Undying World

CHAPTER 15

Richard Blade made his way through the ravished city. He kept to the shadows as much as possible, noticing that more and more of the searchlights were being beamed at the city from the Moon. The Selenes were up to something, no doubt of that. Nor was there any doubt that they knew precisely what was going on down here.

The streets and squares were littered with Morphi sleepers, the females all raped and most of the men either destudded or beheaded. But the wandering, drunken squads of Gnomen were careless killers. They had missed some of the men, who slept unharmed. They were also fighting among themselves. Near one particularly beautiful Morphi female were two dead Gnomen. Each had a spear bar through him. Blade smiled grimly. Cans of intoxicant lay nearby. They had killed each other over the women. He was about to turn away when he noticed an iron chain and a medallion about the neck of one of the dead Gnomen. He had been a subchief. Blade stripped the body of the chain and medal and hung it about his own neck. The authority it carried might come in handy when his disguise was put to the test.

That was not long in coming. He was nearing the Hall of Entertainment, slipping from door to door, when a Gnoman emerged from a building ahead of him. The man was laden with loot and was dragging a female Morphi along by the hair. Blade hailed him. Might as well know now if his disguise worked. The Gnoman did not look drunk and it would be a fair test.

«You, there,» he called in a voice of authority, «why are you lagging behind your group? Where are the others?»

The Gnoman, startled, dropped his loot and whirled to face Blade. He clutched his bar in one hand and with the other held fast to the hair of the woman sleeper. He peered at Blade with red-brown eyes. His tone was bellicose.

«Who are you? What is it to you what I do?»

«I am Yorick,» Blade improvised, «and I am a subchief. I act on the orders of Jantor. There are too many strays and skulkers and I am sent to round them up. How are you called, man?»

The Gnoman stared at the iron chain and medallion and became less sullen. «I am Tortat, from the far outer sewers. My group has gone to the Government Building on orders.»

«Why are you not with them? And why do you carry that female sleeper with you?»

The man let go the hair and the body slumped to the street. He grinned at Blade. «I took a fancy to her. She is best of all I have found and so I carry her with me. When the notion takes me again I will have her handy.»

Blade pushed it a bit, wanting to test matters still further. «Leave her and be off to your group, Tortat. You can take the rest of your loot. Cause no more trouble and I will forget this. Go now.»

The Gnoman glowered and narrowed his eyes at Blade. Blade moved his bar into thrust position.

The advantage fell to Blade. The Gnoman grumbled and fell back. «You are big for a Gnoman. How came you by all that blood? It masks your face.»

Blade pushed his advantage. «Go, I said. Never mind the blood. I carry out my orders and kill Morphi instead of looking for loot and females. Now, if you are not gone by a three count your name goes to Jantor for punishment.»

The man held up a hand. «I go-I go-but I beg leave to wait for my comrade. He will not be long.»

«Comrade?» Blade had not bargained on two. He turned wary and moved his bar into a defensive position. The Gnoman turned to shout into the foyer of the building he had just left.

«Porfax. Hurry up, you fool. There is an officer here who says we must join our group.»

Blade moved so he could peer into the foyer. Another Gnoman was topping a female sleeper, copulating furiously. He answered without looking up from his work. «A moment, Tortat, a moment. I am nearly finished.»

Blade broke off the encounter. He walked away, growling back to the Gnoman, Tortat. «Let him finish. Then both get to your group. You may not have heard, but Jantor is punishing all lawbreakers by feeding them to the mole rats. It is your choice.»

Blade rounded a corner and broke into a run. Hs disguise had worked well enough thus far. Then the first head pain struck him.

The agony blinded him. A streak of black lightning in his brain. He reeled into another foyer and fell to his knees, clutching his temples. He damned the computer-not now, not yet, not while he still had hopes of completing his mission. He still had a bare chance to bring peace into this devastated and terror-ridden DX

The pain eased. It was only the preliminary groping of the computer as it moved near the return phase. Blade concentrated with all his power, trying to get through to Lord Leighton by the crystal.

Almost immediately the crystal reversed itself, the surge alternated to feedback from HD, and Blade, though grateful that the pain was gone, began to curse as he deciphered Lord L's thoughts in his own mind. The damned old fool. At a time like this!

If possible explore use of quarks and partons by scientists DX. Projection here of information received so far indicates possible accelerator capable of 500 million, correct, billion, repeat billion electron volts. Quantum also possible theory with quanta, i.e., packages, transmitted in units for powering each organism Morphi. Realize this complex but unable simplify. Urge you at all costs contact DX form of life for this information-in following priority: method transferring rock to power-method transmitting through space, re latter explore magnetohydrodynamics, also cryogenic sub-surface-this latter definite possible in view of your sewer people-do best for England-hurry-return phase approaching. Leighton.

Blade sat on the floor of the foyer and swore. He rubbed his shaven, blood-smeared head. An afterthought of Lord L's popped into his brain via crystal.

. proud of you. Renaming this mission Prometheus. Also alert for possible triple or quadruple breeder reactors. Keep close contact. Crystal working perfectly. LL.

Blade said some nasty words. All that scientific garbage — did the old man really think that Blade was able to comprehend it, much less obtain information by bluff on the basis of a garbled message which meant nothing at all to Blade? He was more at home in Morphi than he was in the scientific gibberish Lord L had just planted in his brain.

Such thinking was a form of self-pity and Blade knew it. It would never do. He had no time for self-pity, no time for anything but survival and, just possibly, some answers.

He waited to be sure there would be no more head pains, then continued on to the Hall of Entertainment. He had to smile as he approached the massive building. Lord L would explode if he knew that Blade, far from looking for «quarks and partons,» was trying to save a Gnoman girl from mole rats. Just at that moment it would have pleased Blade beyond measure to suspend both Lord L and the Prime Minister over a pit of mole rats.

The lobby doors of the Hall of Entertainment stood open. Blade, from a doorway across the way, could see on a diagonal through the lobby and into the inner recesses of the hall. Half a dozen Gnomen troopers lounged about the lobby. They did not look happy. They would be, Blade pondered, part of the guard left to stand watch over Norn, if indeed Jantor was using her as bait.

There was no sign of the girl. He would have to go into the hall to test the trap. All he could see, apart from the lobby, was a maze of corridors. Blade hefted his spear bar and strode boldly across the street and into the lobby. Audacity was the only way. He bent over to conceal his tallness and shambled, wondering once again why he was risking everything for the sake of one Gnoman girl. It could not be love-he scarcely knew her other than sexually-and so it must be sentiment, and sentiment was extremely dangerous in Dimension X.

Most of the Gnomen soldiers ignored him. Three were playing dice and did not even look up. One fellow, a sub-subchief, glanced at Blade and made a vague gesture of salute.

«Have you come to relieve us?» the man asked. «Where are the others?»

Blade answered, «They are close behind. How is the girl Norn?»

The Gnoman shrugged. «As before. She no longer weeps or screams. What word from Jantor?»

«That you are relieved. You can join your group again and get back to killing Morphi. I will take over here.»

They were all looking at him now. The dice players had stopped. The sub-subchief rubbed his sleek head. «You alone will take over?»

Blade snapped his voice at them. «No, you fool. My unit is just behind me. They are attending to some details that were overlooked and that Jantor is going to hear about. Many of the Morphi males are untouched and many of the females unraped. This carelessness cannot be tolerated. Jantor has given strict orders that every female be raped. He has good reason for this, which you would not understand. So be off with you. I order it. See that not one Morphi woman is overlooked.»

It worked. The six Gnomen licked their lips, made the sign of the fylfot and took off. Blade stood alone in the huge lobby.

He counted nine doors opening off the lobby. He chose a central one and shoved it with his foot, his spear bar ready. At once he heard the dreadful and familiar sound of mole rats, a gnashing and gobbling noise of blind fury and hunger. He stepped through the door.

Blade was in the rear circular aisle of a down-slanting arena. Wide aisles led down between rows of seats to a center stage. Part of the stage floor was missing, revealing a pit, and over the pit hung the girl Norn. She hung limply, swaying a bit, her head collapsed forward on her bare breasts. She was unconscious. From the pit below her welled the sounds of the mole rats.

Then he saw the chain move. The girl's body moved slowly downward, closer to the pit opening. Then it stopped. Norn had endured this inhuman torture for hours. It was just as well she was unconscious.

For a few seconds Blade stood mentally digesting the incredible scene. The seats of the arena were filled with Morphi spectators, male and female, and they were untouched. They sat or stood or lay about as they had been when the power went off. On that part of the stage still intact were actors, both men and women, one with his hand outstretched in dramatic declaration. Near Blade, leaning against a railing, was a Morphi vendor with a tray of sweet canned drink and plastic-wrapped food. Blade gave him a push with his foot and the vendor tumbled over, scattering the contents of his tray.

The ceiling of the arena was of transparent plastic, a skylight admitting the milky rays of the Moon and, Blade noted, the harsher beam of a searchlight.

He started down the aisle toward the stage. He leaped to the stage and moved to the edge of the pit. Norn did not move. He called to her.

«Norn? It is Blade. Can you hear?»

No answer. Her lithe naked body twirled on the chain. Blade peered down into the pit. They knew he was there, blind or not. They were leaping and snarling, gobbling, snashing, an obscene wriggling mass of slimy bodies. One big fellow leaped higher than the rest and its cruel spade claws slashed at the pit wall not four feet below Blade.

«Norn?» Still no answer. Under the mass of mole rats he could see shiny bones. The big one leaped again, closer this time. Fear and hatred surged in Blade and he nearly flung his spear bar.

Norn's body seemed unhurt. He studied the chains. She was suspended by irons around her wrists and a collar about her neck. These led to a master chain suspended from the flies over the stage. A belt around her narrow waist, with yet another chain leading off to one side, carried her weight and prevented the irons from cutting her flesh. Thoughtful of Jantor, Blade thought grimly. He does not wish to give me damaged goods.

He circled the pit. To draw her in he would use the chain that was attached to the waist belt. It was out of reach, belayed around a peg high on a wall. He cast about for something to stand on. Norn opened her eyes and gazed at him.

For a moment she could not speak. Her mouth was dry and her lips encrusted. She looked down at the writhing mass of horror; her body convulsed as she sought to scream and brought out only a parched sound. Her glance came back to Blade and there was no recognition.

He called to her. «Norn. It is Blade. Don't look at them. I'll have you safe in a minute.» How could she have known him, with his head shaven and reeking of blood. Furiously he sought for something to stand on. He could not reach that damned chain and the stage was bare.

Norn spoke in a cracked voice. «Blade? Is it you, man Blade?»

«It is,» Blade snapped. «Save your breath. Don't look down. Just believe that I am here and nothing is going to happen to you.»

She said, «It is a trap, man Blade. Jantor knew you would come here.»

«I know that.» Blade leaped from the stage. He pushed a Morphi sleeper from a seat and with a great heave wrenched the seat from its fittings. «I expect Jantor any moment,» he told her as he leaped back onto the stage. «That is no great problem. He still needs me and I need him.»

By standing on the seat he could reach the chain. He undid it and began to pull her toward him. The mole rats, sensing the cheat, set up a renewed cry. Norn closed her eyes and retched.

Blade caught her feet, then her waist. He tied the chain again so she could not swing back over the pit. There was now the problem of getting the irons off her.

«There are clasps,» she whispered. «I cannot touch them or I would have given up and dropped into the pit long ago. You see them? Where the chains fit into the wrist irons and the collar.»

Blade found the joins and twisted the irons loose. Norn clung to him, trembling. «I did not think you would come, man Blade. I did not think you had love for me.»

Blade did not answer. He had a decision to make. Should he go to Jantor or wait for Jantor to come to him? Time became increasingly important as the computer wound toward the return phase. He had thought to get Jantor and the Morphi leaders together, to arrange a truce, to get them to unite against the orbfolk. To succeed he must first get Jantor to call off the rape and havoc, then send a message to Sybelline and Wilf bidding them turn on the power. With the Morphi elders as prisoners, and with Blade in command, there was a bare chance that something could be worked out.

«Blade?» Norn was stroking his cheek.

He did not love her, but he could not refuse her comfort. He held her close to him and gazed out over the crowded arena. The sleepers stared back at him, some in the act of applauding. From the pits came the hungry snarls.

What had gone wrong? Where was Jantor? Surely by now his spies would have told him that Blade had taken the bait.

He stroked Norn's hair. «Can you walk?»

«Not well. I am sore and stiff. My legs pain and I have not eaten or drunk. But I will try.»

«I'll carry you.» He tossed her over his shoulder.

«Where do we go?»

«To find Jantor.»

Her mouth was against his ear, her whisper husky with fear. «No need for that. See?»

All around the arena, doors were opening. Gnomen troopers blocked them. They were in the wings and behind the sets and in the flies overhead. They all carried spear bars; Blade recognized the scarlet-dyed denims and the red fylfots drawn on each bald head. These were Jantor's personal bodyguard, the best and most intelligent of the Gnomen.

A subchief advanced to within six feet of Blade and the girl and held up his hand. All the Gnomen halted. Blade could feel Norn trembling.

The subchief peered at Blade in puzzlement, as though he did not really believe what he was seeing.

«I am the man Blade,» he said calmly. «The blood is Morphi blood, not Gnomen, and I am as impatient to see Jantor as he to see me. Where is he?»

The subchief pointed with his spear bar. Jantor, as hairy and toad-like as ever, wearing a purple plastic cape, was striding down the aisle toward the stage. He did not smile or frown, but kept his deep-set brown eyes firmly on Blade and the girl. His voice, when at last he spoke, had the coarse gravelly quality that Blade remembered.

Jantor wasted no words. «Where is Sybelline?» He paused just below the stage, looking up at Blade.

Blade was very conscious of the pit. A wrong answer now, a wrong move, a misunderstanding or tantrum on Jantor's part, and both he and Norn would be food for the mole rats. Not even a desperation message via the crystal could snatch him back to HD before his flesh was gnawed from his bones.

«In the power complex,» he said. «Six miles below. She is awaiting my signal to turn on the power.»

Jantor watched him with hard eyes. He gestured around the arena with its hundreds of sleepers. «There has been a slip-up here. All males intact and no female raped. I am served by fools. How would you send this message, Blade?»

Only the truth would serve him now. «There is a chute atop the Government Building. It leads to the power complex. I will send my message down the chute, attached to some object of weight.»

Jantor nearly smiled. «Will send, Blade, with some weighty body? Perhaps your corpse!»

«Perhaps. But hear me, Jantor. It was not my intention to send any message until I had conferred with you.»

«To what purpose, Blade?» He pointed with his bar at the sleepers. «You think I want them awake? Am I a fool, then? There are many of them, even after all we have killed or depowered, and few of us. They have terrible weapons and we have only spear bars. You are a fool, Blade, or you are mad. Turn the power on and they will destroy you as certainly as they will me. And you are a double fool to trust Sybelline, for I have long suspected her of being a traitor, of betraying us to the orbfolk.»

«That is true.» Blade nodded. «She is in touch with the Selenes, but she has not yet betrayed us. She wants me. She thinks that together we can rule both the Morphi and the Gnomen, and make a peace with the Selenes. She has been promised much by the orbfolk. If you will have patience, Jantor, and give me leave, I think I can handle Sybelline.»

Jantor said harshly, «She is as vicious as a mole rat.» He stroked his bald head. «I do not like your ideas, Blade. I do not know if it is better to kill you now and have done with that worry or to listen to you.»

Blade bluffed. He smiled. «Listen to me for a few moments. You can always kill me later. But first-you know I had nothing to do with the rape and death of Alixe?»

Jantor stroked his beard. «I know that. It was Sart. I know also that you and he killed many of my best men when you escaped. For this I can forgive you, for it was a natural thing to do. But Sart must be given to me. Does he still live?»

«No,» lied Blade, not knowing he spoke truth. «He died of his wound. Sybelline is with her son Wilf in the power complex, no one else.»

Jantor snorted. «Her pup and lover. But that is nothing against him. In fact I have nothing against Wilf except his choice of mothers.»

«It was my thought,» said Blade, «that we go together to the Government Building and make prisoners of the Morphi elders, the high council. Only when we have them in absolute security, and the power complex also, will we repower them and make an effort to come to terms. That way we hold the power over them and they must treat with us.»

Jantor was thinking hard and frowning as he did so. «That might have worked but for one thing-I have sliced all the elders to bits. I cannot put them together again and so we cannot treat with them. So we dare not turn on the power. The Morphi, without leaders, will riot. They will turn on us, and on equal terms Gnomen cannot defeat the Morphi. No, man Blade, you had better leave matters to me. We must kill Sybelline and Wilf and go on with the destruction of the Morphi. I see no other way.»

Already Blade had an alternative plan. «You cannot do that. Admit it. This city goes on forever. Your task will never be finished. And there will always be the danger that someone, sometime, will turn on the power.»

Jantor nodded in agreement. «I know that. I will just have to do the best I can, for as long as I can. One thing I do know-I have come out of the sewers at last and I am not going back-nor are my people.» «Only listen a moment longer,» Blade begged. «There are still the Selenes. They can control the Morphi. If I can make contact with them, set up a parley, it may be that the Selenes will force the Morphi to keep the peace when they are repowered.»

«You are being a fool again!» Jantor spat. «The orbfolk care nothing for either Morphi or Gnomen. We are less than mole rats to them. They care nothing for what goes on down here.»

«You have not been watching their Moon lately,» said Blade slyly. «They are worried about something. And it was the Selenes who seduced Sybelline with promises, who got her to turn off the Morphi power by treachery. Why?»

Jantor scowled. «How should I know that? I dare not think as high as the Moon. I know the Selenes can do as they like with all of us and we are helpless against it.»

«I know something that you do not, Jantor. The Selenes are much interested in me. Very interested. They do not want anything to happen to me. Do you not see it? I can use myself as a bargaining point. And I will if I must. But all this can be worked out later. I think we had better go to the Government Building and send a guard of your best men down the chute to take control of the power complex. I am something of your mind in that. I do not trust Sybelline too far.»

There was no sound, but Blade felt an odd tingling in his body. The light changed, became mellow, brighter and more cheery. There was a murmur, ever growing, of crowd noises. A babble that in this context was terrifying-laughter and coughing and sneezes and chatter and cat calling. There was a movement of bodies and feet.

The light grew, mellow and bright and sourceless. Blade was as dumb-stricken as Jantor and his men.

Blade was looking directly at the Morphi actor with his hand out in a motion of declamation: the hand swept up and out and the actor's voice came strong and fluid, resonant. «I say to you, my love, that be I as low as a Gnoman, or as high as a Selene, nothing will ever change my regard for you. I-«

Blade had only time to think that it must have been a very bad play.

Jantor leaped at him, screaming. «Treachery! The power. The power is on!»

Someone in the audience shouted. «Gnomen-Gnomen! Invasion. Call the patrols. Gnomen-Gnomen-«

Morphi women began to scream. The actor rushed at Jantor. Blade ducked, caught the man and flung him over his shoulder into the pit of mole rats.

Jantor raised his spear bar to thrust at Blade but he did not follow through. He was paralysed with shock and fear. Blade seized the moment.

He bellowed at Jantor and the Gnomen near him. «This was no treachery of mine. It's Sybelline. Follow me. Obey. We still have a chance. Come on!»

The Morphi began to close in. They were more intelligent and came out of shock faster than the Gnomen. Some of the men were trying to wrestle spear bars away from the Gnomen while a continuous cry went up for patrols. Blade did not want to meet any patrols.

He ran a Morphi through with his bar and then began to lay about him with the hooked end. He shouted at Jantor and the guardsmen. «Fight, damn you, fight! Kill them! Follow me and fight your way out!»

To Norn he said, «Stay close to me.»

Blade battered his way through the crowd. The Gnomen were beginning to fight now, heeding his instructions, clotting together in an entanglement of spear bars and making for the street. The Morphi audience, without weapons and dependent on their patrols, fell back before the onslaught. Blade led the way, swinging the bar in murderous circles, crushing and maiming, feeling the battle rage soar in him.

It could not last. He knew that. No doubt they were all as good as dead or in the five mile pits. The patrols would come and they would have weapons with which neither the Gnomen nor Blade could cope.

At the moment he did not care. There was no time to consciously think it out, so he followed his instinct to kill Morphi.

Flesh and blood was to be preferred over plastic. Sweat, hair and smells were better than eternal beauty, power studs and brains that could be shut off at the will of a few leaders. Tainted blood was better than blood that was changed every month. Eternal beauty, youth and sex was all right except that the price was too high.

Somewhere, off over the city, Blade heard a siren.