Nomads of Gor (38 page)

      
"I would retire," she said.

      
"Perhaps then," said Kamchak, "I should have sheets of

      
crimson silk brought, and the furs of the mountain larl."

      
"As you wish,)' said the girl.

      
Kamchak clapped her on the shoulders. "Tonight," he said,

      
"I will not chain you nor put you in the bracelets."

      
Aphris was clearly surprised. I saw her eyes furtively dart

      
toward the kaiila saddle with its seven quivas.

      
"As Kamchak wishes," she said.

      
"Do you not recall," asked Kamchak, "banquet of
 
Saphrar?"

      
"Of course," she said, warily.

      
"Do you not recall," asked Kamchak, "the affair of the tiny

      
bottles of perfume and the smell of bask dung how nobly

      
you attempted to rid the banquet hall of that most unpleas-

      
ant and distasteful odor?"

      
"Yes," said the girl, very slowly.

      
"Do you not recall," asked Kamchak, "what I then said to

      
you what I said at that time?"

      
"Nor" cried the girl leaping up, but Kamchak had jumped

      
toward her, scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder.

      
She squirmed and struggled on his shoulder, kicking and

      
pounding on his back. "Sleep!" she cried. "Sleep! Sleen!

      
Sleen!"

      
I followed Kamchak down the steps of the wagon and,

      
blinking and still sensible of the effects of the Paga, gravely

      
held open the large dung sack near the rear left wheel of the

      
wagon. "No, Master!" the girl wept.

      
"You call no man Master," Kamchak was reminding her.

      
And then I saw the lovely Aphris of Turia pitched head

      
first into the large, leather sack, screaming and sputtering,

      
threshing Shout.

      
hi

      
~ _ a _

      
"Master!" she cried. "Master! Master!"

      
Sleepily I could see the sides of the sack bulging out wildly

      
here and there as she squirmed about.

      
Kamchak then tied shut the end of the leather sack and

      
wearily stood up. "I am tired," he said. "I have had a diffi-

      
cult and exhausting day."

      
I followed him into the wagon where, in a short time, we

      
had both fallen asleep.

  
    
"J

_

  
12

                        
The Quiva

  
In the next days I several times wandered into the vicinity

  
of the huge wagon of Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the

  
Tuchuks. More than once I was warned away by guards. I

  
knew that in that wagon, if the words of Saphrar were

  
correct, there lay the golden sphere, doubtless the egg of

  
Priest-Kings, which he had, for some reason, seemed so

  
anxious to obtain.

  
I realized that I must, somehow, gain access to the wagon

  
and find and carry away the sphere, attempting to return it

  
to the Sardar. I would have given much for a tarn. Even on

  
my kaiila I was certain I could be outdistanced by numerous

  
riders, each leading, in the Tuchuk fashion, a string of fresh

  
mounts. Eventually my kaiila would tire and I would be

  
brought down on the prairie by pursuers. The trailing would

  
undoubtedly be done by trained herd sleen.

  
The prairie stretched away for hundreds of pasangs in all

  
directions. There was little cover.

  
It was possible, of course, that I might declare my mission

  
to Kutaituchik or Kamchak, and see what would occur but

  
I knew that Kamchak had said to Saphrar of Turia that the

  
Tuchuks were fond of the golden sphere and I had no

  
hopes that I might make them part with it, and surely I had

  
no riches comparable to those of Saphrar with which to

  
purchase it and Saphrar's own attempts to win the sphere

  
by purchase, I reminded myself, had failed.

  
Yet I was hesitant to make the strike of a thief at the wagon

  
of Kutaituchik for the Tuchuks, in their bluff way, had

      
made me welcome, and I had come to care for some of

      
them, particularly the gruff, chuckling, wily Kamchak, whose

      
wagon I shared. It did not seem to me a worthy thing to

      
betray the hospitality of Tuchuks by attempting to purloin an

      
object which obviously they held to be of great value. I

      
wondered if any in the camp of the Tuchuks realized how

      
actually great indeed was the value of that golden sphere,

      
containing undoubtedly the last hope of the people called

      
Priest-Kings.

      
In Turia I had learned nothing, unfortunately, of the

      
answers to the mystery of the message collar or to the

      
appearance of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell on the southern

      
plains of Gor. I had, however, inadvertently, learned the

      
location of the golden sphere, and that Saphrar, a man of

      
power in Turia, was also interested in obtaining it. These bits

    
  
of information were acquisitions not negligible in their value.

      
I wondered if Saphrar himself might be the key to the

      
mysteries that confronted me. It did not seem impossible.

      
How was it that he, a merchant of Turia, knew of the golden

      
sphere? How was it that he, a man of shrewdness and

      
intelligence, seemed willing to barter volumes of gold for

      
what he termed merely a curiosity? There seemed to be

      
something here at odds with the rational avarice of mercan-

      
tile calculation, something extending even beyond the often

      
irresponsible zeal of the dedicated collector which he

      
seemed to claim to be. Yet I knew that whatever Saphrar,

      
merchant of Turia, might be, he was no fool. He, or those

      
for whom he worked, must have some inkling or perhaps

      
know of the nature of the golden sphere. If this was true,

      
and I thought it likely, I realized I must obtain the egg as

      
rapidly as possible and attempt to return it to the Sardar.

      
There was no time to lose. And yet how could I succeed?

      
I resolved that the best- time to steal the egg would be

      
during the days of the Omen Taking. At that time Kutai-

      
tuchik and other high men among the Tuchuks, doubtless in-

      
cluding Kamchak, would be afield, on the rolling hills sur-

      
rounding the Omen Valley, in which on the hundreds of

      
smoking altars, the haruspexes of the four peoples would be

      
practicing their obscure craft, taking the omens, trying to

      
determine whether or not they were favorable for the elec-

      
tion of a Ubar San, a One Ubar, who would be Ubar of all

      
the Wagons. If such were to be elected, I trusted, at least

      
for the sake of the Wagon Peoples, that it would not be

      
Kutaituchik. Once he might have been a great man and

 
warrior but now, somnolent and fat, he thought of little save

 
the contents of a golden kanda box. But, I reminded myself,

 
such a choice, if choice there must be, might be best for the

 
cities of Gor, for under Kutaituchik the Wagons would not

 
be likely to move northward, nor even to the gates of Curia.

 
But, I then reminded myself even more strongly, there would

 
be no choice there had been no Ubar San for a hundred

 
years or more the Wagon Peoples, fierce and independent,

 
did not wish a Ubar San.

 
I noted, following me, as I had more than once, a masked

 
figure, one wearing the hood of the Clan of Torturers. I

 
supposed he was curious about me, not a Tuchuk, not a

 
merchant or singer, yet among the Wagons. When I would

 
look at him, he would turn away. Indeed, perhaps I only

 
imagined he followed me. Once I thought to turn and ques-

 
tion him, but he had disappeared.

 
I turned and retraced my steps to the wagon of Kamchak.

 
I was looking forward to the evening.

 
The little wench from Port Kar, whom Kamchak and I

 
had seen in the slave wagon when we had bought Paga the

 
night before the games of Love War, was this night to

 
perform the chain dance. I recalled that he might have, had

 
it not been for me, even purchased the girl. She had surely

 
taken his eye and, I shall admit, mine as well.

 
Already a large, curtained enclosure had been set up near

 
the slave wagon. For a fee, the proprietor of the wagon

 
would permit visitors. These arrangements irritated me

 
somewhat, for customarily the chain dance, the whip dance,

 
the love dance of the newly collared slave girl, the brand

 
dance, and so on, are performed openly by firelight in the

 
evening, for the delight of any who care to watch. Indeed, in

 
the spring, with the results of caravan raids already accumu-

 
lating, it is a rare night on which one cannot see one or more

 
such dances performed. I gathered that the little wench from

 
Port Kar must be superb. Kamchak, not a man to part easily

 
with a tarn disk, had apparently received inside word on the

 
matter. I resolved not to wager with him to see who would