Hunters of Gor coc-8 Page 25

  Sixteen men of Tyros, in single file, brought up the rear of the march. One begins with the last man, and then the next to the last, and so on. I expected that men would now hesitate to bring up the rear of the march. I returned and picked up the girls I had taken, the day’s catch. I unbound their ankles, tied them together by the neck, and, with a switch, hurried them to the camp. There the dark-haired girl and the blond girl, two of my paga slaves, stripped the new prisoners and I, with Harl rings, part of the freight carried by the panther girls, not speaking, fastened them in the slave chain. There were twenty-five girls now in the chain.

  They fed from bowls of slave meal, mixed with water. Too, I cut each of them a piece of the dried, salted meat taken from the abandoned camp of Tyros and the girls of Hura.

  “What if the food is poisoned?” asked the blond girl, in her ankle ring. “Eat,” I told her.

  She looked at me.

  “Eat, Slave,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  Looking at me apprehensive, she chewed and swallowed.

  “Quickly,” I told her.

  “Yes, Maser,” she said.

  Swiftly, frightened, she finished the bowl of slave mean and the piece of salted, dried meat.

  I observed her. She suffered no ill effects. The food had not been poisoned. Later, when the moons were high, the paga slaves and I partook of it as well. I was pleased that we had this food, much of it, because I did not wish to be distracted by the need to seek out supplies.

  In the forest I was hunting game other than tabuk.

  The loose end of the slave chain, attached to the front of the first girl’s ankle ring, I took from her wrist. I fastened it about a small tree, thus tethering the entire chain of girls to the tree.

  “Lie down,” I told the girls. “Closely together.”

  They did so.

  I then, with the aid of the paga slaves, covered them with the tarpaulin and pegged it down.

  I lay awake, looking up at the moons.

  I turned my head to one side, and saw, some yards away, at the edge of the camp, in her yellow silks, Ilene. She was standing with her back against the trunk of a tree, her hands behind her back. Her head was turned toward me. Her hair was long and dark. She was very lightly complexioned. She was slender.

  I rose and went to her.

  “You are of Earth,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “The others are asleep,” she said. “I must talk to you.”

  “Speak,” I said.

  “Not here,” she said, “surely.”

  “Precede me,” I told her.

  She turned and, I following her, walked some distance from the camp. Then, in a small clearing, she turned to face me. Her fists were clenched. “Return me to Earth,” she said.

  “There is no escape for a Gorean slave girl,” I said.

  “I will not accept being a Gorean slave girl!” she said.

  “You have not been long on Gor,” I said.

  “No,” she cried.

  I shrugged and went to turn away.

  “I am not a slave girl!” she said.

  I turned and faced her. “How did you come to this world?” I asked.

  She looked down. “I awakened one night. I found myself bound and gagged. My hands were tied behind my back. my ankles were tied to the bedposts. I could not free myself. I had been stripped. For an hour I struggled, helpless. Then, at two A.M. by the clock on my dresser, a dark, disklike shape, not more than five feet in thickness and eight feet in width, black, appeared before the window. It was a small ship. A man emerged in strange garb. The window lock was, from the outside, disengaged, perhaps magnetically or electronically. The window slide upward. The man swiftly used me. He then hooded me. I felt my ankles released and then crossed and bound together. I then felt myself being lifted through the window and thrust into the small ship. I felt a needle being entered in my back. I lost consciousness, and I remember nothing more until I awakened. I do not know how much later, in a Gorean slave pen.” “How were you sold?” I asked.

  “I was sold privately to Hesius of Laura,” she said, “I then served his customers in his paga tavern” “How is it,” I asked, “that you think you are free?” “Is it not clear from my story?” she asked angrily. “I am a free woman of Earth!” “Once, perhaps,” I said. “Then you were taken by Gorean slavers.” “I was taken by force,” she said.

  “All slaves are taken by force,” I told her.

  She looked at me, angrily.

  “How were you brought to this world?” I asked.

  “As a slave,” she said.

  “Where did you awaken?” I asked.

  “In a slave pen,” she said.

  “Are you branded?” I asked.

  “In the pen,” she said. “I was branded.”

  “I see that you wear a collar,” I said. She wore the collar of Hesius of Laura, a tavern keeper in that city.

  She tried to tear the collar from her throat. She could not, of course, do so. It remained fixed upon her, snug, beautiful, gleaming.

  She threw back her head, haughtily. “It means nothing,” she said.

  I smiled.

  “A slave collar,” she said, lightly, “Might be snapped on the throat of any pretty girl.” “That is true,” I said.

  She reacted as if struck.

  “You do not understand,” she said.

  “What is it that I do not understand?” I asked.

  “Gorean girls,” she hissed, “may be slaves! Not the women of Earth! Earth women are different! They are better, finer, nobler, more refined, more delicate! You cannot make them common slaves!” “You regard yourself as better than Gorean girls?” I asked.

  She looked at me, astonished. “Of course,” she said.

  “That is interesting,” I said. “To me you seem less worthy, more slavish.” “You needn’t play games with me,” she said. “The others are asleep. We can speak frankly. We are compatriots of Earth. If you wish, for your vanity, I shall play the role of a slave girl when they are about, but I assure you that I am not a slave. I am not a slave! I am a free woman of Earth, different from them, and superior to them! I am better than they!” “And so,” I said, “I should show you special consideration?” “Certainly,” she said.

  “I should be particularly kind to you,” I said, “and you should, doubtless be accorded special privileges.” “Yes,” she said. She smiled. “Be cruel to them,” she said, “but not to me. Be harsh to them, but not to me. Treat them as laves, but not me.” “Why should I treat them as slaves?” I asked.

  She looked at me, puzzled. “Because they are slaves,” she said.

  “And you are not?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “How should one treat slaves?” I asked.

  “With great harshness and cruelty,” she said.

  I looked at her. She stood in brief, diaphanous yellow slave silk, that of the paga slave. Her hair was very long and dark. Her skin was very light. She was slender.” “I do not accept being a slave girl,” she said.

  “Your legs,” I said, “are beautiful enough,” I said, “to be a Gorean slave girl.” “Thank you,” she said.

  I strode to her and pulled away the bit of silk. She gasped, but dared not interfere.

  ‘“I walked about her. “You are beautiful enough,” I said,to be a Gorean slave girl.” She was silent.

  “You were brought by slavers to this world,” I said. “You were sold. You have been branded. You wear a collar.” She dared not speak.

  I examined her, candidly. “I congratulate the slavers on their taste,” I said. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  I looked at her, standing in the clearing, the bit of silk at her ankles, beautiful in the light of the three moons.

  She was now frightened.

  “I am glad,” I told her, “that the slavers brought you to Gor.”

  “Why?’ she said.

  “Because,” I said, “
it is a pleasure to own you.”

  “I cannot be owned,” she said. “I am not a slave girl!”

  “Are you aware that the men of Gor look upon the women of Earth as natural slaves?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “How should one treat slaves?” I asked.

  “With great harshness and cruelty,” she said, her head high.

  “You wear a collar,” I said.

  “I am not a slave!” she said.

  “You are an exquisite slave,” I said.

  “No!” she cried.

  “Quite exquisite,” I said.

  “Return me to Earth!” she cried.

  “There is no escape,” I said, “for a Gorean slave girl.”

  “I know what you want,” she said. “I will purchase my passage back to Earth!” “What have you to offer?” I asked.

  “Myself,” she said. She shook her hair. “Obviously myself!” She looked at me. “I will serve your pleasure,” she said.

  “As a slave girl?” I asked.

  She tossed her head. “If you wish,” she said.

  “Kneel, Slave,” said I, not pleasantly.

  Uncertain of herself, she knelt. She looked up at me. There was fear in her eyes.

  “Am I playing a role?” she asked.

  “No,” I told her.

  She tried to leap to her feet, but my hand was in her hair, painfully. When she stopped struggling, I released her. She smiled. “I’m not a slave girl,” she said.

  “Do you know the penalty,” I asked, “for a slave girl who lies to her master?” She looked at me, no longer smiling. She was now apprehensive. “Whatever the master wishes,” she said.

  “For the first offense,” I said, “the penalty is not usually severe, commonly only a whipping.” She looked down.

  “Will it be necessary in the morning to have you trussed and switched?’ I asked. “Why looked up, suddenly. There were tears in her eyes. “Why are you not kind and solicitous like the men of Earth?” she asked.

  “I am Gorean,” I told her.

  “Will you show me no mercy?” she begged.

  “No,” I told her.

  She put her head down.

  “I shall now ask you a question,” I said. “I advise you to think carefully before you answer.” She looked up at me.

  “What are you, Ilene?” I asked.

  She put down her head. “A Gorean slave girl,” she whispered.

  I knelt then beside her and took her in my arms, and put her back to the grass. “Slaves,” I told her, “are to be treated with great harshness and cruelty, and you are a slave.” She moaned.

  She lay on her back on the grass, and looked up at me. “Am I to receive nothing?” she asked. “Nothing?” “You are to receive nothing,” I told her. “Nothing.” In half an Ahn she was wild, moaning, weeping, submissive in my arms. And when in another half an Ahn she yielded it was with the helpless, uncontrollable yielding of the utterly vanquished Gorean slave girl. “I am a slave,” she wept, “ a slave,” she wept, “what will you do with me?” I did not respond to her.

  “Will you return me to Earth?’ she asked.

  “No,” I told her.

  “Will you free me?’ she asked.

  “No,” I told her.

  “I am totally your slave,” she wept. “What will you do with me, Master?” “I will sell you in Port Kar,” I told her. I then left her.

  I awakened shortly before dawn. It was muchly dark, but not as dark as the night. I was cold, and wet. I heard the call of some horned owls.

  I rose on one elbow.

  At my feet, to one side, a yard or two away, lay Ilene. Her head was on her right arm, and her eyes were open. She was watching me.

  I knew the eyes of a slave girl in need.

  I looked about. There was already, though before dawn, a dim filtering of light in the forest, the false dawn, the inchoate, fractionated light preceding the true dawn, when Tor-tu-Gor, the common star of two worlds, would, as a Gorean poet once said, fling its straight, warming, undeflected spears of the morning among the wet, cool branches of the forest.

  I lay on my back.

  The sky was now a darkish gray. I could see the edges of the trees clearly against it. I could detect dim, whitish clouds overhead.

  I lifted myself again to my elbow. It was a chilly morning. Dew covered the grass and leaves. Everywhere drops glistened.

  I again regarded Ilene. I read the need in her eyes. The bit of yellow pleasure silk, wet with dew, clung to her. Her hair was wet and straight, black, damp and matted back from her forehead, on both sides. Her face was damp. There was dew on her collar. Her legs were drawn up.

  She crept to me and put her head to my waist. Then she lifted her head and looked at me. “Master?” she whispered. I did not speak to her. She lay beside me and put her arms timidly about my neck. Delicately, timidly, she kissed me. “Please, Master,” she said, “please.” Her eyes were pleading.

  “I do not have time for you now,” I said.

  “But I am ready,” she said. “I am ready!”

  I took her in my arms and turned her to her back, and touched her. She tore the pleasure silk back that there be less between us.

  I marveled. In the night it had taken a full Ahn to an Ahn and a half to bring her to the point of yielding. This morning she had crept to my side as a slave girl in need. To my slightest touch her body responded helplessly, spasmodically. Last night she had been an Earth woman who had had to be conquered, who had had to be taught her collar. This morning she was only a lovely Gorean slave girl, eager and moaning, begging piteously once again for her master’s touch, begging to yield again, and again. On Earth a thousand men might have sued for her hand. On Gor she belonged to only one man, was an article of his property, and was only one slave girl among others.

  Twice I used her.

  There was little time.

  “Please do not sell me, Master,” she begged.

  “You are a slave,” I told her. “You will be sold.”

  I looked at her. I wondered what she would bring me on the block. Yesterday I would have regarded her as a four-gold-piece girl. But today lovely Ilene’s value had considerably increased. I imagined her ascending the block, turning for the buyers, presenting her beauty for their consideration, responding to the deft guidance of the auctioneer’s coiled whip. And then, when she was unready, when she did not expect it, he would, with the coiled whip, administer to her the slaver’s caress. I could well conjecture, now, the response of the awakened body. The crowd would be much pleased. The movement would be startled, involuntary, sudden, wild, helpless, uncontrollable. Her womanhood would have been betrayed. How enraged, how tearful, she would be. The men would laugh. She had been forced, tricked, before her buyers, on the very block itself, into displaying publicly the ready womanhood of her.

  I smiled to myself.

  The bids, then, would swiftly increase. The auctioneer, in his skill, would have demonstrated undreampt latencies in the wench, on sale, that her desirablities were not merely placid and visual, but organic, reflexive and sensual, that she, properly handled, was the sort of woman who, as the Goreans say, could not help but kiss the whip that beats her. I smiled. Men would pay well for lovely Ilene. No longer would she be a mere four-goldpiece girl, standard merchandise on a Gorean slave block. The auctioneer, I expected, would close his fist on a price of ten goldpieces for her. I would then have taken a good profit on the Earth-girl slave. Indeed, she had cost me nothing. Last night, I congratulated myself, I had raised her value. I had brought her up by perhaps as much as six gold pieces. I had had a double profit from my work of last night, my pleasure in teaching her her collar and commercially, the considerable improvement of my property, the considerable improvement of my investment.

  “Do not sell Ilene in Port Kar,” she whispered. “Sell another girl in Port Kar, not Ilene.” It was dawn.

  The red-haired girl, first girl in the camp, she who held the switch,
was not up, stretching like a she-panther, yawning like a she-larl. She, though a former paga slave, pulled the skins of panther girls about her body. I had torn the skins at her left thigh, that she might not forget she wore a brand. She was a strong, lithe girl. Ilene, I knew, feared her. And well she might, for she was first girl, and held the switch.

  Slowly, stiff-legged, the red-haired girl walked across the wet grass to the dark, dew-stained tarpaulin, to pull the pegs.

  It was dawn, time for the prisoners to arise, to be fed and watered, and then, when I wished, to take up their burdens.

  “Do not sell Ilene in Port Kar,” said Ilene, snuggling up against me. “Sell another girl in Port Kar,” she whispered, “not Ilene.” “Do you see her?” I asked Ilene, indicating the red-haired girl.

  “Yes,” said Ilene, “she is an excellent choice for the block in Port Kar, Master.” “Do you really think so?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Ilene.

  “Do you ask that it be she who is sold in Port Kar?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” said Ilene. She kissed me happily.

  “Go to her,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” said Ilene.

  “Speak to her,” I said.

  “I will,” said Ilene. “I will!” she kissed me. “I will tell her that she is to be sold in Port Kar.” “No,” I said.

  She looked at me.

  “You will go to her,” I said. “You will then inform her that you asked me to sell her in Port Kar. You will then ask her to give you ten switches. You will them ask for your duties of the day.” Ilene looked at me, protest in her eyes. Then, fear and tears came into her eyes and she sprang up.

  She ran to the girl.

  “I asked for you to be sold in Port Kar,” she said.

  “Aren’t you a pretty little slave with the master,” said the red-haired girl/ Ilene trembled.

  “And what did he say?” she asked.

  “I am to ask for ten switches, and then for my duties for the day.” said Ilene. “I see,” said the red-haired girl.

  Ilene stood before her.

  “Remove your garment, pretty slave,” said the red-haired girl.

  Ilene did so.