"Back!" cried the askari, in the inland language, with his torch, thrusting it into the beast's mouth.

It roared with pain. Then, thrashing, squirming, hissing, it backed off in the shallow water. I saw its eyes and snout, nostrils open, almost level with the water.

"Away! Away!" shouted the askari, in the inland speech, brandishing his torch. Another askari, at his side, armed with a lance, gripping it with two hands, shouted, too, ready to support his fellow.

Interestingly the incident did not much affect the work in the area. From where I stood I could see hundreds of men, workmen and askaris, and many rafts, some weighted with supplies, others with logs and tools, some with mud and earth we had dug out of the swampy terrain, mud and earth which would be used to bank the flanking barricades, that the area in which we worked might be drained, that a proper channel might later be excavated.

"Are you all right?" I asked Ayari.

He wiped the flies away from his head. "I think I am sick." he said.

There was blood in the water about his leg.

"Return to work," said the askari with the torch, wading near us.

"You have had a narrow escape," I told Ayari.

He threw up into the water.

"Can you work?" asked the askari.

Ayari's leg seemed to buckle under him. He half fell in the water. "I cannot stand," he said.

I supported him.

"It is well that I am on the rogues' chain," grinned Ayari.

"Never before have I been so pleased with my profession," said he. "Had I not been chained, doubtless I would have been pulled away."

"That is quite possible," I told him.

Ayari was of Schendi, a thief. He had been put on the work levy for the canal of Bila Huruma. Schendi was using the misfortune of the levies in order, as much as possible, to rid itself of its less desirable citizens. I supposed she could scarcely be blamed. Ayari, of Schendi, of course, spoke Gorean. Happily, for me, he could also speak the tongue of the court of Bila Huruma. His father had, many years ago, fled from an inland village, that of Nyuki, noted for its honey, on the northern shore of lake Ushindi. The incident had had to do with the theft of several melons from the chief's patch. His father had returned some five years later to purchase his mother. They had then lived in Schendi. The inland speech hail been spoken in the home. It is estimated that some five to eight percent of the people of Schendi are familiar with the inland speech.

"Can you work?" asked the askari of Ayari.

Such simple phrases I could now make out, thanks to Ayari's tutoring.

More impressive to me was Ayari's capacity to read the drums, though, I am told, this is not difficult for anyone who can speak the inland speech fluently. Analogues to the major vowel sounds of the inland speech are found in certain of the drum notes, which differ, depending on where the hollowed, grooved log, is struck. The rhythm of the drum message, of course, is the rhythm of the inland speech. Thus, on the drum it is possible to duplicate, in effect, the vowels and intonation contours of inland sentences. When one adds to this certain additional drum signals corresponding, in effect, to keys to the message or to certain consonantal ciphers, one has, in effect, a direct, effective, ingenious device at one's disposal. given the drum relays, for long-distance communication. A message may be conveyed by means of drum stations for hundreds of pasangs in less than an Ahn. Needless to say Bila Huruma had adopted and improved this device and it had played, and continued to play, its role in the effectiveness of his military machine and in the efficiency of the administration of his ubarate. As a communication device it was clearly superior to the smoke and beacon ciphers of the north. There was, as far as I knew, nothing on Gor to compare with it except, of course; the advanced technological equipment at the disposal of the Priest-Kings and Kurii, equipment of a sort generally forbidden, in the weapons and communication laws, to most Gorean humans. I found it astonishing, and I think most Goreans would have, even those of Schendi, that a ubarate of the size and sophistication of that of Bali Huruma could exist in the equatorial interior. One of the most amazing evidences of its scope and ambition was the very project in which I was now unwillingly engaged, the visionary attempt to join Lakes Ushindi and Ngao, separated by more than four hundred pasangs, by a great canal, a canal that would, via Lake Ushindi and the Nyoka and Kamba rivers, then link the mysterious Ua river, it flowing into Lake Ngao, to gleaming Thassa, the sea, a linkage that would, given the Ua, open up to the civilized world the riches of the interior, riches that must then pass through the ubarate of Bila Huruma.

"Can you work?" repeated the askari to Ayari.

"No," said Ayari.

"Then I must have you killed," said the askari.

"I have made a speedy recovery," said Ayari.

"Good," said the askari and waded away, holding his torch above the water, The other askari, he with the tharlarion lance, accompanied him.

In a few moments the mud raft, of logs bound together with lianas, to be loaded with excavated mud, was again poled to our vicinity.

"Can you dig?" I asked Ayari.

"No," he said.

"I will dig for you," I said.

"You would, wouldn't you?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I will dig for myself," he said.

"How is your leg?" I asked.

"It is still there," he said.

Most of the workers on the canal were not chained. Most were impressed free men.

Waters from the overflow of Lake Ngao entered the great marsh between Ngao and Ushindi, and, thence, made their ways to Ushindi, which, by means of the Kamba and Nyoka, drained to gleaming Thassa, the sea. The intent of the engineers of Bila Huruma was to set in place two parallel walls, low walls, some five or six feet high, placed about two hundred yards apart. The area between these walls, the marsh waters diverted on either side, was then to be drained and readied for the digging of the main channel. In this work draft tharlarion and great scoops, brought from the north, as well as gigantic work crews, would be used. In the event that the central channel, when completed, would not prove sufficient to handle the overflow of Ngao, as seemed likely, conducting it geometrically to Ushindi, side channels were contemplated. The eventual intent of Bila Huruma was not only to open the rain forests of the deep interior, and whatever might lie within the system of the Ua and her tributaries, to commercial exploitation and military expansion, but to drain the marshes between the two mighty lakes, Ushindi and Ngao, that that land, then reclaimed, thousands of square pasangs, might eventually be made available for agriculture. It was the intent of Bila Huruma not only to consolidate a ubarate but found a civilization.

I slapped at insects.

"Work," said an askari, wading by.

I shoveled another load of mud from the marsh and flung it on the mud raft.

"Work, work," said the askari, encouraging others along the chain.

I looked about myself, at the hundreds of men I could see from where I stood. "This is an impressive project," I said to Ayari.

"Doubtless we can be pleased that we are a humble part of so mighty an undertaking," he mused.

"I suppose so," I said.

"On the other hand," said Ayari, "I would be content to surrender my part in this noble endeavor to others more worthy than myself."

"I, too," I admitted.

"Dig," said an askari.

We continued to shovel mud onto the mud raft.

"Our only hope," said a man to my left, also, like Ayari, from Schendi, "are the hostile tribes."

"That is some hope," said Ayari. "If it were not for the askaris they would fall upon us with their slaughtering knives."