Harry Harrison - Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

"If there is a slave trader here," SaIly said, putting her pretty little mind to work, "then that means – gasp! – you keep slaves!"

"Well, not too many," the king said with a certain amount of guilt oozing out between his words. "We treat them well and that sort of thing, and it does keep the working classes quiet since they miss the worst jobs." SaIly turned her back, folded her arms, sniffed loudly, and said no more. Lord Prrsi was leafing through a sheaf of thin metal sheets marked with strange calligraphy.

"Yes, by Jove!" he elated. "Here's one of the bods just took off this morning. Slow tubs, you know, you can catch him up easily in your ship and flog Jerry to him for a decent price. They'll buy him, then sell him to the HaggLoos who will instantly pop him through the one-way door of the DnDrf mine and that is that.Ї

"How will we get out?" Jerry asked.

"That is a bit of a problem. Any plans you make with the others will be heard instantly by the mind-reading villains. Of course you could take in a batch of miniaturized mind shields; we have some nice ones."

They were indeed nice, no bigger than the head of a pin. Yet when one of them was breathed up a nostril and lodged in a sinus cavity it would go instantly to work, activated by the moisture and the warmth, and provide as good a mind shield as the bulky caps supplied by the Garnishee. A supply was provided and woven into Jerry's jockstrap, the theory being that if they took away his clothes and shoes, they would at least leave him that. The Hagg-Loos may have been insane monsters, but they wouldn't go that far. Then Jerry's clothes were torn and whip marks painted on his skin, and they all returned to the delicious cool of the Pleasantville Eagle and shot off after the slavers.

It was only a matter of minutes before they caught up with them in their parabola course that took their ship well outside the battle zone. John pulled up alongside the rusty, streaked, stained, filthy vessel and called them on the radio.

"Hello, slave ship, do you read me?"

"We prefer to be called Employment Counselors," came the whining answer in reply.

"We have an employee here maybe we can bring to you for counseling."

"A slave for sale?" came the slobbering answer. "State the specifications."

"Male, strong, stupid, loves obeying orders, lowtemperature life form suitable for the DnDrf mines. I want a hundred credits for it."

"You'll take eighty-five or you'll take nothing."

"Eighty-five it is. Match airlocks and we'll pass him over. See that the money is passed back in its place."

"We are honest businessmen performing a vital function in society and would never consider cheating on a legitimate transaction of this kind. Besides, we see your gun turrets."

Shoulders back, back straight, Jerry walked into the airlock and heard the heavy inner door close behind him like the sealing of a vault. The outer door opened into the slaver's airlock, where an ugly creature at least seven feet tall was waiting for him. It was humanoid but repulsive and carried a whip, which it instantly put to work driving Jerry before it, tossing a sack of credits back over its shoulder as it left. Jerry moved along quickly enough under this impetus and soon after found himself chained to a bar in the metal wall between two other slaves. They looked at him apathetically as is the slave's wont, but he took a greater interest in them.

"How do you do," he said to the slave on his right, a creature who was very humanoid, though bright red even to the eyeballs, and who had what might be called a normal left hand – if seven fingers are normal – but instead of a right hand the arm had a bony sword from the elbow down. This sword looked hard and efficient and rather sharp so that when the creature only answered with a guttural snarl and a jab at Jerry with the sword, he adroitly dodged aside and caught the red jaw of the other cleanly with his fist and laid him out for the count.

"Very neatly done," a deep voice resounded from beside him. "One should never waste time talking with the red swordsmen of Vindaloo. They have tiny minds and only know fighting, whereas my people of Bachtria are civilized and intelligent. May I introduce myself – I am called Pipa Pipa, but you may call me Pipa if that pleases you."

The individual who spoke was chained to Jerry's left. A fat, green, dampish sort of alien with a great white belly. His eyes protruded from his head, and his mouth slashed across the entire width of his great head. He must have come from a water world because his knobby fingers were connected by webs.

"My pleasure," Jerry said. "My name is Jerry Courteney."

"Then I may call you Courteney?"

"Jerry would be better."

"I understand," Pipa croaked. "Hist, the overseer comes, we must not be seen talking or it means the lash." He sighed deeply. "Not that it matters. Everything means the lash."

He sighed again as the whip fell across his back, and the overseer went down the line lashing right and left.

"On your feet, you scum of the universe," he bawled hoarsely with rough glee. "We have arrived at your new home. You'll love it here. The DnDrf mines of Haggis!" A sound, something between a moan and a groan, emanated from the filthy ranks, for this was known as the end of the road for slaves, from which none ever returned. With reluctance they rattled their chains as they were unlocked and driven toward the door.

"This is the end!" Pipa groaned. "I shall never see my home pond again."

Jerry wanted to give him some measure of cheer, but he dared not, not yet. The mind shield in his sinus prevented his brain being read like an open book, but he knew that all the others could have their thoughts tapped at any time. He must keep his secret safe! The time would come. . . .

Whips cracking like lightning, the slavers drove the hapless slaves down the gangway and into the frigid Artic wastes of Haggis. Of course, they were frigid by Haggisian standards, which meant the temperature was around 100 degrees by Fahrenheit standards, which is bearable, though not very comfortable. As each slave emerged, the slavers stripped him and – or her of all their clothing so they could survive in the dry heat. Jerry's Hush Puppies were cut from his feet with the slash of a blade, and his sundered tie-died Levi's followed them. All that remained was his jockstrap, and he was ready to fight to the death to keep this – and not only for the mini-mind shields – but because it was bright purple, the slavers thought it was part of his body (which shows you how slavers think) and they pushed him on with the others. Ahead were the mines.

It was a scene of utter desolation. All about lay a sulfur desert, cooking and shimmering in the heated air. Above hung the great blue sun of Sirius, frying brains in their brain-pans and shooting out hard radiation to batter genes and start the mutations mutating. Ahead lay a mountain range, and set into the nearest mountain was a solid collapsium* door just six feet high. Above this door was engraved in letters carved out of the solid rock "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here" or something like that.

[* Collapsium is an artificial material made of atoms with their binding energy reduced so they sort of collapse in upon themselves and are dense and heavy and that kind of thing.]

Jerry could not be sure because he could not read Haggisian, but it seemed a reasonable guess. The whips cracked even more fiercely as they drove the reluctant slaves toward this grim portal.

"Now hear this," the master slaver bellowed through a loudhailer from a position on a rock where he could survey the gathered, trembling, fear-infested slaves, who were quickly whip-cracked into silence.

"I'm only gonna tell this to you just once, so cock your ears and bend your antenna or whatever. This here is the mine I been telling you about. That door there is the first of seventeen just like it. The drill is that it opens, one of you slobs goes in, then it closes before the next door opens. You go through that etc. etc. until you are in the mine. It is my poisonal suggestion that you step lively because three seconds after a door opens a fifty-sixthousand-volt current is sent through the compartment you will be standing in. So in you go, crying and weeping, but in you go. Once inside, you will find more slaves working away at mining the DnDrf. The Hagg-Loos don't bother about how the stuff is mined, and they don't care neither. Grinding machines inside grind it to a fine powder, and it is pumped out through a one-inch pipe. One ton of it a day. As long as that ton comes out every day, food and water are pumped in through other pipes. No workee, no eatee, as the expression goes. So do your best, work for your chow, resign yourself to a last look at the sun for eternity, and off you go into endless darkness."