"Run," said Conrad quietly.

Tuka sped from the circle. The crowd began to cry out, to cheer, urging her on. Conrad, the thong in his teeth, the bole quiet at his side, watched her. She would receive a start of fifteen beats of the great heart of the kaiila, after which she would be about half way to the lance.

The judge, aloud, was counting.

At the count of ten Conrad began to slowly spin the bole. It would not reach its maximum rate of revolution until he was in full gallop, almost on the quarry.

At the count of fifteen, making no sound, not wanting to warn the girl, Conrad spurred the kaiila in pursuit, bole swinging.

The crowd strained to see.

The judge had begun to count again, starting with one, the second counting, which would determine the rider's time. The girl was fast and that meant time for us, if only perhaps a beat. She must have been counting to herself because only an instant or so after Conrad had spurred after her she looked over her shoulder, seeing him approaching. She must then have counted about three beats to herself, and then she began to break her running pattern, moving to one side and the other, making it difficult to approach her swiftly.

"She runs well," said Kamchak.

Indeed she did, but in an instant I saw the leather flash of the bole, with its vicious, beautiful almost ten-foot sweep, streak toward the girl's ankles, and I saw her fall. It was scarcely ten beats and Conrad had bound the struggling, scratching Tuka, slung her about the pommel, raced back, kaiila squealing, and threw the girl, wrists tied to her ankles, to the turf inside the circle of the boskhide whip. "Thirty," said the judge.

Conrad grinned.

Tuka, as best she could, squirmed in the bonds, fighting them. Could she free a hand or foot, or even loosen the thong, Conrad would be disqualified.

After a moment or two, the judge said, "Stop," and Tuka obediently lay quiet. The judge inspected the thongs. "The wench is secured," he announced.

In terror Tuka looked up at Kamchak, mounted on his kaiila.

"You ran well," he told her.

She closed her eyes, almost fainting with relief.

She would live.

A Tuchuk warrior slashed apart the thongs with his quiva and Tuka, only too pleased to be free of the circle, leaped up and ran quickly to the side of her master. In a few moments, panting, covered with sweat, she had pulled on her furs. The next girl, a lithe Kassar girl, stepped into the circle and Kamchak unstrapped his bole. It seemed to me she ran excellently but Kamchak, with his superb skill, snared her _ 72 easily. To my dismay, as he returned racing toward the circle of the boskhide whip the girl, a fine wench, managed to sink her teeth into the neck of the kaiila causing it to rear squealing and hissing, then striking at her. By the time Kamchak had cuffed the girl from the animal's neck and struck the kaiila's snapping jaws from her twice-bitten leg and returned to the circle, he had used thirty-five beats. He had lost.

When the girl was released, her leg bleeding, she was beaming with pleasure.

"Well done," said Albrecht, her master, adding with a grin, "For a Turian slave."

The girl looked down, smiling.

She was a brave girl. I admired her. It was easy to see that she was bound to Albrecht the Kassar by more than a length of slave chain.

At a gesture from Kamchak Elizabeth Cardwell stepped into the circle of the whip.

She was now frightened. She, and I as well, had supposed that Kamchak would be victorious over Conrad. Had he been so, even were I defeated by Albrecht, as I thought likely, the points would have been even. Now, if I lost as well, she would be a Kassar wench.

Albrecht was grinning, swinging the bole lightly, not in a circle but in a gentle pendulum motion, beside the stirrup of the kaiila.

He looked at her. "Run," he said.

Elizabeth Cardwell, barefoot, in the larl's pelt, streaked for the black lance in the distance.

She had perhaps observed the running of Tuka and the Kassar girl, trying to watch and learn, but she was of course utterly inexperienced in this cruel sport of the men of the wagons. She had not, for example, timed her counting, for long hours, under the tutelage of a master, al against the heartbeat of a kaiila, he keeping the beat but not informing her what it was, until she had called the beat. Some girls of the Wagon Peoples in fact, incredible though it seems, are trained exhaustively in the art of evading the bole, and such a girl is worth a great deal to a master, who uses her in wagering. One of the best among the wagons I had heard was a Kassar slave, a swift Turian wench whose name was Dina. She had run in actual competition more than two hundred times; almost always she managed to interfere with and postpone her return to the circle; and forty times, an incredible feat, she had managed to reach the lance itself. At the count of fifteen, with incredible speed, Albrecht, bole now whirling, spurred silently after the fleeing Elizabeth Cardwell. She had misjudged the heartbeat or had not under- stood the swiftness of the kaiila, never having before ob- served it from the unenviable point of view of a quarry, because when she turned to see if her hunter had left the vicinity of the circle, he was upon her and as she cried out the bole struck her in an instant binding her legs and throwing her to the turf. It was hardly more than five or six beats, it seemed, before Elizabeth, her wrists lashed cruelly to her ankles, was thrown to the grass at the judge's feet. "Twenty-five!" announced the judge.

There was a cheer from the crowd, which, though largely composed of Tuchuks, relished a splendid performance. Weeping Elizabeth jerked and pulled at the thongs re- straining her, helpless.

The judge inspected the bonds. `The wench is secured," he said.

Elizabeth moaned.

"Rejoice, Little Barbarian," said Albrecht, "tonight in Pleasure Silk you will dance the Chain Dance for Kassar Warriors."

The girl turned her head to one side, shuddering in the thongs. A cry of misery escaped her.

"Be silent," said Kamchak.

Elizabeth was silent and, fighting her tears; lay quietly waiting to be freed.

I cut the thongs from her wrists and ankles.

"I tried," she said, looking up at me, tears in her eyes. "I tried."

"Some girls," I told her, "have run from the bole more than a hundred times. Some are trained to do so."

"Do you concede?" Conrad asked Kamchak.

"No," said Kamchak. "My second rider must ride."

"He is not even of the Wagon Peoples," said Conrad. "Nonetheless," said Kamchak, "he will ride."

"He will not beat twenty-five," said Conrad.

Kamchak shrugged. I knew myself that twenty-five was a remarkable time. Albrecht was a fine rider and skilled in this sport and, of course, this time, his quary had been only an untrained barbarian slave, indeed, a girl who had never before run from the bole.

"To the circle," said Albrecht, to the other Kassar girl. She was a beauty.

She stepped to the circle quickly, throwing her head back, breathing deeply.

She was an intelligent looking girl.

Black-haired.

Her ankles, I noted, were a bit sturdier than are thought desirable in a slave girl. They had withstood the shock of her body weight many times I gathered, in quick turnings, in leaps.

I wished that I had seen her run before, because most girls will have a running pattern, even in their dodging which, if you have seen it, several times, you can sense. Nothing simple, but something that, somehow, you can anticipate, if only to a degree. It is probably the result of gathering, from their running, how they think; then one tries to think with them and thus meet them with the bole. She was now breathing deeply, regularly. Prior to her entering the circle I had seen her moving about in the background, running a bit, loosening her legs, speeding the circulation of her blood.