Explorers of Gor (42 page)

I touched the chain. “Yes,” I said, “that is true.”

I lifted the chain from my neck and displayed It to the men on the long scaffolding.

They continued to encourage us to be on our way.

“It is no use,” said Ayari.

Even the children were screaming at us, imitating their elders. To them, of course, objectively, I supposed it made no difference whether we came ashore or not. This was the first settlement we had come to on the river. It lay only an Ahn beyond the first island, one of several, we had encountered.

“Let us continue on our way,” said Kisu.

I heard a sudden scream, that of a boy, and, looking about, saw one of the lads, some eight years in age, tumble from the scaffolding. He began almost immediately to be washed downstream. Without thinking I dove into the water. When I surfaced I heard Kisu calling out to turn the canoe. I stroked quickly after the boy, moving swiftly in the current. Then I was to where I thought, given my speed, he should be, or to where I thought I might be able to see him. He was not there. A few moments later the canoe glided beside me.

“Do you see him?” I called out to Ayari.

“He is safe,” said Ayari. “Come into the canoe.”

“Where is he?” I asked, crawling dripping over the bulwark of the light vessel.

“Look,” said Kisu.

I looked back, and, to my surprise, saw the lad half shinnied up one of the poles of the scaffolding. He was grinning.

“He swims like a fish,” said Ayari. “He was never in danger.”

None of the men, I noted, had leapt from the platform. Yet the boy had screamed. Yet he had seemed to be washed downstream, apparently in jeopardy of being carried away, by the current.

One of the men on the platform gestured for us to come closer. He had sheathed his jagged-edged knife, a fisherman’s knife. We paddled closer. As we did so he helped the lad climb up to the surface of the scaffolding. I saw that both the men and boys stood upon it, and moved upon it, with a nimble, sure footing. They were less likely to fall from it, I realized, than an Earthling to tumble from one of his sidewalks. They knew it intimately and conducted the business of their livelihood upon it for hours a day.

The lad, and others, were grinning at us. One of the men. perhaps his father, patted him on the head, congratulating him. He had played his part well.

“Come ashore,” said one of the men in Ushindi, he who had earlier used this language, and Ukungu as well. “You would have saved the boy.” he said. “It is thus clear that you are our friends. Be welcome here. Come ashore, our friends, to our village.”

“It was a trick,” said Kisu.

“Yes,” I said.

“But a nice trick,” said Ayari.

“I do not like to be tricked,” said Kisu.

“Perhaps, on the river,” I said, “one cannot be too careful.”

“Perhaps,” said Kisu.

We then guided the canoe about the platform and made for shore.

We tied the hands of the three girls behind them, and sat them in the dirt.

We were within a stick-sided, palm-thatched hut in the fishing village. A small fire in a clay bowl dimly illuminated the interior of the hut. There were shelves in the hut, of sticks, on which were vessels and masks.

Individual tethers ran from the bound wrists of each girl to a low, stout, sunken slave post at one side of the hut.

There had been much singing and dancing. It was now late. Kiss and I sat opposite one another, across the clay bowl with its small fire.

“Where is Ayari?” I asked Kisu.

“He remains with the chief,” said Kisu. “He is not yet satisfied.”

“What more does he wish to learn?” I asked.

“I am not sure,” said Kisu.

We had learned that three boats, with more than one hundred and twenty men, several in blue tunics, had passed this village several days ago. They had not stopped.

We were far behind Shaba and his men.

“Master,” said Tende.

“Yes,” said Kisu.

“We are naked,” she said.

“Yes,” said Kisu.

“You traded the bit of silk you had permitted me to wear about my hips,” she said. “You traded the shells about my throat. You traded even the shells about my ankle.”

“Yes,” said Kisu. The shells and silk, interestingly, had been of considerable value to these fishermen. The shells were from Thassa islands and their types were unknown in the interior. Similarly silk was unknown in the interior. The shells from about the throats and ankles of all the girls, of course, had been traded. We had also traded, of course, the strips of red-and-black-printed rep-cloth from about the hips of the two blond slaves. We had retained the golden chain which I wore, which had been a gift of Bila Huruma. It might be useful, we speculated, at a later date. In civilization, of course, it had considerable value. Here we did not know if it would have more value than metal knives or coils of copper wire. The results of our trading had been two baskets of dried fish, a sack of meal and vegetables, a length of bark cloth, plaited and pounded, from the pod tree, dyed red, a handful of colored, wooden beads, and, most importantly, two pangas, two-foot-long, heavy, curve-bladed bush knives. It was the latter two implements in which Kisu had been most interested. I did not doubt but what they might prove useful.

“I am not pleased, Kisu,” said Tende.

He leaped across the fire bowl toward her and savagely struck her head to the left with a fierce blow of the fiat of his hand.

“Did you dare to speak my name, Slave?” he asked.

She lay at his feet, on her side, terrified, blood at her mouth, her wrists bound behind her, the line on them taut to the slave post. “Forgive me, Master,” she cried. “Forgive me, Master!”

“I see it was a mistake to have permitted you any decoration or clothing whatsoever, proud slave,” he said.

“Forgive me, Master,” she begged. It was true that a slave may wear in the way of cosmetics, clothing or ornament only what the master sees fit to permit her. Sometimes, of course, this is nothing.

“I see another item,” said Kisu, angrily, “which might perhaps be traded in the morning, before we leave the village.”

“What?” she asked.

“It lies at my feet,” he said.

“No, Master!” she cried.

“I wonder what you would bring in trade,” he mused.

“Do not trade me, Master,” she begged. She might, of course, be traded as easily as a sack of meal or a knife, or a bit of cloth, or a tarsk or vulo. She was a slave.

“You are not much good as a slave,” he said.

“I will try to be better,” she said, struggling to her knees. “Let me please you tonight. I will give you pleasures you did not know exist. I will so please you that in the morning you will not wish to trade me.”

“It will not be easy,” said he, “—with your hands tied behind you.”

She looked at him, frightened.

He loosened her tether from the slave post and carried her, wrists still bound behind her back, to the side of the hut. He put her on her knees there and then, indolently, lay down, on one elbow, between her and the stick wall of the hut. He looked at her.

“Yes, Master,” she said, and then, piteously, as a slave, addressed herself to his pleasure.

I sat beside the clay bowl with its small, glowing fire, thinking. In the morning, early, we must be again on our way. With a tiny stick I prodded the fire. Shaba was far ahead of us. Why, I wondered, had he fled to the Ua. With the ring he might have slipped to a thousand more secure safeties on the broad surface of Gor. Yet he had chosen the dangerous, unknown route of the Ua. Did he think men would fear to pursue him upon its lonely waters, penetrating such a lush, perilous, mysterious region? Surely he must-know that I, and others, to seek the ring, would follow him even into the steaming, flower-strewn wilderness of the Ua. He had, I conjectured, made a serious mistake, a misjudgment surprising in one of so subtle a mind.

“Master,” I heard, softly.

I turned.

The first blond-haired girl, not she who had been Janice Prentiss, whom I have referred to as the blond-haired barbarian, knelt at the end of her tether, her wrists extended behind her, bound, their line taut to the slave post. This was she who had, with the blond-haired barbarian, been purchased as one of the matched set of serving slaves which Bila Huruma had given to Tende, among her other companionship gifts. This girl was also blond and barbarian, also clearly, given her accent, her teeth, which contained two fillings, and a vaccination mark, of Earth origin. She, too, like the blond-haired barbarian, bore on her left thigh the common Kajira mark of Gor.

“Master,” said the first girl. The blond-haired barbarian, her wrists tied behind her, tethered to the same post, sat nearby, angrily, in the dirt.

“Yes?” I said.

“I crawl to the end of my tether, where I kneel before you,” she said.

“Yes?” I said.

She put down her head. “I beg your touch,” she said.

I heard the blond-haired barbarian, near her, gasp in indignation.

I could hear the sounds of pleasure, from Kisu and Tende, at the side of the hut.

The kneeling girl lifted her head, regarding me. “I beg your touch,” she said. “My need is much on me.”

Again I heard the blond-haired barbarian gasp, but this time in amazement. She could not believe that she had heard a woman admit to sexual desire. Did the other slut not know that this was something that no woman must do! Was it not sufficiently horrifying even to experience sexual desire, without admitting the fact?

“Slave!” chided the blond-haired barbarian. “Slave! Slave!”

“Yes, slave,” said the first girl to her. “Please. Master,” she said to me.

I went near to her, but not so near that she could touch me. “Please,” she begged.

“You are a barbarian,” I said to her.

“I am now a Gorean slave girl,” she said.

“Are you not from a world called Earth?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“How long have you been on Gor?” I asked.

“More than five years,” she said.

“How did you come to Gor?” I asked.

“I do not know,” she said. “I went to sleep one night in my own room on my own world. I awakened, perhaps days later, chained in a Gorean market.”

I nodded. Gorean slavers usually keep their lovely prizes drugged enroute between worlds.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Whatever Master wishes,” she said.

“It is true,” I said.

She smiled at me. “I have been owned by many men,” she said. “I have had many names.”

“What was your barbarian name?” I inquired.

“Alice,” she said. “Alice Barnes.”

“That is two names, is it not?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “‘Alice’ was my first name. ‘Barnes’ was my second name.”

“‘Alice’,” I said, “is a slave name.”

“So I have learned on this world,” she said. “On my old world, however, it may also function as the name of a free woman.”

“Interesting,” I said.

She smiled. Feminine first names of Earth are often used on Gor as slave names. Sometimes they are even given to slave girls of Gorean origin. They tend to excite masters, and often improve a girl’s price. The origin of the custom is probably a simple one. Most girls brought to Gor are brought as slaves. It is thus natural that their original names be regarded as the names of slaves. Many Goreans, even those educated to the second knowledge, that afforded the higher castes, find it hard to believe that the delicious Earth women who show up in their markets could possibly have been free on their native world. They are just too obviously marvelous slave meat. “If they were free, they should not have been,” say many Goreans. “At any rate,” they add, “they are now in the collar where they belong, and they will stay there!” It is true, incidentally, that a girl of Earth origin is almost never freed on Gor. They are on the whole just too wonderful, too desirable, to free. Perhaps one would have to be insane to free such a woman. Would it not be madness to let such beauties, kneeling before you, out of your collar? A Gorean saying, of the second knowledge, has it that a steel collar locked on the throat of an Earth woman is perfect. If you should be a female, and are reading this, and should be so unfortunate as to be taken to Gor as a slave, do not hope for freedom; rather learn your lessons swiftly and well, and resign yourself to the service of masters; fight your collar, if you wish, but in the end it will do you no good; you are slave.

“I name you ‘Alice’,” I said.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“You wear the name now as a slave name,” I said.

“I know,” she said.

“Do you like it,” I asked, “now wearing your old name, but now afresh, put upon you as a degraded slave name?”

“I love it,” she said. “It is delicious. It makes me quiver with desire.”

She strained at the tether, trying to reach me.

“It is said,” I said, “that the women of Earth are natural slaves.”

“It is true,” she whispered.

“It is also said they are the lowest and most miserable of slaves, and are to be used as such.”

“It is true, Master,” she said. She looked down. ‘That has been well taught to me on Gor,” she said. She looked up. “Please take me in your arms,” she said. “I am an Earth woman who has been made a Gorean slave girl. You need not respect me as you might a Gorean woman and I am further only a slave. Do not respect me!”

“I do not,” I told her.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“I am an imbonded Earth woman,” she said. “I am among the lowest and most miserable of slaves. Take me in your arms, I beg you, and treat me as such.”

I took her in my arms.

“So use me that I fear that I may die, Master,” she begged.

I thrust my lips to her throat, and she put her head back.

“Slave! Slave!” chided the blond-haired barbarian.

“Yes, slave!” wept the girl in my arms. I lowered her to the dirt. I stayed with her a long time. I did not, however, bother to untie her hands. I would only have had to retie them later.

The blond-haired barbarian turned away, bitterly. She lay on her side in the dirt. I heard her cry. Her small fists, behind her, were clenched in frustration.