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“The score stands at 78 to 69, my favor,” he said. “If we stop here, and I agree we might as well—”
She tried to reach the Traveler again, but that wave of ability had subsided. She might never again achieve the peak of awareness and drive necessary to call it forth directly. No help there.
Without letting herself consciously realize what she was doing in her desperate effort to stave off defeat, Afra stepped backward into the destroyer-room.
“Hey!” Schön called, taken by surprise. He dived for her, astonishingly swift on his feet — but too late.
Ivo resumed control as the destroyer sequence hit. A rainbow of color/concept threatened to overwhelm his perception, building with merciless velocity toward oblivion — but he had had long experience diverting it. He deflected the impact and concentrated on Afra.
She was kneeling on the floor, trying to cover her face, but the emanations were everywhere. They leaked out in forms susceptible to reception by ears and skin as well as eyes. There was no physical way to block the destroyer off, this close.
He reached her and clamped both hands on her wrists, hauling her around and up and back through the doorway. Her eyes were fixed, her lips parted in the obsessive rapture of assimilation. As they passed from the chamber the barrage stopped, sealed off by some unseen shield.
Afra slumped into unconsciousness. He propped her up against an inactive scrubbing machine and peered anxiously into her face. Had he brought her out in time? If he revived her now, would she awaken to personality — or mindlessness?
She had won the game with Schön. Her daring had scored a clean sweep of Pluto, for she had survived where he could not. It was the one situation where lesser intelligence was an advantage. The extra minute she had withstood the destroyer was the same as a knockout victory.
Schön had had to have her help, if he were ever to leave the station, since only by burying his own personality could he have faced the destroyer. He could have fashioned an idiot personality for the purpose — but then the geis on him would have taken effect, keeping him bottled. Only if another person released him could he reemerge, in the absence of Ivo. A simple request would have been enough: “Schön — come out!” — but it had to be from someone who acted independently. Someone outside the bottle, for the seal could not be broken from within. Someone who knew him and knew what the request meant.
Certainly Schön would never have let Ivo resume control. Not when both knew that Afra was in love with that alternate personality. But an idiot — capable only of a directed reception of the Traveler — she would have had to banish that. Her temperament would have forced her to uncork the responding mind, even though she hated it. And of course she would have felt obligated to honor the terms of the agreement, having lost the game.
But she had won. Ivo was sure of this — because he had been the referee. Had it been otherwise — that is, had Schön not arranged to make it fair — the results would not have been binding. A legitimate win for Schön would have forced Ivo to return control to him, even after saving him from the destroyer. Ivo, too, was bound by the geis, having agreed to arbitrate the contest.
As it was, that intervention to save their mutual mind had cost Schön all ten points of the final round, putting Afra ahead 79 to 78, and it was over. She had won the right to choose her companion on the way home. She had made the nature of that choice plain during her dialogue with Schön.
Provided she retained, literally, the wit to make that decision. Otherwise, she too had lost, and rendered the round a tie that was meaningless. A mindless Afra could not serve Schön’s purpose.
Ivo contemplated her face, so lovely in its repose. He had longed for this from the moment he saw her the first time. He had traveled the galaxy only to please her.
The surface of the machine against which she leaned was reflective. He saw in that mirror the head of a man. It seemed to smile knowingly at him. He knew, as the gift of one of Schön’s conscious thoughts during the contest, that this was Afra’s symbol in Pluto — A MAN’S HEAD — just as the rainbow he had seen as he took over had been Schön’s. But whose head was it to be?
Had all his life been leading to this crisis, this empty vigil with an unconscious girl? If she were gone, what was left?
Ivo held her, afraid to wake her, and remembered.
There had been the project breakup, thrusting them all abruptly into the massive, confused, tormented world — yet most had greeted it as a release and a challenge. They had exploded across the planet, three hundred and thirty eager youngsters seeking experience… and had been absorbed by it without a ripple. Brad had gone to college; Ivo had followed the melody of the flute, searching out the obscure monuments of the life of Sidney Lanier. Quite a number of the others had married nonproject people. All had sworn to keep in touch forever, but they were young then, and somehow had forgotten. There had been some almost-random encounters, however — enough to circulate news of most. From time to time Ivo had dreamed of a grand convening, a project reunion — recognizing the very desire as a reflection of his inadequacy, his poor adjustment to the world of the ’70’s.
Then Groton, on a hot Georgia street, and adventure had been thrust upon him. Brad needed Schön! Afra, vision of love, bait of trap — would he have stepped into it had he not wanted to? The proboscoids of Sung, overru
Joseph the rocket, accommodations for five. Learning to use the macroscope, that instrument of galactic civilization. Astrology: “The complex of your life and the complex of the universe may run in a parallel course.” UN pursuit. Image of a living cell. The handling — identity confirmation or sexual experience? The melting — skull canting, gray-white fluid coursing out eye-socket. Reconstitution — from cell to self in four hours.
Mighty Neptune, sea-storm world of methane. Triton, where Tryx found a bug. Schön, moon of a moon. There he had come to appreciate real people, to know the meaning of friendship, its prerogatives and its miseries. Terraforming: a joint effort. Poetry, prejudice, a chess analogy. Starfish. Afra’s horoscope, the chart that defined her. The flip of a bus token. Trial: another case of handling, really. Spacefold diagrams. Visual penetration of Neptune — dwarf with the breath of a giant, yet more ancient than Sol. Gravitational radius.
Tyre. Mattan, talking of superpowers. Baal Melqart, hungry for children. Swords and torches in the night. Aia: “We shall have joy in one another, while both being true to our memories.” Image of Astarte, milk spurting from her breasts. Stench of rotting shellfish, for purple robes. Gorolot, offered an imperious housemaid. Afra, volunteering in lieu of Aia, comfortable harbor for ships. All because Schön craved freedom.
Well, Schön had lost, whether Afra had mind or not.
Suddenly Ivo could stand the suspense no longer. He put his hands under Afra’s arms, drew her to her feet against him, and kissed her with all the passion he had suppressed for so long. Try that for handling!
She woke abruptly. She brought her arms up outside his, wedged her stiffened fingers against his cheeks, and shoved back his head. “Get away from me!” she exclaimed angrily.