Piers Anthony - Out of Phaze

There was a rumble. The ground shook, and dust swirled out from the mouth of the cave.

She had done it. But at what cost?

Bane went to the cave, but it was so full of dust that he could not see anything. He just had to hope that the plane had been trapped, and that Agape survived, and was making her way out. There was nothing he could do but wait.

He returned to the minor fort where they had spent the night. He recovered his staff and sword and bow. The game was not over until either he was “dead” or time ran out.

A huge shape loomed in the sky. Bane peered up at it from cover. It was a dragon! It was circling the peak of the mountain, looking down.

Bane considered. That had to be a robot, because there were no magical creatures in Proton. That meant it was the Citizen in another guise. That in turn meant that the airplane had been destroyed rather than trapped, so their plan had failed in that respect. Now the Citizen was free and Agape was not: the opposite of what they had tried for.

But why was the dragon circling the mountain, instead of searching for Bane himself? That didn’t seem to make sense.

Then he reasoned it out. The Citizen was still orienting on the finger! It had been dark in the cave, and when the roof collapsed the finger had not been touched, being deeper in. It would not have been obvious that the finger was unattached; after all, it had been moving purposefully until that point.

The Citizen thought Bane was trapped inside the cave! The dragon was trying to figure out how to reach him in that impenetrable fastness. Or perhaps making sure he didn’t escape, so that he would starve in there. Death by starvation was still death; that would represent victory for the Citizen.

But what of Agape? Had she survived, or was she truly dead? The Citizen might not care, but Bane did! He had to assume that she was all right, and was making her way slowly up through the channel used by the stream. That could be quite tortuous; he should be patient.

Patient? He should be half mad with anxiety! These robot feelings lacked the punch of the natural ones, because he could control them; if he decided not to care about the fate of his companion, then he didn’t care. That might be convenient for a machine, but he preferred the natural way, inconvenience and all. In his own body, he’d be—

He analyzed it, as he could do with this body. He concluded that his first thought was correct: he would be quite smitten with Agape. Oh, it was true that she was an alien creature who dissolved into a puddle of jelly when she slept. It was true that she hardly knew

the meaning of human sexual involvement. In fact, she hardly understood the distinction between male and female. But she was working hard to learn, and was succeeding well. When she assumed her human female form, she was lovely indeed. More important, her loyalty and effort and personality were all nice. A human woman like her would be an admirable companion—and Agape could be exactly like a human woman.

Bane had had his eye on the females of Phaze throughout. He knew that in due course he would have to marry and settle into the business of being the Blue Adept. Whenever he had encountered a female, he had judged her as a prospective companion or wife. Many were excellent companions; none had seemed suitable to marry. Some very fetching ones were nonhuman, like Fleta or Suchevane, the mind-maddening vampire. But only the fully human ones were suitable for marriage— and they had other counts against them. Some were not really attractive, physically; he knew that was narrow of him, but he did not want an ordinary woman. Some were beauties—but were the offspring of Adverse Adepts. Sheer mischief, there! Probably their appearance was substantially enhanced by magic, and the reality would be a disappointment. So he had not found any woman to love, in Phaze. Only playthings. He had been over this before, in his own mind, seeking some solution, and had come to none.

Here in Proton there were the frivolous types too, such as Doris the cyborg, that one who had dumped Mach. But here too was Agape, and there was nothing frivolous about her. She concealed none of her nature from him, and supported him in whatever way she could, asking in return only a type of instruction that it would be laughable for him to charge anything for. Now she had willingly, almost eagerly risked her life, her real life, to save him from a pseudo-death in the Game. So that he would not have to tell the Citizen how to contact his other self in Phaze. She could hardly understand his rationale for wishing to keep the matter private; he hardly understood it himself. He just didn’t like being forced into doing something, and he regarded the Citizen as a member of a class of opponents who should not be accommodated in anything important. None of this was any concern to an alien creature. So her support was mostly altruism—and her kind of honor.

Honor. She had it, obviously. There, emerging at last from the complexities of their relationship, was the essence. She was a creature who was capable of understanding and practicing an honorable existence. That was the kind of female he wanted for a long-term companion.

But she was of the frame of Proton, and he was of Phaze. He could not become the Blue Adept and have her with him. So the relationship could not be permanent. The best he could do was give her her instruction in the human mechanism of sexual expression, and leave her.

It made sense; his robot brain saw it clearly. But his human consciousness damned it. This was not the relationship he wanted with her.

But his robot logic would not stop. Agape was a creature from the planet of Moeba, and was here on a mission. She saw him as a feasible way to implement that mission; she had always been open about that. Once that was done, her use for him should abate. She had never spoken to him of love or permanence; she had always tried to help him to return to his own frame. So he was probably fooling himself if he thought she had any genuine feeling for him; it was possible that her species did; not possess such feelings. He had been humanizing her; in his perception of emotion, just as he had been with her body. She looked human, but was not; she acted human, but was not. Therefore it was foolish of him even to consider any permanent relation with her, regardless of its feasibility.

Well, if she had survived the cave, and returned to him intact, he would forthwith honor his bargain and show her everything he knew about human sexuality. Then she would be free to go her way, and he free to return to Phaze. That was the proper course. Not the ideal course, just the proper one.

The day crawled past, while the dragon circled, then flew away for several hours, then returned to circle again. The Citizen had taken a lunch break, but was still watching. Bane ate also, and snoozed in his robot fashion, ready to spring alert if the dragon came his way.

Dusk came, and darkness, and Agape had not shown up. Bane kept reminding himself that the river channel could be long and difficult, and her progress in the amoebic form could be very slow; he had no reason to assume she was dead. Yet he had little reason to assume otherwise, either.

Then, near the middle of the night, there was a nearby stir. He snapped alert, grasping the sword.

“Bane?” It was her voice!

“Agape!” he cried. “Are you all right?”

“I had to wait till the dragon went. Then I threw the finger into the river outside.”

“But that’s nowhere close!”

“I assumed the form of the deer, for better speed. But for you, here—“

He dropped the sword, strode to her and enfolded her in his arms. He kissed her, and kissed her again, and whirled her around. They fell laughing on the ground and rolled about, heedless of the dirt and leaves. They made love, joyously, explosively. Then they talked, catching up on events and recent fears and the details of their survival.