by John Norman
I learned from conversation in the headquarters room that not many of the humans who fought with Misk's forces had responded to the blandishments of Sarm, though some, like Vika of Treve, had deserted to cast their fortune with what appeared to be the winning side. From what I could gather, only a handful of humans, some men, some women, had actually crossed the lines and taken service with Sarm.
Sarm, one day, brought down from the Halls of the Priest-Kings above, all the humans who were quartered there, mostly Chamber Slaves, to aid his cause. The latter, of course, terrified, bewildered, would be of little service themselves, but they were offered as inducements to the males of Misk's forces to encourage their desertion; the girls were, so to speak, a bounty for treachery, and since the beauty of Chamber Slaves was well known in the Nest, I supposed they might well prove quite effective in this role; yet, somewhat to my surprise and pleasure, no more than a half dozen or so men came forth to claim these lovely prizes. As the War continued I became more and more impressed with the loyalty and courage of the men and women serving Misk, who for a bit of fungus and water and freedom were willing to sell their lives in one of the strangest conflicts ever fought by men, boldly serving one of the most unusual causes that had ever asked for the allegiance of the human kind.
Vika would come to torment me each day but no longer was she permitted to whip me.
I supposed that there was reason for her hatred of me but still I wondered at its depth and fury.
She was later given charge of my feeding and she seemed to enjoy throwing me scraps of fungus or watching me lap at the water in the pan she placed on the disk. I ate because I wished to keep what I could of my strength, for I might have need of it again.
Sarm, who was normally in the room, seemed to take great pleasure in Vika's baiting me, for he would stand by, antennae curling, as she would insult me, taunt me, sometimes strike me with her small fist. He apparently became rather fond of the new female Mul and, upon occasion, he would order her to groom him in my presence, a task which she seemed to enjoy.
"What a piteous thing you are," she said to me, "and how golden and strong and brave and fine is a Priest-King!"
And Sarm would extend his antennae down to her that she might delicately brush the small golden hairs which adorned them.
For some reason Vika's attentions to Sarm irritated me and undoubtedly I failed to conceal this sufficiently because Sarm often required this task of her in my presence and, I noted with fury, she seemed invariably delighted to comply with his request.
Once I called angrily to her. "Pet Mul!"
"Silence, Slave," she responded haughtily. Then she looked at me and laughed merrily. "For that," she said, "you will go hungry tonight!"
I remembered, smiling to myself, how when I was master I had once, to discipline her, refused her food one night. Now it was I who would go hungry, but I told myself, it was worth it. Let her think over that, I said to myself, think over that—Vika of Treve—Pet Mul!
I found myself wanting to take her body in my arms and shatter it to my breast, forcing back her head, taking her lips in the kiss of a master as though I once more owned her.
I shook these thoughts from my head.
Meanwhile, slowly, incredibly, the War in the Nest began to turn against Sarm. The most remarkable event was a delegation of Sarm's Priest-Kings, led by Kusk himself, who surrendered to Misk, pledging themselves to his cause. This transfer of allegiance was apparently the result of long discussion and consideration by the group of Priest-Kings who had followed Sarm because he was First Born, but had at many points objected to his conduct of the War, in particular to his treatment of the Muls, his use of the gravitational disruption devices, his attempt to spread disease in the Nest and last, his, to a Priest-King's thinking, hideous recourse to the Golden Beetles. Kusk and his delegation went over to Misk while the fighting still hung in stalemate and there was no question, at that time, of their decision being motivated by considerations of personal interest. Indeed, at that time, it seemed they had, almost unaccountably, for reasons of principle, joined a cause which was in all probability a lost one. But not long after this took place other Priest-Kings, startled by the decision of Kusk, began to speak of ending the War, and some others too began to cross the lines. Growing more desperate, Sarm rallied his forces and armored six dozen transportation disks and swept into Misk's domain. Apparently Misk's forces were waiting for them, as might have been expected given the superior intelligence afforded by the numerous humans in Misk's camp and the disks were stopped by barricades and withered in the intense fire from nearby rooftops. Only four disks returned.
It now became clear that Sarm was on the defensive, for I heard orders being issued to block the tunnels leading into the areas of the Nest he controlled. Once I heard the hiss of silver tubes not more than a few hundred yards away. I struggled, enraged, against the chains and collar that held me a helpless prisoner while the issues of the day were being decided by fire in the streets outside.
Then there came a calm in the War and I gathered that Misk's forces had been driven back.
My rations of Mul-Fungus had been cut by two-thirds since I had been captured. And I noted that some of Sarm's Priest-Kings were less golden than I had known them, having now a slightly brownish cast on the thorax and abdomen, signs I knew to be associated with thirst.
I think it was only now that the absence of the supplies captured or destroyed by the Fungus Growers and Herdsmen had begun to make itself keenly felt.
At last Sarm made clear to me why I had been kept alive, why I had not been destroyed long ago.
"It is said that there is Nest Trust between you and Misk," he said. "Now we will see if that is truly so."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"If there is Nest Trust between you," said Sarm, his antennae curling, "Misk will be ready to die for you."
"I don't understand," I said.
"His life for yours," said Sarm.
"Never," I said.
"No," cried Vika, who had been standing in the background, "he is mine!"
"Do not fear, Little Mul," said Sarm. "We will have Misk's life and you will still have your slave."
"Sarm is treacherous," I said.
"Sarm is a Priest-King," he said.
31
Sarm's Revenge
The place of meeting was arranged.
It lay in one of the plazas in the area controlled by the forces of Sarm.
Misk was to come alone to the plaza, to be met by myself and Sarm. No one was to bear arms. Misk would surrender himself to Sarm and I, theoretically, would then be allowed to go free.
But I knew that Sarm had no intention of keeping his part of the bargain, and that he intended to slay Misk, destroying hopefully thereby the effective leadership of the opposition, and then either keep me as a slave for Vika or, more likely, killing me as well, even though that might disappoint the expectations of vengeance nourished in the bosom of his pet Mul.
When I was unchained I was informed by Sarm that the small box he carried activated my control net and at the first sign of disobedience or difficulty he would simply raise the power level—literally boiling my brain away.
I said that I understood.
I wondered what Sarm would say if he knew that Parp and Kusk had not actually implanted me.
In spite of the agreement about arms, Sarm hung from the back of his translator strap, invisible from the front, a silver tube.
To my surprise his pet Mul, Vika of Treve, demanded to accompany her golden master. I supposed that she feared he might slay me, thus depriving her of her revenge for which she had waited so long. He would have refused her, but she pleaded so earnestly that at last he agreed that she might accompany us. "I wish to see my Master triumph!" she begged, and that argument seemed to sway golden Sarm, and Vika found herself a member of our party.
I myself was forced to walk perhaps a dozen paces in front of Sarm, who held his grasping appendage near the contr
ol box which would, he supposed, activate the golden net he believed to be fused into the tissues of my brain. Vika walked at his side.
At last I saw, far across the plaza, the slowly stalking figure of Misk.
How tender I felt toward the golden giant in that moment as I realized that he, though a Priest-King, had come to give his life for mine, simply because we had once locked antennae, simply because we were friends, simply because there was Nest Trust between us.
He stopped and we stopped.
And then we began to walk slowly towards one another again across the square tiles of that plaza in the secret Nest of Priest-Kings.
When he was still out of range of the silver tube of Sarm but close enough, I hoped, to be able to hear me, I ran forward, throwing my hands high. "Go back!" I cried. "It is a trick! Go back!"
Misk stopped in his tracks.
I heard Sarm's translator behind me. "You will die for that, Mul," it said.
I turned and I saw Sarm, his entire golden bladelike form convulsed with rage. Two of the tiny hooklike appendages on his foreleg spun the power dial on the control box. "Die, Mul," said Sarm.
But I stood calmly before him.
It took Sarm but an instant to realize he had been tricked and he hurled the box from him and it shattered on the tiles of the plaza.
I stood ready now to receive the blast of Sarm's silver tube which he had whipped from its place of concealment and trained on my breast.
"Very well," said Sarm, "let it be the silver tube."
I tensed myself for the sudden burst of fire, that incandescent torrent that would burst and burn the flesh from my bones.
The firing switch was depressed and I heard the soft click but the tube failed to fire. Once again, desperately, Sarm pressed the firing switch.
"It does not fire!" came from Sarm's translator and his entire frame was startled, shaken with incomprehension.
"No," cried Vika, "I discharged it this morning!" The girl ran to my side in a swirl of many-colored silks and from beneath the Robes of Concealment she withdrew my sword and kneeling at my side lowered her head and placed it in my hand. "Cabot my Master!" she cried.
I took the blade.
"Rise," I said, "Vika of Treve—you are now a free woman."
"I do not understand," came from Sarm's translator.
"I came to see my Master triumph!" cried Vika of Treve, her voice thrilled with emotion.
Gently I thrust the girl to one side.
"I do not understand," came from Sarm's translator.
"That is how you have lost," I said.
Sarm hurled the silver tube at my head and I ducked and heard it clatter across the tiles of the plaza for perhaps a hundred yards.
Then to my amazement Sarm turned and though I was but a human he fled from the plaza.
Vika was in my arms weeping.
In a moment we were joined by Misk.
* * * *
The War was at an end.
Sarm had disappeared and with his disappearance, and presumed death, the opposition to Misk evaporated, for it had been held together only by the dominance of Sarm's mighty personality and the prestige that was his in virtue of being First Born.
The Priest-Kings who had served him had, on the whole at least, believed that what they were doing was required by the laws of the Nest, but now with Sarm's disappearance Misk, though only Fifth Born, acceded to the title of highest born, and it was to him now, according to the same laws of the Nest, that their allegiance was now owed.
There was a greater problem as to what to do with the former Muls who had deserted to join the forces of Sarm, for the blandishments he had offered, and because they had thought that his side was the one which was winning. I was pleased to see that there were only about seventy-five or eighty wretches in this latter category. About two-thirds of them were men, and the rest women. None of them, interestingly enough, were Gur Carriers, or from the Fungus Chambers or the Pastures.
Al-Ka and Ba-Ta arrived with two prisoners, female Muls, frightened, sullen girls, lovely, clad now only in brief, sleeveless plastic, who knelt at their feet. They were joined together by a length of chain that had been, by means of two padlocks, fastened about their throats. Their wrists were secured behind their backs by slave bracelets.
"Deserters," said Al-Ka.
"Where now," asked Ba-Ta of the girls, "is your gold, your jewelry and silks?"
Sullenly they looked down.
"Do we kill them now?" asked Al-Ka.
The girls looked at one another and trembled in fear.
I looked at Al-Ka and Ba-Ta rather closely.
They winked at me. I winked back at them. I perceived their plan. I could see that neither of them had the least intention of injuring one of the lovely creatures in their power.
"If you wish—" I said.
A cry of fear escaped the girls.
"Please don't!" said one, looking up, pleading, and the other pressed her head to the floor at Ba-Ta's feet.
Al-Ka regarded them. "This one," he said, "has strong legs."
Ba-Ta regarded the other. "This one," he said, "seems healthy."
"Do you wish to live?" asked Al-Ka of the first girl.
"Yes!" she said.
"Very well," said Al-Ka, "you will do so—as my slave."
"—Master!" said the girl.
"And you?" asked Ba-Ta sternly of the second girl.
Without raising her head she said, "I am your slave girl, Master."
"Look up," commanded Al-Ka, and both of the girls lifted their heads trembling.
Then to my surprise Al-Ka and Ba-Ta, from their pouches, produced golden collars, only too obviously prepared in advance. There were two heavy, short clicks and the lovely throats of the two girls were encircled. I gathered it was the only gold they would see for some time. On one collar there was engraved "Al-Ka" and on the other "Ba-Ta."
Then Al-Ka unlocked the throat chain worn by the female Muls and he went off in one direction and Ba-Ta in the other. No longer did it seem the two former Muls were inseparable. Each departed, followed by his girl, her wrists still bound behind her back.
"And what," laughed Vika of Treve, "is to be my fate?"
"You are free," I reminded her.
"But my fate?" she asked, smiling at me.
I laughed. "It is similar to that of the others," I said, and swept her from her feet and carried her, Robes of Concealment swirling, from the room.
* * * *
Misk and I had been trying to decide, for the past five days, how to organize the Nest in the wake of the War. The simplest matters had to do with restoring its services and its capacity to sustain both Priest-Kings and humans. The more difficult matters had to do with the political arrangements that would allow these two diverse species to inhabit peaceably and prosperously the same dwelling. Misk was quite ready, as I was afraid he might not be, to allow humans a voice in affairs of the Nest and, moreover, to arrange for the return to their cities of those humans who did not wish to remain in the Nest.
We were considering these matters when suddenly the entire floor of the compartment in which we sat seemed to buckle and break apart. At the same time two walls shattered and fell crumbling in rubble to the floor. Misk covered my body with his own and then with his great strength, reared up, stones falling from his back like water from the body of a swimmer.
The entire Nest seemed to shiver.
"An earthquake!" I cried.
"Sarm is not dead," said Misk. Dusty, covered with whitish powder, he looked about himself disbelievingly at the ruins. In the distance we could hear the domed side of a complex begin to crumble, raining down huge blocks of stone on the buildings beneath. "He is going to destroy the Nest," said Misk. "He is going to break apart the planet."
"Where is he?" I demanded.
"The Power Plant," said Misk.
I climbed over the fallen stones and ran from the room and leaped on the first transportation disk I could find. Though the pat
h it had to travel was broken and littered the cushion of gas on which the disk flowed lifted the vehicle cleanly, though bucking and tilting, over the debris.
In a few moments, though the disk was damaged by falling stone and I could barely see through the powdery drifts of rock hanging in the collapsing tunnels, I had come to the Power Plant and leaped from the disk and raced to its doors. They were locked but it was only a moment's work to find the nearby ventilator shaft and wrench away the screen. In less than a minute I had kicked open another grille and dropped inside the great domed room of the Power Plant. I saw no sign of Sarm. I myself would not know how to repair his damage so I went to the doors of the chamber, which were locked on the inside, and thrust up the latching mechanism. I swung them open. Now Misk and his engineers would be able to enter the room. I had scarcely thrust up the latch when a burst of fire from a silver tube scorched the door over my head. I looked up to see Sarm on that narrow passage that traced its precarious way around the great blue dome that covered the power source. Another flash of fire burned near me, leaving a rupture of molten marble in the floor not five feet from where I stood. Running irregularly, dodging bursts of fire, I ran to the side of the dome where Sarm, from his position somewhere above, would not be likely to be able to reach me with his fire.
Then I saw him through the sides of the blue dome that covered the power source, far above, a golden figure on the narrow walkway at the crest of the dome. He fired at me, burning a hole in the dome near him, exposing the power source, and the same flashing burst of fire tore at the area of the dome behind which I stood. The burst had spent itself and only managed to scorch the dome, but the next, fired through the hole already made above, might do more damage, so I changed my position. Then Sarm seemed to lose interest in me, perhaps thinking I had been slain, more likely to conserve the charge in the silver tube for more important matters, for he then began, methodically, to fire at the paneling across from the dome, destroying one area after another. As he was doing this the entire Nest seemed to shift and the planet convulsed, and fire spurted from the paneling. Then he fired a burst directly down into the power source and it began to rumble and throw geysers of purple fire up almost to the hole which Sarm had burned in the globe. To one side, though I scarcely noticed it at the time, I saw a vague, domelike golden shape, one of the Beetles which, undoubtedly confused and terrified, had crept into the room of the Power Plant from the tunnel outside, through the door I had opened for Misk and his Priest-Kings. Where were they? I surmised the tunnels might have collapsed and they were even now trying to cut their way through to the Chamber of the Power Plant.
