Out of Phaze

Foreman returned his attention to Bane. 'The Citizen has been gentle with you because he knows you are not conversant with our culture. The alien speaks truly. Don't push your luck.'

Bane felt little but contempt for the Citizen and his minion. But it did seem best to temporize. 'Maybe-a game,' he said.

'What?'

'Do not folk settle things here by playing games? Let me play a game with the Citizen, and if I win, Agape and I go free immediately, and if he wins I'll show him how I make contact with Phaze.'

The serf seemed to swell up. 'You offer such a deal to the Citizen? No serf has the temerity!'

'I be not a serf,' Bane said. 'I be an apprentice Adept.'

'Here you are a serf-and you are in danger of becoming less even than that. I strongly suggest that you reconsider, before-'

A voice cut in, emerging from a grille on the desk. 'I will make that wager.'

Foreman's face froze. 'Sir.'

'Conduct our guests to the Game Annex.'

'Yes, sir.' The foreman stood with alacrity. 'Follow me.' He walked quickly from the room.

'Citizens like to gamble,' Agape whispered. 'It is notorious throughout the galaxy! But I never imagined-'

'I trust this not,' Bane muttered.

'Trust is not a factor when dealing with a Citizen!' she said. 'They give the orders, the serfs obey them.'

They arrived at a pedestal similar to the one Bane had played on before, with the female robot. 'Wait here,' Foreman said tersely.

In a moment a stout clothed man walked up from the other side. This was obviously the Citizen. His apparel was white, and he wore a ring set with a huge purple amethyst.

'Purple!' Bane exclaimed.

'Say Sir to the Citizen!' Foreman snapped.

But the Citizen hoisted a restraining hand. 'You know me from somewhere, apprentice Adept?'

'Aye,' Bane agreed. 'Thou art the Purple Adept.'

The Citizen smiled. 'So you really are from Phaze! And my other self retains his position there.'

'Aye,' Bane agreed warily. Purple was one of the Adverse Adepts, a dragon lurking. Now Bane was quite sure that this man was not to be trusted. But he did have power, whether as Adept or Citizen, and had to be handled carefully.

'So it seems we have a wager,' the Citizen said, smiling coldly. 'One game to settle the issue. I win, I get your secret; you win, you go free.'

'Aye,' Bane agreed, not quite sure of himself. He might have contempt for the idiosyncrasies of the society of Proton, but the power of Adepts he understood and feared. He had in effect challenged a dragon barehanded, and he was apt to rue it.

'Then play, apprentice,' the Citizen said, touching his side of the pedestal.

Bane looked at the grid. The numbers, letters and words were there by the squares.

'But this is wrong!' Agape said. 'Both are lighted!'

So they were. Which was he to choose from?

'This is not your ordinary entertainment-type game,' the Citizen said. 'In this one, you choose all your parameters, and I choose mine.'

Agape fidgeted beside him. Bane knew she was bothered by this, but he was prepared to play one version of the Game or another. He touched PHYSICAL and NAKED, 1A. He felt most comfortable with that.

'But the Citizen isn't limited to that!' Agape reminded him.

He hadn't thought of that. In immediate retrospect it was obvious. He had blundered, but it was too late to take it back. The second grid was already on the screen.

'You choose,' he told her, knowing that her limited experience was more comprehensive than his own.

'I will go with you,' she said, touching 8. COOPERATIVE. 'And maybe slopes are best.' She touched F, which covered FIRE or VARIABLE SURFACE.

'And I have chosen 2C6H,' the Citizen said. 'Machine-assisted intellectual interactive general-format.'

Bane was baffled by the description. 'What meaneth that?'

The Citizen gestured toward the door beside the pedestal. 'Enter the Game and find out, apprentice. You and your alien friend are a naked team. If you suffer a Game-death, you lose.'

Bane shrugged. He went to the door, and Agape followed him. It was an opaque panel that fogged at his touch. They stepped through.

They were in mountains. Ahead was a thickly wooded slope. The peak of the mountain had a purple hue.

'The Purple Mountain range!' Bane exclaimed. His confidence increased. He knew this range; he had crossed it several times, by magic and by foot, sometimes with Fleta. This was of course a mere mockup, like the Vampire Demesnes of Citizen White; even so, he was much more at home here than in ordinary Proton.

'Challenges to be mounted singly,' the voice of the Game Machine announced. 'Time limit: seven days.'

'So we have seven days to avoid the Game-death,' Bane said. 'But how will the Citizen try to kill us? What be a machine-assisted intellectual format?'

'I do not know,' Agape said. 'I thought it was a computer, but I don't see how that can hurt us.'

'I think, as he said, we shall find out.'

'This is made to resemble Phaze? Could the hazards be natural ones of that frame?'

'If they are, I'll know how to handle them. But there be no computers in Phaze.'

'Sometimes computers run things.'

'Like what?'

'Well, like robots, or-'

'Robots!' he exclaimed. 'Like this body?'

She nodded. 'Oh, Bane, I fear this will be bad.'

'But singly,' he reminded her. 'Since there be two of us, mayhap we can handle them. One can sleep, the other watch.'

'And it's not real death,' she said, taking heart. 'We won't really be hurt. But if we lose-'

'Then I will show the Citizen what he wishes,' Bane said grimly. 'I like that not, for I trust him not, but I gave my word.'

She glanced at him sidelong. 'Your word is important to you.'

'It be a matter of honor. My father has honor, and I be his son.'

She nodded. 'It's a good way to be.'

'It be the only way to be. A man without honor be not a man.'

'And what of those who are not men to begin with?'

Now he looked at her. 'Elves have honor too, and unicorns and werewolves.'

'Women - or creatures from other worlds?'

He laughed. 'If thou dost have it not, tell me now, ere I trust thee to guard me in my sleep!'

'I may define it somewhat differently in detail, but I think the essence is the same.'

They moved on through the forest, warily. 'This be not Phaze, so I have no magic here,' Bane said. 'That makes me feel naked.'

'You could fashion some clothing.'

He laughed again. 'Mayhap thou dost resemble Fleta some! E'er doth she tease. Her dam be always serious, and doth stay mostly in equine form, but Fleta-' He shrugged.

'Then perhaps a weapon. 'Naked' in the Game parlance means that you are provided with no tool, but you can make what you want from the surroundings. We don't know what kind of a robot will be attacking us, but it may not be wise to meet it barehanded.'

'True.' Bane looked about. 'I would cut a staff, but have no knife.'

'I can form a sharp edge,' she offered.