Out of Phaze

Finally he told the screen to turn itself off. He walked about the room, thinking, trying to assimilate all that he had learned. One impression came through strongly: he liked this frame of Proton, despite its appalling degradation of the wilderness outside the domes. It had more than enough scientific magic inside the domes to make up. True, it had serious problems—but those represented not so much a liability as a challenge. Citizen Blue, who had been reared in Phaze, seemed to be Bane’s own kind of man. It would have been nice to work with him to complete the necessary changes in the society. In time, perhaps, even the pollution could be cured, and Proton could become green again outside. Of course he had to return to his own frame, but he would always be glad to have had this experience in this one.

Many hours had passed, but Agape still slept and he did not wish to disturb her. He experimented with his body, discovering that though in the rush of events he had not been aware of many differences between his own body and this one, those differences were significant. It was not just a matter of not getting tired and of not needing sleep; his involuntary physical reactions had become voluntary. He could elevate his reactions at will, becoming keyed up or relaxed simply by so directing his body. He could make himself sexually excited instantly, and turn it off as readily. It was helpful to know, since it could have been embarrassing with Agape if he depended on natural reactions.

At last he turned himself down to standby state, and this was very like sleep. He could, after all, have slept, had he realized how to do it! He just had to turn his body close to off for a period.

An alarm jolted Bane out of his simulated sleep. ‘The Citizen will see you in ten minutes,” the voice of a serf came from the screen.

“Uh, right,” Bane said. He turned to the bed.

Agape was stirring; evidently the alarm had awakened her too. Already her protoplasm was changing its shape. Legs and arms grew out at the ends, and her head. None were well formed; they most resembled the appendages a child might tack on a homemade doll. But once the size was right, the specific features developed. In just a few minutes she was herself—or rather, that artificially human form he had come to know.

She sat up, gazing at him. “Now you have seen me as I truly am,” she said.

“I think thou hast marvelous magic,” he said. “I could not change my form as thou dost.”

“You’re not an amoeba.”

“I am an Adept—or will be one,” he said. “I can change the forms of others, but not my own.”

“You really are not disturbed?”

“I really am not,” he said. And now it was true; the screen had provided him with the proper perspective, so that he understood the rationale of her nature and her presence, and approved of it. She was a nice person who was trying to accommodate herself to what was for her an alien situation. She needed support, not objection.

She stood, then stepped up to him and kissed him. “I fear I will not encounter your like again,” she said sadly.

“Nor I thine.”

“Two minutes,” the screen announced. “Present yourselves at the exit to your chamber.”

“We must not delay,” Agape said. “I have not been on Proton long, but I know from my briefing that serfs must always address Citizens as Sir and obey them implicitly. Perhaps I should talk, if it can be arranged.”

“Aye.” They presented themselves at the exit. The wall opened.

The serf conducted them quickly to a smaller chamber. They stepped in, but the serf did not. The door slid closed.

Suddenly the four walls vanished. They were in an enormous room. They stood on a beach whose sand spread endlessly to either side. Not far behind were palm trees, their fronds shimmering in the breeze. Ahead crashed the restless breakers of the fringe of a mighty ocean.

They stood staring, both awed by the scene. Then Agape put out her hand. “It is holo,” she murmured. “The walls still enclose us.”

“Holo?”

“Pictures, like those on the screen you watched last night. Very realistic.”

Bane touched the wall, verifying its presence. It seemed

as if they were in an invisible box set on the beach, but he understood what she meant; the box was real, the beach illusory. “If this be not magic, what need have Citizens for it?” he asked.

On the ocean appeared a sail, and the sail expanded. It showed up as a sailboat, blown quickly by the wind toward them. On the boat, operating it, was a ruddy, heavyset man. He guided it to the beach, then quickly furled the sail and dragged the small craft right up before the place where Bane and Agape stood. He lifted out a chest and set it on the sand. He brought out a key, put it to the big old-style lock, and unlocked it. He lifted the lid of the chest.