The Asutra

Ifness made a sign to Karazan and spoke in an easy voice, "The mentor was able to communicate with you?"

Hozman's eyes became unfocused, words began to gush from his mouth. "It is a condition impossible to describe. When I first discovered the creature I went crazy with revulsion-but only for a moment! It performed what I call a pleasure-trick, and I became flooded with joy. The dreary Balch swamp seemed to swim with delightful odors, and I was a man transformed. There was at that moment nothing which I could not have accomplished! " Hozman threw his arms to the sky. "The mood lasted several minutes, and then the men in black returned and made me aware of my duties. I obeyed, for I quickly learned the penalty of disobedience; the mentor could bless with joy or punish with pain. It knew the language of men but could not speak except in a hiss and a whistle, which I never learned. But I could talk aloud and ask if such a course fulfilled its wishes. The mentor became my soul, closer to me than hands and feet, for its nerves led to my nerves. It was alert to my welfare and never forced me to work in rain or cold. And I never hungered, for my work was rewarded with ingots of good gold and copper and sometimes steel."

"And what were your duties? " asked Ifness.

Hozman's flow of words was again stimulated, as if they had long been pent inside of him, building a pressure to be released. "They were simple. I bought prime slaves, as many as could be had. I worked as a slave-taker, and I have scoured the face of Caraz, from the Azur River in the east to the vast Dulgov in the west, and as far south as Mount Thruska. Thousands of slaves have I sent into space! "

"How did you so send them?"

"At night, when no one was near and the mentor could warn me of danger, I called down the little car and loaded aboard my slaves, which first I had drugged into a happy stupor: sometimes only one or two, again as many as a dozen or even more. If I chose, the car would take me where I wished to go, quickly through the night, as from the Orgai to Shagfe village."

"And where did the car take the slaves?"

Hozman pointed into the sky. "Above hangs a depot hull, where the slaves lie quiet. When the hull is full it flies away to the mentor's world, which lies somewhere in the coils of Histhorbo the Snake. So much I learned to my idle amusement one starry night when I asked my mentor many questions, which it answered by a yes or a no. Why did it need so many slaves? Because its previous creatures were inadequate and insubordinate, and because it feared a terrible enemy, somewhere off among the stars. " Hozman fell silent. The Alula had drawn close to surround him; they now regarded him less with hate than with awe for the weird travail he had undergone.

Ifness asked in his most casual voice, "And how do you call down the little car?"

Hozman licked his lips and looked off over the plain. Ifness said gently, "Never again will you carry the asutra which brought such bliss to your brain. You are now one with the rest of us, and we consider the asutra our enemies."

Hozman said sullenly, 'In my pouch I carry a box with a little button within. When I require the car, I go out into the dark night and push on the button and hold it so until the car comes down."

"Who drives the car?"

"The device works by a mysterious will of its own."

"Give me the box with the button."

Hozman slowly drew forth the box, which Ifness took into his own possession. Etzwane, at a glance and a nod from Ifness, searched Hozman's pouch and person, but found only three small ingots of copper and a magnificent steel dagger with a handle of carved white glass.

Hozman watched with a quizzical expression. "Now what will you do with me?"

Ifness looked toward Karazan, who shook his head. "This is not a man upon whom we can take vengeance. He is a puppet, a toy on a string."

"You have made a just decision," said Ifness. "In this slave-taking land his offense is simple overzealousness."

"Still, what next? " demanded Karazan. "We have not reclaimed our daughters. This man must call down the car, which we will seize and hold against their release."

"There is no one aboard the car with whom you can bargain," said Hozman. Suddenly he added, "You might go aloft in the car and expostulate in person."

Karazan uttered a soft sound and looked up into the purple sky of the evening: a colossus in white blouse and black breeches. Etzwane also looked up and thought of Rune the Willow Wand among the crawling asutra…

Ifness asked Hozman, "Have you ever gone aloft to the depot ship?"

"Not I," said Hozman. "I had great fear of such an event. On occasion a gray dwarf creature and its mentor came down to the planet. Often have I stood hours through the night while the two mentors hissed one to the other. Then I knew that the depot had reached capacity and that no more slaves were needed for a period. " "When last did the mentor come down from the depot?"

"A time ago; I ca

Ifness became pensive. Karazan thrust his bulk forward. "This shall be our course of action: we shall call down the car and ourselves go aloft, to destroy our enemies and liberate our people. We need only wait until night."

"The tactic leaps to mind," said Ifness. "If successful it might yield valuable benefits-not the least being the ship itself. But difficulties present themselves, notably the return descent. You might find yourself in command of the depot ship, but nonetheless marooned. Such a venture is precarious. I advise against it."

Karazan made a disconsolate sound and again searched the sky, as if to discover a feasible route to the depot ship. Hozman, seeing an opportunity to slip away unobserved, did so. He walked around the i

"You call us jackals? " demanded one of the Kash. "That is an insulting epithet! "

"Only for a creature who is not a jackal," said Karazan in a bored voice. "You need not take offense."

The Kash, considerably outnumbered, had no real stomach for a fight and turned back to the saddlebags. Karazan turned away and shook his fist at the sky.

Etzwane, restless and troubled, spoke to Ifness. "Suppose for a fact that we did capture the ship. Could you not bring it down to the ground?"

"Almost certainly I could not. With definite certainty I do not intend to try."

Etzwane stared at Ifness with cold hostility. "We must do something. A hundred, perhaps two hundred people hang up there, waiting for the asutra to take them away to some strange place, and we are the only ones who can help them."

Ifness laughed. "You exaggerate my capabilities, at least. I suspect that you have been captivated by certain flirtatious glances and that now you wish to perform a gallant feat, no matter what the difficulties."

Etzwane contained his first rush of words, especially since the remarks were apt enough to cause him discomfort… Why should he suddenly expect altruism from Ifness, after all? From the moment of their first meeting Ifness had consistently refused to divert himself from his own large concerns. Not for the first time, Etzwane regarded Ifness with cold dislike. Their relationship, never close, had shifted into a new and distant phase. But he spoke in an even voice, "At Shillinsk, could you not call Dasconetta and request an Earth ship for a business of great urgency?"