Jack Vance - The Asutra

The Alula, with hunger and thirst sated and with emotions spent, fell into a state of inertness, more stupor than sleep. Etzwane, though distrustful of the unpredictable Alula temperament, decided that vigilance would only foster a new hostility and gave himself up to sleep, first taking the precaution of tying the energy gun to a loop of his pouch.

He slept undisturbed. When at last he awoke, he realized that the ship was at rest.

The air in the hold seemed stale; the bluish illumination had dimmed and was more depressing than ever. From overhead came the thud of footsteps and fluctuating snatches of nasal Ka warbling. Etzwane rose to his feet and went to the ramp to listen. The Alula also rose and stood looking uncertainly toward the ramp: a far cry from the swaggering warriors Etzwane had met an aeon before at a bend of the Vurush River.

A grinding hiss, a chatter of ratchets: a section of wall drew back; a wash of gray light flooded the hold, to drown the blue glow.

Etzwane pushed past the Alula, where he could look out the opening. He leaned back in dismay and shock, unable to find meaning in the welter of strange shapes and colors. He looked once more through narrowed eyes, matching the pattern-forming capabilities of his mind against the alien stuff, and aspects of the landscape shifted into mental focus. He saw steep-sided sugarloaf hills overgrown with a lustrous black, dark-green, and brown pelt of vegetation. Beyond and above spread a heavy gray overcast, under which hung pillows of black cloud and a few veils of rain. Along the lower slopes straggled lines of irregular structures, built from rough lumps of an oyster-white material. At ground level the structures formed a denser complex. Most were built of the pallid lumps; a few seemed monolithic forms of black scoriaceous slag. Passages wound between and around, slanting and curving, without apparent purpose. Certain of these were smooth and wide and carried vehicles: cage-like drays; wagons, resembling beetles with raised wings; smaller lizard-like vehicles, darting inches above the surface. At intervals posts held up enormous black rectangles, lacking marks or discernible purpose. Etzwane wondered whether the eyes of Ka and asutra distinguished colors invisible to himself. The immediate foreground was a flat, paved area surrounded by a fence of woven bronze. Etzwane, who by instinct observed and interpreted colors automatically, after the symbology of Shant, noted no purposeful use of color. Somewhere in the confusion of size, form, and proportion, he thought, symbology must exist; technical civilization was impossible without control over abstractions.

The inhabitants of the place were Ka, at least half of whom carried asutra on their necks. No gray toad-men were in evidence, nor were human beings to be seen.

Except one. Into the slave hold climbed a person tall and spare, in a shapeless, coarse-fibered cloak. Stiff gray hair lay piled above the seamed gray face like a forkful of hay; the chin was long and without hair. Etzwane saw that the person was a woman, though her aspect and conduct were asexual. She called in a loud, windy voice, The persons now awake: follow me to the ground! Smartly now, quick and easy. This is "the first thing to know; never wait for two commands. " The woman spoke a dialect barely comprehensible; she seemed bitter and wild and grim as a winter storm. She set off down the ramp. Etzwane gingerly followed, glad to win free from the detested slave hold and its nightmare memories.

The group descended to the paved area under the great black depot ship. On a walkway above stood four Ka, looming like dark statues with asutra at their necks. The woman led them into the mouth of a fenced run. "Wait here; I go to wake the sleepers."

An hour passed. The men stood hunched against the fence, glum and silent. Etzwane, clinging to his Ifness-inspired shred of faith, was able to take a melancholy interest in the surroundings. The passage of time made the circumstances no less strange. From various directions came the muffled Ka fluting, mingled with the hiss of traffic on the road immediately across the fence. Etzwane watched the eight-wheeled, segmented drays roll past. Who guided them? He could see no cab or compartment other than a small cupola at the front, and within a small dark mass: asutra… From the depot ship marched the woman followed by dazed folk who had occupied the shelves. They stumbled and limped and looked here and there in sad amazement. Etzwane noted Srenka and presently Gulshe; the erstwhile bravos hunched along as miserably, as the others. Gulshe's gaze passed across Etzwane's face; he gave no signal of recognition. At the end of the procession came Rune the Willow Wand, and she as well looked past Etzwane without interest.

"Halt! " cried the lead woman in her great coarse voice. "Here we wait for the omnibus. Now let me speak to you. Your old life is gone and irretrievably; this is the world Kahei and you are like fresh-born babes with another life ahead. It is not too bad unless they take you for testing, and then it is death. Still, who lives forever? In the meanwhile, you will never hunger or thirst or lack shelter, and life is tolerable. The men and agile women will be trained to fight in the war, and it is pointless to claim no part in the quarrel or think to avoid battle against men like yourselves; this is the fact and you must do the requirement.

"Waste nothing on grief; it is the easy way and the futile way. Should you wish to breed, make application to one or another intercessor, and a suitable partner will be assigned.

"Insubordination, lagging and loitering, fighting and mischievousness, all are forbidden; penalties are not graduated, but in all cases absolute. The omnibus is here. Climb up the ramp and step to the forward end."

Crowded on the omnibus, Etzwane could see little of the passing countryside. The road led parallel to the hills for a space, then swung off across a plain. Occasionally a cluster of lumpy gray towers stood against the sky; a velvety growth of moss, dark red, dark green, or violet-black, covered the ground.

The omnibus halted; the slaves filed out upon a concrete compound, surrounded on three sides by structures of oyster-white lumps. To the north rolled low hills, commanded by a landmark crag of rotten basalt. To the east spread a vast black quagmire, disappearing at the horizon into the gloom of the sky. Nearby, at the edge of the compound, rested a bronze disk-ship, all ports open and ramps down upon the concrete. Etzwane thought he recognized the ship as that which had evacuated the Roguskhoi chieftains from the Engh Valley in Palasedra. The slaves were herded to a barracks. Along the way they passed a set of long, narrow pens exhaling a vile stench. In some of the pens wandered andro-morphs of several freakish varieties. Etzwane noticed a dozen Roguskhoi. Another group verged toward the Ka. In one pen huddled half a dozen spindly creatures with Ka torsos and grotesque simulations of the human head. Behind the pens ran a long low shed: the laboratory, so Etzwane realized, where these biological anomalies were created. After years of speculation he had learned the source of the Roguskhoi.

The captives were separated, men from women, then divided into platoons of eight persons. To each platoon was assigned a corporal drawn from a cadre of the captives already on the scene. To Etzwane's group came an old man, thin, gaunt, seamed as the bark of an old tree, but nonetheless muscular and incessantly active, all elbows and sharp knees.

"My name is Polovits," declared the old man. "The first lesson you must learn, and learn well, is obedience, quick and absolute, because no second chance is offered. The masters are decisive. They do not punish, they destroy. A war is in progress: they fight a strong enemy and have no inclination toward clemency. I remind you once more: to every instruction give smart and scrupulous obedience, or you will not live to receive another order. In the next few days you will see my statements exemplified. There is generally a depletion of one third in the first month; if you value life, obey all orders without hesitation.