The Landsmen rushed the techs and pushed them into the great chemical
vat in which the twenty-five hundred foot square Master Skin floated.
Then they uncrated the lead-leaf-lined bags filled with stolen geese
and emptied them into the nutrient fluid. According to Mapfarity's
calculations, the radio-activity from the silicon-carbon geese should
kill the big Skin within a few days. When a new one was grown, that,
too, would die. Unless the Amphib guessed what was wrong and located
the geese on the bottom of the ten-foot deep tank, they would not be
able to stop the process. That did not seem likely.
In either case, it was necessary that the Master Skin be put out of
temporary commission, at least, so the Amphibs over the Kingdom could
have a fighting chance. Mapfarity plunged a hollow harpoon into the
isle of floating protoplasm and through a tube connected to that
poured into the Skin three gallons of the dream-snake venom. That was
enough to knock it out for an hour or two. Meanwhile, if the Amphibs
had any sense at all, they'd have rid themselves of their extraderms.
They left the lab and entered the west wing. As they trotted up the
long winding corridors Lusine said, "Jean-Jacques, what do you plan on
doing now? Will you try to make yourself King of the Terrans and fight
us Amphibs?" When he said nothing she went on. "Why don't you kill the
Amphib-changeling King and take over here? I could help you do that.
You could then have all of L'Bawpfey in your power."
He shot her a look of contempt and cried, "Lusine, can't you get it
through that thick little head of yours that everything I've done has
been done so that I can win one goal: reach the Flying Stars? If I can
get the Earthman to his ship I'll leave with him and not set foot
again for years on this planet. Maybe never again."
She looked stricken. "But what about the war here?" she asked.
"There are a few men among the Landfolk who are capable of leading in
wartime. It will take strong men, and there are very few like me, I
admit, but--oh, oh, opposition!" He broke off at sight of the six
guards who stood before the Earthman's suite.
Lusine helped, and within a minute they had slain three and chased
away the others. Then they burst through the door--and Rastignac
received another shock.
The occupant of the apartment was a tiny and exquisitely formed
redhead with large blue eyes and very unmasculine curves!
"I thought you said Earth_man_?" protested Rastignac to the Giant who
came lumbering along behind them.
"Oh, I used that in the generic sense," Mapfarity replied. "You didn't
expect me to pay any attention to sex, did you? I'm not interested in
the gender of you Humans, you know."
There was no time for reproach. Rastignac tried to explain to the
Earthwoman who he was, but she did not understand him. However, she
did seem to catch on to what he wanted and seemed reassured by his
gestures. She picked up a large book from a table and, hugging it to
her small, high and rounded bosom, went with him out the door.
They raced from the palace and descended onto the square. Here they
found the surviving Amphibs clustered into a solid phalanx and
fighting, bloody step by step, towards the street that led to the
harbor.
Rastignac's little group skirted the battle and started down the steep
avenue toward the harbor. Halfway down he glanced back and saw that
nobody as yet was paying any attention to them. Nor was there anybody
on the street to bother them, though the pavement was strewn with
Skins and bodies. Apparently, those who'd lived through the first
savage melee had gone to the square.
They ran onto the wharf. The Earthwoman motioned to Rastignac that she
knew how to open the spaceship, but the Amphibs didn't. Moreover, if
they did get in, they wouldn't know how to operate it. She had the
directions for so doing in the book hugged so desperately to her
chest. Rastignac surmised she hadn't told the Amphibs about that.
Apparently they hadn't, as yet, tried to torture the information from
her.
Therefore, her telling him about the book indicated she trusted him.
Lusine said, "Now what, Jean-Jacques? Are you still going to abandon
this planet?"
"Of course," he snapped.
"Will you take me with you?"
He had spent most of his life under the tutelage of his Skin, which
ensured that others would know when he was lying. It did not come easy
to hide his true feelings. So a habit of a lifetime won out.
"I will not take you," he said. "In the first place, though you may
have some admirable virtues, I've failed to detect one. In the second
place, I could not stand your blood-drinking nor your murderous and
totally immoral ways."
"But, Jean-Jacques, I will give them up for you!"
"Can the shark stop eating fish?"
"You would leave Lusine, who loves you as no Earthwoman could, and go
with that--that pale little doll I could break with my hands?"
"Be quiet," he said. "I have dreamed of this moment all my life.
Nothing can stop me now."
They were on the wharf beside the bridge that ran up the smooth side
of the starship. The guard was no longer there, though bodies showed
that there had been reluctance on the part of some to leave.
They let the Earthwoman precede them up the bridge.
Lusine suddenly ran ahead of him, crying, "If you won't have me, you
won't have her, either! Nor the stars!"
Her knife sank twice into the Earthwoman's back. Then, before anybody
could reach her, she had leaped off the bridge and into the harbor.
Rastignac knelt beside the Earthwoman. She held out the book to him,
then she died. He caught the volume before it struck the wharf.
"My God! My God!" moaned Rastignac, stunned with grief and shock and
sorrow. Sorrow for the woman and shock at the loss of the ship and the
end of his plans for freedom.
Mapfarity ran up then and took the book from his nerveless hand. "She
indicated that this is a manual for running the ship," he said. "All
is not lost."
"It will be in a language we don't know," Rastignac whispered.
Archambaud came running up, shrilled, "The Amphibs have broken through
and are coming down the street! Let's get to our boat before the whole
blood-thirsty mob gets here!"
Mapfarity paid him no attention. He thumbed through the book, then
reached down and lifted Rastignac from his crouching position by the
corpse.
"There's hope yet, Jean-Jacques," he growled. "This book is printed
with the same characters as those I saw in a book owned by a priest I
knew. He said it was in Hebrew, and that it was the Holy Book in the
original Earth language. This woman must be a citizen of the Republic
of Israeli, which I understand was rising to be a great power on Earth
at the time you French left.
"Perhaps the language of this woman has changed somewhat from the
original tongue, but I don't think the alphabet has. I'll bet that if
we get this to a priest who can read it--there are only a few left--he
can translate it well enough for us to figure out everything."
They walked to the wharf's end and climbed down a ladder to a platform
where a dory was tied up. As they rowed out to their sloop Mapfarity
said:
"Look, Rastignac, things aren't as bad as they seem. If you haven't
the ship nobody else has, either. And you alone have the key to its
entrance and operation. For that you can thank the Church, which has
preserved the ancient wisdom for emergencies which it couldn't forsee,
such as this. Just as it kept the secret of wine, which will
eventually be the greatest means for delivering our people from their
bondage to the Skins and, thus enable them to fight the Amphibs back
instead of being slaughtered.
"Meanwhile, we've a battle to wage. You will have to lead it. Nobody
else but the Skinless Devil has the prestige to make the people gather
around him. Once we accuse the Minister of Ill-Will of treason and
jail him, without an official Breaker to release him, we'll demand a
general election. You'll be made King of the Ssassaror; I, of the
Terrans. That is inevitable, for we are the only skinless men and,
therefore, irresistible. After the war is won, we'll leave for the
stars. How do you like that?"
Rastignac smiled. It was weak, but it was a smile. His bracket-shaped
eyebrows bent into their old sign of determination.
"You are right," he replied. "I have given it much thought. A man has
no right to leave his native land until he's settled his problems
here. Even if Lusine hadn't killed the Earthwoman and I had sailed
away, my conscience wouldn't have given me any rest. I would have
known I had abandoned the fight in the middle of it. But now that I
have stripped myself of my Skin--which was a substitute for a
conscience--and now that I am being forced to develop my own inward
conscience, I must admit that immediate flight to the stars would have
been the wrong thing."
The pleased and happy Mapfarity said, "And you must also admit,
Rastignac, that things so far have had a way of working out for the
best. Even Lusine, evil as she was, has helped towards the general
good by keeping you on this planet. And the Church, though it has
released once again the old evil of alcohol, has done more good by so
doing than...."
But here Rastignac interrupted to say he did not believe in this
particular school of thought, and so, while the howls of savage
warriors drifted from the wharfs, while the structure of their world
crashed around them, they plunged into that most violent and circular
of all whirlpools--the Discussion Philosophical.
* * * * *