The Chessmen of Mars (19 page)

As he devoured the food his eyes wandered about the confines of
his prison until suddenly they seized upon a thing that lay on
the table at the end farthest from him. It was a key. He raised
his fettered ankle and examined the lock. There could be no doubt
of it! The key that lay there on the table before him was the key
to that very lock. A careless warrior had laid it there and
departed, forgetting.

Hope surged high in the breast of Gahan of Gathol, of Turan the
panthan. Furtively his eyes sought the open doorways. There was
no one in sight. Ah, if he could but gain his freedom! He would
find some way from this odious city back to her side and never
again would he leave her until he had won safety for her or death
for himself.

He rose and moved cautiously toward the opposite end of the table
where lay the coveted key. The fettered ankle halted his first
step, but he stretched at full length along the table, extending
eager fingers toward the prize. They almost laid hold upon it—a
little more and they would touch it. He strained and stretched,
but still the thing lay just beyond his reach. He hurled himself
forward until the iron fetter bit deep into his flesh, but all
futilely. He sat back upon the bench then and glared at the open
doors and the key, realizing now that they were part of a
well-laid scheme of refined torture, none the less demoralizing
because it inflicted no physical suffering.

For just a moment the man gave way to useless regret and
foreboding, then he gathered himself together, his brows cleared,
and he returned to his unfinished meal. At least they should not
have the satisfaction of knowing how sorely they had hit him. As
he ate it occurred to him that by dragging the table along the
floor he could bring the key within his reach, but when he
essayed to do so, he found that the table had been securely
bolted to the floor during the period of his unconsciousness.
Again Gahan smiled and shrugged and resumed his eating.

When the warriors had departed from the prison in which Ghek was
confined, the kaldane crawled from the shoulders of the rykor to
the table. Here he drank a little water and then directed the
hands of the rykor to the balance of it and to the food, upon
which the brainless thing fell with avidity. While it was thus
engaged Ghek took his spider-like way along the table to the
opposite end where lay the key to the fetter. Seizing it in a
chela he leaped to the floor and scurried rapidly toward the
mouth of one of the burrows against the wall, into which he
disappeared. For long had the brain been contemplating these
burrow entrances. They appealed to his kaldanean tastes, and
further, they pointed a hiding place for the key and a lair for
the only kind of food that the kaldane relished—flesh and blood.

Ghek had never seen an ulsio, since these great Martian rats had
long ago disappeared from Bantoom, their flesh and blood having
been greatly relished by the kaldanes; but Ghek had inherited,
almost unimpaired, every memory of every ancestor, and so he knew
that ulsio inhabited these lairs and that ulsio was good to eat,
and he knew what ulsio looked like and what his habits were,
though he had never seen him nor any picture of him. As we breed
animals for the transmission of physical attributes, so the
Kaldanes breed themselves for the transmission of attributes of
the mind, including memory and the power of recollection, and
thus have they raised what we term instinct, above the level of
the threshold of the objective mind where it may be commanded and
utilized by recollection. Doubtless in our own subjective minds
lie many of the impressions and experiences of our forebears.
These may impinge upon our consciousness in dreams only, or in
vague, haunting suggestions that we have before experienced some
transient phase of our present existence. Ah, if we had but the
power to recall them! Before us would unfold the forgotten story
of the lost eons that have preceded us. We might even walk with
God in the garden of His stars while man was still but a budding
idea within His mind.

Ghek descended into the burrow at a steep incline for some ten
feet, when he found himself in an elaborate and delightful
network of burrows! The kaldane was elated. This indeed was life!
He moved rapidly and fearlessly and he went as straight to his
goal as you could to the kitchen of your own home. This goal lay
at a low level in a spheroidal cavity about the size of a large
barrel. Here, in a nest of torn bits of silk and fur lay six baby
ulsios.

When the mother returned there were but five babies and a great
spider-like creature, which she immediately sprang to attack only
to be met by powerful chelae which seized and held her so that
she could not move. Slowly they dragged her throat toward a
hideous mouth and in a little moment she was dead.

Ghek might have remained in the nest for a long time, since there
was ample food for many days; but he did not do so. Instead he
explored the burrows. He followed them into many subterranean
chambers of the city of Manator, and upward through walls to
rooms above the ground. He found many ingeniously devised traps,
and he found poisoned food and other signs of the constant battle
that the inhabitants of Manator waged against these repulsive
creatures that dwelt beneath their homes and public buildings.

His exploration revealed not only the vast proportions of the
network of runways that apparently traversed every portion of
the city, but the great antiquity of the majority of them. Tons
upon tons of dirt must have been removed, and for a long time he
wondered where it had been deposited, until in following downward
a tunnel of great size and length he sensed before him the
thunderous rush of subterranean waters, and presently came to the
bank of a great, underground river, tumbling onward, no doubt,
the length of a world to the buried sea of Omean. Into this
torrential sewer had unthinkable generations of ulsios pushed
their few handsful of dirt in the excavating of their vast
labyrinth.

For only a moment did Ghek tarry by the river, for his seemingly
aimless wanderings were in reality prompted by a definite
purpose, and this he pursued with vigor and singleness of design.
He followed such runways as appeared to terminate in the pits or
other chambers of the inhabitants of the city, and these he
explored, usually from the safety of a burrow's mouth, until
satisfied that what he sought was not there. He moved swiftly
upon his spider legs and covered remarkable distances in short
periods of time.

His search not being rewarded with immediate success, he decided
to return to the pit where his rykor lay chained and look to its
wants. As he approached the end of the burrow that terminated in
the pit he slackened his pace, stopping just within the entrance
of the runway that he might scan the interior of the chamber
before entering it. As he did so he saw the figure of a warrior
appear suddenly in an opposite doorway. The rykor sprawled upon
the table, his hands groping blindly for more food. Ghek saw the
warrior pause and gaze in sudden astonishment at the rykor; he
saw the fellow's eyes go wide and an ashen hue replace the copper
bronze of his cheek. He stepped back as though someone had struck
him in the face. For an instant only he stood thus as in a
paralysis of fear, then he uttered a smothered shriek and turned
and fled. Again was it a catastrophe that Ghek, the kaldane,
could not smile.

Quickly entering the room he crawled to the table top and affixed
himself to the shoulders of his rykor, and there he waited; and
who may say that Ghek, though he could not smile, possessed not a
sense of humor? For a half-hour he sat there, and then there came
to him the sound of men approaching along corridors of stone. He
could hear their arms clank against the rocky walls and he knew
that they came at a rapid pace; but just before they reached the
entrance to his prison they paused and advanced more slowly. In
the lead was an officer, and just behind him, wide-eyed and
perhaps still a little ashen, the warrior who had so recently
departed in haste. At the doorway they halted and the officer
turned sternly upon the warrior. With upraised finger he pointed
at Ghek.

"There sits the creature! Didst thou dare lie, then, to thy
dwar?"

"I swear," cried the warrior, "that I spoke the truth. But a
moment since the thing groveled, headless, upon this very table!
And may my first ancestor strike me dead upon the spot if I speak
other than a true word!"

The officer looked puzzled. The men of Mars seldom if ever lie.
He scratched his head. Then he addressed Ghek. "How long have you
been here?" he asked.

"Who knows better than those who placed me here and chained me to
a wall?" he returned in reply.

"Saw you this warrior enter here a few minutes since?"

"I saw him," replied Ghek.

"And you sat there where you sit now?" continued the officer.

"Look thou to my chain and tell me then where else might I sit!"
cried Ghek. "Art the people of thy city all fools?"

Three other warriors pressed behind the two in front, craning
their necks to view the prisoner while they grinned at the
discomfiture of their fellow. The officer scowled at Ghek.

"Thy tongue is as venomous as that of the she-banth O-Tar sent to
The Towers of Jetan," he said.

"You speak of the young woman who was captured with me?" asked
Ghek, his expressionless monotone and face revealing naught of
the interest he felt.

"I speak of her," replied the dwar, and then turning to the
warrior who had summoned him: "return to thy quarters and remain
there until the next games. Perhaps by that time thy eyes may
have learned not to deceive thee."

The fellow cast a venomous glance at Ghek and turned away. The
officer shook his head. "I do not understand it," he muttered.
"Always has U-Van been a true and dependable warrior. Could it
be—?" he glanced piercingly at Ghek. "Thou hast a strange head
that misfits thy body, fellow," he cried. "Our legends tell us of
those ancient creatures that placed hallucinations upon the mind
of their fellows. If thou be such then maybe U-Van suffered from
thy forbidden powers. If thou be such O-Tar will know well how to
deal with thee." He wheeled about and motioned his warriors to
follow him.

"Wait!" cried Ghek. "Unless I am to be starved, send me food."

"You have had food," replied the warrior.

"Am I to be fed but once a day?" asked Ghek. "I require food
oftener than that. Send me food."

"You shall have food," replied the officer. "None may say that
the prisoners of Manator are ill-fed. Just are the laws of
Manator," and he departed.

No sooner had the sounds of their passing died away in the
distance than Ghek clambered from the shoulders of his rykor, and
scurried to the burrow where he had hidden the key. Fetching it
he unlocked the fetter from about the creature's ankle, locked it
empty and carried the key farther down into the burrow. Then he
returned to his place upon his brainless servitor. After a while
he heard footsteps approaching, whereupon he rose and passed into
another corridor from that down which he knew the warrior was
coming. Here he waited out of sight, listening. He heard the man
enter the chamber and halt. He heard a muttered exclamation,
followed by the jangle of metal dishes as a salver was slammed
upon a table; then rapidly retreating footsteps, which quickly
died away in the distance.

Ghek lost no time in returning to the chamber, recovering the
key, relocking the rykor to his chain. Then he replaced the key
in the burrow and squatting on the table beside his headless
body, directed its hands toward the food. While the rykor ate
Ghek sat listening for the scraping sandals and clattering arms
that he knew soon would come. Nor had he long to wait. Ghek
scrambled to the shoulders of his rykor as he heard them coming.
Again it was the officer who had been summoned by U-Van and with
him were three warriors. The one directly behind him was
evidently the same who had brought the food, for his eyes went
wide when he saw Ghek sitting at the table and he looked very
foolish as the dwar turned his stern glance upon him.

"It is even as I said," he cried. "He was not here when I brought
his food."

"But he is here now," said the officer grimly, "and his fetter is
locked about his ankle. Look! it has not been opened—but where
is the key? It should be upon the table at the end opposite him.
Where is the key, creature?" he shouted at Ghek.

"How should I, a prisoner, know better than my jailer the
whereabouts of the key to my fetters?" he retorted.

"But it lay here," cried the officer, pointing to the other end
of the table.

"Did you see it?" asked Ghek.

The officer hesitated. "No but it must have been there," he
parried.

"Did you see the key lying there?" asked Ghek, pointing to
another warrior.

The fellow shook his head negatively. "And you? and you?"
continued the kaldane addressing the others.

They both admitted that they never had seen the key. "And if it
had been there how could I have reached it?" he continued.

"No, he could not have reached it," admitted the officer; "but
there shall be no more of this! I-Zav, you will remain here on
guard with this prisoner until you are relieved."

I-Zav looked anything but happy as this intelligence was
transmitted to him, and he eyed Ghek suspiciously as the dwar and
the other warriors turned and left him to his unhappy lot.

E-Med crossed the tower chamber toward Tara of Helium and the
slave girl, Lan-O. He seized the former roughly by a shoulder.
"Stand!" he commanded. Tara struck his hand from her and rising,
backed away.

"Lay not your hand upon the person of a princess of Helium,
beast!" she warned.