Norman, John - Gor 10 - Tribesmen of Gor.txt

by Tribesmen of Gor [lit]

  brine pits, in other places, passing through salt-free strata, provides Klima

  with its fresh water. It has a salty taste like much of the water of the Tahari

  but it is completely drinkable, not having been filtered through the salt

  accumulations. It contains only the salt normal in Tahari drinking water. The

  salt in the normal Tahari fresh water, incidentally, is not without its value,

  for, when drunk,

  it helps to some extent, though it is not in itself sufficient, to prevent salt

  loss in animals and men through sweating. Salt, of course, like water, is

  essential to life. Sweating is dangerous in the Tahari. This has something to do

  with the normally graceful, almost languid movements of the nomads and animals

  of the area. The heavy garments of the Tahari, too, have as two of their main

  objectives the prevention of water loss, and the retention of moisture on the

  skin, slowing water loss by evaporation. One can permit profuse perspiration

  only where one has ample water and salt.

  Besides the mines and pits of the salt districts, there are warehouses and

  offices, in which complicated records are kept, and from which shipments to the

  isolated, desert storage areas are arranged. There are also processing areas

  where the salt is freed of water and refined to various degrees of quality,

  through a complicated system of racks and pans, generally exposed to the sun.

  Slaves work at these, raking, stirring, and sifting. There are also the molding

  sheds where the salt is pressed into the large cylinders, such that they may be

  roped together and eventually he laden on pack kaiila. The salt is divided into

  nine qualities. Each cylinder is marked with its quality, the name of its

  district, and the sign of that district’s salt master.

  Needless to say, Klima contains as well, incidental to the salt industry entered

  there, the ancillary supports of these mining and manufacturing endeavors, such

  as its kitchens and commissaries, its kennels and eating sheds, its discipline

  pits, its assembly areas, its smithies and shops, its quarters for guards and

  scribes, an infirmary for them, and so many respects Klima resembles a

  community, save that it differs in at least two significant respects. It

  contains neither children, nor women.

  When we had approached Klima Hassan had said to me. “Leave the bit of silk about

  your wrist in the crusts, hiding it.”

  “Why?” I had asked.

  “It is slave silk,” he said, “and it bears, still, the scent of a woman.”

  “Why should I leave it?” I asked.

  “Because, at Klima,” he said, “ men will kill you for it.”

  I hid the bit of silk in the crusts, at the edge of one of the low, white

  plastered buildings.

  The man who spoke was T’Zshal, Master of Kennel 804. “You are free to leave

  Klima whenever you wish,” he said. “None is here held against his will.”

  He stood before us.

  We sat on the floor of the shed, naked, together. We were tied together by the

  neck, by a light rope. It would have sufficed, truly, to hold only girls. Yet

  none of us parted it; none tore it from him.

  “I do not jest,” said the man.

  We had been four days now at Klima. We had been well watered and adequately fed.

  We had been kept in the shade. The rope had been placed on us when we had

  straggled in from the desert, to keep us together. We were told not to remove

  it; we did not remove it. Four men, however, had been cut from it. They had died

  of exposure, from the march to Klima. Thus, in the end, all told, only fifteen

  had survived the march.

  “No,” laughed T’Zshal. “I jest not!”

  He wore desert boots, canvas trousers, baggy, a red sash; in the sash was thrust

  a dagger, curved. He was bare-chested, and hairy; he wore kaffiyeh and agal,

  though of rep-cloth, the cording, too, of rep-cloth, twisted into narrow cord.

  He was bearded. He carried a whip, the “snake,” coiled, symbol of his authority

  over us. Behind him, armed with scimitars, stood two guards, they, too,

  bare-chested, in flat rep-cloth turbans. Light entered the kennel from an

  aperture in the ceiling.

  He approached us. Several shrank back. He drew the curved dagger and slashed the

  light rope from our throats.

  “You are free to go,” he said.

  He strode to the door of the kennel and thrust it open. Outside we could see the

  sun on the crusts, the desert beyond.

  “Go,” he laughed. “Go!”

  Not one of the men moved.

  “Ah,” said he, “you choose to remain. That is your choice. Very well, I accept

  it. But if you remain you must do so on my terms.” He suddenly snapped the whip.

  The crack was loud, sharp. “Is that understood?” he asked.

  “Yes!” said more than one man, swiftly.

  “Kneel!” barked T’Zshal.

  We knelt.

  “But will you be permitted to remain?” he asked.

  Several of the men cast apprehensive glances at one another.

  “Perhaps, yes. Perhaps, no,” said T’Zshal. “That decision, you see, is mine.” He

  coiled the whip. “It is not easy to earn one’s keep at Klima. At Klima the cost

  of lodging is high. You must earn your right to stay at Klima. You must work

  hard. You must please me much.” He looked from face to face.

  He did not ask if we understood. We did.

  “We may, however,” asked Hassan, “leave Klima when we wish?”

  T’Zshal regarded him. Clearly he was wondering if Hassan were insane. I smiled.

  T’Zshal was puzzled. “Yes,” he said.

  “Very well,” said Hassan, noting the point.

  “There is little leather at Klima,” said T’Zshal. “There are few water bags.

  Those that exist are of one talu. They are guarded.”

  Water at Klima is generally carried in narrow buckets, on wooden yokes, with

  dippers attached, for the slaves. A talu is approximately two gallons. A talu

  bag is a small bag. It is the sort carried by a nomad herding verr afoot in the

  vicinity of his camp. Bags that small are seldom carried in caravan, except at

  the saddles of scouts.

  “Is it your intention,” inquired T’Zshal of Hassan, “to purloin several bags,

  fill them, battling guards, and walk your way out of Klima?”

  Even, of course, if one could obtain several such bags, and fill them with

  water, it did not seem likely that one could carry enough water to find one’s

  way afoot out of the desert.

  Hassan shrugged. “It is a thought,” be said.

  “You must think you are strong,” said T’Zshal.

  “I have made the march to Klima,” said Hassan.

  “We have all made the march to Klima,” said T’Zshal.

  We were startled, that he had said this.

  “There is none at Klima,” said T’Zshal, “who has not made that march.” He looked

  at us. “All here,” said he, “my pretties, are slaves of the salt, slaves of the

  desert. We dig salt for the free; we are fed.”

  “Even the salt master?” asked Hassan.

  “He, too, long ago, once came naked to Klima said T’Zshal. “We order ourselves

  by the arrangements of skill and steel. We, slaves, have formed this nation, and

  administer it, as we see fit. The salt delivered
, the outsiders do not disturb

  us. In our internal affairs we are autonomous.”

  “And we?” said Hassan.

  “You,” grinned T’Zshal, “are the true slaves, for you are the slaves of slaves.”

  He laughed.

  “Did you come hooded to Klima?” asked Hassan.

  “Yes, as have all, even the salt master himself,” said T’Zshal.

  This was disappointing information. Hassan had doubtless had in mind the forcing

  of a guard, or kennel master, perhaps T’Zshal himself, to guide him from Klima,

  could he obtain water. As it now turned out, and we had no reason to doubt the

  kennel master, none at Klima could serve in this capacity.

  We knew, generally, Red Rock, the kasbah of the Salt Ubar and such, lay

  northwest of Klima, but, unless one knows the exact direction, the trails, this

  information is largely useless. Even in a march of a day one could pass,

  unknowingly, an oasis in the desert, wandering past it, missing it by as little

  as two or three pasangs.

  Knowledge of the trails is vital.

  None at Klima knew the trails. The free, their masters, had seen to this.

  Moreover, to protect the secrecy of the salt districts, the trails to them were

  not openly or publicly marked. This was a precaution to maintain the salt

  monopolies of the Tahari, as though the desert itself would not have been

  sufficient in this respect.

  T’Zshal smiled, seeming human for the moment, and not kennel master. “None, my

  pretties,” said he, “knows the way from Klima. There is thus, in the desert, no

  way from Klima.”

  “There is a way,” said Hassan. “It need only be found.”

  “Good fortune,” said T’Zshal. With his whip he indicated the opened door of the

  kennel. “Go,” be said.

  “I choose to stay, for the time,” said Hassan.

  “My kennel is honored,” said T’Zshal, inclining his head. Hassan, too, bowed his

  head, in Taharic courtesy acknowledging the compliment.

  T’Zshal smiled. “Know this, though,” he said, “that should you leave us our

  feelings would be injured. that our hospitality be rejected. Few return to

  Klima. Of those that do, few survive the pits of discipline, and of those who

  do, it is to dig in the open pits.” He lifted the whip, noting its graceful

  curve. It was the snake, many fanged, tiny bits of metal braided within the

  leather. “Klima,” said T’Zshal, slowly, “may seem to you a fierce and terrible

  place. Perhaps it is. I do not know. I have forgotten any other place. Yet it is

  not too different, I think, from the world on the other side of the horizon. At

  Klima, you will find, as in all the world, there are those who bold the whip,

  and those who dig, and die.” He looked at us. “Here,” he said, “in this kennel,

  it is I who hold the whip.”

  “How,” I asked, “does one become kennel master?”

  “Kill me,” said T’Zshal.

  16 Hassan and I Agree to Accompany T’Zshal

  I held the line coiled, in my left hand, it tied to the handle on the metal,

  perforated cone, swinging in my right.

  It was cool in the pit, on the large raft. At each corner of the raft, mounted

  on a pole, was a small, oil-fed lamp. It was dark in the pit, save for our

  lamps, and those of other rafts. I could see two other rafts, illuminated in the

  darkness, one some two hundred yards away, the other more than a pasang distant

  over the water. In places we could see the ceiling of the pit, only a few feet

  above our head, in others it was lost in the darkness, perhaps a hundred or more

  feet above us. I estimated our distance beneath the surface to be some four

  hundred feet. The raft, in the dark, sluggish waters, stirred beneath our feet.

  I flung the cone out from the raft, into the darkness, allowing the line to

  uncoil from my left hand, following the vanishing, sinking cone.

  I shared the raft with eight others, three, who handled cones as I, the

  “harvesters,” four polemen and the steersman. Harvesters and polemen,

  periodically, exchange positions. The raft is guided by a sweep at its stern, in

  the keeping of the steersman. It is propelled by the polemen. The poles used are

  weighted at the bottom, and are some twenty feet in length. One of the poles,

  released in deep water, will stand upright in the water, about a yard of it

  above the surface. The weight makes it easier to keep the pole, which is long,

  submerged. It may thus be used with less fatigue. The floor of the brine pit, in

  most places, is ten to fifteen feet below the surface of the water. There are

  areas in the pits, however, where the depth exceeds that of the poles. In such

  areas, paddles, of which each raft is equipped with four, near the retaining

  vessels, are used. It is slow, laborious work, however, moving the heavy raft

  with these levers. The raft is some twelve feet in width and some twenty-four or

  twenty-five feet in length. Each raft contains a low frame, within which are

  placed the retaining vessels, large, wooden salt, tubs, each approximately a

  yard in height and four feet in diameter. Each raft carries four of these,

  either arranged in a lateral frame, or arranged in a square frame, at the raft’s

  center. Ours were arranged laterally. The lateral arrangement is more convenient

  in unloading; the square arrangement provides a more convenient distribution of

  deck space, supplying superior crew areas at stem and stern. From the point of

  view of “harvesting,” the arrangements are equivalent, save that the harvesters,

  naturally, to facilitate their work, position themselves differently in the two

  arrangements. If one is right-handed, one works with the retaining vessel to the

  left, so that one can turn and, with the right hand, tip the harvesting vessel,

  steadying it with the left band.

  I allowed time for the cone to sink to the bottom.

  The retaining vessels are, at the salt docks, lifted from the rafts by means of

  pulleys and counterweights. The crew of a given raft performs this work. When

  the retaining vessels are suspended, they are tipped, and the sludge scooped and

  shoveled from them into the wide-mouthed, ring-bearing lift sacks. These, drawn

  and pushed on carts, fitted onto wooden, iron-sheathed rails, are transported to

  the hooked lift ropes. These ropes run in systems to the surface and return. Men

  at windlasses on the surface lift the sacks, which, when emptied, return on the

  slack loop. The weighted loop cannot slip back because each hook, in turn,

  preceding the sack being emptied, engages one of several pintles in the

  machinery, which is so geared that it can turn in only one direction. There are

  twelve of those pintles, mounted in a large circle; when a given hook drops off

  one, freed by gravity, another hook is already engaged on another, held there by

  the weight of the ascending lift sacks. Empty sacks are placed on slack hooks,

  below the machinery, to be returned to the pit.

  The steersman, when not attending to his sweep, carried a lance. We were not

  alone in the pits.

  Hand over hand, I drew the cone through the sludge toward the raft.

  I had been amazed to learn that the brine pits, in effect a network of small

  subterranean marine seas, were not devoid of lif
e. I had expected them to be

  sterile bodies of water, from the absence of sunlight, precluding basic

  photosynthesis and the beginning of a food chain, and the high salt content of

  the fluid. A human body, for example, will not sink in the water. This is one of

  the reasons, too, it is particularly desirable, in this environment, to weight

  the raft poles, to help counter the unusual buoyancy of the saline fluid. In my

  original conjecture, however, as to the sterility of these small seas, I was

  mistaken.

  “Look there,” called a harvester.

  I saw it, too. The other men came to my side of the raft, and we noted it,

  moving in the water. The steersman dropped the point of the lance toward the

  water, watching, too.

  I slowly drew up the metal, perforated cone. Water drained from it, in tiny

  irregular streams, spattering back into the sea, and onto the boards of the

  raft. Then I lifted the cone and deposited the sludge in the retaining vessel,

  the large wooden tub behind me and to my left. I did not again coil and cast the

  line. I, too, watched the water.

  The light of our lamps flickered on the surface, yellowly, in broken, shifting

  refractions.

  “There!” said one of the men.

  Lefts are often attracted to the salt rafts, largely by the vibrations in the

  water, picked up by their abnormally developed lateral-line protrusions, and

  their fernlike craneal vibration receptors, from the cones and poles. Too,

  though they are blind, I think either the light, or the heat, perhaps, from our

  lamps, draws them. The tiny, eyeless heads will thrust from the water, and the

  fernlike filaments at the side of the head will open and lift, orienting

  themselves to one or the other of the lamps. The lelt is commonly five to seven

  inches in length. It is white, and long-finned. It swims slowly and smoothly,

  its fins moving the water very little, which apparently contributes to its own

  concealment in a blind environment and makes it easier to detect the vibrations

  of its prey, any of several varieties of tiny segmented creatures, predominantly

  isopods. The brain of the left is interesting, containing an unusually developed

  odor-perception center and two vibration-reception centers. Its organ of

  balance, or hidden “ear,” is also unusually large, and is connected with an

  unusually large balance center in its brain. Its visual center, on the other