John Norman

by Time Slave

  In the cell, Hamilton wept. Had she not led the men into the cave they might not have found the drawings. Hamilton wondered if it would be better if Old Woman were dead, that she never learn what had been done in the cave of the Men, what had befallen the work of Drawer, one for whom she had once cared, one whose works, remaining behind him, she had treasured. The antelope, the bison, the wolves, the lions, were gone. Drawer was dead. And there was left only the rock.

  The grille was thrust back. Hamilton, startled, looked up. The bearded fellow, he who seemed to be a leader, stood above. He shouted down, pointing. In his hand he held loops of rawhide rope. Hamilton shrank back, but he was not pointing to her.

  Flower, unsteadily, frightened, rose to her feet. She looked up. A loop of the rope was dropped about her body. It tightened. She was drawn; easily, hand over hand, from the pit. When she was on her feet, standing near the top edge of the pit, the rope was removed from her body. Hamilton saw another man take her by the hair, bending her over, and pull her away. Then the bearded man was again scrutinizing them. He’ looked from one to another, intent, apparently, on recognizing one among them. He looked at Hamilton. Then he pointed. Hamilton almost fainted. But it was not she at whom he pointed. Cloud, terrified, trembling, stood up, half crouching down. Then the rope dropped about her and tightened, and she, like Flower, was drawn upward. At the top of the pit, when she was standing on the surface, the rope was removed from her body and she, too, like Flower, bent over, her hair in the hand of a captor, was dragged away. The bearded man then again regarded the women in the pit. They shrank back. Then the grille was replaced.

  An hour later a leather bucket, on a rope, was lowered through the grille. It contained water. The women looked at one another. Then they fought, on their knees, hands tied behind them, biting, shouldering to thrust their face into the water. Hamilton drank first. Water spilled. She heard the laughter of girls above, and saw the red-haired girl, and the darkhaired one, watching. They called out to the prisoners, laughing, and jeering them in the speech of the Weasel People. Only Ugly Girl, who was not even of the women of the Men, did not participate in the struggle for the water. She waited and, after the others had satisfied themselves, after Butterfly, drank. The bucket, emptied, its hide collapsed, to the laughter of the two girls, was jerked upward. The women of the Men, angrily, regarded one another. Then two handfuls of roots and apples were flung to them. Again the women fought. Antelope cried out shrilly. Hamilton kicked at her viciously, then fell, and, squirming, tried to get her teeth on an apple. She had pinned it against the side of the cell when, from behind her, Squirrel bit her in the left calf and she cried out with pain, jerking, losing the fruit. Squirrel was on it, scrambling, in an instant, trying to hold it. Hamilton bit at her shoulder, shrieking. Then Antelope kicked at Hamilton and Hamilton, unable to protect herself, caught Antelope’s heel in her stomach. Hamilton reeled, unable to breathe, against the wall, and slid down its side to the floor. She lay there in misery. The thought struck her that had there been a man present there would have been no fighting. He would have eaten first, and then he would have set them the order in which they would feed. Why are we doing this, Hamilton asked herself. We are females, she thought. There is no man to impose order on us. When she could, she crawled to a piece of root and bit it, eating it. She saw that Ugly Girl, crouching teeth bared, was protecting the pregnant girl behind her. She had found her an apple and two roots, and stood between her and the others. Hamilton eyed the food. Ugly Girl snarled at her. Hamilton clenched her fists, bound behind her back. If one of the girls had had the use of her hands, she would have been undisputed queen in the cell. Ugly Girl snarled again. “I do not want her food,” said Hamilton, backing away. Hamilton sat back against the wall again. Strange, she thought, that Ugly Girl, not even of the women of the Men, keeps the law of

  Spear, that pregnant women are to be protected and fed. Hamilton did not know, of course, but that, too, was a law of the Ugly People. Ugly Girl, perhaps in her simplicity, did not distinguish in the matter of this law whether one was of the Ugly People, or of the Men, or perhaps even of the Weasel People. The pregnant woman must be protected and fed. It did not matter to Ugly Girl, in her simplicity, of what people the woman might be. That the woman was vulnerable, that she needed help, that there stirred in her belly the beauty of life meant all that needed to be meant to Ugly Girl. Ugly Girl could not speak the language of the Men; she could not even form its sounds; but she stood between the pregnant girl one of the women of the Men, and the others, her teeth bared.

  “We will not take her food,” said Antelope.

  “No,” said Hamilton.

  The next day the grille was again thrust back. Again the bearded man loomed at the top of the pit, looking into it, again the rawhide rope looped in his right hand.

  He looked from face to face. Then he pointed to one of the women.

  “Stand up,” said Antelope.

  “No!” cried Hamilton, shrinking back.

  “Get up, you fool!” said Antelope.

  Hamilton looked up. The man gestured to her, roughly. Terrified, scarcely able to stand, she rose to her feet.

  She had wanted desperately to be free of the pit, its filth, its stone, its confinement, its crowding, the struggles, bound, humiliating and vicious, for a mouthful of water, a scrap of food. But now she wanted only to shrink back, to stay in its protection, to remain with the other women, even Ugly Girl. Why did they not take Antelope? She looked up, agonized. It was she, Hamilton, only Hamilton, who had been singled out.

  She felt the rope drop about her.

  “Perhaps they will eat her?” said Butterfly. “Perhaps Flower and Cloud have already been eaten!”

  Hamilton tried to jerk away, but she only tightened the rope. It was now about her waist. Terrified she turned and tried to run but the rope, tight in her flesh, stopped her. She pulled against it; it burned in her belly. She turned and, looking up, faced the man. The man was not pleased. The rope was taut. She tried to back away. But his eyes stopped her. Then, angrily, he jerked her toward him. She spun, stumbled and then, her feet off the ground, swung, striking, hard, with her shoulder, the wall of stone. Swiftly, her burden nothing to his strength, he drew her from the pit. At the surface he threw her to his feet and, removing the rope from about her body, knotted it about her neck, making of it a tether. The two girls of the Weasel People, whom she had seen before, were standing near, apparently waiting to take charge of her. The shorter one took up the free end of the tether. The girl with the bright red hair held a switch. She struck Hamilton once with it. Hamilton scrambled to her feet. She felt a jerk on the tether and, stumbling, followed the shorter girl. The red-haired girl, following them, struck her twice more, to hurry her. Hamilton heard the bearded man replacing the grille. He was apparently no longer concerned with her. She was only a slave. The free women could handle her.

  Hamilton found that the cylindrical pit covered with the roof of thatch, on poles, was at the edge of a clearing, which lay before some caves.

  Some of the Weasel People were about. Some of the men, who had not been in the raiding party, as she was dragged past them, looked up swiftly considering her body, their eyes speculating on the pleasure that it, leaping to their touch, helpless in its slavery, might yield them. Women glared at her, their eyes stern and dour. One of them spit at her as she was dragged past. The red-haired girl struck her twice more with the switch.

  Hamilton was dragged up a sloping stone ramp. On a ledge at its height, before the most imposing of the cave entrances, more than ten feet in height and width, was a block of stone, a throne. On this throne, a fur cape, from a cave bear, tied about his neck, grinning, his rifle across his knees, sat Gunther.

  “Good afternoon, Doctor Hamilton,” said Gunther.

  “Gunther,” she wept.

  “Kneel, Slave,” said he.

  She knelt before him. “Yes, Master,” she said. They spoke in English. The short girl stood near her, the tether
gripped in her right hand, its free length looped, coiled several times, in the same hand.

  At Gunther’s feet, naked, lay Cloud. Loops of rawhide, knotted, were fastened on her neck, as a collar. Behind Gunther and to his left, on another block of stone, sat William. Flower knelt beside him, on his left. She had been given a hide tunic, of the sort worn by the women of the Weasel People. It was brief; but it concealed her breasts. About her neck, too, were loops of rawhide, knotted, forming on her, as on Cloud, a collar. But, too, with them about her neck, was a necklace of shells, and, too, about her left ankle was an anklet, it, too, of shells. Gunther and William had taken Cloud and Flower as their personal slaves.

  “Where were your hunters?” asked Gunther.

  “My hands,” said Hamilton. “I cannot feel them. Please, Gunther. I beg of you to untie me.”

  “We did not meet your hunters,” said Gunther.

  Hamilton put her head down.

  Gunther slapped the rifle which lay across his knees. “It is fortunate for them,” said he, “we did not meet them, else they would have fallen swiftly to my bullets.”

  Hamilton lifted her head. “Had you seen them,” she said.

  “The Weasel People,” said Gunther, “eat human flesh. If you do not please me, I will feed you to them.”

  “I will try to please you, Gunther,” said Hamilton. “I will! I will!”

  Gunther laughed. “But I have other plans for you,” he said.

  Hamilton regarded him, puzzled.

  “Do you not notice,” asked Gunther, “that the rock upon which I sit is of shaped stone, and, so, too, is that on which William has his place?”

  Hamilton said nothing.

  “Did you not notice,” asked Gunther, “that the pit in which you were confined was formed of shaped stone?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “And what then did you infer?” he asked.

  “I did not understand it,” she whispered.

  “Did you not see in its bottom tiny grains?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And what did you make of them?” he grinned.

  “Nothing,” she whispered.

  “Females, even bright ones like yourself,” said Gunther, “are fools, fit only to be slaves.”

  Hamilton was suddenly conscious of the tether on her neck, that she knelt, that she was stripped, that her wrists were confined helplessly.

  “But it is impossible,” she whispered.

  “Believe the evidence of your senses, little fool,” said he. “The pit in which you were confined is a storage pit used for the keeping of barley. The stones were shaped with saws and axes of bronze.”

  “It cannot be,” she said. She had seen no tools or weapons of metal among the Weasel People, no evidence of agriculture. “Are we not exiled in the early Aurignacian Period,” she asked, “sometime during the late Pleistocene?”

  “Herjellsen’s assertions, and the cultural and geological evidence,” said Gunther, “confirm that hypothesis.”

  “Then, how?” breathed Hamilton.

  “The discovery of metal, its utility, the discovery of food grains, their cultivation,” said Gunther, “I conjecture took place many times, perhaps hundreds of times, independently, perhaps centuries ago, perhaps again millennia in the future, given our current spatio-temporal coordinates. Such discoveries, by rational creatures, given an order of social organization, a tradition, would presumably be made many times.”

  “But there is no evidence of such developments in this period,” said Hamilton. “Not even polished rock is known to the Men, nor, it seems, to the Weasel People.”

  “Human groups are isolated,” said Gunther.

  “But why would there be no evidence of such developments in this period?”

  “The groups,” said Gunther, unpleasantly, “are small.” He grinned. “We may surmise they will not survive.”

  Hamilton shuddered.

  She supposed that it might be true that such developments as agriculture, before they became broadspread and irreversible, might have had tiny beginnings, perhaps over and over again failing, or being obliterated by fiercer peoples. Perhaps it would be only with the cultivation of the broader, lengthy river valleys, the Yangtze, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, with their capacity for supporting gigantic populations, that agriculture, and agricultural peoples, would have the numbers and power to become the dominant mode of humanity. For long millennia they might have remained the prey of hungry hunters, raiding from the hills and forests.

  “I know of only one such group within trekking distance,” said Gunther. “In the language of the Weasel People, they are called the Dirt People. From them, from time to time, a bronze tool is purchased with fur, or supplies of barley. The Dirt People, incidentally, you will be interested to learn, herd sheep, though you are not familiar with the variety. They weave. They clothe themselves in wool.”

  “They are quite advanced,” said Hamilton.

  Gunther laughed unpleasantly.

  Hamilton looked at Flower. She knelt beside William, smug. Cloud, lying at Gunther’s feet, would not meet her eyes.

  “I am King here,” said Gunther.

  “How many bullets do you have left?” asked Hamilton.

  “Enough to keep me King,” said Gunther.

  “And I,” asked Hamilton, gazing evenly at Gunther, “am I to be your queen?”

  Gunther spoke abruptly. The girl with the bright red hair, behind Hamilton, suddenly began to strike her, viciously, with the supple switch. Hamilton cried out and fell, twisting, turning, struck across the belly, the legs, the back, by the switch, held by the short tether in the hand of the short, darkhaired girl. “Forgive the insolence of a slave, Master!” wept Hamilton. Gunther made a swift motion, and the beating stopped. Half choking, Hamilton was dragged again to her knees. She could scarcely see Gunther for the tears; she gasped for breath; her slave body, stung and ravaged by the switch, held in its tether, burning, shook with the misery of the sharp discipline which had been inflicted upon it.

  “Perhaps,” said Gunther, “I should have so proud a girl as you eaten.”

  “I am not proud, Gunther,” she whispered, “my master. I will do whatever you wish.”

  “Eagerly?” asked Gunther.

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered, “-eagerly!”

  “Cut her hands free,” said Gunther to William. William rose and went to Hamilton, cutting the thongs which confined her wrists.

  Her hands were white; in the wrists were deep, circular marks, the imprint of her former constraints: “Stand up,” said Gunther.

  Hamilton did so. Gunther then spoke to the red-haired girl. He then turned to Hamilton. “Tonight,” he said, “you will eat well. Tomorrow you will be washed and combed, and again fed well.”

  “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow, Brenda,” said he, grinning, “you must look your best.”

  “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

  “I am going to use you in my plans,” he said.

  “What are you going to do with me!” she cried.

  He looked at her for a time. Then he said, “I am going to sell you, Brenda.”

  She looked at him with horror, and then she felt the pull of the neck tether.

  24

  The hands of the man in the woolen tunic were on her breasts, roughly. He was pleased.

  “Be docile, pretty little beast,” said Gunther.

  Hamilton felt another man feeling her legs, from behind. He grunted affirmatively.

  “Suck in your belly “said Gunther. “Stand straight.”

  Hamilton did so. She felt a hand slap her belly, twice. She felt the man behind her testing the sweetness, the firmness of her buttocks.

  “Stand straight,” said Gunther. Tears in her eyes, Hamilton did so. She felt her upper arms held and released, and again held and released. Another man held out her hair, which was now quite long, in his two hand
s, to the light, examining it for condition and sheen. She felt, from behind, her legs, one after the other, bent up and backward, as the arch of her instep was noted.

  Hamilton wore no clothing, but there was a tether on her throat. She stood on a large, flat, wooden platform. Other men, in woolen tunics, stood about, watching the appraisal of the slave girl. Four men of the Weasel People, too, were about. The large, bearded fellow was he who held her tether. She had worn, in the march, and upon the platform, at first, one of the hide tunics of the women of the Weasel People, concealing her breasts. Gunther had first torn it to her waist, before stripping it totally away from her. Ugly Girl, naked, a leather tether on her neck, in the hands of one of the men of the Weasel People, crouched to one side on the platform. She had not been clothed from the beginning.

  “It is my intention,” Gunther had told Hamilton, “to sell the monster, too, with you. Her presence on the platform will dramatically accentuate your beauty, my dear. It will make you seem twice as desirable, twice as beautiful.”