"What happened to them?" he repeated.
She said: "You're going to find out now. That's why I came for you,"
and sprang to her feet. "Hurry. We mustn't keep them waiting any
longer."
"What the devil are you talking about?" Joel demanded suspiciously.
"Keep who waiting?"
"You'll see," she laughed.
Priscilla led him straight to the governor's suite. The guard at the
entrance saluted smartly, stood aside.
The governor's aide, a young, pink-cheeked cadet, was sitting behind a
bank of televisors. He sprang to his feet, clicked his heels. "They're
in the conference room," he said to Priscilla.
She nodded, shoved Joel down a corridor at the left. A panel opened
automatically at their approach. Joel paused on the threshold startled.
The conference room was long, low-ceilinged and devoid of windows.
Perhaps twenty people were sitting at a long table with Governor
Cameron at the head. Fredrik Roos, Chief of the Asgardian Police, was
on the governor's right.
"Sit down, Hakkyt," Cameron said and indicated a vacant chair.
Wordlessly, Joel sank into the relaxer. Priscilla pulled up a chair
beside him. She clutched his hand beneath the table, squeezed it
reassuringly.
"You're a mutant," the governor began abruptly. "Don't be alarmed.
We're all mutations here."
Joel's jaw didn't actually drop but he felt that it had. "Mutants!" he
managed to say. "All of you?"
"Precisely."
"But you're the Governor of Asgard!"
Priscilla laughed excitedly. "Let me introduce him, father. Joel,
you've met General Roos. He's commander-in-chief of Asgard's police."
The lean handsome General inclined his head. There was a glitter in his
gray eyes.
Joel felt suddenly cold, thought, "He knows that it was I who rayed him
with the paralyzer."
Priscilla was proceeding around the table, reeling off names and
titles. There were too many for Joel to remember. But one thing stood
out. They were all from the Executive Class. The Chief Administrator
of Eden, of Nelsville, of Nuvenice. The port officials, the security
officers....
They were all there--and all mutants!
"Hakkyt," said the governor softly, "you're skeptical, but understand
this. The human race has progressed from the level of apes through
its mutations. Not startling ones. But millions upon millions of minor
unnoticeable variations!
"When the Eugenics Board first began its experiments in controlled
breeding its policy was more liberal. It recognized the value of
mutations and tried to incorporate the best variations into the race.
"Gradually though, they grew more rigid. When the present type
homo sapiens was produced about a thousand years ago, they quit
experimenting altogether."
The governor brought his fist down with a bang on the table.
"Hakkyt," he said in a rising voice, "evolution isn't static! If a
species doesn't progress, it degenerates! The human race is on the
point of extinction!
"Have you ever noticed how an apple tree will bear a bumper crop just
before it dies? It's the tree's blind effort to reseed itself. What do
you think has brought on the present wave of mutations, of socially
maladjusted individuals?"
Joel stared at him fascinated.
"I'll tell you!" the governor answered himself. "The policy of the
Eugenics Board has dammed the course of human evolution! The race
is dying. But before it dies, nature is making one last attempt to
perpetuate the species!
"We're the only hope of mankind. You--" he stabbed a forefinger at
Joel's chest--"and I and the rest of the mutations here on Asgard!"
* * * * *
Joel's brain was reeling. Governor Cameron's words had the ring of
truth.
"But how did you get control of Asgard? Does the Republic know?"
It was General Roos who answered in his lazy drawl. Joel turned his
head to stare at him.
"No," said Roos. "The Republic is unaware that mutants hold all the
administrative posts in the colony."
"But how...."
"Briefly, Hakkyt, the mutants on Terra saw that if they didn't unite,
they were doomed. Societies were formed. The mutants were taught to
disguise their oddities, submerge themselves in the race."
"But the psycho-detectors," Joel protested. "They couldn't fool the
machines!"
"No. But Asgard was different. Asgard is a frontier. It's four and a
third light years from the Republic. The laws are not enforced so
strictly."
The implications were too startling for Joel to grasp all at once.
These were mutants, and he was one of them. They were his kind whether
he liked it or not.
Roos was saying, "The mutants migrated--secretly. Some of them rose to
minor administrative posts. And when a mutant was placed in authority,
he bent every effort to install others of his class."
"We're trying to give the human race a new lease on life--a new
beginning!" Priscilla broke in passionately. "This--this is a sanctuary
where people won't be persecuted because they're different."
"Slavery ..." Joel began.
"It's not slavery," the governor interrupted. "We petitioned the
Republic to send us the Unfit in order to rescue them from the
Experimental Stations.
"Ordinarily, Hakkyt, you would have been separated immediately from
the maladjusted and the criminally insane of the labor battalion. True
mutants are rare, and Priscilla usually buys them...."
"Priscilla buys them?" Joel caught the flash of amusement in the girl's
green eyes.
"Yes," said the governor. "We've encouraged the rumor that she
is--ah--headstrong in order to divert suspicion. Actually the mutants
are brought to the palace where they can be taught to disguise
themselves, given a new identity, put in posts of authority.
"That is what should have happened to you. Except your report from the
Eugenics Board disappeared!
"Priscilla, though, insisted that you were a true mutant. We didn't,
however, feel that we could take a chance. Not when we're in the midst
of a crisis...."
"Crisis?" Joel's eyes swept the circle of faces. Their expressions had
changed subtly. They were intent, nervous. He felt a coldness creep up
his spine. "What has happened?"
"Nothing--yet!" General Roos drawled.