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In his brain the voice spoke again: «Stop now. Try to understand what I say. I depend on you.»
Blade put his hands on his hips and scowled around him. He might be dying of plague — as indeed he was — but the calm assurance, the superiority, of the bodiless voice was begi
«Where are you?» he asked.
Voice: «I am in the tank. As you will see presently. But now that you are here and ca
Blade put a hand on his sword. «Understand what?»
Voice: «About the Jedds. When they were a great people and ruled the world. Our world. You have seen the robots?»
«I have seen them.»
Voice: «They are part of the joke. A great cosmic joke. It was the old Jedds who invented the robots. But they did their work too well — the robots soon surpassed the Jedds and took over and sent them into exile. Far back in the begi
Blade frowned. He was sick, very sick, yet found himself with the will and strength to grow angry with this voice. Why the anger he could not understand. But it was there. He was begi
Blade said: «Why do you tell me all this?»
Voice: «It amuses me. And can do no harm. And I would strike a bargain with you.»
«What sort of bargain?»
«In time — in time. Listen — it was the custom of the Jedds to destroy all their robots when they reached a certain age. They were junked, ca
Blade's head was spi
Laughter in his brain. For a moment Blade feared it was his own, the dying manic laughter of plague, then shook it off. He had yet a little time — and in spite of all he still hoped.
Voice: «You have seen it, Blade. Look around you and see it again. But enough — to our bargain!»
«I am sick. Ill. I have a great tumor that is killing me. Even my will ca
Blade stared defiantly up at the tank. «Why should I?
You are no friend to me. Why should I, who am myself dying, help you to escape death? On the contrary — I would rather have you die. Then the Jedds can come into this land and build it anew for themselves and their children. No. I refuse. You get no help from me.»
A different kind of laughter in his brain now.
Voice: «I said a bargain, Blade. If you help me I will permit the Jedds entrance into my land of Kropes. I will aid them in any ma
Mitgu. The Golden Princess. Blade shook his head to clear it. His temples were pounding now, the fever flaring higher, the loathsome buboes growing like vile toads in his groin and armpits. He would never see her again.
He stared at the shining tank. Moisture gleamed and dripped on the metal, a reddish exudation he had not noticed before. Then his own sweat blinded him again.
«And if I do not make this bargain?»
Voice: «I will die in time. But that will be long coming and before I die I will destroy the Jedds. I know your plans, Blade. When two days have passed I will remain quiet and keep my robots immobilized. The Jedds, as agreed, will come into my land. I will permit them beyond the Shining Gate. I will wait. Then I will send the flame and destroy them every one. To the last Jedd child. What do you say to that, Blade?»
Blade wiped sweat from his eyes with trembling fingers and did not answer. The tank was spi
Voice: «Do not underestimate my powers, Blade. It was I who sent the plague upon the Jedds, time and again, to keep them weak. It was either that or destroy them utterly, and I am not cruel for cruelty's sake.»
Blade walked to the ladder at the side of the tank. «I will do as you wish.» Fast, now. Quickly. Do not think lest the voice divine those thoughts. Act. Now.
He reached the top of the ladder and stood on the runway surrounding the tank. In the tank, all but submerged in a red liquid that gave off a faint smell of brine, floated the brain. It was the size of a small whale. Blade began to walk around the runway, loosening his sword in its sheath.
The enormous brain nearly filled the tank. The lobes were well demarcated and the convolutions writhed in complex whorls of pink and blue-gray tissue.
Voice: «You see the tumor, Blade?»
He saw it. Springing from the right frontal lobe, rooted deep through the dura mater and into the tender arachnoid and pia mater, was a monstrous and sickly white growth. The tumor was nearly as large as Blade himself. He went farther up the runway to examine it. He had a decision to make and he would get only one chance. Frantically, pushing everything else out of his mind, he strove to remember his anatomy, cursing himself for the many times he had dozed through class at Oxford.
He said, «I see the tumor. It is large and goes deep. Shall I begin now?»
Silence. It drew out. Then the voice said, «Begin.»
Blade drew his sword and leaped from the runway to land on the floating brain. His feet sank a bit into the spongy cortex and he slipped and nearly fell, then regained his footing. He began to make his way slowly toward the ugly mushroom of the tumor, stepping carefully over the deep sulci that separated the convolutions. Suddenly, out of his own memory file, came remembrance of one of Lord Leighton's droning lectures.
Disrupt the axons of the granule cells in the molecular layer.
Blade reached the tumor and stopped. He raised his sword — and hesitated. There was a new flare of pain in his own skull. A different, but familiar pain. Lord L was reaching for him again.
The voice shrieked: «Get on with it. Cut out the tumor, Blade. Cut it out!»
Whatever their barbarities, Blade thought, the Jedds were human. They deserved their chance. This thing, this monstrous pure brain had outgrown all humanity and was, in essence, evil. It deserved to die. It must die.
Blade leaped over the spreading white tumor. With both hands he raised his sword and plunged it deep into soft pink-blue tissue. He cut and slashed and tore, using all his strength, summoning his last energies, and his iron blade ravaged the brain like a wolf might a tender lamb. Sweat poured from him and Blade heard himself cursing. He was knee deep in reddish fluid. He fell and nearly slipped down the lobe into the tank, but recovered by seizing a mass of tissue and digging in with his nails. All the time he was slashing with his sword.