Piers Anthony - Unicorn Point

Sheen did not worry unduly, because as a self-willed machine she could control her emotions. But she knew that victory was by no means certain, and that Purple, even caught by surprise, remained a better player than she. The odds favored her loss to him, and that would prejudice Blue’s case. Yet of course he had to save himself for the final game, to bring the victory if the first two games were not sufficient. They came to the game chamber. Here Blue kissed her and turned away; he would watch with others in an audience chamber. For the manipulation of the grid, only the two direct players would be there. There would be no advice from the sidelines.

She stepped up to the console and stood waiting. In a moment Citizen Purple entered, like an ancient king in his elab orate purple robe. He even wore a purple diadem set with precious amethyst stones. Huge, bearded, confident, he was a daunting presence.

But she, a robot, was not daunted. She simply recognized and catalogued the effects, in case any of them indicated any aspect of his nature that might be exploited for her advantage in the game. She cared nothing for kings or Citizens, only for the factors of the moment.

Purple stared at her over the console, his gaze commencing at her forehead, inspecting her brown tresses, crossing her own gaze without taking note of it, and coursing down to linger on her bare breasts. But again his effort was wasted; her body was naked, in the fashion of all serfs, and her breasts were pseudoflesh coverings over utility cabinets. Humanoid males tended to ignore the inner reality and focus on the outer form, so that they found a breast interesting regardless whether it was fashioned of living flesh, amoebic mass or plastic, but that was their foible; Sheen was indifferent to his stare. When Blue looked at her body, she took notice; not otherwise.

“If you are ready, sir,” she said after a moment. His hand crashed down on his side of the console. Her side lighted, showing the primary grid.

1. PHYSICAL

2. MENTAL

3. CHANCE

4. ARTS

A. NAKED B. TOOL C. MACHINE D. ANIMAL

She saw by the highlighting that she had the numbers. For a moment she was tempted to select CHANCE and be done with it. But that was probably not rational, because Blue believed she had a better than even chance to win in a game of skill. Her long association with living human beings, and her female programming, did account for some irrationality, but she was capable of overruling it.

What would he choose? She glanced up, and saw his porcine eyes fastened again on her breasts. Suddenly she knew: he had chosen NAKED, because he could not look upon an unavailable woman without desiring her. It was his way; he had lusted after Tania’s voluptuous secretary Tsetse, and connived without Tania’s knowledge to have access to her. Now that Tania had defected, Tsetse had wasted no time in denouncing her and becoming Purple’s secretary, confessing what she had done in the past. That bad had two effects: Tania’s fury, and Purple’s loss of interest. He had little taste for what was no longer forbidden. But Sheen herself was perhaps the most forbidden female: the wife of Purple’s major enemy. Oh, yes, he desired her now, and so great was his compulsion that he had to grasp at any straw to get closer to her. With luck, he might get her into a gelatin wrestling match, and possess her as he pinned her. Her detestation of both him and his act would only increase his passion. Now it was clearer why Blue had chosen her to play against this man. Purple’s nature distorted his judgment, making him vulnerable to manipulation. He had to know she would never let him close to a gelatin chamber, or any other body-to-body sport, yet he had to play for it.

She almost smiled. Too bad her robot strength was governed, so that she could exert no more force than a healthy living woman might, unless threatened with destruction. Otherwise, she could lead him into that gelatin, and pin him down, and win. He might even go knowingly into the loss, just to have that bodily contact in such an environment. But fair was fair; she had to be the woman she seemed, and he knew that.

Well, she would tempt him a bit. She touched 1. PHYSICAL.

Immediately the secondary grid formed: ID. PHYSICAL ANIMAL. Just as she had known!

Then she did a doubletake, a programmed mannerism not often invoked. Animal? He had fooled her! She glanced up. There were his eyes, still fixed on her breasts. He was having his fun with her in two ways: ogling her body, and deceiving her about his intentions. He was of course a master player, and this was effective strategy. Would she have chosen PHYSICAL if she had guessed? She had the numbers again: 5. SEPARATE. 6. INTERACTIVE. 7. COMBAT. 8. COOPERATIVE. She tried again to guess what he might choose. His options were E. EARTH F. FIRE G. GAS H. H2O, translating respectively to the various surfaces: Plat, Variable, Discontinuous and Liquid. He was an old man, tough, but surely not as much so, physically, as he once had been. He should prefer to remain on his stout feet, on a flat plain or a mountainous slope. He would not like to get into the water, riding dolphins or sharks, and discontinuous would be beyond him.

That being the case, she should make it as hard for him as she could. She was nominally old and female, but actually her robot body remained as strong as ever. Strength counted in other ways than direct force of limb; she might not be able to overcome him in a wrestling match, but she could surely outlast him in a match requiring repetition or endurance. More of that was often needed in animal contests—that was gen erally recognized. Riding a horse, for example, was not a state of rest—not if the animal was frisky, as it would be in a racing or combat situation.

Combat. Well, why not? That could be jousting on horse back, and she had learned to ride, because Blue was the top rider on the planet. It had taken special modification of her programming, but she had done it for him, and had become capable of riding almost any animal, tame or wild. She knew that the Lady Blue (now the Lady Stile) in Phaze was expert, and as the years had passed she had felt steadily closer to the Lady. The mechanism of parallelism between the frames had never been well understood, and with the separation of the past decades there had been little chance to study it, but it seemed that it was a gradual thing. That individuals were not necessarily fixed from birth as parallels; some were, like the two Tanias, but some became parallel over the course of their lives. She liked to think that she was approaching other selfism with the Lady Blue. Certainly a number of Citizens, by position and inclination, had become increasingly like their Adept counterparts, by Mach and Bane’s accounts. So Sheen had learned to ride, deliberately fostering her emulation of the Lady. It had been no more than an exercise of a foolish dream—until Mach had exchanged with Bane, proving that a robot could be the other self of a living person. These thoughts took little time; they were a rehash of fa miliar ground. She was already in the process of touching COMBAT.

The tertiary grid appeared—and she had another surprise. Purple had chosen Discontinuity! That meant they would be doing physical battle in the air, or on broken surfaces. She was not well rehearsed in that. The cunning Citizen had out maneuvered her again.

Sheen knew she was in trouble. Purple would not have chosen GAS unless he felt competent in that medium. He must have practiced in some aspect of this, so that he could have an advantage when he needed it. She had practiced none but the flying horse, for private pleasure. Still, there were ways and ways. She remembered a little used option that Blue had discovered, that might be used to turn this grid to her advantage. She needed a way to be sure that she was not playing Purple’s game, and she no longer trusted her judgment in this respect. He had fooled her twice, and might maneuver her into accepting the very option he desired. But not if she invoked her ploy. The tertiary grid was empty, like the others, but unlike the others, it would be filled. A list of options was at the side: specific games they could choose to fill the grid. This was often the most dramatic part of a Game: the maneuvering in the final grid. When players of known skills competed, the actual playoff could be mainly a matter of form; the outcome was known, because of the unequal skills of the contestants. In the two early grids it was too indefinite; it could go either way. But here in the small grid, the one with only nine squares, the real nature and odds of the encounter were de termined.