Chapter XVI: Slave of the Sabits

Grandon fought desperately but unavailingly as he was dragged into the dark burrow. Stabbing again and again with his sword, he at length found a crevice in the armor of his captor, whereupon it stopped and shook him until his head reeled and the weapon dropped from his hand. Then the sabit carried him, limp and only half conscious, to the great central room, in which were the king and queen sabits of the white community.

As soon as he was dropped to the floor, the king sabit leaped on him and, cutting his belt with sharp mandibles, removed his tork and knife. Thus, stripped of his weapons, bruised and bleeding, he sat up weakly and looked at the three repulsive creatures.

That they possessed no inconsiderable degree of intelligence he did not doubt. The removal of his weapons proved that. But whether or not the quality of mercy was an attribute of that intelligence he could not even guess, nor could he yet guess the fact that they looked down on him as an inferior creature, lower in the scale of creation than themselves.

After looking at him fixedly for some time the queen sabit summoned two workers by vibrating her antennæ, and he was conducted through a series of runways and tunnels to a great, light chamber, where hundreds of naked, hairy men were engaged in the task of receiving sacks filled with a sticky white mixture from men who brought them to the doorway. They then fed the contents to thousands of fat, white, grublike creatures that varied in size from two to eight feet in length. He saw one of the larger grubs near him bite a mouthful of flesh from the shoulder of its screaming tender, and a little farther away two men held a huge grub while a third endeavored to reach its swaying head with a sacksful of sticky food.

His conductors piloted him among the swaying, wriggling grubs and scurrying men to where a single individual taller than his fellows and much more ferocious of mien than most stood with folded arms, apparently supervising the work. One of the sabits vibrated its antennæ, this time creating a series of musical tones. The man turned, replied with three musical notes, and took Grandon by the arm, whereupon the two sabits left him.

"A new slave, eh?" he said gruffly. "Don't stand there staring like a stupid ptang. You have eyes to see the nature of the task before you. Begin it quickly, before you have painful cause to regret your slowness."

Grandon coolly surveyed the great brute before him. Without doubt he would make a formidable and merciless antagonist. His abnormally low forehead was crossed by a livid scar just above the beetling brows, from beneath which his small, beady eyes glared malevolently. His right ear had been completely torn away, and with it a portion of the surrounding scalp.

As he stood with arms folded over his hairy chest and feet wide apart, a bulging, menacing mountain of muscle and bone, the Earth-man did not wonder that slaves cringed at his glance, and that he apparently expected this new arrival to do like-wise.

"I have eyes to see and ears to hear that which pleases me not," Grandon replied boldly. "You accuse me of the stupidity of a ptang, but I must needs have the stupidity of a thousand ptangs to obey this thing miscalled a man which stands before me."

* * * * *

The overseer's thick lips drew back in a brutelike snarl, revealing huge yellow teeth. With lightninglike quickness he directed a blow at Grandon's head. By ducking swiftly the Earth-man avoided the full force of the blow which would have crushed in the side of his face had it landed squarely and which, glancing though it was, sent him reeling to the floor a full twenty feet away.

"You would insult Od, would you?" the overseer snarled. "You would refuse to feed the fantas. Miserable, misbegotten offspring of misguided parents, then shall your torn body feed them, and that speedily."

He sprang to the side of the prostrate man and lifted his heavy foot for a vicious kick, but it never landed, for Grandon executed a quick scissors movement with his legs, an old wrestling trick, and his assailant fell sprawling.

Both men leaped to their feet in an instant. As they faced each other, the slaves abandoned their wriggling fanta charges and formed an excited ring about the pair. They saw that which they had never previously beheld--brute strength pitted against the science of the trained boxer.

The giant Od was first annoyed, then amazed, at his inability to strike his opponent, while blows rained incessantly against his unguarded chin and solar plexus. At length, weakened by the drubbing he was receiving, he abandoned all thought of striking his elusive antagonist and leaped blindly forward to clutch him in his mighty arms.

It was the opening for which Grandon had been waiting. Stepping lightly to one side, he planted a terrific blow behind the ragged ear. Od reeled blindly for a moment, then fell prone upon his hideous face, where he lay limp and still.

A shout of approval went up from the group of spectators, for Od was a hated bully, and many of them had felt the weight of his heavy hand or seen comrades go down before his blows, never to rise again. A warning cry from a man near the door checked their cheering.

"To your tasks, quickly! The sabits are coming!"

They scattered in an instant, and when four soldier sabits arrived all but Grandon and Od were busily tending their fractious charges. The sabits spied Grandon, standing with heaving breast beside his prostrate foe, and ran quickly to where he stood. One of them looked inquiringly at him, and vibrated its antennæ, producing a confusing series of tones. When it received no reply it brought a slave from near by and repeated the vibrations. The slave replied, using his voice to produce various tones, and Grandon judged from his gestures that he was describing the combat.

Immediately one of the sabits made for the door, and shortly returned with the winged king. Then there was a further vibratory conversation, this time among the sabits. Grandon noticed that when they communicated with each other the vibrations were noiseless, and that the sounds were produced only when they conversed with men.

Momentarily expecting to be punished with death for his rash deed, Grandon was amazed when the four soldier sabits suddenly leaped to the prostrate man and tore him to pieces. These pieces were distributed among the near-by sabit grubs, or fantas, as they were called.

Then the king sabit again vibrated his antennæ, this time producing musical tones, and the slave who had described the duel translated for Grandon.

* * * * *

"By order of the king sabit you are to assume immediately the duties of the man you just defeated. Only the strongest and bravest of the slaves may become feeders of the fantas, and by vanquishing Od, greatest of all of us in the community, you have demonstrated your eligibility for the office."

"But I know nothing of these duties," remonstrated Grandon.

"It does not matter. The men know what is to be done. You are simply to maintain order and see that there is no idling. A soldier sabit will remain with you for a few days to teach you the tone language so that thereafter you may receive your orders direct from the sabits and not through an interpreter."

As Grandon took up the work of the dead Od, his thoughts reverted to Vernia, awaiting his coming in the airship. He resolved to escape at the first opportunity and return to her, but at that moment escape was out of the question and resistance was suicidal.

The working day of the sabits and their slaves began at dawn and continued until darkness. The slaves were fed twice daily, once upon rising and once when the day's work was completed. The diet was always the same--a mixture of the sweet, sticky stuff and edible fungi.

With the coming of darkness all members of the community were herded within the conical clay houses and the burrows which connected them. A sleeping room with bare dirt floors was set aside for the men and carefully guarded by soldier sabits. A separate dormitory for the women and children was similarly guarded. Men and women were not allowed to mingle during the day, but were kept at separate tasks, and though they might see each other from a distance seldom had opportunities even for conversation.

Grandon watched carefully for an opportunity to escape and return to Vernia, but it seemed that his every movement was anticipated by the watchful sabits. Again and again he tried, growing more reckless and desperate as the days passed, but all in vain.

He learned the tone language readily, and after several weeks had elapsed, became fairly familiar with his surroundings and the mode of life of the strange creatures who had captured him. His instructor told him how the little sabits or fantas were hatched from the eggs laid by the roga. They were tended and fed by women and girls until they reached a size that made it necessary for the men to take charge of them. When they had, while still in the fanta stage, grown larger than adults, they were taken to a dark room deep under the ground, where they spun great, tough cocoons that completely surrounded them, and lay dormant in these for a long period, finally emerging as full-fledged adult sabits.

Many days passed before Grandon was even permitted out of doors. Then, one morning, he was placed in charge of a crew of food carriers, and the white soldier sabits taking their "cattle," the green creatures to their leafy pastures, led the way directly to the tree in which the airship was jammed.

With wildly beating heart, Grandon climbed the tree soon after his men had mounted to gather the sweet torlage. After a tedious climb he saw the craft directly above him. Slaves, sabits and the green "cattle" swarmed all about it without paying it the slightest attention. Apparently it was a familiar object to them.

Grandon moved cautiously toward the forked limb on which it rested in order that he might not betray his interest, and peered cautiously within the cab. It was empty, and apparently undisturbed. One of the drawers stood open, and he selected a knife and a small flash light from the miscellaneous articles it contained, secreting them beneath his clothing.

As there were no signs of a struggle he assumed that Vernia had left voluntarily, but he was equally certain that she could not have gone far without being captured and enslaved by the sabits.

Having by this time become familiar with the fate of female slaves of marriageable age, Grandon resolved that she must be rescued speedily, if at all, for he knew that she would take her own life rather than submit to the dictates of such a system.

There were hundreds of sabit communities in the valley, in any one of which she might be a prisoner, and he was not without realization of the stupendous task before him, for he must first find a way to escape from his own community, then spy on all the others in turn until he found her.

That night when the men had been quartered in their dormitory he thought of a plan, and set about at once to put it into execution.