The screen showed the crater: a truly impressive setting. The walls of the upper inner rim were almost vertical, the slope modifying below and finally becoming level. But there were ridges and irregularities, and vents issuing smoke and steam, and sometimes lava. The whole thing shuddered at irregular intervals, and there were occasional mini-eruptions of rocks and dust and gas. Verisimilitude was excellent; on the screen, it really did seem like a living volcano crater.
There were four established paths of descent: north, south, east and west. These varied in detail, but had similar hazards, and had been established as equivalent in difficulty. Lot determined the assignments. The Citizen’s team was given the north slope, and Agape had the south. Mach’s screen could be set up to watch the whole crater, with the tiny figures at either side, or to watch one at close range, or split to watch both parties at intermediate range. He checked the AUDIENCE indicator, and discovered without surprise that it was huge. There were relatively few games being played now, and the unicorn had captured the public fancy; also, the volcano was always popular.
Mach knew that the Citizen would have played this course before, many times, and would have every path memorized. The Game Computer changed details with each game, to prevent this kind of advantage, but there was only so much it could do. The advantage of knowledge of the course was definitely with the Citizen.
Agape looked down her path, then took a daring and most unicornlike step: she detached herself from the safety rope. A unicorn, of course, would prefer to climb alone, regarding the other members of the team as a liability rather than an asset.
She started down, using chinks in the rim-wall for handholds, until she could stand on the less formidable slope below. She found a safe-seeming vantage by a projection of solidified lava, and called directions back to her remaining team. She had to get them down safely too; she could not leave them behind. They followed her route, descending in order, until they rejoined her. It was a decent start.
Meanwhile the Citizen was proceeding conventionally and efficiently. He too led his party, not trusting the androids to be good judges of the route. He barked orders to each, moving them along. His team made the first “landing” before Agape’s did.
Then the first shudder came. The rocks shook, and several fragments of rock became dislodged and slid down. No damage was done to either party; it was merely a warning.
Agape went ahead again, spying out the best descent. She had a choice at this stage: one reasonably safe but long path, and one short but treacherous one. She gambled as a unicorn would, taking the shorter one. The Citizen took the safe one. That made Mach nervous; the Citizen surely had reason.
That reason soon manifested: there was another tremor, worse than the first. Gas hissed up from vents—and there were more such vents along Agape’s fast path than along the Citizen’s slow one. But Agape had had her team wait again while she explored, and she was watching; she lay flat as the vents expressed themselves, and had no trouble. Then she jumped across a minor crevasse, found another staging point, and brought her team down. She was now ahead of the Citizen.
Was there an upset in the making? The Citizen, seeing himself behind, hurried his team—and one of his androids misstepped and fell. The safety rope prevented him from being lost, but he took an injury, and now was limping. That was another point for Agape: all her teammates were safe.
But as she explored for the third leg of her descent, a lava vent just behind her spewed out molten rock, splattering her body. It was not real lava, of course, but jellylike emulation. Nevertheless, she had received a direct strike on the torso, and was deemed to have been burned beyond the ability to continue. The Game Computer issued a STAY IN PLACE directive; Agape was not permitted to go on.
If the Citizen suffered a similar mishap, then points would be assessed and the winner determined. But he did not. Relieved of any need to hurry, he took his time, and brought his slightly incapacitated party safely to the bottom. Thus, anticlimactically, Agape lost the match, and was out of the Tourney.
Mach felt a pang of regret. He reminded himself that she had done it correctly, playing the way a unicorn would; moving alone, gambling with her own safety rather than that of her teammates. Had she sent an android ahead, and had the android taken the incapacitating lava-splat, she would have been allowed to continue. The Citizen might have taken a greater loss of personnel, giving the victory to her. But she had done it Fleta’s way, and lost, and that was the right way to lose.
Still, Mach wished she had won. He knew that the great majority of the audience felt the same.
Agape was returned to her planet, banned from Proton because of her loss in the Tourney. She had made it safely, and Mach knew the Contrary Citizens had no trap remaining there. The administration of the Tourney seemed to have no concern for the fact that if she really had been Fleta, as she had “proved” herself to be for her qualification as a player, this exile would have been inappropriate at best. But what of her relation to Bane?
He had no acceptable answer for that. In order to communicate or exchange with Bane, Mach had to overlap him geographically, and as far as he knew, that could only be done on this planet. If Agape was forever exiled from Proton, how could Bane get together with her?
There were two answers, as he saw it. Either Bane would have to make frequent trips to Planet Moeba, or Agape would have to be allowed to return. Suppose they worked out a compromise: cooperation with the Contrary Citizens, in exchange for this exception to the law of Proton. Would Bane go for that? He wasn’t sure.
Now, belatedly, he realized that the Contrary Citizens had never challenged Fleta’s identity, after challenging her registry in the Tourney. That meant that the tapes of the chamber had never been requisitioned. Now she was safely back on her own planet, and it no longer mattered. He had not had to make love to her, to preserve the pretense.
Still, Agape had done such a good job of imitating Fleta that he was satisfied to leave the recent past as it was. For an hour he had just about been with the filly. What others might think of the situation he wasn’t sure, and didn’t care.
The Tourney proceeded, and a serf woman won it, becoming a Citizen. How nice for her, Mach thought. But what of Agape? Neither she nor Bane deserved this enforced separation.
He spent his time doing research in the computerized Proton Library. Could a machine breed with an amoeba? Suppose a genetic pattern were crafted in the laboratory, living tissue modified to fit the attributes of a living man who occupied the body of a robot…
But why do that, when Bane had his own genetic pattern? What was needed was to send Agape back to Phaze to—
No, for then she would be in Fleta’s body. There seemed to be no way to get the physical Agape together with the physical Bane. Or the physical Mach together with the physical Fleta. No way except magic.
No way except magic. And that existed only in Phaze, while one partner in each couple was physically locked here in Proton. There was the intractable problem.
Then, abruptly, Bane contacted him. The touch was fleeting, but he got the gist: do not exchange yet. Bane was trying to spring a trap, and needed just a little more time.
Mach waited, wondering what was happening. Then Bane contacted him again, with news of a new truce. The picture had changed significantly in Phaze. If the rival factions of Proton agreed, they would have a way to settle this matter, and the two couples could be together regardless of the way it went.
That appealed to him. He agreed without hesitation. He knew Agape would feel the same.