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individuals scattered through the floats, who used the caste-marks to emphasize their
emotional detachment.
Pronave circled the hulk, kicked at the rear vane, bent to peer into one of the staring eyes.
"If we could cut it up, its parts might be of some use."
"The hide is too tough for our knives," growled Sklar Hast. "There's no neck to be
strangled."
"There are other ways to kill."
Sklar Hast nodded. "We could sink the beast into the
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144 Jack Vfwce
depths of the ocean but what to use for weight? Bones? Far too valuable. We could load
bags with ash, but there is not that much ash to hand. We could bum every hut on the float as
well as the hoodwink tower, and stilt not secure sufficient. To bum the kragen would require
a like mountain of fuel."
A young Larcener who had worked with great enthusiasm during the trapping of the kragen
spoke forth; "Poison exists! Find me poison, 1 will fix a capsule to a stick and push it into
the creature's maw!"
Elmar Pronave gave a sardonic bark of laughter. "Agreed;
poisons exist, hundreds of them, derived from various sea- plants and animals but which
are sufficiently acrid to de- stroy this beast? And where is it to be had? I doubt if there is that
much poison nearer than Sankeston Float."
Sklar Hast went again to survey the black hulk, and now J?hocan's Cauldron, rising into the
sky, revealed me kragen in miter detail. Sklar Hast examined the four blind-seeming eyes in
the turret, the intricate construction of the mandibles and tentacles at the maw. He touched
the turret, peered at the dome-shaped cap of chitin which covered it. The turret itself
seemed laminated, as if constructed of stacked rings of carti- lage, the eyes protruding fore
and aft in inflexible tubes of a rugose harsh substance. Others in the group began to crowd
close; Sklar Hast jumped forward, thrust at a young Felon boat-builder, but too late. The
kragen flung out a palp. seized the youth around the neck. Sklar Hast cursed, heaved, tore;
the clenched palp was unyielding. Another curled out for his leg; Sklar Hast kicked, danced
back, still heaving upon the Felon's writhing form. The kragen drew the Felon slowly forward,
hoping, so Sklar Hast realized, to pull him within easier reach. He loosed his grip, but the
kragen allowed its palp to sway back to encourage Sklar Hast, who once more tore at me
constricting palp. Again the kragen craftily drew its captive and Sklar Hast forward; the
second palp snapped out once more and this time coiled around Sklar Hast's leg- Sklar
Hast dropped to the ground, twisted himself around and broke the hold, though losing skin.
The kragen petulantly jerked the Felon to within reach of its mandible, neatly
THE KRAGEN 145
snipped off the young man's head, tossed body and head aside. A horrified gasp came
from the watching crowd. Ixon Myrex bellowed, "Sklar Hast, a man's life is gone, due to your
savage obstinacy! You have much to answer for! Woe to you!*'
Sklar Hast ignored the imprecation. He ran to his hut, found chisels and a mallet with a
head of dense sea-plant stem, brought up from a depth of two hundred feet.* The chisels
had blades of pelvic bone ground sharp against a board gritted with the silica husks of
foraminifera. Sklar Hast returned to the kragen, put the chisel against the pale lamellum
between the chitin dome and the foliations of the turret. He tapped; the chisel penetrated;
this, the substance of a new layer being added to the turret, was relatively soft, the consis-
tency of cooked gristle. Sklar Hast struck again; the chisel cut deep. The kragen squirmed-
Sklar Hast worked the chisel back out, made a new inci- sion beside rile first, then another
and another, working around me periphery of the chitin dome, which was approximately two
feet in diameter. The kragen squirmed and shuddered. whether in pain or apprehension it
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alone knew. As Sklar Hast worked around to the front, the palps groped back for him, but he
shielded himself behind the turret, and finally gouged out the lamellum completely around the
circumference of the turret.
His followers watched in awe and silence; from the main float came somber mutters, and
occasional whimpers of su- perstitious dread from the children.
The channel was cut; Sklar handed chisel and mallet back to Elmar Pronave. He mounted
the body of the kragen, bent his knees, hooked fingers under me edge of the chitin dome,
heaved. The dome ripped up and off, almost unbalancing Sklar Hast. The dome rolled down
to the pad, the turret stood like an open-topped cylinder; within were coils and loops of
*The Avertisennan takes below a pulley which he attaches to a sea-plant Stalk. By means of
ropes, buckets of air are pulled down, allowing him to remain under water as long as he
chooses- Using two such systems, alter- nately lowered, the diver can descend to a depth of
two hundred feet, where the sea-plant stalks grow dense and rigid.
146 Jack Vance
something like dirty gray string. There were knots here, nodes there, on each side a pair of
kinks, to the front a great tangle of kinks and loops.
Sklar Hast looked down in interest. He was joined by Elmar Pronave. "The creature's brain, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]