Slave Girl of Gor (62 page)

I walked back toward the bow of the ship.

I reached into a wooden bucket and took a tospit, bit it open and began to suck at the juice. No one stopped me.

Although the cargo officer, my first day on board, had warned me that I would not be treated easily, he had not been as good as his word. I was permitted the freedom of the ship. I was not even chained at night. The men were fond of me, and they treated me well, with the rough comraderie and friendship that is sometimes accorded an owned girl, one who is common to all, and must obey all. For all the restraints placed upon me I might have been a free woman, save that the distinction between us, apart from my tunic and collar, would have been clear when a man snapped his fingers and pointed to the deck at his feet, or whistled for me in the night, and I must run to him, as might a pet sleen, to serve him. A slave girl, one who truly serves men, has often much freedom. Since they have everything, and anything, they want from her, and she is complete slave, and they total master, there is no struggle between them; she, accordingly, in a strange way, is prized and treasured; how many women of Earth, I wonder, are prized and treasured by their men; one can prize and treasure, of course, only something which one owns; a free person can be respected, and even loved, but cannot stand to another in that unique relationship which is that of prize and treasure; to stand in that relationship a woman must be owned; further, since each man, in his heart, desires a beautiful woman as a slave, he is, when he owns one, at least in this respect, contented, satisfied and pleased; a contented, pleased, satisfied man is a happy man, and a happy man is a kind man, and a generous man; he is jealous only of his prerogatives over the slave; of course, when his heat is upon him, then he becomes less kind and generous, and more the harsh master; she then, to her pleasure, well understands his dominance over her; then her slavery is truly brought home to her; even among free lovers, I have heard, the man, in the fullness of his heat, often laughs at the woman's illusion of freedom and seizes her to him as a slave; how marvelous to the man, then, if she is truly a slave. With what joy may such a woman, in true bondage, be seized and used. Moreover, her bondage, naturally, extends beyond the brief, several hours of pleasure; she simply belongs to him, and must continue to serve him, however he pleases; how exciting it must be for a man to own so delicious a creature as a woman; how utterly marvelous for him! It is more difficult to speak of women. In my heart, I know, there lies a slave girl, once denied, then secretly feared, now openly and joyously recognized, who longs for a master. I do not know if this is true for other women or not. Let them look into their own secret hearts. I do not think the longing of men is an oddity in the genetic history of a species; I think there is a reciprocity which has been intricately evolved; this desire, this longing for a beautiful slave, for a beautiful female, who stands to him as slave to master, which is universal in glandularly normal, strong men does not seem likely to have evolved in isolation; the evolution of the tiger's tooth suggests the presence of game; the evolution of the eye suggests the existence of light; the existence of blood suggests the organism's presence in an environment which supplies water and salt; similarly a man's desire to own a slave suggests that there are slaves to be owned, waiting to be mastered; in the animal kingdom the instinct to dominate and the instinct to submit are functions of one another, each real and deep in the blood of the evolved, complementary beasts; let the woman who desires to kneel naked before her male and put her head to his feet do so; but let her be wary as he cries out with pleasure and seizes her, for she is then a slave.

"Sail!" cried a man. "Sail!" I looked up. He was high above the deck. He stood, barefoot, on the lookout platform, high on the tall, single mast, well above the long yard and the billowing, triangular sail; the lookout platform is a wooden disk, fixed on the mast; his hands were on a ring, also encircling the mast.

"Where away?" called an officer, on the high deck, whipping out a small telescope.

"Schendi half ship!" called the man. The new vessel was abeam on our port side. Sailors of Cos usually refer to the left side of the ship by the port of destination and the right side of the ship by the port of registration; this alters, of course, when the ports of destination and registration are the same; in that case the sailors of Cos customarily refer to the left side of the ship as the "harbor side," the right side of the ship normally continuing to be designated as before, by reference to the port of registration. This sort of thing occasionally presents problems in translation between Gorean and English. For example, an expression in Gorean which might intelligently be translated as "Off the starboard bow," would be more literally translated, for the ship on which we were, as "To the Telnus bow." The exact expressions "port" and "starboard" do not exist in Gorean, though there are, naturally, equivalent expressions. The English expression "starboard" is a contraction of "steering board," and refers to the side of certain ships, particularly northern ships, on which the steering board, or rudder, was to be found. Most Gorean vessels, on the other hand, like many early vessels of Earth, are double ruddered. A reference to the "rudder side" would thus, in Gorean, be generally uninformative. It might be noted, however, if it is of interest, that the swift, square-rigged ships of Torvaldsland are single ruddered, and on the right side. A reference to the "rudder side" or "steering-board," or "steering-oar," side would be readily understood, at least by sailors, if applied to such a ship.

The Captain of the Jewel of lad hurried to the high deck, The officer there on watch handed him the telescope.

"It has two masts, two sails," he said, "and ten oars to a side. It must, thus, be a round ship."

"It flies the flag of Port Kar," said the captain, with pleasure.

"See now," said the officer, pointing.

"I see," said the captain. "She is turning about."

Another officer ascended to the high deck. He, too, bore a glass.

"It is a round ship," said the first officer.

"It is low in the water," said the second officer, he who had just come to the high deck.

"It is heavily freighted," said the first officer.

The captain lowered the glass. He was still looking across the water. He licked his lips.

The Jewel of Jad was a long ship, a ramship, though she was now in merchant service.

"She flees," said the first officer. "Let us take her!"

The second officer continued to regard the ship. "She seems long," said he, "for only ten oars to a side."

"She flies the flag of Port Kar," urged the first officer. "Let us take her!"

"We shall take her," said the captain. "Signal our intentions to the flagship. The convoy will lay to."

"Yes, Captain!" said the first officer, and called swiftly to men to run the signal flags of Cos to the mast.

The captain spoke soberly to the helmsmen, and the Jewel of Jad turned to pursue the ship of Port Kar.

Men leaped to the benches and our oars slid outboard. The oar master took his place on the steps below the helm-deck. Weapons reposed at the foot of the benches. It would be holiday and carnival. The decks were not cleared. None even noted me, nor, if they did, sent me below. Missile weapons were not readied. Sand was not brought to the decks. They did not even take the time to lower the yard and drop the mast, which is commonly done in such vessels before an engagement. It would be easy work; there would be shares for all.

The captain grinned.

"Stroke!" called the oar master. The Jewel of Jad, like a living thing, leaped in pursuit of the fleeing vessel.

Only the second officer, he also with the glass, seemed troubled, observing the fleeing ship with the glass. Then he was ordered to his station.

I stood near the railing, below the steps leading to the helmdeck.

The signal flags of Cos snapped in the wind. Behind us, in the distance, hove to, lay the convoy.

We would rejoin them shortly. I was very excited. Never had I seen a capture at sea. When the Clouds of Telnus had been taken I had been locked below decks, with other slave girls. We had not known to whom we belonged, until the hatch had been opened and we saw strangers.

"Faster!" called the captain.

"Stroke!" called the oar master. "Stroke!"

The convoy fell behind.

"Captain!" called the lookout. "Behold her! Her masts are dropping. She is turning about!"

I could see, from where I stood, the yards lowering, the sails being furled, the masts being unblocked on the other ship. Also, I could see it swing about.

"It is as I feared," cried the second officer, he who had not been sanguine about the vessel's pursuit.

He fled to the high deck.

"Hold!" called the captain. "Hold!" called the oar master. The men looked at him, puzzled.

"See!" said the second officer. "Look!"

"You are to be at your station!" shouted the captain.

"I submit, Sir," said the officer, "you should turn about."

The captain studied the ship in his glass. The second officer, too, observed it.

Round ships, I knew, commonly had two masts, fixed, and permanently rigged.

The ship we now watched had no mast we could see.

"Note the oars, Captain," pressed the second officer. "There are now twenty to a side."

Additional oars had been slid through thole ports.

"That is no round ship, Captain," said the young officer. Its lack of height in the water had not indicated a weight of freighting, buts its design, swift and terrible, like a mighty racing shell. Its oarage had been only half revealed. Now its masts were down. Ramships enter battle under oar power.

"I urge you, Sir," cried the young officer, "turn about or build speed to shear!"

The ship was bearing down upon us, rapidly.

"Turn about or build speed to shear!" cried the young officer.

"See the flag!" cried the first officer, who had been eager to pursue.

Now not only the flag of Port Kar but another flag, too, snapped on its line at the stem castle of the approaching vessel, hurling toward us, like a swift knife, its oars flashing.

It was a broad flag, white, with vertical bars of green. Superimposed upon the bars of green, gigantic, black and horned, it bore the head of a bosk.

"It is the flag of Bosh of Port Kar!" cried the first officer.

"Turn about! Turn about!" screamed the captain.

"We are lost men!" cried a sailor, rising in terror from the bench.

I screamed and saw the new ship, suddenly large, seem to lift itself in the water, and then heard the shattering splintering wreckage of wood and the loud swift swirl of water the ship struck and men screaming and saw the lines loose wild the yard and sail leaning awry the deck shifting and becoming steep and I couldn't stand and I lost my footing stumbling and seized a line, rolling on the deck, it fastened to the mast. The ship seemed then, for a moment, to right itself. The new ship had backed away from us, and seemed turning its prow away. Then the deck of the Jewel of Jad began to tilt toward the water, where we had been struck, the water pouring into the hold.

Men leaped from the ship into the water.

The ship then seemed again to right itself, but began to settle. I crouched, terrified, gripping the line by the mast. Suddenly I felt on my feet the cold water of Thassa. The deck was awash. The other ship moved away from us, like a silken sleen.

On the high deck the captain, alone, stood, his hand on the rail.

I looked about. The helmdeck was deserted, the benches empty. I heard a man scream from the water.

Too, from afar, I heard signal horns.

The captain looked down, toward me. "There is no safety here," he said. "Release the line and flee to the water."

I shook my head. "No!" I said. "No!" I was terrified.

Suddenly he looked upon me, as a Gorean master. He began to descend from the high deck, toward me.

"Yes, Master!" I cried. I released the line and fled to the railing, and leaped into the water. I was a slave girl. I feared a Gorean master more than the water.

The water was greenish, and cold. I felt miserable. I went beneath the surface and then emerged.

"Come away from the ship," called a man.

I swam toward him. I was some yards from the sinking vessel when it slipped beneath the water. I was dragged back and submerged, but, in moments, I managed to regain the surface.

I could not see for the salt water in my eyes. It burned in my nostrils for a moment. I spit water out.

A hand seized me and pulled me to a piece of wreckage, some plankings from the ship's side.

"We will be picked up momentarily," said a man. There were some four men on the planking.

I could see other ships from the convoy. There were several about, converging upon us.

"Wait!" said one of the men. "They are turning about!"

"There are other ships!" cried another.

I stood up, unsteadily, on the boards. I could see, to be sure, that several of the convoy ships were turning about. Too, in the distance, between some of them, I could see other ships, approaching.