Split Infinity (26 page)

Stile took his time, calling in regular reports and making up his route map. This was really a puzzle: find the most direct route that avoided all hazards. He had to think in equine terms, for Spook could spook at a mere patch of colored sand, while trotting blithely into a dead-end canyon.

Only when he was quite certain he had the best route did Stile report to the dome where Spook was stabled.
 
He was confident, now, that he could bring the horse across in good order. It was not merely that this success would probably facilitate his promotion. He liked Spook. The horse had in his fashion been responsible for Stile’s last promotion.

When he arrived at that dome, he found a gram awaiting him. It was from offplanet: the first he had had since his parents moved out. STILE—AM MARRIED NOW—NAMED SON AFTER YOU. HOPE YOU FOUND YOURS—TUNE.

He was glad for her, though her loss hurt with sudden poignancy. Three months together, three years apart; he could not claim his world had ended. Yet he had not found another girl he liked as well, and suspected he never would. He found himself humming a melody; he had done that a lot in the first, raw months of loss, and it had coalesced into a nervous habit he did not really try to cure. Music would always remind him of her, and he would always pursue it in memory of those three wonderful months.

So she had named her son after him! She had not conceived by him, of course; no one conceived involuntarily on Proton. It was just her way of telling him how much their brief connection had meant to her. She had surely had many other lovers, and not borrowed from their names for this occasion. She said she had lied to him, but actually she had made possible an experience he would never have traded. Brevity did not mean in-consequence; no, never!

“Thank you. Tune,” he murmured.

Stile woke suddenly, making a significant connection.

“Geography!” he cried. “This world is Proton!”

Neysa, in girl-form, was tending him. He realized, in a kind of supplementary revelation, that she was the same size as Tune; no wonder he had accepted her as a lover so readily, despite his knowledge of her nature.
 
She was not a true woman, and would never be, but she was well worthwhile on her own account.

She looked at him questioningly, aware of his stare. Her appearance and personality were, of course, quite unlike Tune’s; no light-hued hair, no merry cleverness here. Neysa was dark and quiet, and she never told a lie.

“I had a memory,” he explained. “Beginning with my fencing lessons, because you were teaching me how to use the rapier when I—“ He paused, trying to assimilate it. “What happened to me?”

Reluctantly, she talked. “Sick.”

“Sick? You mean as in disease? But there’s no disease on Proton—“ Again he did a double take. “But this isn’t Proton, exactly. It’s another realm with the same geography. The purple mountains to the south-it’s what Proton might have been, had it had a decent atmosphere. An alternate Proton, where magic works.
 
Maybe magic made the atmosphere, and the gravity. So with a complete planetary environment, a complete ecology, there are flies, there is dirt, there is disease.
 
And I have no natural immunity, only my standard shots, which never anticipated the complete spectrum of challenges I found here. The micro-organisms in the food here, in the water, natural for natives but foreign to my system. Pollens in the air. Allergens. Et cetera.
 
So it took a couple of days for the germs to incubate in my system, then suddenly they overwhelmed me.
 
Reaching the point of explosive infestation. Thanks for explaining it so well, Neysa.”

She smiled acknowledgment.

“But how could you cure me? I should have died, or at least been sick longer than this. I’ve only been out a few hours, haven’t I? Now I feel fine, not even tired.”

She had to speak again. “Clip brought amulet.” She reached forward and touched a figurine hanging on a necklace that had been put on him.

Stile lifted it in his hand. “A healing amulet? Now isn’t that clever! Will I get sick again if I take it off?”

She shook her head no.

“You mean these things emit their magic in one burst, then are useless? But some are supposed to have continuing effect, like the clothing-simulator amulet I was given at the outset—uh-oh.” He hastily removed the chain from his neck. “That one tried to kill me. If this one was made by the same party—“

She shrugged.

“Do you mind if I dispose of this now?” he asked.
 
“We could bury it and mark the spot so we can find it later if we want it. But I’d rather not have it with me. If I invoke a secondary function—well, Neysa, an amulet attacked me, before I met you. When I invoked it You invoked this one, so maybe that’s why it acted normally. I fear the amulets have murder in mind for me, when they recognize me. That’s why I needed a steed—to get away from my anonymous enemy.”

Neysa lifted her head, alarmed in the equine manner.
 
“No, no, you didn’t bring the enemy here,” Stile reassured her. “The demon hasn’t been invoked.” He took her hands, smiling. “I chose better than I knew, when I chose you. You did right, Neysa. I think you saved my life.”

She allowed herself to be drawn in to him, and there followed what followed. He had not forgotten Sheen, but this was another world.

They buried the amulet and went on. It was morning; his illness had lasted only one night, coinciding with normal sleep, and the revelation of geography had almost been worth it. This accounted for the nagging familiarity he had sensed before; he had seen the surface of this world a decade ago, in its dead form.

What accounted for this difference? The concept of alternate worlds, or alternate frames of the same world, he could accept. But breathable atmosphere, a full living ecology, and magic in one, domes and science and external barrenness in the other—that dichotomy was harder to fathom. He would have expected parallel frames to be very similar to each other.

Still, it helped his sense of orientation. Now it was clear why people crossed over at certain spots. They were not matter-transmitting, they were stepping through the curtain at precise geographical locations, so as to arrive in domes and in private places. To cross elsewhere—well, if he tried that, he would have to pre-pare himself with a breathing mask.

‘You know, Neysa,” he said as he rode. “There is a lot I don’t know about this world, and my life is in danger here, but I think I like it better than my own.
 
Out here, with you—I’m happy. I could just ride for-ever, I think, like this.” He shook his head. “But I suppose I would get tired of it, in a century or two;

must be realistic.”

Neysa made a musical snort, then broke into a two-beat gallop, front hooves striking precisely together, rear hooves likewise. It was a jolting gait.

“Think you can buck me off, huh?” Stile said play-fully. He brought out his harmonica—one advantage of clothing, he discovered, was that it had pockets—and played a brisk marching melody. The girl “Tune had taught him the beauty of music, and his growing talent in it had helped him on numerous occasions in the Game. His memory flashback had freshened his aware-ness that even had music been worthless in a practical sense, he would have kept it up. Music was fun.

But again a looming presence developed. Again they stopped. “Something funny about this,” Stile said.
  
“Clip told me not to worry, that unicorns are immune to most magic—but this is eerie. I don’t like mysteries that may affect my health.”

Neysa blew a note of agreement.

“It seems to happen when we’re playing music,” he continued. “Now I’ve never been harmed by music, but I’d better be sure. Maybe something is sneaking up while we’re playing, hoping we won’t notice. I somehow doubt this is connected with the amulets; this is more subtle. Let’s try it again. If we feel the presence, I’ll stop playing and will try to search it out. You go on playing as if nothing is happening. We need to catch it by surprise.”

They resumed play—and immediately the presence returned. Stile left his harmonica at his lips but ceased playing; instead he peered about while Neysa danced on, continuing the melody. But even as he looked, whatever it was faded.

Experimentally Stile resumed play, matching Neysa’s theme, softly, so that an on-listener would not hear him. The presence returned. Neysa stopped playing, while Stile continued—and the presence loomed stronger, as if her music had restrained it. Stile halted abruptly—and the effect receded.

“It’s tied to me!” he exclaimed. “Only when I play-“

Neysa agreed. Whatever it was, was after Stile—and it advanced only when he was playing. It could hear him, regardless of other sounds that masked his own.

Stile felt an eerie chill. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

The unicorn took off. No clever footwork this time; she moved right into a racing gallop. They forged across the plain at a rate no horse could match, wove through copses of brightly green trees, and leaped across small streams. He could see the mountains sliding back on either side. They were really covering the kilometers!

At last Neysa slowed, for her breath was turning Eery. Stile brought out his harmonica and played once more—and instantly the presence closed in.

He stopped immediately. “We can’t outrun it, Neysa; that’s evident. But now that we’re aware of it, maybe we can do something about it. Why does it still come only when I play? It has to know that we are aware of it, and are trying to escape it; no further need to hide.”

Neysa shrugged—an interesting effect, while he was mounted.

“First the amulet, now this. Could they be con-nected? Could the harmonica be—“ He paused, alarmed. “Another amulet?”

After a moment he developed a notion. “Neysa—do you think you could play this instrument? With your mouth, I mean, human-fashion? If this is an enemy-summoning device, there should be the same effect whoever plays it. I think.”

Neysa halted and had him dismount and remove the saddle. Then she phased into human form. He had not seen her do it by day before, and it had not occurred to him that she would. He had thought of her playing the harmonica in her equine form, but of course this way made much more sense.

She took the instrument and played. She was not expert, since this was foreign to her mode, and the result was a jumble. No presence formed. Then Stile took the harmonica and played a similar jumble—and the presence was there.

“Not the instrument—but me,” he said. “Only when I play it.” He pondered. “Is it a symbiosis, or is the harmonica incidental?”

He tried humming a tune—and the presence came, though not as powerfully as before.

“That settles it: it’s me. When I make music, it comes. My music is better with the harmonica, so the effect is stronger, that’s all. The instrument is not haunted.” He smiled. “I’m glad. I like this harmonica.
 
I’d hate to have to bury it in dirt.” He would hate to abuse any harmonica, because he retained a fond feeling for the keyboard harmonica and all its relatives.
 
But this present instrument was the finest of its breed he had ever played.

Neysa had changed back to her natural form. Stile put the saddle back on. “I don’t think we can afford to ignore this matter,” he said.

The unicorn flicked one ear in agreement.

“Let’s get down to some good grazing land, and I’ll challenge it. I want to see what will happen. I don’t like running from a threat anyway. I’d rather draw it out and settle the account, one way or another. If it is an enemy, I want to summon it by daylight, with my sword in hand, not have it sneak up on me at night.”

Neysa agreed again, emphatically.

They moved downslope until good grass resumed.
 
Neysa grazed, but she did not wander far from Stile, and her eye was on him. She was concerned. Bless her;

it had been a long time since someone had worried about him. Except for Sheen—and that was a matter of programming.

Stile began to play. The presence loomed. He tried to see it, but it was invisible, intangible. This time he did not stop his music. The grass seemed to wave, bending toward him and springing back as if driven by a wind, but there was no wind. The air seemed to sparkle. A faint haze developed, swirling in barely discernible colored washes. Stile felt the hairs on his body lighten, as if charged electrostatically. He thought at first it was his own nervousness, for he did not know what thing or force he summoned, but he saw Neysa’s mane lifting similarly. There was potential here, and it centered on him—but it never acted. It just loomed.

Stile stopped playing, growing weary of this—and yet again the effect faded. “Almost the form of an electrical storm,” he mused. “Yet—“

He was cut off by a sheet of rain blasting at him.
 
Lightning cracked nearby. The sudden light half-blinded him, and a gust of wind made him stagger. He was soaked as if dunked in a raging sea, feeling the eerie chill of the violent water. There was a swirling of fog reminiscent of a developing tornado. The flashes of light were continuous.

Neysa charged back to him, seeking to protect him from the elements with her body and her anti-magic.

Both helped; Stile flung his arms about her neck and buried his face in her wet mane, and the swirling wind had less force there. Her mass was more secure than his, and the rain struck her less stingingly. They settled to the ground, and that was more secure yet. “Now I’m embracing you in your natural form,” he told her laughingly, but doubted she heard him over the wind.