Split Infinity (7 page)

Stile mounted again, springing aboard like the gymnast he was, and was thrown again. He was not really trying to stay on; he was trying to tame the animal. It was a competition between them, serious but friendly.

Stile never showed anger when thrown, and the horse never attacked him. Stile would hold on for a few seconds, then take the fall rather than excite the horse too much. He usually maneuvered to land safely, often on his feet, and remounted immediately—and was thrown again, and remounted again, laughing cheerily. Until the horse was unsure whether any of these falls was genuine, or merely a game. And finally Battleaxe relented, and let him ride.

Even then. Stile rode bareback, scorning to use saddle or tether or martingale or any other paraphernalia; he had to tame this animal all by himself. But here the Citizen interposed: the horse would not be permitted in the races without regulation saddle and bridle; he must be broken to them. So Stile, with apologies and misgivings, introduced Battleaxe to the things that had never stood between them before.

It was a disaster. Battleaxe felt Stile had betrayed him. He still permitted the man to ride, but it was no longer so polite. When the bridle came near, Battleaxe would swing his head about and bite; when he was being saddled, he would kick. But Stile had not learned about horses yesterday. Though Battleaxe tried repeatedly, he could never quite get a tooth on Stile’s hand.
 
When he kicked. Stile dodged, caught the foot, and held it up, leg bent; in that position even a 50-kilo man could handicap a 750-kilo horse. Battleaxe, no dummy, soon learned the futility of such expressions of ire, though Stile never really punished him for the at-tempts. The embarrassment of failing was punishment enough. What was the use of bucking off a rider who would not stay bucked? Of kicking at a man who always seemed to know the kick was coming well before it started?

Through all this Stile continued to feed Battleaxe, water him, and bring him snacks of salt and fruit, al- ways speaking gently. Finally the horse gave up his last resistance, for the sake of the friendship and respect they shared. Stile could at last saddle him and ride him without challenge of any kind. The insults were dealt to other horses and their riders, in the form of leaving them behind. The attacks were transferred to other people, who soon learned not to fool with this particular horse. Once the Citizen himself visited the stable, and Stile, in a cold sweat, calmed the horse, begging him to tolerate this familiarity, for a bite at the employer would be instant doom. But the Citizen was smart enough to keep his hands off the horse, and there was no trouble. The winning of races commenced, a regular ritual of fitness. The prospective stud fee quintupled, and climbed again with every victory. But Battleaxe had been befriended, not broken; without Stile this would be just another unmanageable horse.

And Stile, because of his success with Battleaxe, had become recognized as the top jockey on Proton. His employment contract rivaled the value of the horse it-self. That was why the Citizen catered to him. Stile, like Battleaxe, performed better when befriended, rather than when forced. “We’re a team. Axe!” he murmured, caressing the animal with his voice. Battleaxe would have a most enjoyable life when he retired from racing, with a mare in every stall. Stile would have a nice bonus payment when his tenure ended; he would be able to reside on some other planet a moderately wealthy man. Too bad that no amount of wealth could buy the privilege of remaining on Proton!

They came out of the turn, still gaining—and Stile felt a momentary pain in his knees, as though he had flexed them too hard. They were under tension, of course, bearing his weight, springing it so that he did not bounce with the considerable motions of this powerful steed; the average man could not have stood up long to this stress. But Stile was under no unusual strain; he had raced this way hundreds of times, and he took good care of his knees. He had never been subject to stress injuries. Therefore he tried to dismiss it; the sensation must be a fluke.

But it could not be dismissed. Discomfort progressed to pain, forcing him to uncramp his knees. This unbalanced him, and put the horse off his pace. They began to lose ground. Battleaxe was confused, not under-standing what Stile wanted, aware that something was wrong.

Stile tried to resume the proper position, but his knees got worse, the pain becoming intense. He had to jerk his feet out of the stirrups and ride more conventionally, using saddle and leg pressure to retain his balance. The horse lost more ground, perplexed, more concerned about his rider than the race.

Stile had never before experienced a problem like this. The other horses were overhauling Battleaxe rap-idly. He tried to lift his feet back into the stirrups for a final effort, but pain shot through his knees the moment he put pressure on them. It was getting worse! His joints seemed to be on fire.

Now the other horses were abreast, passing him. Stile could do nothing; his weight, unsprung, was interfering with his steed’s locomotion. Battleaxe was powerful, but so were the competing animals; the difference between a champion and an also-ran was only seconds.
 
And Battleaxe was not even trying to race anymore. He hardly had a chance, with this handicap.

All too soon, it was over. Stile finished last, and the track monitors were waiting for him. “Serf Stile, give cause why you should not be penalized for malfeasance.”

They thought he had thrown the race! “Bring a medic; check my knees. Horse is all right.”

A med-robot rolled up and checked his knees.
 
“Laser bum,” the machine announced. “Crippling in-jury.”

Not that crippling; Stile found he could walk without discomfort, and bend his knees partway without pain.
 
There was no problem with weight support or control.
 
He merely could not flex them far enough to race a horse.

Sheen ran to him. “Oh, Stile—what happened?”

“I was lasered,” he said. “Just beyond the turn.”

“And I did not protect you!” she exclaimed, horrified.

The track security guard was surveying the audience with analysis devices. Stile knew it would be useless; the culprit would have moved out immediately after scoring. They might find the melted remains of a self-destruct laser rifle, or even of a complete robot, set to tag the first rider passing a given point. There would be no tracing the source.

“Whoever sent me knew this would happen,” Sheen said. “Oh, Stile, I should have been with you—“

“Racing a horse? No way. There’s no way to stop a laser strike except to be where it isn’t.”

“Race voided,” the public-address system announced.

“There has been tampering.” The audience groaned.

A portly Citizen walked onto the track. All the serfs gave way before him, bowing; his full dress made his status immediately apparent. It was Stile’s employer!

“Sir,” Stile said, beginning his obeisance.

“Keep those confounded knees straight!” the Citizen cried. “Come with me; I’m taking you directly to surgery. Good thing the horse wasn’t hurt.”

Numbly, Stile followed the Citizen, and Sheen came too. This was an extraordinary occurrence; Citizens hardly ever took a personal hand in things. They entered a Citizen capsule, a plush room inside with deep jungle scenery on every wall. As the door closed, the illusion became complete. The capsule seemed to move through the jungle, slowly; a great tiger stood and watched them, alarmingly real in three dimensions, then was left behind. Stile realized that this was a representation of a gondola on the back of an elephant. So realistic was the representation that he thought he could feel the sway and rock as the elephant walked.

Then a door opened, as it were in midair, and they were at the hospital complex. Rapidly, without any relevant sense of motion—for the slow gondola could hardly have matched the sonic velocity of the capsule—they had traveled from the racetrack dome to the hospital dome.

The chief surgeon was waiting, making his own obeisance to the Citizen. “Sir, we will have those knees replaced within the hour,” he said. “Genuine cultured cartilage,
 
guaranteed nonimmuno-reactive;
 
stasis- anesthesia without side effect—“

“Yes, yes, you’re competent, you’d be fired other-wise,” the Citizen snapped. “Just get on with it. Make sure the replacements conform exactly to the original; I don’t want him disqualified from future racing because of modification.” He returned to his capsule, and in a moment was gone.

The surgeon’s expression hardened as the Citizen’s presence abated. He stared down at Stile contemptuously, though the surgeon was merely another naked serf. It was that element of height that did it, as usual.
 
“Let’s get on with it,” he said, unconsciously emulating the phrasing and manner of the Citizen. “The doxy will wait here.”

Sheen clutched Stile’s arm. “I mustn’t separate again from you,” she whispered. “I can’t protect you if I’m not with you.”

The surgeon’s hostile gaze fixed on her. “Protect him from what? This is a hospital.”

Stile glanced at Sheen, beautiful and loving and chastened and concerned for him. He looked at the arrogantly tall surgeon, about whose aristocratic mouth played the implication of a professional sneer. The girl seemed much more human than the man. Stile felt guilty about not being able to love her. He needed to make some act of affirmation, supporting her. “She stays with me,” he said.

“Impossible. There must be no human intrusion in the operating room. I do not even enter it myself; I monitor the process via holography.”

“Stile,” Sheen breathed. “The threat to you is real.
 
We know that now. When you separated from me in the race, it was disaster. I must stay with you!”

“You are wasting my valuable time,” the surgeon snapped. “We have other operations scheduled.” He touched a panel on the wall. “Hospital security: re-move obnoxious female.”

Sheen was technically correct: the attack on him had been made when he was apart from her. He did need her protection. Any “accident” could happen to him.
 
Perhaps he was being paranoid—or maybe he just didn’t like the attitude of the tall doctor. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

The security squad arrived: four husky neuter androids. Hospitals favored androids or artificial men be- cause they seemed human despite their laboratory genesis. This reassured the patients somewhat. But they were not really human, which reassured the administration. No one ever got raped or seduced by a neuter android, and no one ever applied to an android for reassurance. Thus the patients were maintained in exactly the sterile discomfort that was ideal hospital procedure.

“Take the little man to surgery, cell B-ll,” the doctor said. “Take the woman to detention.”

The four advanced. Each was tall, beardless, breast-less, and devoid of any primary sexual characteristics.
 
Each face was half-smiling, reassuring, gentle, calm.
 
Androids were smiling idiots, since as yet no synthetic human brain had been developed that could compare to the original. It was useless to attempt to argue or reason; the creatures had their order.

Stile caught the first by the right arm, whirled, careful not to bend his knees, and threw it to the floor with sufficient force to stun even its sturdy, uncomplicated brain. He sidestepped the next, and guided it into the doctor. Had the surgeon known he was dealing with a Game specialist, he would not so blithely have sent his minions into the fray.

Sheen dispatched her two androids as efficiently, catching one head in each hand and knocking the two heads together with precise force. She really was trained to protect a person; Stile had not really doubted this, but had not before had the proof.

The surgeon was struggling with the android Stile had sent; the stupid creature mistook him for the subject to be borne away to surgery. “Idiot! Get off me!”

Stile and Sheen sprinted down the corridor. “You realize we’re both in trouble?” he called to her as the commotion of pursuit began. It was a considerable understatement. She remembered to laugh.

They ducked into a service-access shaft. “Stay out of people-places,” Sheen told him. “I can guide us through the machine passages, and that’s safest.”

“Right.” Stile wondered just how foolish he was being. He knew his employer: the man would fire him instantly because of the havoc here. Why was he doing it? Did he really fear murder in surgery? Or was he just tired of the routine he had settled into? One thing was sure: there would be a change now!

“We’ll have to pass through a human-serviced area ahead,” Sheen said. “I’m a robot, but I’d rather they did not know that. It would have a deleterious effect on the efficiency of my prime directive. I’d better make us both up as androids.”

“Androids are sexless,” Stile protested.

“I’m taking care of that.”

“Now, wait! I don’t want to be neutered just yet, and you are too obviously female—“

“Precisely. They will not be alert for neuters.” She unfolded a breast, revealing an efficient cabinet inside, filled with rubber foam to eliminate rattling. She removed a roll of flesh-toned adhesive tape and squatted before Stile. In a moment she had rendered him into a seeming eunuch, binding up his genitals in a constricted but not painful manner. “Now do not allow yourself to become—“

“I know! I know! I won’t even look at a sexy girl!”