In Gor’s geologic past it seems that the salt districts, like scattered puddles of crystalline residue, are what remains of what was once an inland salt sea or several such. It may be that, in remote times, an arm of Thassa extended here, or did extend here and then, later, in seismic dislocations or continental drift, became isolated from the parent body of water, leaving behind one or more smaller salt seas. Or it may be that the seas were independent, being fed by rivers, washing down accumulated salt from rocks over millions of square pasangs. It is not known. In the salt districts salt is found either in solid form or in solution. Klima, among the salt districts, is most famous for its brine pits. Salt can be found in solid form either above or below ground. With the subsidence of the sea and the shifting of strata, certain cubic pasangs of salt, in certain areas, became pressed into granitelike formations, through which one may actually tunnel. Some of these deposits are far below the surface of the Tahari. Men live in some of them, for weeks at a time. In other areas, certain of these solid deposits are exposed and are worked rather in the manner of open mining or quarries. In places these salt mountains are more than six hundred feet high. At Klima, however, most of the salt is in solution. It is the subterranean residue of portions of the vanished seas themselves, which have slipped through fissures and, protected from the heat, and fed still by the ancient seeping rivers, now moving sluggishly beneath the surface, maintain themselves, the hidden remnants of oceans, once mighty, which long ago swelled upon the surface of Gor itself. The salt in solution is obtained in two ways, by drilling and flush mining and, in the deeper pits, by sending men below to fetch the brine. In the drilling and flush mining, two systems are used, the double-pipe system and the separate-pipe system. In the double-pipe system fresh water is forced into the cavity through an outer pipe and the heavier solution of salt and water rises bubbling through the second pipe, or inner pipe, inserted within the larger. In the separate-pipe system, two pipes, separated by several yards, are used, fresh water being forced through one, the salt water solution, the salt being dissolved in the fresh water, rising through the other. The separate-pipe system is, by most salt masters, regarded as the most efficient. An advantage of the double-pipe system is that only a single tap well need be drilled. Both systems require pumping, of course. But much of the salt at Klima comes from its famous brine pits. These pits are of two kinds, “open” and “closed.” Men, in the closed pits, actually descend and, wading, or on rafts, negotiate the sludge itself, filling their vessels and later, eventually, pouring their contents into the lift sacks, on hooks, worked by windlasses from the surface. The “harvesting” vessel, not the retaining vessel, used is rather like a perforated cone with a handle, to which is attached a rope. It is dragged through the sludge and lifted, the free water running from the vessel, leaving within the sludge of salt, thence to be poured into the retaining vessels, huge, wooden tubs. The retaining vessels are then emptied later into the lift sacks, a ring on which fits over the rope hooks. In places, the “open pits,” the brine pits are exposed on the surface, where they are fed by springs from the underground rivers, which prevents their desiccation by evaporation, which would otherwise occur almost immediately in the Tahari temperatures. Men do not last long in the open pits. The same underground seepage which, in places, fills the 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 be 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 centered 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 on. In 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 o
f 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,” he 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,” he 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 hold 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 hand.
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 these 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 life. 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.
Tribesmen of Gor Page 32
