Tribesmen of Gor (42 page)

   
I looked up toward the merciless sun. Its relentless presence seemed to fill the sky.

   
I looked down.

   
About my left wrist, knotted, bleached in the sun, was a bit of slave silk. On it, still, lingered the perfume of a slave girl, one who, purchased, had been useful to Kurii, who had testified falsely against me at Nine Wells, who had, contemptuously, insolently, cast me a token of her consideration, a bit of silk and scent, to remember her by, when I served at Klima. I would not soon forget pretty Vella. I would remember her well.

   
I looked up at the sun again, and then, bitter, looked away. I put the wench from my head. She was only a slave girl, only collar meat.

   
The important work was that of Priest-Kings. Hassan and I had not found the steel tower. We had failed.

   
I was bitter.

   
Then I followed Hassan, who had trudged on ahead, wading in the salt, following him toward Klima.

15

T'ZSHAL

At Klima, and other such areas, salt is an industry. Thousands serve there, held captive by the desert. Klima has its own water, but it is dependent on caravans for its foods. These food stores are delivered to scouted areas some pasangs from the compounds, whence they are retrieved later by salt slaves. Similarly, the heavy cylinders of salt, mined and molded at Klima, are carried on the backs of salt slaves from storage areas at Klima to storage areas in the desert, whence they are tallied, sold and distributed to caravans. The cylinders are standardized at ten stone, or a Gorean "Weight," which is some forty pounds. A normal kaiila carries ten such cylinders, five to a side. A stronger animal carries sixteen, eight to a side. The load is balanced, always. It is difficult for an animal, or man, of course, to carry an unbalanced load. Most salt at Klima is white, but certain of the mines deliver red salt, red from ferrous oxide in its composition, which is called the Red Salt of Kasra, after its port of embarkation, at the juncture of the Upper and Lower Fayeen.

   
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 rift 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 passangs. 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 granite-like 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 doublepipe 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 dessication 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 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."