Assassin of Gor (9 page)
Authors: John Norman
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy, #Epic, #Adventure, #Erotica, #Fantasy Fiction; American, #Gor (Imaginary Place), #Outer Space, #Slaves
"I have heard," she said, smiling up at me, "that it is only a Free Companion who is accorded the dignities of the couch."
"True," I cried, bundling her in the furs and throwing the entire roll to the floor at the end of the couch, beneath the slave ring. With a flourish I unrolled the furs, spilling Elizabeth out, who shrieked and began to crawl away, but my hand caught at the loop on the left shoulder of her garment and she turned suddenly, trying to sit up, her feet tangled in the garment and I kicked it away and took her in my arms.
"If you like me," she asked, "will you buy me?"
"Perhaps," I said, "I do not know."
"I think," she said, "that I would like you for my master."
"Oh," I said.
"So I will try to please you," she said, "that you will buy me."
"You are not now in the purple booth," I said.
She laughed. The allusion was to certain practices having to do with the merchandising of Red Silk Girls, in private sales for individual and important clients of the House.
At certain times of the year several such booths are set up within the courtyard of a slaver's house; in each, unclothed, chained by the left ankle to a ring, on furs, is a choice Red Silk Girl; prospective buyers, usually accompanied by a member of the Caste of Physicians, in the presence of the slaver's agent, examine various girls; when particular interest is indicated in one, the Physician and the slaver's agent withdraw; when, after this, the girl is not purchased, or at least seriously bid upon, she is beaten severely or, perhaps worse, is touched for a full Ehn by the slave goad; if, after two or three such opportunities, the girl is not sold, she is given further training; if after this she is still not sold she is usually returned to the iron pens whence, with other girls, considered to be of inferior value, she will be sold at a reduced price in one of the smaller markets, perhaps even in a minor city.
Most girls, it might be mentioned, even extremely choice specimens, are never in the booths; generally the slaver has a chance at a higher price when there are many buyers bidding against one another in the heat of an auction.
"Very well, Red Silk Girl," said I, "perform."
"Yes, Master," said she, obediently.
And, as the hour progressed, perform she did, and superbly so, and I knew that had I been a prospective buyer I would have bid high indeed for the skilled, sensuous little wench in my arms, so striving with all her quickness and beauty to please me. Sometimes I was forced to remind myself that she was Miss Elizabeth Cardwell of Earth, and not, as she lost herself uncontrollably in our pleasures, hands clutching at the slave ring, a Gorean slave girl, bred for the pleasures of a master.
Some months before, Elizabeth and I, the egg of Priest-Kings in the saddlepack of my tarn, had returned to the north from the Plains of Turia, the Land of the Wagon Peoples. In the vicinity of the Sardar Mountains I had brought the tarn down on the quiet, flat, gray-metal, disk-like surface, some forty feet in diameter, of the ship, some two miles above the surface of Gor. The ship did not move, but remained as stationary in the sun and the whipping wind as though it were fixed on some invisible post or platform. Clouds like drifting fogs, radiant with the golden sunlight, passed about it. In the distance far below, and to the right, I could see, through the cloud cover, the black, snow-capped crags of the Sardar.
On the surface of the ship, tall and thin, like the blade of a golden knife, his forelegs lifted delicately before his body, his golden antennae blown in the wind, there stood, with the incredible fixity and alertness of his kind, a Priest-King.
I leaped from the back of the tarn and stood on the ship, in the radiant cloud-filtered sunlight.
The Priest-King took a step toward me on its four supporting posterior appendages, and stopped, as though it dared not move more.
I stood still, not speaking.
We looked at one another.
I saw the gigantic head, like a globe of gold, surmounted with wind-blown antennae, glistening with delicate sensory hair. If Miss Cardwell had been frightened, alone astride the tarn, bound for her safety to the saddle, she did not cry out nor speak, but was silent.
My heart was pounding, but I would not move. My breath was deep, my heart filled with joy.
The cleaning hooks behind the third joints of the Priest-King's forelegs lifted and emerged delicately, and extended toward me.
I looked on that great golden head and its two large, circular, disk-like eyes, compound, and the light seemed to flicker among the multilensed surfaces. Across the left eye disk there was an irregular whitish seam.
At last I spoke. "Do not stand long in the sun," said I, "Misk."
Bracing himself against the wind, the antennae struggling to retain their focus on me, he took one delicate step toward me across the metal surface of the disk. Then he stood there, in his some eighteen feet of golden height, balancing on his four posterior, four-jointed supporting appendages, the two anterior, four-jointed grasping appendages, each with its four, delicate, tiny prehensile hooks, held lightly, alertly before his body in the characteristic stance of Priest-Kings. About the tube that joined his head to his thorax, on a slender chain, hung the small, round compact translator.
"Do not stand so long in the sun," I said to him.
"Did you find the egg?" asked Misk. The great laterally opening and closing jaws, of course, had not moved. There was rather only a set of odors, secreted from his signal glands, picked up by the translator and transduced into mechanically reproduced Gorean words, each spoken separately, none with emotion.
"Yes, Misk," I said, "I have found the egg. It is safe. It is in the saddlepack of my tarn."
For an instant it seemed as though the great creature could not stand, as though he might fall; then, as though by an act of will, moving inch by inch through his body, he straightened himself.
I said nothing.
Delicately, slowly, the gigantic creature approached me, seeming to move only the four supporting appendages, until it stood near me. I lifted my hands over my head, and he, delicately, in the fog splendid with the sun, the smooth texture of his golden body gleaming, gently lowered his body and head, and with the tips of his antennae, covered with their sensitive, glistening golden hair, touched the palms of my hands.
There were tears in my eyes.
The antennae trembled against my hands. The great golden blade, his body itself, for a moment trembled. Again the cleaning hooks behind the third joint of each of the forelegs emerged, delicately, incipiently extended to me. The great compound eyes, on which Priest-Kings so seldom depended, were radiant; in that moment they glowed like diamonds burning in wine.
"Thank you," said Misk.
Elizabeth and I had remained with Misk in the Nest of Priest-Kings, that incredible complex beneath the Sardar, for some weeks.
He had been overjoyed at the receipt of the egg and it had immediately been given over to eager attendants that it might be incubated and hatched. I doubt that the Physicians and Scientists of the Nest had ever exercised more diligence and care in such matters than they lavished on that one egg, and perhaps rightfully so, for it represented the continuation of their kind.
"What of Ko-ro-ba, and of Talena?" I had questioned Misk, even on the ship, before we returned to the Nest beneath the Sardar.
I must know of my city and its fortunes, and of she who had been my free companion, these many years lost.
Elizabeth was silent as I asked of these things.
"As you might have surmised," said Misk, "your city is being rebuilt. Those of Ko-ro-ba have come from the corners of Gor, each singing, each bearing a stone to add to the walls. For many months, while you labored in our service in the Lands of the Wagon Peoples, thousands upon thousands of those of Ko-ro-ba have returned to the city. Builders and others, all who were free, have worked upon the walls and towers. Ko-ro-ba rises again."
I knew that only those who were free would be permitted to make a city. Doubtless there were many slaves in Ko-ro-ba but they would be allowed only to serve those who raised the walls and towers. Not one stone could be placed in either wall or tower by a man or woman who was not free. The only city I know of on Gor which was built by the labor of slaves, beneath the lash of masters, is Port Kar, which lies in the delta of the Vosk.
"And Talena?" I demanded.
Misk's antennae dropped slightly.
"What of her!" I cried.
"She was not among those who returned to the city," came from Misk's translator.
I looked at him.
"I am sorry," said Misk.
I dropped my head. It had been some eight years or better that I had not seen her.
"Is she slave?" I asked. "Has she been slain?"
"It is not known," said Misk. "Nothing of her is known."
My head fell.
"I am sorry," came from Misk's translator.
I turned.
Elizabeth, I noted, had stepped from us as we had spoken.
Misk had soon brought the ship to the Sardar.
Elizabeth had been rapt with wonder at the Nest, but after some days, even in the presence of its grandeur, I knew she desired again to be on the surface, in the free air, in the sunlight.
I myself had much to speak of with Misk and with other friends of the Nest, notably Kusk, the Priest-King, and Al-Ka and Ba-Ta, who were humans, and fondly remembered. I noted that the girls who had been once their slaves, captured enemies, now wore no longer their collars of gold, but instead stood at their sides as Free Companions. Indeed, few of the Nest's humans were any longer slaves, save certain of the men and women who had betrayed us in the Nest War, certain men and women who had been reduced to such bondage because of transgressions, and certain others who had entered the Sardar to seek and acquire the riches of Priest-Kings.
A Priest-King named Serus, whom I had not known in the Nest War, but who had been of the cohorts of Sarm, had developed an interesting device for slave control, which I might mention. It consists of four circular metal bands, with facing flat plates, which fasten about the two wrists and two ankles of the slave. He is permitted complete freedom of movement by these bands, which are rather like bracelets and anklets. Wearing these, of course, a collar or brand is not necessary. But, from a central, guarded panel, and from individual transmitters, those of their owners, a signal may be transmitted which causes the two bracelets and the anklets to immediately snap together at the flat plates, thus, even at a distance, binding the slave. There are individual signals and a master signal, permitting an individual slave to be immediately secured, no matter where he is in the Nest, or every slave in the Nest. "Had Sarm this device at his disposal," said Serus to me, "the Nest War would have turned out differently." I agreed. Since Elizabeth and I were strangers in the Nest Serus had wanted us fit with the devices as a precaution, but, of course, Misk would hear nothing of it.
Also, in the Nest, I met the male, who had no name, no more than the Mother has a name among the Priest-King kind. They are regarded as being above names, much as men do not think to give a name to the universe as a whole. He seemed a splendid individual, but very serious and very quiet.
"It will be fine," I said to Misk, "that there be a Father of the Nest, as well as eventually a Mother."
Misk looked at me. "There is never a Father of the Nest," said he.
I questioned Misk on this, but he seemed evasive, and I gather he did not wish to speak further to me on the matter, so, as he wished, I did not speak more of it.
Interestingly, Elizabeth learned to read Gorean in the Nest, and in less than an hour. Learning that she could not read the language, Kusk volunteered to teach it to her. Elizabeth had agreed but was startled when placed on a long table, actually of a size for a Priest-King, and found her head enclosed between two curved, intricate devices, rather like two halves of a bowl. Her head was fastened in an exact position by metal clamps. Further, that she not become terrified and attempt to struggle or leave the table, she was secured to it by several broad metal bands, plus ankle, leg, wrist and arm clips.
"We found, after the Nest War," Kusk informed me, "that many of our ex-slaves could not read, which is not surprising since they had been bred in the Nest and it had not been generally thought important that they have that skill. But, when they became free, many wished to learn. Accordingly we developed this device, not too difficult with the single, rather simple brain of the human, which so orders the brain that it can recognize letters, in various forms, and words. The neural dispositions which allow the human to read are of course the result of certain patterns of synaptic alignments, which are here produced without the time-consuming process of habit formation."
"In educating a Priest-King," I said, "wires were used---eight---one to each brain."
"We now dispense with wires," said Kusk, "even in the case of a Priest-King. They were used largely as a matter of tradition, but the humans of the Nest suggested refinements in the technique, leaving them to us to develop, of course." Kusk peered down at me with his antennae. "Humans, it seems," said he, "are seldom satisfied."
