"Oh, no. There are few Roumas remaining in all the land now," the smith said easily. "Those that are left serve us in positions our people as yet cannot hold, in construction of the dams, in the bringing of trees to the desert, but soon, even they will be unneeded."
"Our people?" Moussa-ag-Amastan rumbled ungraciously. "You are smiths. The smiths have no people. You are neither Kel Rela, Tégehé Mellet, Taitoq, nor even Teda, Chaambra, or Ouled Tidrarin."
One of the smiths said easily, "In the great new construction camps, in the new towns, with their many ways to work and become rich, the tribes are breaking up. Tuareg works next to Teda and a Moor next to a former Haratin serf." He added, as though unthinkingly, even as he displayed an aluminum pan to a wide-eyed Tuareg matron, "Indeed, even the clans break up and often Tuareg marries Arab or Sudanese or Rifs down from the north ... or even we Enaden."
The clansmen were suddenly silent, in shocked surprise.
"That cannot be true!" the elderly chief snapped.
Omar ben Crawf looked at him mildly. "Why should my follower lie?"
"I do not know, but we will talk of it later, away from the women and children who should not hear such abominations." The chief switched subjects. "But you have no flocks with you. How are we to pay for these things, these services?"
"With money."
The old man's face, what little could be seen through his teguelmoust, darkened. "We have little money in the Ahaggar."
The one named Omar nodded. "But we are short of meat and will buy several goats and perhaps a lamb, a chicken, eggs. Then, too, as you have noted, we have left our women at home. We will need the services of cooks, some one to bring water. We will hire servants."