Explorers Of Gor

22
I Continue To Dig In The Canal

I hurled mud from my shovel to the mud raft.

I had heard no drums coming from the west, nothing to suggest that there was a pursuit of Shaba.

Yet I was certain that it had been he who had passed us in stealth in the night. There had been three vessels, of the sort which had been prepared in Ianda and brought to Schendi, and then to Lake Ushindi by way of the Nyoka, part of the fleet which Bila Huruma was organizing to support the explorations of Shaba, navigating the Ua into the far interior. But there had been only three of the vessels, out of some one hundred. And Shaba had moved in secrecy. There had been, as far as I could tell, no convoy of askari canoes with him, nor askaris, as far as I saw, in the vessel I had seen. The men with him, I suspected, or most of them, were members of his own caste, geographers of the scribes, perhaps, but men inured to hardships, perhaps men who had been with him in his explorations of Ushindi and Ngao, men he trusted and upon whom he could count in desperate situations, caste brothers.

I brushed insects away from my face.

It seemed clear to me that Shaba must be in flight, and I had little doubt that he must have the ring with him, to obtain which had been the object of my journey to Schendi. He had now passed us, moving silently, secretly, to the east.

I thrust the shovel again down, hard, into the mud at my feet.

I dug, and Shaba, my quarry, moved further away from me with each thrust of the shovel, each bite and sting of each tiny insect.

I hurled another shovelful of mud onto the mud raft.

"There is no escape," said Ayari. "Do not think foolish thoughts."

"How do you know I think of escape?" I asked.

"See how white are your knuckles on the shovel," he said. "If the marsh were an enemy you would have cut it to pieces by now." He looked up at me. "Beware, my friend," he said, "the askaris, too, have noted you.

I looked about. One of the askaris, it was true, was looking in my direction.

"They might have killed you by now," said Ayari, "but you are strong. You are a good worker."

"I could kill him," I said.

"He carries no key," said Ayari. "The metal on your neck is hammered shut. Dig now, or we will be beaten with the handles of spears."

"Tell Kisu," I said, "that I would speak with him, that I would escape."

"Do not be foolish," said Ayari.

"Tell him," I said.

Once again, as before, yesterday, my words were tendered to Kisu. He looked about. He responded.

"He does not speak to commoners," said Ayari to me.

I slashed down at the marsh with my shovel, gouged out a weight of mud and flung it to the mud raft.

Had it been Kisu he would have been destroyed.