"They must be hiding out in there," Commander Stane said. "Flash a light down and see how deep it is."
There was no way to tell. The hole was really a smooth walled tunnel that turned at a sharp angle five metres inside the entrance. The Eye swooped down and hung, humming, above the opening.
"I took a look in some of the other huts," Arnild said from the ship. "The Eye found a hole like this in every one of them. Want me to take a look inside?"
"Yes, but take it slowly," Commander Stane told him. "If there are people hiding down there we don’t want to frighten them more. Drift down and pull back if you find anything."
The humming died as the Eye floated down the tunnel and out of sight.
"Joined another tunnel," Arnild reported. "And now an-other junction. Getting confused…don’t know if I can get it back the way I sent it in."
"The Eye is expendable," the Commander told him. "Keep going."
"Must be dense rock around… signal is getting weaker and I have a job holding control. A bigger cavern of some sort… wait! There’s someone! Caught a look at a man going into one of the side tunnels."
"Follow him," Stane said.
"Not easy," Arnild said after a moment’s silence. "Looks like a dead end. A rock of some kind blocking the tunnel. He must have rolled it back and blocked the passage after he went by. I’ll back out… Blast!"
"What’s wrong?"
"Another rock behind the Eye — they’ve got it trapped in that hunk of tunnel. Now the screen’s dead, and all I can get is an out-of-operation signal!" Arnild sounded exasperated and angry.
"Very neat," Commander Stane said. "They lured it in, trapped it — then probably collapsed the roof of the tunnel. These people are very suspicious of strangers and seem to have a certain efficiency at getting rid of them."
"But why?" Dall asked, frankly puzzled, looking around at the crude construction of the hut. "What do these people have that the Slavers could have wanted so badly? It’s obvious that the Slavers put a lot of time and effort into trying to dig down there. Did they ever find what they were looking for? Did they try to destroy this planet because they had found it — or hadn’t found it?"
"I wish I knew," Commander Stane said glumly. "It would make my job a lot easier. We’ll get a complete report off to HQ — maybe they have some ideas."
On the way back to the ship they noticed the fresh dirt in the grove of trees. There was a raw empty hole where the girl had been buried. The ground had been torn apart and hurled in every direction. There were slash marks on the trunks of the trees, made by sharp blades… or giant claws. Something or somebody had come for the girl, dug up her body and vented a burning rage on the ground and the trees. A crushed trail led to an opening between the roofs of one of the trees. It slanted back and down, its dark mouth as enigmatic and mysterious as the other tunnels.
Before they retired that night, Commander Stane made a double check that the ports were locked and all the alarm circuits activated. He went to bed but didn’t sleep. The answer to the problem seemed tantalizingly obvious, hovering just outside his reach. There seemed to be enough facts here to draw a conclusion from. But what? He drifted into a fitful doze without finding the answer.
When he awoke the cabin was still dark, and he had the feeling something was terribly wrong. What had awakened him? He groped in his sleep-filled memories. A sigh. A rush of air. It could have been the cycling of the air lock. Fighting down the sudden fear he snapped on the lights and pulled his gun from the bedside rack. Arnild appeared, yawning and blinking in the doorway.
"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, two! I’ll work the duplicate controls!"
"But what’s happened?" Arnild gaped. "What’s young Dall done?"
"Gone underground. Into the tunnels. We have to stop him!"
Dall was nowhere in sight, but the lip of the tunnel under the trees was freshly crumbled.
"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, 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 huddled intensity of the Commander at the controls changed his mind. He sent his own Eye rocketing towards the village.
If the people hiding in the maze of tunnels heard the message, they certainly didn’t believe it. One Eye was trapped m a dead-end tunnel when the opening behind it suddenly filled with soft dirt. Commander Stane tried nosing the machine through the dirt, but it was firmly trapped and held. He could hear thumpings and digging as more dirt 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 change the end one way or another."
"Something moving in the grove of trees, Commander," Arnild said sharply. "Caught it on the detector, but 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. Only he thought it was possible to change things. But at least he knew what the danger was. He went because he felt guilty for the girl’s death. That was why he left the note with the word slaves on it, in case he didn’t come back."
"It’s really quite simple," he 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 Slaver planet, set up and organized by the Slavers to fit their special needs."
"What?" Arnild asked, still confused.
"Slaves. They were constantly expanding, and you know that their style of warfare was expensive on manpower. They needed steady sources of supply and must have created 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 planted a nucleus, gave the people simple and sufficient sources of food, but absolutely no technology. Then they went away to let them breed. Every few years they would come back, take as many slaves as they needed, and leave the others to replenish the stock. Only they reckoned without one thing."