She felt like melting. She had almost forgotten the danger she was in. “How do I challenge?”
“We shall enter it for you. Follow the line.”
She looked. The new line was there on the floor. “Thank you,” she said, but the speaker did not respond. She hadn’t known that the Game Computer itself was cooperating with the self-willed machines; probably it could get in serious trouble itself, if the Contrary Citizens learned of its part in this. That had to be why her double slip in naming herself and her nature had not given her away: the computer already knew her identity, and was covering for her.
She followed the line, still intrigued by the magic of this realm. It led to another console, where an older woman stood. She had only one arm. This, it seemed, was Number Eight on the Ladder.
“Fleta of Uni,” the woman said disapprovingly. “You breeze here from offplanet at the last minute and want to enter the Tourney and maybe win Citizenship, just like that?”
Fleta looked at the name on the screen. This was Stumpy of Proton. A cruel name for a long-time serf. “Citizenship?” she asked, alarmed. If the Citizens were already closing in…
Stumpy looked at her with open incredulity. “You don’t know?”
“Know what?” Fleta asked, confused.
“Oh—you’re an android,” Stumpy said.
Fleta did not argue, as she was impersonating an android. A reputation for stupidity was an asset, for her. She smiled and looked appropriately blank.
“Well, let’s get this charade over with,” Stumpy said. She slapped her hand down on her screen.
Fleta had the letters again, so she took D. ANIMAL again. Immediately the screen showed Stumpy’s choice, 3. CHANCE. The square expanded.
Instead of a new grid, there was a message: BETTING ON ANIMAL CONTESTS. SELECT AN INCIPIENT CONTEST. ONGOING LIST FOLLOWS.
Below was a grid in which many animal contests were listed: races, fights and performances, between horses, dogs, fowl or other creatures.
Bemused by this approach, Fleta touched the column that contained horses, but immediately the chosen square brightened, and it was 1D7E: DOG FIGHT.
Well, she had watched werewolves fighting each other for status. Because she was the foal of Neysa, the friend of the entire local Pack, she had been privileged to witness rites that were ordinarily barred to outsiders. That was how she had become friends with Furramenin; she had been a foal and the werewolf a pup together. Dogs were similar creatures, though inferior; they bore about the same relation to werewolves as horses did to unicorns or monkeys to human folk. She should be able to judge a dog fight.
Now the screen became a picture, startling her. It showed a pit, with two snarling dogs being held by trainers. Fleta saw at a glance that one dog, though slightly smaller and leaner, had a more savage temperament; it would be more serious about the fight than the other.
SELECT VICTORIOUS DOG, the screen directed.
Fleta touched the screen where that dog was portrayed. But in a moment a message appeared: BETTORS SELECTED SAME ANIMAL. SELECT TIME OF DECISION: CLOSEST MARK.
A scale of times appeared, delineated in seconds and minutes and hours.
Fleta judged that the larger dog would quickly be cowed, and try to break off. Would the fight be halted at that point? Since the horses were owned by a Citizen who wanted them treated well, perhaps the dogs were similarly owned, and the fight would not be allowed to proceed beyond the point of evident advantage. That would keep it short. She touched the scale at one minute, ten seconds.
Stumpy’s mark showed: four minutes even. Now they had a viable bet.
The picture of the dogs reappeared, with the scale retreating to the bottom of the screen. Both bets were marked, and a pointer pointed at 0: the elapsed time of the fight.
Then the dogs were released. They sprang at each other, the larger one confident of the advantage. Indeed, for a few seconds he had it. But then blood flowed from grazing gashes, and the smaller dog went berserk. He attacked with such ferocity that the other was first surprised, then dismayed. Suddenly the other tried to break free—and nets came down, incapacitating both animals, and the fight was over.
The time was fifty-four seconds.
Stumpy looked at Fleta with new appraisal. “You weren’t guessing,” she said flatly.
“I understand animals,” Fleta said.
Stumpy turned and walked away.
Fleta walked back to the Ladder screen. There was her name, on the eighth rung, with Stumpy just below it. She had qualified for the Tourney.
Chapter 5 Spy
Bane felt the girl in his arms sag. He steadied her, realizing that Fleta had been in Mach’s embrace, just as Agape had been in his own embrace, at the time of his exchange with Mach. Fortunately this had not disrupted the process.
Bane looked out over the grassy plain. It was good to be back in Phaze, after the horrors of the pursuit by the Proton Contrary Citizens! Mach had told him briefly of the discovery by Stile, his father, that their exchange was causing a dangerous imbalance, so they had to spend more time in their own frames. Thus he was back for that reason—but the love of his home frame smote him, and he knew he was glad that this need had developed. It was early morning, just as it had been in Proton, but here it was beautiful.
Except for his separation from Agape. He loved her too, and wanted to be with her—and could not, here.
The girl blinked, recovering equilibrium. “We have exchanged, Fleta,” he told her. “I be not Mach.”
There was a little pop behind him, and a trace of vapor passed, evidently lingering from the mist of the dawn.
She stared at him. “You are alive!” she breathed. “Aye, filly.” Then he asked her about the nature of the truce Mach had told him about, but she seemed confused.
“Where are we?” she asked.
He laughed. “Where thou hast always been, mare! In Phaze, o’ course.”
Still she seemed perplexed. “Please—do some magic,” she said.
He realized that she had suffered some kind of shock, perhaps because of her proximity to the exchange he had made with Mach. He conjured a basket of oats for her.
“I am not the unicorn,” she said. “I am Agape.”
“Be thou joking, mare?”
She claimed she was not. There followed some confusion, as each doubted the other’s identity, but soon she convinced him that she was indeed Agape. He could not, however, convince her that he was Bane. Finally they compromised: he gave her a spell she could invoke for protection and left her. He would know if she used the spell, so he could check on her, for it was his magic.
Then he conjured himself to the Blue Demesnes.
His mother, the Lady Blue, welcomed him, of course. It was his father Stile he was concerned about.
He need not have been. They met privately in Stile’s office, protected from observation by a careful spell. “I made a mistake in judging you,” Stile said, speaking in his original dialect, as he was apt to do when serious. “Or perhaps in judging your other self, Mach the Robot. I should have remembered how Sheen was—and how Neysa was. Their offspring—” He shrugged. “I shall not err like that again.”
There was a faint ripple in the air. Bane was startled. The statement had seemed incidental, but that was the splash of truth. Stile was deadly serious.