Yet he did deny it, could still deny it. He concentrated on his examination of the sleeper, not touching her, and saw what he had missed before. In the inner crook of each elbow was a small metal ring containing a springed valve. The blood tubes had plastic nozzles that fitted into the valves. Blade went to the upright flask and turned a lever. Blood began to flow into the sleeper and to drain from her at the same time. The old blood went into the top of the flask, while the new drained from the- bottom. Blade nodded. Quite a feat. Change your own blood. Do it yourself. No doubt it explained why the Morphi never aged, never lost their beauty.

He yanked the inflowing tube out of her arm. Dark blood dripped. Blade bent and let it spray on his shaven head. He smeared it on his face and chest. He soaked his spear bar with it.

He left the apartment and went down to the street. The disguise was the best he could come up with. At a distance it might work. He hunched over to conceal his tallness and began to shamble, as did the Gnomen. He saw nothing but sleepers as he made his way toward the Hall of Entertainment.

Blade passed through a park that the Gnomen had missed. Here the sleepers were untouched, the males with their power studs intact and the females unravished. As he made his way through and out of the park he counted about five hundred males. He knew then how to combat the Gnomen. The Morphi outnumbered them by the hundreds of thousands. Repower the Morphi and the rebellion of the sewer people would be crushed.

Blade did not want that. An idea had come to glow and grow in his mind. He was going to have a shot at carrying it out. He could do no less than try. There must be a way in which the Gnomen and the Morphi could live together in peace and mutual respect.

CHAPTER 14

Sart tried to remember what it was that the man Blade had whispered to him before he left the power complex. Sart could think better when Blade was there to prompt him. Now, as he stood guard at the door of the bunker and watched Wilf and Sybelline whisper, Sart strained his limited mentality trying to recall Blade's words. Something about the button. The black button in the red plaque. They were not to touch it, not until the man Blade sent a message. If they tried to touch it he, Sart, was to stop them. Kill them if he must. Was that it? Did he remember rightly?

Sybelline and her son-paramour, Wilf, sat close together on the table where she had so recently simulated the love act. The white-haired woman was still sexually aroused, but she did not want Wilf. She wanted Blade.

Intuition told her that she would never have Blade, that he had no interest in her, that he had been hard put to conceal his revulsion when she offered herself. Rage began to build in her, anger at Blade and Wilf, who seemed so content to serve him. Her own son and lover had turned against her.

But it was not a time to think of pleasure. That could wait. Sybelline saw her chance to be Queen of the Morphi slipping away. What was Blade doing up there? Betraying her? Striking a bargain with Jantor? And what would the Selenes, Onta, think and do when she did not communicate with them? She had been a fool, Sybelline brooded, to allow herself to be trapped down here six miles from the scene of action. Blade had outsmarted her.

True that she had made submission to him, but that was only a formality. She had done it before, with other masters, and it never meant anything. She was Sybelline. She was meant to rule. Soon now she must act or her chance would be forever gone.

Wilf watched his mother and kept his thoughts to himself. He desired nothing but to serve the man Blade. He had never seen anyone like Blade, nor dreamed that such a being could exist. How like a god he was, and Wilf had read enough in Morphi not to believe in God. But in Blade he saw divinity incarnate. He saw nothing impossible to Blade. Blade was capable of ruling the Gnomen and the Morphi, and perhaps even of defeating the Selenes. Wilf cherished his fantasies. If Blade succeeded then he-Wilf-would sit at his right hand and share all his triumphs.

«He has been gone a long while,» said Sybelline, «and still no message down the chute.» She glanced at an indicator on the bunker wall. It would buzz and register with a sweep hand whenever something touched the plastic pads beneath the chute.

Wilf stared at her. He was getting a feeling about his mother. He had never trusted her, but now he trusted her even less. He knew her better than she suspected. He knew she had contempt for him, underrated him. He sensed that she was brooding and unhappy and this might lead to anything. Sybelline was capable of doing rash and unpleasant things, for all her intelligence.

«He had a long way to go,» said Wilf. «Six miles-and with mole rats and Gnomen to contend with. My trip down was hard enough; his journey up will be more so. He may be dead by now.»

He did not really think so, but he wanted to see her reaction.

It was mixed, half smile and half frown. «I need him,» she said, «and I wish I did not. I am a bit afraid of him. I think he wants power for himself.»

Wilf laughed. «And you want it for yourself.»

Sybelline admitted to it. «I should have it. I have waited long and endured much.» Her green eyes narrowed. «And you, Wilf, are you after power also?»

He thought a moment before saying, «Not for myself. I would not mind sharing it with the man Blade. Mostly I desire knowledge-I want to know for the sake of knowing.» He pointed to the consoles surrounding them, to the dials and gauges and toggles, to the tunnel leading to the master power cube.

«How does it all work? Why? Why are the Gnomen the lower orders, the Morphi our masters and the Selenes theirs? Why?»

Sybelline sneered at him. «You are a fool, even if you are my son. Knowledge is power, I admit that, but it is impossible to have power and use it to your own advantage without fully understanding it. That is the difference between us. You fret your meager brains about the whys of power. I want it-now-to use for myself.»

Sart spoke from the door. «The mole rats are creeping closer again. They are over their scare.»

Sybelline looked at him in contempt. She had made her decision and knew what to do. This was an opening.

«Go and kill one or two with your spear bar,» she told him. «Give the others something to eat.»

Sart came into the light of the torches. He made the sign of the fylfot on his bald head. «Me? Face the mole rats? I cannot, Sybelline. I have always been in terror of them. I cannot face them.»

Sybelline looked at Wilf. He was heavily bandaged and could barely move. He was little better than Sart, she thought.

But at least Wilf had ideas. He pointed to a corner of the bunker. On the wall hung a red plastic cylinder with a short hose attached. Blade would have compared it to a fire extinguisher in Home Dimension.

«The laughing powder,» he said. «It works on Gnomen and Morphi, why not on mole rats.»

Sybelline knew of the powder in the little tank. She had seen it in use. Wilf had only read of it. Sart had done neither, but had heard the stories. One squirt of powder from the tank and you began to laugh. You could not stop. You grew weak with laughter, your head ached, your bones turned to slop, you fell and could not move. All this from one light whiff of the powder. A heavier dosage and you died laughing. It was all the weapon the Morphi had ever needed to control the Gnomen. They had others, more powerful weapons, but neither Wilf nor Sybelline understood them.

Sart stared at the cylinder in awe. He shook his head. «I dare not use it. I might harm myself. I do not understand it.

Sybelline made a sound of contempt. «Why Blade spared your miserable life, I will never comprehend.»