Explorers of Gor

by John Norman

  I watched the white-skinned, dark-haired girl, collared, serving cups to a distant table. She was nicely legged.

  A skirl on a flute and a sudden pounding on twin tabors, small, hand drums, called my attention to the square of sand at the side of which sat the musicians.

  I then gave my attention to the dancer, a sweetly hipped black girl in yellow beads.

  She was skillful and, I suspected, from the use of the hands and beads, had been trained in Ianda, a merchant island north of Anango. Certain figures are formed with the hands and beads which have symbolic meaning, much of which was lost upon me, as I was not familiar with the conventions involved. Some, however, I had seen before, and had been explained to me. One was that of the free woman, another of the whip, another of the yielding, collared slave. Another was that of the thieving slave girl, and another that of the girl summoned, terrified, before the master. Each of these, with the music and followed by its dance expression, was very well done. Women are beautiful and they make fantastic dancers. One of the figures done was that of a girl, a slave, who encounters one who is afflicted with plague. She, a slave, knows that if she should contract the disease she would, in all probability, be summarily slain. She dances her terror at this. This was followed by the figure of obedience, and that by the figure of joy.

  I looked about and did not see, any longer, the white-skinned, dark-haired girl, she who had been serving paga.

  I was growing irritated, and a little drunk. It seemed to me that by now, surely, the blond-haired barbarian should have been picked up.

  I glanced again at the aba by the wall. I could still see, beneath it, the lusciousness of a girl's curves. What marvelous slaves they make.

  Suddenly I howled with rage and threw over the small table behind which I sat. I in two strides was at the aba, and I tore it away.

  "Master!" screamed the girl beneath it, looking up, frightened.

  It was not the blond-haired barbarian. It was the white-skinned, dark-haired girl, collared, in her bit of pleasure silk, who had been serving paga.

  I pulled her to her knees by the hair. "Where is the other girl!" I demanded. "Where!"

  "What is going on here?" cried the proprietor of the tavern, who had come in earlier, and was now behind the counter, ladling out paga.

  One of the paga attendants came running toward me, but, seeing my eyes, hesitated. Several men were now on their feet. The musicians had stopped playing. The dancer stood, still, on the sand, startled.

  "Where is the girl who was under this aba," I demanded. "Where!"

  "What girl was it?" asked the proprietor. "Whose was she?"

  "She was brought in by Kunguni, when you were out," said one of the black girls.

  "I gave orders that he was not again to be admitted to this tavern!" said the man.

  "You were not here," moaned the girl. "We feared to tell a free man he could not enter."

  "Where were you?" called the proprietor to the attendant.

  "I was in the kitchen," he said. "I did not know she had been brought in by Kunguni."

  Angrily I threw the girl I held from me.

  "Who saw her leave, with whom?" I demanded.

  Men looked at one another.

  "How came you beneath the aba?" I asked the girl whom I had thrown to one side.

  "A man told me to creep beneath it," she said. "I did not see him! He told me not to look around!"

  "You are lying," I told her.

  "Be merciful, Master," she said. "I am only a slave!"

  The paga attendant, he who was closest to me of the crowd, was looking at me, intently. I did not understand this. He edged uneasily backward. I did not understand this. I had not threatened him.

  "A silver tarsk to the man who can find me that girl," I said.

  The black girls looked at one another. "She was only a pot girl," said one of them.

  "A silver tarsk," I said, repeating my offer, "to he who can find me that slave."

  "Look at his eyes," said the paga attendant, backing away another step.

  She could not have been gone long. I must hunt her in the streets.

  Suddenly the dancer on the sand threw her hands before her face, and screamed. Then she pointed at me.

  "It is the plague!" she cried. "It is the plague!"

  The paga attendant, stumbling, turned and ran. "Plague!" he cried. Men fled from the tavern. I stood alone by the wall. Tables had been overturned. Paga was spilled upon the floor.

  The tavern seemed, suddenly, eerily quiet. Even the paga girls had fled.

  I could hear shouting outside, in the streets, and screaming.

  "Call guardsmen!" I heard.

  "Kill him," I heard. "Kill him!"

  I walked over to a mirror. I ran my tongue over my lips. They seemed dry. The whites of my eyes, clearly, were yellow. I rolled up the sleeve of my tunic and saw there, on the flesh of the forearm, like black blisters, broken open, erupted, a scattering of pustules.

  9

  I Decide to Change my Lodgings

  "Master!" cried Sasi.

  "Do not fear," I said to her. "I am not ill. But we must leave this place quickly."

  "Your face," she said. "It is marked!"

  "It will pass," I said. I unlocked her bracelets and slipped them into my pouch.

  "I fear I may be traced here," I said. "We must change lodgings."

  I had left the paga tavern by a rear door and then swung myself up to a low roof, and then climbed to a higher one. I had made my way over several roofs until I had found a convenient and lonely place to descend. I had then, wrapped in the discarded aba of Kunguni, made my way through the streets to the Cove of Schendi. Outside, from the wharves and from the interior of the city, I could hear the ringing of alarm bars. "Plague!" men were crying in the streets.

  "Are you not ill, Master?" asked Sasi.

  "I do not think so," I said.

  I knew that I had not been in a plague area. Too, the Bazi plague had burned itself out years ago. No cases to my knowledge had been reported for months. Most importantly, perhaps, I simply did not feel ill. I was slightly drunk and heated from the paga, but I did not believe myself fevered. My pulse and heartbeat, and respiration, seemed normal. I did not have difficulty catching my breath. I was neither dizzy nor nauseous, and my vision was clear. My worst physical symptoms were the irritation about my eyes and the genuinely nasty itchiness of my skin. I felt like tearing it off with my own fingernails.

  "Are you of the metal workers or the leather workers?" she asked.

  "Let us not bother about that now," I said, knotting the cords on the sea bag. I looked about the room. Aside from Sasi what I owned there was either on my person or in the sea bag.

  "A girl likes to know the caste of her master," she said.

  "Let us be on our way," I said.

  "Perhaps it is the merchants," she said.

  "How would you like to be whipped?" I asked her.

  "I would not like that," she said.

  "Let us hurry," I said.

  "You do not have time to whip me now, do you?" she asked.

  "No," I said, "I do not."

  "I thought not," she said. "I do not think it is the peasants."

  "I could always whip you later," I said.

  "That is true," she agreed. "Perhaps I should best be quiet."

  "That is an excellent insight on your part," I said.

  "Thank you, Master," she said.

  "If I am caught, and it is thought that I have the plague," I said, "you will doubtless be exterminated before I am."

  "Let us not dally," she said.

  We left the room.

  "You have strong hands," she said. "Is it the potters?"

  "No," I said.

  "I thought it might be," she said.

  "Be silent," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  10

  I Make Inquiries of Kipofu, Who is Ubar of the Beggars of Schendi

  The blind man lifted his white,
sightless eyes to me. His thin, black hand, clawlike, extended itself.

  I placed a tarsk bit in his hand.

  "You are Kipofu?" I asked.

  I placed another tarsk bit in his hand. He put these two tiny coins in a small, shallow copper bowl before him. He was sitting, cross-legged, on a flat, rectangular stone, broad and heavy, about a foot high, at the western edge of the large Utukufu, or Glory, square. The stone was his etem, or sitting place. He was Ubar of the beggars of Schendi.

  "I am Kipofu," he said.

  "It is said," I said, "that though you are blind there is little which you do not see in Schendi."

  He smiled. He rubbed his nose with his thumb.

  "I would obtain information," I said to him.

  "I am only a poor blind man," he said. He spread his hands, apologetically.

  "There is little that transpires in Schendi which can escape your notice," I told him.

  "Information can be expensive," he said.

  "I can pay," I told him.

  "I am only a poor and ignorant man," he said.

  "I can pay well," I told him.

  "What do you wish to know?" he asked.

  He sat on his etem in brown rags, a brown cloth wound about his head, to protect him from the sun. There were sores upon his body. Dirt was crusted upon his legs and arms. The peel of a larma lay by one knee. He was blind, and half naked and filthy, but I knew him to be the Ubar of the beggars of Schendi. He had been chosen by them to rule over them. Some said that he had been chosen to rule over them because only he was blind and thus could not see how repulsive they were. Before him the deformed and maimed, the disfigured and crippled, might stand as men, as subjects before sovereign, to be heard with objectivity and obtain a dispassionate and honest justice, neither to be dismissed with contempt or demeaningly gratified by the indulgence of one who holds himself above them. But if there were truth in this I think there was, too, a higher truth involved. Kipofu, though avaricious and petty in many respects, had in him something of the sovereign. He was a highly intelligent man, and one who could, upon occasion, be wise as well as shrewd. He was a man of determination, and of iron will, and vision. It was he who had first effectively organized the beggars of Schendi, stabilizing their numbers and distributing and allotting their territories. None might now beg in Schendi without his permission and none might transgress the territory of another. And each, each week, paid his tax to Kipofu, the inevitable price of government. These taxes, though doubtless much went to the shrewd Kipofu, for monarchs expect to be well paid for bearing the burdens and tribulations of office, served to obtain benefits and insurances for the governed. No beggar now in Schendi was truly without shelter, or medical care or needed go hungry. Each tended to look out for the others, through the functioning of the system. It was said that even members of the merchant council occasionally took Kipofu into their confidence. One consequence of the organization of the beggars, incidentally, was that Schendi did not have many beggars. Obviously the fewer beggars there are the more alms there are for each one. Unwanted beggars had the choice of having their passage paid from Schendi or concluding their simple careers in the harbor.

  "I seek information," I said, "on one who seemed a beggar, who was called Kunguni."

  "Pay," said Kipofu.

  I put another tarsk bit into his hand.

  "Pay," said Kipofu.

  I put yet another tarsk bit into his hand.

  "None in Schendi who begs is known as Kunguni," he said.

  "Permit me to describe the man to you," I said.

  "How would I know of these things?" asked Kipofu.

  I drew forth a silver tarsk.

  Kipofu, I knew, through the organization of the beggars, their covering of territories, and their reports, as well as his use of them as messengers and spies, was perhaps the most informed man in Schendi. He, like a clever spider in its web, was the center of an intelligence network that might have been the envy of many a Ubar. There were few tremors in Schendi which did not, sooner or later, reach Kipofu on his simple etem in the square.

  "That is a silver tarsk," I said. I pressed it into his palm.

  "Ah," he said. He weighed the coin in his hand and felt its thickness. He ran his finger about its edge to determine that it had not been shaved. He tapped it on the etem. And, though it was not gold, he put it in his mouth, touching its surface with his tongue, and biting against its resistance.

  "It is of Port Kar," he said. He had, too, pressed his thumb against the coin, on both sides, feeling the ship, and, on the reverse, the sign of Port Kar, its initials, in the same script that occurred on her Home Stone.

  "This man," I said, "is small, and has a crooked back, hunched. He has a scar on his left cheek. He limps, dragging his right leg behind him."

  The blood seemed suddenly to drain from Kipofu's face. He turned a shade paler. He stiffened. He lifted his head, listening intently.

  I looked about. None were close to us.

  "No one is near us," I said. I had little doubt that Kipofu, who was reputed to have extremely sharp senses, might have heard breathing within a radius of twenty feet, even in the square. I wondered at the nature of the man, the mention of whom might have caused this reaction in the shrewd Kipofu.

  "His back is crooked and it is not," said Kipofu. "His back is hunched and it is not. His face is scarred and it is not. His leg is crippled and it is not."

  "Do you know who this man is?" I asked him.

  "Do not seek him," said Kipofu. "Forget him. Flee."

  "Who is he?" I asked.

  Kipofu pressed the coin back at me. "Take your tarsk," said he.

  "I want to know," I said, determinedly.

  Kipofu suddenly lifted his hand. "Listen," said he. "Listen!"

  I listened.

  "There is one about," he said.

  I looked about. "No," I said. "There is not."

  "There," said Kipofu, pointing, "there!"

  But I saw nothing where he pointed. "There is nothing there," I said.

  "There!" whispered Kipofu, pointing.

  I thought him perhaps mad. But I walked in the direction which he had pointed. I encountered nothing. Then the hair on the back of my neck rose, as I realized what it might have been.

  "It is gone now," said Kipofu.

  I returned to the etem of the Ubar of the beggars. He was visibly shaken.

  "Go away!" he said.

  "I would know who the man is," I said.

  "Go away!" said Kipofu. "Take your tarsk!" He held it out to me.

  "What do you know of the Golden Kailiauk?" I asked.

  "It is a paga tavern," said Kipofu.

  "What do you know of a white slave girl who works within it?" I asked.

  "Pembe," he said, "who is the proprietor of the tavern, has not owned a white-skinned girl in months."

  "Ah!" I said.

  "Take back your tarsk," said Kipofu.

  "Keep it," I told him. "You have told me much of what I wanted to know."

  I then turned about and strode away, taking my leave from the presence of Kipofu, Ubar of the beggars of Schendi.

  11

  Shaba

  The girl stood at the heavy, wooden door, on the dark street, and knocked, sharply, four times, followed by a pause, and then twice. A tiny tharlarion-oil lamp burned near the door. I could see the side of her face, and her dark hair, in the light. The yellow light, too, flickering, in the shadows, glinted on the steel collar beneath her hair. She wore a tan slave tunic, sleeveless, of knee length, rather demure for a bond girl. It did, however, have a plunging neckline, setting off the collar well.

  She repeated the knock, precisely as before.

  She was barefoot. In her hand, wadded up, was a tiny scrap of yellow slave silk, which had been her uniform in the tavern of Pembe.

  She was not a bad looking girl. Her hair, dark-brown, was of shoulder length.

  Her accent, as I had detected yesterday evening, in the Golden Kailiauk, was barb
arian. Something in it, when she had cried out, or spoken to me, suggested that she might be familiar with English.

  I had little doubt she had been affiliated with he who had called himself Kunguni. She had simulated the appearance of the blond-haired barbarian beneath the brown aba. Her face and body, when she had protested her innocence to me, had belied her words. I had learned from Kipofu that she was not owned by Pembe, proprietor of the Golden Kailiauk. Doubtless, for a fee, paid by her master, if she were a slave, she had been permitted to serve in his place of business. Sometimes masters do this sort of thing for their girls. It is cheaper than renting space for them in the public or private pens. Pembe would not be likely to think anything amiss.

  I stood back in the shadows. A tiny panel in the door slid back. Then it shut. A moment later the door opened.

  I saw, in the light, briefly, the scarred face, and bent back, hunched, of he who had called himself Kunguni. He looked about, but did not see me, concealed in the shadows. The girl slipped past him, and entered the door. It then shut.

  I looked about, and then crossed the narrow street. I glanced at the shuttered windows. I could see cracks of light between the wooden slats.

  Inside, not far from the door, I could see the girl and the man. The room, or anteroom, was dingy.

  "Is he here yet?" asked the girl.

  "Yes," said the man, "he is waiting inside."

  "Good," she said.

  "It is our hope," said the man, "that you will be more successful this evening than last."

  "I can get nothing out of her, if she knows nothing," snapped the girl.

  "That is true," said the man.

  The girl took the bit of wadded yellow pleasure silk she carried in her hand and, straightening it a bit, slipped it on a narrow wooden rod in an open closet. "Disgusting garment," she said. "A girl might as well be naked."

  "A lovely garment," said the man, "but I agree with your latter sentiment."

  She looked at him, angrily.

  "Did many ask for you tonight?" he asked. "Or did Pembe have to inform them that you were not for use?"

  "None asked," she said, angrily.