Captive of Gor (6 page)

But where could they be? There had been a crash. But there were no bodies. But

if there had been survivors, where had they gone? Might they return soon?

I returned to the main portion of the ship, and looked again at the great rents

in the steel. It did not seem likely to me that they had been caused simply by

the crash. There (pg. 38) were four of them. One, rather on the bottom of the

ship, was about five foot square. Two, on the left side, were the smallest. The

rent through which I had entered the ship was the largest. It was, at the point

at which I had entered, as the metal had been torn open, like steel petals, more

than nine feet in height, a vast gash which, irregularly, on the left, tapered

downward to a tear in the steel of only some four inches in height. There were,

of course, numerous other points of damage on the ship, both interiorly and

exteriorly, pitted, buckled plating and such. Much of the buckled plating I

supposed, might have been done when the ship impacted. I looked once more at the

great rents. It did not seem unlikely to me that the ship had been attacked.

Frightened, I ran through the ship, wanting to find food or weapons. I found the

crew’s quarters. There were lockers there, and six cots, three on a side,

mounted one over the other on the two walls, a mirror. The lockers had been

split open and were emptied. I found blood on one side of one of the cots.

I hurried from the room.

I found the tiny galley. In one corner, hunched over, nibbling, I saw an animal,

about the size of a small dog. It lifted its snout and hissed at me, the hair

about its neck and on its back suddenly bristling out with a crackle.

I screamed.

It seemed twice the size it had been.

It crouched over a metallic container, round, not unlike a covered plate, that

had been sprung open.

The animal was silken. Its eyes blazed. It was mottled and tawny. It opened its

mouth and hissed again. I saw it had three rows of needlelike teeth. It had only

four legs, unlike the small animal I had seen earlier. Two hornlike tusks

protruded from its jaw. Another two hornlike projections emerged from its head,

just over its black, gleaming, wicked eyes.

I was wild with hunger. I opened a cabinet. It was empty, save for some cups.

I screamed and began to throw the cups, which were metal, at the animal,

hysterically.

(pg. 39) It snarled and, the cups banging behind it on the metal of the wall,

darted past me. Its silken body struck my leg as it ran from the galley. It had

a long, whipping, hairless tail.

I shut the door of the galley, crying.

I opened all the cabinets, all the drawers and boxes. Everything edible, it

seemed, had been taken. I would have to starve.

Then I sat down on the floor of the steel galley and wept. When I had cried, I

went to the flat, metal container, that sprung open and exposed, that from which

the ugly, terrible, silken animal had been feeding.

Choking, almost vomiting, I fed myself.

It was meat. It was thick, grainy, something like beef, but it was not beef.

With my hands and fingers I scratched and scraped every particle of food from

the container. There was not enough. I devoured it. I sucked even my fingers,

for every last bit of juice.

I stood up, refreshed and stronger. I looked about, dismally. In my search for

found I had found some utensils, but no knives, nothing to use as a weapon.

Then it seemed to me that I had remained too long at the ship. I had not found

bodies, though I had found, in one place, on a cot, a stain of blood. If there

had been survivors, they might return. I became frightened. I had forgotten

everything in my search for food, and my eating.

I opened the galley door.

I heard a bird twittering.

It was a small bird, about the size of a sparrow, but it looked a bit like a

tiny owl, with tufts over its eyes. It was purplish. It looked at me

quizzically. It was perched on some split piping.

It looked at me for a moment, and then, with a flurry of wings, darted out of

the ship.

I, too, fled the ship.

Outside, everything was calm. I stopped. The dark forest was behind the ship, in

the distance. The fields extended to the right. Somewhat more to the left, in

the distance, in the fields was the yellowish thicket I had seen earlier. (pg.

40) The sun’s position had altered, and the shadows were longer. I judged it to

be in the afternoon, on this world. It was not cold. If this world had seasons,

as I supposed it must, I would have guessed it was in the spring of the year. I

wondered how long the year might be.

Outside, looking about more closely, I found some trampled grass, as though

things had been placed there, perhaps earlier in the morning, boxes and such. In

one place, I found some strands of woman’s hair. in another, there was a dark,

reddish-brown stain on the grass.

I must get away!

I turned toward the forest, but its darkness frightened me.

Suddenly, from it, through the clear air, from far off, there was drifted a

roar, as of some large animal.

I turned away from the forest and began to run across the field, blindly toward

the horizon, over the grass.

I had not run far when I stopped, for, in the sky, in the distance, I saw a

swift, silverish, disklike object. It was moving rapidly and in my direction. I

threw myself down in the grass. I covered my head with my hands.

In moments nothing happened. I lifted my head.

The silverish disk had now landed near the rent, half buried black ship.

The black ship itself glowed redly, but, in a few seconds, the glow faded.

Then hatches opened on the silverish ship and men leaped out. They carried

tubes, or wands, of some sort, perhaps weapons. They, like the men of the black

ship, wore tunics but these were of some shimmering, purplish material. Their

heads were shaved. Some of the men deployed themselves about the ship’ others,

carrying their weapons, entered.

Then, to my horror, a large, golden creature, six-legged, supporting itself on

its four long back legs, almost upright, stepped from the ship. It had large

eyes, and, I thought, antennae. It moved swiftly, delicately, almost daintily,

toward the ship and, bending down, disappeared inside. Some of the men followed

it in.

In perhaps less than a minute the creature, and the men, emerged from the ship’

they, together with their fellows, then (pg. 41) swiftly re-entered the

silverish ship. The hatches slid shut and the ship, almost simultaneously,

lifted itself, silently, some hundred feet from the grass. Then it moved above

the wreck of the black ship. There was a sudden, bluish flash, and a blast of

almost incandescent heat. I put my head down. When I raised my head the

silverish, disklike ship was gone. And so, too, was the wreck of the black ship.

When I dared I went back to the site of the wreck. The depression in which it

had lain, and the earth around, for some tens of feet, was scorched. But I could

find nothing of the ship, not a bolt or a bit of quartz, not a thread of metal

or a scrap of wire.

From the distant forest I heard again the roar of some great animal.

Once more I turned and fled.

When I came to the small stream, at which I had drunk earlier, I waded.

The water was waist deep.

Something struck, stinging my ankle. I screamed and splashed ashore.

Then I was running again.

I must have run, and walked, and stumbled on for hours.

Once I stopped to rest. I lay, panting on the grass. My eyes were closed. I

heard a rustle. I turned my head and opened my eyes. I watched it in terror. It

was vinelike, and tendriled, leaved. A blind, split, podlike head was moving

toward me, lifting itself slightly from the ground, moving from side to side.

Inside the pod I could see, fastened in the upper surface, too long, curved,

thornlike fangs. I screamed, leaping to my feet. The thing suddenly struck at

me. It tore through the fabric of the slacks on my right leg. I pulled my leg

away, tearing away the cloth. It struck again and again, as though sensing me by

smell or heat, but it was rooted, and I was beyond its reach. I threw back my

head, my hands to the sides of my head, and screamed. I heard another rustle,

near me. I looked about, wildly, I saw the other plant, and then two others,

too. And then another. Sweating, picking my way, , I fled from the area. Then I

was into the open grass again.

(pg. 42) I continued running, and walking, for hours. At last it grew cool, and

dark.

I could go no further.

I dropped to the grass.

It was a dark, beautiful, windy night. There were some white clouds scudding

across the sky. I looked up at the stars. Never before had I seen stars look so

beautiful, as bright and burning in the blackness of the night. “How beautiful

is this world,” I said to myself, “how beautiful!” I lay on my back and looked

up at the stars, and the moons.

There were three moons.

I slept.

6
     
I Encounter Targo, Who Is a Slaver

(pg. 43) I awoke in the morning, near dawn. It was very cold, and gray and damp.

I was terribly hungry. My body was stiff, and ached. I wept. I sucked dew from

the long grass. I was alone. My clothes were wet. I was miserable. I was alone.

I was alone. I was frightened. I was hungry. I wept.

As far as I knew I might be the only individual on this world. The ship had

crashed here, but this may not have been its world. The other ship had come, to

destroy the first, but this might not be its world either. And I had seen no

survivors of the crash. And the other ship had departed. As far as I knew I

might be the only living human being on this world.

I stood up.

Around me, soft, undulating, glistening with dew in the dim light, I could see

nothing but grassy fields, seemingly endless fields, rolling and rolling,

sweeping away from me on all sides toward horizons that might be empty.

I was lonely.

I walked on in the midst of the fields.

I heard the song of a bird, fresh in the morning. Near me, startling me, there

was a tiny movement in the grass and a small, furry creature, with two large

gnawing teeth, skittered past.

I continued on.

I would surely starve. There was nothing to eat. I cried.

Once, looking up, I saw a flight of large, white, broad-winged birds. They

seemed lonely, too, high in the gray sky. I wondered if they, too, were hungry.

I trudged on.

(pg. 44) I could not understand what had happened. There had been so much, that

was so different. I remembered awakening on the August morning, showering. I

remembered the men, my attempts to escape, my flight through the woods on Earth,

the ship, the plastic tube in which I had been placed.

I remembered, awakening again, in the grass, and then discovering the wreck of

the black ship. And I remembered the second ship, the silverish one, that it had

destroyed the first, and I remembered fleeing.

Now I was alone.

Elinor Brinton was alone, wandering across the fields of what world she even

knew not.

I continued on.

About two hours, I would guess, after dawn, I came to a rock outcropping. Here,

among the rocks, I found a tiny pool of rain water. I drank.

Nearby, to my delight, I found some berries to eat. They were good, and this

filled me with some confidence.

The sun had now begun to climb in the sky and the air turned warmer. It showered

once or twice, but I did not much mind. The air was bright and clear, the grass

green, the sky a full blue with bright, white clouds.

When the sun was overhead I found some more berries and, this time, I ate my

fill. Not far away, in another outcropping of rock, I found another pool of

trapped rain water. It was a large pool, and I drank as much as I wanted. And

then I washed my face.

Then I continued on.

I was not as frightened now, nor as displeased. It seemed to me not impossible

that I might be able to live on this world.

It was beautiful.

I ran for a little ways, my hair flying behind me, leaping, and jumped and

turned in the air, and laughed again. There was no one to see. I had not done

that since I had been a little girl.

Then I stepped warily, for I saw, to one side, a patch of the dark, tendriled

vinelike plants. I stood to one side and, fascinated, watched them rustle,

sensing my presence. Several (pg. 45) of the fanged seedpods lifted, like heads,

sensing me, moving back and forth gently.

But I was no longer much afraid of them. I now knew their danger.

I continued on.

I saw no animals.

Here and there I found more berries, and, from time to time, more outcroppings

of rock in which, almost invariably, I found water, doubtless trapped from

recent rains.

But I was very lonely.

About the middle of the afternoon I sat down in the grass, in a gentle, sloping

valley between two of the grassy hills.

I wonder what chance I might have of being rescued.

I smiled. I knew that this world was not mine. The ship that had brought me

here, I knew, even with my limited knowledge of such matters, was far beyond the