Avram Davidson - The Kar-Chee Reign

The metallic serpent, thick and gross as any python, but, even at its shortest length, longer incomparably than any serpent or python of flesh and blood—

— raised its head—

— the Kar-chee—

— placed the point, rather like a longer, larger, crossbow bolt, flashing in every shade of blue, in the “head” of the serpentine machine, as though it were feeding it—

The thing retracted, retreated, undulating across the floor of the teeming cavern until it came to the rocky wall-face, reared up, entered one of the drill-holes once more, retreated from it, more slowly this time, emerged entirely and withdrew… withdrew… withdrew… the head moving backward and ever backward but always keeping in direct line with the opening…

An object whose precise shape Liam could not make put appeared briefly in the front of the monstrous “head” where its mouth would have been had it been a living thing.

This it spat and, having projected it, at once the whole equipage subsided and Liam did not watch it. He observed the object shoot forward and enter the drill hole. And the drill hole vanished and all the wall of the rock about it vanished too as it came bursting… shattering… flying forward…

Noise upon noise, crash upon crash, sound upon sound, rolling and thundering.

Below, vast engines which had come into place received the expelled rubble. Moved it. Deposited it. Transported it. Washed it. Sorted it. Carried it away.

And the sequence began all over again.

The thing had been going on when they had first emerged at the abruptly shorn-off end of the old mine-tunnel, to discover this vast and (so Duro and Lors said) new-made cavern. But until Liam had set himself to analyzing and tracing the sequence, all had seemed chaos and Devilish confusion. He now had at least a part of it all clear in his mind. As he cast his eyes around again to see what he should next concentrate on, Cerry made a shuddering noise and Rickar made a sick one. The Rowan brothers hissed and half-started to their feet — but abruptly they lay down once more.

And Liam, his eyes now following theirs, saw a dragon walking down the floor of the cavern and pausing slightly from time to time to move its head as though to fix a better hold on what it carried in its mouth — arms flailing, legs thrashing, mouth opened to utter unheard and unavailing screams and cries—

— a man.

The brothers looked at Liam, scowling — masking shock and outrage and bafflement. “Get down?” Lors repeated. “To rescue that one? It’s madness—”

“How could we do it?” Duro demanded. “We couldn’t do it! We would be killed, simply… or”—he winced and shuddered—”not so simply.”

They could hear him now, for the machines had fallen silent and the blasting and the fall of broken rock had ceased. They could hear the hissing of the dragons and the clicking and shuffling sounds produced by the Kar-chee. They could hear the pad-pad-pad of dragon feet and even, if a second’s silence fell, the running of the feet of the man down there below. But over all of this, almost incessantly, they could hear the man’s voice — the voice of terror and of the fear of death — human, because it was neither dragon nor Kar-chee, but otherwise scarcely human in its absolute loss of control.

Man’s voice screaming as the dragon lifted and tossed him and caught him in its mouth. Man’s voice shrieking as the dragon shook him as a dog shakes a rat. Man’s voice babbling witlessly as the dragon released him. Man’s voice gibbering as man’s feet tottered and ran. Man’s voice screaming as the dragon came after him again.

There seemed no end to it.

They had formed a circle, the Devils had — Kar-chee on the inside, dragons on the outside. The man ran blindly, stumbling, drooling and piddling in terror. The Kar-chee cuffed him back. He fell, he crawled, he got up, he ran. The Kar-chee cuffed him back. The dragon caught him up again. Blood streamed down his naked sides. And suddenly the dragon, as though tired, of the sport, closed his jaws with a crunching, mashing sound. The man’s voice continued for another second, still, high and thin, like an insect’s screech; then it stopped. The dragon tossed the mangled body aside.

Rickar was sick. Cerry moaned, eyes closed, hands to mouth. Duro said, through clenched teeth, “So he’s dead. No reason to go down now. We’d be dead, too. He’s dead. No reason—”

And Lors, his voice high-pitched and trembling, incredulous, on the point of breaking: “Oh — Oh — Another. Another—”

They had not known the first man, and they did not know this man. They felt his pain, his anguish, fright, terror, the body that hopped and ran and bled and screamed…

and screamed… And it all began all over again, everything as before.

“We — must — go— down! ” Liam said, hoarsely. “To save him? I don’t know. But — look you, all of you: They are down there . Down there . All of them. So—”

He forced them to listen; he seized them by the hair, struck them in the face. He dared not raise his voice, but they listened to the voice — the voice of Liam — and, slowly, unwillingly, in fear and in trembling, they listened. But now and then despite themselves their eyes would move, only to jerk back to his eyes, away from the hideous gathering below. Their eyes were fixed by Liam’s eyes and they listened and they nodded. And, slowly, slowly, scuttling sideways like crabs, they retreated.

The screams were still going on when they emerged through the half-buried fissure three-quarters of the way down the side of the cavern wall. The cavern itself was more or less horizontally cylindrical and so they had reasonable purchase for hands and feet as they descended. From far away the screams still sounded, but they could not tell if they were still coming from the same man or from another. They did not stop to try and decide. Uppermost in their minds was that they not be caught. And next in claim upon them was to follow Liam, which they did, instinctively crouching as they moved. A thick and bitter odor overlay the air, mingled as it was with several other ones — the dust of the shattered rock, the smell of sea mud which had come up from the now-closed cavern, various unfamiliar reeks probably pertaining to the machinery — but over all was the bitter odor of the Kar-chee and the thick stench of the dragons.

Liam had no easy task orienting his passage here below in terms of what he had seen from high above. But he managed it, somehow. The mesh reticulations of the serpentine bores lay motionless, but they stepped over them fearfully as though not certain that they would not, if touched, spring to dreadful life. On and on in the curious lighting and the rubble and clutter they moved, bent over. Trying not to listen to the sounds of agony from far ahead. And at length Liam found what he was looking for.

The Kar-chee had reached down into the container. Liam had to climb up — but not very far up. He reached out his hand and he noticed that it trembled. The blue points shimmered and flashed. He took one in his hand. It seemed to feel both hot and cold at the same time. He seized it firmly, thrust it into the sacket which had been emptied of food. Thrust in another. And another. And another… He filled the bag, handed it down, received another one. He filled them all, filled the sheepskins, tied them up, and then descended, carrying the last of them.

“Don’t stumble,” he warned them. “Don’t drop any of these. Don’t run — but if you do run, lay them down — gently — first, and just leave them lie.”

Off they started, back the way they had come, walking delicately, stooping beneath their burdens. The cavern echoed with the mind-shaking sounds from behind, but they did not stop. Liam had carefully observed his landmarks. Here a spring of water gushed from the rock face into a sluice; there two serpentine borers lay coiled together as though in some cold, loveless pythonic embrace. He gave a short hiss, turned. Behind them the screams suddenly ceased. There was another hiss… not from Liam. And another. The air was filled with them. And then came the first bellow. And the pad-pad-pad of dragon feet. This became a quick and thudding and ground-shaking stamp. They climbed the slanting face of the cavern wall. They did not look back. They knew they were discovered.