"Whatever pleases my lords and ladies." He faced the crowd. "For lot ninety-seven: I heard a bid of two minims. Who'll make it four?"

"Four," stated the Syndonian.

"Five!" a voice called out.

The Syndonian motioned the beggar to him. Baslim moved on hands and one knee, with the stump of the other leg dragging and was hampered by his alms bowl. The auctioneer started droning, "Going at five minims once... five minims twice..."

"Six!" snapped the Syndonian, glanced into the beggar's bowl, reached in his purse and threw him a handful of change.

"I hear six. Do I hear seven?"

"Seven," croaked Baslim.

"I'm bid seven. You, over there, with your thumb tip. You make it eight?"

"Nine!" interposed the beggar.

The auctioneer glared but put the bid. The price was approaching one stellar, too expensive a joke for most of the crowd. The lords and ladies neither wanted the worthless slave nor wished to queer the Syndonian's jest.

The auctioneer chanted, "Going once at nine... going twice at nine... going three times--sold at nine minims!" He shoved the boy off the block almost into the beggar's lap. "Take him and get out!"

"Softly," cautioned the Syndonian. "The bill of sale."

Restraining himself, the auctioneer filled in price and new owner on a form already prepared for lot ninety-seven. Baslim paid over nine minims--then had to be subsidized again by the Syndonian, as the stamp tax was more than the selling price. The boy stood quietly by. He knew that he had been sold again and he was getting it through his head that the old man was his new master--not that it mattered; he wanted neither of them. While all were busy with the tax, he made a break.

Without appearing to look the old beggar made a long arm, snagged an ankle, pulled him back. Then Baslim heaved himself erect, placed an arm across the boy's shoulders and used him for a crutch. The boy felt a bony hand clutch his elbow in a strong grip and relaxed himself to the inevitable--another time; they always got careless if you waited.

Supported, the beggar bowed with great dignity. "My lord," he said huskily, "I and my servant thank you."

"Nothing, nothing." The Syndonian flourished his kerchief in dismissal.

From the Plaza of Liberty to the hole where Baslim lived was less than a li, no more than a half mile, but it took them longer than such distance implies. The hopping progress the old man could manage using the boy as one leg was even slower than his speed on two hands and one knee, and it was interrupted frequently by rests for business--not that business ceased while they shuffled along, as the old man required the boy to thrust the bowl under the nose of every pedestrian.

Baslim accomplished this without words. He had tried Interlingua, Space Dutch, Sargonese, half a dozen forms of patois, thieves' kitchen, cant, slave lingo, and trade talk--even System English--without result, although he suspected that the boy had understood him more than once. Then he dropped the attempt and made his wishes known by sign language and a cuff or two. If the boy and he had no words in common, he would teach him--all in good time, all in good time. Baslim was in no hurry. Baslim was never in a hurry; he took the long view.

Baslim's home lay under the old amphitheater. When Sargon Augustus of imperial memory decreed a larger circus only part of the old one was demolished; the work was interrupted by the Second Cetan War and never resumed. Baslim led the boy into these, ruins. The going was rough and it was necessary for the old man to resume crawling. But he never let go his grip. Once he had the boy only by breechclout; the boy almost wriggled out of his one bit of clothing before the beggar snatched a wrist. After that they went more slowly.

They went down a hole at the dark end of a ruined passage, the boy being forced to go first. They crawled over shards and rubble and came into a night-black but smooth corridor. Down again... and they were in the performers' barracks of the old amphitheater, under the old arena.

They came in the dark to a well-carpentered door. Baslim shoved the boy through, followed him and closed it, pressed his thumb to a personal lock, touched a switch; light came on. "Well, lad, we're home."

The boy stared. Long ago he had given up having expectations of any sort. But what he saw was not anything he could have expected. It was a modest decent small living room, tight, neat, and clean. Ceiling panels gave pleasant glareless light. Furniture was sparse but adequate. The boy looked around in awe; poor as it was, it was better than anything he remembered having lived in.

The beggar let go his shoulder, hopped to a stack of shelves, put down his bowl, and took up a complicated something. It was not until the beggar shucked his clout and strapped the thing in place that the boy figured out what it was: an artificial leg, so well articulated that it rivaled the efficiency of flesh and blood. The man stood up, took trousers from a chest, drew them on, and hardly seemed crippled. "Come here," he said, in Interlingua.

The boy did not move. Baslim repeated it in other languages, shrugged, took the boy by an arm, led him into a room beyond. It was small, both kitchen and wash room; Baslim filled a pan, handed the boy a bit of soap and said, "Take a bath." He pantomimed what he wanted.

The boy stood in mute stubbornness. The man sighed, picked up a brush suitable for floors and started as if to scrub the boy. He stopped with stiff bristles touching skin and repeated, "Take a bath. Wash yourself," saying it in Interlingua and System English.

The boy hesitated, took off his clout and started slowly to lather himself.

Baslim said, "That's better," picked up the filthy breech clout, dropped it in a waste can, laid out a towel, and, turning to the kitchen side, started preparing a meal.

A few minutes later he turned and the boy was gone.

Unhurriedly he walked into the living room, found the boy naked and wet and trying very hard to open the door. The boy saw him but redoubled his futile efforts. Baslim tapped him on the shoulder, hooked a thumb toward the smaller room. "Finish your bath."

He turned away. The boy slunk after him.

When the boy was washed and dry, Baslim put the stew he had been freshening back on the burner, turned the switch to "simmer" and opened a cupboard, from which he removed a bottle and daubs of vegetable flock. Clean, the boy was a pattern of scars and bruises, unhealed sores and cuts and abrasions, old and new. "Hold still."

The stuff stung; the boy started to wiggle. "Hold still!" Baslim repeated in a pleasant firm tone and slapped him. The boy relaxed, tensing only as the medicine touched him. The man looked carefully at an old ulcer on the boy's knee, then, humming softly, went again to the cupboard, came back and injected the boy in one buttock--first acting out the idea that he would slap his head off his shoulders if he failed to take it quietly. That done, he found an old cloth, motioned the boy to wrap himself a clout, turned back to his cooking.

Presently Baslim placed big bowls of stew on the table in the living room, first moving chair and table so that the boy might sit on the chest while eating. He added a handful of fresh green lentils and a couple of generous chunks of country bread, blade and hard. "Soup's on, lad. Come and get it."

The boy sat down on the edge of the chest but remained poised for flight and did not eat.

Baslim stopped eating. "What's the matter?" He saw the boy's eyes flick toward the door, then drop. "Oh, so that's it." He got up, steadying himself to get his false leg under him, went to the door, pressed his thumb in the lock. He faced the boy. "The door is unlocked," he announced. "Either eat your dinner, or leave." He repeated it several ways and was pleased when he thought that he detected understanding on using the language he surmised might be the slave's native tongue.