by VASELEOS GARSON
They were the pitiful remnants of a proud world,
huddled into slave quarters on Karrar, dying
before the cold brutality of the Kraks, seeking
the Achilles' heel in the armor of their
masters. One man alone still fought them--even
he knowing he battled with a lance of straw.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Nothing new ... this. The viewpoint, maybe, was different, this time.
The script was the same, only there were new actors in the cast of
characters.
Human historians had written the story over and over. Even the _Kraks_
probably had a parallel story in their world.
Sean McKenna flinched a little as the beam of the thin yellow light bit
into his left shoulder, burning a crooked X into the tanned flesh. Then
with a shrug, Sean nodded his red-thatched head slightly, moved into
the rapidly growing queue of humans who watched the Krak counters with
varied expressions, most of them quietly despairing.
Sean accepted his destiny with a slanted smile.
He, too, stared steadily at the impassive-faced _Kraks_ whose naked
torsos and hairless round heads glistened with sweat in the afternoon
of Earth's sun.
He thought: They have two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, one body,
two arms and two legs just like us humans. But they are something apart
from us, for they are the masters and we--his mind shrugged--are the
slaves.
Sean fixed his green eyes on the scarlet-kilted Krak whose light had
so emotionlessly added him to the cargo of slaves for the Krak's home
planet somewhere out in the reaches of space.
Sean grew aware of the monotonous voice of a Krak, tolling out what
must be numbers as the yellow lights in the hands of other Kraks
flicked haphazardly among the other residents of Sean's village.
Then the monotonous voice sharpened, and the yellow lights stopped
flickering.
There was silence then for a brief moment, while the eyes of those
chosen and those left behind touched briefly, despairingly. In that
silence, Sean heard her voice and the quietness with which he had
accepted the end of his earthly life almost vanished.
"Oh, Sean," she cried. "They didn't take me!" Sean's eyes darted to
the edge of the crowd to where she stood, her arms stretched out
supplicatingly to him; her soft red lips quivering; her blue eyes
brimming; her soft black hair caressed by the afternoon wind.
Sean broke out of line then, almost running toward her. The
scarlet-kilted Krak who had marked him reached out a restraining hand.
His fingers bit into Sean's arm until the blood spurted; the shock of
pain from his arm held in the Krak's unbreakable hold halted him.
He looked at her quietly then shrugged, and marched back to his place
in the line.
He was unmindful of the pain in his wrenched arm as he moved along with
the rest up the slanted walk to the oval door of the space ship. At the
top he turned, and his voice rose above the murmur of the crowd.
"I'll come back, Maureen," he said, and blew her a kiss from his
fingertips. Then he stepped into the darkness, following those others
before him.
In the gloom, someone said: "Always the gallant one, eh, Sean? You know
damn well that you'll never see Earth again. No one who ever left on
these slave ships has ever come back."
"I think I recognize Michael O'Hara, the village pessimist," Sean
replied and there was almost a lightness in his voice. They moved
deeper into the bowels of the ship, aware of the curious scraping sound
the Krak guards made as they walked with them.
* * * * *
They were all quiet, these men, women and children whom the Kraks had
carelessly chosen, as they marched into the huge dark room that was
to be their home for the journey to Karrar. The scraping noise moved
through the room, then to the door of the hole. The portal shut with
the dull sound of heavy metal. The scraping noise grew fainter, then it
was gone.
Not until then did the humans give vent to their emotions. The sound
of despair was hesitant at first--in a far corner a child gasped,
coughed and then sobbed. It was the signal--and the mingled sounds of
hysterical laughter, weeping, groaning were ragged knives twisting in
Sean McKenna's heart. A rending cacophony of lost hope.
"Shut up," he shouted hoarsely. "This is no time for weeping and
wailing; this is the time to think, to plan." For a moment the awful
symphony subsided; then someone said wearily:
"Against the Kraks? What did planning ever do against them? They are
invulnerable. We used atomic power, guns, knives, bow and arrows, even
our fists against them. And they crushed us like rats in a corner."
The cacophony resumed, and Sean's shouting voice could not stop it
now--he could not even hear his own voice. A hand touched his arm
gently:
"Easy, Sean," Michael O'Hara whispered in his ear. "They are right.
If we couldn't beat them as free men, how can we even think of it as
slaves?"
"The fools," Sean said savagely. "No matter how weak they are, they can
keep fighting, keep probing for a chink in their armor."
"No, Sean, for fifteen years we fought, seeking that chink, and failed
to find it. Deep down in your heart you know the Kraks cannot be
beaten. Physically, they are to us as we are to new-born babes--no
weapon of man can touch them, and did you ever hear of a Krak dying of
disease?
"No, we met a better adversary. Mother of Erin, Sean, we deserve to be
slaves, we haven't the accoutrements to take on the Universe Champion."
"There's nothing anywhere that hasn't a weakness, Mike. I aim to find
the weakness."
Mike O'Hara grunted: "Why this sudden fervor to destroy the Kraks,
anyway? Until today, you were content to go fishing and hunting without
thought of them. Now you've done a right-about-face."
"I know," said Sean, and there was chagrin in his voice. "Until today,
they hadn't bothered me."
"So you want to embroil the whole human race in your fight, eh?"
"Oh, hell, Mike, it's not my fight--it's humanity's battle for
self-preservation. You know that as well as I do. Besides, wouldn't you
like to see Jane again?"
"That hurt, Sean," Mike said softly.
Sean touched him lightly on the shoulder: "Sorry, Mike, but don't you
see? All of us want to see the ones we love again. And we won't, if we
let despair grab us."
"All right," said Mike. "I'll go along with you. But it's no go just
the same."
"Pessimist," Sean said and laughed softly. But he was glad the blocky,
black-haired Mike was with him.
* * * * *
The uprooting of these humans from their home of ages had been simple
enough, Sean decided. Except for the nausea that held the stomach in
noisome fingers when the Krak ship broke loose from the earth.
Were there more captives this time than in the long years before? Were
there 1,000 Krak ships--instead of 500--transplanting men and women and
children to that scarlet land of Karrar?
Sean said as much to Mike, and Mike said: "I heard before we left that
this would be the biggest batch." Mike looked harried in the yellow
wall light. "Sean," he said quickly, with a twist on his lips: "How's
the search coming?"
Sean jerked his red-thatched head around, stared at him.
"Why the sudden earnestness?" Mike licked his lips quickly. "I didn't
know it before, but just now when I was looking over the people here, I
found Marcia, and she's sick."
"Marcia?" Sean repeated. "I thought you and she had busted up that
romance?"
Mike nodded: "She did," he said quietly. "But I'll never stop loving
her."
"Mike, how about Jane? You and she were to be married--tomorrow, wasn't
it?"
"I know, I know," Mike said hurriedly. "But Marcia's sick, and she
looked at me so appealingly when I recognized her, it all came back.
The least I can do is comfort her."
"Sure, sure ..." Sean said. That curious scraping sound that marked the
coming of a Krak interrupted them.
It was the scarlet-kilted Krak who had marked Sean for the trip. He
stood inside the open prison door, his naked torso gleaming in the
yellow light and his hairless round head turning.
His round head stopped turning as his dark eyes above the wide flat
nose fastened on Sean's red hair.
"You," he mouthed, "with the red hair. Come!"
Sean moved forward cautiously, his nerves atingle, his strong hands
doubled into fists.
He followed the scarlet kilt out of the packed prison room, along an
interminable series of passageways that led upward, and finally entered
a room about twenty feet wide and thirty feet long.
It was innocent of furniture or decoration. There were no windows.
But standing in the middle of the room was an eight-foot Krak, dwarfing
even the seven-foot bulk of his guide.
The scarlet-kilted Krak turned to him.
"Find your answer," the scarlet-kilted Krak said cryptically. He
pointed to the Krak, naked save for a kind of breechclout about his
loins. "He is your subject."
Sean was staring at his guide, startled out of his usual acceptance of
the bizarre and the trite.
"Our audios picked up your plotting," the scarlet-kilted one said. "We
do not wish to kill you, you are much more valuable on Karrar. But we
cannot have restless humans fired by one like you who thinks we are
vulnerable.
"There is a Krak. Kill him if you can." The scarlet-kilted Krak turned
to the other standing in the center of the room.
"You have understood my words, Klash? You understand that you will
allow this human to do all in his power to kill you. Allow him all
liberties until you are convinced that he has run out of ways in which
to take your life."
"Yes, O, Ralk." Klash bent his huge bald head.
Ralk called aloud in his own tongue. Another Krak appeared pushing a
plastic crate before him. He pushed the crate into the room. Then he
went out, followed by Ralk. At the door Ralk stopped and said:
"Human, there are many weapons there. Use them, and see if you can kill
one of us." Then he went out.
Sean McKenna was alone with the brute called Klash.
He moved to the box, looked in.
He looked up then at Klash, and whistled. "You must be tough, brother."
Then he hauled the array of weapons from the crate. He laid them on the
duralloy deck beneath his feet.
A high-powered rifle, a meat ax, a sledge hammer, an acetylene torch,
a sword, a rope, a crowbar. Then a grenade. Sean laid the last item
gently aside, and remarked, "That'd kill _me_."
Then he dumped the whole mass of weapons out on the deck.
* * * * *
It was a very good collection of various Earth and Krak weapons.
Besides diverse types of guns, powder, electric and air operated, there
were blowguns of all lengths, complete with quivers of poison-dipped
arrows. There were many weapons made by the Kraks, only one or two of
which Sean recognized.
He picked up the little hand-gun that emitted the burning ray.
He trained it on the Krak's chest, nicked the little button wide open.
Such power exploded a human being, instantly converting the moisture in
his system to steam.
Klash stood there, impassive. Sean pumped a full round of bullets at
the Krak from the high-powered rifle, then hurled himself on the floor
to dodge the richocheting bullets. He got up, a rueful grin on his thin
lips, and shot assorted poisonous darts through the blowguns.
The poison was sudden death to any earthly thing.
Klash was impassive.
Sean hefted a battle-ax that the Kraks apparently had filched from
some museum. He walked up slowly toward Klash, the double-bitted ax
swinging heavily in his hand.
Sean took a stance, spat on his palms, and swung the ax, unmindful that
he ripped open the wound Ralk had made when he stopped him from moving
toward Maureen.
The bright blade gleamed in the yellow light, the muscles, lean and
sinewy across Sean's back rippled and tore his tunic across the back.
The head of the ax hit Klash waist-high and bounced, flipping Sean to
the deck. Klash rocked a little on his feet from the shock. That was
all.
Sean, a desperate grin tightening his lips, threw the book at Klash--he
tied the hemp rope about his neck and tried to strangle the Krak; he
put the crowbar in Klash's mouth, tried to break the jaws; turned the
blow torch against his chest. No response.
At long last, after he exhausted almost the complete roster of weapons,
Sean looked thoughtfully at the grenade. Then he shook his head.
Sean walked up to Klash, stared up at his towering bulk. Klash looked
down at him, impassive. Sean laughed then and hurled himself upward,
lashing out with his bony fists at the Krak's neck and shoulders.
The impassivity vanished from Klash's face. It twisted, almost as if in
pain, Sean thought, before the Earthman's senses were washed out in a
rocking shock as one big fist lashed against the side of his head. The
echo of his own laughter was the last sound he heard.
* * * * *
Sean still saw that strange look on Klash's face when he opened his
eyes into the glaring yellow light. But the picture vanished as pain
shuddered through his body.
Mike's voice worked its way through his pain.
"Mother of Erin, Sean, what did they do to you?"
"Uh," grunted Sean and moved to a sitting position against the wall and
looked down at his body and legs. He was covered with bruises, yellow
and red and blue and black, and each throbbed its own special melody of
hurt.
"I don't know, Mike. I passed out when Klash hit me."
Mike said: "Old Doc Perkins said there isn't a square inch of your
body that hasn't a bruise. What he can't figure is how you took such
punishment without getting a bone broken."
"Hah," Sean tried to laugh through bruised lips. "Doc's wrong. They
busted every bone in my body. Then they glued me together again." He
paused.
"Mike, I found it."
"Sure, Sean," Mike put in gently. "You found it. That nice little pot
of gold at the end of the rainbow. Only it blew up in your face."
"No, Mike, I found that chink."
Mike gasped once, then sat there very quietly staring at the red-headed
Sean.