Robot Adept (13 page)

Shock was still making up his mind, for though her column highlighted, none of his numbered rows did.
 
That gave her a chance to look around.

She hadn’t paid attention to her surroundings; she had just followed the line in. She saw that she was in one of a number of open chambers, each of which contained a console, and most of the consoles had players standing by them. Many folk were playing this peculiar game! But that might be because they were doing what she was supposed to do, qualifying for the Tourney.
 
Mach had said that only the top ten in each age group, among the males and the females, would qualify. So now they were trying to get into the top tens.
 
She realized that that must be what the ladder was for. Shock had mentioned a ladder, that he was near the bottom of. A ladder was a thing that human folk used to climb up onto higher places. So she was trying to get on the ladder, starting near the bottom, which was the way with ladders.

But how was she to get to the top, if she had to win games against experienced players to climb each rung?
 
The Tourney was only a few days away, and even if she could win every game, there would hardly be time for them all!

A row illuminated. Shock had finally made his choice.
 
It was 1. PHYSICAL. The two highlights overlapped at ID.

Then the ID square expanded to fill the screen. ANIMAL-ASSISTED PHYSICAL appeared across the top, and new sets of choices appeared. This time she had the numbers, and he had the letters.
 
She looked at her choices: 5. SEPARATE 6. INTERACTIVE 7. COMBAT 8. COOPERATIVE. She wasn’t certain how these applied, but the safest seemed to be the first, because it seemed to mean that she could do her own thing. She touched it.

Again she had played ahead of Shock. That encouraged her, though it might be that he was making more intelligent choices. His options were E. EARTH F.
 
FIRE G. GAS H. HzO, whatever those meant.

When he chose, it was E: EARTH—FLAT SURFACE. So that was it: Earth, as in a plain someone could run on. That was fine with her; unicorns under stood running room.

The 1D5E square expanded to fill the screen, and a new, slightly smaller lattice appeared, with nine squares. Down the right side was a list of activities.
 
Shock whistled. “I don’t know how to do any of these things!” he exclaimed. “Well, let’s see where it goes.” The words BRONCO-BUSTING appeared in the top left box.

Fleta realized that he must have touched one of the words at the side, because it had disappeared from the side when it appeared in the square. So she touched her favorite: HORSEBACK RIDING. It wasn’t that she liked riding horses, but that she, being a related animal, understood them better than any of the others listed, and in her human form certainly could ride one of them.

He put BULLDOGGING in the third square, so she put GOAT MILKING in the fourth one. There were not many goats in Phaze, but they were easy enough to get along with.

They continued with DOG TRAINING, COW MILKING, CAMEL RIDING, BULL FIGHTING and CHICKEN SEXING. “That’s not what it sounds like,” Shock explained. “It’s telling the chicks apart, you know, male or female, so they know who’ll grow up to lay eggs. A good chicken sexer can make a pile, on a farm planet. Well, let’s choose up; this is it. I got the last placement, so you get choice of numbers or letters.”

She chose the letters, and touched B, the center column, because that had the horse riding in it. She was lucky; he chose 1, and the highlights overlapped at HORSEBACK RIDING. She had her first choice, which meant a good chance.

ADJOURN TO RIDING AREA, the screen said. FOLLOW THE LINE.

She looked at the floor. A new line showed, leading away from the console.

They followed it. It brought them to a corral where a number of people were riding horses. It terminated at a check-in office.

The bored attendant glanced up. “Whatcha into—easy, rough or show?” he asked.

“I don’t mind losing, but I don’t want to get dumped,” Shock said candidly. “I bruise easily.”

 
“Easy,” the attendant said. “Saddle or bareback?”

“Your turn,” Shock said.

So they were still taking turns on choices. “Bare back,” Fleta said.

In due course they found themselves on two sedate horses, bareback, with reins. The one who guided his horse most accurately along a set course would be the winner.

Fleta didn’t like reins, so she dismounted, went to the horse’s head and removed the bit and the reins.
 
The man who had brought the horses looked surprised, but did not comment.

She remounted, and they proceeded along the course. Shock was evidently barely familiar with horsemanship; had the course not been long familiar to the animal, he would soon have been lost. Fleta leaned low, embraced her horse with legs and arms, and spoke to it in its own language: a low whinny. Her body might be alien, but her nature was equine, and now it came strongly through. She felt a sudden surge of homesickness for her homeland, and knew that this captive horse felt the same.

The horse’s ears perked. She stroked its neck, reassuring it, explaining by pressures of her legs how it should react. Soon she had it responsive, and the horse obeyed her commands when they were neither verbal nor visual. She really did understand horses.
 
Thereafter, the horse stood tall and proud, and moved so precisely along the course that others stopped to look. One of the keepers, alarmed, challenged this:

“You do something to that animal? No tether, no halter, no bit, no reins—you drug it?”

“No drug,” Fleta said.

“Bring it over here; I want the vet to see.” So they had to interrupt the contest, while the horse walked to the side where the robot vet rolled up. The machine ran sensors across the horse’s skin and flashed little lights in the animal’s eyes and mouth. “This horse likes this rider,” the robot said, and rolled away.
 

“You sure have the touch!” Shock said. “Or did you just get a happy horse?”

“We can exchange horses if you wish,” Fleta said.

“Yes, let’s do that!”

So they dismounted and exchanged. Fleta addressed the new horse as she had the first, and removed the bit and reins, and soon it was as cooperative, while the first, feeling the ignorance of the new rider, became surly.

By the time they finished the ride, there was no question of Fleta’s victory. “Serf, you’re new on the register,” the corral manager said, hurrying up. “You looking for employment? You’ve got a touch with those animals I never saw before!”

Fleta dismounted, put her arm up around her mount’s head, and kissed it on the nose. “I do relate well to animals,” she agreed. “But I am trying to qualify for the Tourney.”

“But once you enter that, you’re gone, unless you win!” the manager protested. “Look, this spread is owned by a pretty savvy Citizen. If he sees how you are with his animals, he’ll give you good employment and treat you right. It’s a lot better risk than the Tourney!”

It surely was—for an ordinary serf. But Fleta knew that she could not remain in this guise indefinitely with out being discovered, and then she would be in instant trouble. “I wish I could do it,” she said with genuine regret. “But I am committed. I must enter the Tourney.”

They left the corral. “I think you should have taken it,” Shock said. He shrugged. “Well, you bumped me down a rung on the ladder; you’re number one-four two on the Leftover Ladder.”

“Why is it called the leftover? I thought there was a ladder for each age group.”

“There is, and the top ten of each ladder qualify. But some don’t fit well, being underage or overage or alien or handicapped or whatever, so there’s a special ladder for us. I guess they sent you here because you’re too new to know the ropes.”

That was not the reason, Fleta realized. It was be cause she was an alien creature masquerading as an android of the opposite sex. She could not qualify for a regular ladder without giving herself away, so the self willed machines had set her up with this all-inclusive one. They did know what they were doing.
 
But she was on the 142
^nd
rung! How could she ever make it to the top ten rungs?

Shock showed her where to verify her ranking: the Game Computer had a special screen that would show the placement of whomever approached it. Sure enough, FLETA was now listed 142 on LEFTOVER.
 
SHOCK was 143. He shrugged and departed, satisfied.
 
“Report to alcove for special instructions,” a low voice murmured from the speaker.

Surprised, she went to an alcove, where there was slightly greater privacy.

“Challenge the player on the eighth rung,” the speaker said.

“But don’t I have to climb step by step?” she asked.
 

“Not in this case. You are permitted two free challenges: one in the lowest ten, to register on the ladder, and one elsewhere, to establish your regular position.
 
Thereafter you can ascend or descend only rung by rung, and need accept only a single challenge each day.
 
If you win Rung Eight, and limit subsequent challenges to one a day, you can lose on the following two days and still qualify for the Tourney. You must achieve the rung now; pursuit is closing, and you will be protected while you remain at the qualifying level.”

She felt like melting. She had almost forgotten the danger she was in. “How do I challenge?”

“We shall enter it for you. Follow the line.”

She looked. The new line was there on the floor.

“Thank you,” she said, but the speaker did not respond.
 
She hadn’t known that the Game Computer itself was cooperating with the self-willed machines; probably it could get in serious trouble itself, if the Contrary Citizens learned of its part in this. That had to be why her double slip in naming herself and her nature had not given her away: the computer already knew her identity, and was covering for her.

She followed the line, still intrigued by the magic of this realm. It led to another console, where an older woman stood. She had only one arm. This, it seemed, was Number Eight on the Ladder.

“Fleta of Uni,” the woman said disapprovingly. “You breeze here from offplanet at the last minute and want to enter the Tourney and maybe win Citizenship, just like that?”

Fleta looked at the name on the screen. This was Stumpy of Proton. A cruel name for a long-time serf.
 
“Citizenship?” she asked, alarmed. If the Citizens were already closing in ...

Stumpy looked at her with open incredulity. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?” Fleta asked, confused.

“Oh—you’re an android,” Stumpy said.

Fleta did not argue, as she was impersonating an android. A reputation for stupidity was an asset, for her. She smiled and looked appropriately blank.
 
“Well, let’s get this charade over with,” Stumpy said.

She slapped her hand down on her screen.
 
Fleta had the letters again, so she took D. ANIMAL again. Immediately the screen showed Stumpy’s choice, 3. CHANCE. The square expanded.

Instead of a new grid, there was a message: BETTING ON ANIMAL CONTESTS. SELECT AN INCIPIENT CONTEST. ONGOING LIST FOLLOWS.

Below was a grid in which many animal contests were listed: races, fights and performances, between horses, dogs, fowl or other creatures.

Bemused by this approach, Fleta touched the column that contained horses, but immediately the chosen square brightened, and it was 1D7E: DOG FIGHT.
 
Well, she had watched werewolves fighting each other for status. Because she was the foal of Neysa, the friend of the entire local Pack, she had been privileged to witness rites that were ordinarily barred to outsiders.
 
That was how she had become friends with Furramenin; she had been a foal and the werewolf a pup together.
 
Dogs were similar creatures, though inferior; they bore about the same relation to werewolves as horses did to unicorns or monkeys to human folk. She should be able to judge a dog fight.

Now the screen became a picture, startling her. It showed a pit, with two snarling dogs being held by trainers. Fleta saw at a glance that one dog, though slightly smaller and leaner, had a more savage temperament; it would be more serious about the fight than the other.

SELECT VICTORIOUS DOG, the screen directed.
 
Fleta touched the screen where that dog was portrayed. But in a moment a message appeared: BETTORS SELECTED SAME ANIMAL. SELECT TIME OF DECISION: CLOSEST MARK.

A scale of times appeared, delineated in seconds and minutes and hours.

Fleta judged that the larger dog would quickly be cowed, and try to break off. Would the fight be halted at that point? Since the horses were owned by a Citizen who wanted them treated well, perhaps the dogs were similarly owned, and the fight would not be allowed to proceed beyond the point of evident advantage. That would keep it short. She touched the scale at one minute, ten seconds.

Stumpy’s mark showed: four minutes even. Now they had a viable bet.

The picture of the dogs reappeared, With the scale retreating to the bottom of the screen. Both bets were marked, and a pointer pointed at 0: the elapsed time of the fight.