CHAPTER IX

Gray daylight poured past the catwalk into the hold. Barch heard the hiss of rain. A moment passed. Then the barge rose, headed out into the rain. The little round men slid behind the sustenators. The Podruods spat and blew.

Looking up into the stormy sky, Barch glimpsed the black shuttle of traffic. The struts pressed hard into his aching bones as the raft slid up on a slant. Barch eased his gun into position; he saw Kerbol follow suit.

They were flying in the stream of traffic. Barch could see nameless faces, pale splotches, peering blankly out into the rain. He should have instructed Tick to steer free of the lanes.

The barge slid along at a steady pace. With a maddening sense of momentum and direction, Barch realized that Tick would obey him literally, fly to Gdoa. Rain slanted across the barge like strings of gray wool. Barch could see water trickling down the red skin of the Podruods. The spikes of black hair drooped, fell like seaweed over the bull-shoulders.

The raft above slid sharply away. Barch squinted up into the sodden sky. So far as he could see-clear. He pushed the gun into the hold. "Wait!" muttered Kerbol.

A crystal-domed raft came darting overhead, hesitated like a hummingbird at a flower. Barch saw the maroon of Bornghalese skin. He glanced anxiously back to the Podruods; Kerbol's voice had sounded loud in his ears-but no, the hissing rain would drown out sound. The Bornghalese raft darted away.

Barch leveled the gun, glanced at Kerbol. Kerbol nodded. Barch pressed the trigger button. The Podruods dropped, one toppled over the side. Barch slipped down into the hold, stood bent nearly double from cramp and bone-ache. He hobbled out into the rain, looked up.

A Podruod loomed over him like a tower, but his gaze was toward the stern. Attracted by Barch's movement he looked down, opened his cavernous mouth. Barch fired. The body toppled at him like a falling statue. Barch ducked back, the body crumpled on the deck.

Barch swung to observe the little round men. They stood like a row of pumpkins, little round eyes staring.

Barch climbed cautiously up on the catwalk. Kerbol was there already. He ran astern, took the Podruod serpent lashes. He peered over the side; the gigantic welter of Magarak pulsed, whirled, shuttled, gleamed. Barch decided against dumping the corpses: somewhere was the coordinator, the Magarak brain, fitting incoming data into patterns. Instead he slid the corpses into the hold, ran forward to the pilot dome. Tick was singing to himself in a peculiar falsetto whine, and at first paid Barch no head.

Barch rapped at the back of the narrow head. "Wake up."

Tick gave him a sad glance.

Barch went to the locator, reached under, snapped the chain as he had seen Tick do. "Now, how do you turn off the pointer light?"

"Push back the slide, break the bulb."

Barch did so. "Take us up into the clouds and head for home."

He went back aft, stood looking critically into the hold. The little fat men eyed him nervously. Barch growled under his breath. What to do with them? There was nothing he could do, except take them back to the cave.

He jumped down into the hold. "My name is Barch."

They looked at him solemnly. Barch said brusquely, "You're free men now; you're slaves no longer."

The little man closest to him asked anxiously, "How is this possible?"

"You have heard of the mountain where the wild men hide? That's where you're going now."

The little fat man shuffled nervously. "But why have you gone to such lengths for our benefit?"

"I haven't. I wanted a few of those sustenators. The only way I could get them was to steal the cargo. You happened to be aboard."

The entire group muttered together.

"Why do you want a sustenator?"

"Wait and see," said Barch shortly.

There was further muttering. "And what will become of us?" came the question.

Barch grinned in spite of his irritation; they were disarmingly like a dozen little porkers, fearful of the trip to the market. "That all depends on whether the Klau catch us again. Right now you're escaped slaves."

Again they muttered among themselves. One jumped up on the catwalk, ran to the pilot's dome. Barch followed curiously. The fat man looked in at the locator, glanced at the broken chain, then, ignoring Barch, ran briskly back to his fellows. Barch watched with puzzlement.

Kerbol muttered, "That's the worst about the Lenape; you can do nothing to their satisfaction."

Barch stared. "Are those Lenape?"

Kerbol grumbled and muttered.

Barch went slowly aft. He had visualized the Lenape as physically equivalent to their reputed mental ability.

In the hold the Lenape were talking heatedly all together; none heeded him. Where Barch before had imagined torpor in the opal eyes, now he thought to see depths of subtle wisdom. They noticed him; all fell silent. "You are Lenape?" asked Barch.

"We are Lenape."

"Then you understand something of how these things work?" Barch indicated the sustenators.

The Lenape seemed surprised, a ripple of expression passed around their faces. "Yes, of course."

"And if this barge broke down, you could fix it?"

There was a stir of amusement. "It depends a great deal on the extent of the damage, on the availability of replacement parts, tools."

Barch nodded. "Fine. Excellent."

They were passing over the sea and the mud-flats; the mountains of the Palamkum rose ahead, vague black objects swaddled and blurred in the mist.

Barch pointed. "That's your future home, until we convert a pair of barges to a spaceship and leave Magarak."

The Lenape listened blankly. The foremost said, "You think to fly space in a barge?"

"In two barges, face to face, welded together."

"Impossible."

Barch felt a sudden sinking of the diaphragm. "Why?"

"The Klau will never allow it."

"The Klau didn't allow me to steal this barge."

"The necessary components and accessories are numerous, hard to acquire."

"Like the sustenators? Like the two barges? Like the technical help? Like a secure place to work?"

"Exactly."

"All those we've got."

There was a moment's silence. Barch was the focus of a dozen curious stares. Then the first Lenape said, "A space voyage would be interminably long. The barges are insufficiently powered to generate second-order acceleration; you would float clumsily through first-order space, the deck pushing at your feet."

"Five years in space is no worse than five years on Magarak. At the end of five years we're home. And maybe you can work out some system to give us more speed."

The Lenape muttered nervously. "A grand concept. Is it practicable?"

Barch said angrily, "You don't act like you want to get home."

"No, no-Lenau is life to us!"

"A few months ago a dozen Lenape escaped Magarak."

"A simple affair for them; they merely bred a secret blister into the rind of the space-ship; that was all there was to it… None of this painful fitting and piecing and improving."

"Any fool can spear fish in a barrel." And Barch said in a disgusted voice, "Are you with me or not?"

The little round men muttered anxiously together, all speaking at once. Barch failed to understand how communication of any sort was possible.

The foremost turned up his face. "We will work with you; there is no alternative."

Barch nodded in grim jocularity. "I thought you'd come around. Pass up those corpses; I'll drop them over the side now."

The next day Barch carried the locator back to the table in the hall, checked Palkwarkz Ztvo to assure himself that the two barges in Big Hole showed no tattletale sparks.

The head Lenape, whose name Barch had been unable to pronounce and so had called him "Porridge," came into the hall carrying a sheet of parchment. He marched across the room, lay the sheet triumphantly before Barch. "This," he said, "represents the needs incident to any such project as you envision."