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.There are twelve of those pintles, mounted in a largecircle; when a given hook drops off one, freed by gravity, another hook isalready engaged on another, held there by the weight of the ascending liftPage 166 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlsacks.Empty sacks are placed on slack hooks, below the machinery, to bereturned to the pit.The steersman, when not attending to his sweep, carried a lance.We were notalone in the pits.Hand over hand, I drew the cone through the sludge toward the raft.I had been amazed to learn that the brine pits, in effect a network of smallsubterranean marine seas, were not devoid of life.I had expected them to besterile bodies of water, from the absence of sunlight, precluding basicphotosynthesis and the beginning of a food chain, and the high salt content ofthe fluid.A human body, for example, will not sink in the water.This is oneof the reasons, too, it is particularly desirable, in this environment, toweight the raft poles, to help counter the unusual buoyancy of the salinefluid.In my original conjecture, however, as to the sterility of these smallseas, I was mistaken. Look there, called a harvester.I saw it, too.The other men came to my side of the raft, and we noted it,moving in the water.The steersman dropped the point of the lance toward thewater, watching, too.I slowly drew up the metal, perforated cone.Water drained from it, in tinyirregular streams, spattering back into the sea, and onto the boards of theraft.Then I lifted the cone and deposited the sludge in the retaining vessel, thelarge wooden tub behind me and to my left.I did not again coil and cast theline.I, too, watched the water.The light of our lamps flickered on the surface, yellowly, in broken, shiftingrefractions. There! said one of the men.Lefts are often attracted to the salt rafts, largely by the vibrations in thewater,file:///F|/My%20Shared%20Folder/John%20Norm.%20Gor%2010%20-%20Tribesmen%20of%20Gor.html (237 of 353) [1/21/03 7:52:03 PM]10 Tribesmen of Gor picked up by their abnormally developed lateral-lineprotrusions, and their fernlike craneal vibration receptors, from the conesand poles.Too, though they are blind, Ithink either the light, or the heat, perhaps, from our lamps, draws them.Thetiny, eyeless heads will thrust from the water, and the fernlike filaments atthe side of the head will open and lift, orienting themselves to one or theother of the lamps.The lelt is commonly five to seven inches in length.It is white, andlong-finned.It swims slowly and smoothly, its fins moving the water verylittle, which apparently contributes to its own concealment in a blindenvironment and makes it easier to detect the vibrations of its prey, any ofseveral varieties of tiny segmented creatures, predominantly isopods.Thebrain of the left is interesting, containing an unusually developedodor-perception center and two vibration-reception centers.Its organ of balance, or hidden ear, is also unusually large, and isconnected with an unusually large balance center in its brain.Its visualcenter, on the other hand, is stunted and undeveloped, a remnant, a vaguegenetic memory of an organ long discarded in its evolution.Among the lefts,too, were, here and there, tiny salamanders, they, too, white and blind.Likethe lefts, They were, for their size, long-bodied, were capable of longperiods of dormancy and possessed a slow metabolism, useful in an environmentin which food is not plentiful.Unlike the lefts they had long, stemlike legs.At first I had taken them for lelts, skittering about the rafts, even to thefernlike filaments at the sides of their head, but these filaments, in thecase of the salamanders, interestingly, are not vibration receptors butfeather gills, an external gill system.This system, common in the developinganimal generally, is retained even by the adult salamanders, who are, in thisPage 167 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlenvironment, permanently gilled.The gills of the lelt are located at thelower sides of its jaw, not on the sides of its head, as is common inopen-water fish.The feather gills of the salamanders, it seems, allow them tohunt the same areas as the lelts for the same prey, the vibration effects ofthese organs being similar, without frightening them away, thus disturbing thewater and alerting possible prey.They often hunt the same areas.Althoughthis form of salamander possesses a lateral-line set of vibration receptors, like the left, it lacks the craneal receptorsand its lateral-line receptors do not have the sensitivity of the lelt s.Following the left, not disturbing it, often helps the salamander find prey.On the other hand, the salamander, by means of its legs and feet, can dislodgeprey inaccessible to the lelt.The length of the stemlike legs of thesalamander, incidentally, help it infile:///F|/My%20Shared%20Folder/John%20Norm.%20Gor%2010%20-%20Tribesmen%20of%20Gor.html (238 of 353) [1/21/03 7:52:03 PM]10 Tribesmen of Gor stalking in the water.It takes little prey while swimmingfreely.The long lees cause little water vibration.Further, they enable theanimal to move efficiently, covering large areas without considerablemetabolic cost.In a blind environment, where food is scarce, energyconservation is essential.The long, narrow legs also lift the salamander shead and body from the floor, enabling it, with its sensors, to scan a greaterarea for prey
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