Suddenly Jantor looked glum. "No! I am a fool to listen to you. It is too soon to move. There are too many details, too much to be done. My people are not ready for that life yet, and how do we know that the Morphi would cooperate? There might be struggle and rebellion-all would end in disaster. The Morphi might choose to die, or to sleep again, rather than be slaves to us."
Blade leaned in his chair and pointed a finger at Jantor. "They will not. I a.s.sure you of that. As long as we control the power source they will obey. I swear it to you, Jantor. Listen to me. Believe me. Given a choice between life and the sleeping death, given only that choice and no other, the Morphi will choose life. I will stake my own life on it. All we need do is to make certain that we control the power source. I can see to that.
"Now, Jantor, think well. Now is the time to act. Now! Not a generation from now. Tell me of this power source. Take me to it. Let me study it and make my decision."
Jantor shook his head and once more made the fylfot sign on his head. "You have all but convinced me, Blade. I think you have something of the power in you. But I cannot help you in this. I do not know the source of the power."
Blade looked blankly at him. "You do not know? You are king-intelligent, ruler of the Gnomen-and you do not know?"
Jantor scowled. "Do not make me sound as stupid as my people, Blade. No Gnoman has this information. I doubt that many of the Morphi themselves knew where the power came from. There is only one person who knows."
Blade guessed. "Sybelline?"
"Yes. Sybelline. She alone. I do not know how she knows but she does. Once I doubted, back when I first became king and began to plan, but she convinced me. She disappeared and I crept up to a kiosk to watch the city streets. At a time she had promised, the sleepers came alive again. They wakened and moved, and for an instant all was as it had been before-for just an instant. Then they slept again. She knows. She keeps the secret in her head."
After a moment Jantor added, "Why do you think I have not killed Sybelline before this?"
Blade could see the labyrinth of intrigue before him. He had no choice but to enter.
"Perhaps," he said, "I can prevail on Sybelline to show me the power source. It is worth trying. Is she friendly to me?"
Jantor guffawed and slapped his belly. "She is friendly indeed. She desires you, Blade, even though she is long past childbearing. And more than that she will plot with you against me. She will whisper to you-in bed if she can get you there-that you and she can rule better than Jantor."
Blade did not answer. What was there to say? Jantor was right. Norn had already hinted at trouble to come.
Jantor might have been reading his mind. "Sybelline will soon make overtures to you, Blade. You will pretend to fall in with her. You will seek the location of the power source. You will plot against me in everything but deed. You will agree to whatever she suggests, but you will take no action."
Blade was curious. "You trust me so far, Jantor?"
"I trust you not at all, Blade, but I have spies also. And I have a thousand good men with spear bars while Sybelline cannot muster fifty. If you betray me, Blade, it will be b.l.o.o.d.y war and I will win. All my plans will be smashed and the Gnomen may become a dying race, but you and Sybelline will die first. It is a simple choice, Blade. Play me false and suffer. Be loyal and serve me and, in time, rule with me. You are much younger than I am. Would it not be a comfort in your old age to rule and to look upon the thousands of your children and grandchildren?"
Blade would have spoken again, but Jantor waved him silent. "Go now. Keep me informed through the little one, Alixe. Use her well, Blade, and keep her carefully. She is very dear to me."
"And a spy to you," said Blade as he left.
He heard Jantor laugh.
CHAPTER 8.
It was the habit of Sybelline, now and again, to sleep with her son Wilf. He had been fathered by a Gnoman long ago-she had long since forgotten the man"s name-and so was only one-quarter Morphi. This showed only in his features, which were regular and well formed, and he had a full head of hair. Otherwise his body was that of a Gnoman, squat, powerful and bowlegged. Wilf was not as intelligent as Sybelline would have liked, nor was he much of a bed partner, but bed was the one place they could talk without danger of being overheard. Sybelline well knew that Jantor had spies planted among her bodyguard. When she slept with these young Gnomen, as she had with most of them, she was careful to guard her tongue.
Wilf, having tried dutifully to satisfy his mother, was at the moment getting dressed in the plastic garments on which his mother insisted. She had always detested the Gnomen half of her, and did everything she could to forget it. Her apartment was filled with furniture and hangings looted from the city above and her cupboards were stocked with Morphi food. She preferred Morphi liquids to good Gnomen water. Left to herself and in her own province, she was in all things more Morphi than Gnomen. Only when she must deal with the creature Jantor, who possessed brute power along with a desire to see her dead, did Sybelline smile and don a Gnomen robe and a mask of hypocrisy. It had not been easy but she had managed. For she, and she alone, knew the secret of the power.
Sybelline, naked on the comfortable bed taken from a Morphi apartment, watched as Wilf finished dressing. He had not satisfied her, he seldom did, and she knew that he longed to be gone. Wilf puzzled her at times. She had taught herself to read Morphi and had studied their books. No Gnomen, even Jantor himself, could decipher the strange right to left, top to bottom, dot and squiggle script of the Morphi.
Sybelline believed Wilf to be as.e.xual. He did not really care for copulation in any fashion. Neither the Gnomen nor the Morphi had any concept of incest or h.o.m.os.e.xuality, so it did not figure in her thoughts. Wilf was a brooder, a loner-sullen and introspective. He never came to see her unless she sent for him. Now, thinking his duty discharged, he longed to get away.
Sybelline patted the bed beside her. She pulled a cover over her nakedness. "Come and talk a bit, Wilf."
Wilf frowned and looked sulky. "About what, Sybel? I have things to do."
She frowned in her turn. "We all have things to do. And sooner than you think. Now come and talk to me, or listen while I talk. It is important."
Wilf scowled but did as he was told. "And dangerous," he said as he sat beside her on the bed. "You do not have to tell me. You are still plotting against Jantor. You still have that crazy dream of eliminating Jantor and taking over the city up there, of awakening the sleepers and ruling alone. When will you learn, Sybel? It cannot be done. Jantor is too cunning and too strong. You are not deceiving him. He has a thousand spear bars; you have fifty men who are not even trained to use spear bars and whom you use mostly for bedmates. I tell you, Mother, you are going to get us all killed or put in the five-mile pits."
Only when he was distressed and anxious did Wilf call her Mother. She patted his cheek to calm him.
"In the past that may have been true," she confessed. "That is why I have waited and waited. But now it is different. You have heard of the man Blade?"
Wilf nodded. "I caught a glimpse of him as he was being escorted to his quarters. He is strange looking. I cannot imagine where he came from. He looks powerful and dangerous, and it is said that he can make children. But what is all that to us?"
Wilf, like all Gnomen except Jantor, was sterile.
"It is everything to us," said Sybelline. It was the Gnomen in Wilf that made him so stupid. She must explain everything to him.
"I have sent Norn to him," she continued. "When the time is right I will have him brought to me. I think, with this Blade on my side, I can defeat Jantor."
Wilf was silent. He was thinking of the momentary glimpse he had caught of the man Blade. An odd thing had happened to Wilf. He had hardly dared to look at Blade. There had been something thrilling about that muscled, bearded man and something terrible. Wilf, now that he thought of it again, admitted to himself that such a man was capable of anything. He could serve such a man and be happy doing it. But it would never come to anything. His mother was a dreamer.
To humor her he said, "How do you propose to get him on your side? He did not look like a fool. He will know where the strength lies. If he takes sides it will be with Jantor. And he is a prisoner, not a free man. Jantor spares him only so that he can make children."
Sybelline patted his cheek again, rather absently. He was really not much use to her. Except in one thing-she was sure she could trust him.
She gave him a little push. "Go then. I know you long to be away from me. But promise me this-when the time comes to face Jantor, you will be loyal."
Wilf promised, and left her. An easy enough promise, he thought. Sybelline would go on plotting and planning and nothing would ever come of it. He wondered if she would ever die, as the Gnomen died? She had told him that the Morphi-and she was half-Morphi-never died, never aged, that they changed their blood once a month and ate certain chemicals which kept them always young and beautiful.
Other things she had told him, things she had read in the Morphi books. The population was stringently controlled.. When it reached a certain figure a lottery was held and all the adult Morphi drew numbers. Those with storage numbers were depowered and stacked in warehouses. They were sprayed with a rubbery plastic that formed a capsule and so preserved them against a time when they might be wanted. Wilf had pondered that a long time. He had seen death, real death, among the Gnomen, and he could not decide which was better-to die and rot, or to be stored in a warehouse.
Wilf went to his own apartment and once more attacked the task he had set himself-to learn to read Morphi. He had stolen the books from his mother.
After Wilf had gone Sybelline got up and looked at herself in a full-length mirror. If only her hair had not turned white. The cursed Gnomen blood. Even her pubic hair was grizzled.
But for the white hair, she could have pa.s.sed for a young woman. There was no fat on her and her legs were long and still taut-muscled. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s did not sag and her waist was trim and small. She had the beautiful Morphi features and wide-set eyes. And much more than half, she thought now, of Morphi brain. Who better than she to rule the sleepers when they came awake? Certainly not Jantor, that savage Gnoman, though she knew he cherished the same dream.
Sybelline bathed, put on a robe and sent for Norn. When the girl entered Sybelline was at her mirror, working carefully on her face. She ignored the girl for a moment while watching her carefully in the mirror. Norn was a problem she had not foreseen.
Norn waited patiently, her eyes downcast. She had just come from visiting Blade; she was happy and fulfilled.
Sybelline sensed all this-Norn exuded it-and she frowned in the mirror. She had not intended this. She meant to have Blade for herself.
When at last she spoke to Norn her tone was cold. "You have been with Blade?"
The girl nodded. "You know that, mistress. You sent me."
Sybelline narrowed her green eyes. "I do know that, you little fool. But what of him? How is it with him? What does he say and do? How does he feel about the offer I made? Will he come to me when I send for him? I send you to spy and bring me back answers, Norn, not just to bed him."
Norn, afraid of Sybelline, tried not to show it. She well knew how cruel and vicious the older woman could be. More so than Jantor.
She did her best to placate the woman. "He hears me and he understands. He will come to you when and if he can, and he will listen to your plans. He does not promise anything. He was taken to see Jantor and was gone a long time. I do not know of what they spoke, but the child Alixe returned with Blade. Jantor gave her to him. I do not think Blade wants her, for he prefers me, but he is a captive and must do as he is told and so Alixe remains. I do not think he beds her."
Sybelline brushed her flowing white tresses into a Psyche knot and caught them with a colorful plastic ribbon. "Alixe, eh? The daughter that Jantor claims and beds?"
Norn nodded. "The same."
"Hmmm... and you say he gave her to Blade?"
"So Blade told me. It did not make him happy."
"Jantor is cunning," said Sybelline. "He sends Alixe to Blade to amuse him and also to spy."
"I thought that," said Norn. "Just as you sent me to spy. But with me it is different. I love the man Blade. I want only him. I would be his woman."
Sybelline said nothing to that, only smiled at herself in the mirror. When Norn had served her purpose-but that could wait.
"I have observed something else," said Norn.
Sybelline swerved on her stool. "Well? Am I to beg for this information?"
"The child Alixe is a troublemaker," said Norn. "I have watched her closely and when I could I spoke to her. I do not have much time with Blade, as you know, for all the other women are jealous and the line is long, but I have observed. Alixe is a stupid child, a stubborn child. She makes trouble for the pure joy of making it. I think this is so, for I cannot believe that Jantor told her to act so."
Sybelline did not betray her interest. A vague, half-formed idea crept into her mind. She knew how much Jantor cared for his little Alixe, how he would bed no other but she, and what a wrench it must have been to deliver her to Blade. Of course Jantor meant to take her back as soon as he could. But meanwhile- Was there any way the child-woman Alixe could be used?
"Continue," she commanded Norn. "Tell me, how does Alixe act? How does she make trouble?"
"The man Blade has a servant," explained Norn. "He is called Sart. He is really a slave, for the man Blade defeated him in battle and spared his life, but the man Blade does not call him slave and-"
"I know all that," said Sybelline. "Get to the important matter."
"Blade will have nothing to do with her, will not bed her. I do not understand this but it is so."
"That is nothing remarkable," said Sybelline in scorn. "After he has bedded ten to fifteen Gnomen cows a day, his is fatigued."
"Perhaps that is it. But the child Alixe is unhappy. She is not really a child and has bedded her father since she was ten years. But Blade ignores her. She turns to the slave Sart and teases him. She touches him and offers herself and displays her body. The slave, Sart, is terrified."
Sybelline smiled. "I do not blame him. If he touches Jantor"s child and bedmate he will be sent to the pits. But what of Blade in all this?"
Norn shook her head. "I do not think the man Blade really understands what is happening. He is strange in many ways I do not understand. And he is busy, of course. There is always a line of women to be serviced."
"Then Blade did not tell you this?"
"No. I went to wash, for Blade insists on it now, and I saw Alixe taunting the poor slave."
Sybelline"s interest was growing with every word. "Taunting him-how? Exactly?"
Norn"s tone was matter of fact. She was a Gnomen female, albeit a beautiful one, and she regarded s.e.x much as she did food and drink.
She explained: "Alixe was making Sart kneel before her, as a slave should, and she was making him kiss her parts. I was not seen for a moment, so I know it was not for my benefit. I saw Sart stop groveling and reach for her and she struck him in the face and laughed. She told him that if he touched her she would tell Jantor."
Sybelline was thoughtful. "And Blade suspects nothing of this?"
Norn shrugged. "I do not think so. He does not think as we do."
"I know that also," said Sybelline. "That is why I need him. I think he has more brain power than the Morphi, even perhaps as much as the Selenes, and I know he is a warrior. He would probably not notice such a trifle as Sart being plagued by Alixe. I doubt that it is important."
Norn looked doubtful. a.s.sociation with Sybelline had made her more intelligent than most Gnomen girls. Now she said, "It might cause trouble before you are ready for it, mistress."
But Sybelline"s thoughts were elsewhere. She dismissed the girl and thought no more of the slave and Alixe. When she was alone, she began to dress carefully in Morphi clothing. She must go up into the city-alone and unseen, to face her own masters.
CHAPTER 9.
There was no way in which Blade could have foreseen the disaster. True that he was not at his peak either physically or mentally, due to the strain of excessive copulation, but even at the height of his powers he could not have guessed that Alixe, beneath her childish exterior, was s.e.xually precocious beyond anything he could understand. The situation developed slowly, with Blade unaware of the emerging pattern.
During his brief periods of rest, he sought to get in touch with Lord Leighton and Home Dimension by means of the crystal implanted in his brain. He did not always succeed in making contact. When he did, the message came back: Will abort mission if you demand. But unless in immediate peril insist you continue try to discover source of power. Suggest possible magnetic field-beams or rays of some sort. Final decision your discretion. L.
That was pretty much that. He bided his time. He knew that the child Alixe spied on him and reported to Jantor, as Norn spied and reported to Sybelline. He sensed the crunch approaching and knew that he must take sides. Jantor had made his offer and had minced no words. Sybelline still did not contact him but through Norn, and the last word had been to wait. When Sybelline was ready, she would let him know.
Alixe tried to invade his bed and Blade constantly repulsed her. Her tantrums should have warned him, but he did not see. When he refused Alixe, she at times screamed and rolled on the floor and clawed and even threatened him.
"I will tell Jantor that you misuse me," she screamed. "I will have you sent to the five-mile pits."
"Do as you wish," he answered. "You are but a babe and I will have nothing to do with you. In any case I am exhausted. You know the task I have, and when I am finished for the day I wish nothing but rest. Continue to torment me, Alixe, and I will send you back to your father."
Alixe squatted at the foot of his bed and made faces at him. He could not believe that this was the same quiet child who had brought him the chair in Jantor"s chambers.
"You are a liar," she told him. "You do not speak to Norn so, and she is but a little older than I am. As for being a babe, do you not know, are you such a fool, that you do not understand-I have bedded my father for the past two years!"
Nothing he encountered in Dimension X ever shocked Blade, nor did this information, but it was his first inkling that among the Gnomen there was no such thing as incest. Logically, when he had time to examine it, it made sense. Jantor, after all, had fathered all the Gnomen children now alive.
He let it pa.s.s without thought. "I care nothing for that," he told her coldly. "Stay or go, as you wish. But if you stay you will obey me. Now I have had enough of you. Go and amuse yourself while I sleep."
Blade awoke to find Alixe astride him, trying to arouse him. He cuffed her away, not gently, and she began to berate him.
Blade had had it. He seized her and laid her over his knee and began smacking her hard little b.u.t.tocks with his open hand. He meant to hurt and he did. Alixe screamed at the top of her voice, interspersing the screams with foul oaths. He had never heard such filth pour from a child"s mouth. He laid on all the harder.
Sart came rushing in. He pleaded with Blade.