ig bronzes make a silver cowrie, the price of an
acre of land. Haruna, will you teach me your off-world farming? Will you
allow me to buy land that neighbors yours?"

"_Sei schtill, Buu_," Aaron said, laughing. "Before you reap your first
crop, you must find me the Sarki."

"We are here, Master Haruna."

* * * * *

The Sarki's house was no larger than its neighbors, Moorish-styled and
domed-roofed like the others; but it wore on its streetside walls
designs cut into the stucco, scrolls and arabesques. Just above the
doorway, which opened spang onto the broadway of Datura, a grinning
face peered down upon the visitors, its eyes ruby-colored glass.

Waziri pounded the door for Aaron, and stepped aside to let his new
employer do the speaking. They were admitted to the house by a thin, old
man wearing a pink turban. As they followed this butler down a hallway,
Aaron and Waziri heard the shrieks and giggles of feminine consternation
that told of women being herded into the zenana. The Amishman glimpsed
one of the ladies, perhaps Sarki Kazunzumi's most junior wife, dashing
toward the female sanctuary. Her eyes were lozenges of antimony; her
hands, dipped in henna, seemed clad in pale kid gloves. Aaron, recalling
pointers on Murnan etiquette he'd received at Georgetown, elaborately
did not see the lady. He removed his hat as the turbaned butler bowed
him to a plush-covered sofa. Waziri was cuffed to a mat beside the door.

"_Rankeshi dade!_" the Sarki said. "May the Mother bring you the light
of understanding."

"Light and long life, O Sarki," Stoltzfoos said, standing up.

"Will the guest who honors my roof-cup taste coffee with his fortunate
host?" the Sarki asked.

"The lucky guest will be ever the Sarki's servant if your Honor allows
him to share his pleasure with his fellow-farmer and employee, Waziri
the son of Musa," Aaron said.

"You'd better have hired mice to guard your stored grain, O Haruna; and
blowflies to curry your cattle, than to have engaged the son of Musa as
a farmer," Kazunzumi growled. "Waziri has little light of understanding.
He will try to win from the soil what only honest sweat and Mother's
grace can cause to grow. This boy will gray your beard, Haruna."

"Perhaps the sun that warms the soil will light his brains to
understanding," Aaron suggested.

"Better that your hand should leave the plowhandle from time to time to
warm his lazy fundament," the Sarki