Farmer, Philip Jose Dare

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the thumb gripping one side of the torch; digit and brand fell together to the floor.
Jack stooped to pick it up. As he did so, a gush of blood from the wound spilled down his neck.
A roar deafened him as the sound waves bounced back and forth in the narrow chamber. Then he had
scooped it up, turned, and flung the still burning wood at the men.
Several things occurred at once. He noticed the dragon's thumb was still curled around the torch,
its long heavy nail embedded within the wood. Behind him, the roar shifted into a curiously pathetic wail
followed by a lament in child-talk, "My thumb, manling! Give me back my thumb!"
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He paid no attention to the dragon. He stared at the wall behind the men, for it was opening. A
man-high iris was splitting the brown glossy substance.
He cast aside his plan to try to dodge by the beast and to make a run for the woods. Instead, he
swerved past the group and plunged into the fresh hole. He hoped that the time gained when the raiders
had thrown up their arms to protect their eyes from his thrown torch would be enough for a good head
start. It was.
His enraged pursuers shouted. A pistol went off. He turned a corner and found himself in a
narrow corridor. The sounds behind were cut off as if a door had closed.
A moment later he realized that that was exactly what had happened. For the entire hall, like a
cyclopean hand, closed round him, pressed against his body, and squeezed so hard he thought his ribs
would break and his blood would burst from his mouth and ears. But it was not that terrible pressure that
forced consciousness from him. It was a tongue of flowing wallsubstance groping for all apertures; it
shoved into his mouth and filled up his throat and cut off his breath. Thunder and darkness and panic
seized him. And he knew no more.
Through a veil, light and sound.
R'li's voice.
"Is he dead?"
"Jack Cage?" said a male voice that Jack could not identify.
"No. His father."
"He'll live. If he wants to."
"O Speaker to the Soul, must you always be mouthing what you learned at the Rites?"
"It's true, isn't it?"
"But obvious and tiresome," replied the siren. "Walt Cage will probably want to die when he finds
out he's been dragged into a cadmus. He hates us so."
"That's up to him."
Jack opened his eyes. He was lying on a mound of some soft stuff in a large circular room. Its
walls and floor were formed of the glossy brown flesh-vegetable. A twilight came from gray globular
clusters that festooned both ceiling and walls. He sat up and touched the globes. He withdrew his fingers,
but not because they were hot, for they were cool. The cluster had squirmed slightly.
He looked around. R'li and Polly O'Brien were watching the man across the room. His father
was lying on a bed of the same mossy stuff that was under him.
Yath, the medicine man of the local Wiyr, was bending over Walt and adjusting bandages. Now
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and then he whispered into the man's ear. Why, Jack could not guess, because his father was gray with
shock, unconscious.
Jack said, "Yath, what's wrong with my father?"
Quickly R'li said, "Please don't interrupt him, Jack. He shouldn't talk to anybody just now. But I'll
tell you. Your father has three breaks in his right arm, two broken right ribs, and two compound
frac-tures in his right leg, and possible internal bleeding. Naturally, he's in shock. We are doing all we
can."
Jack felt in his pockets. R'li held a smoke out to him and lit it while he sucked through it.
"Thanks. Now tell me, what the hell happened? The last I remember is that the walls were closing
in on me."
R'li smiled and picked up his hand. "If we'd ever had time to talk about anything except
ourselves, Jack, you'd have found out just what a cadmus is. I would have told you it's a living creature.
Like the totumtree, it's half vegetable, half animal. Originally, it was a huge partly underground entity that
lived in symbiosis with bears or mandrakes. Or, in fact, with anything that would provide it with meat or
vegetation. In return for food, it offered shelter and protection from enemies. If, however, you failed to
keep up the rent, you became an enemy and went into the empty belly sac.
"When I say it 'offered' shelter, I didn't mean in any intelligent sense. It has no brain; not as we
know it, anyway. But when we were building our new civilization, we bred these cadmi for larger size, for
more 'intelligence,' for all the qualities we desired. The result is the creature you are now in. One that
provides you with fresh air, a constant and com-fortable temperature, light, and safety. Actually, our
underground dwelling is a colony of twelve such beasts, each of which grows the almost indestructible
horn you see sticking from the meadow."
"It's as simple as that? Why, then, the mystery all these centuries?"
"The information has always been available. But your leaders made it forbidden to you. They
know the truth. But they prefer to allow the rank and file to regard cadmi as chambers of horror and evil
magic."
Jack ignored that. "But how do you control it? How did it know we were enemies?"
"Before you can establish an 'agreement' with acadmus, you must offer it a certain amount of
food at certain orifices. After that, it recognizes you by your odor and weight and shape. The walls of a
room enfold you and take your shape-print.
"We teach it to react in such-and-such a manner to us, and from then on we're its masters -- or
part-ners -- as long as the food comes in. But it's trained to seize unidentified people and hold them until
we or-der it to release them. Or to kill."
She held out her hand to one of the light clusters. "Look."
As the hand neared, the globes brightened. When the hand withdrew, the light dimmed. Stroked
three times, the cluster increased its brightness and retained it even after she took her fingers away.
"They'll hold that intensity until caressed twice. It's a matter of establishing communication and of
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training."
Jack didn't know what he wanted to find out next. The attack, Ed, Poly, the dragons, his father,
his present status.
He groaned.
R'li looked alarmed. He was glad of that because, in a way, it answered the question that had
suddenly struck him. "What did you think of me when you found me among the raiders?"
Leaning over, she kissed him full on the lips. "I knew all about what was going on. We have our
sources of information.''
"I should have stood up to them from the begin-ning. I should have told them to go to hell."
"Yes, and ended up like poor Wuv," she said.
"When did you find out about that?"
"Some time ago. Through certain -- ah -- channels."
"Then you know all about the HK?"
"Yes."
Yath, looking up, gestured.
She said, "We're interfering with his work on your father."
R'li led them into another cell. After Polly had stepped through, R'li stroked the iris three times,
and it closed.
Jack would have liked to stay where they were, for a cadman was talking into a large metal box
with needles and dials on its front. Once he stopped, and a male voice issued from the box. R'li
beckoned them on; they went into another room where O-Reg, her father, was seated at a table.
The Blind King did not bother with greetings.
"Please sit down, Jack. I'd like to explain a few things about your immediate future. Especially
since your fate concerns my daughter's." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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