Tribesmen of Gor

About my left wrist, knotted, bleached in the sun, was a bit of slave silk. On it, still, lingered the perfume of a slave girl, one who, purchased, had been useful to Kurii, who had testified falsely against me at Nine Wells, who had, contemptuously, insolently, cast me a token of her consideration, a bit of silk and scent, to remember her by, when I served at Klima. I would not soon forget pretty Vella. I would remember her well.

I looked up at the sun again, and then, bitter, looked away. I put the wench from my head. She was only a slave girl, only collar meat.

The important work was that of Priest-Kings. Hassan and I had not found the steel tower. We had failed.

I was bitter.

Then I followed Hassan, who had trudged on ahead, wading in the salt, following him toward Klima.

15 T’Zshal

At Klima, and other such areas, salt is an industry. Thousands serve there, held captive by the desert. Klima has its own water, but it is dependent on caravans for its foods. These food stores are delivered to scouted areas some pasangs from the compounds, whence they are retrieved later by salt slaves. Similarly, the heavy cylinders of salt, mined and molded at Klima, are carried on the backs of salt slaves from storage areas at Klima to storage areas in the desert, whence they are tallied, sold and distributed to caravans. The cylinders are standardized at ten stone, or a Gorean “Weight,” which is some forty pounds. A normal kaiila carries ten such cylinders, five to a side. A stronger animal carries sixteen, eight to a side. The load is balanced, always. It is difficult for an animal, or man, of course, to carry an unbalanced load. Most salt at Klima is white, but certain of the mines deliver red salt, red from ferrous oxide in its composition, which is called the Red Salt of Kasra, after its port of embarkation, at the juncture of the Upper and Lower Fayeen.

In Gor’s geologic past it seems that the salt districts, like scattered puddles of crystalline residue, are what remains of what was once an inland salt sea or several such. It may be that, in remote times, an arm of Thassa extended here, or did extend here and then, later, in seismic dislocations or continental rift became isolated from the parent body of water, leaving behind one or more smaller salt seas. Or it may be that the seas were independent, being fed by rivers, washing down accumulated salt from rocks over millions of square passangs. It is not known. In the salt districts salt is found either in solid form or in solution. Klima, among the salt districts, is most famous for its brine pits. Salt can be found in solid form either above or below ground. With the subsidence of, the sea and the shifting of strata, certain cubic pasangs of salt, in certain areas, became pressed into granite-like formations, through which one may actually tu

The separate-pipe system is, by most salt masters, regarded as the most efficient. An advantage of the double-pipe system is that only a single tap well need be drilled. Both systems require pumping, of course. But much of the salt at Klima comes from its famous brine pits’ These pits are of two kinds, “open” and “closed.” Men, in the closed pits, actually descend and, wading, or on rafts, negotiate the sludge itself, filling their vessels and later, eventually, pouring their contents into the lift sacks, on hooks, worked by windlasses from the surface. The “harvesting” vessel, not the retaining vessel, used is rather like a perforated cone with a handle, to which is attached a rope. It is dragged through the sludge and lifted, the free water ru

Besides the mines and pits of the salt districts, there are warehouses and offices, in which complicated records are kept, and from which shipments to the isolated, desert storage areas are arranged. There are also processing areas where the salt is freed of water and refined to various degrees of quality, through a complicated system of racks and pans, generally exposed to the sun.

Slaves work at these, raking, stirring, and sifting. There are also the molding sheds where the salt is pressed into the large cylinders, such that they may be roped together and eventually he laden on pack kaiila. The salt is divided into nine qualities. Each cylinder is marked with its quality, the name of its district, and the sign of that district’s salt master.

Needless to say, Klima contains as well, incidental to the salt industry entered there, the ancillary supports of these mining and manufacturing endeavors, such as its kitchens and commissaries, its ke

When we had approached Klima Hassan had said to me. “Leave the bit of silk about your wrist in the crusts, hiding it.”