Witness of Gor (44 page)

It seemed, indeed, she had been deftly, and cleverly, taken. The men here, it seemed, were not unskillful in diverse endeavors. Many businesses might be herein practiced. Certainly her acquisition, the arrangements, her transportation and such, spoke of a tried methodology, of some sort of experience or acumen in such matters. I gathered that she was rich. Her ransom, I speculated, would be considerable. It would doubtless be far more than she, or, I supposed, almost any woman, would be likely to bring on a sales block. If that were not the case, it seemed unlikely that the men here would be holding her for ransom.

Rather, they would simply sell her, perhaps individually, or in a lot, with others. She was, it seemed, a free woman. I myself, on the other hand, was the sort of woman who is most appropriately owned. I had known this, even on my old world. And here, on this world, I was owned.

To be sure, I would have preferred a private master. You might think, incidentally, that all of us would prefer to choose our own master, and not merely a private master, but an individual master, but that is not true. I think I would have preferred to choose my own master, but that is perhaps only because I remembered one from long ago, one before whom I had knelt even before my body had grown used to bonds of iron, one whom I had never forgotten, one whom I had failed to please, one whose whip I had kissed. But some of us, at least, would prefer not to choose our own master, but, rather, to have one imposed upon us, whom we must then, in the fullness of our bondage, willing or not, strive to please. Indeed, had I not met a particular man, one I well remembered, I, myself, might have preferred this latter alternative. I did, of course, hope to have a kind master, or, at least, one as kindly as was compatible with the clear, strict relationship in which we stood to one another. I wanted to win the love of my master, whoever he might me. I asked only the opportunity to serve and love. I was waiting to serve and love.

But, in any event, it is not we who choose the masters. It is the masters who choose us.

"Hist!" she said, suddenly. "Someone is coming!”

I sat up, as I could, in the net, my hands bound behind me, my ankles crossed and tied. The net swung.

I heard nothing.

I saw nothing.

I was very still. I strained to hear. If she had truly heard something, her senses must have become considerably sharpened in this environment. To be sure, she might have learned, somehow, to detect and interpret the slightest of sounds in such a place. I did hear a stirring in the waters somewhere beneath. I had heard that sound before.

Then I thought I did hear something.

Something was approaching!

I became suddenly conscious, terribly so, of my helplessness and vulnerability. It was not merely that I was naked and bound, and helplessly the prisoner of a net. It was rather the institutionalized helplessness and vulnerability, so complete, perfect and uncompromising, that was symbolized by my brand and collar. I was a slave.

I thought I saw a light, dim, far off.

What would be done with me? I recalled that the man in the chair had speculated that Dorna, the high slave, would not be displeased with my disposition. That recollection did not hearten me.

Closer grew the light.

"He is coming," whispered the woman from the darkness. I heard the slight creak of the chain.

It seemed to me that at least two were in the passage, but it may be, I thought, that only one counted.

Of what use, I asked myself, would be my beauty, if beauty it was, or the helplessness of my sexual reflexes, taken as a matter of course in a slave, in a place such as this? But doubtless I would be assigned my duties!

The light came closer.

I did not even know my name! I had a name. One had been given to me by masters. But I did not know what it was. It was on my collar. I knew that. But I did not know what it was. Indeed, I could not even read.

Now I could hear tiny sounds, unusual sounds, in the approaching passage.

I shuddered, waiting, bound in the net.

I recalled the girl from the surface, a slave, who had been whipped and sent, plunging, into the depths. She was terrified. I had no doubt she would do her best to be found pleasing.

The light was now closer, and I could determine, clearly, that there were two figures in the passage. The first was a woman, in a brief tunic. No more than a rag.

She was excellently curved. She was doubtless a slave. She carried a torch. I was not sure what was behind her. I did not even know, for certain, if it were human or not. It seemed a large, broad thing, but it had tiny legs. It walked bent over. I did not know if it could straighten itself or not. it less walked than shambled. It moved with small steps.

I blinked against the light. It was now bright, contrasting with the precedent darkness.

The woman continued to approach.

The thing, whatever it was, with its small steps, its lurching gait, came shuffling, shambling, behind her, snuffing, sniffing, and grunting. It was not, I surmised, human.

The woman stopped.

She now stood a few feet from me, behind a low wall. This wall was apparently circular. My net, I now discovered, was suspended almost over the center of what appeared to be a large, circular, well-like enclosure. The enclosure was perhaps some sixtyfive to seventy feet in diameter. The water, several yards below, was very dark. I saw that my net had some ropes attached to it, which extended to a wall behind the walkway where the woman stood, behind what appeared to be the exterior wall of the well-like structure. I heard a creak of chain to my right, and I looked there, quickly. It was from that direction that I had heard the voice of the free woman earlier. I gasped. There, a few feet to my right, there hung, suspended from a heavy chain, fixed in the ceiling, a narrow, conical-topped, cylindrical cage. It was perhaps some six feet in height, and some two to three feet in diameter. In this cage, standing within it, veiled, in robes of concealment, was a woman. The arrangement of the veils suggested that they were merely tied about her features, and not pinned. Her robes of concealment seemed soiled and, at the hems, were torn. Her small hands grasped the bars of the cage. It was these she had, it seemed, futilely tested from time to time. She did not have gloves, which must have cost her modesty somewhat, but I did not find this surprising. From time to time, her wrists might have been corded before her, or behind her, and men on this world seldom, as I understand it, put bonds over such things as gloves or hose. They prefer on the whole, it seems, to place bonds upon, and to check and test their knots, the arrangement and such, on the bared limbs themselves. In this approach one obtains greater security, of course, as layers between the bonds and the flesh are avoided. I recalled her slippers had been, by her own account, taken from her to be used as evidence of her capture. Too, as I recalled, her ankles had been bound with her own hose. That sort of thing is not unusual. Indeed, the guards in the pens had said that free women were eager to oblige their captors, for they carried about with them, for the convenience of the captors, their own bonds, one stocking for the ankles, the other for the wrists. The free woman pulled her feet back, a little, more under her robes. She was doubtless terribly distressed that her feet were not covered. She was not, after all, a slave. Slaves, I might mention, are often kept barefooted.

"What is that on your neck?" suddenly cried the free woman. "I see it through the cordage of the net! It is glinting! It is a collar! You are a slave, a slave!”

I was too frightened to answer her. I had not told her that I was not a slave, of course. On the other hand, I had not corrected her misapprehension as to the matter. I hoped this would not count as lying. We can be punished terribly for lying.

"Lying slave!" she screamed.

"No, Mistress!" I cried. "Please, no!”

"Oh, you are a well-curved slave!" she cried, angrily. I hoped she would not hold this against me. What could it matter to her, a free woman, if I might bring a good price on the block? "Deceptive, deceitful slave!" she cried.

"No, Mistress!" I said.

"Well-curved, lying slave!" she screamed.

"Forgive me, Mistress," I begged.

"Beat her! Beat her!" she called toward the walkway, that behind the wall.

"Please, no, Masters!" I called over my shoulder.

"Deceitful, deceptive, well-curved, lying slave!" screamed the free woman.

"Forgive me, Mistress!" I wept.

"See her ears!" suddenly cried the free woman. "They are pierced!”

The torchlight, doubtless, had reflected from the tiny objects, dropletlike, with their steel pins, which were fastened in my ear lobes. The tiny pins, studlike, had snapped into small disks on the other side. I did not think that these things were intended to be so much ornaments in themselves as devices by means of which to guarantee that the penetrant channels wrought in my body by the worker's needle could not, even in the healing of the flesh, close. They must remain open, held open by the tiny posts about which the wounds would heal, which posts could later be removed, their work done. And thus it was that portions of my body were made such that they would be ready later, at a master's convenience, should he so desire, for the affixing of ornamentation Even so, of course, the devices made it rather clear that my ears were pierced, as they were.

"Beat her!" screamed the free woman.

"Please, no, Mistress!" I begged.

Then I turned back, blinking against the light, for I felt myself, in the net, by means of ropes, being lowered, and being drawn toward the wall.

I did not want to be beaten!

The net neared the wall. The light was very bright.

"Close your eyes," said the woman with the torch.

I closed my eyes, gratefully, against the light. But, too, of course, I was frightened. The light hurt my eyes. But, too, I wanted to see. But, of course, I had no choice. I had been commanded.

I must obey. I am a slave.

I felt the net drawn over the low wall and then I was on the walkway, supine in the net, behind the wall. I could sense the torch, reddish, through my closed eyelids. Its radiated warmth was welcome. I lay on the stones. I heard a sniffing and a shuffling, a grunt. I shuddered, my eyes closed. I felt the toils of the net being drawn aside.

"Let us see what the object looks like," said a slurring voice, scarcely human in sound. "Oh, it is a pretty object.”

I felt something large, almost pawlike, brush back my hair. I felt my head turned, from left to right, and back.

"Its ears are pierced," said the slurring voice.

"Yes," said the woman.

They had apparently now determined by actual inspection, at close range, that my ears were indeed pierced, that the objects in view were not otherwise affixed, held in place by, say, clips, or tiny plates, tightened with tiny screws.

"A pierced-ear girl," slurred the voice.

"Yes," said the woman.

"You are a pierced-ear girl," said the voice.

"Yes, Master," I whispered, my eyes closed.

"You are so low?" it asked.

"Yes, Master," I whispered.

"You may open your eyes," said the woman.

I opened my eyes, blinking against the light. I could see her fairly well, standing over me, the torch lifted. She was a brunette, and indeed shapely, and beautiful. She wore a ta-teera, a slave rag. On her neck was a collar. It was narrow, and close-fitting, like mine; this is the sort of collar found most frequently on this world's numerous kajirae, most of us wear it. I could not well see the features of the large, shaggy head which hung over me, as the light was behind it. I knew it could speak. But I did not know if it were human or not. I was sure, whatever it was, it was free. It was the woman behind it, in the collar, the torch lifted, who was slave.

"Untie her ankles," said the voice, and the thing straightened itself a little.

The woman placed the torch in a holder on the nearby wall, near the exit of the passage.

She then crouched down, near my feet. The large, bent thing stood before the torch. I could see only the misshapen shadow, like something between a boulder and an animal.

"You need not look upon his face," she whispered to me, "unless commanded to do so.”

"Mistress?" I asked.

"He does not care to have his face gazed upon," she said.

"Is he a beast in the service of the pit master?" I asked.

"He is the pit master," she whispered. "All here who are slave are as though his. In the pits his word is law for us. He is to be obeyed with perfection in all things, instantly, unquestioningly, with no appeal. He is here, in this place, as master.”

"Master," I whispered, frightened.

"Yes," she said. "That is the power he has here, total power over us, in all ways, the power of the master! We are his, fully, to do with as he pleases.”

"The state is my master," I whispered.

"Here," said she, "he is as the state.”

I trembled.

"This is his world," she said, "the pits, the darkness. He has power here not only over such as we, but over the prisoners, as well.”