Smugglers of Gor (48 page)

“I fear so,” he said.

“I see,” I said.

“They are free, and share no Home Stone,” he said.

“That would be a waste,” I said.

“We do not know what the gold given to Genserich was intended to buy.”

“I see,” I said.

I stood waist-deep in the water.

Tula, Mila, and I rejoiced to have the opportunity to clean our bodies, to wash away, even in the chill, moving water, the sweat, grime, and dust of the trekking. Whereas the mistresses had occasionally availed themselves of the river to cleanse themselves, we had not been allowed to do so. We had been kept filthy, and roped. Free women, for whatever reason, are commonly cruel to slaves. Men are much kinder to us. They are our natural masters. They even like us, at least as pleasure objects and slaves. We had submerged our bodies fully several times, and washed our hair as we could. It was sopped and clinging, about our shoulders. We had removed our tunics at the water’s edge, and, kneeling there, had soaked and rinsed them, twisting what water we could from the cloth. As only small pebbles and gravel were about, we could do little more. Then, laying the tunics out to dry, we had waded into the water. Several of the men had come down to the shore, to watch. There was nothing furtive, or clandestine, about this. They enjoyed looking upon us, and so looked upon us. Similarly we were neither surprised, nor shocked, at this attention. As we were slaves, our bodies might be looked upon with the same freedom as those of verr or kaiila, though we were well aware that looking upon us would be likely to provoke interests and excitements quite other than those likely to follow upon the scrutiny of those other beasts.

“See how the men look upon us,” said Tula, pleased.

“Of course,” laughed Mila. “There are collars on our necks.”

How different we are, I thought, from those precious, glorious free women, at least of the high castes, in the cities, of whom I had often heard, who might faint with mortification should a sudden breeze disarrange a veil, or attack a fellow suspected of considering an ankle, or hire public avengers to respond to an inadvertent jostling in a public place. To be sure, it is probably a matter of degrees and extent. Free women on my former world, for example, while more open with respect to their bodies than their Gorean sisters, even to the extent of commonly forgoing facial veiling, would be unlikely to consider bathing naked before men. Certainly I would not have considered such a thing. It would have been unthinkable. But now I was on Gor, and, as Mila might have noted, there was a collar on my neck. I was now a collared beast, no different from other collared beasts, and might be bought and sold as such.

I wondered if anyone could be more woman, or female, if not in her collar.

Whereas there are doubtless terrors associated with the collar, there is also a certain freedom, from our own self-imprisonments. Certainly a thousand frustrations, fears, lies, and conflicts were avoided. I had the sense that wars were done and, in losing, I had won. I had come home to myself, and could not again leave myself, even if I had wished to do so, but I did not have that wish. I was choiceless, and would have it no other way. It would have been my choice to be choiceless. How free I then was! Everything was now objective, and natural. I was in my place, and I wanted to be there, for in it I was myself, and fulfilled. I loved being a slave. It was what I was!

We have our feelings and emotions, deep and profound feelings and emotions. I wonder if a woman can even have such feelings and emotions if she is not aware of how vulnerable and helpless she is, if she is not in a collar. They may do with us as they please. We are to be done with as they please. We are collared.

How helpless we are!

But we are not without our weapons, those of our wit and beauty. And such weapons are not inconsiderable.

Perhaps that is one reason free women hate us so.

Some men were watching.

We were slaves.

I recalled a man, one seen long ago, a man whom I had seen somehow, even so long ago, on a far world, as a master. I recalled I had lain at his feet in some large structure, stripped and bound. He had later looked upon me, appraisingly, in an exposition cage in Brundisium, and had then taken his leave, abandoning me, leaving me separated from him, behind bars, a chattel, caged. He had scorned me on the dock at Shipcamp. How I hated him! And I remembered how Donna had knelt beside Genserich and licked his thigh, beautiful, loving, obedient beast that she was. I would have loved to kneel beside his thigh, that master first seen on a far world, and so express my slave’s devotion, hoping not to be cuffed away, to the side.

How glorious, how wonderful, to have a master to serve!

He had no interest in me.

But other men would, I knew.

Had not Master Genserich or Master Aeson kicked my knees apart, that I might understand I was, in that camp, a pleasure slave?

We have our power, our beauty, our wit, our intelligence, and may use it to our advantage. So, too, might a free woman. But how limited, and confined she is! Are not we, with our training, half-naked in our tunics, a thousand times more desirable, in our animal way, than the free woman? Does she not know that in any war of attractiveness, she is far outdone by the slave? When the heat of their manhood is upon them is it not we whom they seek, whom they buy, whom they bid for in the markets, whom they chain to their couch?

I wished that that master, who had had no interest in me, might now look upon me.

Some men were, why not he?

It would be pleasant to make him suffer.

How long ago it seemed that he had first looked upon me! At that time I did not even know that there was a world, Gor. I had, of course, heard rumors of such a world, but who had not? But, of course, it did not exist. And then I had found myself on a slave block, under torches, naked, being vended in Brundisium!

I wished he was watching me. How I would make him suffer!

I submerged my head in the water and lifted it up, almost immediately. I thrust my wet hair back about my head, and, keeping my hands behind my head, put my head far back, and lifted it to the late-afternoon sky, my back arched, the water streaming from my body, sparkling in its droplets falling to the river.

How I hated him!

I wondered if he were watching, from the shore, if he saw me, as I was now.

I hoped so.

I would make him suffer!

I thought that I had even now improved on my block measurements.

Was he watching?

I would make him suffer.

I thought I might go for even a silver tarsk, now, in open bidding.

Was he watching?

Let him suffer!

Now I would follow Tula and Mila to the shore, and don my freshened, still-damp tunic. It would cling nicely to my body. I would not notice that of course. Then I would fasten the disrobing loop, slowly, modestly, carefully.

I wished that he whom I hated might be on shore, watching me, not that it made any difference to me.

He had scorned me on the dock at Shipcamp, and I would scorn him here, but not, of course, to the extent of risking a beating.

I had apparently lost consciousness shortly after hearing certain words, following which I had sensed, rather as though I might be somewhere else, that the sleen had not attacked me, that it might have been soothed, that it might now be gone. Certainly I no longer felt the heat of its breath on my back, nor was I any longer half-choked in the stifling reek of it, emanating from that deep, cavernous, fanged maw. Then clearly the beast had been pacified, and was being fed. I heard its feeding, the voracious tearing of the meat, the sound of its gorging, and it was then, I think, that I lost consciousness.

Tula and Mila were with me when I opened my eyes.

They kissed me. “You are alive, Vulo,” had said Tula. Mila gave me water from a metal cup.

“There was a sleen,” I said.

“There is nothing to fear from it now,” said Mila.

“Unless you run again,” said Tula. “Then it might kill you.”

“The hunt is done,” said Tula.

“But you have been caught,” said Mila.

I was then very afraid.

But there would be little in this camp, I thought, from which my scent might be taken.

Might I not run again?

I was sure the sleen had been somehow set on my track from Shipcamp. They would take me back there. I had run. What, then, would be done with me there?

I must run again!

Once I was roped, and leashed, I would be helpless.

“There were two with the sleen,” said Tula, “the use master and another. They were hunting together. We thought them with the captors, but they did not attack with them. It seems they were guests, with the sleen, in the camp of the captors. Apparently the sleen escaped. It is fortunate for you it was recovered.”

I did not think it likely that the captors were from Shipcamp. I had seen none of them before. Indeed, I was not sure they had even known of the existence of Shipcamp. The two who had been with the sleen, on the other hand, must be from Shipcamp. I had been the quarry of their sleen. Their relationship to the captors, if any, was not clear to me. I suspected they might have fallen in with one another in the forest.

I had not even obtained a good look at the sleen’s use master, let alone his fellow, as by the time of his arrival, I was kneeling, bent down, my head to the dirt, my hands over my head, expecting the momentary attack of the sleen. I had not even raised my head, so terrified I had been, when the beast had been withdrawn, and had begun to feed, and I had lost consciousness.

“You may only be whipped,” said Tula.

“You are very pretty to be put to leech plants or fed to sleen,” said Mila. “Men hate to lose a pretty slave. They have many uses for them.”

“Too, you are a barbarian,” said Tula. “That is clear from your accent. And barbarians are stupid. It might be thought you did not know any better.”

“This time,” said Mila, meaningfully.

“And allowances might be made for you,” continued Tula.

“Once,” said Tula.

“Who were with the sleen?” I asked.

“Those two, across the camp,” said Tula.

Tula and Mila helped me to my feet, for I still felt unsteady.

“What is wrong?” asked Tula.

“Are you going to faint?” asked Mila, anxiously, tightening her hold on my arm.

“No,” I said. “No!”

“Do you know them?” asked Tula.

“One,” I said.

“Is he your master?” asked Tula.

“No,” I said, “he is not my master, and I am not his slave!”

“I only asked,” said Tula.

“You could do worse,” said Mila. “Look at those arms, the hands, the shoulders, the power, the virility of that body.”

“He could break one of us in two,” said Tula.

“He could nurture, protect, and master a slave,” said Mila. “I would be well pleased if his coin could take me off the block.”

“Not I!” I said.

“I would love to crawl naked and collared at his feet, cleaning them with my tongue, any time,” said Mila.

“Not I!” I said.

“Surely he is handsome,” said Tula.

“Not at all,” I said.

“I cannot even look at him,” said Mila, “without feeling my bondage.”

“It is he whom I fled,” I said.

“Then he is your master,” said Tula.

“No, he is not!” I said.

“Then you know he is your master, and you want him as your master!” said Mila.

“No, no!” I said.

“He is not the sleen master,” said Tula. “Thus he must have hired the sleen and its master.”

“You were the beast’s quarry,” said Mila.

“He came to seek you!” said Tula.

“Perhaps,” I said, off-handedly.

I feared I might fall, seeing him here, in the camp, so close, only some yards away.

Then I stood very straight, and stiffly.

“He is an oaf,” I said. “But, yes, doubtless he has come to seek me.”

“So far through the forest, and its dangers,” said Tula.

“He must want you very much,” said Mila.

I swelled with pride. Had it not been my knees, and not those of Tula and Mila, which Genserich or Aeson had forced apart, so that I must kneel in the position of the most owned and desirable of slaves, the pleasure slave? How vulnerable is a woman so positioned! And I had been unable to subdue or ignore the feelings which I had experienced, being so placed, so as a slave, before a man. How can one help being heated, and excited? How can one help being aware of the changes in one’s body, the readiness of one’s belly?

“Perhaps,” I said.

“But why, then, has he not put you in his bracelets?” asked Tula.

“I do not know,” I said.

“I do not understand,” said Mila. “He has paid you no attention. He has not even looked in our direction. I am not sure he knows you are in the camp.”

“Could there be no other reason you were sought?” asked Tula.

“Perhaps,” I said, falteringly. I suddenly realized that I might have been sought simply as a fled slave, only that. I was well aware of the security within, and about, Shipcamp, the guards, the prowling larls, and such. It seemed clear that there were secrets about Shipcamp which the Pani were concerned to protect. To protect the camp, deserters might be pursued, or fled slaves. Indeed, I had gathered that our captors’ interest in the mistresses might have some relationship to these matters. It seemed they had spied on Shipcamp, and the captors had been concerned to intercept them, presumably before they might report their findings.

“It is all very strange,” said Tula.

I did not think it so strange, but, if there were secrets concerning Shipcamp, I thought it best to remain silent.

“Where are the mistresses?” I asked.

“They have been sent out again, with the scarlet-clad slave and two guards, to gather wood.”

I recalled that their first errand with this object had been interrupted by the appearance of a collared sleen approaching the camp.

“There are boughs at the edge of the camp,” I said to Tula and Mila. These had been earlier gathered by the mistresses, but had not yet been strewn for the comfort of masters.