Split Infinity

She looked straight ahead. “Why? I’m only a machine.”

Here we go again. “I meant I promised to return to meet her at the palace of the Oracle. It was her question to the Oracle that freed me. The only one she can ask in her lifetime—she used it up just to help me. I must return.”

“Of course.”

“I made a commitment!” he said.

She relented. “She did send you back to me; I should return the favor. Will you promise to return, to meet me again?”

“And to qualify for the Tourney. Yes. Because you have also sacrificed yourself for me.”

“Then we shall send you on your way right now.”

“But I have to compete for Rung Seven in one day!” “So you will have to work fast, over there.” She drew him into a privacy compartment. “I’ll send you across to her—right after I have had what I want from you.” And she kissed him most thoroughly, proceeding from there.

She was a robot, he reminded himself—but she was getting more like a living woman than any he had known since Tune. And—he was not unwilling, and she did turn him on. It would be so easy to forget her nature . . . but then he would be entering another kind of fantasy world, and not a healthy one.

Yet how could he continue with a robot in one frame and a unicorn in the other? Even if he entered the Tourney and won, against all the odds, and located his other self in Phaze and assumed his prerogatives there—impossible dreams, probably—how would he alleviate the developing conflict between females?

Sheen finished with him, cleaned him up, brushed his hair, and took him to the dome geographically nearest the Oracular palace in the other frame, according to his understanding of the geography. They scouted for the curtain. They were also wary of the anonymous killer, but apparently the break in Stile’s routine had lost that enemy for the nonce. It was hard to keep track of a fast-moving serf on Proton!

The curtain did not intersect this dome, but they located it nearby. They went outside, into the polluted rarefaction of the atmosphere, and Stile donned his Phaze clothing, which Sheen had brought. She never overlooked details like that, thanks to her computer mind. He would not have dared to put on any clothing at all in the sight of any Proton serfs, but outside was the most private of places on Proton.

There was a narrowing plain, the ground barren. To the northwest a wrinkle of mountains projected, as grim as the plain. Only the shining dome brightened the bleak landscape. There were not even any clouds in the sky; just ominous drifts of ill-smelling smog.

“If ever you find a way for a robot to cross . . .” Sheen said wistfully. “I think that land must be better than this one.”

“My clothing crosses,” Stile said. “Since you can have no living counterpart in Phaze, it should be possible-“

“No. I tried it, during your absence. I can not cross.”

She had tried it. How sad that was, for her! Yet what could he do?

“Here—within a day,” he gasped, beginning to suffer in the thin air, and Sheen nodded. The air did not bother her; she breathed only for appearances. “You understand—there is beauty in Phaze, but danger too. I may not—“

“You will make it,” she said firmly, kissing him once more. “Or else.”

“Uh, yes.” Stile made what he trusted was the proper effort of will, and stepped through the curtain.

CHAPTER 14 - Yellow

It was afternoon on Phaze, and the air was wonderful. The sky was a deep and compelling blue, punctuated by several puffball clouds. The mountains to the northwest were lovely. Stile paused to look at the pretty little yellow flowers at his feet, and to inhale the spring-like freshness of it all.

How did this frame come to have such a pleasant natural environment, while Proton was so bleak? He was no longer certain that industrial pollution and withdrawal of oxygen could account for it all. What about water vapor? Obviously there was plenty of it here, and little in the Proton atmosphere. This was a mystery he must one day fathom.

But at the moment he had more urgent business.

Stile made a mental note of the location of the curtain; sometime he would have to trace its length, finding better places to cross. But this was also a matter for later attention.

The landscape was indeed the same. A narrowing plain, a nearby mountain range, a bright sun. Remove the cute clouds, and the verdant vegetation carpeting the ground, and the copses of trees, and this was identical to Proton. It was as if these were twin paintings, BEFORE and AFTER the artist had applied the color.  Phaze was the world as it should be after God had made the final touches: primitive, natural, delightful, unspoiled. Garden of Eden.

True to his memory, the Oracle’s palace was in sight.  Stile set out for it at a run. But before he had covered half the distance, Neysa came trotting out to meet him.  She held her head high, as they came together, so there was no possibility of striking him with her bright horn.