'Do you see him?' I called out to Ayari.
'He is safe,' said Ayari. 'Come into the canoe.'
'Where is he?' I asked, crawling dripping over the bulwark of the light vessel.
'Look,' said Kisu.
I looked back, and, to my surprise, saw the lad half shinnied up one of the poles of the scaffolding. He was grinning.
'He swims like a fish,' said Ayari. 'He was never in danger.'
None of the men, I noted, had leapt from the platform. Yet the boy had screamed. Yet he had seemed to be washed downstream, apparently in jeopardy of being carried away, by the current.
One of the men on the platform gestured for us to come closer. He had sheathed his jagged-edged knife, a fisherman's knife. We paddled closer. As we did so he helped the lad climb up to the surface of the scaffolding. I saw that both the men and boys stood upon it, and moved upon it, with a nimble, sure footing. They were less likely to fall from it, I realized, than an Earthling to tumble from one of his sidewalks. They knew it intimately and conducted the business of their livelihood upon it for hours a day.
The lad, and others, were grinning at us. One of the men. perhaps his father, patted him on the head, congratulating him. He had played his part well.
'Come ashore,' said one of the men in Ushindi, he who had earlier used this language, and Ukungu as well. 'You would have saved the boy.' he said. 'It is thus clear that you are our friends. Be welcome here. Come ashore, our friends, to our village.'
'It was a trick,' said Kisu.
'Yes,' I said.
'But a nice trick,' said Ayari.
'I do not like to be tricked,' said Kisu.
'Perhaps, on the river,' I said, 'one cannot be too careful.'
'Perhaps,' said Kisu.
We then guided the canoe about the platform and made for shore.
We tied the hands of the three girls behind them, and sat them in the dirt.
We were within a stick-sided, palm-thatched hut in the fishing village. A small fire in a clay bowl dimly illuminated the interior of the hut. There were shelves in the hut, of sticks, on which were vessels and masks.
Individual tethers ran from the bound wrists of each girl to a low, stout, sunken slave post at one side of the hut.
There had been much singing and dancing. It was now late. Kiss and I sat opposite one another, across the clay bowl with its small fire.
'Where is Ayari?' I asked Kisu.
'He remains with the chief,' said Kisu. 'He is not yet satisfied.'
'What more does he wish to learn?' I asked.
'I am not sure,' said Kisu.
We had learned that three boats, with more than one hundred and twenty men, several in blue tunics, had passed this village several days ago. They had not stopped.
We were far behind Shaba and his men.
'Master,' said Tende.
'Yes,' said Kisu.
'We are naked,' she said.
'Yes,' said Kisu.
'You traded the bit of silk you had permitted me to wear about my hips,' she said. 'You traded the shells about my throat. You traded even the shells about my ankle.'
'Yes,' said Kisu. The shells and silk, interestingly, had been of considerable value to these fishermen. The shells were from Thassa islands and their types were unknown in the interior. Similarly silk was unknown in the interior. The shells from about the throats and ankles of all the girls, of course, had been traded. We had also traded, of course, the strips of red-and-black-printed rep-cloth from about the hips of the two blond slaves. We had retained the golden chain which I wore, which had been a gift of Bila Huruma. It might be useful, we speculated, at a later date. In civilization, of course, it had considerable value. Here we did not know if it would have more value than metal knives or coils of copper wire. The results of our trading had been two baskets of dried fish, a sack of meal and vegetables, a length of bark cloth, plaited and pounded, from the pod tree, dyed red, a handful of colored, wooden beads, and, most importantly, two pangas, two-foot-long, heavy, curve-bladed bush knives. It was the latter two implements in which Kisu had been most interested. I did not doubt but what they might prove useful.
'I am not pleased, Kisu,' said Tende.
He leaped across the fire bowl toward her and savagely struck her head to the left with a fierce blow of the fiat of his hand.
'Did you dare to speak my name, Slave?' he asked.
She lay at his feet, on her side, terrified, blood at her mouth, her wrists bound behind her, the line on them taut to the slave post. 'Forgive me, Master,' she cried. 'Forgive me, Master!'
'I see it was a mistake to have permitted you any decoration or clothing whatsoever, proud slave,' he said.
'Forgive me, Master,' she begged. It was true that a slave may wear in the way of cosmetics, clothing or ornament only what the master sees fit to permit her. Sometimes, of course, this is nothing.
'I see another item,' said Kisu, angrily, 'which might perhaps be traded in the morning, before we leave the village.'
'What?' she asked.
'It lies at my feet,' he said.
'No, Master!' she cried.
'I wonder what you would bring in trade,' he mused.
'Do not trade me, Master,' she begged. She might, of course, be traded as easily as a sack of meal or a knife, or a bit of cloth, or a tarsk or vulo. She was a slave.
'You are not much good as a slave,' he said.
'I will try to be better,' she said, struggling to her knees. 'Let me please you tonight. I will give you pleasures you did not know exist. I will so please you that in the morning you will not wish to trade me.'
'It will not be easy,' said he, '-with your hands tied behind you.'
She looked at him, frightened.
He loosened her tether from the slave post and carried her, wrists still bound behind her back, to the side of the hut. He put her on her knees there and then, indolently, lay down, on one elbow, between her and the stick wall of the hut. He looked at her.
'Yes, Master,' she said, and then, piteously, as a slave, addressed herself to his pleasure.
I sat beside the clay bowl with its small, glowing fire, thinking. In the morning, early, we must be again on our way. With a tiny stick I prodded the fire. Shaba was far ahead of us. Why, I wondered, had he fled to the Ua. With the ring he might have slipped to a thousand more secure safeties on the broad surface of Gor. Yet he had chosen the dangerous, unknown route of the Ua. Did he think men would fear to pursue him upon its lonely waters, penetrating such a lush, perilous, mysterious region? Surely he must-know that I, and others, to seek the ring, would follow him even into the steaming, flower-strewn wilderness of the Ua. He had, I conjectured, made a serious mistake, a misjudgment surprising in one of so subtle a mind.
'Master,' I heard, softly.
I turned.
The first blond-haired girl, not she who had been Janice Prentiss, whom I have referred to as the blond- haired barbarian, knelt at the end of her tether, her wrists extended behind her, bound, their line taut to the slave post. This was she who had, with the blond-haired barbarian, been purchased as one of the matched set of serving slaves which Bila Huruma had given to Tende, among her other companionship gifts. This girl was also blond and barbarian, also clearly, given her accent, her teeth, which contained two fillings, and a vaccination mark, of Earth origin. She, too, like the blond-haired barbarian, bore on her left thigh the common Kajira mark of
