Inside Khundru
"Gary," said Nora, "I'm frightened. Suppose--"
"Hush, my dear," warned Dr. Kang swiftly. "From now on speak only in
the Magogean tongue. Suspicious ears may lurk at any crossroads."
A full week's time, as measured by earthly watches, had passed since
the _Liberty's_ fortunate landing near the Gogean camp. In that time
all the space venturers, and particularly those who were to attempt the
first reaching of Khundru's gates, had been given an intensive training
course in the other world's formalities. Through means of instruments
so ingeniously clever that the Earthmen could only marvel at them,
there had been electrically superimposed upon their brain structures a
knowledge-pattern giving them complete acquaintance with the Magogean
tongue, habits, customs, traditions, something of the history of the
race, and even a general knowledge of current events.
"I'm sorry," whispered Nora, shifting to the Magogean tongue, "but--but
I'm frightened, Gary. Suppose we should meet Borisu?"
Lark O'Day grunted. "He'd have one hell of a time recognizing us
dressed--or _undressed_--like this."
He scowled disdainfully at the crude _peon_ garb with which his sturdy
frame was draped; clothing which consisted of little more than worn
sandals, a twisted, filthy rag about his loins, and a loose, sacklike
halter draped from his shoulders.
Gary admitted ruefully, "We _aren't_ exactly candidates for a sartorial
award. But this is the best disguise we could possibly effect. The
Magogean kraedars spurn their slaves like dust beneath their feet. Even
if we _were_ to meet Borisu, he would look past or through us and never
notice our faces. And that's what we want."
"It's damn hard on the girls, though," grunted O'Day. "The least the
blue boys could have done was given us a lighter cart. One we three
could handle by ourselves, without _them_ having to act as dray horses,
too. Ease up there, Penny. Don't ruin those pretty hands."
Kang's daughter glanced at him sidewise and smiled. She said in a soft,
liquid voice, "Do not worry about us, Lark. It were better Nora and I
ruined our soft hands on this cart than that your fighting hands should
not be ready when the moment comes. Is it not so, Nora?"
Nora, tugging beside her at the draw-tongue of the cumbersome vehicle
which comprised part of the typical _impedimenta_ of lower class
Magogean nomads, smiled agreement.
"Much better. Though I confess I don't envy those whose rôles we are
playing. I wouldn't like to do this _all_ the time."
"I don't believe," said Kang in a low voice, "you are going to have to
do it much longer. For see? Before us? A city on the river's edge, and
armed soldiers watching our approach. You know our story?"
"Yes."
"Good! Remember it well. We must make no mistake."
* * * * *
This was their last exchange of free, unguarded speech. For as he had
said, the soldiers had spotted them, and a company was moving forward
to challenge their approach.
They did so, Gary Lane could not help thinking, in a manner typically
Magogean. Not with any warmth or friendliness, but in dictatorial tones
of sharp suspicion.
"Hold, there, slaves! Who are you? Whence came you? Whither are you
going?"
Gary, haltered shoulder to shoulder beside his friend and comrade, felt
Lark O'Day's body stiffen with suppressed rage at this form of address.
But like himself, O'Day remained hunched, with head hanging stupidly
low, as if both were the witless serfs they pretended to be.
The elderly Kang spoke, as had been agreed, for their group.
"Greetings, O warriors of strength and valor. I am the freedman, Kengu.
These are my daughters and their mates. We come from the Twilight Zone
to seek employment in the city of Khundru."
"Twilight Zone?" demanded the warrior captain suspiciously. "What were
_you_ doing there?"
"For three years," answered Kang, "we labored there in the service
of the _kraedar_ Alisur. Now the noble _kraedar_ is dead. We have no
master."
He could say this confidently. From a Magogean newscast had been
learned of Alisur's recent and opportune demise. That Alisur had been
an explorer operating in the Twilight Zone was a feature upon which
they had been swift to capitalize.
The warrior captain nodded and strode to the cart, pulled back the
sacking with which it was covered.
"And what have you here? Valuable goods, no doubt, you stole from your
dead master?"
"Nay, Noble One. Naught but our common household belongings. Bedding
and articles of furniture. Clothing ... utensils for cooking."
The captain, peering into the laden cart, grunted disdainfully and
threw back its cover. "The old man speaks truth. The foul cart reeks
of rubbish. Very well, old fool, on your way. Report yourself to the
guardsman at the Twilight Gate, and show him this pass." He scribbled
briefly on something resembling paper, tossed it at Kang. "This will
permit you to enter the city. Wait!" A look of cunning stole into the
chieftain's eyes. "Of course there is the matter of an entry fee. You
have some money?"
Kang answered humbly, "Very little, my lord. Scarce enough to sustain
us until we have succeeded in finding employment. Barely five units--"
"Hand it over!" demanded the other harshly. "There are five of you. The
entry fee is a unit each. Well, swiftly, slave! Or must I use the lash?"
* * * * *
He fingered almost hopefully the braided whip which dangled at his
belt. But docilely Kang withdrew a sweat-stained leather pouch from his
garments and handed it to the captain. And without further challenge
they stumbled down the road to the entry gate.
Here they were stopped by a sentry, and Kang proffered the captain's
note. The sentry read it, Gary thought, almost angrily, and grumbled,
"Curse Draliu! I suppose he got what money you had?"
Kang answered meekly, "We had but five units, sir. And that was the
entry fee, the captain told us."
"Curse him," repeated the sentry. "He bleeds them _all_ white before
they get this far! Very well, in with you. But look sharp you move in
a hurry when this light turns white. If you're only half way over the
line when the shield closes again, God help you!"
He laughed unpleasantly, pressed a button, and spoke into a diaphragm
beside him. An instant later a light at the sentry box glowed white,
and hurriedly the five slaves, straining, tugged their heavy cart into
motion. They had barely succeeded in crossing the designated line when,
with a sudden, crackling sound, a dust film rose from the ground behind
them and the white light went out.
Gary, glancing back at Dr. Kang, saw the old man's forehead was beaded
with perspiration. When he looked askance, Kang whispered, "They don't
take many chances. They didn't leave the barrier open long. If we had
been a minute slower in bringing the cart through--"
"What?" asked Nora Powell.
"The closing barrier would have smashed us into atoms. But we have
learned one important thing, at any rate."
"Yes?" asked Gary.
"Again," said Dr. Kang, "as several times before, we have tangible
evidence that the Magogean culture is not so high as they would
believe. _My_ people--" he said almost proudly--"have ways to open
one portion of the force-shield at a time, admitting friends to its
protection through a small opening. Theirs is a more elementary form.
To open it in any spot is to open it everywhere. That may be a handy
thing to know."
Thus entered Gary Lane and his companions into the city of Khundru. It
was a strange city. Even Lark O'Day, who of them all was best capable
to judge, having flung his madcap way afar amongst the planets of Sol's
universe, admitted that.
"I've seen Greater New York," he said, "and Imperial Ceres. They're
about tops in ultramodern culture. I've seen the barbaric splendors of
the Venusian capital, and the filthy mud hovels the Mercurians call--or
used to call--their temples. But never anywhere have I seen anything
which looked like this."
And he shook his head bewilderedly at the heterogeneous architectural
display sprawling about them. Khundru was a city of contradictions:
the dwelling place of a people who believed themselves capable of
attainments greater than they possessed.
* * * * *
Here both sides of a thoroughfare so exquisitely inlaid and tessellated
that it might have graced the entrance to a potentate's _seraglio_,
would be lined with dingy, malodorous dwellings earthborn dogs might
have scorned to sleep in. Turn a corner and the eyes widened to behold
great gilded temples towering skyward in a setback architecture
dwarfing the most hopeful achievements of any solar race. The sky above
the city was athrong with space and air vessels ... huge, thundering
rockets and gossamer-winged glidercraft of scintillant beauty ... but
the streets below rumbled with the wooden wheels of such cumbersome
vehicles as that which they themselves hauled painfully along.
The sights, the smells, the street sounds of the city were comparable
to those of an oriental bazaar in, thought Lane, Earth's woefully
anachronistic Twentieth Century; that period when only a portion of
humanity's masses had known the delights of civilized existence.
Even without the benefit of the training to which they had been exposed
they could have picked their way almost unerringly to the city's
center. Khundru was built like a huge wheel about the central hub which
was its Palace Royal. The streets through which they threaded their way
was a spoke of this wheel.
In the Palace Royal, they knew, could be found not only the governing
but also the dwelling chambers of the highly elect _Kraedaru_, the
ruling gentry of Magog. There also was to be found the vital control
center of this sprawling octopus whose tentacles they must paralyze so
the Gogean army could burst into the city.
But if they had hoped to attain so far without challenge, they were
bitterly disappointed. For they had penetrated scarcely a third of
the way when a sudden clamor aroused them from their furtive study
of the city. Voices cried out, whether in surprise, alarm or joy was
hard to tell, and the milling throng which but a moment ago had rubbed
shoulders with them too closely for comfort began to clear from the
thoroughfare and huddle fearfully against the walls of the street.
Gary glanced at Dr. Kang, his eyebrows asking the question his lips
barely muttered.
"What now?"
Kang answered softly, "I do not know. But there is a saying of your
people, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' Quickly, move the cart to
the curbing, and let us take our places with the others."
But before the awkward tumbrel could be dragged from the right of way,
with a flurry of brazen hoofs and a raucous clamor of trumpets there
galloped around the corner and squarely down upon them a small troop of
mounted lancers.
* * * * *
There was room and to spare for these haughty warriors to pass them
by ... but such was not the way of the Magogean _kraedaru_. As the
cavalry captain, drawing near, saw upon the street one cart which had
not yet moved completely to the curb, one tiny knot of struggling
serfs who had not as yet taken abject posts against the wall, a flush
darkened his cheeks and his eyes darted anger. With a guttural cry he
changed his troop's straightforward charge, bore directly down upon
Dr. Kang and his "family." Then, at the last possible moment, when
it seemed certain his armed warriors and their mounts must trample
ruthlessly over the bodies of the trapped quintet, shattering their
cart to splinters, he drew up his men, and, his voice heavy with rage,
leaned from his saddle and cried to Dr. Kang:
"You there, slave--what means this? How dare you deliberately block our
passage?"
[Illustration: The cavalry captain bore directly down on Dr. Kang's
cart.]
"Why, you--" began Lark O'Day.
But Lane, standing with his head abjectly bowed beside his friend,
gripped the other man's wrist to silence him. And from the cart, Dr.
Kang answered in a thin, meek voice;
"Forgiveness, Excellence. Your servants did not know--"
"The lash!" cried the warrior captain. "Twenty to each of them, then
let us be gone. Or--_Wait!_" His eyes narrowed as the implication of
Kang's words struck him. "Did not know? You did not recognize our
signal as we approached? Where are you from? You are not of Khundru."
"Nay, master," whined Kang. "We are poor exiles of a far northern city,
Tabori by name, but recently come out of the Twilight Zone to seek
service in the noble capital of our race--"
"Recently come?" The chieftain's eyes narrowed still farther. Then:
"Where is your master, serf?"
"Our master is dead, sire." Kang explained as he had explained to the
captain of the barrier guard. But it was evident that in Khundru the
higher a man's post the greater became his authority and greed. For
scarce had he revealed that their erstwhile master was no more than the
cavalry leader interrupted him.
"No master, eh? That situation shall soon be remedied. By the rank and
authority which is mine as a _kraedar_ of Khundru I hereby claim you as
mine own. Not--" He laughed--"that I shall put you to use. A Captain
of the Royal Guard has no need of house servants. But your two sons
should make sturdy slaves for the tilling of someone's land. And your
two daughters--"
He paused and stroked his jaw reflectively. It was clear that the
Captain of the Royal Guards was reconsidering his need of servants. To
forestall his thinking, Kang spoke hurriedly, invoking a law which he
had learned existed amongst the Magogeans.
"A thousand pardons, sire--but we are not slaves. We are freedmen. When
our master died he gave us household goods and chattels wherewith to
establish our own little home--"
"So?" The _kraedar_ laughed mockingly. "Yet if you had not these
things, old man, you would be slaves again, is it not so? Well, then--"
He turned and barked a command to his soldiers. Instantly bright
weapons leaped from their belts to their hands. And it was with the
barest warning the quintet of Solarites managed to scramble from the
proximity of the cart as the blazing rays of a dozen ultrawave handguns
spat flame upon the cart. In a moment of searing fire the vehicle was
gone, blasted to oblivion by those frightful rays.
"So," continued the captain, "having no chattels of your own, you are
again slaves. _Tramir_ Chingru--herd me these cattle to the mart,
and there get for me the best price you can. And mind," he added
dangerously, "you bring me back _all_ the profits. Make no mistake as
to the amount."
A single warrior fell out of formation, gestured the quintet into a
little knot before him, and pointed the way down a side avenue. The
warrior captain, smirking with satisfaction, spurred his company on its
journey.
An hour later all five were parcels of merchandise in the slave mart
of Imperial Khundru.