March Upcountry

"Huh?" Roger sounded surprised.

"Did Cord maybe take something off or put it on? Or maybe give something to someone?"

"Yeah," Roger said. "They gave him a different cape to replace the one he was carrying. And he gave a spear and a staff to one of the other Mardukans."

"I talked a little to Cord on the way down from the plateau," Eleanora said. "This asi thing is a form of slavery or bondage—you realized that?"

"Today I did," Roger said angrily. "That's crazy! The Empire doesn't permit slavery or bondage of any form!"

"But this isn't an imperial world," she pointed out. "We've barely planted the flag, much less started on socialization. On the other hand, I think you misunderstand the situation. First of all, let's take a look at the definition of slavery."

She considered how to go about explaining slavery, marriage, and the similarities between them that had existed for thousands of Earth's years to a man of the thirty-fourth century.

"For most of history—" she began, and saw him glaze over immediately. Roger was always interested in the battles, but get onto the societal structures and faction struggles, and he completely lost interest.

"Listen to me, Roger," she said, meeting his eye. "You just married Cord."

"What?"

"That got your attention, didn't it?" she asked with a laugh. "But you did. And you also took him as your slave. For most of history, the rituals of marriage and slavery were practically identical. In this case, you performed an action that required that you 'marry' the person whom you'd saved."

"Oh, joy," Roger said.

"And you are now required to 'keep' that person, for the rest of his life and into the afterlife, most likely."

"Another mouth to feed," Roger joked.

"This is serious, Roger," his chief of staff admonished, but she couldn't help smiling. "By the same token, Cord must obey your wishes religiously. And to his family, it's as if he's dead. Which is probably the origin of the big festivities at weddings, by the way. In most primitive cultures, there are practically no rituals involved in marriage bindings, but elaborate rituals for funerals. There's a strong theory that the wedding rituals eventually evolve out of the funeral rites because the bride and groom are leaving their families... just as would have been the case if they'd died.

"Now, I used the term 'marriage' because I knew it would get your attention," she admitted. "But I could have said 'permanently binding oath of fealty,' 'slavery,' or 'indenture.' The rites and customs for all of them were practically identical in most early human societies, and we've found parallels for that in almost all of the primitive nonhuman societies we've studied. But any way you look at it, it's a very important sacrament for the Mardukans, and I'm really sorry I missed it," she concluded.

"Well, the dance of the forest animals was apparently the climax," Roger told her. He picked up one of the blackened bits of meat and popped it into his mouth, following it up with one for the tame lizard. Her explanation made quite a few little bits which had been confusing him fall into place. He would worry about the ones that hadn't at another time.

"But I'm glad you woke up," he went on. "If you hadn't, I would have had to send someone for you. Cord has just broached an interesting subject."

"Oh?" She picked a leftover bit of fruit off a plate... and set it back down hastily when she saw that several of the "seeds" were moving.

"Yes. It seems that his tribe is in need of some advice."

The hut was hot, dark, and close.

The party had gradually broken up, and as people left the square, the front covers of the huts had come down. They were, indeed, designed to be pegged down, and the Mardukans had also laced up the sides. Most of the Marines were packed into the huts, while a few were in tents, but at least the entire company was under cover, and most of its members were asleep.

But in Delkra's hut, the futures of both the company and Cord's tribe were under discussion as Cord explained why the interruption of his vision quest and his departure with Roger constituted such a bitter blow.

"In the days of my father's father's father, traders came up the Greater River to the joining of Our River and the Greater River. Traders had long come upriver, but this group made peace with my father's father's father and took up residence on a hill at the joining. We brought the skins of the grack and the atul-grack, the juice of the yaden cuol and the meat of the flin. In my father's day, I was sent to Far Voitan to study the ways of the sword and the spear.

"The traders brought with them new weapons, better metals. Cloths, grains, and wine. The tribe flourished with the wealth that was brought in.

"But since that time, the town has grown greater and greater, and the tribe has become weaker and weaker. During my father's time, we were at our greatest. We were more numerous and more fierce than the Dutak to the north or the Arnat to the south. But as the city has grown, its people have taken more and more of our hunting lands. Starvation has loomed more than once, and our reserves are always scanty."

The shaman paused and looked around, as if trying to avoid an awkward truth.

"My brother has been overgenerous in this celebration. The barleyrice is purchased from the city, Q'Nkok, at great price. And the other foods... . There will be hungry mothers in weeks to come.

"The problem is the city. It has extended its fields too far, yet that's hardly the worst of it. Their woodcutters are not to go beyond a certain stream, and even in that stretch where they are permitted, they are only to take certain trees. That is the treaty. For that, we are to be given certain goods—iron spears and knives, cooking pots, cloth. Yet these goods have become of worse and worse quality, while the woodcutters drive deeper and deeper into the forest. They do not restrict themselves to the proper trees, and their intrusion drives out the game or kills what remains."

He looked around again and clapped his hands.

"If we kill the woodcutters, even if they are beyond the line, it breaks the treaty. The Houses of Q'Nkok will gather their forces and attack." He ducked his head in shame. "And we will lose. Our warriors are able, but we would have to defend the town, and we would lose.

"But if we attack Q'Nkok, without warning, we can take it by surprise as the Kranolta took Far Voitan." He looked around the humans, and Roger was forced to recognize that a fierce look was nearly universal. "Then we feed on their hoarded grains, kill the men, enslave the women, and take the goods that are rightfully ours."

"There is, however, a problem with this," Delkra said, and leaned forward as he took over the thread. "We will lose many warriors even if the attack is successful, and then Dutak and Arnat will fall upon us like flin on a dead flar beast. We didn't know which way to go, so Cord went on a spirit quest in search of a vision of guidance. If he'd seen peace in the future, it would have been peace. If he'd seen war, it would have been war."

"What if he hadn't come back?" Pahner asked. "He nearly didn't."

"War," Delkra replied simply. "I'm in favor of it anyway. Without Cord to hold me back, we would have attacked last year. And, in all honesty, probably have been eaten by Dutak and Arnat."

"Make peace with Dutak and Arnat," Roger said, "and attack in concert."

He felt O'Casey's elbow co