Out of Phaze

“This is no game!” Bane protested. “I’m from Phaze, the frame of magic, but—“

“All right, so you won’t get serious,” she said, pouting. “So let me show you something.”

“Show me?”

She brought her left hand to her face. She put her little finger between her teeth and bit down on it. Her white teeth sank into the flesh and tore a small hole in t. She worked at the wound, biting deeper. There was no blood.

“There,” she said after a moment, surveying the damaged finger. “I reached the nerve-wire. Now give me yours.”

“Mine?”

She reached out and caught his left hand, and brought it to her mouth. Bane did not resist. He watched while she put his own little finger to her mouth, and bit into it. He felt no pain, though soon the substance of his finger was torn open. It seemed to be padding, and deeper inside, a wire. Exactly like hers.

He was, indeed, a machine. Rather, his other self, Mach, was. A nonliving robot in human form. That much Tilly had demonstrated beyond question.

“Now I’ll show you how to bypass the clumsy human sexual process,” Tilly said. “We robots have something much better.”

She held his left hand with her right hand, and brought her left hand to it. She touched her chewed little finger to his, pushing them together so that their central wires touched.

Suddenly Bane was transported by a pleasure so wild and strong as to be unutterable. It originated in his finger, but was so potent that it spread immediately throughout his body. It was indeed like sexual fulfillment, but more intense, and it kept on and on, never diminishing. He realized that Tilly, too, was experiencing it. Her face was fixed in an expression of rapture.

Then the contact slipped, and the pleasure faded. Now Bane felt depleted. He sat heavily on the bed.

“See?” Tilly asked. “It continues as long as contact is kept, as long as our energy sustains it. Living people can experience it only for a few seconds, but we have no such limit.”

“No such limit,” Bane agreed, staring at his torn finger. This was illicit pleasure, surely—but what potency it had!

“Now tell me more about how you aren’t really a robot,” she said.

He realized that she was unable to believe his story. She was a machine, subject to the limitations of that state. Her imagination simply was insufficient.

Yet the truth was the truth. And he still had to locate his other self, so as to be able to change back. He certainly didn’t want to be trapped forever in this frame, where machines made love by touching torn fingers!

“We’ve recharged some,” she said. “Let’s do some more time.” She extended her little finger.

For a moment Bane was tempted. The pleasure was indeed compelling! But he realized that if he allowed himself to be caught up in that again, he might never want to resume his search for his other self, and that would not be right. He exercised what discipline he could muster. “No. I have another job to do.”

“You mean I wrecked my finger, and I’m going to get in trouble with the repair authority, and you’re not even going to let me get full measure from it?” she demanded.

“It—it’s an illicit pleasure,” he said. “We—we’re supposed to do it in the human fashion.”

Suddenly she was alarmed. “You aren’t going to tell!”

Telling—about the illicit act. That would surely bring trouble to them both, and further complicate his effort. “No. I just—just don’t want to do it anymore.”

“Then get out of here!” she cried angrily. “I never want to see you again!”

He walked to the wall. It fogged, needing no spell from this side, and he stepped into the hall.

So at last he was free of the robot woman. That was a mixed satisfaction; she was very pretty, and she had shown him a lot that he needed to know, about the Game and the premises. And physical pleasure such as he had never before known. But it was best that he stay away from her; he knew that. She was not, in his idiom, a nice girl. Rather, a nice machine. She would get in trouble, if not today, some future day.

But what was he to do now? He still hardly knew his way around these premises, and it was evident that his other self was long gone from this region, and now he had an injured finger that would be difficult to explain.

He needed help. But where was he to find it?

Disconsolately, he walked down the hall. Other naked young folk passed him, and he acknowledged their greetings, but kept his left hand curled into a fist to conceal the finger.

Obviously he wasn’t going to locate his other self by aimless wandering. He had to get smart about his search. He had to figure out where he was in relation to Phaze, knowing that the geographies of the two frames were identical, and where Mach would be likely to wander, and go there. Simple enough, surely; he could step outside and study the landscape. He knew the features of his world, and could normally locate his position by a simple survey of the horizon.

But where was outside? This building seemed endless!