"
"Why, that's beastly!" Dalla exclaimed.
"Anything on the Khiftan Sector is." Skordran Kirv looked at the four
slaves at the tables. "We don't have a really bad case here, now. A
few of these people were lash-burned horribly, though."
Vall was looking at the other sketches. One was a musket, with a wide
butt and a band-fastened stock; the lock-mechanism, vaguely flintlock,
had been dotted in tentatively. The other was a long pistol, similarly
definite in outline and vague in mechanical detail; it was merely a
knob-butted miniature of the musket.
"I've seen firearms like these; have a lot of them in my collection,"
he said, handing back the sketches. "Low-order mechanical or
high-order pre-mechanical cultures. Fact is, things like those could
have been made on the Kholghoor Sector, if the Kharandas had learned
to combine sulfur, carbon and nitrates to make powder."
The interrogator at one of the tables had evidently heard all his
subject could tell him. He rose, motioning the slave to stand.
"Now, go with that man," he said in Kharanda, motioning to one of the
detectives in native guard uniform.
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