Chapter Seven.

Blade remained in the Gorge for two days. He could reckon time here - there were days and nights and even a glimpse of red sun occasionally, though mostly the weather was wild and wet. He and Totha, when she would let him off the couch of love, rode great s.h.a.ggy horses and Blade explored as far as he was permitted. It was a feral, craggy country, full of cruel ravines and slashing black mountains and rock formations like demons. It reminded Blade of plates he had seen of Dora's h.e.l.l.

And always there was the great sheer wall of the Gorge rising up and up and out of sight into the clouds.

Blade, when he was not making love to Totha, who was insatiable and knew techniques that even he had not encountered before, found an occasional moment to think of his other, civilized life, and to wonder how soon Lord Leighton would s.n.a.t.c.h him back through the computer. He did not worry about it. He knew that J, like a faithful watchdog over Blade's safety, would not let Lord Leighton keep him out too long. Here, too, a fact must be faced: Lord Leighton, as a scientist, was sometimes overzealous and tended to forget his humanity. Especially with so much at stake, perhaps England's very existence.

And there were times when Blade was quite prepared to be s.n.a.t.c.hed back to London and the Tower before he had completed his mission of exploration. Totha was literally loving him to death!

Totha was straddling him now back in the cave chamber and grunting like the little animal she was. Blade was still able to replenish her physically, he was amazingly strong and enduring in that department, but the excitement was long since gone. Even the greatest of pleasures can pall. He was careful not to show it. He knew that Totha, in her way, was far more dangerous than Org and Honcho combined.

Totha rested for a moment, leaning far over him and crushing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his big chest. Her sharp little teeth gnawed at his beard which was sprouting magnificently. She liked to talk in this position, with his flesh in her, talk to the accompaniment of her moist slithery little movements. She could go on and on for hours.

Usually Totha spoke her mind loudly and imperiously. Now she whispered. "When we have taken Tharn and killed Honcho, there is another thing I want you to do for me."

Blade did not open his eyes. "Yes, Totha?"

Totha bounced for a moment. Then: "You must kill Org for me. For us. There will not be room for three on the throne of Tharn."

Blade opened one eye. He was bored with his s.e.xual thralldom and he did not choose his words as carefully as usual.

"Three, Totha? Two? You mean one, don't you? You! Only you, Totha. But there is one little thing that puzzles me: who are you going to get to kill me?"

At that moment she began to have one of her innumerable convulsions. She sat erect, grimacing down at him, teeth bared and eyes rolling wildly. "I do not know, but I will find a way!"

Later, when even Totha deigned to rest, she lay beside him on the skins and toyed with his beard. They had long since dropped the Mazda pretence among themselves. Blade, Org and Totha, and the neuter had had many long conferences and had come to perfect agreement, each with the silent reservation that he would kill the other three when the proper time came. Blade knew that Org was now jealous of Totha and him in a s.e.xual sense. The Pethcines had no understanding of incest; at first Org had offered his daughter as a gift, as hospitality, and perhaps as a political gesture but now he was jealous and resentful and beginning to sulk.

Blade could not decide which one of the three was the more dangerous. He inclined toward Totha, yet Org was capable of gigantic rages. Honcho was cunning, crafty, with a highly developed homid brain that had somehow been misplaced in a neuter's body. His brain was as good as Blade's own and the techniques at his disposal far superior to anything Blade had at the moment. Yet Blade lived, kept a half step ahead, because they needed him desperately. Without him Tharn could not be taken.

Now Totha said: "I may not kill you after all. I have never had this feeling for a man before. Not Org, nor Gutar, nor any of the great warriors of the tribe has made me feel as you do. And I will not find a man in Tharn that can gratify me, the Lordsmen are all runt things, shriveled and sickly. I shall put all of them to death immediately. No, Blade, perhaps I will let you live." She laughed and poked his chest. "After all, who will be left?"

"Who indeed?" Then, slyly, he added: "There is always Honcho?"

Totha went into a gale of giggles. "Honcho? That thing? Ha-ho, he is indeed a thing that has no thing!" And she grabbed for Blade as if to rea.s.sure herself.

"He is cunning and has great powers, this I know, but he is useless to a woman."

Blade studied her. She had let a careless remark drop earlier, and now he came back to it. It was a possible way of handling the neuter in the future. In the imminent future, because very soon now Blade must return to Tharn and then to Urcit.

"Yet you told me that Honcho sometimes takes a girl, a Pethdne maiden, when he comes into the Gorge. Why?"

Totha, when she was not engaged in or thinking about s.e.x, could be very sharp. She narrowed her eyes and tweaked his beard. "Why? I ask you the same. Why do you care? I will take care of Honcho when the time comes. Org will. What matter?"

"It matters," he said. "Because it may be a weakness and Honcho does not have many weaknesses. Down here in the Gorge, perhaps, but not in Tharn. He will not be as easy to kill as you think. But if he, a thing as you say, is interested in girls, then it is a weakness and I must know all about it So tell me. What does he do with a girl? Or don't you know?"

Totha was not laughing now. She stared at him. "Maybe you are right. I do not know. But I do know what Honcho does with a girl. He does nothing! He talks. He asks questions. He makes them show him things. But he himself does nothing. How can he?"

"How do you know all this?"

She laughed again. "I know. I have asked the girls after Honcho has been with them. I am Queen here and it is my right to know, anyway I was curious."

Honcho, Blade though wryly, was lucky in a sense. He didn't have to satisfy this little Pethcinian wildcat.

He persevered. "Tell me about it. It may be very important." Important enough, he thought, to save my life and let me win. s.e.x, and there was irony for you, might be the neuter's Achilles' heel. A weakness that could be used to destroy him.

Finally, seeing that he was serious, Totha told him all about it. In the most descriptive and earthy terms.

Honcho had an unquenchable curiosity about s.e.x. What the Tharnians called coi. He would take a Pethcine girl into seclusion, strip her naked, and finger and prod her and ask her endless questions. What did it feel like to have coi? How often did they like coi? What did they do when they had coi?

Once, and Totha fought hard to restrain her giggles, once the neuter had brought along an artificial phallus, made of the omnipresent teksin, and thrust it into a girl and watched her reactions. And made those strange marks of his with a stick on a piece of flat bark. This was as near as Totha could describe a stylus and slate.

Blade listened with an odd sense of pity, and with a growing certainty that he had found Honcho's vulnerable spot. The man was in torment. Blade was now thinking of the neuter as a man. First it had been it, like the unlucky Moyna, then he. Now it was man. Because that was his misfortune and that was going to be his downfall if Blade could arrange it. Somehow a mistake had been made: Honcho had been made with a homid, human, brain in a neuter's body.

Blade felt brief pity, once more, then banished it forever. He knew what must be done. He whispered now. Pulled Totha down atop him and whispered in her ear.

Her eyes widened and she pushed up away from him. "Me? With that thing? I will not! He can do nothing!"

Blade was patient. He did not try to explain that that was precisely the point He said, "It will work. I know it will. Honcho will not be able to resist you. He has not tried before with you, because you are a Princess and..."

"I am a Queen!"

"A Queen, and you are Org's daughter and anyway he does not trust either of you. He is using you because he must, as you are using him, and as you are both using me..."

Totha was aroused again. She began to climb over him. Blade was ready, but he said, "Wait! Listen to me."

"You speak like Honcho," she said sullenly. 'Too many words. Words that are like winds in the caves, that twist and go nowhere. This is what I want. This is what I will have!"

She had her way. When it was over Blade said, "Now will you listen?"

"I will listen. I do not promise to do it. I am Totha and I do nothing that I do not wish."

Blade put his mouth against her ear and whispered for a long time. At last she agreed. Reluctantly, or so she tried to pretend, but he could see that the idea was beginning to attract her. In her way she was as curious as Honcho.

Blade was content. He had planted a seed. It might flourish, it might not. Timing was important, but that he could not exactly control. Blade smiled. It was, then, in the hands of the G.o.ds. Tharnian G.o.ds. Which meant, when you got right down to it, that it was in his hands. He would just have to do the best he could with what he had. And pray. To himself?

When Blade and Honcho returned to the Gorge Tower he took the great Sacred Sword with him. Org did not want to let it go at first but the neuter persuaded him.

"When we have taken Tharn," he said, "and THEY have been destroyed, then the sword can be returned to its rightful place in the Palace. Think, Org! The Sacred Sword does not really belong here in the Gorge. It belongs in Tharn. Is this not so?"

Org agreed that it was so.

As Honcho and Blade floated slowly up the shaft to the Tower the neuter said: "You are curious about the sword?"

Blade had the heavy weapon slung over his shoulder. He had cleaned and burnished it as best he could.

"I am curious."

Honcho spoke now in a purer, more uppercla.s.s Tharnian than he had used in the Gorge.

"The sword is nearly as old as Tharn itself. Many, many megakronos. It was the one great treasure the Tharnian men were able to take when they were defeated and hurled into the Gorge."

Blade had read of that great struggle. The Tharnian women had revolted, vanquished the men and banished them forever from Tharn, keeping only a few prisoners for breeding purposes. The men, living like savages in the Gorge, had gradually evolved into a new race, the savage Pethcines. But racial memories did not die, and always the hope glimmered that one day the Sword, and the Pethcines, would return to rule in Tharn.

"That is why Org let you take it," said Honcho as they neared the top of the shaft "When you go to Urcit the sword will go with you, to the Palace, and the sword is the symbol!"

Honcho turned Blade over to a squad of ceboid soldiers and was about to leave when Blade said: "I would like a favor, Honcho."

The neuter stared at him, impa.s.sive.

"I would see Zulekia again," Blade continued. "The Maiduke girl. In my chambers. This is possible?"

The green eyes narrowed, but a hint of a smile touched the thin lips. "You have not had enough coi for a time? I would have thought so, Blade. Or perhaps Totha did not suit you? I find that hard to believe."

Blade said nothing.

Honcho nodded. "All right. But it must be brief. There is very little time now. We stayed too long in the Gorge. See herm, and as soon as you have finished I will send you to Urcit. Go. I will send the ceboids for you when I want you."

In his chambers Blade bathed under the perfumed jets and donned fresh clothing. He combed his beard and admired it for a moment. Who would have guessed that he looked so well with a beard?

Org had given him a scabbard and baldric for the sword. The baldric was ancient and very rotten, and would have to be replaced, but for now it would serve. Blade admired the jewels that studded the hilt. There were twenty of them, set flush in the metal, and they glinted now in the pale Tharnian light. Diamonds, rubies, pearls and sapphires, and an oddly cut roseate stone that he did not recognize. In his other life they would have been worth a fortune, to the Pethcines they were only part of a symbol, and he had guessed that in Tharn jewels did not have much value.

He was still admiring them when the ceboids ushered Zulekia into the chamber.

Blade sensed at once that there was something different about the Maiduke girl. He could not be sure exactly what it was - she was dressed the same, her long red-bronze hair was still a glory, her gentian eyes as large - but the difference was there.

The ceboids bowed themselves out and Blade knew that the magveil was once again in place. Honcho no doubt would be watching on the spiscreens. He did not give it a thought. His heart lifted strangely as Zulekia walked toward him, unsmiling as ever, her lovely face impa.s.sive. Then, just before she reached him, something happened in her eyes. She blinked rapidly as though signaling alertness, and something moved in the violet depths. Warning? Entreaty?

Her eyes held his in a long stare as she stepped into his arms. "Make kiss," she said. "I like it. I remember. Make kiss."

Blade made kiss. She moved against him, pressing closer and closer. Her mouth, sweet and softly warm, slid from his and grazed his ear as she strained against him. She breathed the words, rather than whispered, as faint as a dying echo.

"When you make coi to me you must touch me deeply there! Very deeply."

Blade waited, chills p.r.i.c.kling up his spine. Zulekia had taken a deliberate chance. She knew as well as Blade, better, how sensitive the spiscreens were. Yet she had gambled. Why? More important at the moment - would they get away with it?

Nothing. Blade breathed again. And now her eyes warned him again. No more risks. He had understood. Or had he? He must touch her deeply there! He thought he understood...and yet?

Zulekia took his hand and led him toward the bed. Blade, who had thought himself drained and exhausted by Totha's constant importunities, now found that he raged like a stallion.

At the bed she turned and faced him. "Make more kiss, my Lord."

They kissed for a long time, until she trembled against him as his hands explored her body.

She said at last. "I think I really understand kiss now."

"That is good," said Blade who was beginning to have a new understanding of it himself. Then he heard himself saying: "Do you understand love, Zulekia?"

The great eyes widened. "Love? It is not a Tharnian word. No, I do not understand it."

"Perhaps," he said gently, "one day you will." He tried to draw her down to the bed beside him, but for a moment she resisted.

"Honcho, the neuter who is He, has told me that you spoke for me. That you would have me saved. That my punishment shall not be as decreed. I am grateful to you, My lord. I make all slaveface."

"This is not the time to speak of that," he said fiercely. "Come to me. I command!"

Blade began to caress and explore her body, remembering her words, probing deep into that moist sanctum. His fingers touched something tiny, hard, cylindrical, and then he really understood. But how to mask it from the spiscreens?

Zulekia had taken a great risk. So must he. Blade threw his huge bulk on her, blanketing her slim cool body with his own. He clutched the tiny cylinder in a fist now. Secure for the moment.

He could wait no longer. He entered her with a great thrust. Then...

Then nothing. He felt her flesh melt away in his arms. He was embracing a wraith, mist, a gauze image of Zulekia that was a perfect and lovely emptiness. SIMLU!

Blade lay p.r.o.ne on the bed, raging. The O of Zulekia still embraced him.

Honcho laughed in the chamber. "I have kept my promise, Blade. I agreed to let you see the girl. Nothing else."

Blade fought to control his temper. Tremors ravaged him and sweat stood out on his face and chest. He knew himself and his temper too well. Once he let it slip the leash he was like a madman.

Honcho's laugh came again. "For a Lord, Blade, for Mazda, you look most undignified. Does coi mean so much, then?"

Blade won his battle with himself. He had the little cylinder clutched in his fist. Honcho had not seen, the spiscreens for once had failed. Blade felt better. He had won, not the neuter.

"I am sending the ceboids for you," said Honcho. "At once. You go to Urcit immediately.

Chapter Eight.

So Richard Blade came to Urcit. Not as a body, at first, but as pure intelligence. So great were Honcho's powers. He had perfected a refinement of teleportation that even THEY did not understand and could not use.

Blade's big body, handsome and ma.s.sive, lay fully clothed on a circular pad in the neuter's main laboratory. The corpus looked peaceful in sleep, the great sword at his side. A feathery veil of teksin covered him.

After he had sent Blade's mind away Honcho stayed alone with the body. He sent the ceboids and the minor neuters away. Again and again he walked to the edge of the pad and stood looking down at Blade. There was no one to see now, and the green eyes mirrored thoughts that Blade would have understood. Envy, fear, hate, jealousy - even admiration. They were all present. Envy loomed the greatest.

Once Honcho stepped on the pad, about to search the clothing, then he turned back with a shrug. The little cylinder snuggled unseen in a makeshift pocket in a fold of toga where Blade had hidden it.

Blade's mind wandered Urcit, seeing and understanding, a.s.similating and planning, yet unseen.

The towers of Urcit spired into points against the curdled milky sky, the eternal twilight. Blade understood that sky now. It was controlled so that mani, Tharn's single crop out of which everything was made, could best prosper.