Tangle in the Dark - Kassidor

“That is perfectly good science. As long as a populationof humans believes their deity is watching them and willeventually judge them, they will behave in a much morealtruistic manner than if they don’t believe.”“And what do you believe?” Ava asked.“That it is good for a population to believe that,” shereplied.It should have been a two hour hike thru well cultivatedfarmlands til they reached the harbor. Instead Yellelle keptturning on smaller paths, going up and down hills andwinding thru wild hillsides on paths that barely existed. Theytroubled a farmer for lunch. He lived in a one room cabin ofroughly piled stone chinked with whitewashed mud androofed with thatch. He had livestock in pens made of wovenbrush and stores in big urns in a lean-to behind the cabin.There was an out-house instead of plumbing and a rope andbucket well next to the outdoor kitchen that was sheltered bythe lean-to next to the back door.Lunch was bread, goat cheese, olive oil and spices and aplate of raw vegetables. This peasant’s wife was pretty but notas voluptuous as the temple girls, she appeared to be no morethan eighteen, and was dressed only in a plain skirt that wascut off well above the ankles of her bare feet.“My own home was not much more than this,” Yellellesaid. “We had a separate room for the children, and Diminibuilt another for himself when he was thirteen. We walled in463