the time they were born until they died in the arena. They were poor specimens, all of them, but it was on their semen, milked and injected into the Bearer Maidens, that Tharn depended for life and continuity. Blade would change all that. His seed was strong.
Blade came to understand the rigid social structure of Tharn. He intended to change this, too, when he was in actual fact ruler of Tharn, but now he observed and listened, gulping knowledge down in huge bites, trying to digest it against the day when he would need it.
Until his arrival Tharn had been an absolute autocracy ruled by a Queen-Goddess and a High Priestess descending in an unbroken line for millions of kronos The real administration was carried on by a Council of Neuters, headed by a King of Neuters, in this case Sutha. The neuters ran Tharn, but had no real authority over the elite, the People. They had life and death authority over all minor neuters and the ceboids.
There were four main Provos in Tharn, and in each the head neuter had absolute authority, responsible in theory to Sutha, but in fact each Provo was a small Kingdom in its own right. As long as the mani kept coming in, and there was no open revolt, the Provos were left alone. This made it easy for ambitious neuters like Honcho to plot against Urcit. Blade would change all this, too, when the time came.
The Maidukes and the Bearer Maidens, though also homids, were little better than high-class servants. Blade visited the baby plants, where long lines of Bearer Maidens were in various stages of gestation. Only one male child in a hundred was kept for possible graduation to the Cage; the others were quickly suffocated in a small transparent bag of teksin.
Nor were all the girl children kept alive, though the percentage was higher than the male. There was a feral judgment scale: only the absolutely perfect females were kept for eventual membership in the People. Those only slightly less perfect were destined to become Maidukes, and the next gradation down were made Bearer Maidens. All the rest were destroyed.
Blade saw the error immediately and wondered at the Tharnians. The third rate of female homids were bearing the children. Children fathered at a distance by a poor strain of male Lordsmen in which the blood had deteriorated to physical malformation and near imbecility. The paradox intrigued Blade. The Tharnians manipulated magnetic force with ease; yet they had never heard of eugenic law.
Neuters were not born of women. Part of the semen bank was set apart and given special chemical treatment, then neuters were created in bottles, or decanters, and set into motion on a conveyor belt. It was a long process - the neuter plant was a Tharnian mile long - and what went in as a fertilized speck of protoplasm in a bottle came out as a neuter infant. Along the way it was subject to dozens of shots with a high pressure hypodermic. When it was decanted it was segregated and graded in classes from A to E and in levels from 1 to 14. The neuters grew rapidly, much faster than homid children, and each was electronically taught and conditioned for the task it was allotted. Each was given a certain number of kronos to exist, according to a carefully rated efficiency chart and at the end of that time was destroyed.
Ceboids bore their young naturally. From the ceboids came the lower grades of soldiers and all the menial workers, the hewers and the carriers and the sweepers of dung. They lived mainly in slums on the outskirts of Urcit, spoke their own brutish language, and were as faithful as dogs to the master of the moment.
Blade could not wholly satisfy himself about the ceboids. They were hybrids, representing various strains of animals, but with no one predominant animal strain. Their intelligence was universally low. Even Sutha could not satisfy Blade's curiosity about them. There had always been ceboids, for millions of kronos, and Tharn could not exist without them. Who would do the work?
Sutha and Blade held frequent conferences to plan their strategy. Honcho must make his move soon. Sutha, by the subtle control of power, made it easy for Honcho. They waited. Still nothing. Sutha weakened the magveils still more. If Honcho was probing he must find the weakness.
Blade and Isma were in the Regal Chamber when it happened. They had had a long and arduous bout and Isma slept in contentment, a half smile on her lovely face. Blade, stretched on the great bed beside her, the sword close at hand, was not surprised, nor particularly alarmed, when the simlu of Honcho began to materialize. He did not move a hand toward the sword. A simlu could not harm him, and at this stage Honcho would not dare teleport his real into Urcit.
Honcho was wearing light armor and a tunic. The long green eyes glinted at Blade and he showed his fanged white teeth in half a smile. Blade nodded a welcome and said nothing.
Honcho stared past Blade at the sleeping Isma. His eyes roved over her body, naked save for a light robe of frilled teksin.
'She is as lovely as I thought, Blade. It is the first time I have seen her. How is she in coi? Satisfactory?'
Blade nodded. 'Most.'
'Then you are happy? Content? You must be - you did not adhere to our plan.'
Blade smiled. 'Did you really think I would?'
Honcho rubbed his shaven head with a finger. 'No. Of course not. I knew you would not destroy the Power. And be destroyed yourself. You are not a fool, Blade. I could not use you if you were.'
Blade raised himself on an elbow, careful not to disturb Isma. 'Then why did you suggest such a plan in the first place?'
The neuter blinked. 'I had to test you. You, a stranger from a strange place I did not know. You might have been a fool!'
'So now you know,' said Blade. 'I am not a fool. I am Mazda, or most of Urcit thinks I am, and I rule with Isma.'
Honcho nodded, as if to himself. 'So I planned it. I had two plans, really. First, if you were a fool, you would destroy the Power, and yourself, and my Pethcines would easily overrun Tharn and Urcit. It was, and I now admit it, really not such a good plan. I would have Tharn, but I would not have the Power. It would have taken a long time to restore the Power, if I could have done it at all, and I need the Power to control Org and the Pethcines. They are savages, as perhaps you remember?'
'I remember. How is Totha?'
Honcho's smiled thinned. The green eyes narrowed. 'As ever, Blade. But she has changed. She used to hate me, hold me in contempt, now she seems to like me. I think I know why, but I still find it pleasant. She has, or very nearly, taught me to understand coi.'
