After a moment of respite Dumarest checked the area. The door by which he had entered the room was barred by the thing facing him but another lay to one side. The room itself was illuminated by a single glowing plate set in the ceiling. A mass of straw lay in one corner, a trough in another. One containing water, he guessed, a bowl, now empty, could have held food.
A snarl and the creature lunged toward him. Clearly it had learned; the long arms hung protectively over the crotch, one lifting as it came close, the clawed paw missing as Dumarest darted aside. A move which gave him a choice of either door, but the one by which he had entered led only back the way he had come.
He spun, dropping to one knee, the wooden shaft in his hands whining as he sent it in a savage blow to the creature's leg. A blow which hit the kneecap, shattering the wood, but hampering the beast long enough for Dumarest to reach the other door. To duck through it. To slam it fast.
He leaned his back against it as he fought for breath.
Before him stretched a chamber, narrow, set with a guard rail before flanking cubicles with raised floors. Rooms like cells but without the bars. In the nearest something stirred.
At first he thought it a large bird then it turned and Dumarest saw the undoubted humanity behind the elongated jaws which gave the impression of a beak, the rounded, avian eyes, the double-orifice where a nose should have been. An illusion heightened by the extended column of the neck, the lack of ears, the backward slope of the forehead. Vivid tattooing supplied an artificial plumage.
As he stepped forward the creature retreated, hopping on distorted feet, thin, curved fingers lifting in futile protection. A quasi-human, naked, slight, unmistakably female.
"Don't touch her!" The voice was a deep gurgle coming from a cubicle opposite. "Leave her alone. You frighten her, Gora, and I'll-" The voice paused. "Gora?"
"No." Dumarest turned to face a bloated obscenity; a man so gross as to be repulsive. Like the bird-girl he was naked. "Who is Gora?"
"Someone I'll kill one day. If he gets within reach of my hands. If I can get my teeth in his throat. Come closer-I can't see so good. Who are you? Your aura's strange."
"It's mine. Who are you?"
"Rastic Alatabani Seglar. Call me Ras. Would you believe I was handsome once?" The massive bulk shook with either laughter or tears. "A traveler. A kid with stars in his eyes. I had the universe to rove in but I chose the wrong world. Got contaminated. Began to swell. Money would have saved me but I had no cash. Now I can't move. If I wasn't with the circus I'd die."
A product of disease, disfigured, almost blind. Dumarest looked at the caricature of a face, the filmed orbs. A freak as the bird-girl was a freak, and the man tufted with feathers in the next cubicle, and the woman lower down-the one with two heads.
"I'm Olga," said one. "My, you're handsome. Tall and strong and a real man. More than Ras ever was, I'll bet. He lies, you know. Lies all the time."
"Like you," said the other head. "I'm Inez. Pay no attention to her. She's jealous. She thinks everyone who comes to see us is interested only in her. Tell the truth, now, aren't I the prettiest?"
Dumarest said, "Maybe you can help me. I'm looking for a friend."
"A girl! I bet it's a girl!"
"Shut up, Olga! You talk too much!"
"And you eat too much! You're making me fat! Soon I'll be as ugly as you are!"
"Bitch!"
"Cow!"
"Shut up!" A harsh voice roared from the end of the chamber. "Cut that babbling or I'll do it for you! You hear me? Cut it out!"
"Gora!" Olga sucked in her breath. "Inez-do as he says."
"I'm not afraid of him."
"I am. Now be quiet."
Their voices faded to twitterings as Dumarest walked to the far end of the chamber. Past a cubicle from which something stared at him, faceless, sexless beneath the thick mat of hair covering it from scalp to toes. Feeling the eyes of a woman with multiple breasts, another with a hump topped by a squinting, elfin face. A man with scales and vestigial wings. One thick with warty encrustations. A score of distorted human shapes.
Gora looked like a dog.
He sat in the far cubicle, lips sagging, jowls, the pouches of his eyes. Pointed ears added to the resemblance and his hair, fine and russet, covered forehead, neck, face and body. Pointed teeth gleamed as he bared his lips.
"Artificial," he said. "But the customers like it."
"You in charge here?"
"I try to keep some sort of order. I've the voice for it." He deepened his tone to a snarling growl, one terminating in a bark. "That's acting-the rest is real. Genetic disorder, myasthenia, myopathy-you a doctor?"
"No."
"Then you wouldn't be interested. A freak-nut, then? Come to indulge yourself? Wanting to see how we behave when not performing?" The liquid eyes studied Dumarest. "No, I guess not. What, then? Grag wouldn't have passed you unless you were straight." He looked at the door through which Dumarest had come. "Conditioned to stay in his room," he explained. "But without the whistle he'll kill without warning."
"A watchdog?"
"Something like that. Keeps us in and others out. Too rough for showing but he has his uses. Which is more than you can say for the rest of us."
"Including you?"
"I do what I can. I'd go crazy if I didn't. At times I think I'm crazy anyway and it gets worse when we're not on show. Then, sometimes, it's possible to think of the marks as freaks and us as normal. Their eyes, the way they goggle, grin, act. Talking as if we were deaf, acting as if we couldn't see, poking with sticks, making suggestions, speculating how we come to be as we are." The artificial fangs gleamed as Gora snarled. "Throwing us bones, candy, filth. They must be sick in the head."
Dumarest said, "Is this all there are of you?"
"Freaks? Why be afraid of the word? That's what we are- freaks. Some born that way, some growing, others made. You think I'm joking?"
"No," said Dumarest.
"That spider-man over there. Can you guess how his arms and legs got that long? Babies are malleable. Tissue can be stretched, bone too when you're young and mostly gristle. They rested him on a plank and tied weights to his wrists and ankles. Heavy weights left for years. Something to see when he was ready." Gora spat his disgust. "People!"
Dumarest made no comment.
"So we sit here," continued Gora. "Amusing the normal. Taking their insults, sometimes their pity. At times I don't know which is worse."
"I do," said Dumarest. "One freak bullying another, for example."
"I don't bully them."
"Ras wants to kill you."
"Ras wants to die," corrected the dog-man. "At times we all want to die. How else can we escape this hell?"
"You're fed, housed, kept warm," reminded Dumarest. "So you have to earn it-but who else would employ you? Some would think you are lucky. And if you want to die you can do it whenever you want."
"How? Without a gun? A knife?" Gora looked at the hilt riding above Dumarest's boot. "You could do it. Give me an easy way out."
"No, I won't do that. Any edge will do. Teeth if you've nothing else. Just bite through a vein."
"That all?"
"That's all-if you've the guts." Dumarest watched as Gora lifted his wrist to his mouth, the fangs lowering, biting, indentations showing on the hair, the flesh beneath. Before blood could flow he said, quickly, "You've the courage but you're not ready yet. When you are you'll do it fast. But you know the others need you."
An out the other accepted. "Yes," he said, lowering his wrist. "Yes, I guess they do."
"You help them all the time."
"That's right."
"And you can help me. I'm looking for a girl named Melome. She was sold to the circus last night."