I tossed the tarn keeper a golden tarn disk. He had done his job well. He stammered, holding it out to me, for me to take it back. A golden taro disk was a small fortune. It would buy one of the great birds themselves, or as many as five slave girls. I climbed the mounting ladder and fastened myself in the saddle, telling the keeper that the coin was his. I suppose it was a gesture, nothing but a gesture, but, pitiful though it might be, it pleased me, and, to be honest, I did not expect to live to spend the coin. "For luck," I said. Then, with the first flush of joy I had felt in weeks, I brought the great bird soaring into the sky.