Slaves of The Klau by Jack Vance

Author:Jack Vance [Vance, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

In the hall Barch set the locator on the table, went to look out into the night. Arn and Ardl, lounging close together, sprang apart with a guilty start. "Damn it," cried Barch, "if you can't stop love-making or whatever you call it long enough to stand watch, I'll strip you naked and then there'll be an end to this foolishness."

Ardl went smartly on his rounds. Barch turned to Arn. "Don't let that Splang pilot get past you."

"No, Roy."

Barch looked up into the sky. Suppose the position of the barge had been noted. If so, a barge-load of Podruod troops might drop down at any minute. He shrugged. If they came, they came.

Back in the hall, Tick was seated on the table, a hand placed proprietarily on the locator. "Many pilots fly dead; they set the cell, they sleep. Not I. I look at my locator"- he patted the box-"and I fly with my hands." He held up his hands. The fingers ended in knobs, like a tree toad's.

Barch saw Chevrr sitting in a corner scornfully. He crossed the room, squatted beside him. "Are all his race like him?"

Chevrr nodded dourly. "We stay in the mountains to avoid them. They breed twins once a year, they swarm in the trees, they are worthless except as acrobats and prostitutes."

"But how can I control him?"

"Kill him."

Barch grimaced. "I find killing hard to get used to. Besides he is the only one who can fly that barge."

The folds of Chevrr's gloomy face went through an amazing process of opening, smoothing, widening. Chevrr was smiling. "He wears a lucky charm; all coast-folk do. It is his birth sac, with the diagram of his beach sands. You will find it inside a leech which sucks at his belly. Take this charm and you are his master."

"Ah," said Barch.

"Be careful. If he knows what you plan, he becomes a demon, a giant. No one in the room could hold him."

Barch stood up, went to Kerbol, spoke briefly, passed on to Flatface, then to Moranko.

Barch went to the table, moved the locator to the side of the room. Tick weighed no more than a hundred thirty pounds. He looked stringy and agile.

Kerbol and Flatface came up behind. Each seized an arm; Moranko grasped the spidery legs.

Tick looked up in sudden wonder. Barch stepped forward, pulled up the front of his yellow blouse.

Tick's eyes popped forward until more was out than in. He writhed his shoulders; Kerbol and Flatface were dragged half across the table. He tensed his legs; incredibly Moranko was jerked a foot from the floor.

There on the sweating writhing skin was a flat brown spot. Barch pulled it free with his fingernails. Two objects dropped to the stone floor of the cave: a metal locket and the leech which humped sluggishly toward the fire. Tick leaned down at the locket, his eyes protruded as if on stalks. He drew his arms forward; Flatface and Kerbol, panting and gasping, came across the table like pillows. Barch picked up the locket, snapped it open, drew out a wisp of membrane.

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