Tribesmen of Gor

16 Hassan and I Agree to Accompany T’Zshal

I held the line coiled, in my left hand, it tied to the handle on the metal, perforated cone, swinging in my right.

It was cool in the pit, on the large raft. At each corner of the raft, mounted on a pole, was a small, oil-fed lamp. It was dark in the pit, save for our lamps, and those of other rafts. I could see two other rafts, illuminated in the darkness, one some two hundred yards away, the other more than a pasang distant over the water. In places we could see the ceiling of the pit, only a few feet above our head, in others it was lost in the darkness, perhaps a hundred or more feet above us. I estimated our distance beneath the surface to be some four hundred feet. The raft, in the dark, sluggish waters, stirred beneath our feet.

I flung the cone out from the raft, into the darkness, allowing the line to uncoil from my left hand, following the vanishing, sinking cone.

I shared the raft with eight others, three, who handled cones as I, the “harvesters,” four polemen and the steersman. Harvesters and polemen, periodically, exchange positions. The raft is guided by a sweep at its stern, in the keeping of the steersman. It is propelled by the polemen. The poles used are weighted at the bottom, and are some twenty feet in length. One of the poles, released in deep water, will stand upright in the water, about a yard of it above the surface. The weight makes it easier to keep the pole, which is long, submerged. It may thus be used with less fatigue. The floor of the brine pit, in most places, is ten to fifteen feet below the surface of the water. There are areas in the pits, however, where the depth exceeds that of the poles. In such areas, paddles, of which each raft is equipped with four, near the retaining vessels, are used. It is slow, laborious work, however, moving the heavy raft with these levers. The raft is some twelve feet in width and some twenty-four or twenty-five feet in length. Each raft contains a low frame, within which are placed the retaining vessels, large, wooden salt, tubs, each approximately a yard in height and four feet in diameter. Each raft carries four of these, either arranged in a lateral frame, or arranged in a square frame, at the raft’s center. Ours were arranged laterally. The lateral arrangement is more convenient in unloading; the square arrangement provides a more convenient distribution of deck space, supplying superior crew areas at stem and stern. From the point of view of “harvesting,” the arrangements are equivalent, save that the harvesters, naturally, to facilitate their work, position themselves differently in the two arrangements. If one is right-handed, one works with the retaining vessel to the left, so that one can turn and, with the right hand, tip the harvesting vessel, steadying it with the left band.

I allowed time for the cone to sink to the bottom.

The retaining vessels are, at the salt docks, lifted from the rafts by means of pulleys and counterweights. The crew of a given raft performs this work. When the retaining vessels are suspended, they are tipped, and the sludge scooped and shoveled from them into the wide-mouthed, ring-bearing lift sacks. These, drawn and pushed on carts, fitted onto wooden, iron-sheathed rails, are transported to the hooked lift ropes. These ropes run in systems to the surface and return. Men at windlasses on the surface lift the sacks, which, when emptied, return on the slack loop. The weighted loop cannot slip back because each hook, in turn, preceding the sack being emptied, engages one of several pintles in the machinery, which is so geared that it can turn in only one direction. There are twelve of those pintles, mounted in a large circle; when a given hook drops off one, freed by gravity, another hook is already engaged on another, held there by the weight of the ascending lift sacks. Empty sacks are placed on slack hooks, below the machinery, to be returned to the pit.

The steersman, when not attending to his sweep, carried a lance. We were not alone in the pits.

Hand over hand, I drew the cone through the sludge toward the raft.

I had been amazed to learn that the brine pits, in effect a network of small subterranean marine seas, were not devoid of life. I had expected them to be sterile bodies of water, from the absence of sunlight, precluding basic photosynthesis and the beginning of a food chain, and the high salt content of the fluid. A human body, for example, will not sink in the water. This is one of the reasons, too, it is particularly desirable, in this environment, to weight the raft poles, to help counter the unusual buoyancy of the saline fluid. In my original conjecture, however, as to the sterility of these small seas, I was mistaken.

“Look there,” called a harvester.

I saw it, too. The other men came to my side of the raft, and we noted it, moving in the water. The steersman dropped the point of the lance toward the water, watching, too.

I slowly drew up the metal, perforated cone. Water drained from it, in tiny irregular streams, spattering back into the sea, and onto the boards of the raft. Then I lifted the cone and deposited the sludge in the retaining vessel, the large wooden tub behind me and to my left. I did not again coil and cast the line. I, too, watched the water.

The light of our lamps flickered on the surface, yellowly, in broken, shifting refractions.

“There!” said one of the men.

Lefts are often attracted to the salt rafts, largely by the vibrations in the water, picked up by their abnormally developed lateral-line protrusions, and their fernlike craneal vibration receptors, from the cones and poles. Too, though they are blind, I think either the light, or the heat, perhaps, from our lamps, draws them. The tiny, eyeless heads will thrust from the water, and the fernlike filaments at the side of the head will open and lift, orienting themselves to one or the other of the lamps. The lelt is commonly five to seven inches in length. It is white, and long-finned. It swims slowly and smoothly, its fins moving the water very little, which apparently contributes to its own concealment in a blind environment and makes it easier to detect the vibrations of its prey, any of several varieties of tiny segmented creatures, predominantly isopods. The brain of the left is interesting, containing an unusually developed odor-perception center and two vibration-reception centers. Its organ of balance, or hidden “ear,” is also unusually large, and is connected with an unusually large balance center in its brain. Its visual center, on the other hand, is stunted and undeveloped, a remnant, a vague genetic memory of an organ long discarded in its evolution. Among the lefts, too, were, here and there, tiny salamanders, they, too, white and blind. Like the lefts, They were, for their size, long-bodied, were capable of long periods of dormancy and possessed a slow metabolism, useful in an environment in which food is not plentiful.

Unlike the lefts they had long, stemlike legs. At first I had taken them for lelts, skittering about the rafts, even to the fernlike filaments at the sides of their head, but these filaments, in the case of the salamanders, interestingly, are not vibration receptors but feather gills, an external gill system. This system, common in the developing animal generally, is retained even by the adult salamanders, who are, in this environment, permanently gilled. The gills of the lelt are located at the lower sides of its jaw, not on the sides of its head, as is common in open-water fish. The feather gills of the salamanders, it seems, allow them to hunt the same areas as the lelts for the same prey, the vibration effects of these organs being similar, without frightening them away, thus disturbing the water and alerting possible prey. They often hunt the same areas. Although this form of salamander possesses a lateral-line set of vibration receptors, like the left, it lacks the craneal receptors and its lateral-line receptors do not have the sensitivity of the lelt’s. Following the left, not disturbing it, often helps the salamander find prey. On the other hand, the salamander, by means of its legs and feet, can dislodge prey inaccessible to the lelt. The length of the stemlike legs of the salamander, incidentally, help it in stalking in the water. It takes little prey while swimming freely. The long lees cause little water vibration. Further, they enable the animal to move efficiently, covering large areas without considerable metabolic cost. In a blind environment, where food is scarce, energy conservation is essential. The long, narrow legs also lift the salamander’s head and body from the floor, enabling it, with its sensors, to scan a greater area for prey. The upright’ posture in men delivers a similar advantage, visually, in increasing scanning range, this being useful not only in the location of prey, but also, of course, in the recognition of dangers while remote, hopefully while yet avoidable. But it was not the lelts nor the salamanders, which explained our interest in the waters.

“There!” cried the man. “There it is again!” But then it was gone. I had not seen it.

In the pits there is no light, save that which men bring there. Without light, there cannot be photosynthesis. Without photosynthesis there cannot be the reduction of carbon dioxide, the formation of sugar, the beginning of the food chain. Ultimately, then, food is brought into the pits, generally in the form of organic debris, from hundreds of sources, many Of them hundreds of miles distant; this debris is carried by the fresh-water feeds, through minute faults and fissures, and even porous rock, until it reaches the remains of the ancient seas, now sunken far beneath the surface. On and in this debris, breaking it down, are several varieties of bacteria. These bacteria are devoured by protozoons and rotifers. These, in turn, become food for various flatworms and numerous tiny-segmented creatures, such as isopods, which, in turn, serve as food for small, blind, white crayfish, felts and salamanders.

These latter, however, do not stand at the top of the food chain. Sometimes one picks up the lelts and salamanders in the cones. It was not these that had excited the interest of the men.

“Is it the Old One?” asked one of the men.

“I cannot tell,” said another. The steersman stood ready with the lance.

“There!” cried one of the men, pointing.

I saw it then, moving in, slowly, then turning about. The lelts and salamanders vanished, disappearing beneath the water. The thing disappeared. The waters were calm.

“It’s gone,” said one of the men.

“Was it the Old One?” asked one of the men.

“I do not know,” said the steersman, with the lance. The Old One had not been seen in the pit for more than a year.

“It is gone now,” said another of the men.

“Look!” I cried. This time it was close, surfacing not ten feet from the raft.

We saw the broad, blunt head, eyeless, white. Then it submerged, with a twist of the long spine and tail.

The steersman was white. “It is the Old One,” he said. On the whitish back, near the high dorsal fin, there was a long scar. Part of the dorsal fin itself was rent, and scarred. These were lance marks.

“He has come back,” said one of the men.

The waters were still.

At the top of the food chain in the pits, a descendant, dark-adapted, of the terrors of the ancient seas, stood the long-bodied, nine-gilled salt shark.

The waters were calm.

“Let us gather salt,” said a man.

“Wait,” said the steersman. “Watch.”

For more than a quarter of an Ahn we did nothing.

“It is gone,” said a man.

“We must make our quotas,” said one of the harvesters.

“Gather salt,” said the steersman.

Again we took our ropes and cones, and bent to the labor of dredging for salt.

“The lelts have not returned,’’ said the steersman to me.

“What does this mean?” I asked.

“That the Old One is still with us,” he said, looking at the dark waters. Then he said, “Gather salt.” Again I flung out the rope and cone.

It was growing late.

The oil in the lamps, on the poles at the comers of the raft, grew low.

On the surface it would be dusk.

I wondered how one might escape from Klima. Even if one could secure water, it did not seem one could, afoot, carry water sufficient to walk one’s way free of the salt districts. And, even if one could traverse the many pasangs of desert afoot, there would not be much likelihood, in the wilderness, of making one’s way to Red Rock, or another oasis. Those at Klima, by intent of the free, their masters, knew not the trails whereby their liberty might be achieved. I remembered, too, the poor slave who had encountered the chain on its march to Klima. He had been the subject of sport, then slain. None, it was said, had come back from Klima.

I thought of Priest-Kings, and Others, the Kurii, and their wars. They seemed remote.

It came very suddenly, from beneath the water, not more than five feet from me, erupting upward. I saw the man screaming in the jaws. The head was more than a yard in width, white pits where there might have been eyes. The raft tipped, struck by its back, as it turned and, twisting, glided away into the darkness.

“Poles!” screamed the steersman. “Poles!” The poleman seized the poles, lowering them into the water.

One of the lamps sputtered out.

I heard screaming now, far off, then silence. Because of the saline content of the water the salt shark, when not hunting, often swims half-emerged from the fluid. Its gills, like those of the lelt, are below and at the sides of his jaws. This is a salt adaptation which conserves energy, which, otherwise, might be constantly expended in maintaining an attitude in which oxygenation can occur.

“I cannot touch the bottom,” cried one of the men, in misery. The raft had drifted.

“Paddles,” cried the steersman, leaning on the sweep. The polemen seized up the broad levers near the retaining vessels. Another of the lamps sputtered out.

Slowly the raft turned.

Only two lamps now burned.

“You others,” said the steersman, “take poles!” We did so. It was our hope that the men with the paddles could move the raft sufficiently to bring it to a place we could use the poles.

“It is gone now,” said one of the men with paddles.

“It is the Old One,” said the steersman. “It is dusk.” I then understood, from his words, the meaning of the scarcity of food in the pit. When the hunting is good, one hunts. One can return later to earlier kills, driving away scavenging lelts. Further, I wondered at the salt shark, blind, living in total darkness.

Yet it hunted at dusk, and at dawn, driven apparently by ancient biological rhythms. The long-bodied, ghostly creature, hunting in the black waters, followed still the rhythms of its dark clock, set for its species a quarter of a billion years ago in a vanished, distant, sunlit world.

“Make haste!” cried the steersman. “Make haste!”

The third lamp sputtered out. There was now but a single lamp burning, on the port side, aft. Then it, too, sputtered out.

We were in darkness. Somewhere near, below us, or about us, moved the Old One.

We were in absolute darkness. There was no moonlight, not even starlight. In the world in which we stood even a Kur would be blind. We stood waiting, alone, in the world of the Old One.

When it came, it came swiftly, hurling itself upwards from the water. We, in the darkness, felt the salt water drench us, heard the great body, more than twenty feet long, fall back in the water.

Then, for a time, it was quiet again.

We heard the raft bumped, felt the movement in the wood. We then felt the body of the Old One beneath the raft. The raft tipped, but fell back. We clung in the darkness to the retaining vessels, the salt tubs. Twice more the raft tipped, and fell back.

More than a quarter of an Ahn passed. We thought the Old One no longer with us.

Then the raft, on the port side, seemed to dip into the water. A man cried out, in horror, striking with a paddle. The heavy head slipped back into the water.

The Old One had placed his head on the raft, sensing in the darkness.

We drifted for more than an Ahn in silence, in the darkness. Then, suddenly, hurling itself from the water, the great body, thrashing, fell across the raft, twisting, the mighty tail flailing and snapping. I heard splintering wood, the retaining vessels, the salt tubs, struck and shattered, flung bounding and rolling from the frame. I heard men scream, sensed men struck yards from the raft, heard them strike the water.

I threw myself on my stomach into the remains of the splintered frame, clutching at torn wood.

There was screaming in the darkness. I beard more than one man taken. “I cannot see!” cried one man.

Four more times the great body threw itself onto the raft, thrashing.

Once I felt it roll over my back, my body protected by the remains of the frame.

Its skin was not rough, abrasive, like that of free-water sharks, but slick, coated with a bacterial slime. It slipped over me, not tearing me from the frame. Though it touched me I could see nothing.

“Where are you?” I heard from the water.

“Here!” I cried. “Here is the raft!” I knelt on the raft. I did not know if I were alone on it or not. “Here!” I cried. “Here! Here!”

“Help!” I heard. “Help!” I heard two men crawl onto the raft. One began screaming. Another man crawled onto the raft and then, insanely, began to wander about. “Stay down!” I cried. “Save yourselves!” he cried. He leaped into the water. “Come back!” I cried. It is my supposition that it was his intention to swim to the dock, more than four pasangs away. He did not turn back, even when I warned him that his direction was false. “Poor fool,” said a voice. “Hassan!” I cried. “It is I,” he said, near me.

“Help!” I heard. I felt for one of the raft poles, found it, and, extending it, thrust it toward the voice. I pulled the man aboard. I tried to save a second man, similarly, but he was taken from the pole, screaming, by the Old One.

I saw lights across the water, another raft, approaching. On its bow, lance raised, I saw T’Zshal.

The two rafts gently struck one another. We boarded the other raft.

“There is another man in the water, somewhere,” I said to T’Zshal. “He swam that way.”

“Fool,” said T’Zshal, “fool.” He looked upon us. “The Old One,” he said, not asking.

The steersman nodded. He had lived.

“Let us go back,” said one of the polemen on T’Zshal’s raft.

T’Zshal regarded us. I and Hassan had survived, and the steersman, and the man I had saved. I did not know if the man who had entered the water had survived or not. I did not think his chances were good.

“Let us return now, swiftly to the docks,” said one of the men on T’Zshal’s raft.

T’Zshal looked out over the dark waters. “The Old One has returned,” he said.

“And he has not forgotten his tricks.”

“Let us return swiftly to the dock,” said a man, insistently.

“A man of mine,” said T’Zshal, “remains in the water.” He indicated with his hand the direction the men were to pole.

They moaned, but did not disobey the kennel master.

T’Zshal himself stood at the bow of the raft, the lance in one hand, in his other a lantern, lifted.

An Ahn later he found the man. “Greetings,” said the fellow. “Greetings,” said T’Zshal, drawing him from the water. “I have been swimming,” said the man.

“Yes,” said T’Zshal. T’Zshal put him on the planks of the raft. The man seemed to have no recollection of the Old One, nor of what he was doing in the water.

He fell asleep.

“Return to the dock,” said T’Zshal.

The heavy raft turned, and began to move toward the docks.

Hassan and I looked at one another. We had decided that we would not kill T’Zshal.

“Tomorrow,” said T’Zshal, “at dusk, I am returning to this area.”

“I shall accompany you,” I said. “And I, too,” said Hassan.