Piers Anthony - Robot Adept

Then, stunned, she realized what she had said. But the other seemed not to have noticed. “Welcome to the Leftover Ladder. I’m second from the bottom. I love the Game, but I’m no good at it, so I’m easy to beat.”

“Ladder?” she asked, still appalled by her slip.

“Oh, you new here? From another world?”

“New,” she agreed. “From another world.” Both quite true, but not the way he would take it.

Shock grinned. “Say, that’s great! I’m a Koloform myself. Well, I mean my folks came from Kolo, so it’s my blood. I was born here, but I can only stay till I’m twenty-one, next year, you know. Then I’m either a serf, or I have to go to Kolo. What’re you?”

“A unicorn,” she said.

She had done it again!

“I never heard of that planet!” he said cheerfully. “But what do I know? There’s thousands of planets. Well, c’mon, let’s play before the next pair need the console.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

Her screen had words printed:

PLAYER ONE: SHOCK OF KOLO

PLAYER TWO: FLETA OF UNI

Below was a sample grid. He had the numbers, she the letters. Mach had explained this, but still it was confusing. She had to pick something she thought would get her into a game she could win.

Her choices were A. NAKED B. TOOL C. MACHINE D. ANIMAL.

That was easy enough! The only thing she really understood was ANIMAL: being one herself. She touched D.

Shock was still making up his mind, for though her column highlighted, none of his numbered rows did. That gave her a chance to look around.

She hadn’t paid attention to her surroundings; she had just followed the line in. She saw that she was in one of a number of open chambers, each of which contained a console, and most of the consoles had players standing by them. Many folk were playing this peculiar game! But that might be because they were doing what she was supposed to do, qualifying for the Tourney. Mach had said that only the top ten in each age group, among the males and the females, would qualify. So now they were trying to get into the top tens.

She realized that that must be what the ladder was for. Shock had mentioned a ladder, that he was near the bottom of. A ladder was a thing that human folk used to climb up onto higher places. So she was trying to get on the ladder, starting near the bottom, which was the way with ladders.

But how was she to get to the top, if she had to win games against experienced players to climb each rung? The Tourney was only a few days away, and even if she could win every game, there would hardly be time for them all!

A row illuminated. Shock had finally made his choice. It was 1. PHYSICAL. The two highlights overlapped at ID.

Then the ID square expanded to fill the screen. ANIMAL-ASSISTED PHYSICAL appeared across the top, and new sets of choices appeared. This time she had the numbers, and he had the letters.

She looked at her choices: 5. SEPARATE 6. INTERACTIVE 7. COMBAT 8. COOPERATIVE. She wasn’t certain how these applied, but the safest seemed to be the first, because it seemed to mean that she could do her own thing. She touched it.

Again she had played ahead of Shock. That encouraged her, though it might be that he was making more intelligent choices. His options were E. EARTH F. FIRE G. GAS H. H2O, whatever those meant.

When he chose, it was E: EARTH—FLAT SURFACE. So that was it: Earth, as in a plain someone could run on. That was fine with her; unicorns understood running room.

The 1D5E square expanded to fill the screen, and a new, slightly smaller lattice appeared, with nine squares. Down the right side was a list of activities.

Shock whistled. “I don’t know how to do any of these things!” he exclaimed. “Well, let’s see where it goes.” The words BRONCO-BUSTING appeared in the top left box.

Fleta realized that he must have touched one of the words at the side, because it had disappeared from the side when it appeared in the square. So she touched her favorite: HORSEBACK RIDING. It wasn’t that she liked riding horses, but that she, being a related animal, understood them better than any of the others listed, and in her human form certainly could ride one of them.

He put BULLDOGGING in the third square, so she put GOAT MILKING in the fourth one. There were not many goats in Phaze, but they were easy enough to get along with.

They continued with DOG TRAINING, COW MILKING, CAMEL RIDING, BULL FIGHTING and CHICKEN SEXING. “That’s not what it sounds like,” Shock explained. “It’s telling the chicks apart, you know, male or female, so they know who’ll grow up to lay eggs. A good chicken sexer can make a pile, on a farm planet. Well, let’s choose up; this is it. I got the last placement, so you get choice of numbers or letters.”

She chose the letters, and touched B, the center column, because that had the horse riding in it. She was lucky; he chose 1, and the highlights overlapped at HORSEBACK RIDING. She had her first choice, which meant a good chance.

ADJOURN TO RIDING AREA, the screen said. FOLLOW THE LINE.

She looked at the floor. A new line showed, leading away from the console.

They followed it. It brought them to a corral where a number of people were riding horses. It terminated at a check-in office.

The bored attendant glanced up. “Whatcha into—easy, rough or show?” he asked.

“I don’t mind losing, but I don’t want to get dumped,” Shock said candidly. “I bruise easily.”

“Easy,” the attendant said. “Saddle or bareback?”

“Your turn,” Shock said.

So they were still taking turns on choices. “Bareback,” Fleta said.

In due course they found themselves on two sedate horses, bareback, with reins. The one who guided his horse most accurately along a set course would be the winner.

Fleta didn’t like reins, so she dismounted, went to the horse’s head and removed the bit and the reins. The man who had brought the horses looked surprised, but did not comment.

She remounted, and they proceeded along the course. Shock was evidently barely familiar with horsemanship; had the course not been long familiar to the animal, he would soon have been lost. Fleta leaned low, embraced her horse with legs and arms, and spoke to it in its own language: a low whinny. Her body might be alien, but her nature was equine, and now it came strongly through. She felt a sudden surge of homesickness for her homeland, and knew that this captive horse felt the same.

The horse’s ears perked. She stroked its neck, reassuring it, explaining by pressures of her legs how it should react. Soon she had it responsive, and the horse obeyed her commands when they were neither verbal nor visual. She really did understand horses.

Thereafter, the horse stood tall and proud, and moved so precisely along the course that others stopped to look. One of the keepers, alarmed, challenged this: “You do something to that animal? No tether, no halter, no bit, no reins—you drug it?”

“No drug,” Fleta said.

“Bring it over here; I want the vet to see.”

So they had to interrupt the contest, while the horse walked to the side where the robot vet rolled up. The machine ran sensors across the horse’s skin and flashed little lights in the animal’s eyes and mouth. “This horse likes this rider,” the robot said, and rolled away.

“You sure have the touch!” Shock said. “Or did you just get a happy horse?”

“We can exchange horses if you wish,” Fleta said.

“Yes, let’s do that!”

So they dismounted and exchanged. Fleta addressed the new horse as she had the first, and removed the bit and reins, and soon it was as cooperative, while the first, feeling the ignorance of the new rider, became surly.

By the time they finished the ride, there was no question of Fleta’s victory. “Serf, you’re new on the register,” the corral manager said, hurrying up. “You looking for employment? You’ve got a touch with those animals I never saw before!”