Robot Adept (27 page)

They washed up at a freshwater spring on the isle. It was amazing how Translucent had set this up! They stripped, setting their apparel out of harm’s way. Fleta insisted on washing him, using her hands to splash the water on him and to rub him down. Naturally she brought him to arousal. This was not entirely mischief on her part; Mach would have reacted exactly this way.
 
“I think there be only one way to deceive Tania,” she whispered as she gaily splashed water at his eyes and ears. “We must be amidst it as she comes.”

“But that be only sex!” he protested. “Her power could still move me.”

“Why use it, an she sees how true we be to each other?”

And that just might be the answer. Magic was not cheap for any practitioner. Tania could only use a particular variant of her evil eye on a particular person once. She would not care to waste it on a subject likely to be immune—as Mach would be, because of his absolute love for Fleta. The triple Thee, vindicated as it was said his had been, could not be overridden; indeed, it had overridden Adept magic itself. So if Tania were satisfied that she saw Mach, she would let him pass unchallenged.

He had known that he would have to make love to Fleta, and had felt his mixed guilt about that. Now he realized that he would have to do it for an audience, and make it thoroughly convincing. His mission, and perhaps his freedom, depended on it.

“Aye,” he whispered.

She wrestled herself away, managing in the process to slide her slippery breasts almost the full length of his body. “Nay, Mach! Not till we be at the proper place!” What a tease she was! Surely Translucent, if he were watching at this moment, was chuckling.
 
So it continued through the morning, Fleta always putting him off on one pretext or another, he always yielding with decent grace. Then it was time for lunch, and then for a nap, she claimed. But she kissed him, and whispered in his ear: “Canst see her coming, now?
 
Needs must we know exactly when.”

He nodded. He fashioned a partial shelter from boughs and ferns so that the sun would hot burn him, though its light was filtered through the water above the dome and really was not fierce. Then he lay down for his “nap” and used a variant spell to separate his spirit again. He floated out to Translucent’s water-brick house—and there she was already! In only a few minutes she would be at the isle.

He hurried back to his body. How lucky that Fleta had had him check!

He stretched as if waking. Then he reached out and caught Fleta by the arm. “Damn it, filly—you have been teasing me all day!” he exclaimed. “Now you are going to get it!”

“Now?” she asked, her eyes nicking about as if searching.

“Any minute now,” he agreed. “Just let me get that cloak off you!”

“Nay!” she protested, laughing. “That were too brief a nap!”

“The hell with the nap!” he exclaimed, rather enjoying the Proton mode of swearing; it had a certain magic of its own. He wrestled with her, pulling ineffectively at her clothing.

“0, here, thou’lt ruin it,” she complained. She drew off her cloak herself. Then she undressed him.
 
But when he sought to embrace her, she resisted.

“Thou didst teach me thy way, remember,” she said.
 
“Not like my way, for when I be in heat and care not what member be in me, so long as I be bred. Slow, and with love.”

She was still stalling, for Tania had not yet shown up. But she was also correct: he had to play this scene convincingly, and that meant that sex was only part of it.

He looked into her eyes. “I love you,” he said. There was no ripple around them, of course; this was a line from a play. In fact, this was very like a game in the Tourney of Proton, in which the participants had to emulate a scene of perfect love-making. It was an open question whether two players ever got into such a match randomly.

“And I love thee,” she said, with similar lack of ripple. That was not necessarily cause for suspicion; the splash showed only at truly seminal declarations, and like other magic tended to fade with repetition.
 
Now he sought to embrace her more intimately, but still she demurred. “Hast forgotten thine own mode of play?” she inquired teasingly.

Was she still stalling, or trying for perfect realism?

He wasn’t sure, but realized she was right either way.
 
Tania still had not arrived, and regardless. Translucent was probably watching on his water-screen.
 
Translucent? Tania could be watching it too! Why should she come here physically, when she could learn what she needed at a distance?

He stroked her breasts. Oh, she was well formed! He had seldom really looked at her recently, and now appreciated in a rush how nicely she had shaped her girl form. He kissed them, then moved up to kiss her ear.
 
“I think we be on stage now,” he whispered.
 

“Ah, Mach, how I have longed to hear thee say that!” she replied aloud with a straight face. Then she became an animal indeed, hugging him, kissing him, stroking him, rubbing her torso against his, wrapping her legs around him, mimicking the height of passion, human style.

This was the same body he had embraced when Agape occupied it. Now it became confused in his mind, and he feared he would cry out Agape’s name and betray himself.

“Mach! Mach!” she cried, but it sounded like “Bane, Bane!”

“Fleta!” he responded, keeping it straight. Then, overwhelmed by the passion of the moment, he took her, not quite caring in that instant who it might be.
 
And the guilt surged up as his passion ebbed. He had felt too much.

But it seemed that his demonstration had been effective. Time passed, and Tania did not show up. She must have been satisfied that he was Mach, after she saw his demonstration.

Fleta still lay in his embrace, and he could not tell her to go. He had to be consistent to his role. But what was that consistency costing him? What was it costing her?

Tormented by his uncertainty of feeling, he lay for a time, then drifted into sleep.

Later they woke. Fleta did not look happy, but in a moment she assumed a cheerful expression. “Mach, thou didst promise me a foal,” she said.
 
He was silent, not certain what she was leading up to.

“Now thou art back,” she insisted. “Now be it time to do it.”

“Fleta, this is no simple matter,” he demurred. Was she serious?

“I know thy magic be not yet great,” she continued.
 
“But the Red Adept doth have the Book o’ Magic, and methinks a spell might be there. My time o’ heat be coming in due course, and if thou couldst breed me then—“

A pretext to visit Trool the Troll! Now he had the gist. “If I promised, I promised,” he said. “We shall ask the Red Adept for a spell.”

“Aye, I thank thee!” she exclaimed, and kissed him with such conviction that he realized this was no ploy.
 
She really did want Mach’s baby, and thought she could get it.

On the following morning they set out, Fleta in her natural form. Bane riding. Translucent did not interfere; the Adept was satisfied that Mach was in his camp regardless where he might travel. That much was true, and when Mach returned, he would continue to represent the Adverse Adepts. Bane really had no quarrel with that—and none with Translucent, who was be having decently. Had Tania caught Bane in his masquerade, it would have been fair play: he had tried a deception, and paid the price.

In Proton, Citizen Blue knew of the masquerade, but would not try to hold Mach captive; that was understood. This was a ramification of the truce: to let things be until they could be better resolved. Bane hoped that Mach was not having too much trouble maintaining the pretense with Agape.

And what if he was? It was no bad thing, making love to Agape! Bane could not hold that against his other self any more than Mach could hold Bane’s act with Fleta against him. It was understood that this was necessary.

Still, it bothered him. Not the act itself, but his attitude about it. He had tried to make himself believe that it was Agape he embraced, but he had known it was not. He had made love to Fleta, and it had been wonderful. That was the problem. Exactly why had it been so good?

She had been his companion in childhood, and in young adulthood. He had always liked her, and she had liked him. But he had never loved her. She was, after all, an animal.

Now Mach had fallen in love with her, and she with Mach. That caused Bane to see her differently. In what way was Fleta inferior to a human woman? He needed no thought to answer that: the answer was no way. Just as Agape was not inferior to a human woman. Perhaps he loved Agape as an unconscious analog to Fleta: the nonhuman creature who seemed human.

Now he was back with the original, his emotional barriers down. Had he merely done with her what he had always wanted to do? Had he used this masquerade as a pretext to do it?

What had he accomplished in his spying mission?
 
Only the discovery of Tania’s threat—which would have been no threat at all, had Mach been with Fleta. In short, he had accomplished nothing—except sex with his alternate’s beloved.

So Bane’s thoughts ran, as he rode the unicorn from the Translucent Demesnes. He had no doubt of Fleta’s constancy; she had done only what she agreed to do, 2her heart not in it. But his own was suspect. He might as well have raped her.

No, even that was not the whole of it. The sex had been a concomitant of the mission, supposedly of little importance in itself. Certainly Fleta had no use for it, when not in heat, except as a way to please her lover or to maintain a masquerade. It should have been little more for him: a pleasure of the moment, done for other than emotion. Instead he had been eager for it, and had found it not only physically satisfying, but emotionally fulfilling. As though he had truly meant the words of love he had spoken to her.

Was he falling in love with Fleta?

Bane closed his eyes, trying to drive away the specter of that forbidden emotion, but could not. He knew he should never have undertaken this foolish spying mission; he should have stayed well away from his other self’s chosen. Now it was too late.

Fleta turned her head, glancing back at him with one eye. She was aware of the reactions of his body, and knew that something was bothering him.

And what could he tell her? Nothing! She was innocent; he could only bring her grief by expressing his illicit passion. So he simply petted her shoulder. “You are a truly good creature, mare,” he said. “I would not cause you harm for all the frame.” That much was true.
 
They camped for the night near a stream. Instead of grazing, this time, Fleta became the hummingbird and filled up on the nectar of flowers, while he made a fire and roasted wild potatoes he dug out. Then she assumed girlform and came to join him for sleeping.
 
“But I thought thou wouldst graze,” he protested weakly.

“Nay, I prefer to be with thee, Mach,” she said, removing her cloak and spreading it as a blanket for them.

Another night with her body warm against his? He owed it to her and to his other self to avoid that! But what could he say? The Adepts were surely still checking on them.

Unable to find sufficient reason to demur, and uncertain whether he even wanted to, he acceded. He lay down with her, and she embraced him, nuzzling his ear.
 
“There be spoor,” she whispered. “There be scent. We be followed.”

This was completely unexpected. She had had reason of her own to get close to him! Her attention, at least, was where it should be.

“Canst make love to an unconscious man?” he whispered back.

“Aye.” She chuckled.

He smiled. Any Adept watching them would have no concern; they would be obviously engaged in romance. Meanwhile, he would find out what was going on.
 
He murmured a spell of separation, and his spirit traveled up out of his body. He looked down: yes, it certainly looked like active sex from here! At least he need have no guilt for this; it was none of his doing.
 
He oriented, making a swift circuit of the region, and in a moment he spied it: a party of goblins camped not far away. But why hadn’t he been aware of them? He had not been paying proper attention.

He moved close up—and discovered why. There was Adept magic protecting the party—a spell of concealment. Fleta, being a unicorn, was resistive to magic practiced on her, so had been able to pick up hints, while Bane had not. However, his spirit was not subject to the same limits as his body. He could perceive the shimmer of the magic force; indeed, he passed through it with extreme caution, for his presence could disturb it, alerting the Adept who had set it.

This party could only be here to spy on Mach and Fleta. The Adepts were not merely watching, they were keeping a force close by. Why?

He infiltrated the main tent. There was a goblin chief.
 
He was settling down for the night. Goblins were more at home in the dark than the day, but since these were 2evidently following Bane and Fleta, they had to match their schedule to that of the day-dwellers; otherwise they would get no rest at all.

That meant there would be no real activity while he spied. He could not learn why these goblins were following him. Surely they had better reason than just keeping track of his whereabouts, that the Adepts could do more efficiently from a distance!