Conspirators of Gor (19 page)

It is not unknown, of course, even on my world, for a girl to barter her beauty for gain, for access to exclusive, desirable precincts, to use it in such a way that it might obtain for her advantages and advancement, to win for her wealth and position, and such. Surely I and my sisters in the sorority were well aware of such things. I certainly endeavored to apply my beauty to such purposes, if unsuccessfully, as did they. If one were to obtain our beauty, one would pay our price. We had no intention of selling ourselves cheaply. And how furious I had been when my overtures, so to speak, had been rejected, or worse, ignored. Could they not see the value of what I was offering? On Gor, of course, to my chagrin, I realized that the profit on my beauty, if any, would accrue not to me, but to another. It is that way when one is oneself merchandise. Still, it is commonly to one’s advantage, as noted, to present oneself well on the block, hoping thereby to obtain a richer master, a better house, lighter duties, and such. Yet, at times, how meaningless are these prudential, mercenary considerations! Does the slave not hope that she will be purchased by a strong, handsome, powerful, virile master, rich or not, who will know well what to do with her, before whom she will know herself well in her collar? Are we not all looking for the master who will weaken our knees and heat our thighs, the master before whom we know we can be only slave, and desire to be no more? And what, too, of the love slave and the love master? In such cases, who can understand the mysterious chemistries involved? Let us suppose that a fellow is examining women on a slave shelf. They are kneeling, cringing, shackled, head down. Who can explain how it is that he, pulling up the head of one after another, by the hair, that her features may be examined, suddenly pauses, startled. What is different about this particular cringing, shackled slave? How is she different from another? She looks up, her eyes widened. He sees before him, his hand in her hair, his love slave, and she, looking up, tears in her eyes, for the first time, sees her love master. How is she more than merely another helpless, cringing, shackled slave, and how is he more than merely another male, another possible buyer, in his robes, so free, and strong, looking down on her? But he has found his love slave, and she, to her joy, has been found by her love master. Who can explain such things? Perhaps he has been keeping a collar for just such a one? Certainly a girl can attempt to interest a buyer; consider the differential zeal of the “Buy me, Masters,” as one fellow or another peruses a sales line; but, in the end, despite our efforts and hopes, we are not the buyers, but the bought. It is they who will choose, not we.

“Ah!” cried one of the slaves.

The bar had begun its sounding.

Some more men began to move toward us, gathering about the circular cement platform.

“It is the Tenth Ahn!” said the darker blonde.

There were few shadows in the street now. Tor-tu-Gor was at its zenith.

The former Lady Persinna burst into tears, and put her head in her hands. I wondered that one such as she, one apparently once of some prominence, was with us. I clutched the sheet more closely about me. I wished it was longer. My legs were not well concealed. Was it to demean her that she was put with us? Or did some estimate her beauty as equivalent to ours, worthy only of such a vending? I wondered if some might be interested in her, tracking her, informing themselves as to her market, and time of sale. I supposed that some men, for reasons other than her beauty and her promise as a slave, might be interested in obtaining her, perhaps an enemy, perhaps one reduced or ruined by her in her time of power, perhaps one she had once slighted, and did not even recall. Perhaps some lowly clerk once in her employ, mistreated, despised, scorned, and overworked, had saved some money and thought it might be pleasant to have her, once so socially and economically superior to him, chained at the foot of his couch.

I heard the second and third soundings of the bar.

Outside, approaching, I saw the slaver’s man, he stripped to the waist.

The bar was struck again.

That sound would carry for better than two or three pasangs, and I could hear, in the distance, other bars, taking up the ringing.

“I do not even know where I am,” I said to the girl from Tabor.

“The Metellan district,” she said.

“I do not even know the city,” I said, in misery. Curiosity, I recalled, was not becoming in a kajira.

“Ar, of course,” said she from Tabor.

I had thought that. But why had I not been told that in the house? Was that not a simple enough thing to tell a girl?

Ar, I knew from my reading, was the largest city in the northern hemisphere of Gor. It was the center of many trade routes. I was to be sold in Ar! Given the size of the city, and its many markets, I supposed it constituted a major market. Certainly it would be a convenient, easy place in which to sell a slave.

“What is the Metellan district?” I asked.

“Look about you,” she said. “I am from Tabor.”

I groaned.

The bar rang again.

“It is a shabby district,” she said, “but there are many worse, worse, and more dangerous. It is not much patrolled. Many free women arrange their trysts and assignations to take place in this district. It is a popular venue for such ventures. Few questions are asked. Little, if any, attention is paid to strangers.”

She was surely much better informed than I.

Perhaps her former masters had been less strict with her.

The bar sounded twice more.

Several men, now some twenty or so, perhaps more, had gathered about the circular platform.

“We will soon be on the block,” said the girl from Tabor.

“That circle of cement,” I said, “that is the block?”

“Of course,” she said. “This is not a high market.”

“Are we worth so little?” I asked.

“Ask the masters,” she said.

The bar rang again.

The former Lady Persinna was weeping.

I saw a small, wiry fellow, with a straggly beard, in soiled blue and yellow robes, approaching. He wiped his mouth with a dirty sleeve. In his right hand he held an implement I recognized well. It was a switch.

“It is he who will auction us,” said the girl from Tabor.

That seemed likely to me.

Certainly he wore the colors of the Slavers.

The small fellow, at the foot of the platform, conferred briefly with the slaver’s man.

I did not know if the small fellow owned the market, or owned us, or both. For all I knew I was still owned by the house, and I was merely being vended through this outlet, and the small fellow might be merely a professional auctioneer, hired for each sale. I supposed, beside his fee, he might receive some sort of commission on the sales. That meant he would be likely to do his best to get a good price. It also suggested to me that he might, then, be quick with his switch.

“I will not go on that block,” said the Lady Persinna, resolutely, sobbing.

“You will,” the girl from Tabor assured her.

“No!” she said.

“Have you ever felt the slave whip?” asked the girl from Tabor.

The former Lady Persinna paled.

“If summoned, you will hasten to the block,” said the girl from Tabor. “And you will smile, pose, and perform.”

“As a slave?” she moaned.

“As any slave,” said the girl from Tabor.

“No, no,” whispered the former Lady Persinna.

I wondered what she would bring, standing on that scarlet rug, on the platform, being displayed.

I recalled that on Earth it had been speculated that I would sell for between forty and sixty. I had supposed, at the time, that meant between forty and sixty thousand dollars. Here I conjectured that I might sell for between forty and sixty pieces of gold, or, given this market, and that I was not much trained, and was a new slave, perhaps only between forty and sixty silver tarsks.

The bar rang again, I think the ninth ring.

Would she bring more than I? I did not think so. She was a mere barbarian, a scion of a primitive culture, and I was a civilized woman of Earth, of the upper classes, young, beautiful, educated, intelligent, sensitive, well-bred, refined, now somehow inexplicably entrapped in a barbarian world, a world where I was denied the protection of the law, a world where my Earth rights were not only ignored, but did not exist. On this world I was a property. Thus, here, the law, in all its power and rigor, in all its weight and majesty, would be used not for me but against me, for example, to hunt me down and return me to a master.

“I can hardly stand,” I said. “I can hardly move. I will be unable to perform, even should I try to do so.”

“This is a low market,” said the girl from Tabor. “They may ask little of us. We may only have to stand, and turn.”

“At least,” I said, “we have our tunics, the sheets.”

“Now,” she said.

“Now?” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

I recalled that the bar had again sounded.

“The bar rang,” I said. “It was the ninth ringing, the ninth stroke, was it not?”

“I think so,” she said.

“What if we are not sold?” I asked.

“The masters would be displeased,” she said. “It is common to whip a girl who is not sold.”

“I see,” I said, frightened.

“One then tries, the next time, desperately, to be sold.”

I was suddenly overcome with the sense of my helplessness. I was wholly at the mercy of others. Anything could be done with me! How was it that I, a woman of Earth, was here, in a cell, on another world, with a marked thigh, caged with slaves? And how could it be that I, of Earth, was here, on this other world, also a slave, as much as they?

“I do not want to be sold!” I said.

“Do you wish to be whipped?” she asked.

“No, no!” I said.

“Then you should want to be sold,” she said.

“I am afraid,” I said.

“That is not unusual,” she said. “One does not know who will buy one, before whom one must kneel.”

Once again the bar rang out.

I seemed to feel the ringing in my whole body.

I looked out, through the bars.

And I said to myself, be silent, slave. You know that it is here that you belong, here with a marked thigh, in a cell, waiting to be sold.

This is right for you.

No, no, I whispered to myself.

Yes, yes, I thought.

Are you a slave, I asked myself, sternly.

Yes, Mistress, I whispered to myself, I am a slave.

I then well knew myself, though of Earth, a slave, a common slave.

I looked to the girl from Tabor.

“Perhaps someone from Tabor will buy you, and free you,” I said.

“You know little of Gor,” she said.

“He would not free you?” I asked.

“My left thigh bears the slave mark,” she said.

“Even so,” I said.

“Apparently you know little of Gor,” she said.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“I was once a free woman,” she said. “Men much enjoy keeping former free women as helpless slaves.”

“But,” I protested.

“I am marked,” she said.

“So?” I said.

“My own family would not free me,” she said. “They would see that I was sold elsewhere, in my shame and degradation.”

I regarded her.

“I am marked,” she said. “Are you not marked?”

“Yes,” I said, “I am marked.”

“Then understand it,” she said. “You are no longer what you were.”

I suddenly became aware that the bar was no longer sounding.

The short fellow had ascended to the height of the cement platform.

“Noble Masters, noble Masters, noble Masters,” he called, “approach, approach, gather about!”

Some twenty, or so, fellows were already clustered about the platform. Some others, from across the street, now approached.

“We have here for your consideration, and delectation, this lovely afternoon, seven beauties!”

There was laughter.

“The finest beads drawn from the finest of the slavers’ necklaces, each worthy of the central block of the Curulean, each fit for the Pleasure Garden of a Ubar,” said the auctioneer.

There was more laughter.

“Pot girls!” jibed a fellow.

“Have you not, several of you, examined these beauties earlier in the morning, and pondered your bids?”

“Yes,” said a fellow, “a copper tarsk for the lot!”

“You may ask,” said the auctioneer, “how is it that such goods, goods of such quality, could be offered here?”

“No other market would have them!” called a fellow.

“It is true, noble Masters, that our modest market, as the slave shelves, is noted for its bargains,” said the auctioneer, “but that is your good fortune and our pleasure, to serve you better. Would you not prefer to pay less for more? Would you not be pleased to obtain an exquisite pleasure slave, trim, responsive, and vital, for the price of a pot girl, a kettle-and-mat girl? Those who know how to buy know where to buy, and here is where to buy!”