The mutant chuckled. "Could I forget? You're the young killer from the southlands, up here to do away with--but hush! I must not give it away!" Kesley gripped the mutant by the baggy folds of flesh that hung loosely on one spidery arm. "How do you know anything of who I am?" The mutant shrugged. "How could I keep from knowing?" His voice was mild and apologetic now, with little of its earlier raucous quality. "I can no more keep from knowing, than you--than you can keep from needing food, or seeing when your eyes are open. I ... _know_." "How much do you know?" "Why you are here, and where you are from ... and where you will go, and what you will become." Lomark Dawnspear's voice had modulated into a dull, almost ritualistic drone. "I see these things, and I do not speak. I speak, but you do not see. Blind, I know you. Eyes open, you march into treachery." Kesley released the mutant and stepped back. He was shaking with inward horror; his empty stomach seemed to be squirming. "What are you talking about?" The mutant smiled feebly. "Counter-question: who is your father, handsome blond man?" "My father? I--" "You do not know?" "All right--I don't know. Do you?" "How could I not know? Can the maggot restrain its hunger? Can the Earth forget its orbit?" "You know, but you're not talking. Is that it?" Dawnspear shrugged again. "You would not want me to tell you," he said softly. "I see that, too." "All right," Kesley said, irritated. "Forget all about that. Give me some other answers." "If I can." "The man named van Alen--is he dead?" "No." "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."