Barch silently watched the shapes and lights of Magarak drift past below.
'Do you still think you can'-she nodded-'defeat this?'
Barch looked at her resentfully. 'Do you think I won't try?'
'No. I think you'll try. I think you'll end up on the grid.' She added tonelessly, 'That's where the slaves are punished.'
Barch stared over the side. Another barge drifted toward them, passed two hundred feet below. Barch saw six long dark shapes, like spindles, caught the white flash of upturned faces. The barges drifted apart.
The sea spread leaden, listless; they drifted over dreary mud-flats. Ahead appeared a long black line which, as the barge drew near, broke up into clots of men, piles of cut stone, spidery cranes. A coffer dam of mud had been scraped up against the sea; in deep oozing pits, workers, moving slow as cold ants, fitted great stones together.
'That's what you'll be doing,' said Komeitk Lelianr in a flat voice.
Barch stared down into the dismal pits. 'And what happens to the women?'
'Some other kind of work. Chipping stone, perhaps.'
They passed a barge loaded with granite blocks. Barch asked, 'What keeps these barges up? Do they use the same machinery as the spaceships?'
'I would imagine so.' Her voice was disinterested. 'The principle of plane-cohesion is fundamental.'
'But they could leave the planet?'
'I suppose so.' She watched the reclamation project fall astern. 'We're not bound there, at least.'
The ocean shore curved away behind them; a range of mountains loomed dark ahead. The sky was darkening rapidly. The sun had settled beyond the overcast. 'I wonder how much farther?' asked Barch.
Komeitk Lelianr knit her brows. 'If those mountains are the Palamkum, then that was Tchul Sea, and this is Kredbon instead of Kdoa. I think Xolboar Sea is beyond those mountains.'
'Then we get sorted out and put to work?'
'I suppose so.'
Barch examined the mountains with interest. They were great masses of white rock, split by deep valleys and gorges. Black vegetation carpeted the valley slopes; snow gleamed on the high cols and peaks.
Barch said in a hushed voice, 'Can your shoes hold up both of us?'
She looked at him first in startled wonder, then speculatively. 'No.'
'Suppose we jumped off the barge.'
'If I could stay on my feet, we'd drop slowly.'
'We'd never be caught down there.'
She stared down into the dark wilderness. 'We'd starve to death.'
'Maybe, maybe not. At least we would be free. We'd be out of the mud-pits, out of the slave barracks.'
She glanced at the Modoks, made up her mind. 'Very well. Try to put your feet on top of mine.'
Barch looked over the side. They flew over a long valley. 'Now,' muttered Barch. 'Are you ready?'
'Yes.'
'Now!' He jumped up, straddled the rail. Komeitk Lelianr climbed nimbly after. Startled white faces turned. There was an excited chatter, a couple of arms tentatively outstretched.
Barch bared his teeth, kicked. The commotion attracted the eye of the Podruod controller. With great lunging strides he came forward.
'I'm ready,' panted Komeitk Lelianr. 'Step on my feet.'
Barch jumped down, clasped her around the waist; they toppled off into gray air. He glimpsed the rectangular hull of the barge slipping past overhead with a hundred little nubbins of heads silhouetted against the twilight. Sky and mountains whirled in sickening topsy-turvy motion.
Komeitk Lelianr was crying in his ear. 'My feet, my feet!'
Barch clamped his legs around hers, set his feet on her instep. He felt a braking, the sky and mountains steadied.
Looking anxiously aloft he saw the raft drifting quietly on; the cargo was fuzzy gray, like a load of jute. He turned his eyes down. A massive crag, like a rotten tooth, stabbed up at them with frightening velocity; below was the vast slot of a valley, the shining trickle of a river.
'We're braking,' she said. 'The lower we get, the slower we fall.'
Barch relaxed, tried to follow her as she shifted weight. Dark fronds of vegetation reached up at them. Thirty feet… twenty feet… ten feet…
There was the crash, scatter, agitation of breaking stems and snapping branches. Barch saw the ground, the black humus of the hillside; at six feet he jumped, so as not to land with Komeitk Lelianr's feet under his. She cried out in surprise. Relieved of Barch's weight, she bounced back into the air. She caught at branches swung back and forth like an acrobat, then slowly settled, to the ground.
They had landed on a high slope. The sky was a black ceiling overhead; dank wind blew roaring through the valley below. Trees flapped and clattered; from the far distance came a harsh gurgling whistle. Komeitk Lelianr whispered, 'What's that?'
Barch said, 'It's breakfast, if I can catch it.'
'In the dark it might catch you.'
They looked down the slope, found the river. 'We'll be warmer up here,' said Barch, 'out of the valley. We'd better not build a fire until we learn more about the country.'
In a little hollow under a rock he piled moss, dry humus, and contrived a covering of fronds wrenched down from the trees. 'Like sleeping in a haystack,' said Barch. 'You get in first.'
Rain fell during the night, but the wind blew it over the rock, and they stayed dry. Magarak morning came damp and gray.
'Ouch!' said Barch, 'my aching bones.' He felt his face. 'At least, no whiskers. I've got your father to thank for that.'
Komeitk Lelianr sat brushing moss off her gray smock. Barch went on cheerfully. 'Next-breakfast. Are you hungry?'
She made no answer.
Barch rose to his feet, looked carefully up and down the hillside. The trees by daylight were like kelp: black and brown, with red veins along the leaves. Overhead the sky was heavy with clouds.
Barch pulled down a branch, broke free a cluster of nuts. He broke one of these open, smelled, recoiled from the acrid odor. 'No nourishment here. Let's see what's down by the water.'
Cautiously they made their way downhill to the river. Standing in a pool was a blackish-green creature with the head of an owl, a bat's wings, the legs of a heron. It watched them approach, then fluttered up, flapped croaking off down the valley.
'That's a good sign,' said Barch. 'It means that there's something to be caught. That bird wasn't just taking a bath.'
'We catch things-then eat them?'
'We're savages now,' said Barch airily. 'Both of us, remember?'
'I remember very well.'
Barch crept forward, crouched down by the edge of the pool. Water swirled quietly over round stones of various colors. He scanned the bottom. One of the round stones moved. Barch grabbed shoulder-deep into water like ice, came up with a squirming bulb. Dangling tentacles flapped, wound around his wrist; his skin burned as if singed with flame. Barch cursed, threw the bulb up on the shore. It scuttled toward the river. Barch kicked it back, dropped a chunk of rock on it. When he picked up the rock, there was nothing below but a mat of whitish fibers and ooze.
Barch turned away in disgust. A red weal had formed along his wrist, the bones of his forearm ached. 'Let's go on downstream,' he said through his teeth. 'Maybe we'll find something a little less hard to get along with.'
The river flowed smoothly a hundred yards, then began to drop. It pounded over step-like ledges, split itself against boulders. Scrambling over the wet rocks, Barch almost fell a dozen times. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Komeitk Lelianr walking serenely two or three feet over the river.
Said Barch quizzically, 'I wish I had a pair of sandals.'
Komeitk Lelianr made no reply.
