"H. Beam Piper - First Cycle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

Among the people of the coastal swamps, a sort of democratic socialism prevailed. Crops were planted
and harvested in common, each family being responsible for its fair share of the work. Catches of fish
were smoked and stored as common stock. The business of the villages was conducted in open conclave
of all adult males who had "Walked the Walk," as the rite of passage for males was called. The women
and children yelled assent or disapproval from the sidelines. So, when the trade with the people up the
Gvaru became important, each Navvazorf village selected a family to move up to Amarush and deal with
the uplanders.

Tammak, chief of the Darbba, sat on his pile of skin robes at the end of the village council-hut and
looked across the fire at the dozen-odd tribal elders who had gathered with him. His throat was dry, and
his hands clenched on the rawhide-wrapped grip of the stone mace that was both his personal weapon
and his scepter of status. It was now, he realized, or never. The thing he was about to pro pose was
frighteningly novel, and novelty, at best, was always frightening. A chieftain ruled only as far, and as long,
as his people were willing to accept his rule, and this thing he had dreamed of would be hard for them to
accept, or even comprehend.

"It is still two sun-trips until the hot season, and the trading will not start for another sun-trip after that,"
one of the elders said. "Why need we hurry? The longer we wait, the more skins we will have to trade."

"We will not take skins to trade," Tammak explained. "We will take only our weapons. The women and
children, who will follow behind us, will carry the skins along with the rest of the household goods."

"But we cannot trade our weapons!" an elder objected. "And why must the women and children come?
That has never been heard of. Trading journeys are for men!"

"It is so," Tammak agreed. "But we will not trade. We will go early to Amarush, before any of the trading
groups arrive, and we will kill everybody in the village and take it for ourselves."

"A raid? A raid on Amarush? That has never been heard of. No one raids Amarush. Amarush is the
place where we barter."

"And why are we to take our women and children on a raid? That has never been heard of. Let them
wait here, where they will be safe!"

"It is not to be a raid. It is to be something-greater-than-a-raid, and we will not return. We will stay
forever in Amarush."

"But our fields are here! And our village! Tammak, the gods have been spitting on you! The job of our
chief is to lead us in defense of our fields and our village, not to lead us away from them!"

"Amarush is a better village than this, and there are good fields at Amarush. We will take Amarush, and
trade with the people from down-river who come to Amarush, and the people from the woods, and the
mountains. I have seen the traders of Amarush. They live in fine houses, much better than our poor huts.
They have garments of thin cloth for the summers and of soft-downed skins and thick quilted cloth for the
winters. They sit in the shade of their awnings; they feast, wasting enough food at a meal to feed two
families. Why should we not take what they have and live easily, as they do?"

"But that is not proper, Tammak," one of the elders cried out. Gozzom, who was next eldest to Tammak,
and by tribal custom his successor. Tammak shifted his grip slightly on the mace-handle. "We are not