come from? Did you always live here--like this?" How do
you ask a slave if she has always been a slave?

"Not here. I come from Bul'wajo first, then Fasimba, now I belong to
Ch'aka."

"What or who is Bul'wajo? Someone like our boss Ch'aka?" She nodded,
gnawing at the meat. "And the D'zertanoj that Fasimba gets his arrows
from--who are they?"

"You don't know much," she said, finishing the meat and licking the
grease from her fingers.

"I know enough to have meat when you don't have any--so don't abuse my
hospitality. Who are the D'zertanoj?"

"Everyone knows who they are." She shrugged with incomprehension and
looked for a soft spot in the sand to sit down. "They live in the
desert. They go around in _caroj_. They stink. They have many nice
things. One of them gave me my best thing. If I show it to you, you
won't take it?"

"No, I won't touch it. But I would like to see anything they have
made. Here, here's some more meat. Now let me see your best thing."

Ijale rooted in her skins for a hidden pocket and dragged out
something that she concealed in her clenched fist. She held it out
proudly and opened it and there was enough light left for Jason to
make out the rough form of a red glass bead.

"Isn't this so very nice?" she asked.

"Very nice," Jason agreed, and for an instant felt a touch of real
sorrow when he looked at the pathetic bauble. This girl's ancestors
had come to this planet in spaceships with a knowledge of the most
advanced sciences. Cut off, their children had degenerated into this,
barely conscious slaves, who could pride a worthless piece of glass
above all things.

"I like you. I'll show you my best thing again."

"I like you, too. Good night."

V

Ijale stayed near Jason the next day, and took the next station in
line when the endless _krenoj_ hunt began. Whenever it was possible he
questioned her and before noon had extracted all of her meager
knowledge of affairs beyond the barren coastal plain where they lived.
The ocean was a mystery that produced edible animals, fish and an
occasional human corpse. Ships could be seen from time to time
offshore but nothing was known about them. On the other flank the
territory was bounded by desert even more inhospitable than the one in
which they scratched out their existence, a waste of lifeless sand,
habitable only by the D'zertanoj and their mysterious _caroj_. These
last could be animals--or mechanical transportation of some kind,
eith