"Until 1948, I had thought he was a writer's creation, a character in a series of fantastic novels," Caliban said. "Not until then did I find out, by accident, that there was a factual basis to the fictions. I was curious and did some investigating through agents. I learned some things about him, not much, but enough to make me suspect that he was one of us. I did not follow up the investigation because I became occupied with other matters."

"Your brain transplant experiments," Anana whispered. She smiled a terrible smile, and she extended two fingers of her left hand. This was a sign to the Speaker not to repeat her words.

"We have learned a number of things about you recently. We suspect that you have also been researching with the idea of independently producing the elixir. So far, you have not succeeded. And we have good reason to think that you will never succeed. But this does not displease us. We have not forbidden our servants to try to make their own elixir. And if you had not tried, you would not have come up to our expectations of you.

"However, that is not my main point. I point out to you that your investigation showed that Grandrith was, in many respects, like you. You are undoubtedly the two greatest athletes that the world has produced for several thousand years. Which is the greatest remains to be tested. You two even resemble each other facially, though your different coloring tends to conceal it."

This was a long speech in public for one of the Nine. I wondered what she was getting at-or to-but did not say anything, of course.

She leaned forward and stretched out her skinny arms with the great veins like asphyxiated snakes. She said, "Come closer."

We, knowing what was expected, moved until our thighs pressed against the table edge and our t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es rested on the surface. My flesh had wanned up, but when Anana's hand cupped my t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, they felt cold indeed. It seemed to me that anyone whose blood flowed that slowly could not have long to live.

I did not flinch. I had never flinched when she had done this, even though I knew what she would soon be doing.

Then I saw that this procedure might be different. Certainly, she could not use a sharp flint knife on me with the other hand since it was holding Caliban's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es.

She lifted the sacs as if she were estimating the weight and worth of meat in grocery bags. She said, "They are n.o.ble indeed. And warm with life. How many . . .?"

Her voice trailed off. She looked up and smiled. Her teeth were black. Not from rottenness but from something she chewed. It was not betel; its odor was unidentifiable. I suspected that once all her people chewed this plant and that the plant had become extinct except in some garden in some very private well-guarded house somewhere.

"Today," she said, "you will not have to give up part of your flesh to the knife. You will eat with us in preparation for your contest. The next time we meet here to eat, only one of you will be at this table. Or at any table."

Apparently, there was to be no more discussion of our grievances or any arbitration of our case. They did not care who was wrong or wronged. They probably did not even acknowledge that wrong existed except in human minds. I say human because I do not think that they thought of themselves as human. Though they could die, they must have considered themselves as G.o.ds. No human could live that long and have such power and not think himself divine.

Would I, if I became one of the Nine, come to think as they?

Severed though I am from most human att.i.tudes, or I should say, loosely connected, I still fully share some. The infrahuman has not entirely eaten out the human in me. I feel a certain-or uncertain-amount of sympathy and empathy for humans, for some humans. I would not wish to become even more alienated. I knew how it felt to see those with whom I most identified die away. As far as I knew, The Folk, never numerous, had become nothing.

"It has been two thousand years since this preseating ceremony was held," she said.

She gestured at the lean, dark-bearded, scimitar-nosed man with the ram's head. I had heard him speak of Caesar Augustus, Tiberius, and Herod Antipas when I was Speaker.

"At that time, Grandrith, your ancestral island was inhabited by the tattooed British and Picts and your English ancestors still lived in what was to be later called Denmark. And as for America, Doctor Caliban, no one knew of it-except the Nine and their servants. We kept the Phoenicians and the Romans and the Saracens from following up their discovery of the Americas, and we aborted the Norse colonization. We were thinking for a while about establishing an Iroquois-Cherokee empire. The first Europeans would have found a united people armed with fire arms and riding horses. But the final decision was to let things happen as they would.

"The point is that when the last vacancy occurred, when Thrithjaz died . . ."

That would be Primitive Germanic for third, I thought.

". . . neither the English nor the Americans existed as such. But times change, even for us, and we have seen many nations and tongues born and die."

She lifted a finger at the Speaker. He directed me to stand at the far right, by the wrinkled, squat Negro with the hyena headpiece and Caliban at the far left, by the man with the ram headpiece. The Speaker then thudded the b.u.t.t of the staff and began calling out names.

The ceremony was like those I had attended at one of the "eaten" and directed when I was Speaker. There were differences, however. Before, Anana had always fed first. Now, Caliban and I were treated as guests of honor. Anana took the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of a big moustachioed man with her left hand and cut the s.c.r.o.t.u.m on one side with a long-bladed flint knife. The man looked down and did not look away even when the pinkish egg-shaped gland rolled out on the table. His dark skin did become pale and then gray; sweat rolled down his body; he gripped the table edge as if he were trying to leave his fingerprints in the wood.

As the Speaker, I had seen him go through this before and did not expect him to faint and fall off the structure into the cold black waters. I have seen some men faint. No one helps them. Usually, the water shocks them back into consciousness and most climb back up, however painful the ascent. Several could not, or would not, climb again. The guards took these away, and I never saw them again.

The ceremony must have been originated in the Old Stone Age, perhaps 300,000 years ago or more. It was probably old when Anana was born.

Anana picked up the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e and placed it on the table before her after smelling it. The Speaker had stepped over the table; he now came around and smeared ointment from a jar onto the wound. While he did this, he chanted a few lines in an unknown language. The bleeding, which was not great, stopped altogether. Anana handed her stone cup to the Speaker, who gave the man a mouthful of the liquid. This tastes like mead to me, but I do not think it is. The pain would be gone within five minutes. Inside a month, provided the man got the proper food and rest, the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es would be regrown. Not only did the elixir provide a prolonged youth and freedom from disease, it gave regenerative powers.

Anana sliced the gland into twelve more or less equal slices. She sent one to me via the Speaker and one to Caliban. One piece was thrown into the water and one was placed before the empty chair. Each of the Nine took a slice and ate it raw. I chewed and swallowed mine with gusto, because the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e is one of the few pieces of human meat worth eating.

The moustachioed man, dismissed by the Speaker, climbed down slowly and painfully. The second person called was on top of the structure before the first had waded out through the waters.

26.

I had only to turn my head to see Caliban because the table was curved and we sat, as it were, at the ends of opposite horns of a crescent moon. His face was expressionless; it did not show the repulsion I would have expected from a civilized man. Either he was in strong control of his emotions, which would agree with what his two colleagues said, or he was genuinely indifferent to, or perhaps even enjoying, the meat.

I was disappointed. I would have liked to have seen his disgrace himself by vomiting.

The next person summoned was a beautiful mulatto. Her hair was black and kinky, au naturel, and her skin was as dark as a wild hare's eye. The eyes were a startling light blue. She was the wife of the Speaker and had disappeared with him when the explosion blew up the yacht. I recognized her because she had attended the ceremonies when I did. I had bedded her not infrequently and had, of course, tongued her all over.

I think Anana knew this. She seemed to know everything about us as if she were G.o.d and we were Her sparrows. Thus she knew I would have no objections to performing the ceremony with her. Caliban, however, was a white American born in 1903 and so more than probably had the usual conditioned reflexes of his "cla.s.s." This may be why Anana designated Myra to go to him. If he did have any objections, he did not reveal them by expression.

He extended a hand to help her get up on the table, picked her up as if she were a hollow dummy and placed her on her back. She put her legs over his shoulders, and he spent some time with his face buried against the thick stiff hairs I knew so well and the slit dripping with honey-thick lubricating fluid.

Myra made an attempt to respond. She writhed and moaned a little, but I doubted that she was doing anything except acting. She must have been too tense to relax. The only woman whom I thought could in reality let loose and have an o.r.g.a.s.m during this ceremony was the Danish giantess. I'm sure that the final act hurt her just as much as any of the women, but she could live for the moment as few can.

Finally, Caliban bit down. The woman stiffened, her fists driving the nails into the skin. (I saw the blood on the tips and palms when she got up.) Her feet bent and turned inward and her toes clenched. Her jaw clamped shut to keep the scream inside, although the Nine had not forbidden screaming.

Caliban lifted her up. He had some blood on his juice-smeared lips and chin, and he was chewing the c.l.i.toris. The Speaker, his face set, smeared some ointment on her wound. Myra, gray beneath the brown skin, walked across the table unsteadily and climbed painfully off the table and down the logs of the structure.

This was the first time that I had seen a husband and wife in the caverns at the same time. I thought that it must be rather hard on him to watch her with Caliban; I do not think that I could control my jealousy if Clio were doing this in front of me with him. I would have tried to kill him-perhaps. I knew that Clio was doing what the other women were doing. A man or a woman cannot keep their youth and vitality forever without wanting some variety, and I did not expect her to be a saint. But I also did not want to know what she was doing, even hear about it, let alone see it.

It may be that the Nine were punishing him for some reason. Or perhaps they were testing him.

I was given the honor of eating the next woman, a beauty from the Punjab. My experience in biting off c.l.i.torises was nil, but I succeeded quickly. The c.l.i.toris, aside from the delicious scent and taste of the moisture and fluid of a healthy woman's v.a.g.i.n.a, tasted like the man's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e.

After her, a man was called up. His t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e was cut out and sliced and the pieces pa.s.sed around. This time, each of us took only a small bite and then threw the remainder on the floor behind us. It was evident that we could not eat all the flesh of 47 people. The Nine had pets in their private chambers who would eat what we could not.

The third person called was Clara, and Anana licked at her until she came and then bit off the c.l.i.toris.

After that, the ceremony went swiftly with no foreplay for the women. There were too many to spend time dawdling.

At the end, the 47 men and women were sitting or standing on the slope across the waters. A few groaned. Several had pa.s.sed out after making it back, but all regained consciousness and walked out, unaided, when the Speaker dismissed them. They were free to leave. Most would not hear from the Nine until the summons came for the yearly payment of flesh or their turn to be the Speaker.

Aside from these normal duties, I had heard from the Nine only seven times in 48 years. I was required to carry out a.s.signments in Thailand, Rhodesia, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, the States, Jerusalem, and Berlin. One occupied me a year, during which I did not see my beloved Clio. I performed all missions to the full satisfaction of the Nine, although I came close to being killed several dozen times. Each a.s.signment would have made a splendid book for my biographer. He never heard of them, of course, and he would have been forced to heavily censor them if he had. And he would have been horrified at the manner in which I did some things.

After the cavern was cleared of all but those on the oaken island, there was silence. The only sound was the sputtering of torches and an occasional licking of blood from lips and chins. The odor of blood and saliva and sweat and c.l.i.torises and t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es was strong. Caliban was gazing malignantly at me. I stared at him for a moment and then looked away, since I did not want to indulge in a childish I-can-outstare-you contest.

Finally, Anana rustled her robes and said, "You two have experienced some very disturbing, highly abnormal reactions lately, haven't you?"

Simultaneously, we said, "Yes."

"Caliban," she said. "Doctor Caliban. What is your explanation?"

His slight smile showed that he had caught the sarcasm. He said, "I have no answer, except . . ."

"Continue."

"The elixir may have something to do with it."

He pointed at the stone cups and the stone pitcher with which the Speaker refilled the cups. That gesture meant that he believed that the elixir was in the mead-tasting liquid. He did not know that it was. None of the servants knew. We supposed that it was because we were given nothing else special to drink. The Nine referred to the elixir without telling us when we were getting it.

"I can't believe that any psychobiological mechanism could suddenly start operating after all these years unless it were released by the long-term action of the elixir. Of course, the mechanism must have been deeply buried in me, although I had not the slightest inkling that it existed. Grandrith also seems to be suffering from a similar aberration. Since he has been taking the elixir, too, it offers the only element common to us.

"I admit that I don't understand what this mechanism is or why he should have one also. I use the term mechanism, but I could just as well say trauma or engram."

That beautiful voice was so hypnotic that I almost nodded into sleep. For a moment, it lulled my hatred of him. When Anana spoke, she startled me.

"Grandrith. Doctor Grandrith. What is your explanation?"

Caliban's eyes,opened just a trifle. I don't think he had known that I was an M.D.

"Unlike Caliban, I am not the greatest doctor in the world, or even in Kenya. But I can think, and that's doing more than most doctors I have known. I agree with Caliban that the elixir must be responsible for bringing an already-existing aberration to the surface. I seem to be incapable of getting an erection while loving a woman, unless I am inflicting pain on her. Perhaps you noticed that I had a slight erection while I was biting off that woman's c.l.i.toris. It was the idea of the pain she was having, which I was giving, not the s.e.xual aspect that excited me. If I had thought I was going to kill her, I would have had a big hard-on.

"I am very disturbed. I have, however, been so busy keeping alive that I haven't had much time to think about it.

"If you know the answer, please tell me."

My pet.i.tion indicated my desperation. n.o.body asked the Nine, especially Anana, for anything without placing himself in peril.

She did not reply. I said, "It is possible that the elixir may have nothing to do with it. My aberration came with a shock, the explosions of the sh.e.l.ls. Caliban may have suffered a shock, too. But it is strange that we suffer from much the same thing."

I was thinking of the news of his cousin's rape and death.

"The beautiful Patricia Wilde," Anana said. "So I will see her no more. Like flowers they . . . never mind. It's an old old story. We are not concerned with what our servants do to each other, as long as they are not disobeying us or interfering with our plans. But at the moment, Caliban, you have sent off a man to kidnap Grandrith's wife, in revenge for what you think he did to your cousin. This is not at all like you, who have combatted evil all your life and traveled the world over doing good."

The sarcasm was so light in tone that I almost missed it.

"It seems the only right thing to do," Caliban said. "Grandrith must pay for the hideous evil he's done."

"Through more evil?"

"I don't consider it to be evil!" he said with the most heat in his voice I had yet heard.

"You admitted you have a psychic aberration."

"The aberration," Caliban said, "consists of this. And nothing else. I can't get an erection unless I inflict pain or death or am thinking about it."

He was one up on me. If I could just work up a hard-on while loving by thinking about murdering someone . . . but what kind of loving would that be? Responsive on the surface and inside totally removed from my Clio. Imagine forth terror and pain and death, while she thought I was melting into her with love.

Anana said nothing for a while. The others sat as if they were sleeping. The torches were beginning to burn out, and the blackness from the ceiling was sinking towards us. The blackness was gaining substance and, hence, weight. The air even seemed to be compressed beneath it. Instead of getting warmer, the denser air became colder.

Anana cleared her throat and said, "Grandrith, you had two uncles. One died in Africa, as you well know. The other went at an early age to America because he had a.s.saulted and nearly killed one of his teachers. Your family never heard of him again. He took the name of Wilde and became a doctor."

Caliban could be startled. He jerked his head around to stare at Anana, and his eyes had become large.

"You know who your father was, Grandrith," Anana said. "Your uncle did not know what had happened to him; he left your father hiding somewhere in Whitechapel. The world knew of your father but it never knew his real name nor what became of him after the murders ceased. We knew, however, because he was one of us. He went to the States, too, and there he became a doctor. This was after the madness pa.s.sed from him. He became a doctor, like his younger brother, and, indeed, some years afterwards accidentally found him. The youngest brother had a daughter, and your father had a son in America."

She paused. My heart was clenching with the excitement and the antic.i.p.ation. I also felt a little sick, because I knew what she was going to say.

"All were exceedingly strong men with tendencies to madnesses. All were doctors, too, as if the knife were your totem, your desire, your bliss. All lovers of violence."

She stopped speaking again. The silence was like that between the beats of a dying heart.

Then, from Caliban, softly, a weird rising-falling whistle, and, even more softly, "Incredible!"

"You two have the same father."

27.

In less than a minute after Anana had made that statement, we two were blindfolded and led out through the trapdoor in the platform. A hypodermic knocked me out, and I regained consciousness in a single-motored plane. A short time later, the plane landed, and I was led out and the blindfold removed. The landing strip was at the bottom of a deep valley. The green-shielded mountains were everywhere around.

The pilot gave me brief instructions and flew away, leaving me naked and armed only with my hunting knife, which was still bent.

Caliban, I was told, had been taken to a place near the valley of Ophir and released. His instructions were the same as mine. One of us was to return within a month with the other's head and genitals. The victor would then take the seat left empty by XauXaz.

I knew my approximate location. If I stopped only to hunt when absolutely necessary and got only three hours of sleep at night, I could get through the mountains in five days to a strip used by a Ugandan mining company. A plane might not be available for some time, however.

I had wondered at first why the Nine had placed us so far apart. The area was so vast, we could have looked for a year for each other without success. The Nine, of course, did not expect us to do this. I was not going to waste time searching for Caliban while Clio was in danger in England. Caliban would know that, too. He was probably heading for the nearest air strip now, or had got into touch with his two old colleagues and had them radio for a plane. If this happened, he would outstrip me in the race by four or five days.

I set off. It was a half hour past dawn. A brightly feathered kingfisher swooped down and ahead of me and then soared back up. The native blacks and The Folk would have taken this as a good omen, but I had long ago given up the idea of a higher being who was interested in me. Nevertheless, on seeing the kingfisher, I felt heartened. Perhaps, down there, where the childhood treasures are, I still believed.

I knew this area well. Some years ago, I had built a tree house here not too dissimilar to that shown in those bad and lying movies made about me. In fact, I got the idea from the movies. It was as comfortable as a house can be in the thin-air water-heavy atmosphere of the high mountain rain forest. Clio lived there with me for a while. The absence of a number of people to talk to, the silence, the cold, and the wet got to her nerves. After two months, she insisted that I take her back to the Kenyan plantation. Of the sixty days, three had been idyllic.

That day and part of the night, I climbed two mountains. The next day, I was only half a mile from my old tree house. I could not afford the time, but I detoured to see it anyway. I always have a nostalgia for any place in which I have lived any time at all, except for the town house in London, which is surrounded by too many people, too much noise, and too many unpleasant odors.

In the thickness, the air was not moving. When I smelled the dead body of a human adult male who had not been dead more than an hour, I knew he had to be close. A few steps this way and that showed me the direction to go.

My biographer has stated many times that I have nostrils as sensitive as an animal's. He described this as due to my upbringing in the jungle. This was nonsense, and he knew it. No amount of practice will increase the sensitivity of the human nose. My nose is, however, not normal. I am a mutant, as I have said in previous volumes, and I have described my several mutations in detail in Volume IV. My sense of smell is equivalent to a bloodhound's. This has its advantages. It also has its disadvantages. You humans have no idea of what the odor of gasoline fumes does to me.

Inside a minute, I came across broken bushes, plants stepped upon and just rising, squashed insects, and other evidences of a struggle. A leopard-skin loincloth was under a bush. Beyond it, the body of a male Caucasian lay on its side. He was about six feet six inches in height and must have weighed 300 pounds. He was very muscular but also fat and big-paunched. He was clean-shaven. His black hair was cut in bangs just above the eyes, and it grew shoulder-length behind. A leopard-skin band went around his head. The left side of his skull was b.l.o.o.d.y and caved in. His eyes were dark gray. His right arm, which had been torn off his body, was not in sight. Neither were his p.e.n.i.s and t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, which had been ripped off.

A trail of blood led from his body. I followed it and came across a big knife, much like my uncle's knife before long usage had worn it stiletto-thin. I deduced that the killer had knocked this out of the man's hand with the club which I found ten feet further on. Its end bore much blood.