"I know what to expect. This is Magarak."
Barch said, "Personally, I'm scared stiff."
She shrugged. "Adjust yourself; your fear will pass."
Barch glared. "Adjust myself be damned! I'm almost afraid that I won't be able to make these devils regret the day they saw me!"
She glanced up to the top of the ramp. "The Podruods will soon curse you of that."
"They have eyes like the Klau."
"They're a sub-species of Klau. There are Big Klau, Little Klau, Bornghaleze, Podruods-all Klau stock. The Podruods are the troops, the guards, the fighters."
A metallic clatter rang out, accompanied by distant shouts. Barch, turning his head, saw a long feather-shaped boom vibrating back and forth across the sky. Overhead six white balls snapped past-one after the other, like rockets.
He said in Komeitk Lelianr's ears, "This is bedlam."
She nodded briefly. "Compared to other parts of Magarak it's quiet."
The Podruod voice rang out above like a clarion. "Hey! Hey! Hey!" Directly behind them the fence opened. "I guess we move," muttered Barch.
A sudden rush of gray bodies with frightened white faces surged past. Knobby shoulders pummeled Barch. "Ellen!" he cried. He looked all around desperately. "Ellen! Where are you? Ellen!"
Arms thrust angrily at him, he was carried along the tide. "Ellen!" He thought he heard his name; he stopped to listen. Nothing but the shuffle and thud of feet, ringing shouts of the great red Podruods.
A chute loomed ahead. Four abreast the Modoks scuttled up, jumped down into what appeared to be a long black barge. A Podruod with legs painted blue stood in the stern, his face working like rubber, yelling, crying.
Barch craned his neck, searching the sea of alien faces. Fifty feet ahead he saw Komeitk Lelianr. "Ellen!" She turned her head. A great red hand obscured her face; she stumbled up the chute.
A second chute opened at Barch's right; the Podruods roared new directions.
Barch pushed forward, now shoving against the tide. He saw Komeitk Lelianr half-way up the chute. The Podruod roared, struck at him; the light-serpent snapped out.
Barch fell to his knees; feet pressed around him, stepping on his hands, his legs.
He crawled doggedly through, saw massive Podruod legs ahead. In sudden fury, he dove forward, tackled the legs. The great body toppled; the light-whip rolled in the dust. Barch snatched at it, missed. He rose to his feet, raced up the chute, pressed into the last of the group.
From behind came a hoarse yelling; Barch, glancing over his shoulder, saw a clot of Modoks kicking at the great spiked head, smiling, laughing.
Podruods came pounding along the ramp; light-snakes darted; the gray men dutifully marched into the chutes. The red man writhed, kicked on the ground like a beetle on its back.
Barch pushed ahead. "Ellen!" He grasped her arm. "I thought I had lost you."
She took his hand, squeezed it tight. Barch's heart gave a sudden throb of joy. It was almost worth coming to Magarak.
A gate clanged behind them. The barge shuddered, rose into the air, slid clear of the slave yard.
Barch and Komeitk Lelianr, the last aboard, leaned against the rail. Komeitk Lelianr motioned toward the panorama. "Now, look at Magarak…"
CHAPTER IV
The scene was too vast, too complex for mental grasp. Barch sensed flaring lights, gigantic objects in motion, monstrous shapes. Near at hand the lights were like openings into furnaces: yellow, orange, greenish-white, red; at the horizon they gleamed and flickered like stars.
Heavy sound came at a constant grumbling pitch, so far-reaching that it seemed an intrinsic property of the planet. Across the sky moved endless shapes-booms swinging in low circles, black objects like spiders darting along glistening tracks, barges floating at various levels, blast of dark vapor. Then underneath were the buildings: grayish-white, greenish-gray, black, orange, some faintly etched with window lines, others blank as new paper. Between were dark crevasses flickering with yellow or bluish glow far at the bottom.
Barch looked up into the sky, smoky, sooty, lumpy with low clouds. "Is it day or night? It must be day."
Komeitk Lelianr asked wryly, "What do you think of Magarak?"
"I feel like an ant in a thrashing machine," said Barch. He looked around the horizon. "How far does the madhouse go on?"
"We must be on Kdoa," she mused. "A large continent- about five thousand of your miles wide."
"Five thousand miles of this!"
She nodded. "Underneath are the barracks, the commissaries, the nurseries."
"Nurseries-for what?"
"Slave children. Slaves are encouraged to breed. The women become pregnant often to avoid heavy work. The children make the best slaves; they know no other kind of life."
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."