ut free wage-labor."

"Migratory workers," the guard captain said. "Humanitarian
considerations aside, I can think of a lot better ways of meeting the
labor problem on a fruit plantation than by buying slaves you need for
three months a year and have to feed and quarter and clothe and doctor
the whole twelve."

"Twenty hundreds of _obus_," the clerk who had been counting the money
said. "That is the payment, is it not, Coru-hin-Irigod?"

"That is the payment," the slave dealer replied.

The clerk swept up the remaining coins, and his companion took them
over and put them in an iron-bound chest, snapping the padlock. The
two guards who had been loitering at one side slung their rifles and
picked up the chest, carrying it into the plantation house. The slave
dealer and his companion arose, putting their money into a leather
bag; Coru-hin-Irigod turned and bowed to the two men in white cloaks.

"The slaves are yours, noble lords," he said.

Across the plantation yard, six more men in striped robes, with
carbines slung across their backs, approached; with them came another
man in a hooded white cloak, and two guards in blue jackets and red
caps, with bayoneted rifles. The man in white and his armed attendants
came toward the house; the six Calera slavers continued across the
yard to where their horses were picketed.

"If I do not offend the noble lords, then," Coru-hin-Irigod said, "I
beg their sufferance to depart. I and my men have far to ride if we
would reach Careba by nightfall. The Lord, the Great Lord, the Lord
God Safar watch between us until we meet again."

Urado Alatana, the labor foreman, came up onto the porch as the two
slavers went down.

"Have a good look at them, Radd?" the guard captain asked.

"You think I'm crazy enough to let those bandits out of here with two
thousand _obus_--forty thousand Paratemporal Exchange Units--of the
Company's money without knowing what we're getting?" the other
parried. "They're all right--nice, clean, healthy-looking lot. I did
everything but take them apart and inspect the pieces while they were
being unshackled at the stockade. I'd like to know where this
Coru-hin-Whatshisname got them, though. They're not local stuff. Lot
darker, and they're jabbering among themselves in some lingo I never
heard before. A few are wearing some rags of clothing, and they have
odd-looking sandals. I noticed that most of them showed marks of
recent whipping. That may mean they're