'I like him well for that, but now I know you better, and I like you better. You are more alive.'
'How could an alien creature be a-a girlfriend to me?'
'I was hoping you would be able to show me that.'
He shook his head, still having trouble reconciling her words with her appearance. She was infernally beautiful, and he liked her personality; it really did not seem
alien. 'Methinks I could show a real woman. But an alien might understand not at all.'
She leaned close to him. 'Please, Bane, I want very much to learn! I will do anything you suggest.'
Still that nagging doubt.
'My species is amoebic,' she said. 'Your kind calls our world Moeba. We have had no experience with the pairing of sexes. We pair any with any, as we choose. But we observe that most other species of the galaxy are twin-sexed, and this appears to confer an advantage in evolution, so that they achieved technology and space before we did, and now we are dependent on them for interplanetary trade and travel between the stars. We can learn whatever they teach us, so now we are constructing our own ships of space, but we believe we should also master their secret of evolution. This is one reason I have come to the Planet of Proton. To learn about the sexes. I have assumed the female form because it is relatively passive; I believe I can learn better this way. But learn I must, so I can report to my kind and they can judge whether this is a feasible course.'
'I thought thou didst plan to stay here,' he said, finding himself disappointed.
'I do. I will stay just as long as I can. I will become a Citizen if I can. I will send my reports by spacemail; I will remain here. There is more to learn here than sexual reproduction.'
'Then thou willst be a human being for the rest of thy life, or seem to be.'
'Yes, Bane. Already I feel somewhat human, with you.'
'Willst thou show me, at least a little, thy true form?'
'I do not wish to revolt you, Bane.'
'I will make thee a deal,' he said. 'Show me thy true nature, and I will show thee how to-to be a human woman. Some.'
'Some? Bane, I must learn it all!' 'But these things are not done just as a business,' he protested. 'It-I have never done it all with a human woman, actually. Just games with Fleta and the like.'
'Show me a little, and I will show you a little,' she offered.
He laughed, somewhat uneasily. 'Fair enough, Agape. Here be a little.' He leaned farther toward her, tilted his head, and touched her lips with his own.
Her lips were unresponsive. It was like kissing mush.
He drew back. 'That was it?' she inquired.
'Thou dost have to kiss back!' he exclaimed.
'You mean, to purse my mouth while you purse yours?'
'Aye. Only with some feeling. This be supposed to be an emotional contact, knowest thou not?'
'Ah, now I understand. To feel desire during the act.'
'Thy kind does feel desire?'
'It does. It merely expresses it in another fashion.'
'Shallst try again?' He leaned forward, and touched her lips with his for the second time.
And this time hers were firm and highly responsive. He found it easy to get into the spirit of the kiss. He reached his arms about her, and she emulated his action. He pressed her in close, and she pressed him in close, and it was several times the experience he had anticipated, despite the bulkiness of her suit.
Except for one thing. She was doing what he did-too perfectly. She was like a three-dimensional mirror image. Nothing originated with her; it all was a reflection of him.
He drew back. 'Much improved,' he said. 'But thou must not copy me in every detail. That makest thou seem-like a machine.'
She laughed. 'I understand! One must not be mechanical.'
'Perhaps Mach would have had different advice,' he agreed, smiling.
'I did not know you had changed identities, but I think I will know the difference hereafter. Though your body is a machine, your mind is alive.'
He nodded. 'I wonder how that be possible? I certainly feel not like a machine.'
'I believe our forms determine our natures to a degree,' she said. 'I do not feel like an amoeba, either.' She sighed. 'And now I must make my small showing, and perhaps you will never kiss me again.'
'I'll make the effort,' he promised.
She peeled back her suit, so that she became bare to the waist. 'Watch me.'
'I be watching thee.'
'My hand, not my torso.'
'Oh.' He modified his gaze accordingly.
She held up her left hand. It was a fine, esthetic extremity, with four slender fingers and an opposed thumb, each nail delicately tinted. But slowly it changed. The fingers lost firmness, becoming floppy balloons. They sank back onto the body of the hand, which melted into a glob.
Bane stared. 'Thou hast no bones?'
'No bones anywhere in my body. Only tissue that I make firm, patterned after human bones, to support the structure.'
'When Fleta changes, she does it instantly. One moment she be a pretty girl; the next she be a hummingbird. Of course that's magic.'
'I cannot do that,' Agape admitted. 'It does require a little time for me to change, and I must melt into my natural state before assuming an alternate form. And-I do not know the hummingbird. Is it of similar mass to the human form?'
Bane snorted. 'Hardly! It's a tiny thing, hardly bigger than my thumb. Size matters not, with magic.'
'I find that hard to believe.'
'I think anyone in Proton would find it hard to believe.'
'My mass remains constant. I could assume the form of a bird, but it would be of my present weight, and could not fly.'
'Thy hand-it could become something else?'
For answer, she concentrated. The lump of protoplasm at the end of her arm grew projections, each of which sprouted further projections, until she had about thirty thin fronds there. 'A Formican appendage,' she said. 'I remember that form from the time I visited their planet.'
'So thy magic be limited in speed and size, but unlimited in form,' he concluded. 'I think thy ability be as good as Fleta's.'
'Thank you-I think,' she said. The new appendage dissolved, and the human hand began to reform. 'You are not revolted?'
'Agape, I be used to shape-changing. Once did I envy the werewolves their ability to change from human form to canine form, and have all the powers of the animal. And I liked Fleta in all three of her forms.'
'Then I am relieved. I will change form for you, when you ask me to.' She leaned toward him, and he, understanding her desire, kissed her. This time she was responsive without mirroring him. She was a rapid learner!
The vehicle slowed. They broke. 'We are there,' Agape said, hauling up her suit and restoring her helmet. 'We shall search for your other self now.'
Bane was almost disappointed. He cared less about shapes than about personality, thanks to his experience with the magical creatures of Phaze, and both her human form and her attitude were easy to accept. It was too bad he would lose contact with her when he exchanged places with his other self and returned to Phaze.
They opened the vehicle and stepped out. They found ruins. There had evidently once been a small dome here, with a castle in it of the same type as that of the Blue Demesnes in Phaze, but all was wreckage now. The desert sand was doing its best to bury the remains.
But there was no wreckage in Phaze. Bane walked around the oddly familiar premises, seeking some hint of his other self. If he overlapped the space, or even came close, he would know. It would not work for any other person; he could be walking right through others in Phaze, and never know. But his own self he could not miss.
