The Celestial Blueprint and Others Stories (4 page)

Alarmed, Archambaud said, "What’s the matter, Jean-Jacques?”

“Can’t we do anything on our own? Must the King meddle in everything?”

“You wouldn’t want us to take a chance and have to shed blood, would you?” breathed Archambaud.

“What are you carrying those swords for? As a decoration?” Rastignac snarled.

“Seelahs, mfweh,”
warned Mapfarity. “If you alarm the other guards, you will embarrass them. They will be forced to do their duty and recapture you. And the Jail-breaker would be reprimanded because he had fallen down on his job. He might even get a demotion.”

Rastignac was so upset that his Skin, reacting to the negative fields racing over the Skin and the hormone imbalance of his blood, writhed away from his back.

“What are we, a bunch of children playing war?”

Mapfarity growled, “We are all God’s children, and we mustn’t hurt anyone if we can help it.”

“Mapfarity, you eat meat!”

"Voo zavf w’zaw mfweh”
admitted the Giant. "But it is the flesh of unintelligent creatures. I have not yet shed the blood of any being that can talk with the tongue of Man."

Rastignac snorted and said, “If you stick with me you will some day do that,
m’ftveh
Mapfarity. There is no other course. It is inevitable.”

“Nature spare me the day! But if it comes it will find Mapfarity unafraid. They do not call me Giant for nothing.”

Rastignac sighed and walked ahead. Sometimes he wondered if the members of his underground—or anybody else for that matter—ever realized the grim conclusions formed by the Philosophy of Violence.

The Amphibians, he was sure, did. And they were doing something positive about it. But it was the Amphibians who had driven Rastignac to adopt a Philosophy of Violence.

“Law,”
he said again, “Let’s go.”

The three of them walked out of the huge courtyard and through the open gate. Nearby stood a short man whose Skin gleamed black-red in the light shed by the two glowworms attached to his shoulders. The Skin was oversized and hung to the ground.

The King’s man, however, did not think he was a comic figure. He sputtered, and the red of his face matched the color of the skin on his back.

“You took long enough,” he said accusingly, and then, when Rastignac opened his mouth to protest, the Jail-breaker said, “Never mind, never mind.
Sa napawt.
The thing is that we get you away fast. The Minister of Ill-Will has doubtless by now received word that an official jail-break is planned for tonight. He will send a company of his muck-eteers to inercept you. By coming in advance of the appointed time we shall have time to escape before the official rescue party arrives.”

“How much time do we have?” asked Rastignac.

The King’s man said, “Let’s see. After I escort you through the rooms of the Duke, the King’s foster-brother—he is most favorable to the Violent Philosophy, you know, and has petitioned the King to become your official patron, which petition will be considered at the next meeting of the Chamber of Deputies in three months—let’s see, where was I? Ah, yes, I escort you through the rooms of the King's brother. You will be disguised as His Majesty’s mucketeers, ostensibly looking for the escaped prisoners. From the rooms of the Duke, you will be let out through a small door in the wall of the palace itself. A car will be waiting.

“From then on it will be up to you. I suggest, however, that you make a dash for Mapfarity’s castle. Follow the
Rue des Nues;
that is your best chance. The mucketeers have been pulled off that boulevard. However, it is possible that Auverpin, the Ill-Will Minister, may see that order and will rescind it, realizing what it means. If he does, I suppose I will see you back in your cell, Rastignac.”

He bowed to the Ssassaror and Archambaud and said, “And you two gentlemen will then be with him.”

“And then what?” rumbled Mapfarity.

“According to the law, you will be allowed one more jail-break. Any more after that will, of course, be illegal. That is, unthinkable.”

Rastignac unsheathed his 6p6e and slashed it at the air. "Let the mucketeers stand in my way,” he said fiercely. "I will cut them down with this!”

The Jail-breaker staggered back, hands outthrust.

“Please, Monsieur Rastignac! Please! Don’t even talk about it! You know that your philosophy is, as yet, illegal. The shedding of blood is an act that will be regarded with horror throughout the sentient planet. People would think you are an Amphibian!”

“The Amphibians know what they’re doing far better than we do,” answered Rastignac. “Why do you think they’re winning against us Humans?”

Suddenly, before anybody could answer, the sound of blaring horns came from somewhere on the ramparts. Shouts went up; drums began to beat, calling the mucketeers to alert.

“M’plew!”
said the Jail-breaker. “The Minister of Ill-Will has warned the guards! Or something else, equally disastrous, has happened!”

Lusine’s voice, shrill but powerful, soared out of the well. “Jean-Jacques, will you take me with you? You must!”

“Nol” shouted Rastignac. “Neverl Nothing would make me help a bloodsucker!"

“Ah, Jean-Jacques, but you do not know what I know. Something I would never have told you if I did not have to tell in order to get free!”

“Shut up, Lusine! You cannot influence me!”

“But I can. I have a secret! A secret that will enable you to escape from this planet, to fly to the stars!”

Rastignac almost dropped his sword. But, before he could run to the lip of the well, Mapfarity had leaned his huge head over the mouth and rumbled something to the prisoner below.

Rastignac could not hear what Lusine answered, but he did not have to. The giant Ssassaror straightened up, and lie bellowed, “She says that an Earthship has landed in the sea! And the pilot of the ship is in the hands of the Amphibians!”

Surprisingly, Mapfarity began laughing. Finally, chokjng, the sparks crackling from the tips of his ears, he said, “You can leave her in the well. Her news is no news; I know her so-called secret. But I didn’t say anything to you because I didn’t think that now was the time.”

As the meaning of the words seeped into Rastignac’s consciousness, he made a sudden violent movement—and began to tear the Skin from his body!

VI

Rastignac ran
down the steps, out into the courtyard. He seized the Jail-breaker’s arm and demanded the key to the grilles. Dazed, the white-faced official meekly and silently handed it to him. Without his Skin, Rastignac was no longer fearfully inhibited. If you were forceful enough and did not behave according to the normal pattern, you could get just about anything you wanted. The average Man or Ssassaror did not know how to react to his violence. By the time they had recovered from their confusion, he could be miles away.

Such a thought flashed through his head as he ran towards the prison wells. At the same time he heard the hom-blasts of the king’s mucketeers and knew that he shortly would have a different type of Man to deal with. The mucketeers, closest approach to soldiers in this pacifistic land, wore Skins that conditioned them to be more belligerent than the common citizen. They carried ep6es and, while it was true that their points were dull and their wielders had never engaged in serious swordsmanship, the mucketeers could be dangerous because of numbers alone.

Mapfarity bellowed, “Jean-Jacques, what are you doing?”

He called back over his shoulder, “I’m taking Lusine with us! She can help us get the Earthman from the Amphibians!”

The Giant lumbered up behind him, threw a rope down to the eager hands of Lusine, and pulled her up without effort to the top of the well. A second later, Rastignac leaped upon Mapfarity’s back, dug his hands under the upper fringe of the huge Skin and, ignoring its electrical blasts, ripped downwards.

Mapfarity cried out with shock and surprise as his skin flopped on the stones like a devilfish on dry land.

Archambaud ran up then and, without bothering to explain, the Ssassaror and the Man seized him and peeled off
his
artificial hide.

“Now we’re all free men!” panted Rastignac. “And the mucketeers have no way of locating us if we hide, nor can they punish us with shocks.”

He put the Giant on his right side, Lusine on his left, and the egg-stealer behind him. He removed the Jail-breaker’s rapier from his sheath. The official was too astonished to protest.

“Law, m’zawfa!”
cried Rastignac, parodying in his grotesque French the old Gallic war cry of “
Allons, mes enfants!”

The King’s official came to life and screamed orders at the group of mucketeers who had poured into the courtyard. They halted in confusion. They could not hear him above the roar of horns and thunder of drums and the people sticking their heads out of windows and shouting.

Rastignac scooped up with his 6p6e one of the abaondoned Skins flopping on the floor and threw it at the foremost guard. It descended upon the man’s head, knocking off his hat and wrapping itself around the head and shoulders. The guard dropped his sword and staggered backwards into the group. At the same time, the escapees charged and bowled over their feeble opposition.

It was here that Rastignac drew first blood. The tip of his £pee drove past a bewildered mucketeer’s blade and entered the fellow’s throat just below the chin. It did not penetrate very far because of the dullness of the point. Nevertheless, when Rastignac withdrew his sword, he saw blood spurt.

It was the first flower of violence, this scarlet blossom set against the whiteness of a Man’s skin.

It would, if he had worn his Skin, have sickened him. Now, he exulted with a shout of triumph.

Lusine swooped up from behind him, bent over the fallen man. Her fingers dipped into the blood and went to her mouth. Greedily, she sucked her fingers.

Rastignac struck her cheek hard with the flat of his hand. She staggered back, her eyes narrow, but she laughed.

The next moments were busy as they entered the castle, knocked down two mucketeers who tried to prevent their passage to the Duke’s rooms, then filed across the long suite.

The Duke rose from his writing-desk to greet them. Rastignac, determined to sever all ties and impress the government with the fact that he meant a real violence, snarled at his benefactor,
“Va t’feh fout!”

The Duke was disconcerted at this harsh command, so obviously impossible to carry out. He blinked and said nothing. The escapees hurried past him to the door that gave exit to the outside. They pushed it open and stepped out into the car that waited for them. A chauffeur leaned against its thin wooden body.

Mapfarity pushed him aside and climbed in. The others followed. Rastignac was the last to get in. He examined in a glance the vehicle they were supposed to make their flight in.

It was as good a car as you could find in the realm. A Renault of the large class, it had a long boat-shaped scarlet body. There wasn’t a scratch on it. It had seats for six. And that it had the power to outrun most anything was indicated by the two extra pairs of legs sticking out from the bottom. There were twelve pairs of legs, equine in form and shod with the best steel. It was the kind of vehicle you wanted when you might have to take off across the country. Wheeled cars could go faster on the highway, but this Renault would not be daunted by water, plowed fields, or steep hillsides.

Rastignac climbed into the driver’s seat, seized the wheel, and pressed his foot down on the accelerator. The nerve-spot beneath the pedal sent a message to the muscles hidden beneath the hood and the legs projecting from the body. The Renault lurched forward, steadied, and began to pick up speed. It entered a broad paved highway. Hooves drummed; sparks shot out from the steel shoes.

Rastignac guided the brainless, blind creature concealed within the body. He was helped by the somatically-generated radar it employed to steer it past obstacles. When he came to the
Rue des Nues,
he slowed it down to a trot. There was no use tiring it out. Halfway up the gentle slope of the boulevard, however, a Ford galloped out from a side-street. Its seats bristled with tall peaked hats with outspread glowworm wings and with drawn 6pees.

Rastignac shoved the accelerator to the floor. The Renault broke into a gallop. The Ford turned so that it would present its broad side. As there was a fencework of tall shubbery growing along the boulevard, the Ford was thus able to block most of the passage.

But, just before his vehicle reached the Ford, Rastignac pressed the Jump button. Few cars had this; only sportsmen or the royalty could afford to have such a neural circuit installed. And it did not allow for gradations in leaping. It was an all-or-none reaction; the legs spurned the ground in perfect unison and with every bit of the power in them. There was no holding back.

The nose lifted, the Renault soared into the air. There was a shout, a slight swaying as the trailing hooves struck the heads of mucketeers who had been stupid enough not to duck, and the vehicle landed with a screeching lurch, upright, on the other side of the Ford. Nor did it pause.

Half an hour later Rastignac reined in the car under a large tree whose shadow protected them. “We’re well out in the country,” he said.

"What do we do now?” asked impatient Archambaud.

“First we must know more about this Earthman,” Rastignac answered. “Then we can decide.”

VII

Dawn broke
through night’s guard and spilled a crimson swath on the hills to the East, and the Six Flying Stars faded from sight like a necklace of glowing jewels dipped into an ink bottle.

Rastignac halted the weary Renault on the top of a hill, looked down over the landscape spread out for miles below him. Mapfarity’s castle—a tall rose-colored tower of flying buttresses—flashed in the rising sun. It stood on another hill by the sea shore. The country around was a madman’s dream of color. Yet to Rastignac every hue sickened the eye. That bright green, for instance, was poisonous; that flaming scarlet was bloody; that pale yellow, rheumy; that velvet black, funeral; that pure white, maggotty.