Honcho smiled at him. "You are afraid, then? Of what happened to Moyna? Do not be. It is only to teleport, not destruct. Come. No harm. As you have said, we are friends. For now. It is really very simple. A simple disestablishment of quarks."

Blade stepped onto the pad. He was very close to Honcho now, and could not resist the temptation to sweep a hand through the image. He felt nothing and the image was not disturbed. It was like pa.s.sing his hand through a solid vapor. Blade did not even question the contradiction in terms. He was thinking ahead. Thinking furiously.

Honcho was staring at Blade. He laughed softly. "You do not really understand at all, do you? Such a simple thing. So now I know who you are not!"

Blade stared back. "All right. Who am I not?"

"You are not Mazda! Not HE WHO WILL COME TO THEY. That much I know. If you were Mazda you would know all things."

"We are getting a little too involved," said Blade coolly. "It is useless to talk of such things now. Let us wait, as you say, and talk in secret and in leisure, so we can come to understand each other."

Honcho's face was very close to Blade's. The neuter's facial area was smooth skinned, marred by only a faint down, the teeth longish and a glistening white. The slitted eyes were deep green pits.

"I tell you one thing," said Honcho. "I have already decided this. I know you are not Mazda. You know you are not Mazda. But THEY do not know that you are not Mazda. So, if I decree it, and I may, you will be Mazda! You will be HE WHO COMES TO THEY. It is understood?"

Blade knew that to be servile would be a mistake, perhaps a fatal one. In any case he was not a servile man. Had never been. "I promise nothing," he said gruffly. "Let us wait and see."

"Yes. We shall indeed see. Take a chair and make yourself comfortable."

Blade gazed around in new amazement. Only an instant before he had been in the chamber, on the pad; now he was standing in the midst of a tall-ceilinged room. Somewhere music was playing. Beneath his feet was a thick-piled white rug that he knew would be made of the ubiquitous mani. There were cabinets around the walls. In the very center of the room was a large, low desk with two contour chairs facing it. In one of the chairs, reclining, smiling except for the gimlety green eyes, was Honcho.

The neuter waved a hand toward the other chair. "Sit."

Blade approached the chair warily. Was this the real Honcho or more simlu?

Honcho guessed at Blade's thought. It stood up and extended a hand across the desk. "Touch."

They touched hands. The neuter's was cool, nearly as frail as Moyna's had been, but it was flesh and blood. Blade sank into the chair.

Honcho smiled. "You are convinced that I am in my real at the moment, not simlu?"

Blade nodded. "Yes. I am convinced."

"Good," said the neuter. For a moment it toyed with the chain of diamonds around its neck. Then it reached into a drawer and came out with what Blade recognized as a sort of ball point pen and slate.

Honcho poised the pen, it was really more of a stylus, over the slate and looked at Blade. "Your name?"

But before Blade could answer the neuter held up its hand. "One moment. Before we begin I had better explain something to you. Tell me a lie."

Blade stared. "What?"

Impatience flickered over the neuter's face. "Tell me a lie! Say something that is untrue."

Blade grinned. "My name is Queen Elizabeth."

A low buzz sounded from somewhere in his chair. Two lights, set into the arm rests, began to flicker. Blade's smile pained a little. A built-in lie detector was going to make it tougher.

"You get the point," said Honcho. "Now...your name?"

"Richard Blade."

Again the buzzing and the flickering lights. Blade frowned. "But I'm not lying, d.a.m.n it. I am Richard Blade!"

"Wrong," said the neuter. "You may have been Richard Blade, whoever and whatever he was, but from this seg of kronos you are Mazda. HE WHO COMES TO THEY. Never forget it."

Blade could only stare, feeling foolish and helpless, with his mouth half open.

"You are Mazda," Honcho repeated. "You are a G.o.d in homid form. After millions of kronos the promise has been kept. You are here. HE WHO COMES TO THEY."

There was no mistaking the glitter, the cunning, in the green eyes now. "And," said the neuter, "you are also my own very private G.o.d. My own to do with exactly as I please."

Chapter Four.

As nearly as Blade could reckon it was three days before he saw Honcho again. He had no way of telling time. He did not yet understand the Tharnian kronos, and there were no days and nights, no sun or moon or stars. Only the neutral, curdled milk sky. Blade had to content himself by guessing at the hours, and making marks with a stylus and slate he found in his apartments.

He lived alone, in great luxury, and knew that he was continually watched by spiscreens which he could not locate. He could find no wires, no mikes or cameras as he understood them. He found nothing. Yet he was sure that he was being watched.

Honcho, the neuter who was He, had said as much before they parted.

"There will be some kronos seg before my plans are ready," Honcho said. "I was all but prepared, but your coming has altered matters. For the better, I think. Also there are some things I do' not understand, which I must understand, and I must have a period of deep-think and memspeak. I cannot make any mistakes. Go, Blade. I call you that. Me only. To all others you are Mazda. A G.o.d. Remember it. You are HE WHO COMES TO THEY."

Blade lived well. He was allowed to retain the rapier, and so knew it would do him no good. There were closets filled with kilts and toga-like garments. There was a bath, a huge and ornate room, where he was cleansed by jets of perfumed vapor. There was no soap and no razors. Blade did not particularly mind. His beard was heavy, he had always had to shave twice a day, and now it began to thicken and curl, dark and l.u.s.trous.

His food was brought to him, and the apartments cleaned, by creatures that he knew must be the ceboids of which Moyna had spoken. The worker-beasts he had seen in the fields on that first day in Tharn.

But these were obviously soldier-beasts, not workers, and Blade observed them closely. They were apparently especially bred for special duties.

The ceboids always came in a squad, five females and one male. The females wore breastplates and kilts and sandals, and did not carry arms. The male ceboid who always accompanied them was armed. He stood guard at the single door when the magveil was inoperative. Blade had tested the door only once, and had instantly been thrown back by the invisible charge.

The ceboids did not speak Tharnian. They chittered among themselves in a fashion that reminded Blade of apes. Yet the ceboids were not apes. There was something baboon-like about the faces, yet the ears were almost human. They walked easily erect, yet could scuttle on all fours when they chose. The females were well developed with large firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s, straight legs, and only a vestige of tail. The male, the only one Blade ever saw, was as well built in a masculine way, had a much longer tail, and kept one of the teksin tubes trained on Blade all the time it was in the apartment.

After the first visit of the ceboids Blade reclined, reading one of the many books in the apartment, and tried to ignore them. Or to give that impression. He was, actually, watching them covertly all the while. He did not expect anything to come of it, but he felt that he had nothing to lose. He was searching, with quiet desperation, for any loophole, anything at all, that would permit him to face Honcho on more even terms. At the moment it did not appear promising.

The female ceboids, on their part, took an inordinate interest in Blade and did not try very hard to disguise it. They all had rather large eyes, brown, murky and muddy, in which at times he detected a humid glitter. The females kept staring at him, from odd angles, and making sounds that Blade could only suppose were ceboid giggles. Now and again the male ceboid would speak harshly to them, and for a moment they would desist and be all business, but soon they were at it again. It was not long before he guessed what they were up to - they were trying to get a glimpse beneath his kilts! Blade was amused, and was very careful not to exhibit himself.

Blade read omnivorously, knowing that it was to Honcho's purpose that he do so, the books were hardly there by accident, but he did not concern himself with the neuter's motives. He must learn if he was to survive.

One thing he learned was that Tharn, literally, meant THE ALL OF EVERYTHING. That than which there is no other. It was, Blade conceded, quite a comforting concept. The fact that he, and he alone, knew that it was not true, did nothing to alter matters.

There was a large terrace on which he was permitted to roam. There were no magveils across the open windows of his bedroom, which opened on the terrace, and now he strolled to a waist-high bal.u.s.trade. The ceboids had come and gone for the time being and he was alone, though conscious of being watched.

Blade put his elbows on the bal.u.s.trade and peered down. He knew, because he had tested it, that there was a magveil just six inches from the outer edge of the bal.u.s.trade.

The Gorge rather frightened Blade, who was not afraid of much. The tower in which he was confined stood on the verge. By leaning over the bal.u.s.trade and peering down, careful to avoid touching the magveil, he could see for miles down into nothingness. It was the same looking across the Gorge. Miles of vacancy. He could very nearly, not quite, believe what his eyes told him: that Tharn existed on a plateau surmounting an abyss of eternal s.p.a.ce.

It could not, of course, be true. Not even in Tharn. Moyna had mentioned the Pethcines before it had been destructed. This tower, this whole rambling structure built of great blocks of the dull plastic, Blade had begun to think of it as a castle, was only one of a series of such structures built to watch the Gorge and guard against the Pethcines. Who, what, were the Pethcines? Blade, musing idly, wondered if they might be possible allies? Friends? Or new enemies?

He had been walking along the bal.u.s.trade. Just ahead it curved in, fencing him, and he knew the magveil was beyond. This was as far as he was allowed to roam.

Blade gazed down. There was another terrace, very like the one on which he now stood, about a hundred feet below him. He had noted it before. It had always been deserted. In any case there was the magveil hemming him in. He had been giving some thought to circ.u.mventing the magveil, but as yet had come up with nothing. He did not yet know enough about magnetic fields, and flux, which he was sure the Tharnians were using with a high degree of sophistication. But Blade was reading and learning with each pa.s.sing hour. And as an old intriguer he knew intrigue when he saw it; Honcho was up to something and Blade, somehow, figured large in the head neuter's plans. So Blade felt fairly secure and was content to wait and see. To bide his time.

Until this very moment. Now he saw the woman on the terrace below him and he caught his breath. Desire came instantly.

She was near a bal.u.s.trade, gazing out across the Gorge, combing l.u.s.trous red hair that fell to her knees. Even in the colorless eternal twilight of Tharn the red hair glinted like a banner and, in the brooding silence that hung over the Gorge, he could hear the sibilant sound of the comb as she drew it slowly through the l.u.s.trous ma.s.s.

Blade's throat was constricted and his heart thudded. Only with difficulty could he draw the dense Tharnian air into his lungs. He had always been a well s.e.xed man, and s.e.xually overprivileged - J's words - but there was no accounting for the l.u.s.t that raged in him now.

He leaned far over the railing and studied the woman, seeking for a flaw, for some indication of mutantcy. He found none. This was a woman. A real woman! As he had always known women.

Blade craned to see. Too far. He drew back, fearful of the magveil, it was not a pleasant experience, and suddenly he realized that there was no magveil. Not here! Here was a blank, a blind spot, in the invisible electric cage that imprisoned him.

Purposely done, of course. Honcho wanted him to see the woman. Blade thanked the neuter and did not question the miracle. He leaned far over the bal.u.s.trade and feasted his eyes. He was having a ma.s.sive physical reaction.

The woman glanced up. Their eyes met. His eyes were superb and even at that distance he saw that her beauty was cla.s.sic. The face was oval, the brow high and the eyes wide set, the nose straight and short, finely chiseled, set over a scarlet mouth that was at once firm and sensuous.

She was wearing breastplates and a brief, tight-fitting garment over her genital area that reminded Blade of a bikini. Her legs were long and sum and, though his angle of view was foreshortened, Blade knew she must be tall.

They continued to gaze at each other. Blade felt himself drawn, wanting to leap the railing and fall to her, to immolate and drown himself in the pool of her. His flesh was heavy. It took a great effort to raise his hand and wave to her.

The movement released both of them. The woman fell to her knees, the long red hair cascading about her tawny bare shoulders. She spread her hands beside her on the terrace and began to tap her forehead gently on the blocks of teksin. She was kowtowing to him. In that instant it came to Blade, who was fighting to regain control of his senses and mind, that she thought he was Mazda. HE WHO COMES TO THEY.

That meant Honcho, the neuter. Honcho intended this thing!

Blade watched her. She was still kneeling, still making obeisance. He waited. She glanced up. Blade made a sign, pointing to himself and then to the terrace below. He smiled. Mazda was in a benevolent, even a loving mood. Blade smiled again.

He moved swiftly back into the apartment, went to the closet and began to rip the clothing into long strips. Teksin, made from the mani, had great tensile strength. Blade was not afraid of falling. Neither was he afraid of Honcho for the moment. He was curious. Honcho had willed this to happen, had allowed the magveil to fail at just that spot, and had very likely given the woman instructions. Why? Blade did not really give a d.a.m.n at the moment. He was consumed with l.u.s.t. Let Honcho watch and listen on the spiscreens.

Rapidly he knotted together his rope of teksin. He went back to the bal.u.s.trade and tossed the rope over, secured it, and swung himself out over the void. The magveil was still inoperative.

Blade went down the fragile line like a sailor. He had to drop the last ten feet to the terrace. It was empty now. The woman had vanished. Blade strode to an open window. If the spying Honcho invoked magveil now Blade would be raging and frustrated.

Her apartment was a duplicate of Blade's. She was in the large central chamber, standing, watching the window. Her flaming hair was drawn down over each shoulder, covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. When Blade entered she again fell to her knees and began to tap her forehead against the floor.

He went to her and stood for a moment looking down at her nearly nude body. She was exquisitely formed. Her flesh glinted a tawny gold in the pale light. Blade touched her bowed head and she trembled.

Blade struggled to keep the desire and l.u.s.t from his voice and very nearly succeeded. He said: "Do you know who I am?"

Without looking at him she answered. "I know. You are Mazda. You are the G.o.d. You are HE WHO COMES TO THEY."

Blade repressed a smile. He was prepared to play the role to the hilt. Perhaps this was what Honcho wanted: to see how Blade would play the role of Mazda.

He touched her shoulder again. The flesh was warm, live velvet, smooth and pneumatic and springing to his touch. He had never touched flesh like this before. He had never seen such golden tones of flesh before. And now he was aware of the odor of her. A delicate effluvium only barely sensed, like no woman smell he had ever known. A compound of flowers and flesh that beckoned and lured, a Lorelei scent that was stronger than chains.

"Stand up," said Blade. "I, Mazda, want to look at you."

She obeyed. She was as tall as Blade himself, well over six feet. She still would not look directly at him.

"Look at me," Blade commanded.

Her eyes were large, luminous, and a pure gentian violet. They stared into Blade's own with a mixture of awe, fear, and curiosity. And just a shade of invitation?

Blade kept his hand on her shoulder. "You acknowledge that I am Mazda? HE WHO COMES TO THEY?"

"I acknowledge it."

"You will do my bidding?"

"In all things, Lord Mazda."

Blade could wait no longer. He was perishing in his own flame. He pulled her against him and kissed her.

She obeyed. She was a column of gold-velvet marble. She did not move, nor close her eyes. She stared fixedly into his face as he kissed her again. Her lips were warm, and as unyielding, as unresponsive, as the teksin beneath their feet.

Blade pulled away and tilted her chin with his fingers. "You do not like kissing?"

"Kissing? I do not understand, Lord Mazda. I do not know the word."

"I will explain," said Blade. "Come. It is my wish." He swept her into his arms again and kissed her hard. Again she did not resist, or aid him, but after a moment her lips quivered under his. Blade forced her lips open with his tongue. She began to tremble quietly in his arms. At last he released her.

"That," said Blade, "is kissing. You will know how the next time. Did you like it?"

"I liked it, Lord Mazda. This is what the G.o.ds do?"

"When they can," he said lightly. "When they can. What is your name, girl?"

"I am Zulekia. Of the Maidukes of THEY." By now Blade had read enough to know that the Maidukes were privileged uppercla.s.s servants, handmaidens, of THEY. But his reading must have led him astray; his understanding had been that the Maidukes never left Urcit, the great Capital of Tharn.

He took her by the hand and led her toward a great low bed that filled one corner of the room. She went docilely at first, then she pulled away, staring at him. She fell to her knees again.

"No! No, Lord Mazda. I cannot. I am not fit. I am not one intended for HE WHO COMES TO THEY. I am karno! I am karno!"

Blade gazed at her, puzzled and impatient. Karno? He had not come across the word in his reading.

Zulekia saw that he did not understand. Plainly she was puzzled by this, but she squirmed around to show him the back of the bikini-like panties she wore. "I am karno," she insisted again. "Karno. My seal has been broken."

Blade was impatient...and intrigued. He bent to examine the back of the panties. There was a slim belt of teksin holding them up, with both ends set cunningly into a seal-like medallion. Zulekia made a deft movement with her hand and the seal fell apart She looked at Blade.

"You understand, Lord Mazda? My seal has been broken. It was broken and could not be put back as the Priestess does. So I am karno. Impure. I have been with the Lordsmen and was caught. It is why I was banished from Urcit and sent here to be punished.

I am evil. Not clean. Impure. That is why the Lord Mazda cannot make coi with me."

Blade looked around the room. The dull walls of teksin stared back at him. He hoped that Honcho was enjoying his eavesdropping. Blade was beginning to understand something else about Honcho: the neuter was more than a watcher and a listener. Honcho was a voyeur, a pervert! Honcho had no s.e.x, and yet...and yet...