f some of the more
talkative slaves, that these slaves are from the Asian mainland, that
they are of a people friendly to our people, and that they were
kidnaped by pirates, our enemies. That ought to explain everything
satisfactorily."

On his way back to the plantation house, he saw a clump of local
slaves staring curiously at the stockade, and noticed that the guards
had unslung their rifles and fixed their bayonets. None of them had
any idea, of course, of what had happened, but they all seemed to
know, by some sort of ESP, that something was seriously wrong. It was
going to get worse, too, when strangers began arriving, apparently
from nowhere, at the plantation.

* * * * *

Verkan Vall waited until the small, dark-eyed woman across the
circular table had helped herself from one of the bowls on the
revolving disk in the middle, then rotated it to bring the platter of
cold boar-ham around to himself.

"Want some of this, Dalla?" he asked, transferring a slice of ham and
a spoonful of wine sauce to his plate.

"No, I'll have some of the venison," the black-haired girl beside him
said. "And some of the pickled beans. We'll be getting our fill of
pork, for the next month."

"I thought the Dwarma Sector people were vegetarians," Jandar Jard,
the theatrical designer, said. "Most nonviolent peoples are, aren't
they?"

"Well, the Dwarma people haven't any specific taboo against taking
life," Bronnath Zara, the dark-eyed woman in the brightly colored
gown, told him. "They're just utterly noncombative, nonaggressive.
When I was on the Dwarma Sector, there was a horrible scandal at the
village where I was staying. It seems that a farmer and a meat butcher
fought over the price of a pig. They actually raised their voices and
shouted contradictions at each other. That happened two years before,
and people were still talking about it."

"I didn't think they had any money, either," Verkan Vall's wife,
Hadron Dalla, said.

"They don't," Zara said. "It's all barter and trade. What are you and
Vall going to use for a visible means of support, while you're there?"

"Oh, I have my mandolin, and I've learned all the traditional Dwarma
songs by hypno-mech," Dalla said. "And Transtime Tours is fitting Vall
out with a bag of tools; he's going to do repair work and carpentry."

"Oh, good; you'll be welcome anywhere," Zara, the sculptress, said.
"They're always glad to entertain a singer, and fo