3
The rescue proved so incredibly simple that Ker-jon almost couldn’t believe his senses. With his two uniformed companions he made his way down the length of the Ark and deep within its bowels, almost to where the unknown engines which propelled them through space thundered and roared and pounded within their casings. Here in a deserted storeroom the prisoners were kept. And Ker-jon’s uniformed companions walked right in, just like that, unquestioned by the guards who stood watch in the corridor.
The fight was brief. Unleashed, the prisoners swarmed all over their guards, killing them quite expertly, and quite ruthlessly. No time for an alarm, and the engines drowned all sounds of combat. Towards the end, Ker-jon had to turn away. What the mutants did to their captors wasn’t pretty. But in a sense he couldn’t blame them—what was the old expression about the shoe being on the other foot?
Flam-harol stormed out into the corridor, his face a bloody mask. But he smiled grimly. “This I like! No plans, no preparations—and they don’t expect us! We’ll have the Ark in half an hour....”
Behind him Cluny-ann stumbled out, one of her eyes blackened, her jaw swollen. She stopped short and stared foolishly when she saw Ker-jon. “Then—then you didn’t desert us? Some even thought you’d betrayed us!”
“And I once was betrothed to a beautiful girl,” Ker-jon said, laughing. “You should see yourself now—”
She pecked at his lips with a brief kiss, came back for more, snuggling in close, but Flam-harol’s voice roared at them. “The longer we stay here, the less chance we’ll have. Are you two coming?”
In a wave, the prisoners surged forward, pounding up the corridor. No order, no discipline—but Ker-jon knew they didn’t need it. What they had was enough: superiority in numbers, surprise....
It seemed hardly a moment later, and they swarmed all over the door to the Mutant-maker’s quarters. Oddly, it crossed Ker-jon’s mind that they didn’t even know the man’s name. He ruled in anonymity, with his title, with the fear that a night-raid could bring, dragging a man and his wife to the Chamber of Change, assuring the next generation that they too would have their mutants, in ever increasing numbers, for sport, for ridicule.
Ker-jon never learned how the door was forced, but suddenly it stood ajar.
Through it streamed the mutants.
Ker-jon found himself in a wild melee. Needle-guns zipped; men fell. But always others surged forward, and the defenders’ ranks thinned.
Ker-jon saw one of Flam-harol’s lieutenants fall, mortally wounded. Three mutants took his place, and one of them had retrieved a needle-gun from a fallen guard. Other weapons appeared among the mutants, guns, knives, make-shift clubs. Nothing could stop them.
For himself, Ker-jon fought only half-heartedly. The swarm carried him forward against the defenders, but he struck out only when pressed. Strangely, he felt an odd detachment. He wasn’t really a part of this carnage; no, he’d been swept into it, helplessly, and now he watched. It all seemed anti-climactic, pointless. Why? He asked himself that over and over again, turning once more to the battle when he found the answer. Did the meeting with the old albino mutant somehow hold the clue? Did it? Now there was a ridiculous notion!
The wave after wave of mutants pushed forward, and Ker-jon hovered close to Cluny-ann, protecting, shielding, diverting any foe who might single her out. She was a spit-fire, he knew, for all her small size—he’d seen her cut loose in the female gymnastic tournaments. But he could sense that she hung back, even as he did—unwilling to enter the fray. Had she once said something about this not being the final answer? He wondered how she’d have fared in a discussion with the old albino....
And then it was over. They pushed through a final portal, came upon a large apartment with strange, impossibly antique furniture. In a far corner cowered a little man, a little old man—smaller and more ancient than the albino. He cringed away from them, his limbs trembled. He babbled, “I surrender, I surrender, I—”
Flam-harol laughed once, then cut him down with a needle-gun. The end of the Mutant-maker, the man who controlled the destiny of all those within the Ark. Simple, no theatrics. Smile and cut him down with a needle-gun. Could that one gesture usher in a new era? Ker-jon did not know, but more and more the words of the albino returned, swirling through his brain. Just a reversal of roles....
Flam-harol sat down on the plushly upholstered chair. “Will some of you take your clubs to the Chamber of Change and smash it? I’m a little tired—”
A week later. Flam-harol had taken the dead Mutant-maker’s quarters for his own. Now he sat there with his lieutenants—two mutants, ridge-head variety, and Ker-jon—issuing directives.
“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” he told them. “Sweeping changes must be made if we’re to right a nasty situation.”
They all agreed.
“First, the jobs of the highest skill will go to ridge-heads. Turnabout, eh, my friends? Henceforth, ridge-heads are bio-technicians.”
Two of his lieutenants smiled, nodded their satisfaction. Ker-jon said: “I don’t know if that’s wise. For one thing, you haven’t had training along those lines; you’re liable to botch—”
“That’s fantastic. If the non-mutants could do it, we can, too. Shall we vote?”
They did. Three to one.
“You see,” Flam-harol explained, “we deserve those jobs.”
“Well, what about the current bio-techs?”
“Oh, them. Why, they’ll be menials, of course. Not discriminated against, not really; it’s just that they’ve held their lofty positions too long.”
“It wasn’t their fault—” Ker-jon began.
Flam-harol waved a hand deprecatingly. “If you’re worried about yourself and that girl—what’s her name?—forget it. You’ll be an exception. I figured on making you go-betweens, assuring peaceful relations between mutants and non-mutants.”
“No, that wasn’t it at all. I still don’t like—”
“We have voted, have we not?”
“Y-yes.”
“Very well. Next, scaled mutants shall be astro-techs.”
“You can’t do that!” Ker-jon cried. “A man doesn’t necessarily fit a job because he happens to be one type of mutant or another. I’d suggest a series of tests, instead; let each man fill the job for which he is qualified.”
“Unfair,” Flam-harol said. “The non-mutants have had training; they’d win all the top positions. Shall we vote?”
Three to one.
“Albinos will be police and administrative workers. Finally—”
“Just a minute. Don’t you realize that albinos have weak constitutions? You’re relegating them to a position which they won’t be able to fill.”
Flam-harol smiled blandly. “If the police are weak, then the real power will remain in the hands of the bio-technicians. That will make for an era of peace and good-will, and it will assure one thing: we’ll never have a military government.”
“I hope you’re right about that peace and good-will,” one of the ridge-heads said. “All week long, there’s been rioting in the ’low-decks area. Non-mutants on one side, mutants on the other.”
“That will end,” Flam-harol assured him. “I have confidence. Now, the job will be to get things going as quickly as possible. I want those directives carried out at once. The sooner we begin, the sooner we mutants will have a chance to live the way we should....”
This is what I fought for, Ker-jon thought. So one tyrant could take the place of another. Maybe Flam-harol doesn’t know it; probably he’d be the last one to admit it. Nevertheless....
Aloud, Ker-jon said: “I resign.”
“You what?”
“I resign. I quit. Run the Ark any way you like, Flam-harol. I want no part of it.”