Mach was a robot, and he was in his own body now. That meant that he had complete control over his physical reactions. This was fortunate, for Tania had undeniable sex appeal, and evidently intended to tease him with it. She was a bad woman, selfish and cruel, but that seemed not to detract from her allure.
Citizen Tan disappeared. Mach was alone with Tania. At least he did not have to say “sir” to her. She had great power, because of her relationship to the Citizen, but she was legally another serf. “What is your intent?” he inquired, attempting to disengage.
“It occurred to me that you have no romantic interest in this frame, Mach,” she said. “Since we have to work closely together anyway, we might as well enjoy it.”
“You know I am a robot,” he said tightly. “You should have no interest in my type.”
“If truth be told, I am bored with human men, and with androids,” she said. “You are not just any robot; you are the most advanced model on the planet, and you have demonstrated abilities worthy of any living male. I believe you will be interesting.”
“I am married.”
“Not in Proton. Come, Mach, kiss me.”
“There is no requirement that I do such a thing.”
“Shall I tell my brother that you are uncooperative?”
“Obviously Citizen Tan will react in whatever manner he has decided to. Why should you wish to initiate a type of relationship that can only complicate a strained situation?”
“I doubt you need to know that,” she said. “But I don’t doubt you can figure it out for yourself. Now kiss me, and we shall proceed.”
“Proceed with what?”
She laughed, her breasts moving against him. “Assimilation of your new information, of course. Did you think to have your desire of me within minutes?”
“I have no desire of you!”
“Perhaps not yet.” She lifted her face, waiting.
Mach realized that she intended to establish her control over the situation by making him do what she chose. She could have no physical desire for him; it was not in her nature as either an aloof woman or the sister of a Citizen. Obviously sex was merely a tool to her—in this case, a tool to embarrass him. If he didn’t kiss her, she would require more of him, making him regret his resistance.
He lowered his face and kissed her. He felt a surge of guilt, thinking of Fleta. But he damped it down, realizing that he really had no choice. Perhaps after playing with him for a time, Tania would lose interest, as a cat did with a dead bird.
Tania broke, with a flicker of irritation. “As if you mean it,” she said. “Again.”
“Whatever I show, I will not mean it,” he said.
“Perhaps not yet,” she repeated, waiting.
He kissed her again, as if he meant it. Unfortunately his circuits were cued to a degree to his actions; it was a feedback loop that normally enhanced his human emulation. That meant that to an extent he did mean it, at least for the moment. This time she was satisfied. “Now speak the formulae,” she said.
“They will be meaningless to you.”
“But they will be recorded. They may not be meaningless to our analysts.”
He doubted that, because in five years no one other than the Oracle had been able to make sense of the strange statements he had brought from the Book of Magic. It was as if the magic were in some alien language, that only the Oracle spoke. That was another reason that progress had been so slow.
However, he was obliged to humor her. He spoke the formulae, and Tania listened as if interested. It did not take long.
“Now we shall send the child on her way, and go to the Oracle,” she said.
Nepe! He had almost forgotten her! He was getting more human all the time, and suffering the liabilities of the state. A true machine forgot nothing that was not expressly erased. Of course he was no longer a true machine; half his current experience was human, in Phaze. There he was called the Robot Adept (or, as the natives had it, “Rovot”), but he was really a living man with considerable power of magic. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that the human liabilities as well as the human delights carried across the frames.
They emerged to the front office. The child was sitting on the desk, watching a cartoon on the receptionist’s screen, her little legs swinging and tapping the desk.
Nepe looked up immediately. “Were you surprised, Uncle?”
“You knew?” he asked, surprised again.
“Oh, sure. Did she vamp you yet?”
Mach froze, appalled at both the question and Tania’s likely reaction.
“Not yet,” Tania said, laughing.
“Oh, goody! Can I watch, then?”
“But—” Mach started.
“Certainly,” Tania said. She turned back to Mach, and put her arms around him, drawing herself close. “Kiss me,” she said.
“This is pointless and unnecessary,” he said, not yielding.
“If you don’t,” Tania murmured, “I shall make demands on you that are apt to embarrass you before the child.”
He knew her well enough to have no doubt of her sincerity. Fuming in a manner that would have done credit to a living person, he bent his head to kiss her.
Nepe clapped her hands, applauding. “She’s making you do it!” she exclaimed. “I bet Tsetse she would!”
“Tsetse?” he repeated, chagrined at the openness of this matter.
“Tsetse—my receptionist,” Tania explained, misunderstanding. She pronounced the name as Nepe had, but with the t’s sounded. “I brought in my own personnel, since I am to handle this case. I named her, because she is good at making men sleep. Does she please you?”
“I have no interest in her,” Mach said. What a name to hang on such a pretty woman! Tania’s cruelty was showing. Tania turned to the woman. “Take Nepe to her ship.”
“No, I’ll do that!” Mach said.
“So you do have an interest in her,” Tania said, “because she affects the welfare of your niece.”
“To that degree,” Mach agreed. What was Tania trying to do? He saw no consistent pattern in her actions.
Tania read his doubt. “I am showing you that there are ways and ways I can affect your interests if you cross me. We have a covenant, and no one will be hurt. But you could have to do things you dislike, and the child could witness things you prefer she did not. Now Tsetse will escort her safely to her ship, and you and I will dally on the way to the Oracle. Need more be said?”
This ruthless woman would do whatever she thought would be effective in bending his will to hers. Already she had let him know that he would do what she wished in a social sense, or see her ire taken out on little Nepe. His robot logic made it clear: it was better to do whatever Tania wanted. If she overstepped her bounds, Citizen Tan would call her up short.
But that could mean having an affair with her. As a man or robot in the frame of Proton, he had no technical reason not to; his marriage to Fleta had no bearing here. But emotionally the prospect appalled him. His body was the one Bane used, when they exchanged, and so Agape was concerned, while his mind was in love with Fleta, making Fleta concerned. Thus it was not a simple matter of catering to the demands of a demanding woman without any emotional involvement, as a normal robot could do. There were deep social conflicts. That seemed to be why Tania was doing it. Was it merely her normal cruelty, or was there some more sinister reason? He was profoundly dismayed by this development.
“I’ll be fine, Uncle, and so will you,” Nepe said, jumping off the desk to take Tsetse’s hand. “Thanks for the game and the demstration!”
“You are welcome, Nepe,” he said, wishing he had never brought her here. Obviously he had played into Tania’s hands. Yet the child seemed quite satisfied, and she was evidently not entirely innocent of the games adults played. This could not be accounted for by the malice of either Citizen Tan or his sister.
Nepe and the receptionist departed. Mach braced himself for Tania’s dalliance, seeing no alternative.
&nbs
p; But she surprised him. “I have no greater personal or social interest in you, Mach, than you have in me,” she said. “Certainly I have no need to coerce you into anything. I can have any plaything I desire, with no difficulty. I do confess that a challenge is intriguing, and you are a challenge, but at this stage I want only to impress on you the current realities.”
“You have done so,” he said gruffly.
“With that understanding, we may proceed to the Oracle.”
Mach nodded grimly. The worst of it was that her evident personal interest in him, for whatever cynical reason, evoked a complementary interest; he was now aware of the beauty and texture of her body. Even her mind intrigued him. Fleta was straightforward and honest and positive and nice, and he loved her; Tania was devious and dishonest and negative and cruel, and he knew little of this type, and found it uncannily fascinating. Fleta was completely open; he always knew where she stood and how she felt. Tania was the opposite, which gave her the quality of mystery—and that lured him in the manner of a candle with a moth. He was disgusted with himself, but the lure remained.
She nodded in return, her eyes narrowing appraisingly. She was experienced enough to know the type of appeal she had for men. “The time will come when I do not have to tell you to kiss me,” she said. “Like all males, you are fascinated by bad women.”
Mach did not answer, as there was no honest refutation he could make. He set up a circuit mask that would detune his awareness of her physical features and prevent him from reacting to them, but there was no simple way to do the same for his emotion. He had learned too much of the living response, these past five years, and hardly cared to diminish that lest it affect his relationship with Fleta.
“Oracle,” Tania said to the desk. It responded to her voice, and put through the call to the Oracle. This took a minute, as the Oracle was a highly restricted apparatus. It had resided for many generations in Phaze, until Stile had engineered its exchange with the Book of Magic, making both fully operative.
“Sit at the desk,” she directed him.
“There is no need,” he said. “I do not fatigue.”
“I see you are after all a slow learner. Sit.”
Mach circled the desk and took the comfortable chair vacated by the receptionist.
Tania followed, and sat in his lap. He had to do an emergency short-out of his tactile receptors in that region to prevent a reaction as her firm naked buttocks made contact. There was no subtlety whatsoever in her approach, but it remained effective. “Every time you balk, I will react unpredictably,” she said, reaching across him to touch a button in the chair.
Abruptly his receptors turned on again. “What?” he exclaimed, startled.
“I have nulled your shorting mechanism,” she said, tensing and relaxing a buttock. “Did you suppose I knew nothing of robotics? This office is appropriately equipped.”
He should have known. His machine defenses were useless here. He was no Adept, in this frame, and that made him vulnerable. She could make him react when she chose to.
“Oracle.” It was the connection. With relief, Mach plunged into his recitation of formulae, tuning out his body’s awareness of hers.
But all too soon the information had been covered. The Oracle signed off; it would now devote itself to integrating the new information with the old, and compiling the whole into something useful to the Adepts. Mach’s job was done, for the moment.
“Have you learned your lesson?” Tania inquired, turning so that her left breast pressed against his chest.
“Yes.” But he doubted this would satisfy her at this stage. She considered him a challenge, and that would motivate her even if she found him sexually repulsive.
“How nice. But perhaps I should make certain. I must say, I had forgotten the pleasure of seducing an unwilling male. I think we shall be seeing a good deal of each other this month.” She twisted around, her thighs sliding across his thighs, her breasts making better contact. The sensations sent electrical pulses through his body, and both his mind and his loin responded. Damn that override she had turned on! He was unable to curtail any of his natural reactions.
She reached up to draw his face into hers. Her tan hair spread out, framing her face, descending to brush against his body. Her tan irises seemed to grow large. She kissed him, and he was aware of his resistance crumbling. She was an infernally attractive figure of a woman, never mind her unattractive nature, and his body wanted hers.
There was a ping from the screen. Tania paused, a quirk of annoyance twisting her mouth. “What?” she rapped.
“Notice of problem,” the screen said, showing matching words. “The child Nepe has gone astray.”
“What?” This time it was Mach, unable to damp down his alarm circuitry.
“She boarded her plane,” the screen said and printed. “It took off. It disappeared from surveillance. It seems unlikely to arrive at its destination.”
“That’s impossible!” Tania exclaimed. “Recheck!” She started to get up.
Mach’s arms clamped around her body with the power of machinery. “That child is covered by the covenant!” he said. “As is Agape—and my wife and child in Phaze.”
“I know she is!” Tania said. “We haven’t done this!”
“Haven’t you?” One of his hands closed on her upper arm and began to squeeze. Now the override prevented him from moderating his developing emotion of anger. “You thought to distract me while you acted against my niece?”
He was hurting her, but she refused to cry out. “I thought to seduce you, yes. Nothing more. No harm to Nepe. Now let me go so I can pursue this matter.”
He realized that it would make no sense for the Contrary Citizens to make such a move, even after they gained sufficient information to achieve their power in Proton. He and Bane remained the Citizens’ only contact with the opposite frames. He released her. His desire for her body had been nullified by his awareness of the threat to Nepe.
Quickly Tania ascertained that the plane, flying preprogrammed, had at first suffered what appeared to be a malfunction of the tracking equipment. It had ceased to show on the screen. But when they compensated by orienting with another tracker, they had been unable to locate it. A direct physical check had also failed to turn it up. A crash in the polluted desert was a strong possibility; a robot search party was now proceeding to the site of last observation. “The timing remains suggestive,” Mach said tightly. “What reason would we have to take her out, knowing it would jeopardize your cooperation?” Tania asked, looking genuinely nervous.
“This is what I am trying to ascertain. Your receptionist conducted her to the plane. She could have planted something on the craft, or sent a signal to an accomplice. While you made sure I was not there, because I might have interfered. It all fits together rather neatly: Citizen Tan stepping aside at this time for you, your hireling taking the child—”
“No!” she cried. “The timing is coincidence! We were trying only to—”
“You did set this up?” he asked, stepping toward her.
“No! Not to hurt the child! We have nothing to do with that! We don’t want anything to happen to her! We want her on our side!”
“What are you talking about? Nepe is only four years old! She’s no part of the struggle between Citizens.”
“But she will be! She—” Tania stopped, realizing that she had said too much.
“I think I had better question you more authoritatively.”
She drew herself up angrily. “You have no right!”
“Listen, Tania, you are a serf, just as I am. If your brother dies, you may inherit his Citizenship—but if my father dies, I may inherit his. You are human, I am a robot, but you are no better than I am either legally or socially. Not till your side wins its case against Citizen Blue and starts subverting the new order. You gained my acquiescence to your advances only because I care for the welfare of my niece. Do you wish to try whether your good will is more precious to the Citizens than mine
? Do you wish to try whether I will not destroy you as readily as I would have played sex with you, if that child is in peril by your device? Whether I can do this with impunity, as long as I continue to bring across the formulae your Citizens require? In that case, summon your brother and put it to him before I do. It was my love for Fleta that brought me to your side, but I believe the Adept Stile would accept our union now. It is honor, not love or fear, that keeps me in your camp, and it is dishonor on your part that will break that tie. You have one way to establish the nature of your complicity in this matter, and you will do that now or suffer the consequence.”
“You damned arrogant machine!” she flared. “You should be junked! No one talks to me that way and lives!”
“I am not alive. What is your decision?”
“I hate you!”
Mach smiled. “I take that to be your acquiescence.”
“Yes,” she whispered, defeated. In that moment of her genuine humiliation, he found her more appealing than she had been when arrogant. Stripped of her imperialistic manner and her cruelty, she could be a truly attractive woman.
Mach spoke to the desk. “One interrogation unit to this site,” he said. He realized that the receptionist was late returning; probably she was under orders to stay clear until her mistress had completed the seduction of the robot. That particular plot had gone awry! But if Nepe was in trouble—
“But a condition,” Tania said.
“No conditions! I mean to have the truth!”
“You pride yourself on honor,” she said, speaking so low that her voice hardly carried. “Deal with me with honor.”
“You never dealt with me with honor!”
“That is irrelevant. You are not me.”
She had a point. “What are you asking?”
“If I demean myself in this manner, and prove out, you owe me.”
“Owe you what?”
She merely looked at him.
Mach was shaken. Could she be telling the truth? If so, his humiliation of her would prove to have been unjustified. He would, indeed, owe her, by his code. But she was a clever, nervy woman; she could be bluffing, trying to make him change his mind without proof.