Jantor leaned toward him, chin in hand. He seemed to smile again. «Sometimes it was. The Morphi were cruel and clever, far superior to any Gnomen, and they did not put us in the pits to die quickly and easily. Food and water were dropped into the cells by tubes and there was something in the food to make a man live a long time. I do not know what it was because I do not understand such matters, but I know I lived when I should have died. Then the sweet bomb was dropped just in time to save me from blindness.»
Blade stared. «The sweet bomb?» He was fast revising his opinion of Jantor. Here was one Gnoman who could remember and think in the manner of Blade himself. He wondered at the cause of it and guessed that the massive doses of additives and vitamins that Jantor had taken in his food while imprisoned must have developed his brain power far beyond that of the ordinary Gnomen.
«Yes,» Jantor was saying. «It was called the sweet bomb because it filled the land and our sewers here below with a perfume such as I have never known before or since. It preserved the bodies of the Morphi, whose power had been cut of, and it made all Gnomen males powerless to produce children. Every man's potency was killed except mine. I was in the five-mile pits and the effect of the sweet bomb did not penetrate that far. So when I was rescued and could see again, I found that I was the only man who could make children.
Now do you begin to understand, Blade, why I do not wish to kill you or put you in the pits? Why I want to be your friend and share rule with you? Between us we can produce a new and better race. When the time comes, and it all be long in coming, my people can move up and out of the sewers and inherit the good life of the Morphi. We will learn to live as they lived and to use the things they used. Did I tell you why I was sent to the pits?»
Blade shook his head. «Only that you presumed above your station.»
Jantor's great hairy belly shook as he laughed. «Yes, I did. I do not brag when I say that I was always more intelligent than other Gnomen. My own belief is that I am only half Gnomen. I think my father was a Morphi, banished to the sewers for some crime. That was their way. They banished their criminals to the sewers just as they put us, the Gnomen, in the pits. But never mind-when I was a very young man I ventured up there, out of sewers, and I asked questions. I see now that I was a fool, but I was young and I wanted only to escape the sewers and live like the Morphi. I did not last long. There was a fight and I killed several of the Morphi with my spear bar. I was sent to the five-mile pits.»
Blade craned his head in bad light, trying to see Jantor's thick neck and ears. Jantor guessed what Blade was looking for and said, «The power stud is there, but not developed. All half breeds have them, a wart of half-flesh and half-metal. Sybelline has one. She is also a half-breed. Her mother was a Morphi, raped by a Gnoman who went mad, ascended to one of the kiosks and seized the first Morphi woman who passed. He died in the pits, of course. When the child was born, for some strange reason it was not aborted, but it was sent into the sewers. The child was Sybelline. And now, Blade, we get to the important matter.»
Blade had a sinking feeling. He had been expecting something like this. He was, as so many times before in X Dimension, going to be in the middle of warring factions. Norn had said it-trouble was coming-and now Jantor was about to say it.
Jantor was silent for a long time. He stared at Blade, unblinking. Absently, as though his mind were elsewhere, he wet a finger and traced a fylfot-or swastika-on his bald head. Blade had noticed this before among Gnomen males — Sart sometimes did it-and because he knew what Jantor was thinking and did not want to hear it, he sought to forestall matters by asking a question.
He gave Jantor an inquiring look. «You make a sign to your god?» He did not dwell on the significance of the fylfot. By this time he knew that various XDs developed in curious and coincidental parallels with Home Dimension.
«What? Oh, this.» Jantor wet his finger again and made the sign on his bald head. «It is a habit. We Gnomen have no gods of our own. When the Morphi had power they were our gods. All Gnomen were told to worship them, though I never did. Now they sleep and there are no gods at all. It is not important.»
Blade persisted. «But the Morphi themselves-did they not have gods?»
Jantor nodded. «For a long time. They were made to worship the Moon people, the Selenes, what we Gnomens call the orbfolk. And do not ask me what gods the orbfolk worship because I do not know. What I do know is that just before the sweet bomb was dropped the Morphi declared themselves independent of the Moon and refused to worship them any longer.
Blade began to understand a little. «A rebellion. And the Selenes punished the Morphi by dropping the sweet bomb and cutting off their power.»
Again Jantor nodded. «The orbfolk are clever and patient and plan long ahead. When they are ready, if that time ever comes, they will turn the power on again and the sleepers up there will awaken. They will have learned a lesson, or so the orbfolk will think, and all will be as before — except that there will be no Gnomen race. That, Blade, is why you are here, why I have spared your life and why I talk to you now in confidence. You are going to help me, Blade. Together we may do it. If we fail, the consequences will be the same for all. Death.»
Jantor scowled at Blade. «In your case, of course, the consequences may come a bit sooner than for the rest of us.»
Blade shrugged his great shoulders. There was no way out of it, just as there was no way of avoiding a similar scene with Sybelline. That would come soon enough. He was indeed in the middle.
«What do you want of me, Jantor?»
Again Jantor made the fylfot sign on his shiny head and regarded Blade with narrowed eyes. He said, «I have not asked you whence you came or why you came. I do not really care. It is enough that you are here. But I saw you fight and kill and so I judge you the match of any five Gnomen. That is why I guard you with twenty, with another fifty in reserve. I think you can lead men, even stupid Gnomen. But not even that is of prime importance. What is important is that you may be able to produce children. Those children should be at least half again as intelligent as the average Gnoman now alive, though I pride myself that my children will also be intelligent. So between us, Blade, as the only two men with power to reproduce, we can found a better race.»
Blade, as was his habit in DX to avoid friction when it was pointless, appeared to go along. No sense in telling Jantor that he, Blade, was not going to be around.
So he nodded and frowned and said, «That will take a long time.»
«I know.» Jantor leaned forward. «And I do not intend to wait that long. I have figured something out, Blade. We Gnomen are not flesh-and-blood machines as are the Morphi.» Jantor grinned. «We are not so beautiful or so clever or perfect. But we have no power studs behind our ears and our life essence cannot be turned off by switching a lever.»
And Jantor fingered his own mutant stub behind his ear. He grinned again. «Only Sybelline and I have these, and it is of no matter. We gain by it, not lose. Our power cannot be shut off and still we are half as smart as the Morphi and twice as smart as the Gnomen.»
Blade agreed. «I can see why you are king.»
«Yes. Sybelline and I rule because we are the only two capable of it. But neither of us has the brain or the power that you have, Blade. You are far more intelligent than the two of us. I would be a fool not to admit it, and I am not a fool.»