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When we recruit Fourth Level Primitives, we take whole tribes, and they come willingly. And " One of Thalvan Dras' black-liveried human servants, of the class under discussion, approached Vall. "A visiphone call for your lordship," he whispered. "Chief Tortha Karf calling. If your lordship will come this way "
"That's something the Mavrad of Mnirna and Thalvabar never forgets," Jandar Jard drawled, with what, in a woman, would have been cattishness. Thalvan Dras gave him a hastily repressed look of venomous anger, then said something, more to Verkan Vall than to Jandar Jard, about titles of nobility being the marks of social position and responsibility which their bearers should never forget.
That jab, Vall thought, following the servant out of the room, had been a mistake on Jard's part. A music-drama, for which he had designed the settings, was due to open here in Dhergabar in another ten days. Thalvan Dras would cherish spite, and a word from the Mavrad of Mnirna and Thalvabar would set a dozen critics to disparaging Jandar's work.
In fact, it seems slightly indecent to them for anybody to want privacy." One of Thalvan Dras' human servants came into the room, coughed apologetically, and said: "A visiphone-call for His Valor, the Mavrad of Nerros." Vall went on nibbling ham and wine sauce; the servant repeated the announcement a trifle more loudly. "Vall, you're being paged!" Thalvan Dras told him, with a touch of impatience.
The snowfield extended for five miles, from ten to seventy feet deep, much crevassed, and encumbered with avalanches. In it the Dras, truly 'snow-born, appeared, issuing from a chasm under a blue arch of ice and snow, afterwards to rage down the valley, to be forded many times or crossed on snow bridges.
Top Dras, Wulf and Grendel, three fellows, tall as trees, were also loafing round. They were the three Kings: Top had turned his big jacket and blackened his face; Grendel wore a white sheet over his back and blew the horn; and Wulf had a mitre on and carried a great star with a lantern on a stick.
On the other hand, maybe it had been smart of Jandar Jard to antagonize Thalvan Dras; for every critic who bowed slavishly to the wealthy nobleman, there were at least two more who detested him unutterably, and they would rush to Jandar Jard's defense, and in the ensuing uproar, the settings would get more publicity than the drama itself.
"Well, that won't take much doing," Dalla said. "If there's as much excitement on Home Time Line as I think, Dras would turn somersaults and jump through hoops to get us to one of his dinners, right now." Salgath Trod pushed the litter of papers and record-tape spools to one side impatiently. "Well, what else did you expect?" he demanded. "This was the logical next move.
The next day was Sunday, sacred to a halt; but there was no fodder for the animals, and we were obliged to march to Dras, following, where possible, the course of the river of that name, which passes among highly-coloured and snow-slashed mountains, except in places where it suddenly finds itself pent between walls of flame- coloured or black rock, not ten feet apart, through which it boils and rages, forming gigantic pot-holes.
Wulf and Dras gripped whole handfuls of snow and crammed it into his mouth and went on until all his face was thickly covered and he lay powerless. Then they planted his star beside him in the snow and began to turn and sing to the echo: A, a, a glory be to Him on high to-day! E, e, e upon earth peace there shall be! I, i, i come and see with your own eye! O, o, o His little bed of straw below!
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