“Then can I agree,” Translucent said. “Troll, we be on different sides, but I would be friends with thee.”
“Aye,” Trool said.
Translucent stepped out of his bubble, and it dissolved into vapor. He walked across to Trool, extending his hand. The troll accepted it.
Then Trool turned back to Bane. “Does Mach agree?”
“Ask him,” Bane said. He stepped back into overlap. New challenge, he thought. They will explain. Then they made the exchange.
Chapter 10
Filly?
Mach felt the change, and knew it was now Agape he held. She had returned to her proper frame, and could return also to her own world of Moeba.
He disengaged. “I had better acquaint you with recent events here,” he said.
“Aye,” she agreed.
He looked at her, startled.
She laughed. “No, I am Agape. I have a story of my own to tell.” She looked around the chamber. “But is it safe to talk?”
“It’s supposed to be.” But now he remembered how Citizen Purple had caught on to Fleta’s identity. Had it been a good guess, or had information leaked from this chamber? The Game Computer could overhear everything, of course; Mach had trusted its discretion, but Citizens did have extraordinary powers.
She read his doubt. Then she hugged him. “Let us whisper, in that case. I have learned things about enmity.”
“You are in the Tourney,” he whispered in her ear.
She drew back her head and looked at him again, startled.
“It was the only way to protect Fleta from the Contrary Citizens—and even then, it was close. But you need not worry; you can lose and be shipped home to Moeba. You know the planet better than she does.”
She smiled, agreeing.
There was a knock on the entry panel. Both of them glanced at it, startled. Who would knock, instead of using the screen to communicate?
Mach went to the panel and opened it. There stood a cleaning machine. Since when did such service devices knock?
The machine’s speaker murmured a code. Then Mach understood: this was a self-willed machine masquerading as a mindless one. It extended a tiny package.
Mach took the package and folded it into his palm. Then the machine rolled on down the hall, and Mach closed the panel and turned to face Agape, making a small gesture toward his lips with a finger: silence.
She understood. She shrugged, and went to the food dispenser. He quickly opened the package, removed the electronic chip inside, and slid it into an aperture that opened under his left arm.
The message was stark: CONTRARY CITIZENS WILL CHALLENGE AGAPE AS FALSE ENTRY, DISQUALIFY HER, TAKE HER INTO THEIR CUSTODY. SHE MUST DEMONSTRATE SHE IS FLETA. TAPES OF THE CHAMBER TO BE REQUISITIONED AS EVIDENCE FOR HEARING. ACT ACCORDINGLY.
Assimilation took only an instant. Now he understood why the contact had been physical and masked: a communication through the screen would have become part of the requisitioned evidence. The Contrary Citizens were still after Agape, and would not let her get to her home planet, now that he had nullified their trap there.
She had to prove she was Fleta? Evidently the Citizens had caught on, but did not know that the girls had exchanged back. He trusted the judgment of his kind; he would do as they recommended.
Meanwhile, Agape was about to operate the food controls. He hurried over. “Fleta, you should know better than to try to work that thing yourself; you’ll foul it up. Let me do it. What would you like?”
She masked her surprise. He put his hands on her shoulders and gently urged her to the side. As he let go, he tapped the spot under his arm where he had inserted the message chip. She nodded almost imperceptibly. Fleta might have been confused, but Agape understood his machine nature.
“The usual,” she said. “I thank thee.”
She was cooperating quickly and well! His experience on Moeba had increased his understanding and appreciation of her kind, and now he saw things about her that made him see how his other self could have come to love her. The tiny amoeba in the laboratories of Proton were far from intelligent, but those of Moeba were advanced, and every bit as clever as multicellular life. To think of a microscopic amoeba as the model for Agape was about as accurate as thinking of a single on/off switch as the model for Mach.
He fixed her the usual: a bowl of nutritious mush, that she could digest with her feet. He reminded her of this matter-of-factly, as if bored by it, but the information was important. Agape would not otherwise have known how Fleta had adapted to the amoeboid body.
After she had eaten, he guided her to the bed and lay down with her. Her look of uncertainty was only fleeting; she knew he had reason. He hugged her, and spoke quietly into her ear.
“Message chip. They mean to challenge your legitimacy as a Tourney participant. You must prove you are Fleta.”
“But I don’t know how she played, or anything!” she protested.
“Evidently my kind believes you can authenticate it. But the tapes of this chamber will be requisitioned as evidence. That means—”
“Aye, I know what it means,” she replied.
“I’m not sure you do. You see—”
“A moment, Mach, while I change into something more comfortable,” she said.
He waited, not sure what she had in mind. What he had been trying to tell her was that Mach would have made love to Fleta, and if she was to prove she was Fleta, now, when supposedly unobserved, this was a necessary step. As a robot, he could do what was necessary, without compromising his love for the real Fleta. But could she—?
Her body was melting and changing. Her hair turned black, and a button appeared in her forehead. Her features—
“Fleta!” he exclaimed, amazed. For she was assuming the exact likeness of the unicorn girl, in her human form.
How could she have known that form? Then he chided himself for his doubt: Agape had just spent a good session in Fleta’s body. Of course she had come to know it!
It was evident she also understood the rest of it. Agape loved Bane—but she had just been with Bane, and knew his plan to spy on the Adverse Adepts. She knew that Bane would have to treat Fleta as Mach would have treated her. Now she was ready to emulate that action here: Mach and Fleta, with the female being the pretense-identity, instead of the male. Perhaps there was a certain justice to it.
She smiled at him. “Come, my love. Do what thou must, and I will help thee. I would sleep soon, for I have a game on the morrow.”
She looked like Fleta. She sounded almost like her. She knew his body, because of Bane’s occupancy. She understood the rationale. She was a worthy person. But she was not Fleta, and he could not blank out that knowledge.
Could not? What was he thinking of! He could do just that, with a little spot reprogramming. He did it now, setting up a bypass so that for the next hour he would believe that what he saw was genuine. As a machine he could do that deliberately; he knew that living creatures could sometimes do it unconsciously, blanking out portions of their memory or instilling delusions that seemed real.
“Fleta,” he said, accepting the presence of his love in this frame. He remembered the delight he had had of her in Phaze, after she had learned to accommodate his kind of love-making. He remembered his oath of love to her.
After that, it was easy.
Next day the challenge came: Citizen Purple levied it against Agape. “I submit that this is not the creature from Planet Moeba, but another creature in her body,” he declared. “As such, she is not qualified to participate in the Tourney. Her apparent victory over me must be nulled, and she disqualified and turned over to me for compensation.”
Such a charge would have been dismissed as nonsensical, had a serf made it. A Citizen was another matter. Agape was required to report to a hearing chamber for a settlement with the Citizen.
“But the evil man will grab me!” she protested. “I know not the ways of thy frame, but I know the ways o’ the Adverse Adepts!”
Mach’s temporary circuit had been eliminated; he knew her identity. But how like Fleta she was acting! That time in Phaze had really prepared her.
“The Citizen cannot take you as long as the Game Computer retains authority,” he said. “All you have to do is demonstrate that you are properly entered in the Tourney.” But he was nervous, because he had not been with Fleta when she qualified; he had stayed clear, deliberately, and gone to Moeba. He trusted the word of the self-willed machines, but he had no idea how pretending that Agape was Fleta would get her through this challenge. He had rejoined her after she had qualified; he had told her, in the guise of routine reminding, of the four matches Fleta had won. But he hadn’t thought to look up the records on her qualifying matches—and in any event, it might have cast doubt on her authenticity if he had asked for those records.
They went to the prescribed chamber, following the line of the floor. Citizen Purple was there, glowering at Agape. “See—she doesn’t even try to conceal it any more!” Purple exclaimed. “She’s got the unicorn button!”
“Aye,” Agape said.
“Hearing as to the validity of the qualification of Fleta for the Tourney is now in progress,” the voice of the Game Computer said. “Challenger will present specifics.”
“It was supposed to be Agape of Moeba,” Purple said. “I want to verify the record of her qualification. What name is it under?”
“Record of subject’s first qualification game displayed,” the Game Computer said. A screen on the wall lighted. On it was printed:
PLAYER ONE: SHOCK OF KOLO
PLAYER TWO: FLETA OF UNI
The Citizen gaped. “She registered as a unicorn?”
“Transcript of dialogue at console,” the Game Computer said. On the screen appeared:
“HI! I’M SHOCK. MY HAIR, YOU KNOW.”
“HI. I’M FLETA.”
“WELCOME TO THE LEFTOVER LADDER. I’M SECOND FROM THE BOTTOM. I LOVE THE GAME, BUT I’M NO GOOD AT IT, SO I’M EASY TO BEAT.”
“LADDER?”
“OH, YOU NEW HERE? FROM ANOTHER WORLD?”
“NEW. FROM ANOTHER WORLD.”
“SAY, THAT’S GREAT! I’M A KOLOFORM MYSELF. WELL, I MEAN MY FOLKS CAME FROM KOLO, SO IT’S MY BLOOD. I WAS BORN HERE, BUT I CAN ONLY STAY TILL I’M TWENTY-ONE, NEXT YEAR, YOU KNOW. THEN I’M EITHER A SERF, OR I HAVE TO GO TO KOLO. WHAT’RE YOU?”
“A UNICORN.”
So that was it! Fleta had indeed registered as Fleta the Unicorn. Mach knew what had happened: she had automatically given her correct identity when talking with the other player, and the Game Computer had picked that up and made it official. She had proceeded to qualify for the Tourney under that identity. She was legitimately entered.
Citizen Purple hesitated, and Mach was sure he was going to demand to see the tapes of their chamber. But evidently the man changed his mind, knowing that they were on to his ploy and that nothing in those tapes would prove she was not Fleta. Certainly the tapes from before the exchange would not; then she had indeed been Fleta. The Citizen had challenged her as being an impostor for Agape, assuming that she would have been registered as Agape or under a phony name. Had he been able to requisition the records before making the formal challenge, he would have discovered his error, but all qualification records were sealed during a Tourney, to prevent cheating.
Citizen Purple strode out without further comment. He had lost—again. But Mach knew that they would have to maintain the pretense that she was Fleta until she was safely out of the Tourney and offplanet, lest she be disqualified for not being Fleta the Unicorn. The message of the self-willed machines had been timely!
That afternoon her next match came up. This was for Round Five, relatively rarefied territory for the Tourney. Fleta had done amazingly well, turning out to be a natural games-creature; Agape would not be able to match that level.
But he had, in the guise of a few private caresses, advised her: she could afford to lose, now, but she had to play in the manner of Fleta. A win in the manner of Agape would lead to the pouncing of the Citizens, and disqualification would put her into their hands. A loss in the manner of Fleta would enable her to be deported to Moeba safely. For the Tourney she was Fleta, but legally she remained Agape.
Mach could not join her at the console, of course. He watched her from their chamber, on the screen, as he had when Fleta played.
Her opponent was someone he knew: a man in his twenties who was a veteran player. His name was Sharp, and he was especially skilled at physical combat with sharp things: swords, knives, needles. He was not as good at intellectual things, and that was fortunate, because if Agape had the numbers she would put it into the mental category. If she had the letters, she would go for Machine-Assisted, avoiding the chance of direct physical competition. That was the strategy they thought Fleta would go for, avoiding animals because others would be expecting her to go for animals.
Evidently she did get the numbers, because the first selection on the grid was 2B, Tool-Assisted Mental.
The second grid was 5G, Separate and General: obviously she had had the numbers again, and chose to keep the two of them apart, as an uncertain unicorn would. This category contained such things as origami (paper-folding), crosswords, cryptograms and other noninteractive paper games. The assisting tools were pencil or paper or both, nominally; actually it was all done on the console screen.
The final determination was Cryptogram: the interpretation of a set of symbols that represented a quotation in English. Mach didn’t like this; Agape could handle it, but Fleta would have real trouble. Unicorns had no literary education to draw upon, and indeed, it was sheer luck that Fleta was even literate; xnost did not go to that extreme when adapting to the human form. The danger was that Agape would play too well, and reveal her nonunicorn nature.
RULES: the screen said, for the contestants and for the private viewers, such as Mach. EACH NUMBER STANDS FOR ONE LETTER OF THE ALPHABET. SPACING AND PUNCTUATION ARE NORMAL. TO PLACE LETTERS, TOUCH NUMBER AND LETTER SIMULTANEOUSLY; TO MAKE CORRECTION, TOUCH AGAIN. A FULL LIST OF QUOTATION AUTHORS IS AVAILABLE, OR AN AUTHOR MAY BE REQUESTED BY DESCRIPTION. CONTESTANTS WILL WORK INDEPENDENTLY ON IDENTICAL QUOTATIONS. WINNER IS FIRST TO COMPLETE QUOTATION AND AUTHOR CORRECTLY. PLAY COMMENCES WHEN BOTH PLAYERS SIGNIFY READINESS BY TOUCHING “READY” SQUARE.
In a moment, the screens appeared on Mach’s screen: Agape’s on the left. Sharp’s on the right. The players would not know who was doing better, but the watchers could see it plainly. There was a row of letters across the top, and other directives at the bottom. Each screen looked like this:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
123456!-4758-975830’94
(11)(12)-32(13)26(14)-(15)4-4729-758(16):
(18)2332(15)1-(18)5(16)09(18)5(16)47
LETTERS NUMBERED FROM 1 TO (18) AUTHORS: LIST DESCRIPTION
Mach was experienced as a gamesman, and would have been happy to tackle this challenge. He would have started by touching AUTHORS and DESCRIPTION and requesting a selection of authors with first names of seven letters and last names of ten; that could have given him an immediate break, though the computer tried to foil that approach by having a number of authors for every such combination, sometimes too many to make it feasible. But neither contestant tried that.
Sharp knew some of the basics. He counted, and discovered that there were eight 7’s, more than any other letter. He knew that E was the most common letter used in English, so he filled in E’s above the 7’s. That gave him a quick start, but Mach wasn’t sure; in short quotations like this, distribution could be atypical, and Mach noticed that five of those 7’s were preceded by 4’s. Why were so many locked together like that? It was certainly possible, but not usual.
Agape, trying to think like a unicorn, was having more trouble. She did not count letters, she just pondered the whole, biting her lip. (He assumed that last detail; she was not shown on the screen.)
Sharp, buoyed by his success with E, pondered the doubled 12’s n
ear the end. He tried MESS for the last word, but that gave him -SS- for the third one from the end, and he didn’t like that. So he changed the last to TELL, and that gave him -LL- for the other. He struggled with that, and was in the process of coming to the conclusion that he could not make it with that E; but he obviously did not want to give it up.
Agape, meanwhile, in a fit of inspiration calculated to convince everyone that she was Fleta, however badly she might lose the game, suddenly touched letters rapidly and filled in that last word as THEE. Mach had to applaud the genius of that; of course that was the way a creature from Phaze would see it!
Now she filled in her E’s, T’s, and H’s, and suddenly she had a lot of notions to pursue. She found the second word beginning with TH and immediately filled in THOU, as Fleta would, and followed through with the 0’s and U’s elsewhere in the sample. The word following THOU was -HOU—‘-T; she had no hesitation about completing it as SHOULD’ST and filling in its other letters elsewhere. Her display now looked like this:
_ _ L T O _!—T H O U—S H O U L D ‘S T
1 2 3 4 5 6!—4 7 5 8—9 7 5 8 3 0 ‘9 4
_ E—L _ _ _ _ _—_ T—T H _ S—H O U _:
(11)(12)-32(13)26(14)-(15)4-4729-758(16):
E _ _ L _ _ D—H _ T H—_ E E D—0 _—T H E E!
(12)6(14)3(15)60-7(15)47-6(12)(12)0-5(17)-47(12)(12)!
_ _ LL _ _ _—_ O _ D S _ O _ T H
(18)2332(15)1—(18)5(16)09(18)5(16)47
Mach stared at it. Could she actually be on the right track? This certainly seemed to have possibilities! Sharp, meanwhile, was still agonizing over the loss of his easy E. That was a mistake; he was wasting time, being emotionally committed to an approach that wasn’t working.
Fleta—no, Agape, he corrected himself—filled in the a for HATH, which also gave her AT. This was definitely falling into place!
She filled in F for FEED. Unicorns were always interested in that. But that made the first word—LTOF, which was awkward.