The second air-wave caught Barch now, a milder, sharper impact, one which he heard as sound. Looking behind once more he wondered how many people had died, how many Klau, how many slaves. The Klau-Barch shrugged. The slaves -death was small loss to the slaves.
The raft was riding on an even keel, under control. Barch looked into the locator-peered in astonishment. The viewer showed blackness, nothing. Barch shook it, pounded it to no avail.
In sudden thought he looked behind. Did the Central Organ control the locator? In disgust and panic he tossed the mechanism behind him. He looked ahead. How had he come? Was this the right direction? All directions looked alike. There was no moon, no stars.
He looked over the side, searching for some half-noticed landmark.
The buildings bulged up, the myriad lights and vast motions were the same.
He looked behind. The tower was gone. But-there was something subtly different about the approach. Barch got the raft around, circled to the left, looking toward the former tower. Building planes shifted, flares and fires took on different patterns. Now, this looked right. It was a gamble-but the whole exploit had been a gamble. So far he had won.
Barch turned the raft away from the tower, set out at full speed.
Now the minutes dragged where before they had sped. Surely he had not been so long over these monstrous shapes, with the bristling trusses like moth antenna. He kept on. The buildings seemed to diminish. By now he should be nearing Tchul Sea, but there was no Tchul Sea in sight. He had gone wrong. Now-turn to the right or turn to the left? No. Straight ahead. With anxiety gnawing at him, one minute was like ten minutes. In every direction sprawled the man-hating bulk of Magarak.
He had come wrong. And yet-a few more miles. And what was that vague blankness ahead? "Thalasse, thalasse!" had shouted Xenophon's myriad. "The seal" muttered Barch. "Good old Tchul Sea!"
The mud flats gleaming with murky phosphorescence like dead fish passed below; ahead was the mass of the Palamkum. It was almost like home, thought Barch. Now rest. His fingers relaxed. If they spent five years in space, he'd sleep the first year. Rest, sleep. No more driving, no more plotting and planning.
Below passed the lonely lights of the stone quarry; there was the ridge of Mount Kebali. He slid down the long slant into Palkwarkz Ztvo, noticing that there was grayness in the sky. Had the night passed so soon?
There was the blasted bluff, there the seared flat, there the black opening into Big Hole.
Barch landed the raft, jumped to the ground, ran up the hill toward the cave mouth. He whistled in case anyone should be on guard, but there was no challenge.
He reached the crevice, stopped short. He frowned. Where was the thin trickle of firelight that always glowed from the gap. Had they let the fire die? Had they extinguished the lamps?
He stepped into the hall. The hearth glowed with dull coals. "Hey," Barch cried out. "Is everybody dead?"
No response, no whisper, no murmur, no slightest stir of sound. Barch ran up the passage into Big Hole. Gray light poured in through the opening. The double-barge was gone. Big Hole was empty.
Barch walked slowly to the opening. Wide. He looked up into the sky. The overcast came racing fast across Mount Kebali.
He returned to the hall, sat on the bench, held his hand to his head. The coals glowed, winked, and one by one died out. Barch sat in the cool silence.
Gray light seeped in through the crevice. Barch rose, went slowly outside. He banged the stump of his left arm on the stone and felt no pain. "Well," said Barch aloud, "so much for that."
CHAPTER XI
Barch stood in the cave opening. Light rain fell slanting down the wind, so cold as to be near-sleet; perhaps the Magarak winter was beginning. Purple-gray overcast, heavy and twisted, scraped the black ridges. The notch at the mouth of the valley was blurred; the black fronds of the forest shook and rattled.
He returned inside the cave, threw wood on the coals, watched the smolder start up into little flames, grow to a blaze.
He turned away, and without reason climbed the passage into Big Hole. Watery gray light entered through the gap, twenty feet high, fifty feet wide; he could not possibly fill it in alone. He shrugged turned away, looked around the cavern.
He was still lord of vast properties-the cargo of sustenators, less the three for the ship and one in the hall. There were crates of welding tape, the igniter, the cutting tools, spools of cable, a respectable pile of decking. The explosives were used up, all the accr had gone with the double-barge. Oddments, scrap, broken crates littered the uneven half of the floor. Nothing of value or immediate usefulness.
Barch started back down to the hall, then stopped. Something had to be done about the hole. With only one hand, piling up a wall of rocks was out of the question. But he could rig a makeshift screen, lashing up the deck-sheets with cable and maybe throwing a few branches against the outside for camouflage.
He returned to the hall, fed himself from the sustenator. The fire was warm, the rain hissed outside. He felt drowsy, torpid. He dozed for a few moments, then awoke with a start. Voices? Sweet woman-voices? Heart thumping like a hammer, he jumped up, peered around the hall. Nothing. He looked down the back passage, listened. Silence. He went out to the crevice, scanned the sky. The rain had become a heavy lashing torrent; the black fronds bowed, shivered; the forest sighed, wind moaned down the valley.
Barch went up to Big Hole, worked furiously, half in the rain, half out. When he finished, a double row of panels hung across the hole, flapping and bumping. Not good, but better than nothing.
He went back to the hall, sat staring into the fire, and so the day passed.
On the fourth morning, overcome by restlessness, he took up the raft. He landed precariously on the summit of Mount Kebali, stood looking out across Quodaras District. A smell of smoke hung in the air. Along the horizon Barch saw no less than twenty plumes of leaden vapor sweeping down the dank wind. As he watched a star-shaped flash of red fire burst up in the middle distance. Half a minute later, he felt a dull shock on his face, heard a rumble like thunder. Resisting the temptation to fly out over the city, Barch returned to the cave.
He spent half a day piling fronds of vegetation against the Big Hole panels. Backing off to inspect his work, he saw a barge sliding down into the valley.
Barch ran to the cave mouth, ducked behind his gun. He sighted through the finder; his hand went to the trigger… He frowned, squinted. These were no Podruods; in fact, there were women standing at the rail as well as men. Fifty or sixty of them, a bedraggled lot, apparently all of the same race, with skin and features not unlike his own.
The barge settled to the flat. The stairs snapped out; a thin bald man with a shrewd round face jumped to the ground, followed by a tall youth with dark hair. Barch could hear the voices, but not the words.
After a moment the rest of the passengers climbed down the ladder, stood looking uncertainly around the flat. The thin bald man spied Barch and the gun. He crouched. The others, following his gaze froze in consternation, their voices dwindled.
Barch called out in the Magarak pidgin-tongue, "Come up here where I can talk to you." The thin bald man and the dark-haired youth approached warily. "What brings you here?" Barch asked gruffly.
The thin man looked carefully behind Barch into the crevice. "You might call us fugitives. What about you?"