The Green Odyssey | Page 5

wandering for a week and almost starving to
death he'd been picked up by some peasants. They had turned him in to the soldiers of a
nearby garrison, thinking he must be a runaway slave on whom they'd collect a reward.
Taken to the capital city of Quotz, Green had almost been freed because there was no
record of his being anybody's property. But his tallness, blondness and inability to speak
the local language had convinced his captors that he must have wandered down from
some far northern country. Therefore if he wasn't a slave he should be.
Presto, changeo! He was. And he'd put in six months in a quarry and a year as a dock
worker. Then the Duchess had chanced to see him on the streets as she rode by, and he'd
been transferred to the castle.
The streets were alive with the short, dark, stocky natives and the taller,
lighter-complexioned slaves. The former wore their turbans of various colors, indicating
their status and trade. The latter wore their three-cornered hats. Occasionally a priest in
his high conical hat, hexagonal spectacles and goatee rode by. Wagons and rickshaws
drawn by men or by big, powerful dogs went by. Merchants stood at the fronts of their
shops and hawked their wares in loud voices. They sold cloth, grixtr nut, parchment,
knives, swords, helmets, drugs, books-- on magic, on religion, on travel-- spices,
perfumes, ink, rugs, highly sugared drinks, wine, beer, tonic, paintings, everything that
went to make up their civilization. Butchers stood before open shops where dressed fowl,
deer and dogs hung. Dealers in birds pointed out the virtues of their many-colored and
multi-songed pets.
For the thousandth time Green wondered at this strange planet where the only large
animals were men, dogs, grass cats, a small deer and a very small equine. In fact, there
was a paucity of any variety of animal life, except for the surprisingly large number of
birds. It was this scarcity of horses and oxen, he supposed, that helped perpetuate slavery.
Man and dog had to provide most of the labor.
No doubt there was an explanation for all this, but it must be buried so deep in this
people's forgotten history that one would never know. Green, always curious, wished that
he had time and means to explore. But he didn't. He might as well resign himself to
keeping a whole skin and to getting out of this mess as fast as he could.
There was enough to do merely to make his way through the narrow and crowded streets.
He had to display his baton often to clear a path, though when he approached the harbor
area he had less trouble because the streets were much wider.
Here great wagons drawn by gangs of slaves carried huge loads to or from the ships. The

thoroughfares had to be broad, else the people would have been crushed between wagon
and house. Here also were the so-called Pens, where the dock-slaves lived. Once the area
had actually been an enclosure where men and women were locked up for the night, But
the walls had been torn down and new houses built in the old Duke's time. The closest
Earthly parallel Green could think of for these edifices was a housing project. Small
cottages, all exactly alike, set in military columns.
For a moment he considered stopping off to see Amra, then decided against it. She'd get
him tied up in an argument or something, and he'd spend too much time trying to soothe
her, time that should be spent at the marketplace. He hated scenes, whereas Amra was a
born self-dramatist who reveled in them, almost wallowed, one might say.
He averted his eyes from the Pens and looked at the other side of the street, where the
walls of the great warehouses towered. Workmen swarmed around them, and cranes,
operated by gangs pushing wheels like a ship's capstan, raised or lowered big bundles.
Here, he thought, was a business opportunity for him.
Introduce the steam engine. It'd be the greatest thing that ever bit this planet.
Wood-burning automobiles could replace the rickshaws. Cranes could be run by
donkey-engines. The ships themselves could have their wheels powered by steam. Or
perhaps, he thought, rails could be laid across the Xurdimur, and locomotives would
make the ships obsolete.
No, that wouldn't work. Iron rails cost too much. And the savages that roved over the
grassy plains would tear them up and forge weapons from them.
Besides, every time he suggested to the Duke a new and much more efficient method of
doing something he ran dead into the brick wall of tradition and custom. Nothing new
could be accepted unless the gods accepted it. The gods' will was interpreted by the
priests. The priests