"She wore no collar," said Samos.
"I do not understand," I said. I was genuinely puzzled.
"She was clothed as a free woman and was among the passengers," said Samos. "She was not stripped until she stood on the deck of the ship of Bejar and was put in chains with the other captured women."
"She was a passenger," I said.
"Yes," said Samos, "a passenger."
"Her passage papers were in order?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Interesting," I said.
"I thought so," said Samos.
"Why would an Earth girl, almost totally ignorant of Gorean, unbranded, free, be traveling on a ship of Cos?"
"I think, clearly, it has something to do with the Others, the Kurii," said Samos.
"That seems likely," I said.
"Bejar," said Samos, "one well known to me, discerning that she was both unbranded and barbarian, and ignorant of Gorean, and knowing my interest in such matters, called her to my attention. I had her, hooded, brought here from his pens."
"It is an interesting mystery," I said. "Are you certain you do not wish me to question her in her own language?
"No," said Samos. "Or certainly not at present."
"As you wish," I said.
"Sit down," said Samos. He gestured to a place behind the small table on which we had had supper.
I sat down, cross-legged, behind the table, and he sat down, cross-legged, across from me.
"Do you recognize this?" asked Samos. He reached into his robes and drew forth a small leather packet, which he unfolded. From this he took a large ring, but too large for the finger of a human, and placed it on the table.
"Of course," I said, "it is the ring which I obtained in the Tahari, that ring which projects the light diversion field, which renders its wearer invisible in the normal visible range of the spectrum."
"Is it?" asked Samos.
I looked at the ring. I picked it up. It was heavy, golden, with a silver plate. On the outside of the ring, opposite the bezel, was a recessed, circular switch. When a Kur wore the ring on a digit of his left paw, and turned the bezel inward the switch would be exposed. He could then depress it with a digit of his right paw. The left hemisphere of the Kur brain, like the left hemisphere of the human brain, tends to be dominant. Most Kurii, like most men, as a consequence of this dominance of the left hemisphere, tend to be "right pawed," or right handed, so to speak. One press on the switch on the Tahari ring had activated the field, a second press had resulted in its deactivation. Within the invisibility shield the spectrum is shifted, permitting one to see outward, though in a reddish light.
"I would suppose so," I said.
I looked at the ring. I had given the Tahari ring to Samos, long ago, shortly after returning from the Tahari, that he might send it to the Sardar for analysis. I thought such a device might be of use to agents of Priest-Kings. I was puzzled that it was not used more often by Kurii. I had heard nothing more of the ring.
"Are you absolutely sure," asked Samos, "that this is the ring which you gave me to send to the Sardar?"
"It certainly seems much like it," I said.
"Is it the same ring?" he asked.
"No," I said. I looked at it more closely. "No," I said, "it is not the same ring. The Tahari ring had a minute scratch at the corner of the silver plate."
"I did not think it was," said Samos.
"If this is an invisibility ring, we are fortunate to have it fall into our grasp," I said.
"Do you think such a ring would be entrusted to a human agent?" asked Samos.
"It is not likely," I said.
"It is my belief that this ring does not cast the invisibility shield," said Samos.
"I see," I said.
"Take care not to press the switch," said Samos.
"I will," I said. I put the ring down.
"Let me speak to you of the five rings," said Samos. "This is information which I have received but recently from the Sardar, but it is based on an intelligence thousands of years old, obtained then from a delirious Kur commander, and confirmed by documents obtained in various wreckages, the most recent of which dates from some four hundred years ago. Long ago, perhaps as long as forty thousand years ago, the Kurii possessed a technology far beyond what they now maintain. The technology which now makes them so dangerous, and so advanced, is but the remnants of a technology mostly destroyed in their internecine struggles, those which culminated in the destruction of their world. The invisibility rings were the product of a great Kur scientist, one we may refer to in human phonemes, for our convenience, as Prasdak of the Cliff of Karrash. He was a secretive craftsman and, before he died, he destroyed his plans and papers. He left behind him, however, five rings. In the sacking of his city, which took place some two years after his death, the rings were found."
"What became of the rings?" I asked.
"Two were destroyed in the course of Kur history," said Samos. "One was temporarily lost upon the planet Earth some three to four thousand years ago, it being taken from a slain Kur commander by a man named Gyges, a herdsman, who used its power to usurp the throne of a country called Lydia, a country which then existed on Earth."
I nodded. Lydia, I recalled, had fallen to the Persians in the Sixth Century B.C., to utilize one of the Earth chronologies. That would, of course, have been long after the time of Gyges.
"One is reminded of the name of the river port at the mouth of the Laurius," said Samos.
"Yes," I said. The name of that port was Lydius.
"Perhaps there is some connection," speculated Samos.
"Perhaps," I said. "Perhaps not." It was often difficult to know whether isolated phonetic similarities indicated a historical relationship or not. In this case I thought it unlikely, given the latitude and style of life of Lydius. On the other hand, men of Lydia might possibly have been involved in its founding. The Voyages of Acquisition, of Priest-Kings, I knew, had been of great antiquity. These voyages now, as I understood it, following the Nest War, had been discontinued.
"Kurii came later for the ring," said Samos. "Gyges was slain. The ring itself, somehow, was shortly thereafter destroyed in an explosion."
"Interesting," I said.
"That left two rings," said Samos.
"One of them was doubtless the Tahari ring," I said.
"Doubtless," said Samos.
I looked at the ring on the table. "Do you think this is the fifth ring?" I asked.
"No," said Samos. "I think the fifth ring would be too precious to be taken from the steel world on which it resides. I do not think it would be risked on Gor."
"Perhaps they have now learned how to duplicate the rings," I ventured.
"That seems to me unlikely for two reasons," said Samos. "First, if the ring could be duplicated, surely in the course of Kur history, particularly before the substantial loss of their technology and their retreat to the steel worlds, it would have been. Secondly, given the secretive nature of the rings' inventor, Prasdak of the Cliff of Karrash, I suspect there is an additional reason which mitigates against the dismantlement of the ring and its consequent reproduction."
"The secret, doubtless, could be unraveled by those of the Sardar," I said. "What progress have they made with the ring from the Tahari?"
"The Tahari ring never reached the Sardar," said Samos. "I learned this only a month ago."
I did not speak. I sat behind the table, stunned.
"To whom," I then asked, "did you, entrust the delivery of the ring to the Sardar."
"To one of our most trusted agents," said Samos.
"Who?" I asked.
" Shaba, the geographer of Anango, the explorer of Lake Ushindi, the discoverer of Lake Ngao and the Ua River," said Samos.
"Doubtless he met with foul play," I said.
"I do not think so," said Samos.
"I do not understand," I said.
"This ring," said Samos, indicating the ring on the table, "was found among the belongings of the girl in the tharlarion cell below. It was with her when her ship was captured by Bejar."