CHAPTER XVII
Inside Khundru
"Gary," said Nora, "I'm frightened. Suppose—"
"Hush, my dear," warned Dr. Kang swiftly. "From now on speak only in the Magogean tongue. Suspicious ears may lurk at any crossroads."
A full week's time, as measured by earthly watches, had passed since theLiberty'sfortunate landing near the Gogean camp. In that time all the space venturers, and particularly those who were to attempt the first reaching of Khundru's gates, had been given an intensive training course in the other world's formalities. Through means of instruments so ingeniously clever that the Earthmen could only marvel at them, there had been electrically superimposed upon their brain structures a knowledge-pattern giving them complete acquaintance with the Magogean tongue, habits, customs, traditions, something of the history of the race, and even a general knowledge of current events.
"I'm sorry," whispered Nora, shifting to the Magogean tongue, "but—but I'm frightened, Gary. Suppose we should meet Borisu?"
Lark O'Day grunted. "He'd have one hell of a time recognizing us dressed—orundressed—like this."
He scowled disdainfully at the crudepeongarb with which his sturdy frame was draped; clothing which consisted of little more than worn sandals, a twisted, filthy rag about his loins, and a loose, sacklike halter draped from his shoulders.
Gary admitted ruefully, "Wearen'texactly candidates for a sartorial award. But this is the best disguise we could possibly effect. The Magogean kraedars spurn their slaves like dust beneath their feet. Even if wewereto meet Borisu, he would look past or through us and never notice our faces. And that's what we want."
"It's damn hard on the girls, though," grunted O'Day. "The least the blue boys could have done was given us a lighter cart. One we three could handle by ourselves, withoutthemhaving to act as dray horses, too. Ease up there, Penny. Don't ruin those pretty hands."
Kang's daughter glanced at him sidewise and smiled. She said in a soft, liquid voice, "Do not worry about us, Lark. It were better Nora and I ruined our soft hands on this cart than that your fighting hands should not be ready when the moment comes. Is it not so, Nora?"
Nora, tugging beside her at the draw-tongue of the cumbersome vehicle which comprised part of the typicalimpedimentaof lower class Magogean nomads, smiled agreement.
"Much better. Though I confess I don't envy those whose rôles we are playing. I wouldn't like to do thisallthe time."
"I don't believe," said Kang in a low voice, "you are going to have to do it much longer. For see? Before us? A city on the river's edge, and armed soldiers watching our approach. You know our story?"
"Yes."
"Good! Remember it well. We must make no mistake."
This was their last exchange of free, unguarded speech. For as he had said, the soldiers had spotted them, and a company was moving forward to challenge their approach.
They did so, Gary Lane could not help thinking, in a manner typically Magogean. Not with any warmth or friendliness, but in dictatorial tones of sharp suspicion.
"Hold, there, slaves! Who are you? Whence came you? Whither are you going?"
Gary, haltered shoulder to shoulder beside his friend and comrade, felt Lark O'Day's body stiffen with suppressed rage at this form of address. But like himself, O'Day remained hunched, with head hanging stupidly low, as if both were the witless serfs they pretended to be.
The elderly Kang spoke, as had been agreed, for their group.
"Greetings, O warriors of strength and valor. I am the freedman, Kengu. These are my daughters and their mates. We come from the Twilight Zone to seek employment in the city of Khundru."
"Twilight Zone?" demanded the warrior captain suspiciously. "What wereyoudoing there?"
"For three years," answered Kang, "we labored there in the service of thekraedarAlisur. Now the noblekraedaris dead. We have no master."
He could say this confidently. From a Magogean newscast had been learned of Alisur's recent and opportune demise. That Alisur had been an explorer operating in the Twilight Zone was a feature upon which they had been swift to capitalize.
The warrior captain nodded and strode to the cart, pulled back the sacking with which it was covered.
"And what have you here? Valuable goods, no doubt, you stole from your dead master?"
"Nay, Noble One. Naught but our common household belongings. Bedding and articles of furniture. Clothing ... utensils for cooking."
The captain, peering into the laden cart, grunted disdainfully and threw back its cover. "The old man speaks truth. The foul cart reeks of rubbish. Very well, old fool, on your way. Report yourself to the guardsman at the Twilight Gate, and show him this pass." He scribbled briefly on something resembling paper, tossed it at Kang. "This will permit you to enter the city. Wait!" A look of cunning stole into the chieftain's eyes. "Of course there is the matter of an entry fee. You have some money?"
Kang answered humbly, "Very little, my lord. Scarce enough to sustain us until we have succeeded in finding employment. Barely five units—"
"Hand it over!" demanded the other harshly. "There are five of you. The entry fee is a unit each. Well, swiftly, slave! Or must I use the lash?"
He fingered almost hopefully the braided whip which dangled at his belt. But docilely Kang withdrew a sweat-stained leather pouch from his garments and handed it to the captain. And without further challenge they stumbled down the road to the entry gate.
Here they were stopped by a sentry, and Kang proffered the captain's note. The sentry read it, Gary thought, almost angrily, and grumbled, "Curse Draliu! I suppose he got what money you had?"
Kang answered meekly, "We had but five units, sir. And that was the entry fee, the captain told us."
"Curse him," repeated the sentry. "He bleeds themallwhite before they get this far! Very well, in with you. But look sharp you move in a hurry when this light turns white. If you're only half way over the line when the shield closes again, God help you!"
He laughed unpleasantly, pressed a button, and spoke into a diaphragm beside him. An instant later a light at the sentry box glowed white, and hurriedly the five slaves, straining, tugged their heavy cart into motion. They had barely succeeded in crossing the designated line when, with a sudden, crackling sound, a dust film rose from the ground behind them and the white light went out.
Gary, glancing back at Dr. Kang, saw the old man's forehead was beaded with perspiration. When he looked askance, Kang whispered, "They don't take many chances. They didn't leave the barrier open long. If we had been a minute slower in bringing the cart through—"
"What?" asked Nora Powell.
"The closing barrier would have smashed us into atoms. But we have learned one important thing, at any rate."
"Yes?" asked Gary.
"Again," said Dr. Kang, "as several times before, we have tangible evidence that the Magogean culture is not so high as they would believe.Mypeople—" he said almost proudly—"have ways to open one portion of the force-shield at a time, admitting friends to its protection through a small opening. Theirs is a more elementary form. To open it in any spot is to open it everywhere. That may be a handy thing to know."
Thus entered Gary Lane and his companions into the city of Khundru. It was a strange city. Even Lark O'Day, who of them all was best capable to judge, having flung his madcap way afar amongst the planets of Sol's universe, admitted that.
"I've seen Greater New York," he said, "and Imperial Ceres. They're about tops in ultramodern culture. I've seen the barbaric splendors of the Venusian capital, and the filthy mud hovels the Mercurians call—or used to call—their temples. But never anywhere have I seen anything which looked like this."
And he shook his head bewilderedly at the heterogeneous architectural display sprawling about them. Khundru was a city of contradictions: the dwelling place of a people who believed themselves capable of attainments greater than they possessed.
Here both sides of a thoroughfare so exquisitely inlaid and tessellated that it might have graced the entrance to a potentate'sseraglio, would be lined with dingy, malodorous dwellings earthborn dogs might have scorned to sleep in. Turn a corner and the eyes widened to behold great gilded temples towering skyward in a setback architecture dwarfing the most hopeful achievements of any solar race. The sky above the city was athrong with space and air vessels ... huge, thundering rockets and gossamer-winged glidercraft of scintillant beauty ... but the streets below rumbled with the wooden wheels of such cumbersome vehicles as that which they themselves hauled painfully along.
The sights, the smells, the street sounds of the city were comparable to those of an oriental bazaar in, thought Lane, Earth's woefully anachronistic Twentieth Century; that period when only a portion of humanity's masses had known the delights of civilized existence.
Even without the benefit of the training to which they had been exposed they could have picked their way almost unerringly to the city's center. Khundru was built like a huge wheel about the central hub which was its Palace Royal. The streets through which they threaded their way was a spoke of this wheel.
In the Palace Royal, they knew, could be found not only the governing but also the dwelling chambers of the highly electKraedaru, the ruling gentry of Magog. There also was to be found the vital control center of this sprawling octopus whose tentacles they must paralyze so the Gogean army could burst into the city.
But if they had hoped to attain so far without challenge, they were bitterly disappointed. For they had penetrated scarcely a third of the way when a sudden clamor aroused them from their furtive study of the city. Voices cried out, whether in surprise, alarm or joy was hard to tell, and the milling throng which but a moment ago had rubbed shoulders with them too closely for comfort began to clear from the thoroughfare and huddle fearfully against the walls of the street.
Gary glanced at Dr. Kang, his eyebrows asking the question his lips barely muttered.
"What now?"
Kang answered softly, "I do not know. But there is a saying of your people, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' Quickly, move the cart to the curbing, and let us take our places with the others."
But before the awkward tumbrel could be dragged from the right of way, with a flurry of brazen hoofs and a raucous clamor of trumpets there galloped around the corner and squarely down upon them a small troop of mounted lancers.
There was room and to spare for these haughty warriors to pass them by ... but such was not the way of the Magogeankraedaru. As the cavalry captain, drawing near, saw upon the street one cart which had not yet moved completely to the curb, one tiny knot of struggling serfs who had not as yet taken abject posts against the wall, a flush darkened his cheeks and his eyes darted anger. With a guttural cry he changed his troop's straightforward charge, bore directly down upon Dr. Kang and his "family." Then, at the last possible moment, when it seemed certain his armed warriors and their mounts must trample ruthlessly over the bodies of the trapped quintet, shattering their cart to splinters, he drew up his men, and, his voice heavy with rage, leaned from his saddle and cried to Dr. Kang:
"You there, slave—what means this? How dare you deliberately block our passage?"
The cavalry captain bore directly down on Dr. Kang's cart.
The cavalry captain bore directly down on Dr. Kang's cart.
The cavalry captain bore directly down on Dr. Kang's cart.
"Why, you—" began Lark O'Day.
But Lane, standing with his head abjectly bowed beside his friend, gripped the other man's wrist to silence him. And from the cart, Dr. Kang answered in a thin, meek voice;
"Forgiveness, Excellence. Your servants did not know—"
"The lash!" cried the warrior captain. "Twenty to each of them, then let us be gone. Or—Wait!" His eyes narrowed as the implication of Kang's words struck him. "Did not know? You did not recognize our signal as we approached? Where are you from? You are not of Khundru."
"Nay, master," whined Kang. "We are poor exiles of a far northern city, Tabori by name, but recently come out of the Twilight Zone to seek service in the noble capital of our race—"
"Recently come?" The chieftain's eyes narrowed still farther. Then: "Where is your master, serf?"
"Our master is dead, sire." Kang explained as he had explained to the captain of the barrier guard. But it was evident that in Khundru the higher a man's post the greater became his authority and greed. For scarce had he revealed that their erstwhile master was no more than the cavalry leader interrupted him.
"No master, eh? That situation shall soon be remedied. By the rank and authority which is mine as akraedarof Khundru I hereby claim you as mine own. Not—" He laughed—"that I shall put you to use. A Captain of the Royal Guard has no need of house servants. But your two sons should make sturdy slaves for the tilling of someone's land. And your two daughters—"
He paused and stroked his jaw reflectively. It was clear that the Captain of the Royal Guards was reconsidering his need of servants. To forestall his thinking, Kang spoke hurriedly, invoking a law which he had learned existed amongst the Magogeans.
"A thousand pardons, sire—but we are not slaves. We are freedmen. When our master died he gave us household goods and chattels wherewith to establish our own little home—"
"So?" Thekraedarlaughed mockingly. "Yet if you had not these things, old man, you would be slaves again, is it not so? Well, then—"
He turned and barked a command to his soldiers. Instantly bright weapons leaped from their belts to their hands. And it was with the barest warning the quintet of Solarites managed to scramble from the proximity of the cart as the blazing rays of a dozen ultrawave handguns spat flame upon the cart. In a moment of searing fire the vehicle was gone, blasted to oblivion by those frightful rays.
"So," continued the captain, "having no chattels of your own, you are again slaves.TramirChingru—herd me these cattle to the mart, and there get for me the best price you can. And mind," he added dangerously, "you bring me backallthe profits. Make no mistake as to the amount."
A single warrior fell out of formation, gestured the quintet into a little knot before him, and pointed the way down a side avenue. The warrior captain, smirking with satisfaction, spurred his company on its journey.
An hour later all five were parcels of merchandise in the slave mart of Imperial Khundru.