The quiva reversed itself in his hand, an action so swift I was only aware of it as his arm flew back, his hand on the blade, to hurl the weapon.

It sped toward me with incredible velocity over the hand- ful of feet that separated us. It could not be evaded, but only countered, and countered it was by the Koroban steel in my hand, a sudden ringing, sliding flash of steel and the knife was deflected from my breast.

The Tuchuk stood struck with awe, in the grass, on the trembling plains in the dusty air.

I could hear the other three men of the Wagon Peoples, the Kataii, the Kassar, the Paravaci, striking their shields with their lances. "Well done," said the Kassar.

The Tuchuk removed his helmet and threw it to the grass He jerked open the jacket he wore and the leather jerkin beneath, revealing his chest.

He looked about him, at the distant bosk herds, lifted his head to see the sky once more.

His kailla stood some yards away, shifting a bit, puzzled, reins loose on its neck.

The Tuchuk now looked at me swiftly. He grinned. He did not expect nor would he receive aid from his fellows. I studied his heavy face, the fierce scarring that somehow ennobled it, the black eyes with the epicanthic fold. He grinned at me. "Yes," he said, "well done."

I went to him and set the point of the Gorean short sword at his heart.

He did not flinch.

"I am Tarl Cabot," I said. "I come in peace."

I thrust the blade back in the scabbard.

For a moment the Tuchuk seemed stunned. He stared at me, disbelievingly, and then, suddenly, he threw back his head and laughed until tears streamed down his face. He doubled over and pounded on his knees with his fist. Then he straightened up and wiped his face with the back of his hand. I shrugged.

Suddenly the Tuchuk bent to the soil and picked up a handful of dirt and grass, the land on which the bosk graze, the land which is the land of the Tuchuks, and this dirt and this grass he thrust in my hands and I held it.

The warrior grinned and put his hands over mine so that our hands together held the dirt and the grass, and were together clasped on it.

"Yes," said the warrior, "come in peace to the Land of the Wagon Peoples."

I followed the warrior Kamchak into the encampment of Tuchuks.

Nearly were we run down by six riders on thundering kaiila who, riding for sport, raced past us wildly among the crowded, clustered wagons. I heard the lowing of milk bask from among the wagons. Here and there children ran be- tween the wheels, playing with a cork ball and quiva, the object of the game being to strike the thrown ball. Tuchuk women, unveiled, in their long leather dresses, long hair bound in braids, tended cooking pots hung on "em-wood tripods over dung fires. These women were unscarred, but like the bask themselves, each wore a nose ring. That of the animals is heavy and of gold, that of the women also of gold but tiny and fine, not unlike the wedding rings of my old world. I heard a haruspex singing between the wagons; for a piece of meat he would read the wind and the grass; for a cup of wine the stars and the flight of birds; for a fat-bellied dinner the liver of a sleen or slave.

lithe Wagon Peoples are fascinated with the future and its signs and though, to hear them speak, they put no store in such matters, yet they do in practice give them great consider- ation. I was told by Kamchak that once an army of a thousand wagons turned aside because a swarm of rennels, poisonous, crablike desert insects, did not defend its broken nest, crushed by the wheel of the lead wagon. Another time, over a hundred years ago, a wagon Ubar lost the spur from his right boot and turned for this reason back from the gates of mighty Ar itself.

By one fire I could see a squat Tuchuk, hands on hips, dancing and stamping about by himself, drunk on fermented milk curds, dancing, according to Kamchak, to please the Sky.

The Tuchuks and the other Wagon Peoples reverence Priest-Kings, but unlike the Goreans of the cities, with their castes of Initiates, they do not extend to them the dignities of worship. I suppose the Tuchuks worship nothing, in the common sense of that word, but it is true they hold many things holy, among them the bask and the skills of arms, but chief of the things before which the proud Tuchuk stands ready to remove his helmet is the sky, the simple, vast beautiful sky, from which fans the rain that, in his myths, formed the earth, and the basks, and the Tuchuks. It is to the sky that the Tuchuks pray when they pray, demanding victory and luck for themselves, defeat and misery for their enemies. The Tuchuk, incidentally, like others of the Wagon Peoples, prays only when mounted, only when in the saddle and with weapons at hand; he prays to the sky not as a slave to a master, nor a servant- to a god, but as warrior to a Ubar; the women of the Wagon Peoples, it might be mentioned, are not permitted to pray; many of them, however, do patronize the haruspexes, who, besides foretelling the future with a greater or lesser degree of accuracy for generally reasonable fees, provide an incredible assemblage of amulets, talismans, trinkets, philters, potions, spell papers, wonder- working sleen teeth, marvelous powdered kailiauk horns, and colored, magic strings that, depending on the purpose, may be knotted in various ways and worn about the neck. As we passed among the wagons I leaped back as a tawny prairie sleen hurled itself against the bars of a sleen cage, reaching out for me with its sic-clawed paw. There were four other prairie sleen in the cage, a small cage, and they were curling and moving about one another, restlessly, like angry snakes. They would be released with the fan of darkness to rum the periphery of the herds, acting, as I have mentioned, as shepherds and sentinels. They are also used if a slave escapes, for the sleen is an efficient, tireless, savage, almost infallible hunter, capable of pursuing a scent, days old, for hundreds of pasangs until, perhaps a month later, it finds its victim and tears it to pieces.

I was startled by the sound of slave bells and saw a girl, stripped save for bells and collar, carrying a burden among the wagons.

Kamchak saw that I had noticed the girl and chuckled, sensing that I might find it strange, seeing a slave so among the wagons.

She wore bells locked on both wrists, and on both ankles, thick cuffs and anklets, each with a double line of bells, fastened by steel and key. She wore the Turian collar, rather than the common slave collar. The Turian collar lies loosely on the girl, a round ring; it fits so loosely that, when grasped in a man's fist, the girl can turn within it; the common Gorean collar, on the other hand, is a flat, snugly fitting steel band. Both collars lock in the back, behind the girl's neck. The Turian collar is more difficult to engrave, but it, like the flat collar, will bear some legend assuring that the girl, if found, will be promptly returned to her master. Bells had also been afflicted to her collar.

"She is Turian?" I asked.

"Of course," said Kamchak.

"In the cities," I said, "only Pleasure Slaves are so belled, and then customarily for the dance."

"Her master," said Kamchak, "does not trust her."

In his simple statement I then understood the meaning of her condition. She would be allowed no garments, that she might not be able to conceal a weapon; the bells would mark each of her movements.

"At night," said Kamchak, "she is chained under the wagon."

The girl had now disappeared.

"Turian girls are proud," said Kamchak. "Thus, they make excellent slaves."

What he said did not surprise me. The Gorean master, commonly, likes a spirited girl, one who fights the whip and collar, resisting until at last, perhaps months later, she is overwhelmed and must acknowledge herself his, utterly and without reservation, then fearing only that he might tire of her and sell her to another.