Slaves of The Klau

"What if there was freight for a strange location?"

"There is always the locator in the dome."

"Locator?" Barch pricked up his ears. "A chart?"

Tick said with airy superiority, as if he himself had designed the mechanism, "No, no. Much more complicated and complete. It's a three-dimensional view-box, indexed to all parts of Magarak."

"Let's look at this locator."

Tick spoke volubly as they climbed the winding passage to Big Hole. "… a good barge, a fine sleek barge, freshly fueled, and why? Because I, Tick, have done favors for Goleimpas Gstad, dispatcher for Quodaras Thirteen: a Bornghaleze, very influential. 'Tick,' says Gstad, 'the range of the hangar is yours; select a barge which reflects your own excellence.' So daily I watch the route strip and only two days past comes a barge fresh from the growth vats-"

"Growth vats? Do they grow the barges, too?"

"Indeed." Tick turned Barch a look of surprise. "Do you not grow ships and vessels on your planet?"

"No," said Barch. "We use different methods."

"If you arrive home, as I confidently expect, you will be a great i

Barch stopped, impressed by the magnitude of his acquisition. "How do you refuel the barge?"

Tick made a disdainful gesture. "I am the pilot. I am never concerned with such matters… However, the accr is inserted in the hatch under the dome."

"How much? How often?"

Tick blocked a rectangle six by three inches in the air. "Once a month perhaps, a new charge is inserted."

Fuel shortage would be no problem, thought Barch. Accr was evidently an atomic fuel, compressed electricity, solidified radiation. It made no real difference as long as he could lay his hands on enough of it.

Tick sprang nimbly into the dome. Barch thought with grim humor that if Tick ever made it into the trees, he'd be a hard man to catch. He followed more sedately. Tick was peering with interest into a glowing slit, a trifle to the left of the seat. "Ha, hm."

Barch waited impatiently. "Well?"

"Quodaras Thirteen is very active; I was watching the traffic."

"Let's see." Barch pressed Tick out of the way, looked inside the slit.

His first impression was of looking at a glowing abstract painting. There were pink blocks, orange squares, feathery light-blue towers. Black lines webbed the pattern; almost invisible squares of white film floated above. Sparks of every conceivable color drifted slowly over the panorama. "Those sparks," asked Barch, "What are they? Barges?"

"Correct," said Tick cheerfully. "Each district has a distinct color; Quodaras Thirteen is pale green."

Barch said in a strained voice, "This barge shows as a green spark?"

Tick hesitated, as if troubled by a passing thought. "Well, yes."

"Show me on the chart."

Tick slowly twirled a knob, glanced into the slit. "There is Palkwarkz Ztvo. And there-"

Barch peered down at a pale gray physiographic outline of the mountains. A green spark showed dimly against the mountainside.

Barch looked up quickly. Tick was sidling restlessly toward the door. "Come back here."

Tick crossed the dome with a cheerful expression on his face.

"How do you disco

Tick's eyes wandered toward a little knob joined by a chain to the box. "Best not think of it."

Barch leapt forward like a leopard. Tick's eyes popped in alarm. "Disco

Tick babbled in a frenzy, "It's not allowed; Goleimpas Gstad would discredit me completely."

Barch tightened his fingers around the pipe-stem throat. Tick's eyeballs protruded an incredible distance. Barch released the pressure. "Disco

Tick, moaning and wheezing, bent over the box, tenderly broke the chain, slid back a plate, punched a glossy green bubble. "Gstad will reduce me to the manure belts."

Barch looked into the viewer. The pale-green spark had disappeared.

Barch turned back to Tick, who was feeling his neck. Tick said quickly, "There are other useful aspects to the locator. Observe. If I would return to Quodaras Thirteen hangar, I find the name on this index." He gave a rotary spindle a whirl, characters glowed and spun. "Then I touch this cell here-" He looked up plaintively as Barch grabbed his wrist.

Barch growled, "You don't seem to worry much about your life expectancy."

Tick made a chattering sound with his teeth. "A Splang Coaster defies death. The exact hour of his passing is chronicled at his birth in the beach sand. No act of God, Klau or man can mar the chart of his life."

"A good comfortable philosophy," said Barch without interest. He looked into the locator again. "I suppose every Klau on Magarak knows where the barge is by now?"

"Possibly, possibly not," said Tick. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "It depends a great deal on how rapidly the lack of explosive at the quarry will be reported to the coordinator."

"And what's the coordinator?"

Tick said with an air of complete candor, "I don't know."

"What do you think it is?" asked Barch patiently.

"I assume it to be a mechanical brain, that notes and integrates apparently unrelated occurrences, calculates the most likely causes of effects and effects of causes."

"Oh," Barch nodded. "A kind of mechanical super-detective." He turned back to the locator. "Can this thing be detached? I'd like to take it down to the hall."

"Certainly, indeed." Tick sprang to the locator, snapped loose a pair of clips.

"I'll take it," said Barch. He motioned to the cave floor. "After you."

Tick jumped nimbly to the ground, started toward the passage down to the hall.

Barch said in a casual voice, "What's the hurry?"

Tick stopped short, turned Barch a quick smile. "None whatever."

Barch climbed to the floor with the locator under one arm, and ostentatiously hitched at the weapon in his belt. "Now we'll go down."

CHAPTER VIII

In the hall Barch set the locator on the table, went to look out into the night. Arn and Ardl, lounging close together, sprang apart with a guilty start. "Damn it," cried Barch, "if you can't stop love-making or whatever you call it long enough to stand watch, I'll strip you naked and then there'll be an end to this foolishness."

Ardl went smartly on his rounds. Barch turned to Arn. "Don't let that Splang pilot get past you."

"No, Roy."

Barch looked up into the sky. Suppose the position of the barge had been noted. If so, a barge-load of Podruod troops might drop down at any minute. He shrugged. If they came, they came.

Back in the hall, Tick was seated on the table, a hand placed proprietarily on the locator. "Many pilots fly dead; they set the cell, they sleep. Not I. I look at my locator"- he patted the box-"and I fly with my hands." He held up his hands. The fingers ended in knobs, like a tree toad's.

Barch saw Chevrr sitting in a corner scornfully. He crossed the room, squatted beside him. "Are all his race like him?"

Chevrr nodded dourly. "We stay in the mountains to avoid them. They breed twins once a year, they swarm in the trees, they are worthless except as acrobats and prostitutes."

"But how can I control him?"

"Kill him."

Barch grimaced. "I find killing hard to get used to. Besides he is the only one who can fly that barge."

The folds of Chevrr's gloomy face went through an amazing process of opening, smoothing, widening. Chevrr was smiling. "He wears a lucky charm; all coast-folk do. It is his birth sac, with the diagram of his beach sands. You will find it inside a leech which sucks at his belly. Take this charm and you are his master."