“No,” said a man, I have seen no tower of steel nor have I heard of such. How can there be such a thing?”

“My thanks, Herder,” said Hassan, and again led us on our quest.

The camps of nomads were becoming less frequent. Oases were becoming rare.

We were moving east in the Tahari.

Some of the nomads veil their women, and some do not. Some of the girls decorate their faces with designs, drawn in charcoal. Some of the nomad girls are very lovely. The children of nomads, both male and female, until they are five or six years of age, wear no clothing. During the day they do not venture from the shade of the tents. At night, as the sun goes down, they emerge happily from the tents and romp and play. They are taught written Taharic by their mothers, who draw the characters in the sand, during the day, in the shade of the tents. Most of the nomads in this area were Tashid, Which is a tribe vassal to the Aretai.

It might be of interest to note that children of the nomads are suckled for some eighteen months, which is nearly twice the normal length of time for Earth infants, and half again the normal time for Gorean infants. These children, if it is significant, are almost uniformly secure in their families, sturdy, outspoken and self-reliant. Among the nomads, interestingly, an adult will always listen to a child. He is of the tribe. Another habit of nomads, or of nomad mothers, is to frequently bathe small children even if it is only with a cloth and a cup of water. There is a very low infant mortality rate among nomads, in spite of their limited diet and harsh environment. Adults, on the other hand, may go months without washing. After a time one grows used to the layers of dirt and sweat which accumulate, and the smell, offensive at first, is no longer noticed.

“Young warrior,” asked Hassan, of a youth, no more than eight, “have you heard aught of a tower of steel?”

His sister, standing behind him, laughed. Verr moved about them, brushing against their legs.

The boy went to the kaiila of Alyena. “Dismount, Slave,” he said to her.

She did so, and knelt before him, a free male. The boy’s sister crowded behind him. Verr bleated.

“Put back your hood and strip yourself to the waist,” said the boy. Alyena shook loose her hair; she then dropped her cloak back, and removed her blouse.

“See how white she is!” said the nomad girl.

“Pull down your skirt,” said the boy.

Alyena, furious, did so, it lying over her calves.

“How white!” said the nomad girl.

The boy walked about her, and took her hair in his bands. “Look,” said he to his sister, “silky, fine and yellow and long.’’ She, too, felt the hair. The boy then walked before Alyena. “Look up,” said he. Alyena lifted her eyes, regarding him. “See,” said he to his sister, bending down. “She has blue eyes!”

“She is white, and ugly,” said the girl, standing up, backing off.

“No,” said the boy, “she is pretty.”

“If you like white girls,” said his sister.

“Is she expensive?” asked the boy of Hassan.

“Yes,” said Hassan, “young warrior. Do you wish to bid for her?”

“My father will not yet let me own a girl,” said the youngster.

“Ah,” said Hassan, understanding.

“But when I grow up,” said he’ “I shall become a raider, like you, and have ten such girls. When I see one I want, I will carry her away, and make her my slave.” He looked at Hassan. “They will serve me well, and make me happy.

“She is ugly,” said the boy’s sister. “Her body is white.”

“Is she a good slave?” asked the boy of Hassan.

“She is a stupid, miserable girl,” said Hassan, “who must be often beaten.”

“Too bad,” said the boy.

“Tend the verr,” said his sister, unpleasantly.

“If you were mine,” said the boy to Alyena, “I would tolerate no nonsense from you. I would make you be a perfect slave.”

“Yes, Master,” said Alyena, stripped before him, her teeth gritted.

“You may clothe yourself,” said the boy.

“Thank you, Master,” said Alyena. She pulled up her skirt and drew on her blouse, adjusted her cloak and hood. Whereas she could dismount from the kaiila blanket, which served her as saddle, she could not, unaided, reach its back. I, with my left band under her foot, lifted her to her place. “The little beast!” whispered Alyena to me, in English. I smiled.

“Have you seen, or heard, aught, young warrior,” asked Hassan, “of a tower of steel?”

The boy looked at him and laughed. “Your slave, Raider,” said he, indicating the irritated Alyena, now again mounted, well vexed, on her kaiila, “apparently makes your tea too strong.”

Hassan nodded his head, graciously. “My thanks, young warrior,” said he.

We then left the boy, and his sister, and their verr. She was scolding him about the verr. “Be quiet,” he told her, “or I will sell you to raiders from Red Rock.

In a year or two you will be pretty enough for a collar.” He then skipped away as she, shouting abuse, flung a rock after him. When we looked back again they were prodding their verr, leading them, doubtless, away from their camp. On our kaiila harness, we knew, we wore no bells.

“The oasis of the Battle of Red Rock,” said Hassan to me, “is one of the few outpost oases maintained by the Aretai. To its west and south is mostly Kavar country.”

At noon of the next day, I cried out, “There is the oasis.”

“No,” said Hassan.

I could see the buildings, whitish, with domes, the palms, the gardens, the high, circling walls of red clay.

I blinked. This seemed to me no illusion. “Can you not see it?” I asked Hassan, the others.

“I see it!” said Alyena.

“We, too, see it,” said Hassan, “but it is not there.”

“You speak in riddles, “ I said.

“It is a mirage,” said he.

I looked again. It seemed to me unlikely that this was a mirage. I was familiar with two sorts of mirages on the desert, of the sort which might be, and often were, seen by normal individuals under normal circumstances, not the mirages of the dehydrated body, the sun-crazed brain, not private hallucinatory images. The most common sort of mirage is simply the interpretation of heat waves, shimmering on, the desert, as the ripples in water, as in a lake or pond. When the sky is reflected in this rising, heated air, the mirage is even more striking, because then the surface of the “lake,” reflecting the sky, seems blue, and, thus, even more waterlike. A second common sort of mirage, more private than the first, but quite normal, is the interpretation of a mixed terrain, usually rocks and scrub brush, mixed with rising heat waves, as an oasis with water, palms and buildings. Perception is a quite complicated business, involving the playing of energies on the sensors, and the transduction of this energy into an interpreted visual world. All we are in physical contact with, of course, is the energy applied to the sensors. These physical energies are quite different from the “human world” of our experience, replete with color, sound and light. There is, of course, a topological congruence between the world of physics and the world of experience. Evolution has selected for such a congruence. Our experiential world, though quite unlike the world of physics, is well coordinated with it. If it were not we could not move our physical bodies conveniently among physical objects, manage to put our hands on things we wished to touch, and so on. Different sensory systems, as in various types of organisms, mean different experiential worlds. Each of these, however, the world of the man, the cuttlefish, the butterfly, the ant, the sleen, the Priest-King is congruent, though perhaps in unusual ways, with the presumably singular, unique physical world. Beyond this, perception is largely a matter of interpreting a flood of cues, or coded bits, out of which we construct a unified, coherent, harmonious world. Though the eye is a necessary condition for seeing, one does not, so to speak, “see” with the eye, but, oddly enough, with the brain. If the optic nerve, or, indeed, certain areas of the brain, could be appropriately stimulated one could have visual experiences without the use of eyes. Similarly, if the eye were in perfect condition, but the visual centers of the brain were defective, one could not “see.” Perhaps it is more correct to speak of a system of components necessary for visual experience, but, even if so, it is well to understand that what impinges upon the eyes are not visual realities but electromagnetic radiations. Further, what one sees is a function not simply of what exists in the external world, but of a number of other factors as well, for example, what one has familiarly seen before, what one expects to see, what others claim is there to be seen, what one wants to see, the physical condition of the organism, its conditioning and socialization, the conceptual and linguistic categories available to the organism, and so on. It is thus not unusual that, in a desert situation, a calm, normal person may, misinterpreting physical cues, make an oasis, complete with buildings and trees, out of energies reflected over a heated surface from rock and brush. There is nothing unusual in this sort of thing.