Jewel of Tharn

by Jeffrey Lord

  Lord Leighton was waiting for him in the brilliantly lighted foyer. The little hunchback in the white smock smiled with tobacco stained teeth as Blade left the car. The elevator shot up again.

  His Lordship shook Blade’s big hand. He peered into Blade’s face with small yellow eyes stained red from lack of sleep. “I suppose J has told you of our new status?”

  Blade said that J had told him.

  Leighton nodded, then lurched away in his tortured, crablike walk. It seemed to Blade that the little cripple’s hump was larger, but that was nonsense. He followed Leighton along the path he had walked twice before, through the computer room where the consoles clicked and hummed about their recondite affairs.

  Leighton waved a claw-like hand at the computers. “A million pounds!” He chuckled. “That means all new equipment, Richard. These are already obsolete.”

  Blade changed his clothes in the same cubicle. He put on the twist of linen that served as a loincloth. Heretofore the linen had disintegrated as he passed through the computer. He smiled. He had landed naked in Alb, and naked he had landed in the dimension of Cath. J, rather sharply, had observed that Blade was nothing less than the Adam myth relived.

  As he left the cubicle Blade’s smile turned grim. Until now he had found no Eden, no Paradise. Quite the contrary.

  Lord Leighton wasted no time. Everything was ready. Blade went into the glass cage that stood on a pad in the guts of the monster computer. Leighton greased his body and attached the scores of electrodes. The tiny wires, with their shiny metal cobra heads, were all tagged and grouped and ran through portholes in the center of the vast machine.

  The first trip out Blade had been a little afraid. It had all been strange to him then. On his second journey he had been nervous, normally so. This time he was neither afraid nor nervous. He found that he was looking forward to it He had been idle too long.

  Lord Leighton finished with the electrodes. He smiled at Blade, who sat ready in the chair, so festooned with wires that he looked a bit like Gulliver bound.

  Leighton said: “Just remember, Richard, that you don’t have to consciously observe and remember. It is better if you don’t. Our work with the chronos computer has expanded your memory cells so that all observed data will file itself automatically. Just don’t think about remembering and you will remember.”

  Blade nodded.

  Lord Leighton reached for a switch behind him. “I can’t be sure just when I’ll bring you back. It’s very tricky. I’m in the midst of some very complex calculations about that now, and it will take a few days. But you needn’t worry, boy. I’ll get you back!”

  Something akin to affection gleamed in the hunchback’s yellow eyes. He who had never loved anything but a computer. “Ready, Richard?”

  “Get on with it.”

  Lord Leighton closed the switch.

  Chapter Two

  Richard Blade opened his eyes and stared at the mountains that were cutting painfully into his flesh. Mountains? His vision cleared and his sense of perspective returned. Not mountains. Pebbles. He was lying with his face in pebbles. Gravel. His head was paining him furiously. The pain was routine by now, a customary thing that happened every time Lord Leighton put him into the computer-complex, but Blade still didn’t like it.

  This time the pain had a special flavor. It reminded him of the worst of his few hangovers: the night he and Reggie Drake had celebrated a particularly brilliant coup in Istanbul and had gotten hold of some bad raki. Reggie was dead now and he, Richard Blade, was on another journey into that extra-dimensional world that could be opened by Lord Leighton’s monster computer.

  Where was he this time? That was one of the troubles with the computer from Blade’s point of view. You never knew where it would send you!

  The pain in his head was receding now. He felt better. Still he did not move. Plenty of time. He kept his eyes closed and let his senses feed his brain. It was, after all, only a matter of technique. This was his third trip through the computer and he had learned that you moved into your new world, the new dimension, very, very slowly. You made fewer mistakes that way and the chances of survival were better.

  For a moment then he felt the loneliness, the terrible sense of utter isolation and desolation, that he always felt at this time. Blade alone. Blade against whatever it was out there. It would pass.

  Blade opened his eyes again. He stood up slowly and looked around him. He was in a declivity, some sort of small pit fringed by strange-looking bushes. He was lying on pebbles and flint that sloped down to a small pool of reddish colored water.

  “Jargo! Over here, Jargo, you fool! Not there. Over here. Bring the sled over here!”

  Instinctively Blade ducked down into the pit again. Quickness of mind had been his chief asset during twenty years in a dangerous profession. He knelt on the pebbles and flints, cocked an ear, and listened. His hearing was superb. After a moment the voice came again, this time with an approving note.

  “That’s right, Jargo. Right there so they can be picked up first thing tomorrow. That’s a good beast.”

  Blade remained kneeling. The voice was coming from some distance. “All right, Jargo. That’s all for this strip. These won’t be ripe until tomorrow. Take your sled and your crew over to the far side and get the mani there. It’s all right. I’ve got you down for twenty kronos.

  Several things happened at once in the brain of Richard Blade. It was a fine brain and it handled the impinging stimuli with dexterity and speed, sorting and labeling them without effort, and leaving Blade in utter confusion and puzzlement.

  The voice was like nothing he had ever heard before. It did not use words in the ordinary sense, but rather a series of clicks, whistles, buzzings, and trills. It was a language that Blade had never heard in his life.

  Yet he understood it!

  And now something else stirred in his brain, the caution of some primate that had sired him a million years ago. He was in danger! He decided to play things very cautiously. Blade was suddenly very thirsty. He crept quietly to the little pool and drank. The water was reddish and tasted strongly of minerals. It was quiet now, and after he had drunk his fill he gazed at the sky. There was no sun, no trace of daylight, moon, no clouds. Blade stared at it uneasily, baffled. It was like no sky he had ever seen. There was no color. The void over him, as far as he could see to the zenith and all the horizons, was milky opaque. There were no birds. No wind. Blade was warm, comfortable, even though he stood naked. Then an involuntary shiver did run through him. He understood, without knowing how he came by the knowledge, that this sky was always like this. Crepuscular. Eternal twilight.

  He bent and picked up a large stone as a weapon, looked at his nakedness and shook his head. His grin reappeared, tense and tight and worried, but still a grin. He clutched his stone tightly and began to climb cautiously up the sides of the pit. He would see.

  He reached the ring of bushes around the pit. They were low, stiff and scrubby, with large black berries. They formed a nearly impenetrable hedge around the pit. Blade squirmed through it, tearing his naked flesh on sharp spines. After a dozen feet or so he came to the end of the hedge and peered out.

  As far as he could see the land was flat. Well trodden paths divided the flatlands into separate fields. Far off, near the horizon, he saw a loom of domed buildings. In a field between himself and the buildings he saw a number of dark figures at work. At first he thought they were men or women, but then he looked closer and saw they were neither. He did not know what they were. They did not walk like men, some slouching half erect and some going on all fours, and the constant gabble that reached him even at this distance did not sound like human speech. Nor could he understand it, as he had so inexplicably understood the voice he had heard before.

  As Blade watched them he saw a figure detach itself from the group and start in his direction. His hand tightened on the stone again. Had he been seen? He decided he had not: his cover was good, and the figure coming toward him was
obviously unaware of his presence. Blade studied the approaching figure with great care and interest.

  He saw at once that it was unlike the workers. As it drew closer he felt a thrill of relief course through him. This was a human being. Another man. Or woman?

  Blade scowled. Something was very wrong. The person - so he thought of it - was naked, as naked as he himself was. Yet he could not have said if it was male or female. As it drew even closer Blade saw, could hear, that it was talking to itself in the same strange language he had heard before, the same series of clicks and trills and whistles that he could so unaccountably understand.

  It was even the same voice. The same person, the one who had been talking to Jargo. Whoever, or whatever, Jargo was.

  Blade made up his mind. He was going to get a little information, and soon. He watched the figure come near, cluttering to itself, walking between long rows of waist-high plants that, to Blade, resembled cotton in bloom. It must be cotton. He could see the white puffs of the opening bolls.

  The approaching figure stopped for a moment beside one of the plants. A hand reached out, plucked one of the white puffs, and popped it into a mouth. Chewing contentedly, the figure came on. Cotton eaters?

  Blade noticed now what he had missed before. Near the hedge was a line of platforms similar to those used for stacking in factories. They were loaded with bales of the white puffs, whatever they were. Nearby were several long sleds with attached traces for hauling. These were stacked high with loaded platforms.

  The person - Blade could think of no other description - went to one of the platforms and picked up something. A thick book. Blade nodded. Simple enough. Records. It had forgotten the book and had come back for it. That sort of thing made sense.

  The creature was now less than a dozen feet from Blade. It apparently had no sense of danger. It perched itself on one of the bales and began to thumb rapidly through the book, clicking and trilling to itself in the outlandish language that Blade could understand.

  “I really must be more careful,” the thing said. “Forgetting the book like that, leaving it about for anyone to see. Not that Jargo or any of the beasts can read, but if they ever find out how they are being cheated there will be a terrible uprising. Like the one in Kronos Nine that is written of. Anyway Honcho would kill me if he knew I was so careless, so absent-minded…”

  Click-click-whistle-trill…

  The creature talked on and on to itself, all the time riffling through the book. Blade listened, understood, and was dumbfounded. What was it?

  It looked human. Good, evenly spaced features under close cropped brownish hair. Nose, mouth, eyes - much the same as Blade’s own. The body was much slighter, slimmer in build, the bone structure very light. It was covered with a fine growth of pale brown hair except for…

  Blade got it then. He was looking at some sort of neuter! A mutant somehow bred without sex.

  That explained it. Why Blade had been so puzzled, why he had not been able to figure out just what the thing was. It was nothing. Yet it lived in a fairly presentable human form.

  There was no hair on its chest. And no breasts, not even vestigial. Only a smooth expanse of flesh. It was the same in the genital area. No hair. Smooth flesh veeing down into slim thighs with no slightest hint of any kind of sexual apparatus. He hefted the stone in his right hand. He was sure he could hit it from here. He was on the verge of hurling the stone when he checked himself. The skull did not look too thick. He did not want to kill the thing, or even hurt it badly. He wanted information, not blood.

  Blade put the stone down noiselessly. He would try stealth. The thing was still engrossed in the record book. If he could sneak up and grab it…

  That wasn’t going to work either. He was flat on his belly in the thick brush and it was impossible to disengage himself quickly without sound. Blade glanced across the fields to where the group of dark figures still worked. They had moved farther away, busily plucking the white tufts and tossing them into huge bags which were drawn on sleds.

  Blade stood up. He would try persuasion, try not to alarm the thing. If only he could make it understand that he meant it no harm, that he only wanted help and information. But how? He could understand the language, if it was a language, but he certainly couldn’t speak it. Well, maybe a smile would do it.

  Blade stepped out of the brush. He smiled and held out his hands in a gesture of entreaty. The creature looked up from the book and saw him. It smiled. Blade smiled. He took a halting step toward it.

  Now the creature was no longer smiling, no longer looking at Blade’s face. It slipped off the bale and stood for a moment, staring at Blade’s nakedness. Staring in particular at his revealed genitals. An expression of fear and awe flickered on the thing’s face. It fell to its knees and held up its hands in supplication.

  “Lordsman! I am sorry, Lordsman. I did not know you were there. You did not speak or I would have made slaveface sooner. Forgive me, Lordsman. I did not mean to offend. I make slaveface now. What is your desire, Lordsman? You have escaped from the Cage? You wish my help? Anything at all, Lordsman. Command me!”

  Blade looked across the fields. None of the worker group was paying them any attention. It had gone better than he had expected, even though he did not understand except that the creature thought he was a Lordsman, whatever that was, and that his naked genitals had something to do with it.

  Blade stepped back into the cover of the brush. He crooked a finger at the kneeling figure. He smiled.

  “Come here,” Blade said. “I will not harm you. I want to talk to you.”

  Blade halted, stunned. It was impossible and yet it was happening, had happened.

  The creature understood him. Blade was speaking in English, as he had always spoken, and the thoughts leaped clear and alive into words.

  Yet what came from his lips was a jumble of clicks, trills, and cluttering whistles.

  Chapter Three

  Blade saw no danger in the thing kneeling before him. They could understand each other. Blade was a Lordsman, whatever that was, and he was supposed to have escaped from a cage. The Cage. Take it from there.

  He touched the thing on the shoulder. It trembled and began kissing his feet. “Forgive me, Lordsman. Forgive me for my fear. I will serve you in any way I can. Only do not destroy me, I beg you. I have not yet 200 kronos of my time. I am yet owed over 300 kronos before my time of destruction.”

  “Come with me,” said Blade. “Obey me exactly and I will not destroy you. Help me, obey me in all things, and perhaps I will extend your kronos.”

  He had already spotted the word kronos as being extremely important in this new language which he could speak, and understand, yet not entirely understand. He guessed that kronos had something to do with time, rewards, payment…possibly a great many meanings and nuances. He must bluff his way ahead.

  They went down the pebble strewn incline to the pool. The neuter, Blade was now thinking of it so, looked at Blade.

  “Permission to drink, Lordsman?”

  Blade nodded curtly. He was getting well into the part now. “Permission.”

  The neuter drank thirstily, wiped its mouth on the back of a hand and gazed up at Blade. Its eyes were a pale green, and glinted with what Blade guessed was a secondary, a limited, intelligence. But at the moment he was completely sure of only one thing: this neuter could not harm him, had no wish to harm him, and might be of great help.

  The neuter spoke first. “You will really extend my kronos, Lordsman? Beyond the 500 that is given?”

  Blade nodded. He was in it now. Might as well keep on lying and groping.

  “Yes. But we will speak of that later. Right now I want your help. I…I have been ill. I escaped from the Cage, as you guessed, but I had a bad fall. I struck my head. And now I do not remember much of anything. I do not know where I am, or what I am doing here. So we must begin at the beginning, you see.”

  A hint of a smile. A flicker of cunning mirth in the light green eyes. �
�You fell, Lordsman? You did not have too much soka?”

  Blade filed that away. Soka. It could only be the native variant of booze. It was a trifle but it made him feel enormously better, like the comfortable echo of some well-known voice.

  Then he scowled and made his voice gruff. “Your name?”

  The neuter trembled as though the words had been a physical blow. “Moyna, Lordsman. Moyna. Kronos 4013 AG, Tier 9, Decantment 4. Destruct Kronos 500. It is all here, Lordsman, as required on my birthplate.”

  The neuter raised an arm and pointed to its armpit. Blade stared. The skin there was as smooth, as hairless, as that around the genital and chest area. Beneath the skin, easily decipherable, was a rectangular plaque bearing the information Blade had just been given. Blade read it with ease, as though he had been doing it all his life, and hardly thought it remarkable. He might not understand a damned thing yet, but he was acclimating fast.

  He smiled at the neuter. “All right. You are Moyna. I am Blade!”

  The neuter nodded and watched him with bright green eyes. “I understand, Lordsman. You are Blade. You are one of the Twenty and you have escaped from the Cage. I understand that much, Lordsman Blade. It is nearly time for the Sacer and you are afraid that you would fail, that you would not be chosen. I do not understand that, Lordsman, because it is beyond my cuna but if you say it then it must be so. But how can I make slaveface for you, Lordsman Blade?”

  Blade tapped his temple again. “I told you, Moyna. I struck my head and I have forgotten much. Nearly everything. So you will answer my questions.”

  “With all slaveface, Lordsman Blade.”

  “Where am I, then? What is this place?”

  “You are in Tharn, Lordsman. But of course you must know that much?”

  Blade nodded curtly. Lied. “Yes. That much I remember. In what part of Tharn am I?”