Kesley felt himself perspiring heavily beneath his ambassadorial robes, and not entirely because of the humid air. He knew--and Santana as well, evidently--that he had no plan for slaying Winslow. He was counting on some random twitch of the Immortal's psychology to put the Duke in his power. But would Winslow, as had Miguel, bare his chest willingly to the blade? Probably not, Kesley thought balefully. From what he had already deduced of the workings of the Immortal mind, it was hardly likely that any two Dukes would share a behavioral pattern. And that left Kesley in an awkward position. "A week is a long time," Kesley said, as they rode through the gates. The double doors clanged shut behind them, sealing off Winslow's palace from the city. "I'll be ready when the time comes, padre." "I hope so. I will pray for your soul," the priest intoned. "Fine," Kesley said savagely. "Pray for me sincerely, father. _Pater noster_--" "Don't mock what you don't understand," Santana said. He crossed himself fervently. "Your soul is in danger, _Señor_ Ramon." "_My_ soul? What about yours, you old windbag?" Santana squirmed in the saddle, faced Kesley. The plump priest's sad eyes gazed mournfully into Kesley's. "My soul?" Santana repeated. "My soul is long since forfeit, but I pray constantly for my salvation." Kesley reddened. "What do you mean by--" He cut himself off in mid-sentence and pointed to the left. "What's _that_?" he asked hoarsely. "Mutant?" "Yes," the Archbishop said. "There are many of them in Chicago. I think he plans to make trouble; be ready to defend yourself." The creature was coming toward them out of a jumble of clumsily-thatched huts strung in a wobbly circle around a gullied heap of slag at the extreme left side of the road. It was tall--nearly seven feet, Kesley estimated--with elongated spidery limbs and a bloated, almost hydrocephaloid skull, devoid of hair. The mutant wore only a rag twisted carelessly about its middle; the body thus revealed was grotesquely piebald in color, blotched and spotted, the purpling skin lying loosely and peeling away in great leprous flakes. Kesley had seen mutants before: mutant horses, mutant wolves, other products of ravaged genes, but he had never before been this close to a _human_ sport, other than Miguel. Miguel was human in all physical aspects save his life span; the creature shambling toward them now could be called "human" only by the loosest of definitions. As the mutant approached, a musty odor of decay drifted before him. Kesley shuddered involuntarily. Once, he knew, the cities of the world had been populated by almost as many mutants as normals. That had been in the days immediately after the great blast, before the Dukes had taken command of the world.