Nomads of Gor (49 page)

 
his right sleeve.

 
"Perhaps," I admitted.

 
"You do riot even know how to enter the city," he said.

 
"That is true," I admitted.

 
"I can enter Turia when I wish," he said. "I know a way."

 
"Perhaps," I suggested, "I might accompany you."

 
"Perhaps," he granted, carefully wiping the quiva on the

 
back of his left sleeve.

 
"When are you going to Turia?" I asked.

 
"Tonight," he said.

 
I looked at him. "Why have you not gone before?" I

 
asked.

 
I-Ic smiled. "Kamchak," he said, "told me to wait for you."

 
"I expect," I said "it might be found here or there in the

 
House of Saphrar, a merchant of Turia."

 
"That is interesting," said Harold, "for I had thought I

 
might try chain luck in the Pleasure Gardens of a Turian

 
merchant named Saphrar."

 
"That is interesting indeed," I said, "perhaps it is the

 
same."

 
 
"It is possible," granted Harold. "Is he the- smallish fellow,

 
rather fat, with two yellow teeth."

 
"Yes," l said.

 
"Then l shall attempt not to he hitter," I said.

 
"I think that is a good idea," granted Harold.

 
Then we sat there together for a time, not speaking fur-

 
ther, he eating, I watching while he cut and chewed the meat

 
that was his supper. There was a fire nearby, but it was not

 
his fire. The wagon over his head was not his wagon. There

 
was no kaiila tethered at hand. As far as ~ could gather

 
Harold had little more than the clothes on his back, a

 
boskhide robe, his weapons and his supper.

 
"You will be slain in Turia," said Harold, finishing his

 
meat and wiping his mouth in Tuchuk fashion on the back of

 
his right sleeve.

 
"Perhaps," I admitted.

 
"You do riot even know how to enter the city," he said.

 
"That is true," I admitted.

 
"I can enter Turia when I wish," he said. "I know a way."

 
"Perhaps," I suggested, "I might accompany you."

 
"Perhaps," he granted, carefully wiping the quiva on the

 
back of his left sleeve.

 
"When are you going to Turia?" I asked.

 
"Tonight," he said.

 
I looked at him. "Why have you not gone before?" I

 
asked.

 
He smiled. "Kamchak," he said, "told me to wait for you.

          
It was not a pleasant path to Turia that Harold the Tuchuk

          
showed to me, but I followed him.

          
"Can you swim?" he asked.

          
"Yes," I said. Then I inquired, "How is it that you, a

          
Tuchuk, can swim?" I knew few Tuchuks could, though some

          
had learned in the Cartius.

          
"I learned in Turia,' said Harold, "in the public baths

          
where I was once a slave."

          
The baths of Turia were said to be second only to those of

          
Ar in their luxury, the number of their pools, their tempera-

          
tures, the scents and oils.

          
"Each night the baths were emptied and cleaned and I was

          
one of many who attended to this task," he said. "I was only

 
         
six years of age when I was taken to Turia, and I did not

          
escape the city for eleven years." He smiled. "I cost my

          
master only eleven copper tarn disks," he said, "and so I

          
think he had no reason to be ill satisfied with his investment."

          
"Are the girls who attend to the baths during the day as

          
beautiful as it is said?" I inquired. The bath girls of Turia are

          
almost as famous as those of Ar.

          
"Perhaps," he said, "l never saw them during the day I

          
and the other male slaves were

          
chained in a darkened cham-

          
ber that we might sleep and preserve our strength for the

          
work of the night." Then he added, "Sometimes one of the

          
girls, to discipline her, would be thrown amongst us but we

          
had no way of knowing if she were beautiful or not."

          
"How is it," I asked, "that you managed to escape?"

  
"At night, when cleaning the pools, we would be

  
unchained, in order to protect the chain from dampness and

  
rust we were then only roped together by the neck, I had

  
not been put on the rope until the age of fourteen, at which

  
time I suppose my master adjudged it wise prior to that I

  
had been free a bit to sport in the pools before they were

  
drained and sometimes to run errands for the Master of the

  
Baths it was during those years that I learned how to swim

  
and also became familiar with the streets of Turia one

  
night in my seventeenth year I found myself last man on the

  
rope and I chewed through it and ran, I hid by seizing a

  
well rope and descending to the waters below there was

  
movement in the water at the foot of the well and I dove to

  
the bottom and found a cleft, through which I swam under-

  
water and emerged in a shallow pool, the well's feed basin I

  
again swam underwater and this time emerged in a rocky

  
tunnel, through which flowed an underground stream

  
fortunately in most places there were a few inches between

  
the level of the water and the roof of the tunnel it was very

  
long, I followed it."

  
"And where did you follow it to?" I asked.

  
"Here," said Harold, pointing to a cut between two rocks,

  
only about eight inches wide, through which from some

  
underground source a flow of water was emerging, entering

  
and adding to the small stream at which, some four pasangs

  
from the wagons, Aphris and Elizabeth had often drawn

  
water for the wagon bask.

  
Not speaking further, Harold, a quiva in his teeth, a rope

  
and hook on his belt, squeezed through and disappeared. I

  
followed him, armed with quiva and sword.

  
I do not much care to recall that journey. I am a strong

  
swimmer but it seemed we must confront and conquer the

  
steady press of flowing water for pasangs and indeed we did

  
so. At last, at a given point in the tunnel, Harold disappeared

  
beneath the surface and I followed him. Gasping, we

  
emerged in the tiny basin area fed by the underground

  
stream. Here, Harold disappeared again under the water and

  
once more I followed him. After what seemed to me an

  
uncomfortably long moment we emerged again, this time at

  
the bottom of a tile-lined well. It was a rather wide well,

  
perhaps about fifteen feet in width. A foot or so above the

  
surface hung a huge, heavy drum, now tipped on its side. It

  
would contain literally hundreds of gallons-of water when

  
filled. Two ropes led to the drum, a small rope to control its

       
filling, and a large one to support it; the large rope, inciden-

       
tally, has a core of chain; the rope itself, existing primarily to

       
protect the chain, is treated with a waterproof glue made

       
from the skins, bones and hoofs of bask, secured by trade

       
with the Wagon Peoples. Even so the rope and chain must be

       
replaced twice a year. I judged that the top of the well might

       
lie eight or nine hundred feet above us.

       
I heard Harold's voice in the darkness, sounding hollow

       
against the tiled walls and over the water. "The tiles must be

       
periodically inspected," he said, "and for this purpose there

       
are foot knots in the rope."

       
I breathed a sigh of relief. It is one thing to descend a long

      
 
rope and quite another, even in the lesser gravity of Gor, to

       
climb one particularly one as long as that which I now saw

       
dimly above me.

       
The foot knots were done with subsidiary rope but worked

       
into the fiber of the main rope and glued over so as to be

       
almost one with it. They were spaced about every ten feet on

       
the rope. Still, even resting periodically, the climb was an

       
exhausting one. More disturbing to me was the prospect of

       
bringing the golden sphere down the rope and under the

       
water and through the underground stream to the place

       
where we had embarked on this adventure. Also, I was not

       
clear how Harold, supposing him to be successful in his

       
shopping amongst the ferns and flowers of Saphrar's Pleasure

       
Gardens, intended to conduct his squirming prize along this

       
unscenic, difficult and improbable route.

       
Being an inquisitive chap, I asked him about it, some two

       
or three hundred feet up the rope

       
"In escaping," he informed me, "we shall steal two tarns

       
and make away."

       
"I am pleased to see," I said, "that you have a plan."

       
"Of course," he said, "I am Tuchuk."

       
"Have you ever ridden a tarn before?" I asked him.

       
"No," he said, still climbing somewhere above me.

       
"Then how do you expect to do soy" I inquired, hauling

       
myself up after him.