rand stared sympathetically at her. "They treat them very badly?" he asked gently.
"Terribly! Terribly!" said Greca, shuddering again.
"But you seem quite privileged," he could not help saying.
She shook her dainty head pathetically. "I am of high rank among my people. I am a priestess of our religion, which is the religion of The Great White One who rules all the sky everywhere. The Rogans" (it was the best translation Brand could make of her mental term for the slimy tall things that held them captive) "—the Rogans hold my fate over the heads of my race. Should they rebel, I would be thrown to the monster in the pen. Of course the Rogans could crush any revolt with their terrible tubes, but they do not want to kill their slaves if they can help it. They find it more effective to hold their priestesses in hostage."
Brand turned from personal history to more vital subjects.
"Why," he asked Greca, "are the shining red squares of metal laid everywhere over this empire of the Rogans?"
"To make things light," was the reply. "When the Rogans first came to this mighty sphere, they could hardly move. Things are so heavy here, somehow. So their first thought was to drive my enslaved people to the casting and laying of the metal squares and the metal beams that connect them, in order to make things weigh less."
"But how do the plates function?"