Maske: Thaery Read Free

minimize malingering and slowdowns, 10 and now walked from hut to hut beating on the roofs with a pole and calling out the names of his employees. Presently they crawled forth and followed him along the trail, grumbling that the day was unlucky and at the very least threatened rain and chill.
    During the morning the clouds edged closer, striking at the mountains with claws of purple lightning; wind groaned through the high crevasses of Mount Cardoon. The three Djan worked nervously, accomplishing little and pausing every few seconds to appraise the sky. Jubal himself became ill at ease: it was never wise to ignore the intuitions of the Djan.
    An hour before noon the wind stopped short; the mountains became unnaturally quiet. Again the Djan halted in their work to listen. Jubal heard nothing. He asked the nearest Djan: “What do you hear?”
    “Nothing, master.”
    Jubal climbed down the slope to the rock-slide. He rolled a stone into the sling. The line remained slack.
    Jubal looked up the slope. The Djan were listening, graceful heads raised. Jubal also listened. From far away sounded a curious pulsing whine. Jubal looked around the sky but mist obscured the view. The sound dwindled to nothing.
    The rope tightened; the Djan worked the winch with a sudden access of energy.
    Midday arrived. Safalael, the youngest Djan, brewed tea and the four took lunch in the shelter of a great boulder. Mist blew up the moor, condensing to a fine drizzle. The Djan made finger-signals among themselves. When Jubal returned to work, they hesitated, but, being three, could form no common purpose, and followed without zest.
    Jubal returned down to the rock-slide. He threw the sling around a stone and gave the signal to lift. The line remained loose. Jubal looked up the slope to find the Djan once again poised in the act of listening.
    Jubal opened his mouth to bellow orders, but checked himself and also listened.
    From the west came a jingle and a grunting chant: the march-measure by which a Djan troop coordinated its step when on the move.
    Along the trail appeared a Thariot riding a single-wheeled ercycle; then a column of thirty-two perrupters—warriors recruited from Djan ‘solitaries’—trotting four abreast. The Thariot rode sternly erect: a man of striking appearance, with large prominent eyes, a proud mouth, a black ram’s-horn mustache. He wore a black tunic over gray velvet trousers, a black hat with a wide slanting brim. He displayed no culbrass 11 ; his appearance and posture nevertheless suggested high caste. He rode in evident haste, with no thought for his panting escort.
    In puzzlement Jubal watched the approaching column: where had they come from? The trail led to Glentlin, making no connection with the Isedel lowlands.
    Arriving at the break in the trail the ercycle-rider stopped short and made a gesture of petulant impatience.
    Then, suddenly becoming aware first of the three Djan workers, then Jubal, he drew back and tugged down the brim of his hat. Odd indeed! thought Jubal; the man seemed furtive. Clearly he was in a hurry, and in a mood to attempt the precarious way across Jubal’s construction.
    Jubal called out a warning: “The trail can’t be used! It will collapse under you! Go around the hill!”
    The rider, from perversity, or arrogance, paid no heed. He rolled forward, down to the makeshift path.
    The perrupters plunged forward, four abreast. Jubal cried out in consternation: “Stop! You’ll destroy the wall!”
    The rider, with a sidelong glance down at Jubal, rolled on, wobbling and sliding. The front ranks of the troop, stubbornly four abreast, dislodged stones, which bounded down-slope. Jubal scrambled and dodged. “You cursed fool!” he screamed. “Go back! Or I’ll have a warrant on you!”
    The perrupters marched on, compressing their ranks where the path pinched them between mountainside and loosely stacked stones. The rider spoke something over his shoulder and accelerated his pace. The