Best description of the guns
we've gotten so far. No question that they're flintlocks." He saw
Verkan Vall. "Oh, hello, Assistant Verkan. What do you make of them?
You're an authority on outtime weapons, I understand."
"I'd have to see them. These people simply don't think mechanically
enough to give a good description. A lot of peoples make flintlock
firearms."
He started running over, in his mind, the paratemporal areas in which
gunpowder but not the percussion-cap was known. Expanding cultures,
which had progressed as far as the former but not the latter. Static
cultures, in which an accidental discovery of gunpowder had never been
followed up by further research. Post-debacle cultures, in which a few
stray bits of ancient knowledge had survived.
Another interrogator came over, and then the fourth. For a while they
sat and talked and drank coffee, and then the next quartet of slaves,
two men and two women, were brought in. One of the women had been
badly blistered by the electric whips of the Wizard Traders; in spite
of reassurances, all were visibly apprehensive.
"We will not harm you," one of the psychists told them.
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