Barch fell to his knees; feet pressed around him, stepping on his hands, his legs.

He crawled doggedly through, saw massive Podruod legs ahead. In sudden fury, he dove forward, tackled the legs. The great body toppled; the light-whip rolled in the dust. Barch snatched at it, missed. He rose to his feet, raced up the chute, pressed into the last of the group.

From behind came a hoarse yelling; Barch, glancing over his shoulder, saw a clot of Modoks kicking at the great spiked head, smiling, laughing.

Podruods came pounding along the ramp; light-snakes darted; the gray men dutifully marched into the chutes. The red man writhed, kicked on the ground like a beetle on its back.

Barch pushed ahead. "Ellen!" He grasped her arm. "I thought I had lost you."

She took his hand, squeezed it tight. Barch's heart gave a sudden throb of joy. It was almost worth coming to Magarak.

A gate clanged behind them. The barge shuddered, rose into the air, slid clear of the slave yard.

Barch and Komeitk Lelianr, the last aboard, leaned against the rail. Komeitk Lelianr motioned toward the panorama. "Now, look at Magarak…"

CHAPTER IV

The scene was too vast, too complex for mental grasp. Barch sensed flaring lights, gigantic objects in motion, monstrous shapes. Near at hand the lights were like openings into furnaces: yellow, orange, greenish-white, red; at the horizon they gleamed and flickered like stars.

Heavy sound came at a constant grumbling pitch, so far-reaching that it seemed an intrinsic property of the planet. Across the sky moved endless shapes-booms swinging in low circles, black objects like spiders darting along glistening tracks, barges floating at various levels, blast of dark vapor. Then underneath were the buildings: grayish-white, greenish-gray, black, orange, some faintly etched with window lines, others blank as new paper. Between were dark crevasses flickering with yellow or bluish glow far at the bottom.

Barch looked up into the sky, smoky, sooty, lumpy with low clouds. "Is it day or night? It must be day."

Komeitk Lelianr asked wryly, "What do you think of Magarak?"

"I feel like an ant in a thrashing machine," said Barch. He looked around the horizon. "How far does the madhouse go on?"

"We must be on Kdoa," she mused. "A large continent- about five thousand of your miles wide."

"Five thousand miles of this!"

She nodded. "Underneath are the barracks, the commissaries, the nurseries."

"Nurseries-for what?"

"Slave children. Slaves are encouraged to breed. The women become pregnant often to avoid heavy work. The children make the best slaves; they know no other kind of life."

Barch silently watched the shapes and lights of Magarak drift past below.

"Do you still think you can"-she nodded-"defeat this?"

Barch looked at her resentfully. "Do you think I won't try?"

"No. I think you'll try. I think you'll end up on the grid." She added tonelessly, "That's where the slaves are punished."

Barch stared over the side. Another barge drifted toward them, passed two hundred feet below. Barch saw six long dark shapes, like spindles, caught the white flash of upturned faces. The barges drifted apart.

The sea spread leaden, listless; they drifted over dreary mud-flats. Ahead appeared a long black line which, as the barge drew near, broke up into clots of men, piles of cut stone, spidery cranes. A coffer dam of mud had been scraped up against the sea; in deep oozing pits, workers, moving slow as cold ants, fitted great stones together.

"That's what you'll be doing," said Komeitk Lelianr in a flat voice.

Barch stared down into the dismal pits. "And what happens to the women?"

"Some other kind of work. Chipping stone, perhaps."

They passed a barge loaded with granite blocks. Barch asked, "What keeps these barges up? Do they use the same machinery as the spaceships?"

"I would imagine so." Her voice was disinterested. "The principle of plane-cohesion is fundamental."

"But they could leave the planet?"

"I suppose so." She watched the reclamation project fall astern. "We're not bound there, at least."

The ocean shore curved away behind them; a range of mountains loomed dark ahead. The sky was darkening rapidly. The sun had settled beyond the overcast. "I wonder how much farther?" asked Barch.

Komeitk Lelianr knit her brows. "If those mountains are the Palamkum, then that was Tchul Sea, and this is Kredbon instead of Kdoa. I think Xolboar Sea is beyond those mountains."

"Then we get sorted out and put to work?"

"I suppose so."

Barch examined the mountains with interest. They were great masses of white rock, split by deep valleys and gorges. Black vegetation carpeted the valley slopes; snow gleamed on the high cols and peaks.

Barch said in a hushed voice, "Can your shoes hold up both of us?"

She looked at him first in startled wonder, then speculatively. "No."

"Suppose we jumped off the barge."

"If I could stay on my feet, we'd drop slowly."

"We'd never be caught down there."

She stared down into the dark wilderness. "We'd starve to death."

"Maybe, maybe not. At least we would be free. We'd be out of the mud-pits, out of the slave barracks."

She glanced at the Modoks, made up her mind. "Very well. Try to put your feet on top of mine."

Barch looked over the side. They flew over a long valley. "Now," muttered Barch. "Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Now!" He jumped up, straddled the rail. Komeitk Lelianr climbed nimbly after. Startled white faces turned. There was an excited chatter, a couple of arms tentatively outstretched.

Barch bared his teeth, kicked. The commotion attracted the eye of the Podruod controller. With great lunging strides he came forward.

"I'm ready," panted Komeitk Lelianr. "Step on my feet."

Barch jumped down, clasped her around the waist; they toppled off into gray air. He glimpsed the rectangular hull of the barge slipping past overhead with a hundred little nubbins of heads silhouetted against the twilight. Sky and mountains whirled in sickening topsy-turvy motion.

Komeitk Lelianr was crying in his ear. "My feet, my feet!"

Barch clamped his legs around hers, set his feet on her instep. He felt a braking, the sky and mountains steadied.

Looking anxiously aloft he saw the raft drifting quietly on; the cargo was fuzzy gray, like a load of jute. He turned his eyes down. A massive crag, like a rotten tooth, stabbed up at them with frightening velocity; below was the vast slot of a valley, the shining trickle of a river.

"We're braking," she said. "The lower we get, the slower we fall."

Barch relaxed, tried to follow her as she shifted weight. Dark fronds of vegetation reached up at them. Thirty feet… twenty feet… ten feet…

There was the crash, scatter, agitation of breaking stems and snapping branches. Barch saw the ground, the black humus of the hillside; at six feet he jumped, so as not to land with Komeitk Lelianr's feet under his. She cried out in surprise. Relieved of Barch's weight, she bounced back into the air. She caught at branches swung back and forth like an acrobat, then slowly settled, to the ground.

They had landed on a high slope. The sky was a black ceiling overhead; dank wind blew roaring through the valley below. Trees flapped and clattered; from the far distance came a harsh gurgling whistle. Komeitk Lelianr whispered, "What's that?"

Barch said, "It's breakfast, if I can catch it."

"In the dark it might catch you."

They looked down the slope, found the river. "We'll be warmer up here," said Barch, "out of the valley. We'd better not build a fire until we learn more about the country."

In a little hollow under a rock he piled moss, dry humus, and contrived a covering of fronds wrenched down from the trees. "Like sleeping in a haystack," said Barch. "You get in first."