Ganadara nodded. “It was the guidance of our gods—and yours, Coru-hin-Irigod—that we met. Such slaves as you sold at the outlanders’ plantation would bring a fine price in the North. The men are strong, and have the look of good fieldworkers; the women are comely and well-formed. Though I fear that my wife would little relish it did I bring home such handmaidens.”
Coru-hin-Irigod laughed. “For your wife, I will give you one of our riding whips.” He leaned to the side, slashing at a cactus with his quirt. “We in Careba have no trouble with our wives, about handmaidens or anything else.”
“By Safar, if you doubt your welcome at Careba, wait till you show your wares,” another Calera said. “Rifles and revolvers like those come to our country seldom, and then old and battered, sold or stolen many times before we see them. Rifles that fire seven times without taking butt from shoulder!” He invoked the name of the Great Lord Safar again.
The trail widened and leveled; they all came up abreast, with the packhorses strung out behind, and sat looking across the valley to the adobe walls of the town that perched on the opposite ridge. After a while, riders began dismounting and checking and tightening saddle-girths; a couple of Caleras helped Ganadara and Atarazola inspect their packhorses. When they remounted, Atarazola bowed his head, lifting his left sleeve to cover his mouth, and muttered into it at some length. The Caleras looked at him curiously, and Coru-hin-Irigod inquired of Ganadara what he did.
“He prays,” Ganadara said. “He thanks our gods that we have lived to see your town, and asks that we be spared to bring many more trains of rifles and ammunition up this trail.”
The slaver nodded understandingly. The Caleras were a pious people, too, who believed in keeping on friendly terms with the gods.
“May Safar’s hand work with the hands of your gods for it,” he said, making what, to a non-Calera, would have been an extremely ribald sign.
“The gods watch over us,” Atarazola said, lifting his head. “They are near us even now; they have spoken words of comfort in my ear.”
Ganadara nodded. The gods to whom his partner prayed were a couple of paratime policemen, crouching over a radio a mile or so down the ridge.
“My brother,” he told Coru-hin-Irigod, “is much favored by our gods. Many people come to him to pray for them.”
“Yes. So you told me, now that I think on it.” That detail had been included in the pseudo-memories he had been given under hypnosis. “I serve Safar, as do all Caleras, but I have heard that the Jeserus’ gods are good gods, dealing honestly with their servants.”
An hour later, under the walls of the town, Coru-hin-Irigod drew one of his pistols and fired all four barrels in rapid succession into the air, shouting, “Open! Open for Coru-hin-Irigod, and for the Jeseru traders, Ganadara and Atarazola, who are with him!”
A head, black-bearded and sun-bonneted, appeared between the brick merlons of the wall above the gate, shouted down a welcome, and then turned away to bawl orders. The gate slid aside, and, after the caravan had passed through, naked slaves pushed the massive thing shut again. Although they were familiar with the interior of the town, from photographs taken with boomerang-balls—automatic-return transposition spheres like message-balls—they looked around curiously. The central square was thronged—Caleras in striped robes, people from the south and east in baggy trousers and embroidered shirts, mountaineers in deerskins. A slave market was in progress, and some hundred-odd items of human merchandise were assembled in little groups, guarded by their owners and inspected by prospective buyers. They seemed to be all natives of that geographic and paratemporal area.
“Don’t even look at those,” Coru-hin-Irigod advised. “They are but culls; the market is almost over. We’ll go to the house of Nebu-hin-Abenoz, where all the considerable men gather, and you will find those who will be able to trade slaves worthy of the goods you have with you. Meanwhile, let my people take your horses and packs to my house; you shall be my guests while you stay in Careba.”
It was perfectly safe to trust Coru-hin-Irigod. He was a murderer and a brigand and a slaver, but he would never incur the scorn of men and the curse of the gods by dealing foully with a guest. The horses and packs were led away by his retainers; Ganadara and Atarazola pushed their horses after his and Faru-hin-Obaran’s through the crowd.
The house of Nebu-hin-Abenoz, like every other building in Careba, was flat-roofed, adobe-walled and windowless except for narrow rifle-slits. The wide double-gate stood open, and five or six heavily armed Caleras lounged just inside. They greeted Coru and Faru by name, and the strangers by their assumed nationality. The four rode through, into what appeared to be the stables, turning their horses over to slaves, who took them away. There were between fifty and sixty other horses in the place.
Divesting themselves of their weapons in an anteroom at the head of a flight of steps, they passed under an arch and into a wide, shady patio, where thirty or forty men stood about or squatted on piles of cushions, smoking cheroots, drinking from silver cups, talking in a continuous babel. Most of them were in Calera dress, though there were men of other communities and nations, in other garb. As they moved across the patio, Gathon Dard caught snatches of conversations about deals in slaves, and horse trades, about bandit raids and blood feuds, about women and horses and weapons.
An old man with a white beard and an unusually clean robe came over to intercept them.
“Ha, lord of my daughter, you’re back at last. We had begun to fear for you,” he said.
“Nothing to fear, father of my wife,” Coru-hin-Irigod replied. “We sold the slaves for a good price, and
