He signed wearily and shifted his viewpoint to a surrogate which overlooked the village itself. What, he wondered, had happened to the herdsmen--and to the guards who should be overseeing the day's work? * * * * * Half hidden among ferns and the mastlike stems of trees, the rude huts of Tibara nestled in the forest, blending with their surroundings, until only the knowing observer could identify them by vague form. Barra shifted his viewpoint to the central village surrogate. There were other open spaces in the village, but this was the largest. Here was the village well, near which a few children played some incomprehensible game. An old man had collected a pile of rock and had started work on the well curb. Now, he sat near his work, leaning against the partly torn down wall. Spots of sunlight, coming through the fronds high above, struck his body, leaving his face in shadow. He dozed in the warmth, occasionally allowing his eyes to half open as he idly regarded the scene before him. Before some of the huts surrounding the rude plaza, women squatted on the ground, their arms swinging monotonously up and down as they struck their wooden pestles into bowls of grain which they were grinding to make the coarse meal which was their mainstay of diet. A few men could be seen, scratching at small garden plots or idly repairing tools. Others squatted near their huts, their attention occupied by fishing gear. Still others merely leaned against convenient trees, looking at each other, their mouths moving in the grotesque way of the pseudoman when he could find an excuse to idle away time. Barra listened to the meaningless chatter of grunts and hisses, then disregarded the sounds. They formed, he had been told, a sort of elementary code of communication. He coughed disparagingly. Only some subhuman could bring himself to study such things. Of course, he knew that some lacklanders could make vocal converse with the pseudomen and caravan masters seemed to do it as a regular thing, but he could see no point in such effort. He could make his demands known without lowering himself by making idiotic noises. His communicator crystals would drive simple thoughts into even the thick skulls of his slaves. And he could--and did--thus get obedience and performance from those slaves by using normal, sensible means as befitted one of the race of true men. And what would one want of the pseudomen other than obedience? Would one perhaps wish to discuss matters of abstract interest with these beast men? He regarded the scene with growing irritation. Now, he remembered. It was one of those days of rest which some idiot in the Council had once sponsored. And a group of soft-headed fools had concurred, so that one now had to tolerate periodic days of idleness. Times had changed, he thought. There had been a time when slaves were slaves and a man could expect to get work from them in return for his protection and support.