On the Ukungu shield there is, commonly, a tuft of feathers. This is fastened at one of the points of the shield. When the tuft of feathers is at the bottom of the shield, the shield being so held, this is an indication that the hunter seeks an animal. When the tuft of feathers is at the top of the shield, the shield so held, it is an indication that the quarry is human. On both the shield of Kisu and Mwoga the tufts were now at the top.
'I would make a better Mfalme than Aibu,' said Mwoga. 'It was thus that I had him killed.'
The fight was brief, and then Kisu withdrew the bloodied point of his weapon from the chest of Mwoga, who lay at his feet.
'You fight well,' said Bila Huruma. 'Will you now see to the slaughter of those who supported Mwoga?'
'No,' said Kisu. 'My quarrel is not with them. They are my fellow tribesmen. They may remain in peace in the villages of Ukungu.'
'Once, Kisu,' said Bila Huruma, 'you were little more than a kailiauk, with the obstinacy and crudity of the kailiauk's power, quick to anger, thoughtless in your charges. Now I see that you have learned something of the wisdom of one worthy to be a Mfalme.'
Kisu shrugged.
'Proceed with us further to Ushindi,' said Bila Huruma. 'Msaliti is gone. I shall have need of one to be second in my empire.'
'Better to be first in Ukungu,' said Kisu, 'than second in the empire.'
'You are first in Ukungu,' said Bila Huruma, naming Kisu to power.
'I shall fight you from Ukungu,' said Kisu.
'Why?' asked Ella Huruma.
'I will have Ukungu free,' said Kisu.
Bila Huruma smiled. 'Ukungu,' he said, 'is free.'
Men cried out in astonishment.
'Clean now the blade of your spear, Kisu,' said Bila Huruma. 'Put once more upon it the sheathing strips of guarding leather. Turn your shield so that the feathers lie again at its base.'
'I will clean and sheath my spear,' said Kisu. 'I will turn my shield.'
Kisu handed his weapons to one of the villagers. He and Bila Huruma embraced.
It was thus that peace came to Ukungu and the empire.
57
I Board Again The Palms Of Schendi; I Will Take Ship For Port Kar
'It is not necessary to chain me like this, Master,' said Janice.
She knelt on the hot boards of the wharf at Schendi. Her ankles were shackled, and her small wrists locked behind her in slave bracelets. A tight belly chain, locked on her, running to a heavy ring in the wood, about a foot from her, secured her in place. She was stripped. On her throat, locked, was a steel collar. It read 'I am owned by Bosk of Port Kar'. That is a name by which I am known in many parts of Gor. It has its own history.
'Before,' said Janice, looking up at me, in my collar, 'when I might have fled, and did, in Port Kar, I was not even secured. Now, when I know what I do, what it is to be a slave girl on Gor, and would be terrified to so much as move from this place without permission, I am heavily chained.'
'It is common to secure female cargo before loading.' I said. 'It should have been done before.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I looked down at her. 'Even if you were not chained, and wished to escape,' I said, 'I do not think such a venture would now be practical.'
'No, Master,' she said. 'I am now branded. I am now collared.'
'Greetings,' said Captain Ulafi to me.
'Greetings,' said I to him.
'Is this the little troublemaker?' he asked, looking down at Janice.
'I do not think she will cause you trouble now,' I said.
Janice put her head down to the boards of the wharf. 'Forgive me, Master,' she said, 'if I once displeased you.'
'Lift your head,' said Ulafi.
Janice looked up at him.
'How beautiful she has become,' said Ulafi. 'It is difficult to believe that she is the same girl.' He regarded her. 'She has become a sensuous dream,' he said.
'She is a slave,' I said. I shrugged.
'What fools men are to let any woman be free,' he said.
'Perhaps,' I said.
'You wish to take passage again on the Palms of Schendi,' he asked, 'for return to Port Kar?'
'With your permission, Captain,' I said.
'The arrangements have been made,' he said. I pressed into his hands the coins on which we had agreed.
'We sail shortly,' he said, 'with the tide.'
When I had returned to Schendi I had borne with me notes from the court of Bila Huruma. The moneys which I had lost when apprehended in Schendi, for seizure and transportation to the canal, had been returned to me. I had obtained again, too, my sea bag and its enclosed articles. I had received these back from the woman who had rented me the room off the Street of Tapestries. The sea bag lay at my feet. In it, with my other things, was a chain of gold, which I had received, long ago, from Bila Huruma. It had shared much of my equatorial odyssey. About my neck, on a leather string, inside my tunic, I wore the Tahari ring.
I thought of Bila Huruma, and the loneliness of the Ubar. I thought of Shaba, and his voyages of exploration, the circumnavigation of Lake Ushindi, the discovery and circumnavigation of Lake Ngao, and the discovery and exploration of the Ua, even to the discovery of its source in the placid waters of that vast lake he had called Lake Bila Huruma. But by the wish of Bila Huruma I had changed its name to Lake Shaba. He was surely one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the explorers of Gor. I did not think his name would be forgotten.
'I am grateful,' had said Ramani of Anango, who had once been the teacher of Shaba. I had delivered to him, and to two others of his caste, the maps and notebooks of Shaba. Ramani and his fellows had wept. I had then left them, returning to my lodgings. Copies would be made of the maps and notebooks. They would then be distributed by caste brothers throughout the cities of civilized Gor. The first copies that were made by anyone had already, however, been made, by the scribes of Bila Huruma in Ushindi. Ramani need not know this.
'Will you continue work on the canal?' I had asked Bila Huruma.
'Yes,' he had said.
When Lakes Ushindi and Ngao had been joined by the canal a continuous waterway would be opened between Thassa and the Ua. One might then, via either the Kamba or the Nyoka, attain Lake Ushindi. One might then follow the canal from Ushindi to Ngao. From Ngao one could enter upon the Ua. One could then, for thousands of pasangs, follow the Ua until one reached its terminus in Lake Shaba. And Lake Shaba itself was fed by numerous smaller streams and rivers, each giving promise, like the tributaries of the Ua itself, to the latency of new countries. The importance of the work of Bila Huruma and Shaba, one a Ubar, the other a scribe and explorer, could not, in my opinion, be overestimated.
I thought of small Ayari, with whom I had shared the rogues' chain and my adventures upon the Ua.
He wore now the robes of the wazir of Bila Huruma. It was a wise choice, I thought, on the part of Bila Huruma. Ayari had proved his hardiness and worth in the journeys upon the Ua. He was facile with languages, and had connections with the villages of Nyuki on the northern shore of Ushindi, which was the territory of his father's birth, and, because of his connections with Kisu, with the Ukungu districts on the Ngao. Beyond this he had been born and raised in Schendi and, accordingly, spoke Gorean fluently. Adding to these things his intelligence, and his shrewdness and humanity, he seemed to me ideally suited for his work. Such a man might profitably be employed by a Ubar who wished to improve his relations not only with the interior but, too, with the city of Schendi, one of
