and the saddle in the middle? Perhaps the girl would try to use it. He could visualize her against the night sky, in the light of a full moon…and how would that change history?
The horse seemed on the verge of apoplexy. Its sides heaved, its eyes rolled wildly. Probably it was the cabin air, thick with carbon dioxide. Again, it might be the poison the horse had sucked from an open stream.
Gravity died. Svetz and the horse tumbled in free fall, and the horse queasily tried to gore him.
Gravity returned, and Svetz, who was ready for it, landed on top. Someone was already opening the door.
Svetz took the distance in one bound. The horse followed, screaming with rage, intent on murder. Two men went flying as it charged out into the Institute control center.
“It doesn’t take anesthetics!” Svetz shouted over his shoulder. The animal’s agility was hampered here among the desks and lighted screens, and it was probably drunk on hyperventilation. It kept stumbling into desks and men. Svetz easily stayed ahead of the slashing horn.
A full panic was developing….
“We couldn’t have done it without Zeera,” Ra Chen told him much later. “Your idiot tanj horse had the whole Center terrorized. All of a sudden it went completely tame, walked up to that frigid intern Zeera and let her lead it away.”
“Did you get it to the hospital in time?”
Ra Chen nodded gloomily. Gloom was his favorite expression and was no indication of his true feelings. “We found over fifty unknown varieties of bacteria in the beast’s bloodstream. Yet it hardly looked sick! It looked healthy as a…healthy as a…it must have tremendous stamina. We managed to save not only the horse, but most of the bacteria too, for the Zoo.”
Svetz was sitting up in a hospital bed, with his arm up to the elbow in a diagnostician. There was always the chance that he too had located some long-extinct bacterium. He shifted uncomfortably, being careful not to move the wrong arm, and asked, “Did you ever find an anesthetic that worked?”
“Nope. Sorry about that, Svetz. We still don’t know why your needles didn’t work. The tanj horse is simply immune to tranks of any kind.
“Incidentally, there was nothing wrong with your air plant. You were smelling the horse.”
“I wish I’d known that. I thought I was dying.”
“It’s driving the interns crazy, that smell. And we can’t seem to get it out of the Center.” Ra Chen sat down on the edge of the bed. “What bothers me is the horn on its forehead. The horse in the picture book had no horns.”
“No, sir.”
“Then it must be a different species. It’s not really a horse, Svetz. We’ll have to send you back. It’ll break our budget, Svetz.”
“I disagree, sir—”
“Don’t be so tanj polite.”
“Then don’t be so tanj stupid, sir.” Svetz was not going back for another horse. “People who kept tame horses must have developed the habit of cutting off the horn when the animal was a pup. Why not? We all saw how dangerous that horn is. Much too dangerous for a domestic animal.”
“Then why does our horse have a horn?”
“That’s why I thought it was wild, the first time I saw it. I suppose they didn’t start cutting off horns until later in history.”
Ra Chen nodded in gloomy satisfaction. “I thought so too. Our problem is that the Secretary-General is barely bright enough to notice that his horse has a horn, and the picture-book horse doesn’t. He’s bound to blame me.”
“Mmm.” Svetz wasn’t sure what was expected of him.
“I’ll have to have the horn amputated.”
“Somebody’s bound to notice the scar,” said Svetz.
“Tanj it, you’re right. I’ve got enemies at court. They’d be only too happy to claim I’d mutilated the Secretary-General’s pet.” Ra Chen glared at Svetz. “All right, let’s hear your idea.”
Svetz was busy regretting. Why had he spoken? His vicious, beautiful horse, tamely docked of its killer horn…He had found the thought repulsive. His impulse had betrayed him. What could they do but remove the horn?
He had it. “Change the picture book, not the horse. A computer could duplicate the book in detail, but with a horn on every horse. Use the Institute computer, then wipe the tape afterward.”
Morosely thoughtful, Ra Chen said, “That might work. I know someone who could switch the books.” He looked up from under bushy black brows. “Of course, you’d have to keep your mouth shut.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t forget.” Ra Chen got up. “When you get out of the diagnostician, you start