Nightmare journey

only common sense, for an inn was the center of the town and the source of information. Still, Jask could not shake the conviction that the General was an unnatural precog who had sensed his game.
    The General and soldiers made no sound to announce their arrival. The visual spectacle alone was sufficient to draw forth a representative of the village.
    The innkeeper, a creature named Belmondo, came outside, wiping his hands on his apron and watching the General with a mixture of contempt and fear. His eyes, as large around as Jask's palm, rolled independently of each other in a long, lupine skull. Belmondo's appearance was the result of previous generation gene damage caused by radiation rather than the product of the genetic engineers, for he did not follow any of the patterns most favored by patrons of the Artificial Wombs. Children of Wombs were always beautiful, despite their tainted heritage; Belmondo was simply ugly. His thin, bony hands-with three fingers and two thumbs each-pulled greasy, yellow hair away from his forehead. He licked his lips with a raspy, black tongue and said, “Yes?” His tone suggested a dislike of Pures, which was natural but dangerous in this situation.
    “We are looking for a man,'' the General said. “His name is Jask. Have you heard of him?”
    “No,” Belmondo lied.
    “Have you seen him?”
    The General was aware of what tricks could be played with words.
    Belmondo considered for a moment, then said, “Perhaps it would be better if you could tell me what manner of man you seek. Is he furred or scaled? There have been a few fishy cousins in town of late. Is he one of the cyclopses? They find themselves in disfavor with everyone sooner or later-as if having one eye narrows their mental vision as well. Perhaps he is a feline man? If you could be a bit more specific, you see, I could more likely tell you of him. I know all the business of the town.”
    Belmondo, Jask thought, was either foolish or brave-or possessed of a bravery generated by foolishness. He knew as well as anyone that when a Pure used the word “man"' he meant another Pure, not a creature with altered genes. A Pure refused to acknowledge that the quasi-men of mutation-whether accidental or made by design-were men at all. If Pure theology were to remain intact, such mutated specimens could be considered nothing but animals.
    Though Jask, raised in the teachings of the Pure church, would normally have despised Belmondo for his impudence, he welcomed it now that the quasi-man was protecting him. The saucer-eyed Belmondo knew only that Jask had fallen into disfavor with the other Pures of his enclave; that was all the mutant needed to know to justify lying for the sake of a man who might in any other circumstances be considered an enemy.
    “I'll tell you one thing,” the General said. “You may feel quite smug and superior in your cunning now-but if this Jask should go his way unhampered, we will all eventually suffer, Pure and mutated alike.”
    Belmondo looked skeptical, but his curiosity had been aroused by the sudden confidential tone in the General's voice.
    Upstairs, at the open window, Jask felt ill, chilled by a premonition of disaster. He had not believed that the General would divulge the reason for his flight and for their pursuit of him. The Pures were too closely knit, too snobbish ever to share their inner secrets and shames with those they thought of as a lower species. If they broke the rule of silence now, if they told Belmondo, it was only a measure of how desperately the General wanted to get his hands on Jask.
    “The man we seek… is an esper,” the General said.
    In the quiet, fog-shrouded morning, the words fled the length of the street like a knife drawn across the wet cobblestones, echoing, echoing, hard and urgent.
    Standing by the window, Jask received the distant echoes of fear in the minds of the Pure soldiers and in the minds, as well, of the mutated villagers who listened from doorways and windows in other buildings. He could not block the receival of such agonizingly sharpened emotions.
    “You're certain?” Belmondo asked.
    Already, as he stood there, his eyes began to stray betrayingly toward Jask's open window.
    A ripped open brain… cracked like a nut… with long, pale fingers stirring through the meat and picking out the choicest morsels…
    Jask received the terrified visions radiating from Belmondo and knew the mutant feared espers too much to protect one of them. Turning, stumbling clumsily