He kept Dork yet a moment. «Where would the mole-rat pit be?»
«That I cannot say. I have never been there, though I know what it is. And I do not like mole rats enough to go looking for them. Can I go now? I have told you all I know.»
Blade gave him leave. «Go. Keep your mouth shut about me. If I am taken and see Jantor through any doing of yours, I will tell him how you deserted your trust.»
Dork made the sign of the fylfot on his shiny head. «Never fear. I have never seen you, man Blade.»
Blade watched as the Gnoman stalked into the kitchen. He came out carrying two cans of intoxicant and drinking from a third. He grinned at Blade. «Good. The first time in all my miserable life that I have tasted it. Ho-hah-I think I am going to like living the Morphi life.»
Blade gave him a curt farewell. «Go carefully or you will not enjoy it long. And keep my warning in mind, Dork.»
«I will, man Blade. Farewell.»
Blade, as near the window as he dared, watched Dork leave the building. He was already staggering. Blade shook his head. The Gnomen were not used to the canned intoxicant. Probably more than half of Jantor's troops were drunk by now, drunk and useless.
The street below was quiet. From afar, toward the Government Building, came a hubbub of drunken, looting Gnomen. This quarter of the infinite city, Blade thought, had been pretty well sacked and it was not likely that they would return in force. The city stretched to the horizon and beyond, forever as far as Blade knew, and there would be always new loot and fresh Morphi females to rape. Another hazard that Jantor faced-before long his forces were going to be spread thin, would lose contact with him and each other as they ranged farther and farther afield.
For a few moments Blade lingered at the window. He found an angle from which he could observe the Moon. Even with his naked eye, he could discern great activity among the Selenes and he wondered what it meant. More of the great searchlights were trained on the city; there was a great bustle and movement of vehicles; a huge fleet of what appeared to be small and oddly formed aircraft were hovering over landing ports. Blade watched all this and pondered what Sybelline had confessed to him-the Selenes knew about him and were anxious to keep him alive so their scientists could study him. Blade smiled faintly. He, too, was anxious to stay alive. Just how this was to be accomplished he could not at the moment say. He had a plan of sorts, but implementing it was another matter. As he stared out at the drab buttermilk sky, at the eternal twilight, at the Selene Moon and the monstrous searchlights, he knew it would take all his guile, strength and luck to get out of this one.
Norn? He really did not want to think about the girl, but his conscience nagged. Ridiculous, for one could not afford a conscience in Dimension X. But there it was. She was of no importance to him. She loved, not he. Good sense bade him make for the Government Building and a parley with Jantor. It might even be the easiest and best way of assuring Norn's life.
Blade sighed and damned himself. He had accepted the girl's love, and in so doing he had incurred responsibility.
He searched the other apartments on the top floor. In the last one, near the stairs, he found a female sleeper naked on her bed, well raped but otherwise unharmed. On the floor beside her there was a male sleeper with his power stud hacked out. Blade, studying the gruesome scene, realized for the first time that the Morphi sleepers bled a bit when wounded-not much, in all cases, only a seepage of dark blood, but they did bleed.
Near the bed was a pair of Gnomen denim breeches. The clothes of the male sleeper were missing. Blade got out of his own clothes and stepped into the denim breeches. They were tight but he managed. He had enough chest and body hair to fool the Gnomen, but he also had a full head of hair, which would give him away immediately. He went into the kitchen and found soap but no water. Using a can of sweet drink, he lathered his head and began to shave. It was a slow and painful process.
When his head was bald he was still not satisfied. He was not bald enough. Gnomen had no hair roots.
He went back into the bedroom, meaning to smear some of the blood from the Morphi male sleeper on himself, when he noticed the door set back in an alcove. It was locked. Blade went to glance down into the street. It was quiet, deserted but for mutilated and raped sleepers and a few overturned cars. The building was quiet. He had to strain to hear the rampaging of the Gnomen hordes far off across the endless city. By direction and the faintness of the sounds, the main body of Gnomen had moved well beyond the Government Building.
He went back to the locked door and attacked it with his spear bar. The plastic panels were tough but in less than a minute he had it down. He stepped in.
It was a small lab of some sort. For a moment he could not figure it out, then he remembered that the Morphi, when active, changed their blood once a month.
There was a naked Morphi female sleeper on a table. Beside her on a wheeled stand was a tall plastic flask somewhat resembling a water cooler back in HD. Tubes led from the flask to the sleeper on the table. Blade stepped nearer and studied her carefully. She had been in the act of changing her blood when the power stopped, and because of the locked door she was untouched by Gnomen.
As he bent over her Blade was aware of a reaction in his loins. He knew it for what it was, quite apart from the physical fact of an erection. He had been in Dimension X long enough, too long, and he was beginning to overadapt. She was lovely, this sleeper, so far inviolate, and as he gazed down at the slim body and perfect small breasts, the sleek texture of the skin and the sweet curve of thighs, he could not deny the urge to mount her.
Yet he did deny it, could still deny it. He concentrated on his examination of the sleeper, not touching her, and saw what he had missed before. In the inner crook of each elbow was a small metal ring containing a springed valve. The blood tubes had plastic nozzles that fitted into the valves. Blade went to the upright flask and turned a lever. Blood began to flow into the sleeper and to drain from her at the same time. The old blood went into the top of the flask, while the new drained from the- bottom. Blade nodded. Quite a feat. Change your own blood. Do it yourself. No doubt it explained why the Morphi never aged, never lost their beauty.
He yanked the inflowing tube out of her arm. Dark blood dripped. Blade bent and let it spray on his shaven head. He smeared it on his face and chest. He soaked his spear bar with it.
He left the apartment and went down to the street. The disguise was the best he could come up with. At a distance it might work. He hunched over to conceal his tallness and began to shamble, as did the Gnomen. He saw nothing but sleepers as he made his way toward the Hall of Entertainment.
Blade passed through a park that the Gnomen had missed. Here the sleepers were untouched, the males with their power studs intact and the females unravished. As he made his way through and out of the park he counted about five hundred males. He knew then how to combat the Gnomen. The Morphi outnumbered them by the hundreds of thousands. Repower the Morphi and the rebellion of the sewer people would be crushed.
Blade did not want that. An idea had come to glow and grow in his mind. He was going to have a shot at carrying it out. He could do no less than try. There must be a way in which the Gnomen and the Morphi could live together in peace and mutual respect.
CHAPTER 14