Part 6 (1/2)
”I mean the Amphibs got along fine with the Ssa.s.saror until a new element entered their lives--the Earthmen. Then the antagonising began. What is this new element? It's the Changelings--the mixture of Earthmen and Amphibs or Ssa.s.saror and Terran. Add it up. Turn it around. Look at it from any angle. It is the Changelings who are behind this restlessness--the Human element.
”Another thing. The Amphibs have always had Skins different from ours.
Our factories create our Skins to set up an affinity and communication between their wearers and all of Nature. They are designed to make it easier for every Man to love his neighbor.
”Now, the strange thing about the Amphibs' Skin is that they, too, were once designed to do such things. But in the past thirty or forty years new Skins have been created for one primary purpose--to establish a communication between the Sea-King and his subjects. Not only that, the Skins can be operated at long distances so that the King may punish any disobedient subject. And they are set so that they establish affinity only among the Waterfolk, not between them and all of Nature.”
”I had gathered some of that during my conversations with Lusine,”
said Rastignac. ”But I did not know it had gone to such lengths.”
”Yes, and you may safely bet that the Changelings are behind it.”
”Then it is the human element that is corrupting?”
”What else?”
Rastignac said, ”Lusine, what do you say to this?”
”I think it is best that you leave this world. Or else turn Changeling-Amphib.”
”Why should I join you Amphibians?”
”A man like you could become a Sea-King.”
”And drink blood?”
”I would rather drink blood than mate with a Man. Almost, that is. But I would make an exception with you, Jean-Jacques.”
If it had been a Land-woman who made such a blunt proposal he would have listened with equanimity. There was no modesty, false or otherwise in the country of the Skin-wearers. But to hear such a thing from a woman whose mouth had drunk the blood of a living man filled him with disgust.
Yet, he had to admit Lusine was beautiful. If she had not been a blood-drinker....
Though he lacked his receptive Skin, Mapfarity seemed to sense Rastignac's emotions. He said, ”You must not blame her too much, Jean-Jacques. Sea-changelings are conditioned from babyhood to love blood. And for a very definite purpose, too, unnatural though it is.
When the time comes for hordes of Changelings to sweep out of the sea and overwhelm the Landfolk, they will have no compunctions about cutting the throats of their fellow-creatures.”
Lusine laughed. The rest of them s.h.i.+fted uneasily but did not comment.
Rastignac changed the subject.
”How did you find out about the Earthman, Mapfarity?” he said.
The Ssa.s.saror smiled. Two long yellow canines shone wetly; the nose, which had nostrils set in the sides, gaped open; blue sparks shot out from it; at the same time the feathered tufts on the ends of the elephantine ears stiffened and crackled with red-and-blue sparks.
”I have been doing something besides breeding geese to lay golden eggs,” he said. ”I have set traps for Waterfolk, and I have caught two. These I caged in a dungeon in my castle, and I experimented with them. I removed their Skins and put them on me, and I found out many interesting facts.”
He leered at Lusine, who was no longer laughing, and he said, ”For instance, I discovered that the Sea-King can locate, talk to, and punish any of his subjects anywhere in the sea or along the coast. He has booster Skins planted all over his realm so that any message he sends will reach the receiver, no matter how far away he is. Moreover, he has conditioned each and every Skin so that, by uttering a certain code-word to which only one particular Skin will respond, he may stimulate it to shock or even to kill its carrier.”
Mapfarity continued, ”I a.n.a.lyzed those two Skins in my lab and then, using them as models, made a number of duplicates in my fleshforge.
They lacked only the nerves that would enable the Sea-King to shock us.”