Part 2

"I know," Ker-jon scoffed. "Sure. You take one small, insignificant part of the dream, and because it ties in with your own theories, you blow it up out of all proportion."

The psych-tech shrugged. "Just how did you know the real order of the spectrum, anyway?"

"I didn't know that I knew it! When I was a child I read a book on the physical sciences, just to be contrary, I guess."

"Evidently, the knowledge remained in your subconscious, and--"

"So what? You have a vague notion about a deficiency, that's all. So you destroy a budding revolt which could have restored equality to the Ark...."

* * * * *

All this time, the old albino man had been listening silently. Now he said: "The revolution was doomed to failure, Ker-jon; don't you see that? Even if it achieved its aim, what would have happened then? We live in a static environment, with no external challenges to keep our culture going. If you won, the mutants would have taken over; tyranny would have exchanged hands, that's all. I'm a mutant myself, but I say this: if you had succeeded, the mutants would have treated non-mutants, in time, in the same manner the non-mutants treat them. Merely a reversal of roles. Would you have wanted that?"

"No, but--"

"Wait; let me finish. We have a tremendous external challenge, only we fail to see it. What is the Ark, Ker-jon? An artificial world, a manufactured environment. A vessel taking us from someplace to someplace else. Do you know where we came from?"

"Urth--"

"Yes, but what is Urth? We don't know. It's in the old books, but no one reads them. And where are we going? Even I don't know that, and I have tried to find out. The books are not indexed, and it might take one man years to find out. Working together, a group of men could shorten that time to months.

"Further, what is the void of space outside? Mere blackness, or--I don't know. And the stars, the little pin-points of light we see, what about them? Are they worlds? Was Urth a star; do we now travel towards another one? Again, I don't know. But we can find out. There is our challenge, Ker-jon. There is the stimulus which can unite the Ark and put a permanent stop to internal squabbles. Are you blind to that?"

"I'm not blind to anything, old man! All I know is this: the revolutionaries are confined. Maybe they await death--thanks to you. I also know that more men and women each day are exposed forcibly in the Chamber of Change--which means that a new generation of mutants will be born. Any challenge on a purely abstract level sounds awful silly, ridiculously unimportant, pedantically trivial.... Umm-mm, never mind. You just don't understand."

"Wait," said the albino. "A compromise, Ker-jon. If you can rescue your fellows, what then?"

"You want an honest answer? I think I'd still hate you and what you stand for, a tired old man with old, meaningless ideas--"

"Can you rescue your friends alone?"

"I don't know; I can try."

"And wind up wherever they are, awaiting death with them?"

"I said I can try."

"Well, if you had help--let us say, if my two 'policemen' cooperated, you might pull the whole thing off by trickery, don't you think, with no bloodshed at all?"

"It's possible," Ker-jon admitted.

"A bargain. We'll help you, but then you must help us. Flam-harol is the revolutionary leader, but you carry almost as much weight with the revolutionaries as he does. Very well, if you rescue your people, if the Ark falls into your hands, will you then cooperate with us?"

"Why the hell didn't you offer that _before_ the revolution? All this wouldn't have happened."

The albino smiled. "You'd have laughed at us, even as you're probably laughing to yourself now. But in this case we have something concrete to offer. Is it a bargain?"

"Sure," Ker-jon said wearily. "We need you now. It's a bargain."

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."

4

Ker-jon said, "Hello."

The albino blinked rapidly. "Ker-jon, is it not?"

"It looks like you have another recruit. That is, if you're still in business."

The albino chuckled. "We're in business, young man. As a matter of fact, we got an additional recruit the day before yesterday. You know her, I think."

Cluny-ann came in from the next room, looking very trim and pretty in her jumper. "It's about time you woke up," she said, but then Ker-jon took her hand and held it, and soon she forgot all about being contrary. She said, "Wi'son-gil says we're going to have a rough time of it."

"That's true," Wi'son-gil agreed, adjusting a pair of dark glasses over his pink eyes, then sighing with satisfaction. "It would have been simpler had the revolution failed. Enough people hated the rule of the Mutant-maker before the revolution; probably, instilling the intellectual challenge of the physical sciences would have been enough. Now, unfortunately, it won't."

Ker-jon frowned. "I'm not sure I understand. What do you mean?"

"Flam-harol is developing a militant organization and a more rigid caste-system than we've ever had before; you know that. What we've got to do--what we've been trying to do all along--was to unite the mutants and the non-mutants with a real external challenge. A rebirth of the physical sciences and a subsequent conquest of them would have done it. But not now; now we'll need something more concrete.

"A serious threat, perhaps. What if the Ark stopped functioning, Ker-jon?"

"Stopped functioning?"

"Of course. We have day-lights. We have night-lights. We have hydroponic gardens supplying both air and food, which, except for a few minor adjustments that the bio-technicians can make, function perfectly in themselves. We have instruments of astrogation, and the same thing applies. We don't even know where we're going!

"Damage all that. Damage everything which carries us along so smoothly, and what will happen? We'd either all join together to conquer the new challenge, or we'd perish."

"You'd take a chance like that?" Ker-jon demanded.

Cluny-ann nodded vigorously. "We have to. It's either that or we'll sink lower and lower, until there's nothing left of civilization."

"Okay," Ker-jon spread his hands out wide. "You're both way ahead of me. How will we do it?"

* * * * *

The albino smiled. "We've found the old records which explain how the Ark runs. With them to guide us, we'll try our hand at sabotage."

"Hold on. Just hold on! Why do you have to do that? If you have the records, why don't you simply take control of the machinery and force Flam-harol and his crew to step down."

The albino shook his head. "That's precisely what we _won't_ do. All the Ark has ever had to face was human challenge, one man usurping control from another. That extends down to all levels, Ker-jon. We have to make a complete break with that tradition, or we'll find ourselves right back where we started from, just as Flam-harol did. Psych-tech Ab'nath will stand behind me on that, and he knows what he's talking about."

"You're telling me," Ker-jon said, remembering the dream.

"Then it's agreed. You and the girl will study the records, learn the location and function of each piece of machinery on the Ark. There are just a half dozen of us: Ab'nath, the two 'policemen', Cluny-ann, you, myself. When you're ready we'll do some fancy tinkering with the key mechanisms. And this is important, Ker-jon: we must be so thorough that, alone and without either additional education or aid from others, we won't be able to repair the damage. A danger, yes--but that's the only way it will work."

* * * * *

Ten days, twenty. Thirty. With Cluny-ann, Ker-jon pored over the old books. Terms swam through his head madly--vectors, constants, laws of thermodynamics, others. He could not hope to understand the vast amount of theory behind them, not now, not yet. But it did not matter. He sought a working knowledge, an engineer's knowledge, the knowledge of a physical-technician, when there had not been a physical-technician on the Ark for generations. More particularly, a physical-technician bent upon temporary destruction....

Wi'son-gil kept him informed of Flam-harol's new regime. Discontent everywhere. A riot in the 'ponics room--quelled. Another in astro--also quelled. But discontent hovered everywhere, with no adequate channel through which to manifest itself. It faded, became bickering; Flam-harol was more powerful every day. Probably, he considered himself benevolent--

* * * * *

Green-uniformed albinos shuffled about the corridors. Their too-white skin looked sickly under the night-lights, but they seemed cocky. Ker-jon ducked around a corner, pulling Cluny-ann with him. "Careful--that one almost spotted us!"

They crept forward, stalking silently on bare feet. Ker-jon had his key to the 'ponics room, and his heart was pounding furiously when they reached the door. What if Flam-harol had had the lock changed? He chuckled softly. He'd been reading too much about the physical sciences; no one knew how to change a lock! Oh, they could oil it if it clogged with rust, but that was all. Either the old lock remained, or no lock at all.

He inserted his key, twisted, heard the tumblers fall. The door swung in silently.

Past the rows of squat, ugly 'ponics tanks they walked, the dank vegetation smell heavy on the air. Moisture dotted the water pipes with gleaming droplets, some unknown liquid bubbled in a vat nearby.

They paused at a great shining mound of machinery. "It's called a generator," Ker-jon said. "But don't ask me what it does. I only know it's crucial. Umm-mm, listen to that."

The machine throbbed. He'd worked in the 'ponics room as a bio-tech, and he'd always taken the huge machine and its humming noise for granted. It was there, and that meant it had a purpose. It functioned; all you had to do was put oil into the little hole whenever the sound rose to a shriek. But now the purpose meant something. This generator kept the tanks going, producing air, food, water....

Ker-jon wielded his screw-driver clumsily. Only menials--formerly mutants and now non-mutants--played with such tools. If the Ark passed through a particularly brilliant area of space, if the blackness outside the ports in the astro-room churned into a seething mass of light, the menials used these screw drivers and fastened thin metal shields over the ports.

_Insert it there, yes! And twist. See, the little plug comes loose. And now another._

Suddenly, the entire casing fell away, and Ker-jon peered into a maze of intricate wiring. _Remove that one, that one, and that one. Careful, don't touch that or you'll receive a shock--whatever a shock was_--

Without warning, the machine stopped its humming. Nearby, the liquid which bubbled away merrily in its vat gurgled once or twice, then subsided. The silence closed in from all sides.

* * * * *

Three days later, Ker-jon received a summons from Flam-harol. The ridge-head look worried, and he did not try to hide it. "You were a bio-tech first class, hydroponics division. I--I have a job for you."

"Yes? What's that?"

"Something happened. I don't know what, but a machine which used to hum doesn't do it any longer, and the vegetation in 'ponics looks a little sick. The level in the water-storage units is lowering--"

Ker-jon wondered how long the air would last. He almost sensed a difference, a thickness, a necessity to breathe more deeply, perhaps more rapidly. His imagination, probably, because according to the books, air would continue to be manufactured as long as the plants lasted. "What do you want me to do?" Ker-jon said.

"Fix it, that's what."

"I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't? Don't cross me, Ker-jon; I'll have you detained--"

"That isn't what I mean. I know the humming machine you're talking about. I don't know how it works; no one does. Of course, we can find out. If we study the old records--"

"Bah! Say, do you know any good astro-techs? The machinery in the astro-room doesn't work. I don't know the function of that room, Ker-jon, but I've heard it's important."

"We've all heard that, but no one knows why. We could find out, though."

"How?"

"By studying the old books." Ker-jon wondered if it had been Ab'nath or the old albino who had tampered with the astro-mechanisms.

Flam-harol got up wearily. "Forget it; forget I called you. I can see you'll be no help at all. I've heard talk about studying the old records. All over the Ark. But man, think! You can't sit down in a hole someplace and read a book to solve anything. That just isn't the way things get done."

"You'll learn," Ker-jon said, getting up to leave.

* * * * *

That same afternoon, Wi'son-gil made a mistake. He called a mass meeting, declaring that he knew a way to stop what had caused growing panic on the Ark. If Flam-harol hadn't become frightened, the panic never would have arisen--Ker-jon knew that. But when you stroll through the now-silent 'ponics room and see brown-edged, stiffening vegetation where once the place had been warm and richly green, you worry. Especially when you've been led to believe, along with everyone else, that everything within the Ark depended on the 'ponics room.

The crowd gathered, noisily at first, but the old albino quieted them. Ker-jon realized with some surprise that the man could be an impressive figure. Small and thin, he yet maintained an air of confidence. His fine white hair framed a gaunt, thin-featured face, and from a distance the pink eyes almost seemed alive with fires.

But mostly it was the voice--calm, soothing, sure of itself, a father talking to his children, telling them of the wonders of a lost science, of the role it once had played in the construction of the Ark, of a time when their ancestors had lived elsewhere, not on the Ark at all, of a time in the indeterminable future when they would leave the confines of a tight little world for one where a man could spend his whole lifetime walking and never quite reach the other side. Telling them, too, of the role that lost science must now play again, to repair the Ark. Telling them that they must strive together to master this tool of their past in order to build their future, to learn what they were, and where and why and how, to use this knowledge for the tasks that lay ahead.

He had them spellbound, weaving fanciful legends of the past and a place called Urth, explaining their greatness to them and their destiny to conquer a far place in the name of mankind which was all of them and infinitely more. And telling them, above all, that ridge-head must be brother to scaled mutant, and both to albino, and all to non-mutants. They half-wanted that, anyway; they'd had enough of fighting all their lifetimes, and what had been lacking was a common cause for all of them.

* * * * *

Almost, it worked. But Flam-harol appeared in the meeting room, stalking in with his armed guards--not albinos, not now when he expected troubles. But with ridge-heads, big, powerful, naked to their waists and ready for trouble, the huge muscles bulging....

"Stop that man!" he cried.

Murmurs in the crowd, but no one moved.

Wi'son-gil kept right on speaking.

Ker-jon realized the ridge-head's intention too late. He stood just below the dais, eyes intent upon the old albino. But something made him turn, and he bellowed a warning.

Flam-harol had raised his needle-gun.

Things happened fast after that. Cluny-ann must have seen the danger too, for she pushed her way through the crowd, elbowing people out of her way, reached the ridge-head. They began to grapple, great-thewed mutant and slim, fair-haired girl.

It didn't last long. Ker-jon leaped upon the dais, throwing himself at the albino, pulling him down. It was then that Flam-harol fired.

Ker-jon felt the needle brush past his cheek, saw a growing stain of red on the albino's jumper. The old man sagged to the floor, the faintest trace of a smile on his lips. When Ker-jon kneeled beside him and felt for the heartbeat, the old man was dead.

Confused, the crowd milled about. People jostled one another, some shouted angrily. Meaningless action without a leader--