"Then you decline?" I asked Samos.

"Yes," said Samos, "I decline."

"Let us not send a captain," said Antisthenes. "Let us send one who is from Ar or Thentis, who can speak for us."

"Antisthenes is wise," I said, "and understands the risks involved, but many of the words Samos has addresssed to us seem to me sound and true, and chief among them his aassertion that it should be a captain who conducts this mission, for how else could we so easily prove the seriousness of our intentions, if not to Cos and Tyros, then to their allies and to undeclared port and cites on the islands and coasts of gleaming Thassa, and to those communites inland as well, with whom we might well improve our trade?"

"But," said Bejar, "who among us will go?"

There was laughter in the council.

When it was silent, I said, "I, Bosk, might go."

The captains regared one another.

"Did you not decline?" asked Samos.

"No," I smiled, "I only suggested that one more worthy than myself undertake so weighty a task."

"Do not go," said Antisthenes.

"What is your price?" asked Samos.

"A galley," I said, "a ram-ship, heavy class."

I had no such ship.

"It will be yours," said Samos.

"— if you can return to claim it," muttered a captain, darkly.

"Do not go," said Antisthenes.

"He will have, of course," said Samos, "the immunity of the herald." The captains said nothing.

I smiled.

"Do not go, Bosk, Captain," said Antisthenes.

I already had a plan. Had I not had one, I should not have volunteered. The possibility of peace on Thassa was an attractive one to me, a merchant. If Cos and Tyros could be convinced to make peace, and it could be held, my fortunes would considerably increase. Cos and Tyros themselves are important markets, not to mention their allies, and the ports and cities either affiliated with Cos and Tyros, or favorable to them. Further, even if my mission failed, I would be richer by a galley, and that a ram-ship of heavy class, the most redoubtalbe naval weapon on gleaming Thassa. There were risks, of course, but I had taken them into account. I would not go as a fool to Cos and Tyros.

"And," I said, "as escort, I will require five ram-ships from the arsenal, of medium or heavy class, to be captained and crewed by men selected by myself." "Whic ships," asked Samos, "are returned to the arsenal upon the completion of your mission?"

"Of course," I said.

"You shall have them," said Samos.

We looked at one another. I asked myself if Samos throught he was so easily rid of me, one who might challenge him, senior captain, in the council of captains of Port Kar. Yes, I said to myself, he thinks he is so easily rid of me. I smiled to myself. I myself did not believe he was.

"Do not go, Bosk, Captain," pleaded Antisthenes.

I rose to my feet. "Antisthenes, Captain, " I said, "I am grateful for your concern." I shook my head, and stretched. And then I turned to the captains of the tiers. "You may continue your business now without me," I said. "I am going to return to my holding. The night has been long, and I have lost much sleep." I gathered up my cloak, and my helmet, it was the captain's crest of sleen hair, and left the chamber.

Outside I was joined by Thurnock and Clitus, and many of my men.

12 I Fish in the Canal

It was late at night, two nights after the unsuccessful coup of Henrius Sevarius.

I was waiting for my ships, and those of the arsenal, to be made ready for my trip, my mission of peace, to Cos and Tyros.

In my role as captain I was often about the city, accompanied by Thurnock, and Clitus, and a squad of my men.

Until the formation of the council guard, the captains and their men would have for their responsiblity the maintaining of watches throughout the city. Even before the emergency session of the council, the night of the unsuccessful coup, had concluded, slaves, instructed by men of the arsenal, were raising walls about the various holdings of Henrius Sevarius. His wharves, moreover, were, with arsenal ships, almost immediately blockaded by sea.

Now, from the height of one of the investing walls, some hundred yards from the high bleak wall of one of the holdings of Sevarius, said to be his palace, I, with Thurock, Clitus, and others, by the light of Gor's three moons, observed the opening of a postern gate. At the base of the wall, extending for some twenty yards, tehre was a tiled expanse, which suddenly dropped off, sheer, into a canal, where it might give access to the city or sea, by sea gates. We observed, in the light of the three Gorean moons, some five men emerging from the tiny iron gate. They were carrying something in a large, tied sack. Slowly they made their way toward the edge of the canal.

"Stop, men of Henrius Sevarius!" I shouted. "Stop, Traitors!"

"Hurry!" cried one of them. I recognized his voice, and his frame. It was Lysias, friend of the regent Claudius, client of the Ubar Henrius Sevarius. I saw another man look up in alarm. It was Henrak, he who had betrayed the rencers.

"Hurry!" I said to my men.

I, followd by Clitus and Thurnock, and others, leaped over the wall and ran toward the edge of the canal.

The men were now hastening forward, to hurl the sack into the dark waters. Thurnock stopped long enough to draw his great bow. One of the men, hit by the arrow, spun away, rolling across the tiles, snapping the shaft.

The others, now at the edge of the canal, with a heave, flung the sac far out into the water.

A crossbow bolt slipped through the air, passing between myself and Clitus. The four men now turned and began to run back toward the postern gate. Before they could reach the gate Thurnock's great bow had struck twice more. Lysias and Henrak, and no other, fled back through the gate.

One of the bodies Thurnock had struck lay dark, sprawled on the tiles, some fifteen yards from the gate; the other lay, inert and twisted in the shadows, at the very portal itself.

"Knife!" I said.

I was handed a knife.

"Do not, Captain!" cried Thurnock.

Already I could see the sleek, wet muzzles of urts, eyes like ovals of blazing copper, streaking through the dark waters toward the bag.

I leaped into the cold waters, the knife between my teeth.

The sack, filling with water, began to sink, and, as I reached it, it had slipped beneath the water. I cut it open and seized the bound arm of the body inside it.

I heard an arrow flash into the water near me and heard a high-pitched pain squeal from one of the web-footed canal urts. Then there was the sound of biting and tearing and thrashing in the water, as other urts attacked the injured one. Knife again between my teeth, pulling the bound thing from the sack, I shoved it's head above water. It was gagged as well as bound, and I saw its eyes wild, inches over the murky waters of the canal. It was a boy, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old.

I brought it to the edge of the canal and one of my men, lying on his stomach, extending his hand downward, caught him under the arm.

Then I saw Clitus' net flash over my head and heard the confused protesting squeal of another urt, and then Clitus, again and again, was thrusting into the dark waters with his trident.

I felt my leg then caught in the jaws of an urt, like triple bands of steel, set with needles, and was dragged beneath the surface. I thrust my thumbs in its ears and tore it's head back from my leg. The mouth kept reaching for me, head turned to the side, trying for the throat. I let it free and as it snapped at me I knocked it jaws up and slipped behind it, my left arm locked about its broad, furred throat. I got the knife from between my teeth and, with it, sometimes half out of the water, sometimes beneath it, thrashing and twisting, thrust the blade a dozen times into its hide.