Split Infinity (33 page)

He was not. An alert gardener challenged him before he had taken twenty steps. “Halt, intruder! You’re not of this estate.”

“I—came from outside. I—got lost.” Stile doubted he could afford to tell the truth, and he would not lie. “I had to come in; I would have died.”

“You look half dead,” the serf agreed.

Another serf hurried up. “I’m the garden foreman.
 
Who are you? What were you doing outside without equipment? What are you carrying?”

That was a foreman, all right! “I am Stile, unemployed, formerly a jockey. I thought my life was threatened, so I tried to hide. But—“ He shrugged. “It’s a different world out there.”

“It sure as hell is. Were you trying to suicide?”

“No. But I nearly died anyway. I have had no food or water for two days.”

The foreman ignored the hint. “I asked you what you are carrying.”

“This bundle—it is medieval Earth costume. I thought it would help me, in the other world.”
 
He was skirting a fuzzy line, ethically, and didn’t like it. But again: wouldn’t the truth convey less of the situation to this man than this half-truth did? What serf would believe a story about a magic world?

The foreman took the bundle and spread it out on the ground. “A harmonica?”

Stile spread his hands silently. He was now in a position where anything he said would seem a lie, including the truth. Suddenly Phaze seemed like a figment of his imagination, the kind of hallucination a man exposed to oxygen deprivation and gaseous pollutants might have. Especially if he had also suffered from hunger, thirst, and cold. In the past, men had undertaken similar deprivations as rites of passage, provoking similar visions. What had happened to him, really?

“I’ll have to notify the Citizen,” the foreman said.
 
Stile’s hopes sank; this surely meant trouble. Had the man simply told him to clear out to serf quarters—

“Sir,” the foreman said.

“What is it, gardener?” the Citizen’s voice responded.

It sounded familiar.

“Sir, a stranger has intruded from outside, carrying medieval Earth costume, including sword, knife, and a musical instrument.”

“Bring him to the viewer.” The voice gave Stile a chill. Where had he heard it before?

The foreman conducted Stile to a booth with a holo pickup. Stile stepped inside, knowing his whole body was being reproduced in image in the Citizen’s quarters.
 
He was dirty and abraded as well as suffering from hunger and thirst; he must look awful.

“Name?” the Citizen snapped.

“Stile, sir.”

There was a pause. The Citizen would be checking the name in the computerized serf-listing. “The jockey and Gamesman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Play that instrument.”

The gardening foreman quickly located the harmonica and jabbed it at Stile. Stile took it and put it to his mouth. This was his proof of identity; an impostor could probably not match his skill. He played a few bars, and as it had a few hours before, the emerging beauty of the music transformed his outlook. He began to get into the feel of it—

“Very well. Stile,” the Citizen said, having no interest in the art of it. “Your present employer vouches for you. Wait here until his representative picks you up.”

His present employer? What could this mean? Stile did not respond, since no query had been addressed to him. He rejoined the foreman, who solemnly handed back the rest of his bundle.

Suddenly Stile recognized the voice he had heard.
 
The Black Adept! This was the Proton-self of that evil magician, having no knowledge of the other frame, but very much like his other self. It made sense—this dome was very near the site of the Black Castle. Stile’s conjecture about Adepts and Citizens had been confirmed.
 
Had this citizen any reason to suspect him—

Stile breathed a silent sigh of relief. There was no reason for such suspicion, and Citizens hardly cared about stray serfs. Since another Citizen was taking Stile off his hands, that ended the matter. Stile would have to make his explanations to his own employer, instead of wasting the time of this one. And if one of the Black Adept Citizen’s serfs ever got lost, other Citizens would return the favor similarly. Serfs were hardly worth quarreling over.

A woman arrived, very well formed. As her face turned to him—“Sheen! How glad I am to see thee!” Oops—wrong language.

She frowned. “Come on. Stile. You had no business wandering outside. Suppose you had damaged the costume? It will go hard with you if you stray again.” She turned to the foreman. “Thank you. He was supposed to bring the costume to our employer’s isolation dome, and must have lost the way. He’s a klutz at times.”

“He tried to tell me he was unemployed,” the foreman said.

She smiled. “He used to be a jockey. He must have taken one fall too many.” She made a little circle about one ear with one finger. “These things happen. We apologize for the inconvenience to you.”

“It brightens the night shift,” the foreman said, ad-miring her body. Inconvenience became more tolerable when it brought a figure like this to the scene.

She took Stile firmly by the elbow and guided him along. “This time we’ll get you where you belong,” she said with an oblique smile.

He squeezed her hand. She had taken his prior advice to heart, and become so human it was almost annoying. But she had certainly bailed him out.

When they were safely in the capsule, flying through the tube toward a larger dome. Sheen explained: “I knew you’d return. Stile, somehow. I really am programmed for intuition. So I had my friends make up a robot in your likeness, and we got you a new employer.
 
The moment the query on you came through the computer—“

“I see.” Her friends were the self-willed machines, who could tap into the communication network. In fact, some of them probably were the communication network. What an asset they were at times!

From the general dome they took a transport rocket to Stile’s original home dome. In a matter of minutes, the travel of several days by unicorn was reversed. That reminded him of another aspect. What should he say to Sheen about Neysa?

They returned to Stile’s old apartment. Sheen had kept it in good order—or the robot who bore his name had done so. It seemed Sheen had put the robot away as soon as news of Stile’s appearance reached her. Sheen had been most industrious and efficient on his behalf.

What had it been like, here, with two robots? Had they eaten, slept, made love? Stile found himself feeling jealous and had to laugh at himself. Obviously the robot-Stile was not self-willed. It would be a true ma-chine, programmed by Sheen.

“We must talk,” Sheen said. “But I think first we must feed you and rest you. That curtain-frame has not treated you kindly. You are bronzed and scratched and gaunt around the edges.”

Stile’s thirst abruptly returned. He almost snatched at the cup of nutro-beverage she brought, and gulped it down. “Yes. Drink and food and rest, in that order,” he said. “And talk, of course.”

She glanced obliquely at him. “Nothing else?”

Ah, sex appeal! But he was restrained. “I think we should talk, then consider the else. You may not be pleased.”

“You may not be entirely pleased with what I have done, either,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “With my double?”

She laughed. “Stile, it’s impossible! He’s a robot!”

“Good thing there are none of that ilk here,” he agreed.

“You know what I mean. It’s just not the same.”

“You speak from experience?”

“No. He’s not programmed for love.”

“I had come to that conclusion. Otherwise you would not have been so glad to have me back.”

After he had eaten and emerged from the dry-cleaning unit, they lay down together. In what way, he asked himself, was this creature inferior to Tune? Sheen looked and felt as nice, and she had displayed astonishing initiative. It seemed no one knew he had been absent a week. Any attempt to kill his robot double had of course been futile.

“Your friends have rendered this apartment private?” he inquired, remembering how it had almost become his prison. But for the device of the self-willed machines, who had made it seem he was here when he wasn’t—

“Completely.” She put her arms about him, hugging him briefly, but went no further. “Shall I tell you?”

What would give a logical robot or an illogical woman pause? “You had better.”

“Your new employer doesn’t care at all about horse racing. He cares about the Game. Each year he has sponsored a leading contender in the Tourney, but has never had a win. This year—“

“Oh, no! I’m expected to compete—“

“This year,” she agreed. “And it has to be you. The robot cannot do it in your stead. Even were it legal, he cannot match your ability. I have bought you security, Stile—but at the expense of your tenure.”

“You realize that’s likely to finish your mission too?
 
One way or the other, I won’t need protection after I enter the Tourney.”

“Had there been any other way—“ She sighed.

“Stile, you were fired for cause. No blacklist was entered against you, because your reluctance to race again was understandable, but even so, very few Citizens were interested in you. My friends had to do a research- sifting to locate—“

“The one Citizen who would hire me,” Stile finished.
 
“I don’t fault you for that; you did the only thing you could do, and did it excellently.”

“But your tenure—“

“I now have another option.” But he was not eager to get into the matter of Phaze and his decision to remain there, yet.

“Your anonymous enemy remains. Not the Citizen who tried to make a cyborg of you; he opted out when he realized the week had passed. The original one, who lasered your knees. The one who, perhaps, sent me. There were several attempts made on the robot. My friends are closing the net, trying to locate that enemy, but he is extraordinarily cunning and elusive. I can not protect you from him long. So—“

“Infernally logical,” he agreed. “Better the Game than death. Better abbreviated tenure than none at all.
 
But I had thought I would be all right if I made it clear I would not race again.”

“That seems to have been an unwarranted assumption. That person wants you dead—but not by obvious means. So a surgical error, or a random accident—“

“So I might as well have had my knees fixed—if I could trust the surgery.” His attention returned to the Game. “The Tourney is inviolate; no entrant can be harassed in any way, even by a Citizen. That’s to keep it honest. So the Tourney is the one place my life is safe, for the little time the Tourney lasts. But this catches me ill prepared; I had planned to enter in two years.”

“I know. I did what I could, and may have forced premature exile on you. If you want to punish me—“

 
“Yes, I believe I do. I’ll tell you what I have been doing. Beyond the curtain is a world of magic. I tamed a unicorn mare; she turned into a lovely little woman, and-“

“And I’m supposed to be jealous of this fairy tale?”

“No fairy tale. I said she was female, not male. I did with her what any man—“

“I am jealous!” She half-climbed over him and kissed him fiercely. “Could she match that?”

“Easily. She has very mobile lips.”

“Oh? Then could she match this?” She did something more intimate.

Stile found himself getting breathless despite his fatigue. “Yes. Her breasts are not as large as yours, but are well—“

“Well, how about this?”

The demonstration took some time. At length, quite pleasantly worn out. Stile lay back and murmured, “That too.”

“You certainly punished me.” But Sheen did not seem much chastened.

“And after that, we went to the Oracle, who told me to know myself,” Stile continued. “Realizing I must be an Adept who had been slain or otherwise abolished, I investigated—and got trapped in the castle of the Black Adept. The werewolf rescued me by sending me back through the curtain, and here I am.” He yawned. “Now may I sleep?”

“You realize that no living person would believe a story like that?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going back.”

“Yes. I can not stay long in the frame of Proton, in any event. This gives me an alternative.”

“Unless you win the Tourney. Then you can stay for life.”

“Easier said than done, girl. In two years I would have been at my Game-proficiency peak; at the moment my chances are less than ideal.”

“As a Citizen, you could find out the identity of your enemy.”

 
“There is that.” He smiled. “Now, Sheen—what was it you had in mind to do when we finished our talk?”

She hit him with a pillow from the couch. “We just did it! Didn’t you notice?”

“Did what?”

She hauled him in to her, kissing him and flinging a leg over his thighs.

He squeezed her, bringing her head close against his, smelling her soft hair. “It’s great to be back,” he said seriously. “You have done good work. Sheen. But the world of Phaze—it’s such a lovely place, even discounting the magic. I feel—over there I feel more nearly fulfilled. As if my human potential is at last awakening.
 
I have to return. Do you understand?”