bad-tempered women of unguessable race.
There was Pedratz, taffy-colored and smelling of musk, with eyebrows that rose into fantastic horns. There was Moranko, a sullenly handsome youth who hated Clet and presently Barch. There was the dwarf, Moses, with a punchinello face and skin like a piebald horse.
There were six of the bulldog-faced Modoks; four men and two women. They crouched by themselves at the back of the hall, watching everything with wide, suspicious eyes.
There was Sl, a white-skinned man with white bifurcated beard and split nose who did everything double; there was the musician, Lkandeli Szet. There was Barch; there was Komeitk Lelianr; there was Clet and his two women: a pair of young nondescripts who had been the original property of Lkandeli Szet.
Making a mental inventory, Barch estimated that at least fifteen races from as many worlds occupied the cave. Sitting quietly at the back bench, he considered the melange with wry amusement. Never would it be said that his life had been uneventful or drab.
On Earth no one even suspected the existence of Magarak. And yet by this time… With a queasiness in his stomach, he speculated on the Klau raid. What had been their purpose?
Across the hall the voices of Flatface's two bald women rose in acrimony. Clet, at the big table in front of the fire, raised his bony red head; the bickering quieted. Clet disliked noise. Here was one reason, thought Barch, for the fact that the tribe so widely disparate in background could live in comparative amity. Another lay in the fundamental nature of their existence, a kind of cultural least-common-denominator, a stage through which each of the races had passed. For Barch, that stage had been only three or four thousand years in the past. He glanced at Komeitk Lelianr, who sat drawing aimless patterns on the table with her fingers. How long had it been since her ancestors lived in caves? A hundred thousand years? A million?
She looked clean and fresh, Barch noticed. Her face was thinner; her mouth had lost something of its girlish curve. Her expression was abstracted, distant, the result of a stoic or fatalistic characterization, no doubt.
Barch rose to his feet, went outside into the darkness. Mist that was not quite drizzle dampened his face. Against the blurred gray of the limestone cliff he noticed a dark shape. His heart stopped for an instant, then started again. It was Kerbol, whom nature had endowed with a skin the color of wet rock, pop-eyes, a mouth like a flap. Barch remembered that Kerbol grumbled about the heat in the hall and seemed to enjoy the cool dampness of the valley.
Barch went to stand beside him; any man that preferred the solitude of the valley to the hall seemed an ally.
Kerbol grunted, and after a moment said in a deep rumbling voice, 'The mist falls, the wind blows backwards down Palkwarkz Ztvo. Tomorrow the sky will be high and then the Klau come hunting. Tomorrow will be a good day to stay close by the cave.'
Barch remembered the bugling Podruods, the frantic fat man, the Klau raft with the black arms dangling below. 'How often do the Klau hunt?'
'Every eight, ten days, if the weather suits. They are the Quodaras District Klau; Parkwarkz Ztvo is their region. The Xolboar Klau hunt in Poriflammes.' He pointed to the valley entering the Palkwarkz Ztvo near the mouth.
Sudden enlightenment came to Barch. 'So-we live in a hunting preserve; we're tolerated in order to provide the Klau with sport!'
'The Klau planet is a week distant; the Klau must amuse themselves.'
Barch said thoughtfully, 'I could certainly amuse myself hunting Podruods and Klau.'
Kerbol digested the idea. 'You think in strange directions. Very strange.'
Barch laughed sourly. 'I don't see anything strange about it. If the Klau hunt me, it's only fair that I hunt them.'
'That is not the theory of the hunt.' Kerbol spoke politely.
'It's not the Klau theory; it is my theory. Do we have to live by Klau theory?'
Kerbol said thoughtfully, 'It was too hot at the quarry.'
A dull explosion from over Kebali Ridge jarred the air of the valley. 'There they shoot now,' said Kerbol. 'Notice the double shock?'
'No.'
'The charge was ten cans of abiloid, a twentieth cut of the super. The super smashes the rock; the abiloid pushes it down.'
'You seem to know a great deal about explosives.'
Kerbol nodded gloomily. 'Five years I drilled and charged, drilled and charged. And always in the heat. I ran into the forest and came over Mount Kebali to Palkwarkz Ztvo, where I must take my chances with the hunters.'
Barch asked curiously, 'What is that black thing that hangs under the Klau raft?'
'Those are'-Kerbol stopped, grasped for a word-'pulling things. In factories they lift loads. The Klau grow them; they are half-alive.'
'The Klau carry other weapons?'
'Yes. They shoot across long distances; a little splinter enters a man's belly, explodes. The man is dead.'
Barch looked up and down the dark valley. The mist had risen, a current of air smelling of rotting vegetation blew on his face. From the far distance sounded a harsh clanking, a screech. Barch muttered, 'At night a whole regiment of Podruods could come up here.'
Kerbol moved uneasily. 'That has never happened.'
'But it might,' said Barch.
'You think strange, uncomfortable thoughts,' said Kerbol.
On the following day the overcast was high, the wind light. The tribesmen hung close to the cave. But no bugling cries were heard and the Klau did not appear.
The next day was the same, with a near calm across the valley. Again the men of the tribe ventured only a few hundred yards from the cliff, and at the evening meal there was only a few scrapings of gruel in the pot.
The third day dawned blustery, with ragged gray clouds breaking over Mount Kebali like surf over a sea- wall.
Clet ordered Flatface, Barch, the Modoks and the Calbyssinians out to grub for meal-nuts, while the remaining men filed into the forest to hunt meat.
The bugling of the Podruods sounded an hour later. Barch and the Calbyssinians jumped up, seized the half- filled bags, hurried back around the hillside.
Across the valley rang the hunting cries, converging near the dominating bluff; looking over his shoulder Barch glimpsed the ominous dark shadow of the Klau raft.
The hunters came filing back to the cave one at a time, wide-eyed with exhaustion.
Across the valley the bugle calls suddenly ceased. Standing in the crevice Barch saw the black raft slipping down the valley toward the notch.
Four hunters had not yet returned: Clet, Moranko, the two Splangs, Chevrr and Skurr.
Clet slipped in first, his bony red face impassive. Then came Moranko carrying a dead creature that looked like a wooly caterpillar. Minutes passed. Chevrr crossed the flat. He muttered a few words to Clet, jerked his thumb across the valley.
Skurr, the Splang, had been hunted down and killed.
On sudden impulse Barch dropped into the seat opposite to where Clet sat whetting his knife. 'I think we should do something about these hunts.'
Clet turned him a brief cool glance, returned to his work. Steel rasped on stone, lamplight flickered and winked on the metal as the big red hands methodically stroked. Barch raised his voice: 'We don't necessarily need to skulk around this valley.' He paused; Clet showed no interest.
Trying to keep anger out of his voice, Barch said, 'Every week somebody else gets killed.'
'More always come,' said Clet. 'Too many in the cave is not good.'
'Next time the Klau hunt, they might get you-or me.' Clet shrugged. 'We should hunt them instead-kill the Podruods, kill the Klau.'
'No, no,' said Clet impatiently. 'Then a warship comes down to kill us all. We live good now, hey?' He laughed complacently. 'Food, women, hey? Same way for many, many years. Best not to change.'
