Time Slave

by John Norman

  She sipped her wine, finishing it.

  "More wine?" asked Herjellsen, attentively.

  "No, thank you," said Hamilton.

  "Coffee," said Herjellsen to one of the blacks, standing nearby, in his white jacket. The fellow left the dining area.

  "I had thought," said Hamilton, to Herjellsen, "that I was not to be permitted cosmetics, perfume."

  Tastefully, and fully, beautifully, she had adorned herself this evening. She had, of course, been instructed to do so.

  "Tonight," said Herjellsen, "is a night on which we are celebrating. We have worked hard. We have been successful. You would not begrudge us our wine, surely, our supper, the stimulation of your lovely presence."

  "Of course not," she said. She smiled.

  "We have treated you rather harshly," said Herjellsen, apologetically. "But we have done so in the hope that we may have, thereby, increased your chances of survival."

  "I find it difficult to follow your reasoning," said Hamilton.

  The coffee was brought, black, hot, bitter, in small cups. On the tray there was a small container of assorted sugars, with tiny spoons.

  "I have made a positive identification," said Herjellsen, "of the rodent, which you observed being brought into the translation cubicle. The family is obviously Muridae. It is a species similar to, but not precisely identical to, the widely spread, cunning, vicious, highly successful Rattus norvegicus, the common brown rat, or Norway rat. It is doubtless an ancestral form, the only actual difference being that the teeth are more substantially rooted."

  "Does this identification have significance?" asked Hamilton.

  "Of course," said Herjellsen. "It is a commensal."

  "I—I do not know the word," said Hamilton.

  "A companion at meals," laughed William.

  "A commensal," said Gunther, "is an animal or plant that lives in, on or with another, sharing its food, but is neither a parasite to the other, nor, normally, is injured by the presence of the other."

  "It thrived in the Pleistocene," said William, "and thrives today, one of the most successful forms of life the world has ever seen."

  "It supplants allied species," said Gunther. "It is a swift, curious, aggressive, savage animal, with the beginnings of a tradition, older animals instructing the younger, particularly in avoidance behaviors, as in preventing their consumption of dangerous or poisoned food."

  "A very successful co-inhabitant of our Earth, my dear," said Herjellsen, "but, more importantly for our purposes, a commensal."

  "It entered Western Europe from Asia in prehistory," said Gunther, "as an accompanier of migrations."

  "The current brown rat," said Hamilton, "is a commensal of man."

  "Precisely," said Herjellsen. "And so, too, was it in the beginning."

  Hamilton could not speak.

  "You see now the significance of the catch?" he asked.

  She shook her head, not wanting to speak.

  "It gives us the coordinates of a human group, a living human group," smiled Herjellsen.

  "This is much more accurate than a stone tool," said William. "Such a tool, particularly if adequately protected from weathering, and patination, might have been abandoned or dropped hundreds of years ago, or years earlier."

  "Where the brown rat is found," said Herjellsen, "there, too, will we find man. They are companions in history."

  "You said," said Hamilton, "that you treated me harshly, that my chances of survival might be improved."

  "Yes," said Herjellsen. "It is our anticipation that these men do not live in an environment so hostile and cruel that they need fear, in practice, only the scarcity of game, or so remote and impenetrable that no others would care to live there. Eskimos, for example, are a kindly people, trusting, helpful, affectionate, and, in a very different environment, so, too, are the Pygmies of the Congo."

  "Such peoples, you note," said Gunther, "have been driven from choicer lands by more aggressive competitors."

  "What are you trying to tell me?" asked Hamilton.

  "Xenophobia," said Herjellsen, "or the hatred of the stranger, is an almost universal human phenomenon, at one time, judging by its pervasiveness, of important evolutionary import. Groups who did not distrust strangers were either destroyed, or driven into the remoter and harsher portions of the Earth. Too often, in the history of the world has the stranger meant ambush, treachery, disaster."

  "Interestingly," said William, "this suspicion tends to be somewhat reduced during the prime mating years, particularly those of adolescence and the early twenties."

  "That, too, doubtless," said Herjellsen, "has played its role in mixing and distributing genes among diverse populations."

  "Why don't you transmit a man?" begged Hamilton. "We think," said Herjellsen, calmly, "they would kill a man."

  "Kill?" asked Hamilton.

  "Surely," said Herjellsen.

  "That is why we are transmitting a woman," said Gunther, "and one who is young and not unattractive."

  Hamilton looked, down. It was the closest Gunther had ever come to complimenting her.

  She looked up at Herjellsen. "How do you know they will not kill me?" she asked.

  "We do not know," said Herjellsen.

  "What do you expect them to do with me?" asked Hamilton.

  "If they have a language," said Herjellsen, "you will not be able to speak it. You will be to them a stranger. You will not be known to them. You will have no kinship ties, no blood ties, with the group. You will be to them an outsider —a complete outsider. You will not be a member of their group." Herjellsen smiled at her through the thick lenses. "Do you understand, my dear," asked Herjellsen, "what that might mean—in a primitive situation—not being a member of the group?"

  "What do you expect them to do with me!" demanded Hamilton.

  "You will be transmitted naked," he said, "and, as Gunther has observed, you are not unattractive."

  "What will they do with me?" whispered Hamilton.

  "Make you a slave," said Herjellsen.

  Hamilton looked down, miserable.

  "Drink your coffee," said Gunther. Hamilton sipped the coffee.

  "If you were a man," said William, "they would probably kill you."

  "I do not want to be a slave," whispered Hamilton. Then she looked up. "Slavery," she said, "is a complex societal institution. Surely it could not exist in such a primitive society."

  "Apache Indians," said Gunther, "in your own country, kept slaves."

  "Semantics is unimportant," said Herjellsen.

  "You will be an out-group female," said Gunther. "Doubtless you will live, if you are permitted to live, on their sufferance, depending presumably on how well you please and serve them. You would be, of course, subject to barter and exchange."

  "—I would be a slave," whispered Hamilton.

  "Yes," said Herjellsen.

  "You have been training me for that?" asked Hamilton.

  "When a man enters your room, what now is your inclination?" asked Herjellsen.

  "Unthinkingly," said Hamilton, "I feel an impulse to kneel." She reddened. "You have made me kneel, as a prisoner, in the presence of males," she said.

  "This is to accustom you to deference and subservience to men," said William.

  "You must understand," said Herjellsen, "that if you were transmitted as a modern woman, irritable, sexless, hostile, competitive, hating men, your opportunities for survival might be considerably less."

  "We do not know the patience of these men," said Gunther. "They might not choose to tolerate such women."

  Hamilton shuddered.

  "We have tried to teach you various things in your training, my dear," said Herjellsen, not unkindly. "First we have tried to teach you that you are a beautiful female, which you are, and that this is a glorious and precious thing in its own right, and that being a woman is not the same as being a man. Each sex is astonishing and marvelous, but they are not the same. We have tried to teach you the weakness, the beauty
, the vulnerability, the desirability of your womanhood. We have tried to teach you that you are a woman, and that this is deeply precious."

  Hamilton, though she did not speak, knew that in her incarceration, she had, for the first time in her life, accepted herself as a woman, and had found joy in doing so.

  These men, cruel as they might have been, had given her to herself.

  She was grateful to them. She was no longer the little girl who had wanted to be a little boy, nor the young woman who had pretended her sex was unimportant, and had secretly wanted to be a man. She was now a woman happy in her womanhood. She looked at Gunther. She rejoiced that he was a man, not she. She wanted to be held by him, and had, helplessly, yieldingly. She wanted to be a woman in his arms.

  Herjellsen put down his coffee. "It is our hope," said Herjellsen, "that we have improved your chances for survival in an environment of primitive realities."

  "Other aspects of your training," said William, "were reasonably straightforward. For example, the cleaning of the floor and walls of your quarters accustomed you to manual labor. The alignment of the cot was intended to induce discipline, attention to detail, neatness, compliance with the arbitrary will of a male."

  "Your punishments," said Gunther, "have taught you to expect humiliation and pain if you are disobedient or insubordinate."

  "You have been very thorough, Gentlemen," smiled Hamilton.

  "We have perhaps saved your life," said Herjellsen.

  "It might all have gone for naught," said Hamilton, "if I had escaped."

  "You had no opportunity to escape," said Herjellsen. Hamilton looked at him, puzzled.

  "You were given utensils," he said, "that you might attempt escape."

  "Oh," said Hamilton.

  "The first time, of course, we did not permit you to escape. I used muscle reading to locate the missing utensil. This was to induce a feeling of psychological helplessness in you. We were interested to see if this would crush you. Happily, it did not. That very evening, with a second utensil, you attempted your escape. You are a brave, fine woman, intelligent and resourceful. We were proud of you."

  "I told William, that night," she said, "that no fork had been brought with the tray."

  William smiled.

  "I thought I had fooled him," she said.

  "You were an excellent actress," said William. "I had been informed, however, that your escape attempt would take place that night. Indeed, that is why the second fork was provided with your food that evening."

  "How did you know I would try that night?" asked Hamilton.

  "It was simple, my dear," said Herjellsen. "You were anxious to escape. You did not know how long you might have, before your portion of the experiment began. You would attempt to escape as soon as possible. Further, you would know that the missing fork would be noted, at least by morning. You would know, too, that its location, if hidden, could be revealed by the technique of muscle reading. Thus your attempt to escape, and a brave one it was, to essay the bush at night, alone, would take place that night"

  "We heard you digging out," said William.

  "We even interrupted the guard in his rounds," said Herjellsen, "that you would have time to dig under the fence."

  "I hoped you weren't shocked too severely," said William.

  "No," she said. She looked at Gunther. "I was clumsy to touch the wire, wasn't I, Gunther?" she said.

  Gunther shrugged.

  "We thought you would strike out for the road," said Herjellsen.

  "But Gunther, with a dark lantern, followed the trail for some time, to ascertain this," said William.

  "You followed me, Gunther?" she asked

  "For a time," he said. "I then returned to the compound."

  "It was not difficult to pick you up in the Land Rover," said William.

  "I left the road," she said. "You followed."

  She recalled the, frantic flight through the bush, the headlights of the Land Rover, the searchlight on its side, the sting of the anesthetic bullet.

  "You were not difficult to take," said Gunther. "But the hunt was enjoyable."

  "I'm pleased," she said, acidly, "that I gave you sport."

  "It is pleasant," said Gunther, "to hunt women."

  She recalled falling in the bush, crawling, being unable to crawl further, then being captured, her wrists dragged behind her, their being locked in Gunther's cuffs.

  She recalled being lifted, thrown, secured, over his shoulder, and being carried to the Land Rover. She had then lost consciousness.

  "And, doubtless," she said, "it is pleasant, after bringing your catch home, to make them slaves."

  "Yes," said Gunther, "doubtless that would be pleasant."

  "You are a beast, Gunther," she said.

  He smiled. He shrugged. "I am a man," he said.

  "Finish your coffee, Doctor Hamilton," suggested Herjellsen.

  Hamilton finished the small cup of bitter, black fluid.

  Brandy was brought for the men. Herjellsen, and William and Gunther, lit cigars.

  "Would you like a liqueur?" asked Herjellsen.

  "Yes," said Hamilton.

  It was brought. It was thick, heavily syruped, flavored with peach.

  Hamilton sipped it.

  "The escape phase of the experiment," said Herjellsen, "permitted us to test your cunning and your initiative. Both proved themselves satisfactory."

  "Thank you," said Hamilton.

  "In the bush itself, of course, as we expected," said Herjellsen, "you behaved like a frightened, ignorant woman."

  "I suppose," said Hamilton, sipping the liqueur, "that my training' was also enhanced in some way by my escape attempt?"

  "Yes," said Herjellsen. "We regarded it as important to give you the experience of being a fleeing, hunted, then captured woman."

  "It is a very helpless, frightened feeling," said Hamilton.

  "We wished you to have it," said Herjellsen.

  "The most important lesson of the escape phase, or perhaps I should say, the 'failure-to-escape' phase," said Gunther, smiling, "was to imprint, and imprint deeply, in your consciousness the incontrovertible recognition that you had not escaped—that you had been caught—and were once again, and more securely than ever, the prisoner of men."

  Hamilton recalled the misery with which she had understood this.

  She had been, thereafter, their experiment finished, shackled during the day, handcuffed to the cot at night. They had needed no more data. She was held, perfectly.

  And Brenda Hamilton knew, deeply within her, that her futile escape attempt, summarily punished by a brief humiliating beating, stinging, trivial, a woman's beating, had never been realistic. She would have left a trail. To a practiced eye it could have been followed. She knew then that, even if the Land Rover had not been used, she could have been retaken, and almost at their leisure. How female she had felt, how helpless. She was angry. And how swiftly, in a matter of days, the short rations, the bread and water, had brought her to her knees before them, promising compliance.

  She had come to understand, as it had been intended that she should, that men were dominant, and, if they chose, women were at their mercy.

  The room seemed dark at the edges.

  She sipped again the liqueur.

  She had failed to escape. She remained the captive of men.

  "We had difficulty, as you may recall," said Herjellsen, "in transmitting the leopard."

  "Yes," said Hamilton, shaking her head.

  "It is interesting," said Herjellsen, "but I met resistance."

  "How is that?" she asked.

  "I felt it," said Herjellsen. "Earlier we had failed to transmit the beast when it was unconscious. When you observed, it was conscious—but resisting."

  Hamilton recalled the animal, twisting, growling.

  "It could know nothing, of course, of what was occurring," said Herjellsen, "but still it was distressed, angry, displeased, resistant."

  "You failed to transmit i
t?" said Hamilton.

  "Later, when it was partially anesthetized, we managed to transmit it," said Herjellsen, "when the resistance was lowered."

  Hamilton steadied herself with a hand on the tablecloth.

  "Interesting that a beast could resist," said Herjellsen. "Fascinating."

  "I will resist you!" suddenly cried Hamilton. "I will resist you!"

  The room seemed to be growing darker.

  "It seems unlikely," said Herjellsen.

  "I do not feel well," said Hamilton.

  Herjellsen appeared concerned. He glanced at William. "It is a temporary effect," said William.

  "When is your experiment to take place?" asked Hamilton.

  "Tonight," said Herjellsen. "Now."

  She shook her head.

  "Strip her," said Herjellsen.

  She felt Gunther removing the pearls from the back of her neck.

  She could not resist.

  "The liqueur has been drugged," explained Herjellsen. "You will not resist." Then he spoke to Gunther and William. "Remove her clothing and clean her," he said, "and then place her in the translation cubicle."

  "Please," wept Brenda Hamilton. "Please!"

  She felt Gunther remove the earrings from her ears.

  10

  Brenda Hamilton, raw, lay on her stomach in the translation cubicle.

  She heard the men outside.

  "No," she wept. She struggled, weakly, to her hands and knees, her head down, hair falling forward. She tried to lift her head.

  "Raise the power," she heard Herjellsen say, the voice seemingly far away, on the other side of the plastic.

  "No," she wept, and again sank to her stomach. She lay on the cool, smooth plastic, almost unable to move her body. She tried to close her hand into a fist. It was difficult to do so. She only wanted to lie still, to rest, helpless, on the plastic.

  "It is beginning," she heard William say.

  She opened her eyes. To her horror she saw, at one corner of the cubicle, a tracery of light, darting, swift.