to tree so as to minimize his exposure to thrown rocks, and hoped this was not as crazy as it seemed.

Fleta, remaining just ahead of the monster, led it safely to the flag. “See, there’s our flag, and you can’t get it because then you’d lose me!” Fleta called. “What a fool thou dost be!”

The ogre grinned, pleased at the compliment. But her words did serve to remind him of his original mission. Quickly he hauled himself hamfist over hamfist up the tree, until he grabbed the flag, then slid down. Fleta, in supposed astonishment, had not moved. “Thou didst take our flag,” she exclaimed. “Be I not tasty enough?”

The ogre stuffed the flag in his ear for safekeeping and lurched after her. Fleta screamed as if in horror and ran again.
 
She led the ogre to the side, some distance from the original flag site, then dived under a giant spruce tree. “I be safe here!” she cried.

But one of her dainty feet poked out. She had not gotten completely out of sight! The ogre grabbed—just as the foot was pulled out of the way. The ogre grabbed again, plunging under the tree, until it too was lost in the maze of branches.
 
“Now. Uncle!” Fleta called.

Clip, hovering nervously near, was more than ready. He flitted to the ground, converting to his natural form and landing squarely on four feet. He saw the hummingbird sail up out of harm’s way; then he rammed horn-first into the bulk of the ogre tangled in the foliage.

His first strike caught the monster from behind. His horn sank in half its length before he jerked it out, but the brute had not received a mortal wound. The ogre wrenched around, a hamfist striking out. It smashed into a large branch, snap ping it off—and Clip’s second strike drove in under the ogre’s massive arm, seeking the heart.

But the angle was wrong, and he only punctured a gross lung. He jerked back, and the ogre reached for him with both arms, catching at his head. Unable to get away. Clip launched forward, his horn driving up the ogre’s flaring nose.
 
This time the stroke was true: the tip of the horn punctured the creature’s small brain. The ogre made a gasp of irritation, and collapsed.

Clip backed out of the foliage, assuming manform. The ogre was entirely out of sight; only the broken branches and skuff-marks on the ground showed where he had gone.
 
“Cover the traces so he can’t be found,” Fleta said. She drew from her pocket a bright blue flag.

Clip was appalled. “Thou hast our flag? We dare not touch it, lest we be disqualified!”

“Nay, this be not our flag,” she said brightly. “See, it be brighter, and not quite the right shape; it were the best we could do on the spur.”

“But-“

“I shall just put this fake flag up where ours was,” she explained.

“But all they have to do is take the real one, which they can readily do—”

“An they see it, aye,” she agreed. “Thou must make sure they do not.” She ran back toward the original flag location.
 
Clip went back to look at the dead ogre. Sure enough, the original flag was still stuffed in its ear. He fetched a broken bough and used it to sweep the ground, masking the traces.

Then he set it on the ogre, further concealing him. Only a person who knew where to look would find either ogre or flag.

Yet wasn’t this merely delaying the inevitable? If the ogres were stupid enough to take the fake flag back, they would realize that it was fake when the authorities checked it. Then they would return to make a thorough search, and find the real one.

Unless—

Suddenly the full nature of Fleta’s ploy came clear to him!
 
Beautiful! He changed to hawkform and flew back toward the other end of the arena, where the red flag still flew.
 
He encountered other unicorns, in their several forms, harassing the advancing ogres. He stopped a moment with each, quickly explaining what was to occur, and how each should react. He found distressingly few; the ogres had been striking back with increasing effectiveness, and taken a heavy toll of the defenders.

He reached the vicinity of the red flag. A number of ogres were clustered at the base of its tree, ready to defend it against any enemy intrusion. At this stage, no such intrusion was likely; the ranks of the unicorns had been too drastically depleted. It was obvious that the ogres were going to win the siege.

But Clip went from ‘corn to ‘corn, explaining. Some were incredulous, but it was the only hope remaining, and they agreed to do what he asked. He knew that Fleta was doing the same, back near the blue flag.

There was a roar from the distance: the ogres had broken through to the flag! The ground shook as they charged back in a mass, and soon the lead ogre appeared, taking a swatch of blue.

A firefly flew up to Clip. He knew it was Neysa, giving up on the red flag; she was too small in this form, and too vul nerable in her womanform. “It be all right,” he said to her, quietly so that no ogre would overhear. “Just follow my lead!”

She reverted to natural form, showing doubt in every mannerism. How could he stop the ogres now?
 
All around were unicorns, looking similarly dejected. Some few tried to balk the ogres, but these were quickly dispatched.
 
It was obviously a lost cause.

The ogre with the blue flag charged up to the tree and climbed it. When he got high up on it, the thing bent and swayed, but he got far enough to reach the red flag. He jammed the two together. A unicorn with a percussion horn made a loud sound very like a gong. Two sides could play the game of special noises! There was a roaring cheer from the other ogres.

Clip assumed stallion form and blew a sad note. The other unicorns walked slowly toward him. None looked happy.
 
The ogres, gruffly cheerful, punched each other roughly on the shoulders and tramped away. They would have a monstrous celebration tonight! The unicorns watched them go without comment.

When the last ogre had departed. Clip assumed hawkform and flew up to the set of flags. Several sharp pecks with his beak loosened the red one. He hauled it clear, and flew with it toward the region of the other flag. The other unicorns followed, making no exclamations, watching for any ogres who might be lagging behind. The ogres had been too stupid to realize that the game had not yet finished, because the dead had not yet returned to life. The Adepts of course would know, but were barred from interfering; they could only watch and grind their teeth. They could not cry warning, because this would be so obvious a foul that their side would forfeit.
 
Soon Clip reached the spruce tree where the dead ogre lay.
 
He plunged into the foliage and set the red flag at the ogre’s ear with the blue one.

The two flags touched. There was the sound of a gong. The casualties came back to life, unicorn and ogre alike. This time the siege really was over, and the unicorns were the victor.

“That be our point!” Neysa exclaimed. “Unicorn point!”

Indeed it was. They had done it for Stile.

“I hate this!” she protested.

“There be no other way,” Bane reminded her. “For the first game, each side chose its own champion. For the second, each chose the champion o’ the other. For this third, each had to compromise. We vetoed their first and second choices, so they vetoed ours; thus thou must bear our standard.”

“But against Citizen Tan!” Agape said. “He hates me!”

“Aye, and with reason,” he said, smiling. “Was thy body the mare used to tweak his hardware. But this be a game; thou hast merely to play the grid properly, and he can do naught ‘gainst thee.”

“Oh, Bane, I am afraid!”

He held her, but could not console her. “I would free thee o’ this duty an I could, but it be set. The games be e’en; thou must win this one for Blue!”

“I am afraid I will lose!”

“Just remember the strategy: keep it in Mental an thou canst, and in Machine if that be thine option. Then he can not get at thee directly.”

 
“He will find a way!” she said with dire premonition. “Oh, I could just melt!”

“Later, after thou has won the game,” he said, smiling.
 
But she was not reassured. She felt singulariy inadequate to the occasion. How could she, an alien creature, hope to prevail against a hard-driving malignant Citizen? She wished most ardently that she had never had to return from Moeba, once she had escaped Proton. But that would have meant continued separation from Bane, and from Nepe, and that, too, was intolerable.

All too soon it was time. In the morning she approached the designated console. Citizen Tan was already there, staring at her fixedly. She knew that he did not choose to distinguish between herself and Fleta, and well remembered his pain of the body and pride, years ago, and he had never forgiven those injuries. He was a man bent on vengeance.
 
“So the amoeba slides in,” he said, unsmiling.
 
She did not answer. She took her place at the console and tried not to shrink too visibly from his gaze.
 
The screen lighted. She almost dissolved with relief: she had the numbers!

She moved her hand carefully, so as to make no foolish error. She touched one finger to 2. MENTAL. There, she had done it! There could be no physical contact between them.
 
She felt as if she had won a significant encounter already.

She could not have asked for a better break.
 
Tan made his selection, as if it were a matter of indifference, and the screen blinked and displayed the secondary grid: 2D. ANIMAL-ASSISTED MENTAL. This meant that they would be playing through animals, commanding them or sending their directives to them by other means. Agape was surprised; she had not thought Citizen Tan to have any interest whatever in animals.

Then she suffered a wash of apprehension: surely he was up to something malignant! Somehow he hoped to get at her physically through those animals. Yet how could he, in the mental category?

Alas, that became all too quickly evident. The definition of “animal” included not only the conventional dogs, cats, horses and such, but also androids of all types, and also the human animal. Thus she found herself playing the primary grid again, this time for the nature of the animal encounter.
 
Bemused, she made what she feared were bad choices, and found herself in the very category she most wanted to avoid:

NAKED PHYSICAL, HUMAN ANIMAL. This was a trap of MENTAL that she had somehow overlooked: it reopened everything else. She played the tertiary grid in a blur, certain that disaster was upon her.

Abruptly it ended: they were in Flat Surface Interactive, Human Animal-Assisted, Naked Physical-Surrogate Sex.
 
“Do each of you understand the nature of the selected game?” the voice of the Game Computer inquired.
 
“Naturally,” Tan snapped.

“N-no,” Agape confessed. She only knew it was trouble.

How could she have let the Citizen stampede her into this?
 
“I will explain for the benefit of the one who pleads ignorance,” the voice said. “Each player will select an actor of the same sex from the available menu. The actors will be attuned to thoughts sent by their players, and will be responsive to such thoughts if they are not in conflict with the actors’ natural inclinations. One player will be designated the initiator, the other the receiver; these designations will reverse at three-hour intervals. The initiator will within the period seduce the receiver—”

“What?” Agape cried faintly.

“And be adjudged the winner of the fall,” the machine continued blithely. “If the initiator fails in that period, the receiver wins the fall. Then the receiver will become the initiator and will seduce the new receiver, with the fall similarly determined. For the final period the roles will reverse again.
 
The strictures against force will be relaxed in the final period, so as to ensure a decision. If the initiator does not succeed, the victory will go to the receiver, as the winner of two of three falls.”