The Celestial Blueprint and Others Stories by Philip José Farmer Read Free Book Online

lacked only the nerves that would enable the Sea-King to shock us.”
    Rastignac smiled his appreciation of this coup. Mapfarity’s ears crackled blue sparks of joy, his equivalent of blushing.
    “Ah, then you have doubtless listened in to many broadcasts. And you know where the Earthman is located?”
    “Yes,” said the Giant. “He is in the palace of the Amphib King, upon the island of Kataproimnoin. That is only thirty miles out to the sea.”
    Rastignac did not know what he would do, but he had two advantages in the Amphibs’ Skins and in Lusine. And he burned to get off this doomed planet, this land of men too sunk in false happiness, sloth, and stupidity to see that soon death would come from the water.
    He had two possible avenues of escape. One was to use the newly arrived Earthman’s knowledge so that the fuels necessary to propel the ferry-rockets could be manufactured. The rockets themselves still stood in a museum. Rastignac had not planned to use them because neither he nor any one else on this planet knew how to make fuel for them. Such secrets had long ago been forgotten.
    But now that science was available through the newcomer from Earth, the rockets could be equipped and taken up to -one of the Six Flying Stars. The Earthman could study the rocket, determine what was needed in the way of supplies, then it could be outfitted for the long voyage.
    An alternative was the Terran’s vessel. Perhaps he might invite him to come along in it . . .
    The huge gateway to Mapfarity’s castle interrupted his thoughts.
    VIII
    He halted the Renault, told Archambaud to find the Giant’s servant and have him feed their vehicle, rub its legs down with liniment, and examine the hooves for defective shoes.
    Archambaud was glad to look up Mapfabvisheen, the Giant’s servant, because he had not seen him for a long time. The little Ssassaror had been an active member of the Egg-stealer’s Guild until the night three years ago when he had tried to creep into Mapfarity’s strongroom. The crafty guilds-man had avoided the Giant’s traps and there found the two geese squatting upon their bed of minerals.
    These fabulous geese made no sound when he picked them up with lead-lined gloves and put them in his bag, also lined with lead-leaf. They were not even aware of him. Laboratory-bred, retort-shaped, their protoplasm a blend of silicon-carbon, unconscious even that they lived, they munched upon lead and other elements, ruminated, gastrated, transmuted, and every month, regular as the clockwork march of stars or whirl of electrons, each laid an octagonal egg of pure gold.
    Mapfabvisheen had trodden softly from the strongroom and thought himself safe. And then, amazingly, frighteningly, and totally unethically, from his viewpoint, the geese had begun honking loudlyl
    He had run but not fast enough. The Giant had come stumbling from his bed in response to the wild clamor and had caught him. And, according to the contract drawn up between the Guild of Egg-stealers and the League of Giants, a guildsman seized within the precints of a castle must serve the goose’s owner for two years. Mapfabvisheen had been greedy; he had tried to take both geese. Therefore, he must wait upon the Giant for a double term.
    Afterwards, he found out how he’d been trapped. The egg-layers themselves hadn’t been honking. Mouthless, they were utterly incapable of that. Mapfarity had fastened a so-called “goose-tracker” to the strongroom’s doorway. This device clicked loudly whenever a goose was nearby. It could smell out one even through a lead-leaf-lined bag. When Mapfabvisheen passed underneath it, its chicks woke up a small Skin beside it. The Skin, mostly lung-sac and voice organs, honked its warning. And the dwarf, Mapfabvisheen, began his servitude to the Giant, Mapfarity.
    Rastignac knew the story. He also knew that Mapfarity had infected the fellow with the philosophy of Violence and that he was now a good member of his Underground.