Piers Anthony - Phaze Doubt

Now the Game Computer spoke through its speakers, its voice sounding artificial to only that degree it chose to indicate its origin. “The king has suffered an indisposition, and it has been determined that an attempt was made to poison him. Fortunately he consumed only a trace of the tainted food before his food-taster succumbed, so ceased immediately, and survived. It was determined that the poison was in the dates, and six residents of the palace had access to those dates in the prior day. These are therefore the six suspects. One of them is the guilty party, and will be proffered to the Minotaur for whatever pleasure the bull-headed brute cares to take before it consumes the person. It should be an excellent show, as the Minotaur has been restless lately, tossing his horns about. That is to say, horny. Three suspects will be with each player, and each player will make the case against one or more of the suspects of the other player. The victor will be the one who succeeds in condemning an opposing suspect. Choose your suspects.”

A curtain lifted on a stage that had not been evident before. On it stood an assortment of humanoid robots garbed in the costumes of the time: men with belts and codpieces, otherwise naked, and women with multitiered skirts and breast-baring boleros. Older men wore robes over their briefs, and older women shawls that were allowed to cover their open bodices. All were barefooted. Behind them, a great fresco showed a young man and a young woman engaged in the dangerous sport of bull-leaping, a prominent activity of the day. At the borders were pictures of ornate double axes, religiously significant.

Citizen Purple looked at the prospects. “Take first choice, sir,” he suggested to the Hectare. “I will settle for first move.”

The Hectare moved to the stage. Its tentacles extended and took hold of a lovely damsel whose skirt layers alternated colors: red, blue, white, and tan. Her black hair was bound with chains and beads, combs, and a band above the forehead. One lock passed before the ear to dangle down the side of her face. The Hectare lifted her high and carried her to the center of the set. “So BEMs do lust after femmes,” Tsetse murmured. “I don’t care to watch this.” She backed away, and in a moment was out the door. No one challenged her; if anyone other than Brown noticed her departure, that person didn’t care.

The girl-figure came alive. “Put me down, you monster!” she exclaimed, kicking her feet. She spoke in contemporary Proton dialect, not the ancient Cretan language; the Game Computer could go only so far.

The Hectare put her down. If it felt any affront, it did not show it. Brown realized that the creature was alien to human culture, and did not understand human ways or reactions, and probably would not have cared had it grasped them.

Purple glanced at Brown. “What for me?”

“Chances should be even if you match with a similar suspect,” Brown said. “That may be safest, until we know the Hectare’s strategy.”

“Umph,” he agreed, gazing intently at the young women. He had always had extreme interest in the female human form, Brown remembered; his activities in that respect were notorious. He might want to choose three young women, even though he knew they were only robots. Robots could perform almost any task as well as living folk, and all he cared about was the form and the obedience.

Purple made his selection: a woman whose skirt bands alternated gold with blue, and whose bare breasts were especially robust; they fairly burst out of her bolero. Her hair was styled like that of the first woman, with her dark front tresses trailing down beside her bosom. She wore three separate necklaces of differing sizes, so that one fit close about the column of her neck, a second hung lower, and the third dangled across the upper curvature of her breasts and down between them. “You, cutie.”

The figure animated, and stepped down from the stage, now exactly resembling a living woman. She came to stand near Purple, expectantly.

The Hectare chose a young man. He looked athletic, perhaps being one of the bull-leapers, but his waist was so slender, and cinched yet more narrowly by the belt, that from behind he could have been mistaken for a woman. He wore a pointed cap, but no beads in his hair, which trailed almost to his waist, with a single strand behind each ear.

“Match him?” Purple inquired. He seemed determined to have Brown’s input at every stage, so that if he lost the game, she could not avoid implication.

But Brown was beginning to work out a possible plot for this play. “No. Choose parents for the girl.”

Purple shrugged, and chose a stout older man that vaguely resembled himself.

The Hectare chose a second young man. Now its cast consisted of three youths, two male and one female.

Purple selected an older woman who. Brown realized with dismay, could be likened to herself, if allowance was made for the different costume and hair style. Her breasts made the mandatory appearance, but were modest, and the shawl was a blessing. She had an apron hanging from her waist that overlaid several of the tiers of the skirt, which reached all the way to the floor.

Now Purple’s complement consisted of the elder couple and the young woman.

“You will have five minutes to consult with your seconds privately and establish your strategies,” the Game Computer said. “Then Citizen Purple will make the first statement: why he believes one of the Hectare’s players is guilty of attempting to poison the king. I will serve as referee, but a selected audience who does not know the identities of the players will make the decision as to the victory.”

They withdrew to separate private chambers to their strategy consultations. Their chamber was in keeping with the set: it resembled the architecture of ancient Crete, with a stone floor and a flower mural on the walls. The Game Computer must have been working on this set for some time, Grafting every aspect of the illusion, and had drawn on it when opportunity offered. The onset of magic in Proton had evidently brought creativity to the computer. But Brown couldn’t help responding to the setting; she found herself longing for that culture, four thousand years before, on the distant planet of Earth. She felt the nostalgia of the loss of those artistic folk, perhaps foreshadowing the loss of her contemporary culture. Had the barbarian Greeks overrun Crete and exploited its resources and made of it a secondary or tertiary power—as the barbarian Hectare were about to do with Phaze? Perhaps, but they had been assisted by a volcano, whose horrendous detonation had smashed apart the lovely palaces and buried them in ash. Phaze lacked that excuse.

“Now what are you thinking of, woman, with your family group?” Purple demanded.

Brown was jolted back to the unpleasant reality: she was helping a man she detested to save his hide. She had to succeed, or she would pay a price that horrified her. “A family group would be unlikely to seek harm to the king,” she said. “These must be nobles of the palace, favored by the king, and their highborn daughter can be a prospective match for one of the king’s sons. They would want the king to prosper, and his son after him.”

Purple nodded. “But the Hectare will make the case that the nobleman wanted to take over the throne himself, bypassing the middleman.”

“Yes, that’s an obvious target. So we must prepare a defense, while working out an offense of more devious nature, that may catch the Hectare by surprise and lead to its disadvantage. Your devious mind should be able to craft such an attack. Let me work out the family defense, while you work out the attack.”

“My devious mind,” he said. “I would take that as a compliment, if I didn’t know you.”