Avram Davidson - The Kar-Chee Reign

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 ear-piercing 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.