Plunder of Gor (27 page)

The couple passed, and Lita and I rose to our feet, looking after them.

“Did you hear it?” I asked Lita, frightened.

“Of course,” she said.

“It spoke,” I said.

“It made noises,” she said.

“Words,” I said.

“Do not be silly,” she said. “It is a beast. It rumbled, it growled.”

“Like a sleen, a larl?” I asked.

“Not like a sleen,” she said.

She, Gorean, would doubtless be familiar with sleen. Domesticated sleen are not that unusual.

“Or a larl?” I said.

“I heard larls at the games,” she said. “No, not like a larl either. But it is a different sort of beast.”

“It spoke,” I said.

“It did not speak,” she said. “It would have to be rational to speak. It is a beast.”

“It spoke,” I said.

“What did it say?” she asked.

“The mistress said ‘two pretty kajirae',” I said, “and the beast responded, ‘but not so lovely as you, dear lady'.”

Lita turned white.

“Did it not?” I asked.

“I am afraid,” she said. “It is late. Let us hurry to our houses!”

At that point Lita sped away, but I remained, for a time, frightened, in the doorway.

I was sure the thing accompanying the unusual free woman, that slight blond-haired beauty, she who dared to go about unveiled, was a rational organism. It was not a pet. I did not know what it was, but I was sure it was not a pet.

Then I remembered how it had looked at me, so piercingly. Certainly it had not been the look of a human male, a master, that look to which a slave becomes so accustomed, say, that casual, assessing look, from hair to ankles, which undresses her, nor the simple look of a beast, say, curious, hostile, or baleful. It had been a look that seemed, somehow, to be trying to understand my expression. Did it know me? Did I know it? Had we something to do with one another?

I think it had read more than apprehension, or fear, in my countenance, as it might have read in the countenance of Lita.

There must have been more in my expression than I understood. But then it had turned away, tamely following its companion.

Was this only my imagination?

I feared not.

I leaned against the wall of the doorway.

I had heard it speak. I was sure of that. And so, too, upon reflection, apparently, was Lita.

“Can it read my collar?” I wondered.

Why had that question occurred to me? Of course, it had come into my mind because of the words of my master, who had spoken of things, not men, who might not be able to read my collar, no more than I.

And might not that insufficiency buy time?

My master had, the night of the storm, speculated that a contact might have been made.

And I recalled that terrifying night, that in which I had heard bars gently shaken, quietly being tested, and, then, turning, in the light of the yellow moon, had seen something in the window, behind the bars, something large and alive.

Might it not have been something such as I had just seen on Emerald, and which had just seen me?

I did not even pause to fill the small bucket at the fountain of Aiakos. Instead I turned my steps toward Venaticus, rushing through the half-light.

Again and again, I turned about, fearing I might be followed.

Chapter Twenty-One

At the entrance to the house on Venaticus, I turned about, again. The street, as far as I could see, was empty. I saw no indication that I might have been followed.

It was now dark. The dangling lantern by the door was lit.

I was uneasy in its light.

I heard a sound.

It was that of my own breathing, for I had muchly hastened.

I saw nothing.

I was anxious to be inside, and safe.

I was very much afraid from the experience I had had on Emerald, near the fountain of Aiakos.

I had now realized, for the first time, perhaps belatedly, certainly foolishly, that intelligence, rationality, a capacity to calculate and plan, to pursue far goals, might not be limited to my species, but that the dark selections of evolution, in their impersonal, blind processes, without heart, mind, thought, or reason, might endow a variety of life forms with a diversity of attributes and behaviors facilitating survival, doubtless often at the cost of suppressing, eradicating, and feeding on other life forms. Were the beautiful lines of the leaping, fleet tabuk not fashioned by the artistry of the larl, its claws and fangs; did the same blind, nameless gods not balance the swirling school of parsit fish against the strike of the swift-swimming shark; the keenness of the hawk's eye against the tiny urt's immediate flight to cover at the sight of a moving shadow? We find it easy to understand how nature might favor speed, strength, fangs, claws, hoofs, wings, and such in a beast, but why might it not favor, as well, intelligence and cunning, rationality and thought? And what if such attributes might be conjoined with others, such as the tenacity of the sleen, the claws and fangs of the larl?

I must warn my master, that things may not be as before, that danger might be afoot, lurking perhaps nearby, watching, even now, from the darkness.

The beast had not seemed to bear me ill-will, nor its companion, the lovely lady, but who can read what currents of thought might course unseen in dark places, what rivers might flow in the minds of brutes, what might lie behind unreadable eyes?

I seized the hammer ring on the door and lifted it. I then let it fall, twice, against its heavy metal plate. I then waited for a moment, and let it fall once more.

I then stood by the door, waiting.

After a time the door opened, and I slipped inside. A tharlarion-oil lamp hung from the ceiling. I could see the stairs leading upstairs.

“Master,” I called, softly.

I heard the door close behind me.

“Master?” I said.

I was seized from behind, a heavy hand over my mouth. I tried to scream, but could not, for the hand over my mouth. It was removed, and I opened my mouth, widely, to scream, but a slave bit was thrust into my mouth and, a moment later, it was snapped shut behind my neck. I whimpered, almost inaudibly. What more can one do in a slave bit? Held as I was, I could not turn to see who held me. I heard a rustle of leather, and a hood was drawn over my head and fastened behind my neck. My wrists, held together behind me, in one hand, were then snapped into slave bracelets. I was then lifted to a man's shoulder and, my head held to the rear, as a slave is often carried, I was carried upstairs.

Chapter Twenty-Two

At the head of the stairs, he turned right, kicking open the door of the sleeping chamber.

He set me to one side, my back against the wall, by the door. I sat there, my knees drawn up. Where was my master? I twisted my head in the hood, I felt the bit, so tight, in my mouth. I pulled a little at the slave bracelets that confined my hands behind my back.

How foolish it is to do that, but how can one help oneself?

I heard him opening the chests, rummaging through their contents, casting articles about the room. I did not know for what he might be looking. I heard him move my slave mat, kept at the foot of my master's couch, perhaps lifting and turning it over. Surely nothing was concealed within it. He tapped the walls, and floor, here and there. A blade was then rending cushions. At last, I heard him draw the furs from my master's couch, lift and shake them, and then cast them down, to the floor at the end of the couch. I felt one of the furs fall across my foot, and I drew back my foot, quickly.

The room was then still.

I sensed him standing near me, perhaps looking about the room.

I do not think his search, if search it was, had been successful.

Might he not then be angry?

I knew a slave whip hung on its peg, on the far wall.

I suspected this was not a common thief.

Where was my master?

He took my right arm, and drew me away from the wall, and I lay on my side, I thought, across the portal.

He tested the floor, and wall, where I had been sitting, and then, apparently, stood up, once more.

I lay very still.

“It is not here, of course,” he said, “no parchment, no small scroll, no slip of paper, no tiny note, coded or not. No street, no domicile. No clue. But I did not expect to find it here. But one looks. One might be dealing with fools. Why should it be here? How could it be here? How would he, one such as he, know what needs to be known?”

I understood nothing of what he said.

“Yes,” he said, “I am sure it is as he claimed, so insistently, that he did not know, and, I suspect, another does not know either, as he claimed, but, concealed within the other, hidden within the other, is the key to he who truly knows.”

To me this discourse was unintelligible. What was to be known? Who would know it? Who was this “other” who knew nothing? How could one who knew nothing, who suspected nothing, who understood nothing, be the key to what must be known? And what was it that must be known, and why must it be known?

I felt myself lifted in powerful arms, and then, lightly, cast down amongst a plethora of rich furs, at the foot of the couch, those which had been removed from the couch. I was half sunk in the furs, almost lost in them. I had never been permitted to recline on such furs, though I had often cared for them, and arranged them on the surface of my master's couch. Many slaves are limited to their mat; other slaves are used on the furs, but the furs are commonly placed on the floor, at the foot of the master's couch. And some slaves are permitted on the surface of the couch itself, prized slaves, favored slaves, but, even in the case of such a slave, usually the neck, or at least one ankle, commonly the left ankle, is fastened to a slave ring. The slave is not to be confused with a free companion. The free companion, incidentally, as it has been explained to me, to protect her modesty, and make clear the difference between herself and a slave, is touched, if touched, only beneath the covers, she lightly robed, and in a dark room. Too, to preserve her virtue, she is to be dealt with succinctly, this to avoid prolonging any possible embarrassment or humiliation. This is quite different from the slave. The beauty of the slave, regardless of her possible wishes, should she dare to have them, is fully at the disposal of the master. She belongs to the master, and few masters fail, in the light of a love lamp, to relish her least expression, her tiniest movement, her smallest cry. What master would deny himself the wholeness of his property, the sight of her, the feel of her, the grasp of her, the sound of her, the intelligence of her, the emotions of her? Too, although she may be put to use briefly and abruptly, whenever and however the master wishes, as she is a slave, it is not unusual for him to sport with her, to amuse himself with her, to attend to her, intimately and patiently, for Ahn at a time. She is, after all, a slave. It will be done with her as the master might please. Let her moan, and sweat, and beg, in her chains. Doubtless the master will return to her, anon, as he is inclined.

I sensed him standing near me, perhaps regarding me.

“You understand gag signals, do you not?” he inquired.

I made a tiny noise, whimpering once. One such sound means “Yes,” and two such sounds signifies “No.”

One is taught such things in the pens, or a training house.

“You are a barbarian, are you not?” he said.

I whimpered once.

“It is easy to see why you were picked up for the collar,” he said.

I was silent.

“Barbarians are hot,” he said. “They sell well. They are grateful to be at the feet of true men.”

I would not have dared speak, even had it been possible.

I supposed I was “hot,” pathetically, helplessly hot. I had been given no choice. Gorean men had made me so. They like their slaves so. But I did not object. How glorious it was, to be a vital needful woman. How wonderfully liberated we were, so alive and needful, in our collars!

“Why do the foolish men of your dismal orb,” he asked, “not tear away the garments of their women, hurl them to their feet, put them in collars, and teach them they are women?”

Hooded and braceleted, I lay supine, deep in the furs, on the floor, at the foot of the couch. The securing of a woman commonly has its effect on both the man and the woman, arousing both. I held myself very still. I tried not to feel. I knew that my slightest movement might precipitate my usage. And I feared that I, even hooded and bitted, to his amusement, would immediately, uncontrollably, spasm in my yielding.

How helpless we are!

How pathetic to be a mere slave, and how glorious!

“Earth woman, slave,” he sneered.

I whimpered twice, frightened, weakly.

“True,” he said, “you are no longer an Earth woman. You are now only a Gorean slave girl.”

I whimpered once.

No longer was I a woman of Earth. I was now only a Gorean slave girl.

“I am sure,” he said, “you are she whom I have long sought.”

I did not see how this was possible. Why should one seek me, rather than any other possibly comely slave?

“You are Phyllis, are you not?” he asked.

I quickly whimpered twice, frightened. I was not Phyllis, but Lita.

“But your first slave name was ‘Phyllis',” he said, “and you have frequently been named ‘Phyllis'.”

I whimpered once. I had to do this. I did not know what he knew, and I was a slave, and a slave, not being a free woman, is not permitted to lie.

“Good,” he said. “You are now Phyllis, once more.”

I squirmed in the furs. Then I desisted, quickly, frightened. I think that being named excited me. Such power men have! Was I now, again, “Phyllis,” so simply? Why had I moved? Had I wished subconsciously, to arouse him? What, then, did this say about me? Such movements, I knew, those of a helpless slave, even those of a free woman, are likely to have their effect on males. Did he own me? Did he think he owned me? What authority had he to name me?

“Are you Phyllis?” he asked.

I whimpered once. Surely this was the safest thing to do. Too, perhaps I was now, again, Phyllis. How would I know?

“We are going to have a chat,” he said. “But first there is something to get over, something that will make clear to you the nature of our relationship.”

I sensed him crouch beside me.

“It is important that we understand one another,” he said.

I tried to shrink deeper in the furs.

I could not see in the hood. I could not speak.

The tunic was torn away.

I felt my ankles grasped, each seized in a strong hand. My legs were then widely parted.

“Prepare yourself for being used as what you are, a slave,” he said.

Frightened, I whimpered, once.