VII
“I see,” Hazabob said to Jake, who stood next to him, “that we have a pervert amongst us.”
Jake was scowling.
“Perverts are the only kinds who are friendly with Muties, Mr. Tohm.”
“Look, so I'm a pervert,” he ad-libbed, “so what?”
Hazabob chuckled. “So perverts are hung with their Mutie friends.”
“You won't get a concubine from my father. You won't get anything.”
“I think ye aren't the son of a merchant. Suddenly, yer speech is different. Yer don't even sound Romaghin, boy.”
“Yer crazy,” he said, recovering and realizing the blunder. “My father is a merchant. We rich are perverts and get away with it. Privilege of class.”
“Then what is yer father's name?” Hazabob asked shrewdly.
Tohm grasped out at any combination of syllables he could find. “Branhosi.”
Hazabob turned to look at Jake, who was clenching and unclenching his fists over and over again. “Ye recollect a slave merchant o' that name?”
“No!” Jake roared, his face red and nostrils flared.
“Jake doesn't remember,” Hazabob said, looking back to them.
Tohm had a picture in his mind, suddenly, of Tarnilee being sold because he had not made the city on time— or had not made it at all. That was all the incentive to action he needed. They would think him unarmed, for his clothing would not serve to conceal an ordinary weapon. The gas pistol, however, was quite small and inconspicuous. He brought the gun from the pocket of his velour and caught the captain in the stomach. Blood splashed out, bones prickling through the torn flesh, and the man fell, dragging the wheel-leg, a final gasp of surprise frozen on his features.
Jake charged like an animal. Tohm whirled, fired. The man's side spattered against the wall. The charge spun him around like a doll but did not topple him. He lunged, snarling; no longer the passive dolt he had seemed. Tohm fired again and again, bringing the giant down with only moments and inches to spare.
He broke from the doorway then, running, fumbling with the flybelt with one hand and clutching the pistol with the other. He needed the gun first. A dark-haired man with a face like the bottom of a garbage can blasted at him with a hand laser, missed. He didn't get a second chance. The pellet slammed into him, tore open his shoulder, sent his arm spinning away from his body.
He climbed the rail with Hunk, who was shouting curses at the sailors and waving his single free tentacle in fury. Laser beams slid around them, spurts of light sinking through the darkness, eventually touching the stars or lighting the water for a moment on their death ride to the murky bottom. Leaping, he activated the flybelt, felt it jerk him as it caught hold, and soared away. The shouting died. Once, the searchlight flashed on, scanning the sea, but they were too far away by then. The crew gave up after several minutes.
“Very good, Tohm,” Hunk said from his shoulder.
“How far to the city, do you think?”
“Quite a ways. I'm lashed on tightly, though. Let's move.”
The sea mist cooled them as the stiff wind whipped it about. They moved along the coast, not stopping until late the following afternoon.
“There is a village along here somewhere,” Hunk said. “I recognize those rocks. We should eat.”
Tohm looked to that portion of the cliff that the pseudo-arm pointed to. Natural stone pillars stood tall and straight as the red-leafed trees of his home land. The cliffs were dirty brown, but the pillars, composed of a different substance, glittered whitely, magnificent, wind-weathered things.
“How far?”
“I don't know,” Hunk said against the whistle of the wind. “About five miles inland, I guess.”
Tohm banked toward the shore and coasted over the rim of the cliffs. They buzzed the pillars for a while, admiring their fine, gale-carved faces, the intricate patterns of the god of the winds. Dropping lower, they cruised out of sight behind plain, pine-needled trees, looking for some clue of the village. Eventually, they found a road. In a short time, they discovered a hovercraft loaded with vegetables and fruits. There were swollen apples colored orange rather than red and wicker baskets of berries on the back.
“Hold them up,” Hunk advised.
“Steal it?”
“They won't give it away. Especially to a Mutie. Muties are killed on sight — sooner, if possible.”
“Well, all right.” The growing hunger in his stomach was driving him to criminality, but he didn't care so much anymore. The bellyful from last night's supper on the ship had worn off by now. His gut bubbled like a geyser, growled like a beast.
They dropped in behind the cart, hovered directly over the heads of the unsuspecting driver and passengers. “Stop this cart!” Tohm yelled at them. They looked up — a man, bearded and with a bushy head of hair, a raven- headed woman with a too full bodice and eyes filled with hate. And the boy. The same boy that he had tried to save from the nomads now looked up at him out of white-white eyes. Tohm looked to the woman, looked into her horrid normal eyes and decided the boy was no better off than before. “Stop this cart!” he shouted again.
The driver shrugged his shoulders. Tohm fired a warning shot, tore the front fender apart. The bearded man reached for the lever of the brake and settled the cart gently to the ground. “What ye want?”
“Just a little food,” Tohm said. “Set down a melon, some berries, a little of everything.”
The driver got out and began selecting a variety. Gun drawn, Tohm drifted toward the boy. “Why did you run away?”
“Leave him alone,” the bosomy young woman snapped.
“Why did you run away?” he persisted.
The white-white eyes glared at him.
“Leave him alone,” Hunk said uneasily.
The boy smiled.
“I saved his life,” Tohm explained. “I saved his life, and he ran away with the men who were going to kill him.”
“Get away from him!” Hunk screamed at his friend and only transportation.
Tohm strained his neck to look at the Mutie. “What's the matter?”
He brought up the pistol while he still had time and some sense of reality. He fired. The shot burst above the head of the boy but was enough to scare him into stopping the dreams. The driver crawled back into his seat. “The food is there. Let us go.”
The woman flashed an evil stare at Tohm as the boy buried his head in her ample breasts, doing more — Tohm thought — than a mere boy should have been doing there.
“Go,” Hunk said for him.
The driver lifted the brakes, started the cart, and floated away.
Hunk sighed. “It wasn't the same boy you saw before. You can be sure of that.”
“But it was! Who was he.”
Hunk flapped a tentacle in the direction of the fruits. “We had better eat before they get to town and have the police after us.”
VIII
It was two o'clock in the morning when they reached the capital. Tohm thought that whatever the Muties had done to the city the attack must not have been too unusual, for everything seemed quite normal and calm.
