Priest-Kings of Gor coc-3

by John Norman

  “I once saw a man die the Flame Death,” I said. “Is that mechanism also in this room?”

  “Yes,” said Sarm, indicating with one foreleg a quiet-looking metal cabinet to one side possessing several dials and knobs.

  “The projection points for the Flame Death are located in the surveillance craft,” said Sarm, “but the coordinates are fixed and the firing signal is relayed from this room. The system is synchronised, or course, with the scanning apparatus and may be activated from any of the control panels at the observation cubes.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  I looked about the room. It was an exceedingly long chamber and built on four levels, almost like steps. Along each of these levels, spaced a few feet from one another, were the observation cubes, which resembled cubes of transparent glass, and were approximately sixteen feet square. I was told by Sarm that there were four hundred such cubes in the room, and monitoring each, I could see a Priest-King, tall, alert, unmoving. I walked along one of the levels, gazing into the cubes. Most of them were simply filled with the passing scenery of Gor; once I saw a city, but what city it was I could not tell.

  “This might interest you,” said Sarm, indicating one of the observation cubes.

  I regarded the cube.

  The angle from which the lens was functioning was unlike that of most of the other cubes. The lens was apparently parallel to rather than above the scene.

  It was merely a scene of a road, bordered by some trees, which seemed to slowly approach the lens and then pass behind it.

  “You are seeing through the eyes of an Implanted One,” said Sarm.

  I gasped.

  Sarm’s antennae curled. “Yes,” he said, “the pupils of his eyes have been replaced with lenses and a control net and transmitting device have been fused with his brain tissue. He himself is now unconscious for the control net is activated. Later we will allow him to rest, and he will see and hear and think again for himself.”

  The thought of Parp crossed my mind.

  Once again I looked into the observation cube.

  I wondered of the man through whose eyes I was now seeing, who he was, what he had been, that unknown Implanted One who now walked some lonely road somewhere on Gor, a device of Priest-Kings.

  “Surely,” I said bitterly, “with all the knowledge and power of Priest-Kings you could build something mechanical, a robot, which might resemble a man and do this work for you.”

  “Of course,” said Sarm, “but such an instrument, if it were to be a genuinely satisfactory substitute for an Implanted One, would have to be extremely complex – consider provisions for the self-repair of damaged tissue alone – and thus, in the end, would itself have to approximate a humanoid organism. Accordingly with humans themselves so plentiful the construction of such a device would be nothing but an irrational misuse of our resources.”

  Once again I looked into the observation cube, and wondered about that unknown man, or what had been a man, through whose eyes I now looked. I, in the very Nest of Priest-Kings, was more free than he who walked the stones of some road in the bright sun, somewhere beyond the palisade, far from the mountains of Priest-Kings yet still in the shadow of the Sardar.

  “Can he disobey you?” I asked.

  “Sometimes there is a struggle to resist the net or regain consciousness,” said Sarm.

  “Could a man so resist you that he could throw off the power of the net?”

  “I doubt it,” said Sarm, “unless the net were faulty.”

  “If it could be done,” I said, “what would you do?”

  “It is a simple matter,” said Sarm, “to overload the net’s power capacity.”

  “You would kill the man?”

  “It is only a human,” said Sarm.

  “Is this what was done once on the road to Ko-ro-ba, to a man from Ar, who spoke to me in the name of Priest-Kings?”

  “Of course,” said Sarm.

  “His net was faulty?” I asked.

  “I suppose so,” said Sarm.

  “You are a murderer,” I said.

  “No,” said Sarm, “I am a Priest-King.”

  ***

  Sarm and I passed further on down one of the long levels, looking into one or another of the observation cubes.

  Suddenly one of the cubes we passed locked onto a given scene and no more did the scenery move past me as though in a three-dimensional screen. Rather the magnification was suddenly increased and the air became suddenly filled with more intense odours.

  On a green field somewhere, I had no idea where, a man in the garments of the Caste of Builders, emerged from what was apparently an underground cave. He looked furtively about himself as though he feared he might be observed. Then, satisfied that he was alone, he returned to the cave and emerged once more carrying what resembled a hollow pipe. From a hole in the top of this pipe there protruded what resembled the wick of a lamp.

  The man from the Caste of Builders then sat cross-legged on the ground and took from the pouch slung at his waist a tiny, cylindrical Gorean fire-maker, a small silverish tube commonly used for igniting cooking fires. He unscrewed the cap and I could see the tip of the implement, as it was exposed to the air, begin to glow a fiery red. He touched the fire-maker to the wicklike projection in the hollow tube and, screwing the fire-maker shut, replaced it in his pouch. The wick burned slowly downward toward the hole in the pipe. When it was almost there the man stood up and holding the pipe in both hands trained it at a nearby rock. There was a sudden flash of fire and a crack of sound from the hollow tube as some projectile hurtled through it and shattered against the rock. The face of the rock was blackened and some stone chipped from its surface. The quarrel of a crossbow would have done more damage.

  “Forbidden weapon,” said Sarm.

  The Priest-King monitoring the observation cube touched a knob on his control panel.

  “Stop!” I cried.

  Before my horrified eyes in the observation cube the man seemed suddenly to vaporise in a sudden blasting flash of blue fire. The man had disappeared. Another brief incandescent flash destroyed the primitive tube he had carried. Then once again, aside from the blackened grass and stone, the scene was peaceful. A small, curious bird darted to the top of the stone, and then hopped from it to the blackened grass to hunt for grubs.

  “You killed that man,” I said.

  “He may have been carrying on forbidden experiments for years,” said Sarm. “We were fortunate to catch him. Sometimes we must wait until others are using the device for purposes of war and then destroy many men. It is better this way, more economical of material.”

  “But you killed him,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Sarm, “he broke the law of Priest-Kings.”

  “What right have you to make the law for him?” I asked.

  “The right of a higher-order organism to control a lower – order organism,” said Sarm. “The same right you have to slaughter the bosk and the tabuk, to feed on the flesh of the tarsk.”

  “But those are not rational animals,” I said.

  “They are sentient,” said Sarm.

  “We kill them swiftly,” I said.

  Sarm’s antennae curled. “And so too do we Priest-Kings commonly kill swiftly and yet you complain of our doing so.”

  “We need food,” I said.

  “You could eat fungus and other vegetables,” said Sarm.

  I was silent.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I SPEAK WITH SARM

  In the next days, when I could escape from the attentions of Sarm, on occasions when he was undoubtedly drawn elsewhere by his numerous duties and responsibilities, I searched the Nest by myself, on a transportation disk furnished by Sarm, looking for Misk, but I found no trace of him. I knew only that he had been, as Sarm had put it, pleased to retain Gur.

  No one to whom I spoke, principally Muls, would explain the meaning of this to me. I gathered that the Muls to whom I spoke, who seemed well enough disposed to
wards me, simply did not know what was meant, in spite of the fact that several of them had been bred in the Nest, in the breeding cases located in certain special vivaria set aside for the purpose. I even approached Priest-Kings on this subject and they, since I was a Matok and not a Mul, gave me of their attention, but politely refused to furnish me with the information I sought.

  “It has to do with the Feast of Tola,” they said, “and is not the concern of humans.”

  Sometimes on these excursions Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta would accompany me. On the first time they accompanied me I obtained a marking stick, used by Mul clerks in various commissaries and warehouses, and inscribed their appropriate letters on the left shoulders of their plastic tunics. Now I could tell them apart. The visual mark was plain to human eyes but it would not be likely to be noticed by Priest – Kings, any more than a small, insignificant sound is likely to be noticed by a human who is not listening for it and is attending to other things.

  One afternoon, as I judged by the feeding times, for the energy bulbs always keep the Nest of Priest-Kings at a constant level of illumination, Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta and I were swiftly passing through one tunnel on my transportation disk.

  “It is pleasant to ride thusly, Cabot,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Yes, it is pleasant,” agreed Mul-Ba-Ta.

  “You speak much alike,” I said.

  “We are much alike,” pointed out Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Are you the Muls of the biologist Kusk?” I asked.

  “No,” said Mul-Al-Ka, “we were given by Kusk to Sarm as a gift.”

  I stiffened on the transportation disk and it nearly ran into the wall of the tunnel.

  A startled Mul had leaped back against the wall. Looking back I could see him shaking his fist and shouting with rage.

  I smiled. I gathered he had not been bred in the Nest.

  “Then,” I said to the Muls who rode with me, “you are spying on me for Sarm.”

  “Yes,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “It is our duty,” said Mul-Ba-Ta.

  “But,” said Mul-Al-Ka, “should you wish to do something which Sarm will not know of, simply let us know and we will avert our eyes.”

  “Yes,” said Mul-Ba-Ta, “or stop the disk and we will get off and wait for you. You can pick us up on your way back.”

  “That sounds fair enough,” I said.

  “Good,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Is it human to be fair?” asked Mul-Ba-Ta.

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  “Good,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Yes,” said Mul-Ba-Ta, “we wish to be human.”

  “Perhaps you will teach us someday how to be human?” asked Mul-Al-Ka.

  The transportation disk sped on and none of us spoke for some time.

  “I am not sure I know how myself,” I said.

  “It must be very hard,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Yes,” I said, “it is very hard.”

  “Must a Priest-King learn to be a Priest-King?” asked Mul-Ba – Ta.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That must be even more difficult,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Probably,” I said, “I don’t know.”

  I swung the transportation disk in a graceful arc to one side of the tunnel to avoid running into a crablike organism covered with overlapping plating and then swung the disk back in another sweeping arc to avoid slicing into a stalking Priest-King who lifted his antennae quizzically as we shot past.

  “The one who was not a Priest-King,” quickly said Mul-Al-Ka, “was a Matok and is called a Toos and lives on discarded fungus spores.”

  “We know you are interested in things like that,” said Mul – Ba-Ta.

  “Yes, I am,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Yes,” said Mul-Ba-Ta.

  For a while we rode on in silence.

  “But you will teach us about being human, will you not?” asked Mul-Al-Ka.

  “I do not know a great deal about it,” I said.

  “But more than we, surely,” said Mul-Ba-Ta.

  I shrugged.

  The disk flowed on down the tunnel.

  I was wondering if a certain maneuvre was possible.

  “Watch this!” I said, and turning my body I swung the transportation disk in a sudden, abrupt complete circle and continued on in the same direction we had been traveling.

  All of us nearly lost out footing.

  “Marvelous,” cried Mul-Al-Ka.

  “You are very skilled,” said Mul-Ba-Ta.

  “I have never seen even a Priest-King do that,” said Mul-Al – Ka with something of awe in his voice.

  I had been wondering if such a turn was possible with a transportation disk and I was rather pleased with myself that I had accomplished it. The fact that I had nearly thrown myself and my two passengers off the disk at high speed onto the flooring of the tunnel did not occur to me at the time.

  “Would you like to try guiding the transportation disk?” I asked.

  “Yes!” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Yes,” said Mul-Ba-Ta, “we would like that very much!”

  “But first,” asked Mul-Al-Ka, “will you not show us how to be human?”

  “Why, how foolish you are!” scolded Mul-Ba-Ta. “He is already showing us.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Then you are probably not the one who was synthesised,” said Mul-Ba-Ta.

  “Perhaps not,” said Mul-Al-Ka, “but I still do not understand.”

  “Do you think,” said Mul-Ba-Ta loftily, “that a Priest-King would have done so foolish a thing with a transportation disk?”

  “No,” said Mul-Al-Ka, his face beaming.

  “You see,” said Mul-Ba-Ta. “He is teaching us to be human.”

  I reddened.

  “Teach us more about these things,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “I told you,” I said, “I don’t know much about it.”

  “If you should learn, inform us,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Yes, do,” said Mul-Ba-Ta.

  “Very well,” I said.

  “That is fair enough,” said Mul-Al-Ka.

  “Yes,” said Mul-Ba-Ta.

  “In the meantime,” said Mul-Al-Ka, gazing with unconcealed fascination at the accelerator strips in the transportation disk, “let us concentrate on the matter of the transportation disk.”

  “Yes,” said Mul-Ba-Ta, “that will be quite enough for us for now – Tarl Cabot.”

  ***

  I did not object to the time I spent with Sarm, however, for he taught me far more of the Nest in a much shorter time than would have otherwise been possible. With him at my side I had access to many areas which would otherwise have been closed to a human.

  One of the latter was the power source of the Priest-Kings, the great plant wherein the basic energy is generated for their many works and machines.

  “Sometimes this is spoken of as the Home Stone of all Gor,” said Sarm, as we walked the long, winding, iron spiral that clung to the side of a vast, transparent blue dome. Within that dome, burning and glowing, emitting a bluish, combustive refulgence, was a huge, crystalline reticulated hemisphere.

  “The analogy, of course,” said Sarm, “is incorrect for there is no Home Stone as such in the Nest of Priest-Kings, the Home Stone being a barbarous artifact generally common to the cities and homes of Gorean humans.”

  I was somewhat annoyed to find the Home Stones, taken so seriously in the cities of Gor that a man might be slain if he did not rise when speaking of the Home Stone of his city, so airily dismissed by the lofty Sarm.

  “You find it hard to understand the love of a man for his Home Stone,” I said.

  “A cultural oddity,” said Sarm, “which I understand perfectly but find slightly preposterous.”

  “You have nothing like the Home Stone in the Nest?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” said Sarm. I noticed an involuntary, almost spasmlike twitch of the
tips of the forelegs, but the bladed projections did not emerge.

  “There is of course the Mother,” I said innocently.

  Sarm stopped on the narrow iron railing circling the huge, glassy blue dome and straightened himself and turned to face me. With one brush of a foreleg he might have sent me hurtling to my death some hundreds of feet below. Briefly the antennae flattened themselves on his head and the bladelike projections snapped into view, and then the antennae raised and the bladelike projections disappeared.

  “That is very different,” said Sarm.

  “Yes, it is different,” I said.

  Sarm regarded me for a moment and then turned and continued to lead the way.

  At last we had reached the very apex of the great blue dome and I could see the glowing, bluish, refulgent, reticulated hemisphere far below me.

  Surrounding the bluish dome, in a greater concentric dome of stone I saw walkway upon walkway of paneling and instrumentation. Here and there Priest-Kings moved lightly about, occasionally noting the movements of scent-needles, sometimes delicately adjusting a dial with the nimble, hooklike appendages at the tips of their forelegs.

  I supposed the dome to be a reactor of some sort.

  I looked down through the dome beneath us. “So this is the source of the Priest-Kings’ power,” I said.

  “No,” said Sarm.

  I looked up at him.

  He moved his forelegs in a strange parallel pattern, touching himself with each leg at three places on the thorax and one behind the eyes. “Here,” he said, “is the true source of our power.”

  I then realised that he had touched himself at the points of entry taken by the wires which had been infixed in the young Priest-King’s body on the stone table in the secret compartment below Misk’s chamber. Sarm had pointed to his eight brains.

  “Yes,” I said, “you are right.”

  Sarm regarded me. “You know then of the modifications of the ganglionic net?”

  “Yes,” I said, “Misk told me.”

  “It is well,” said Sarm. “I want you to learn of Priest – Kings.”

  “In the past days,” I said, “you have taught me much, and I am grateful.”

  Sarm, standing on that high platform with me, over the bluish dome, over the refulgent power source so far below, lifted his antennae and turned, sweeping them over this vast, intricate, beautiful, formidable domain.