The Asutra by Jack Vance

Author:Jack Vance [Vance, Jack]
Language: slv
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Durdane
Published: 2010-07-11T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

The suns were three hours gone beyond the far Orgai, and the last purple glow had left the sky. On the plain waited eighteen Alula warriors, with Etzwane and Hozman.

"Here is my usual spot," said Hozman, "and now is my ordinary time. The routine is this. I press the button. After twenty minutes I look for a green light overhead. I then release the button and the car lands. My slaves stand in an orderly line. They are drugged and obedient, but not aware, like people in a dream. The door opens and a pale-blue light issues forth. I move forward, marshaling the slaves. If the car contains a mentor it appears on the ledge, and then I must wait while the mentors converse. When the slaves are within and the conversation at an end, I close the door and the car departs. There is no more to be told."

"Very good. Press the button."

Hozman did as instructed. "How often have I done this deed," he murmured. "Always I wondered where they went and how they passed their lives. Then, after the car departed, I would look up into the sky and consider the stars . . . But no more, no more. I shall take your pacers to Shagfe and sell them to Baba, and then I shall return to the land where I was born and become a professional seer. . .. Stand in line, close together. You must seem vague and limp."

The group formed a line and waited. The night was silent. Five miles to the north lay Shagfe, but the fires and oil lamps flickered too dimly to be seen. The minutes passed slowly; Etzwane had never known time so to prolong itself. Each second stretched elastically and departed with reluctance into the past.

Hozman held up his hand. The green light... The car comes down. I now release the button. Stand ready—but limp and easy; make no moves...."

Above sounded a faint sigh and a hum; a dark shape moved across the stars and settled fifty or sixty yards away. An aperture slowly appeared, casting a wan blue glow upon the ground. "Come," muttered Hozman. "In a line, close together. . . . There crawls the mentor. You must be quick—but not hasty."

Etzwane halted at the entrance. A blue glow showed the way within. On a ledge beside a row of colored lights rested an asutra. For an instant Etzwane and asutra looked eye to eye; then the asutra, apprehending its danger, hissed and scuttled backward toward a small "passage. Etzwane swung his blade, to chop away the creature's abdomen and block its escape. In revulsion he scraped the jerking parts to the deck, where they were crushed under Alula boots.

Hozman gave a whinny of crazy, high-pitched laughter. "I am not yet free of the thing's influence; I could feel its emotion. It was furiously angry."

Karazan pushed into the interior, and the ceiling pressed down upon his head. "Come, let us do the business while our blood

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