Part 54 (1/2)

”Remember our orders,” the second male ogre said.

”You shut up too, Monolokee! Te blast me to a cinder-let me think for a moment.”

Kawai said softly, ”I can offer you only meagre hospitality, good neighbours. However, the spring house contains cold beer, which might be refres.h.i.+ng after a hot ride, and I have a rather large crock of strawberry jam.”

Betularn fixed the smiling little human with a piercing eye.

”If this is a trick ... ”

Kawai spread his hands in a protestation of submissiveness.

”I am all alone. Surely your forces have confirmed the fact by now. Please-follow me. You are most welcome, I a.s.sure you.”

He turned about and began to walk toward the village.

Dear Amerie-chan, he prayed, your roses accomplished half a miracle.

You wouldn't want to blow it now, would you, daughter?

Behind him, he heard monstrous laughter, the creak of harness, the slow plop-plop of clawed feet in the dust. ”That d.a.m.n beer better be cold,” muttered Betularn.

”Oh, yes!” Kawai grinned over his shoulder. ”Just come along. It's not far.”

”Are you certain that you want to go ahead with this?” GregDonnet enquired.

The single blue eye in the centre of the Howler woman's forehead was unblinking. ”If I had looked like a human, he would have loved me. My illusions were not good enough.

Having once worn a silver torc, he had insights superior to those of the other Lowlife husbands.”

She removed the last of her garments, handed them to the female laboratory a.s.sistant, and stood s.h.i.+vering slightly beside the expansive array of the tank apparatus and its directive console. Her mutant body was slender, scaly, with a light pelt like that of a blue fox growing about her shoulders and down the midline of her thorax. ”I am ready. What do I do now, Melina?”

”Step into the tank,” the technician said, ”and we'll just wrap you in the Skin. Then Dr. Prentice Brown and I will apply the monitors and attach your life-support equipment. It will feel like you're going to sleep. You'll never know when the tank fills.”

”Will I dream?” The question was fearful.

”Good dreams,” Greggy rea.s.sured her. ”Perhaps of him.”

The little creature smiled. ”I know there is a chance that I will die, or emerge from the tank more deformed than ever.

But I do this thing gladly. If he should come before I wake, you will tell him that, won't you?”

”Certainly,” said Greggy. ”Now in you go-and think positive thoughts! It's very important to initiate your self-redactive impulses voluntarily.”

He and his a.s.sistant went to work, swiftly wrapping the mutant woman in transparent membrane and attaching the ancillary equipment. They closed the tank, did a final scan of her functions, and let the great crystal container fill. The body floated free and a.s.sumed a horizontal position, tethered by the Medusa-cap that would soon begin feeding regenerative commands into the sleeping brain.

Greg-Donnet touched his golden torc as he watched the changing readouts on the console. ”Are you asleep, Iambic? Can you hear me?”

Brainwaves cycled slowly on the monitoring screen. A single word crossed the threshold of consciousness before the mutant's mind surrendered to the Skin-tank and its healing oblivion: Tonee.