by Don Wilcox
By this time Allison, who had tried in vain to break his bonds, gave way to a burst of temper. He shouted stinging words at the suave, handsome scientist, which under the conditions was all he was able to do. Kilhide was in no mood to take it. He responded with sharp kicks at Allison’s prone body.
“Go ahead and kick hell out of me!” Allison snarled defiantly. “That ought to make you very happy. You’re just a rat—selling your fellow humans!”
“My customers seem satisfied,” Kilhide sneered.
“And that’s all you care about! Giving those savage Dazzalox anything they want, just so you can have more power and wealth. You haven’t an ounce of feeling for anybody but yourself!”
“And why should I have?” Kilhide snapped. “I am a master scientist. To me, all the difference between you average humans and these underground savages is less than the difference between two heads of cabbage. And I hate cabbage.”
“Why, you damned, cynical—” Another stout kick. “I’d kick your face to pulp if it wasn’t for losing money on you. Get up, now!”
Kilhide hoisted his prisoner into a chair, and as he did so he gauged the well-developed muscles of the young farmer’s arms and shoulders.
“You damn fool, you could be a first-class slave if you knew on which side your bread was buttered.”
An excited one-stripe slave broke in upon the scene to report the pandemonium of the funeral crowd. Evidently five thousand Dazzalox at the Grand Parade had received the greatest shock of many a century.
A few minutes later, many smartly and colorfully dressed Dazzalox, men and women, crowded into the room, chattering and wailing at Jo-jo-kak. Allison couldn’t make much out of the dreadful chaos, but he was sure they were upbraiding the old potentate because he had walked out on his funeral. Jo-jo-kak laughed at them, and brandished his sword, and strutted around defiantly.
All the while, June O’Neil had been out of sight, having retired to an adjoining chamber to retouch her hair and make ready for the strange adventure. Now she entered the room.
At the sight of her, the group of blustering Dazzalox fell silent and edged back into a circle all around her. They gazed as if they were looking upon something unreal, something they couldn’t quite believe.
But when Jo-jo-kak’s wife finally arrived, and she and her centuries-old husband actually led this creature out to the corridor to take her home with them, the Dazzalox were convinced that this thing of beauty was a fact. Some of them, indeed, could even begin to understand why old Jo-jo-kak had neglected his funeral.
Chatter and cheering and the tapping of Jo-jo-kak’s sword melted into the hum of machines. Kilhide called a one-striper.
“Have the mechanics service the robot ship for another trip,” he ordered.
Then he turned to Allison. “Oh, yes, you! I was about to kick you in the face, I believe. Well, I haven’t time now. But perhaps by this time you realize that the smart thing for you is to get into your slave clothes.”
“What,” said Allison deliberately, “would you do if you were in my shoes?”
Kilhide flushed, but there really was no answer he could make.
“Take him outside and cut his bonds,” he snapped at the one-striper. “See that he and the others get ready for the market. Though heaven knows,” he added as the slave dragged Allison out of hearing, “that the market is headed for a slump—the male market, anyway.”
Many hours after Allison, dressed in his red one-stripe outfit, had been stationed on the sales floor of the slave cavern, he looked up to find his old two-stripe friend, Smitt, grinning at him.
“So you haven’t been sold yeti” Smitt exclaimed.
“None of us have been sold,” said Allison. “Scores of potentates have examined us from head to foot, and made us prance and climb rocks and repeat Dazzalox words, but they didn’t buy. Kilhide marked us up, marked us down, and down some more; but still no sales.”
“That girl,” said Smitt with a sweeping gesture, as if that were enough to account for everything. “You never saw such a stir. These sleepy old Dazzalox are all in a dither. Most of them haven’t seen her yet, but they know she must be something terrific to make old Jo-jo-kak miss his funeral.
“Now they can hardly wait for the Challenge Parade that Jo-jo-kak has promised. Did I ever tell you about the Challenge Parades they have here?”
“You told me they put on big shows to impress each other with their wealth.”
“That’s what it amounts to,” said Smitt. “Although to them, it has a lot more meaning, because it has carried down from the centuries when they had wars, and each potentate would parade his army and challenge the world. Now they don’t have armies, so they parade their families and slaves and jewels and their famous weapons. Such an orgy of display you never saw!”
“Tell me something,” said Allison in a voice of quiet confidence.
Then their conversation was interrupted by the attendant in charge of sales, who dismissed the one-stripers from the salesroom, for the business day was over. Allison jogged back to his temporary quarters at the Red Suburb and Smitt, being off duty, accompanied him.
Allison stripped and got into the natural shower bath that gushed out of the rock wall, for he was hot and dusty.
“Tell me,” he resumed, while Smitt prepared some food for him, “is Jo-jo-kak interested in this Earth girl simply as an ornament for his display, or—Hell, man, you know what I mean.” Smitt shrugged his shoulders sympathetically. “I wouldn’t want to say.” Allison frowned worriedly. “Of course, she’s beautiful,” he said. “There’s no denying that. And if these Dazzalox have an eye for beauty—”
“The point is,” said Smitt, “that no Dazzalox ever saw an Earth girl before. She’s a novelty. Any Dazzalox who can have her for his Challenge Parade has gained a big edge on all his fellows. That’s what Jo-jo-kak is after. Still—”
“You should have seen the look in his eye when he saw her,” said Allison. “I don’t trust him. She was clever enough to call for his wife before she would go with him. If it hadn’t been for that—”
Smitt shrugged. “They’re Dazzalox. We’re humans. We slaves have never had any attraction for the Dazzalox women.”
“Dazzalox women aren’t attractive,” said Allison.
“Through our eyes, no, of course not.”
“It would be a pretty pickle if the Dazzalox potentates saw through our eyes.’ ” Allison dried himself on a towel of matting and got into his one-stripe uniform.
Smitt munched at a ripe fruit thoughtfully. He began to see what Allison was driving at.
“Say, this thing might turn into some kind of avalanche. Already the potentates have found out from us slaves that there are more of these Earth women where this one came from. And when they take a notion they want something—”
Allison caught on instantly. “They know that Kilhide, with all his scientific magic, will get it for them somehow.”
“Exactly.”
“Kilhide is having the robot ship serviced,” said Allison dryly.
“The hell! Damned louse!”
“I thought you approved of Kilhide and all his thievery and ‘gentle’ murders and—”
“Kilhide’s a devil!” Smitt muttered under his breath, glancing about to make sure no other slaves were within hearing. One never knew what fellow slaves might be tale bearers.
“We lick his boots because he’s got us. It’s futile to fight—so we don’t care whether we live or die. But if he starts shipping women here for slaves.”
“There’d be something worth fighting about!” snapped Allison. “Which way to Jo-jo-kak’s? I’ve got to see June O’Neil.”
Lester Allison skipped up the long circling staircase as nimbly as a squirrel. The red flame of his torch fluttered over his bare arm. It was a torch of porous stone. Smitt had shown him how such torches could be made by soaking a strip of gray stone in liquid fuel and touching it to a blaze.
Another round of steps and he found him
self on the uppermost level beneath the cavern roof. Before him a semicircle of dim flares outlined the railing that enclosed the open shelf of rock: the combination balcony and front porch of Jo-jo-kak’s built-in mansion.
A momentary impression of carved arches and ornamental furniture, then Allison’s eyes lighted upon the figure of the girl standing before a natural mirror of polished black rock.
“June,” he called softly.
The girl turned and her face brightened.
“Lester!”
She ran to him and he caught her hands. Then, rather in awe, he stepped back to gaze at her.
“You’re—you’re beautiful!”
Allison couldn’t remember ever having said those words to a girl before. Certainly no words could have been any more appropriate, even if he did explode them quite unintentionally. June O’Neil was dressed in all the splendor of an Oriental queen.
“It’s part of my costume for the Challenge Parade,” she said. “There’ll be a headdress too, and some ornamental hangings from each wrist. All the Dazzalox in this neighborhood have been working on it for hours, but just now they are all away, making more plans.”
“Then you’re—alone?”
The girl nodded. “It’s wonderful of you to come, Lester. I’ve been so worried about you.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Allison laughed, involuntarily rubbing the bruises on his face that had come from Kilhide’s boot.
At once they fell to talking of all that had happened. The head of the long circling stairs seemed an ideal place to sit. They were close together, and their very closeness made them realize that they were two adventurers in a land of hidden perils—adventurers who couldn’t lose hope as long as they were looking in each other’s eyes.
“It’s good to be with you,” said Allison. All the longing and desire to be alone with this girl that had kept his heart pounding in the interminable hours on the space ship, and the torchlit hours since, flooded over him. His arm held her tightly.
“Are you afraid here?” he asked. “Not as much as when Kilhide talked to me. I shudder for fear of Jo-jo-kak’s finding me alone; but his wife takes care of me, and I feel safe with her. She’s much younger—only three hundred Mercury years. I think she must have been badly upset because he didn’t go ahead with his farewell, though she pretends everything is just fine.”
“Has anyone been to see you, June?”
“Who would there be—but you?”
“I thought perhaps Ted Tyndall—”
“He still despises me for bringing him here. He’ll blame me to his dying day.” Allison was silent for awhile. Together they watched the lights of the streets below, the Dazzalox coming and going, the ribbons of water chasing through the ravines.
“Wouldn’t it be beautiful up here,” said June, “if we could only forget all the fears and troubles that are closing in on us?”
“It’s easy to forget everything else when I can look at you,” said Allison, conscious that his face was very close to hers.
“This place is like I’ve always imagined a penthouse would be,” she breathed. “Only here the sky is a rock roof right above our heads. Could you pin some little lights up, Lester, for stars?”
Lester Allison wasn’t sure why he chose that moment to kiss her. He only knew that his lips came close to hers and at once he was lost to everything except June O’Neil. Then swiftly the dangers surged back into his mind, and their lips parted reluctantly.
“That’s just to remind you,” he said softly, “that I’m with you in whatever happens.”
The girl looked into his eyes intently and nodded without smiling.
“If my plan works,” said Allison, “I may get you back to Earth soon. Kilhide is preparing his boat for another trip.” June looked at him questioningly. He added, “I’ll keep you posted.”
“You’d better go now,” she breathed. “They’ll be coming back soon. The way Jo-jo-kak has been blustering around with his sword, I wouldn’t put anything past him. I hope I don’t have to be near him in the Challenge Parade.” She laughed lightly.
“Is it something you dread? I never know what to expect of these Dazzalox.”
“I’ll be all right,” said the girl bravely. “It’s probably foolish for me to worry.”
Her mind flashed back to Kilhide—Kilhide, giving her to this erratic old potentate; Kilhide, waiting to see her humiliated as an ornament in a Dazzalox display; Kilhide, who held all the power over every human being in these chasms.
“I’ll be with you,” Lester Allison repeated as he said good night.
CHAPTER VI
The Living Ornament
The holiday brought the full five thousand natives to the gayly decorated Grand March stadium. They came early, in a more than ordinary festive spirit. Challenge Parades of past centuries had often been hundreds of times as long in the preparation, but none had ever evoked so much excitement or suspense as this one.
“Girl! Girl!” was the cry everywhere.
From the hour that the famous Jo-jo-kak had walked out on his funeral, that magic English word had taken the Dazzalox civilization by storm. It was on every Dazzalox’s lips this hour. Whatever else old Jo-jo-kak might have in his parade, the important thing was that he would exhibit the most novel—and according to rumor, the most beautiful—living ornament ever seen.
Lester Allison watched from a front seat. He was with Smitt, who had chosen seats within hearing distance of Naf, his owner. While the excited talk and cheering gathered momentum, Smitt quietly described to Allison the highlights of a few previous Challenge Parades that had made indelible impressions.
Allison was most impressed to learn that slaves were sometimes killed at these affairs.
“Not for any reason, you understand,” said Smitt, “except that the Dazzalox become intoxicated with the spirit of the spectacular. I’ve seen them place two slaves on the top of a float and make them maul each other with battle axes, just in order to keep the audience applauding.”
A huge door unfolded from one wall and a single magnificent float came into view. It actually floated in; for the Grand March was built over a river, and for this occasion the floor through the center of the stadium had been removed, section by section. The waters rippled brightly with the colored lights of a thousand flares.
“That artificial river bed is as old as their civilization,” Smitt remarked.
“You wouldn’t guess it, but there is a funnel-shaped depression right out there in the center, that is used for some of their ceremonies—the Ancient Rite of the Floating Chop, for example.”
“Tell me later,” said Allison. He was intent upon the approaching float. It was a huge floating pyramid, bearing many a handsomely arrayed Dazzalox. But where was June O’Neil?
Uniformed slaves towed the pyramid slowly, like a canal boat, from one end of the Grand March to the other. Brilliant lights flooded the tower of steps, which were resplendent with knives, swords, jewels, battle axes—all arranged in patterns that would have made an artist gasp for breath. The action of the figures was dazzling. Gaudy Dazzalox, both male and female, kept up a continuous procession of running up and down the sides of the pyramid.
The only quiet figure was the wizened old Jo-jo-kak himself, who sat on the top of the pyramid. And his time was coming.
But among all the startlingly grotesque creatures, Allison still failed to find a single human being.
The crowds also grew impatient for what they knew must be coming—the mysterious living ornament that had been promised.
“Girl! Girl! Kap-ja-zaz-o-jo-jo-kak!”
The cries were an intoxicant to Jo-jo-kak. At last he leaped to his feet at the top of the pyramid and brandished his sword. The other Dazzalox sat down on the lower tiers and turned so they could watch him.
Even with five thousand creatures clamoring for the surprise, the old potentate held them off long enough to make a speech. The pyramid floated the length of the Grand March and back again, with J
o-jo-kak shouting at the top of his withered voice, and with the crowds bawling at him so loudly that no one could hear a word he said.
At last he stepped down on the second step from the top level. With his unsteady sword he struck at the top step. A lid opened.
The five thousand silenced. It was suddenly so quiet that Allison could hear the excited old potentate puffing.
The girl rose up out of the top of the pyramid. She stepped down to the second level. The lid closed. She ascended to the pinnacle, stood there motionless, her arms outspread.
The silence was perfect. Even Jo-jo-kak’s breathing must have stopped in that moment.
The ornamental draperies that hung from the girl’s wrists trembled slightly, and with every tremble Lester Allison’s heart fluttered. To him, her radiant beauty was overpowering. To the Dazzalox—He could only wonder.
Jo-jo-kak swung his glittering sword in a broad gesture of triumph and shouted in a loud croaking voice:
“Girl!”
“Girl! Girl! Girl!” the crowds echoed, and wave after wave of cheering followed while the pyramid passed between the sides of the stadium.
Then someone started a new cry and the crowds picked it up. Old Jo-jo-kak pranced around the fourth level below his living ornament, listening to first this section of the crowd and then that, then tossing his head back and laughing and slapping his sword against his side.
“What are they shouting?” Allison demanded of Smitt.
“They say there are too many ornaments. They want to see the girl.”
Just then Jo-jo-kak pranced up three steps and flashed his sword through the air toward the girl’s head. Her ornamental headdress shattered and fell. Her black hair cascaded down over her shoulders. The crowd roared.
Jo-jo-kak jogged down to the fourth step and hobbled around the pyramid a few times and then went up again. Another shaky stroke with his sword. The flowing ornaments from the girl’s left wrist slipped down onto the steps.