The Zen Gun

2

Pout’s cage had no visible bars. Bars might have been an improvement. Then at least he would have been able to see the limits of his prison.

To the casual eye he lived in a bare but pleasant room, at liberty to leave by either of two doors or to approach the people or robots who occasionally passed through. In reality he was confined to one small corner of this room. In the floor there was a hole for his wastes. A slot in the wall flapped open at intervals and delivered edible monotonous substances. A faucet squirted water in measured amounts whenever he pressed a lever. Sometimes he would play, with the water, watching it swirl round the concavity in the floor and disappear down the waste hole.

And there were bars: invisible ghost bars of pain—jagged, flashing pain that sent him mewling and cringing into the join of the walls if he tried to leave his corner. He knew that they were actual bars, because there were gaps in between them. In the past, by trial and error, he had managed to find a gap and put his arm through almost to the shoulder.

Pout could see that other people weren’t constrained in this way. Other people didn’t look like him, either. They didn’t have his big cup-shaped ears, or his simian-like features (with the elongated lips that, though he wasn’t aware of it, had given him his name), or his over-long arms. Also, they had many satisfactions that were denied him. They smiled and looked pleased often. On this score Pout’s imagination was a dim, smouldering ember. His response to anything outside his experience was hatred and resentment, but he was not introspective enough to know that these feelings drew their heat from envy.

There was one person more familiar to him than any other, and this was Torth Nascimento, curator of the museum where Pout lived. One day, as Pout was squatting over the excrement hole, Nascimento entered in the company of a stranger. The latter, a tall man with straw-coloured hair and mild blue eyes, paused. He inspected the scene without the least concern for Pout’s privacy.

“Is this another of your chimeras, Torth?”

“Yes,” Nascimento drawled. “That’s Pout.”

“He’s an odd-looking customer,” the newcomer remarked as Pout finished his business. “What’s he made of?”

“Just about every primate there is. Mostly, though, he’s gibbon, baboon and human.”

“Can he talk?”

“Oh yes. Intellectually he’s very nearly human. Unfortunately his morals are execrable… so much so that we have to keep him locked up.” He pointed to a light in the ceiling. It was a warning that a pain projector was in operation. “The robot file clerks took care of him in his infancy. They even taught him how to look into the files, so in a queer sort of way he’s had an education.”

“Your file clerks? Are they the only company he’s ever had?”

“Oh come, Lopo, don’t be so disapproving,” Nascimento said, glancing at the expression on his guest’s face. “There’s nothing actually illegal in making chimeras.”

“Not if you have a licence for it.”

“I’m sure I’d get one if the question came up. This is a museum, remember.” Nascimento paused thoughtfully. “You know, I’m not surprised the chimeric approach was abandoned in Diadem. Inter-species gene manipulation isn’t as simple as it sounds. So difficult to hit on a good mix… just look at Pout here if you want a case in point. Compounded entirely of the primate family, the best nature has to offer, yet a perfectly horrid creature. Now you’ve brought my attention to him I must remember to have him destroyed. He’s not even interesting enough to be an exhibit.”

The other man bristled. “What’s this I hear? You propose to destroy a bona-fide second-class citizen of the Empire?”

“Is he? Yes, I suppose he is. All right, don’t get excited.” Nascimento ushered him out of the room—really an enlarged section of passageway—where Pout lived. The two were silent until they reached Nascimento’s office, where the curator shooed away a couple of robots who were playing chess.

Lopo de Cogo sat down. Nascimento set a tiny glass of purple liqueur before him. “I don’t know why you object to my making chimeras, Lopo. I thought you sympathised with the Whole-Earth-Biota party?”

“Please, Torth, that was in our student days,” Lopo said uneasily. “All right, we’ll forget about chimeras. I’m afraid I’ve something more serious to talk about. Is it true you’ve been giving artificial intelligence to non-mammals? That is illegal, whichever way you look at it.”

“I’m not sure I agree. You seem to be forgetting my museum has a special charter covering all the sciences.”

De Cogo bit his lip. If taxed about his behaviour Nascimento invariably referred to some ancient warrant granted by a ruler of the planet in days past and never revoked. He never, however, had been able to produce this warrant.

Hitherto de Cogo’s old friendship with the eccentric curator had overridden both his duty as an official inspector and his personal feelings. But it was becoming plain to him that Nascimento’s ethics (and perhaps his mind) had reached a point of non-recovery.

Also, the fellow was clearly a bungler. His remarks on the difficulty of gene-mixing were the cry of an amateur barely literate in the field. In Diadem chimerics was an advanced art. Chimeras had outnumbered pure humans there in the Empire’s heyday. Cell fusion had begun to replace sex as a method of reproduction.

That had been the Whole-Earth-Biota concept: that the dividing lines between species would disappear and the entire mammalian class of old Earth would merge into a single society. But the Biotist philosophy, as it was called, had foundered. It alarmed many pure humans to see the genes of Homo sapiens melting away into a common pool, and radical gene mixing eventually became unfashionable. It was mainly used now for cosmetic purposes. People in Diadem would take their zygotes to a chimericists to give an unborn child a trace of some particular animal. A touch of tiger, for instance, added a personal magnetism that was instantly recognisable.

Although Diadem was overwhelmingly populated by animals, de Cogo doubted if the Biotists would ever be able seriously to revive their cause. There were too many advantages in giving animals artificial intelligence instead, altering their genes only to adjust them for size, or occasionally in place of surgery, to give them speech organs. Humans remained the master race. Animal intelligence, previously unpredictable, no longer depended on a successful gene mix—even humans were given adplants sometimes to bring their intelligence up to scratch.

On one thing, however, both the old Biotists and the modern Diademians were agreed. Neither human genes nor artificial intelligence should be conferred upon non-mammals. “Whole-Earth-Biota” was really a euphemism for “Whole-Earth-Mammalia.”

De Cogo had to press the point. “Please give me a direct answer, Torth.”

Nascimento shrugged.

“Please, you must tell me, Torth. You know how the law regards this. A mammal has emotional sensitivity—it can be civilised. But an intelligent reptile, or raptor—it has no feelings! It’s forever savage and a danger to others!” Officially such creatures could never be regarded as sentient, no matter what their intellectual capacity.

Nascimento giggled. “I’ve got to admit an intelligent snake remains a most uncivil sort of being, not really a person at all. But when you run a museum you feel the need to be comprehensive—you follow me?”

“So it’s true,” de Cogo sighed.

Smiling, Nascimento began to reminisce. “Adplanting is so simple it can even be applied to primitive orders, like arthropods. I might as well admit—I’ve amused myself with that as well. Boris was my favourite. A wolf spider.”

“Intelligence at the service of a spider?” De Co go was bewildered. “But what’s the point of that? A spider doesn’t have a real mind—it’s just a behavioural machine!”

“Well, I was bored. That’s why I gave him the genes to be big—he was the size of a pony. Except that an arthropod that large can’t even stand up unmodified, so, surgical engineering—a prosthetic internal skeleton! I wish I could show him to you, but I’m afraid to say there was a mishap and he escaped. He had the craftiness to scamper well away from here, of course, the rascal. I hear he became the terror of the Kolar district before he was eventually destroyed!” Nascimento gave a high-pitched laugh.

“You’re mad,” de Cogo whispered to himself. He cleared his throat. “Torth, you know I’m here in an official capacity. I’ve tried to tell you before that you’re going too far. This time—”

“This is an ancient institution,” Nascimento interrupted, “and petty laws are passing affairs. We’re not bound by them here. We have a longer perspective.”

“Everyone is bound by them, Torth,” De Cogo stopped, aware he did not have the other’s attention. Torth was bending over the chess board vacated by the robots, smiling at the unfinished game. Then his fingers moved to the keys and switched a few pieces round.

“Poor Crinklebend never wins,” he explained. “Just thought I’d give him a leg-up. Now, what were we saying? Ah yes, rules and regulations. My dear old friend, how can you be serious? This isn’t Diadem, it’s Escoria Sector. Imperial edicts aren’t much more than hopeful advice here. Besides—” Nascimento poked a finger at the ceiling—“according to what I hear there’s a rebellion brewing up there. The Empire looks likely to be pushed right out.”

“Even if that does happen, do you imagine the rebels are going to let the region descend into lawlessness?”

“Oh, they aren’t Biotists, are they?” Torth asked anxiously.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Good. Anyway, no one’s going to take any interest in us. It’s a funny thing, you know, how the meaning of the word ‘Earth’ has changed. It’s used today in a biological sense—‘whole-Earth-Biota.’ But actually it refers to a planet. This planet, Lopo. This is Earth, remember?”

“Yes,” said de Cogo vaguely. It scarcely occurred to him to make the association. It was as if “Earth” was two different words that sounded the same. “What has that got to do with anything?”

“Everything,” Nascimento told him airily. “This is the forgotten original world, a total backwater. Nobody ever comes here, so what makes you think the rebels will, even if they do win? And as the governing council you claim to represent is almost as impotent as Diadem herself, what I’m saying is I can do anything I like, really. So stop moaning at me, Lopo!”

With those words Nascimento rose to his feet, and adopting the manner of one who has disposed of a troublesome importuner, sauntered from the room.

The curator’s words of that afternoon had struck terror into Pout. It comforted him not at all that the visitor had tried to come to his aid: Pout knew that Nascimento would not be stopped by anyone else’s opinion. His only hope of survival appeared to be for the curator to forget his decision.

He felt extra terror, but also surprise, therefore, when de Cogo once again appeared before him that evening. The inspector looked him over, compassion in his pale blue eyes.

“Poor half-monkey,” he murmured. “No mother, no father—what a substitute Torth has made! Try not to blame him—I think his reason went a long time ago. Well, at least I can do something to alleviate your suffering.”

Stepping to the wall, he slid back a panel Pout had never known existed. In the ceiling the signal light went out.

“Come. Your bars are gone.”

Pout cringed. He could not believe what this man seemed to be offering him; it was a trick. Looking at the woebegone creature, de Cogo was suddenly reminded of another experiment of Nascimento’s, the birdman. Lacking voice, unable to articulate language in either spoken or written form, this unfortunate knew only one mode of expression: the C melody saxophone. He played it like an angel whenever he wanted to communicate, uttering tunes and brilliant cascades of notes instead of sentences, trills and arpeggios instead of words. Nascimento had claimed this was a sophisticated form of birdsong, and that the musician was a man-blackbird he had (illegally but unrepentantly) fused. Suspicious at the lack of any physical chimeric signs (though the birdman was rather gawky), de Cogo had discovered the truth. The “birdman” was a pure human Nascimento had raised from birth, using accelerative growth hormones. The reason why he was speechless was that he had been systematically denied any opportunity to learn language. Music, in which he received intensive training, had been his only permitted form of communication. Nascimento had even resorted to putting the growing child in deep freeze between music lessons, to guard against non-melodic imprinting. He regarded the experiment as a resounding success: the speech centre, a left hemisphere brain function, became untrainable. The left hemisphere, the site of intuitive abilities including music, emerged as the only channel for meaning.

Indignant at seeing a first-class citizen imprisoned, de Cogo had obtained his freedom. Presumably he still wandered the Earth somewhere, as a tormented minstrel, able to convey the most rarefied feelings but not a single fact.

But he doubted if he could persuade Nascimento, in his present mood, to see reason in the case of Pout. He beckoned. “I am your friend. I will help you to freedom.”

Pout recalled the way de Cogo had spoken for him earlier. Cautiously, hopefully, he allowed himself to be wheedled from the corner. He passed through where the invisible bars had been. There was no pain.

He was standing on a different part of the floor!

His blood raced. It had been so long!

“Put this on,” de Cogo told him gently, holding out a yellow garment with a bib-like front attached to short trousers. Pout pawed at it. Eventually, at de Cogo’s instructions, he managed to fasten it on him. Then he stood awkwardly, shoulders bowed, swivelling his eyes from side to side, wondering what to do. He would have liked to be able to hurt his rescuer, to injure him or even kill him somehow, but he was not physically strong and he was afraid to attack him.

“Follow me,” said de Cogo crisply. Pout shuffled after the inspector; who led him through a long corridor, and then through a low-roofed gallery he vaguely remembered.

Then he turned left and they emerged onto a timber veranda. A warm breeze blew on Pout. Ahead of him, savannah-like grassland stretched to the horizon. The sun was mellow, hanging over the scene like a burnished lamp.

Though he was unreceptive to the beauty of the landscape, it stirred something in him: a yearning common to creatures, whether base or noble.

Freedom! Freedom to live! To enjoy!

Do Cogo, even while edging away slightly from the rank-smelling creature beside him, sensed this yearning. “You must make your own way now,” he muttered quickly, “for I have done all I can. You are at liberty, as a second-class citizen of the Empire, if you know what that means.”

He paused. “The galaxy is wide, but hazardous, of course. You must make of life what you will. I wish you luck—now go, before the curator discovers what I have done.”

Pout stared blankly, until given a shove towards the steps leading to the ground. He stumbled down them, nearly falling, wondering if this was some trick.

When his bare feet touched the ground, the sensation was like nothing he had known before. The grass tickled, and unable to restrain himself, he flung himself down in it and rolled from side to side.

When he paused from this luxury to look up, the man was gone.

If he lay down, the grass seemed to cover him. Pout began to think. To get away from here quickly was good advice. And yet…

He felt frightened and helpless. What he needed was a weapon. A hand scangun he could hide in his new garment and use if he was threatened (or, he thought excitedly, on anyone he didn’t like). Then he would feel less defenceless.

The pale green buildings of the museum stood scattered all around him. Pout, in a partial and confused way, was familiar with the layout. He had peeked into the data files when in the care of the robots, who had presumed that museum administration was the only thing anyone could be interested in. That hangar-like structure, with the grey metallic tinge, was the weapons house. He clearly remembered it was the weapons house.

The museum rarely had casual visitors, but in theory was supposed to be open to all comers. Nascimento had taken a precaution with the weapons house: its entrance was from the house of ancient-style footwear, a small and dusty gallery which gave the peruser no idea that the unprepossessing door led not to a cleaning closet but to a complete and treasured armoury…

Crawling through the grass, Pout made his way by degrees to where he felt he could run upright without being seen. Soon he had slipped through the vine-wreathed door of the ancient footwear house.

Stacked all around him were cases of shoes of every description—boots, clogs, slippers, in an endless but boring series, each pair carefully displayed and described. Pout did not glance at them. He satisfied himself he was alone, then slipped to the half-hidden door that led to a bare, square corridor, whose length he sprinted.

Then through the other door at the far end, an imposing and heavy door, needing all his strength to push it open.

Guns! Guns of every type!

In pride of place in the centre of the hangar was a huge feetol cannon such as were used by fighting starships. Pout experienced no curiosity as to how Nascimento could have acquired so impressive a weapon, for he did not know what it was apart from the fact that it was a very big gun, nor that it was impossible to make it work unless installed in a starship. He just stood, glorying in its sense of power.

Nervously he coughed. The sound echoed around the building, but for the moment he was not worried; Even the robots rarely came here. Usually the only time the heavy door opened was when a new exhibit was to be put on display.

He began to stroll past the cases, unsure as to how the exhibition was organised. He peered at weapon after weapon, but being unable to read could make no sense of descriptive plates. Finally he leaned against a case to stare at a long rifle with stock of mother-of-pearl and a golden barrel. Suddenly a soft voice spoke out of the air, startling him.

“Force rifle, thirty-first century. This weapon projects a radiant beam whose main effect is pressure. It will punch a hole in ten-point titanium at a range of…” Pout continued listening in fascination as the voice went on to detail specification and history of usage. Most of it, however, was incomprehensible to him, and the gun was bigger than he wanted.

He passed on. All the guns in the section were of the long sort, and they seemed to be old. Where were the scanguns? Scanguns were really the only kind he had heard about. When with the robots, he had seen something on the data files. Though he didn’t quite realise it, what he had seen was a fragment of an animated drama with psych-dimension—that is, it used a set of subliminal signals to manipulate the feelings of the watcher and make him feel a part of the action. In the fragment, there had been a shoot-out between people using scanguns. It was the most thrilling thing Pout had ever participated in. Because, of course, the watcher-identification was with the victor.

Rounding a corner, he came to a new section. Here the cases were smaller. Handguns!

But they seemed very old. He peered at the first one, and pressed against the side of the case to evoke the explanatory voice as he had just learned to do.

“Colt forty-five, nineteenth century. This weapon projects lead bullets at a velocity of…”

He heard no more than the first few words. Nineteenth century! What century was it now? He wasn’t sure, but it was a lot more than the nineteenth.

Quickly he walked up the aisle past a long line of variegated handguns, hoping he would at last come to the modern scangun section. He could not, however, resist a look at some of the guns of the past, with their strange handgrips, their barrels that sometimes were fluted, sometimes snub-nosed, or square, or slitted—or no barrel at all—and their variously shaped triggers, studs and slides. In his ignorance it did not occur to Pout that in all probability not a single weapon in the collection would be complete with ammunition or charge, and many would not even be in working order. His idea of a gun was something he could simply pick up and shoot people with.

He thought he heard a sudden noise and stopped in fright. There was nothing. But then his eye lit on the case nearest to him, and he lingered to inspect its contents.

The gun was unprepossessing. Its handgrip and shaft seemed to be made mostly of wood or some grainy material. It was light in colour, as if the wood had been carved with a knife and then left untreated. Indeed, it could have been a toy.

The barrel, or shaft, was studded with buttons and was rectangular in shape. The stock was raked just a little, and lacked either sight or range-finder. Pout would have passed on, but some indefinable quality in the gun made him pause again. He pressed the side of the cabinet.

“Electric gun, date unknown. Connection with Bushido. Has sympathetic circuits. Projects electricity.”

That was all. None of the lengthy details on performance, construction and history that accompanied the other exhibits. For some reason this absence of information made Pout want to see the gun work. He searched for some means of switching off the screen separating him from the exhibit, and finding none, put his hand directly into the case.

He felt the pressure of the force-field resisting his hand. His fingers closed over the stock. As he had guessed, it was wood, a friendly-feeling substance. As he lifted it, this feeling seemed to transmit itself to him through his skin, and quiet words spoke in his mind.

“I am yours.”

But as soon as he had taken the gun from its case another quiet voice spoke, not in his mind but in the air. “You have removed an exhibit from its case. Please replace the exhibit at once. An attendant has been summoned.”

Pout whirled about, looking for the source of the voice, his mouth open with alarm.

Instinctively his forefinger pushed the long trigger-stud obtruding from the stock just beneath the shaft.

The result was unexpected. A row of short pale glowing lines, pink in colour, appeared in the air, stitching through space. The row had emanated from the end of the gun’s shaft.

Looking afresh at his new acquisition, Pout grinned and felt pleased. Perhaps it wasn’t a scangun (he couldn’t see any control to make it scan) but it worked!

“I note you have not yet replaced the exhibit,” the soft voice said after a pause. “Please do so, as the attendant is about to arrive.” Pout’s grin turned to a snarl, lips pulled back over the yellow teeth in his protruding jaw. He heard a near-silent purring behind him, and looked round to see a small robot wheeling towards him along the aisle.

Where has it come from? Pout hadn’t heard the door open. Pout didn’t know it, but this was no more than an idler robot, such as stood in a recess in every department of the museum and wheeled out only to deliver guided tours, lectures, or to caution visitors. It could not have done him any harm. But to Pout it represented the power of Torth Nascimento and he was terrified of it.

His whole body shook as he pointed his new gun in front of him and pressing the firing stud. He did not even train the muzzle on the target properly. The pale pink stitching appeared from the shaft, in a straight line to begin with, but then curving round until it terminated at the cranium of the little robot.

The robot did not explode or burn up or reduce itself to ash, as he had seen on the vid drama. It simply stopped.

The curved line of stitching stayed there, hanging in the air, until Pout took his finger off the firing stud. Then it vanished.

Standing half-crouched for a while, his heart pounding, Pout eventually crept up to the robot. It still did not move.

Then, with a shout of triumph, he knocked it right over. It clattered on its side, rolling from side to side until it became still.

He had killed it!

In his joy he turned and sprayed the weapons house with stitch fire. There was no visible effect; everything remained the same as it was. But the accusing voice did not bother him again, and he retreated to the doorway, tugged it open with an effort and ran down the passageway, through the house of ancient footwear and into the open.

Dusk was coming on. Pout began to contemplate the journey across the savannah, wondering if he would be cold at night and what might lie at the far end. He was almost loath, at the thought of it, to leave his warm, dreary corner.

His eyes scanned the museum complex. Now he was leaving, his hatred of Nascimento took on a poignant aspect. If only he could satisfy himself on that score first…

And why not? As the suggestion blossomed, like a blood-red rose, in his mind, a light popped on in a building some distance away. Through its window a figure was vaguely visible, moving to and fro and holding something in its hand.

Nascimento!

It was like being offered something delicious to eat. It seemed that his feet moved him without any prompting on his part, closer to the building where the light shone, and round to the side where he found a door.

There, his nerve failed him momentarily. He clutched the gun. Its grained stock comforted him; it felt right, sitting there in his hand. A quiet, murmuring voice in his head seemed to be saying, “I am yours. You can maim and you can kill, with your zen gun.”

Zen? What was zen? The question died in Pout’s mind as he pushed open the door, the gun pointed in front of him.

A screen made of coloured glasslike material stood on the other side of the door. It scarcely impeded the view of the scene in the room, however. Nascimento, his saturnine features amiable and relaxed, stood in the middle of the floor. In one hand he held a long-necked glass filled with a hazy green liquid. In the other, was a scangun.

Standing near the wall to the right of Pout were two people who were new to him. One was of medium height—a little shorter than Nascimento—and his black hair was swept clear of his pale, bony face and tied in a knot at the back of his head. There was a look of alert tension about him. His garb was strange; a loose white garment over which was fastened a sort of harness reaching from shoulder to knee, adorned at points by hooks and various fastenings.

Beside him stood a boy: blue-eyed, fair-haired, and with a faintly golden cast to his skin. His tunic and breeches had a flowery blue pattern, and he was unblinking as he stared at Nascimento.

The stranger in the harness spoke to the museum curator. “Your mendacity is of the sort that is total and shameless. In a way it is almost talented, for not everyone can win the trust of a warrior.”

“Not total,” Nascimento replied evenly. “To enter the museum carrying weapons is forbidden; that much was true. I was surprised to see how trustingly you divested yourself of them. You see, kosho, it is your own respect for tradition that has betrayed you. I find that fitting. Like trapping a bee with sugar.”

“And the antique gun you promised to show me? That, I suppose, does not exist?”

“As a matter of fact—well, that’s of no moment. What I need from you now is for you to adjust yourself to your new situation—which, being of a trained, flexible and serene mind I’m sure you can do. One word of warning, though,” Nascimento added quickly as the man in harness made a stirring motion, “don’t plan anything sudden. I have a sympathetic receiver trained on you both, connected to a high-power pulse blast. It will know if you intend a hostile move and will respond before ever you can make it.”

The other man smiled slightly, as though to inform Nascimento that he could deceive the sympathetic receiver. Nascimento slurped from his glass and waved his scangun. “When a sage is about to act, he always appears slightly dull eh, kosho? You see, I know a little about your discipline. As curator of this museum, I know a little about everything.”

“Very well, tell me why you have lured me here.”

“It is something you might well appreciate. You see, kosho, I feel a great duty towards this museum. It has existed for centuries. It was, of course, mostly destroyed during the action of eighty-three—what a barbarous episode!—but I have worked unstintingly to try to restore it and collect together the exhibits. I see the museum as a repository of everything that has been accomplished by this old planet—the original source of human civilisation. Below ground is a department the public is kept away from. There I have a collection of human types of special interest, particularly those that are associated with Earth. You have heard of the genetic statesmen? Purely altruistic, designed to give society the best possible leadership? Well, I have one! Raised from scratch, from the old codes. I also have a clone of Vargo Gridban, the man whose work eventually gave us the feetol drive, raised from the same record collection…

“But genetic codes will never, of course, give me a kosho. They are the result of training. I have no kosho. They are too hard to find, would not enter willingly into captivity, are tricky to catch and, of course, dangerous to keep. I think I may now have overcome these difficulties. You will be taken down below and kept in comfortable quarters. The boy will remain with me and my robots, and will be well cared for. Should you succeed in escaping from your quarters, the boy will be killed in the same instant. Likewise, should he attempt to release you or to leave the museum, you will instantly be killed.”

“Your plan is unworkable,” the kosho said at once. “My nephew will kill himself rather than be the cause of my permanent imprisonment.” And the boy nodded his agreement.

“If the boy kills himself your life will be immediately forfeit.”

“The equation does not balance. The outcome will be as I have stated.”

Nascimento sipped long and thoughtfully from his glass, staring over the rim at the two. The expression on his face showed that he was accepting what the kosho had told him.

He sighed, sadly, then placed the glass on the table.

“I see,” he said slowly, his voice suddenly weak. “Well, can’t afford to have such a dangerous enemy abroad. Regrettably, I shall have to destroy you both.”

With his free hand he made a gesture—or rather he began to make it. At the same moment the kosho, anticipating that he was about to order the pulse blast to fire, sprang.

Whether his leap would have succeeded was doubtful. In the event, it was redundant. Behind the transparent screen Pout was crouched, listening with increasing excitement. He could contain himself no longer. He fired through the screen, unheedful that perhaps it would impede the action of the gun.

It did not. And neither was Pout’s aim any better than in the weapons house. The pink stitching, more sparkling and thrilling than had been noticeable in the fusty exhibition hall, sprang into being, transfixing the screen, curving through the air, ending at the small of Nascimento’s back. The curator crumpled without a sound, his murderous gesture never completed.

As Pout crept from behind the screen, a refrain sounded in his mind:

I can maim and I can kill

With my zen gun.

The phrases lingered with him as he approached the body and leaned over it. Finally he poked it to make sure it was dead.

Oh joy! He had killed Nascimento!

He rounded on those whose lives he had saved. He would have held his fire to let Nascimento destroy them first, if only for the pleasure of seeing how it happened, but the ramshackle education he had received from the robots told him something about this man, something that left him feeling stunned by his good fortune. In a hoarse voice, he spoke.

“You are a kosho. A perfect warrior.”

Nothing that had happened seemed to have perturbed the kosho in the slightest degree. He was gazing at the gun in Pout’s grasp. “What is that weapon?” he asked, holding out his hand. “Let me see it.”

“No! It’s mine!” cried Pout, clutching the gun to his chest, and the man let his hand fall.

“Mixed one, you have destroyed a demented mind. Your motive, however, is as yet unknown to me.”

“You are a kosho,” Pout repeated. “And I have saved your life! Yours, and the boy’s. I know your code. You are in my debt.”

Anxiously he waited to hear how the kosho would respond to his invocation. The man paused, then nodded slowly.

“Yes, that is so. You are entitled to name what the repayment shall be. If your demand is disproportionately great, however, there is another way I can discharge the debt, namely by taking my own life.”

“All I want is for you to follow me and be my protector,” Pout said. “Fight for me. Do what I say.”

“You are a chimera, are you not?” the kosho remarked thoughtfully. “Part man, part animal. Which part predominates, I wonder?” Pout grimaced, hugging the gun closer to him, and the kosho went on: “And you think you have it in your power to make a slave of a pure man. For a citizen of the second class to own a citizen of the first class. Very well, I shall repay my debt, mixed one. I shall preserve your life if the need arises. But you must understand that my duty to you ends there. I shall not attack others at your command unless in a just cause. If you demand my services beyond this limit, I shall rid myself of my obligation by ending my life, as the code dictates.”

Of this Pout did not understand too much, but his eyes glittered. “Where are your guns and everything?” he rasped.

“Nearby. But since we shall need to address one another, how are you named?”

“Named?” Pout blinked. His view of himself scarcely included a name. But he remembered what he had been called. “Pout,” he mumbled.

“I, Hako Ikematsu, you may address as kosho. This, my nephew, is Sinbiane.”

The kosho beckoned, and stepped through a second door on the other side of the room, followed by his boy companion. Pout also followed. Down a corridor was a vestibule; beyond that, a main entrance; then a path leading to a small lodge.

Pout was exhilarated when he saw the number and variety of the kosho’s weapons. He watched greedily while the warrior hung them about himself, fastening them to his harness without ever asking for the assistance of the boy. Then the warrior looked questioningly at him.

He scanned the savannah again. The sun would soon be down, but the ferocity of his feeling would brook no delay. No sense spending one more minute in this place, his prison. The world lay open before him!

Wait! What of the man who had set him free? He might still be in the museum somewhere. Perhaps Pout should…

“Do we leave?” asked the kosho.

“Yes. Yes!”

“Then you must walk ahead. We will follow at a distance.”

This condition disconcerted Pout. On his part it would be the clumsy precursor of treachery… but limited though his ideas of the world were, he did know that koshos were honourable.

The party set off across the grassland, lit by the red of the dying sun.