"Yes, indeed!" he agreed.
She showed him how to navigate the ladder. She climbed nimbly on it, then crossed over the river by using her hands and feet in the rope rungs. He followed, quickly adjusting to its give and sway, and scampered to the other end. He found his fallen axe and picked it up.
"Now must roll it again," she said.
"But I tied it on the other side!" he said.
She smiled, and untied it on the near side. As the second rope was freed, the ladder rolled itself up, as though guided by invisible hands along an invisible floor, and finished in one tight coil against the far tree. Only a thin thread remained behind, anchored to the rear tree. It was ready for the next user.
"Close thy mouth, Mach," Fleta said. "Else folk might think thou hast ne'er seen magic before."
Mach closed his mouth. They faced down the path. "Uh, if we can wait a moment," he said.
"Wait? Whatever for?" she asked brightly.
His intestine was becoming quite urgent now. "The-privacy-"
"Rovots need no privacy," she reminded him.
"That's changed. Why don't you go on ahead, and I will rejoin you in a moment."
"Oh, no, I must keep thee company, else thou dost get edgy."
He thought he was about to burst, and not from emotion. "I can spare your company for this moment."
"WellŢ She took a step down the path, and he started to take one toward the bushes.
Then she turned back. "No, I really must not leave thee unattended, Mach. This wood be not familiar to thee. Who knows what mess thou mightst get into, if-"
"Go!" he cried.
Suppressing a smirk, she resumed her progress down the path. The minx had known all along!
He plunged into the bushes, heedless of scratches. He found a halfway suitable place and set about removing the necessary portion of his clothing. But he had harnessed it about him so effectively that this was difficult; it didn't want to come off. He had to wrench out his waist-vine, and then the leaves of his costume fluttered down, loose.
He squatted and let living nature take its course. Then he remembered that the living people of Proton cleaned themselves after this act, so that no soiling or odor would occur. They used special paper for this purpose, or a sonic mechanism. He had neither here.
He cast about, seeking some substitute. Nothing seemed to offer. He didn't want to use any of the cloth of his costume.
He heard a heavy flapping. The harpy loomed. He tried to duck down out of sight, but she spied him. "Ho, what have we here? The bare essence!" she screeched.
"Get out!" he exclaimed, embarrassed.
"Hey, girls, we've found him!" she screamed. "I spotted him by the stench!" She laughed with a cackling sound.
Now there was a whole flock of them, flapping in to see. Mach realized that he had indeed gotten into a mess. Those dirty birds were after more than laughter; their narrow eyes gleamed and their talons convulsed and drool dripped from their open mouths.
He realized that he couldn't escape them by running.
His clothing was falling apart, and the bushes hampered him, and they were airborne and numerous. They would have him in a moment.
He lifted his axe, but they hovered just beyond its range, screaming imprecations. He could throw it, but then he would be without a weapon.
"Fresh meat!" a harpy screeched, diving down from behind. He whirled and swung the axe, but she sheered off.
Another dived from behind, and a third. Whichever way he faced, there were several behind him, ready to attack.
Mach lunged to a tree, setting his back against it. Now he could defend himself better. But he couldn't get away, and when his arm tired-
In the distance was the sound of hoofbeats. There was music, too: the melody of panpipes.
"Oh, damn!" a harpy cried.
The beat and music got louder as the source approached rapidly. The ground shook with the hoof-strikes. The pipes played a militaristic air. The harpies scrambled up through the air, shedding feathers in their rush.
The unicorn appeared, charging through the brush. Her horn speared at the last harpy, but the bird was already out of reach. "There'll be another time, 'corn!" she screeched.
The unicorn stomped about, making sure that all the birds were gone. Then she leaped back toward the path, and the sound of her retreating hoofbeats faded.
Mach relaxed. That creature had rescued him before, then disappeared; she had just done it again, and left again. Evidently she had no ulterior motive. Maybe she was just a guardian of the path, routing whatever monsters intruded on it. That was fortunate for him!
He took a large leaf with which to clean himself off, then pulled his remaining clothing together as well as he could. He was even more ragged than before, but after the scrape with the harpies, he knew when he was well off. He made his way to the path.
Fleta was coming back along it. "Oh, Mach!" she exclaimed, spying him. "I feared for thy safety!"
"So did I," he admitted. "But the unicorn saved me-again."
"Aye; I summoned her. These be the Herd Demesnes."
"You summoned the unicorn? How could you do that?"
She shrugged. "There be more to magic than conjuration. That creature is no enemy of thine, Mach."
"Apparently not. But I wish I understood her motive."
"Who can e'er know the true heart o' another?"
"Who, indeed!"
She peered at his outfit. "I see-"
"Never mind what you see!" he snapped, trying to adjust a swatch of cloth.
"Šthat thou hast lost thy leaves," she finished, returning to her normal impishness.
They walked on along the path. It took them east for perhaps two kilometers, then debouched onto a broad grassy plain. Mach stood and stared.
"Hast ne'er seen grazing land before?" Fleta inquired.
"Never before," he agreed. "This is marvelous! This whole world is green and growing!"
"And thine is not?"
"Mine is not," he agreed. "Outside the domes there is only barren sand and air that living people can't breathe."
"Air not to be breathed? How can that be?"
"Pollution. The mines and factories pumped their wastes into the ground and water and air, until virtually all natural life was extinguished. The only suitable environment for life is maintained within the domes."
She shook her head. "Methinks I would not like thy world!"
"I never thought about it. But now that I've seen this-I think I do like it better than Proton." Actually, it was life he was coming to like, despite its inconveniences. He had never before experienced the sheer feeling of it. Even the discomfort was a pleasure of a sort, because it was an aspect of the new responsiveness of his body. When he made an error and suffered pain, that represented a far more effective feedback than the cautionary circuits he had known. A robot, for example, could chew a hole in his own finger, and some did, because there was no pain. That was unlikely to happen with a living person.
"Dost like the taste of thy finger?" Fleta inquired teasingly.
Mach jerked it away from his mouth. Had he been about to test that pain reflex?
"Thou'rt funny," she said.
"And you are lovely," he said. He reached for her, and she did not avoid him, and he brought her in to him, and she did not hold back. He kissed her, and she kissed back.
"Ah, Mach, this be foolishness," she said. "But I do like thee. I shall miss thee sorely when thou returnest to thy world."
Mach thought again of Doris, the cyborg girl with whom he had kept company. He had evidently liked her better than she liked him. He had known Fleta less than a day, yet already he felt a greater emotion for her than he had for Doris. That could be accounted for by his living system, whose functions and emotions could be stirred on an involuntary basis. But it seemed to him, objectively, that Fleta was a nicer girl than Doris, even after all reasonable allowances were made for the differences between their frames and their states.