Piers Anthony: Robot Adept

“That be all,” he agreed. “Thy digestive processes be now entirely within thy body.”

“I—I thought it was like—would be the way it is with Bane—with Mach’s robot body. He can eat, but not digest, so must open a panel and remove the food before it spoils.”

“That be one fancy golem body!” Trool remarked. “Nay, it be not that way for thy present body.” Then he angled his head, struck by another thought. “Hast thou had experience with elimination?”

“Only of my own type, which is not the same.”

“It be not meet for me to try to teach thee that. Suchevane can instruct thee, when she comes to practice thee on form-changing.”

Agape practiced her eating, finishing the chunk of bread, then tackling a large pear. Juice slopped down her chin; this was a new challenge! But gradually she learned to do it more neatly and efficiently. She even managed to drink a cup of grape juice without spilling very much down her front.

Finally, her stomach full, she stopped. She lay on the bed the troll had provided, and slept.

In the afternoon Suchevane arrived. Trool explained briefly the need, and the bat-girl escorted Agape to a shed that smelled of manure. “Do thou sit on this hole and let it go,” she said.

“Let what go?”

Suchevane cocked her head. “Thou has truly done this not before?”

“Nor seen it done,” Agape agreed. “Human beings are secretive about the details, and Bane—the robot had no need. He showed me sex, but not elimination.”

“He showed thee sex,” the girl repeated. “Aye, and he showed that me, too; men be eager enough for that.”

“Bane showed you sex?”

“We were young, and curious. He had no human female friend, so he played with us animals, and we be friends since. Fleta, Furramenin, me—we told not the adults, o’ course.”

“He played with me too,” Agape said. “In the frame of Proton. But why didn’t he marry one of you?”

The girl laughed. “The son o’ an Adept marry an animal? That were never in the cards! Nay, it be play only, and long o’er now.”

“Did he tell you that he loved you?” Agape asked, concealing the tightness she suddenly felt.

“Nay, o’ course not! Bane ne’er deceived others; he spoke only truth.” Then she looked sharply at Agape. “He told thee that?”

“Yes.”

“And Mach told Fleta!” Suchevane shook her head.

“Oh, did he e’er tell her! He spake her the triple Thee. I was there, and ne’er saw the like! The air, the cliffside, indeed all the world it seemed turned sparkling clean, and she—” She shook her head. “I envy both!”

Agape remembered the way the Red Adept had reacted to this young woman. “Adepts don’t marry nonhumans?”

“Ne’er! Why should they, an they have anything they want o’ us anyway? They marry seldom at all, and then only human women, as did Blue.”

“Forgive me if I am speaking inappropriately—but would you marry an Adept if he asked you?”

Suchevane shrugged. “That be entirely theoretical. Any animal would marry any Adept, an he asked her. Or any decent human man. I would have married Bane, an he e’er wished. But an Adept ne’er would.”

“But what about a nonhuman Adept?”

“There be only one, and he be Trool the Troll. He be separated from his own kind since he adopted human ways, and he be kind to my folk. An he wish to take one o’ us for play, she would do it readily enough.”

“Even you, the most beautiful of creatures?”

“Aye, especially me! I tired early o’ handsome males; fain would I settle with one like him, with decency and power. But he has no interest.” She looked at Agape. “But this be a diversion. I must show thee how to eliminate.”

True enough. Agape was suffering some discomfort but was unable to relieve it in her natural fashion. “Is it like eating?”

“Nay, not precisely. Here, mayhap I can show thee. Let me take the hole.”

Agape moved off, and Suchevane moved on. She lifted her cloak out of the way to reveal her bare posterior. “Here do the solids come out, and here the liquids.”

“Oh—either side of the—”

“Aye. The major functions be set close together, for convenience.”

“I recognize it now; I have seen anatomical illustrations. I made surface emulations, with only the aperture required for the sexual congress. On Proton, I mean. I suppose the others are functional now. I should have realized.”

“It be hard at first to learn the nuances o’ a new form,” Suchevane agreed. “I had trouble learning the human way, when I had practiced only the bat way as a cub. Now there be muscles here, and thou dost normally keep them tight, but now thou must let them relax. See, when I do, it comes out.” A stream of yellow liquid jetted from her, down into the darkness below the hole.

“Let me see, that muscle should be about here,” Agape said, lifting her own cloak and touching her body. “If I relax it—oops!”

Suchevane leaped from the hole, put her hands on Agape’s shoulders, and swung her around and down on it. Liquid splashed on the board. “Thou hast it now!”

“But there is substance in the other—”

“Let that out too! This be the place for all o’ it.”

Agape let it all out, and her body felt much relieved. Then the vampire showed her how to use paper to clean herself up, and how to wash where necessary. The process took some time, but now she had learned what she needed to. She would be able to handle it herself in the future.

Suchevane also showed her how to change forms from human to flying, and back. There were a number of misstarts, but when Agape finally got it straight, she realized that she could have done this at any time, had she only known how. It was a matter of concentrating on the right form in the right way: a talent which, once learned, she knew she would never forget, as with the elimination. Now she could change freely from girl to hummingbird, and from birdform to girlform, as Suchevane put it.

But flying was more complicated. Agape could flap her wings, but this only resulted in disaster. They decided to leave this aspect for another day.

Suchevane went home, and Agape settled down to another big meal. Trool joined her, at her request; she realized that he was not a busy man, but a creature with time on his hands, and lonely.

“If I may say something personal…” she said between mouthfuls.

“Speak, Agape,” he said. “It has been long since I have had company o’ any kind, other than momentary business.”

“I think that if you were to ask Suchevane to stay here, she would.”

He grimaced, and on him this was a phenomenally grotesque expression. “Aye, and so would any animal! I crave that kind o’ company not!”

“Because you are an Adept?”

“Adepts be the leaders o’ Phaze,” he explained. “Each has his mode o’ magic, but each has power o’er any other creature. This power be easy to abuse, and I mean not to do that. I would not take a woman, human or animal, because she feared my power—and that be the only way a woman would come to me.”

“I think she might come voluntarily.”

“Aye, she would say that. But fear be the motivator, not preference. Look at me.” He spread his arms, his left hand holding a plumb. “I be ugliest o’ all Adepts, and unversed in manners. I deceive not myself on this.”

Indeed, he spoke truly! He was catastrophically ugly, considered as a man. But not completely. “You are ugly in appearance,” she agreed carefully. “But not in manner, and I think not in intent. Some women appreciate those other qualities.”

He shrugged. “So it would be nice to believe.”

She realized that further pursuit of this subject would be pointless. Any overture would have to come from the other side. So she dropped it, and worked on her eating, and her elimination, and her form-changing, and grew steadily stronger and more talented in her use of this body.