Jack Vance: The Asutra

"A fantasy," said Etzwane. "I too have forgotten… Strange to think! For the folk of Earth, did they know of us, we would be creatures of a nightmare, less than wisps of the swamp-light yonder… I fear that I will never see Earth."

"I would be happy to see old Caraz," said the Alula. "I would think myself fortunate beyond belief and never grieve again."

One of the men growled, "I would be content for a chunk of fat meat."

One at a time, reluctant to leave the warmth of companionship, the men went off to their cars and passed another dreary night.

As soon as dawn made the land distinct, they were under way. Etzwane's car seemed, not as lively as before; he wondered how many miles remained in its engine. How far ahead lay the camp? One day at least, three or four days at most

The moss stretched ahead flat and soggy, almost one with the quagmire. Several times the cars passed pools of gray mud. Near one of these the column halted to rest and ease cramped muscles. The pools quaked with huge miasmic bubbles, rising with an unctuous suck. The periphery of the mud was home to colonies of jointed brown worms and running black balls, both of which submerged themselves in the mud at a sound: a fact which puzzled Etzwane; there seemed no natural enemy from which the creatures would be required to protect themselves. Etzwane searched the air: no birds, flying reptiles, nor winged insects. In the fringe of rotten black moss three or four feet back from the shore of mud he spied small burrows, from which issued the prints of small, three-fingered members. Etzwane examined the prints with frowning suspicion. In the moss a small purplish-black shape moved back into concealment: an asutra, not yet mature. Etzwane drew back, alarmed and repelled. When races derived from such disparate environments as man and asutra, could there possibly be communication or sympathy? Etzwane thought not. A tolerance founded on mutual distaste, possibly; cooperation, never.

The column proceeded, and now one of the cars began to falter, rising and falling on its support nodes. The car at last sank down upon the moor and would go no further. Etzwane put the driver astride the most fresh-seeming car; once again the column proceeded.

During the middle afternoon two other cars subsided upon the moss; it was plain that a very few hours remained to any of the engines. Ahead rose another black hill, which seemed lower than that hill north of camp. If it were another hill, Etzwane thought they would never see the camp, for none of the men had the strength to walk thirty or forty or fifty miles.

They swung out close to the morass to avoid the heights; even so the mountain met the morass in a precipitous bluff, over which they laboriously climbed.

Up toward the ridge moved the lizard-cars, groaning and sagging. Etzwane led the way over the crest, the landscape to the south opened before them… The camp lay below, not five miles distant. A husky roar rose from fifty dry throats. "The camp; down to the camp! Food awaits us; bread, good soup! "

Etzwane tottered out of his car. "Hold back, you fools! Have you forgotten our plan?"

"Why should we wait? " croaked Sul. Took! There is no spaceship on the premises; it is gone! Even if there were, your scheme is absurd. We shall eat and drink; all else is now meaningless. On then, down to the camp! "

Etzwane said, "Hold back! We have suffered too much to throw away our lives now. There is no spaceship, true! But we must make ourselves masters of the camp, and this means surprise. We will wait for dusk. You must control your appetite until then."

"I have not come all this distance to suffer further," declared Sul.

"Suffer or die," growled Korba. "When the camp is ours, then you shall eat. Now is the time to prove ourselves men, not slaves! "

Sul said no more. Ashen-faced he leaned back against his car, mumbling through dry gray lips.

The camp seemed curiously listless and desolate. A few women moved about their duties; a Ka came briefly forth from the far barracks. It walked aimlessly back and forth, then reentered. No squads drilled upon the compound; the garage was dark.

Korba whispered, "The camp is dead; there is no one to stop us. " "I am suspicious," said Etzwane. 'The quiet is unnatural."

"You believe that they expect us?"

T don't know what to believe. We still most wait till dusk, even if the camp is empty except for three Ka and a dozen old women, so that they can't send off a message of emergency."

Korba grunted.

The sky is darkening already," said Etzwane. In another hour the dusk will hide our approach."

The group waited, pointing here and there at remembered corners of the camp. Lamps began to glow, and Etzwane looked at Korba. "Are you ready?"

"I am ready."

"Remember, I will attack the Ka barracks from the side; you enter the camp from the front and destroy whatever resistance appears."

"The plan is clear."

Etzwane and half the cars descended the flank of the hill, dark cars invisible on the black moss. Korba waited five minutes, then proceeded down the slope, approaching the camp across the old training compound. Etzwane's group, with cars dragging and bumping across the moss, drove up to the back of the lumpy white structure which the Ka used as a barracks.

The men lunged inside and swarmed upon the seven Ka they found in the single chamber. Astonished or perhaps apathetic, the Ka made only feeble resistance and were lashed immobile with thongs. The men, keyed up for a desperate battle and finding none, felt baffled and frustrated, and started to kick the Ka to death. Etzwane halted them in a fury. "What are you doing? They are victims like ourselves. Kill the asutra, but do no harm to the Ka! It is purposeless! "

The men thereupon plucked the asutra off the Ka's necks and ground them underfoot, to the horrified moaning of the Ka.

Etzwane went forth to find Korba, who had already sent his men into the garages, the commissary, and the communication chamber, where they had discovered a total of four Ka, three of which they clubbed to pulp, lacking Etzwane's moderating presence. The men encountered no other opposition; they were masters of the camp, almost without effort. Reacting to the tension, many of the men became nauseated. Sagging to their knees they gave themselves to an agonized, empty-stomached retching. Etzwane, himself hearing strange ringing sounds in his ears, ordered the women of the camp instantly to serve hot food and drink.

The men ate, slowly, gratefully, marveling that the storming of the camp had gone with such facility. The situation was incredible.

After eating, Etzwane felt an overpowering drowsiness, to which he must not allow himself to succumb. Old Kretzel stood nearby, and he called for her. "What has happened to the Ka? There were forty or fifty in the camp; now there are ten or less."

Kretzel spoke in a dismal voice. "They departed in the ship. Only two days ago they went, in great excitement. Great events are in the offing, for better or worse."

"When will another ship return?"

"They did not trouble to explain this to me."

"Let us question the Ka."

They went to the barracks where the Ka lay bound. The ten men Etzwane had left on guard were all asleep and the Ka were furiously working to liberate themselves. Etzwane roused the sleeping men with kicks. "Is this the way you guard our safety? Every one of you: dead to the world! In another minute you might have been dead forever."

Old Sul, one of the men who had been left on guard, gave a surly response, "You yourself described these men as victims; in all justice they should be grateful for their deliverance."

"This is precisely the point I intend to make to them," said Etzwane. "Meanwhile we are only the wild men who attacked them and tied them with thongs."