Phaze Doubt

Done. Reach this location ASAP. City coordinates followed.

Nepe disconnected and got moving. Troubot would do anything for her, even if it weren’t business. As she caught a machine transport and zoomed to the address, she reflected briefly on that.

Troubot was a machine she had associated with for years. She considered him male, and he considered her female. He was in love with her. That might have seemed ludicrous to anyone offplanet, but it was feasible on Proton, where the self-willed machines could have feelings. But in Phaze, Troubot became Sirelmoba, the pretty little bitch who was Flach’s Promised. There, the sexes were reversed. But for years it had been assumed that alternate selves had to be of the same sex, and almost always they were. Why was it different here?

She had pondered this before, many times, but could come to only one conclusion: the sexes did match, either male to male or female to female. The only exceptions were when one of the selves was neutral. Troubot was neutral, because a machine had no inherent sex. Troubot thought of himself as male, so he was male, but there was nothing else to substantiate it. Nepe’s father Mach (technically, Bane in Mach’s body) thought of himself as male, so he was male. Her Grandmother Sheen thought of herself as female, and indeed she looked and acted female. But all were in essence neuter machines. All could be set up with other bodies and other programming and be of opposite sex. So there really wasn’t a change of sex, just a change of perception.

Nepe herself, like her mother Agape, was also neutral in essence. Her living component was Moebite, whose species was sexless, but assumed sexual identities when visiting other planets, in deference to the prevailing standard. So she, like the machines, simply assumed a sex, and remained with it because she preferred it. So when she became Flach it wasn’t any true sex change, only an apparent one. He was male and she was neuter, technically.

Yet it certainly felt different!

She reached the location. A gray-eyed, silvery-haired serf woman of about thirty sat in a shipment station. The hair was no sign of decline; it had been permanently tinted. She was an extremely pretty woman despite being past the flush of youth. This was Tsetse, formerly Tania’s obliging receptionist, then Citizen Purple’s mistress. Beautiful, complaisant, and not unduly smart: she had been ideal for her positions.

Nepe had known Tsetse for five years, and privately liked her. The woman was fundamentally innocent, amenable to whatever was required of her. But since she was now Purple’s serf, if no longer his mistress (he knew her age), she was not to be trusted. It was important that Tsetse never suspect Nepe’s identity.

“Guidebot for serf Tsetse,” Nepe said through her speaker grille.

The woman stood. “Here.” She looked nervous, and her eyes were a bit puffy. She had evidently been crying.

“Follow.” Nepe rolled down the hall at a comfortable walking pace. There were many means of transport, but serfs typically walked unless the distance was far or their assignments were urgent; that was why the halls were usually filled. Normally a serf did not rate a machine guide, but if the mission was important it could happen. Anything could happen at the whim of a Citizen, of course, and that was evidently the case with those who served the new masters. It was also possible that the assignment of a guide was a reminder to a perhaps reluctant serf that the directive was to be obeyed without question.

Since Tsetse was the most docile of serfs, why was such a reminder considered to be in order? She should simply have been given the order to report to her assignment at a given hour, and left to find her own way there. All transport was free for serfs, on the presumption that they were serving the interests of their employers, and directories of routes were available at convenient locations. She could have gone alone.

The woman was evidently unhappy. Had there been a falling-out? Yet this was hardly a punitive assignment. The Adept Brown was a good woman. For many years she had had a werewolf servant whom she had treated well. She would surely treat Tsetse well.

But there was another mystery. Purple had been Brown’s prisoner, and now she was his. Why should he not only allow her to keep her residence, but assign a pleasant servant to her? Purple had never been noted for generosity to anyone.

Nepe rolled up to the airport entrance. “I’m going out?” Tsetse asked forlornly.

“Yes,” Nepe answered, as any machine would. Suddenly she had her answer: Tsetse didn’t know where she was going! That was why she needed the guide—and why she was afraid. She thought she was being punished for some infraction!

Nepe pondered briefly, and decided to take a risk. It might even lead to valuable input. She overstepped the nature of a normal guidebot and volunteered information. “To the residence of the former Brown Adept in Phaze.”