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The sub-zero temperature of Meta's voice left no doubt as to what she wanted to do with her. Jason had already given this a good deal of thought, and if Ijale was going to live much longer she had to be separated as soon as possible from the deadly threat of female Pyrran jealousy. "We stop at the next civilized planet and let her off.
"Stage a servile revolt in the best style. The slaves fight the D'zertanoj and we get away, perhaps with an army helping us, but at least we get away." "You are talking revolution!" Mikah bellowed and Jason jumped him and knocked him to the floor. Ijale held his legs down while Jason squatted on his chest and covered his mouth. "What is the matter with you?
The pressure indicator on the boiler hissed and popped out, but the fuel level was at the absolute bottom. "Grab some food for breakfast, Ijale," Jason said, "and get away from this machine. The fuel is gone and it's finished." "I shall make a bundle to carry, we will escape on foot." "No, that's out of the question.
"Give me some your meat?" the slave asked in a whining voice, and only when she talked did Jason realize that this was a girl; all the slaves were alike in their matted hair and skin wrappings. He ripped off a chunk of meat. "Here. Sit down and eat it. What's your name?" In exchange for his generosity he intended to get some information from his captive audience. "Ijale."
He made Ijale and Jason go to the far wall and turn their backs and promise not to look while he bathed behind a screen of skins. Jason did this but exacted a small revenge by telling Ijale jokes so that they tittered together and Mikah would be sure they were laughing at him. The screen of skins remained after the bath, and was reinforced, and Mikah retired behind it to sleep.
Ijale rooted in her skins for a hidden pocket and dragged out something that she concealed in her clenched fist. She held it out proudly and opened it and there was enough light left for Jason to make out the rough form of a red glass bead. "Isn't this so very nice?" she asked. "Very nice," Jason agreed, and for an instant felt a touch of real sorrow when he looked at the pathetic bauble.
Ijale," he called, and she looked up from the boiler over which she was heating a thin stew of their last krenoj. "Leave that stuff, it tastes just as bad whatever is done to it, and if Snarbi has any luck we'll be having roast in any case. Tell me, have you seen anything strange or different about the land we passed through today." "Nothing strange, just signs of people.
Ijale moaned and Jason felt as if every inch of his body had been beaten with hammers. There was no sign of pursuit since it would be at least an hour before they could raise steam in the caroj and no one on foot could have possibly matched their headlong pace. The lantern he had used earlier had vanished during the wild ride so Jason dug out another one of his own construction.
"Mikah, and you, too, you cowering slob Snarbi you, get behind this thing and push," Jason said. "What has happened," Mikah asked. "Have you started this revolution? If so I will give no aid...." "We're escaping, if that's all right with you. Just I, Ijale and a guide to show us the way. You don't have to come " "I will join you. There is nothing criminal in escaping from these barbarians."
And you play the hypocrite as well, because I well remember your telling me that a man is innocent until proven guilty." "Well this man is guilty, if you want to put it that way, guilty of being a member of this broken down society, which means that he will always act in certain ways at certain times. Haven't you learned anything about these people yet? Ijale!"
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