Part 19 (2/2)

”Objection!” Brown cried. ”It has been established that only two people were in those halls at the time. There is no way a third could have been there.”

”Sustained,” the Game Computer said.

”She had seen him go there, and saw her mother emerge without the poison, so she knew he had taken it.”

”Objection! She couldn't know that. He might have-”

”Sustained. A third sustained objection will terminate the turn.”

”Why are you objecting?” Purple inquired quietly. ”The Hectare is framing his own character.”

”I don't trust that,” she said. ”Whatever he's doing, I want to stop it.”

Purple shrugged. ”Paranoia is good, in such a contest.”

Brown felt pleased, then condemned herself for it. She didn't want Purple's favor! She just had to win this game for him, and go her own way.

”She knew he could have taken it,” the Hectare said through the translator, after a pause for consultation. If it was annoyed, it didn't show it. ”Later she went herself to check, and found no poison, so she believed he had taken it. He was in a position to poison the dates.”

Now even Purple was perplexed. ”The Hectare can't be throwing the game! They play to win, always.”

”That meant that he could be framed,” the Hectare continued. Suddenly Brown appreciated the point: the buildup of the seeming guilt of a character determined to be innocent. Ouch! ”So she could steal the poison from him, use it on the dates, and accuse him of the crime. In this manner she could get away with murdering the king, and another bad man would pay the penalty. It would be a double victory.”

”Brother,” Purple muttered. ”This will be hard to refute. It's him or her, and we don't have room to show much more about him.” For the first time he looked uncomfortable; in fact downright nervous. Brown would have enjoyed the sight, if her own situation had not been on the line too.

She appreciated the problem. How could they explain away that motive, or put the young man into a situation that would make it obvious he was the guilty one? Any new wrinkle they might try could be turned around as another ploy in the frame: he looked guilty but wasn't. The Hectare was playing with increasing competence and finesse, catching on rapidly to the nuances of the human condition.

They needed to get the girl of the palace, far away at the critical time. But they couldn't, because she was one of the suspects; she had had opportunity to place the poison. Now she had motive, too; they could not undo that. At this stage, the jury was likely to rule against the girl. They couldn't even give her an alibi, such as a love tryst at the critical time with her brother, because Tan and the Hectare had cleverly shut off that option by making her distrust men.

Then Brown saw the answer. It was painful for her, but it would do the job. ”She was with her girlfriend at the time,” she said. ”You know how to play it.”

Purple looked at her. ”We made a deal. I need your golems on my side. They won't be, if I break that deal.”

”There won't be any deal, if you lose your hand,” she pointed out, amazed to hear herself arguing this case.

He nodded. ”Play now, talk later. Maybe it will work.”

”Nothing else will,” she said.

He faced the stage. ”I address the daughter,” he said, and the actress faced him, as lovely as before. ”She had motive to kill the king, and to frame her friend's fiance getting rid of two bad men. She had intent. She had the courage to do it. But something happened at the critical time.” He paused for effect, and the play paused with him.

”As it has been established, she was a most attractive figure of a woman, but she had a grudge against men. That did not mean that she had no romantic life. She cared very much about her gender. So she went to her friend, and told her of the perfidy of men, especially what she knew about both the king and the fiancee. Her friend was not really surprised; she had tried to blind herself to the infidelities of her fiance, had known he was no good. She had no better opinion of the king. The two women agreed that no man was to be trusted. Their dialogue became more animated and intimate, as they discovered in each other a deep current of compatibility. This became physical, and in the end they loved each other. Because this was their first such experience, it was slow, with many hesitations. As a result, their encounter lasted several hours-the very time that the poisoning of the dates occurred.”

”Objection!” Tan cried. ”The exact time can not be specified. Any of the suspects could have done it.”

”Sustained.”

”The time the poisoning was believed to have occurred,” Purple said. ”The reason the two women did not perfectly alibi each other was that they did not want to admit openly what they had been doing. So they allowed themselves to be considered suspects. But it seems likely that they had no care for poisoning, on that night.”

”But women don't-” Tan said. Then he looked at Brown, and knew that his Hectare's case was lost. The only truly viable remaining suspect was the fiance.

The Hectare spoke, through the translator. ”I yield the contest. No fault of my second.” Then it departed.

Tan stared at Brown, scowling. Then he shrugged, realizing that it was better to leave well enough alone. The Hectare knew that Tan had tried his best, but their team had been outplayed. He would suffer no consequence if he kept his mouth shut. He followed the Hectare out.

Brown felt weak with relief. Tan wasn't going to blow the whistle on her! He knew that there was nothing to be gained by it, as she was already cooperating, however reluctantly.

”Well, you came through,” Purple said. ”I'm off the hook, and so are you. I don't think we need that talk. I'll take you back to your hideout now.”

Brown looked around. ”But Tsetse-she got bored and went out. I can't leave her here.”

Purple was magnanimous in the flush of victory. ”She'll be at the commons, relaxing. I'll authorize pa.s.ses out for you and her, and you can have a golem carry you back when you find her.” He raised his voice, addressing the command net. ”By order of Purple: release Brown and Tsetse on their request, this day.” Then to her. ”Okay?”

She nodded. ”Thank you.”

”I don't like you, you don't like me. But you treated us fairly when you were on top, and I'm treating you fairly now. Just you honor our deal, and maybe we'll never meet again.”

She nodded again. He left the room, which had reverted to the contemporary type.

”It was a very nice set,” she said aloud.

”Thank you,” the Game Computer replied.

”I wish this were Crete.”

”So do I.”

She left the chamber, wondering about that. The Game Computer was acting more and more like a living thing. It was of course a self-willed machine, but highly programmed; self-will did not mean freedom. Did it now have consciousness and personal desire? What was it trying to do, with its subversion of the normal game grid that had served so well for so long? She hesitated to guess.

She walked lo the commons, looking for Tsetse. She had hoped the figure would be back by the time the game concluded, and had been relieved when Purple had not concerned himself with the matter. Now she just wanted to find the figure and get it home before the real Tsetse returned. If she did not, they could all be in a great deal of trouble. If Purple caught on that she had used him to gain admittance for an enemy of the Hectare...

10 - Seed

Lysander had suffered a whirlwind change of situation, at the time of the invasion and again when he had fled the city with Echo, the cyborg woman whose other self was a harpy. He had quit Alyc when she turned out to be a Hectare agent, and gone with Jod'e, until the Tan Adept had used his Evil Eye to make her his love slave. Lysander was a Hectare agent himself, but his necessary a.s.sociation with the natives enabled him to relate to their concerns. Alyc's ident.i.ty as an agent had been a distressing surprise, and he had reacted as any loyal native would, dumping her. Jod'e's conversion had been an uglier shock; he had really come to appreciate her qualities, physical and intellectual, in their brief a.s.sociation. But Echo-Echo was beautiful, with her slender body and brown fluff of hair. But her body was of inanimate substance; only her brain was human. Alyc had been full human, and Jod'e android, so Echo seemed to be one more step away. But on this planet few things were quite what they seemed, and he found he could accept the emulation of life Echo represented, knowing that her loyalty to the old order was absolute. Alyc had been fully alive in body, but a traitor in mind; Echo was true in mind. He had less interest in her harpy form, except that that was the root of her loyalty lo Phaze.

She had taken him to a serf boy walking the halls. ”Who is this?” he had demanded.

”Who do you think, unbeliever?” the boy had responded. Then Lysander had known it was the weird child Nepe/Flach.

Three serfs walking ahead of them had a.s.sumed the likenesses of Lysander, Echo, and the boy, for the hall monitors to track. Lysander had ducked into a side pa.s.sage with Echo, and abruptly had found himself standing here under the trees where he had first encountered the harpy Oche, and handled Echo's legs.

”We're out of the city!” he exclaimed, amazed.

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