Explorers of Gor (21 page)

“No one is near us,” I said. I had little doubt that Kipofu, who was reputed to have extremely sharp senses, might have heard breathing within a radius of twenty feet, even in the square. I wondered at the nature of the man, the mention of whom might have caused this reaction in the shrewd Kipofu.

“His back is crooked and it is not,” said Kipofu. “His back is hunched and it is not. His face is scarred and it is not. His leg is crippled and it is not.”

“Do you know who this man is?” I asked him.

“Do not seek him,” said Kipofu. “Forget him. Flee.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

Kipofu pressed the coin back at me. “Take your tarsk,” said he.

“I want to know,” I said, determinedly.

Kipofu suddenly lifted his hand. “Listen,” said he. “Listen!”

I listened.

“There is one about,” he said.

I looked about. “No,” I said. “There is not.”

“There,” said Kipofu, pointing, “there!”

But I saw nothing where he pointed. “There is nothing there,” I said.

‘There!” whispered Kipofu, pointing.

I thought him perhaps mad. But I walked in the direction which he had pointed. I encountered nothing. Then the hair on the back of my neck rose, as I realized what it might have been.

“It is gone now,” said Kipofu.

I returned to the etem of the Ubar of the beggars. He was visibly shaken.

“Go away!” he said.

“I would know who the man is,” I said.

“Go away!” said Kipofu. ‘Take your tarsk!” He held it out to me.

“What do you know of the Golden Kailiauk?” I asked.

“It is a paga tavern,” said Kipofu.

“What do you know of a white slave girl who works within it?” I asked.

“Pembe,” he said, “who is the proprietor of the tavern, has not owned a white-skinned girl in months.”

“Ah!” I said.

“Take back your tarsk,” said Kipofu.

“Keep it,” I told him. “You have told me much of what I wanted to know.”

I then turned about and strode away, taking my leave from the presence of Kipofu, that unusual Ubar of the beggars of Schendi.

11

The girl stood at the heavy, wooden door, on the dark street, and knocked, sharply, four times, followed by a pause, and then twice. A tiny tharlarion-oil lamp burned near the door. I could see her dark hair, and high cheekbones, in the light. The yellow light, too, flickering, in the shadows, glinted on the steel collar beneath her hair. She wore a tan slave tunic, sleeveless, of knee length, rather demure for a bond girl. It did, however, have a plunging neckline, setting off the collar well.

She repeated the knock, precisely as before.

She was barefoot. In her hand, wadded up, was a tiny scrap of yellow slave silk, which had been her uniform in the tavern of Pembe.

She was not a bad looking girl. Her hair, dark-brown, was of shoulder length.

Her accent, as I had detected yesterday evening, in the Golden Kailiauk, was barbarian. Something in it, when she had cried out, or spoken to me, suggested that she might be familiar with English.

I had little doubt she had been affiliated with he who had called himself Kunguni. She had simulated the appearance of the blond-haired barbarian beneath the brown aba. Her face and body, when she had protested her innocence to me, had belied her words. I had learned from Kipofu that she was not owned by Pembe, proprietor of the Golden Kailiauk. Doubtless, for a fee, paid by her master, if she were a slave, she had been permitted to serve in his place of business. Sometimes masters do this sort of thing for their girls. It is cheaper than renting space for them in the public or private pens. Pembe would not be likely to think anything amiss.

I stood back in the shadows. A tiny panel in the door slid back. Then it shut. A moment later the door opened.

I saw, in the light; briefly, the scarred face, and bent back, hunched, of he who had called himself Kunguni. He looked about, but did not see me, concealed in the shadows. The girl slipped past him, and entered the door. It then shut.

I looked about, and then crossed the narrow street I glanced at the shuttered windows. I could see cracks of light between the wooden slats.

Inside, not far from the door, I could see the girl and the man. The room, or anteroom, was dingy.

“Is he here yet?” asked the girl.

“Yes,” said the man, “he is waiting inside.”

“Good,” she said.

“It is our hope,” said the man, “that you will be more successful this evening than last.”

“I can get nothing out of her, if she knows nothing.” snapped the girl.

“That is true,” said the man.

The girl took the bit of wadded yellow pleasure silk she carried in her hand and, straightening it a bit, slipped it on a narrow wooden rod in an open closet. “Disgusting garment,” she said. “A girl might as well be naked.”

“A lovely garment,” said the man, “but I agree with your latter sentiment.”

She looked at him, angrily.

“Did many ask for you tonight?” he asked. “Or did Pembe have to inform them that you were not for use?”

“None asked,” she said, angrily.

“Interesting,” he said.

“Why is it ‘interesting’?” she asked, not pleasantly.

“I do not know,” he said. “It just seems that your face and body would be of interest to men, but apparently they are not.”

“I can be attractive, if I wish,” she said.

“I doubt it,” he said.

“Behold!” she said, striking a pose.

“It is fraudulent,” he said. “Women such as you understand nothing of attractiveness. With you it is a matter of externals, of acting. Any true man sees through it immediately. You confuse the pretense with the truth, the artificial and imitative with the reality. You think you could become attractive but merely choose not to be so. It is a delusion, as you understand these things. This permits you to console yourself with lies and, at the same time, provides you with an excuse for despising and belittling the truly attractive woman, thinking she is merely, as you would be, if you were she, acting. But it is not true. The source of a woman’s attractiveness is within her. It is internal. It comes from the inside out She is vulnerable, and desires men, and wishes: to be touched and owned. This then shows in her body and movements, and in her eyes and face. That is the truly attractive woman.”

“Like that she-sleen in the other room?” asked the woman.

“She has felt the whip, and known male domination,” he said. “Have you?”

“No,” she said.

“I took the liberty of caressing our lovely bound captive a bit before you arrived,” he said. “She is quite hot.”

“I hate that sort of woman,” said the girl. “She is weak. She is a slave, and I am not”

I saw the man smile.

“Tonight, if she knows anything,” said the girl, “I will get it out of her.”

“I am sure you will,” he said.

I then saw the girl, to my surprise, remove a tiny key from her tunic.

“Permit me,” he said.

“Thank you, no,” she said, acidly. Then she, lifting her arms, fitted the key into the lock at the back of her collar. This action lifted the line of her breasts, which was lovely, and lifted the tan slave tunic a bit higher on her thighs. She was nicely legged, as I had noted before. “You needn’t look at me as I do this,” she said.

“Forgive me,” he said, and turned away. He smiled. He began to undo certain buckles, attached to leather straps, within his own tunic.

She removed the collar, and set it on a shelf in the closet, with the key. “A collar,” she said. “How barbaric it is to put women in collars.” She shuddered.

I saw to my surprise, that the man, he who had been called Kunguni, drew forth, from beneath his tunic, a sewn, padded mound of cloth, heavy, globelike, with dangling straps. He then straightened his back. He was not tall, but he stood now slim and straight His right leg, too, now did not seem to afflict him. He stood straight upon it With the thumb and first finger of his right hand he peeled a cunning, jagged streak of paste and ocher from his left cheek, removing what I had taken to be a scar. I recalled the words of Kipofu: “His back is crooked and It is not. His back is hunched and it is not. His face is scarred. and it is not. His leg is crippled and it is not.” But I did not know who he might be. “Do not seek him,” had said Kipofu. “Forget him. Flee.”

“How long must I continue this farce of feigned service at the Golden Kailiauk?” she asked.

“Tonight,” said the man, “was your last of feigned service there.”

“Excellent,” she said,.

He smiled.

“If you would now excuse me,” she said, coolly, “I would like to slip into something suitable for a woman.”

He looked at her.

“More suitable than this tunic,” she said.

“Slave tunic,” he said.

“Yes, slave tunic,” she said, irritably.

“Are all women on your former world like you?” he asked.

“Not enough,” she said.

“How I pity the men of such a place,” he said.

“True women will teach them how to act and be,” she said.

“What piteous fools,” he said.

“What did you mean, my ‘former world’?” she asked. “It is still my world.”

The trace of a smile moved at the corners of the mouth of the man who had been called Kunguni.

“If you will now excuse me,” she said, “I would like to change.”

“I shall await you with him in the other room,” he said.

“Very well,” she said.

“When you come,” said he, “bring your whip.”

“I will,” she said.

The man then left the small anteroom, closing its door behind him, and the woman reached to the wooden rods in the closet, on which garments hung.

I could not see into the other room from where I stood, nor did it obviously have windows. I backed into the dark street and then, a few feet away, saw a low, sloping roof. Most of the buildings of Schendi have wooden ventilator shafts at the roof, which may be opened and closed. These are often kept open that the hot air in the room, rising, may escape. They can be closed by a rod from the floor, in the case of rain or during the swarming seasons for various insects.

In a few moments I had hoisted myself up to the low roof and then, again, climbing, I eased myself onto the roof of the building in which the man and woman had been conversing. There was a ventilator shaft, or slatted grille, over the main room, as I had anticipated. There is generally one room at least in which this arrangement occurs. Otherwise indoor living in Schendi could be difficult to bear. I could look down into the room, some fifteen feet below, through the slats in the grille. I could not, from my position, see the entire room. I could not see, most importantly,
 
the figure whom, I gathered from the conversation and glances of the man and woman, sat at the far end of the room, behind a small table. I saw upon occasion the movement of his hands, long and black, with delicate fingers.

I could see, however, the man who had been called Kunguni and the woman who had worn the tan slave tunic. I could also see, kneeling on a dark blanket, naked, her ankles tied. her hands tied to her collar, her head down, still blindfolded, the blond-haired barbarian.:

“I am sorry I am late,” said the girl who had worn the tan slave tunic. “Pembe kept me later than I pleased, to finish serving paga to a drunken oarsman.”

“What sacrifices we must make in the prosecution of our arduous mission,” mused the fellow who had been called Kunguni.

The girl looked at him, angrily. She now wore, interestingly, tight black slacks and a black, buttoned top. I could also see she wore Earth undergarments. On her feet were wooden clogs. Her clothing seemed strikingly at odds with her setting. She apparently had little sensitivity to the aesthetic incongruities involved or, perhaps, she wished merely to reassure herself by this device that she was truly of Earth and not Gor. I had thought the slave tunic and collar had made her fit in better with her surroundings. They seemed more apt, more tasteful, more appropriate. They had been, I recalled, “right” upon her. But are they not right upon any woman, in any world?

There were two other men in the room, and I gazed upon them with some astonishment. They were large fellows, strong and lean, dressed in skins and golden armlets, and feathers. They carried high, oval shields, and short, long-bladed stabbing spears. These men, I was sure, were not of Schendi. They came from somewhere, I was sure, in the interior.

The blond-haired barbarian, blindfolded, frightened, lifted her head. Her lower lip trembled.

The fellow who had been called Kunguni crouched before the girl and, quickly, jerked loose the knot which held her bound hands, which were still tied, tethered at her collar. He held her bound wrists in one hand.

“Please do not hurt me any more,” she said, in English, “I have told you all I know.”

With his right hand, holding the girl’s tied wrists in his left, the man tossed a rope up, over a rafter. He tied it then to her bound wrists, about the cording which secured them. He then signaled to the two large fellows who stood nearby. They put aside their shields and short spears and, hauling on the rope, jerked the blond-haired barbarian to her feet.

“Please,” she wept, “I’ve told you all I know!”

At a signal from the man near her the two large fellows drew the girl from her feet, until she hung suspended some six inches from the floor.

“Begin,” said the voice of the unseen man, he behind the table. He spoke in Gorean.

The girl in the slacks and black, buttoned top swung loose the blades of the slave whip she carried. She touched the blades to the body of the suspended girl.

“Do you know what this is?” she asked.

“A slave whip. Mistress,” said the girl, in English. Their conversation was conducted entirely in English. The two girls, I gathered, were the only ones in the room who spoke English. The girl in the black slacks did, however, of course, translate, here and there, what the blond-haired barbarian said. She herself, of course, inevitably communicated with the men in Gorean.

“Speak,” said the girl in the black slacks.

“I have told you all I know,” wept the blond-haired barbarian. “Please do not beat me again.”