Out of Phaze

He ate his fruit and rested, admiring the countryside. She would surely tell him in due course, and meanwhile this was about as nice a region as he could imagine. He had never had physical experience with either mountains or forests before, there being only holo representations of such things in the dome-cities of Proton, and he liked them very well. The hill sloped gradually down to the south, and then the nearest segment of the Purple Mountain range heaved up to an extraordinary elevation, the highest peak spearing a cloud and anchoring it so that it could not drift away.

Actually, it wasn’t just the terrain that exhilarated him, he realized. It was the living body. He had discovered that eating was not the nuisance he had imagined it to be, when in robot body; it was a pleasure. In Proton, as a robot, he had lacked the sense of taste, it being unnecessary to his survival; here it was a glorious perception. Even the complication of periodic elimination was not really bothersome, once he knew how to handle it expeditiously. The rest of it was wonderful: the feel of the wind against his skin, the pleasure of healthy exertion, the sheer satisfaction of slaking thirst. The act of living was a dynamic experience.

Fleta returned and changed to girl form. “There be a good path ahead,” she reported. “There be a dragon to the east, but it moves not from its stream; an we steer clear o’ that, no problem.”

Mach looked at her. “What about this matter of—“ he began, but then sheered off, deciding not to press the mystery of her need to leave him. “Clothing? How is it that you have no clothing in animal form, yet do now? Where does it go when you change?”

She laughed with a certain relief, as if she had feared another type of question. ‘That be no mystery, Mach! I wear clothing in all three forms. In one it be called feathers, and in another, hair.”

So simple an answer! And it seemed that anything she carried with her in human form she carried with her in animal form, transforming it to feather or fur.

They resumed their travel. But Fleta seemed increasingly uneasy. Something certainly was bothering her.

In the hollow between the slope of the foothill and the slope of the mountain, she turned to him with a strange expression of hunger. Suddenly he remembered his fear of the unicorn, the first night, not knowing what it fed on. As it had turned out, unicorns were herbivores; his concern had been groundless. But now—

“Are you all right, Fleta?” he asked nervously.

“I think I must leave thee now,” she said tightly. “I had hoped to see thee safely o’er the mountain, but that must needs wait.”

“Fleta, where do you have to go?” he asked.

“To the herd I was destined for, before I met thee.”

“Well, of course you can go there, if you wish! But why right now?”

“Mayhap I can go, and return in a few days to see thee the rest of thy journey. Thou shouldst be safe here.”

“Well, yes, if that’s the way you feel! But—“

“It be fairest to thee.” She looked about. “There be fruit trees ahead, and so long as thou dost not go east to the river, and dost avoid being spotted from the air—“

“Fleta, please tell me why! Have I given you some offense? If I am too much of a burden—if I’m not doing enough—“

“I see I must needs tell thee. I must go to the stallion to be bred.”

“Right now?”

She made a wan smile. “As soon’s I can reach him. It be a fair distance.”

“Another long run? You’ll wear yourself out! Can’t it wait for a more convenient time?”

“Mach, must I speak more directly than I like. With thy kind, breeding be at convenience. Not so with my kind. When a mare dost come into heat, she must be bred; she doth have no choice. Be she in the wrong herd, the local stallion must do it; no choice for him either. That be why I could not approach mine own Herd in this time.”

Mach remembered what he had learned of horses and other animals. The females came into heat at intervals, and bred compulsively. They had no interest in such activity at any other time, but were desperate for it then. Fleta was an animal and so followed this pattern. She had seemed so much like a human being, especially because she had remained most of the time in her human form, that this aspect of her nature had not occurred to him.

“Now at last I understand why you had no concern when we went naked,” he said. “When you—saw me aroused. You knew that—that breeding occurs only within a creature’s own species. So you had no interest in—“ He found himself beginning to flush, and didn’t care to discuss it further.

“That be but a half truth, Mach,” she said. “I would fain have played with thee as I did with Bane in years o’ yore. But it be not seemly, when the parties are of age to know better.”

“Yes, of course. We are two different species. There can be no such thing between us.” He sighed. “Go and do what you must, Fleta; I will wait for your return.”

“Aye.” But she did not move, and he saw her lower lip trembling again.

“What’s the problem, Fleta? Don’t worry about me; I’ll be fine, here.”