" He sighed, then shrugged. "My trouble is that I could never
keep my mouth shut. I was attendant at one of the revivatoria, and I got
drunk enough to let out some information about one of the important
revival cases. So here I am."
"Umm." Hanson worked silently for a minute, wondering how far
coincidence could go. It could go a long ways here, he decided. "You
wouldn't have been sentenced to twenty lifetimes here by the Sather
Karf, would you?"
The slave stared at him in surprise. "You guessed it. I've died only
fourteen times so far, so I've got six more lives to go. But--hey, you
can't be! They were counting on you to be the one who really fixed
things. Don't tell me my talking out of turn did this to you."
Hanson reassured him on that. He recognized the man now for another
reason. "Aren't you the one I saw dead on his back right next to me this
morning?"
"Probably. Name's Barg." He stood up to take a careful look at the net
of cording around the stone. "Looks sound enough. Yeah, I died this
morning, which is why I'm fairly fresh now. Those overseers won't feed
us because it takes time and wastes food; they let us die and then have
us dragged back for more work. It's a lot easier on the ones they
dragged back already dead; dying doesn't matter so much without a soul."
"Some of them seem to be Indians," Hanson noted. He hadn't paid too
much attention, but the slaves seemed to be from every possible
background.
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