The Complete Space Adventure Books of Otis Adelbert Kline – All 8 Novels in One Edition. Otis Adelbert Kline
Rorg. “Such a thing would not be possible. Go and slay her, Urg.”
All this time I had been standing guardedly, saying nothing; but when it became apparent that the female ape was about to be killed through no fault of her own, but because of something I had done, I felt a wave of pity for her. Brute and man-eater though she was, she had been considerate of me. After all, she was something like a woman.
“Rorg,” I said, “I did not lie about taking her weapons from her, and I can prove it.”
“How?”
“By taking the weapons from your strongest warrior in the same manner.”
“Can you take Urg’s weapons from him?” asked Rorg.
“Of course.”
“Then you must be very strong or very clever. I like clever food-men. Sometimes I keep them for a long while when they are exceedingly clever. When they fail to amuse me they die. Let me see you take Urg’s weapons, and I will spare your life for today, at least.”
“But what of Chixa?”
“I will spare her life, also.”
“Good. I will need plenty of room, and I demand your promise that I will not be attacked by any one other than Urg.”
“You will have plenty of room, and you have my word that you will not be attacked or interfered with,” said Rorg.
“Move back, then, all of you,” I said, “until I tell you to stop.”
The crowd drew back until the front line was a hundred feet from the rock in all directions.
“That is enough. Now, Urg, come here and I will take your weapons. I will go unarmed, and you must not have your weapons in your hands. You will walk beside me as if I were your prisoner fastened to a tether.” With this I dropped weapons to the ground.
“It is a trick,” growled Urg, but at Rorg’s command he hung his flint knife around his neck, and hooked his club in the string around his waist. As the brute lumbered up beside me, and I saw what a mighty tower of strength he was, I must confess that I felt considerable doubt about being able to knock him out.
He strode along beside me, his great arms swinging at his sides. I timed my swing for the instant when the great paw nearest me was back, leaving the abdomen unguarded. Then I pivoted, landing my right fist in his solar plexus —all the force I could muster behind it.
With a grunt of surprise, he doubled forward as Chixa had done; but before I could swing for his jaw, he stood erect once more and reached for his club. His chin, by this time, was so high in the air that I could not reach it, and he had his plexus covered by his great forearm; there was nothing I could do with my fists. His shins; however, were exposed; I kicked the right one with my sandaled foot.
Uttering a howl of pain, he raised his foot and launched it at me, whereupon I grasped it with both hands, and twisting it with a sudden jerk that caused the bones to creak, turned his toes downward and his heel upward at the same time. This turned him completely around, and a quick push sent him on his face.
Before he could scramble erect, I leaped on his back, planting a heavy blow just beneath his ear. He shook himself in an effort to dislodge me, but I grasped one of his tusks with my left hand, and with my legs wrapped around him, continued to hammer him behind the furry ear.
Standing erect, he bellowed angrily, and releasing his grip on his club, grasped my left arm in his huge right hand. Wrenching my hand away from his tusk, he jerked me forward over his left shoulder and threw me to the ground fully twenty feet away. Fortunately for me, I alighted on my feet, and although I stumbled and fell, was unhurt.
I saw Urg coming toward me, but he reeled drunkenly.
Quickly springing to my feet, I leaped forward, whereupon he jerked his club from his belt and made a wild swing for my head. As his momentum bent him forward, I dodged, and leaping in, planted a blow in his right eye. He straightened, and I struck him in the solar plexus once more.
This time he doubled up, exposing his jaw, on which I planted a crashing right hook. Once more he stood erect, tottering unsteadily, and once more I doubled him up with a plexus blow, getting in a left to the jaw. He fell on his face as I sprang out of his way, finishing him with a blow behind the ear.
I slipped the knife cord from around his neck, and picked up the great saw-edged club which he had dropped. Then I leaped upon his back, and with one foot on his neck, brandished the weapons aloft, while a great howl went up from the mob around me.
From his place in the center of the line, Rorg walked slowly toward me, attended only by the female with the fern frond. I stepped down from the prostrate body of Urg as he approached, and slung the knife about my neck, also hooking the club in my belt. “Are you convinced?” I asked.
“I am convinced,” replied Rorg. “You are clever enough to be kept alive for a while, and Chixa shall be spared.”
It was then I noticed a gold bangle about Rorg’s wrist. I saw that it was stamped with the coat of arms of Taliboz, and it followed that this must have belonged to one of his retainers.
“Where did you get the man who wore that bangle?” I asked.
“My warriors captured him with twelve other food-men, and a food-woman. We have eaten them all, except one man who is very clever, and the woman, who is very beautiful.”
“Do you know the name of this clever food-man?” I asked.
“His servants called him Lord Taliboz,” was the reply.
“And the food-woman?”
“A royal princess, fit only for royalty. I intend to wed her at the beginning of the next endir. Although I should like to wed her sooner, I will not depart from the customs and traditions of my forefathers, who married but one wife at a time and her at the beginning of each endir, thus taking but ten mates a year. I had intended Chixa for my next wife, but now she will have to wait for another endir.”
“Is it customary for cave-apes to mate with food-people?”
“It is not,” replied Rorg, “but we have no old law against it. I make all the new laws, and I have decreed that, hereafter, all Rogos of the Cave-Apes may marry food-women if they choose to do so.”
“I have a great curiosity to see this food-man who is so clever and this beautiful food-woman,” I said.
“You shall see them,” replied Rorg. “Come with me. I want you to do some more clever tricks, anyway, to amuse my wives and children.”
As I strolled away with Rorg I saw Urg stir slightly, then roll over and sit up, after which he tenderly felt his bruised jaw and the battered spot behind his ear.
Chapter 6
Rorg and I climbed high up the mountainside while his female attendants and the mob of cave-apes which had been so bent on killing me scrambled after us.
We were ascending the tallest peak of a chain of mountains which extended toward the north and south, their rugged slopes partly concealed by the various strata of gray clouds which floated lazily westward. And these mountains, as far as I could see, swarmed with cave-apes.
As we mounted steadily upward we passed many ape families, some of which were breakfasting while others appeared to be starting out on their morning quest for food. Tiny helpless infant apes were at their mothers’ breasts. Spindle-legged, round-bellied ape children played about on the rocky slopes, or gnawed at bones, scraps of meat, edible fungi, and sporepods.
All of them, from babes to adults, watched me with their beady black eyes as I passed, but none made a hostile move or sound, evidently because of the awesome presence of Rorg.
At length we