John Norman - Gor 12

by Beasts Of Gor(Lit)

  "No," said Imnak.

  "Do you not think it is a sign?" she asked.

  "I think it is a sign," he said.

  "Then we must turn back!" she said.

  "No," said Imnak.

  "Is it not a sign that we must turn back?" she asked.

  "I do not think so," he said.

  "Then what is its meaning?" asked Poalu.

  "Its meaning, I think," said Imnak, "is that it is too late to turn back."

  "I think you are right, Imnak," I said.

  I looked up at the sky. It was too late, indeed, to turn back. I smiled to myself. I had come, after long trekking, to the country of Zarendargar, to the brink of the camp of my enemy, to the brink of the camp of Half-Ear.

  "I think, Imnak," I said, "that I am close to finding him whom I have sought."

  "Perhaps, already, he has found you," said Imnak.

  "Perhaps," I said. "It is hard to know."

  "Let us flee, Master," wept Arlene.

  "I am of the Warriors," I told her.

  "But such things," she said, "control even the forces of nature."

  "Perhaps so, perhaps not," I said. "I do not know,"

  "Flee!" she said.

  "I am of the Warriors," I said.

  "But you may die," she said.

  "That is acknowledged in the codes," I said.

  "What are the codes?" she asked.

  "They are nothing, and everything," I said. "They are a bit of noise, and the steel of the heart. They are meaningless, and all significant. They are the difference. Without the codes men would be Kurii."

  "Kurii?" she asked.

  "Beasts, such as ice beasts, and worse," I said. "Beasts such as the face you saw in the sky."

  "You need not keep the codes," she said.

  "I once betrayed my codes," I said. "It is not my intention to do so again." I looked at her. "One does not know, truly, what it is to stand, until one has fallen. Once one has fallen, then one knows, you see, what it is to stand."

  "None would know if you betrayed the codes," she said.

  "I would know," I said, "and I am of the Warriors."

  "What is it to be a warrior?" she asked.

  "It is to keep the codes," I said. "You may think that to be a warrior is to be large, or strong, and to be skilled with weapons, to have a blade at your hip, to know the grasp of the spear, to wear the scarlet, to know the fitting of the iron helm upon one's countenance, but these things are not truly needful; they are not, truly, what makes one man a warrior and another not. Many men are strong, and large, and skilled with weapons. Any man might, if he dared, don the scarlet and gird himself with weapons. Any man might place upon his brow the helm of iron. But it is not the scarlet, not the steel, not the helm of iron which makes the warrior."

  She looked up at me.

  "It is the codes," I said.

  "Abandon your codes," she said.

  "One does not speak to a slave of the codes," I said.

  "Abandon them," she said.

  "Kneel, Slave Girl," I said.

  She looked at me, frightened, and swiftly knelt in the snow, in the moonlight, before me. She looked up at me. "Forgive me, Master," she said. "Please do not kill me!" She put her head to my feet, holding my booted ankles. "Please do not kill me," she said. "Forgive me! Let me placate you! Let me placate you!"

  "Crawl to the shelter," I told her. She did so, head down, trembling, a terrified slave, one who had displeased her master.

  I looked after her.

  "Please do not kill her," begged Audrey, kneeling before me.

  Imnak struck her to her side in the snow. "He will do what he pleases with her," he said.

  "Yes, Master," said Audrey, his lovely, white-skiuned slave beast.

  Audrey entered the hut after Arlene. Then Poalu, followed by Imnak, entered the hut.

  I looked once more at the sky, at the long, shifting lights, and then went into the hut.

  Inside, Arlene had already removed her furs and knelt obediently, her head down, near where I would sleep.

  "A girl begs to please her master," she said.

  "Very well," I said.

  Soon my wrath towards her had dissipated. I simply could not sustain it. What a sweet and clever slave she was. Even had it been my intention to punish her, which it had not been, I think she might well have won her freedom from punishment by the diligent and incredible merits of her helpless slave service. A beautiful slave girl, of course, has no official or legal power. Yet it would be naive to underestimate the weight and influence of her beauty, her vulnerability and service. Her display and submission behaviors, and performances, surely influence to a considerable extent the treatment she is likely to receive at the hands of a master. The sexual placation of the dominant male by the submitting female is universal among primates. It is, thus, presumably genetically determined, or a function of genetic determinations, In the end, of course, the slave girl is ultimately without power. It is the master, in the end, who will decide what is to be done with her.

  Later Arlene lay in my arms. "Did I please you, Master?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "A girl is pleased," she said.

  Near us we heard Poalu moaning. Then I heard Imnak leaving her side.

  "Where are you going?" I asked,

  "There may be danger about," said Imnak. "I think maybe we should have a guard."

  "That is a good idea," I said.

  "I will take the first watch," said Imnak. I heard him nuzzle Poalu, and heard her tiny cries, and then he had soon drawn on his furs and went outside the shelter.

  Poalu was soon asleep, and so, too, was Arlene.

  I heard Audrey whimper from the side of the hut, "No one has touched me," she said.

  "Go to sleep," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said. I heard her sob, unheld, unravished.

  I was weary. I was pleased that Imnak had elected to take the first watch. I would sleep well, fearing nothing.

  28

  I Must Conserve My Strength

  I felt her small, soft hands on my body. "Master, Master," she said.

  "He is awakening," said a girl's voice.

  I was drowsy. It was not easy to come to consciousness. I shook my head. Then again I dreampt.

  I had had good dreams, in my own chambers feasting and sporting with slaves in pleasure silk, luscious, hot-eyed Gorean sluts, collared and perfumed, serving me and touching me. Their mouths, their fingers, their lips and tongues, were pleasant. Some danced well, the caress of others told me of their training.

  "Master," said one, and I drank of the wine she proffered. I tied the goblet in her hair and sent her back for more.

  "I do not know how to dance," cried one, and I looked upon her and she tore away her silk and, trembling, danced, and well.

  How beautiful are women. How little wonder it is that strong men make them slaves.

  I struggled to awaken.

  "He is awakening," said a girl, she who had first spoken to me.

  I was vaguely aware that I was warm, and lay upon furs. I did not understand this. Beneath the furs I sensed an obdurate surface.

  I opened my eyes, lying on my back. The ceiling above me swam momentarily, and then I focused. It was red.

  Arlene knelt beside me. "Master," she said. I looked at her. I had never seen her before in the beautiful, subtle cosmetics of the Gorean slave girl. My strap was no longer on her throat. In its place there resided a slender steel band, locked, a Gorean slave collar. Her body was clad, if one may so speak of her garment, in a brief, obscenely luscious snatch of transparent, scarlet slave silk.

  "How beautiful you are," I said.

  "Master," she said.

  It seemed she well belonged in my dreams. Had I brought her back to Port Kar with me it was thus that I would sometimes have attired her for my pleasure. One dresses one's girls for one's own pleasure' of course.

  I looked across the furs and the floors to the other girl. "Master," sh
e whispered. I shook my head, to clear it. She was blond. She wore a curla and chatka of yellow silk. The curla was a rope of twisted, yellow silk tied snugly about her belly and knotted, loosely, at the left hip. The chatka, about four feet in length, folded narrowly, to a width of some six inches, was thrust over the curla in front, taken between her legs and thrust behind and over the curia in back. It was drawn snugly tight. It was all she wore, save for a slave collar, like Arlene, and some beads, an armlet, and a barbaric anklet. Both girls were perfumed. How soft and exciting they were. The blond came to my side, crawling, and, putting down her head, kissed me on the belly. "Master," she wept.

  "Constance," I said. I had not seen her since I had been impressed in Lydius into the service of Kurii, and taken northward to labor at the wall. She had once been free, I had made her my slave in the fields south of the Laura.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked.

  "Master," she wept, kissing me.

  I looked up at the ceiling, which was red. I saw it clearly now. It was a deep red, and covered with fur. The floor of the room, too, was covered with fur.

  I cried out with rage, and leaped to my feet. I threw my weight against the heavy bars.

  I could not budge them. I tore back the furs on the floor, and there encountered steel plates, riveted together. I put my hands over my head and tested the ceiling. It, too, seemed of steel. I tore down the overhead furs. The ceiling, uniformly, as did the floor, consisted of steel. In fury I tore away the fur at the walls. The cell was a cubic rectangle, some twelve feet by twelve feet, and eight feet in height. It was closed on five sides by steel walls, and the open side was barred.

  Again I tore at the bars. They were some two and one half inches in thickness. The cell would have held a Kur and, indeed, perhaps it had been originally designed with that in mind.

  I spun to look at the girls, who, frightened of my fury, cowered together in the center of the cell.

  "We were brought here, somehow," said Arlene. "I awakened in slave silk, collared, in a kennel. I was brought to this cell this morning."

  "Where is Imnak, Poalu, Audrey!" I said.

  "I do not know," she wept.

  "Constance," I said. "Where are we?"

  "I do not know," she said. "I was hooded long ago in Lydius, when we were captured. I was brought northward by tarn and then sled. For months I have been here. I have never seen the outside."

  "Who are our jailers?" I asked Arlene.

  "I have seen only men," she said.

  "There are others," said Constance, shuddering. "I have seen them, large but agile beasts."

  "Neither of you know where we are?" I asked.

  "No," they said.

  I turned to look outside the bars. Beyond them there lay a larger room, also plated with steel. There was a door in the larger room, with a small, barred window in it.

  "Do you know much of this place, Constance?" I asked.

  "No," she said. "But it is large. I have not been in this part of it before."

  "Speak to me further," I said.

  "There is little to tell," she said. "I was brought here from Lydius. There are several other girls here, too."

  "Slaves?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said, "all that I know of, all collared slaves."

  "You are kept here to serve and entertain the garrison?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Fully?" asked Arlene.

  "Of course," said Constance. "We are slaves. And so, too, are you."

  Arlene trembled in the pleasure silk. She tried to pull it down a bit, about her thigh.

  "How large is the garrison?" I asked.

  "I do not know," she said. "I, and five other girls, serve twenty men, in one portion of this place. Our movements are restricted, by overhead neck chains and a guide track. A chain is fastened about our necks with a swivel and ball at one end. The swivel and ball is locked into one of two overhead tracks. Two tracks are used, that one girl may pass another in the hall. The smallest ball on the chain permits the slave to reach any area accessible to the full track, though only, of course, an area accessible to the track. The next smallest ball, because of baffles set in the track overhead, will permit the slave to reach only a more restricted set of areas. This principle is then used successively. My own movements have been considerably restricted. The ball on my own neck chain permits me only a very limited use of the track, since it is of the largest size in the arrangement, indeed, the most limited use possible. Originally I wanted to explore, but my neck chain was almost constantly caught in baffles. In the halls I can move only between the quarters of work and the quarters of pleasure."

  "Surely you are released from this to work and serve?" I asked.

  "Of course," she said, "but then we are locked within the quarters of work or those of pleasure."

  "How many quarters of work or quarters of pleasure are there?" I asked.

  "I do not know," she said, "but there are more than those in which I specifically serve."

  "You cannot conjecture the size of the garrison then?" I asked.

  "It might be a hundred, it might be a thousand," she said. "I, and my five sisters in bondage, serve twenty men."

  "Are they easy to please?" asked Arlene.

  "No," said Constance.

  "I hope I am not put with you," she said.

  Constance shrugged. "Those to whom you will be assigned will doubtless be no easier to please," she said.

  Arlene shuddered.

  "Do not fear, my dear," said Constance, "you will learn the whip well."

  Arlene looked at me with horror.

  I paid her no attention. What did she expect? She was a slave.

  Arlene put down her head. She touched her silk. She moaned.

  "What of beasts?" I asked Constance.

  "I do not know their number either," said Constance. "But I think they are considerably fewer in number than the men."

  "You are not now on a neck chain," I said.

  "Nor was I this morning," she said. "I was brought here directly from my kennel. I was thrown into this cell. You were still unconscious." She looked at Arlene. not pleasantly. "This slave," she said, emphasizing the word, "was already here. The gate was then locked."

  "I do not understand why this slave," said Arlene, also emphasizing the word, "was put in with us."

  "I own you both," I told her.

  "Oh," said Arlene. "She is very pretty," said Arlene. "Do you find her attractive?"

  "Be quiet," I said to Arlene.

  "Yes, Master," she said, looking away.

  "I have missed the touch of my master," said Constance.

  Arlene looked at her with fury.

  "You said you were brought here this morning," I said. "Is it morning?"

  "This complex, in its way," she said, "is its own world. It operates on a day of twelve divisions. I do not know how long the division is. I think it is well over an Ahn."

  I remembered the timing devices in the crashed ship encountered in the Tahari desert, devices set to control the detonation of the fearsome explosives housed within its steel hull. They had been calibrated into twelvefold divisions. I speculated that they might be indexed to the periods of revolution and rotation of the Kurii's original world. Also, I suppose the twelvefold division may have some remote relation to the base-twelve mathematics utilized by the Kurii, itself perhaps a function of ihe six-digited paw. The complex, then, that in which I was prisoner, I conjectured, might well have a clock similar to those used on Kur ships, and in the distant steel worlds, a clock doubtless once developed for use on their former world, doubtless long since destroyed in their internecine wars.

  "We can tell the morning from the night by the illumination in the complex," said Constance. "It seems to be controlled by some sort of device which regulates its intensity."

  I supposed that it would not be difficult to arrange a rheostatic mechanism to control the degree of illumination. The mechanism, I conjectured, would be analogized to th
e waxing and waning of light on a native world.

  "The beasts," she said, "move mostly at night. I sometimes hear their claws on the plates outside my kennel. There must be some light for them. But it is too dark for the human eye to see."