Joel's balled fist came up like a sledge-hammer.
Joel's balled fist came up like a sledge-hammer.
Joel's balled fist came up like a sledge-hammer.
Joel stepped forward, caught him beneath the arms. Walt Eriss was out cold.
"Tamis!" Joel hissed.
"Yes?"
"Grab his feet. We'll lay him in his bunk."
Together they lifted the giant, hauled him across the deck, stowed him in his bed.
"Tomorrow!" Tamis breathed.
Joel saw her slide into her bunk. He retreated across the fo'cs'le and lay down, but his brain was reeling.
What did the presence of a native Centaurian among the malcontents signify? Then he thought of Walt Eriss and a coldness flowed through his veins. How much had the ex-surgeon overheard of this?
At length in utter emotional exhaustion, he dropped off to sleep.
Joel was awakened by lights and the angry sound of voices. He opened his eyes. Beams of light were darting here, there. The fo'cs'le seemed overflowing with guards in their gaudy blue and yellow uniforms.
He caught sight of the third mate, tousle-haired and wearing a lemon yellow dressing gown.
The third was saying, "By God, Captain Goplerud! What have we got this voyage? A gang of homicidal maniacs?"
Walt Eriss, Joel saw, was sitting up mumbling inarticulately. His jaw was swollen and queerly crooked. The ship's doctor was fussing over him.
"Jaw's broken," the doctor diagnosed.
Captain Goplerud ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. "It's that damned Hakkyt!" he said. "Hakkyt did this."
"Who's Hakkyt?" Mister Mullin wanted to know.
"He's the fellow who beat up Eriss before."
"Where is he?"
"Here," said Joel swinging his feet to the deck.
The beam of a flashlight struck him in the eyes.
"D'you know anything about this?" Mister Mullin demanded.
Joel shook his head.
"Does anyone know anything about it?" the third mate cried swinging the light beam in a flashing arc.
No one answered.
Captain Goplerud said, "It's no use. They're tight-mouthed as clams."
Mullin cursed, then he said, "Get this man to the hospital."
Walt Eriss was bundled onto a stretcher. The guards moved off. The doctor, Mullin, and Captain Goplerud disappeared with the lights.
Darkness settled once more over the fo'cs'le.
For a moment there was silence. Then a prisoner asked, "What happened?"
A babble of voices answered. Somebody said, "The first I heard was Eriss beating on the door to the guardroom. When it was opened he fainted and they carried him in here."
Thorp leaned down from the bunk above.
"You hurt, Joel?"
"No. Why should I be?"
He was answered by a chuckle.
V
When Joel sat down to breakfast the next morning, Tamis shot him a warning glance from beneath lowered lashes. The pallor of her cheeks was accentuated by her sooty hair. She had the exotic look of some temple harlot strayed through time from ancient Babylonia.
Joel realized suddenly that Professor Liedl was talking to him. "What did you say?" he asked.
"That was a splendid service you performed last night."
"You mean Eriss? But I didn't do it."
"You're too modest." Liedl combed his black van dyke with long brown fingers. "I'm a light sleeper, my boy. And my bunk, you may recall, is next yours."
Joel's face stiffened. He glanced quickly at Tamis. The blood had drained from the girl's countenance.
"What did you hear?" he asked in a frozen voice.
"Don't be embarrassed. Your voices didn't carry, and I'm quite broadminded."
Joel stared at him bewildered. Then the blood began to burn in his cheeks as it dawned on him what Liedl meant. "The old goat," he thought. "So that's what he believes!" And he felt suddenly relieved.
Tamis' lashes were lowered. She bit her nether lip. But whether from amusement or confusion, he couldn't decide.
Fortunately, at that moment the door to the guardroom opened. Mister Mullin stuck his head inside; shouted:
"Get a move on. Inspection in fifteen minutes."
With relief Joel made his escape. He didn't like Liedl's insinuation. He didn't like Liedl. There was something cold and repellant about the black bearded professor. He wondered what crime he had committed to be sentenced to the Experimental Station.
In exactly fifteen minutes Captain Goplerud, accompanied by Mister Mullin entered the prisoners' quarters and lined them up at their bunks. Then a dozen guards filed in and took posts about the fo'cs'le with drawn paralyzers.
Joel wondered uneasily what was up. He wasn't left long in doubt.
A stiff-backed man in a faultless olive-green uniform came through the door. He was wearing the gold sunburst of a Star Ship commander on his breast.
Nick Thorp nudged Joel. "The old man!" he said out of the corner of his mouth. "What the devil brings him down here?"
The commandant ran his eyes over the prisoners. "Very good, Mullin." He turned, said crisply, "This way, Governor."
Governor Cameron and his daughter came through the door together. The governor was a big man with harassed gray eyes. He faced his daughter in obvious exasperation. "Well, here they are, Priscilla. Now why were you so confounded anxious to see them?"
The girl stared around with parted lips. There was a curious eagerness in her green eyes. Then she discovered Joel and he was suddenly conscious of that strange affinity between them.
She wore gold sandals and her toenails and fingernails were lacquered green to match her eyes and hair. She had on a brief pleated skirt, a matching monkey jacket of shimmering rose silkon. Her bare midriff, the valley between her breasts, her long legs were smooth golden tan.
"Which one," she asked in a breathless voice, "broke Walt Eriss' jaw?"
"Hakkyt," Mullin informed her briskly. "The big ugly one over there." He pointed at Joel.
Joel found himself staring into the girl's green eyes again. Her lashes were long, black and curly. Her green hair was startling but it wasn't garish.
Without taking her eyes from Joel's, she asked, "Could I see his examination reports? I think he's a...."
The governor started nervously. "You're buying no more serfs Priscilla!" he interrupted in haste. "That's final!"
Joel felt his face burn. Buy him? So that's what had brought them down here to the prisoners' quarters!
The girl was staring at her father with a puzzled expression. Something very like a warning flickered between them—something in Governor Cameron's expression. Joel couldn't be sure.
But the girl's eyes widened.
For a moment there was a strained silence. Then she shrugged, turned back to Joel, studied him brazenly detail by detail. He felt naked beneath those probing green eyes. He felt like a prize Hereford bull.
Priscilla said, "Nevertheless, I should like to glance over those reports, Captain." Her voice didn't sound quite natural.
She had slipped into a part, Joel sensed; she was acting. But why? He was too furious to care. He created a shocked disturbance by saying in a cold voice, "I wouldn't be a good buy!"
Jaws dropped among the prisoners.
Mister Mullin shouted, "Speak when you're spoken to!"
Priscilla Cameron suddenly smiled. "Why not?" she asked him, silencing the apoplectic mate with a wave.
"I'll damn well see to it that I'm not!"
Priscilla continued to regard him with delighted green eyes. "A challenge!" She turned to the saturnine man wearing the gold sunburst. "How much do you want for him, Commandant?"
The commandant had been observing the scene with cynical gray eyes. He was the perfect Terran type; tall, brown-skinned, erect. Now he said,
"Sorry, Priscilla, but he's not mine to sell. He's the property of the Republic, and the laws are specific. He has to be sold at auction in Eden."
Priscilla said, "Stuff! The governor can authorize the private sale of any serf...."
"We're not on Asgard," the commandant reminded her dryly. "This is a Star Ship."
Governor Cameron's visage had grown a rich plum shade. "This farce has gone far enough!" he bellowed furiously. But his anger didn't ring quite true. "I wouldn't authorize the sale of this fellow to my daughter if I could!"
Priscilla said sweetly, "I'll buy him at public auction."
"You will not!"
"Exactly how, pater dear, do you propose to stop me?"
The governor looked as if he were about to have a stroke. Then he swung around, stamped from the fo'cs'le.
It struck Joel as a shade overdrawn. As if Priscilla inadvertently had been about to let something slip, and they'd staged this impromptu fight to cover up.
He heard the commandant say, "Sorry, Priscilla, but I'm due on the bridge."
Priscilla gave Joel a last searching look. Her green eyes sparkled. "I'll see you at the slave block in Eden," she said as she preceded the commandant through the door.
As soon as the guards had withdrawn, Nick Thorp gave a low whistle.
Joel was still furious. "What was she driving at? Why the devil did she pick me out?" He noticed that Professor Liedl was regarding him with a frown. Tamis, too, was watching him, a speculative expression on her elfin piquant features.
Thorp shrugged. "That's hard to tell. She's got a reputation from one end of Asgard to the other. There's even been talk that she's a mutant."
"Mutant." Joel frowned. She certainly hadn't bred true to type. The standard Terran female had light brown skin, black hair and gray eyes. But hers were green—like cat eyes. Like his own eyes!
A startled expression passed over his likeable rugged features. "By George!" he said aloud. "I wonder!"
Later, when the lights had been extinguished again, he lay awake in the dark—tense, listening. The fo'cs'le was quiet. At length, satisfied that everyone was asleep, he slid from his bunk, crossed the deck to the mess-room.
The faint yellow night light was burning. He sat down at a table, lit a cigarette, waited. He was chain-smoking his third cigarette before he heard a step. He glanced up quickly. Tamis was standing in front of him.
Joel said, "I thought you must have gone to sleep."
Tamis sat down facing him. She'd removed the contact lenses. The liquid luminous depths of her eyes were hypnotic. "No. I couldn't sleep. We need men like you too badly. You especially."
"Me?" he said, startled. "You need me?"
She smiled. "My people, Joel, are a timid race, unwarlike, unaggressive. There are many differences between us. Not of an organic nature. We are fundamentally alike. The differences lie in our culture."
"How do you mean?"
"It is difficult to explain. But your race is so far advanced in the physical sciences that it terrifies us. With your incomprehensible machines you could sweep us into extinction in the wink of an eye.
"When the first Terran ship landed on Asgard, we were careful not to show ourselves. Then we learned a queer thing. Although the Terrans were amazingly clever in physics and chemistry, they knew nothing about the potential of the machines that were their own bodies. Nothing! So we continued to elude them and to study them...."
"How?"
"I am not at liberty to tell you that. If the Thinkers accept you, they'll inform you how it is done."
Joel stared at her narrow eyes. "But...."
"No. Don't interrupt. Your civilization, we learned, was a machine civilization. Your race even went so far as to reject any individual who differed from the norm. The Republic's goal was an ant-like similarity of all its members."
Joel said, "I don't see...."
"Don't you? What becomes of any mutation who escapes the vigilance of the Eugenics Board? What happened to you, Joel Hakkyt?"
Joel was silent.
She looked at him searchingly. "Instead of concentrating on the physical sciences, my people have studied—themselves! The psychological sciences. We don't try to control our environment; we fit ourselves to it."
Joel shook his head, still not comprehending.
She said, "You humans build elaborate shelters to protect yourselves against the elements; we have developed our bodies to resist the weather. We revel in rain. Sunlight is intoxicating.
"You have added speed to your legs with machines, wings to your arms with machines. Your machines are like crutches. They give you an immense power, but they atrophy the natural endowments of your body. Could you do this?"
She pointed with a bird-like gesture behind Joel. He swung around. His eyes widened.
The bulkhead had disappeared! He was staring straight through the ship as if it had ceased to exist. He could see the awesome black infinity of deep space speckled with countless pinpoint suns.
Then the bulkhead gathered substance. And he was looking at the blank wall again.
He let his breath escape. "How did you do that?"
"You were seeing with my eyes. Your people have invented machines to do that—the X-ray machine, the fluoroscope. They are crutches. They cannot do half so well as the eye alone!"
"But it's impossible!" he burst out.
She shook her head. "No. Consider the facts. Even in the densest solid, there is more space than matter. Every atom is like a miniature solar system. There is an infinity of space in that bulkhead but only a drop of matter no bigger than a grain of sand. Is it not true?"
Joel nodded.
Tamis giggled. "You know that, and yet you let the grain of sand obstruct your view!"
"But why hide yourselves?" he burst out. "With powers like that...."
"I didn't destroy the wall," she interrupted. "I recognized its transparent qualities. That is all. We have no weapons, no science that can destroy. We can only hide!"
"But why hide?" he persisted.
She regarded him sadly. "Your people are a hard grasping race—ruthless. What has happened to the dominant life forms of Mars and Venus? They are extinct!
"We don't propose to be driven into extinction. We have hidden ourselves, waiting for a weapon to free Asgard. And now the Republic itself has given us one!"
"The Republic has given you a weapon!"
"Yes. The maladjusted. The misfits. They are being organized. They are our weapon!"
"Very interesting!" drawled a low voice from the doorway to the fo'cs'le.
Tamis gave a startled gasp. Her face paled. Joel sprang to his feet.
Professor Gustav Liedl stood just inside the doorway. He held a small poisoned needle automatic trained unwaveringly at Joel's belly.
VI
In the tense silence, Liedl moved into the mess-room.
"What are you going to do?" Joel demanded hoarsely.
Liedl grinned, his teeth glittering in the subdued night light.
"Spy!" said Tamis.
Liedl shrugged. "The word has a disagreeable sound. I prefer to call myself a Government Investigator."
He was edging past them toward the door to the guardroom. The muzzle of his gun hung to Joel's belly like the needle of a compass.
"Stop him, Joel!" Tamis begged wildly. "You are human. You can kill!"
Liedl had to pass within three feet of Joel down the narrow aisle between the tables in order to reach the guardroom. Joel could see the sweat standing out on his sallow forehead.
"Don't try anything!" the professor croaked and began to slide past.
There was the sound of a step from the fo'cs'le. Then the voice of Nick Thorp sang out softly, "Where are you going, Gus?"
Liedl blanched, jerked his head. For a second his eyes were off Joel.
Joel's hand whipped out, slapped the dart gun. It was torn from Liedl's fingers, went slithering across the deck to fetch up with a clatter against the bulkhead.
Liedl opened his mouth to yell. Joel's big hands closed about his throat.
"Kill him!" said Nick Thorp in a brittle voice.
Liedl clawed wildly, spasmodically, at Joel's wrists. The ex-professor's black goatee stuck straight out like a spear. His mouth was open. His round gray eyes bulged.
The muscles of Joel's forearms stood out like cords. Sweat trickled unheeded down his nose. His face was expressionless, his green eyes narrowed morosely.
The only sounds were Nick Thorp's hoarse breathing and the muted rumble of the jets. Tamis pressed herself against the bulkhead, a fixed, horrified expression on her face.
Liedl's convulsive thrashing grew weaker. Suddenly his knees buckled. He buckled. He slumped to the deck.
Joel followed him down, stooping over him bear-like, never relaxing the throttling pressure. Sweat ran into his eyes.
He became aware of Thorp shaking his shoulder.
"He's dead!" Thorp was saying. "Dead. Do you hear me?"
Joel drew a gasping breath, stood up, wiped the sweat out of his eyes. He didn't look at the crumpled figure on the deck. This was the second man he'd killed. The first had been an accident, but not Gustav Liedl.
Tamis said suddenly, "We can't leave him there!"
"No," Thorp agreed. "We'd better dump him down the waste chute. The reconverters will dispose of him."
He picked up the body like a limp sack of potatoes. "Open the chute."
The girl held up the lid while Thorp slid the body into it. There was a faint swoosh. Tamis let the lid drop.
An awkward silence fell upon them.
"Well," Thorp broke it, "we're in this together. Liedl was a government spy. There'll be hell to pay when he turns up missing."
"But they can't trace it to us," Tamis asked. "Can they?"
"No. The reconverters will take care of that."
Joel stood up abruptly, started for the fo'cs'le.
"Joel!" Tamis said.
He didn't answer.
Walt Eriss, the ex-surgeon, returned eventually from the ship's hospital—a savage-eyed Eriss who obviously had been nursing his grievances. Almost his first act was to confront Joel.
"Hakkyt," he said thinly, "that's twice you've struck me." He fingered his jaw, his curious yellow-gray eyes aflame. "I'll kill you for this."
Everyone stopped talking, stared breathlessly at the shaggy haired giant. Thorp moved beside Joel, but he didn't say anything.
Joel said dryly: "Well—what's stopping you?"
Walt Eriss began to tremble. "No," he said in a harsh voice. "I don't want witnesses."
"Talk," said Joel. "You talk too much to do anything."
The ex-surgeon turned abruptly on his heel and stalked away.
Thorp said, low-voiced, "Watch him. Don't ever let him get behind you."
"He's a bluff."
"No. He's a killer. I've seen his kind before. He'll get you, Joel." The spaceman's blue eyes were cold. "You're not safe while he's alive...."
Joel frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean we'd better dump him down the reconverters tonight!"
Joel was shocked. "I'm not a murderer!"
"It's not murder; it's self-defense."
"No!" said Joel and refused to hear any more about it.
The succession of days crept past as alike as beads on a string. Joel tried to draw Tamis out about the Ganelons, but she had been too badly frightened by Liedl's death.
She was afraid of him, too; he could see it in her eyes and it worried him. One sleeping period he asked her about it with characteristic bluntness.
Tamis bit her lip. "I—I never saw a man killed before. I can't get it out of my mind. It's not you, Joel." And then she began to tell him about her early life in the Ganelon village.
It was a life without sham—a simple joyous pagan existence close to the primal forces of nature. Tamis' voice trembled with nostalgia.
Joel was fascinated. He was on fire with impatience to reach Asgard.
On the forty-third day theZenithcame out of the Stellar Drive and began to fire her braking tubes.
Down, down she settled towards the surface of Asgard, second planet of Alpha Centauri A. An electric excitement ran like flames through the Unfit.
Joel couldn't eat. "How much longer?" he asked Thorp for the hundredth time.
"For Saturn's sake, sit down," the ex-spaceman exploded.
Joel dropped into a relaxer, lit a cigarette. His green eyes glittered with anticipation. Tamis gave him an amused glance, but Joel sensed that the Ganelon girl was as excited as himself.
"We should be landing in an hour," she informed him.
Joel felt theZenithshiver from the violence of her braking blasts. Minutes ticked past like hours. Then a bell began to ring and went on ringing.
After an interminable wait, Joel was shaken by a heavy jar. TheZenithrocked sickeningly. There was another blast of the jets. Another jar.
The roar dwindled and fell silent. A strange hush pervaded the ship.
"Asgard!" Thorp shouted, leaping to his feet and slapping Joel on the shoulder. "We're down!"
The prisoners were led straight from the Star Ship into the spaceport where a robot surface bus was waiting to carry them into Eden. The bus was constructed after a design strange to Joel. It was a half-track with heavy mesh screens at the windows.
When he accidentally touched the screen, he received a jarring electric shock. Tamis, who was seated beside him, giggled.
"Where do they think we'd escape to?" he demanded bitterly.
"They're not to keep us from escaping, Joel."
Just then the bus started smoothly, gathered momentum, burst out into the brilliant light of Asgard's twin suns.
Joel forgot the electrified screens, craning his neck, trying to see everything at once. The spaceport, he realized, must be located at some distance from Eden. The road ran straight ahead—a glittering plastic ribbon cutting a channel through the fantastic jungle.
It was monstrous, that jungle. It writhed, twisted, swayed in great swaths although there wasn't the faintest breeze. Suddenly the bus stopped with a jerk to allow a herd of huge tree-like plants to swarm across the road.
Joel gaped at them in amazement. They had thick flesh-like trunks from which writhing tentacles sprouted like the arms of an octopus. A mass of wriggling squirming thread-like roots propelled the plants forward with startling speed.
"Ugh!" Joel shuddered, turned to Tamis. "What are those?"
"Nigel trees."
Joel wrenched back suddenly from the window. One of the nigel trees had lashed out with a tentacle. It touched the screen. There was a green spark. The tentacle jerked back.
"Now do you see why the screens are electrified?" Tamis asked. "The nigel trees are carnivorous."
The bus started to move again. Joel was regarding the Ganelon girl with a frown. "You actually live in the jungle with those things roaming about?"
"Yes. They don't bother us."
He looked incredulous. "Why not? Don't they like your flavor?"
Tamis giggled. "We can control them—a little. They don't think. They react to external stimuli."
"I see," said Joel. But he didn't.
He heard a wailing siren overhauling them fast from the direction of the spaceport. The bus pulled over to let an escort of guards on armored prowl-cycles roar past. Immediately following them, came a plastic tear-drop tri-wheeler. The governor and his daughter were lounging back in its roomy seats.
Priscilla glimpsed Joel and waved mockingly. Then the procession was gone, a second detachment of guards bringing up the rear.
Buildings, Joel noticed, had begun to replace the jungle, buildings of thick opaque plastic without windows. The moving sidewalks, shaded by gaudy awnings, were crowded with men and women clad in little more than shorts and sandals.
The air, Joel realized, was stifling. The dazzling yellow ball that was Alpha Centauri A rode high in the steel blue sky. Alpha Centauri B was a smaller molten-orange sun swimming just above the horizon. Joel had never felt such heat before. It was like the engine room of a tramp spacer.
The bus slowed down, swung into the curb. Captain Goplerud shouted, "Pile out!"
Joel saw a detachment of guards drawn up at the curb. They wore white uniforms and pith helmets and carried small automatic paralyzers. A crowd began to collect behind the double line of guards, which ran like a gauntlet into a massive prison-like structure. From behind him, Nick Thorp said, "Here's an old friend of yours."
"Who?" He glanced up in surprise, recognized Priscilla Cameron grinning at him with an impish expression.
She was dressed in crisp white shorts and a brief jacket. Her green hair wasn't so startling as it had been aboard ship. Joel had noticed other women on the street of Eden with green hair, with yellow hair, with cerise, vermillion, chartreuse hair. It obviously was the latest mode of Asgard.
"That's the one, Colonel!" he heard Priscilla say to the man beside her. "Be sure to notify me when he comes up for sale."
Joel reddened.
The colonel touched his cap. "I'll be glad to, Miss Cameron." He turned to Captain Goplerud.
"Move them inside, Captain. They're not used to the suns. Have a good crossing?"
"Rotten," said Goplerud. "I'm glad to get 'em off my hands. Watch that fellow Hakkyt, by the way. He's a killer."
Then the line began to move. He had been carried beyond earshot into the dim warmth of the prison.
VII
The voice of Tamis Ravitz came softly, insistently through the steaming prison twilight. "Joel. Joel!"
He swung away from the window through which he'd been staring at the streams of pedestrians outside. "Yes?"
The Ganelon girl lowered her voice. "I've been in communication with my people...."
"What?" Joel couldn't believe his ears. For two days the Unfit had been locked in the prison. All of them in a single barracks-like room. The girl hadn't been out of his sight. "How the devil...."
She smiled, tapped her forehead with a slim forefinger.
"Telepathy?"
She nodded.
Joel's green eyes narrowed. Tamis never failed to astonish him. The suffocating heat didn't bother her in the least.
The other prisoners were sprawled about the floor, many of them stark naked. Clothes of any kind were a torment. The slightest exertion brought fountains of sweat pouring from the skin. But Tamis wasn't even perspiring.
She said, "I've made my report. I've been given permission to tell you certain facts. Is there anything you particularly want to know?"
Joel scratched the bristles on his chin, frowned. "How is it," he asked finally, "that the Ganelons have never been discovered?"
An impish grin crossed her smooth elfin features. "Professor Liedl was almost right."
"Camouflage?"
"Yes. Mental camouflage. Is anyone watching?"
Joel glanced about swiftly. "No."
Tamis put her hand to her throat, unzipped the coveralls. With a sinuous movement, she freed her shoulders. The baggy garment fell about her ankles. She stepped out of them—and disappeared.
Literally!
It took Joel a full moment for the realization to penetrate. He'd caught one arresting glimpse of Tamis, nude like a slim marble statue. Then she'd disappeared into the hot, fertile smelling air like a grain of sugar in a glass of water.
Suddenly he realized that he could still scent her. He became sharply aware of that alien, flower-like odor.
He heard her giggle, whirled around. She was standing not six feet off, regarding him with an amused expression.
"How did you do it?" Joel blurted out.
"It is difficult to explain. You have no words in your language to signify what I just did. I—I removed myself from your range of vision."
"Hell! I know that. But how?"
She tapped her forehead again. "It's done with an understanding of the nervous system."
Joel stared at her without any sign of comprehension.
"How can I make it clear?" she asked helplessly. "There are sounds you can't hear because they extend beyond the range of human ears. There are limits to your vision too. And I removed myself beyond those limits."
He said, "Oh," continuing to regard her fixedly. Then, "You could escape any time."
"Yes," she admitted. "But this is my job. I don't want to escape."
"What exactly is your job?" he demanded.
"Intelligence. There are many of us, both men and women disguised as humans who circulate among the Unfit."
"Then—?" Joel prompted.
"Then we make our reports to the Thinkers."
"You've mentioned these Thinkers before. Who are they?"
"Our scientists. Our wise men." She paused, changed the subject abruptly. "Today, Joel, we are to be sold."
"Damn!" He was appalled, remembering Priscilla Cameron's threat to buy him.
"Joel," she went on earnestly, "you are one of us now. The Thinkers have a job for you."
"For me?"
"Yes. Obviously Priscilla Cameron is interested in you, Joel. You must play up to her. It's the first chance we've had to get a spy close to Governor Cameron...."
"Hell, Tamis," he interrupted with an expression of distaste. "I can't do that!"
"But, Joel, you must! Not even my people have been able to get into the palace."
His green eyes quickened with interest. "Why not? They've been able to insinuate themselves everywhere else."
Tamis shook her head. "We don't know! Dozens of Ganelons have slipped into Governor Cameron's palace. For a while we continue to receive their telepathic reports. Then nothing!"
He said: "Let me get this straight. The Ganelons have sent spies into the palace and all of them have simply vanished?"
She nodded.
"But who detected them, if they were invisible?"
"We don't know. Oh, Joel, that's why it's so important for you to obtain Priscilla Cameron's confidence. Women are—are indiscreet with their lovers."
Joel looked shocked.
"But Joel, she'll buy you anyway! You'll have the run of the palace. Slaves hear things and see things no one else can!"
She paused, saw him wavering, hurried on. "We're blind without someone close to the governor. The Thinkers are worried. They're holding off, afraid to give the word that'll start the revolt."
"How near is it?" he asked.
"We're ready to strike. The Unfit have stolen arms, built secret laboratories in the jungle. But we don't dare go ahead until we find out how much the governor knows. We may be blundering into a trap."
Joel drew a deep breath. "All right," he agreed reluctantly, "I'll try. How do I pass my information on—if I get any?"
She looked relieved. "The Thinkers will contact you."
A yell from outside their prison interrupted her. Somebody blew a whistle. A chorus of shouts, muted by the thick walls, reached them faintly.
Joel swung toward the door. The prisoners were all staring in that direction too.
Nick Thorp scrambled to his feet, came over to Joel and Tamis. "What's the fuss?"
Tamis shrugged naked ivory shoulders. She slipped into her coveralls, a frown tugging at her eyebrows.
Suddenly a siren turned loose like a blast from the last trumpet. Joel jumped involuntarily.
"Someone's escaped!" Tamis gasped.
The door burst open. Guards spilled into their prison. They wore white shorts and tunics and carried paralyzers. The dapper colonel was no longer jaunty. His face was red.
"Line up against the wall!" he shouted in a furious tone.
Joel fell into line beside Tamis and Thorp. The colonel opened the muster, barked, "Allyn!"
"Here."
"Aus'l!"
"Here."
"Baden!"
"Here."
Through the open door, Joel could see a white uniformed guard sprawled on the floor. Blood trickled from his mouth and nose and the doctor was fussing over him.
The colonel reached the D's. Then he said, "Eriss."
There was no answer.
"Eriss!" he repeated. The silence was explosive. No one breathed.
Joel craned his neck, looked up and down the line. The shaggy ex-surgeon was conspicuously absent!
The colonel swore. He turned on an under-officer at his elbow. "That's the man!" he said savagely. "Get his dossier and put his picture on the televisor immediately!"
The under-officer sprinted from the room, almost collided with a man entering the prison. Joel saw that it was the guard who'd been lying unconscious outside the door. His white uniform was blood-spattered and he was holding a handkerchief to his nose.
The colonel caught sight of him at the same time, asked in a cold voice, "What happened to you?"
The guard looked unhappy. "This fellow called me to the door. He asked to see you."
"See me?"
"Yes, sir. He said some of the prisoners were planning to escape. He wouldn't tell me about it. I was taking him to you...."
"Why did you let him out? Why didn't you send for me?" The colonel's voice was brittle as ice.
"He acted frightened, sir. Said they would kill him if he wasn't taken out."
"I see. Then he hit you. Is that it?"
"Yes, sir. As I was locking the door after him. I dropped the paralyzer. He snatched it and turned it on me. I don't remember anything else." The guard hesitated. "Did he get away, sir?"
"Yes. From the roof. Helicopter." The colonel turned on his heel, marched from the room. The guards withdrew.
Joel could hear the wailing screams of sirens rising all over the city.
"But where can he escape to?" Joel asked.
Tamis gave him a sober glance, lowered her voice. "There are half a dozen bands of escaped serfs in the jungle. My people have been protecting them. He may be able to join them—if the nigel trees don't get him first."
Thorp said, "Good riddance."
Joel didn't say anything. The ex-surgeon was a shrewd, brutal man. He didn't think the nigel trees would be able to catch him.
The slave block was located in the principal square of Eden. Joel had been escorted thither along with the other prisoners, stripped and chained naked inside a long pavillion like the cattle sheds at a fair.
Streams of planters flowed through the pavillion, studying the prisoners, discussing their good and bad points before bidding on them. A good natured holiday air pervaded the throng. Alternately Joel was white-lipped with fury and red with embarrassment at their pointed observations.
All at once he stiffened, catching sight of Priscilla Cameron heading straight for him through the crowd.
Joel flushed darkly. He had never disliked anyone with the passion he felt for this girl with her defiant green hair, her slim cool arrogance.
Tamis Ravitz was chained in the stall next to Joel. The Ganelon girl leaned over and said, "Here she comes. Remember!"
"I see her. Who's the fellow with her?"
"General Roos. Fredrik Roos. He's head of the Asgardian Police."
Joel thought the police chief looked young and dashing in the white Asgardian uniform. A tiny jeweled paralyzer was belted about his waist.
There was a twinkle in Priscilla's green eyes when she paused in front of Joel's stall.
"Here he is, Freddy. Isn't he lovely?"
Joel stiffened.
"Lord," General Fredrik Roos drawled, "what a big brute!"
"Isn't he, though?"
Despite her light manner, Joel sensed a strain in Priscilla's voice. She was wearing a diminutive yellow jacket with puffed sleeves and a matching skirt. The shimmering microweb accentuated the firm youthful modeling of breast, hip and thigh.
"Did you ever see such shoulders?" he heard her ask Roos. "He's magnificent!" She turned back to Joel. "Flex your biceps, Joel."
Their eyes locked. Joel didn't move, but an expression of surprise swept his features.
For a moment, Priscilla's guard had dropped. Fear was mirrored in her vivid green eyes. Fear and appeal. The girl was in a panic!
"Surly brute," Roos said.
"Oh, I'll tame him," she began gaily. Then she broke off, staring at Tamis Ravitz with a frozen startled expression.
Tamis was crouched against the wall in fright. Her small breasts rose and fell rapidly.
Priscilla wheeled suddenly, beckoned a guard. "That girl! Get her out of those chains and take her to the governor!"
The guard looked startled. He glanced at General Roos for confirmation.
Roos' face hardened. "Do what Miss Cameron says!"
The guard looked bewildered, but he hauled Tamis to her feet, unlocked the shackles. They fell to the floor with a clank.
Tamis straightened. Like the rest of the Unfit, she had been stripped of her baggy coveralls. She looked like a painting of Psyche by Boucher. She took one step....
"Keep hold of her wrist!" Priscilla cried.
But Tamis had vanished!
VIII
The delivery truck resembled a dog catcher's wagon as it rolled up behind the governor's palace. It was Joel's first glimpse of Priscilla's home—a towering plastic structure in the style of the symbolists.
After the girl had bought him, guards had whisked him from the slave block. He'd been hauled through the streets like a wild beast.
Joel was led inside an office where the major-domo, a tall, tremendously fat man in a white slave tunic, signed the receipt for him. Alpha Centauri A had set. An angry orange light streamed through the windows from Alpha Centauri B.
The major-domo grunted, heaved himself to his feet. He was staring fixedly at Joel's arm.
Joel glanced down. The tattoo mark was fluorescing a vivid green!
"So!" said the major-domo.
Joel opened his mouth. The major-domo put his finger to his lips with a silencing gesture, covered the action with a yawn. But his eyes held a warning.
He slid his hand beneath his desk. Something clicked. The tattoo quit fluorescing.
"Put this on," he said going to a clothes locker and tossing Joel one of the white slave tunics. "Miss Cameron left orders that you weren't to be assigned until she sent for you."
Joel dropped the tunic over his head with a confused feeling.
"This way." The fat man led him into a corridor. As the door shut on the office, he stopped so abruptly that Joel bumped into him.
"All right," he said, "it's safe to talk here. But watch the mirrors. They're televisors! There isn't a room in the palace that isn't equipped with them. We're under constant surveillance."
Joel's brain was reeling. So the palace serfs were organized too!
"Listen close," the major-domo went on low-voiced. "Meeting tonight. You'll be instructed in your part forthe day."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the door at the opposite end of the corridor slid aside. The fat man jumped a foot, his face taking on the color of wet clay.
A girl brushed into the passage, stopped with a startled expression. She was young, Joel saw, and pretty with straight brown hair. Her short white tunic exposed long symmetrical legs.
"Hullo!" she said. "I was looking for you." Her brown eyes flicked a glance at Joel. "This the new man?"
The major-domo said, "Yes," in a relieved voice.
"Big devil. Does he bite?"
"He's a legitimate maladjustment case, if that's what you're driving at," the fat man replied stiffly. "What did you want?"
"Miss Cameron sent me to fetch him." She jerked her head at Joel.
The major-domo frowned. "You'll have to go," he said to Joel. "I was hoping she'd give you time to get your bearings. But that's not her way."
"Listen," said the girl turning anxiously to Joel. "I'm Peg—Miss Cameron's maid. You watch your step. That baggage has bought dozens of men off the Star Ships. They would be around for a week, ten days. Then pouf! Gone! Nobody would ever see 'em again!"
Joel looked startled. "What is she? A lady Bluebeard?"
"She's no lady," said the girl. "And it isn't funny. You watch your step. She can see in the dark like a cat!"
"What's that?" Joel's interest quickened. "See in the dark?"
"Like a cat!" Peg repeated. "And that's not the half of it. She can smell a person out like a hound! I mean actually. Just let her get one whiff of you and she knows who you are!"
Joel wasn't surprised. That explained how Priscilla had detected Tamis at the slave market. It also explained why the Ganelon spies had always been caught in the palace. Their alien scent had betrayed them to Priscilla's keen nostrils. Trapping them was easy.
"We've loitered here as long as we dare!" Peg said nervously. "I'll get in trouble."
The major-domo said, "Don't forget tonight," retreated down the passage to his office.
Joel followed the girl through a maze of corridors. Peg switched along, chattering incessantly. Once she hissed out of the corner of her mouth, "Talk! Don't gape at the mirrors. We're not supposed to know they're televisors!"
For the life of him, Joel couldn't think of anything to say. The mirrors were everywhere. They gave him a bad case of stage fright.
At the top floor, Peg paused before a door, pressed a stud. Joel saw that a panel of opaque plastic had been let into the face of the door.
"I'm on the terrace," said Priscilla's voice suddenly. It sounded so close that Joel's head snapped around. "Bring him back here."
And the door opened, silently, disclosing an empty vestibule. The walls were mirrors glowing with a subdued rose light. Their feet made no sound on the dull black plastic floor as they crossed the vestibule, entered the salon.
Like the vestibule, Joel saw, it was paneled in dimly gleaming mirrors. It made the room stretch out forever except where crystal doors gave onto a roof garden. He could see Priscilla Cameron stretched on a deck chair sunning herself in the luminous orange rays of Alpha Centauri B.
Peg pushed aside the crystal doors. "Here he is, Miss Cameron."
At their appearance, some creature set up an excited yap-yapping. Joel stared around trying to locate the beast. Then he swallowed. The yapping noise was issuing from a plant in a green tub!
"Thank you, Peg," Priscilla said. "That's all."
Peg curtsied, backed out.
"What is that thing?" Joel demanded.
"It's an Asgardian lung beast." Priscilla went to the excited plant, stroked it gently. The yapping ceased. "See. It's not a plant at all. It's one of the three known species of Asgardian rooted mammals."
Joel put his hand on the creature. It was like a lump of flesh covered with soft brown hair! He shuddered, snatched his hand away.
Priscilla laughed. She was wearing a short yellow smock and sandals. She said, "Sit down, Joel. I want to talk to you."
He sank into the relaxer she indicated. Instantly, flexible metal bands whipped about his throat, his biceps, his wrists and ankles. He wrenched convulsively, squirmed.
The more he fought the tighter the bands contracted. He couldn't breathe. A red haze swam before his eyes.
"Relax!" he heard Priscilla's voice coming from a great distance.
He slumped in the seat. The bands slacked off. He could breathe again.
"Damn you! Damn you!" he rasped. His throat was raw.
"I'm sorry, Joel!" she said in a scared voice. "I have to know something!"
Sitting stiffly in the chair's metal embrace, he watched her from the corner of his eye. She was wheeling a machine onto the terrace. Wires sprouted from it like the ganglia of the nervous system. Each wire terminated in a tiny saucer-shaped disk. She fastened them to his temple, the base of his skull, his solar plexus, his spine. Sweat burst out on Joel's face.
Priscilla finished attaching the sucker discs. Then she sat down at the machine, began to fiddle with a dial.
The machine went "Glug—glug—bubble—glug—"
"What the hell is that thing?" Joel demanded in a tight voice.
Priscilla didn't answer. The only sound was the "glug—glug—bubble—glug" of the machine. Then it said, "What the hell is she up to?" in an alarmed metallic voice.
Joel jerked as if he'd been slapped.
The machine said, "No! No!" And then it became absolutely unintelligible. It babbled.
Joel stared at it in consternation.
It said: "My Lord, it's reading my thoughts!"
He turned horrified eyes to Priscilla.
The machine rattled on inexorably: "Why? Why? What does she want to know? Ganelons. Don't think ... Tamis. Where's Tamis? And Thorp. Wonder—. I'm being verbose. Go around in circles. Circles. Curves. Good legs and—. A hell of a thing to be thinking of now! What happened to those other men? Lady Bluebeard. She's no lady. She sure as hell isn't...."
"For Pete's sake shut that thing off!" Joel and the machine roared in unison.
Priscilla lifted her eyes, asked, "Have the rebels contacted you?"
"No," said Joel.
The machine said: "That damned machine will give me away."
"So they have contacted you?"
"Yes," he replied bitterly.
The machine said: "What's the use of lying?"
Priscilla threw back her head and laughed. "Joel, are you in communication with the Ganelons?"
"Ganelons?" he said, "What are they?"
The machine said: "How did she know that? Ye gods, she'll pull everything out of me. Make my mind a blank. Don't think about Tamis. Don't....
"Who's Tamis?" Priscilla asked.
"She's forgotten," the machine said in surprise. "No. She didn't know the girl's name; just that she was a Ganelon. Wow, what a horrible, uncontrollable thing a person's mind is. Multiplication tables. Two times two is four.... Damn! I can't remember the multiplication tables!"
"Joel," said Priscilla, "I'm going to make you my bodyguard."
"Bodyguard!" echoed Joel and the machine together. "Hell fire...." He shut his mouth. The machine went, "Glug—glug—bubble—glug. Out damned spot! Out, I say! One: Two: Why, then 'tis time to do't...."
"What's that?" Priscilla demanded suspiciously.
"Macbeth," Joel replied with a grin. And for ten minutes she had to listen to the machine spouting quotations from Shakespeare. After that it started on nursery rhymes, began a dissertation on cattle breeding.
"All right!" said Priscilla savagely. "You win. I can stand anything but hearing about the love life of a cow!" She shut the machine off.
Joel slumped weakly in the seat. Sweat was rolling down his face.
Priscilla was pensive as she removed the suckers, rolled the machine away. When she returned she was carrying a small paralyzer.
"Did you mean it," Joel asked, "when you said I'm to be your bodyguard?"
"Yes."
"But that's absurd!"
"Would you stand by and watch me murdered?"
"No," he admitted.
"Fair enough," she said. "That's all I ask."
She threw a switch on the back of the chair. The bands loosened. Joel stood up, rubbing his throat.
Priscilla shot him an oblique glance, said dryly, "Don't misunderstand me. I need protection. Nothing else."
Turning abruptly she entered the apartment, beckoned for him to follow. She touched a hidden plate in the floor with her toe. Joel saw a section of the mirror paneled wall slide aside revealing a shallow passage beyond.
"This is where you're to stay. So that you can watch the apartment at all times."
Joel entered the passage, gave a low whistle of surprise. It ran all around the salon behind the mirrors. He could see the room through them as if they were the clearest plate glass.
Security glass, he realized. It had been bombarded with chromium so that from one side it acted as a mirror. But from the other it was transparent.
"Who built this?"
"The last governor. He was terrified of assassination. The palace is a rat-run of secret passages and lifts, concealed televisors, electronic eyes and alarms."
Joel said, "Priscilla, why did you buy me?"
The twinkle returned to her green eyes. "You'll learn. Meanwhile you'd better familiarize yourself with these passages." And she shut the panel on him.
Joel spent the next week exploring the labyrinthine passages that ran everywhere from the sub basement to the top floor. He emerged only to eat or when Priscilla called him over the wrist radio.
From the serfs he heard echoes of what was taking place in the outside world. Walt Eriss, he learned from Peg, had joined one of the outlaw bands. He was being talked about constantly among the serfs.
A man of action, they called the ex-surgeon, brutal, ruthless, shrewd. A strong man. Joel held his own counsel. But the reports worried him.
He was exploring between the walls on the ninth level when he came to one of the trick mirrors and peered through. A long magnificent corridor met his eye. Directly across from the mirror was a lift.
General Fredrik Roos had his quarters on this level, Joel knew, but the hall was empty. He was about to turn away when the indicator light on the elevator glowed faintly.
Someone was coming up.
The car stopped, the doors slid back. Joel frowned. There wasn't a soul in the cage.
Then the doors shut and the cage dropped from sight.
Joel bit his lip. All at once, the indicator lit up again. The car was ascending to the ninth floor once more.
Again the doors slid aside. But this time General Fredrik Roos stepped briskly from the cage, turned left down the corridor.
The chief of the Asgardian police had taken only half a dozen steps, though, when he halted. Joel could see his nostrils twitch. Then his hand darted to the jeweled paralyzer at his waist. It was like a man practicing a quick draw—shadow boxing.
Roos pointed the paralyzer at emptiness, pressed the stud. A dazzling yellow beam lanced down the corridor, winked off.
Joel sucked in his breath. The misty outline of a body was materializing on the floor just ahead of Roos!
There had been someone there—someone who'd been invisible until the ray knocked him out!
"Ganelon!" Joel thought. He could see the shape of bare ivory legs and a delicate waist. It was a girl lying huddled on the floor!
Roos had snatched up a heavy vase from a niche in the wall. He was striding toward the unconscious Ganelon girl.
The ray only paralyzed; it didn't kill. Roos was going to murder the spy, Joel realized. At that instant he recognized her.
It was Tamis Ravitz!
IX
Joel's reaction was instinctive. He pressed the mechanism that actuated the mirror, drew his paralyzer. The yellow beam flicked down the corridor, touched Roos' spine.
The general went limp as a microweb stocking!
Joel was at the girl's side with a bound. He scooped her up, plunged back into the passage behind the mirrors. He never glanced at Roos. The police chief, he knew, would be unconscious for an hour or more from the effects of the ray.
Joel hurried between the walls with the limp Ganelon girl in his arms. When he reached his own room he stretched her on his bunk.
Joel's room was only a niche in the wall between Priscilla Cameron's bedroom and the salon. It was just big enough for a bunk, a stool and a desk. One-way mirrors sealed it off from the apartment.
A glance assured Joel that Priscilla wasn't in. He began to chaff Tamis' limbs.
The minutes dragged past. Joel saw the color return to her cheeks. She looked like a slim, adolescent Aphrodite.
The girl opened her eyes, stared up at him blankly. "Joel! I—I did find you!" Then her features froze with horror. "But Roos! He knew I was there! He—he saw me. The ray...."
"You're safe," said Joel. "I knocked him out with a paralyzer."
"But how did he discover me?"
"That's what's troubling me. Unless...." He paused, stared thoughtfully at the frightened Ganelon girl. "Priscilla Cameron is a mutant. Her sense of smell is as keen as mine. That's how your spies have been detected. Maybe Roos is a mutant also."
Tamis sat up, glimpsed Priscilla's luxurious bedroom through the mirrors, caught her lip between her teeth.
"Joel! Where are we?"
"Priscilla Cameron's apartment." He explained about the mirrors.
Tamis sighed in relief. "Joel, what have you learned? The Unfit are impatient. That ex-surgeon, Walt Eriss, you remember him? He's insisting that we attack at once. He—he's insane Joel!"
"He's a homicidal maniac," Joel agreed dryly. "I wish I'd taken Thorp's advice and dumped him down the reconverters." He shook his head. "I haven't learned much; but it's all bad!" And he told her about Priscilla's knowledge of the slave organization.
"They can't know!" Tamis' voice was tight with horror. "They can't, Joel! After all our precautions. What are they going to do?"
"I don't know."
"Hasn't Priscilla Cameron confided in you? I thought...."
He laughed shortly. "I might as well be a piece of furniture."
"You mean she hasn't...."
"That's exactly what I do mean. I'm her bodyguard. She gave me to understand the first day that our association was to be strictly business." He made a wry grimace. "And that's what it has been!"
"But why—" Tamis looked utterly dumbfounded. "She acted like a wanton aboard ship."
"It was just an act. Don't ask me why. I don't know."
"Where is she now?"
"In conference with her father."
Tamis rose shakily. "I don't understand it, Joel. There are wheels within wheels. I must get back to the Thinkers."
Joel guided her through the walls to a tiny lift barely large enough to hold them both. They dropped swiftly to the basement, traversed a long tunnel.
"This comes out in an alley beyond the gates," Joel informed her. "Have you heard anything of Nick Thorp?"
"He escaped," Tamis said, "He's staying in my village."
"Thorp?"
"Yes. He joined the outlaws first. But he had trouble with Walt Eriss. Eriss had him thrown into a herd of nigel trees."
"Good Lord," said Joel. "How did he get away?"
Tamis began to grow red. "I—I was watching out for him."
"Sort of a Guardian Angel?"
She giggled. "You could call it that."
There was a scanner at the end of the tunnel. Joel put his eye to it. "The alley's deserted. You can go now." He touched a button, the wall slid aside. The brilliant light of Asgard's twin suns flooded the entrance. He began, "When will you—" and stopped.
Tamis was gone.
When Joel returned to his cell, Priscilla Cameron was sitting on the edge of his bunk, tapping a sandaled toe on the floor. "You've had a visitor!" she greeted him.
Joel concealed his astonishment. Priscilla was wearing her green hair in a roll about her face. Crisp white shorts and halter made a sharp contact against the warm sepia of her skin.
He said, "That's preposterous...."
But Priscilla stopped him with a laugh. "She left her scent all over the place. It was that Ganelon girl, wasn't it? Never mind lying; I know!"
Joel grinned crookedly. "Well?"
"Are you in love with her, Joel?"
"Love?" He looked puzzled. The word was archaic. The Eugenic Board's policy of controlled scientific breeding had pretty well obliterated that particular passion. Desire remained, but it was physical. "Oh," he said finally, "you mean the emotion that all the old poets used to rave about. That's atavistic, isn't it?"
"But we're atavisms," she said.
Joel stared at Priscilla, conscious of that strange affinity binding them together. He could feel the pulse ticking in his throat. He took a step towards her, stopped, furious with himself.
"What about those other men you bought?" he demanded hoarsely; "the ones who disappeared?"
Priscilla's green eyes were alight. "Why, Joel, you're jealous!"
"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."