Robot Adept

“Mach be looking for Bane, now,” Citizen Blue said.  “Must needs I tell thee what we be about. He has made truce with the Adverse Adepts, in Phaze, but Bane remains with us, in Proton. We oppose not thy union with him, or Bane’s with Agape. But the news he brought o’ the imbalance—that have we verified, and so it be true that thou canst not remain here. We shall get the four o’ ye together and make the exchange back—but with a change.” He looked penetratingly at her. “Only thou willst exchange, not the boys. That will give Mach power here, and Bane power there, to seek some better compromise than this truce. Mayhap Bane, being bound to us rather than to the other side, can find a way through. We seek not to void the deal Mach made with Translucent, only to provide us opportunity to explore the situation when the Adepts be off guard. I think thou canst go along with that.”

“Aye,” she said. “But that means—“

“That thou willst find thyself with Bane in Phaze—and must make it seem that he be Mach.”

“But—but I love Mach!” she protested, appalled.

“Aye. That be thy challenge, and why I speak to thee now. Agape must do likewise, here.”

“I—I will try,” she agreed faintly. What a position Blue was putting her in!

“Now let us play together,” he said. He brought out a harmonica, and put it to his mouth.

Relieved to have the subject change, she lifted the panpipes. Then the two of them played an impromptu melody, and Blue was a master musician, almost as good as a unicorn in the finesse with which he handled his instrument.

When it was done, she was melting again. “Thou didst depart Proton before I was foaled,” Fleta told him.  “Yet do I feel I know thee well, now.”

“It were thy dam Neysa mine other self Stile knew,” he said. “So in any event, our acquaintance is based on that of two other folk. Yet be it good to renew.”

 “0 Adept, may I hug thee?”

“Hug me, ‘corn, and remember me to my home land.”

She hugged him, finding him much like Bane, only older and smaller. His visit to her buoyed her immeasurably; now she knew that she and Mach were not fighting for their happiness alone. Stile had turned down her union with Mach, and for good reason; Blue was supporting it, and she hoped his reason was as good.  Then he departed, and she returned to her chamber.  For the second time, the aftermath of a Tourney game had lifted her outlook. She no longer felt like a complete stranger here; indeed, her homesickness for Phaze was diminishing.

Two days later she had her Round Three match. This was against a humanoid robot who reminded her eerily of Mach, but he was not. She had the numbers again, but hesitated to choose ARTS, because the records of all prior games were available, and she knew that the robot could have looked up her games and discovered her preference, and calculated accordingly. So she touched 2. MENTAL. He chose A. NAKED, as she had thought he might; it could be tricky for a robot to use a tool, as robots really were tools in a manner of thinking, and even trickier for him to use a machine.  He would naturally avoid her own strength, ANIMAL.  So he depended on his own resources, as Mach tended to do. She felt a little guilty for using her knowledge of Mach to gain an advantage over this robot, but she knew she had to do it.

The secondary grid for MENTAL came up. She had the numbers again: 5. SOCIAL  6. POWER 7. MATH 8. HUMOR. What should she choose?  She looked at the robot’s choices: E. INFORMATION F. MEMORY G. RIDDLE H. MANIPULA TION. What would he take? It depended on his type; if he were a sophisticated model, like Mach, he would have an enormous store of information, and a sizable temporary memory, but would be weak on mental tricks such as riddles. If he were a simpler model, his information and memory capacity might be much smaller, but he would still be good at manipulating what he had: numbers, for example. So she had better stay well clear of MATH!

She decided that her safest course was HUMOR.  Mach had a sense of humor, though not on a par with hers, but other robots might not understand it at all.  She touched the word.

Sure enough, he had chosen MANIPULATION, going for his strength. They were in 2A8H: SPURIOUS LOGIC. It came down to a contest in telling jokes, and topping them.

Again they had an audience. It seemed that most contestants resembled Fleta in this respect. They preferred to be judged by ordinary folk, not by the machine.