Mute

  Wait! Hermine cautioned. Mit says it is proper.

  And it seemed it was. Gurias struck only her once, and when she made no further objection and did not flee him, he put out his hand to her. She took it, and he drew her close.

  Gurias looked around, frowning. The enclave mutants who had been watching turned their faces away and busied themselves in other occupations. “Come in and have some dried fish,” Gurias said gruffly to Thea. “And your friends. We shall cast off at tide.”

  Now Knot understood. The man had openly asserted his mastery in Macho fashion. Not only had this attractive woman submitted to him sexually, she had done so in the presence of her companions, and had accepted his violence without complaint. Everyone had seen. No one had protested. By the conventions of this subculture, this woman had changed hands. The two were united, and others would not move in. It was not Knot’s way, but it did make sense on its own terms. The enclave mutants were Machos too, in their reduced fashion.

  Inside, Gurias distributed his meager supply of crudely dried fish. Thea sat on the floor, not concealing her tied feet. Gurias’ glance hardly touched on them; she was only moderately mutant, in an enclave overflowing with much worse, and her normal features were excellent ones. She was a bargain. Gurias, for a reason he did not yet appreciate, had the best of the deal.

  “After I help your friends—what with you?” Gurias asked Thea. Obviously he knew he was being used, and wanted to determine the limits of it.

  “I cannot endure in salt water and do not like the city,” she replied. “We must move upstream.”

  Again there was a visible impact. “You prefer a permanent liaison?”

  “I will bear your baby. You must teach it the ways of the land as well as the ways of the water.”

  “Mutants cannot interbreed!”

  “You and I can,” she said with certainty.

  A third time Gurias took visible stock. “This is beyond any aspiration I have had. You have psi information?”

  Thea nodded. “This is why I sought you out. We must stay together. I will not be able to forage well alone while gravid.”

  “I do not know how to raise a baby.”

  “You will learn,” she said firmly.

  Gurias glanced ruefully at Knot. “Don’t they dominate rapidly! It is only minutes since I copped her, and already she is to birth a baby and govern my life.”

  “They’re all alike,” Knot agreed.

  Gurias clapped one fist into the opposite hand. “Yes, I will try. We will go upstream, somewhere where it is safe—” He interrupted himself. “It is close to tide. We start now.”

  He went outside and shoved three poles out of the way. Suddenly the hut was floating free, a roofed raft. He fished the poles out of the water before neighbors could abscond with them. “You men,” he snapped at Knot and the gross one. “Your weight makes the raft sluggish. Pole it past obstructions. You, woman—use that bucket to bail.”

  A raft had to be bailed? Knot shrugged and used his pole as directed.

  And so they were on their way, letting the slow current of the river take the craft, poling past the anchored residences. It quickly became routine.

  The river broadened out into the ocean. And as the awesome expanse of water opened before them—a storm developed.

  Gurias glanced nervously into the darkening sky. “We should be able to ride it out,” he said.

  “Maybe we could head for shore,” Knot suggested, not liking this. The storm clouds were deep and gray, their nether winds stirring up the water.

  “Nix. The ocean breakers form there. Other craft interfere with stability. We must stay out in deep water.”

  Will we survive it? Knot asked Hermine.

  Mit says yes. It is not a bad storm.

  Knot’s tension eased. “We are going to come through it intact,” he said.

  “You are clairvoyant?” Gurias asked. “A double mutant?”

  “Close enough.”

  “You are the one who located me as an interfertile party?”

  Knot nodded, deciding that there was no point in clarifying such a detail. “Only through clairvoyance could we connect Thea with the one man who could give her a baby. For this she agreed to help us escape the enclave.”

  “And now it is my obligation,” Gurias said. He glanced across to where Thea was propped with the bucket, scooping out water from whatever depressions captured it. She was making do well, and once more Knot was struck by her prettiness. “I was said to have been birthed under a fortunate star. I never believed it, until this moment. There’s many a normal I would pass over, in favor of such a mermaid.”

  Thea smiled, flushing, pleased. “Let’s ride out the storm first, then believe.”

  The storm was thickening rapidly. Gusts of wind swooped down, stirring the waters into minor rolling mountains. Lightning fired from cloud to horizon. The craft rocked and groaned. Knot developed motion sickness. “I don’t suppose you have a stasis unit on this ship?” he inquired with sick humor. But Gurias was already out tending to his vessel.

  The rain struck. Knot hauled himself into the cabin. The next hour was one of the least pleasant of his life. All he remembered later was being pitched about the cramped enclosure along with Thea, heaving out his guts, watching sea water overflow the floor, dilute and wash away the vomit, then heaving again. He fancied he was becoming something of an expert at analyzing the manner sea water dissolved vomit. There were all sorts of intriguing rivulets and separations and encapsulations, as though a military horde were attacking a variegated bastion. Inevitably the horde encircled, undermined and swept away the bastion—but thereafter the horde was colored by the essence of the defeated force. From the third time on, the heaves were dry, which spoiled his analytical distraction, and these were worse than the others. Thea tried to comfort him, but his sickness preempted his attention and anyway, she was not his woman anymore.

  Something sparkled on the floor. Knot checked. It was Strella’s diamond. He had spewed it out during his sickness. Lucky he hadn’t lost it!

  He picked it up and wiped it off on his forearm. Maybe his heaves were over. He put it back in his mouth. What a tragedy if he escaped the enclave, then could not honor his commitment to the dead woman.

  The gross one did not seem to be suffering. He clung to the outside structure, letting the waves break over his body, squeaking with savage delight. Gurias, too, was getting along nicely. Hermine clung to a rickety shelf with Mit; every so often Knot caught a thought from her that suggested she was not feeling much better than he was.

  The rain cascaded down, the vomit of the sky, leaking copiously through the roof. Bailing seemed useless, but Thea kept at it. At times the floor was awash a quarter meter deep—then the raft would rise and tilt scarily, and most of the water would drain out.

  Then, as the storm was abating, Finesse made another transmission. Knot knew it was going to be a bad one; how could it be otherwise, the way he and Hermine both were feeling? But he had to receive it.

  Finesse was in an interior room in the villa, under restraint, her head secured so that she had to look forward. The old man, NFG, was in a glassed chamber, his limbs free. But the walls on either side were slowly closing in on him.

  “A little telekinesis to flick the switch,” Piebald said conversationally. “Or some electrical shorting to stop the motor. Or the conjuration of a metallic barrier to halt the progress of the walls. Or something else. I don’t care what sort of psi it is, just so it is strong and manifests in time.”

  “You killed Lydia!” Finesse screamed. “Now you’re murdering NFG! All for nothing! Nothing!”

  “I am very sorry you feel that way,” Piebald said, squinting judiciously at the closing cage. “You could so readily save your friend—if you really put your mind to it.”

  Now Finesse, in desperation, put her mind to it. She had, after all, been conceived within the shaded time after her father’s travel in space. Maybe CC had missed it. Maybe there was someth
ing. She willed the walls to stop, with all the desperate intensity of which she was capable. But they continued to close. NFG braced his back against one wall, his hands and feet against the other—and crumpled as the closure proceeded inexorably. He fell to the floor, and the walls touched him on either side.

  Now the old man tried to help himself with his own psi. Illusions appeared—a huge, ghostly crane, swinging a wrecking ball at the glass, shattering it. But as the glass fell, the true image emerged, as solid as ever. Then a man appeared with a drill, rapidly making a hole in the glass—but there was no hole. Finally a great laughing demon-face appeared, not even pretending to try to help, just guffawing. “You’re NFG!” the face exclaimed in comic letters that shot out from its mouth. “No fu’ing good!”

  “The face of his personal devil,” Piebald remarked. “He knows he is about to die, since you do not care enough to save him. The devil has come to collect his worthless soul.”

  Finesse tried to will electricity through the mechanism, to short it out or otherwise disrupt its process. Nothing happened.

  “Perhaps a psi explosion,” Piebald suggested. “Or a melting of the glass. Or a denaturing of it, so that it loses cohesion. Or you might simply teleport him out of there. Do not allow your imagination to limit you; be creative!”

  Finesse was beyond the point of reacting to baiting. She tried to find psi. Nothing availed.

  NFG was crushed horribly before her eyes, his frame collapsing inward on itself while the demon face laughed and laughed. NFG’s tongue and eyes popped out as his head was crushed, blood squirting from the orifices.

  The demon disappeared in mid guffaw. NFG was dead.

  The storm was over. Knot lay, wrung out, suffering physically and mentally. “They made her watch another killing,” he said, and tried to heave again. It was no good; there was nothing inside him he could expel.

  Gurias entered. “You were right. We did survive the storm. Now we must wait for the eddy current to take us into the next bay. It will take time. I suggest we rest.”

  That was about all Knot was capable of. He lay suffering for a while, then let his consciousness drain away like blood from a crushed body or diluting vomit.

  CHAPTER 11:

  It was night when he woke firmly. He had phased in and out of consciousness several times, as glad to return to the dream state as to emerge from it. Now he was fully awake and feeling somewhat better, but there seemed to be nothing to see or do.

  Yes there is, Hermine corrected him. Mit says we are about to touch land, and must move off immediately to let the raft float out with the tide. You must eat something.

  “Eat!” Knot exclaimed, revolted.

  For strength. There will be much action before you eat again.

  You are as bad as a wife, he complained.

  Worse, the weasel agreed. Now eat.

  Knot suffered himself to be bullied into what was best for him. He choked down some more dried fish. It was not an enjoyable experience, but the stuff stayed down. He knew Mit was correct: if there was action ahead, he had better have strength for it. Yet he had to proffer some token protest. Do you two boss Finesse around like this, too?

  Of course, Hermine thought. She gained two kilograms once, and Mit made her take it off. You don’t like fat women.

  Knot had to laugh. So Finesse had had to discipline her appetite, getting set to vamp him. Served her right!

  The raft bumped. “This is the shore of the bay,” Gurias announced. “There is a path up the cliff few know about, leading out. I found it only by accident, and I doubt any others in the enclave know of it. Otherwise they would have used it to escape. Perhaps some have, so that none who have learned of it remain except myself. But I never tried it. There are vicious wild creatures. I recommend you take stout sticks to handle snakes and birds. I think your chances of making it are one in three, unless your clairvoyance helps. Night is the best time, when the reptiles are torpid. Good luck!”

  Gurias struck Knot more and more as a good man. He was observant and sensible and obviously could keep his mouth shut. Thea would be well taken care of. “We thank you,” he said. “Clairvoyance does help; we’ll make it. I hope your family turns out well.”

  Thea took Knot’s hand. “Take the best care of yourself,” she said, looking entreatingly into his eyes. “And I think you promised me something.”

  “I did,” he agreed. “Hermine will be in touch with you.”

  “When your child by that normal woman grows up, send him to meet my child,” she said. “I know they will like each other, and my child will need to be introduced to the civilized world.”

  His child by Finesse? Knot wasn’t sure whether that was humor or hope. But there was no harm in the notion. “Shall we say, twenty Earth years from now, at this spot?”

  “That will be nice,” she agreed. “Especially if one of them is a girl.”

  Knot gave her hand a final squeeze. “I like your dreams, mermaid.”

  Then he cast loose her hand and jumped into the water. The gross one was already down, and now shoved the raft off. It disappeared into the night. Only the lapping of the wavelets against its decaying timbers signaled its presence.

  Knot felt lonely. Think to her, Hermine. Remind her of our last night together, until the memory takes. She’s an awfully nice woman.

  Yes, the weasel agreed.

  Knot squeezed the gross one’s arm. IT IS DARK. I CAN HARDLY SEE. CAN YOU MAKE OUT THE PATH?

  YES, READILY. IT IS ALWAYS LIKE THIS, FOR ME.

  What a statement of condition, Knot thought. Blind and deaf, eternally. Wasn’t this whole society like that, too? Heedless of the suffering of others, or of the threats lurking, the threats to its own welfare. This was only one planet of thousands; everywhere in the human galaxy similar situations must abound as the theoretically healthy segment of the species ignored its ailing fringe and its rotting core. The whole society was sick, and only drastic surgery could cure it. Mutancy had to be abolished!

  Mit wants to know if that necessarily follows.

  And of course it didn’t necessarily follow. The root was not in the mutancy, but in isolationist nature, in his excluding of elements that were different. Before there had been mutants, man had done similar things to other minorities. Yet how could man’s nature be changed, without by definition eliminating man himself?

  Let’s replace man with weasels and crabs, Hermine thought.

  Knot laughed—but found his laughter converting to thought. Maybe it was time for some other species to try its competence as galactic administrator. He would have to add that notion to his ponder file.

  They cleared the water and the marsh and found the steep bank. The path lurched upward along the face of the shore cliff. Loose gravel crunched and skidded underfoot. But the gross one proceeded upward confidently, and Knot followed. He knew Mit would alert Hermine to any pressing peril.

  It was a long way up. Gusts of wind tugged at them playfully. The crashing of the breakers slowly receded. Knot’s legs grew weary, as they always did when he had to sustain “normal” locomotion too long without rest. At least the slant was correct; his short left leg was uphill.

  He remembered Gurias’ advice to travel by night. How much night remained? When they achieved safe ledges, they rested briefly, and sometimes Mit had them pause while some nocturnal creature passed. How big did the serpents grow, here?

  Slowly dawn came, the sunlight angling lengthwise along the face of the cliff. Now Knot saw exactly what he had traversed, and experienced a surge of vertigo. The cliff was not only steep, it overhung in places. It seemed they had wound up a tortuous ribbon that passed under one overhang and over another, sometimes directly above itself. The nests of large birds were here—and now those birds were stirring, taking flight, becoming aware of the intruders. That should mean there was no danger of snakes at this stage; the birds would not tolerate them near the nests.

  We must move on quickly, Hermine thought. The birds will soon at
tack.

  Because they didn’t tolerate people near their nests either, Knot realized. He informed the gross one by squeeze, and they did what Knot would really rather not have done, considering his fatigue and the precariousness of their situation: they hurried. Stones squirted from beneath their feet, and sand cascaded from handholds. The morning breeze stiffened as if trying to nab them while it could. Knot knew it was merely a meteorological phenomenon, transporting air from the warm sea to the cooler land, channeling swiftly up the cliff, but it certainly seemed malignly purposeful. This also provided buoyancy for the birds, more of whom hovered near, eyeing the trespassers.

  And Knot remembered that he had not brought along a good stick, despite Gurias’ advice. How could he have found one in the dark, or carried it when he was naked and needed both hands for clutching the treacherous cliff he was not sure, but now he wished he had at least tried. Mit could have directed him to one, had he asked. He felt naked, not merely because he was naked. The beaks of the birds looked cruelly sharp, and their little eyes glittered.

  Collect rocks, Hermine thought. Soon you must throw.

  Knot picked up those loose rocks he could locate. When a particular bird became too bold, he hurled a stone at it. The missile missed, and the recoil gave Knot a nasty shove; a small torrent of debris washed down below him. Only assurances that Mit knew they would not fall prevented him from panicking. He hated this.

  He found himself chewing nervously on something—and realized it was the diamond. Quickly he put it back in the safety of his cheek. He didn’t want to spit that out here.

  Another bird swooped. This time Knot braced himself more securely and flipped a rock out backhand. It also missed, but it taught the bird respect. Knot scrambled on after the gross one during the respite.

  Danger, Hermine thought. Snake.

  Where? He had supposed there would be none up here while the birds were active, but the weasel obviously knew better.