Smugglers of Gor (33 page)

I have fled Shipcamp.

There are no ropes or shackles on me. I am loose, and running, and I sped on, again.

How proud I was of myself. And how foolish I was! Did I not know I was a slave?

It must then have been early in the afternoon.

The sunlight was bright where it fell between the trees. There was a mottling of brightness and darkness. Sometimes the trees were separate and tall, and there was little but a leafy space between them. At other times, they were more closely set, and brush was much about them. I avoided such thickets. One did not know what might be within them. Once I was very frightened, for I thought I saw a beast’s head peering at me, large, and broad, but it did not move. I dared to move to one side, and regard it with more care, and found it was no more than a mixture of brush, branches, light and shadow.

I began to grow weary, and hungry, but I did not wish to stop.

I had not dared to conceal food in the basket this morning, even had I been permitted in the vicinity of the kitchen, where I might have stolen some, and the storage sheds were chained shut. On the other hand, I had no fear of starvation, at least for many days, until the onset of winter. I knew enough of the forest within the wands to recognize many things outside them which might be eaten; leafy Tur-Pah, parasitic on Tur trees, of course, but, too, certain plants whose roots were edible, as the wild Sul; and there were flat ground pods in tangles which I could tear open, iron fruit whose shells might be broken between rocks, and autumn gim berries, purple and juicy, perhaps named for the bird, whose cast fruit lies under the snow, the seeds surviving until spring, when one in a thousand might germinate. I saw a small, purple, horned gim flutter away from the bush. It startled me, for I had not seen it there. It is strange how close things may be, and yet not be seen. Its coloring deepens at this time of year. It molts in both the spring and autumn, and in the autumn its coloring is much like that of the fruit and leaves of the bush itself. It is not truly horned, but the feathering about the sides of the head suggests horns. The berries are tasty. They do mark the tongue and, if one is not careful, the mouth. When one is sent out to pick them one is not allowed to eat them, even one. The mouth and tongue are inspected. One does not eat one, even one. The lash is not pleasant.

As the Ahn passed, I grew more and more confident.

I was sure I was now well beyond the range of the larls. And the larls, of course, nearer Shipcamp, roam about, and may, or may not, pick up a scent. They are not put on a scent, as might be a sleen. I had little fear of sleen as there were few in camp, and I had put my blanket to the laundering, so they would have no scent to follow.

How little I knew of sleen!

I had fled camp, of course, moving west, beyond the dock, along the northern bank of the Alexandra. At some point, I knew, to move south, I must cross the Alexandra. I hoped to find a small boat, and make use of it. I might steal one near a river village. If necessary, I might cling to a log and float with the current, or construct a small raft of branches, bound together with wild Tur-Pah vines. There was little to fear from river tharlarion at this latitude. Had I been on my former world, I supposed one might conveniently petition aid from some worthy, understanding fellow, a kindly sort who would be sympathetic to my situation, and might be depended upon to assist a woman in need. On this world, however, I was not sanguine about this possibility. These were not men of Earth, conditioned for years, for political purposes, into devirilized, malleable weaklings, males taught to deny their blood, taught to pride themselves on their lack of manhood. What was wrong with them? Did they not understand what was being done to them, by those who bore them no good will? Could they not hear the voices of their own blood? But males here were not males of Earth. Males here were Gorean. I would not be coddled, shielded, protected, and concealed; my flight would not be abetted. I would be looked upon as what I was, a loose animal, a possibly desirable, loose animal, to be taken in hand and dealt with as strong men might please.

I shuddered, and better hitched up the disrobing loop at my left shoulder.

I looked about.

I heard a snuffling, and grunting, to one side, and stopped. There were three small tarsks there, rooting, only a few paces away. Some tarsks are extremely large, so large that they are sometimes hunted in the open plains with lances, from tarnback, but these were no larger than verr. The boar can be dangerous, with its short temper and curved, slashing tusks, but I saw no boar here, and, in any event, they are most dangerous in the spring, when marking out territory. They were rooting, of course, and this meant food. I waited for a time, and then, when they had drifted on, rooting elsewhere, investigated their rooting place, with its turned, gouged ground. I found some small, tuberous roots which had been missed, or rejected. I did not know what they were, but from the texture of the root and its starchiness, I would have supposed some tiny variety of wild Sul. I also found another root, and carelessly bit into it, which turned out to be a most serious, even hideous, mistake, unless, perhaps, one were on the brink of dying of starvation. It was not poisonous, of course, but one could easily conceive of it being regarded as such. In a loose sense, it was edible. It had been left by the tarsks, and this was not surprising. Its bitterness was unbelievable. Recoiling, dismayed, weeping with misery, I spat it out, and then, hacking and coughing, half retching, continued to spit away whatever residue I could. I spat again and again into the ground. I knew well what it was, for I had encountered a fluid, brewed from it, long ago, in my training. I had been knelt, my hands tied behind me. Then I had cried out in pain, for my head, by the hair, had been jerked back, far back, by a guard. I saw the ceiling above me. Without releasing my hair, but keeping my head in place by means of it, he then, with his free hand, pinched shut my nostrils. I had then sensed a second guard, approaching. As he neared, and then loomed over me, I saw he carried a metal, narrow-spouted vessel. In a moment, I began to gasp. Only through my mouth could I breathe. I tried to squirm, and shake my head, but I was held in place. Then, as I opened my mouth widely, gasping, fighting for breath, I felt the spout of the metal vessel in my mouth. I could not fully close my mouth because of it. I took a deep breath, sucking the air into my lungs. Then, before I could breathe again, the vessel was tipped, and fluid began to flood into my mouth, a repellant, gross, revolting fluid, and it filled my mouth like a pool. Held as I was, I could not rid myself of it. I needed air. My head hurt, from the strain on my tightly grasped hair. My wrists fought the cords that held them. In my oral cavity, bitter and reeking, brimming it, reposed that small, foul pool, like a tiny lake of bitter, odious filth. I wanted to force it from my mouth, but could not do so. I had no air with which to expel it. I feared I might suffocate. My lungs cried out for air. I must breathe, but to do so the beverage must first be swallowed. I did so. No, I had not forgotten slave wine. It is brewed from the sip root. Relia had told me that in the vast grasslands far to the east, the Barrens, the white slaves of red masters must chew and swallow the root raw. I spat again into the dirt. We are to be bred, of course, only as, and when, and if, the masters please. Our bodies are not our own; they are the masters’. I was then allowed to rise and return to the training room. My hands, tied behind me, would not be unbound for over an Ahn. We must not be allowed to rid ourselves of the fluid. The taste was with me for more than a day. Slave wine has been developed by the green caste, the caste of Physicians, one of the five high castes of Gor, the others being the Initiates, the Builders, the Scribes, and the Warriors. The green caste has also produced the “releaser,” as it is called, which is reputedly delicious. It removes the effects of slave wine. When administered the “releaser,” a girl may expect to be hooded and sent to the breeding stalls. Needless to say, free women are not subjected to the hateful and disgusting, the contemptible and demeaning, miseries of slave wine. Related potions which might be quaffed by free women, if they should choose to do so, for they are free, are reputedly mild and flavorful, as would be suited to their status. They, of course, are not animals to be bred or not bred as masters might choose. They are free. They are not owned. They are not slaves.

I continued on.

The ground became softer, and spongy, and water was about my feet. Wet grass, coarse, cut at my ankles.

The forest floor is far from uniform. It has its thousand rises and falls, its heights and valleys, its fallen timbers and rotting wood, its scarred, blackened trunks and scorched, lightning-fired wastes, its scattered boulders, its bare places, its flowered meadows and blossoming thickets, its crags and cliffs, its rills, and streams and rivers, its rock-cupped ponds, its galleries of tall trees with quiet aisles of leaves between them, its jumbled barriers of nigh-impenetrable brush, its innumerable geodesics, and textures. There are countries within it.

There had been much rain of late.

I hoped it might rain again, as that would wash scent away, clearing it from rocks and soil, obliterating trails.

I had no idea where I was, save that I was clearly north of the Alexandra.

I saw a tabuk, small, graceful, single-horned, here in the woods brown pelted, startled, lift its head from a water-filled declivity, and dart away. They are lovely animals, round-eyed, and alert. Usually there is more than one about.

It was now late afternoon, and still warm.

I climbed to a dry place, a small clearing amongst the trees, sat down, and, with grass, dried my feet and calves. I was weary, and hungry. I had been gone for Ahn. I would now be far from the range of the larls. I would rest for a moment, and then be, again, on my way. Nearby, in the grass, was a tangle of thick, stout, leafy vines, on several of which were large, pod-like growths. I had seen nothing like them in the vicinity of either Tarncamp or Shipcamp. I did not care for the look of them, and so I moved a bit away. I then lay down. I pulled the tunic down about my thighs, though there were none about to see. I knew masters sometimes enjoyed looking on sleeping slaves. I supposed they found them beautiful. I wondered if we were beautiful. I supposed some of us were. I wondered if I were. I did know that I had been brought to Gor, and collared.

I awakened suddenly, screaming, unable to separate my ankles, which seemed fastened together by some thick, living, coiling, fibrous material. And I felt it moving more about my legs. Then I shrieked with pain. “Ost!” I thought. But there were no osts here, surely, not here. The ost did not range this far north. If there were osts here they would be caged pets, or assassination devices. I looked down, with horror. Fastened in my right calf were two fibrous, fanglike thorns. These had been concealed within the pod, which had opened. I did not know if it had been attracted to me by heat, motion, or the scent of blood. I screamed, and tried to rise, and fell. More of the snakelike tendrils rustled toward me. I could see, about the two thorns deep in my calf, tiny rings of blood. My blood, I understood, was being drawn into the plant. I could see the moving darkness within the thorns. Other pods had now turned in my direction. I saw another tendril slithering toward me.

I screamed.

The growth was alive, not as a plant is alive, but as a nest of disturbed, excited snakes might be alive. There was a fierce rustling to my right, reflecting the agitation of the growth. A sucking, hissing, popping sound came from the pod, whose two thorns, fanglike, were deep in my leg. It trembled. It shook. It was like a tiny, fiercely respiring lung, a small pump, greedy and blind, a living engine without eyes or awareness, jerking and throbbing, fastened in my flesh, drawing blood from my body. I rolled away, to my left, and sat up, and tore the thorns from my leg, throwing them, and their pod and vine away. The coils on my ankles drew tighter, and I rolled to my belly and, scratching at the ground, digging into it with my fingers, dragged myself away, inch by inch, pulling at the vines until they were taut. I was sure the thing was a plant and not a free-moving animal. It would live primarily by photosynthesis, and the water and minerals it could extract from the soil. I had pulled the vines partly from the soil, perhaps a foot or so, when, suddenly, they fell away. In such a form of life certain mechanisms had doubtless been selected for. The behaviors of agitation and attack had doubtless been selected for, but so, too, I gathered, triggered by tensions likely to accompany or precede uprooting, had been a release and withdrawal. It was almost as though the plant wished to feed but not at the cost of its own demise. Doubtless these things were random at one time, but there are differences amongst behaviors; some are in the best interest of the organism, and others not. Then, statistically, over time, behaviors in the best interest of the organism, its health, longevity, replication, and survival, would tend to be favored. I slid back, away, further, from the plant. The coils which had looped about my ankles, and constricted there, withdrew into the tangle. Other tendrils stretched toward me, but, like restless, disappointed, anchored snakes, could move no further than their length, some a few feet, others some yards. I stood up, and backed away, my leg bleeding. I looked back at the restless tangle of growth, trembled, felt suddenly ill, and threw up. Fortunately, having found the thick tangle, perhaps a foot deep and some yards in width, ugly, and repellant, I had chosen to wrest away from it, but, it seemed, not far enough. Had I been closer to the tangle I do not doubt but what I would have been drawn into it, been covered by it, and, wrapped in its coils, drained of blood, and whatever other life fluids from which the growth might derive nourishment. Though I had never seen a life form of its sort before, I had little doubt what it must be. No wonder I had seen none about Tarncamp, or Shipcamp. They were such as would be cleared away from inhabited areas. I shuddered. There are many dire fates to which a displeasing slave might be subjected. One often hears of two. She might be fed alive to ravenous sleen; and sometimes she might be stripped, bound, and cast alive to leech plants. These things I had encountered were, I did not doubt, leech plants. Now I understood, better than before, why slave girls strive to be pleasing, fully pleasing, and as the slaves they are, to their masters. Yet, as I understood it, at least from my instructresses, free women do not understand, really, why slaves strive to be pleasing. Free women tend to think it is because of fear, fear of the switch or whip, of close chains, of unpleasant bindings, of restricted rations, heavy labors, enforced public nudity, and such. To be sure, one does fear such things, and they are at the disposal of the master. Else we would not be slaves. But the real reason the slave strives to be pleasing, fully pleasing, to her master, is because he is her master and she is a slave. It is profoundly rewarding to her to be a slave, to be owned, dominated, and mastered. She knows she has no choice in such matters but to be what she, in her deepest heart, most desires to be, a slave.