Slaves of The Klau

the slope of Mount Kebali. 'We'd better wait till dark. Then if any Klau fly over, the hole in the mountain won't hit them in the eye.'

By mid-afternoon, the fog shrouded Palkwarkz Ztvo. Barch signaled Kerbol. 'Set off your shots.'

A few minutes later six blasts sent streamers of mist flying.

Barch entered the hall, took the down passage past Clet's old chamber, leaned over the pit at whose bottom sat the pilot. 'Feel like working?'

The pilot looked up sullenly. 'Kill me and have done.'

'I don't want to kill you. I need your help. I wouldn't keep you in this hole if I thought you wouldn't run away.'

The pilot's face became instantly cheerful. 'I have nowhere to go; I cast my lot with yours.'

Barch grinned. 'That's a sensible decision, quickly arrived at.' He lowered the rope, the pilot jerked himself up nimbly.

Barch took him to the barge, pointed to the gap in Big Hole.

'I want the barge inside.'

The pilot swung himself quickly into the dome. 'The work of an instant.'

Barch climbed aboard behind the pilot. 'We'll fly in together.'

'As you wish,' said the pilot peevishly.

The barge rose off the ground, glided up the slope, inched inside the gap. Two fires burned on a level area at the far end. 'Land between the two fires,' said Barch.

The barge slid through dimness. Stalactities, stalagmites clicked and crashed to the floor.

The barge grounded. Barch saw Kerbol already had men at work piling rocks back into the opening. He turned to the pilot. 'How is it that the Klau trust you with a barge? Aren't they afraid you'll escape to the hills?'

The pilot made a supple gesture. 'What would I gain? We pilots live well. In the hills the wild men eat each other like garfish.'

Barch forebore to challenge the statement. 'What would happen if you went back now?'

'I would be discredited.'

Barch studied the pilot's mercurial face. 'I don't want to kill you,' he said slowly. 'But I don't want the Klau to come looking for their barge.'

'Far from likely.'

'Unless you carried them tales.'

The pilot blew out his cheeks. 'My loyalty is yours forever.'

'No one here but you knows how to pilot the barge. In a sense, you are essential to the success of our plan.'

'And what is this plan?'

'There's no harm telling you. We'll build an airtight hatch over the barge and leave Magarak.'

'Ah.' The pilot nodded. 'Now, indeed, I will join you.'

'Now? Your previous promises could not have been sincere.'

'You misunderstand. We of Splang are very delicate in our meanings.'

'Chevrr up there is a Splang; I have no difficulty understanding him.'

The pilot hissed contemptuously. 'He is the mountain stock, a crude uncouth race. We of the coast forests are a different people entirely.'

'Well, no matter,' said Barch. 'I'll take a chance on you. What's your name?'

The pilot said something like, 'T'ck-T'ck-T'ck.'

'I'll call you Tick,' said Barch. 'You understand that I'll think poorly of any attempt to visit Quodaras?'

'Certainly. That's to be expected.'

'Then help fill the hole with rock. I'll talk more to you later.'

Barch sat studying his list of the tribe members, a heterogeneous crew. Of men with technical skills useful in the conversion of a cargo barge to a space-ship, there was a depressing paucity. Pedratz claimed a knowledge of welding; Kerbol displayed familiarity with explosives; Tick could fly the barge. But who knew anything about air purification, who could repair drive-circuits, who knew the lore of space navigation?

Barch looked unseeingly into the fire, drumming his fingers, thinking. The first thing to do was isolate the problems, work on each by itself. First, there must be greater security against the Klau. Barch critically inspected the opening to the cave, where nothing prevented Podruods from stepping in to kill them all.

He rose to his feet, walked through the winding crevice out into the night. Darkness everywhere. The wind roared down the valley, the great black leaves flapped a melancholy undertone, like surf on a rocky beach. Behind him the faintest glimmer of light shone out from the crevice.

Tomorrow he would arrange some kind of trip-alarm system around the clearing. But there was still tonight. Barch returned within. Nearest the opening sat two Calbyssinians, Ardl and Arn busy at their incomprehensible love-making, each trying to divine the other's sex. Barch knelt beside them, took off his wrist watch. 'Tonight we keep guard. You two will watch first, for as long as it takes this little finger to move from here to here. Then one of you will wake'-he looked over his shoulder-'the two Griffits. Come outside and I will show you where you must station yourselves. It's important.'

At the cave mouth he said, 'Arn, you stand here; Ardl, you walk quietly through the forest at the edge of the clearing. At every circuit report to Am. Change off if you like. When you wake the Griffits, give them the same instructions.'

Returning inside he set four more watches, himself taking the middle watch with Kerbol.

One problem temporarily shoved back out of the way.

Tick, the hatchet-faced pilot, was engaged in conversation with Chevrr, his brittle countryman. Barch joined them. 'How did you get your assignments? Did you work out of a central transportation depot?' he asked.

'Correct. My depot is-was-Quodaras Thirteen, and every day I might receive a different assignment.'

'You must know Magarak well.'

Tick preened himself. 'As well as any man can know it.'

'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 innovator. It is all a matter of selecting the correct secretors, of priming them with responsible fluids and directing the growth with care. As a result-' They rounded the sharp chunk of marble agate at the top of the passage, stepped out into Big Hole. Tick waved at the sleek black hulk silhouetted against the firelit limestone wall.

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