“Interesting,” he remarked.
“Methinks the filly be a better gamescreature than Mach overall,” the demon confided. “My affinity to unicorns be not great, but that one dost have charm.” Neysa stood awkwardly. Naturally she was pleased to hear her offspring praised, but she was not speaking to Fleta, as perhaps Icebeard knew. Demons had ways of teasing. Stile did not comment.
“She it was, methinks, made him what he be,” the demon concluded. “A filly worthy o’ any male, like her dam.” Neysa did not react visibly, but the snow around her was beginning to melt. At last the demon had mercy, and directed his minions to escort her out and to keep lookout for her safe return perhaps a week hence.
It occurred to Stile that he could get to like Icebeard. As Neysa departed, they walked to the chessboard with its pieces crafted from ice. He did not care to admit it, but he had looked forward to this game as much as had the demon, be cause Icebeard was indeed the best other player in Phaze. And, with luck, the Adverse Adepts would relax, believing that Stile could not make any initiative against them while locked in a chess game in the cold White Mountains. He was counting on that. Chess was not the only game he was playing at the moment.
“Let’s get on with it, pretender,” Stile said. “I expect to wipe the floor with thy king before the hour be out.”
Icebeard swelled up like an advancing glacier. ‘ ‘Thou dost call me pretender? Thy king shall be meltwater, and thy queen ravished ere mine be threatened!”
Stile smiled grimly. They both knew this was going to be great fun.
2 - Mack
Mach felt the disorientation of the exchange. It was both physical and emotionaclass="underline" physical because he moved from a living to a machine body, and emotional because the frame of Phaze was so different, with its magic and his unicorn wife and son. He hated to return to Proton, though his existence here was hardly a negative one. It was merely a less feeling one.
Then things firmed, and he looked around. He was standing in Bane’s apartment in Hardom, and before him was Bane’s wife. Agape, and Bane’s daughter, Nepe. Mach spent as much time in Proton as in Phaze, alternating months, but each time he saw Nepe she seemed to have grown another notch. She was in human form, a four-year-old child, and rather pretty. Of course she derived from alien stock, and could assume any living form she chose, with sufficient application and practice, so could be just as pretty as she was able to imagine.
Mach smiled, a trifle grimly. “The exchange has been made; I will leave you now.”
“Of course,” Agape said. She was pretty too, possessing the same ability as her daughter. It was always a bit of a jolt to encounter her naked, after a month of life in Phaze, where human nakedness was often a signal of sexual readiness. In Proton, of course, all serf’s were naked. He normally adapted to the situation in minutes, just as he did to the change to a body that was a machine. He had existed many years in this body before discovering what life was like; he could endure it for another month. Bane, after all, was suffering the same readjustment, returning to his home frame, separated from the woman and child he loved. Agape, three syllables, with the accent on the first; Nepe, two syllables, accent on the first. His computer brain always clicked through such details as he oriented on his other selfs family. He turned to the door panel, and extended one hand. The panel irised open, showing the hall beyond.
“Uncle Mach!”
Mach paused. “Yes, Nepe.”
“Can I go with you?”
Agape was startled. “Nepe, he is going to report to the Tan Adept, whom we don’t like. You would not be welcome there.”
“I don’t give a—what’s a bad word?—about the Tan Adept!” the child said stoutly. “I want to see.”
“Pollution,” Mach said.
“Beg pardon?” Agape said.
“The bad word.”
Nepe considered. “No, plution’s too legitmet. Maybe one about excement.”
“Nepe!” Agape exclaimed.
Mach smiled. “I am a robot. I have no need of a bad word for excrement.”
“Don’t patonize me!” Nepe exclaimed furiously.
“Horse manure,” Mach said contritely.
Nepe smiled victoriously. “I don’t give horse manure for the Tan Adept!”
“Now see what you’ve done,” Agape said sternly. “She will be using that word everywhere.”
“She has to learn adult usage some time,” he pointed out, amused. Then he spoke directly to Nepe: “But if you say that to his face, he might swell up and burst, and the smell would be horrible.”
“Really?” she asked, delighted.
“No, not really!” Agape said, darting a frustrated glance at Mach. “But don’t do it, anyway. We have to try to get along with these people.”
“Why?”
“Let her come along, and I will try to explain,” Mach said. He was flattered by the child’s wish to accompany him; normally she treated him with supreme indifference. In fact, for the first time she was making him feel like a real relative, causing his humor and flattery circuits to activate very much the way they would in life.
“But she has to go visit her grandfather, Citizen Blue,” Agape protested. “The plane is ready to take her to his country dome estate.”
“I can catch it after!” Nepe cried. “I know the way. Be sides, it’s autmatic.”
“What has gotten into you?” Agape inquired. “Your father would have taken you there, if you had asked!”
“It’s all right,” Mach said. “I will take her. Probably my son Flach is pestering Fleta similarly, in Phaze.”
Nepe turned sober. “I want to meet Aunt Fleta.”
“It wouldn’t work,” Agape said. “Even if she came here, she would be in my body.”
“Over there,” Nepe said. “I want to meet the uncorn!”
“I’d better take her to the Tan Adept,” Mach said. “She will be all right, and I will see that she boards the plane on schedule.”
Agape nodded, yielding without liking it. It was hard to see her as an alien creature at a time like this; her reactions were completely human, as were those of her daughter. Nepe took his hand, and they stepped out of the chamber. The panel closed behind them.
“Why did you make that scene?” Mach inquired as they walked down the hall.
“I heard something,” the child confided. “Something fun, maybe.”
“The Citizen Tan doesn’t serve ice cream,” he cautioned her.
“Bettem that! But it’s a secret!”
“Oh.” He knew better than to question her further. He might learn the secret, but it would spoil her fun. He checked his watch. He was early for his appointment with the Adept, by about an hour. Normally he would have retreated to his own suite and used the time to check for accumulated messages, as well as verifying the operation of his body. Bane tried to take care of it, but Bane had been brought up as a living creature, and still tended to assume that minor scratches would heal on their own. Also, Bane spent a lot of time with Agape, and that would be wearing on certain circuits. It was generally best to check those circuits, not with any intent to snoop on his other self, but to ensure that they remained fully operative. But this time Nepe was with him. The child would not be very patient about an hour of stasis on his part. As a living creature she could not turn off or internalize the same way. Her closest equivalent was sleeping, and like most children, she would rather die than sleep during daylight hours. Very well; his systems check could wait; certainly it wasn’t urgent.
“It will be a while before I meet with Tan,” he said. “If you would like something to eat first—”
“I want to play a game with you. Uncle,” she said.