Planter studied Disbro. “Easy does it,” he said softly. “Better not act as if you know me. You might get mixed up in—”
“No chance!” snarled Disbro. “I told them that you were an enemy of mine. I’m not mixed up in anything.”
Planter subsided. Plainly Disbro was able to take care of himself. Plainly Planter must do the same, with no help from anyone. He wondered about Mara, with a sudden chilled pang. The brave girl had guided him here, despite her knowledge that Skygor country was dangerous. She had done it to please him, because she liked him. He wondered what had happened to her.
He lounged under the Skygor guns, thinking of Mara. In his mind he saw the light of her steady blue eyes, felt the touch of her slim, strong hand. His heart quickened.
“Hang it,” he told himself, “you aren’t in love with her. She’s a savage, and you only met her a few hours ago! You’re only worried because you feel responsibility.”
But he knew he lied.
The boat brought them to an entrance-hole at water-level, in a large cylindrical structure. Disbro swaggered inside, with his new friends. A guard prodded Planter with his pistol-barrel to follow. As Planter obeyed, he saw behind him another boat, in which rode Max with all the baggage he had been carrying. Skygors sat with Max, plainly on good terms. Max saw Planter, too, and his face twitched and scowled as in an effort to rationalize.
Inside, he found himself in a large bare room with dry, roughcast walls. Disbro waited there, with a Skygor whose elaborate chain-mail suggested that he was an officer.
“Disbro,” boomed this individual cordially, “You say this is your enemy? What shall be done to him?”
“I leave that to you, Phra,” answered Disbro, with the grand manner of bestowing gifts. “You have your own ways of handling such problems. I am content.”
Another Skygor approached, and the officer discussed the case in deafening Skygor language. Then, facing Planter, he resumed English:
“Your life is forfeit, but you look strong. Perhaps you can prove yourself worth keeping. Join the slaves.”
He struck his webbed hands together. A human man ran in.
Like Mara and the other crossbow-girls, this man was blond, but the resemblance ended there. He wore loose, brief garments of elastic fabric, no weapons, and his face was mild and servile. Phra pointed to Planter.
“Below with him! Put him to the spring mill!”
The slave beckoned, and led Planter away, studying him curiously.
Planter spoke at once: “You have many friends here, in slavery? Perhaps I can get you out of this.”
“Out of this!” The echo was horrified. “To starve in the jungle? Marry, sir, art mad or sick to say such a thing! Come, down these stairs.”
Planter obeyed his new companion. They went down a dim, stone stairway, lighted with green bulbs. From below came sounds of mechanical action.
“What’s your name?” Planter asked the slave.
“Glanfil. And you?”
“David Planter. How many slaves are there here? Human slaves?”
“Two hundred, belike. Half as many as the Skygors.”
That was a new thought to Planter. On Earth, races were numbered in the millions—here, by the scores. Of course, this might not be the only Skygor city. Mara had mentioned the difficulty of exploring any distance from this habitable pole. For a moment he felt the thirst for knowledge. Wasn’t this world as large as his own planet? Might it not have continents, oceans, mountain ranges, whole genera of strange species, perhaps other civilizations and climates? Then he remembered. He was a slave. And a booming voice drove the memory home.
“Below, men,” thundered a Skygor guard. “You are not fed and lodged to be idle.”
“Pardon,” mumbled Glanfil, and quickened his descent. Planter followed, beating down a rage of battle at the rough shouting of the guard.
The underwater levels were not flooded, though the walls were gloomily damp. Planter found himself in a great rambling chamber, bordered and cumbered with machines, at which men toiled. Glanfil was presenting him to a Skygor, who made notes with a crayon-like instrument on a board. “New?” he questioned in his ear-dulling roar. “Whence came he? Never stop to answer—show him how to work your machine.”
Glanfil led him to a cylindrical appliance against a wall. It had a multitude of levers and push-buttons, and lights shone in its glassed forefront. Most of these were green, but one turned red as they approached. Glanfil pushed a button and turned a lever. The light switched to green again.
“The red means a faulty rhythm somewhere in the light system,” explained Glanfil. “Fix it by manipulating the buttons and levers near the red lights—yes, so. It takes not skill, but wary watching.”
Planter took over. He found time to observe the rest of the slave-teemed basement.
Some operated a treadmill, others wound at keys or turned cranks. The machines were strange but not mysterious. He judged that they pumped, elevated, and modelled. Glanfil answered his questions:
“ ’Tis the Skygor method. We supply power by our labors. Springs, levers, such things, are worked.”
“Springs and levers?” repeated Planter. “Is this a clockwork town? Why not fuel? Steam?”
Glanfil shook his head. “We men make small fires, but the Skygors not. Their nature is moist, they want such things not. As you say, clockwork is the use of this place.”
“If you refuse to do this slave work, what then?”
Glanfil shrugged, and shuddered. “If the sin is not too great, you go to a level below this. Men drag upon a capstan, to wind the mightiest of springs for town works.”
“Like rowing in a galley!” Planter summed up wrathfully. “But if the sin is pretty sinful?”
A Skygor overseer came close, saw that Planter had learned the simple machine, and called Glanfil to some other task. Planter worked until such time as a raucous voice bade another shift take over. Marshalled with twenty or more slaves, he was led away to a musty vault, one side of which was lined with cell-like sleeping quarters. Here was a brick oven—perhaps those in the Nest were
