The man who had been struck by the bolt lay staring up through the low dome at the stars; he was dying and nothing could be done for him. Etzwane ordered two men to remain on guard; they gave him truculent stares, challenging his authority. Etzwane ignored their recalcitrance. 'Take care; do not stand where an asutra can aim at you from that little passage yonder. Block off the opening if you can. Be alert! " He departed the room and went off after Karazan.
A ramp led down to a central hold, and here lay the captives from Caraz, drugged and torpid, on shelves which radiated from the walls like the spokes of a wheel. Karazan had killed one of the lumpish gray attendants; two more stood submissively to the side. None of the three carried asutras. In all, two hundred men, women, and children lay stacked like billets of timber and among them Karazan stood in the center of the room, scowling uncertainly from the gray host-creatures to the captives, at a loss, perhaps for the first time in his life.
"These people are well enough as they are," Etzwane told Karazan. "Let them sleep. Another matter is more urgent. The asutra have small passages where at least one has taken refuge. We must search the ship, taking great precautions, for the creatures carry energy weapons; already they have killed one man. Our best advantage is to block off the passages as we come to them, until we learn the plan of the ship."
Karazan said, "It is smaller than I had expected; not a comfortable or easy place to be."
"The asutra have built as close to their own scale as possible. With luck we shall soon be back down on the surface. Until then we can only wait and hope that the asutra can't call for help."
Karazan blinked. "How could they do that?"
"The advanced races talk through empty space, using the power of lightning."
"Preposterous," muttered Karazan, looking around the chamber. "Why, in the first place, should they go to such lengths for slaves? They have the toad-things, the black monsters like your captive, the red demons, arid who knows how many other servants?"
"Nothing about the asutra is certain," said Etzwane. "One guess is as good as another. Perhaps each of their hosts serves a special function. Perhaps they simply enjoy a variety of hosts."
"No matter," growled Karazan, "we must dig them out of their crannies. " He called instructions to his men and sent them off in pairs. Declaring himself too cumbersome to aid in the search, he took the gray creatures to the observation dome and tried to persuade them to take the ship down to Durdane, without success. Etzwane went off to examine the lift car, still in its socket, and could discover no means to control it. He next searched for food and water, which he found in bins and tanks under the slave hold. The atmosphere seemed fresh; somewhere aboard the ship an automatic renewal system was at work, and Etzwane hoped that if asutra were alive and in hiding they would not think to stifle the intruders. What, in a similar position, would he do himself? If a transfer ship were due from the home-world, he would do nothing, but allow the problem to be solved by exterior means… Two by two the Alula warriors came to report. They had discovered the drive system, the energy generators, the air-purification system. They had surprised and killed one asutra riding the neck of his gray host, but had encountered no others; in a dozen areas they had blocked off asutra passages. Etzwane, now with nothing better to do, made a slow exploration of the ship, trying to learn the location of the asutra refuge. In this work he was assisted by the Alula, who had gained a measure of confidence.
For hours the group studied the ship, estimating distances and volumes, and finally concluded that the private refuge of the asutra lay directly under the control dome, in a space about ten feet square and four feet high. Etzwane and Karazan examined the outside of this space and wondered if they could break in. The walls showed no seams and were formed of a material unknown to Etzwane: neither glass nor metal. The space, Etzwane theorized, constituted the private quarters of the asutra, and he wondered how long they could survive without nourishment-though of course there might be nutriment within the space. Dawn approached. Durdane was a great black-purple disk surrounded by stars, with a pulsing magenta flare in the east. Blue Etta swung over the horizon, then came pink Sasetta, and finally white Zael, and the face of Durdane awoke to the light.
The ship hung above Caraz, at a distance which Etzwane estimated to be about two hundred miles. Below would be Shagfe village, too inconsequential to be noticed. From south to north extended the Caraz rivers, enormous silver-purple snakes, languid on crumpled plush. In the far southwest was Lake Nior and a line of smaller lakes. Etzwane speculated as to the force which held the depot ship in place, and how long it might take to fall to the surface if the asutra cut off the power. Etzwane winced, imagining the last few seconds… Still, the asutra had nothing to gain by destroying their ship. Etzwane reflected upon the curious similarities among creatures as disparate as man, asutra, Roguskhoi, and Ka. All needed sustenance and shelter, all used light to locate themselves spatially… To communicate all used sound, rather than light or touch or odor, for simple and universal reasons. Sound pervaded and filled an area; sound could be produced with minimal energy; sound was infinitely flexible. Telepathy? A faculty unevenly useful to a man but perhaps employed more consistently by other species; indeed, to regard a faculty so basic as restricted to the human race would be irrational. The study and comparison of intelligent life-forms must be a fascinating endeavor, thought Etzwane… He scanned the sky in all directions, which was dead black and blazing with stars. Much too early to expect Ifness and an Earth ship. But not too early to fear the coming of an asutra vessel. The depot ship itself was a squat cylinder, studded at twenty-foot intervals with thick cones ending in white-metal radiants. The skin, Etzwane noted, was not the copper of the ships he had previously seen, but a burnished gray-black, on which shone oily lusters of crimson, dark blue, and green. Etzwane went once more to study the controls. No doubt but that these were in principal similar to the controls of an Earth ship, and he suspected that Ifness, had he been allowed the opportunity, might have puzzled out the functions of the odd little fingers and knobs and tanks of gray jelly… Karazan appeared from below. Claustrophobia had made him edgy and irritable; only in the observation dome, with unobstructed space surrounding him, did he tend to relax. "I cannot break the wall. Our knives and clubs are unequal to the task, and I cannot understand the asutra tools."