Later that day the mucketeers surrounded the castle but they made no
effort to storm it. The following day one of them knocked on the huge
front door and presented Mapfarity with a summons requiring them to
surrender. The Giant laughed, put the document in his mouth and ate
it. The server fainted and had to be revived with a bucket of cold
water before he could stagger back to report this tradition-shattering
reception.
Rastignac set up his underground so it could be expanded in a hurry.
He didn't worry about the blockade because, as was well known, Giants'
castles had all sorts of subterranean tunnels and secret exits. He
contacted a small number of priests who were willing to work for him.
These were congenital rebels who became quite enthusiastic when he
told them their activities would result in a fierce persecution of the
Church.
The majority, however, clung to their Skins and said they would have
nothing to do with this extradermal-less devil. They took pride and
comfort in that term. The vulgar phrase for the man who refused to
wear his Skin was "devil," and, by law and logic, the Church could not
be associated with a devil. As everybody knew, the priests have always
been on the side of the angels.
Meanwhile, the Devil's band slipped out of the tunnels and made raids.
Their targets were Giants' castles and government treasuries; their
loot, the geese. So many raids did they make that the president of the
League of Giants and the Business Agent for the Guild of Egg-stealers
came to plead with them. And remained to denounce. Rastignac was
delighted with their complaints, and, after listening for a while,
threw them out.
Rastignac had, like all other Skin-wearers, always accepted the
monetary system as a thing of reason and steady balance. But, without
his Skin he was able to think objectively and saw its weaknesses.
For some cause buried far in history, the Giants had always had
control of the means for making the hexagonal golden coins called
_oeufs_. But the Kings, wishing to get control of the golden eggs, had
set up that elite branch of the Guild which specialized in abducting
the half-living 'geese.' Whenever a thief was successful he turned the
goose over to his King. The monarch, in turn, sent a note to the
robbed Giant informing him that the government intended to keep the
goose to make its own currency. But even though the Giant was making
counterfeit geese, the King, in his generosity, would ship to the
Giant one out of every thirty eggs laid by the kidnappee.
The note was a polite and well-recognized lie. The Giants made the
only genuine gold-egg-laying geese on the planet because the Giants'
League alone knew the secret. And the King gave back one-thirtieth of
his loot so the Giant could accumulate enough money to buy the
materials to create another goose. Which would, possibly, be stolen
later on.
Rastignac, by his illegal rape of geese, was making money scarce.
Peasants were hanging on to their produce and waiting to sell until
prices were at their highest. The government, merchants, the league,
the guild, all saw themselves impoverished.
Furthermore, the Amphibs, taking note of the situation, were making
raids of their own and blaming them on Rastignac.
He did not care. He was intent on trying to find a way to reach
Kataproimnoin and rescue the Earthman so he could take off in the
spaceship floating in the harbor. But he knew that he would have to
take things slowly, to scout out the land and plan accordingly.
Furthermore, Mapfarity had made him promise he would do his best to
set up the Landsmen so they would be able to resist the Waterfolk when
the day for war came.
Rastignac made his biggest raid when he and his band stole one
moonless night into the capital itself to rob the big Goose House,
only an egg's throw away from the Palace and the Ministry of Ill-Will.
They put the Goose House guards to sleep with little arrows smeared
with dream-snake venom, filled their lead-leaf-lined bags with gold
eggs, and sneaked out the back door.
As they left, Rastignac saw a cloaked figure slinking from the back
door of the Ministry. Seized with intuition, he tackled the figure. It
was an Amphib-changeling. Rastignac struck the Amphib with a venomous
arrow before the Water-human could cry out or stab back.
Mapfarity grabbed up the limp Amphib and they raced for the safety of
the castle.
They questioned the Amphib, Pierre Pusipremnoos, in the castle. At
first silent, he later began talking freely when Mapfarity got a heavy
Skin from his fleshforge and put it on the fellow. It was a Skin
modeled after those worn by the Water-people, but it differed in that
the Giant could control, through another Skin, the powerful neural
shocks.
After a few shocks Pierre admitted he was the foster-son of the
Amphibian King and that, incidentally, Lusine was his foster-sister.
He further stated he was a messenger between the Amphib King and the
Ssarraror's Ill-Will Minister.
More shocks extracted the fact that the Minister of Ill-Will,
Auverpin, was an Amphib-changeling who was passing himself off as a
born Landsman. Not only that, the Human hostages among the Amphibs
were about to stage a carefully planned revolt against the born
Amphibs. It would kill off about half of them. The rest would then be
brought under control of the Master Skin.
When the two stepped from the lab they were attacked by Lusine, knife
in hand. She gashed Rastignac in the arm before he knocked her out
with an upper-cut. Later, while Mapfarity applied a little jelly-like
creature called a _scar-jester_ to the wound, Rastignac complained:
"I don't know if I can endure much more of this. I thought the way of
Violence would not be hard to follow because I hated the Skins and the
Amphibs so much. But it is easier to attack a faceless, hypothetical
enemy, or torture him, than the individual enemy. Much easier."
"My brother," boomed the Giant, "if you continue to dwell upon the
philosophical implications of your actions you will end up as helpless
and confused as the leg-counting centipede. Better not think. Warriors
are not supposed to. They lose their keen fighting edge when they
think. And you need all of that now."
"I would suppose that thought would sharpen them."
"When issues are simple, yes. But you must remember that the system on
this planet is anything but uncomplicated. It was set up to confuse,
to keep one always off balance. Just try to keep one thing in
mind--the Skins are far more of an impediment to Man than they are a
help. Also, that if the Skins don't come off the Amphibs will soon be
cutting our throats. The only way to save ourselves is to kill them
first. Right?"
"I suppose so," said Rastignac. He stooped and put his hands under the
unconscious Lusine's armpits. "Help me put her in a room. We'll keep
her locked up until she cools off. Then we'll use her to guide us when
we get to Kataproimnoin. Which reminds me--how many gallons of the
wine have you made so far?"
X
A week later Rastignac summoned Lusine. She came in frowning, and with
her lower lip protruding in a pretty pout.
He said, "Day after tomorrow is the day on which the new Kings are
crowned, isn't it?"
Tonelessly she said, "Supposedly. Actually, the present Kings will be
crowned again."
Rastignac smiled. "I know. Peculiar, isn't it, how the 'people' always
vote the same Kings back into power? However, that isn't what I'm
getting at. If I remember correctly, the Amphibs give their King
exotic and amusing gifts on coronation day. What do you think would
happen if I took a big shipload of bottles of wine and passed it out
among the population just before the Amphibs begin their surprise
massacre?"
Lusine had seen Mapfarity and Rastignac experimenting with the wine
and she had been frightened by the results. Nevertheless, she made a
brave attempt to hide her fear now. She spit at him and said, "You
mud-footed fool! There are priests who will know what it is! They will
be in the coronation crowd."
"Ah, not so! In the first place, you Amphibs are almost entirely
Aggressive Pantheists. You have only a few priests, and you will now
pay for that omission of wine-tasters. Second, Mapfarity's concoction
tastes not at all vinous and is twice as strong."
She spat at him again and spun on her heel and walked out.
That night Rastignac's band and Lusine went through a tunnel which
brought them up through a hollow tree about two miles west of the
castle. There they hopped into the Renault, which had been kept in a
camouflaged garage, and drove to the little port of Marrec. Archambaud
had paved their way here with golden eggs and a sloop was waiting for
them.
Rastignac took the boat's wheel. Lusine stood beside him, ready to
answer the challenge of any Amphib patrol that tried to stop them. As
the Amphib-King's foster-daughter, she could get the boat through to
the Amphib island without any trouble at all.
Archambaud stood behind her, a knife under his cloak, to make sure she
did not try to betray them. Lusine had sworn she could be trusted.
Rastignac had answered that he was sure she could be, too, as long as
the knife point pricked her back to remind her.
Nobody stopped them. An hour before dawn they anchored in the harbor
of Kataproimnoin. Lusine was tied hand and foot inside the cabin.
Before Rastignac could scratch her with dream-snake venom, she
pleaded, "You could not do this to me, Jean-Jacques, if you loved me."
"Who said anything about loving you?"
"Well, I like that! You said so, you cheat!"
"Oh, _then_! Well, Lusine, you've had enough experience to know that
such protestations of tenderness and affection are only inevitable
accompaniments of the moment's passion."
For the first time since he had known her he saw Lusine's lower lip
tremble and tears come in her eyes. "Do you mean you were only using
me?" she sobbed.
"You forget I had good reason to think you were just using _me_.
Remember, you're an Amphib, Lusine. Your people can't be trusted. You
blood-drinkers are as savage as the little sea-monsters you leave in
Human cradles."
"Jean-Jacques, take me with you! I'll do anything you say! I'll even
cut my foster-father's throat for you!"
He laughed. Unheeding, she swept on. "I want to be with you,
Jean-Jacques! Look, with me to guide you in, my homeland--with my
prestige as the Amphib-King's daughter--you can become King yourself
after the rebellion. I'd get rid of the Amphib-King for you so
there'll be nobody in your way!"
She felt no more guilt than a tigress. She was naive and terrible,
innocent and disgusting.
"No, thanks, Lusine." He scratched her with the dream-snake needle. As
her eyes closed he said, "You don't understand. All I want to do is
voyage to the stars. Being King means nothing to me. The only person
I'd trade places with would be the Earthman the Amphibs hold
prisoner."
He left her sleeping in the locked cabin.
Noon found them loafing on the great square in front of the Palace of
the Two Kings of the Sea and the Islands. All were disguised as
Waterfolk. Before they'd left the castle, they had grafted webs
between their fingers and toes--just as Amphib-changelings who weren't
born with them, did--and they wore the special Amphib Skins that
Mapfarity had grown in his fleshforge. These were able to tune in on
the Amphibs' wavelengths, but they lacked their shock mechanism.
Rastignac had to locate the Earthman, rescue him, and get him to the
spaceship that lay anchored between two wharfs, its sharp nose
pointing outwards. A wooden bridge had been built from one of the
wharfs to a place halfway up its towering side.
Rastignac could not make out any breaks in the smooth metal that would
indicate a port, but reason told him there must be some sort of
entrance to the ship at that point.
A guard of twenty Amphibs repulsed any attempt on the crowd's part to
get on the bridge.
Rastignac had contacted the harbor-master and made arrangements for
workmen to unload his cargo of wine. His freehandedness with the gold
eggs got him immediate service even on this general holiday. Once in
the square, he and his men uncrated the wine but left the two heavy
chests on the wagon which was hitched to a powerful little six-legged
Jeep.
They stacked the bottles of wine in a huge pile while the curious
crowd in the square encircled them to watch. Rastignac then stood on a
chest to survey the scene, so that he could best judge the time to
start. There were perhaps seven or eight thousand of all three races
there--the Ssassarors, the Amphibs, the Humans--with an unequal
portioning of each.
Rastignac, looking for just such a thing, noticed that every non-human
Amphib had at least two Humans tagging at his heels.
It would take two Humans to handle an Amphib or a Ssassaror. The
Amphibs stood upon their seal-like hind flippers at least six and a
half feet tall and weighed about three hundred pounds. The Giant
Ssassarors, being fisheaters, had reached the same enormous height as
Mapfarity. The Giants were in the minority, as the Amphibs had always
preferred stealing Human babies from the Terrans. These were marked
for death as much as the Amphibs.
Rastignac watched for signs of uneasiness or hostility between the
three groups. Soon he saw the signs. They were not plentiful, but they
were enough to indicate an uneasy undercurrent. Three times the guards
had to intervene to break up quarrels. The Humans eyed the non-human
quarrelers, but made no move to help their Amphib fellows against the
Giants. Not only that, they took them aside afterwards and seemed to
be reprimanding them. Evidently the order was that everyone was to be
on his behavior until the time to revolt. Rastignac glanced at the
great tower-clock. "It's an hour before the ceremonies begin," he said
to his men. "Let's go."