Star quest

smooth concrete. That last brought him out of his contemplative reverie. For all its apparent luxury, the room was still a rebel stronghold, a place where the business of overthrowing a world—several worlds—was carried on.
    And there were people. Or, rather, Muties. A fellow about Tohm's age moved forward. He was thin, his face creased with heavy lines of worry—and he had no eyes. In place of orbs, two splotches of gray tissue lay in the sockets, pulsing now and then with various shades of yellow. "Welcome, Hunk. We thought you were dead."
    "As good as. Tohm here saved my life."
    The eyeless man turned to "stare" at Tohm. "Tohm, I'm Corgi Senyo. Those are two words which mean "bat 'yes' in my native tongue. I'm the… well, manager of this link in the underground. I thank you for all of us. Hunk is a valuable man as well as a friend."
    Tohm flushed. "He said you would help me."
    "He comes from a primitive world," Hunk explained. "He was kidnapped by the Romaghins for use in their jumbos. He knows nothing of our plight. He wants to help to find his woman, who was also kidnapped, and probably brought here to be sold. I said that we would help him find her."
    "Of course," Corgi said. "Certainly."
    "Her name was Tamilee," Tohm managed to say. He was not quite able to believe that he had found an entire block of friends. After all that he had been through, he thought all men were out to drink the blood of all other men. But, of course, these were not exactly men. These were Muties.
    "A very beautiful name."
    "A beautiful girl," he answered.
    "I'm sure. And now, maybe you'd like
to
know the names of those here."
    Tohm nodded politely, although his mind was on a dark girl and the finding of her.
    Corgi turned and waved a hand at a man sitting at one of the massive desks. The Mutie had a pen in his— claw, working carefully over sheets of graph paper. There were red, raw-looking gill slits under his jaws, ringing the top of his neck. Under the hair and on the backs of his hands, the skin, for patches, seemed to become scales, gray and shiny, then faded back into skin once again. His fingers were narrow and long, ending in a thin prong of nail. "This is Fish," Corgi said. "His real name is something very long and foreign sounding. Most of us do not go by our real names. Our parents forsook us as did the rest of society; in fact, like the others, they would shoot us on sight. We have no great fondness for family history. We're making our own history."
    Fish nodded, his eyes bleary and wet-looking.
    "Glad to meet you, Fish," Tohm said, feeling slightly inane.
    "And this is Babe," Corgi said, pointing to another, smaller man.
    Babe stood about four feet high.' He was chubby, a virtual ball of flesh. It hung in pink rolls under his chin, circled his middle like an inner tube. His fingers were tiny, puffy, pink like the rest of him. His eyes were blue as the day sky. And he was smoking a cigar.
    "Hiya, Tohm!" Babe said around the tobacco tube.
    "Babe never grows up," Corgi said. "At least, externally. Hell always look like a pre-schooler and that is, finally, that. He used to use it to our advantage. He could move in the outside world because everyone thought he was a boy. Then they caught on. Today, Babe is one of the ten most wanted Muties by both the
    Romaghins and Setessins. He doesn't dare show his face."
    "The fortunes of war," Babe said, waving his cigar. It was larger, by far, than the fingers that held it
    "We also think he's immortal."
    "Bah!" Babe snapped.
    Corgi grinned. "But how old are you?"
    "Two hundred and twenty-three. But there's an end somewhere. I'm just another Methuselah. He died eventually, you know."
    Corgi smiled again. "Then—"
    He was interrupted at that moment by the woman he meant to call. The door opened from the interior rooms of the shelter and the most stunning creature Tohm had ever seen entered the room. She was feline. Positively cat-like. She wore a black leotard suit which helped to give the impression, but even without it, Tohm knew, she would be a sleek, sensuous cat
    This is Mayna," Corgi said, eyeing Tohm, expecting the reaction the woman was getting. "Mayna, this is Tohm."
    She was about five and a half feet tall. And lithe. She glided rather than walked. Slid rather than stepped. Her body was a sensuous mass of rippling muscles and soft flesh. Her legs were full but streamlined, her feet tiny. Tiny paws. The toes, as she stood in bare feet, were stubbier than normal and joined