Slaves of The Klau

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 ru

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 ca

"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. There 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 ca

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 ru