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wore a collar.
 Think now, my pretty, said Ibn Saran.  Think carefully, my pretty.
She was the other girl of the matched set, the other white-skinned wench, who had
had in her charge the silvered, long-spouted vessel of black wine.
 Think carefully now, pretty Vella, said Ibn Saran.
 I will, Master, she said.
 If you tell the truth, he said,  you will not be hurt.
 I will tell the truth, Master, she said.
Ibn Saran nodded to the judge.
The judge lifted his hand and the handle on the girl s rack moved once. She closed
her eyes. Her body was now tight on the rack; her toes were pointed; her hands
were high over her head, the rope tight, taut, on her wrists.
 What is the truth, pretty Vella? asked Ibn Saran.
She opened her eyes. She did not look at him.  The truth, she said,  is as Ibn
Saran says.
 Who struck noble Suleiman Pasha? asked Ibn Saran, quietly.
The girl turned her head to look at me.  He, she said.  He it was who struck
Suleiman Pasha.
My face betrayed no emotion.
At a signal from the judge the slave at the handle of the girl s rack, pushing it with
his two hands, moved the handle. When the pawl slipped into its notch her body
was held, tight, suspended, between the two axles of the rack.
 In the confusion, said Ibn Saran,  it was he, the accused, who struck Suleiman
Pasha, and then went, with others, to the window.
 Yes, said the girl.
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10 Tribesmen of Gor
 I saw it, said Ibn Saran.  But not I alone saw it.
 No, Master, she said.
 Who else saw? he asked.
 Vella and Zaya, slaves, she said.
 Pretty Zaya, said he,  has given witness that it was the accused who struck
Suleiman Pasha.
 It is true, said the girl.
 Why do you, slaves, tell the truth? he asked.
 We are slaves, she said.  We fear to lie.
 Excellent, he said. She hung in the ropes, taut. She did not speak.
 Look now again, carefully, upon the accused.
She looked at me.  Yes, Master, she said.
 Was it he who struck Suleiman Pasha? asked Ibn Saran  Yes, Master, she said.
 It was he.
The judge gave a signal and the long handle of the rack, fitting through a
rectangular hole in the axle, moved again. The girl winced, but she did not cry out.
 Look again carefully upon the accused, said Ibn Saran. I saw her eyes upon me.
 Was it he who struck Suleiman Pasha?
 It was he, she said.
 Are you absolutely certain? he asked.
 Yes, she said.
 It is enough, said the judge. He gave a signal. The handle spun back. The girl s
body fell into the network of knotted ropes. She turned her face to me. She smiled,
slightly.
The ropes were removed from her wrists and ankles. One of the male slaves lifted
her from the rack and threw her to the foot of the wall, beside the other girl. The
slave there took her by the hair, holding her head down, and, between the back of
her neck and the collar, thrust a snap catch, closing it. He then, roughly, burning
the side of her neck, slid the catch about her collar, to the front; there he jerked it
against her collar, the chain then, which fastened her, like the other girl, to a ring
in the floor, ran to her collar, under her chin. She kept her head down, a slave.
7 I am Informed of the Pits of Klima; An Escape
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is Arranged
I lifted my head.
I smelled it, somewhere near. But I saw nothing. I tensed. I sat against the stone
wall, formed of heavy blocks. I pulled my head out from the wall, but it would not
move far. To the heavy collar of iron, to each of its two, heavy welded rings, one
on each side, there was fastened a short chain, fixed to a ring and plate, bolted
through the drilled stone. My hands, each, were manacled to the wall, too, on short
chains, to my left and right. I was naked. My ankles, in close chains, were fastened
to another ring, in the floor, before me, it, too, on a plate, bolted through the floor
block.
I sat forward, as far as I could, listening. I sat on the stone, on straw, soiled, which
was scattered on the floor to absorb wastes. I looked to the door, some twenty feet
across the stone floor; it was of beams, sheathed with iron. There was a small
window, high in the door, about six inches in height, eighteen inches in width. It
bore five bars. There was a musty smell, but the room was not particularly damp.
Light reached it from a small window, barred, some twelve feet above the floor, in
the wall to my right. It was just under the ceiling. In the placid, diagonal beam of
light, seeming to lean against the wall, ascending to the window, I saw dust.
I distended my nostrils, screening the scents of the room. I rejected the smell of
moldy straw, of wastes. From outside I could smell date palms, pomegranates. I
heard a kaiila pass, its paws thudding in the sand. I heard kaiila bells, from afar, a
man shouting. Nothing seemed amiss. I detected the odor of kort rinds, matted,
drying, on the stones, where they had been scattered from my supper the evening
before. Vints, insects, tiny, sand-colored, covered them: On the same rinds, taking
and eating vints, were two small cell spiders. Outside the door I could smell
cheese. The smell, too, of Bazi tea was clear. I heard the guard move, drowsy, on
his chair outside the door. I could smell his sweat, and the veminium water he had
rubbed about his neck.
Then I sat back against the stones. It seemed I had been mistaken.
I closed my eyes.  Surrender Gor, had come the message, presumed from the
steel worlds.  Surrender Gor. And, earlier, months ago, a caravan boy, Achmed,
the son of the merchant, Farouk of Kasra, had found the inscription on a rock,
 Beware the steel tower. There had been, too, the message girl, Veema, whose
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very body had borne the warning,  Beware Abdul. I thought little of that now,
however, for Abdul had been the water carrier in Tor, surely a minor agent of
Others, the Kurii, little to be feared, no more than a gnat in the desert. I had not
chosen to press the juices from the body of that insect. I had let him flee in terror. I
still did not know, however, who had sent the warning,  Beware Abdul. I smiled.
There seemed little reason to beware of such a nonentity.
On the tip to Nine Wells, in the company of Achmed; his father, Farouk; Shakar,
captain of the Aretai; Hamid, his lieutenant, and a guard of fifteen riders, I had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]