"What's going on?" he asked.
"Get Dall! I think someone came into the ship."
"Gone out is more like it," Arnild snuffed. "Dall's not in his bunk."
"What!"
He ran to the control room. The alarm circuit had been turned off. There was a piece of paper on the control console. The commander grabbed it up and read the single word written on it. He gaped as comprehension struck him, then crushed the paper in his convulsive fist.
"The fool!" he shouted. "The damned young fool! Break out an Eye. No, fire up two of them! I'll work the duplicate control!"
"But what happened?" Arnild gaped. "What's young Dall done?"
"Gone underground. Into the tunnels. We have to stop him!"
Dall was nowhere in sight, but there were footprints, fresh crumbled dirt on the lip of the tunnel under the trees.
"I'll take an Eye down there," Commander Stane said.
"You take another one down the next nearest entrance. Use the speakers. Tell them that we are friends. Tell them that in Slaver."
"But you saw what reaction the girl had when Dall told her that." Arnild was puzzled, confused.
"I know what happened," Stane snapped. "But what other choice do we have? Now get on with it!"
Arnild started to ask another question, but the concentrated intensity of the commander at the controls changed his mind. He sent his own Eye rocketing toward the village.
If the people hiding in the maze of tunnels heard the message, they certainly didn't believe it. One Eye was caught in a dead-end tunnel when the opening behind it suddenly filled with soft soil. Commander Stane tried nosing the machine through the dirt, but it was firmly trapped and held. He could hear thumpings and digging as more soil was piled on top.
Arnild's Eye found a large underground chamber, filled with huddled and frightened sheep. There were none of the natives there. On the way out of this cavern the Eye was trapped under a fall of rocks.
In the end, Commander Stane admitted defeat. "It's up to them now. We can't affect the way this ends. Not one way or another."
"Something moving in the grove of trees, Commander," Arnild said sharply. "Caught it on the detector. It's gone now."
They went out hesitantly with their guns pointed, under a reddened dawn sky. They went, half-knowing what they would find, but fearful to admit it aloud while they could still hope.
Of course there was no hope. Dall the Younger's body lay near the tunnel mouth, out of which it had been pushed. The red dawn glinted from red blood. He had died terribly.
"They're fiends! Animals!" Arnild shouted. "To do that to a man who only wanted to help them. Broke his arms and legs, scratched away most of his skin. His face — nothing left. " The aging gunner choked out a sound that was half gasp, half sob. "They ought to be bombed out, blown up! Like the Slavers started. " He met the commander's burning stare and fell silent.
"That's probably just how the Slavers felt," Stane said. "Don't you understand what happened here?"
Arnild shook his head dumbly.
"Dall had a glimpse of the truth. His mistake was that he thought it was possible to change things. But at least he knew what the danger was. He went because he felt guilt for the girl's death. That was why he left the note with the word 'slave' on it. In case he didn't come back."
"What do you mean—?"
"It's really quite simple," Arnild said wearily, leaning back against a tree. "Only we were looking for something more complex and technical. When it wasn't really a physical problem, but a social one we were facing. This was a slave planet, set up and organized by the Slavers to fit their special needs."
"What?" Arnild asked, still confused.
"Slaves. The Slavers were constantly expanding, and you know that their style of warfare was expensive on manpower. They needed steady sources of supply, so must have had to create them. This planet was one answer. Made to order in a way. A single, lightly forested continent. With few places for the people to hide when the slave ships came. They must have planted settlements, given the people simple and sufficient sources of food — but absolutely no technology. Then they could go away to let the people here breed. After that they would return every few years and take as many slaves as they needed. Leave the others behind to replenish the stock. Only they reckoned without one thing."
Arnild's numbness was wearing off. He understood now.
"The adaptability of mankind," he said.
"Of course. The ability — given enough time — to adapt to almost any extreme of environment. This is a perfect example. A cut-off population with no history, no written language. Just the desire to survive. Every few years unspeakable creatures drop out of the sky and steal their children. They try running away, but there is no place to run. They build boats, but there is no place to sail to. Nothing works. "
"Until one bright boy digs a hole, covers it up, and hides his family in it. And finds out it works."
"The beginning," Commander Stane nodded. "The idea spreads, the tunnels get deeper and more elaborate. The Slavers would try to dig them out — so they started building defenses. This went on — until the slaves finally won.
"This might very well have been the first planet to rebel successfully against the Greater Slavocracy. They couldn't be dug out. Poison gas would just kill them — and they had no value dead. Machines sent after them were trapped like our Eyes. And men who were foolish enough to go down…" He couldn't finish the sentence; Dall's body was stronger evidence than words could ever be.
"But the hatred?" Arnild asked. "The way the girl killed herself rather than be taken." "The tunnels must have become a religion, a way of life," Stane told him. "They had to be, to be kept in operation and repair during the long gap of years between visits by the Slavers. The children had to be taught that the demons come from the skies, that salvation lay below. Just about the opposite of the old Earth religions. Hatred and fear were firmly implanted so that everyone, no matter how young, would know what to do if a ship appeared. There must be entrances everywhere. Seconds after a ship is sighted the population can vanish underground. They knew we were Slavers since only demons come from the sky.
"Dall must have guessed part of this. Only he thought he could reason with them, explain that the Slavers were gone and that they didn't have to hide anymore. That good men come from the skies. But that's heresy, and by itself would be enough to get him killed. If they ever bothered to listen."
They were gentle when they carried Dall the Younger back to the ship.
"It is going to be some job trying to convince these people of the truth." Arnild said when they paused for a moment to rest. "I still don't understand, though, why the Slavers wanted to blow the planet up."
"There too, we were looking for too complex a motive," Commander Stane said. "Why does a conquering army blow up buildings and destroy monuments when it is forced to retreat? Just frustration and anger, old human emotions. If I can't have it, you can't have it either. This planet must have annoyed the Slavers for years. A successful rebellion that they couldn't put down. They kept trying to capture the rebels since they were incapable of admitting defeat at the hands of slaves. When they knew their war was lost, destruction of this planet was an easy vent for their emotions. I noticed you feeling the same way yourself when you saw Dall's body. It's a human reaction."
They were both old soldiers, so they didn't show their emotions too much when they put Dall's corpse into the necro chamber and readied the ship for takeoff.
But they were old men as well, much older since they had come to the planet, and they moved now with old men's stiffness.