Out of Phaze

“You aren’t in any position to bargain!” the Citizen said.

“An what if I go—an thou hast dispatched her already? Must I needs know she be well, now.”

Purple grimaced. “You push your luck, machine. This one stall I will allow; then you will do it, or see her in the pot.”

In the pot? What could that mean?

They took a side passage, and came to the cell where Agape was confined. “Let me go in with her,” Mach said.

“It’s your last damned smooch; make it a good one,” Purple said.

The serf guard let Mach in. Agape stood to meet him. “Bane! Didn’t it work?”

He took her in his arms. He had not realized what a luscious creature she was! It was evident that she had learned much about human interaction since his brief contact with her.

He kissed her—and felt her stiffen. She realized that something was wrong. But before she could speak, he put his lips to her ear and whispered, “I am Mach. Give no hint. Melt your way out at night, go to the nearest maintenance service outlet, and tap this pattern.” He clicked his teeth three times quickly, then three times slowly, then three times quickly again, in the ancient SOS signal he had discovered when researching for a game. He had set it up as a code to the self-willed machines: one that only he would think to send.

‘Then trust the machines; they will get you out. Tell Citizen Blue. I will try to distract attention from your cell tonight.”

He kissed her again, then separated. “An I see thee not again, think kindly of me,” he said, loudly enough for others to hear.

“Oh, you’ll see her again,” Purple said. “Right here, when you return with my message from Phaze.”

“Thou art a hard man,” Mach muttered.

They returned to the key section of the passage. “It be very close here,” Mach said. “I feel his presence.”

“Well, merge!” the Citizen said impatiently.

Mach tuned in, and felt Bane approaching. He stepp up to meet him. They overlapped.

Did you do it? Mach thought.

Aye. And thee?

Yes.

Then it be time. Time, Mach agreed.

They separated. Mach remained in Proton; they had not tried to exchange frames this time. They had just needed the news of their success to be delayed until now. For Mach had no compelling personal reason to visit Agape, and Bane had none to visit Fleta; the enemy forces would keep the females securely isolated after the exchange. Indeed, this was the only safe policy—as the strategy he and Bane had formulated should show. Mach looked around, feigning confusion. “Where am I?” he asked.

“Proton,” the Citizen replied.

“Then I am back! The exchange worked!”

“That’s right, robot.”

“Then I have a message for you.”

“A message? But I just sent your other self with one!”

Mach smiled. “It seems your opposite number had the same notion you did. His message is this: Contact has been reestablished.”

“I know that!” Purple snapped. “What else?”

“Nothing else. He said you would know what to do, and what message to return.”

“That’s the message I sent him!”

“Evidently great minds run in similar channels,” Mach said.

“Don’t get cute with me, robot!”

Mach smiled grimly. “How can I be cute with a person for whom I have no respect?”

“I’ll have you dismantled and fed into the refuse recycler!” the Citizen snapped.

“And lose your only contact with Phaze? Whom do you suppose you are fooling, Purple?”

The Citizen began to assume the color of his name. “You play a dangerous game, machine.”

“Listen, you idiot—this isn’t Bane you’re talking to! You can’t deceive me the way you did him. I am the son of Citizen Blue, and Blue will grind your meaty posterior into hamburger when he finds out what you have done. How long do you think you can keep it secret?”

Purple asserted some control over himself. “Do you forget that I have your alien girlfriend hostage to your cooperation?”

“What alien girlfriend? I broke up with Doris the cyborg before I went to Phaze; I have no girlfriend in this frame.”

The Citizen took stock, realizing that he had lost that aspect of his leverage when Bane and Mach returned to their own frames. Then he saw his avenue. “So you do have a girlfriend in Phaze. And if I know my other self— as I surely do—he has that girl in his power. If you don’t bring back a message from me, he will take it out on that girl. And that you wouldn’t like. Am I correct, machine?”

Mach grimaced, answer enough.

“So you will cooperate—and when Bane returns here, he will cooperate, because I have his girlfriend. We’ve got you, robot.”

“Until Citizen Blue learns. Then you may not like the reckoning that comes.”

“By the time Blue learns, there may have been a shift in the balance of power. Then I may like the reckoning well enough.”

Mach realized that the cunning Citizen had big aspirations. He was going to use the contact with Phaze to increase his own power, making himself invulnerable to retribution. He could do that only with Mach’s cooperation. Therefore the sensible thing to do was not to cooperate. But Fleta was indeed hostage, and until he knew she had been freed—and Bane knew Agape had been freed—they did indeed have to cooperate.