into a scummy pool, rich in minerals, would do their work; then what was left over would be packed in wooden crates, lined with leather, and loaded aboard fliers. When the quota dropped, the law permitted an increase in working burs. A bur is forty Earth minutes long. It grew so that at the face a bur seemed to stretch to a Terrestrial hour. And still I had no idea what the refined rock was needed for, what the Hamalese, Zair rot ’em, did with it, why they forced this agony on fellow human beings.
The tailings stretched for dwaburs along the base of the foothills, ulm after ulm of them, spreading a powdery and ashlike detritus. What the refiners did, what sort of rock this was, what was taken from it — all these things I did not know and gradually came not to care about.
Early on I had said to a man, an apim, laboring alongside me, “What do they want the rock for, dom?”
“I do not know,” he had said, bashing his pick so that chips flew. “I only wish I could choke the rasts with it.”
“Amen to that,” I said, striking with my pick.
No one knew.
Every day we labored. There were no rest days.
The knowledge that if I did not escape soon I might forget that escape existed drove me on. While loading the fliers one day — for the Hamalese rotated tasks according to their rules — a man was discovered secreted in one of the leather-lined wooden boxes. Where guards of other peoples perhaps would have had sport with him — for example, taking him aloft so that he thought he was escaping, and then pitching him overboard; or weighing the box and declaring it was short-weight and so pouring rock upon him until he was crushed — the guards at the Heavenly Mines acted strictly according to the law.
The Hamalians — or Hamalese, either term is quite correct — took him in chains to a summary court, where he was found guilty — for he was certainly that, having tried to escape — and sentenced to the prescribed punishment.
There are always sedentary jobs to be done in a mining complex like this, work that can be performed quite well by a man who cannot walk, by a man, say, who has no legs.
They found him that employment. The law had no wish for extra severity and would not take his life. Slaves of quality were hard to come by in great quantity, and would not be wasted, only refuse being sent as victims to the arenas. And only tough fighters would do as coys, apprentice kaidurs.
This man, number 5763, sat all day at his task, his stumps beautifully bandaged. He had shouted that he came from Hyrklana; but that did not help him.
If he tried to escape again, the law would be more severe on him; and, as was written down, at the third attempt would then demand his life.
He would be hanged in the most strict ritual procedure.
I witnessed only two hangings, one for a third-time escape attempt, incredible though that may be, and one for a slave who had struck an overseer.
This slave was a Chulik.
Had he killed the overseer the law admitted that the next of kin, or the dead man’s superior officer failing a next of kin, might stipulate what punishment the murderer would suffer before death.
They were colorful in their thinking in those areas, were the bereaved in Hamal.
And there was no revenge, no bloodthirsty shrilling anger in all this. It was all written down in the laws of the land . . .
A new slave, number 2789 — for they filled up the old roster numbers with new slaves at the Heavenly Mines — said to me, “Eight-two-eight-one! I must escape! I’ll go mad!”
I said to him, “Two-seven-eight-nine. To escape is so difficult it is scarcely worth the attempt. Better for you to go mad.”
Only later, as I sat eating my chunk of bread — made from good corn, for the Hamalese wished to keep up our strength — and coarse pudding of vosk and onion, with a finger over the gregarian at the side of my bowl, was the truth of what I had said borne in on me.
I, Dray Prescot, unwilling to contemplate
The tailings stretched for dwaburs along the base of the foothills, ulm after ulm of them, spreading a powdery and ashlike detritus. What the refiners did, what sort of rock this was, what was taken from it — all these things I did not know and gradually came not to care about.
Early on I had said to a man, an apim, laboring alongside me, “What do they want the rock for, dom?”
“I do not know,” he had said, bashing his pick so that chips flew. “I only wish I could choke the rasts with it.”
“Amen to that,” I said, striking with my pick.
No one knew.
Every day we labored. There were no rest days.
The knowledge that if I did not escape soon I might forget that escape existed drove me on. While loading the fliers one day — for the Hamalese rotated tasks according to their rules — a man was discovered secreted in one of the leather-lined wooden boxes. Where guards of other peoples perhaps would have had sport with him — for example, taking him aloft so that he thought he was escaping, and then pitching him overboard; or weighing the box and declaring it was short-weight and so pouring rock upon him until he was crushed — the guards at the Heavenly Mines acted strictly according to the law.
The Hamalians — or Hamalese, either term is quite correct — took him in chains to a summary court, where he was found guilty — for he was certainly that, having tried to escape — and sentenced to the prescribed punishment.
There are always sedentary jobs to be done in a mining complex like this, work that can be performed quite well by a man who cannot walk, by a man, say, who has no legs.
They found him that employment. The law had no wish for extra severity and would not take his life. Slaves of quality were hard to come by in great quantity, and would not be wasted, only refuse being sent as victims to the arenas. And only tough fighters would do as coys, apprentice kaidurs.
This man, number 5763, sat all day at his task, his stumps beautifully bandaged. He had shouted that he came from Hyrklana; but that did not help him.
If he tried to escape again, the law would be more severe on him; and, as was written down, at the third attempt would then demand his life.
He would be hanged in the most strict ritual procedure.
I witnessed only two hangings, one for a third-time escape attempt, incredible though that may be, and one for a slave who had struck an overseer.
This slave was a Chulik.
Had he killed the overseer the law admitted that the next of kin, or the dead man’s superior officer failing a next of kin, might stipulate what punishment the murderer would suffer before death.
They were colorful in their thinking in those areas, were the bereaved in Hamal.
And there was no revenge, no bloodthirsty shrilling anger in all this. It was all written down in the laws of the land . . .
A new slave, number 2789 — for they filled up the old roster numbers with new slaves at the Heavenly Mines — said to me, “Eight-two-eight-one! I must escape! I’ll go mad!”
I said to him, “Two-seven-eight-nine. To escape is so difficult it is scarcely worth the attempt. Better for you to go mad.”
Only later, as I sat eating my chunk of bread — made from good corn, for the Hamalese wished to keep up our strength — and coarse pudding of vosk and onion, with a finger over the gregarian at the side of my bowl, was the truth of what I had said borne in on me.
I, Dray Prescot, unwilling to contemplate
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