entire block of friends. After all that he had been through, he thought all men were out to drink the blood of all other men. But, of course, these were not exactly men. These were Muties.
“A very beautiful name.”
“A beautiful girl,” he answered.
“I'm sure. And now, maybe you'd like to know the names of those here.”
Tohm nodded politely, although his mind was on a dark girl and the finding of her.
Corgi turned and waved a hand at a man sitting at one of the massive desks. The Mutie had a pen in his— claw, working carefully over sheets of graph paper. There were red, raw-looking gill slits under his jaws, ringing the top of his neck. Under the hair and on the backs of his hands, the skin, for patches, seemed to become scales, gray and shiny, then faded back into skin once again. His fingers were narrow and long, ending in a thin prong of nail. “This is Fish,” Corgi said. “His real name is something very long and foreign sounding. Most of us do not go by our real names. Our parents forsook us as did the rest of society; in fact, like the others, they would shoot us on sight. We have no great fondness for family history. We're making our own history.”
Fish nodded, his eyes bleary and wet-looking.
“Glad to meet you, Fish,” Tohm said, feeling slightly inane.
“And this is Babe,” Corgi said, pointing to another, smaller man.
Babe stood about four feet high. He was chubby, a virtual ball of flesh. It hung in pink rolls under his chin, circled his middle like an inner tube. His fingers were tiny, puffy, pink like the rest of him. His eyes were blue as the day sky. And he was smoking a cigar.
“Hiya, Tohm!” Babe said around the tobacco tube.
“Babe never grows up,” Corgi said. “At least, externally. He'll always look like a pre-schooler and that is, finally, that. He used to use it to our advantage. He could move in the outside world because everyone thought he was a boy. Then they caught on. Today, Babe is one of the ten most wanted Muties by both the Romaghins and Setessins. He doesn't dare show his face.”
“The fortunes of war,” Babe said, waving his cigar. It was larger, by far, than the fingers that held it.
“We also think he's immortal.”
“Bah!” Babe snapped.
Corgi grinned. “But how old are you?”
“Two hundred and twenty-three. But there's an end somewhere. I'm just another Methuselah. He died eventually, you know.”
Corgi smiled again. “Then—”
He was interrupted at that moment by the woman he meant to call. The door opened from the interior rooms of the shelter and the most stunning creature Tohm had ever seen entered the room. She was feline. Positively cat-like. She wore a black leotard suit which helped to give the impression, but even without it, Tohm knew, she would be a sleek, sensuous cat.
“This is Mayna,” Corgi said, eyeing Tohm, expecting the reaction the woman was getting. “Mayna, this is Tohm.”
She was about five and a half feet tall. And lithe. She glided rather than walked. Slid rather than stepped. Her body was a sensuous mass of rippling muscles and soft flesh. Her legs were full but streamlined, her feet tiny. Tiny paws. The toes, as she stood in bare feet, were stubbier than normal and joined abruptly with the main part of the foot, topped by tiny claws. The bottom and edges of her feet were covered with a tough pad. Her belly, he noticed as he reversed the direction of his perusal, was flat. Her breasts were as large as his fist, upturned. Her neck was a graceful architectural wonder as it arched up to support her head. Her lips were full, sealed and bursting with honey when closed, stung open by a bee when she spoke. Her teeth were fine and white, sharply pointed behind those lips. He could see that when she smiled the most disarming smile he had ever seen. Her nose was slightly pug. Her eyes were green as the sea is green. And they were quick. They took him in, in a moment, relaxed on his own and watched him survey her. Her dark, smooth face was framed by oceans of black, silken hair that made her look all the more animal.
“I'm pleased to meet you, Tohm,” she said, walking, rippling, flowing toward him, extending her hand.
He didn't know whether to kiss it or shake it.
He shook it. It was a warm, very warm, and dry hand.
“He saved Hunk's life,” Corgi contributed.
Mayna turned, seemed to see Hunk for the first time. She ran to him, weeping, and engulfed him where he slouched in a leather chair after freeing himself of Tohm's shoulder.
“Are you hungry, Tohm?” Corgi asked.
“Not really. I was wondering — about Tarnilee.”
“Yes. Yes, in the morning. Tomorrow.”
“Then, perhaps there is some place where I could lie down and sleep.”
“Certainly. Babe, how about showing Tohm to a room?”
“This way,” Babe said, uncrossing his fat, fatigue-covered legs. He toddled through the door from which Mayna had made her grand entrance. Tohm cast one look back at the girl where she sat conversing excitedly with Hunk, then followed the immortal man-child.
They passed down a long corridor with rooms to either side, some with doors, some without. Those without doors seemed to be lounges, small offices, and file areas. Those with doors, he imagined, were sleeping rooms. Once, before this cell had been destroyed by Captain Hazabob, all sorts of fantastic creatures must have scuttled and thumped and slid about. Now most rooms would be empty. They turned a corner and bumped into a very old man with white hair curling under and over his shriveled ears. He had a slit for a mouth, only the nostrils and none of the cartilage of a nose, and two overlarge eyes. His face was a mass of wrinkles. Rag face. He was weeping. Silently, though, without sobs and moans: a simple flow of lacrimal fluid, the trembling of the body as he stumbled along. He passed by them without a glance.
“Seer,” Babe said.
Tohm looked back to the man-child. “What?”
“That's his name. Seer.”
“But why is he crying?”
“Suffice to say that he
“Sees what?”
“Not now. In time you'll come to understand. You won't like it.”
He shrugged and followed the little man. These people could keep him waiting in the dark if they wanted to— as he had found out with Hunk and the white-eyed boy. Best to follow and wait for the answers. And hope there were a few.
“This is quite an elaborate setup,” he said as Babe showed him his room and bath. “The entrances and the offices, these rooms. How could you build them if you are not able to venture out in public? I mean, there would be the procuring of materials and all.”
“The Old Man,” Babe said. “He has access to robots. We programmed them to dig out the caves wherever silt had collected and to use the all form plasti-jell in making the walls and ceilings — and most of the furniture. The Old Man has a credit card. He can get anything with his unlimited funds through the black market and have the bill list the purchase as something entirely different. No one knew what he was really buying.”
“Then the Old Man isn't really a Mutie?”
“Not strictly speaking,” Babe said, exhaling a thin stream of odorless smoke between his teeth.
“Who is he?” Tohm asked, plopping down on an extremely comfortable bed.
“Oops! Secret. Mustn't spill the major fruits of the tree.”
“Sorry.”
“Get some sleep. Can you find your way back to the control room in the morning?”
“I think so.”
“Good night then.” And he was gone, closing the door behind.
Tohm stretched out on the bunk, palmed off the lights. His head was swimming with things, hundreds of things, each more confusing than the other. He had come to hunt Tarnilee, but he was finding himself reacting to the catgirl Mayna. He believed in fidelity. Strongly. But the juices that poured through him when he thought of the sleek form, the paw-feet, the lips…
