Slaves of The Klau

by Jack Vance

"I don't know. I feel something-bad."

  Barch started around the dark terrace. Fibers of green light glowed in the blue glass under his feet.

  Ahead lay something dark. Barch ran forward, the muscles of his throat tight and stiff. He knelt slowly. Claude Darran. Barch stared in astonishment. Cold, dead-unthinkable!

  A shape stood behind him: Komeitk Lelianr. Barch rose numbly to his feet. He walked forward; two paces, four- another dark shape. It was small, sprawled carelessly. Behind him he heard horrified gasping sounds. Barch's neck was cold as ice. He bent beside the pitiful object that had been Sia Spedz; then, rising quickly, drew Komeitk Lelianr to the balustrade.

  She said in an agonized whisper, "The Klau-they have come to Earth. They have been here…"

  Barch peered into the darkness, feeling ineffectual, indecisive. He had no real desire to investigate, to confront a set of other-world murderers. From the inside of the dome came a sudden thud. Komeitk Lelianr whimpered, jerked forward.

  Spasmodic strength came to Barch's legs; he shoved ahead of her, moved toward the dim-glowing portal. Cautiously he looked within: nothing but an article or two of furniture. Komeitk Lelianr pressed against his back, breathing in soft sobs. He ducked inside; Komeitk Lelianr ran ahead, thrust aside a curtain of green smoke. She froze, arms and legs at grotesque angles.

  Barch looked over her shoulder, down at two golden bodies.

  There was a great deal of blood, puddled and netted along the floor. Barch drew the dazed girl back.

  She said, "I must communicate…" She walked awkwardly across the room, waved open a portal. Two more corpses-Markel's guests. And at the communication table sat a great black creature. Stiff black bristles framed his face; his eyes gleamed tike polished jet, with red four-pronged centers.

  The Klau stared at Barch; Barch's legs were numb, wooden. Grumbling, mumbling, the Klau rose, clutching a heavy black dagger.

  Barch backed sweating against the wall; the Klau hacked. Barch caught the black wrist, planted a foot in the belly, kicked. The Klau lurched, toppled, fell with a dull roar of rage.

  Barch, grinning like a wolf, planted his foot in the pulpy neck. Thick hands seized his ankle; Barch swayed.

  He heard a hiss, a grunt. The hands clenched, the four-pronged red stars widened, slowly folded in on themselves.

  Komeitk Lelianr arose from the dagger in the black chest.

  "Come, we must go," she panted. "There are others!"

  She ran to the portal. Barch paused to wrench at the dagger. He heard a thin scream, looked up, saw a flurrying black shape. Something heavy, furry, enveloped him. His legs were swept out from under him and he was carried off like a swaddled child.

  Hands gripped him hard, heaved. He was free, falling, falling-a hundred feet, a thousand feet, mile after mile…

  Kicking frantically, Barch freed himself from the fur robe. Still falling… Strange there was no rush of wind, no pound or flutter at his arms and legs. He stiffened to rigidity. The air was calm. He was suspended, floating in darkness; lack of gravity gave the illusion of free fall. Now his eyes adapted themselves, he could see walls glowing with a dull maroon light, as if red-hot. But the air was cold, there was no heat on his face.

  Komeitk Lelianr floated quietly over his head. He caught an ankle, drew her down. Her eyes were closed.

  Barch relaxed like a spent swimmer. Events were moving too fast. He wondered, am I awake or asleep? This is too fantastic for reality. He tried to rouse himself, without success. I am already awake, he decided.

  Inspecting the surroundings, he saw that they floated in an ovular cell with no apparent entrance. He felt, as much as heard, a high-pitched whine, so shrill as to be nearly inaudible.

  Barch closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep, forget, ignore… He felt a stirring beside him. Komeitk Lelianr opened her eyes. She was completely matter-of-fact. She felt her head, licked her lips, looked around. Her eyes rested dispassionately on Barch.

  Barch steadied his voice. "Well?"

  "We're in a Klau ship."

  "Where are they taking us? Why haven't they killed us?" Komeitk Lelianr shrugged. "Corpses are valueless. We probably will end up at Magarak."

  "Magarak?"

  "A manufacturing center."

  "But-"

  "We're slaves."

  "Oh." Before Barch's eyes flashed scenes of Earth, like color slides. All this he was leaving. All this he would see no more. In a strained voice he said, "And what is this Magarak like?"

  "Gray. Dank. Cold."

  Barch felt a spasm of rage-toward Komeitk Lelianr, toward the Lekthwans. Why should he suffer in their quarrel? "Why don't the Lekthwans do something about these Klau?"

  Komeitk Lelianr smiled half-contemptuously. "There are three Lekthwan planets, forty-two Klau worlds. There is war between us that perhaps you cannot completely understand -a long-range combat of our moral vitality. In the end we will win. Meanwhile many people suffer." She shrugged. "The universe is not a paradise."

  "No," said Barch. Earth suddenly seemed very small and negligible, a bucolic backwater off to one side of the space-empires. "So then-we spend the rest of our lives on Magarak?"

  She made no answer. Barch glanced desperately around the glowing walls. "Can't we be ransomed, can't we escape?"

  She spoke slowly, as if to a child. "Ransom is inapplicable; there is no medium of exchange between Lekthwa and the Klau. The Klau have energy, raw material, technical skill. Labor is the scarcest commodity of the universe; labor is the Klau wealth."

  "And escape?"

  She shrugged. "Recently a dozen Lenape hid in a false cargo blister, and reached the Maha Triad. If they find a way home to Lenau, the Klau will suffer. If they are recaptured -the Klau will use them to discourage others."

  "The main difficulty seems to be in leaving the planet."

  "Exactly."

  Time passed, perhaps two days. Three times the walls swelled into blisters, bursting with a pop to eject packets of gray mush into the cell.

  Komeitk Lelianr had completely withdrawn into herself. She spoke no words to Barch, ignored the food. Finally Barch pushed himself across to her. "If you don't eat, you'll be weak. You'll get sick."

  She looked at him languidly. "What then?"

  Barch truculently knit his brows. "What's the trouble? Given up?"

  "What is there to give up?"

  "Confidence."

  She said in a soft voice, "We're slaves; slaves have no need for confidence."

  "I'm not a slave until I feel like a slave."

  Something seemed to give way inside of her. Her voice became harsh. "You have no concept of Magarak's reality; you refuse to think; you live by ready-made emotional doctrines-a substitute for thought. What is worse, you try to wrench reality to fit your ideas."

  "I've heard all that before," said Barch evenly. "Sometimes the emotional doctrines work out. Do you know why?"

  "Why?"

  "Because neither you nor I are really pals with reality. We don't know whose emotional doctrine fits. Anyway, whether it's impossible or not, if there's a way out of this Magarak slave camp I'll try to find it-and I'll take you with me if I can.

  She said wearily, "Your ideas are not well-formed. You can't escape Magarak merely because you have the will to escape."

  Barch laughed grimly. "I certainly can't escape without it. Those twelve Lenape got loose."

  "There's a great difference; they are a highly developed race; they have a feeling for the organization of Magarak.

  Also, they were in a position to control the growth of the ship on which they escaped."

  "Growth?"

  "Yes, certainly. Ships are grown, like you Earthers grow cabbages. The Lenapes are experts in the techniques of growth matter; on Lenau they grow their dwellings, their ocean-ships their air-ships. On Lekthwa much the same is true."

  Barch grinned. "That's a point of difference between us. We grow our food and build our space-ships. You grow your ships and build your food."
r />   Komeitk Lelianr said listlessly, "It's easier to grow ships than to build them. When you become proficient in spaceship design you will recognize the advantages."

  "Well, cabbages, space-ships, Lenape aside, there are other ways of escape."

  "How?" She laughed shortly. "You know nothing of Magarak. You cannot imagine it. It's not a matter of killing a guard, jumping a fence and running."

  "I didn't say I'd succeed. I said I'd try."

  She smiled. "Yes. The dynamic thrust of your race."

  Barch looked at her with near-dislike. "Call it anything you want. Maybe when a race gets old like yours, it gets stale, sour."

  "Perhaps." She stretched out her legs, her arms. After a moment she turned her head, looked at him with what seemed new curiosity. "Your optimism is stimulating, in any event."

  Barch grinned. Ages ago, Claude Darran had spoken of Barch's capacity for optimism in different terms.

  As if following his thoughts, Komeitk Lelianr murmured, "What strange life-lines we weave through the cosmic gel. Three days ago…"

  For the first time, Barch saw tears in her eyes.

  Time passed.

  Without warning, the cell burst open. White light dazzled their eyes; there was a wave of sound, a tumble of black shapes. The white light cut off, the walls were whole. The cell suddenly seemed full of ill-smelling flesh.

  Barch pressed back against the wall. There were eight newcomers, six men, two women: squat white creatures with moist bulldog faces. They wore thread-bare gray smocks, leather stockings, shoes like blobs of yellow gum.

  Komeitk Lelianr said tonelessly, "Modoks. I thought it strange the hold was given to us alone."

  Warily Barch watched the sight. Their faces showed no emotion, no expression. There was a hoarse conversation, then dead silence while all of them inspected Barch and Komeitk Lelianr.

  Komeitk Lelianr said with a tinge of interest in her voice, "I would fit them approximately at 14-90, by the Epignotic Cultural Calculation. Notice the cloth of their garments; durable, shaped rather than woven; their shoes, molded permanently to their feet. These must be outdoor serfs, in the service of a Technics Lord."

  Barch made a non-committal sound.

  "Not an uncommon pattern around the universe," she went on in a monotone. "Their lot will change little for better or worse."

  Barch muttered, "I wonder how much longer we'll be in this hold."

  "Are you anxious for Magarak?"

  "No, but I don't like the smell here."

  "You might sometime wish yourself back in this cell."

  "Do you think they'll separate us?"

  "Certainly," she said in a flat voice. "First the slaves are graded at rough intellectual levels; they must pass through a hall filled with traps, pitfalls, obstacles, unpleasant sensations, and the like, which they avoid according to their intelligence. After this first division, the lower grades are classified by physique, agility, dexterity." She looked across the cell. "These serfs will probably go out to the mud-flats along Xolboar Sea, a great reclamation project, which uses up thousands of labor-units a year."

  "And how about us?"

  "A thousand possibilities."

  Barch awoke to a sound of harsh voices. He crouched instinctively, slowly relaxed. Two of the blank-faced serfs were fighting, clawing clumsily at each other's faces. The remaining men and the women watched critically.

  "Disgusting animals," said Komeitk Lelianr.

  One of the contestants suddenly ceased to fight. The other put his legs against the square back, jerked back at the head. The eyes stared up, the neck snapped. There came a sudden raucous babble.

  "What are they fighting about?" Barch asked in bewilderment.

  "Impossible to say."

  "Look!"

  The two women were slapping at the man who had conquered, stolidly without anger. At last he threw up his hands as if in defeat, crossed to a man who had been watching, caught him by the neck, smashed his head against the wall until the skull became like jelly. The women spoke on angrily for a few moments, then appeared to lose interest. No one heeded the limp bodies. There were a few dark glances cast toward Barch and Komeitk Lelianr, one or two monosyllables, then silence.

  Barch said speculatively, "I wonder what would happen…" He looked thoughtfully at Komeitk Lelianr. "Off hand, would you say that these creatures will be well-treated on Magarak?"

  She examined him curiously. "I have no idea. We know very little of Magarak. I assume that they are not as strictly supervised as the technical workers."

  "Suppose the Klau found a body in your clothes and a body in mine…"

  Komeitk Lelianr shuddered. "You want me to wear those clothes?"

  "We have nothing to lose, perhaps something to gain."

  She shook her head. "But I see no reason-"

  "If we get sent out to those mud-flats, we go out together!"

  "Oh," said Komeitk Lelianr in sudden enlightenment. "The dynamic attitude, this tinkering with destiny…"

  "Yes," said Barch grimly. "If I couldn't be doing something, I might as well throw in the sponge. Are you game?"

  She shrugged. "It makes no difference."

  Barch flushed. "If you'd rather go it alone, say so."

  "No, Roy. I don't object to you personally."

  "Thanks," growled Barch.

  She smiled. "Maybe our friends won't like us undressing their dead."

  "We'll soon see…"

  He pushed himself over to the nearest body, and with a challenging survey of the six white faces, began to jerk the gray garment loose.

  There was an undertone of muttering. Black eyes became beady and thoughtful. No one stirred. Underneath the jacket was a skin-tight coverall of matted fiber. "This is the smallest," said Barch. "Let's have your clothes."

  Komeitk Lelianr slipped out of the white and black harlequin costume, climbed gingerly into the black smock.

  Barch stripped the second corpse down to the gray matted undersuit, pulled off his coat and trousers. Closing his nostrils to the sour odor of the garment, he pulled it over his head.

  There was motion along the wall. Barch looked up sharply. One of the men was feeling the material of his coat. My good gray flannel, thought Barch. He jerked it away, started to pull it on the corpse.

  Now there were mutters. The older of the women made a furious babbling sound; the other made a gesture with stiff fingers against her lips. Barch ignored the noise, buttoned the coat, began to pull the legs into the trousers. The legs were too short; the cuffs dragged ridiculously over the yellow blobs of wax or resin that covered the dead man's feet.

  From the corner of his eye Barch saw Komeitk Lelianr deftly thrusting the second body into her black and white costume. He turned, critically inspected her gleaming silver hair. "You don't make a very good peasant."

  He looked around the cell. One of the Modoks wore a loose conical cap. Barch pushed himself forward, reached out, took the cap. The man half-heartedly clutched for the cap, then backed away, eyes staring with frantic alarm.

  The women babbled in approval.

  Barch yanked the cap down on Komeitk Lelianr's hair. "There," he said, inspecting her, "that's a little better." He turned to look at their cellmates. "They're certainly an odd-acting bunch."

  "It's all relative," said Komeitk Lelianr. "They undoubtedly think the same of us."

  Barch looked down at his shoes, at Komeitk Lelianr's sandals. "Do you think we'll pass?"

  "I couldn't say."

  The ship shivered; they heard deep clanking sounds, like an anchor-chain running down a hawse-pipe. "What's that?"

  "I don't know. Perhaps we have arrived."

  "If so, we didn't get changed any too soon."

  The ship jarred; the red glow in the wall pulsed bright and dim. A moment later the cell burst open. Gravity seized at the ten bodies-eight living, two dead. They slid down the cell wall, together with all the accumulated litter, trash and refuse, down to a smooth chute. Fresh air was cold o
n their faces; sound roared at their ears.

  Barch's eyes smarted under the sudden light, his legs felt limp at the knees. "Ellen!" he cried. "Ellen, where are you?"

  Blinking, he looked around him. They stood in a fenced enclosure, like a cattle pen. Komeitk Lelianr was a few feet distant, holding to her cap, which the original owner was attempting to reclaim. Barch staggered over, struck the man with his fist.

  Something stung at his back, burning like fire; he turned, snarling. Above him, on a ramp, stood a tremendous man with blood-red skin. Black spikes of hair extended like quills on all sides of his head. He had eyes with red four-starred centers, like the Klau, and he carried a tube with a flickering serpent of light darting up, down, in, out.

  He roared at Barch in a voice like a brass horn, flourished the flail. A disturbance in the adjoining pen attracted his attention. He pounded down the ramp. The flickering light-snake curled out. Barch heard a sharp cry.

  He gained Komeitk Lelianr's side, dazed and angry, shook his head as if to clear it of confusion, glowered up at the trumpeting red whip-wielders.

  Directly overhead a hatch opened; a stream of bodies plummeted at him. He jumped aside, pushed Komeitk Lelianr against the fence, away from the milling center of the pen, and here he caught his breath.

  The ship continued to discharge. Men and women tumbled, slid, spewed from orifices under the ship, their fall broken by the bawling bodies below.

  Past the great hulk, Barch glimpsed the shapes of the two other ships. Beyond rose the facade of a building a mile high, the roof-line blurred in fog. There was a steady roar in the air, like the sound of surf; a smell of mud, rust and ammonia hung across the pens.

  Komeitk Lelianr said coolly in his ear, "We're part of a not-too-valuable cargo. We'll be worked very hard; we'll die very quickly."

  He looked at her truculently. "You sound as if you don't care."

  "I know what to expect. This is Magarak."

  Barch said, "Personally, I'm scared stiff."

  She shrugged. "Adjust yourself; your fear will pass."

  Barch glared. "Adjust myself be damned! I'm almost afraid that I won't be able to make these devils regret the day they saw me!"

  She glanced up to the top of the ramp. "The Podruods will soon curse you of that."