AUDIENCE WILL TOUCH <SELECT> WINNER, the big screen printed. Jimbo’s name highlighted, then Fleta’s.
JIMBO SIX VOTES, FLETA FIVE VOTES. ABSTENTIONS FOURTEEN.
“Hey, wait!” a serf cried. “I didn’t abstain! I hadn’t made up my mind yet!” There was a chorus of agreement.
MAJORITY VOTE OF ESTABLISHED AUDIENCE REQUIRED FOR DECISION, the screen continued imperturbably. AUDIENCE WILL BE REQUIRED TO CONTINUE VOTING UNTIL THAT MAJORITY IS REGISTERED. TWO-MINUTE RECESS FOR CONSIDERATION BEFORE NEXT VOTE.
Fleta looked at Jimbo, and found him looking at her. She walked across to him. “I liked thy story,” she said, feeling an affinity for him. “Truly, thou dost know forbidden love as I do.”
“Too bad we didn’t fall in love with each other,” he said. “Are you really a…?”
“A unicorn. Aye. But an the Citizens catch me, that be meaningless.”
“How so?”
“They mean to use me as lever against him whom I love. But the Tourney protects me—an I not depart too soon.”
“Won’t you be safe offplanet?”
“I be not in mine own body, here. An I depart this world before I exchange to mine own frame, methinks can I not exchange at all, and that be worse yet.”
“So you would prefer to remain here a little longer,” he said.
“Aye,” she said sadly. “But that decision be not in my power.”
He smiled. “But it may be in mine.” He stepped to the front of the stage, waving his hands. “May I have your attention!” he cried.
Instantly a sour note sounded from the screen. ERROR! CONTESTANT MAY NOT ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE AUDIENCE ON HIS BEHALF.
“I haven’t finished my story,” he cried. “There’s something else I have to say.”
ERROR! STATEMENT IS OUT OF ORDER AT THIS TIME.
A man in the audience stood. “Listen, who’s deciding this game, us or the machine?” he demanded. “Aren’t we like a jury, and we can hear more if we want?”
“Yes, and can’t we judge for ourselves whether he’s trying to change our votes unfairly?” a woman responded.
The screen hesitated. PROCEDURAL MATTER. AUDIENCE WILL INDICATE WHETHER TO HEAR MORE FROM CONTESTANTS. SELECT RESPONSE YES NO. The YES was highlighted, then the NO.
CONTESTANTS MAY SPEAK, the screen printed, yielding gracefully.
“Okay,” Jimbo said. “We’ve got two people here, both probably on the way out regardless of this particular game. One can go any time; the Tourney is just a pretext to get him offplanet without being charged with anything. The other is here to protect her from trouble still brewing, and if she can stay a while longer, maybe things will work out a little better for her. So if I were voting, and I had trouble making up my mind, I think I’d boot the one with nothing to lose, and keep the one with maybe something to win. Now I’m not trying to tell anybody how he should vote, just saying the way I see it, and the damned machine can’t object to that, can it?” He walked to the side, leaving the stage to Fleta.
She realized that she was supposed to say something, but she could think of nothing. She just stood there and started to melt again, which seemed to be this body’s way of crying. She didn’t want to melt in front of all these people, so she hid her face in her hands, overcome.
After a moment, the voting proceeded. Fleta forced her eyes back into shape and looked at the screen.
FLETA TWENTY-THREE VOTES, JIMBO TWO; FLETA PROCEEDS TO ROUND TWO.
Jimbo looked at her and smiled. She ran to him, hugged him, and kissed him. The members of the audience applauded.
Suddenly she felt much more at home in the frame of Proton.
She had two days before her next match, because of the time required for the remaining Round One games to clear. Mach came to her, after passing through a thorough screening by the Game Computer to ensure that he was whom he claimed to be, and they had a little additional honeymoon. She cherished this brief experience with his own body; she had come to love him in Bane’s body, but this was his reality. If she managed to return to Phaze, this would be all she ever knew of the true Mach.
Then it was time for her Round Two match. This time her opponent was a young woman, of grim visage, and she knew there would be no courtly generosity. She had to win outright.
She got the numbers again, and chose ARTS again. The girl chose B, so they were in TOOL-ASSISTED ARTS: Painting, Sculpture, Costumed Drama, Decorative Sewing, Patterns with blocks, colored sand, grains of rice or whatever, Card Houses, Kaleidoscope, and Musical Instruments.
Fleta was encouraged; she understood most of these Arts. She played with confidence, and got Music. The other girl was plainly uncertain now. In the end they had to play music, each on her own instrument. The girl chose the piano, and Fleta chose the syrinx: otherwise known as the panpipes, her natural instrument as a unicorn. She had, as a matter of private challenge, learned to play the panpipes in girlform. This was difficult, because her girlfingers lacked the musical coordination of her horn, and her girlmouth could play only one note at a time, or adjacent notes. But fingers weren’t really necessary for this; hooves would have done to hold this instrument firm. She was unable to play two themes simultaneously, but the underlying harmonics came naturally, so she could do a creditable job. Whether she could do it in this alien body she wasn’t sure, but she thought she could. They followed the line to the appropriate chamber.
Again, they were to be judged by an audience. None of the listeners was the same as those of her prior game; the Computer was careful about that sort of thing.
Fleta had to play first. She took the instrument, which consisted of eight tubes of graduated lengths, bound together. She sounded each note by blowing across the top of the proper tube. She played a simple yet evocative melody that had given her pleasure as a filly at the end of a perfect day of grazing, as the sun settled slowly into the trees on the horizon, setting them afire, and the evening wind fanned the high fringe of the grass to be grazed on the morrow. As she played, Phaze seemed to form around her, so lovely, and then it seemed that Mach was there too, delighted by her music as he always was, and for this moment everything was perfect.
Then the tune was done, and it was Proton again. The audience was staring at her. Had she started to melt again? No, they merely liked the music, perhaps not having heard the panpipes as played by a unicorn before.
Her opponent looked at the piano. “I concede,” she said shortly, and walked out.
FLETA PROCEEDS TO ROUND THREE, the screen announced.
Just like that, she had won!
The audience filtered out, though several serfs glanced admiringly at the instrument as they passed.
“Clear the chamber,” the speaker said. “Citizen approaching.”
Fleta looked wildly around. “But I’m supposed to be protected!” she cried. “I’m still in the Tourney!”
“At ease, filly,” the Citizen said, entering the chamber. He stood somewhat shorter than she, but his brightblue robe identified him as far above her. “Not every Citizen be thine enemy.”
“The Blue Adept!” she exclaimed, astonished.
He smiled. “Now Citizen Blue. Thy secret has been kept; the Game Computer allowed news o’ thine identity to leak not beyond its annex. But I was o’ Phaze, and I know the music o’ the unicorn when I hear it. Ah, the memories it brought!”
“Mach’s sire,” she breathed.
“Aye. And thou’rt Neysa’s foal. Glad I am to meet thee at last, however briefly, though thou dost favor her not in this guise.” He squinted at her. “Best abolish the horn, though.”
Fleta touched her forehead. She had grown the button-horn! It must have happened while she was playing the panpipes. No wonder the audience had stared! Quickly she melted it; she was not trying to make a freak of herself, here.