Piers Anthony - Out of Phaze

So much she had done for him, knowing it to be futile as far as any enduring relationship went. Knowing that he would be leaving her, returning to his frame, helping him to do that. Knowing too that even if he remained here in Phaze, his attitude toward her would abruptly change the moment he learned her identity.

Except that he was not precisely what she evidently thought he was. She believed he would reject her for being an animal. How would she react to learning that he was a machine?

“Let me tell you about me,” he said.

“I know about thee,” she said. “Thou’rt the son of the one who was the Blue Adept before Stile, his other self.”

“I am more truly the son of Sheen,” he said.

“Who?”

That was what he had suspected. The story of Blue’s marriage in Proton had not spread about the frame of Phaze. “Sheen is a machine,” he said. “A humanoid robot. Do you know what that means?”

“Why dost thou talk about such confusion, when I have at last revealed myself to thee and await with fear thy reaction?”

“Because I think I have a secret that will affect your attitude as much as your secret affects me.”

“Thou’rt an animal of Proton? I know thou’rt not!”

“I am a machine, the son of a machine. A creature of metal and plastic and other inanimate substances.”

“Thou’rt flesh and blood!” she protested. “I have seen thee bleed!”

“This body is flesh and blood. I am not the one to whom it belongs. In Proton I am a robot.”

“A rovot,” she agreed. “What type of person be that?”

“A creature who resembles a man, but is not alive.”

“A golem!” she exclaimed.

Mach considered, then agreed. “Close enough. A creature who has been made rather than birthed. Who does not have to eat, or breathe, or sleep. Who cannot feel pain. Who can walk indefinitely without tiring. Who can imitate the ways of a man, but is not a man.”

“A golem,” she repeated, staring at him.

“In Proton, in my own body, I am that,” he agreed. “I could cut off my finger, or my arm, or my head, and still function.” He smiled briefly. “Of course I would have some trouble seeing or hearing or speaking without my head. But I wouldn’t die, because I am not alive.”

“A golem,” she said again. “A thing without feeling.”

“Well, I can feel; I have tactile sensors. And I can feel mentally, too, because I am programmed for it. For consciousness. But it’s not the same as living.”

She seemed stunned. She approached him, looking him up and down. Her lower lip trembled. “O, what a fool I be, baring myself to thee, who canst not care.”

Not care?

Mach enfolded her and kissed her. Suddenly all that had been revealed in the past hour ceased to have meaning. He was a machine and she was an animal, and they had known each other only a night and a day, and during most of that they had misunderstood each other . . . and they were close to being in love.

7 - Citizen

The flyer carried them northeast across the wasteland at high velocity: the direction opposite to the one they wanted. The prospect of rendezvous became increasingly remote.

Bane shook his head. “If only we had wrecked the vehicle not!” he muttered.

“My fault,” Agape said. “I asked you to show me—“

He put his fingers against her lips, silencing her. “It was something I wanted to do. Still want to do.” He put his arms around her, and she rested her head against his shoulder. She was out of the suit now, naked in the serf manner.

“Perhaps if we explain to your family, they will help you,” she said. “Are they not good people?”

“Surely they be so,” he said. ‘They must be very similar to mine own parents. Probably I should have done that first.”

“Then you would have been back in your own frame by now, and I would not have met you, Bane.”

“And I would not have met thee,” he agreed, and hugged her closer. She was what she called an amoeba, a completely flexible creature, yet this did not differ much in his view from the way of any of the werefolk. She could be quite at home in Phaze. Of course he would probably not have been attracted to her, had he encountered her in Phaze. Fleta was as pretty in her human form as any true human woman, and as nice a person, but he had never been romantically interested in her. In Phaze, human beings could be friends with animals, and could play some rather intimate games with them, but they did not love them or marry them. His father’s friendship with Neysa, Fleta’s dam, had raised eyebrows in the old days, Bane understood. But Stile had married the Lady Blue, of course, and Neysa had returned to her Herd to be bred by the Herd Stallion. Thus Bane himself had come to be, and Fleta, and their lifelong association and friendship.

He faulted none of this—but he would have perceived Agape as a form of animal, and that would have made a critical difference. She was not, of course; she vas an intelligent and talented creature from another world. Because he had been introduced to her as that, or as a human being at first, his fundamental perception of her had differed. Then, when she had helped him so loyally, when he needed help most—but he couldn’t say all this. Not now, with the serfs of the flying machine listening. He just held her close and wished that she could join him in Phaze. For the truth was that though he had always understood he was to marry a human girl, he had found none he liked well enough for that. The village girls tended to be wary of Adepts, with reason, and avoided him whenever they could do so without giving offense. He had needed a relationship with a girl of some other Adept family—and the only ones of his age were in the families of the Adverse Adepts. Thus certain of the animal folk had been better company for him, though he had known this to be a dead-end association.

In due course the craft landed. They passed from its lock directly into a dome, where serfs guided them to cleaning stalls and then to a residential suite. “Eat, sleep,” the foreman serf said. “Tomorrow Citizen White will have an audience.”

“Citizen White?” Bane asked. “I thought we were being taken to Citizen Blue.”

The serf shrugged. “Perhaps the Citizen will explain. Meanwhile, rest.”

That seemed to be it. Bane understood that in Proton, Citizens governed, and no serf could question the actions or motives of a Citizen. He chafed against the delay in his search for his other self, but knew he could do nothing. They might as well have been prisoners.

But he remained with Agape, and that was a considerable compensation. Now, without further guilt or distraction, he could complete his understanding with her.

They went to the food dispenser in the suite, and Agape got a nutro-bev. Bane found that he wasn’t hungry, not because of any tension or fatigue, but because his robot body did not require food. So he simply watched her eat. That turned out to be a remarkable experience in itself.

Then they adjourned to the bedroom. “I can show thee now,” he said, though somewhat shaken by the recent spectacle of her meal. Still, she had warned him. “There be room enough here.”

“Oh, Bane, I do want to know,” she said. “But I have been up and active for so long—it is past midnight now— I do not think I can hold my form much longer. I fear I would melt in the middle of it.”

That could be awkward, Bane had to agree. “Rest, then; we can do it in the morning.” He was privately relieved. He was, as he had told her, used to observing shape-changing in others, but this had been not exactly that.

“You might not like to see me sleep,” she said. “I return to my natural state.”

“Thy natural state should not bother me,” he said, hoping he spoke accurately. “But what will I do, while thou dost sleep? This body be not tired at all.”