Tohm tensed himself to dash the second she leaped. He would have to move quickly.
In a few minutes of nerve-shattering tension, she was standing above the guard; aphonic, she left the little outcropping of cement as if she were flying instead of falling. She collided with the Romaghin's back, her feet striking first, toppling both of them to the street.
Tohm ran from his concealment. His legs pumped up and down like pistons. But when he got there, there was nothing to do. The guard was dead. Neat rows of claw marks slashed his neck. Blood gurgled out. His eyes were open, staring in bewilderment. There had not been time for a scream.
He looked up at her.
“Let's get moving,” she said, not returning the stare.
Babe came from the shadows. Mayna and Tohm topped the wall first, then reached down and lifted the smaller Mutie. From there, the alley and the grating was a very short step. There were no guards around those streets yet. They ran freely, more anxious for speed than secrecy. They gained the grille and the warm cushion of air without incident.
When they reached the hutch, Corgi rushed to greet them, his eyes flashing with all shades of yellow in riotous waves. “We leave in three hours. The Romaghins have caught on to our attack date. The pressure is on. They might invade Federation worlds to kill us. The Old Man will be here to move us out in exactly three hours.”
PART TWO
“NEW DESTINIES, NEW DESIRES”
XIII
They were flushed with the heat of love…
Lying naked on their grass mat in the cool darkness of the hut…
He rolled over to kiss the lips that he knew to be sweet and soft and warm…
And she had no face…
It had not been torn off, ripped bloodily away in rage, but had simply faded out of existence. “Tarni—” He began to say. But her name was slipping away too, dissolving from his memory…
He strained to remember the face … As if, by sheer power of the will, he could undo whatever the gods had done to their relationship…
For a moment, a mouth appeared with a greedy tongue. But that was worse than the blankness — that one, grotesque feature on the barren plain of the face. He stopped trying to remember. He simply ran…
He ran from the hut, weeping…
He ran through the coolness of the night with the stars overhead…
He ran with the booming of the surf in the distance…
He ran beneath the moons, wishing he could howl…
He ran through the bushes of amber leaves…
He ran through orange flowers, stopping suddenly to listen to something. What? What was it? What had he heard?
A hissing. An animal hissing in the bushes nearby…
“All right,” someone said, shaking his shoulder. “No more time for naps.”
He pushed himself off the couch, wobbling as he stood.
“We meet the Old Man in forty minutes on the edge of town. There is a passageway through the caves that will take us under the city wall.” Corgi's eyes were still flushing with brilliant color. He was excited about the swift culmination of all their years of work, the finish line of their centuries-long race.
Tohm stretched, blinked the last traces of sleep from his eyes. “I'm anxious to meet this Old Man of yours.”
“Quite a person, quite a person. Come along now. We mustn't be late.”
They entered the caves where he had first heard Mayna singing, where her hatred for him had bloomed, mushroomed into sight for a few short moments. She hadn't spoken a word to him since they had entered the hutch after escaping the Romaghin guards. She was perturbed, he was sure, by the fact that it had been her fault that Babe now wore his arm in a sling and had it patched with heavy heal-and-flex bandages. Corgi and Mayna took the lead, Fish guiding the Seer next, and Babe and himself with Hunk on his shoulder bringing up the rear. Moving past the lake, skirting its shores, they snaked downward for a time through phosphorescent corridors, then turned upward and finally struck out in a straight tunnel with no nonsense to it. Tohm estimated ten or twenty feet to the surface, perhaps as much as thirty.
The weight of Hunk was already burdening him down, sending throbbing pains through his shoulder. There was no flybelt now to support them, and he was taking all of the Mutie's weight himself with no help from the limited de-grav and propeller plates in the magic waistband.
“Not much farther,” Hunk said, sensing his discomfort.
“I can't believe it,” Babe said, puffing away on his tobacco cylinder. “I can't believe we're finally ready for the big show.”
“I wish,” Tohm said, “I understood what this big show is all about.”
“You will. In time, you will.”
Tohm tried to remember how long ago it had all begun. Strangely, he could not. Whether it had been a week or a month or a year, he did not know. All he knew was that he had come a long way, from hut to Jumbo to “pervert.” He had crossed millions of miles of space and thousands of years of civilization. Somehow, his destiny had become linked with these semi-people. There had, in the beginning, been few people in his life. Parents, a girl whom he had loved — or thought, in his inexperience, that he had — and a few tribal friends. Now there were many people and semi-people in his life whom he had directly or indirectly affected for better or for worse for as long as all should live. He had killed, it suddenly came to him with a bitterweet shock, as many people in this week-month-year as he had known all together in his previous life.
“Another half mile,” Corgi said, calling back over his shoulder.
Another half mile to what? What was going to happen when the Muties got together and did their thing? Who was the Old Man? What was the Fringe? Did he want to be a part of it, and would they let him even if he did? The last thought struck hard. He thought they liked him — aside from Mayna — but how could he be certain? Could one judge these people on normal human standards? Mayna herself had told him not to force his mores and values on her. Did they really want a peaceful world, or was that some front for a larger design they had on things? His mind was wrapped in on itself. Whatever was coming, however, and whatever had been left behind, he could not imagine anything but being a pervert. Their cause, at least, seemed just, the first righteous cause or purpose he had seen in civilization. Personally, he was hooked on these people: comical Babe, songwriter Fish, competent Corgi, incomparable Hunk, possibly even Seer now that he understood him… And there had been hissing in the bushes …
“This is it,” Corgi said, as they all gathered around him.
A small cavelet yawned upward at an angle.
A fresh breeze swept down, stirred their hair and tickled their nostrils with freedom.
“We cleaned out the mouth of this a long time ago, broke through to the surface. A back door for emergencies. It comes up in a clump of rocks just outside the gate. There's no cover for about a thousand feet. Remember, when you're out, run. The walls are very near, and you don't want to draw any attention. Don't stand about making a target of yourself''