Slaves of The Klau

by Jack Vance

  Barch looked down at him in disgust. Blood raced through his body. He felt strong. His voice came out harsh and deep. "Maybe you want to live in a cave all your life like an animal!"

  Clet's eyes gleamed under the black eyebrows; he seemed to be listening not to Barch so much as to an inner secret voice.

  "There's ways of leaving Magarak, if we'd work together."

  Clet grunted contemptuously, turned back to his bone. "Now comes the crazy talk."

  Barch was taken aback. "Crazy talk?"

  Clet's big white teeth glittered in a grin. He flourished the bone toward Komeitk Lelianr. "She told me much about you," he said. "You are a crazy man; you would fly through the space like a magician." His voice rose, his eyes glittered. "Now, no more crazy talk; this is Palkwarkz Ztvo, I am Clet."

  Barch slowly went to the mouth of the cave, took his bow and quiver of arrows.

  "Ho!" Clet called gruffly. "Where do you go?"

  "None of your damn business."

  From back in the cave came the sudden scrape of the bench; Barch saw Clet reaching for his own bow. He ducked out the cave mouth, ran across the open space. He glimpsed Clet standing in the crevice like a heroic statue of Mars: bow bent, arrow tense with imminent mission. Barch flung himself to the ground; the arrow sang over his head. He rose, dodged into the trees where he pulled an arrow into bis own bow, waited, pale and shaking.

  After a careless survey of the valley, Clet returned inside the cave.

  Barch walked morosely down-slope under the flapping fronds. An inglorious exit, he thought. He stopped, looked back toward the cave. He recalled the first time he had seen Komeitk Lelianr, stepping jauntily from the circus-striped space-ball. If she had noticed him at all, it had been as part of the local scene, a native. He felt a sudden glimmer of insight into her mind. Poor devil, thought Barch, she even found Earth food revolting… Well, that was all water under the bridge. And now what? Probably, after Clet's temper had run its course, he could return to the cave. And so the years would pass, while he grew older and his fire died out.

  No, said Barch, not if he died today under the Klau raft. He turned, ran at a half-trot to the notch at the valley mouth. He climbed the left-hand slope, settled himself at the narrowest spot.

  Time passed. Wind blew chill down the valley, a rim of black clouds loomed past Mount Kebali. A drop touched his nose; only one. The rain hung off in indecision. A poor day to expect the Klau.

  Then he heard the scrape of boots, the soft clang of Podruod voices. Barch tingled with primeval emotion. He sat up straighter, eased his muscles.

  Eight Podruods came trotting into the valley, light as dancers in their black boots. Cuirasses covered their chests, black hair-spikes vibrated with each step. A cushioned raft followed, floating three feet off the ground. A young Klau in maroon harness sat fingering a pair of weapons on a rack. He halted the raft, glanced easily around the valley. Barch glimpsed the blood-red stars in his eyes.

  The Klau touched controls with his feet, jumped to the ground, stretched. Negligently he conferred with the Podruod sergeant, studied the contours of the valley, pointed.

  Six Podruods moved quietly off into the black fronds. Two remained behind, squatting a little distance up the valley.

  The Klau languidly took up one of his weapons-it looked much like a long-barreled automatic, thought Barch- and balanced it in his hand.

  Barch eased himself into position. He stretched the bow… Now! The arrow hummed down, plunged into the back of the black head.

  Barch crashed down the slope, sprang to the raft, reached across the black body, seized the weapons.

  The Podruods said, "Oh!"-a soft hiss of outrage and horror.

  Barch aimed, pressed the trigger. Nothing. The Podruods loped forward, mouths open in contortions of great rage. Barch clawed a lever, perhaps a safety lock. He pressed the trigger; the first sprawled on his face. Barch pressed again; the second fell.

  Barch listened. Silence except for the murmur of the river, a distant sound of snapping foliage. Now what? He seized the Klau's maroon harness, dragged the body into the undergrowth. He turned to the raft, seated himself; it bounced like a boat under his weight. He put his feet into the controls, experimented.

  The raft shook, dodged back and forth, rose up on an alarming slant. Barch pulled away his feet; the raft sank slowly. Once more he tried and presently brought the raft back to the mouth of the valley.

  He jumped to the ground, inspected the horrid black bundle under the raft. He took a knife from one of the Podruods, cut at the two bands which held the thing against the raft. It fell to the ground with a sodden spongy sound. Barch gave it a cautious kick, rolled it over, down into the river, where it expanded, opened, lay flaccid.

  The next problem was how to deal with the six Podruods still in the valley. He rode the raft up the wall of the notch, settled where he had kept his original vigil. He waited an hour with complete patience. The wind had lost its bite, the sky was high and mild.

  A quarter mile up the valley he saw the Podruods, apparently confused by the Klau's ineptitude. Barch laughed quietly. A few minutes later they came diffidently along the valley floor. At the Podruod corpses, they stopped in great puzzlement, looking in all directions. Barch aimed, fired swiftly six times. Six men fell as if playing a nursery game.

  Barch descended, dragged the bodies into the foliage. The next hunting party might or might not notice the odor of carrion; at the moment Barch did not care especially.

  He climbed aboard the raft, flew low over the treetops up the valley. A hundred yards from the cave he moored the raft, jumped to the ground. Cautiously he approached the crevice. One of the Modok women, fetching water, looked up without interest. Barch nodded to Kerbol who sat outside scraping at a bow, entered the cave.

  Clet looked negligently from the table. "Here is the crazy man, back from his hunting." He put his big red hands flat on the table, started to rise.

  Barch lifted the gun, pressed the trigger. Clet fell forward. Tough on Clet.

  Women were screaming in surprise and terror; Flatface bellowed in outrage; after a quick look the Modoks darted white-faced from the hall. Barch said in a voice as casual as he could contrive, "Call everybody in here. I'm running this outfit now and I've got something to say."

  The cave gradually filled with whispering figures. Barch sat on the table, with his feet on the bench. He looked around the cave. Thirty-two in the tribe with Clet and Skurr dead.

  He considered what he had to say-a problem in polemics that would daunt anyone. Thirteen different races, thirty-one different brains; thirteen basic mental patterns, thirty-one sub-varieties. An idea which aroused one would leave another indifferent.

  "One thing is important," he began. "I did not kill Clet because I hated him. Clet is dead because he was stupid. Clet had to die because he had the mind of a slave. Under Clet you slunk around the hills like animals. The Klau came each week; each week someone was hunted along the valley and killed. In not too many weeks everyone here might expect to be hunted to death."

  "Now, there will be a difference. We are no longer slaves; we are men. When the Podruods come into the valley we will kill them. There is no need to run. We have bows, we have arrows, we will kill."

  "Hah!" The exhalation came from one of the Griffits, who stood twirling his little whiskers.

  "But this is only incidental. The main thing is escape. I want to leave Magarak. I want to return home. You others, do you wish for your homes?"

  There was a mutter of low voices.

  Kerbol rumbled stolidly, "You speak wild words. We cannot fly space like moon-dragons."

  "There is no way," bawled Flatface.

  "Both of you are wrong," said Barch politely. "A few months ago a dozen Lenape escaped. There are a hundred ways. This is my idea." He paused. There was complete silence. "We will steal a barge, build an air-tight compartment upon it. We will load on food and stores, and leave Magarak behind us. The plan is as simple as that. T
here are difficulties; they must be overcome. The plan is not impossible. We have nothing to lose; are we not already condemned to death by the Klau?

  "When we leave Magarak, we will fly for the nearest friendly planet. We will be a long time in space; eventually we will arrive. But from the moment we leave Magarak, we are no longer slaves, or fugitives; we are space-travelers. And when we arrive, we will be heroes, and we will have much to tell our friends and our families."

  Once more he looked around the circle of faces. How could they help but alight to his enthusiasm? They must be as eager as he to leave Magarak.

  Chevrr, the hatchet-faced Splang, snapped, "Talk is easy. Where will we find materials and tools?"

  Barch laughed. "Those are the problems which lie ahead of us. There will be many problems; there will be much work and danger. But if things go well, we will win. What do we have to lose? By acting instead of existing, we stop being animals; we become men."

  "Where can we work on such a barge?" came Kerbol's bass rumble. "It will be seen from the air. The Klau will land a crew and fly it away."

  "One place I know of," said Barch, "is Big Hole. The outside wall is a shell; light comes in through fissures. We will break an opening, slide the barge through, then pile rocks back up. Now what do you say? I cannot build a spaceship alone; are you with me?"

  Looking around the faces, he saw passivity, confusion, stupidity. He also saw, here and there, glimmerings of hope, imagination, enthusiasm.

  Kerbol rumbled, "It is worth trying. We lose nothing. We will try."

  "Good," said Barch with a tight smile. "I see you are all with me. But in case"-he looked casually down at the sprawled red body of Clet-"any others think like Clet, now they should speak."

  No one spoke.

  "Excellent," said Barch with a rather broader smile. He jumped down to the floor. "First things first. Before we liberate a barge we need a place to hide it."

  He took up a lamp, climbed the passage into Big Hole. The tribe hesitated, then one by one followed.

  Damp gray walls glistened in the yellow light; shadows sagged and danced. Where the passage came up from the hall, the floor was almost level in an area a hundred feet square. Ridges of agate jutted up at the opposite end, where the wall was thin.

  Barch crossed to the far wall, climbed up the loose detritus. "Here is where we'll open out. Quite a job but it's got to be done."

  Kerbol grunted. "With a few cans of abiloid I could blast a hole as easy as husking a nut."

  Barch considered him thoughtfully. "You worked at the stone quarry over the hill. Do you know where they keep the explosives?" Kerbol grunted.

  "Tonight," said Barch, "you and I will visit the stone quarry"

  Night had filled Palkwarkz Ztvo for two hours when Barch and Kerbol climbed aboard the Klau raft. Mist blew on their faces as the raft rose; the mountainside below was featureless as crumpled black cloth, except for a single spark of light, winking on the flat before the cave.

  Kerbol touched Barch's arm. "Over there, up over Mount Kebali; then down."

  Barch nodded. Mount Kebali loomed ahead like an underwater reef, and down on the slope appeared a lonesome cluster of lights. Far beyond lay the luminous blur that was Quodaras District.

  "Kerbol," said Barch to the dark shape behind him, "in this project we've got to trust each other like brothers-and also take sensible precautions. What, in your opinion, are the chances of someone in the tribe betraying us to the Klau?"

  Kerbol made a rumbling sound. "The chances are nonexistent. The traitor would gain nothing. The Klau would not take such a crazy tale seriously; the tale-bearer would be sent to the arsenic mines as an escaped slave. True," he went on, "there are some with small urge to leave Palkwarkz Ztvo; life on their home worlds is no better. On the other hand, some highly-ranked planets are represented in the tribe-my own, Perdu, Calbys, Koethena, Lekthwa." He paused. Barch said nothing.

  Kerbol spoke on, "I will be glad to see my home village; it lies in the plain of Sponis, which is blue with turf and runner lichen, and there runs the river Erth."

  "Earth?" said Barch. "That is the name of my planet."

  "Earth?" Kerbol rolled the word on his tongue. "I have never heard of it." He ruminated a moment. "You must be wild and fanciful dreamers on Earth. I have slaved twelve years on Magarak, lived a free man in Palkwarkz Ztvo for two; never have I known anything so daring."

  "It seems to me the first thing a man would think of."

  The lights of the stone quarry shifted, spread slowly apart like the opening of a marvelous bright night-flower. Barch looked down at the quarry. "They must work all night."

  "The quotas are hard; much stone goes for ocean reclamation. Notice," Kerbol pointed, "that north face is next on schedule; they drill now for blasting. And there"-once more he pointed-"is the explosive's depot. The barge comes loaded, slides into the depot; empty, it slides out, and in slides a new load."

  "And what precautions are taken?"

  Kerbol shrugged. "First, an electrified fence which we will fly over. If there are alarm lines, we will avoid them also. Inside the warehouse will be a few Podruods, gaming or asleep, and Bornghaleze dispatchers who load orders onto an outgoing belt."

  "We'll take them as they come."

  The raft dropped, the quarry lights expanded. Ticking of hammers, intermittent grate of machinery came loud across the damp night. Bright blue points of fire showed where torches melted blast-pockets into rock. On the roof of the warehouse were outlined four dull squares of light-ventilation cupolas.

  Barch lowered the raft to the roof, stepped off, walked carefully to a cupola. He eased his head into the light, looked down. He felt a tread behind him: Kerbol. Barch said, "There's nothing here; The place is clean, empty."

  Kerbol bent his head. "True," he muttered. "There's not even a sack of blow powder." He straightened, looked at the rock face a half-mile away, then bent his head over the ventilator again. "Even the barge is gone."

  Barch eyed the sky. "How soon will new supplies get here?"

  Kerbol shrugged. "Tomorrow, tonight…"

  "Look," said Barch, "those red lights."

  "That's the new load."

  "Come on," said Barch. He sprinted to the raft. "What now?" asked Kerbol, as Barch swung the raft into the air.

  "Maybe we'll get more done tonight than we bargained for." He pushed the speed pedal down hard, swept out wide, circled, approached the barge from the stern. "Where's the pilot?"

  Kerbol pointed. "In the dome at the prow."

  "Be ready with your gun." He skimmed in over the barge, dropped to the deck. "I'll take the pilot, you handle the rest of the ship." He ran stealthily forward; the pilot was a sharp-featured silhouette, eyes on the lighted rectangle of the warehouse. Barch wrenched open the door to the dome.

  "Take the barge up-quick!" He pointed the gun. The pilot, a beady-eyed little man with a thin, dark face cast a startled look over his shoulder. Barch said, "Quick-up!"

  The pilot turned reluctantly to the controls. "I must follow my schedule, or the dispatcher will-"

  "You're a dead man," growled Barch, "unless we're moving up right now!" He jabbed hard with the gun barrel. "Up!"

  "We're going up!" said the pilot peevishly.

  "Faster!" Barch looked over the side. "Now, back the way you came."

  The barge swept away from the quarry. "Now-out with those side lights," said Barch.

  "I'm not allowed to," protested the pilot. "It's punishable offense."

  Barch grinned, tapped him on the back of the skull with the gun barrel. "Out with the lights!" He looked quickly over his shoulder. "Any crew aboard?"

  "No crew. I load at Phrax District chemical complex, discharge at the warehouse."

  "What's your cargo?"

  "Explosives, general supplies."

  Barch heard footsteps: Kerbol looked in.

  "All in order?"

  "Nobody aboard."

  "Good." Barch backed out of the dome, motio
ned Kerbol in. "You steer him; you know the lay of the land."

  Barch went over by the edge of the barge, looked out into the darkness. Step one. Achievement. He felt the bulwark-cold hard metal, the same hard metal which one day would lift him clear of Magarak out into great space.

  CHAPTER VII

  The barge slid up the slopes of Mount Kebali. The sounds of the quarry faded; the lights contracted to a tight cluster. The sea of trembling luminescence, the factories, furnaces, mills and yards of Quodaras District now lay astern.

  Barch circled the catwalk, looked into the dome. "Faster!" The barge lurched under his feet; he staggered back into the cargo. The craft has quite a power plant, he thought-all to the good if they reached space.

  Moisture suddenly sprayed his face; they were driving through fine rain. He stumbled up into the lee of the dome.

  The rain stopped, the barge broke out of the mist into a biting wind. Palkwarkz Ztvo lay below, a dark wilderness. Barch strained his eyes for the wan flicker of light. Like a faint star at the horizon, it eluded him. He put his head into the dome, asked Kerbol, "Can you see our light?"

  Kerbol pointed. "There." He nudged the pilot. "Land beside that light."

  "Impossible," muttered the pilot. "We are over Palkwarkz Ztvo-wild-man country. They'll put us in their pots."

  "No, they won't," said Barch. "Land beside the light."

  The barge sank. Blackness reached up past them; there was a crash, a snapping of foliage. The raft reached ground.

  Barch looked warily out into the darkness. All was quiet. He turned to the pilot. "Get out."

  The pilot hesitated, clinging to the protection of his dome. "What are you going to do with me?"

  "Nothing."

  The pilot jumped, made a quick dash for the underbrush. Barch tackled him around the knees; both fell into the soggy humus. Barch rose, seized the man by the collar of his jacket, marched him back past the barge, up the slope. Kerbol came after like a stealthy gray bear.

  Barch entered the hall with the pilot. The entire tribe was huddled around the great table talking heatedly; Barch stood watching the play of firelight on the un-Earthly features.