Out of Phaze (9 page)

She softened. “Aye, sirrah, I forget! Well, try again.”

That seemed sensible. Mach set down the toy, concentrated on an image of a yard-long blade formed of stainless steel, and sang: “I’ll be bored without a sword!”

There was a swirl of fog before him. It dissipated, leaving—nothing. Not even a toy sword.

“Art sure thou art really trying?” Fleta asked.

“I thought I was,” Mach said, baffled. ‘The first must have been a fluke.”

“Canst not get through without a weapon,” Fleta said.

“I could make a weapon.”

“And conjure another toy? This be tiresome!”

“I mean by hand.”

“By hand?”

“To craft it from a natural object. A stone, or a pie of wood.” He looked about as he spoke. There were many stones along the slope they had just descended, and old branches littered the ground between the trees.

“An thou dost try to bop a dragon on the snout with a mere stone, thy hand and half thy arm will pay the forfeit,” she pointed out.

“Unless I threw the stone.”

“Then thou wouldst not have thy weapon anymore.”

“Urn. Maybe an axe, then.” He walked back to the slope, peering at the offerings. He found several nicely fragmented stones with sharp edges. When he found one of suitable shape, he kept it and started his search for a handle. “Are there any vines around here?”

“Vines? Thou meanest to tie up the dragon?”

He laughed. “No. To tie on my axehead.” He found a stout stick of suitable size.

She wended her way among the trees, and soon found a vine. She tugged at it, but it would not come free from the tree. He joined her, setting his hands above hers and hauling down hard, but only succeeded in hauling himself up. He lost his balance and fell into her. She let go, and they both tumbled to the ground.

“Clumsy oaf!” Fleta exclaimed, trying to extricate herself from his involuntary grasp. “Willst tear my cloak!”

“Sorry.” He helped her get free, somewhat diffidently, because she kept reminding him of a Citizen. Nevertheless, the brief contact reminded him forcefully how nicely endowed she was, in the feminine sense. His breakup with Doris in Proton still stung; it would be nice to—

But of course he knew almost nothing about this pretty young woman. She seemed to know a lot about him, or about Bane, so lacked that disadvantage. She had come to join him in the crater, apparently intentionally, because she took him for her old friend. Yet there were ways in which that association seemed other than ordinary friendship. She had kissed him, and gone naked for him though it was not her normal state. Yet again, she had not signaled any actual sexual involvement between them. It was almost as if she were his sister, or perhaps half-sister, close enough to have no secrets or shame, yet distant enough to be aware of him as a male. Of Bane; this intimacy obviously did not extend to Mach. Mach found himself jealous of that intimacy, of whatever nature.

Meanwhile they had a challenge in this vine. It was good that it was tough; he needed strength. But how could he get a suitable length of it for his purpose?

Aha! He brought over his axehead stone. He held the vine firm with one hand, and sawed with the sharp edge of the stone. In a moment the vine parted. He had his cord.

He used the stone to split the end of the stick, then wedged the stone into that cleft, so that the sharp edge was at the side. He wound the vine around and around this joining, drawing it tight. He pulled the tag-end into the crevice below the stone, so that it was caught firmly. Fleta surveyed the result dubiously.

“That be an axe?”

“A crude one. It will have to do.”

“It will take more than that to stop a dragon.”

“Then I will use it to make more than that.” Mach took his axe and chopped at a sapling. The head started to work out of its cleft, and the cord tried to unravel; he had to rework both more carefully. But he managed to fashion a pole about two and a half meters long. “A staff,” he announced.

“A dragon would chomp it off,” Fleta said. But she seemed halfway impressed.

Mach checked the ground again, picking up a number of smaller stones. “And what be these for?” Fleta inquired.

“For distance operations. I’ll throw them to keep monster away.”

“Canst throw well?”

“In my own body I have perfect aim; it comes from long experience in the Game,” he said.

There was a swirl in the air, and vapor formed. Bud in a moment it dissipated. “What was that?” Fleta asked alarmed.

“It resembled the effects when I tried to do magic,” he said. “But I wasn’t—“

“Thou didst speak in rhyme!” she exclaimed.

“. . . aim,. . . Game,” he agreed, remembering. “But I had no magic in mind; it was an accident.”

“If thou canst do magic by accident, why canst thou not do it on purpose?”

“But I tried to do it on purpose, and got nowhere.”

She tilted her head thoughtfully. ‘There be things we know not about thy magic. Many a time I heard Bane conjure, but when I copied him, it worked not. Methinks it be a matter of person and of form, and if thou beest not he, yet dost thou possess the talent. Thou didst not even sing that time, yet the magic tried to come.”

Mach sighed. “I’ll try it again.” He held up his hand. “I thirst; I think—I want a drink,” he singsonged, visualizing a nutra-beverage.

The fog swirled, and the tall cup appeared in his hand. “It worked!” he exclaimed.

“It doth look more like mudwater,” Fleta commented.

“Nutra is opaque.” He brought it to his mouth and sipped.

He spat it out. “That is mudwater!”

Fleta laughed. “I told thee!”

“So I bungled it again. But I did conjure it!”

“Methinks there be much learning to thine art.”

“Surely so! Maybe I should practice.” He set down I the cup, held his hand up again, and repeated his incantation.

This time the fog swirled, but all that came to his hand was a splat of mud.

Fleta laughed again. “What a clumsy Adept thou beest!” Mach flipped the mud at her. He did not intend to have it hit her, but his aim was better than intended; the mud scored on her neck just above her robe, and slid down her front.

‘Thou monster!” she exclaimed, scooping up a handful of moist dirt where the mudwater had spilled.

“Now wait! I didn’t mean to—“ Her heave caught him on the forehead.

“Now we be even,” she said with satisfaction.

Mach decided to let it go at that. “But how do we get clean?”

“We wash in the stream,” she said. She showed the way down through the forest to a tiny stream. There was a pool just big enough to dip a hand into.

Fleta hesitated, then shrugged and pulled off her cloak. “Methinks I was foolish to react as I did, when I learned thou wast not the man I knew. I have no need for modesty before thee.” The mud had soiled the skin between her breasts. She cupped her hands and scooped up water, splashing it against her torso. Mach had found her more alluring when she had donned the cloak, because in Proton covering was the mark of power and privacy; now he reacted even more to her renewed nakedness. There was something about the water and the way she washed herself off.

Fleta, clean, shook herself. Her breasts seemed to move independently of her torso. Then she paused, looking at him. “And what be that?” she asked, smiling impishly.

Mach abruptly felt himself flushing. He turned away.

“I said not it was wrong!” Fleta exclaimed. “Me-thought I moved thee not, Bane, since we achieved maturity.”

“I am not Bane,” he said tightly. How could this have happened to him? As a robot he reacted sexually only when he chose to, never by accident.

“Aye, that thou art not,” she agreed softly. “I thought to tease thee as we did each other, when we were young. We—Bane and I—played games we ne’er told the adults.”

“And we of Proton,” he agreed. “But I did not mean to—I did not realize this would happen.”

“Nor I, Mach. But would I offend thee if I confess I be not grieved it did?”

His flush, by the feel of it, seemed to be fading, but not the rest. “Fleta, I really don’t know. Exactly what was the relationship between you and Bane?”

“Friends,” she said. “Good friends, as good as can be though we ne’er made oath on’t. Secrets we had, only with each other. But then we grew apart.”

“Friends—so close you even—?”

She came and set her cool hand on his shoulder. “Mach, there be naught that human man and woman can do together that we did not do, or try. But we were too young; it meant naught. Today it would be another matter, for we are grown.”

“So I should not—react this way—to you,” he said with difficulty.

She sighed. “Thou shouldst not,” she agreed. “We be too old for such games now, methinks. But Mach, fear not; ne’er will I tell.”

“We—you and Bane—are related?” he asked.

She burst into laughter. “Related!” She reached around him from behind and hugged him. This did not help his condition, for her breasts pressed hard against his back. “Thou dost not know, really?”

“Of course I don’t know!” he said, trying to be angry, but wishing he could turn and embrace her. How could he be so far out of control?

“Then shall I tell thee not,” she said, releasing him.

“You said you would not tease me!”

‘This be other than teasing,” she said. “I fear thou wouldst like not the truth.”

“I always like the truth!”

‘Then accept this, Mach: now I understand somewhat better the case with thee, and I be flattered, not annoyed, and would preserve it a little longer. Come, face me as thou art; I have seen thee thus before, and will speak of it not further, an that please thee.”

He seemed to have no choice. He turned, and she neither laughed nor frowned, though she did look. He knelt by the pool and dipped out water to wash off his face.

“We be not related,” Fleta said after a moment. “But naught more than games between us was e’er possible.”

“I wish you would tell me why!”

“When I tell thee, thou willst be angry with me, and that I seek not.”

“I promise I won’t be angry! I just want to know.”

But she shook her head, knowing better than he. “Methinks thou wouldst be more comfortable in clothing,” she said in a moment. “It be the custom here.”

He realized that she was correct. To go naked in a culture where clothing was the norm was not sensible. He would have to suppress his natural aversion to misrepresenting his status, and become a normal person of this frame, at least until he learned how to return to his robot body. Likewise, he could not afford to presume too much on the fact that she had seen Bane in a state of sexual excitement when young; obviously Fleta was no such playmate now.

Suddenly he realized why he was having trouble controlling his reactions: he was in a living body! He breathed, he had a heartbeat, he had to eat and drink and eliminate—of course he reacted sexually too! This was not, he now understood, entirely voluntary; when a stimulation came to him, his body reacted even when he did not wish it to. He had assumed that he would have no special interest in sex until he chose to, as was the case in Proton, but the sight of Fleta’s wet and moving anatomy had bypassed his intellect and made his body react. Thus his surprised embarrassment. The circuits of living creatures were to an extent self-motivating.

No wonder the folk here wore clothing! Not only did it prevent unwanted stimulation, it concealed unwanted reaction.

“I’ll wear clothing,” he agreed. But still he wondered: if Fleta was, as she said, flattered rather than embarrassed by the evidence of his reaction, why did she say that j there should be no such action between them? If they had done it as children, and they were not related (and why had she found that notion so hilarious?), why was it wrong now? Were they promised to other partners? Yet she had not said that; she acted as if there were some more fundamental reason why nothing serious between them was possible. And she feared he would be j angry when he learned.

He cast about, looking for something that could be fashioned into clothing. All that he could see that had any such prospect at all was the large leaves of some trees. Well, they would have to do.

Fleta helped him gather some good leaves. Then they used his axe to make slits in a vine, and passed the stems of the leaves through, with long-stemmed leaves overlapping short-stemmed ones, forming a kind of skirt. They wrapped the vine about his waist, and the leaves hung down to cover him to an extent.

But already there was another problem. His shoulders were turning red. “Sunburn!” Fleta said. “I forgot—thy kind suffers from that; it be another reason you wear clothing.”

His kind? Wasn’t her kind the same?

“I suppose we could make a collar to suspend a shirt of leaves,” he said, not enthusiastically. As it was, the leaves brushed constantly against him, stirring awareness of a region he preferred to tune out.

“Mayhap thou couldst conjure some cloth.”

He tried: “I’ll be wroth, without some cloth,” he sang, visualizing an enormous bolt of cloth.