'What do you suppose became of him?' he asked.
'I do not know,' I said.
'He was a spy,' said the fellow.
'Do you know what became of him?' I asked.
'I suppose he was castrated, tortured and impaled,' said the fellow.
'He was of Ar's Station,' I said, 'colony to Ar, and of ancient and honorable family.'
'Of high family?' he asked.
'Of the Marcelliani,' I said.
'Perhaps, then,' said he, 'he was merely scourged and beheaded.'
'Is that known to you?' I asked.
'No,' he said.
'You do not know where he is, then,' I said.
'No,' he said.
'I have been brought to the delta,' I said. 'Why?'
'That you may see the unavailingness of your lies,' he said, 'that you may see us close with the sleen of Cos, that you may see the slaughter of your friends, your paymasters, that you may see wreaked upon them the vengeance of the state of Ar! Glory to Ar!'
'Glory to Ar,' repeated a nearby fellow. The low, spreading, sloping mound of sand, that bar in the delta, was crowded.
'How many Cosians have you taken?' I asked.
'We will soon close with them,' he said, angrily. 'Yes,' said another fellow, listening.
'Tomorrow, maybe tomorrow,' said another.
'Yes, maybe tomorrow!' said the fellow near me.
'Sleep now,' said one of the fellows in the vicinity. The men were then silent.
I lay there for a time, looking up at the sky. I once saw, outlined against one of the moons, membranous, clawed wings outspread, the soaring shape of the giant, predatory ul, the dreaded winged tharlarion of the delta. It is, normally, the only creature that dares to outline itself against the sky in the area. I tried not to feel the tiny feet on my body. Toward morning, somehow, I fell asleep.
6 Forward
One of the men behind me, with the paddle, cursed. Our knees were in water.
The bow of the rence craft, still dry, nosed through reeds. Other craft, too, were about.
'Surely we must be upon the sleen of Cos by now!' wept a man.
'Hold!' called a voice, ahead.
A gant suddenly fluttered out of the reeds, darting up, then again down, away.
'There is a body here, in the water,' said a fellow ahead, to the left, on a narrow raft.
'A Cosian?' asked a man, in a rence craft nearby.
'No,' said the man.
We approached. The officer's boat, too, the fishing craft, propelled by poles, approached, he and others, as well.
In the marsh water, half submerged, its face down, floated a body.
'It is one of our fellows,' said a man.
'Cosians did this,' exclaimed a man.
'It is unlikely,' I said.
'Who then?' asked a fellow.
'Consider the wounds,' I said. There were three of them, in the back.
'He was struck three times,' said a fellow.
'No, once,' I said.
'There are three wounds,' said the man.
'Consider them,' I said, 'the rectlinear alignment, their spacing.
'A trident,' said a man.
'Yes,' I said. 'The three-pronged fish spear.'
'That is not a weapon,' said a man.
'It may be used as such, obviously,' I said.
'And in the arena, it is,' said a fellow. He referred to one of the armaments well known in the arena, that of the 'fisherman,' he who fights with net and trident. There are a number of such armaments, usually bearing traces of their origin.
'Surely here, in the delta, there are no arena fighters,' said a man.
The body was pulled up, onto the raft.
'But it is by means of such weapons,' I said, 'that fishermen often fight. Indeed, it is from that practice, improved and refined, and made more deadly, that arena fighters have taken their example.'
'Rencers?' asked the officer, of me.
'Undoubtedly,' I said. Rencers live in the delta. They inhabit rence islands, huge floating rafts of woven rence. As the rence rots at the bottom, it is replaced, more rence being added to the surface. The sand bars, as I have suggested, are unsuitable for permanent locations. And, indeed, the rence islands, inhabited by the rencers, as they float, are movable. An entire village thus, on its island, may be shifted at will. Needless to say, this mobility can be very useful to the rencers, enabling them, for example, to seek new fishing grounds and harvest fresh stands of rence, their major trading commodity, used for various purposes, such as the manufacture of cloth and paper. It is also useful, of course, in withdrawing from occasional concentrations of tharlarion and avoiding undesired human contacts. The location of such villages is usually secret. Trade contacts are made by the rencers themselves, at their election, at established points. Such villages, given their nature, may even be difficult to detect from the air.
'Do you think there are any about?' asked the officer.
'I do not know,' I said. 'There might be. There might not be.'
'They could be anywhere in the rence,' said a fellow, uneasily.
'True,' I said. To be sure, I doubted that there were any in the vicinity. Troops of Ar, in their numerous craft, some men even wading, were all about.
'Why would they have struck this fellow?' asked a man. 'Who knows?' I asked. Actually I had a very good idea what might have been the case.
'Consign the body to the delta,' said the-officer. The body was rolled from the raft, into the water. 'Forward,' said the officer.
7 Glory to Ar
'There!' cried a fellow. 'The rence is broken there!'
There was a cheer from the several craft about us. This cheer was echoed, from flotilla to flotilla, of the small craft behind us, as well as to the sides.
'They cannot be far ahead now!' cried a man.
Eagerly the men of Ar then pressed through the break in the rence.
Those behind, in their numbers, for pasangs back, may have thought the enemy himself had been sighted.
By late afternoon, however, nothing more had been seen.
'I am hungry,' said a man.
The fin of a marsh shark cut the water nearby. Men thrust it away with the butts of their spears.
