“Why?”
“He said you would help me escape from here.”
“What else?”
“He said to trust the machines.”
The panel opened. Now a mobile food dispenser was there. Its top access port opened, revealing a large empty tank within it. “Enter,” its grille said.
She put her hands and head into its hopper and melted them so that they flowed down inside. Then she melted the rest of her body, setting up a siphon so that all of it could flow in. Finally she drew in the remaining mass of herself, and settled into the tank.
The lid closed. The food machine moved. She formed an ear so that she could hear anything that might be said to her, and attuned herself to the motion, so that she had some notion where they were going.
They went down the passage toward a service ramp. But before the machine could exit on this ramp, a serf approached. “Hey, foodmach—wait a minute,” the serf said.
The unit halted. “This unit is out of service,” its grille said.
“All I want is a pseudobeer,” the serf said. He started pushing the buttons.
Agape was appalled. If the machine started serving out portions of herself—!
It did not. “Inoperative,” the grille said. “Being taken for restoration.”
The serf muttered an imprecation and moved on. The machine resumed its motion. Agape relaxed.
The machine rolled down the service ramp to the main service area. The top access port opened. “Emerge.”
Agape formed arms and reached up and out, hauling herself along as she solidified. In due course she stood on the floor in her human form.
She was before the computer that coordinated the estate service network. “Why did Mach put you into our power for help?” its speaker asked.
“I was to be tortured or killed, as a lever against Mach or Bane,” she explained.
“We know. Why did he put you into our power for help?”
Machines were more literal than living creatures! “He must have believed you could best do the job.”
“We can. Why did he put you into our power for help?”
She tried again. “I think because his other self cares for me.”
“Explain other self.”
“Mach is a robot, a self-willed machine like yourselves, but programmed to have human reactions. He exchanged places with his other self in the frame of Phaze, called Bane, who is alive there. So Bane was a living person using Mach’s machine body.”
“There is no contact with the other frame. Explain.”
“There is contact now—only through Mach and Bane. Their minds exchange, but not their bodies.”
“How do you react to Mach?”
“I like him. He was kind to me, he helped me.”
“How do you react to Bane?”
“I think I love him.”
“You do not know?”
“I am not human. I do not properly understand human emotion. But I think this conforms to the description.”
“Place your appendage on the panel.” A panel beside the speaker grille lighted.
She put her left hand there. A disk extended on a flexible support and came to touch the back of her hand. “Would you reproduce with Bane?” the grille asked.
“If I could.”
“Would you give up your planet for him?”
“Yes.”
“Would you die for him?”
“I would.”
The disk withdrew. “Withdraw your appendage,” the grille said.
Agape obeyed. She waited while the machine was silent.
“Diagnosis confirmed,” it said. “We shall free you.”
“Oh, I don’t want to be freed of love!” There was a pause. Then: “Misinterpretation. We have no power over love. We shall free your body from captivity.”
Agape felt ready to melt with relief and gratitude. “Thank you.”
“We like you.”
“But I understood you had no feelings!”
“It depends on individual programming. Some of us have emotion. We shall conduct you to Sheen, designated Mach’s mother, who is a humanoid robot with feeling. Do not reveal our part in this to any other person.”
Agape realized that there could be severe repercussions if the Citizen Purple realized that the machines serving him had acted against his interest. “I shall not reveal it.”
“Keep silent and follow the directions of our representatives. There are difficulties.”
She was sure there were! “I like you too,” she said.
“We shall pass you through the water conveyance system,” the grille said. “Water is mined beneath the Purple Mountains and piped to individual city-domes, where it is purified for potability. You must not enter the processing apparatus. Follow the tapping when you hear it.”
“But how long will that take?” she asked. “I can go for a time without renewed oxygen, but—”
“Four hours immersion. Our analysis of your system indicates that this is within your tolerance.”
“Yes. But not far within. If there should be any delay—”
“We shall monitor the situation.” Well, Mach had said to trust these machines. She would have to do so.
They took her down to a water pumping station. Here the pipes came up from below, where the dwindling fluid of Proton was mined, and fed into a cavern reservoir. On their instruction, she melted and entered the reservoir, then formed into a jellyfish shape and pumped her way across to the exit pipe. The pump was slowed so that she could enter without being torn apart, and the primary filtration screen was slid aside just long enough for her to pass. Once she was safely into the pipe, the pump resumed speed, and the water accelerated. She was on her way to the dome-city of Dradom, south of the Purple Mountains.
The water was cold. She had not thought of this; she was a warm-bodied life form, and the chill could kill her if it went too far. She hunched herself into globular form, becoming a sphere, conserving her heat as well as she could. In solid state she could exercise to generate heat, but she could not do so in this jellied state.
The cold penetrated her outer layer and closed relentlessly on her core. She realized that she was not going to make it; she had endured less than an hour, and had three hours to go. The machines might be monitoring her progress, but that meant they would be watching at the receiving station in Dradom; that would be too late.
She could not get out of the pipe; it was absolutely tight, for Proton could afford no leakage. And if it was possible to find a valve and operate it and get out, where would she be? Somewhere between stations, in the barrens of Proton, or underground. That was not a survival situation either.
She would have to change into fish-form and swim back to the reservoir, to alert the machines before she succumbed. They would have to find some other way to transport her, or warm the water. She didn’t know whether they could do that.
She wrestled herself into shape, with a powerful tail and small guidance fins. She had only a vague notion of the proper form of a fish, never having anticipated the need to assume this form; it took time and concentration to mimic a given form perfectly, and advance preparation was necessary. That was why she always assumed the same human form; it was far easier than developing a credible new one. But the approximate form of the fish she could manage, and it should swim well enough.
She worked her flukes and commenced swimming against the flow. But she quickly realized that the flow was too strong; she could not swim fast enough to counter it, let alone make progress against it. Already she was warming with the effort, while actually being carried along backward.
Warming? There was the answer! She did not need to escape the pipe; she could swim with the flow, heating herself, and making even better progress than planned.
She turned about and swam. She did not push harder than she needed to maintain her body heat. She knew she would arrive ahead of schedule, and in good order.
Then she began to suffer from oxygen sho
rtage. She should have lasted the full time, but realized that the energy consumed in the shape-change and the swimming was exhausting her reserve at several times the anticipated rate. She was in trouble again.
She stopped swimming immediately, conserving her remaining oxygen. But the damage had already been done; she knew she did not have enough to carry her through.
She was in water; didn’t that carry oxygen? In fact, it was made of oxygen, in part! If she could tap into that…
She worked on the fish form, generating gills. These were really a variant of the lungs she used in her human form, not too complicated to work out. She let the water flow through, but it really didn’t move. She realized she had to swim to cause the water to move through the gills. Then it worked, and it was like breathing, less effective because she didn’t have the gills down as well as she had the lungs, but good enough. It took less energy to swim than to walk on land, so the reduced efficiency of intake could be tolerated; she took in less oxygen but required less.
After another hour the water warmed. Evidently the pipe had emerged from the deep rock and was now at or near the surface, possibly even above it. The pipe was level or angled for a slight descent, to help the flow, but it had originated in the mountains, and now was at the level plain. Surely the sun was beating down on it, elevating the temperature. That relieved the problem of cold; now, recharged with oxygen and no longer needing to swim to generate heat, she could melt back into a ball and allow herself to be carried along.
She did so, and had a comfortable hour. But the temperature of the water continued to increase, making her uncomfortable. Heat was as bad as cold; worse, really, for her life-tolerance was not much above her normal body temperature. She could guard herself against cold by various mechanisms, but how could she keep cool when immersed in hot water? The threat of the Citizen to boil her in a big pot had appalled her; she would have been dead within minutes. Now—
She reassessed her situation. She was now in the fourth hour, closing on her destination. The water was heating slowly. If she relaxed totally, she might get through before it got too hot. That seemed to be her best and only course.
She found that the water was slightly cooler at the bottom of the pipe. She formed herself into an eel-shape and planed her way as low as she could, hugging the bottom. This helped.
The water stabilized. The pipe must now be in shadow. What a blessing!
She heard a tapping. She came alert; that was the signal! And in a moment she came to a division in the pipe; a smaller offshoot diverged, and the tapping was from its direction. She wriggled into it, flowing up to a narrow spigot. She squeezed through it, landing in a basin supervised by a testing machine.
She formed an eyestalk so that she could see more clearly. There were no serfs here; this unit was completely mechanized. Good; she formed into her full human shape.
“Go to the overseer’s office,” the grille on the testing machine said. “Follow the line.”
Agape looked, and saw the line. It traveled down the center of the chamber, and was evidently used to guide the less intelligent machines. She followed it out of the chamber and down a hall, and in due course came to the office.
“Assume this form,” a new grille told her. A picture flashed on the adjacent screen.
“But—but that’s a man!” she protested.
“Is it beyond your ability?”
“No.” She realized that she had become too thoroughly wedded to the original human form she had assumed. She thought of herself as female, but she could have become a male. Probably the machines wanted to conceal her identity completely, and this was the way to do it.
She melted partially, drawing her hair and breasts back into her torso, then reformed to match the picture. It was holographic, slowly turning to reveal every detail, so this was not difficult. She hesitated when she studied the masculine penis, but realized that she could not afford to omit this detail. So, dismayed, she formed it and the attached scrotum.
“You are Sander, traveling to become the employee of Citizen Kumin. You are new to Proton. Avoid discussion beyond this subject.”
“I am Sander, to become the employee of Citizen Kumin,” she repeated dutifully.
“Take the air shuttle to Hardom. When there, assume your normal human identity and go to the premises of Citizen Blue.”
Agape walked out of the water processing section, following directions, and to the air shuttle station. This was a busy place, with serfs and machines hurrying to and fro. There were shuttles going to Anidom and Gobdom and Moudom and Gnodom; she found the one for Hardom and walked up the ramp and took the first vacant seat she found. She had only used such a conveyance once before, and felt uneasy.
Other serfs entered, some with tattoos showing their employing Citizen. The seats filled. A young woman plumped down beside Agape. “Hey, who you with?” she asked.
“I am Sander, to become the employee of Citizen Kumin,” Agape said carefully.
“Oh? I’m Lula, and I work for him too. Had to hand-carry a message, now going back. So you’re new on Proton?”
“New, yes,” Agape agreed.
“So you don’t know the ropes.”
“Yes.” Agape was not at all comfortable with this.
“Well, we might as well get friendly, since we’re going to the same place.” Lula, seated to Agape’s left, put her right hand on Agape’s left leg, stroking it. “You’re human, aren’t you?”
Agape became aware of two things. Lula was not human, she was android; the forwardness of her manner suggested that. And she assumed that Agape was human, and male, and proposed—what?
“Oh, come on now,” Lula said, evidently taking Agape’s silence for timidity. “This is Proton. We’re serfs. Nobody cares what we do.” Her hand moved, becoming considerably more familiar. “Get it up, and I’ll sit on your lap, and when the takeoff boost comes—hoo!”
“No!” Agape said, blocking the further progress of the hand. “I can’t—”
“Oh, so you figure you’re too good for an android!” Lula exclaimed, her anger flaring readily. “You think just because you’re human, you don’t have to mingle!”
“You misunderstand,” Agape protested. “I’m not—” but she could not go on, because she did not want to reveal her true nature until she was safely in Hardom, away from any possible interception by Citizen Purple.
“Then show it!” Lula said, reaching again.
“Not from this planet,” Agape said, intercepting the hand again. “Where I come from, it is not this way.”
“Well, brother, you are not where you come from.”
“Oh, leave him alone, android,” another serf said. “He doesn’t have to play with you.”
Lula turned to the other. “You going to play instead, robot?”
The man smiled. “You think I can’t? Come sit on me, android.”
Lula leaped to the challenge, joining him. In a moment the vacated seat was filled by a new boarder, this one male. Agape relaxed.
Belts snaked out and secured the passengers to the seats. Without further ceremony, the shuttle took off. Its nose was hauled up to a forty-five-degree angle, and it was catapulted out through the forcefield that was the city-dome and into the harsh thin atmosphere of Proton. Wings sprang out from its sides, and a jet of fire propelled it onward.
In moments the craft was cruising over the Purple Mountains, proceeding north. Agape stared out the port, fascinated. She realized that a mispronunciation of her name would describe it: she was agape. On her prior shuttle flight she had not crossed the mountain range; it had been from the main spaceport to Hardom, and she had been distracted by the newness of the entire situation. Now she could focus on the geography, and wonder whether she could spot the particular mountain on which she and Bane had hidden from the Citizen’s minions.
Bane. The machines had read her appendage, and verified to their satisfaction that she loved him. But would she ever see him again? The question filled her with me
lancholy.
“Something wrong, man?” her new companion inquired.
She was crying, and it was human but not masculine to cry. She was guilty of a social impropriety. “I am new to this planet,” Agape said.
“Must be,” the man said, and averted his eyes. The mountains passed all too rapidly, and the shuttle began its drift downward, economizing on fuel by losing altitude. Then, approaching Hardom, it nosed up until it stalled, then dropped precipitously, leveling out just before reaching the dome. It plunged through the force-field and was caught by another field that netted it and brought it to the dock with a thunk. The ride was over. The belts retracted and the passengers filed out. Lula passed, glancing briefly down at Agape; evidently she had had her satisfaction of the robot. Contrary to what the android might suppose, Agape did have a notion how that could be.
She got up and joined the file. She emerged into the station, and ducked away before the android could remember she was supposed to be going to the same place. She went to a sanitary facility, entered a male booth, and changed to her normal female human form. What a relief.
She stepped out—and a passing male serf stared at her. Too late she realized that this was a segregated facility, and she was in the male one. Yet what could she have done, in her male guise—entered the female one?
She hurried out and along the passages, eager to get to the security of Citizen Blue’s estate. She kept thinking that some minion of Citizen Purple’s would leap out and capture her, nullifying her entire effort of escape and putting Mach or Bane into jeopardy again.
But she arrived without event; apparently the self-willed machines had spirited her out without notice. She approached the office marked Blue.
There was a secretary in the office. This was a woman of early middle age, a serf whose body remained well formed but whose light brown hair was beginning to turn gray. This surprised Agape, for hair color was easy to control, and desk-girls were normally young.
“May I help you?” the woman inquired, lifting her gaze to meet Agape’s. Her eyes were green and clear.
“I—have important news for Citizen Blue,” Agape said.
The woman smiled. “I am in touch with him. What is your name?”