Ten minutes after passing the Coastal Republic checkpoint, he rode through 
the center of a Fist encampment. As he looked neither right nor left, he could 
not really estimate its size; they had taken over a village of low 
brick-and-stucco buildings. A long straight smudge running across the earth 
marked the location of a burned Feed line, and as he crossed it, Hackworth 
fantasized that it was a meridian engraved on the living globe by an astral 
cartographer. Most of the Fists were shirtless, wearing indigo trousers, 
scarlet girdles knotted at the waist, sometimes scarlet ribbons tied round 
necks, foreheads, or upper arms. The ones who weren't sleeping or smoking were 
practicing martial arts. Hackworth rode slowly through their midst, and they 
pretended not to notice him, except for one man who came running out of a house 
with a knife, shouting "Sha! Sha!" and had to be tackled by three 
comrades.