Kur of Gor coc-28 Read online

  The brunette, shuddering, put her face in her hands, tears streaming through her fingers, and wondered if she had gone insane.

  At this point, only several minutes before the disruption, the male in the container, the prisoner, Tarl Cabot, opened his eyes.

  We do not know how long he had been awake, but presumably it had not been long. Yet we are sure he was awake somewhat before he permitted this to be understood.

  He was, after all, of the Warriors.

  He had an active mind, and was, of course, by now quite familiar with the nature of his confinement. Therefore he would not have been startled or dismayed at finding himself as he was, in the container, but would have doubtless been more surprised had he not found himself so. His concerns, therefore, had more to do with trying to fathom the designs of his captors. For what reason was he now not alone in the container, and why with these two particular creatures?

  He had not been informed, of course, by Priest-Kings of his inadvertence, error or crime. This is not unusual. Would you inform, say, an insect, or small animal, found annoying, of the reasons for your displeasure? You would, presumably, simply deal with it, and as you pleased. Surely the Flame Death does not explain itself, but simply strikes. But in certain cases, with rational creatures, this lack of communication is deliberate, and calculated to unravel, so to speak, its victim, who, perplexed and frightened, is denied an accounting of his alleged faults or charges. He is plunged then into confusion, dismay, and, not unoften, is overcome by a sense of unlocalized, nebulous guilt. Such techniques, incidentally, are not unknown on Earth, or in some of the Steel Worlds. But Tarl Cabot had, it seemed, surmised, and correctly, that his predicament was occasioned by his intervention in the strife between the Steel Worlds and the world of the Priest-Kings, Gor, an intervention in which he had sought to warn and succor a Kur, Zarendargar, or “Half-Ear.” Too, largely on account of this intervention, it was supposed, and certainly with some plausibility, that he was an agent of Kurii. And such things are not condoned by Priest-Kings, nor, indeed, would their like be condoned by Kurii, who have a variety of interesting techniques for dealing with supposed traitors, techniques which we shall omit to delineate, on the grounds that they might be found disturbing by readers with whom they might be unfamiliar. Doubtless the Priest-Kings have their techniques, as well. And we suspect they could hardly be inferior in effectiveness to those of the Kurii. To be sure, given his codes, Tarl Cabot would be less encouraged to indulge in fruitless speculation and laborious self-searching than biding his time, attempting to obtain a weapon, plotting an escape, and such. The codes encourage attention to the future and action, rather than to the past and speculation. The exceptions commonly have to do with matters of honor and vengeance.

  Largely, certainly after the few first days, or was it hours, in the container, Tarl Cabot had been curious as to why he was being kept alive. He had not yet been slain. Why? Indeed, had they wished to slay him, they might have done so long ago, doubtless within moments of his discovery. Certainly he was totally at the mercy of his captors. He might have been denied the liquid food dispensed now and then through the tube, a poisonous gas might have been introduced into the container, rather than the sedating gas, the air might have been simply drawn from the container, and so on. Indeed, a number of things might have been done to him. Who knows, say, what might have been introduced into the container while he slept, which might have satisfied the sense of vengeance of outraged Priest-Kings, perhaps a coil of squirming osts, a live sleen, successions of urts each time he slept, which he might try to kill, and on which might feed, until eventually, from pain and loss of blood, days later, unable to resist, he became the feed. Perhaps, even, the container might have been slowly filled with mud or sand, or with fast-growing poisonous molds, or with dark water, in which swam the tiny, razor-teethed eels kept in large pools at the palatial villas of some Gorean oligarchs, both as a delicacy, and as a standing admonition to slaves, to which swift, snakelike, voracious creatures they may be thrown. He was being kept alive for some reason, but for what reason?

  The Priest-Kings, it seemed, were not yet done with him.

  Perhaps he was being saved for some holiday, some celebration, in which he might be used as a spectacle.

  Certainly they had not forgotten about him, as is sometimes the case with prisoners in Gorean dungeons.

  They were Priest-Kings.

  Too, he was now not alone in the container.

  Clearly he was recollected.

  For what purposes were the females introduced into his tiny world, and why these particular females?

  The blonde whimpered, and licked at his shoulder.

  The brunette, trying desperately to keep herself covered, as she could, gasped. She had witnessed this simple act in utter disbelief. Her inadvertent exhalation had been one of astonishment and shock, of indignation and disapproval, one of protest, even outrage. And yet the act frightened her, because she felt its reality, and physicality. It seemed one of the most real things she had ever witnessed in her life. It spoke not of ideas and theories, or verbalisms, or of the fencings and cant in which she had sought to perfect herself, of the skills which brought status in her world, but of a different world, one of which she knew but little, one in which she had little part, one in which she did not belong, one in which she would be neglected and ignored, a world of rain and wind, and grass, and beasts, and sunlight, one of life, not of its contrived substitutes.

  Whereas she was doubtless shocked at what she had seen she was also, in a sense, moved. Perhaps she thought of herself, as in one of her dreams, so licking a male's shoulder, perhaps commanded to do so, in precisely that subservient manner. Several times she had awakened in her bed, from such dreams, twisted in the covers, heated and thrashing, tormented by sensations that seemed to enliven and enfire every cubic inch of her, and turn her skin into a mottled sheet of living flame. At such times the smallest touch of a male, or even a smile, would have brought her begging to his feet. Sometimes she had fearfully, so awakening, felt her wrists and ankles, and her throat, making certain that her small, fair limbs were not thonged, and her lovely neck not encircled by a man's claiming collar.

  The slut clearly had promise.

  The Priest-Kings had done their job well.

  The male seemed not to notice her, not truly then, but turned to the blonde, and apparently spoke to her. Doubtless he did so in Gorean. She seemed startled that such seemingly articulate sounds should emanate from a human. She tried to imitate them, but managed, one supposes, to do little more than replicate a handful of disjointed phonemes. He seemed puzzled at her response. He did not understand, of course, at that time, that she, whatever might be her native intelligence, which was surely considerable, lacked speech, and for a very obvious reason. It had never been taught to her. Presumably he first thought her simply differently spoken, and that they had no language in common. But he soon discounted this speculation as she did not seem to speak to him in a different language, hers, but seemed rather to be trying to make his own sort of sounds. He did not think she was retarded because she had a lively, seemingly perceptive sense about her, and she repeated a number of his sounds with an alacrity and accuracy that suggested, rather, an agile, quick mind. Too, she could not be deaf, or a mute. Clearly she was not mute for she could utter sound, and she could not have been deaf, for she produced many of his sounds, though not all, with surprising fidelity. He then supposed, as we later learned, that she must be a Gorean exotic, in this case a slave who has been raised without a language. It did not occur to him at the time that she was from the Steel Worlds.

  He then turned his attention to the brunette who, frightened, not meeting his eyes, flushing scarlet, every inch of her, turned frantically away from him, her side to the glassine barrier, covering as she could the sweetness of her bosom with her small hands.

  She was well-curved.

  He assumed she must be a slave, as she was enclosed with him. Certainly her curves were
worthy of an auction block, at least in a minor city. He did not understand why she strove so mightily, essentially so futilely, to conceal herself from him. That was not like a slave. No slave, aware of the lash, would dare such a thing. Yet here, surely, the pretty thing, the nicely curved little slut, must be a slave.

  He had looked, of course, upon many slaves. But this one seemed unusual, in many respects. Her demeanor was odd. She was trying to shield herself, however ineffectively, from his scrutiny. She could be punished for that. And she had not performed an obeisance, nor had she addressed him in Gorean. As she was in the container, it had not occurred to him that she might be a free woman. It had not even occurred to him to see her as a free woman, robed in dignities, a citizeness, entitled to respect and deference. He saw her instantly, doubtless as the Priest-Kings had intended, in terms of the brand and collar, in terms of shackles and the whip, in terms of the auction block and cage. She was the sort of woman a man would put joyously, triumphantly, to his feet. She was far too beautiful and desirable to be free. Freedom was not for such as she. She was the sort of woman a man would not accept, except upon the terms of absolute and complete ownership.

  You could look upon her, and see she was a natural slave.

  The man who does not see natural slaves as slaves is a fool. They are slaves, and are whole only at a man's feet.

  She decided she would turn her head to him, pleadingly. Surely he must understand her distress, her fear, her confusion, her consternation, her predicament!

  The blond uttered a menacing, soft growl.

  The brunette shuddered, frightened of the other female.

  But, too, suddenly, instinctively, she understood where might lie her one hope, her single protection, from the hostility of the other girl.

  It would lie with this taciturn, supple, naked, powerful man.

  Never before had she depended on a male for anything.

  She was acutely conscious of her nudity.

  Perhaps she could smile at him.

  She was in no way unaware of her effect on males, and had often, shamelessly, pleasurably, made use of her sex to tease, torment, and exploit them, even while pretending to a sexless neutrality, putting forth then a charade of impartial personhood which was only too obviously, to an astute observer, belied by the subliminal signals she was at pains to project, and the tumults and furies they inevitably kindled, to which she would then, were they manifested, react with surprise and indignation.

  We earlier alluded, as I recall, to such aspects of her persona.

  The males with which she was familiar were easily manipulated. A clever woman, particularly if lovely, could do with them rather as she pleased.

  They were, of course, not Goreans.

  Suddenly their eyes met.

  Directly.

  Fully.

  She did not smile, as she had intended. She could not. Her lower lip trembled. She was profoundly startled.

  She had not expected this.

  What manner of eyes were these?

  She trembled, and if she had tried to speak, she would have stammered, helplessly.

  But she could not speak.

  And she felt that if he had spoken to her in some settings, the rug in a Tuareg tent, the tiles of a Roman villa, she would have instantly knelt before him, and pressed her lips fervently, placatingly, to his feet.

  She found herself looking into the eyes of a dominant male, for the first time in her life, into the eyes of a man who was by nature the master of such as she, a woman.

  This could not be, she thought, a man of Earth.

  These surely did not seem the eyes of a man of Earth. In them reposed resolution, and power.

  Before them she felt small, helpless, vulnerable, female, and weak.

  Never before had she felt like this before a man, so graspable, so weak, so female.

  She felt him a thousand times her superior.

  And what only could such as she be to such as he?

  She suspected she knew.

  Where had she seen such eyes before?

  Could it have been in her dreams?

  Then she sensed herself surveyed.

  She shuddered.

  But certainly more was involved here than merely the eyes of a dominant male, regarding a female.

  To be sure, that in itself might have been shocking to her, to find herself looked upon as one might look upon a property, something desirable that one might own, and would be appropriately owned, but a great deal more was involved. We recall that she had been selected as a match for the particular male in question, and that, thus, they would find themselves irresistibly and excruciatingly attractive to one another. She was, in effect, a slut he might pursue in dreams, and he was to her, too, in her dreams, one to whose feet such as she would hasten, to kneel, and press her warm, moist lips upon them, hoping to be found pleasing. She seemed to him one for whose throat was made his collar, and he to her as one for whose collar her throat was made.

  She found these moments, these sudden sensations and feelings, unprecedented and inexplicable, suffusive, shocking, overwhelming.

  She had the sudden sense she belonged in a collar, a slave collar, and that such as she was the rightful property of such as he.

  And he, too, though this was much concealed, looked upon this frightened, shapely, stripped beast with remarkable intentness.

  There was little doubt as to her suitability.

  Such women are made for the slave block.

  It is wholly right for them.

  They belong upon it, to be taken from it by masters.

  What would it be to have her at his feet?

  How startling, he thought, that so extraordinarily attractive and luscious a slut should be before him.

  And how unique and special she somehow seemed!

  He was pleased with the look of her.

  She had promise.

  The limbs of such women call for chains, their throats for collars. They are whole only at the feet of a man.

  And here, as she was, she must be a slave!

  He must have her, he thought.

  On the outside he would doubtless have brought her quickly to his chains.

  But then, suddenly, he grew suspicious.

  How unlikely that this female should be in the container! Many were beautiful slaves, and it would not be hard to find them on Gor. He had been a man of wealth and power, even a captain, with many ships, in Port Kar, and had lusted for and possessed many branded beauties, acquiring them and discarding them in the markets as he pleased. But this female was surely amongst the small number of those he had found most tormentingly desirable. She was one of the most exciting sluts he had ever seen. Everything about her seemed to beg to be possessed, to be mastered. The Priest-Kings could have placed any of thousands of collar sluts in the container. But this one seemed special to him, as though tailored from his dreams. Perhaps, he thought, she had been! Might not the Priest-Kings, with their wizardry, have inquired into such things, and perhaps, in the female's case, too, might they not have accessed her own needs, fantasies, and dreams?

  This match, he suddenly suspected, is too close, too well done.

  In this, he speculated angrily, is seen the hand of Priest-Kings.

  I must be on my guard!

  The girl, meanwhile, was struggling to regain her former sense of self, somehow lost before this man. But it seemed dashed, and irrecoverable.

  She thought of herself in his arms and had the sudden sense she would oil and leap within his arms as no more than a helpless, manipulated toy, as not other than a meaningless slave.