“The Game Computer!” Lysander exclaimed. “The one that stopped functioning when the frames merged!”
“Aye, Bern brain. We knew o’ trouble coming when the mergence occurred, and set about dealing with it then. The formerly deserted Pole caverns were occupied and stable communities established barely before the invader came. A lesser machine was put in my place, unable to handle the complete complexity o’ the games, but assisted at need by the Oracle, and I came here to fathom the technical aspect o’ the effort.”
That explained a lot! A concerted planetary effort had been made from the outset of the planet’s vulnerability, so that the investment could be nullified before the planet was reduced to trash. It was impressive, but probably futile; the power of the Hectare was overwhelming.
“What identifies me as the one of the prophecy?”
“Thine honor.”
“Then you know that I will not help your side, regardless of any inducements you may proffer.”
“Nay, not so,” Oresmite said. “The prophecy shows thou mayst do it, an thou choose.”
“Honor dictates my choice.”
“Aye. So must we deal.”
“We can not deal.”
The Chief leaned forward persuasively. “We need thy help now. An we wait longer, all be lost regardless. Willst not yield the accuracy o’ the prophecy so far?”
“So far,” Lysander said grudgingly. “But not only do I have no intention of helping you in the key moment, I have no certainty that I can. I assure you that if I went back to my people now and asked them to depart the planet, they would not heed. I have no authority; I am only a special agent of a type routinely employed.”
“But an thou couldst help us, and thou decided to at the last moment, would it be not ironic an thou hadst let the moment pass and could not? What be best for thou is to keep thine options open, so that an thou dost change thy mind, it will count until the end.”
“Keep my options open,” Lysander agreed. “Is that possible?”
“Aye. Mischief needs thine input now, for calculations that be beyond it o’erwise. An thou help it now, thou canst prevent them from being used on our behalf until thou dost decide.”
“How can I be sure they would not be used without my choice?”
“The honor o’ Mischief.”
“A machine with honor? Or do you mean it is programmed for it?”
“Aye. Dost think we lack this?”
“You serve the interest of your planet, and this is integral to it. I can trust you only to do what you must to save it.”
“But an thou hadst access to the programming o’ the machine? Thou canst verify that we have touched it not, lacking in such expertise.”
“If you let me modify the programming, then I can be sure of the security of the data.”
“We will let thee do what thou choosest, and thou willst be welcome in these Demesnes meanwhile.”
Lysander nodded. “Then I can tackle the problem.”
“Give us an hour to access the sealed panels—“
“No need. I can verify the status and programming from a keyboard.”
“A keyboard?”
“You really have no experience with computers!” Lysander exclaimed. “All your dealings have been verbal!”
“Aye. We be Phaze folk.”
“You know I could completely ruin your system?”
“An thou choose to help us not, there be no difference; all will be destroyed.”
True enough. “Where is the keyboard?”
“Mischief, tell him.”
A light flashed. A panel slid open. There was a standard work station access, with keyboard and screen and accessories.
Lysander sat down before it and began typing. In a moment he was lost in the intricacies of the very type of work for which he had been trained.
“Lysander?”
He looked up from the screen, blinking. It was Echo.
For a moment he was at a loss. “I—I should have sought you,” he said. “To explain—“
“Weva explained. I accepted her offer.”
“That seems best. But I want you to know I did not seek—“
“I know. But we both know that love potion was a contrivance, intended to influence you. That failed, and there was no further purpose. Now we are both free of what was perhaps an imperfect association.”
“Perhaps.” He looked at her. He still found her beautiful. “But I found no fault with it. I never loved before, and was happier in that state than now. If it was imperfect, it remained good enough for me.”
“For me also,” she said. “It was a nice time. But now it is over, and—“
“Does it have to be over?”
She shrugged. “What is the point, without love?”
“What was pleasurable in love, may be so also without it. We do not need to break off our association—“
“Oh. Sex without obligation. Forget it.”
“I didn’t mean—“
But she was already sweeping out of the chamber. She had misunderstood him, but perhaps not completely. He had been thinking of sex—but also of the association. It would have been nice to discover whether their compatibility had been wholly the product of the love potion, or had a natural underpinning. Perhaps, if they had given it a chance...
Well, she wasn’t interested, and that might be answer enough. He had loved her, and through her the culture of the planet. But she was, in her Phaze aspect, a harpy, and they were not known for sweetness. If the potion had reversed that portion of her nature, and the nullification had restored it, it was pointless to speculate further.
Too bad Jod’e had been taken by the Tan Adept! There had been no love magic there, and she was a most intriguing woman. In fact too bad that Alyc had been an enemy agent. Though he was also one, he no longer respected her, but if even she could have been here...
He put such thoughts from his mind. The intrigue of the challenge that had defeated the computer was here for him, and he intended to lose himself in it.
It wasn’t long before he ascertained the nature of the problem: they hoped to slide the merged frames as a unit around the black hole to the fantasy side. For the distortion in the vicinity of the black hole was not just physical, so that light bent at a right angle; it represented a tangential connection between the science and the magic frames themselves. When the shell had been a perfect sphere, the curtain had transported some people from the science hemisphere to the magic hemisphere and back; now the two were melded and could not be separated without destroying the whole. But they might be moved together, like a tectonic plate, if there was a sufficient shove.
That shove was to be provided by the explosion of the Magic Bomb. If conditions were right, it would move the frames into the magic realm, and there would be nothing remaining in the science realm except an apparent black hole, unapproachable by any ordinary means. If the conditions were wrong, it would simply break up the shell, and the fragments would fall into the hole. In either case, the apparent planet would be gone from the science universe. But in only one case would it move intact to the magic universe.
If it moved intact, science and magic would work here. But away from this shell, only magic would work. Perhaps there would be exploitive creatures who came to take advantage of the unique qualities of science, or to steal the Phazite that powered the magic locally. But there had been no sign of such intrusion in the three preceding centuries. All the colonization, both animal and plant, had been from the science realm, crossing over. So it seemed likely that the inhabitants would be left alone. That was what they wanted.