Palma lunged and drove the sword into Selim's body. As Selim turned back, Palma withdrew the blade and thrust again. Then the ax crashed down on his head, splitting it to the chin.
Palma fell, clanging, his brains spilling out on the floor. Selim took a couple of steps with the hilt of the sword protruding from his chest and the point from his back. Then he too sank down.
Vera fainted.
WHEN SHE came to, the djinn was sitting with his back against a pillar. The sword was still through his body. His ax lay in front of him. He said: "If you wish to cut your bonds, you can crawl over here and rub them against the ax-blade."
It was awkward. As Vera struggled she said: "What happened, Selim? Why did you save me?"
He spoke slowly."I am not an earthly zooid, but a Fleurian as you people call us.. My proper name is Zdion. I came to earth, destroyed Palma's zooid butler, and took its shape. My task was to recover or destroy the formulae Palma had stolen, and this was the first time he opened the safe in my presence. Hitherto he has always locked everyone out of the dungeon."
"You mean you can change your shape?"
"Yes. We are what you call poly morphs."
"Why should anybody want to change?"
"In our system, the young are workers and adopt a squat muscular shape; the middle-aged are rulers and take a long-limbed large-brained shape suit able for overseers; the old are consumers or esthetes and adopt a shape with large digestive systems and sensory organs to assure the greatest enjoyment."
"But how do you do it? With bones and everything?"
"How do you change your expression?"
"Why I—I just do, that's all. My brain tells my muscles what to do."
"It is as simple as that with us, though we cannot change quickly. It takes several days of effort for one complete change."
"What do you look like in your natural shape? If you have one, that is."
"Something like your alligators. I can imitate an Earthman, but I could not grow extra limbs and look like, say, a spider."
"Thank goodness for that. Did Sigmund steal the papers from the Temple of Xir like he said?"
"He did steal them, but not as he told you. He did it by murdering Senemos, who had befriended him. Senemos was no priest but a professor; life on our planet is quite different from that which Mr. Palma described to you."
"I thought so. Tell me more."
"It is too long and intricate a story to tell you now, especially as I am dying."
"Dying? I should think you could heal yourself, with your shape-changing ability."
"Some hurts we can do that with, but not these. I shall soon be dead."
"Then what's all that about Gnoth? Was she a Fleurian or a zooid?"
Zdion indicated the female corpse by a head-movement."That Gnoth was a zooid."
"D'you mean there was a real one on Fleury?"
"There was. The real Gnoth was the offspring of Senemos. We are bisexual, you know. Gnoth took the form of a Terran female so that Palma should have one of our race to deal with, with whom he could feel at ease. We did not count on Palma's becoming imbued with sexual passion towards Gnoth.
Nor did we know he was mad, even by your standards—a paranoiac, I think you call them. As we do not have that form of insanity, we did not recognize it.
"So Mr. Palma made plain to Gnoth his unnatural lusts, and also his wish for Gnoth's help in stealing the proteoid formulae. When Gnoth, filled with horror, tried to stop him, Mr. Palma killed Gnoth. This murder seems to have affected him more than that of Senemos, for, when he returned to earth and made his fortune, he built a replica of Gnoth in the latter's human form. From watching him closely for several months, I think he convinced himself that this zooid was really Gnoth, and that the rest of his tale of eloping with Gnoth from Fleury's planet was also true."
Zdion coughed. Some fluid, neither human blood nor zoodal haemoid, trickled down his chin into his forked beard. To Vera he seemed little by little to be resuming his reptilian form.
THE LAST bond parted. She stood up, ignoring her nudity. After all, Zdion was not human, and there was wealth to be had by ready and resolute action.
As her own clothes had been ripped to pieces, she looked around for a substitute. The only one was the gown on the headless body of Gnoth. To strip the body was a desperate deed, even if it was only a zooid, but there was no help for it. She said: "Well, I'm awfully grateful to you anyway, you poor thing. Isn't there anything I can do for you?"
"Yes. Hand me that bundle of papers that Mr. Palma dropped."
"What for?"
"To destroy them. It is what I came for."
"You can't do that!" "Why not?"
"Well—uh—Sigmund ran his fac tory on a day-to-day basis. He made the critical settings himself from notes he took from these papers. Without them, the whole business would stop."
"It need not, if Earth will make a fair bargain with Fleury's planet."
"But think of the money!"
"Your Terran money makes no difference to me. It is stolen wealth."
"What of that?"
"Though your ways and ours differ in many respects, we both believe theft to be wrong."
"Well, Sigmund owes me something for the horrible fright he gave me. So there!"
Vera struggled into Gnoth's gown. It fitted her like a tent, but at least she could get home without being arrested. She pulled the gown up through the girdle so that she should not trip over it, picked up the roll of papers and started out.
"Mrs. Tobias! Give me those papers!" said Zdion.
Vera walked faster.
"Come back!" cried the Fleurian."You do not know what you are doing!"
He started to crawl. She ran up the stone stairs hearing Zdion's dying cries behind her.
The palace seemed deserted. No doubt, there were other zooid servitors, but Vera had no wish to investigate. All she wanted was to get into her little car and speed home with the proteoid formulas. Then a clever girl like her could find some way to extort a fortune from Sigmund Palma, Inc. for their return. Not so much as if she had married and committed Palma, but enough to give her the comfortable income for which she had long lusted. Palma might be dead, but there would be heirs and executives of the company...
She got her overcoat from the cloak room and unbolted the massive door. Outside it was dark and starlit. In the dim light of the gas-torches she could see her little car standing by the far bank of the moat. Little orange high lights danced upon its surface, reflecting the flames. A mist was beginning to rise from the moat, She started across the drawbridge.
Halfway across, a swish made her look up. The wyvern was swooping at her.
With a little shriek she turned back to the castle. A huge reptilian head, with writhing tendrils, rose from the moat on a long neck and barred her way.
She turned back towards the far end and started to run. But the unicorn appeared at that end of the drawbridge, horn lowered and hooves thundering on the timbers in a charge.
Just as they closed in, Vera remembered that one had to have a password. Zdion could no doubt have given it to her...