“I’ll have no problems there,” he said. “I’m not a gambling man, outside the Game. I shall be a very conservative Citizen and live well within my income. Most of the time I won’t even be here, as you know.”
She nodded sadly. “Yes, sir. There’s a note in the program from my friends. They warn it is not safe for you to stand pat. Forces are building rapidly. To protect yourself you must soon develop your estate to a hundred times its original magnitude. Within six months.”
“A hundred times!” he exclaimed. “In six months!”
“And you must unravel the mystery that is associated with your lasering, sir. Who sent me to protect you? My friends have disturbing new evidence that this is not an isolated event. Someone or something is interfering with your life, and my friends can’t discover who.”
“Yes. And in Phaze, someone set the Red Adept against me on a false alarm.” He had had an extraordinary amount of trouble in that connection, ending in the banishment of the Red Adept from both Phaze and Proton. The Oracle had said Blue would destroy Red, and that had proved correct—but none of that mischief would have occurred if someone had not started the rumor that Blue intended to attack Red.
“And there was that earthquake, sir, which you believe is connected to events in Phaze,” she continued. “Another portent, perhaps.”
“Definitely. The Platinum Elves informed me that I would be involved in important developments, after my honeymoon.” Ooops—he had not meant to mention the honeymoon to Sheen. He continued rapidly. “I’m not sure I like the implication. I don’t know what the linkages between frames might be, but since a number of people can cross, there can be interactions, perhaps quite serious ones.” He breathed deeply. “I was psychologically prepared for banishment from Proton when I got eliminated from the Tourney. I’m not so certain about how to proceed now that I have permanent tenure. I don’t feel comfortable here in clothing.”
“That is why you needed to isolate yourself, sir.”
Stile got up and paced the small enclosure. “I promised to return to Phaze by noon. I have already overrun that deadline. Why don’t you set in motion the machinery for the establishment of my physical estate, and start hiring serfs, while I cross the curtain to—”
“That might not be wise, sir.”
Her constant “sirs” were still getting on his nerves, but he knew this was good conditioning. “Not wise?”
“You will need your money as a stake to multiply your estate, sir, so should not fritter it away on nonessentials. And if it became known that a machine was disposing your assets—”
“I am a Citizen, aren’t I? I can use a machine if I want to, can’t I?” Stile was irritated, not liking the implied slur at Sheen.
“Yes, sir.”
“So I’m appointing you my chief of staff, or whatever the appropriate office is. I’d better hire a staff of serfs, for appearances, and become a compulsive gambler. But I’ll lose my new fortune unless I have competent input. Will your friends help?”
“They will, sir.”
“Then ask them to locate an appropriate adviser for me. One who knows how to break in a new Citizen.”
“And how to escalate a Citizen’s fortune rapidly, sir.”
“Precisely. Now I’ll go finish my honey—uh, my business in Phaze. Assuming I can get out of Proton unobserved.”
“A Citizen can, sir,” she assured him. “If you will make a brief, formal holo statement of authorization, so I can draw on your funds—”
“Ah, yes.” Stile took care of that immediately.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, accepting the recording. “I shall set the wheels in motion.”
“Excellent. And I’ll ponder what I can do for you and your friends.”
Sheen nodded, knowing he could do nothing for her. She would serve him loyally and lovingly, regardless.
CHAPTER 5
West Pole
He was late, but the Lady Blue forgave him. “I had the news before thee. Thou art a Citizen now.”
“It’s anticlimactic,” Stile complained. “Citizenship is the ultimate prize of Proton. Now that I have it, it’s mainly a nuisance. Hidden forces decree that I must commence a new and chancy course, to be ready for even more tension. I wonder if this relates in any way to the promised mischief at the West Pole?”
“How can such complications arise now?” the Lady inquired rhetorically. “All we seek is a simple honeymoon.”
“Somehow I don’t think we’re going to have it.”
They attended the snow demons’ banquet. It was magnificent, in its fashion. Candied icicles for aperitif, ice-burgers, fried avalanche, sludge freeze as a beverage, and snow cones for dessert. The snow-demons pitched in with gusto; Stile and the Lady nibbled with imperfect enthusiasm, until Stile sneaked in a small spell and changed their morsels to items with food content concealed under snow frosting.
At night, side by side in a surprisingly comfortable snowbank, they talked. “I have a problem,” Stile said quietly.
“I think it must needs wait till the snowmen sleep,” she murmured. “They exhibit unseemly curiosity as to how flesh-mortals perform without melting from generated heat.”
He patted her anatomy under the snow blanket, where the curious demons couldn’t see. “A Proton problem.”
“The Lady Sheen.”
“The lovely self-willed robot lady Sheen, who will not accept reprogramming. I must work closely with her, for I have agreed to help her machine friends. They helped me survive when times were hard in Proton, and I must help them achieve serf status now. And they warn me that more trouble is coming; that I must gamble to enhance my estate vastly and research to learn who sent Sheen in the first place. I fear it links in some way to events in Phaze, so I must follow through. Only I wish I didn’t have to use Sheen—take that in what sense thou wilt. It isn’t fair to her, and I feel guilty.”
“As well thou might,” she agreed. “I promised to consider her case, and so I have done. Now let me see if I have this right. The self-willed golems—machines—wish recognition as people?”
“Correct. Serfs are the lowest people, but are more than the highest machines. Serfs can play the Game, compete in the Tourney, win privileges or even Citizenship. When their tenure expires, they depart the planet with generous cumulative pay. Machines are permitted none of this; they are slaves until junked. Yet some are intelligent, conscious, feeling.”
“And the Lady Sheen is one of these unrecognized machine creatures.”
“She is. She is in every way a person, with very real emotions. They merely happen to be programmed, rather than natural.”
“And is there a difference between program and nature?”
“I doubt it. Different means to similar ends, perhaps.”
“Then thou must marry the Lady Sheen.”
Stile paused. “I don’t believe I heard thee properly, Lady.”
“It is the other frame. She can never cross the curtain. Thou canst do as thou wilt with her there.”
Stile had been growing sleepy. Now he was awakening. “I am sure I am misunderstanding thee.”
“If a Citizen marries a machine—”
“Nobody can marry a machine!”
“—then that machine must have—”
“Machines don’t have—” Stile stopped. “I wonder. The spouses of Citizens do not achieve Citizen status, but they do have certain prerogatives. They are considered to be employed—their employment being the marriage. And only serfs are employable.”
“So a married machine would be a serf,” the Lady concluded. “And if one machine were a serf—”
“The precedent—”
“Thinkest thou it would accomplish thy purpose?”
Stile considered, his head spinning. “If the marriage stuck, it would be one hell of a lever for legal machine recognition!”
“That was my notion,” she said complacently.
“But I am married to thee!” he protested.
&nb
sp; “In Phaze. Not in Proton.”
“But thou canst cross over!”
“True. But I am of this frame, and never will I leave it for aught save emergency. I have no claim on the things of Proton, nor wish I any.”
“But I love only thee! I could never—”
“Thou lovest more than thou knowest,” she said with gentle assurance. “Neysa, Sheen—”
“Well, there are different types of—”
“And I spoke not of love. I spoke of marriage.”
“A marriage of convenience? To a robot?”
“Dost thou hold the Lady Sheen beneath convenience, for that she be made of metal?”
“Nay! But—” He paused. “Nay, I must confess I do think less of her. Always since I learned she was not real, that—”
“Methinks thou hast some thinking to do,” the Lady Blue said, and turned her back.
Stile felt the reproach keenly. He was prejudiced; he had great respect for Sheen, but love had been impossible because she was not flesh. Yet he reminded himself that he had come closer to loving her before encountering the Lady Blue. Had Sheen’s nonliving nature become a pretext for his inevitable change of heart? He could not be sure, but he was unable to deny it.
How could he fight for the recognition of the sapient self-willed machines if he did not recognize them as discrete individuals himself? How could he marry Sheen if he did not love her? If he came to think of her as a real person, wouldn’t such a marriage make him a bigamist? There were two frames, certainly, but he was only one person. Yet since the Lady Blue had generously offered to accept half-status, confining herself to Phaze—
Think of the commotion the marriage of a Citizen to a robot would make in Proton! It would convulse the social order! That aspect appealed to him. Yet—
“Wouldst thou settle for a betrothal?” he asked at last.
“An honest one,” she agreed sleepily.
“Say six months. Time enough to get the legal issues clarified, one way or the other. There would be formidable opposition from other Citizens. And of course Sheen herself might not agree.”
“She will agree,” the Lady Blue said confidently. “A betrothal is a commitment, and never wilt thou renege. She will have some joy of thee at last.”
This was not a way he had ever expected the Lady Blue to speak, and Stile was uneasy. Yet perhaps she had some concern of her own, knowing she had taken him away from Sheen. Possibly the social mores of Phaze differed from those of Proton in this respect, and sharing was more permissible. Certainly his friend Kurrelgyre the werewolf had believed it, assigning his bitch to a friend while Kurrelgyre himself was in exile from his Pack. The Lady Blue had met Sheen, liked her, and accepted her immediately as a person; apparently that had not been any social artifice.
“And if in six months it is legal, then shall I marry her,” Stile continued. “In Proton. But I can not love her.”
“Then love me,” the Lady Blue said, turning to him.
That was reward enough. But already Stile had a glimpse of that controversy he was about to conjure, like a savage magic storm.
In the morning they resumed their tour of the curtain, recrossing the White Mountain range and bearing southwest. There were some deep crevices on the ground; when their steeds’ hooves knocked sand into them, it fell down and away beyond the limit of perception, soundlessly. “Deep caves, mayhap,” Stile remarked, a bit nervous about a possible collapse of the footing. But Clip tapped the ground with a forehoof, indicating that there was no danger of a fall as long as a unicorn picked the way.
Stile checked his contour map and discovered they were heading for the Black Demesnes. He did not like the Black Adept, and by mutual consent they spelled rapidly past the grim castle and well on toward the Purple Mountains.
Now the curtain bore directly south. Suddenly there was an explosion of fire before them. Stile squinted at the flame, trying to determine whether it was natural or magic.
“The warners!” the Lady exclaimed. “The Green Adept!”
“It must be,” Stile agreed. “I promised to bypass him.”
They went around, rejoining the curtain southwest of Green’s marked territory. The curtain was curving back westward, through the foothills of the southern mountains. The scenery was pleasant; waist-high bushes covered the rolling terrain, topped with faintly purple flowers. The steeds trotted through, finding firm footing beneath. The midafternoon sun slanted down.
Suddenly a creature jumped in front of Hinblue. The thing had the body of a powerful man and the head of a wolf. It bayed—and the horse spooked. The Lady Blue, an expert rider, was not in any trouble; she brought her steed about and calmed her.
Then a second creature appeared, this one with the head of a ram. It bleated.
Stile’s mind formulated a spell while his hand went for his harmonica. But he withheld his magic, uncertain whether it was necessary. He had heard of the animalheads, but understood they were not aggressive toward human beings. Was his information mistaken?
More animalheads appeared, making their assorted noises. Cats, goats, hawks, bears, turtles—none of them with the intelligence or verbal ability of a man, but each quite formidable in its fashion. They were all snarling, squawking, roaring, or growling aggressively. A pighead charged toward Stile, grunting.
“I fear they mean mischief,” the Lady Blue said. “This is not like them. Something has angered them, methinks.”
“Yes,” Stile agreed. Clip’s horn was holding the pighead at bay, but a crocodilehead was circling to the rear. “We had best avoid them till we know their motivation.”
“Methinks we can outrun them,” she said, concerned but not worried.
Their steeds took off. Hinblue was a fine mare, capable of a galloping velocity that shamed ordinary horses; she really did move like the wind. But Clip was a unicorn whose inherent magic made him swifter yet. By common consent they used no other magic, not revealing Stile’s status; Adepts were not necessarily favored in the back reaches of Phaze.
The animalheads gave chase enthusiastically, baying, bellowing, and hooting. But their human bodies could not compare with the equine bodies, and they soon fell behind. Yet two things narrowed the gap; this was animalhead territory, more familiar to the beastmen than to the intruders; they could take the best paths and shortcuts, and kept popping up just ahead. Also, there were a number of them, so that a good many were already ranged along the route, and these formed living barricades. This made the chase close enough for discomfort.
Three catfaces rose up before them. Both steeds, well versed in this sort of thing, did not leap, for though they could have cleared the creatures, they would in the process have exposed their vulnerable underbellies to attack from below. Instead they put their heads down and charged low.
The catheads could have handled the horse, but not the deadly horn of the unicorn. That horn could skewer a standing creature instantly. The cats dropped down, giving way, and the party galloped on unscathed.
Half a dozen pigheads appeared, grunting urgently. This time the steeds leaped. The pigheads reached up, but their weapons were their tusks, not good for vertical goring. One got struck in the head by Hinblue’s front hoof, and the others desisted.
A pack of wolfheads closed in, but the steeds dodged and galloped to the side and got around and through, then put on speed to leave the beasts behind. No more animalheads appeared, and Stile knew that his party had gotten away clean.
Unnoticed in the hurry, the vegetation had changed. They were now forging through a forest of huge old trees—oak, ash, elm, and beech, by the look. But it was not necessarily easy to tell them apart, for the trunks were gnarled and deeply corrugated, and the tops shaded the ground into gloom.
“I like not the look of this,” the Lady Blue said.
Stile agreed. Their escape had led them away from the curtain, so that they now had to relocate. It would not be safe to return to their point of divergence from it; the animalheads were there. Stile
still preferred to avoid the use of magic in the present situation; this was an annoyance, not a crisis.
All of which meant they would have to search for the curtain the tedious way—slowly, eyes squinting for the almost invisible shimmer. The curtain was easy to follow lengthwise, but difficult to intercept broadside unless one knew exactly where to look.
“Well, it’s all part of the honeymoon,” Stile said. The Lady smiled; she had known there would be this sort of interruption in the schedule.
They looked, riding slowly around the great old trees. The forest was so dense now that even indirect light hardly penetrated, yet there were an increasing number of small plants. They twined up around the bases of the tree trunks and spread across the forest floor. Some were a suspiciously verdant green; others were pallid white. Many were insidiously ugly.
Yet they were plants, not creatures. None of them sent questing tentacles for the intruders; none had poisonous thorns. They flourished in gloom; that seemed to be their only oddity.
There was no sign of the curtain. “It will take forever to find it this way,” Stile said. “I want to be back on it by nightfall.” He jumped down and walked. “We can make a better search on foot,” he said.
Clip blew a warning note. Unicorns were naturally resistant to magic, and this protected the rider. The Blue Adept, Clip felt, needed protection, and should not be straying from his steed. As if Stile did not have ample magic of his own.
Stile walked on, peering this way and that, searching for the curtain. It had to be somewhere near here; they had not gone all that far and they had not diverged from its path greatly. In this gloom the shimmer should be clear enough.
Clip’s ears turned. He blew a low warning note. Stile paused to listen.
The animalheads were catching up. Stile’s party had to move on before—
Too late. A pigface appeared in front of Stile. A dogface came up behind the Lady. There was rustling in the bushes all around. Perhaps aided by some sort of stealth-spell, the animalheads had surrounded them.