The River Wall by Randall Garrett Read Free Book Online Page A

will consider abandoning the most dangerous mine, and establishing the entire mining operation on an employment basis.”
    It can’t have hurt her chances for acceptance of this plan
, I thought,
that the dangerous mine she proposes to close down belongs to her own family, the Harthim.
    I remembered the time I had spent at the Lingis mine—not as a slave but as one of their guards. It had suited Indomel’s humor to keep Tarani and me apart, each of us hostage for the good behavior of the other. The Lingis mine was a surface mine with deposits of copper ore that occurred near the surface of the hilly area, and the duty of the slaves there had been harsh enough. The Harthim mine had followed the ore lode straight into the side of a mountain, so that the slaves were essentially working in an unsupported tunnel mine. Between the collapsing walls and the congested air, the slaves had little hope of survival.
    Ricardo Carillo—the man I had been before my personality arrived in Gandalara—had accumulated an amazing assortment of unrelated information during his long life, and I had not lost his habit of examining and comparing information in order to find meaning in facts. It had hampered neither Ricardo nor Rikardon that I often peered out at those facts from inside an empty well of ignorance—very often, the level of water in the well rose in the course of such an exercise.
    It occurred to me now to speculate on the geologic trauma that could create an area as large as Gandalara with rich deposits of copper and tin, but almost no iron. The only iron in Gandalara seemed to be mined from the remains of a meteor that had crashed into the wall above Raithskar, thousands of years ago.
    There is no native iron
, I thought,
but plentiful native copper. No, wait, there’s another way of looking at that. Copper has been found only in the hills—at a lower level, I think, than the iron near Raithskar, but nonetheless above the floor of Gandalara. You could say that neither one is truly native to Gandalara. The green marble that is quarried in Omergol is also pulled out of a hillside. If you define Gandalara as the flat area between the “walls” (considering that in most areas, mountain ranges are called “walls” as a Gandalaran convention), then the only thing truly native to Gandalara is salt.
    Something nibbled at the edge of my consciousness, a frustrating half-image, like the face of someone whose name is familiar but will not come to mind. I reached for it, almost had it—then Charol’s voice drew me back from my thoughts.
    Veron was walking away from us, toward a doorway on the opposite side of the courtyard from the visitors’ area. Tarani and Charol were both staring at me, Charol with concern written clearly in his expression, Tarani with faint amusement and a touch of impatience.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, laughing. “I was thinking. Do I owe Veron an apology for being rude?”
    “Not at all,” Charol said. “It is clear to him, as to me, that you are concerned with grave matters. You spoke of a coming choice, Captain. May I hazard a guess that it has something to do with the theft of the Ra’ira?”
    Tarani jumped, and Charol smiled.
    “The Fa’aldu have never believed that
knowing
about the affairs of the world is the same as
meddling
in them, High Lord.” His smile faded. “Normally we choose to learn of such things indirectly, but I feel this situation warrants the ill manners of direct inquiry. Captain? The choice?”
    “I hope it never comes, Respected Elder, but—yes, the Ra’ira is involved. I would say more, but …”
    I glanced at Tarani, who hesitated only a moment before speaking.
    “Rikardon hesitates out of consideration for me,” she said. “We share a truth which has been hidden for centuries. I give him my consent to share it with you, as well, Charol, but I give you a warning: in accepting this knowledge, you are making that choice.”
    I hadn’t considered it in those terms,