Jack Vance: The Asutra

An hour, or perhaps two, the ship moved, then Jarred to the ground. The engines died; the ship was at rest. With open air so near at hand, the slaves became desperate and began to pound on the hull and to shout, "Out, out, out…"

The hatch opened, admitting a gust of cold wind. The slaves cringed back involuntarily. A voice called, "Everyone outside, in good order. Danger is at hand; the time has come."

The slaves hunched out into blowing darkness. A pallid light winked off to the right; a voice called, "March ahead, toward the light. Stay in line; do not straggle to either side."

The miserable men stirred; without any particular volition they found themselves trudging along a soft, somewhat spongy surface toward the light. The wind blew steadily, driving a thin, cold rain. Etzwane felt like a man in a terrifying dream, from which he knew he must awake.

The column came to halt before a low structure. After a wait of a minute or two, it continued forward, down a ramp into an underground hall, dimly illuminated. Drenched and shivering, the slave warriors stood pressed together, vapor rising fetid from their garments. At the far end sounded the fluting of a Ka; the creature mounted a bench, where he was joined by an old man, crooked of body, with extraordinarily long arms and legs.

The Ka produced a set of First Style flutings; the old man spoke, his mouth a black gap at the back of his whiskers. "I give you the meanings. The enemy has come in a spaceship. They have put down their forts; once again they intend to sweep across Kahei. All the wise helpers they will kill. " He paused to listen to the Ka, and Etzwane wondered who were the "wise help- ere. " Asutra? The old man spoke again. 'The Ka will fight, and you will fight with the Ka, who are your dominants. So you will be joined to the Song."

The old man listened, but the Ka had no more to say, and the old man spoke alone. "Look about you now, into each other's faces, because grim events are in the offing and many a man will never see another day. Those who die, how will they be remembered? Not in name nor in semblance, but by their desperate courage. A canto will tell how they went forth in lizard-cars and slid across the dark dawn to measure themselves against the enemy."

Again the Ka fluted; the old man listened and translated. 'The tactics are simple. In the lizard-cars you are nameless destroyers, the simple essence of desperate rage. Let them fear you! What remains to you except ferocity? When you go, go only forward! The enemy holds the north moor; his forts control the sky. We strike from the ground- "

Etzwane cried out from the dark: "Who is this 'enemy'? They are men like ourselves! Should men kill men in aid of the asutra?"

The old man craned his neck. The Ka fluted; the old man played phrases on his double-pipes, then called to the warriors, "I know nothing, so ask no questions; I cannot answer. The enemy is the enemy, no matter what his guise. Go forth, destroy! These are the words of the Ka. My own words are these: good luck to all of you. It is an ill business to die so far from Durdane, but die we must, and why not gallantly?"

Another voice, hoarse and mocking, called out, "Gallantly indeed we will die, and you can assure the Ka of so much; they have not brought us this far for nothing. " A light flashed red at the end of the chamber. "Follow the light; step forward then! "

Men milled and circled, none willing to be first. The Ka fluted; the old man cried, "Out into the passage; go where the red lamp beckons! "

The men surged into a whitewashed tunnel and through a narrow portal at the end; here each man was gripped between two Ka while a third stuck a tube into his mouth and forced a gout of acrid liquid down his throat.

Coughing, cursing, spitting, the men stumbled out upon a pavement and into the watery gray light of dawn. To either side lizard-cars stood in ranks. The men came slowly forward, and their corporals reached forth and turned them aside, toward a lizard-car. "In you go," Polovits told Etzwane in a toneless voice. "Drive north, over the rise. The torpedo tubes are armed; torpedo the forts, destroy the enemy."

Etzwane slid into the car; the lid slammed down upon him. He touched the thrust pedal; the car rumbled and hissed and slid off across the pavement and out upon the moor.

Ingenious and dangerous were the lizard-cars: not two feet high, supple and lithe to cling to the contours of the ground. Energy packs were carried in the tail; Etzwane knew nothing of the vehicle's range, but at the training camp they were refueled but seldom. Three torpedo tubes aimed directly forward; the dorsal surface supported a squat, swivel-mounted energy gun. The cars slid on nodes of compression, and in favorable circumstances moved with darting rapidity.

Etzwane drove north up a slope padded with black velvet moss. To either side slid other lizard-cars, some ahead and some behind. The potion which had been forced down his throat now began to take effect: Etzwane felt a grim elation, a sensation of power and invulnerability.

He came up over the roll of the slope and retarded the speed-lever. The control failed to answer. No matter-or so his drugged mind assured him; forward and full speed; what other speed or direction was necessary?… He had been tricked. The knowledge eroded his drug-induced élan. He felt sudden prickles of anger. Not enough that they send him forth against "enemies " he had never known! They also must ensure that he go to his death in haste!

A wide valley spread before him. Two miles away he saw a small, shallow lake, and nearby three black spaceships. Lake and spaceships were surrounded by a ring of twenty squat black cones: evidently the forts which the slave warriors had been commanded to attack.

Over the hill came the lizard-cars, one hundred and forty in number, and none could be stopped. One of the cars in front of Etzwane swung about in a great semicircle, and started back the way it had come, the man within waving, gesticulating, pointing. Etzwane and his rancor needed no further stimulus; he turned his own car about and drove back toward the base, yelling in crazy glee out the ventilation ports. One by one the other cars became infected; they veered and darted back the way they had come. On the ridge above crouched four mobile forts, observers within. These forts now slid forward, red lights flashing. Etzwane brought his torpedo sight to bear. He nudged the trigger and one of the forts spun up into the air like a fish breaking water, to crash back down on its side. The other forts opened fire; three lizard-cars became puddles of molten metal, but simultaneously the forts were struck and broken. From two of these clambered Ka, to run across the moor with great striding leaps; after them slid the lizard-cars, harrying, swerving, circling, and finally running down the Ka.

Etzwane waved his arm and bawled out the ventilation ports: 'To the base; to the base! "

Over the hill raced the lizard-cars. Instantly the weapon emplacements beamed glaring red rays of warning. "Spread apart! " yelled Etzwane. He signaled with his hands, but none heeded. He aimed his torpedo tube and fired; one of the emplacements erupted. The remaining fortifications spat forth lances of energy, burning the lizard-cars at a touch, but other torpedoes struck home. In five seconds half the lizard-cars had become cinders, but the weapons were silenced, and the surviving lizard-cars raced back to the base unopposed. Someone fired a torpedo into the subterranean garage and the entire hill exploded. Turf, concrete, dismembered torsos, miscellaneity spurted high in the air and settled.

The base was a silent crater. The problem now was halting the lizard-cars. Etzwane experimented with the various controls, to no avail. He threw open the entry hatch, to actuate a cut-off switch. The motor died, the car slid to a halt. Etzwane jumped out and stood on the black velvet moss. If he were to be killed in the next minute, he would have died exultant.