"What a feast! _Krenoj_ soup, and I suppose followed by fresh _krenoj_ and _krenoj_ salad. Tomorrow I see about getting a little variety into the diet." "Ch'aka is great," she whispered without looking up. "Ch'aka is powerful...." "Jason is the name, I lost the Ch'aka job when they took the uniform away." "... Jason is powerful to work charms on the D'zertanoj and makes them do what he will. His slave thanks you." He lifted her chin and the dumb obedience in her eyes made him wince. "Can't we forget about the slavery bit? We are in this thing together and we'll get out of it together." "We will escape, I knew it. You will kill all the D'zertanoj and release your slaves and lead us home again where we can march and find _krenoj_ far from this terrible place." "Some girls are sure easy to please. That is roughly what I had in mind, except when we get out of here we are going in the other direction, as far away from your _krenoj_ crowd as I can get." Ijale listened attentively, stirring the soup with one hand and scratching inside her leather wrappings with the other. Jason found himself scratching as well, and realized from sore spots on his hide that he had been doing an awful lot of this since he had been dragged out of the ocean of this inhospitable planet. "Enough is enough!" he exploded and went over and hammered on the door. "This place is a far cry from civilization as I know it, but that is no reason why we can't be as comfortable as possible." Chains and bolts rattled outside the door and Narsisi pushed his gloom-ridden face in. "Why do you cry out? What is wrong?" "I need some water, lots of it." "But you have water," Narsisi said, puzzled, and pointed to a stone crock in the corner. "There is water there enough for days." "By your standards, Nars old boy, not mine. I want at least ten times as much as that and I want it now. And some soap, if there is such stuff in this barbaric place." There was a good deal of argument involved, but Jason finally got his way with the water by explaining it was needed for religious rites to make sure that he would not fail in the work tomorrow. It came in a varied collection of containers along with a shallow bowl full of powerful soft soap. "We're in business," he chortled. "Take your clothes off, I have a surprise for you." "Yes, Jason," Ijale said, smiling happily. "You're going to get a bath. Do you know what a bath is?" "No," she said, and shuddered. "It sounds evil." "Over here and off with the clothes," he ordered, poking at a hole in the floor. "This should serve as a drain, at least the water went away when I poured some into it."