"The tower you mention. What is that?"
"An old building I broke into. It stands by itself on the Desert of the
Whipping Wind."
"Can you read?"
"No," he lied.
She was sliding a splinter of glass under a frosted screen, and
depressing a button, and bending. Tyr watched, wondering what she
sought.
"That is too bad," she murmured. "For if you--you--you--ohh!"
Her face whitened as she stared at him.
"What is it?"
"Your blood ... if it is blood. It is so--so different!"
* * * * *
Katha put out a white hand and deflected a switch on the wall. A
section of panelling slid back, disclosing a screen on which stood the
three-dimensional images of the black-cloaked men in the throne room.
"Space Commander, I must see you. Already the preliminary test has
disclosed revolutionary reactions."
Her voice was excited. It made the bald, lean man jump a little. Tyr
saw him stride toward him, loom larger and larger, walk out of the
screen and--disappear. A moment later, the laboratory door opened and
Mason entered.
"What is it, Katha?" he said coolly.
"His blood. It is not blood that we know, that carries food and
oxygen, and the toxics. It is alien. The cell structure is apparently
designed to transmit--this is going to sound silly, and I haven't the
opportunity of checking my first impressions, to make sure--but the
cells appear constructed to transmit pure energy in the form of sheer
heat."
"But the tissues, girl! In a normal man the food becomes energy in the
tissues. How--?"
"I don't know. Look for yourself."
She stood away from the microscope, gesturing toward it. Space
Commander Mason bent to the screen. His right hand raised the
electronic power a hundred units. He stood like that for many minutes,
frowning, scarcely breathing. When he straightened, he looked at Tyr
for a long time, breathing harshly.
He said, "It seems to be a blood that carries nothing but radiating
heat pulses. That means he intakes his energy pure. The efficiency rate
is perfect. Katha, he isn't a man. Not a man such as we know men."
Katha took Tyr by the arm and led him behind a fluoroscope machine,
saying, "Stand here, please." Mason was eyeing him steadily as he
walked in front of the screen.
Tyr grinned to himself. They were in for a shock, if this machine did
what he thought it did.
The room darkened. A pale green glow came and pulsed. The plate before
him seemed to hum softly. The dark blobs of shadow that were the
Commander and Katha moved suddenly and grew still. Deadly still.
"The machine is wrong!" croaked Commander Mason.
[Illustration: _"The machine is wrong!" croaked Commander Mason._]
"It was tested yesterday. Commander. Besides, he has a heart, and a
blood stream."
"_No stomach! No lungs! No intestines!_" he breathed.
"And in place of them, strange organs that we know nothing of.
Commander, let me take him to the home planet for study! What an
experience. A mutant that--"
Light grew from the ceiling, slowly. Mason stood beside the switch,
staring at Tyr. His eyes were wild, having seen a miracle. He shuddered
and drew his cloak tighter about him.
"A mutant! And _what_ a mutant!"
Katha said reflectively, "He has organs in place of digestive tracts
that are designed for some purpose. But what purpose?"
Tyr slid away from the fluoroscope machine. He flexed his muscles.
Long enough now had he rested and played their games with them. Now he
was going into action.
"Commander, about my offer--"
"Quiet, man. Quiet! I need to think. A long time ago I knew a man who
said--but no! What I am thinking is incredible. It could not be. And
yet--and yet--"
Tyr picked up a bar of steel and balanced it lightly in his palms.
Slowly his fingers closed around it. Muscles lifted on arms and back.
The bar bent into a circle.
"My muscles may be different, too," he said. "About my offer. Is it
peace or war? All I want--"
Space Commander Mason moved his right hand swiftly downwards. It came
up from beneath his cloak with a gun. He smiled grimly, "You're big and
you're powerful as a bullock, and you're _different_. I don't want to
test your skin with a shower of light photons, but--"
Katha came up to Tyr. There was a hungry look in her eyes and about her
mouth. She whispered, "Be sensible, god of the Trylla! You are a long
time dead. Come with me. Later you can meet the Space Commander, when
his surprise has worn off."
Across the black sheen of her coiled hair he looked at the bald man and
read a pride as great as his own in the blue eyes. Dimly he knew that
Commander Mason was possessed of a will of steel and power as great as
his own, among his people. Tyr nodded.
"I will come with you."
Katha lifted her black cloak and threw it around her slender shoulders.
She cast a red-lipped smile at him and tucked her arm through his.
"Come along to my apartment," she laughed. "I want you to tell me more
about yourself."
* * * * *
The alleys were dark and deserted. Underfoot the rounded edges of the
_calanian_ cobblestones bit into their thin sandals. The cyclopean
stone structures towered black and forbidding against the pale greyness
of the night sky. Like spiderwebs of giant structure, great space-vox
antennae were flung from tower to tower.
They walked slowly through the warm night, and others walked faster.
It was Tyr who heard the clanking of a guard's accoutrements, the
_thup_ of a holstered ray-gun smiting a trousered thigh, the harsh
rattle-clang of manacles and chains.
His wrist dragged her against him, and back with him into the shadows
of a recessed door. Many men were coming down the street. There were a
lot of chains, too.
A sliver of moonlight touched the leading man who walked stooped with
iron and the pain of open whipcuts.
"Zarman!" breathed Tyr.
His brain raced. Zarman was the governor appointed by Tyr. The _ardth_
had taken him and flogged him. It was a sign of their power over Tyr.
The people needed a sign from their god. If he were to free Zarman and
send him back to the people--
Tyr was across the cobblestones and his right fist was coming up in a
short arc. A startled guard did not have time to open his mouth before
the back of his head touched his spine and his neck cracked under that
blow. Tyr lowered him with his left hand in the small of his back, as
he snatched up the heatgun from the holster.
"Tyr!" sobbed Zarman, straightening.
The others knew him too, and in place of the blind pain and despair,
came the laugh of hope to snap their backs straight and their chins
forward.
"Beware," they whispered. "There are more of them."
Tyr moved into the shadows, saying, "Keep marching. Turn at the
corner--and wait."
The guards came on unsuspecting, but this time there were three of
them, talking and jesting. Tyr came out of the shadows with naked hands
and he hit so fast that one guard writhed on the stone street before
the others had their guns out. Another dropped with splintered ribs.
The third opened his mouth to scream. Two big hands took his throat and
vised on it.
Tyr dropped the guard and nodded to the prisoners, "Keep moving. Zarman
waits for me around the corner."
There were only two more guards. Tyr charged low. His fists pumped.
Tyr shook himself, standing alone in the alley, with the moon above
beaming down at him, bathing him in silver. The street was deserted
except for a white face above a dark cloak, and Tyr. The girl had a gun
in her hand.
"Shoot," Tyr said, tensing himself.
"Goose," whispered the girl, and bent her head to watch her hand
holster her weapon.
"Why do you not shoot?"
"Oh, I don't know. I always was a sucker for an underdog."
But there was another explanation in her dark eyes looking up at him
that made Tyr blink. He caught her elbow and walked with her around the
corner.
Zarman and the others were ranged along the wall in darkness. Zarman
came forward and looked at the girl, and whispered, "She is an _ardth_."
"Forget her. Tell me of yourself."
"The Old Ones caught us easily. Otho blabbed with his traitorous mouth.
They came and took us, though we fought."
"If I set you free, what can you do for your freedom?"
"We can fight, god Tyr. We can burrow like the mole, and battle like a
cornered rat. Try us!"
Katha went around the corner for the key to the manacles. She searched
the implementa of the guards and brought it back proudly.
The men lowered the chains and manacles into a hole they dug beneath
the cobblestones. They reset the stones and kicked the dirt into
crevices between them. One of them took the gun Tyr handed him.
Zarman made a motion to the men, and they faded out of sight.
"We go underground. Into the old tunnels dug during the war with the
_ardth_. Only the Trylla know those labyrinths."
"Good. I shall get word to you."
Katha sighed when Zarman was out of sight.
Tyr asked dryly as they walked, "Why did you not shoot me? You had your
gun out."
"That was for the guards--in case your fists were not enough."
"But you are an _ardth_!"
The girl sighed and said, "It is such a nice moon. And we are almost at
my rooms."
She laughed softly, and Tyr wondered why.