Lips bursting with sweetness: a tiny, pink tongue licking little teeth in show of passion…
Hissing…
There was a scream that was not part of it. For a moment the dream cleared and he felt himself gaining control of his body again. Then the dream clamped down tighter than ever:
A lightningbolt smashed!
Another blasted down!
And yet another!
Hissing…
He placed his hands upon her breasts, looked into her faceless face…
Another scream. It was very close this time. In his ear, really. For a moment the world opened up again. The white-eyed boy was kneeling on the ground, the sled upset beside him. Hunk's tentacles were throbbing, wiggling. Hunk was screaming!
A lightningbolt smashed!
And another!
Out of the mists she came…
He wanted to violate—
Hunk's screams had been but a prelude to the latest from the boy. It covered all ranges of a scream. It vibrated on every decibel. It was a million-billion screams careening out of the void, smashing upon the rocks of his ears…
A lightningbolt smashed!
Naked, she—
But the dreams were not holding. They receded like the tide, weaker each time, coming in less and less. He wished Hunk would stop screaming.
A lightning—
And out of the mist—
Naked, she turned and—
And yet anoth—
The scream of all voices ceased and with it ceased every scrap of nightmare, every vestige of dream. Groggily, he looked about. The others were just coming to their senses too. Half a dozen tanks were rumbling across the sand, moving in under the screen they thought the boy was still putting up.
“Shell them!” he cried at the Jumbo.
Raising its barrels and launch tubes, the robot rapid-fired grenades and gas shells into the tankers, puffing them to ashes, smashing down the wall of the city and driving the other guards back into the heart of the capital, away from the walls.
He felt Hunk's tentacles begin to loosen. For the first time since the boy had attacked, he twisted his head to look at the Mutie. There was blood dribbling from his lips. Tohm dropped to his knees and lifted Hunk off, laid him gently on the ground. The others were gathering around. Hunk's lids were heavy, blotting out half of his eyes. Blood seeped from his mouth, out both ears. He was pale. He was dying.
Tohm felt the tears coming now. Fish had been nothing to him. Fish was withdrawn, a loner. It had been a blessing for Seer — this thing called death. But Hunk… He wanted to wade through the rubble of the city and slit the throat of every guard he saw. Rage boiled within him, fired his basest fires. And still he cried; with all the rage at hatred, the tenderness still surged to the surface.
Blood gurgled in a steadier stream from the lips.
“Hunk, my God, who was he?”
“He wasn't the same boy,” Hunk said thickly.
“Who?”
“A… Mutie.”
“But he was working against us!”
Hunk coughed clots of red, wheezed. “Tohm, can you imagine a Mutie born without a body? No, I'm not delirous. The others will back me up. Born without a body, as a mind, as a pure entity with no flesh shell.”
“I don't understand.”
“The White Eyes always look like one another, always the same. He is a living dream maker, a psychedelic drug. He creates his pseudo-flesh, the body that we see, from the raw force of men's desires. Lust is the strongest of man's basic emotions, it seems. So strong in some men that the White Eyes can spin it into a body, take the energy of those thoughts and create a shell of substance. Men once had a drive for food that was their strongest thought pattern, but now no one is hungry. Once it was self-preservation, but that is not so strong anymore. A dead man can often be rebuilt. Death is not always permanent. Once it was family love. But that died long ago in most people as our modern world encouraged love of self. So now it is lust. The White Eyes are tangible lust creatures. When one is born, the men flock to the womb to give him flesh in return for his realistic dreams.”
He coughed more blood. He closed his eyes and breathed easily for a while. The Jumbo was still shelling the walls. “The boy clothes itself in their desires. But the form is always — always the same.”
Tohm looked up to the others. Mayna was crying. Corgi may have been: the yellow was a very different shade from what Tohm had ever seen in the radar patches. It may have constituted tears.
“Too bad… about… Tarnilee,” Hunk said. “Too bad, Tohm.” And then he was gone: no less a man in death than ever took a breath. Tohm recognized that as a line from some poem he had picked out of the books in Triggy Gop's bowels. He removed his hand from the blood-covered chin and stood.
“We had better go,” Corgi said suddenly, turning away from the remains of Hunk. “They'll be calling in heavy artillery.”
Tohm ordered the Jumbo to follow.
They trudged across the desert, suddenly very weary in all their well-shaped and mis-shapen bones.
“He's here,” Corgi said at last, brightening a bit.
“The Old Man,” Babe whispered reverently in explanation.
Tohm could see, among the black shadows of the trees, a greater shadow of what seemed to be a ship. A portal hummed open. They stepped through. “Welcome,” the Old Man said.
Tohm gasped. “Good God, Triggy Gop!”
XV
“Who else?” the voice drifted from the walls.
'I'll be damned!”
“I doubt that. The others?”
“Dead,” Corgi said flatly and as quickly as he could. He did not seem to want to dwell upon it.
There was a moment of silence before Triggy spoke. “It happens. It has happened to others of us and will happen again. We must remember, however, the cause. In fact, we may all have a chance to die for the cause. The Romaghins have discovered, through their intelligence network, that a great number of Muties are entering Federation worlds via unknown means. They have not discovered that I am that unknown transport. But their suspicions are aroused. They have their eyes on Columbiad, where we have our greatest forces concentrated. Any moment, they may attack in an attempt to wipe out as many of us as they can before we can make our move,”
“What do we do?” Corgi asked. “I foresee a ninety percent chance that they will attack.”
Everyone frowned. “That isn't good,” Triggy sighed.
Corgi continued: “However, and this is odd, there seems to be only a thirty-five percent chance of their succeeding.”
“You're sure?” Triggy asked.
“Positive.”
Everyone had flopped onto couches. There were also ten normals, the Mutie sympathizers from the capital— ten out of three million who would actually do something about the injustice they saw.
“We are making the transfer in four hours,” Triggy announced.
There were gasps and murmurs of excitement.
“But are we ready?” Mayna asked.
“Yes, sweet child. You are the last colony to be evacuated. You will, because of your idea for total universe transfer, which was offered by your Hunk, be my staff for the operation.”
There were smiles.
“Now, please strap in. Tohm, you come to the main room and strap in the hypno-teacher. In your absence, I prepared a set of toto-experience tapes, working from the ground up. They bypass vocabulary and appeal to all senses. They should explain all of this to you.”