Lupus Lon Oliver saluted Asodo Hatch when that Frangoni
warrior ventured from the shelter of House Jodorunda; and Hatch
for a moment was positively glad to see this enemy of his, so
tense had been the confrontation with Oboro Bakendra.
        Though Lupus Lon Oliver had seemed considerably upset by
someone or something when Hatch had seen him last in Scuffling
Road, the Ebrell Islander had by now recovered his usual confident
composure, and boldly informed Hatch that he was wanted at the
Brick.
        "My father wishes you to invoke yours demonic features in the
Brick," said Lupus, attempting by this jocular elaboration of his
message to deny the obviously embarrassing fact, which was that he
was being used as a messenger boy.
        Lupus Lon Oliver spoke of course in Code Seven, that dialect
of the Nexus Ninetongue which served as the Nexus Commonspeech.
Since Lupus was an Ebrell Islander, the language of his birth was
Dub; but in his daily dealings he ever favored the Commonspeech.
        "Since the Brick lies on my homeward path," said Hatch, "I am
agreeable to - to - " Here Hatch pause while he struggled against
temptation. Asodo Hatch was direly tempted to say that he was
ready "to see the thog", since the day's earlier dealings with the
wit of beggars had left him with an indelible awareness of Manfred
Gan Oliver's essential thoggishness. But he controlled himself,
and concluded: "I am agreeable to granting him an audience."
        With that, the pair set off down Zambuk Street, heading west
into the bloodlight of the evening. At certain times of the year,
anyone traveling west along Zambuk Street could see the sun set
directly between Cap Uba and Cap Foz Para Lash, but in this season
the setting sun was invisible behind one or the other of those
great rocks.
        But which?
        Hatch did not know. He should have known, but had long since
forgotten. This was itself a measure of his profound estrangement
from his own city, his own times, his own place, his own people.
He saw the suns of the worlds of the Nexus more often than he saw
the local star of his own planet.
        "Were you in there with your sister?" said Lupus, as the two
men headed toward the Brick.
        "With my brother," said Hatch. "With Oboro Bakendra. He was
talking about Son'sholoma."
        Lupus absorbed that in silence.
        An odd couple they made, Hatch and Oliver. For Asodo Hatch
was a Frangoni built over-large; his hair, uncut from birth, was
tied in a complex knot on top of his head, and thus made him look
taller yet; his sweeping robe was of unbroken purple, and the
inevitably effect of the flowing lines of such a one-piece garment
is to increase the apparent height of the wearer. In short, Hatch
looked a veritable giant, and had exacerbated his bigness by doing
so much body-building with weights that the upper half of his
body looked as if it had been pumped up with air.
        Hatch, then, bestrode the earth like a veritable collosus,
his big feet tromping over the dust, his big meaty hands swinging
by his sides like a couple of lethal weapons. Whereas Lupus Lon
Oliver was so under-sized that he had to positively scuttle to
keep pace with the Frangoni warrior.
        Lupus wore a big wide midriff belt of a leather colored the
same red as his Ebrell Island skin, and in a sheath suspended from
that belt he carried a big heavyweighted disembowelling knife.
Hatch maintained a wary awareness of that knife, for he by no
means underestimated the young man Lupus. After all, as the
Frangoni saying has it: "The smaller the rat, the sharper the
teeth."
        As the two men went westward along Zambuk Street, the sun
set. They continued in the darkness, not hurrying, but still
overhauling the lumbering buffalo carts which labored through the
rutted darkness of the dust, the presence of each cart marked by
the red-star glimmer of the oil lamp which the law required from
every vehicle which chose to travel the city streets after dark.
The oil which burnt in those lamps was that of the slunk, the
notorious grease-eel of the Yamoda River, and as it burnt it gave
off a stench like that of burning hair.
        "Lupus," said Hatch, when after a long walk they neared the
Brick, "I have a ... a ... "
        How should he put it? How did one go about this business of
soliciting a bribe?
        "A proposition?" said Lupus.
        There was a note of not-quite-repressed hope and expectation
in Lupus Lon Oliver's voice. Earlier in the day, the young Ebrell
Islander had hoped and expected to see the high-muscled Asodo
Hatch assassinated by Dog Java, but the cowardly Dog had failed in
his task in a truly disgraceful fashion, collapsing in a dead
faint at Hatch's feet. As Lupus had been quite unable to nerve Dog
to a fresh attempt at murder, and as Lupus deemed it too risky to
strike down Asodo Hatch with his own hand, Lupus was quite ready
to countenance the possibility of making some kind of bargain with
his enemy.
        "A proposition, yes" said Hatch, feeling a slight but
inescapable gratitude for the nimbleness with which the Ebrell
Islander had divined the nature of his approach. "Precisely."
        "Then," said Lupus, leapfrogging a dozen steps in the
bargaining process, "what's your price?"
        "My price?" said Hatch. He had thought to begin by outlining
the nature of the offer, but Lupus had already quickfooted his way
through all that without a word being spoken. It took more than a
moment for Hatch to grasp what had happened, but then he recovered
himself and said: "Oh, the price, yes, yes, the price. Scorpions,
of course. Gold, in advance. Three hundred scorpions, that should
cover it."
        "Fifty," said Lupus promptly.
        "Lupus, Lupus," said Hatch, feeling something of the same
exasperation he had felt when he confronted his sister. "Are we
two merchants to be haggling over details?"
        "You're right," said Lupus. "It's wrong for us to haggle. So
take my fifty and be done with it."
        Here was all the traditional arrogance and impudence of the
Ebrell Islanders, the self-styled master race, a breed of men
forever cocky and over-sure of themselves.
        "It's clear to me," said Hatch, "that you're in no mood to
deal this out seriously. So if you can't clinch a deal here and
now, I'll talk it out with your father."
        The lights of the Brick were but a hundred paces ahead, which
left very little time for them to talk. But Lupus grabbed Hatch
by the robes and pulled him to a halt.
        "Three hundred, then," said Lupus.
        "Done," said Hatch.
        "But only - "
        "You're haggling!"
        "No, no," said Lupus. "This isn't haggling. Haggling is
details, a hundred scorpions, fifty, who cares. But this isn't
details, this is important. I want your sister."
        "Joma?"
        "She calls herself Penelope," said Lupus.
        "Penelope, then," said Hatch, conceding the point readily in
the fullness of his relief. "You want her? Very well! Take her!
But I warn you, she's killed and castrated one already. A camel
driver, she was thirteen, and underneath Yon Yo - "
        "I know the story," said Lupus, cutting short the flow of
Hatch's relief. "Don't worry, I can handle her. But. But there's a
problem."
        "What?" said Hatch suspiciously.
        "My father. He doesn't like the idea."
        "You - you've talked this out with your father already?"
        "I've told him, yes," said Lupus. "I've told him I want to
marry your sister, and he - "
        "Marry her!" said Hatch in amazement.
        "Why, yes, yes," said Lupus, impatiently. "When one loves a
woman, when one - "
        "Love!" said Hatch, in further amazement.
        The idea of the rat-sized Lupus being in love with the mass,
bulk and obstinance of the heroically-proportioned Penelope was so
ludicrous that Hatch burst out into frank and open laughter. He
could not help himself.
        "You mock my passions?" said Oliver in anger.
        "Mock?" said Hatch, struggling to control himself. "No. But -
but - my sister? You? In love?"
        "What else did you think?" said Lupus.
        "Oh," said Hatch, grinning in the dark, "I thought you might
want her as a slave, you know, to take to bed and ravish. But -
well - marriage?"
        "It's what I want," said Lupus fiercely.
        "Yet your father opposes it."
        "Yes."
        "But he'd let you have Penelope as a slave?" said Hatch.
        "I would presume so," said Lupus.
        "Then take her thus," said Hatch. "She's legally burdened
with debts she can't pay, so you can buy up her debts and have her
tomorrow."
        "That's not what I want!" said Lupus vehemently. "You - you
want to see your sister a slave?"
        Something had made young Lupus Lon Oliver extremely angry,
but Hatch could not for the life of him fathom out the cause of
the Ebrell Islander's rage. They were a very passionate people,
these Ebrell Islanders, and sometimes quite unreasonable in their
emotional outbursts.
        "Why," said Hatch, "I want, well, I want what any man would
want for his sister. To see her kept in one bed and made pregnant.
I'm sure you could bed her and bring her to child, though you
might lose a testicle or two in the process. Well then, if that's
what you want, go to it! If she's your slave she's your
responsibility, and I've troubles enough of my own without trying
to maintain that woman in discipline."
        "You - you - how can you say these things?" said Lupus.
"You're of the Nexus, you've trained, you - there's no slaves in
the Nexus."
        "Not as such," said Hatch agreeably. "But this is not the
Nexus. Cultural relativity applies. I'm sure your father will be
happy enough for you to have my sister as your slave. Come on,
let's ask him."
        With that, Hatch set out for the Brick.
        "But," said Lupus, standing fast in the dark, "I've already
asked Penelope to marry me."
        Hatch stopped short.
        "You what!?" said Hatch, turning. "You've asked her what!?"
        "I've asked her to marry me. She said she would."
        "When was this?"
        "A month ago."
        "But - but when - but how - this is ....!"
        Hatch, unable to find words for his astoundment, quite
staggered into silence.
        "I have asked Penelope to marry me," said Lupus, with the
clear-voiced heroism of a young man drugged and deluded by the
flux of his own hormones. "I have asked her. She says she will.
But my father denies the match. Persuade my father to our party
and you can have your scorpions, and more."
        "If this was the Nexus," said Hatch, "would you let your
father stand between you and the woman of your wish? The law
permits you to marry as you wish. So, if the woman be willing -
why, what then stands between you and the consummation of your
folly? If this was the Nexus, you'd be married already!"
        "As you have observed already," said Lupus, "this is not the
Nexus. If I deny my father then I am drummed out of the Free
Corps, I'm - I'm dead to my people."
        "But you're in love," said Hatch. "So dare such a death."
        "If I have to, I will," said Lupus. "But if I become
instructor, then - then - I think my father will allow me what I
want, yes, when I'm winner, when I've won."
        "Then give me some three hundred scorpions and you'll have
your victory by Dog Day's dawn," said Hatch.
        "But," said Lupus, "But I've no gold, not a bit. My pay gets
tithed by the Brick, of course, and I've, ah | | "
        "You," said Hatch, intuiting the probable course of Lupus's
relationship with Penelope, "have in the past year or so made
substantial donations to a certain Edgerley Eden, an Evolutionist
of Hepko Cholo."
        "It is so," said Lupus, acknowledging the folly to which
Penelope had persuaded him. "So - so I have no gold, and even if
I'd saved I'd never have had three hundred, that's a lot of money,
my father can raise it but not me, not when my father's against
me. No Ebrell Islander would think it wise - "
        "All right, all right," said Hatch, who did not want to stand
there all night listening to Lupus detail out his financial
plight. "Let's head for the Brick and talk to your father."
        So the two men covered the last hundred paces to the Brick.
Exterior lanterns lit the door of the Brick, which was
flanked by weathered jawbones which had once belonged to a whale.
In the freshness of their death, those jawbones had been white,
but now, like the lanterns, they were red with dust. As for the
Brick, that had been red to start with, since its squarebuilt
blockwork had been erected using bricks deliberately chosen for
their likeness to the sanguinary tint of an Ebrell Islander's
fireskin. The guards who stood at the doors of the Brick carried
the harpoons which Ebrell Islanders traditionally used to
slaughter those improbable sea monsters known as whales. For
though the Brick was ostensibly a monument to the ideals of the
Nexus, in point of fact it was also a monument to the superiority
complex of the Ebrell Islanders.
        In Dalar ken Halvar, the Ebrell Islanders were renowned for
that superiority complex. They claimed to be a master race -
stronger, fiercer, harder and more courageous than other men. it
was the commonest boast of the Ebrell Islanders that they could
out-drink, out-fight and out-endeavor any three or four men of
any other race put together; and, if the accounts of ethnologists
were to be believed, on their native islands the Ebrell Islanders
devoted much of their spare time to feasts at which they
endeavored to both celebrate and prove their inbuilt superiority.
        The Ebrell Islanders of the Brick thought of the Frangoni as
a decidedly inferior people - the unfortunate resemblance of the
Frangoni to some of the Wild Tribes featured in the entertainments
of the Eye of Delusions was in part responsible for this attitude
- and Hatch was conscious of entering into enemy territory as he
stepped between the harpoon-carrying guards and entered the
lantern-lit Brick.
        The Frangoni warrior found himself expected, and was shortly
admitted into the presence of Manfred Gan Oliver, father of Lupus
Lon Oliver, master of the Brick and head of the Free Corps.
Asodo Hatch and Manfred Gan Oliver met together in the
privacy of Gan Oliver's office, which was tricked out in a crude
imitation of the bureaucratic style of the Nexus. There was a
Nexus-style desk of fine-grained wood, and there were Nexus-style
chairs on either side of the desk, one for Hatch and one for Gan
Oliver. Hung on one wall was the certificate which vouched for Gan
Oliver's graduation to the status of Startrooper.
        There were however a number of things which marked this room
as the preserve of an Ebrell Islander, for by the light of oil
lanterns Hatch saw two black-bladed harpoons posed as trophies on
the wall opposite Gan Oliver's graduation certificate - though Gan
Oliver had been born in Dalar ken Halvar, and Hatch doubted that
the man had seen either the Ebrell Islands or a whaling ship in
his entire life.
        "So," said Gan Oliver, when Hatch was brought into his
presence. "Did my son say what I wanted you for?"
        Manfred Gan Oliver did not speak in his native Dub, which was
just as well, as Hatch had only the merest smattering of the
Ebrell Island tongue. Like his son, Gan Oliver spoke in the Code
Seven of the Nexus Ninetongue, which was the language in which all
members of the Free Corps conducted their daily dealings.
        The Code Seven Commonspeech was a tolerably smooth-voiced
tongue, but Manfred Gan Oliver positively barked it as he sat on
guard behind his desk, a very thog in his muscled belligerence,
his strong-jawed suspicion.
        "Young Lupus," said Hatch, "he called me out of House
Jodorunda on pretext of wanting to speak to me about Son'sholoma
Gezira, but I've no heard so much as a word from him on the
subject since."
        "That," said Gan Oliver heavily, "is because it's myself who
wants to do the talking. About Gezira, I mean. Who was with you in
House Jodorunda when Lupus called?"
        "Lupus didn't go into the house," said Hatch carefully. "I
was in there talking with my brother. About Son'sholoma Gezira - I
think I told Lupus as much."
        "Your brother!" said Gan Oliver, sounding surprised. "You
were talking about Gezira with your brother! Has the Gezira boy
converted him, then?"
        "Oboro Bakendra," said Hatch, "still remains a loyal priest
of Temple Isherzan. It'll take a lot more than Son'sholoma's
preachings to convert my brother from the worship of the Great God
Mokaragash."
        "Yet it would seem," said Gan Oliver, "that Gezira's
teachings of the Nu have converted many already."
        "What makes you say so?" said Hatch.
        "Why, haven't you heard? Rumor says this Nu-chala nonsense
has been running rife amongst the Yara for the better part of a
three-month."
        "I had not heard," said Hatch.
        This was scarcely surprising. In the last three months Hatch
had been too busy with study, examinations and his personal
problems to pay much heed to gossip. Furthermore, though he was a
captain of Dalar ken Halvar's Imperial Guard, he had long ago
received a dispensation from the Silver Emperor allowing him to
absent himself from routine security briefings and the like while
he prepared for his examinations. Of late, he had made full use of
that dispensation.
        "There is even talk," said Gan Oliver, "that this Nu-nonsense
will lead to revolution amongst the Yara. Certainly there have
been incidents."
        "Incidents?" said Hatch.
        "A killing at the silver mines. One of the supervisors. An
officer of the Imperial Guard, vanished, believed dead. A few
other things."
        "I have been out of touch," said Hatch, admitting ignorance
in frank and painless confession.
        "But now you know," said Gan Oliver. "So your duty is plain.
You must kill the Gezira boy before he does more damage with his
nonsense."
        "Kill him?" said Hatch, startled by Gan Oliver's bluntness.
        True, Gan Oliver had a reputation for being a blunt and
straightforward man, but even so ... usually questions of murder
were approached with a little more delicacy.
        "Of course you must kill him," said Gan Oliver. "You're the
emperor's chosen killer, everyone knows that. So go to your
emperor, get his permission, then cut down Gezira."
        "If the emperor requires me to do such a thing," said Hatch,
with all due formality, "then the emperor will inform me of his
wishes."
        "Aaagh!" said Gan Oliver, and hawked, and spat thick phlegm
into his wastepaper basket, which bore a heavy burden of rubbish
originally sourced in the Combat College. "Our great lord Plandruk
Qinplaqus has been sunk in one of his glooms for the better part
of a year. He hears no business and starts none. You must act,
Hatch. He listens to you. He trusts you."
        "Perhaps," said Hatch, studying Gan Oliver by lantern light.
"But right now I have other things to attend to."
        "Other things?" said Gan Oliver.
        "I am in contention for the instructorship," said Hatch.
"That naturally takes priority for the moment."
        "You're being derelict in your duty," said Gan Oliver. "This
talk of the Nu, it's a Nexus thing, it came straight out of the
Combat College. You're a Startrooper of the Stormforce. So - "
        "If I have a duty to discharge in the city of Dalar ken
Halvar," said Hatch, coldly, "then the emperor will inform me of
that duty. I am the emperor's soldier, the emperor's slave,
training in the Combat College under the terms of the agreement
between the Silver Emperor and that College. It is not for me to
arrange the affairs of Dalar ken Halvar in accordance with the
concerns of the Nexus. Furthermore, to be specific, it is not for
me to arrogate to myself the imperial privilege of organizing
selective murder."
        Manfred Gan Oliver muttered something under his breath. Hatch
thought he caught the words "lawyer", "arrogant bastard" and
"Frangoni madman", but he could not be sure of it. Hatch presumed
that Gan Oliver was trying to provoke him, but he was in no mood
to be provoked. His earlier clash with his brother Oboro Bakendra
had freshly awakened him to the dangers of anger, so now he was
exercising a studied self-control.
        "Hatch," said Gan Oliver, drumming his fingers on his desk,
"I know you're fighting for the instructorship, but - but really,
Hatch, we could have a revolution on our hands. Soon! And the
emperor - the emperor does nothing."
        "So I must act," said Hatch, probing for Gan Oliver's
purpose, seeking to test his resolve.
        "You must act," agreed Gan Oliver.
        "Then free me for action," said Hatch. "I don't want the
instructorship as such, only the money it would bring. I'm up to
my neck in debt, and drowning. Give me three hundred scorpions and
I'll walk away from the competition. What's more, I'll seek a
death certificate for Son'sholoma, and when I've got it I'll
execute him personally."
        "It's a deal," said Gan Oliver promptly.
        "Good," said Hatch, amazed at the swiftness of Gan Oliver's
response. "You - you're very quick to do business."
        "The Brick has had practice at doing such business," said Gan
Oliver. "You don't think it's an accident that Ebrell Islanders
have held the instructorship in unbroken succession for so long.
Do you? Well, in any case - it's a deal. If."
        "If?" said Hatch.
        "If you can persuade your sister away from this nonsense of
marriage."
        "Marriage?" said Hatch, pretending innocence.
        "Oh, come on!" said Gan Oliver, slamming one his meaty hands
on his desk. "You don't think me such a fool as all that, do you?
You've known about it for months. You must have! That mad purple
bitch, that sister of yours, she's tempted my son to a proposal of
marriage. I want it stopped!"
        Hatch took considerable offence at hearing his sister
referred to as a mad purple bitch. He might call her that himself
on occasion, but such was a brother's privilege. The words were
unseemly in the mouth of a stranger like Gan Oliver. But Hatch
suppressed every evidence of offence and said:
        "If you want the marriage stopped, then encompass my sister's
envanishment. She's mortgaged and can't redeem the mortgage, so
she's easily bought. So buy her and vanish her."
        Hatch did not necessarily want any such thing to happen to
his sister, but made the suggestion in order to probe for the
truth of Gan Oliver's intentions.
        "You think I haven't thought of that?" said Gan Oliver,
taking Hatch's suggestion at face value. "You think my son hasn't
thought of me thinking as much? He's sworn he'll kill me if the
woman leaves the city. Or if she otherwise vanishes. He'll hold me
responsible however it seems to happen."
        "So what did you say when he told you that?" said Hatch.
        "I smacked his head, of course," said Gan Oliver. "If he
wasn't so busy with his examinations I'd have broken his jaw. But
- Hatch, the boy's serious. He means it! If the woman goes, he'll
- he'll do something I wouldn't like to think about. This is
serious, Hatch! I don't want to lose my son."
        "Then perhaps," said Hatch, trying to find a delicate way to
put it. "Perhaps you - you might - well, the boy has to marry
someone."
        Gan Oliver looked at Hatch then said, with great
deliberation:
        "Get out of here."
        "What?" said Hatch.
        "Out!" yelled Gan Oliver, roaring with world-sundering fury.
        It was a yell designed to content against the bellowing fury
of an angry whale - such a yell that Hatch's ears positively hurt
from the blast of it.
        "Very well," said Hatch, as cool as a slunk at ease in the
wallow of its slime.
        And without bothering to pass any comment further, the
Frangoni warrior arose from his chair and departed, leaving
Manfred Gan Oliver sitting alone on the high and lonely peak of
his apocalyptic blood pressure.
        As soon as Hatch had escaped from Gan Oliver's office, he was
accosted by Lupus.
        "What did he say?" said Lupus. "What did he say?"
        "It's a deal," said Hatch. "That's what he says. But only -
Lupus, it's in your hands now. He's wants you to call off your
plans for this - this marriage with my sister. He thinks I can
talk some sense into her head, but - Lupus, I can't. Only you can
persuade Penelope that - well. Will you do it?"
        "I'd rather die," said Lupus defiantly.
        "You'd rather die?" said Hatch, somberly measuring the weight
of the words. "You'd rather die? Then ... Lupus, my friend, it may
well come to a matter of dying before we're through with each
other."
        With that half-veiled threat, Hatch departed from the Brick
and turned his steps toward Cap Uba, the Frangoni rock.
        As Hatch was climbing the Frangoni rock on the way to his
home, he was met by Son'sholoma Gezira and half a dozen of
Son'sholoma's supporters, each of them carrying a lantern
suspended from a stick. Like the cheap and primitive oil lanterns
of the buffalo carts, these were powered by the grease of the
slunk, and stank with a similar stench like unto that of the
burning of a woman's crowning beauty.
        "What do you want?" said Hatch, wondering why he was thus
being accosted by those who were preaching the alien doctrines of
Nu-chala-nuth in the city of Dalar ken Halvar.
        "Just to give you a little news," said Son'sholoma.
        "What news?" said Hatch.
        "Your daughter Onica has mortgaged herself to the moneylender
Polk," said Son'sholoma.
        "Get out of my way," said Hatch.
        "Hatch," said Son'sholoma, "you're bitterly in debt, and -
Hatch, Nu-chala-nuth is the death of all moneylenders."
        This is one of the claims almost inevitably made by any
revolutionary movement, whether the rhetoric of that movement be
religious, or racial, or ideological, or a combination of all
three. Every society has its moneylenders, and every society has a
half-acknowledged hatred of those moneylenders; and, while most
citizens would claim that they are opposed to robbery on
principle, one of the great attractions of revolution is that by
the overthrow of moneylenders and the cancellation of debts it
effectively allows a great mass of citizens to realize the long-
desired opportunity to rob a bank.
        "My blade is at the command of my emperor," said Hatch
soberly, "and I do no killing for cash."
        "Hatch," said Son'sholoma, "Hatch, it's your daughter, I've
spoken in truth. Polk holds a mortgage. Do you surrender your
daughter? Do you make her your sacrifice to - what? The law? What
law? What law is it that makes slaves and rules by murder? Hatch,
we need your support."
        Hatch hesitated. Manfred Gan Oliver had spoken of a possible
revolution. If there was a conspiracy afoot, then Hatch had a duty
to find out about it.
        "We?" said Hatch. "Who is this we?"
        But all possibility of discussion was aborted when an officer
of the Imperial Guard came up the path. Son'sholoma Gezira and his
companions fled, peltering away with a slap-slap of sandals.
        "Hail and well met," said Toto P'wara, the officer in
question.
        "S'nufta sna," said Hatch, voicing a reciprocal greeting.
        "Who was that?" said P'wara. "Was that Gezira?"
        "It was Son'sholoma, yes," said Hatch. "I think he's been out
in the sun too long, he's - but if you'll excuse me, I have to get
home. I've bad news of my house."
        "Your wife ....?"
        "She lingers. But my daughter - I'm terribly afraid that she's
done something very very foolish."
        And with that Hatch hastened home, in fear and trepidation,
wondering if it was true, if disaster had really befallen his
house, if his daughter Onica had really and truly mortgaged
herself to the noseless moneylender Polk the Cash.