He took a bath and changed clothes. Then Jack Odin read one of those books that Grim Hagen had stolen. It was a first edition of the Rubaiyat, the one with the jeweled peacock cover, and it would have been worth a fortune back home. But here it was just another of Grim Hagen's treasures--it was dusty and neglected, and Odin wondered if he were not the first to take a look at it since Hagen had brought it here. The windows were dark when Gunnar returned. Jack Odin sat by a single tiny light, and greeted his old friend in a glum and sour fashion. But Gunnar was in a gay mood. "Look, I told you that my magic would do great tricks. See, the bag is nearly empty." He held the buckskin bag high and it was much thinner than before. "You waited, did you? Good, Nors-King. I had to make sure that no one came here while I was gone." "Just myself," Odin replied. "Now what--" "Oh, I told you I had great magic in that bag. You shall see." Gunnar returned to the door, opened it, and led a tall white-skinned slave into the room. A man of about thirty dressed in white uniform with some sort of insignia upon his shoulders. Odin had never bothered to learn the different gradations in Grim Hagen's slave-world. "This man goes by the name of Piper," Gunnar announced simply. The man bowed and smiled nervously. "And he is a Bro-Stoka among the slaves," Gunnar continued. Odin was about to reply that he didn't give a damn if the man were a colonel or a two star general. But Gunnar hurried on to explain. "A Stoka is a captain of a hundred. But a Bro-Stoka is a captain over ten Stokas and all their men. Not often does one advance so at an early age--" Gunnar seemed to be buttering up the man for some reason or other so Jack Odin decided to go along. "I have never seen a Bro-Stoka so young," he admitted. This was true, Odin thought, since this was the first Bro-Stoka who had ever been identified to him. And he wondered if maybe Bro-Stoka were not a local term for "Ninety Day Wonder." God knows he had seen too many of them. * * * * * Gunnar seated himself comfortably and swung the nearly empty bag to and fro. "Ah, I told you that I carried great magic in the bag. With Piper's help, Maya will be ours before midnight." Odin's lethargy was gone now. "Gunnar, old friend! What magic was in that bag of yours?" "The oldest magic in the world. Pieces of gold, diamonds, and rubies. When we left the Nebula I said to myself that if Grim Hagen owned everything here, it was quite possible that many would be eating very little. Knowing Grim Hagen, I said to myself, there will be a mad scramble for money and position. It would be the only kind of a world that Grim Hagen could fashion." Odin slapped him on the back. "Gunnar, you are a genius, a sheer genius." "Not at all. When I was a young man I learned such strategy from studying the world above me." Odin winced.