Undying World

Blade shook his head. «He has not. He goes into a faint at the mention of them.»

Jantor nodded. «He is perhaps wiser than you. You do not fear the pits because you do not know them. But I know them. I have been in them. Listen well, Blade, and learn. I tell you this in warning, for I have use for you and I do not wish either to kill you or send you to the pits.»

Blade interrupted. «Must I stand? I am weary, Jantor. I have been working long hours making children for you.»

Jantor showed his stubby brown teeth. «That I can understand. For a long time I carried the burden alone. And I produced children. It remains to be seen, Blade, if you can do the same. So far you have done nothing. So far not a woman has missed her bloody time.»

Blade crossed his big arms calmly. He knew he was not sterile. He had a child-a boy-back in Home Dimension, a boy he could never claim and whom he had never seen.

«It is too early,» he told Jantor, «Give it time.»

Jantor nodded. «Yes. But let me tell you of the pits.»

He waved a hand and from the shadows came a girl. She was carrying a chair, a metal frame with a plastic seat. Blade was a trifle startled. She had been there all the time, so quiet and blended with the shadow that he had not suspected her presence. The girl put the chair down before Blade. She did not look at him but stood silent and motionless, staring at the floor as most Gnomen women did. She was hardly more than a child, perhaps twelve, but she looked clean, and her coarse dark hair sparkled in the light of the torches. She had taut little cupcake breasts and her waist was tiny. Her legs were short but thin and not yet begi

«This is my daughter,» said Jantor. «I have many, of course, but this one I claim for my own. Her name is Alixe and she is yours as long as you live.»

For once Blade was speechless. The little speech of Jantor's had sounded very like a command. Fury flashed in him and he stilled it with an effort. He did not like his life so arranged for him. Yet he must be realistic, bide his time and wait, be patient, and as soon as possible get the reins into his own hands. Either that or send an emergency call through the crystal in his brain. He would ask Lord Leighton to abort the mission and snatch him back through the computer-if he lived that long.

Blade said: «I thank you, Jantor. I will treasure her.»

Jantor grunted. «Do not treasure her-use her!»

Blade stroked the girl's hair and tilted her face upward. Her eyes, wide-set and deep brown, peered into his with no expression. She was pretty, well favored for a Gnoman girl, and her teeth were white even.

Blade smiled at her. «And you, Alixe? How do you feel about this?»

It would be a graceful way out if she refused him. And of course she would be spying for Jantor just as Norn was spying for Sybelline.

She had a chiming, childish voice. «I do as my father wishes, man Blade. He commands and I obey. If he says I am yours, then that is the truth of it. I am yours.»

Blade tapped her soft chin with his finger. «And you do not mind?»

She regarded him solemnly. «I do not think I will mind. You are well favored, man Blade, and it is time I left off being a child and became a woman. I will bear you many children and-«

«If he can have them,» broke in Jantor. «Go, Alixe, and wait outside. When Blade returns to his quarters you will go with him.»

Blade did not protest. It would have done no good. He contented himself with a few ripe and silent curses and with kicking Sart, who was still groveling in the sand and making fearful sounds in his throat.

«Stand up,» he commanded, «and try to act like a man instead of a slave. Go outside and wait for me. I would talk with Jantor alone.»

Jantor made no objection as Sart left the chamber, but an odd look lingered on his hairy toad-like countenance and he looked puzzled. The skin wrinkled on his shiny pate and Blade thought he was frowning. It was hard to be sure in the dim light.

When Jantor spoke his voice was calm, almost friendly.

«You ask the impossible of Sart,» he said. «He is a slave. You made him one when you defeated him, so it follows that if he is a slave he ca

It was so near to syllogistic logic that Blade was again taken aback. He recognized it as a warning not to underestimate Jantor. Was the man shrewd or merely cu

He sat down in the chair provided by Alixe. «I'd like to hear of these five-mile pits. You have been in them?»

Jantor nodded. «For a long time. I was put there by the Morphi, the ones who sleep above us, for daring to presume above my station. I was put in a cell five miles down, Blade, where there is only darkness and silence such as you have never dreamed of. A little longer and I would have gone blind, as most do in the pits.»

Blade felt cold along his spine. It was an ordeal he would not want to face and Jantor's matter-of-fact attitude somehow made it worse.

«All sentences to the pits are for life,» said Jantor.

Blade grunted. «That ca

Jantor leaned toward him, chin in hand. He seemed to smile again. «Sometimes it was. The Morphi were cruel and clever, far superior to any Gnomen, and they did not put us in the pits to die quickly and easily. Food and water were dropped into the cells by tubes and there was something in the food to make a man live a long time. I do not know what it was because I do not understand such matters, but I know I lived when I should have died. Then the sweet bomb was dropped just in time to save me from blindness.»

Blade stared. «The sweet bomb?» He was fast revising his opinion of Jantor. Here was one Gnoman who could remember and think in the ma

«Yes,» Jantor was saying. «It was called the sweet bomb because it filled the land and our sewers here below with a perfume such as I have never known before or since. It preserved the bodies of the Morphi, whose power had been cut of, and it made all Gnomen males powerless to produce children. Every man's potency was killed except mine. I was in the five-mile pits and the effect of the sweet bomb did not penetrate that far. So when I was rescued and could see again, I found that I was the only man who could make children.

Now do you begin to understand, Blade, why I do not wish to kill you or put you in the pits? Why I want to be your friend and share rule with you? Between us we can produce a new and better race. When the time comes, and it all be long in coming, my people can move up and out of the sewers and inherit the good life of the Morphi. We will learn to live as they lived and to use the things they used. Did I tell you why I was sent to the pits?»

Blade shook his head. «Only that you presumed above your station.»

Jantor's great hairy belly shook as he laughed. «Yes, I did. I do not brag when I say that I was always more intelligent than other Gnomen. My own belief is that I am only half Gnomen. I think my father was a Morphi, banished to the sewers for some crime. That was their way. They banished their criminals to the sewers just as they put us, the Gnomen, in the pits. But never mind-when I was a very young man I ventured up there, out of sewers, and I asked questions. I see now that I was a fool, but I was young and I wanted only to escape the sewers and live like the Morphi. I did not last long. There was a fight and I killed several of the Morphi with my spear bar. I was sent to the five-mile pits.»