ng her lips. "The Churchmen drink blood?"

Rastignac did not explain. He could be wrong. If so, he'd feel less
like a fool if they didn't know what he thought.

Meanwhile, there were the first steps to be taken for the unskinning
of an entire planet.

IX

Later that day the mucketeers surrounded the castle but they made no
effort to storm it. The following day one of them knocked on the huge
front door and presented Mapfarity with a summons requiring them to
surrender. The Giant laughed, put the document in his mouth and ate
it. The server fainted and had to be revived with a bucket of cold
water before he could stagger back to report this tradition-shattering
reception.

Rastignac set up his underground so it could be expanded in a hurry.
He didn't worry about the blockade because, as was well known, Giants'
castles had all sorts of subterranean tunnels and secret exits. He
contacted a small number of priests who were willing to work for him.
These were congenital rebels who became quite enthusiastic when he
told them their activities would result in a fierce persecution of the
Church.

The majority, however, clung to their Skins and said they would have
nothing to do with this extradermal-less devil. They took pride and
comfort in that term. The vulgar phrase for the man who refused to
wear his Skin was "devil," and, by law and logic, the Church could not
be associated with a devil. As everybody knew, the priests have always
been on the side of the angels.

Meanwhile, the Devil's band slipped out of the tunnels and made raids.
Their targets were Giants' castles and government treasuries; their
loot, the geese. So many raids did they make that the president of the
League of Giants and the Business Agent for the Guild of Egg-stealers
came to plead with them. And remained to denounce. Rastignac was
delighted with their complaints, and, after listening for a while,
threw them out.

Rastignac had, like all other Skin-wearers, always accepted the
monetary system as a thing of reason and steady balance. But, without
his Skin he was able to think objectively and saw its weaknesses.

For some cause buried far in history, the Giants had always had
control of the means for making the hexagonal golden coins called
_oeufs_. But the Kings, wishing to get control of the golden eggs, had
set up that elite branch of the Guild which specialized in abducting
the half-living 'geese.' Whenever a thief was successful he turne