Phaze Doubt

“But you neither look nor sound anything like Brown!” he whispered.

“To it I do, and that be what counts. Thou needst whisper not; it hears only when addressed.”

“But you’ve never even met Brown! You can’t—“

“Dost love me still, Lysander?” she asked.

Startled by the change in her voice, he looked at her. She was Echo! The sound and look were identical. Had he not known that there was no way it could be true, he would have been sure it was her.

“Point made,” he said. “And you probably don’t resemble Echo to the golem, just to me.”

“Aye.”

“You miss on only one thing: Echo is Protonite. She speaks as I do.”

“Oops!” she exclaimed, chagrined. Then: “Do you still love me, Lysander?” This time the emulation was perfect. Weva was a very quick study!

“No I don’t, as you know, Weva,” he said. “You took that from me. Are you going to give it back?”

“And play my game with you, to wile the time as we travel?” she inquired. She still resembled Echo exactly, her brown fluffy hair blown back by the breeze of their swift travel, her breasts shaking under the robe with the rocking of each big golem tread.

That made him pause. Maybe he should leave well enough alone, lest this provocative woman/child entertain herself at the cost of his future with Echo.

But that thought opened others. There would be no future at all, if his mission succeeded. The Magic Bomb would destroy the planet. So what was the point of being true to Echo? She would be better off if he were untrue to her—and to his mission. And he—he was objective now, no longer blinded by a potion-inspired love. Did he really want that love back? He could function better without it.

If he did not take back that love, he could do as he wished with Weva. She was young, but the way of this planet made physical age of little account; a robot was adult from the moment of its creation, unless otherwise programmed, and the creatures of Phaze let nature be their guide. If a female was mature enough to desire sex, she could indulge as she chose, requiring only an amenable male. That was probably seldom a problem. So Weva’s notion of playing with him was valid on her terms. She could do it in the semblance of Echo, or Jod’e, or Alyc, or in her own; she would have control of the situation regardless. If the planet was soon to be destroyed anyway, why not enjoy the time remaining?

Yet Echo had shared the love potion, and her love had not been nullified. She was a good creature; he could appreciate her qualities with clear vision now. He would never of his own choice have taken up with a woman who could turn harpy, and whose body even in her human state was fashioned of metal and plastic, but his experience had shown him better. He had been in love with a good woman, who had returned his love; it had been an excellent state. She had the mind of a harpy in the body of a robot; he had the mind of an alien creature in the body of an android. They were a good match, and he would be satisfied to let it stand.

“Give me back my love, but do not play games with me,” he said.

Weva’s natural likeness reappeared. “Thou canst gain from that only if thy mission fails,” she pointed out.

“And if it fails, I will be a criminal in the new order,” he agreed. “I have no future here, either way. But until then, I choose to live honorably.”

“I fathom that not!”

“You have a Hectare component. Surely you understand honor.”

“Nay, that were not in my syllabus.”

That was interesting. Apparently this Hectare protocol did not manifest full-blown. Perhaps it had to be evoked by contact with other Hectare as the individual developed. He did not remember how his own honor had developed; it seemed always to have been part of him. He was learning something about his own nature, by seeing the effect of an alien upbringing on her. “I’m not surprised. Your whole life must have been taken with learning to play the flute and becoming Adept and integrating your several components and preparing for whatever it is you will do to try to save your planet. There would have been no time for such subtleties as the concept of honor.”

“Aye. Teach me of honor.”

She had taken him by surprise again. “You want to take time with a subtle concept that can only inhibit your immediate benefit as it inhibits mine?”

“Aye, Lysan. My thirst be to know what I know not. An thou dost prefer not to play with me, teach me instead.”

“All right. Give me back my love for Echo.”

“I can not.”

“What?”

“Magic works but once in Phaze, an it be not inherent. I nulled the potion, but it be a far cry greater to null the null, and I fear it would be not the same.”

“But what will I do, when I am with Echo again?”

“I know not, and care not. Teach me honor.”

It was, he saw, a thing she needed to learn! She had carelessly changed his life in a way she could not reverse. An honorable person would not have done that.