find Edipon and give his
ulcers another twinge."
After his first enthusiasm the leader of the D'zertanoj was getting
very little pleasure out of his new project.
"You have quarters of your own," he grumbled, "and the slave woman to
cook for you, and I have just given permission for the other slave to
help you. Now more requests—do you want to drain all the blood from
my body?"
"Let's not dramatize too much. I simply want some tools to get on with
my work, and a peek at your machine shop or wherever it is you do your
mechanical work. I have to have some idea of the way you people solve
mechanical problems before I can go to work on that box of tricks out
there in the desert."
"Entrance is forbidden—"
"Regulations are snapping like straws today, so we might as well go on
and finish off a few more. Will you lead the way?"
The guards were reluctant to open the refinery building gates to
Jason, and there was much rattling of keys and worried looks. A brace
of elderly D'zertanoj, stinking of oil fumes, emerged from the
interior and joined in a shouted argument with Edipon whose will
finally prevailed. Chained again, and guarded like a murderer, Jason
was begrudgingly led into the dark interior, the contents of which was
depressingly anticlimactic.
"Really from rubeville," Jason sneered and kicked at the boxful of
hand-forged and clumsy tools. The work was of the crudest, the product
of a sort of neolithic machine age. The distilling retort had been
laboriously formed from sheet copper and clumsily riveted together. It
leaked mightily as did the soldered seams on the hand-formed pipe.
Most of the tools were blacksmith's tongs and hammers for heating and
beating out shapes on the anvil. The only things that gladdened
Jason's heart were the massive drill press and lathe that worked off
the slave-power drive belts. In the tool holder of the lathe was
clamped a chip of some hard mineral that did a good enough job of
cutting the forged iron and low-carbon steel. Even more cheering was
the screw-thread advance on the cutting head that was used to produce
the massive nuts and bolts that secured the
caroj
wheels to their
shafts. It could have been worse. Jason sorted out the smallest and
handiest tools and put them aside for his own use in the morning. The
light was almost gone and there would be no more work this day.
*
They left, in armed procession, as they came, and a brace of brothers
showed him to the kennellike room that was to be his private quarters.
The heavy bolt thudded shut in the door behind him and he winced at
the thick fumes of half-burnt kerosene through which the light of the
single-wick lamp barely penetrated. Ijale crouched over the small oil
stove cooking something in a pottery bowl. She looked up and smiled
hesitatingly at Jason, then turned back to the stove. Jason walked
over, sniffed and shuddered.
"What a feast!
Krenoj
soup, and I suppose followed by fresh
krenoj
and
krenoj
salad. Tomorrow I see about getting a little variety into
the diet."
"Ch'aka is great," she whispered without looking up. "Ch'aka is
powerful...."
"Jason is the name, I lost the Ch'aka job when they took the uniform
away."
"... Jason is powerful to work charms on the D'zertanoj and makes them
do what he will. His slave thanks you."
He lifted her chin and the dumb obedience in her eyes made him wince.
"Can't we forget about the slavery bit? We are in this thing together
and we'll get out of it together."
"We will escape, I knew it. You will kill all the D'zertanoj and
release your slaves and lead us home again where we can march and find
krenoj
far from this terrible place."
"Some girls are sure easy to please. That is roughly what I had in
mind, except when we get out of here we are going in the other
direction, as far away from your
krenoj
crowd as I can get."
Ijale listened attentively, stirring the soup with one hand and
scratching inside her leather wrappings with the other. Jason found
himself scratching as well, and
ulcers another twinge."
After his first enthusiasm the leader of the D'zertanoj was getting
very little pleasure out of his new project.
"You have quarters of your own," he grumbled, "and the slave woman to
cook for you, and I have just given permission for the other slave to
help you. Now more requests—do you want to drain all the blood from
my body?"
"Let's not dramatize too much. I simply want some tools to get on with
my work, and a peek at your machine shop or wherever it is you do your
mechanical work. I have to have some idea of the way you people solve
mechanical problems before I can go to work on that box of tricks out
there in the desert."
"Entrance is forbidden—"
"Regulations are snapping like straws today, so we might as well go on
and finish off a few more. Will you lead the way?"
The guards were reluctant to open the refinery building gates to
Jason, and there was much rattling of keys and worried looks. A brace
of elderly D'zertanoj, stinking of oil fumes, emerged from the
interior and joined in a shouted argument with Edipon whose will
finally prevailed. Chained again, and guarded like a murderer, Jason
was begrudgingly led into the dark interior, the contents of which was
depressingly anticlimactic.
"Really from rubeville," Jason sneered and kicked at the boxful of
hand-forged and clumsy tools. The work was of the crudest, the product
of a sort of neolithic machine age. The distilling retort had been
laboriously formed from sheet copper and clumsily riveted together. It
leaked mightily as did the soldered seams on the hand-formed pipe.
Most of the tools were blacksmith's tongs and hammers for heating and
beating out shapes on the anvil. The only things that gladdened
Jason's heart were the massive drill press and lathe that worked off
the slave-power drive belts. In the tool holder of the lathe was
clamped a chip of some hard mineral that did a good enough job of
cutting the forged iron and low-carbon steel. Even more cheering was
the screw-thread advance on the cutting head that was used to produce
the massive nuts and bolts that secured the
caroj
wheels to their
shafts. It could have been worse. Jason sorted out the smallest and
handiest tools and put them aside for his own use in the morning. The
light was almost gone and there would be no more work this day.
*
They left, in armed procession, as they came, and a brace of brothers
showed him to the kennellike room that was to be his private quarters.
The heavy bolt thudded shut in the door behind him and he winced at
the thick fumes of half-burnt kerosene through which the light of the
single-wick lamp barely penetrated. Ijale crouched over the small oil
stove cooking something in a pottery bowl. She looked up and smiled
hesitatingly at Jason, then turned back to the stove. Jason walked
over, sniffed and shuddered.
"What a feast!
Krenoj
soup, and I suppose followed by fresh
krenoj
and
krenoj
salad. Tomorrow I see about getting a little variety into
the diet."
"Ch'aka is great," she whispered without looking up. "Ch'aka is
powerful...."
"Jason is the name, I lost the Ch'aka job when they took the uniform
away."
"... Jason is powerful to work charms on the D'zertanoj and makes them
do what he will. His slave thanks you."
He lifted her chin and the dumb obedience in her eyes made him wince.
"Can't we forget about the slavery bit? We are in this thing together
and we'll get out of it together."
"We will escape, I knew it. You will kill all the D'zertanoj and
release your slaves and lead us home again where we can march and find
krenoj
far from this terrible place."
"Some girls are sure easy to please. That is roughly what I had in
mind, except when we get out of here we are going in the other
direction, as far away from your
krenoj
crowd as I can get."
Ijale listened attentively, stirring the soup with one hand and
scratching inside her leather wrappings with the other. Jason found
himself scratching as well, and
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