Part 13 (1/2)

He had had enough of education for now. He asked the screen for entertainment, and was rewarded by a ”light-show” of phenomenal color and complexity. The lights brightened and dimmed, radiated out and in, changed shape and color, and a.s.sumed odd and fleeting shapes. Sometimes Bane, the viewer, seemed to be flying into a rapidly expanding bank of clouds; sometimes he seemed to be swimming in strange water. The configurations never repeated; he kept being surprised by what happened next.

Finally he told the screen to turn itself off. He walked about the room, thinking, trying to a.s.similate all that he had learned. One impression came through strongly: he liked this frame of Proton, despite its appalling degradation of the wilderness outside the domes. It had more than enough scientific magic inside the domes to make up. True, it had serious problems-but those represented not so much a liability as a challenge. Citizen Blue, who had been reared in Phaze, seemed to be Bane's own kind of man. It would have been nice to work with him to complete the necessary changes in the society. In time, perhaps, even the pollution could be cured, and Proton could become green again outside. Of course he had to return to his own frame, but he would always be glad to have had this experience in this one.

Many hours had pa.s.sed, but Agape still slept and he did not wish to disturb her. He experimented with his body, discovering that though in the rush of events he had not been aware of many differences between his own body and this one, those differences were significant. It was not just a matter of not getting tired and of not needing sleep; his involuntary physical reactions had become voluntary. He could elevate his reactions at will, becoming keyed up or relaxed simply by so directing his body. He could make himself s.e.xually excited instantly, and turn it off as readily. It was helpful to know, since it could have been embarra.s.sing with Agape if he depended on natural reactions.

At last he turned himself down to standby state, and this was very like sleep. He could, after all, have slept, had he realized how to do it! He just had to turn his body close to off for a period.

An alarm jolted Bane out of his simulated sleep. 'The Citizen will see you in ten minutes,” the voice of a serf came from the screen.

”Uh, right,” Bane said. He turned to the bed.

Agape was stirring; evidently the alarm had awakened her too. Already her protoplasm was changing its shape. Legs and arms grew out at the ends, and her head. None were well formed; they most resembled the appendages a child might tack on a homemade doll. But once the size was right, the specific features developed. In just a few minutes she was herself-or rather, that artificially human form he had come to know.

She sat up, gazing at him. ”Now you have seen me as I truly am,” she said.

”I think thou hast marvelous magic,” he said. ”I could not change my form as thou dost.”

”You're not an amoeba.”

”I am an Adept-or will be one,” he said. ”I can change the forms of others, but not my own.”

”You really are not disturbed?”

”I really am not,” he said. And now it was true; the screen had provided him with the proper perspective, so that he understood the rationale of her nature and her presence, and approved of it. She was a nice person who was trying to accommodate herself to what was for her an alien situation. She needed support, not objection.

She stood, then stepped up to him and kissed him. ”I fear I will not encounter your like again,” she said sadly.

”Nor I thine.”

”Two minutes,” the screen announced. ”Present yourselves at the exit to your chamber.”

”We must not delay,” Agape said. ”I have not been on Proton long, but I know from my briefing that serfs must always address Citizens as Sir and obey them implicitly. Perhaps I should talk, if it can be arranged.”

”Aye.” They presented themselves at the exit. The wall opened.

The serf conducted them quickly to a smaller chamber. They stepped in, but the serf did not. The door slid closed.

Suddenly the four walls vanished. They were in an enormous room. They stood on a beach whose sand spread endlessly to either side. Not far behind were palm trees, their fronds s.h.i.+mmering in the breeze. Ahead crashed the restless breakers of the fringe of a mighty ocean.

They stood staring, both awed by the scene. Then Agape put out her hand. ”It is holo,” she murmured. ”The walls still enclose us.”

”Holo?”

”Pictures, like those on the screen you watched last night. Very realistic.”

Bane touched the wall, verifying its presence. It seemed as if they were in an invisible box set on the beach, but he understood what she meant; the box was real, the beach illusory. ”If this be not magic, what need have Citizens for it?” he asked.

On the ocean appeared a sail, and the sail expanded. It showed up as a sailboat, blown quickly by the wind toward them. On the boat, operating it, was a ruddy, heavyset man. He guided it to the beach, then quickly furled the sail and dragged the small craft right up before the place where Bane and Agape stood. He lifted out a chest and set it on the sand. He brought out a key, put it to the big old-style lock, and unlocked it. He lifted the lid of the chest.

From the chest rose a head. It kept rising, until a complete woman stood in the chest. There could not have been room for her within it. She seemed quite young, possibly fifteen, and her hair was as white as snow, set with a silver tiara. She wore a white gown set with bright gems.

The woman glanced at the boatsman, who was now standing at attention. ”Sir,” he said, ”these are the refugees.”

This was the Citizen! Bane realized. He had expected an old man, not a young woman, but obviously Citizens.h.i.+p knew no age or s.e.x.

”Your ident.i.ties?” Citizen White inquired.

”Agape of Moeba,” Agape said immediately. ”And this is Mach, the son of Citizen Blue. Sir.”

The woman frowned. ”I think not,” she said. She stared at Bane. 'Tell me your ident.i.ty in your own words.”

Somehow she knew about the exchange! ”I be Bane, son of the Blue Adept, also called Stile.”

”And how came thee here?” she inquired.

For a moment Bane was too startled to speak. 'Thou- thou knowest?”

She smiled. ”How long since thou hast been to the White Demesnes?”

”The White Adept!” he exclaimed. ”But-”

”But she be old and ugly?” the woman inquired with a smile. She made a gesture, and abruptly she was old and fat. Then she reappeared in her young edition. ”Since when be the son of an Adept deceived by appearances?”

”But there be no connection to Phaze!” Bane cried. ”I be the first in a score of years to come to Proton, and that only in a body not mine own!”

”Really,” the woman said, smiling condescendingly. She turned to the serf beside her. ”Set me adrift again, Grizzle, and open the window to Phaze for these two serfs.”

”Sir!” the man agreed.

The Citizen lost height. She sank back into the chest. When her head disappeared, the serf closed the lid, locked the lock, and lifted the chest back into the sailboat. He turned back to Bane and Agape. ”The floors-man will take you there,” he said. Then he dragged the boat back to the water, stepped into it, unfurled the sail, and commenced tacking into the wind.

The scene vanished. They were back in the box. The door opened, and they stepped back into the hall.

”This way,” the serf said.

They followed him down the hall to another door. ”You'll need clothes,” he said, bringing out a white s.h.i.+rt and trousers of the Phaze variety for Bane and a white dress for Agape. ”We don't usually send others through, so white's all we've got. You can change them when you get where you're going.”

”But I am a serf!” Agape protested. ”I can't don clothing here!”

”We do wear it in Phaze,” Bane told her. 'Thou wouldst be as out of place there naked as here in clothing.”

”I suppose,” she agreed uncertainly. She got somewhat awkwardly into the dress and slippers provided. The serf helped her get her outfit adjusted, and in a moment she looked, by Phaze standards, quite nice.

Bane completed his dressing, bending to fit the shoes to his feet. They fit well enough.

”This way,” the serf said, showing them on down the hall to still another door.

They entered another cubicle. This one closed on them, then abruptly ascended, startling them. Its walls were transparent; they could see the dimly illuminated walls of the region through which it pa.s.sed.

It came up into a forest. It halted at ground level, and the panel on one side opened. They stepped out onto the forest floor. The cubicle closed itself up and descended back into the ground; a lid closed, making the ground complete.