Piers Anthony: Robot Adept

“They distinguish human from android by fingerprints,” Blue said. “The self-willed machines will give you my prints.”

She nodded. She shifted until she looked so much like him that Bane was startled. Then she went to a unit in the wall where a unit overlaid her blank fingertips with pseudoflesh molded in the likeness of Blue’s prints. Blue got out of his Citizen’s robe and set it on her. The emulation was complete.

Meanwhile Sheen was attending to Bane. She simply had the dismantling unit remove her brain unit and exchange it with his. Abruptly Mach was in her body, and she was in his. This one would certainly pass inspection!

“Go to my private residence and remain there until we return,” Blue said. He was applying pseudoflesh the self-willed machines provided, remolding his face and body to resemble Agape’s. He had done this before, when he had rescued Bane from the captivity of Citizen Purple; he was good at emulations himself.

“But thou—when they find thee and take thee for Agape—” Bane protested.

“They will discover they are in error,” Blue said. “Sheen and I will serve as diversion until the two of you are safe. This is a necessary precaution; they want you very much.”

“Do not be concerned for us,” Sheen said from his body. “We are immune to molestation.”

Bane hoped that was the case. He faced the door.

“And let her do the talking,” Blue said from Agape’s apparent body.

Bane had to smile. It would not do to have the seeming Sheen speaking the dialect of Phaze!

They left. There were serfs, but those stood respectfully aside, eyes downcast. The two of them walked down the hall to the nearest transport station. Agape, as Blue, lifted her right hand to the panel. The prints registered. In a moment the panel slid to the side to reveal a blue chamber: Citizen Blue’s personal conveyance. They stepped in.

The chamber moved, first rising, then traveling horizontally. There was no challenge, no delay; they were being transported to the Citizen’s residence.

Bane wanted to take Agape in his arms and kiss her—but even had this been in character in their present guises, he would have found it awkward when she looked like Citizen Blue, who almost exactly resembled his own father Stile.

She looked at him and made a wicked smile. Then she took him in her arms and kissed him. Any watcher would have sworn that it was male kissing female, rather than vice versa.

The transport delivered them directly to Citizen Blue’s suite. There were no servants there, so no awkwardness about identities.

Should they maintain their emulations? They realized that they had to, because Bane had Sheen’s body. It was strange, seeing himself in the mirror, looking so like his other self’s mother! So they settled down and watched news features on the screen, and waited.

An hour passed. Then the entrance chime sounded. The entry vid showed Bane and Agape.

“They’re back!” Agape exclaimed, hurrying to the entrance. She touched the admit button as Bane came up behind her.

Suddenly Bane froze. His body had gone nonresponsive; it was as if it had been disconnected. He couldn’t even speak.

Agape stepped forward—and the two figures jumped up to take her by the arms. Astonished, she tried to draw back, but they put a bag over her head.

Bane realized that these were not Citizen Blue and his robot wife, Sheen. They were impostors, similar to the serf with Blue’s emblem—but he could not act.

“When you are ready to cooperate, send word,” the Citizen figure said to Bane. “Then you may see her again.”

Appalled, he watched them haul Agape back to a waiting vehicle. They had used a ruse to capture her after all!

Then a new figure showed up—and this one also looked like Citizen Blue. “Now there are two ways we can do this,” he said.

The Sheen-figure whirled and leaped at him.

A net shot from the wall and wrapped about her, lifting her up and suspending her in the air.

“That was the second way,” the Blue figure said.

The first Blue figure tried to run, but another net trapped him similarly.

Bane recovered use of his body. “Agape!” he cried, running to her.

Serfs appeared. They hauled away the two netted figures. “I wanted to catch them in the act,” Citizen Blue explained. “Now I have proof.”

Agape had dissolved into jelly, but when she felt Bane’s touch she recovered and reformed, this time assuming her normal female shape.

Sheen appeared. They returned to the suite, and a machine servitor approached to transfer computer-brains. Bane had his own—or rather Mach’s—body back.

“We have been watching, but until they made their move, it was pointless to act,” Blue explained. “They were watching all the planetary ports, and indeed, all the exits from Hardom; there was no chance to get Agape out. But they gained nothing by keeping her bottled up here; they had to gain direct possession of her. So we tempted them by arranging a game beyond the protected region, and they finally took the bait.”

“The bait!” Bane exclaimed, horrified.

“The seemingly vulnerable pair,” Blue said. “Unfortunately, they were more determined than we expected; they arranged to send false signals of normalcy, so that we believed they had not struck. It was a good thing you thought to seek the help of the self-willed machines.”

“They helped us,” Bane agreed, feeling somewhat dazed as he remembered. “I knew not that this body came so readily apart!”

“Now that they have made their move, they will be trying more openly,” Bane continued. “They have shown a certain cleverness in their efforts. We shall have to hide Agape until we can get her offplanet.”

“Then hide me with her!” Bane exclaimed.

“Yes. But you may not enjoy the manner of concealment.”

“I enjoy not the need for separation,” Bane said. “Needs must I be with her while I can.”

“I believe we have worked out a situation in which you can be together without suspicion,” Blue said. “But you will have to be careful and alert, because it is risky.”

“It be risky just acting in a play!” Bane exclaimed, and they laughed.

“We shall set the two of you up as a menial robot and an android girl,” Blue explained. “You will be substituted for the ones assigned to go to a common location. The self-willed machines control placements; they will arrange it. Such assignments occur constantly; there should be no suspicion.”

“But won’t they be watching us?” Agape asked.

“They will. They will continue to see you here.”

“Oh.” It had been demonstrated how facile such emulations could be.

So it was that the two of them were smuggled out, while another robot and android took their places as guests of Citizen Blue. They found themselves assigned to a young Citizen who was opening a new office in the city and required a humanoid robot and humanoid android to maintain it during his absences. It promised to be a routine and rather dull matter. But at least they would be constantly together, and in the off hours no one would care what kind of relationship they had. It was possible that they would never even see the Citizen himself.

The employer turned out to be Citizen Tan. Bane felt a shock when he learned of their assignment. Perhaps the self-willed machines considered this citizen to be a harmless nonentity, as Citizens went. But Bane suspected that he would be parallel to the Tan Adept in Phaze, and that meant he was in the Adverse or Contrary orbit.

If Citizen Tan caught on to their true identities, they would be already in the power of the enemy.

And Citizen Tan very well might, for if he was the other self of the Tan Adept of Phaze, he had the potential for a most devastating ability: the Evil Eye.