Avram Davidson - The Kar-Chee Reign

Scrape… scuffle… rustle … drag.…

Now he knew the sounds that Tom and Duro made, by themselves. And now he knew, too, the sounds that whatever-it-was-behind-him made. And it was clear now, too, that whatever-it-was-behind-him knew that there was something ahead of itself: hence the stopping and the waiting when they stopped and waited. Did whatever-it-was-behind-him have a clear notion of what they were, there, ahead? Was whatever-it-was being merely cautious and avoiding catching up for no other reason than safety? Or was whatever-it-was fully aware of what Lors and Liam and Duro and Tom were? — and was it following them?

Such speculation might go on forever and leave him none the wiser; he might still be speculating when the boom dropped or the roof fell in, or — He looked ahead and around him for a favorable lay of land. Scrape … scuffle … rustle … drag…

The pallid, shuddering light faded away behind them. Shadows crouched, simulating rocks, doors, monsters, beasts, pools. The air was tight and close and thick… thick as the shadows. Scrape … scuffle … rustle … drag…. But only part of this series of sounds was significant, now. Tentatively, he thrust his foot into a heap of shadow; turned, gestured to the others to go on; withdrew into the shadows, into the cleft of the rock, as silent as the shadows and as the rock itself.

He watched Lors continue on his way, watched the two masquerade-figures go after him, each with head bowed, fore-limbs folded, lower-limbs two moving slowly and stiffly and two scraping and dragging.

Liam hid. Liam waited.

Before him in the half-light and the half-darkness, the sound of scrape and drag became fainter; the sound of scuffle and rustle became louder. Ever since the sound had first reached him, he had known what it must have been. A multitude of images had clustered and gestured: Old Gaspar muffled in a cloak and bound on the mission of exposing blasphemous resistors. A raftsman still resentful of Liam’s leadership and now intent on vengeance. A friend or kinsman of young Rickar, brooding over Fateem’s transfer of affection and awe… Others. Others. Many others. But he had all along known them for what they were: illusions. And now came truth.

And truth came, as he had known it must, in the form of a Kar-chee.

The strange procession continued on its way down and along the twilighted corridor, the twisting and tubular corridor which the invaders must have made and made quickly, as naturally and as easily an ant-hill or a wasps-nest is made. First went Lors. Men: Captive. Then came Duro and Tom. Men: Masked: Pretended Captors. Then came the live, the real Kar-chee. Then came Liam, not so much pursuing the pursuer as tracking the tracker.

It was impossible to say with surety that the creature was suspicious or alarmed or that the creature knew exactly what had happened. How could any man know these things? Yet everything seemed to point toward the Kar-chee’s being aware that all was neither right nor normal. It had been following them for some time, now. It had not intentionally made its presence known. When they had stopped, it had stopped, too. Liam tried to imagine… suppose that two smaller Kar-chee had slain and flayed two men and concealed themselves in the skins — somehow — The image would not itself be imagined; Kar-chee were even less fitted for that imposture than the other way around. Still… still… was it possible that he, Liam, could be deceived?

The dragon had clearly seen them in the daylight and had done nothing. Had seemed neither alarmed nor in the least suspicious. So why — now, in the darkness — should this Kar-chee be stalking them? But even as he asked the question he admitted to himself that the question was no proper question: it was comparing apples with onions, or seals with foxes. The dragons were the creatures of the Kar-chee and no man knew just how close the relations between them were… but the dragons were, after all, dragons . And not Kar-chee. What, therefore, the Kar-chee had in mind was known and could be known only to the Kar-chee itself.

Which the Kar-chee proceeded soon enough to reveal.

The shadows had begun, faintly but perceptively, to lengthen in Liam’s direction. And shortly the light ahead of them came into sight. And the Kar-chee “spoke”! The three ahead, as they heard the loud challenge, the chirring and clicking that resounded and echoed; jerked and started and had begun to turn around — all quickly and in an instant—

But the Kar-chee moved more quickly and it hurled itself forward on its four hind limbs and raised its two huge upper limbs as though to strike. Liam ran and leaped and hurtled upon it, hitting it low down but catching hold at once as it staggered. As it gibbered and threshed, he threw his whole weight forward. The Kar-chee staggered, straggled desperately to keep its balance, jerked and clashed its “arms,” fell forward.

Lors slipped his knife into it just below and behind the head, twisted, slashed. The Kar-chee writhed, then lay very still.

“If I hadn’t noticed that soft spot there, when you were skinning it—” Lors panted. “If I hadn’t noticed it—!”

Liam hissed for quiet. Tom and Duro stood about, helpless as they had been during the brief straggle. Something sounded from ahead and below. Liam and Lors dragged the body back and into the shadows, and the younger concealed the knife once more in the scabbard hanging within his shirt; then he and Liam resumed their position in front as before and they all went on.

Light burst in upon them.

They came out upon an immense shaft which seemed to extend as far above them as it did below them. Their passage, and others which they could see, entered upon a spiral ramp which threaded its way from top to bottom, winding around and around and around. Above was an immense dome and around the rim of this water dripped and ran incessantly and fell in sheets and torrents. Strange engines crawled around and around the framework below the rim, clicking and clacking and moving slowly; where each one passed, the inflow of water ceased; then it began to drip once more. And below—

Even at the first glimpse of the gigantic vertical tube two — at least two — possibilities had come to Liam’s mind. Either this enormous work had been done in the short time since the Kar-chee had entered the island… or it had been prepared by them at a previous visitation: perhaps at the time they had split the area off from the mainland and, having mulcted and milked and crushed and washed and wasted most of it, sunk the major part beneath the sea. Subsequently a third possibility occurred to him: that it was not a Kar-chee work at all, but was a remnant of the ancient works of man. But all this was theory and speculation and of no immediate importance or assistance.

For below was a scene which dwarfed even the one they had seen in the great cavern above. Catchment channels received and carried off the flow of water — this was essential, but this alone was, comparatively, nothing; for on the floor of the immense pit below the Kar-chee swarmed and toiled like ants. An enormous ramp led up from the floor and was lost from sight to them looking down from above as its length went out of sight and out of the pit. But as to what its purpose was and what had used it recently, they were left in no doubt. The sky-ships were a dull black which seemed the negation of all light. Even at that height they were gigantic. One of them seemed to rest a bit askew and its lines appeared vaguely asymmetrical at that point where Kar-chee and machines most closely swarmed around and upon it; a second received at least as much attention and had had a part of its hull peeled back. It was like looking into the inside of an insect-nest — cells and passages pullulating with quick, inhuman life. And the center and seeming source of all this fevered energy was the third ship. Nothing at all untoward seemed to have befallen it and evidently it was serving as principal energy source for the repairs which its two fellow-vessels were undergoing; they and the clustering engines were attached to it by a multitude of throbbing and umbilical-like connections.