Beasts of Gor coc-12

by John Norman

  He carried a dart-firing weapon.

  “Put aside your weapon, slowly,” I commanded him.

  “It is not here,” he said. “I have searched.”

  “Put aside your weapon,” I said.

  He put it at his feet.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I suspect the same as you,” he said. “I have searched for the lever or key, or wheel, or whatever it may be, which, manipulated or turned, will destroy this place.”

  “You serve Kurii,” I said.

  “No longer,” said he. “I fought, and was spared by one who was a man. I have thought long on this. Though I may be too weak to be an Assassin, yet perhaps I have strength sufficient unto manhood.”

  “How do I know you speak the truth?” I said.

  “Four Kur were here,” he said, “to guard this place, to intercept him who might attempt to attain it. Those I slew.”

  He gestured to an aisle in the boxes. I could smell Kur blood. I did not take my eyes from him. The girl, turning about, shrank suddenly back, desperately, futilely, trying to free her small bands, tied behind her back, and stilled a scream.

  “Four times I fired, four I slew,” he said.

  “Report what you see,” I told the girl.

  “There are four beasts, or parts of beasts,” she said, “three here, and one beyond.”

  “Take up your weapon,” I said to Drusus.

  He picked it up. He looked at the woman. “A pretty slave girl,” he said.

  “I am not a slave girl!” she said. “I am a free woman! I am the Lady Graciela Consuelo Rosa Rivera-Sanchez!”

  “Amusing,” he said. He descended from the boxes.

  “I had thought the destructive device, if it exists, would be here,” I said.

  “I thought so, too,” he said.

  “If you trip or trigger the device,” said the girl, “we will all be killed!”

  ‘The invasion must be stopped,” I said.

  “The device must not be detonated,” she cried. “We would all be killed, you fools!”

  I struck her back against the boxes, blood at her mouth, and she sank to the floor.

  “You think and act as a slave,” I said.

  She put her head down, trembling, frightened, an instinctive gesture for a slave.

  “You are a slave,” I said. “I can tell.”

  She looked up at me, frightened.

  “Perhaps it would be well for you to ask permission before you speak in the presence of free men,” I said.

  She put her head down.

  “She would look well naked, on an auction block,” said Drusus.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What shall we do now?” he asked.

  At that moment the large steel door, through which I had entered the room shut. It must have been done automatically. We saw no one. The wheel on our side of the door, bummed and spun, locking the door. At the same time, from the ceiling, a filtering of white, smoky gas began to descend.

  “Hold your breath!” I cried. I leveled the, dart-firing weapon I carried at the door, and pressed the firing switch. The dart, like an insidious bird, sped to the steel, smoking, and pierced its outer layer. An instant later, as I flung myself downward, near the girl, Drusus with me, there was a ripping of steel which tore at my eardrums. I gestured the others to their feet, and, together, we ran through the smoke and gas to the door. It lay twisted, half wrenched from its hinges, half melted. We lowered our heads and slipped through the opening. The girl screamed as the hot metal brushed her calf. We were then free in the hall. Some eight Kurii were hurrying toward us.

  Drusus lifted his weapon, calmly. A dart hissed forth. The first Kur stopped and then, suddenly, burst apart. Another reeled away from him. Another tore the blood and flesh from his face, half blinded, roaring with fury. A dart hissed above our heads and rent in its explosion the metal behind us. I fired a dart and another Kur spun about hideously, scratching at the metal, and then, before our eyes, erupted as though it had engorged a bomb. The six Kurii remaining, one with an arm dragging on the floor, hung to its body by torn shreds of muscle, scrambled backwards, snarling. Then they disappeared about a corner.

  “Hurry!” I cried.

  We sped forward, and, at the first branching in the corridor, turned left.

  We had no desire to again encounter the Kurii.

  Scarcely had we left our original corridor than we heard a great slam of steel. Looking backward we saw that it had been sealed.

  “Let us move quickly,” I suggested.

  We hurried up a flight of stairs.

  We saw no one.

  We began to ascend another flight of stairs. Near its top the girl stumbled and fell, bound, rolling, down several steps. She was bruised and sobbing.

  I took her in my arms.

  “Did you see the beasts!” she cried. “What are they?”

  “They are those whom you served,” I informed her.

  “No!” she cried.

  “But you will now serve others, pretty slave,” I told her.

  She looked at me with horror.

  I threw her over my shoulder and ascended the stairs.

  “Who goes there!” cried a man. Then he spun away from us, rolling and spattering backward.

  “The way is now clear,” said Drusus. “Let us hurry.”

  Another steel panel slammed down behind us. The siren then began to whine in the steel halls.

  “Perhaps there was no destructive device,” said Drusus.

  “I know where it is now,” I said. “We have been fools! Fools!”

  “Where?” he asked, puzzled.

  “Beyond the reach of slaves, beyond the scope of the monitoring devices,” I cried. “Where no one may reach, where no one may see!”

  “We have journeyed already to the termination of the slave track,” he said.

  “Where do all the slave tracks terminate?” I asked.

  “All?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “In the center of the complex,” he said.

  “At the chamber of Zarendargar,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I have seen that chamber,” I said. “It contains monitors, but it itself is not monitored.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes!”

  “Where but in the chamber of the high Kur would lie that terrifying mechanism?”

  “Where no one may reach, where no one may see,” he said.

  “Saving Zarendargar, Half-Ear, himself,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “We have failed,” said Drusus.

  I nodded in agreement. The strange common project of two men, of diverse and antagonistic, yet strangely similar castes, an Assassin and a Warrior, had failed.

  “What is now to be done?” he asked.

  “We must attempt to reach the chamber of Zarendargar,” I said.

  “It is hopeless,” he said.

  “Of course,” I said. “But I must attempt it. Are you with me?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “But you are of the Assassins,” I said.

  “We are tenacious fellows,” he smiled.

  “I have heard that,” I said.

  “Do you think that only Warriors are men?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “I have never been of that opinion.”

  “Let us proceed,” he said.

  “I thought you were too weak to be an Assassin,” I said.

  “I was once strong enough to defy the dictates of my caste,” he said. “I was once strong enough to spare my friend, though I feared that in doing this I would myself be killed.”

  “Perhaps you are the strongest of the dark caste,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “Let us see who can fight better,” I said.

  “Our training is superior to yours,” he said.

  “I doubt that,” I said. “But we do not get much training dropping poison into people’s drinks.�
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  “Assassins are not permitted poison,” he said proudly.

  “I know,” I said.

  “The Assassin,” he said, “is like a musician, a surgeon. The Warrior is like a butcher. He is a ravaging, bloodthirsty lout.”

  “There is much to what you say,” I granted him. “But Assassins are such arid fellows. Warriors are more genial, more enthusiastic.”

  “An Assassin goes in and does his job, and comes out quietly,” he said. “Warriors storm buildings and burn towers.”

  “It is true that I would rather clean up after an Assassin than a Warrior,” I said.

  “You are not a bad fellow for a Warrior,” he said.

  “I have known worse Assassins than yourself,” I said.

  “Let us proceed,” he said.

  “Agreed,” I said. We, together, I carrying the girl, made our way up another flight of stairs.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “Yes” he said.

  “The most obvious approaches to the chamber of Zarendargar,” I said, “will probably be heavily guarded. Thus, let us circle about and climb upward. Perhaps we can eventually cut through from the level above.”

  “For a warrior,” he said, “you are not totally without cunning.”

  “We have our flashes of inspiration,” I informed him.

  We climbed up two more levels. Then we began to circle about, far to our right. We wanted another stairway, one more remote, to ascend yet higher.

  We had scarcely attained the second level than we heard the cry, “Halt!”

  Drusus spun and fired a dart, swiftly, from the hip. Men scattered. The dart caromed off a wall and exploded near them. We darted about the corner of a wall. Four darts hissed past, exploding in a succession of bursts some fifty yards from us. I threw the girl from my shoulder to my feet. We heard running feet, coming from another direction. We looked wildly about. I took the girl at my feet by the hair and yanked her to her feet. We then ran, I running the girl beside me, at my hip, to the nearest corridor.

  “This is an outer corridor,” said Drusus. “In it are doors to the outside.”

  We sped along the corridor. We heard feet behind us, coming down the corridor we had just vacated. Then, ahead of us, some two hundred yards away, we saw some more men.

  We continued to run.

  I looked back. The men behind us now seemed wary. They were not ready, apparently, to pursue us into this corridor. Similarly, the fellows in front of us, apparently trapping us, did not try to approach.

  We slowed our pace, puzzled.

  “Over here, Tarl who hunts with me!” called a familiar voice.

  “Imnak!” I cried.

  We entered a recessed, broad room, which gave access to one of the hatchways that led to the outside of the complex. To one side there was a large wheel, that operated the door. It was cold in the room. Outside was the arctic night. A man turned about. “Ram!” I cried. “Imnak freed me,” he said. I saw several of the dart-firing weapons in the room, indeed a crate filled with them, on small wheels. Too, there were several kegs of darts, wrapped in packages of six. “Oh, Master!” cried Arlene, clinging to me. “I so feared for you.” I raped her lips as a master, and she yielded, melting to me as a slave. “Master,” said she who had been the Lady Constance of Lydius, then Constance, my slave. How beautiful she was, blond, in her wisp of slave silk. I took her in my other arm, and let her lick at my neck. I felt lips at my leg. Audrey knelt there, her head pressed against my calf. Barbara knelt, too, at my feet, putting her head down to my boots. I saw Tina with Ram. and Poalu with Imnak. Besides these there were some fifteen other slave girls in the room, frightened. The only males there were Drusus, myself, Imnak and Ram.

  There were, too, some furs and food. “I took what women, and weapons, and things, I could,” said Imnak.

  “But you did not leave the complex,” I said.

  “I was waiting for you,” he said. “And for Karjuk.”

  “Karjuk?” I said. “He is an ally of the Kurii.”

  “How can that be?” asked Imnak. “He is of the People.”

  “We have failed to find the destructive device,” I said to Imnak. “I think it is in the chamber of Zarendargar, the high Kur in the complex, but it does not matter now,” I said. “Nothing matters any longer. All is lost”

  “Do not forget Karjuk,” said Imnak. I looked at him.

  “He is of the People,” Imnak reminded me.

  “Where did you find this new slave?” asked Arlene of me, not too pleasantly, regarding the slim, beautiful girl I had brought with me.

  “I am not a slave, Slave,” said the pale, aristocratic, black-haired girl.

  Arlene looked at me, frightened.

  “She is not yet a legal slave,” I told Arlene, “so treat her with the technical respect due to a free female.”

  Arlene fell to her knees before her, her head down, and the girl straightened herself, proudly.

  “Get up,” I said to Arlene. She did so. “Though this girl is not yet a legal slave,” I told Arlene, “she is actually a true slave.” The girl recoiled. ‘Thus,” I said, “she need not be treated with particular respect.”

  “I understand perfectly, Master,” said Arlene. She regarded the pale, aristocratic girl, who shrank back. The other girls, too, regarded her. The Lady Rosa shuddered, not daring to meet their eyes. She knew that there was not one girl in that room who was not assessing her, frankly considering her, and comparing the quality of her flesh to their own. “She will make good slave meat,” said Arlene.

  “But not so good as you, Wench,” I assured her.

  “Thank you, Master,” said Arlene, putting her head down, smiling.

  “Check the prisoner’s bonds,” I said.

  “Did you tie her, Master?” asked Arlene.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then she is well secured,” said Arlene. But she checked the Lady Rosa’s wrist bonds as I had instructed her to do. She did so a bit roughly. “She is perfectly secured,” said Arlene to me, smiling innocently. The Lady Rosa tossed her head and looked away.

  “There are furs here,” I said to Imnak. “I think it best that you and Ram, and the women, try to leave the compound, and make your way across the ice.

  “What of you?” asked Imnak.

  “I shall remain here,” I said.

  “I, too,” said Drusus.

  “I, too, will remain!” cried Arlene.

  “You will obey, Slave,” I said to her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, tears in her eyes.

  We then heard pounding on the outside of the broad hatch.

  “Surrender! Open! Open!” called a voice.

  “We are surrounded,” I said.

  “There is no escape,” said Drusus.

  “Stand back from the hatch,” I said, “lest they blow it in towards us.”

  We stood back, dart-firing weapons ready.

  Suddenly we heard a scream from the other side of the hatch. Then a cry of rage. Then we heard pounding, frightened, on the other side of the steel. “Help! Help!” we heard. “Let us in! Let us in!” There was more frenzied pounding. “We surrender! we heard. “Please! Please!” There were more screams. We heard something sharp strike against the steel. We heard a dart-firing weapon discharge its bolt. “We surrender! We surrender!” we heard. “Let us in!”

  “It is a trick,” said Drusus.

  “It is certainly a convincing one,” I averred.

  We heard another man scream with pain.

  Then, from the other side of the steel, we heard a voice call out. It spoke in the language of the People. I could understand very little of it.

  Imnak beamed, and ran to the wheel. I did not stop him. He turned the wheel. The large, squarish hatch, some ten feet in height and width, studded with bolts, slid slowly to the side.

  Ram let forth a cheer.

  Outside, on the dim, polar ice, many on sleds, drawn by sleen, were hundreds of the People, men, and women and ch
ildren. More were arriving, visible in the reflection from the moons on the ice. Karjuk stood near the entranceway, his strung bow of layered horn in his hand, an arrow at the string. Other hunters stood about. Men from the complex lay scattered on the ice. From the backs and chests of several protruded arrows. Red hunters stood about. Some of the men from the complex had been downed by lances. A few cowered, their weapons discarded, herded together by domesticated snow sleen, ravening and vicious, on the leashes of their red masters. Some men of the complex were thrown to their stomachs on the ice. Their hands were jerked behind them and were being tied with rawhide. Then, their suits were being slit with bone knives. “We will freeze!” cried one of them. The red hunters were putting their enemies completely at their mercy, and that of the winter night.

  Karjuk called out orders. Red hunters streamed in, past me. Imnak handed the dart-firing weapons to some of them. hastily explaining their use. But most simply hurried past him, more content to rely on their tools of wood and bone. The men with the domesticated snow sleen passed me. I did not envy those on whom such animals would be set. Drusus, with a dart-firing weapon, joined one contingent of hunters, in their vanguard, to cover them and match fire with whatever resistance they might encounter; Ram, seizing up a weapon, joined another contingent I looked outside the hatch, or port. Even more of the People, women and children as well as hunters, were making their way across the ice to the complex. They were detaching many of the snow sleen from the sleds, to be used as attack sleen.

  Karjuk continued to stand by the port and issue orders, in the tongue of the red hunters.

  “There must be more than fifteen hundred of the hunters,” I said.

  “They are from all the camps,” said Imnak. “There are more, before they have finished coming, than twenty-five hundred.”

  “Then it is all the People,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Imnak, “it is all the People.” He grinned at me. “Sometimes the guard cannot do everything,” he said.

  I looked at Karjuk. “I thought you an ally of the beasts,” I said.

  “I am the guard,” he said. “And I am of the People.”

  “Forgive me,” I said, “that I doubted you.”

  “It is done,” he said.

  More red hunters streamed past us.

  I saw two men from the complex being prodded through the halls, toward a room. Their hands were bound with rawhide, behind them. A woman was being dragged along by the hair. Her clothing had been removed. Already her captor had put bondage strings on her throat.