Presently my captors led me into an open square surrounded by larger if not more beautiful buildings than we had previously passed. Yet even here were squalor and indications of inefficiency and incompetence.
I was led into a building the entrance to which was guarded by soldiers. Vilor, Moosko, and the leader of the party that had captured me accompanied me into the interior, where, in a bare room, a large, gross appearing man was asleep in a chair with his feet on a table that evidently served him both as desk and dining table, for its top was littered with papers and the remains of a meal.
Disturbed by our entrance, the sleeper opened his eyes and blinked dully at us for a moment.
"Greetings, Friend Sov!" exclaimed the officer who accompanied me.
"Oh, it is you, Friend Hokal?" mumbled Sov, sleepily. "And who are these others?"
"The Ongyan Moosko from Thora, Vilor, another friend, and a Vepajan prisoner I captured."
At the mention of Moosko's title, Sov arose, for an ongyan is one of the oligarchy and a great man. "Greetings, Ongyan Moosko!" he cried. "So you have brought us a Vepajan? Is he a doctor, by chance?"
"I do not know and I do not care," snapped Moosko. "He is a cutthroat and a scoundrel; and, doctor or no doctor, he dies."
"But we need doctors badly," insisted Sov. "We are dying of disease and old age. If we do not have a doctor soon, we shall all be dead."
"You heard what I said, did you not, Friend Sov?" demanded Moosko testily.