Explorers of Gor (51 page)

The blond-haired barbarian screamed.

I thrust at it again. Again it spun and charged. Again I thrust it back. There was blood on the blade of the spear and the animal’s coat was glistening with it. Such animals are best hunted from the back of kaiila with lances, in the open. They are cunning, persistent and swift. The giant tarsk, which can stand ten hands at the shoulder, is even hunted with lances from tarnback.

It snuffled and snorted, and again charged. Again I diverted its slashing weight. One does not follow such an animal into the bush. It is not simply a matter of reduced visibility but it is also a matter of obtaining free play for one’s weapons. Even in the open, as I was, in a clearing among trees, it is hard to use one’s spear to its best advantage, the animal stays so close to you and moves so quickly.

Suddenly it turned its short wide head, with that bristling mane running down its back to its tail. “Get behind me!” I called to the girl. It put down its head, mounted on that short, thick neck, and, scrambling, charged at the blond-haired barbarian. She stumbled back, screaming, and, the animal at her legs, fell. But in that moment, from the side, I thrust the animal from her. It, immediately, turned again. I thrust it again to the side. This time, suddenly, before it could turn again, I, with a clear stroke, thrust the spear through its thick-set body, behind the right foreleg.

I put my head back, breathing heavily.

Pressing against the animal with my foot I freed the spear.

I turned to the blond-haired barbarian. “Are you all right?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. There was blood on her left leg, on the outside of the leg, about six inches up from the ankle.

I crouched down beside her. “Give me your leg,” I said.

I looked at the leg. She sat on the floor of the rain forest, Her leg felt good in my hands.

“Is it serious, Master?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “It is nothing. It is only a scratch.” She had been fortunate.

“It will not leave a scar, will it?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“That is good,” she said. She leaned back in relief, bracing her body on the palms of her hands. “I want to be pretty,” she said, “both for myself, and for my master, or masters.”

“You are pretty,” I said. “Indeed, in the past few weeks, you have become even beautiful.”

“Thank you, Master,” she said. She looked at me. “I’m yours, you know,” she said.

“Of course,” I said.

“Yet you have not taken me since Schendi,” she said.

“That is true,” I said.

“You made me yield well to you there, and as a full slave,” she said.

I did not speak.

“And when you threw me on my back, head down, over your sea bag, and raped me with such brutal dispatch I well learned that I was no longer a free woman.”

“It is a useful lesson for a slave girl to learn quickly,” I said.

“And I remember the girl I saw there, briefly in the mirror. She was so beautiful.”

“Yes,” I said.

“But she was so beautiful she could be only a slave.”

“Yes,” I said.

“But I am an Earth woman,” she said. “I could not dare to be that girl.”

I smiled. Did she not realize that she had seen in Schendi, in those brief moments, the slave she had for so long concealed within herself, that she had seen then, frightened, scarcely daring to recognize her, her own self? What cruelties could men inflict upon women, I wondered, which could half compare with those they inflict upon themselves.

She leaned forward, and examined the wound on her leg.

“It is superficial,” I said. “It will not scar.”

“I have a slave’s vanity, don’t I?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Is it permissible?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good,” she said.

She continued to look at the wound on her leg.

“I do not think I could stand to bring a lower price than Tende or Alice,” she said.

“What a slave you are,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Have no fear,” I said. “Your value on the sales block has not been reduced.”

“Thank you. Master,” she said.

I then rose to my feet and walked a few yards away, to a fan palm. From the base of one of its broad leaves I gathered a double handful of fresh water. I returned to the girl and, carefully, washed out the wound. She winced. I then cut some leaves and wrapped them about it. I tied shut this simple bandage with the tendrils of a carpet plant.

“Thank you, Master,” she said. She reached up and put her arms about my neck. I took her hands and, slowly, pulled them from my neck. I put them to her sides. She looked at me. I cuffed her, snapping her head to the right. “Master?” she asked.

“Next time,” I said, “stay behind me.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Stand, Slave,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

It had been this morning, shortly before noon, that we had surmounted the height of the falls, that almost on the summit of which Kisu,, in the face of the distant, oncoming forces of Bila Huruma, had danced a naked slave called Tende.

I went over to the slain tarsk.

We had then continued on, up the river, for several hours. In the late afternoon we had brought the canoe to shore, concealed it, and then went inland to make our camp.

“I feel the desire for meat,” had said Kisu. “I, too,” I said. “I will hunt” Kisu and I, warriors, wanted meat. Too, ahead of us we suspected that the river, as we had been warned at the last village, would become ever more dangerous and treacherous. We felt the long-term strength of meat protein would be a useful addition to our diets.

“I will need a beast of burden,” I had said.

The blond-haired barbarian, immediately, had sprung to her feet. She had stood before me, her head down. “I am a beast of burden,” she had said.

“Follow me,” I had said.

“Yes, Master,” she had said.

I lifted up the wild tarsk.

We had proceeded into the rain forest for better than two Ahn before we had come upon the tarsk. It had charged. I had killed it.

“Bend down,” I told the girl.

I threw the tarsk across her shoulders. She staggered under its weight.

I then turned from her and left the clearing. My hands were free for the use of the spear. Gasping, behind me, stumbling, staggering under the weight of the tarsk I had killed, came my slave.

I looked upward, through the trees. “It is growing dark,” I said. “We will not have time to reach the encampment before nightfall. We will make a small camp in the forest, and proceed in the morning.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

As the girl, on her knees, tended the roasting tarsk, I cut a long stake, some four and one half feet in length and some four inches in width. About its top, about two inches from the end, I cut a groove, about an inch deep.

“What is that for?” she asked.

“It is a slave stake,” I said, “for securing you for the night.”

“I see,” she said. She turned the tarsk on its spit. It glistened. From its sides droplets of fat and blood, popping and sizzling, dropped into the fire.

With a large rock, blow by blow, heavily, inch by inch, I drove the long, thick stake into the ground. I left about four inches of it exposed.

“The tarsk is ready,” she said.

I took one end of the spit in two hands and lifted the tarsk from the fire, putting it down on leaves. I then crouched beside it, and began to cut into it, to the spit I looked up. The girl, kneeling by the fire, watched me. I rose to my feet I tied a long leather strap on her neck and led her to the slave stake. I tied the free end of the strap about the slave stake, using the prepared groove in the stake which I had earlier cut. “Kneel,” I told her. “Yes, Master,” she said. She then knelt there, tethered to the stake by the neck. I ha4 left her about seven feet of slack in the strap. I then returned to the meat, and began to cut slices from it, and feed. After I had begun to feel full I looked at the girl. I threw her a piece of meat, which struck against her body. It fell to the ground. She picked it up in two hands and, watching me, began to eat it.

After a time I wiped my face with my forearm. I was finished eating. I again looked at the girl. “Do you want more?” I asked. “No, Master,” she said.

We had drunk earlier, from the water cupped at the base of the leaves of fan palms.

I then lay on one elbow, near the fire. I regarded the beautiful slave. It is pleasant to own women.

“Are you going to tie my hands behind my back before you retire?” she asked.

“Yes,” I told her.

“That is common in slave security, isn’t it?” she asked.

“It is common in the open,” I said, “when one does not have cages, or chains and slave bracelets, at one’s disposal. A girl’s hands, of course, need not be tied behind her back. They might be tied over her head or before her body, usually about a small tree.”

“Are girls secured at night, in the cities?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” I said, “sometimes not. They are collared. The cities are walled. Where would they run to?”

“But not all girls wish to escape, do they?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “All the evidence supports the thesis that very few girls desire to escape their masters. Slavery apparently agrees with them. But all girls, whether they wish to escape or not, know that escape is almost impossible. Besides, if they should escape, they would doubtless soon fall to another master, perhaps worse than the first”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Too,” I said, “I am not certain that it is altogether wise for a girl to attempt to escape. For example, if she is caught, her feet may be cut off.”

“I would be afraid to try to escape, Master,” she said.

“You tried to escape in Port Kar,” I said. I had caught her, and tied her and returned her to Ulafi, who had been at that time her master. I had wanted her shipped to Schendi that I might, by means of her, following her sales and exchanges, be led to the lair .pf the treacherous Shaba, traitor to Priest-Kings.

“I did not even begin to understand at that time,” she said, “what might be involved, the almost total impossibility of escape and the drastic nature of the penalties which Gorean men might, without a second thought, so casually inflict upon me. I did not even begin to understand at that time what it might mean to be a slave girl on Gor.”

“But you understand a little of what it might mean now, don’t you?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said, kneeling there by the slave stake, the tether tied on her throat. She fingered the tether. “If I had known then what I now know,” she said, “I would not have dared to move.”

I nodded.

“I would have been afraid,” she smiled, wryly, “to have moved even so much as a muscle, for fear one of Ulafi’s men would have put me under the lash.”

“Of course,” I said.

Intelligent women learned swiftly the realities of Gor.

“Master,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Not all masters would secure their slaves at night, would they, even in the open?”

“No,” I said. “Much depends on the girl and the area.”

“A master would not be likely to secure a conquered love slave, would he?” she asked.

“He might,” I said, “if only to remind her that she is a slave.”

“I see,” she said.

“There is another reason, too, for securing a slave at night,” I said, “for example, for locking her in her kennel or, if she is to be kept out-of-doors, chaining her to a ring in your courtyard.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“To keep her from being stolen,” I said.

“We could be stolen, couldn’t we?” she said. She trembled.

“Of course,” I said. “Slave theft is not unknown on Gor.”

“I have heard,” she said, “that girls are often chained at night to slave rings at the foot of their masters’ couches.”

“That is true,” I said.

“But surely there is little danger,” she said, “of a girl being stolen from her master’s compartments.”

“Not while he is there,” I admitted.

“Then why are they chained like that?” she asked.

“Because they are slaves,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said, putting her head down.

“It is nearly time to tie you for the night,” I said.

“Oh, please, Master,” she said, lifting her head, “let me speak but a moment more with you. Do not tie your slave just now.”

“Very well,” I said.

She knelt back, happily, on her heels. She put her hands on the tether at her throat.

“Wasn’t it horrifying,” she asked, “what Kisu did to Tende today?”

“What?” I asked.

“Making her dance naked,” she said.

“No,” I said.

“Oh,” she said.

“She is a slave,” I reminded her.

“Yes, Master,” she said. She looked at me. “It is permissible for a slave to dance naked?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

She looked down. “Master,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Am I a slave object?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said. “And a very delicious one,” I added.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“Does it trouble you to be an object?” I asked.

“I do not feel like an object,” she said.

“Technically,” I said, “in the eyes of Gorean law you are not an object but an animal.”

“I see,” she said.

“In one sense,” I said, “no living human being, nor bird nor squirrel, can be an object. They are not, for example, tables or rocks. In another sense all living creatures are objects. For example, they occupy space and obey the laws of physics and chemistry.”

“You know what I mean,” she said.

“No,” I said, “I do not. Speak more clearly.”

“A woman is treated like an object,” she said, “when men do not listen to her or care for her feelings.”

“Surely women, in the single-minded pursuit of certain goals, can treat other women and men, in that way?” I asked. “And men could treat men in that way, and so on? Is not the problem you have in mind a rather general one?”

“Perhaps,” she said.

“Similarly,” I said, “do not confuse being treated as an object with being an object. Similarly, do not confuse being treated as an object with being regarded as an object. For example, individuals who treat human beings as objects very seldom think that they are really objects. That would suggest insanity.”