Blue Adept

CHAPTER 5 - Riddles

Sheen was pleased. “You’re here for a full week this time?”

“Until the Unolympic,” Stile agreed. “Neysa and the Lady Blue are relaxing after the excursion among the Little People, and I have considerable business here in Proton-frame, as long as my enemy doesn’t strike.” He shrugged. “Of course I’ll be staying longer in Phaze-frame one of these times, to run down my enemy there and look for the Foreordained. If I wash out of the Tourney I’ll spend the rest of my life there.”

“What was it like, being among the Little People?” Sheen asked. They were in their apartment, engaging in their usual occupation. Sheen was an extremely amorous female, and Stile’s frequent absences and uncertainty of future increased her ardor. And, since he had a balked romantic situation in Phaze—

“Strange,” he answered. “I felt like a giant, and I wasn’t used to it. This must be the way Hulk feels. I really am more satisfied with my size than I used to be.” He changed the subject. “Where is Hulk? Did you help him?”

“I believe so. I put him in touch with my friends. I assumed you would not have sent him if he could not be trusted.”

“He can be trusted.”

“I’m sure my friends required him to take the same oath you took, if they revealed themselves to him at all. They may simply have issued him an address. I did not inquire after him, because that would only expose him and them to possible Citizen attention, and we don’t want that.”

“True,” Stile agreed. “If the Citizens knew that some robots are self-willed—“

“You have something against self-willed robots?” she asked archly.

“You know, at times I almost forget that you yourself are a robot. I don’t see how you could be much better in the flesh.”

“All the same, I wish I were in the flesh,” she said sadly. “You can never truly love me. Even if you were to win the Tourney and become a Citizen and stay here the rest of your life, even if you didn’t have the Lady Blue in the other frame, you would never really be mine.”

Stile did not like this line of conjecture. “There is very little chance of my winning the Tourney. I barely survived my first Game.”

“I know. I watched. You were lucky.”

“Luck is a fickle mistress.”

She turned on him abruptly. “Promise me that if you ever give this mistress up permanently, you’ll have me junked, put out of consciousness. I don’t mean just reprogramming or deactivating me; destroy my computer brain. You know how to do it. Don’t let me suffer alone.”

“Sheen,” he protested. “I would never junk you!”

“I like Neysa, and I’m resigned to the Lady Blue. I know you’re sliding into love with her, and in time she’ll love you, and there’s your true romance. But this is a different frame; she and I can never meet. Nothing you do there needs to affect what you do here—“

“I am of both frames now,” Stile said. “What affects me in one, affects me in the other. You know that if the Lady ever gives her love to me, I—we’ll still be friends, you and I, but—“ He halted, hating this, but not constituted to conceal the truth.

“But not lovers,” she finished. “Even that I can accept. Neysa accepted it. But if you ever find you can dispense with that remaining friendship—“

“Never!”

“Then you will junk me cleanly. Promise.”

Stile suffered a vision of himself hacking apart the living Worm. That had been unclean dispatching. How much better it would have been if he could have banished that Worm to nonexistence with a single, painless spell. Sheen deserved at least that much. “I promise,” he said. “But that time will never—“

“Now it’s time to get you back to the Tourney,” she said briskly.

Stile had been near the head of the line for matching-up before; this time he was near the end. That meant he could play this time, and have another Game soon. The later Rounds would suffer less delay, as the number of remaining contestants declined. The double-elimination system did not eliminate half the contestants each Round, but by Round Four it would approximate fifty percent attrition, and by Round Eight it would be down to about sixty-four survivors, and the prizes would begin. That was his mini-mum objective, to reach Round Eight. Because that meant he would get another chance, even if he washed out of the Tourney thereafter. In that sense these first few Games were the most critical. Since they were also likely to be against the least competent players—with certain notable exceptions!—this was the time to avoid making any foolish errors. There was absolutely no sense in throwing away a Game that could be easily won by being careful. His second Game was against an older woman, a serf. She was unlikely to be any match for him. She would probably go for CHANCE; it was the obvious ploy against a superior player.

The grid gave her the opportunity; she had the numbered facet. Well, there were ways to reduce the pseudo-equality of chance, and Stile played for them. He selected TOOL.

Sure enough, it came up 3B, TOOL-assisted CHANCE. The subgrid appeared. Stile played to avoid the pure-chance complexes like Dice or Roulette, in favor of the semi-chance ones like Cards. It came up Dominoes. All right. Stile managed to steer it into the 91 piece, 12 spot domino variation, while the woman put it into the conventional “Draw” game. Stile, familiar with all variants, had wanted one unfamiliar to his opponent to confuse her; he was halfway there.

They adjourned to a Gamesroom and played. They laid all the dominoes facedown, shuffled, and each drew one from the boneyard. Stile drew the 6:7; the woman the 4:5. He had first turn. Good; that was an advantage. Each drew seven dominoes and Stile was pleased to note that his hand had a run of Fours: the 4:0, 4:2, 4:8 and 4:11. He played the 4:8. As he had hoped, his opponent was unable to play, being short of Fours; she had to draw three times before she could make a match. Stile played one of his other Fours.

So it went. Confused by the vastly extended range of the dominoes, and lacking the wit to eliminate the highest ones from her hand, the woman lost and delivered a goodly score to him. They played another hand, and a third, and he passed 200 points and won. She had never scored at all. Stile had made it to Round Three without even a scare.

The woman just sat there, after the Game, her face set. Stile realized, belatedly, that she must have lost her first match; with this second loss she would be out of the Tourney, doomed to immediate and permanent exile. Some serfs suicided rather than leave Proton. They were the lowest class of people, here, destined only to serve the arrogant Citizens, yet it was all they craved in life. Stile understood this attitude, for he had until recently shared it. Only the opening of the miraculous horizons of Phaze had given him a better alternative.

He was sorry for the woman. Yet what could he do? She had no chance to win the Tourney anyway. It was best that she be put out of her misery promptly.

Like Sheen? No, of course not like that! Yet the thought lingered, a shadow that could not quite be erased. He left the woman there. He did not feel good. As Stile and Sheen reentered the apartment, the communication screen lighted. “Report to your Employer for an update,” a serf-functionary said crisply, showing the identification of the Lady Citizen for whom Stile worked. “At this time, in this place.” And a card emerged from the letter-slot.

Sheen took the card. “Oh, no!” she complained. “We have only half an hour to get there, and it’s at an isolated dome. I had hoped to have time to—“

“For a machine, you’re certainly hung up on one thing,” Stile teased her.

“I’m programmed to be!” she snapped.

She had been fashioned to appeal to his tastes, and evidently his tastes ran to beauty, intelligence and desire for his attention. Stile realized again, not comfortably, that he was in this respect a typical man. His human interests seemed unconscionably narrow when reflected so obviously. Yet Sheen was, in all respects but one, his ideal mate. That one canceled out the rest: she was not alive. She was a construct of metal and pseudoflesh and artificial intellect.

Yet he knew now that even had Sheen been a real person—a real live person—she would not have been able to retain his full devotion after he encountered the Lady Blue. Because what had been his ideal woman two months ago was that no longer. The Lady Blue had a detailed and fascinating past as well as a future; she was changing with the passage of time, as Sheen could not, and so was matching Stile’s own development. The Lady Blue had reshaped his ideal, conforming it to her likeness in flesh and personality and history. He was becoming acclimatized to the world of Phaze, and was losing identification with the world of Proton.

It was not merely a matter of women; he would have loved Phaze regardless. Magic had become a more intriguing challenge than the Game. But he had a commitment here in Proton, and he would see it through. And he had a gnawing need to ferret out his anonymous enemy and bring that person to an accounting. Who had lasered his knees? Who had sent Sheen to guard him? He could never rest content in Phaze until he knew the answers. But Sheen was already bustling him out. “We can’t keep a Citizen waiting; we have to get to that address in time.” “I suppose so,” Stile agreed, resenting the waste of time. In one sense, a serf’s employment by a Citizen ended when that serf entered the Tourney, since all tenure was terminated by such entry. But in another sense employment continued, for Citizens identified with those of their serfs who entered, making bets on their success. Many Citizens gave serfs time off to practice for the Tourney, so as to do better; Stile’s own Employer had done that. And if he won an extension of tenure, he would still need an Employer for that period. So whatever the technical status, he had better act in a manner conducive to the Citizen’s good will.

“I didn’t know she had a dome at this address,” Sheen remarked as they hurried to a subtube station. As a machine, she had little genuine curiosity, but with her programming and under Stile’s tutelage she had mastered this most feminine quality. Hardly ever did she make errors of characterization, now. “But of course all Citizens are obscenely rich. She must be watching the Tourney from a private retreat.”

They boarded the tube shuttle. A third passenger joined them—a middle-aged serf woman, well-formed. She was naked, like all serfs, and carrying a sealed freezer-container. “My Employer insists the ice cream from one particular public foodmart tastes better than the ice cream from anywhere else,” she confided, tapping the container. “So every day I have to make the trip and bring it back by hand. She thinks robot delivery distorts the flavor.”

“It probably does,” Sheen said, smiling obscurely.

“Citizens are like that,” Stile said, falling into the ready camaraderie of serfs. “I’m entered in the Tourney, but my Employer requires a personal report instead of the official one, so I’m making a trip every bit as foolish.” He had no worry about visual and auditory perception devices that might report this conversation to the Citizens; of course they existed, but Citizens had no interest in the opinions of serfs, and expected them to grumble privately.

“That’s funny,” the woman said. “There are only three Citizens at this terminus. Mine has no interest in the Tourney, and another’s off-planet on business, and the third—“ She broke off.

Sheen became alert. “What about the third?”

“Well, he hates the Tourney. Says it’s a waste of time and only generates new Citizens when the planet has too many already. You couldn’t be seeing him.”

“My Employer is a woman,” Stile said.

“Mine is the only woman on this annex—and she surely is not sponsoring you.”

Stile showed her the address-card.

“That’s the Tourney-hater!” the woman exclaimed. “He’s no woman!” She made a small, significant gesture near her midsection. “I know.”

Stile exchanged a glance with Sheen. The woman had signified that the Citizen borrowed her for sexual purpose, as was his right so long as her own Employer acquiesced. Citizens of either sex could use serfs of either sex this way, and surely a woman knew the sex of her user.

“My Employer is female,” Stile said, suffering a new qualm. Could she have summoned him in the flesh because she wanted to dally with a serf? He would not be able to refuse her, but this was a complication he did not want. “Are you sure that address hasn’t changed ownership recently?”

“Quite sure. I was there only two days ago.” Again the gesture. “Heaven and Hell.”

“Maybe my Employer is visiting him,” Stile said. “That must be it,” the woman agreed. “He has quite a taste for women, and does prefer Citizens when he can get them. Is she pretty?”

“Handsome,” Stile said. “As you are.”

She nodded knowingly. “But you,” she said to Sheen. “You had best keep that luscious body out of his sight, or you could mess it up for your mistress.” Stile smiled. Naturally the serf assumed Sheen was also an employee. Sheen could mess it up for any rival woman, and not just because of her beauty.

The shuttle slowed. “This is my station,” the woman said. “Yours is next. Good luck!”

When they were alone. Stile turned to Sheen. “I don’t like this. We can’t skip out on a command appearance, but something seems wrong. Could the message be faked?”

“It’s genuine,” Sheen said. She was a machine; she could tell. “But I agree. Something is funny. I’m summoning help.”

“I don’t think you should involve your friends in this. They don’t want to call the attention of a Citizen to them-selves.”

“Only to trace the origin of that message,” she said. “And to rouse your robot double. I think we can stall a few minutes while he travels by fast freight.” The shuttle stopped. They got out and moved to a local food dispenser, using up the necessary time. Sheen ate a piece of reconstituted carrot. She was a machine but could process food through her system, though it never was digested. Stile contented himself with a cup of nutro-cocoa. In a surprisingly short time a freight hatch opened and the Stile-robot emerged, carrying a shipment tag. “Start breathing,” Sheen told it, and the model animated. “Take this card, report to this address. Broadcast continuously to me.”

Without a word the robot took the card, glanced at it, and walked down the passage. The thing looked so small! Stile was embarrassed to think that this was the way he appeared to others: a child-man, thirty-five years old but the size of a twelve-year-old boy.

“Move,” Sheen murmured, guiding him through a service aperture. “If there is trouble, we need to vanish.” She located a storage chamber, and they settled down to wait. “Now,” she said, putting her arms about him and kissing him. She was fully as soft and sensual as any live woman. But she froze in midkiss. “Oops.”

“What—my lips lose their living flavor?”

“I’m getting the report from the robot.” Sheen used the term without self-consciousness. She was to an ordinary robot as a holograph was to a child’s crayon-picture. “It is a mistake. The male Citizen has no visitor, and he sent no message. Oooh!” She shook her head. “That hurt.” How could she feel pain?

“An unkind word?”

“Destruction. He had the robot shoved in a meltbeam disposer. The robot’s gone.”

Just like that! Stile’s own likeness, presenting himself in lieu of Stile, melted into waste material! Of course it was foolish to get sentimental about machines, Sheen excepted, but Stile had interacted briefly with the robot and felt a certain identification. “Did he know it was a robot?”

“I don’t think so. But he knows now. People don’t melt the same way. They scorch and stink.” She cocked her head, listening. “Yes, we have to decamp. The Citizen is casting about for other intruders.”

Stile remembered his encounter with the Black Adept, in Phaze: absolute resistance to intrusions. Enforcement by tacit murder—it seemed that type of personality was not unique to Adepts.

Sheen was drawing him on. Suddenly they were up and out, on the bleak surface of Proton adjacent to the Citizen’s pleasure dome. She opened her front and removed a nose-mask. “Put this on; it is supplied with oxygen. It will tide you through for a while.”

Stile obliged. When he found himself gasping, he breathed a sniff through his nose and was recharged. The external landscape was awful. The ground was bare sand; no vegetation. A bare mountain range showed to the near south, rising into the yellowish haze of pollution. Stile made a quick mental geographical calculation and concluded that these were the Purple Mountains of Phaze. They were actually not too far from the region of the Mound Folk. Except that no such Little People existed in this frame. Or did they? Most people had parallels; how could there be entire tribes in one frame, and none in the other? “Sheen, do you know of any people living in those mountains?”

“The Protonite mines are there,” she reminded him. “The serfs that work there get stunted—“ She broke off, glancing around. Something stirred. “Oh, no! He’s got perimeter mechanicals out. We’ll never get through that.” Stile stood and watched, appalled. From trenches in the ground small tanks charged, cannon mounted on their turrets. They formed a circle around the domed estate, moving rapidly, their radar antennae questing for targets. Sheen hauled him through the forcefield into the dome. The field was like the curtain: merely a tingle, but it separated one type of world from another. As they crossed it, the rich air enclosed them, and a penetration alarm sounded. They were certainly in trouble!

“Can your friends defuse the robot tanks?” Stile asked as they ran through outer storage chambers.

“No. The tanks are on an autonomous system. Only the Citizen can override their action. We’re better off in here.” There was the sound of androids converging. “Not much better,” Stile muttered. But she was off again, and he had to follow.

They ducked in and out of service passages. Sheen had unerring awareness of these, being able to tune in on the directive signals for maintenance robots. But the pursuit was close; they could not halt to camouflage themselves or ponder defensive measures.

Suddenly they burst into the main residential quarters.

And paused, amazed.

It was Heaven. Literal, picturebook Heaven. The floor was made of soft white sponge contoured to resemble clouds; smaller clouds floated above, and on them winged babies perched, playing little harps. The front gate was nacreous: surely genuine pearl. Lovely music played softly in the background: angelic hymns.

An angel spied them and strode forward, his great wings fluttering. He wore a flowing robe on which a golden letter G was embroidered. “Ah, new guests of the Lord. Have you renounced all worldly sins and lusts?” Neither Stile nor Sheen could think of a suitable spot rejoinder. They stood there—while the pursuing androids hove into sight.

“Here now! What’s this?” the angel cried. “You soulless freaks can’t come in here!”

The androids backed away, disgruntled. They reminded Stile of the animals of his football game when a penalty was called.

Now there was a voice from another cloudbank. “What is the disturbance, Gabriel?” a woman called. “We have visitors,” the Angel Gabriel called back. “But I am uncertain—“ The lady appeared. She wore a filmy gown that clung to her lushly convex contours. Stile found the effect indescribably erotic. He was accustomed to nakedness, or to complete clothing, but the halfway states—surely this Heaven was far from sexless!

The woman frowned. “These are serfs! They don’t belong here!”

Stile and Sheen bolted. They plunged across the cloud-bank toward the most obvious exit: a golden-paved pathway. It spiraled down through a cloudwall, becoming a stone stairway. Letters were carved in the stones, and as he hurried over them Stile was able to read their patterns:

GOOD INTENTIONS. At the bottom the stair terminated in a massive opaque double door. Sheen shoved it open, and they stepped through.

Again they both stood amazed. This nether chamber was a complete contrast to the region above. It was hot, with open fires burning in many pits. Horrendous murals depicted grotesque scenes of lust and torture. Metal stakes anchored chains with manacles at the extremities. “This is Hell,” Stile said. “Heaven above. Hell below. It figures.”

“The serf on the shuttle mentioned Heaven and Hell,” Sheen reminded him. “She meant it literally.” A red-suited, homed, barb-tailed little devil appeared. He brandished his pitchfork menacingly. “Fresh meat!” he cried exultantly. “Oh, have we got fires for you! Move it, you damned lost souls!”

Behind them, feet sounded on the stairs. The androids had resumed the chase. It seemed the soulless ones were not barred from Hell.

Stile and Sheen took off again. Sheen charged the little devil, disarming him in passing. They ran across the floor of Hell, dodging around smoking pits.

“What’s this?” a fat full-sized devil cried. “You serfs don’t belong here!” It seemed Hell was after all as restrictive as Heaven. The devil squinted at Stile. “I just had you melted!”

“That’s how I came here,” Stile said, unable to resist the flash of wit.

“The Citizen!” Sheen said. “He’s Satan!”

“Apt characterization,” Stile agreed.

“I’ll have you torn to ragged pieces!” the Citizen roared, becoming truly Satanic in his ire.

“You would do better to tear up whoever faked the message that brought us to this address,” Stile said. “Sir,”

The Citizen paused. “There is that.” He glanced at the ceiling. “Detail on that summons.”

A screen appeared. “The summons was from a female Citizen, the man’s Employer. The address was incorrect.”

“Get me that Citizen!” Almost, it seemed that smoke issued from Satan’s nostrils.

There was a pause. Then Stile’s Employer appeared in the screen, frowning. “You sent for this serf?” the Satanic male Citizen demanded, indicating Stile. The female Citizen’s eyes took in Satan and Hell.

“Do I know you?” she inquired coldly.

“You’re a woman, aren’t you? You bet you know me!” She elected to change the subject.

“I summoned this serf to my own address. What is he doing here?” “This was the address he was given, idiot!”

“It certainly was not!” she retorted. Then she perused the message. “Why—the address has been changed. Who is responsible for this?”

“Changed ...” Sheen murmured, the circuits connecting almost visibly in her computer-head. “Authentic summons, but one address-chip substituted for another. The handiwork of your assassin.”

The female Citizen bore on Sheen. “Serf, you know who is responsible?”

“Sir, I know someone is trying to kill Stile,” Sheen said. “I don’t know who or why.”

The lady Citizen frowned again. “I have entered this serf in the Tourney,” she said to Satan. “He has won two Rounds. I dislike such interference.”

“I dislike such intrusion on my premises,” the male Citizen said.

“Of course. I’m sure I would not care to intrude on such premises. I shall initiate an investigation, as should you. But considering that the serfs are in fact blameless, will you not release them unharmed?”

“They have intruded!” the Satan-Citizen said. “The penalty is death!”

“I’ve already suffered it,” Stile muttered.

“Not for my serfs,” the female Citizen retorted, showing more spirit. “If I lose this chance to score in the Tourney, I shall be most upset.”

“I am already upset, and I care not a fig for the Tourney. The intruders must die, and good riddance.”

The female Citizen frowned once more. “It is unseemly for Citizens to bicker in the presence of serfs. Otherwise I could mention a drone missile currently oriented on your dome, capable of disrupting your power supply and irradiating your personnel: a certain inconvenience, I might suppose. I mean to have that serf.”

This gave the devil pause to consider. “I agree. Citizens do not debate before serfs. Otherwise I could mention a couple things myself, such as an antimissile laser oriented on—“

“Perhaps a fair compromise,” she said. “Give the serfs a fair start, and we shall wager on the outcome.” The devil brightened. “Their lives—plus one kilogram of Protonite.”

Stile almost gasped. A single gram of Protonite was worth the twenty-year tenure severance pay of a serf, a fee that would set him up comfortably for life elsewhere in the galaxy. These Citizens threw wealth around like sand.

“Only one kilo?” the female Citizen inquired. Stile could not tell whether that was irony or disdain. “Plus you,” Satan amended. “For a week.”

“Outrageous!”

He sighed. “A day, then.”

“Agreed.” She faced Stile. “You will have two minutes to make your escape unfettered. Thereafter the full resources of this dome will be brought to bear against you. I suggest you make good use of the time. I do not wish to have to spend a day with this ilk.”

“Now!” Satan cried.

“Follow me,” Sheen said, and took off. Stile followed her without question; she was programmed for exactly this sort of thing. He remained bemused by the negotiation and terms agreed upon by the Citizens. His Employer wasn’t concerned about the kilo of Protonite, but about a day with Satan—yet she had made the wager. What did that tell about the values of Citizens? He really wasn’t sure. His Employer might be upset with him if she lost the wager—but he would already be dead. Perhaps this only indicated the relative values of things: the life of a favored serf, one kilo of Protonite, one day with a boor. Three things of equivalent merit.

Sheen had evidently surveyed this layout and resources of this dome, using her machine capabilities. She knew where everything was. Stile realized that his life was on the line, but he expected to retain it—because the Satan-Citi-zen evidently was not aware that Sheen was a robot. Their resources were greater, in the purely limited scope of pursuit, than the Citizen knew. Stile’s Employer knew, of course, and had played her game adroitly. She expected to win her wager.

Sheen paused at a panel, opened it, and did something to its innards. “That will give us an extra minute,” she said. “I put in a sixty-second implement-delay signal. By the time they notice it, it will have expired—and we have a minute more time.” Then she took off again.

They came to a tank-reserve unit. Sheen opened the hatch to one of the tiny vehicles. “Get in.” “But there’s only room for one person!” “I don’t need to breathe,” she reminded him. “I will ride outside.” When Stile looked doubtful, she said: “We’re already into our extra minute. Get in! You know how to operate this device?”

“Yes.” Stile had played Games with similar equipment; he could handle a tank adroitly. This one was armed with small explosive shells, however, instead of the colored-light imitation-laser of a Game tank. This was a real war machine, and that made him nervous.

“I can’t help you once we get outside,” Sheen said quickly. “Try to mimic the other tanks, so they don’t know you’re a fugitive. Then break for the mountains or another dome. They won’t pursue beyond this Citizen’s demesnes.” Demesnes. Like those of the Adepts of Phaze. “Hang on,” Stile said. He closed the hatch, fastened it down, and started the tank.

The motor roared into life. He ground down the exit tunnel, then up to ground level. Immediately he saw the ring of other tanks. He angled across to merge with their line. Protective mimicry—an excellent device! But they were on to him. Maybe it was Sheen, clinging to the top, or maybe the Citizen’s robot-personnel had noted the identity of his machine. The nearest tank oriented on him, its cannon swinging balefully about.

Very well. Stile was good at such maneuvers, though his life had not before hung so literally on his ability. He skewed to the side, and the enemy’s first shot missed. Be-yond him there was a detonation, and a black cloud expanded and drifted in the slight breeze. Stile spun his tank about and fired at the one who had attacked him. Stile’s aim was good; there was a burst of flame, and a cloud of smoke enveloped the other machine. He was a dead shot with most projectile weapons, though he had never expected that Game-talent to pay off so handsomely in real life.

Before that cloud had cleared, Stile whirled on the next, and scored on it too. However, the other tanks were converging on his own. There were too many of them, and Stile was conscious of Sheen on his top. Even a glancing hit, or piece of shrapnel could wipe her out! There was really no chance to escape this region unscathed. Stile turned directly toward the Citizen’s dome. This put him between it and the pursuing tanks; they could not fire at him because any missed shot would strike the dome. Machines were generally stupid, but this would be programmed into them.

The problem was that he remained confined. He could not break out of the ring of tanks without becoming a target. Before long the speck of Protonite that powered this vehicle would be exhausted; a heavy machine consumed a lot of energy. Then he would be stuck, vulnerable to what-ever Satan had in mind for him. It would surely be hellish. Well, do the unexpected. It was all that remained. Stile roared straight through the force-field and into the dome itself. Let the Citizen deal with this\ In moments he plowed through the partitions of the outer chambers, scattering stage props and supplies, and emerged upstairs in Heaven.

Angels scattered, screaming with uneternal terror, as the tank burst through a cloud bank, shedding puffs of clouds and crunching the foam-floor beneath. Stile slowed, not wanting to hurt anyone; after all, the angels were only costumed serfs. Also, if anyone died, his tenure on Proton would be abruptly terminated, and if the police arrested him before he reached the sanctity of the Tourney premises, he would not be allowed to reach it. No one could be arrested in the Game Annex itself. But how would he return to Phaze? As far as he knew, no fold of the curtain passed the Annex. So he was careful—and conscious of the anomaly of a tank touring Heaven, carrying a lady robot. He wanted to stop to check on Sheen, but knew he could not afford the delay; he had to figure out a course of action before the Citizen’s forces reorganized. Could he charge on down to the subway shuttle? The passages were fairly broad, and the tank should fit. But what would he do when he got there? This machine would not fit aboard a shuttle, and would have trouble running along the confined channel the shuttles used. But if he left this machine, he would be lasered down. Yet where else would he go? All his alternatives seemed futile. Then he suffered inspiration. The curtain—of course! He had surveyed it near here, from the other side. If he could locate it and reach it—

It was a gamble at best. The curtain might not be close enough, and if it was within range he might not be able to spot it from the tank, and if he did spot it he still might not be able to will himself through it while riding in the tank. Yet one thing he was not going to do was stop and get out, under the guns of the other tanks!

It was no gamble at all to remain here idle. He would inevitably fall to Satan’s forces. He had to try for the curtain!

He crashed on out of Heaven, through the interim chambers, and on into the barrens of Proton. The enemy tanks were on the other side of the dome, where he had entered. That was a break for him. Stile headed toward the region where the curtain should be. With just a little further luck—

The enemy tanks reacted as one, cruising around the dome on either side and spreading out to form a broad line. Now they were getting him into their sights—and the dome was not going to be in the line of fire much longer. No good luck for him here!

Stile threw his tank from side to side as the firing commenced, making a difficult target. Machines were accurate shooters when the target was stationary or in steady motion, but when velocity was erratic and non-laser weapons were being employed, as now seemed to be the case, it was necessary to anticipate the strategy of the prey. Otherwise the time it took the shell to travel would put it behind the target-tank. Since Stile was humanly unpredictable, the shots were missing. But he could not afford to flaunt him-self before them for long; inevitably a shell would score, at least disabling his machine. Then he would become a stationary target: a sitting quack, as it was described in Game-parlance.

In Phaze, he thought with fleeting humor, he had to watch out for spells. Here it was shells.

But his meandering had another purpose: to locate the curtain. It was here somewhere, but there were such poor reference points on the bare sand that he could not place it precisely. The curtain could curve about, and it shimmered so faintly that it was invisible from any distance, even for those like himself who were able to perceive it at all. He would probably come upon it so swiftly that he would pass it before realizing; then he would have to turn and try to cross from the other side while the enemy tanks had full seconds to orient.

A shell exploded in the sand beside him. The concussion shoved Stile’s tank violently to the side. Something flew from it, visible in his screen. A section of armor? No. If was Sheen.

Then Stile saw the curtain, angling across his path just ahead. He must have been traveling beside it, not quite intersecting it. He could veer right and pass through it now—

Not without Sheen! Yet he could not halt; that would be instant, fiery death. Already his pace slackened, the enemy tanks were closing the gap; their aim would become correspondingly more accurate. He had to get across—or perish.

Sheen had asked to be junked cleanly. Was this the occasion? Should he, after all, allow her to. . . ?

Stile set the controls to automatic, opened the hatch, and climbed out. The tank was moving at about 50 kilometers per hour now. Stile leaped off the side, sprinting desperately forward in midair. His feet touched the ground, and

Still weren’t fast enough. He made a forward roll, eyes and mouth tightly closed, curling his body into a ball. The sand was soft, here, though his velocity was such that it felt hard; he rotated many times before coming out of it, bruised but whole. Oh, that sand was hot! The enemy tanks, for the moment, were still chasing his empty tank. Stile charged back to find Sheen, who lay sprawled where she had fallen. She looked intact; perhaps the shock of the explosion had only jogged a wire loose, interrupting her power.

Stile picked her up and carried her toward the nearest intersection of the curtain. But she was heavy, being made of metals and plastic; it was a considerable burden in the shifting sand, and his bare feet were hurting from the heat. Stile was soon panting as he staggered on. His empty tank exploded. Chance and firepower had brought it down.

Now the enemy tanks slowed their pursuit, turning to return to their normal perimeter. And of course they be-came aware of Stile, lumbering along with his burden. Cannon swiveled to bear on him. But there was the curtain, just ahead.

Stile summoned his reserves and leaped. Phazel he thought, willing himself through. A tank fired; the shell whistled; the sand behind Stile erupted. Then the faint tingle of the curtain was on him. Stile fell to the ground, and it was green turf. Sheen was wrenched from his grasp and rolled through the grass and leaves and landed arms and legs akimbo.

One foot was burning. Stile realized that it remained on the other side of the curtain, where the smoke and heat of the shell-blast touched it. Hastily he drew it through. It was not burned, merely uncomfortable.

Now he went to Sheen. She was disheveled and battered, her fine torso abraded. One breast had been torn off, and about a third of her hair had been pulled out. It seemed, too, that the right side of her body had been crushed, and metal showed through a compound fracture of her right arm. There was a great deal more wrong with her than a loose wire!

He did not love her, he reminded himself. She was only a machine, her consciousness artificial. Without her power pack and feedback circuitry she was no more than junk. But his logic was overwhelmed by a surge of emotion. “I do love you, Sheen, in my fashion!” he whispered. “I shall have you repaired—“ Have her repaired? This was Phaze, the frame of magic. He was the Blue Adept. He could restore her himself! Or could he? He was not a healing Adept, and had never been able to affect the vital functions of a living creature. Well, he had healed Neysa after her visit to Hell, and his alternate self had done healing. So maybe he just needed practice. The Lady Blue had the healing touch, while Stile’s magic was generally more physical, however. And in no event could he restore the dead to life. Yet Sheen had never been alive. Why couldn’t he fix her physical circuitry, repair her breaks and losses? She should be within the ambience of his talent, after all! Quickly he fashioned spot spells: “Robot Sheen, body clean,” he sang, wishing he had his harmonica or the Platinum Flute along. But he had never anticipated returning to Phaze like this! In future he would keep those instruments with him at all times.

Sheen’s torso became unblemished. It was working! “Bones of steel, mend and heal.” And her fracture knitted itself together while her torso sprang out to original configuration, with even the missing breast replaced. “Face be fair; restore the hair,” and all that damage was undone. Now for the big one. “Broken circuits mend; consciousness lend.” Once again he was bothered by the crudity of the verse. But it served his purpose. Sheen was whole, now.

Except that she still lay there, lovely as any naked woman could be. She showed no sign of animation. How had he failed?

Maybe the lack of a musical instrument had depleted the force of his magic. Stile conjured a simple guitar and used it to strum up greater power, then tried other spells. He covered everything he could think of, but nothing worked.

At last, succumbing to reaction from his own narrow escape and grief-stricken at her apparent demise, he threw himself on her body and kissed her unresponsive lips. “Oh Sheen—I’m sorry!”

If he had expected his kiss to bring her magically to life, he was disappointed. She remained defunct. After a moment Stile sat up. His face was wet, a signal of his emotion. “I can’t accept this,” he said. “There has to be something.”

Then it came to him: Sheen was a sophisticated machine, mechanical and electronic, a creature of advanced science and technology—and such things were not operative in the fantasy frame. Sheen could be in perfect condition—he could not say “health”—yet be inoperative here. Only her body could cross the curtain, not her functioning. The answer was to get her back to her own frame. He had business there anyway. This excursion into Phaze was merely a device to save his own life.

Stile got up, then picked up the robot. He braced himself for the penalty of vertigo, then sang a spell to transport him instantly to his usual curtain-crossing place. Arriving there, he spelled them through.

Sheen woke as the passage formed about them. “Stile!” she exclaimed. “What—where—?”

He kissed her and set her down. “I’ll explain it all. But first we have to contact my employer and advise her that she won her bet. She doesn’t have to spend time with Satan.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “But how—?”

“I do love you somewhat,” Stile said. “I know that now.”

“But I’m a machine!”

“And I’m a concatenation of protoplasm.” He spanked her pert bare bottom. “Now move, creature!”

She reoriented swiftly. “I’d certainly like to know what happened during my blank. The last I remember, I was riding the tank. Now I’m here. It’s like magic.” Stile laughed to see her unrobotic confusion. He was so glad to have her animated again that he felt giddy. No, that was the vertigo of his self-transport. “Just exactly like magic!” he agreed, taking her hand and drawing her on.

His Round Three Game was with an alien.

Stile had never played a nonhuman living creature before. He had seen them play, since twenty-four aliens were admitted to every Tourney, but often the majority of these “aliens” were merely wealthy otherworld human beings, or at least humanoids. Many people were attracted by the lure of unmitigated wealth and power, but few who were not of the system were permitted to compete. Stile understood that the entry fee for offworlders was formidable, whereas there was no fee for serfs. Oh, they had the system well worked out! One way or another, the dues were paid. But this one was that rarity, a genuine alien creature. It had a ring of tentacles in lieu of arms above, and six little caterpillar feet below, and its face was mainly an elephantine proboscis. There did seem to be sensory organs, on little stalks that hobbled about. Stile presumed the ones with balled ends were eyes, and the ones with hollow bells were ears; he could not account for the ones with opaque disks.

“Salutation,” he said formally. “I am Stile, a serf-human being of this planet.”

“Courtesy appreciation; you do look the part,” the alien responded. The sound emanated from somewhere about its head, but not from its snout. “I will be Dgnh of Else-where.”

“Apology. I am unable to pronounce your name.”

“Complete with vowel-sound of your choice: irrelevancy to local vocal.”

“Dogonoh?” Stile inquired.

“Noh for brief. Sufficiently.”

“Noh,” Stile agreed. “You are prepared for any Game?”

“Appallingly.”

Then he need feel no guilt about playing hard to win. This creature could have spent a lifetime preparing for this single event, and have some inhuman skills. Already Stile was trying to evaluate Noh’s potential. Those tentacles looked sturdy and supple; the creature was probably apt at mechanical things. It was probably best to stay clear of any physical contest. Since he did not care to gamble in CHANCE or ART, that left MENTAL—if he had the choice. On the other range, he had best stay clear of tools or machines, again fearing that alien dexterity. So he should go for NAKED or ANIMAL. Probably the latter, since he understood local animals well, and the alien probably did not.

“Prior matches—compare?” Noh asked.

That would help him gain an insight into the alien’s propensities. “I played Football with a Citizen, and Dominoes with a female serf,” Stile said.

“Not for me, your Football,” Noh decided. “Foots too small. Dominoes no either, element of chance.”

Pretty savvy, this creature. “The grid leads to compromise.”

“So I explicated. Tiddlywinks with manchild and Story-telling with Citizen. Won Games, but nervous.”

“Certainly,” Stile agreed. Under the alien form, this being was a true Gamesman. Stile had experienced such competitive nervousness many times. In fact, every Game brought it on. That was part of the addiction of it. He was in the Tourney to try for Citizenship, surely; but he also had an abiding delight in the competition of the thing, the endless variants, the excitement of the temporarily un-known. That was what had caused him to remain on Proton as a serf, instead of departing with his parents when their tour of tenure had expired. The fascination and compulsion of the Game had ruled him.

Now, ironically, his major involvement was with magic, with the lovely frame of Phaze. There, he was a person of considerable substance, a magician. He had entered the Tourney here at a time when its significance for him had been greatly reduced. Yet new reasons had erupted to restore its importance. He was doing it for Sheen, and for pride, and for the chance to discover who was trying to kill him, and to achieve the ability to do something about it. Just as he was participating in the quest of the Platinum Flute in Phaze, for Neysa and pride and eventual vengeance. So despite the considerable flux in both frames, his course had hardly changed.

Stile was jolted out of his reverie by the announcement of his Game. He and the alien stepped up to the grid unit.

The alien was even shorter than Stile; only its perception-stalks showed above the unit. Since the grid-screens on either side were all that counted, this did not matter. Normally Stile preferred to study his opponent for telltale reactions during the stress of selection; a hint about a person’s nervous state could spell the key to victory. But he could not read the alien anyway.

The primary grid showed. Good—Stile had the numbers.

Without hesitation he selected MENTAL.

Noh was just as quick—which alarmed Stile. If this creature was as fast on its mental feet as his reaction-time indicated, this meant trouble. The selected panel showed 2A, MENTAL/NAKED. Mind alone, no body involvement.

The secondary grid appeared. Numbered across the top were the categories SOCIAL—POWER—MATH-HUMOR; lettered down the side were the qualities INFORMATION—MEMORY—RIDDLE—MANIPULATION. Stile had the numbers, and that was fine. Suppose he chose SOCIAL? The alien could choose INFORMATION, and the subgrid could put them into planetary history, where Noh could be well prepared. What was the date of the squassation of the Bohunk of Planet Tee-total, in local zero-meridian time? He certainly didn’t need that! Should he choose POWER? Noh could choose MEMORY, and they could rival each other in the recall of extended sequences of letters, numbers and concepts, the kind of thing that used to fill the tests that supposedly indicated human intelligence. Stile was good at this, in human terms—but how could he be sure that Noh did not possess long-term eidetic memory, and be virtually invincible? Or the alien could select MANIPULATION, and they could wind up playing a mental game of three-dimensional chess. Stile could do that, too—but it was a literal headache. However, MATH could lead to the identification of obscure formulae if Noh chose INFORMATION, or the spot rehearsal of log tables or trig functions. MATH/ RIDDLES could be just as bad; better go to MANIPULATION and do complex problems in his head. But if he chose HUMOR, and Noh chose RIDDLE, they would wind up comparing puns. Puns with an alien?

Damn it, he was up against a completely unknown quality of opponent! Any choice could be ruinous. If only hehad had time to do his homework, researching his prospec1tive opponents, however scantily; then at least he would have had some broad notion what to avoid. But this business in Phaze had crippled his research time. Stile sighed. He would have to go with MATH. Noh had already selected RIDDLE. They were in 3C, Mathematical Riddles. Well, it could have been worse. Stile had on-days and off-days on this sort of thing; sometimes inspiration presented him with a brilliant response, and sometimes he felt as if his head were stuffed with sawdust, and sometimes he cursed himself for missing the obvious. But normally he was pretty sharp on mathematical riddles, and he knew a great number of them.

The final grid was about as simple as they came: four squares. The top was 1. COMPUTER-GENERATED 2. SELF-GENERATED. The side was A. DUAL RESPONSE B. INDIVIDUAL RESPONSE. Just four alternatives. Stile had the numbers.

Noh’s antennae wavered in agitation. “Nonetheless is this naked mental? How justified computer involvement?”

“These categories are fundamentally arbitrary,” Stile explained. “Too many Games are in fact mixed types. The Game Computer assumes for the sake of convenience that it, itself, has no Game significance. The riddles could come from a book or a third person, but it is most convenient and random to draw on the computer memory banks. There are all kinds of little anomalies like this in the Games; I had to play Football using androids termed animals, with robots for referees.”

“This is delightfully mistrustful. Expedient to avoid?”

“Well, I happen to have the numbered facet, so you cannot control that. Myself, I’d rather avoid the dual response; that’s timed, with the first one to answer being the winner. I’m more of a power thinker; I get there, but not always in a hurry.” This was true, but perhaps misleading;

Stile was stronger as a power thinker in proportion to his other skills, but still by no means a slow thinker. “That is—“

“Can we collude? Choose 2B for mutual accommodationality?”

“We could—but how could we know one of us won’t cheat? Deals are permissible but not legally enforceable in 1 the Game. An expert liar makes an excellent grid-player. The computer accepts nothing but the signal-buttons.”

“Chance it must be risked,” Noh said. “Some trust exists in the galaxy, likewise on little planets.”

“Agreed,” Stile said, smiling at the alien’s phrasing. He touched 2, and sure enough, it came up 2B. They had each kept faith. Game players normally did; it greatly facilitated things on occasion.

Now they adjourned to a bare private chamber. “Select a recipient for the first riddle,” the Game Computer said from a wall speaker. “Recipient must answer within ten minutes, then propose a counter-riddle for the other. In the event of failure to answer, proponent must answer his own riddle, then answer opponent’s riddle within the time limit. The first contestant to achieve such success is the victor.

Computer will arbitrate the technical points.”

“You courtesy explained situation,” Noh said. “Appreciation I yield initial.”

It really did not make any difference who went first, since only an unanswered or misanswered riddle followed by a successful defense counted. But Stile was glad to get into it, for psychological reasons. He had a number of tricky questions stored in the back of his mind. Now he would find out just what the alien was made of, intellectually.

“Picture three equal-length sticks,” Stile said carefully. “Each quite straight, without blemish. Form them into a triangle. This is not difficult. With two additional sticks of the same size and kind a second triangle can be formed against a face of the first. Now can you fashion four congruent triangles from only six such sticks?”

Noh considered. “Enjoyability this example! Permissible to employ one stick to bisect double-triangle figure formed from segments of sticks?”

“No. Each stick must represent exactly one side of each triangle; no projecting points.” But Stile felt a tingle of apprehension; such a device would indeed have formed four congruent triangles, and similar overlapping could make up to six of them. This creature was no patsy. “Permissible to cross sticks to form pattern of star with each point a triangle?”

“No crossing.” So quick to explore the possibilities! The head stalks hobbled thoughtfully for almost a minute. Then: “Permissible to employ a third dimension?”

The alien had it! “Permissible,” Stile agreed gamely.

“Then to elevate one stick from each angle of first triangle, touching at apex to form four-sided pyramid, each side triangle.”

“You’ve got it,” Stile admitted. “Your turn.”

“Agreeable game. Triangles amenable to my pleasure. Agree sum of angles is half-circle?”

“One hundred eighty degrees,” Stile agreed.

“Present triangle totaling three-quarter circle.”

“That’s—“ Stile began, but choked off the word “impossible.” Obviously the alien had something in mind. Yet how could any triangle have a total of 270°? He had understood 180° was part of the definition of any triangle. Each angle could vary, but another angle always varied inversely to compensate. If one angle was 179°, the other two would total 1°. Otherwise there would be no triangle. Unless there could be an overlay of triangles, one angle counting as part of another triangle, adding to the total. That didn’t seem sensible, yet—

“Permissible to overlap triangles?” Stile inquired.

“Never.”

So much for that. Stile paced the floor, visualizing tri-angles of all shapes and sizes. No matter how he made them, none had more than 180°.

Could they have differing definitions of triangles? “Permissible to have more than three angles in the figure?”

“Never.”

Down again. Damn it, it wasn’t possible! Yet somehow, by some logic, it had to be, or the alien would not have proposed it. Stile had encountered situations in which the supposedly impossible had turned out to be possible, like turning a torus inside out through a hole in its side. Topology—there was a fertile field for intellectual riddles! Shapes that were infinitely distortable without sacrificing their fundamental qualities. Bend it, twist it, stretch it, tie it in knots, it did not really change. Now if he could do that with a triangle, bowing out the sides so as to widen the angles—but then its sides would be curved, no good.

Maybe if it were painted on a rubberite sheet, which sheet was stretched—aha! A curved surface! Noh had not specified a flat surface. A triangle drawn on a sphere—

“Permissible to employ a curved surface?” Stile inquired triumphantly.

“Never. Triangle must be rigid frame, as were your own.”

Ouch! He had been so sure! On the surface of a sphere he could have made eight triangles each with three right angles, or even four triangles with two right angles and one 180° straight angle each—a quarter section of the whole. The curvature of the surface permitted straight lines, in effect, to bow. He had often carved the skin of a pseudo-orange that way. But the alien forbade it. Still, perhaps he was getting warmer. Noh’s antennae were flexing nervously, which could be a good sign. Sup-pose the surface were not curved, but space itself was? That could similarly distort a rigid triangle, by changing the laws of its environment. In theory the space of the universe was curved; suppose the triangle were of truly cosmic proportion, so that it reflected the very surface of the cosmos?

“Okay to make a very large triangle?”

“Nokay,” Noh responded. “Standard triangle held in tentacles readily.”

Brother! Stile was getting so inventive, stretching his imagination, to no avail. If he could not draw on the curvature of space—

But he could! “How about taking it to another location?”

The stalks wobbled ruefully. “Permissible.”

“Like maybe the vicinity of a black hole in space, where intense gravity distorts space itself. Normal geometric figures become distorted, despite no change in themselves, as though mounted on a curved surface. Down near the center of that black hole, space could even be deformed into the likeness of a sphere, just before singularity, and a triangle there could have two hundred and seventy degrees, or even more.”

“The creature has resolved it,” Noh agreed ruefully. “Inquire next riddle.”

This was no easy Game! Stile felt nervous sweat cooling on his body. He feared he was overmatched in spatial relationships. He had invoked the third dimension, and the alien had in turn invoked something like the fourth dimension. Better to move it into another region. “Using no other figures, convert four eights to three ones,” Stile said. Probably child’s play for this creature, but worth a try.

“Permissible to add, subtract, multiply, divide, powers, roots, tangents?” Noh asked.

“Permissible—so long as only eights are used,” Stile agreed. But of course simple addings of eights would never do it.

“Permissible to form shapes from numbers?”

“You mean like calling three ones a triangle or four eights a double row of circles? No. This is straight math.” Noh was on the wrong trail.

But then the alien brightened. His skin assumed a lighter hue. “Permissible to divide 888 by 8 to achieve 111?”

“Permissible,” Stile said. That really had not balked Noh long—and now the return shot was coming. Oh, dread!

“Human entity has apparent affinity for spheres, as witness contours of she-feminine of species,” Noh said. “Appreciate geography on sphere?”

“I fear not,” Stile said. “But out with it, alien.”

“In human parlance, planetary bodies have designated north and south poles, apex and nadir of rotation, geo-graphical locators?”

“Correct.” What was this thing leading up to?

“So happenstance one entity perambulates, slithers, or otherwise removes from initiation of north pole, south one unit, then east one unit, and right angle north one unit, discover self at point of initiation.”

“Back at the place he started, the north pole, yes,” Stile agreed. “That’s the one place on a planet that such a walk is possible. Walk south, east, north and be home. That’s really a variant of the triangle paradox, since two right angle turns don’t—“

“Discover another location for similar perambulation.”

“To walk south a unit, east a unit, and north a unit, and be at the starting point—without starting at the north pole?”

“Explicitly.”

The creature had done it again. Stile would have sworn there was no such place. Well, he would have to find one! Not the north pole. Yet the only other place where polar effects occurred was the south pole—and how could a person travel south from that? By definition, it was the southernmost region of a planet.

“All units are equal in length and all are straight?” Stile inquired, just in case.

“Indelicately.”

“Ah, I believe you mean indubitably?”

“Indecisively,” the alien agreed.

Just so. “Can’t move the planet to a black hole?”

“Correct. Cannot. Would squash out of shape.” So it had to be settled right here; no four-dimensional stunts. Yet where in the world could it be? Not the north pole, not the south pole—

Wait! He was assuming too much. He did not have to go south from the south pole. He had to go south to it. Or almost to it....

“Picture a circle around the south pole,” Stile said. “A line of latitude at such distance north of the pole that its circuit is precisely one unit. Now commence journey one unit north of that latitude. Walk south, then east around the pole, and north, retracing route to starting point.”

“Accursed, foiled additionally,” Noh said. “This creature is formidability.”

Stile’s sentiments exactly, about his opposition. He was afraid he was going to lose this match, but he struck gamely for new territory, seeking some intellectual weakness in his opponent. “The formula X2 plus Y2 equals Z2, when graphed represents a perfect circle with a radius of Z, as described in what we call the Pythagorean Theorem,” he said. “Are you familiar with the mechanism?”

“Concurrently. We term it the Snakegrowltime Equation.”

Stile suspected there was a bit of alien humor there, but he had to concentrate on the job at hand instead of figuring out the reference. He was glad he had not gotten into a punning contest! “What variation of this formula represents a square?”

“No variation!” Noh protested. “That formula generates only a curve; a variation must remain curvaceous. No straight lines from this.”

“I will settle for an approximate square,” Stile said helpfully. “One that curves no more than the width of the lines used to draw it.”

“How thickness lines?”

“Same thickness as those used to make the circle.”

“Extraordinarily unuseful,” Noh grumped, pacing the floor with the little feet tramping in threes. “Geometric curves do not transformation so. It is a fact of math.”

“Math is capable of funny things.” Stile was regaining confidence. Had he found a weakness?

Noh paced and questioned and did the alien equivalent of sweating, and finally gave it up. “Incapability of sensiblizing this. Demand refutation.”

“Try Xoo plus Yoo equals Zoo,” Stile said.

“Party of the first part raised to the infinitive power, plus party of the second part raised similarly? This is mean-ingful-less!”

“Well, try it partway, to get the drift. X3 plus—“

“Partway?” Noh demanded querulously. “Cannot split infinity!”

Stile thought of the infinities of the scientific and magical universes, split by the curtain. But that was not relevant here. “X8 plus Y8 equals Z8 yields a distorted loop, no longer a perfect circle. Raise the powers again. X4 plus Y4 equals Z*, and it distorts further towards the comers. By the time it goes to the tenth or twelfth power, it is beginning to resemble a square. By the time it reaches the millionth power—“

Noh did some internal calculating. “It approaches a square! Never a perfect one, for it yet is a curve, but within any desired tolerance—remarkable! I never realized a curve could fashion into—amaztonishing!”

“Now I must answer yours,” Stile reminded the alien. He knew he hadn’t won yet; he had only gained a temporary advantage, thanks to splitting an infinity.

“Appreciably so. Where is the west pole?”

“West pole?”

“North pole, south pole, east pole, west pole. Where?”

“But a planet can only have one axis of rotation! There can’t be two sets of poles!”

“There cannot be a square generated from a curve, alternatively.”

“Urn, yes.” Stile lapsed into thought. If he could get this one, he won the Round. But it baffled him as much as his square had baffled Noh. Was the west pole simply a matter of semantics, a new name for the north or south poles? That seemed too simple. There really had to be a pole in addition to the conventional ones, to make it make sense. Yet unless a planet could have two axes of rotation—

In the end, Stile had to give it up. He did not know where the west pole was. His advantage had disappeared. They were even again. “Where?”

“Anticipation-hope you would solution it,” Noh said. “Solve has eluded me for quantity of time.”

“You mean you don’t know the answer yourself?” Stile asked incredulously.

“Affirmation. I have inexplicably defaulted competition. Negative expedience. Remorse.”

So Stile had won after all! Yet he wished he could have done it by solving the riddle. The west pole—where could it be? He might never know, and that was an aggravation. Stile had been late in the Round Three roster, and now was early in the Round Four roster, as the Game Computer shifted things about to ensure fairness. Hence he had less than a day to wait. He spent much of that time sleeping, recovering from his excursion with the tanks and resting for possibly grueling forthcoming Games. He had been lucky so far; he could readily have lost the Football Game and the Riddle Game, and there was always the spectre of CHANCE to wash him out randomly. Most duffer players were fascinated by CHANCE; it was the great equalizer. So he hoped he would encounter a reasonably experienced player, one who preferred to fight it out honestly. One who figured he had a chance to win by skill or a fortuitous event in a skill contest, like the referee’s miscall in the Football Game. But a true skill contest could be arduous, exhausting both participants so that the winner was at a disadvantage for the next Game.

If Stile’s employer discovered anything in the course of her investigation into the matter of the forged message-address, she did not confide it to him. That was the way of Citizens. They often treated serfs with superficial courtesy, but no followthrough. The Citizen he had encountered in Round One, the Rifleman, was an example; there had been no further communication from him. There was no such thing, in Proton law and custom, as a binding commitment by Citizen to serf. Everything went the other way. Stile remained troubled by the continuing campaign against him by his anonymous enemy. At first he had thought this person had sent Sheen and then lasered his knees as a warning to get out of horseracing. But he had gotten out—and the threat continued. There had been a Citizen who was after him, but that had been effectively neutralized, and Sheen’s self-willed robot friends had verified that he was not the present offender. They had not been able to trace the source of the substituted address, because it had not been handled through any-computer circuits; it had been a “mechanical” act. But they had watched that particular Citizen, and knew that he was relatively innocent.

Someone wanted Stile dead—in Proton and in Phaze. Perhaps it was the same person—a frame-traveler. There were a number of people who crossed the curtain regularly, as Stile himself did. Maybe that same one had killed Stile’s other self, the Blue Adept, and tried for Stile with less success. Probably another Adept; no lesser person could have done it. But who? The maker of golems—or the maker of amulets? Stile was becoming most eager to know. If he beat the long odds and won the Tourney, he would have at his disposal the resources of a Citizen. Then he would be in a position to find out—and to take remedial action. That was the real imperative of his present drive. He could not wash out of the Tourney and simply return to Phaze to court the Lady Blue—not when a curtain-crossing Adept was laying constant deathtraps for him. He had life-and-death riddles to solve first!

His Round Four opponent was a woman his own age: Hella, first Rung on the Age 35 ladder. Stile had qualified for the Tourney by being fifth on the male 35 ladder, but he was actually the top player of his age. Many top players remained deliberately low on their Game ladders, so as to avoid the annual Tourney draft of the top five. Hella, however, really was the top female player, whose tenure ended this year; she had been eager to enter the Tourney. Nevertheless, she was not in Stile’s class. He could out-perform her in most of the physical Games and match her in the mental ones. If he got the numbers he would have no gallantry at all. He would choose PHYSICAL. If he had the letters he would have to go for TOOL, to put it into the boardgames block, where he retained the advantage over her.

Hella was a fit, statuesque woman, taller and heavier than Stile. She had half-length dark-blonde hair, slightly curly, and lips a little too thin. She looked like what she was: a healthy, cynical, hard-driving woman, nevertheless possessed of a not inconsiderable sex appeal. Larger men found her quite attractive, and she was said to be proficient at private games, the kind that men and women played off record. Stile had played her often, in random Games, but had never socialized with her. Most women did not get romantic about men who were smaller than themselves, and she was no exception. Stile himself had always been diffident about women, and remained so. Sheen was special, and not really a woman. The Lady Blue was special too—and Stile really found himself unable to forward his suit with her. She was his other self’s widow...

“I would rather not have come up against you,” Hella told him in the waiting room. “I’m already half out; a duffer caught me in CHANCE.”

“That’s the way it goes,” Stile said. “I have nothing against you, but I intend to put you away.”

“Of course,” she said. “If you get the numbers.”

“If I get the numbers,” he agreed.

Their summons came. Stile did not get the numbers. Thus they landed in 2B, Tool-Assisted MENTAL GAMES. They played the sixteen choices of the subgrid and came to MAZE.

They adjourned to the Maze-section of the Game prem-ises. The Game Computer formed new mazes for each contest by sliding walls and panels along set channels; there was an extraordinary number of combinations, and it was not possible to anticipate the correct route through. One person started from each end, and the first to complete the route won.

They took their places. Stile was designated blue, the convention for males, and Hella red, the convention for females. Had two males been competing, they would have been blue and green, or red and yellow for females. The Computer liked things orderly.

The starting buzzer sounded. Stile pushed through the blue door into the labyrinth. Inside the walls and floor were restful light gray, the ceiling a translucent illumination panel. As Stile’s weight came on the floor, it turned blue, panel by panel, and remained that way to show where he had been. Spectators could view this Game on vision screens in mockup form, the patterns developing in red and blue to show the progress of both competitors, appreciating the ironies of wrong turnings and near-approaches to each other.

Stile moved quickly down the hall, his blue trail keeping pace, until he came to the first division. He didn’t hesitate; he took the left passage. Further along, it divided again; this time he took the right passage. The general law of chance would make the right and left splits along the proper way come out about even; this was unreliable for short-term efforts, but still as good a rule to follow as any.

This passage convoluted, turned back on itself, and abruptly dead-ended. So much for general laws! Stile quickly reversed course, following his own blue trail, and took what had been the left passage. This twisted about and finally intersected his original blue trail—the first right turn he had ignored.

Oops—there had to be an odd number of passages available, for at least one led to the red door on the other side of the maze. If two led there, then there would be an even number—with two passages as yet untried. But that was unusual; spectators liked to have the two contestants meet somewhere in the center, and start frantically following each other’s trails, and the Game Computer usually obliged with such a design. He must have missed a passage in his hurry. First mistake, and he hoped it would not prove to be too expensive.

He checked the passage back to the blue door. Nothing there. Then he took off on the right-hand passage he had used to complete the loop. Sure enough, it divided; he had overlooked the other passage because it angled back the way he had come. He should have checked behind him as well as ahead; an elementary precaution. He was not playing well.

However, this was not necessarily time wasted. Hella would be working her way through from the other side, trying to intersect his blue trail that would lead her to the blue door. If he had a single path there, she would have no trouble. As it was, he had turned all paths blue, so she would have no hint; she might get lost, just as he had. Sometimes, in these mazes, one person got nine-tenths of the way through, while the other floundered—and then the flounderer followed the other trail to victory while the nine-tenths person floundered. One could never tell. He moved on down the new passage. It, too, divided; he moved left and followed new convolutions. This one did not seem to be dead-ending or intersecting itself; good. Now he needed to intersect Hella’s trail before she intersected his.

Stile paused, listening. Yes—he heard her walking in the adjacent passage. That did not necessarily mean she was close; that passage could be a dead-end without connection to this one. Nevertheless, if he knew her location while she did not know his, that could be an advantage. He might sneak in and find her trail while she was still exploring a false lead, and hurry on to victory.

Then he heard her make a small, pleased exclamation. Ouch—that could mean only one thing: she had intersected his trail. Which meant that he was probably the one on the dead-end.

Stile backtracked hastily and silently. Sure enough, her red path intersected his, where he had bypassed the last right passage, and ended there. She was hot on his blue trail, and going the right direction. He was in trouble!

Stile took off down the red trail. He had only two hopes: first that she had a fairly direct trail he could follow without confusion; second that she would get lost on his loops and dead-end.

His first hope was soon dashed; the red trail divided, and he did not know which one was good. He had to guess. He bore right, looped about, came close to the exit-region—and dead-ended. All the breaks were going against him! He hurried back, no longer bothering to be silent, and took the other trail. It wound about interminably, while at every moment he feared he would hear the clang of her exit and victory. It divided again; he bore right, sweating. If he lost this simple Game to this woman, who really was not the player he was...

Then, abruptly, it was before him: the red door. Stile sprinted for it, suddenly convinced that Hella’s foot was on the sill of the blue door, that even half a second would wipe him out. In his mind’s ear he heard the toll of his loss.

He plunged through. The bell sounded. He had won! “Damn!” Hella exclaimed from the interior. She had after all gotten lost in his loop, and was nowhere close to the blue door. His alarm had been false. Sheen was waiting as he emerged. “Take me away from here,” he told her, putting his arm about her slender waist. He suffered another untoward image: Sheen lying torn apart after the tank chase. Yet there was no present evidence of that injury; she was all woman. “I’ve had enough of the Tourney for now!”

“There’ll be more than a day before your next match,” she said. “Time for you to catch your duel with the Herd Stallion in Phaze.”

“I might as well be right here in the Tourney!” he complained. “One contest after another.”