Jeffrey Lord: Jewel of Tharn

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.