"Where is he?"
"In his home. Antarctica."
"It was true, then," Kesley said. He stared into the mutant's dead eyes. "Who is he?"
"A noble of the Antarctican land," Lomark Dawnspear said. "Forget van Alen. Watch Miguel ... and Winslow. Watch everyone, youngster. Watch Santana, the greasy prelate. Watch me. Watch the fool stealing up behind you this very minute."
"The oldest trick in the world," Kesley said skeptically. But he felt a sudden cold sensation between his shoulder-blades, and whirled quickly. Another mutant stood there, a wide, slablike thing with four arms pivoting off jointed shoulders. One of its thick-fingered hands clutched a rock, jagged and heavy.
Moving instinctively Kesley grasped the arm holding the rock and yanked it down, smashing a fist into the broad creature's stomach at the same time. The rock thudded to the ground; the four arms windmilled aimlessly for a moment or two, and then the mutant backed off mumbling stertorous, incomprehensible curses.
"You'd better leave," Lomark Dawnspear said. "Some of the slower ones are beginning to realize you're here. They're likely to make things dangerous for you."
"But you haven't told me a thing," Kesley said.
"The answers lie ahead of you ... the answers and the questions. Now go."
Scowling, Kesley drew his robe tighter around his sweating body and remounted his horse. The mutant ghetto seemed like a nightmare world, shifting in and out of reality almost at random, blurring into dream and then focusing sharply on hideous actuality. Without looking back, he spurred his animal and rode hastily out of the valley.