"Anthony, Piers - Adept - 06 - Unicorn Point" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

ness, had not yet changed her mind about her position. They
proceeded a while in silence. Stile mulling it over. His son
Bane had managed to exchange identities with his opposite
number in Proton, who happened to be a robot: the manu-
factured son of the humanoid robot Sheen, once Stile's lover.
The robot youth, called Mach, had occupied a living human
body for the first time, and fallen in love with the human
form of Fleta before properly appreciating her nature. Across
the frames, the robot and the unicornЧthe impossibility of
this relationship had been evident to all except the protagon-
ists. Only the conniving Adverse Adepts, who sought to use
the boys for their own purposes, had supported the union.
Bane, in the robot body in Proton, had developed a similarly
difficult relationship with an alien creature. Thus Stile had
lost his son to the enemy. He had recognized his mistake, in
retrospect, too late; the boys were working for the enemy,
and Stile and his allies were suffering.

"Yet now there be Flach," he said, vocalizing again,
knowing that Neysa would have no trouble following. He pro-
nounced the name "Flash"; it was the merger of Fleta and
Mach, with the hard ch become soft. "The first man-unicom
crossbreed, and a delight to us both. Perhaps in time he will
develop abilities drawn from both our stocks. And little Nepe,
in ProtonЧ"

Neysa's ears perked. She was listening to something. Stile

4 | Piers Anthony

paused, so as to give her a better chance; her ears were better
than his. It was probably nothing significant; still, it was
always best to be alert, because there were more monsters
than in the past, and not all of them had learned proper re-
spect for either unicorns or Adepts.

Neysa elevated her nose to sniff the breeze. She made a
musical snort of perplexity. Evidently this was not routine.
"Do you wish me to intercede?" Stile asked. As an Adept,
he could handle just about any threat from anything less than
another Adept, and at present the Adepts were not harrying
each other despite their enmities.

But the unicorn was independent, true to the nature of her
species. She preferred to handle this herself. She broke into
a trot, and then into a gallop, moving at the velocity only her
kind could manage. Stile crouched low, hanging on to her
mane, enjoying this run as much as he had her easy walk.

They broke into open country, much as they had a quarter