They sat there, startled.

I moved the blade in a semicircle, facing them. None of them moved against me. I tore off some of his tunic and cleaned the blade on it.

He lay there on his back, blood moving from his mouth, the chest of his tunic scarlet, fighting for breath.

I looked down on him. I had been of the warriors. I knew he would not live long. I felt no compunction. He was totally evil.

I went to the slave girl and cut the binding fiber that fastened her ankles and wrists. The chains which she had worn while serving paga, and when she had asked for my protection, had been removed, doubtless while she had been in the alcove, sometime after I had left the tavern, that she might have better rendered Surbus, Captain of Port Kar, the dues of the slave girl. They had been serving bracelets, with two lengths of chain, each about a foot long, which linked them. I looked about the room. The proprietor stood back, behind his counter. None of the men had arisen from the tables, though many were of the crew of Surbus himself.

I looked at him.

His eyes were on me, and his hand, weakly, lifted. His eyes were agonized. He coughed blood. He seemed to want to speak, but could not do so.

I looked away from him.

I resheathed the blade.

It was good that Surbus lay dying. He was evil.

I looked upon the slave girl. She was a poor sort. She was scrawny, and thin faced, with narrow shoulders. Her blue eyes were pale. The hair was thin, stringy. She was my poor slave.

To my surprise she went and knelt next to Surbus, and held his head. He was looking at me. Again he tried to speak.

"Please," said the girl to me, looking up at me, holding he head of the dying man.

I looked upon them both, puzzled. He was evil. She, perhaps, was mad. Did she not understand that he would have hurled her bound to the urts in the canals? His hand lifted again, even more weakly, extended to me. There was agony in his eyes. His lips moved, but there was no sound.

The girl looked up at me and said, "Please, I am too weak."

"What does he want?" I asked, impatient. He was pirate, slaver, thief, murderer. He was evil, totally evil, and I felt for him only disgust.

"He wants to see the sea," she said.

I said nothing.

"Please," she said, "I am too weak."

I bent and put the arm of the dying man about my shoulders and, lifting him, with the girl's help, went back through the kitchen of the tavern and, one by one, climbed the high, narrow stairs to the top of the building.

We came to the roof, and there, near its edge, holding Surbus between us, we waited. The morning was cold, and damp. It was about daybreak.

And then the dawn came and, over the buildings of Port Kar, beyond them, and beyond the shallow, muddy Tamber, where the Vosk empties, we saw, I for the first time, gleaming Thassa, the Sea.

The right hand of Surbus reached across his body and touched me. He nodded his head. HIs eyes did not seem pained to me, nor unhappy. His lips moved, but then he coughed, and there was more blood, and he stiffened, and then, his head falling to one side, he was only weight in our arms.

We lowered him to the roof.

"What did he say?" I asked.

The girl smiled at me. "Thank you," she said. "He said Thank you."

I stood up wearily, and looked out over the sea, gleaming Thassa.

"She is very beautiful," I said.

"Yes," said the girl, "yes."

"Do the men of Port Kar love the sea?" I asked.

"Yes," said said, "they do."

I looked on her.

"What will you do now?" I asked. "Where will you go?"

"I do not know," she said. She dropped her head. "I will go away."

I put out my hand and touched her cheek. "Do not do that," I said. "Follow me." There were tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she said.

"what is your name?" I asked.

"Luma," she said.

I, followed by the slave Luma, left the roof, descended the long, narrow stairs. In the kitched we met the proprietor. "Surbus is dead," I told him. He nodded. The body, I knew, would be disposed of in the canals.

I pointed to Luma's collar. "Key," I said.

The proprietor brought a key and removed his steel from her throat. She fingered her throat, now bare, perhaps for the first time in years, of the encircling collar.

I would buy her another, when it was convenient, suitably engraved, proclaiming her mine.

We left the kitchen.

In the large central room of the tavern, we stopped.

I thrust the girl behind me.

There, waiting for us, standing, armed, were seventy or eighty men. They were seamen of Port Kar. I recognized many of them. They had come with Surbus to the tavern the night before. They were portions of his crews.

I unsheathed my blade.

One of the men stood forward, a tall man, lean, young, but with a face that showed the marks of Thassa. He had gray eyes, large, rope-rough hands. "I am Tab," he said. "I was second to Surbus."

I said nothing, but watched them.

"You let him see the sea?" said Tab.

"Yes," I said.

"Then," said Tab, "we are your men."

I took my sea in the Council of the Captains of Port Kar.

It was now near the end of the first passage hand, that the following En'Kara, in which occurs the Spring Equinox. The Spring Equinox, in Port Kar as well as in most other Gorean cities, marks the New Year. In the chronology of Ar it was now the year 10,120. I had been in Port Kar for some seven Gorean months. None had disputed my right to the seat of Surbus. His men had declared themselves mine.

Accordingly I, who had been Tarl Cabot, once a warrior of Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning, sat now in the council of these captains, merchant and pirate princes, the high oligarchs of squalid, malignant Port kar, Scourge of Gleaming Thassa.

In the council, in effect, was vested the stability and administration of Port Kar.

Above it, nominally, stood five Ubars, each refusing to recognize the authority of the others, Chung, Eteocles, Nigel, Sullius Maximus and Henrius Sevarius, claiming to be the fifth of his line.

The Ubars were represented on the council, to which they belonged as being themselves Captains, by five empty thrones, sitting before the semicircles of curule chairs on which reposed the captains. Beside each empty throne there was a stool from which a Scribe, speaking in the name of the Ubar, participated in the proceedings of the council. The Ubars themselves remained aloof, seldom showing themselves for fear of assassination.

A scribe, at a large table before the five thrones, was droning the record of the last meeting of the council.

There are commonly about one hundred and twenty captains who form the council, sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less.

Admittance to the council is based on being master of at least five ships. Surbus had not been a particularly important captain, but he had been the master of a fleet of seven, now mine. These five ships, pertinent to council membership, may be either the round ships, with deep holds of rmerchandise, or the long ships, ram-ships, ships of war. Both are predominantly oared vessels, but the round ship carries a heavier, permanent rigging, and supports more sail, being generally two-masted. The round ship, of course, is not round, but it does have a much wider beam to its length of keel, say, about one to six, whereas the ratios of the war galleys are about one to eight.

The five ships, it might be added, must be of at least medium class. In a round ship this means she would be able, in Earth figures, to freight between approximately one hundred and one hundred and fifty tons below decks. I have calculated this figure from the Weight, a Gorean unit of measurement based on the Stone, which is about four earth pounds. A Weight in ten Stone. A medium-class round ship should be able to carry from 5,000 to 7,500 Gorean Weight. The Weight and the Stone, incidentally, are standardized throughout the Gorean cities by Merchant Law, the only common body of law existing among the cities. The official "Stone," actually a solid metal cylinder, is kept, by the way, near the Sardar. Four timea a year, on a given day in each of the four great fairs held annually near the Sadar, it is brought forth with sclaes, that merchants from whatever city my test their own standard «Stone» against it. The «Stone» of Port Kar, tested against the official «Stone» at the Sardar, reposed in a special fortified building in the great arsenal, which complex was admininstered by agents of the Council of Captains.