“Damn!” Tulip muttered.
“Present,” the Computer said.
Stile presented it, trying to conceal his nervousness about the Desire connection. But the Computer did not challenge it; it was fairly liberal on the adaptations of language.
Still, Tulip had another minute to produce a shorter chain, or a better one of the same length. Stile waited nervously.
But she seemed to have given up. The time expired without her entry. Stile had won, more or less by default. “It would have been different in NAKED/PHYSICAL,” Tulip said tearfully. She had choked at the crisis-point in this Game, and now suffered the reaction.
“That’s why I avoided it,” Stile said, though he would have put it into some subcategory like foot-racing and probably beaten her anyway. She really hadn’t lost much; with her appearance, she should do well enough in the wider human galaxy. But it had the mild distaste of an unjustified victory.
The separations between Rounds were diminishing.
Round Nine was due in the afternoon of the same day. Stile planned to spend the interim devising strategy and spells to finish the Red Adept, and to get some rest and refreshment. He was also concerned about Sheen; he had restored her in Phaze, again, and she was now fully operational. But how could he abate the hurt of her nonliving heartbreak? His attempted spell had not taken effect. She seemed to have lost much of her will-to-animation, and there seemed to be no way he could restore it. She needed the one thing he could not give—his complete love. Maybe, he thought again, he should have let her perish, instead of languishing like this. He had promised a clean death to the Red Adept; could he do less for his friend? There was a knock on the apartment door. That was unusual; visitors usually announced themselves on the screen. Sheen, alert to threats, went to see to it. “Oh,” she exclaimed, in a perfect representation of surprise. “You survived!”
“I must speak to—Stile,” the visitor said. Stile snapped alert. That was the Lady Blue’s voice! He went to the door. There she stood, a little disheveled but irremediably splendid. Bluette, of course; she had escaped the robot and sought out the name and description Hulk had given her. Smart woman!
Yet this was extremely awkward. “Come in,” Stile said. “Of course I’ll help you. I’m on the trail of the woman who killed Hulk now. But one thing you must know at the outset: I want nothing personal to do with you, after this.” Her brow furrowed prettily. “Nothing?”
“I am married to your alternate self, the Lady Blue of Phaze. You look exactly like her, Bluette—you are exactly like her—but she is the one I love. This is no reflection on your own merit, that I sincerely appreciate. And I know you have no personal interest in me. But—well, if she thought I was seeing you—“
She smiled, oddly at ease. “I understand.”
“Stile,” Sheen said, evidently making some sort of connection. “She is not—“
“Not my woman,” he agreed. “Bluette, I never wanted to meet you. It—it’s too confusing. And I know, after all you went through—is that robot still on your trail? That we can take care of!”
“Stile, listen,” Sheen said. “I just realized this is—“
“Look, don’t make this any more difficult than it is!” Stile snapped. “Every second she stands here—this woman is so like the one I love—“ The woman smiled again. “Now thou dost know what I went through. Adept. The false so like the true.”
“What?” Something didn’t jibe here.
“Thee... Thee... Thee.”
Stile froze. “Oh, no!”
“I am the Lady Blue,” she said. “Fain would I listen longer to thy protestations of other love, my Lord, but I did cross the curtain to bring thee a vital message.” Never had Stile imagined the Lady Blue in this frame.
“But that means—“
“That Bluette is dead,” Sheen finished. “It has after all been several days. We should have heard from her before this, had she escaped.”
“Oh, God,” Stile said. “That I did not want. And now the two of you have met—that was never supposed to happen!” In the back of his mind, moving rapidly to the fore, was his concern that the robot might do some harm to her human rival. He had to get the Lady Blue out of here!
“Thou speakest as if there be some shame here,” the Lady Blue said. “I have long known of thy most loyal friend in this frame, the lovely Lady Sheen, and I am glad to meet her at last.” She turned to address Sheen directly. “I am oath-friend to Neysa. Can I be less to thee? If thou wouldst honor me with thy favor, 0 noblest of Ladies—“ And Sheen was crying. It was not the sort of reaction a robot was supposed to have, but it was natural to her. “Oh, Lady—oh. Lady!”
Then they were hugging each other, both crying, while Stile stood in mute confusion. Somehow it seemed that Sheen had been restored—yet the mechanism of it was beyond his immediate comprehension.
When the first flush of their emotion subsided, the Lady Blue delivered her message to Stile. “A bat-lad came to the Demesnes, sore tired from rapid flying. Methought he wanted healing, but it was news for thee he brought.”
“Vodlevile’s son!” Stile exclaimed. “I never thought he would—“
“He said the Red Adept had returned to the ruin of her Demesnes and fashioned a terrible spell, a basilisk-amulet that would destroy whatever it touched, being invoked by the very frame of Phaze. This she meant to give thee in the frame of Proton, and when thou didst bring it across the curtain—“
“Her final trap!” Stile said. “A basilisk—a creature whose very touch brings horrible death, whose gaze petrifies. But why does she think I would accept such an amulet from her?”
“The bat-lad said she made it resemble something thou couldst not refuse. Something thou wouldst immediately take across the curtain. That was all he knew; he dared not get within the range of her power. He thought it was news thou shouldst have—and I thought so too. So I tried to reach thee—and succeeded.”
“It is as if Bluette gave her life, to make this message possible,” Stile said. “And the vampire child—my trifling favor to him may be destined to save my life. Yet this is strange. Why should I need to be warned against doing what I would not have done anyway? Well I know the power of Red’s amulets! In this frame they are harmless, but I would never carry one across to Phaze.”
The Lady Blue spread her hands. “Mayhap we can piece it out, my Lord. I must return to the wolves in three hours, lest they worry. Meanwhile, may I view more of this wondrous frame of Proton? This may be mine only chance to visit it, and tain would I know as much of thy homeland as I can.”
“I’ll show you,” Sheen said. “I’ll show you everything!” Sheen was a machine, but she would not deceive Stile. If she accompanied the Lady Blue, she would protect her. And if that was what she wanted, how could he deny it? Thus it was that Stile found himself alone with his puzzling piece of information, while the two Ladies toured the local domes.
Who would have thought that the source of Sheen’s woe would also be the abatement of it? Yet from the moment the Lady Blue had addressed her as Lady Sheen—
What healing magic there was in a title! The Lady Blue, without apparent premeditation or design, had granted equal status to Sheen and proffered friendship and respect. Sheen had been instantly conquered. The issue of her machine-nature had not even been a consideration. Stile returned to his deliberations. He decided that the Red Adept planned to gift him with the amulet through some third party, so that he would not suspect its nature.
22Perhaps a silver brooch for the Lady Blue; of course he would take that to her in Phaze. But now he had been warned; he would not take anything across the curtain. In two hours the two returned, forever friends. “What a frame this is!” the Lady Blue exclaimed, exactly like the tourist she was. “Never since I saw the West Pole have I seen the like! Truly a magical world!”