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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
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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
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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?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]