Explorers Of Gor

28
The Box In The River

"There!" said Ayari. "Bring the canoe to the right."

We turned the light vessel a quarter to starboard. "I see it," I said.

We were four days from the fishermen's village where- we had been cordially received. In these four days we had passed two other villages, where farming was done in small clearings, but we had not stopped at either.

The river was generally two to four hundred yards wide at these points. At night we would pull the canoe ashore, camouflage it, and make our camp about a half pasang inland, to minimize any danger from possible tharlarion, which tend to remain near the water.

The box, about a foot wide and deep, and two feet long. floating, heavy, almost entirely submerged, with an ornate ring lock, rubbed against the side of the canoe. By its metal handles I drew it into the canoe. With the back of one of the heavy pangas I struck loose the ring lock. There were varieties of ring locks. This one was a combination padlock, in which numbers, inscribed on rotating metal disks, fitted together, are to be properly aligned, this permitting the free extraction of the bolt. This, as is the case with most single-alignment ring locks, was not a high-security lock. The materials in the box, I was confident, would not be of great value. The numbers on the lock were in Gorean. I thrust up the lid.

"Ah," said Kisu.

In the box, jumbled, were rolls of wire, mirrors, pine and knives, beads, shells and bits of colored glass.

"Trade goods," said Kisu.

"Doubtless from one of the vessels of Shaba," said Ayari.

"Doubtless," I agreed.

We put the goods in one of the sacks we had had and saved from the fishermen's village, and threw the broken lock and opened box again into the river.

"Let us proceed with caution," said Kisu.

"That seems to me wise," I said.