Part 8 (1/2)

He told Sutha everything that had happened to him since the day in London when Lord Leighton had pressed the computer b.u.t.ton. Sutha listened without once interrupting. Nor did the High Priestess, who was listening somewhere in the Palace, send her voice into the room.

Blade finished. Sutha stroked his chin and stared, but with nothing of amazement. There was even a hint of boredom in his voice.

”Our scientists, our astronomers and physicists, and all the other disciplines, suspected for many kronos that there was intelligent life in the universe. Other than here in Tharn. But all efforts of communication failed and after a time it hardly seemed worth while. We had domestic problems, also. We became a one crop economy. Mani. To produce enough mani for all our needs we had to control the weather, and the sky, and so shut ourselves off from the universe. But we know it is there, Lord. We know it is there!” And Sutha smiled.

”I,” said Blade, ”am living proof of that.” Sutha was speaking again. ”In a sense, you are Mazda! HE WHO COMES TO THEY. We shall accept you as such, Richard Blade. I will call you that in private. And though we know, you and I and Isma, that you are not a G.o.d, yet it may well be that you are sent to save Tharn. Now to business. You will find that we in Urcit, as apart from certain other parts of Tharn, are an eminently practical people.”

Blade asked the question that had been bothering him.

”You speak always and only of Isma. What of Astar? In the books I have read...”

Sutha held up a hand. ”Yes. You have a right to know. Our religion is based on duality and as Mazda you will have to consort with both of them. Astar represents power, Isma death. So it is written and so it has to be, for all power structures need a religion. But in Tharn, Isma must carry the whole burden. Astar is a child. Has been a child since birth. Her brain did not develop as it should have. She is capable of going through the outward motions of being Astar, no more. Now, about this neuter in the North Provo. Honcho?”

”That is the name I know him by.”

”It is enough. I will show you a picture. You will tell me if it is a likeness of the neuter Honcho.”

Sutha pressed one of the many switches set into the flat wall. An image leaped into being on the screen. It was Honcho, his arms folded, his green eyes staring out into the room. Below the picture was a medallion bearing an inscription.

Honcho. Kronos 4006, Tier 1, Decantment 1. Destruct Kronos 800.

Below the medallion, in cursive Tharnian, someone had scrawled with a stylus: 14th Level...?...investigate.

Sutha looked at Blade. ”That is the neuter?”

”Yes.”

Sutha pressed another switch and the picture faded.

”We have suspected Honcho for some time,” Sutha said. ”We could never be quite sure. He is very clever and has always been able to conceal his true intelligence, which is far above the 14th level. We knew there was an abort in the 4006 group, but we have never been able to find it. Now we know for sure.”

Blade said: ”He has one great weakness. s.e.x. What you people call coi. I have told you about Totha. It is possible that she will destroy Honcho for us. I tried to arrange it so.”

Sutha shook his head. ”That would not be good. We prefer that Honcho remain alive, and that he lead the Pethcines into Tharn. We plan to destroy them once and for all, forever. This we cannot do unless we can entice them out of the Gorge. Our powers are of no avail in the Gorge. I hope that this woman, this Totha, will fail. I consider it likely that she will. Honcho is far too intelligent to be destroyed by a woman.”

Blade' kept silent. He was not sure, knowing Totha. And this old Sutha had not seen the torment in Honcho's eyes when he spoke of s.e.x. Coi. This was one department, Blade thought, in which he knew more than the Tharnians. And Sutha, as a neuter, could not begin to understand.

Sutha's next words shattered that illusion.

”I was also an abort,” said the old neuter. ”Something went wrong in my conditioning and decanting process and I was given intelligence far above my station. I am very nearly homid, as Honcho must be. I understand the torture of coi when one is not equipped for coi. I feel sympathy for this Honcho. Still, he must be destroyed, after he has served his purpose and led the Pethcines into the trap that we shall lay for them.”

Blade was slightly awe-stricken. The old neuter might have been looking into his mind.

Now Isma interrupted for the first time. Her voice came into the room. ”You have talked enough for now, Sutha. I would speak with Mazda, with Blade, in person. See that his comforts are attended to, that he has everything he wishes, then send him to me. Alone in the Sacred Chamber. No one must know, of course. If he is to be Mazda the exact letter of the prophecy must be followed.”

Sutha shook his head and held up a hand. Isma could see them, then? Blade had been on the verge of producing the little cylinder he had taken from Zulekia's body. Now he did not.

Sutha was still shaking his head. ”In all respect and obedience, Isma, I wish that you would not. It would be a violation of the Book. Neither you nor Astar should see him until the Ceremony of Ravishment. It is so written and I think it should so be. Tharn is in peril, Isma. Even though you may not believe it. Tharn is and will be, in great peril. I make all humble slaveface, as any neuter must, but I ask you, High Priestess, to trust me in this matter. Wait!”

Silence. Then Isma said a word that Blade did not understand. But he understood the tone, the disappointment. More silence and an emptiness in the room that had been missing before.

Sutha shrugged. ”She does not listen now. She is angry with me and you. No matter. She will get over it. She is only impatient for a real man at last, and who can blame her? But there are more important things at the moment, at least for neuters and would-be Mazdas.”

Sutha's smile was open and lacking in deceit. He seemed to be saying that he and Blade were partners now and must somehow muddle through together, but it was not going to be easy.

Blade took the little cylinder from his tunic. He rolled it between his fingers, feeling the raised inscription on it. It was much too fine for him to read with the naked eye. He held it up for the old neuter to see.

That it meant something to Sutha was immediately apparent. The green eyes snapped and he extended a withered hand. ”Where did you come by this, Blade? There is something you have not told me, then?”

Blade handed over the cylinder. It was true. He had left Zulekia out of his account. It occurred to him that doing so was a holdover from his other life, had to do with privacy and chivalry, and might very well prove fatal in Tharn. He now told Sutha everything about his relations with the Maiduke girl.

Sutha listened while he scrutinized the little cylinder with a magnifying gla.s.s. He kept nodding and chuckling as Blade spoke. Finally he put the cylinder away and smiled at Blade.

”I sent Zulekia to the Provo of North Gorge. To Honcho's territory. As a spy. I did not, of course, know about you then. And that you would confirm my suspicions of Honcho. I had not heard from her. I am relieved to know that she is still alive. Much more so to see that she, in turn, confirms all that you have told me about yourself and your relations with Honcho. It clears the air, so to speak.”

He seemed prepared to let the matter drop, but Blade would not have it. That last near embrace with Zulekia, the look in those large violet eyes still haunted him.

”Zulekia told me that she had been sent to the Gorge Tower to be punished. That she had committed a crime. Karno! She had been caught in coi with one of the Lordsmen. This is not true, then?”

The old neuter appeared puzzled. He narrowed his eyes at Blade. ”But of course it is true. She did commit karno. Her chast.i.ty seal was broken! She was sent to the Gorge Tower to be punished: to be given to the ceboids and then flung into the Gorge. Nothing of that has changed. It will still be done. Why are you so concerned, Blade?”

The big man realized, once more, how much he had to learn about the manner of Tharnian thought.

”But she is spying for you, Sutha! Working for you. Surely you promised to commute her sentence, to save her, if she did the job you wanted done?”

Sutha shook his head. ”I promised her nothing. Why should I? She has sinned and must pay for it anyway. I needed a spy near Honcho. It was a perfect, a valid, excuse to do what I had to do. Simple. What is it that you do not understand?”

”Why she obeyed, why she worked so well for you if you did not promise her anything. If she has nothing to gain. But then perhaps she is depending on your mercy?”

”Mercy?” Sutha repeated the word, frowning. ”I do not think I understand. It is not Tharnian. What does it mean?”

Blade hesitated, then tried another tack. He was in Tharn! Think and do and speak as the Tharnians did. But how to make Sutha understand? s.e.x without love. Autocracy and obedience without mercy!

He tried bluntness. ”I would have this girl, Zulekia, saved. I had coi with her, as I told you, and I liked it very much. I want it again. With Zulekia. I wish her saved and brought back to Urcit.”

Sutha raised a hand in warning. There was a glint of terror in his eyes. Blade waited. The neuter stared around the room, listening, waiting for something. He put a trembling finger to his lips and with the other hand kept waving Blade to silence.

Nothing. Blade guessed that Isma had kept her word. Angry with both of them, pouting, she had shut off communication.

Sutha stood up and beckoned to Blade, still with his finger at his lips. Blade followed him. They left the chamber through the narrow postern in the screen.

They were in a long room that stretched away as far as Blade could see. It was empty but for row upon row of computers clacking and humming away. They were all made of teksin, large and small, and their sound was as ominous as a flight of giant bees. Acre upon acre of them spinning and clicking and flas.h.i.+ng.

Sutha blinked his narrow eyes at Blade. He waved a hand at the vast and serried rows of computers and in a loud voice, and bunking another warning, he said: ”This is the central control room of all of Tharn. All orders, directives, codes physical and moral, regulations and decisions, everything to do with running Tharn, it all emanates from here. I do not say that power originates here. Come, I will show you where it does originate.”

His eyes were still enjoining silence. Blade said nothing, but his impatience was growing and his temper fraying. He knew himself and he knew his trouble. He was afraid, but not afraid enough. K his temper got off the leash he could wreck everything. He fought it.

They left the. maze of computers and went down stairs that were broad and shallow. They seemed endless, but at last they came to a short hall leading to tall double doors. Over the doors was the symbol of the phallus.

Sutha, still speaking loudly, said, ”As Mazda it is fitting, Lord, that you be shown the Power Pool at once. It was given by you, and to you we now return it. It is the source of all things and I know that you and Isma will use it wisely.” The green eyes went blink-blink-blink.