“You’re—” he said, unbelievingly.
“I started at age ten. You didn’t think I got to be a jockey overnight, did you? My term is up in six months. I’m sorry I hid that from you, but I did warn you how I lied.”
“I’ll go with you!” he exclaimed with the passion of youth.
She squeezed his hand. “Don’t be foolish. I like you, Stile, but I don’t love you. Outside, you’d be twenty-one, and I’ll be twenty-nine, and no rejuve medicine. You can do better than that, lover.”
He thought he loved her, but he knew she was right, knew he could not throw away seventeen years of remaining tenure for a woman who was older than he and only liked him. “The Game!” he cried. “You must enter the Tourney, win more tenure—”
“That’s why I’m telling you now, Stile. This year’s Tourney begins tomorrow, and I’ll be in it. I am on Rung Five of the age-29 ladder, by the slick of my teeth. My tenure ends the moment I lose a Game, so this is our last night together.”
“But you might win!”
“You’re a dreamer. You might win, when your time comes; you’re a natural animal, beautifully skilled. That’s why I wanted you, first time I saw you. I love fine animals! I was strongly tempted not even to try the Tourney, so as to be assured of my final six months with you—”
“You must try!”
“Yes. It’s futile, but I must at least take one shot at the moon, though it costs me six months of you.”
“What a way to put it!” Stile was torn by the horrors of her choice. Yet it was the type of choice that came to every serf in the last year of tenure, and would one day come to him.
“I know you’ll be a better jockey than I was; you’ll win your races, and be famous. I wanted a piece of you, so I took it, by means of the lie of my remaining time here. I’m not proud—”
“You gave me the best things of my life!”
She looked down at her breasts. “A couple of them, maybe. I hope so. Anyway, it’s sweet of you to say so, sorehead. Your life has only begun. If I have helped show you the way, then I’m glad. I won’t have to feel so guilty.”
“Never feel guilty!” he exclaimed.
“Oh, guilt can be great stuff. Adds savor to life.” But the spark was not in her humor, now.
They made love quickly, because he did not want to tire her right before the Tourney, but with inspired passion. He felt guilt for letting her go—and she was right, it did add a certain obscure quality to the experience.
Next day she entered the Tourney, and in her first match made a try on the Grid for music, and got trapped in dance instead. She was gone.
Stile pursued his musical studies relentlessly, driven by his waning guilt and love of her memory. Gradually that love transferred itself to the music, and became a permanent part of him. He knew he would never be a master musician, but he was a good one. He did enjoy the various instruments, especially the keyboard harmonica.
Three years later the foreman’s tenure expired. “Stile, you’re good enough to qualify for my job,” he said in a rare moment of private candor. “You’re young yet, but capable and honest, and you have that unique touch with the horses. But there is one thing—”
“My size,” Stile said immediately.
“I don’t judge by that. But there are others—”
“I understand. I will never be a leader.”
“Not directly. But for you there is a fine alternative. You can be promoted to jockey, and from there your skill can take you to the heights of fame available to a serf. I believe this is as good a life as anyone not a Citizen can have on Proton.”
“Yes.” Stile found himself choked up about the foreman’s departure, but could not find any appropriate way to express this. “I—you—”
“There’s one last job I have for you, a tough one, and how you acquit yourself may determine the issue. I am recommending you for immediate promotion to jockey, but the Citizen will decide. Do not disappoint me.”
“I won’t,” Stile said. “I just want to say—”
But the foreman was holding out his hand for parting. “Thank you,” Stile said simply. They shook hands, and the foreman departed quickly.
The job was to bring Spook back from another dome. The horse had grown more spooky with the years, and could no longer be trusted to vehicular transportation; the sound and vibration, however muted, set him off. The Citizen refused to drug him for the trip; he was too valuable to risk this way. Spook had won a number of races, and the Citizen wanted him back on the farm for stud. So Spook had to be brought home on foot. That could be difficult, for there were no walk-passages suitable for horses, and the outer surface of the planet was rough.
Stile planned carefully. He ordered maps of the region and studied them assiduously. Then he ordered a surface-suit, complete with SCOBA unit: Self-Contained Outside Breathing Apparatus. And a gyro monocycle, an all-band transceiver, and an information watch. He was not about to get himself lost or isolated on the inhospitable Proton surface!
That surface was amazingly rugged, once he was on it. There were mountain ranges to the north and south, the northern ones white with what little water this world had in free-state, as snow. There was the winding channel of a long-dead river, and a region of deep fissures as if an earthquake had aborted in mid-motion. He guided his monocycle carefully, counterbalancing with his body when its motions sent it into twists of precession; incorrectly handled, these machines could dump a man in a hurry, since the precession operated at right angles to the force applied. He located the most dangerous traps for a nervous horse, plotting a course well clear of them. Spook would be upset enough, wearing an equine face mask for his breathing and protection of his eyes and ears; any additional challenges could be disastrous. Which was of course why Stile was the one who had to take him through; no one else could do it safely.
Stile took his time, calling in regular reports and making up his route map. This was really a puzzle: find the most direct route that avoided all hazards. He had to think in equine terms, for Spook could spook at a mere patch of colored sand, while trotting blithely into a dead-end canyon.
Only when he was quite certain he had the best route did Stile report to the dome where Spook was stabled. He was confident, now, that he could bring the horse across in good order. It was not merely that this success would probably facilitate his promotion. He liked Spook. The horse had in his fashion been responsible for Stile’s last promotion.
When he arrived at that dome, he found a gram awaiting him. It was from offplanet: the first he had had since his parents moved out. STILE—AM MARRIED NOW—NAMED SON AFTER YOU. HOPE YOU FOUND YOURS—TUNE.
He was glad for her, though her loss hurt with sudden poignancy. Three months together, three years apart; he could not claim his world had ended. Yet he had not found another girl he liked as well, and suspected he never would. He found himself humming a melody; he had done that a lot in the first, raw months of loss, and it had coalesced into a nervous habit he did not really try to cure. Music would always remind him of her, and he would always pursue it in memory of those three wonderful months.
So she had named her son after him! She had not conceived by him, of course; no one conceived involuntarily on Proton, It was just her way of telling him how much their brief connection had meant to her. She had surely had many other lovers, and not borrowed from their names for this occasion. She said she had lied to him, but actually she had made possible an experience he would never have traded. Brevity did not mean inconsequence; no, never!
“Thank you, Tune,” he murmured.
CHAPTER 10
Magic
Stile woke suddenly, making a significant connection. “Geography!” he cried. “This world is Proton!”
Neysa, in girl-form, was tending him. He realized, in a kind of supplementary revelation, that she was the same size as Tune; no wonder he had accepted her as a lover so readily, despite his knowledge of her nature. She was not a true woman, and would never be,
but she was well worthwhile on her own account.
She looked at him questioningly, aware of his stare. Her appearance and personality were, of course, quite unlike Tune’s; no light-hued hair, no merry cleverness here. Neysa was dark and quiet, and she never told a lie.
“I had a memory,” he explained. “Beginning with my fencing lessons, because you were teaching me how to use the rapier when I—” He paused, trying to assimilate it. “What happened to me?”
Reluctantly, she talked. “Sick.”
“Sick? You mean as in disease? But there’s no disease on Proton—” Again he did a double take. “But this isn’t Proton, exactly. It’s another realm with the same geography. The purple mountains to the south—it’s what Proton might have been, had it had a decent atmosphere. An alternate Proton, where magic works. Maybe magic made the atmosphere, and the gravity. So with a complete planetary environment, a complete ecology, there are flies, there is dirt, there is disease. And I have no natural immunity, only my standard shots, which never anticipated the complete spectrum of challenges I found here. The micro-organisms in the food here, in the water, natural for natives but foreign to my system. Pollens in the air. Allergens. Et cetera. So it took a couple of days for the germs to incubate in my system, then suddenly they overwhelmed me. Reaching the point of explosive infestation. Thanks for explaining it so well, Neysa.”
She smiled acknowledgment.
“But how could you cure me? I should have died, or at least been sick longer than this. I’ve only been out a few hours, haven’t I? Now I feel fine, not even tired.”
She had to speak again. “Clip brought amulet.” She reached forward and touched a figurine hanging on a necklace that had been put on him.
Stile lifted it in his hand. “A healing amulet? Now isn’t that clever! Will I get sick again if I take it off?”
She shook her head no.
“You mean these things emit their magic in one burst, then are useless? But some are supposed to have continuing effect, like the clothing-simulator amulet I was given at the outset—uh-oh.” He hastily removed the chain from his neck. “That one tried to kill me. If this one was made by the same party—”
She shrugged.
“Do you mind if I dispose of this now?” he asked. “We could bury it and mark the spot so we can find it later if we want it. But I’d rather not have it with me. If I invoke a secondary function—well, Neysa, an amulet attacked me, before I met you. When I invoked it. You invoked this one, so maybe that’s why it acted normally. I fear the amulets have murder in mind for me, when they recognize me. That’s why I needed a steed—to get away from my anonymous enemy.”
Neysa lifted her head, alarmed in the equine manner. “No, no, you didn’t bring the enemy here,” Stile reassured her. “The demon hasn’t been invoked.” He took her hands, smiling. “I chose better than I knew, when I chose you. You did right, Neysa. I think you saved my life.”
She allowed herself to be drawn in to him, and there followed what followed. He had not forgotten Sheen, but this was another world.
They buried the amulet and went on. It was morning; his illness had lasted only one night, coinciding with normal sleep, and the revelation of geography had almost been worth it. This accounted for the nagging familiarity he had sensed before; he had seen the surface of this world a decade ago, in its dead form.
What accounted for this difference? The concept of alternate worlds, or alternate frames of the same world, he could accept. But breathable atmosphere, a full living ecology, and magic in one, domes and science and external barrenness in the other—that dichotomy was harder to fathom. He would have expected parallel frames to be very similar to each other.
Still, it helped his sense of orientation. Now it was clear why people crossed over at certain spots. They were not matter-transmitting, they were stepping through the curtain at precise geographical locations, so as to arrive in domes and in private places. To cross elsewhere—well, if he tried that, he would have to prepare himself with a breathing mask.
“You know, Neysa,” he said as he rode. “There is a lot I don’t know about this world, and my life is in danger here, but I think I like it better than my own. Out here, with you—I’m happy. I could just ride forever, I think, like this.” He shook his head. “But I suppose I would get tired of it, in a century or two; must be realistic.”
Neysa made a musical snort, then broke into a two-beat gallop, front hooves striking precisely together, rear hooves likewise. It was a jolting gait.
“Think you can buck me off, huh?” Stile said playfully. He brought out his harmonica—one advantage of clothing, he discovered, was that it had pockets—and played a brisk marching melody. The girl Tune had taught him the beauty of music, and his growing talent in it had helped him on numerous occasions in the Game. His memory flashback had freshened his awareness that even had music been worthless in a practical sense, he would have kept it up. Music was fun.
But again a looming presence developed. Again they stopped. “Something funny about this,” Stile said. “Clip told me not to worry, that unicorns are immune to most magic—but this is eerie. I don’t like mysteries that may affect my health.”
Neysa blew a note of agreement.
“It seems to happen when we’re playing music,” he continued. “Now I’ve never been harmed by music, but I’d better be sure. Maybe something is sneaking up while we’re playing, hoping we won’t notice. I somehow doubt this is connected with the amulets; this is more subtle. Let’s try it again. If we feel the presence, I’ll stop playing and will try to search it out. You go on playing as if nothing is happening. We need to catch it by surprise.”
They resumed play—and immediately the presence returned. Stile left his harmonica at his lips but ceased playing; instead he peered about while Neysa danced on, continuing the melody. But even as he looked, whatever it was faded.
Experimentally Stile resumed play, matching Neysa’s theme, softly, so that an on-listener would not hear him. The presence returned. Neysa stopped playing, while Stile continued—and the presence loomed stronger, as if her music had restrained it. Stile halted abruptly—and the effect receded.
“It’s tied to me!” he exclaimed. “Only when I play—”
Neysa agreed. Whatever it was, was after Stile—and it advanced only when he was playing. It could hear him, regardless of other sounds that masked his own.
Stile felt an eerie chill. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
The unicorn took off. No clever footwork this time; she moved right into a racing gallop. They forged across the plain at a rate no horse could match, wove through copses of brightly green trees, and leaped across small streams. He could see the mountains sliding back on either side. They were really covering the kilometers!
At last Neysa slowed, for her breath was turning fiery. Stile brought out his harmonica and played once more—and instantly the presence closed in.
He stopped immediately. “We can’t outrun it, Neysa; that’s evident. But now that we’re aware of it, maybe we can do something about it. Why does it still come only when I play? It has to know that we are aware of it, and are trying to escape it; no further need to hide.”
Neysa shrugged—an interesting effect, while he was mounted.
“First the amulet, now this. Could they be connected? Could the harmonica be—” He paused, alarmed. “Another amulet?”
After a moment he developed a notion. “Neysa—do you think you could play this instrument? With your mouth, I mean, human-fashion? If this is an enemy-summoning device, there should be the same effect whoever plays it. I think.”
Neysa halted and had him dismount and remove the saddle. Then she phased into human form. He had not seen her do it by day before, and it had not occurred to him that she would. He had thought of her playing the harmonica in her equine form, but of course this way made much more sense.
She took the instrument and played. She was not expert, since this was foreign to her
mode, and the result was a jumble. No presence formed. Then Stile took the harmonica and played a similar jumble—and the presence was there.
“Not the instrument—but me,” he said “Only when I play it.” He pondered. “Is it a symbiosis, or is the harmonica incidental?”
He tried humming a tune—and the presence came, though not as powerfully as before.
“That settles it: it’s me. When I make music, it comes. My music is better with the harmonica, so the effect is stronger, that’s all. The instrument is not haunted.” He smiled. “I’m glad. I like this harmonica. I’d hate to have to bury it in dirt.” He would hate to abuse any harmonica, because he retained a fond feeling for the keyboard harmonica and all its relatives. But this present instrument was the finest of its breed he had ever played.
Neysa had changed back to her natural form. Stile put the saddle back on. “I don’t think we can afford to ignore this matter,” he said.
The unicorn flicked one ear in agreement.
“Let’s get down to some good grazing land, and I’ll challenge it. I want to see what will happen. I don’t like running from a threat anyway. I’d rather draw it out and settle the account, one way or another. If it is an enemy, I want to summon it by daylight, with my sword in hand, not have it sneak up on me at night.”
Neysa agreed again, emphatically.
They moved downslope until good grass resumed. Neysa grazed, but she did not wander far from Stile, and her eye was on him. She was concerned. Bless her; it had been a long time since someone had worried about him. Except for Sheen—and that was a matter of programming.
Stile began to play. The presence loomed. He tried to see it, but it was invisible, intangible. This time he did not stop his music. The grass seemed to wave, bending toward him and springing back as if driven by a wind, but there was no wind. The air seemed to sparkle. A faint haze developed, swirling in barely discernible colored washes. Stile felt the hairs on his body lighten, as if charged electrostatically. He thought at first it was his own nervousness, for he did not know what thing or force he summoned, but he saw Neysa’s mane lifting similarly. There was potential here, and it centered on him—but it never acted. It just loomed.