The Kar-Chee Reign (16 page)

The hallway wound down and around as well, through on a lesser incline than the main ramp, and it smelled mustily of Kar-chee and it was lit in the same odd fashion as all their other habitations; Liam wondered if this might be due not only to differences in mechanics but to difference between Kar-chee and human eyesight … and he wondered, rather more pressingly, if the Kar-chee who had gestured them hither had done so because he had seen through the disguise and was calmly sending them to somehow their death, or because —

Lors had said
Stop
and Duro had said
Stop
but Liam now merely held up his hand and held it out, holding the others back. Not far ahead, but hidden from sight by the curving corridor, a single Kar-chee “spoke.” Another one, sound just perceptibly different, “answered.” Then the first one replied … or at any rate “spoke” again. There was a groan, in the midst of which the second Kar-chee resumed his speaking. The strange dialogue continued, thus, intermitently. But there was not another groan. Liam’s hands made swift motions. And things began to move.

He and Lors helped, as quickly as they could — unfamiliar task — Duro and Tom to wriggle and squirm out of the Kar-chee carapaces. They emerged, ichorous and odorous and with faces indicating pleasure at being out and loathing at having been in. The cross-bows, which had served as framework to hold the upper parts of the scarecrows in place, were next extracted, and Liam pulled off his shirt for a rag to clean them — quickly and hastily and not totally effectually, but well enough, so that the cord was not likely to slip or the bolt to stick.

Then the four of them went on … Tom and Liam first, propping one of the Kar-chee-things up and holding it up and holding it so that it projected ahead of them. It was not an easily performed task, and they went on slowly, slowly … slowly….

It was not too hard to conjecture the feelings of two men, conversing together, if suddenly the head and upper torso of another man came into sight round the bend of a corridor — head drooping, torso at a probably impossible angle — and then, equally suddenly, vanished from sight again. The men who witnessed this might have thought … anything. But it is reasonably sure that, think what they might, part of their natural reaction would be to go and see
what —

And thus did the Kar-chee.

The first one came into full and almost immediate view, incautiously, and, as it turned out, almost immediately fatally: Duro, to whom first shot had been assigned, caught it with a bolt which pierced an eye and emerged through the top of the brain pan. The second showed himself just as the first was falling, took in enough of the scene to be warned, and withdrew — but not quite soon enough. They were never sure just where the second bolt had pierced this one, so swiftly had it turned and tumbled, threshing about; they did not pause to find out, but flung themselves upon it, knives in hand, seeking for the soft and unprotected hidden places in the chitin, the chinks in the armor; trying all the while to avoid the blows of the huge and murderous-looking anterior fore-limbs.

They found what they had sought.

And found too, in a chamber opening onto the corridor, naked and bleeding and bound … incoherent … Rickar.

• • •

They unfastened his curious bonds (there was actually only one knot, and that behind, where he could never have reached it: yet it gave upon a single tug of the short, protruding claw, and fell in loose folds away from him) and he moaned; they rubbed his limbs, and he groaned; they spoke to him … softly … sharply … he rolled his eyes … and, at last, they slapped his face.

He stopped rolling his eyes and whimpering. He saw the dead Kar-chee and he screamed — a cry which caught them so by surprise that he had time to catch his breath before they muffled his mouth with their hands.

What the Kar-chee had done to him, or what he had thought they might do to him, they did not know, and had no time to ask. “Listen, Rickar,” Liam said, urgently, “we have risked our lives in coming here, and we have come here for
you
. So get hold of yourself, and now! — so that we can get away from here, all of us!”

Rickar’s eyes had begun to focus and now seemed fully sensible; he nodded.

“Can you walk now?”

“Yes….”

They helped him to his feet and he hissed in sudden pain and pulled away. They eyed the cruel marks on his lower fore-arms where his captors had gripped and carried him away. And then, though they had been in full haste, they now came to full stop. Something forgotten lay before them — the husks of the dead Kar-chee, which two of them had for a while inhabited. And both two now said, simultaneously, “Not me, this time!”

There was only a second’s hesitation, then Liam said, “No time for anyone, this time!”

Out the winding corridor and up the winding ramp they went again, hugging the wall in hopes they might not be seen from below, and in fear that they might encounter any coming down from above. From far down below the ceaseless clangor of repairs testified to the continued presence of the many Kar-chee there. Above, visible between the struts and bars of metal scaffolding, the great and ponderous engine crept around and around with infinite slowness along the inside of the dome, sealing and resealing it against leaks from the sea above and outside which pressed forever down upon and against it with its terrible and eternal pressure.

But on the middle areas, where their route lay, there appeared no one and nothing except themselves, as up they toiled, around and around the inside of the pit, like insects on the screw-thread of an enormous cylinder. And then from below, though not very far from below, a new sound suddenly burst upon their ears, like the nocturnal screech of insects, but magnified ten-thousand-fold.

And from farthest below, a background of equally sudden and ringing silence, came awareness that the mechanical noise of repair had ceased.

Duro and Rickar, ignoring or perhaps not even hearing Liam’s hissed warning not to stop, went almost instinctively to the edge of the ramp and looked. Below and across stood a single Kar-chee, head thrown far back and thorax visibly vibrating, and from this one came the shrill high chirr of alarm; in its foreclaws was the flayed integument of one of the dead Kar-chee. Again and again the earpiercing tocsin sounded, then it faded … and then it suddenly rang out afresh and with a different note as the Kar-chee gestured for attention with one fore-limb and with the other pointed up and over to the two who stood, as though ossified, where they had stepped — on the rim of the ramp and plain to all view.

“Come back! Away! Come away!” Liam cried, knowing it was too late anyway.

But still they didn’t move and still they stood there and still the dread shrill chittering and chirring of accusation and alarm stirred the close air of the great pit and beat upon the shuddering ear-drums. Swiftly flashed through Liam’s mind the possibility that the sound was intended perhaps not only to alert the Kar-chee of danger but also as a sort of auditory fascinating directed against the creature posing the danger … something instinctive and reactive, likely — and what inner Kar-chee realizations must have taken place, now, here, suddenly,
now!
for them for the first time thus to react to mankind or any of its deeds….

Liam and Lors rushed forward and seized the recalcitrant pair and hustled them back and away, breaking the spell; they ran, they ran, they all ran, fleeing and sounding in swift and troubled breath full awareness of danger: but Liam and Lors, in doing what they had done, had also exposed to the enemy their own presences —

From below arose great and shuddering, shattering sound which made the very air to tremble, as all the Kar-chee below broke into the same clamor of alarm — and, abandoning engines and machines and tools, toil and repair alike, poured up the winding ramp in pursuit.

The men caught one glimpse of this and then dared look no more either behind or below, but tore up the incline with flying limbs and quavering breaths, not attempting to think how many more turns or how turns were to be measured before they reached the corridor which would lead them eventually to the outside and (they hoped, perhaps without much reason) to safety. Hearts swelling, bodies sweating, feet pounding, knees bent —

“Blasphemers!” cried Gaspar.

“Recusants! Rebels!” shouted Lej.

And they barred the way.

• • •

“For the sake of our life — of all our lives! — yours, yours! — don’t stop us now!” cried Liam, seizing the old Knower and trying either to thrust him aside or to pull him along. But he stood there, fixed and firm, like stone, immovable. And so did Lej and so was Lej.

“Father, father,” wept Rickar. “What they did to me — ! Let us go!” he implored.

But Gaspar’s face showed no sign of joy on seeing his son among the living; it became clear to Liam, afterward, that most of the old man’s sorrow — perhaps even all of it — had been for his son’s defection and not for his actual loss. “Impious child,” he declared, shaking his head so violently that his beard and his long hair whipped about, “do those who have entered the grave seek to crawl up from it to instruct the living?”

Shouting, “Look
down
there! Look! Look!” Lors threw himself upon Lej, who thrust him back so quickly and strongly that he almost lost his balance and fell into the pit.

“Down there is nothing but deserved judgment and punishment for you!” cried Lej.

“Deserved or not, it will be punishment for all of us,” Liam shouted, frantic at the thought that, having thus far escaped all perils, they were now in danger of perishing from this pair’s fanaticism. Previously, however absurd old Gaspar’s arguments had been, they had still been presented calmly and with some show of logic. But now the old Knower acted like one unhinged.

“Rogues!” he shouted. “Scoundrels! Rebels! Is it not enough, the damage you have already done? As a result of your wicked resistance we suffered the crippling quakes and waves which have delayed our necessary departure. And now you wish to tempt and provoke Nature even more, and thus destroy us all!”

Little bubbles of spittle lined his lips, and his hands clawed the air; then, abruptly, he hastened to the rim of the ramp and in a voice between a scream and a howl he cried, “Devils, Devils! Just is your rage, but direct it towards these, to them who have defied you, and not against us! We have lived virtuously all of our lives, Lej and I and the rest of us, never resisting, never — ”

Liam lifted his hand and rushed at Lej, who tensed and pushed to parry the blow; and Liam seized him and threw him heavily to the ground.
“Come on! Come on!”
He darted up and away, and Lors and Duro and Tom rushed after and along with him.

Behind they could hear Gaspar still shrieking out his insane petition. Then, abruptly, his voice dropped, and he declared, quite calmly. “Let them run; from the Manifestations of Nature there can be no escape for long…. Devils, Lej and I will step aside so as not to impede you in your pursuit: but spare the others above — or at least spare those of them who …”

Distance, and the noise of their own running feet and the strident ululation, prevented the fugitives from hearing the rest of his comments. And then came a sound which broke their stride — and then another which brought them to a halt: Gaspar’s voice, raised in one long and incredulous vocable of protest; and overwhelming that, Lej’s voice, raised beyond a pitch they would have thought possible, in terror …

And in pain….

Rickar’s eyes bulged; his mouth swept back into a grim and almost skeletal grin; he half-turned. Tom and Liam grabbed him, Lors pulled, Duro pushed, and they all fled once more; and now their pace flagged never.

W
HEN THEY SAW
the light of outside day, looking strange and pale, ahead through the rift in the curtain of rock, Tom-small it was who stopped to offer his first word of advice. His chest labored and shone with sweat, and his voice was faint; his gesturing hand trembled.

“If … if … if we have a firehead … should … shouldn’t we …”

Block off the passage behind them? — so Liam understood him. He drew a shuddering breath and shook his head. They fled on, staggering, stumbling, not daring to stop: fleeing through the dying day like animals who dare not pause to look back for sight of the hounds they can no longer hear….

Later, long later, when they had found refuge in a blind cave whose entrance they had closed by moving boulders across its narrow opening, then Liam, when he had caught his breath, explained his reasons.

“We don’t know that they knew that was the way we came in,” he said, throat still burning and lungs still aching. “For another thing, it wouldn’t keep them from getting out. They know other ways out. But … us? do we know any other ways
in?”

Rickar seemed not to have heard him. His head was cocked and he seemed straining to hear something else; his face still bore signs of the rictus which had seized it at the sound of what might have been his father’s death-cry. Might: then again, might not: and perhaps they all had visions of Gaspar, stripped of clothes and faith and dignity and subjected to the cruel sport of the man-ring — baited and bloody….

Lors parted his sodden hair with his hands, too tired even to toss his head to clear his eyes. “ ‘Any other ways
in?
’ ” he repeated, aghast. “Are you as mad as those two were? By my mother’s milk, what could ever bring us back in again?

Duro said, “Don’t say ‘us.’ ”

And Tom added, “No, don’t. Not me. Never.”

But Lors, still facing Liam, and with a rising and incredulous inflection in his voice, asked, “What do you think of going back for?”

Liam said, his hands roaming aimlessly, nervously, among his sweaty body-hair, “I don’t know…. I don’t know that I think of — But I don’t know that I don’t.” Then, less reflectively and more than a little more personally, eying each of them in turn, he declared, “And anyone who doesn’t feel up to going wherever I go is free to go — well, somewhere else…. I haven’t twisted any arms,” he concluded, resentfully.