Witness of Gor (102 page)

"What do you see?" asked the lieutenant, again.

"There is a quarrel in the urt!" said a man, suddenly, the beasts, in their feeding, moving about.

"Extinguish the lamps!" cried the lieutenant.

I heard the heavy, vibratory snap of the cable, but did not see the quarrel. ft rnus~ have been fired from only a foot or so behind the bars of the gate. I did see the lamp move strangely in the hand of the fellow who held it, he who had been summoned to the bars. The other lamp, in the hand of the other fellow, had been dashed from his hand by the lieutenant. "Fire through the gate!" cried the lieutenant, wildly. I heard three bows fire, one after the other. Then I heard a fourth. Urts still squealed and stirred to the side.

"Draw back, reload!" said the lieutenant.

Men thrust past us. Indeed, we fell, or my "cord" did. I was bruised by a weapon as someone went past us.

"Get the slaves across the passage," said the lieutenant. "Block it!”

The girl next to me cried out with pain. I think she had been grasped by the hair and pulled to her feet, Certainly the cord on my neck, rasping, jerked upward. I cried out in misery. I crouched. The cord was still taut. Then it grew fiercely insistent. The side of my neck burned. I must rise. I was subject to the cord. I must be compliant. I scrambled to my feet, in misery, in the crowded darkness, obedient to the imperative of my constraint. The rest of the "cord" rose, too. I then heard another girl cry out with pain, perhaps Fina, kicked, and then that "cord," too, to the side of us, to our right, was on its feet.

We were frightened. We gasped for breath.

I think they feared that the gate might be lifted in the darkness. That their foe, blade in hand, in the darkness, might come through, either to do them greater injury or slip past them.

But I was sure the gate had remained down, Had it risen, I was sure I could have heard it, in its tracks. Too, the urts were quieter now. We could, however, still hear them feeding.

"An interesting stratagem," said the officer of Treve, in the darkness.

"Excellent Kaissa," said the pit master.

It was only later that I understood their probable meanings. I was, at the time, confused, sick, afraid, almost unable to stand, waiting there in the darkness, with the others, not knowing if something, an urt, or the prisoner, armed, intent, might suddenly be upon us, perhaps slashing to one side or the other, in some eagerness to get at the men.

But he did not come through the gate in the darkness.

The lifting of the gate, of course, would have marked his position, if only for a moment.

The prisoner had apparently lifted the panels to the urt nest, permitting them access to the walkway, the gate having been raised to permit them, or some at least, into the passageway, the gate then being lowered. It is terribly dangerous, of course, to trap an urt against a barrier, as it will then fight with terrible ferocity. To approach the gate would have trapped them in this fashion, thus making them his allies. But his plan, it seemed, had been even subtler than this.

Urts on the other side of the barrier, the men approaching, the corridor dark, necessitating the bringing of light into it, he had apparently, probably with his own body, if not blood, lured urts back, close to the gate. He had then cried out, as though under attack, and, doubtless at the same time, during that seemingly agonized, hideous cry, fired into the urts at point-blank range, thereby killing or wounding one of them, and initiating the feeding frenzy. By the time it had been determined that the victim was another urt the men would have been within range. I was sure now that the one man who had clung, so closely, so stiffly, to the bars, had been struck, through them, with a thrust of the sword, to the heart. I was sure he had not come back with us. The prisoner would then have lifted the crossbow, the quarrel set, and fired again, through the bars, at the man with the lamp, the light illuminating the target. He had killed two men in this fashion and, had the urts behaved differently, might have accomplished the destruction of one or two others. The lieutenant had four men left.

Gratefully, something like a quarter of an Ahn later, kneeling on the floor of the passage, I rubbed my wrists.

"I do not think he will fire on you," said the pit master. "There are ten slaves, and he will know that there are several, at least. He is limited in his quiver, and he is not likely to use quarrels on slaves.”

"Yes, Master," I said. But I was not greatly reassured by these words.

I was more reassured by the fact that I was in a rear group. Yet I had little doubt that he was sincere in his remarks, as he was obviously willing to let Fina be in one of the forward groups. We had now fetched torches and lamps from the passages, whatever was available. Indeed, even the pit master had fetched himself a torch.

"Let us get more men," said Gito.

"We have taken fee," said the lieutenant, "as have you.”

"Where is the pit guard?" asked the officer of Treve.

"They have reported in by now, and have not been dismissed," said the pit master. "I would suppose they are searching for us.”

"Up," said a man to the slaves, and we rose to our feet.

We were now differently arranged. We were now in five groups of two each, a pair for each of the black-tunicked men, including the lieutenant. Each girl in a pair was tied by the neck to the other with cord, I was with Fecha, on her left, about two feet from her, that much latitude and no more permitted to me by the cord. She had been given a small torch, and I carried a lamp.

As we were fastened together we could not well bolt, as coordination in such a matter would be difficult, Too, tied as we were, we constituted, as before, something of a shield, in this case for the one man behind us. We were the fourth group. The pair including Fina, the second group, was appropriated by the lieutenant, who seemed aware of her specialness to the pit master The pit master, with his torch, stayed close to them. The officer of Treve, too, remained in the vicinity of this group. Gito followed the fifth group, several paces behind. This new arrangement, that of five groups, made possible a more diversified deployment of the men, presumably an advantage on the walkway about the urt pool. On the other hand, it would presumably be less effective in blocking passages or in providing a barrier which could be, at a word, a command, raised and lowered, from behind which volley firing might take place.

"Look," said the man in the lead, He was the second of the two men who had not joined in the attack on the sleen earlier. The first was he who had been given the unenviable task of separating the feeding urts. He had, it seemed, lost a great deal of blood. His bow had been set for him by his fellow, "The gate is open," said another man.

I did not look at the remains of the man who lay in the passage. The urts had been much at him. It was he who had requested the first shot earlier.

He had been left where he was, that the urts would be less dangerous, from a heavy feeding.

The other fellow who had died at the gate, who had brought the lamp forward, had been hauled back in the corridor. In this fashion, if the urts pressed on us again, there would be meat to interpose between us and their reawakened appetites.

Had it been deemed useful I had little doubt that one or more slaves might have been sacrificed, to accomplish the same purpose.

It would have been easy enough to do, as we were bound, and conveniently at hand, in our neck-cords.

I feared these sober, strange men in their sable habiliments. A normal Gorean male, I was sure, would have defended a jeopardized kajira to the death. But, too, he would not have relaxed the perfection of his mastery over her in the least. Is she not, it might be asked, a desirable, beautiful animal worth saving for his pleasure? An Earth woman, incidentally, if rescued on Gor by a Gorean, might be surprised at the aftermath of her rescue. Half hysterical with relief, overwhelmed with gratitude, say, she is prepared to throw herself into his arms and grant him, even though he is a stranger, the inestimable favor of a kiss. Many Earth women seem to think their kisses are of great value, whereas most of them do not know how to kiss. The kisses of a slave on the other hand, so subtle, and humble, and well-placed, coupled with her entire demeanor, the meaning of her collar, and such, can drive a man mad with pleasure. But then that is understandable; she is a slave. To be sure, as the slave is further and further aroused by the master, in his turn, her kisses may become more and more piteously and helplessly orgasmic. But then to her surprise, and, one supposes, consternation, the Earth woman finds herself enfolded helplessly in mighty arms and kissed in turn and kissed as she had never dreamed she might be kissed, with such ferocity, and mastery and power, and ownership, and then as she reels, giddy and dazed, she is taken in hand and turned about, and thrown to the ground, on her stomach, her clothing, she almost failing to comprehend what is occurring, is ripped from her, all of it, she feels the air on her body and the grass on her belly and breasts she protests, she struggles, she tries to rise, his hand holds her in place, she cannot rise; her wrists are jerked behind her and enclosed in slave bracelets, she is then leashed, and led from the field, if she resists or dailies she will be whipped, if he has a collar with him it will undoubtedly be put on her, he has saved her life and it now belongs to him, and he will do with it what he wants. He will keep her, have pleasure with her, sell her, or give her away, as he pleases.

This will become more intelligible to her as she becomes more aware of the ways of Gor.

Not all cultures are the same.

She is now a slave, with all that that means on Gor.

She will soon learn.

"Where are the urts?" asked the lieutenant.

"As they did not pass us," said the pit master, "and they are not here, one gathers they have returned to the nest, or the pool. Some might be on the walkway.”

It seemed very dark beyond the gate. I could see the railing about the pool.

It was silent within, very silent.

"Perhaps he is gone," said a man.

"Was he within," said a man, "he would have left the gate down, as a barrier. It would have been dangerous for us to lift it. He would have fired from behind it.”

"Are there other gates, accessible from the walkway?" asked the lieutenant.

"Yes," said the pit master.

"Aagh!" cried the lieutenant, in fury.

"Then he is gone?" said a man.

"Are the gates open?" asked the lieutenant.

"No," said the pit master.

"I do not believe you," said the lieutenant.

"He is gone then?" said the man.

"If he was not within he would have left the gate down," said a man, "to make us believe he was within, to slow our pursuit.”

"Leaving it up, is to invite us into a trap," said a man.

"Or have us believe it so," said another.

"He is not within," said the lieutenant. "But he has already won his point, buying time, we, like fools, standing about in idle converse.”

"I would, nonetheless, recommend caution," said the officer of Treve.

"Step from behind the slaves," the lieutenant ordered the lead man.

Reluctantly he did so.

It was he, I recalled, who had been the second of the two men who had not joined in the attack on the sleen.

"Go to the threshold, stand there," said the lieutenant.

The peasant, I recalled, was not likely to waste quarrels on slaves, at least according to the speculations of the pit master, which speculations I fervently hoped were sound, The black-tunicked man, on the other hand, would presumably constitute a prime target.

"I do not think he is within," said the lieutenant, The man slowly, reluctantly, went to the center of the threshold.

He stood there.

It takes time, of course, to reload the crossbow. That interval of time, I gathered, figured in the lieutenant's calculations.

After several seconds, the man standing there in the portal, silhouetted by the light behind him, the lieutenant, unwilling to lose more time, indicated that one man, preceded by his fair shield of two, should enter and go to the left, and another, he, too, preceded by his shield of two, to the right. After an interval of about four paces, the lieutenant, with two slaves, followed the man who had gone to the right, and the other man, with his two slaves, followed he who had gone to the left. The man who had served as point for our advance, with two slaves, remained at the portal, just within it.

I was with the second man who had gone to the left, preceding him, with Fecha.

We moved cautiously, the light lifted, There were four gates giving access to the walkway, that through which we had entered, and, across the pool, on the other side, three, each leading to a different tunnel.

I heard a girl scream. An urt, on the walkway, at their approach, had scrambled over the railing, and dived into the pool.

Fecha held her torch over the pool. We could see ripples in the water there. And I saw the wet, glistening head of an urt, just at the surface. The head was very smooth. They swim with their ears back, flat against the head. This was not the urt which had just entered the pool.