The Chieftan

CHAPTER 7

He lay in the white sand, on his side, his senses reeling. For a moment he had blacked out. His body felt numb, shocked, paralyzed. He had seen them approaching, the two guards, and the petty, officious officer of the court. He had remembered her from the hearing. He had watched them approaching across the sand, between the kneeling, waiting men. She wore now not the somber blue of the court, but a belted clingabout of white corton, a garb suitable for a holiday, for the games. He was surprised that she was dressed so, for, on this world, as he had noted, men and women, save in the lower classes, in the squalid, impoverished areas, dressed much alike, that seemingly to show their sameness, and their superiority to sex. That garment, lengthy and opaque as it was, would doubtless precipitate some scandal in the stands. He did not doubt but what many women there, hidden in their mannish garb, would find it daring, and offensive. How resentful they might be, how envious, how jealous! Who did she think she was! Was she not familiar with the proprieties? Surely she must know such attire would attract attention in the stands. Indeed, was she not publicly coming across the sand, even now. Who then could not but notice her? He could hear the ripples of outrage in the stands. But what had she to fear? She could claim that she was acting to rectify an oversight, that she had come forth onto the sand in the line of her duties. Too, what need she care for the opinions of others? She could be indifferent to them, for she was of the honestori. Too, he sensed she might relish being the object of such attention, even of scandal. What had she to fear? She was of high family. Indeed, her mother, who was the judge who had sentenced him, was in the mayor’s box. She was high judge in the city. He saw the mother turn to the mayor, and speak with her. The guards coming across the sand with the officer of the court, the daughter, were in uniform. One of the guards held some loops of rope. They both carried stun sticks. He was now familiar with such things. It was by means of them that he had been taken into custody. Such weapons, and others, others still more dangerous, were scarce on this world. They were almost entirely in the hands of authorities, but, of course, not altogether. The population then was largely at the mercy of two groups, not always unallied, authorities and criminals. This was common on many worlds within the empire. Indeed, the manufacture of weaponry, at least legal weaponry, was on many worlds a monopoly of the state. Weapon makers, on many worlds, those who had possessed such skills, had been among the first bound. He had watched the three of them approaching. The sand was deep. It came well over the ankles of their boots. She, too, wore boots. This suggested to him that she had planned to cross the sand, before dressing for the day. Her presence here then was not an unplanned one, resulting merely from detecting some unexpected oversight. She had wanted to appear on the sand, before the assembled crowds, doubtless. He could see the prints behind them, where they had disturbed the sand, raked after the prisoners had been knelt. The attendants might not be pleased with that. They took their work seriously. The sand would be disturbed soon enough, though, given the beginning of the first amusements. Then the guards, and the officer of the court, the daughter of the judge, had stopped before him. He had looked up at them, from his knees. She pointed at him, grandly, rather for the crowd, he supposed. “He cannot be trusted,” she said. “Rope him, rope him well.” He did not doubt but what the men would obey her. Indeed, what power had she, if the men did not obey her? They would obey her, of course. They had been trained to adhere to the rules, not question how the rules had come about, or the utility of the rules, their ultimate consequences. Her face wore a haughty expression. She was fairly complexioned. Her body seemed cold, and tight. Her dark hair was tied back, behind her head, severely. Yet for all the neurotic coldness, and tightness, about her, he did not think she was utterly unattractive. He had even looked upon her, and watched her, and considered her, when he was sitting in the prisoner’s dock, guarded by men with stun sticks, in her court garb. He now again considered her, in the white clingabout. To be sure, it muchly covered her. He wondered what she looked like, naked. One of the guards laughed. “Be silent!” she chided the guard. Doubtless the pupils of his eyes had dilated, as he had looked upon her. They had performed such a test on him before the hearing, when he was being held. A female prisoner had been brought in. His reactions had been noted. They had also been referred to, explicitly, in the hearing. “Rope him!” she said. The guards looked at one another. Then one lifted his stun stuck and pulled the trigger once, and then, as he had not fallen, twice more.

As he lay in the sand, his body ringing with shock, muchly paralyzed, he felt the ropes being put about him, tying his arms to his sides, his hands behind him.

“Make them tight!” she said.

The ropes were drawn tight. They were knotted.

He was then put again to his knees.

She slapped him twice, angrily. She could not hurt him. She did not have the strength. But the blows stung, and they were humiliating. He did not care to be struck, particularly by a woman. One could kill a man. It did not seem right to kill a woman. If he struck her he might have broken her neck. She glared down at him. There was laughter in the stands. She was furious. She stepped back from him. In the stands there must have been many who realized that she, an officer of the court, the daughter of the high judge herself, had been viewed with dilated pupils. But what did she expect, going down on the sand, clad as she was, standing before one who had chosen death to “true manhood,” as it was defined on this world, to the improvement, the smoothing? He had struck a woman only once before, Tessa, who had first slapped him. He had slapped her back. Must she not expect that? But it seems she had not. She had looked up at him with awe, from where she had been flung by the force of the blow, on the floor of the varda coop, to his left. She had then crawled to his feet, begging his forgiveness. He had used her on the floor of the varda coop. After that she would meet him when and where he told her.

With what fury the daughter of the judge regarded him!

He looked away from her. His body was still numb.

The stands were almost full now.

The ropes about his upper body were tight. He could tell that. Still, oddly, it was hard to feel them, at least as one would normally have expected to feel them. It was almost as though they had been put on someone else. He wondered if Brother Benjamin were right, if he were not his body, as he seemed to be, but something else, hidden inside it. If that were so, it might explain why the ropes felt strange, because he was far within his body, far from the ropes. The body, in spite of appearances, its seeming to contain organs, and such, was really a shell, something within which he lived. Indeed, Brother Benjamin had told him that he was really invisible, the real him, that is, the one that lived inside the body, or somewhere. The real person was called the koos, an old word which had originally meant “breath.” It was Floon, a rational salamander, or salamander-type creature, of the predominantly reptilian world of Zirus, who had first taught, to the surprise of many, as the idea was then new, that the koos was eternal, neither coming into nor going out of existence, but staying right there, wherever it was. A consequence of this idea was that rational creatures could not die, an idea with considerable appeal to rational creatures. The fact that Floon died, and rather miserably, in an electric chair, did little to diminish the persuasiveness of his doctrine. It was discovered that he had not really died but had later appeared simultaneously on several different worlds, reiterating his teachings. His teachings, a generation or two after his apparent death, had been gathered together by followers. The teachings seemed in places to be inconsistent with one another, but inconsistencies may always be reconciled, by drawing suitable distinctions. Too, certain of the teachings, for one reason or another, were rejected as inauthentic. This was done by individuals who had never known Floon, and several generations after his apparent death. Dogs and horses, Brother Benjamin had taught, did not have a koos. He had found this hard to believe, as it seemed they felt pain, and pleasure, and such. Their insides, their organs, and such, were relevant to their life. It was only that this was not the case with the rational creatures, or at least certain of the rational creatures. Rational aquatic mammals were a disputed point. Brother Benjamin believed that Floon was an emanation of Karch, but there was a great deal of controversy on this sort of thing in the worlds. I will briefly sketch the major positions. There was the illusionist position of Fingal, who taught that since Karch, who is perfect, and pain is imperfect, cannot know pain, Floon must have been an illusion, because Floon had apparently felt pain when he had been put in the electric chair. Some folks, of course, thought that Floon was merely a rational salamander, or salamander-type creature, no more, but a gifted, or inspired, prophet. That did not turn the trick, however, for many folks. One then became involved in whether Floon was truly Karch, or only a part of Karch, whether or not they were of the same substance, whatever a substance was, or different substances, or similar substances, or two substances united into one substance in one union, and such, the latter position, perhaps because of its inconsistency, or mystery, tending to become the most popular. In spite of the obvious verbalisms involved, the inability to provide empirical proof for any of these positions, and, indeed, the inability, even apart from questions of mere provability, to empirically discriminate among these various hypotheses, which was doubtless something of an advantage, many people took these notions very seriously. Indeed, many people were killed because of them, usually Floonians by Floonians. This was not unintelligible because it was natural that there would be serious competition for control of various dioceses, and the revenues, power and such, associated with them.

Her eyes met his. “You need not have been here,” she said. “The choice was yours.”

He did not look at her. What she said was true.

The Floonians had been a joke for some generations in the empire, among the honestori, most of whom kept to the old ways, seemingly such a transparently infantile wish fulfillment, but then it had been noted that they, in their numerous sects, were becoming more and more powerful. That had given the empire pause. Even more alarming was the tendency among most of the Floonian sects to draw apart from the observances and customs, the traditions, of the empire. Knowing themselves in all their humility and self-effacingness to be superior to others, not that that was to their credit, as it was due only to the blessings of Floon, they consorted much with themselves, separating themselves from their fellow citizens. They declined military service. This hastened to some extent the barbarization of the military. They formed their own charitable societies, their own burial clubs. They were reluctant even to place laurel on the altar of the genius of the empire, which was understood by most as no more than a token of allegiance. The priority in their life tended to become not the welfare of their communities, or the empire, but of their own koos. To many it now seemed that the Floonian phenomenon, which by outsiders was commonly understood to be more uniform than in fact it was, was not only an arbitrary, ridiculous, egomaniacal aberration but a persuasion which was both dangerous and unpatriotic. To be sure, at this time, the empire had not realized the possibilities of turning the Floonian phenomenon to its own purposes. That would come later. The hierarchy of the Floonians, of course, would see in the alliance with the empire, as opposed to an opposition to it, a route to power not only within their own sects, but within the state as a whole, indeed, as a way to turn the empire to its own advantage. Later, you see, the Floonian phenomenon would become well aware of the advantages of a controlled secularism. Soon, as revelation was reinterpreted, or continued to unfold, or was better understood, it would be discovered that the faithful, for example, had not only a right, but a duty, to serve the empire, to take up arms on her behalf, and such things.

But now, at the time of our story, the Floonians were outsiders. They were still regarded, by most, even of the lower classes, amongst whom they commonly made their greatest inroads, as no more than contemptible deviants.

I am sorry to have taken time for these diverse doctrinal and historical allusions, but it seemed desirable to do so, as without them certain later developments, even in our simple story, would be very difficult to understand. I beg the reader to put aside his own prejudices, and to grant, minimally, that matters such as I have been discussing, as bizarre as they may seem, as remote from common sense and rationality as they may be, can be, at least at certain times and places, taken seriously by rational creatures. We will concern ourselves very little with them, except insofar as they may impinge upon our narrative. Certain last remarks, however, are in order. First, although many points here may seem eccentric and airy, even amusing, there is nothing eccentric or airy, or amusing, about imprisonment, persecution and torture. There is nothing eccentric, or airy, or abstract, or amusing, about the hideous deaths to which millions of rational creatures were subjected on account of them. It must clearly be understood, further, that powerful, unscrupulous men, in the prosecution of a savage Realpolitik, can seize upon such things for their own purposes, indeed, as they might have seized upon many things, perhaps even more likely, or promising, things, more visible things, such as differentiations among species. Secondly, in accord with the first point, and more pertinent to our story, the Floonian phenomenon was soon to be appropriated by individuals who saw in it, on one level or on another, on one level of consciousness or another, a route to attention, wealth, prestige and power. Indeed, had Floon chosen to return yet again to the civilized worlds it seems likely that that sweet, timid, gentle creature so fearful of death would have been one of the first seized and condemned, for the institution would have found him a dangerous embarrassment. Certainly the ritual, the practices, the organization, the bureaucracy, the hierarchies would have puzzled him. Would he not have gone his own way, puzzled, shaking his head, turning away from such things, content rather with his own simple beliefs and ways? Thirdly, although the empire occasionally saw fit to persecute Floonians, it never did so consistently or systematically. Such would have been uncharacteristic. It would have been in contradiction to, and a violation of, the general, accepted and long-sanctioned practices and policies of the imperium. Indeed, the policy of the empire was almost invariably one of tolerance, tolerance for the millions of faiths of the millions of worlds. It was only later that this changed, when the Floonian phenomenon, which had for the most part been allowed to flourish within the empire, in accordance with the general policies of imperial toleration, became allied with the imperium. Things then changed. The Floonian hierarchy, having been permitted to rise to power in virtue of its own having been tolerated, now, once it was in a position to do so, repudiated toleration, no longer needing it, and instituted practices of consistent, systematic persecution that would have amazed and horrified even the emperors of the civil wars, famous for their proscription lists. Again, I do not wish to anticipate, but I will remark that the Floonian phenomenon may not have quite the same future in this reality as it might have had in others. Not all realities, you see, are identical. Indeed, our protagonist, and others like him, may have had something to do with that.

“Do not dare to look upon me,” she chided.

“It is hard to feel the ropes,” he said, puzzled.

“That is because of the shock of the stun stick, you barbarous dolt,” she laughed.

She then turned about and, followed by the guards, recrossed the sand. She would ascend to the mayor’s box by the throne gate, that which led to the privileged seating. It was called that because the seats of honor were reached through it, including the high seat, or throne, in this town occupied by the mayor.

“So,” he thought, “it may not be then that Brother Benjamin, dear Brother Benjamin, was right. I may only seem to be somewhere inside my body because I cannot feel as I normally would. It is because of what they did, something which has to do with the sticks.” He found it hard to understand how a stick could strike him without touching him. But he had heard of such things from the sailors on the cattle vessel. Indeed, he had pressed them relentlessly, for hours at a time, for stories, and facts, and customs. He wanted to understand the world, and worlds. He may have been illiterate, and a soil worker, and from only a festung village, but he was not stupid. He had an active mind, a very active mind. The sailors had enjoyed telling him things, relishing his eagerness, his wonder, his astonishment, and most of what they told him, interestingly, was even true. One of the things they did not think to tell him much about was the ship. They took it so much for granted. To him, of course, it was the greatest wonder of all.

He saw the throne gate opened, and watched her ascend to the high seats. The guards, within, parted from her. They took up positions at opposite ends of the closed box. Sometimes citizens took the opportunity of the games to press petitions into the hands of the civic authorities. Too, more than one governor, and emperor, even, it was said, had been assassinated at the games, though usually in the court outside the wall, or in the tunnel leading between the box and the street.

He looked at her taking her seat beside her mother, the high judge, who herself sat on the right hand of the mayor. He did not think he was a dolt. Too, he was no barbarian, surely. He was a peasant, from a festung village, from one of the Imperial worlds. It even had a provincial capital, Venitzia.

He had watched her cross the sand. Women did not move the same way as men. There was a difference in their walk. Too, it seemed that, for this world, the movement of that woman, despite the severity of her demeanor, and such, was unusually female. Many of the other females on this world, as far as he had been able to determine, attempted to conceal their natural gait. But she had not seemed as concerned to conceal it. There had been a murmur of female protest from the stands, but she had thrown her head back and continued to the throne gate. She was of the honestore class. It was supposed by him that she had mixed feelings toward her sexuality. He wondered if there were worlds in which women did not have such feelings, worlds on which they accepted their sexuality and rejoiced in it. He had heard that there were worlds on which some women were slaves. They were dressed for the pleasure of men. Their gait, and their

garmentures, left them, and others, in no doubt as to their womanhood.

The trumpets blared again, and he saw side gates open, and the dwarfs, better than a score of them, some with high, flat measuring boards, taller than themselves, others with hooks and baskets, rushing out. There was music then, and cheering. Following the dwarfs, from under the stands, came several large, bulky, rather soft fellows, naked, save for an apron. Each carried a barang, thick, wide, single-bladed, some three feet in length, with a handle about a foot in length, so that it might be gripped with both hands. It would probably weigh about twelve pounds.

The peasant moved a little inside the ropes. They were tight. The wiry strands dug deeply into his arms. He could feel them now. His sensibility had much returned, long before it might have been expected to have done so. He supposed that he might have remained kneeling, if only for Brother Benjamin, or as a matter of honor, or, say, of disdain for those of the town. But he did not care to be bound. Did they not trust him to remain there quietly, waiting for his koos to take flight, innocent, and unharmed? After all, they could not hurt a koos. That was part of the teaching. But perhaps he had no koos. What if he did not have a koos! What then? What if he were himself, and not a koos, really, which he had never seen, nor had anyone else, as far as he knew? Perhaps they were right not to trust him. But what could he do, run about, now, bound, while the dwarfs pursued him, with their hooks, to pull him down, while the crowd laughed, while the large, soft creatures waited the signal to rush up, wielding the weighty barangs? He moved inside the ropes. They were heavy, they were tight. The guards, and the officer of the court, it seemed, had decided to take no chances with him. Such ropes would contain a garn pig, even if it were agitated, doubtless even a sacrificial bull, snowy white, with gilded horns, hung with beads, the sort still said to be slain by honestore officiants on the Telnarian worlds.

The attendants had now entered through the dead gate, with their rakes. They stood about the edges of the arena.

There were several spectacles slated for the afternoon. The current portion of the entertainments was intended to be little more than preliminary. Indeed, there were still some empty seats in the stands, though the arena was a small one, suitable for a small provincial town. Not everyone came on time. Some did not mind missing the first events.

Some of the men kneeling about him, unbound, began to pray aloud, usually to Floon and Karch, but sometimes to the intercessors, as well. He detected no prayers to Saint Giadini, but that was doubtless because Giadini had been an emanationist, a schizmatic. Who would dare to pray to such a one, at such a time?

Various events were scheduled for the balance of the afternoon, songs and dances, footraces and competitions, beast fights, hunter-and-beast fights, gladiatorial combats, acrobats, rope dancers, brief dramas, mythological enactments, and such, and the program was calculated to last until twilight. The arena was lit only by the sun. Had something been scheduled for the evening, it would have been localized in a relatively small area, and illuminated by torches. On this world, certain forms of energy were now quite scarce, and tended to be reserved for the use of the empire, and its licensees. On the other hand, there was the light of the local star, or sun, and the winds, and the tides, such things, and certain reliable, renewable resources, precious things, such as wood and grass. Worlds made what adjustments they could, and, beyond the sky, reassuring them, in all its solidity and eternal strength, lay the empire.

He pressed against the ropes.

They could hold a garn pig, a sacrificial bull.

He saw the mayor rise up, before her chair.

She, like the judge beside her, was dressed in the concealing, sacklike, mannish garb affected by so many of the women he had seen in the town. Such garmenture was quite dissimilar to the white corton clingabout of the judge’s daughter. To be sure, the judge’s daughter was not the only woman so clad in the stands. Too, he could see some colored garments, here and there, in particular, yellow and red. Some of the women even wore necklaces, or bracelets. The female prisoner who had been used in the testing of him, when it had been determined that he was not a “true man,” had been put in a necklace, and then, forced to stand straight before him, her shoulders back, weeping, had had her garments pulled down about her hips. The optical device had clearly registered his response. The evidence had been incontrovertible.

The mayor lifted her hands to the crowd.

There was another blare of trumpets.

Many of the men about him began to sing a hymn to Floon.

He did not sing the hymn, as he was not of the adherents of Floon.

Behind her chair and to the left, as he was facing it, was a small altar. Doubtless a tiny fire had been kindled there. The mayor took a packet from an attendant and shook the contents of this packet onto the flame, which spurted up, and then a long wreath of yellow smoke rose upward toward the sky. He smelled incense. It was an old custom, a Telnarian custom, much like the libations, an offering to the old gods, though few, he thought, now believed in them.

The strains of the hymn to Floon, though they seemed small, and weak, were clearly audible in the arena.

He watched the smoke drift away.

The mayor now stood again before her chair.

She lifted up, in her right hand, a scarf, or handkerchief. “Let the games begin,” she called, using a formula whose origins were lost in antiquity.

She released the scarf, or handkerchief, the cloth she held, that used for the signal, and it fluttered to her feet.

There was then another blast on the trumpets, but their sound, renewed, was almost drowned in the anticipatory cry of the crowd.

It leaned forward, eagerly.

The large, soft men then whipped their aprons away from their loins and turned before the crowd, their arms uplifted, the barangs brandished. The crowd applauded. They were “true men,” as understood on this world. When they turned about, again, to those on the sand, he, the peasant, could scarcely believe his eyes, though his vision was extraordinarily keen. He blinked. He shook his head. Could it be some trick of the glare, from the white sand? No, there was no mistake. It was as his senses had told him, and his mind, for an instant, had refused to believe. Then he turned his head to the side, sick, he who had lived with blood and butchery in the village, and threw up in the sand. They had been improved, smoothed. Doubtless many had requested this smoothing, that, emasculated, in this way most effectively devirilized, the mental techniques not always sufficient, they might prove more pleasing, more acceptable, to the women of this world. Many had doubtless requested this improvement, not only as a route to moral excellence, but perhaps, too, in their own best interests, economic and political.

“You need not have been here,” the officer of the court, the daughter of the judge, had told him, rather angrily, he had thought, but moments before, on the sand. Surely it had been true. The judge had made that clear to him. She had been prepared to be merciful. Too, there were quotas of soil workers to be obtained, somehow, given the flight from the land in the vicinity of the town, largely a consequence of the newly imposed imperial taxations on provincial worlds. Binding, too, was imminent, as the judge, the mayor and other officials knew. But he was dangerous. He was masculine. He was the sort of man women feared. He might have been simply executed. Certainly the guards had him within their power. There were the stun sticks, and other weapons, more dangerous, which could burn through bodies like a gas torch through paper. On the other hand, the judge was subject herself to various pressures, in particular, from the township, it, itself, reacting to imperial prescriptions. Soil workers were needed desperately. Too, the binding was imminent. Accordingly, she was inclined to be merciful, sparing him. Let him be remanded to one of the town farms, that as his sentence, and before the sentence had expired the binding would be safely in effect. He would then be bound there, for his life, to the soil. But the judge could see only too clearly that he was large and strong, unusually so. Too, she knew that he was dangerous. Too, she could sense, a part of his dangerousness, to her uneasiness, a powerful masculinity in him, a masculinity like that of an animal, a masculinity as rude, as simple, as primitive, as natural as rain and sunlight. This masculinity was not unique with him, of course, though we may conjecture, from certain events which followed, that it was unusually powerful with him. It was, on the whole, a masculinity of the sort which was not uncommon among the males of the illiterate peasantry. It had not been diminished by devirilizing teachings, by an emasculative education, by a thousand subtle negative reinforcements. The isolation of the peasantry, and their grueling labors in the field, gave them little opportunity or time for subjection to certain devices of pathological civilizations. Too, it was not obvious that the devirilization of the peasantry was in the best interests of the educated, urbanized communities. The peasants were needed, and, educated, subjected to programs of emasculative conditioning, devirilized, they would not breed as well. In a sense, however, we might note, as it is relevant to our narrative, his masculinity transcended that of the simple peasantry. It had within it certain other elements, as well, the intellect, authoritativeness and uncompromising aggressiveness of a different, more complex form of life. This form of life would be that of the warrior. The occurrence of these elements in one who was obviously a mere peasant was surely surprising, and seemingly inexplicable.

“I have here the results of the pupil-dilation test,” had said the judge, lifting papers from before her. He could not see what was on the desk before her, because of the construction of the desk, also its height. “In the test situation your pupils clearly dilated.”

The peasant had not said anything. He was not sure what the judge even meant.

“Do you understand what I am saying?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“You looked upon a woman, and saw her as a female,” explained the judge.

“She was a female,” said the peasant, puzzled.

“You are not on some barbarous world,” she said. “You are in a civilized community, with civilized laws. Here men and women are the same, persons. But you looked upon the woman as though she were different from a man.”

“Yes,” admitted the peasant.

“These are dangerously antisocial tendencies,” she said.

The peasant was silent.

“It is a violation of moral and civil law.”

“Not on the world from which I come,” he said. He could remember that he, and some of the other young men of the village, Gathron, and others, had often gone to watch the girls wading in the small lake, netting fish. Sometimes he regretted having had to kill Gathron, but he had had no choice. Gathron had first struck him. At such times they would have their skirts hitched up. They knew the boys were watching, and were very vivacious, very pretty. Later he had caught Lia in her own net and drawn her back among the rushes, half on the grass, half in the mud. She was the first woman he had had. How she had kicked and laughed, and kissed at him, helpless in the strands. He had then, amazed at the incomparable pleasures he had experienced, turned her over to Gathron, who was his friend. She had not much cared for this, but then she was helpless in the net and could not resist. Gathron, too, was muchly pleased. They had released her later. Then he and Gathron, arm in arm, had returned to the village. He had that day first truly understood how incomparably valuable women were and how natural and understandable it was that on certain worlds, as he had heard, they could be bought and sold. Surely they would look lovely chained at one’s feet, owned, yours to do with as you pleased. He had wondered what Lia would have brought on a slave block, and certain others, whom he now, as of this afternoon, saw in an entirely new way, such as Tessa and Pig. Gathron had been a good friend, for years. They had often worked together, and hunted together. Then one day Gathron had struck him. He had then killed Gathron. This incident, doubtless, had its effect on him later. He was unwilling, it seems, to let anyone close to him again, not truly close. Gathron had been close. It was dangerous to do so.

It was not that he did not laugh and drink, you understand, and was not hearty, and a good fellow, at the feasting tables. It was only that he was unwilling, it seems, to let anyone close to him again, truly close. It is possible that he may have wanted friends, and love, but that he was afraid of such things. We do not know. On the other hand, he may have been above such things, beyond them. Too, such things, clearly, ill consorted with the medallion and chain. For whatever reason, or reasons, he would keep much to himself, in the deepest sense, muchly guarding inner secrets and feelings. Few could tell what he thought. Few could claim to know him, even his women. It was dangerous, he doubtless felt, to let anyone close to him. Gathron had been close. Too, such things ill consorted with the obligations of the medallion and chain. But then, again, who knows? Perhaps he was not so weak, was not susceptible to such matters, matters such as might concern lesser men. Or perhaps such things were simply of no interest or importance to him. But rather than speculate on such matters, which is commonly fruitless, let us continue with our narrative. Our concern here, as we have said, is merely to tell what happened.

“If you did not want me to see her as a female, why did you have her bared before me?” he asked.

The judge regarded him, with fury.

“And put a necklace on her, first?” he asked.

“Be silent,” said the judge.

“Was she not a person?” he asked, not quite sure what that word meant. It did not seem to mean anything, or, perhaps it meant “nothing,” intentionally. He did not know. The guards had lifted their stun sticks.

“She is a prisoner, a low woman,” said the judge.

“Not a person?”

“No,” said the judge. “It is all right for such as she to be looked upon with dilated pupils.”

“Then what is wrong with my having done so?” he asked. The judge reddened, angrily. She replaced the papers on the desk.

He had then looked across the court to the officer of the court, in her dark blue robe. She was young, and quite attractive. He wondered what she might look like, if she had been put in a necklace and bared before him, as had been the low woman. Probably not much different, he thought. But then he supposed that such thoughts were improper. She was of the honestore class, perhaps even a minor patrician, surely no more on this provincial world. But she was a woman, surely. So what difference would it make? She, looking at him at this time, gasped, and then stiffened. Then, in fury, blushing hotly, she had looked away. The judge had not noticed this exchange. It may have been one reason, of course, why the officer of the court, on the day of the games, had worn the clingabout, and come even across the sand, to appear before him, and have him bound. Perhaps she had wanted, thusly, to taunt him, and then to show him her power, that men would obey her.

“The court,” had said the judge, which, under the circumstances, was herself, “is prepared to be merciful.”

He had been offered the choice between life, or life of a sort, and death. Certainly his crime had been heinous, theft of a darin and a silver bracelet, and, in the course of its commission, the coldblooded, unprovoked murder of two upright citizens, one a respectable local businessman. There had been nine witnesses for the prosecution, five close associates of the businessman, who had witnessed the murders, and four policemen, who had apprehended the thief with the bracelet and darin in his possession. The defendant had not deigned to respond to the charges. Similarly, he had not chosen to explain how the darin and bracelet had come into his possession. It had been established, from the records of the customs search, that he had not had them with him at the time of his disembarkation.

“You have been found guilty,” announced the judge. “Do you wish to beg the court for mercy?”

“No,” he had said.

That response had not pleased the judge.

But then the field quotas were to be filled.

“The court, nonetheless,” had then said the judge, not pleasantly, “in her generosity, and mercy, despite the gravity of these crimes, and the seemingly unregenerate resoluteness of their perpetrator, is inclined to be lenient. After all, the moral welfare, the reformation, of a culprit, even one so undeserving of consideration, is a gratuitous but legitimate object of a justice with vision. Though a lifetime of penitence and labor is surely no sufficient compensation for the wrongs heretofore wrought, that some repayment to society is better than naught is a consideration which need not be neglected.”

The peasant understood very little of this.

“There is a way,” she said, “to reduce the energy, the power, the unacceptable aggressiveness, of your nature.”

He did not understand.

“Too, you understand, of course, that genes such as yours, so antisocial, so dangerous, are not to be propagated,” she continued.

He did not know what genes were.

It was soon made clear to him however that he had two choices, one was to be smoothed, and then remanded for an indefinite time to the public fields, and the other was to be remanded to the arena. The judge, who hated and feared men such as he, in her pettiness and vanity, had thought it amusing to give him this choice, in order that it might be he, himself, who would choose his own unmanning. He would thus do her will, humiliating and demeaning himself, by his own will.

But he had said, “No.”

There had been gasps, whispers, consternation in the small court.

The judge herself had been for the moment struck speechless.

“You leave me no choice,” she had then said, in inexplicable fury. He was remanded to the arena, into the keeping of its master.

“Take him away,” she had said.

Then the officer of the court, her daughter, in her dark blue robe, had stepped forth, with the guards, and he had been conducted from the courtroom.

There was a cry from the crowd as the barang, gripped in both hands by one of the large, soft men, after some vicious, tentative feints, held back at the last moment, at last struck loose the first head, it flying from the body. One of the waddling dwarfs, comically exaggerating his gait, to the amusement of the crowd, rushed after it, having apparently missed catching it in his basket. He seemed much chagrined. He leaped up and down, as though in frustration. He hurried to the head, putting his basket down beside it. He picked up the head by the hair and wagged his finger at it, as though scolding it. He pointed to the basket. Then he put it in his basket. The body had remained kneeling, as they will, for a time, if the blow is swift enough, and clean enough. The arterial blood, stimulated by the terror of the victim, a terror artificially increased by the feints, spurts to an unusual height. If you have seen this, you will understand what I mean, what it is like. It is ugly to watch. It is a little like a fountain. It spatters about. If one is near, it is easy to be soiled. Dwarfs, with their measuring boards, marked heights on the boards. Other dwarfs, with their hooks, the body then fallen heavily into the sand, rushed forward, striking into the body with the hooks, then drawing it across the sand, in a bloody furrow, toward the dead gate.

Another head then flew away, even farther than the first.

A cheer rang out.

There was betting here and there in the stands, on the height the blood would reach on the boards, on the distance to which the heads might fly, on whether or nor a head would be caught. To be sure, the large, soft men, it was rumored, could control such things, at least the distance and direction of the projectile, by varying the angle of the blow, by turning the blade a little, just at the last instant. It was rumored there was collusion sometimes, between them and gamblers, in the stands.

The hymn to Floon, as thin, as frail, as pathetic as it might seem, was audible in the arena.

There were, of course, far worse ways to die, at least with respect to torture, to pain, and such. There was the rack and, the pincers, the tongs, the knives, the pegs, the skewers, the knotted cords, the stake, the burning irons, such things, such devices, and many others, which would only later, much later, be brought to scrupulous perfection by the adherents of Floon himself, usually for application to other adherents of Floon, heretics, schizmatics and such. Indeed, such devices, on the whole, were seldom employed by the empire, which commonly tended to exercise a certain restraint, or taste, in such matters, given pause, seemingly, by scruples which would seldom deter the later adherents of Floon, but then the adherents of Floon would always possess, it would seem to the peasant, a certain petty, low-class vindictiveness, that of the little person into whose hands suddenly comes power. The most common device of the empire was the rack. It might even appear in courtrooms, where it was commonly employed in the extraction of testimony from slaves. Indeed, a slave was normally fastened on the rack before his testimony was taken, it being assumed that the veridicality of his testimony might be best assured by such a device. But there were the beasts, however. The empire was fond of them. Doubtless because of the spectacle they could provide. These beasts, ravenous, tortured by hunger, released into the arena, driven wild by the scent of blood and flesh, would lose little time in attacking, and feeding.

No, decapitation was presumably, as such things went, a merciful death. It was quick. The head presumably did not think for very long, if at all, after it was cut off, and in the sand, or a basket. The stroke of the barang was doubtless superior to certain other deaths, such as those of the lingering, wasting diseases, or the cannibalistic diseases, in which parts of one’s body seemed to devour other parts.

Another head flew from a body. There was another cheer.

Most of the adherents of Floon in the arena were citizens of the empire, at least nominally. That was quite possibly why the barang was being used. It was thought to constitute an honorable death, one acceptable for citizens. Too, of course, beasts were expensive, and had to be kept fed between shows. Some entrepreneurs transported them from world to world, in menageries, for various games, various spectacles. Sometimes they escaped on shipboard. But such rentals did not come cheap. Floon had not been a citizen of the empire. He had died in an electric chair, or in what we have spoken of as an electric chair, in order to use a term which seems sufficiently appropriate. The actual device is a sort of burning rack. The crime, if one may think of it along those lines, of the adherents of Floon in the arena, was the refusal to place a sprig of laurel on the altar of the genius of the empire, on the porch of the town hall. This small ceremony was usually performed by civic officials, on behalf of the town. It would commonly take place on the birthday of the current emperor, and on certain holidays, the day set aside, for example, to commemorate the acceptance into the empire of the federation of the thousand suns. Once a year each citizen was expected to come to the altar and place his sprig of laurel, or a pinch of incense, or a flower, even one plucked from the wayside, on the altar. This ceremony, as innocent as it seemed to most, at least those who were not adherents of Floon, was repudiated, at that time, by many of the adherents of Floon. The townships tended to ignore this matter, but it was of some concern to the empire. Sporadically an edict would emanate from the Telnarian worlds pertaining to the enforcement of this ceremony, it normally being construed as a touchstone for allegiance to the empire. When the empire felt most threatened it seemed it took such things most seriously. It feared, you see, as absurd as these fears might be, given the solidity and eternality of the empire, internal dissension, and even sedition. There may have been troubles at these times, too, troubles not clearly understood by most in the empire, about the borders, and their security. Sometimes one even heard absurd rumors to the effect that they might have been breached, that there might actually be barbarians, dangerous barbarians, within the territory of the empire itself. It was not always too clear just what might be occurring, so much might take place, so far away. Information, you see, was not always available, or reliable. Things then, you see, were not really so different from now. When it became clear that imperial officials were quite serious about this matter, most townships would collect a small number of the adherents of Floon, and request that they perform the ceremony. Many of them, sensibly enough, or so it seemed to the civic authorities, would do so, but some, of course, would not. This placed the civic authorities in the unpleasant situation of either enforcing or ignoring imperial edicts. Accordingly, from time to time, on many of the worlds, a number of the adherents of Floon, usually a small number, were fined, or placed in prison, or even consigned to the arena. The great majority, who tended to be quiet, law-abiding, productive citizens, were usually left unmolested, and might even be left free to visit their fellow adherents in prison.

There was another swift stroke of a barang, and another head was lifted from its body, and this time one of the dwarfs caught it in his basket.

There was a cheer from the crowd.

Money exchanged hands in the crowd.

“You need not have been here,” she had said, earlier, having come across the sand, before the crowds, to point to him, to order him bound. “The choice was yours,” she had said. It was true. He had chosen death to castration. The judge had not understood that, or, perhaps, given her fury, she had understood it only too well. He wondered if her daughter understood. He thought perhaps she did. He thought, perhaps, within her, there was a woman.

One of the dwarfs, giggling, leaped up and down in the sand before him, waving his hook. It was an iron object, much like a poker, or grating tool, for stirring fires. It was an iron staff, with a point at one end, the hook some five inches below the point. It could thus stab as well as insert itself in objects, flesh, or canvas, to drag them about. He jabbed the object at the peasant, who drew his head back, angrily. This was doubtless to increase his heartbeat, to increase the circulation. The peasant suspected he might be saved for late in the sport.

He saw one of the large, soft men drag the head of one of the adherents of Floon up by the hair, placing it so. For the best effect the target must be kneeling upright, its head up, this directing the arterial flow upward. Otherwise it is less impressive. It is then also, of course, difficult to measure.

He looked up to the stands. The daughter of the judge was reading. Her mother, the judge, and the mayor were conversing. This portion of the sport, he gathered, was not of great interest to them. Perhaps they even found it, the slaughter of the simple, innocent, inoffensive adherents of Floon, sheeplike, tasteless, or boring, perhaps even oppressive. But he suspected that they might later return their attention to the sand. Perhaps even the officer of the court might at that time put aside her book, to watch. He wondered if they would bet on various matters.

One of the large, soft men suddenly ran at him with the barang raised and then ran past him.

The crowd laughed.

He saw the dwarfs, by means of the hooks, dragging bodies toward the dead gate.

One was kicking and rolling a head across the sand. Another bent down, seized up the head, and ran. The first pursued him, crying out angrily.

It was amusing.

But there were to be better things later, a beast fight, for a beast had been rented, and a gladiatorial combat, such things.

One of the adherents of Floon seemingly found his legs and leaped up, running about the arena.

There was booing.

“No, brother,” cried out his fellows to him. “Come, kneel with us! The koos cannot die! Do not betray Karch! Karch will protect you! Trust in Floon!”

The fugitive ran to the wall of the arena. He tried to climb it, in one place, and then another, but there was no place to gain purchase. There was no need even for the poles and nets jutting from the height of the barrier above, to prevent certain agile beasts from leaping into the stands. Sometimes that had happened, on various worlds, and dozens of men and women had been clawed, several of whom died afterwards, sooner or later, of wounds and infection. The dwarfs, with their hooks, now swarmed about the distraught fugitive. He tried to defend himself, fending the blows, but, in the end, surrounded, struck again and again, he fell to the sand. Then he was dragged still living through the sand by several hooks, back before the privileged seats. He was thrust up, dying, and held in place by the points of the dwarfs’ tools. Other dwarfs scolded him. A blow of a barang flung the head a dozen yards across the sand.

“Courage, brothers!” called out one of the adherents of Floon to his fellows.

Then they began again to sing, the hymn to Floon. The strains now seemed plaintive, desperate.

One of the large, soft men approached him. He swung the barang toward him, but stopped it, only inches from his throat, and then turned away, and laughed.

The heart of the peasant pounded.

“Hold your head up,” squealed a dwarf.

One of the adherents of Floon turned to him. “Declare for Floon!”

The peasant, wrapped in his bonds, regarded him, angrily.

“Declare for Floon!” said the man.

But then his head was lopped away.

Others continued to sing.

The peasant did not care to die in this fashion.

Another of the large, soft men rushed at him, and, again, the blow was not struck.

He then turned away, as had the other, laughing, lifting his barang to the stands.

He did not see the peasant rise to his feet. Perhaps not many did, for two dwarfs were rolling about in the sand, fighting for the last head which had fallen, each wanting to put it in his own basket. First one would take it, and then another, putting it in one basket or the other, then the other stealing it, when the back of the other was turned. Such skits had been rehearsed. Even the mayor, the judge, the officer of the court, looked on, with amusement.

“Kneel, kneel!” squealed a dwarf, running up to him, brandishing his hook.

Then the dwarf was dead, its neck broken by the kick. Still, few, if any, took much notice of this. The peasant then put his strength against the ropes which bound him.

The dwarf’s hook lay in the sand. The peasant regarded it. It lay in the sand, half-covered.

It had two points, the end point, which might be used for jabbing, and the point on the hook. It had no blade. A point might have been used, if there was time, to wedge into a rope. That might divide the rope but it was not likely, in a short time, that it would serve to break or cut it. If there had been a great deal of time, if he had been bound in a cell, left there, not observed, the hook might have been useful. A man of lesser strength, or a woman, might have been able to use it so, if there were time.

Again the peasant pressed outward against the ropes. Again he tried to pull his wrists apart. Skin was torn from his wrists. He put his strength against the ropes. He looked upon the hook, in fury, in frustration. He was bound. He could not well manipulate it. It had no blade. There was little time.

Again he bent against the ropes. He was, as I have indicated, unusually strong. All the sources agree on that point. Too, it seems to be borne out by what occurred. The ropes, to him, to a man of such strength, might have been more in the nature of tenuous cords to a lesser man. We do not know. The guards, the officer of the court, however, I believe, may be excused for not having understood this. After all, how, before the fact, could one have been expected to know such a thing?

And would the ropes not have held a garn pig, a sacrificial bull? Then why not a mere man? But the peasant was not a mere man, or, perhaps better, he was not an ordinary man.

But perhaps the ropes would hold him. After all, they had doubtless been chosen with care, and were supposedly such as might easily hold any man, even one of unusual strength, even one who was enormous, one who was extraordinarily powerful.

Again the peasant strained against the ropes.

Yes, the ropes would hold him.

A dwarf came up to him, and watched him, curiously. Only that dwarf, at that time, seemed aware of the straggle which was taking place quite publicly, but yet unnoticed, at that point on the arena sand. The crowd, you understand, and the other dwarfs, and even the large, soft men, were more attentive to the antics of the performers before the privileged seats, those two with the baskets. The dwarf did not approach him closely. He was well aware of his fellow, lying in the sand, his eyes bulged, the head clearly wrong.

The peasant again, half bent over, strained against the ropes.

Wet now were the ropes with blood.

A strand, stressed beyond the weight it had been woven to withstand, broke.

Their mistake may have been to bind the peasant, as I have suggested. He might have held himself, perhaps being strong enough to do so, in the bonds of his own will, for the stroke of the barang. But, you see, the matter had not been left up to him. Presumably it had been taken out of his hands. The peasant had not cared for that. Decisions in such matters he would have preferred to make for himself. They did not trust him. The officer of the court had made that clear. And why should they have trusted him? They did not know him. In any event, we will never know what might have happened, had they not seen fit to bind him.

And so he stood, struggling, in the sand, not much noticed in those first moments.

The ropes might have held a garn pig, even one who smelled blood, and saw the ax; it is hard to say; the ropes might have held a sacrificial bull, a white bull, one fully grown, with gilded horns, hung with beads, perhaps even one who had suddenly sensed the meaning of the blade, and the large golden bowl. That is possible. We do not know.

The peasant strained against the ropes.

He felt, rising within him, the rage, the rage that one can sense coming.

He felt the ropes cut into his arms.

Blood ran beneath the ropes.

Those ropes might, perhaps, have held a garn pig, or a sacrificial bull. Again, one does not know.

Another strand broke.

The dwarf, watching, its short, squat body spattered with blood, from the business of the day, was not aware of this. To be sure, it would not have been easy to notice.

On the forehead of the peasant veins stood forth, like tortured ropes.

His eyes seemed more those of a beast than a man.

This was a consequence of the rage, you see. Even armies would come to fear his moods.

The dwarf, who was an intelligent creature, knew itself safe. It knew it, at least, in some intellectual sense. After all, the peasant was bound. The dwarf, nonetheless, was uneasy, even alarmed. He stepped back a few feet.

Another strand broke.

Then another.

Then the dwarf, even though he was farther away, detected a tiny brush of fiber, like a whisper of hair, standing out from the body of the rope, not bound in with it, not smooth with it. The dwarf was not certain if this were an imperfection in the rope, or if it were something which had occurred just recently, given the efforts of the peasant, standing ankle-deep in the white sand, it discolored here and there, from his struggles, with blood.

It was not easy to hear strands break, not with the singing of the adherents of Floon.

There was applause from the stands as the two dwarfs finished their skit, and bowed, and withdrew, carrying one basket between them, each with a grasp on one of the handles.

It was at that moment that the dwarf who had been watching the peasant had cried out and fled toward the stands, pointing backward. The crowd rose to its feet. The large, soft men turned about.

The peasant stood on the white sand, bloody, destroyed ropes at his feet.