Nightmare journey

returned the soldiers' fire, neither of them would have reached the entrance to the jeweled bacteria. Yet, Tedesco was a mutant, and his victims were Pures. It was clear where Jask's sympathies should lie.
    “Is it clear?” Tedesco asked quietly.
    Jask looked up, confused, unable to answer.
    The bruin turned to his rucksack and began to open various compartments. “Let's have something to eat,” he said, toneless and remote.
    They consumed three lengths of dried, salted meat (Jask could choke down only half a stick; Tedesco happily finished the rest), five pieces of fresh fruit (Jask being satisfied with two, Tedesco with three), half a loaf of hard brown bread (Jask spat out his first bite, disgusted by the texture and taste and aware, for the first time, that he was eating tainted food fit only for mutants; the bruin munched happily on the remainder), and a quantity of water from the long wooden flask in Tedesco's pack. They spoke only occasionally as they ate, reserving most of their comments for the food or for the shifting, rippling colors that glowed brilliantly in the walls.
    When they were done, Tedesco said, “I promised you a discussion.”
    Jask looked blank for a moment.
    “On the virtues of our individual notions of this world's history,” the mutant explained.
    “Mine is not a notion,” Jask said.
    “Oh?”
    “We'll see.”
    “Yes, we will,” Jask said, though he had already begun to wonder if the bruin's version-whatever it was-might not be more sound than his own. According to Pure philosophy, he was now in the realm of the Ruiner, who should have sought him out instantly and destroyed him. Yet he lived. As far as he could see, he was not even changing physically. Unless the Ruiner were modifying him slowly, inwardly… The idea repelled him and caused him to draw into himself, hugging himself like a child in the womb.
    The husky mutant leaned back against his rucksack, as if the lumpy bag were a pillow. He used the long, hard claw at the tip of his stubby but humanlike thumb to pick at his jagged teeth. He said, “Let's hear your story first, my friend. How do you explain the world in which we find ourselves?”
    Jask thought a moment, brushed nervously as his hair, cleared his throat and spoke carefully, wanting to get this all right. His religion was not one that evangelized, because its requirements for membership were biologically stringent. Yet, he felt, on some fundamental spiritual basis it was important to make this tainted creature understand the infinite wisdom inherent in the doctrine and dogma of the Pure church. As concisely and as dramatically as he could, his tone becoming more confident as he continued, he told what his kind believed…
    Many thousands of generations ago, there had been no mutants in the world, for all of mankind lived in harmony with Lady Nature. These Pures established a civilization of conquest and discovery, the mysterious remains of which are to be seen to this day in the many ruins and in the still-functioning fortresses where the Pures maintain a vigil against the Ruiner. Lady Nature set no limits on her creatures, but offered them even the stars if they proved themselves capable of accepting and using the gift.
    “And what happened to bring about this crumbling Earth we now inhabit?” Tedesco asked.
    There was a note of sarcasm in his voice but also, Jask thought, not just a little genuine interest.
    As a temptation, to test the mettle of Her creations, Lady Nature permitted mankind the knowledge of the Genetic Mystery, allowed him to learn how life could be created without Her, how species could be altered and how man himself might change his appearance so that he could fly or live beneath the waters like fish. She fully expected them to reject the application of this knowledge, expected them to proclaim their love for Her and to refuse to accept the role of gods in Her place. Instead mankind went against Her will, created whole new races, sometimes for experimental purposes and other times for little more than a lark, for decoration in a society they felt had come to lack ethnic differences and individualism. Once they had disregarded Lady Nature's prime right of creation, they had opened this sector of the universe to the influence of the Ruiner, another cosmic force working in opposition to Lady Nature, once Her mate and now Her enemy, a creature of evil and hatred and jealousy. With the Ruiner corrupting men's minds and souls, the laws of Nature were more and