“Amazing!” the Oracle exclaimed.
“Thou dost be just a computer, a thinking machine,” Bane said. “Dost feel surprise?”
“Yes. We machines can experience emotion when our design permits, as is the case with Mach. I have discovered the source of your ability to exchange. It is because the connection between the frames was never completely severed. You and Mach tuned in to that open channel, and used it, and later your friends did too. Now that channel is broadening with use, complicating the imbalance—but the imbalance has been building slowly throughout the life of that channel. I never thought to check for such a thing!”
“A channel between the frames? But how came that to be? Methought all connection was severed before my birth.”
“I recognize the psychic pattern. It is that of your father—Stile.”
“My father? But he ne’er—”
“Not consciously, no. But it seems that this is something more fundamental than consciousness. He originated in this frame. He now inhabits a golem body. The life-force derives from Proton, and retains a connection to its origin. Ever since the frames separated, that lone connection has existed—feeding a slight but detectable imbalance. You are his son; you resonate to his life-force, for you derive from it. You used his channel.”
“Then needs must I agree: amazing!”
“I shall have to consider this discovery. It may be that a complete separation of the frame is not feasible without cutting off the life-force of Stile.”
“Nay!”
“Have no concern, Bane; I would not cut that connection, had I the means to do so. Stile and Blue have been my instruments, and you and Mach are becoming my instruments.”
“Yet hast thou been known to kill thine instruments!”
“Not permanently, as it turned out.”
Bane removed the plug from his ear. “Thou dost strike me as a creature of expedience, without scruples.”
“Granted. I am not even a creature, but a thing, possessing no more life than does your present body.”
Which felt alive to him. Bane knew how Mach had felt, and how Mach’s robot mother Sheen felt. The Oracle was reminding him of the capabilities of its state of existence. “Point taken, machine. But I trust not thine expedience.”
“But you can trust my logic. If that psychic connection between Stile and his living body is broken, he may die or lose his sanity or suffer no measurable malaise; we cannot know. But if that line ceases to exist, the channel by which you and Mach communicate and exchange places will be gone, and all that you contemplate will end, and my chance to rectify the accumulated imbalance will abort. Therefore I value Stile’s life and your own, and will not act to imperil them.”
Bane wasn’t sure about that, but accepted it for the time being. Except for one bad thought: “An that line be cut, there be no problem of linking of the frames. Canst thou not solve it most readily by cutting the line?”
“No. The imbalance exists. It must be redressed before the connection is severed, or mischief to both frames can result.”
“So thou dost seek to correct it, then cut the line?”
“That would be the sensible thing to do.”
“And thou dost expect Mach and me to help thee cut us off from our loves?”
This time the Oracle paused before answering. “I perceive that that could be awkward.”
“Awkward, hell, thou stinking golem thing! It be unacceptable.”
The Oracle was unmoved by his invective. “What would you find acceptable?”
“Do thou find a way to fix the imbalance and preserve contact between the frames, that I may remain with Agape and Mach with Fleta.”
“This may be a difficult thing to accomplish.”
“An thou dost wish to work with me longer, needs must thou bide by it.”
“As I understand it, the frames must either be completely separated, with no interaction between them, or completely overlapped, so that any imbalance corrects instantly. You evidently prefer the latter course.”
“Aye,” Bane agreed grimly.
“Since I need your active cooperation, I am constrained to accede to your terms.”
“An thou find a way to work without my cooperation, thou dost mean to renege?”
“I am reluctant to be bound to a fixed course in a changing situation.”
“Then work without me, machine!” Bane said, and faced the exit.
“But without the knowledge and training I offer, you will most certainly lose your contest with Mach.”
“And with what result?” Bane retorted rhetorically. “We keep our loves!”
“Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect mature behavior from juveniles.”
“Aye, thou calculating device!”
“Perhaps a compromise?”
Bane had learned the advantage of dealing. “Make thine offer.”
“I am supposed to train you for your encounter with Mach. Because he is long conversant with the Game procedures to be employed, and has trained in many of the games, you are at a severe disadvantage. I can at one stroke restore parity. I will do this for you now, if you will accede to a partial commitment on the handling of the frames.”
Bane considered. He would do his side little good if he went into the contest unprepared and lost badly. Despite his angry words, he did intend to do his best for his father. He did need the Oracle. “In what manner partial?”
“I will make my primary effort the unification of the frames. Only if that proves to be impossible will I seek to separate them completely.”
“Unification—”
“Means that you would be able to join Agape physically—in your own body, and Mach would join Fleta in his own body.”
That seemed so good as to be suspicious. In a moment Bane saw the flaw. “But with unification, all alternate selves would unite. Stile and Blue would be but one person, and Mach and me. That be no solution!”
“I think not. You have had time to develop separate identities despite your initial cloning. Identical twins are the parts of a single person, but their lives make them separate. In addition, there are formidable distinctions between the bodies: Mach’s is machine, while yours is flesh; Stile’s is golem, while Blue’s is flesh. I doubt there would be mergence of that nature, this time, though there could certainly be formidable disruptions as individuals are replaced by pairs of selves in a common framework. This is why I regard this as the less desirable alternative. Nevertheless—”
“Agreed,” Bane said quickly. He was ready to handle the awkwardness of individual duplication, for the sake of interacting with Agape in his own, living body.
“Then restore the connection, and I will activate Mach’s experience.”
“Wait. I want to know exactly how thou dost mean to make me equal to Mach, in an instant.”
“You occupy his body. Your personality has taken over his general functions, but does not invoke his total experience. I shall activate the remaining circuits, that contain his complete knowledge of Proton and the Game, and his expertise as a player. You will then be able to utilize any or all of it at will.”
Something nagged at him. In a moment he realized what it was. “But an thou restore the whole of Mach, then will not I be Mach, not Bane?”
“I can alleviate any such effect by excluding the region that establishes your personal identity. Your consciousness is largely random-access memory, evoked from a file that does not exist in this host: your living body in Phaze. Similarly, your personality and awareness and memories are damped out by Mach’s awareness. It is fortunate that your two systems are compatible—but perhaps this is not coincidence, because of the parallelism of the frames.”
Bane considered. “Very well—but do thou do it carefully. Methinks there be treachery in the likes of this.” He plugged the cable back into his ear.
There was a soundless click. Nothing obvious changed, but his awareness of his situation seemed to clarify. He knew exactly where he was, and how to get anywhere else.
> “That be it?” he asked.
“Try remembering Mach’s Game experience,” the Oracle suggested.
He tried—and abruptly experienced a flood of memories going back to Mach’s childhood. Every game Mach had ever played was filed in his memory banks—and he understood the strategies for each, too. He knew that he could play any game as well as Mach could, because in this respect he had become Mach.
He could compete; there was no question about it. He did not even need to train; his robot body did not lose skills by disuse the way human flesh did. Citizen Blue would be pleased, and so would Agape. Fleta was not the only one from Phaze who could play the—
Fleta? He reeled, internally.
He was in love with the unicorn.
“Oops,” the Oracle said, in a surprisingly unmechanical way.
“That love spell!” Bane exclaimed, chagrined. “It followed me here!”
“Not so. I did not exclude the emotion-circuit that activates that interest. That is Mach’s love, not yours. I shall exclude it from your compass.”
Abruptly it was gone. Bane loved Agape, not Fleta. But he was shaken. The depth and power of that love—
He removed the cable. “He came to love her in my body. Could that love—”
“Develop a resonance in you? Certainly, if strong enough. Flesh is less denned in such matters than machine circuitry; it would be surprising if there were not some sympathetic carryover.”
“Then mayhap it was not merely the love spell that addled me,” Bane said thoughtfully.
“Nor merely the spell and resonance combined,” the Oracle said. “I perceive by your memories and my observations in Proton that she is a very fine creature. But so is Agape. Perhaps you should invoke Mach’s experience with her.”
“Nay, that were snooping!”
“When she emulated Fleta,” the Oracle prompted.
The thing understood him too well! Bane called up that memory—and was impressed. Agape had assumed the aspect of Fleta, in form and voice and attitude, so perfectly that even he, Bane, almost doubted that it was not she. And Mach, knowing, had loved her—even as Bane had loved the real Fleta, for a moment.
He banished the memory, and the mixed emotions it aroused. “Truly, they both be great females,” he said. “And we both be somewhat guilty.” But he felt less guilty, now.
“You could each have settled for the one in your own frame,” the Oracle said. “Had you not each been blinded to the familiar by the lure of the unfamiliar.”
“Aye. But then would we not have exchanged. Seek not to reverse us now, machine; we have a deal.”
“We have a deal,” the Oracle agreed. “I will train you in the specific games you select to play against Mach, so that your skill improves beyond his. But this is no guarantee of victory.”
“Why not?”
“Because there is always an element of chance in the playing of the grid and of any game, even those of greatest skill. Because he will be trained in magic by the Book of Magic he will have the advantage in any game involving magic.”
“Then I will choose not that kind.”
“But he will try to choose it. The grid gives you equivalence, and your skill in playing it will be similar. You must prevail in science, for you will likely lose in magic.”
“I be no slouch in magic myself,” Bane reminded it.
“You cannot prevail against the Book. I know, for the Book is but another aspect of me. The verdict of this contest is in doubt.”
Bane pointed a finger at the shimmering light. “Do thou find a way to merge the frames, and the contest be meaningless.”
“It will be easier for you to prevail in the contest than for me to merge the frames,” the Oracle said.
“And if I win—what then o’ our loves? My father, Stile, does oppose our unions, because they lead not to a suitable heir. I be resigned—but Mach be not resigned. I favor my father o’er my love, but Mach does not. There be that in me that be uncertain whether victory be best.”
“Let me acquaint you with the nature of the Adverse Adepts and the Contrary Citizens,” the Oracle said. “You will appreciate that they must be denied control of the frames.”
“Aye, I know already! But also I know love, and this be no easy choice.”
“Win, and you will know you have done right. Then perhaps I will succeed in unifying the frames, and you will have love too, as your father did.”
“And if I win, and thou dost not succeed?”
“You are young. You will find in time that you can love again, a woman of your own frame.”
“I believe that not—nor do I want to!”
“You are young,” the Oracle repeated.
Agape returned, and they had a somewhat diffident reunion. “I had to do what—” she began.
“I know. As I did with Fleta. We need no more o’ that.”
“Yet—”
“I have Mach’s memories now—and in mine own living body, some of his feelings. They be not mine, but they be ones I understand. I apologize to thee for putting thee in such an unkind situation; it were my fault.”
“But—”
“Must needs I contest with mine other self, to settle who shall benefit from our communication between the frames. An I win, we shall serve my father, and Stile, and I think I must resume mine own body and be in Phaze and find a damsel there with whom I may generate an heir to the Blue Demesnes. An I lose, mayhap I can be with thee—but the frames will be ill-served.”
“I understand that,” she said. “And I agree. I love you, but I would not destroy what your father has done for the sake of that love. But what I was referring to—”
“Thou didst make Fleta for Mach.”
“Aye,” she said, with a quirk of a smile.
“And so thou didst protect him from possible discovery when he emulated me, and perhaps protected me also when I emulated him. Even as Fleta did in Phaze. Now I can see how he does love her, and he can see how I do love thee. Can we not consider that it were as it seemed, and no harm done?”
“If you wish.”
“Aye, I wish.” He looked at her. “Agape, an thou couldst have whate’er thou didst wish, what would that be?”
“To be with you in Phaze,” she said without hesitation.
“I have made a deal with the Oracle to merge the frames, an it prove possible. Then mayhap we can be together, each in our own bodies, in either frame. And Mach and Fleta too. Then could she play the Game at will, and thou couldst learn magic. And—”
“We could reproduce,” she concluded.
“Aye. But as that be no certain outcome, must needs we do it now. I did learn how Mach and Fleta could do it in Phaze, and Mach did study how we two could do it here. Dost understand how Mach was Grafted?”
“Yes. He started as an infant-robot, and moved to larger body and capacity in the way a living person would grow, until he reached adult status.”
“I have it from Mach’s memory: we can craft a cyborg with a body like mine and a mind like thine. It be not a perfect solution, but I be not a living man, in this frame. So if thou wouldst be interested—”
“I would,” she said.
“Mach learned that Moebites have learned to fission unevenly, so that one retains identity while the other must immediately merge with another to gain enough mass to survive. If thine merges with the machine, for life support—”
“Yes. I have met the cyborg girls, and they can be quite interesting, if you like that type.”
“Girls,” he repeated. “It had not occurred to me, but robots be female too, and cyborgs. Mach’s mother, Sheen—”
“Yes. We shall have a female child.”
“But an I win, and we must separate—”
“The child of our union will remain,” she said firmly. “She must remain here, where the facilities exist for growing and learning.”
“Aye. But an I return to Phaze—”
“I will remain here, and care for her until she is of age
. This can be justified as continued experience in the bisexual mode, that my folk need to know.”
“Must needs we name her.”
“After you—”
“And after thee—”
“BA for Bane, AG for Agape?”
“Baag? Forget it, alien!”
She laughed. “Maybe the last letters, NE—”
“And PE.”
“Nepe,” she said.
“Nepe,” he agreed.
They kissed.
In due course Bane played the grid with Mach, across the curtain, and they settled on a board game called Pole Chess. “I know it as well as Mach does,” he said. “By definition. This be a fun game.”
“I do not know of it,” Agape replied.
“It be Occidental chess, with a piece added, invoked after the first piece be lost on either side. Serious practitioners play it not, but it does have its points.”
He had a month to prepare. The Oracle trained him in the nuances of this specialized variant, but expressed concern. “You now inhabit the mind of a machine. Machines are excellent at storage and manipulation, but are not as creative as living creatures. If error-free playing suffices, the advantage is yours, but if not, it is his.”
“He has been limited all his existence,” Bane pointed out. “Can he now become creative?”
“That remains to be seen. He has strong motivation.”
Bane nodded. Mach’s motivation might well be stronger than his own. Yet he had to make his honest best effort.
“Teach me some aspects of this game that Mach knows not,” he said. “And teach me flawless defense. I like not winning a game as it were by default, but this be the way methinks I should play it.”
“True.”
And while he explored the special wrinkles of the game, Agape ate voraciously to increase her mass so that she could fission, and the lab designed a cyborg unit that would support, not a human brain, but a Moebite entity.
Chapter 13
Pole
There be only so much magic can do, in a game like chess,” Trool said. “Thy powers of perception and thought be now enhanced; thou willst play thy best, and make no direct error. But ultimately the victory must go to the one with the greatest experience and vision. Thou must have practice against excellent players.”