Nomads of Gor (11 page)

        
"What does it mean?" she asked.

        
"It means," I told her, "I am a slave girl."

        
"No!" she screamed. "No, no, not"

        
Kamchak nodded to the two riders mounted on kaiila.

        
"Take her to the wagon of Kutaituchik."

        
The two riders turned their kaiila and in a moment,

        
moving rapidly, the girl running between them, had turned

        
from the grassy lane and disappeared between the wagons.

        
Kamchak and I regarded one another.

        
"Did you note the collar she wore?" I asked.

        
He had not seemed to show much interest in the high,

        
thick leather collar that the girl had had sewn about her

        
neck.

        
"Of course," he said.

        
"I myself," I said, "have never seen such a collar."

        
"It is a message collar," said Kamchak. "Inside the leather,

        
sewn within, will be a message."

        
My look of amazement must have amused him, for he

        
laughed. "Come," he said, "let us go to the wagon of Kutai-

        
tuchik."

 
The wagon of Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks,

 
was drawn up on a large, flat-topped grassy hill, the highest

 
land in the camp.

 
Beside the wagon, on a great pole fixed in the earth, stood

 
the Tuchuk standard of the four bask horns.

 
The hundred, rather than eight, bask- that drew his wagon

 
had been unyoked; they were huge, red bask; their horns had

 
been polished and their coats glistened from the comb and

 
oils; their golden nose rings were set with jewels; necklaces of

 
precious stones hung from the polished horns.

 
The wagon itself was the largest in the camp, and the

 
largest wagon I had conceived possible; actually it was a vast

 
platform, set on numerous wheeled frames; though at the

 
edges of the platform, on each side, there were a dozen of

 
the large wheels such as are found on the much smaller

 
wagons; these latter wheels turned as the wagon moved and

 
supported weight, but could not of themselves have supported

 
the entire weight of that fantastic, wheeled palace of hide.

 
The hides that formed the dome were of a thousand

 
colors, and the smoke hole at the top must have stood more

 
than a hundred feet from the flooring of that vast platform. I

 
could well conjecture the riches, the loot and the furnishing

 
that would dazzle the interior of such a magnificent dwelling.

 
But I did not enter the wagon, for Kutaituchik held his

 
court outside the wagon, in the open air, on the flat-topped

 
grassy hill. A large dais had been built, vast and spreading,

 
but standing no more than a foot from the earth. This dais

 
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was covered with dozens of thick rugs, sometimes four

        
and five deep.

        
There were many Tuchuks, and some others, crowded

        
about the dais, and, standing upon it, about Kutaituchik,

        
there were several men who, from their position on the dais

        
and their trappings, I judged to be of great importance.

        
Among these men, sitting cross-legged, was Kutaituchik,

        
called Ubar of the Tuchuks.

        
About Kutaituchik there were piled various goods, mostly

        
vessels of precious metal and strings and piles of jewels; there

        
was sills there from Tyros; silver from Thentis and Tharna;

        
tapestries from the mills of Ar; wines from Cos; dates from

        
the city of Tor. There were also, among the other goods, two

        
girls, blonde and blue-eyed, unclothed, chained; they had

        
perhaps been a gift to Kutaituchik; or had been the' daugh-

        
ters of enemies; they might have been from any city; both

        
were beautiful; one was sitting with her knees tucked under

        
her chin, her hands clasping her ankles, absently staring at

        
the jewels about her feet; the other lay indolently on her

        
side, incuriously regarding us, her weight on one elbow; there

        
was a yellow stain about her mouth where she had been fed

        
some fruit; both girls wore the Sirilc, a light chain favored for

        
female slaves by many Gorean masters; it consists of a

        
Turian-type collar, a loose, rounded circle of steel, to which a

        
light, gleaming chain is attached; should the girl stand, the

        
chain, dangling from her collar, falls to the floor; it is about

        
ten or twelve inches longer than is required to reach from

        
her collar to her ankles; to this chain, at the natural fall of

        
her wrists, is attached a pair of slave bracelets; at the end of

        
the chain there is attached another device, a set of linked

        
ankle rings, which, when closed about her ankles, lifts a

        
portion of the slack chain from the floor; the Sirit is an

        
incredibly graceful thing and designed to enhance the beauty

        
of its wearer; perhaps it should only be added that the slave

        
bracelets and the ankle rings may be removed from the chain

        
and used separately; this also, of course, permits the Sirik to

        
function as a slave leash.

        
At the edge of the dais Kamchak and I had stopped,

        
where our sandals were removed and our feet washed by

        
Turian slaves, men in the Kes, who might once have been

    
    
officers of the city.

        
We mounted the dais and approached the seemingly som-

        
nolent figure seated upon it.

        
Although the dais was resplendent, and the rugs upon it

 
even more resplendent, I saw that beneath Kutaituchik, over

 
these rugs, had been spread a simple, worn, tattered robe o f

 
gray boskhide. It was upon this simple robe that he sat. It

 
was undoubtedly that of which Kamchak had spoken, the

 
robe upon which sits the Ubar of the Tuchuks, that simple

 
robe which is his throne.

 
Kutaituchik lifted his head and regarded us; his eyes

 
seemed sleepy; he was bald, save for a black knot of hair

 
that emerged from the back of his shaven skull; he was a

 
broad-backed man, with small legs; his eyes bore the epican-

 
thic fold; his skin was a tinged, yellowish brown; though he

 
was stripped to the waist, there was about his shoulders a

 
rich, ornamented robe of the red bask, bordered with jewels;

 
about his neck, on a chain decorated with sleen teeth, there

 
hung a golden medallion, bearing the sign of the four bask

 
horns; he wore furred boots, wide leather trousers, and a red

 
sash, in which was thrust a quiva. Beside him, coiled, perhaps

 
as a symbol of power, lay a bask whip. Kutaituchik absently

 
reached into a small golden box near his right knee and drew

 
out a string of rolled kanda leaf.

 
The roots of the kanda plant, which grows largely in desert

 
regions on Gor, are extremely toxic, but, surprisingly, the

 
rolled leaves of this plant, which are relatively innocuous, are

 
formed into strings and, chewed or sucked, are much favored

 
by many Goreans, particularly in the southern hemisphere,

 
where the leaf is more abundant.

 
Kutaituchik, not taking his eyes off us, thrust one end of

 
the green kanda string in the left side of his mouth and, very

 
slowly, began to chew it. He said nothing, nor did Kamchak.

 
We simply sat near him, cross-legged. I was conscious that

 
only we three on that dais were sitting. I was pleased that

 
there were no prostrations or grovelings involved in ape

 
preaching the august presence of the exalted Kutaituchik. I

 
gathered that once, in his earlier years, he might have been a

 
rider of the kaiila, that he might have been skilled with the

 
bow and lance, and the quiva; such a man would not need

 
ceremony; I sensed that once this man might have ridden six

 
hundred pasangs in a day, living on a mouthful of water and

 
a handful of bask meat kept soft and warm between his

 
saddle and the back of the kaiila; that there might have been

 
few as swift with the quiva, as delicate with the lance, as

 
he; that he had known the wars and the winters of the

 
prairie; that he had met animals and men, as enemies, and

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had lived; such a man did not need ceremony; such a man, I

 
sensed, was Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks.

 
And yet was I sad as I looked upon him, for I sensed that

 
for this man there could no longer be the saddle of the

 
kaiila, the whirling of the rope and bole, the hunt and the