by John Norman
Then slowly the great form sank to the platform and the body no longer trembled and the antennae lay limp on the stone.
Misk approached her and touched her gently with his antennae.
He turned to the Priest-Kings.
“The Mother is dead,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
GRAVITATIONAL DISRUPTION
WE WERE IN THE FIFTH week of the War in the Nest and the issue still hung in balance.
After the death of the Mother, Sarm and those who followed him, most of the Priest-Kings for he was First Born, fled from the chamber to fetch, as it was said, silver tubes.
These were charged, cylindrical weapons, manually operated but incorporating principles much like those of the flame Death Mechanism. Unused, they had lain encased in plastic quivers for a matter of centuries and yet when these quivers were broken open and the weapons seized up by angry Priest-Kings they were as ready for their grim work as they had been when first they were stored away.
I think with one such weapon a man might have made himself Ubar of all Gor.
Perhaps there were only a hundred Priest-Kings who rallied to the call of Misk and among them were no more than a dozen silver tubes.
The headquarters for the forces of Misk lay in his compartment and there, pouring over the scent maps of the tunnels, he directed the placement of his defenses.
Thinking to overcome us with little difficulty the forces of Sarm, mounted on transportation disks, swept through the tunnels and plazas, but the Priest-Kings of Misk, hidden in rooms, concealed behind portals, firing from the ramps and the roofs of the buildings in the open complexes, soon took fierce toll of Sarm’s unwary and overconfident troops.
In such war the much larger forces of the First Born tended to be neutralized and a situation of infiltration and counterinfiltration developed, marked by frequent sniping and occasional skirmishes.
On the second day of the second week of battle, after the forces of Sarm had withdrawn, I, armed with sword and silver tube, mounted a transportation disk and swept through the no man’s land of unoccupied tunnels toward the Vivarium.
Although constantly on the alert I saw no sign of enemy forces, nor even of Muls or Matoks of various kinds. The Muls, I supposed, terrified and confused, had scattered and hidden themselves in their cases, living on their fungus and water, while over their heads hissed the weapons of their masters.
Therefore it was much to my surprise when I heard a distant singing in the tunnel that grew louder as I approached and soon I slowed the transportation disk and waited, my weapon ready.
As I waited, the tunnel and, as I later learned, the entire complex, were suddenly plunged into darkness. The energy bulbs, for the first time in centuries perhaps, had been shut down.
And yet there was not an instant’s pause in that singing nor the dropping of a beat or tempo. It was as if the darkness made no difference.
And as I waited on the still disk in the darkness, my weapon ready, I suddenly saw far down the tunnel the sudden blue flash of an opened Mul-Torch and then its steady blaze, and then I saw another flash and blaze and another and to my amazement it seemed that these fires hung from the very ceiling of the tunnel.
It was the carriers of Gur but far from the Gur chamber and I watched with something of awe as the long procession of humanoid creatures, two abreast, marched along the ceiling of the tunnel until they stopped above me.
“Greetings, Tarl Cabot,” said a voice from the floor of the tunnel.
I had not even seen him to this moment so intent had I been on the strange procession about me.
I read the mark on his tunic. “Mul-Al-Ka!”I cried.
He came to the disk and seized my hand firmly.
“Al-Ka,” said he. “I have decided I am no long a Mul.”
“Then Al-Ka it is!” I cried.
Al-Ka raised his arm and pointed to the creatures above us.
“They too,” said Al-Ka, “have decided they will be free.”
A thin voice yet strong, almost like that of something that was at once and old man and a child, rang out above me.
“We have waited fifteen thousand years for this moment,” its said.
And another voice called out. “Tell us what to do.”
I saw that the creatures above me, whom I shall now speak of as Gur Carriers, for they were no longer Muls, still carried their sacks of golden leather.
“They bring not Gur,” said Al-Ka, “but water and fungus.” “Good,” I said, “but tell them that this war is not theirs, but that of Priest-Kings, and that they may return to the safety of their chambers.”
“The nest is dying,” said one of the creatures hanging above me, “and we have determined that we will die free.”
Al-Ka looked at me in the light of the hanging torches.
“They have decided,” he said.
“Very well,” I said
“I admire them, said Al-Ka, “for they can see a thousand yards in the darkness by the light of a single Mul-Torch and they can live on a handful of fungus and a wallow of water a day and they are very brave and proud.”
“Then,” said I, “I too admire them.”
I looked at Al-Ka. “Where is Mul-Ba-Ta?” I asked. It was the first time I had ever seen the two men separated.
“He has gone to the Pastures and the Fungus Chambers,” said Al-Ka.
“Alone?” I asked.
“Of course,” said Al-Ka, “for the lights have been shut down. Priest-Kings do not need lights, but humans are handicapped without it.”
“Then,” I said, “the lights have been shut down because of the Muls.”
“The Muls are rising,” said Al-Ka simply.”
“They will need light,” I said.
“There are humans in the Nest who know of these matters,” said Al-Ka. “The lights will be on again as soon as the equipment can be built and the power fed into the system.”
The calmness with which he spoke astonished me. After all, Al-Ka, and other humans of the Nest, with the exception of the Gur Carriers, would never have known darkness.
“Where are you going?” asked Al-Ka.
“To one of the vivaria,” I said, “to fetch a female Mul.”
“That is a good idea,” said Al-Ka. “Perhaps I too will some day fetch a female Mul.”
And so it was a strange procession that followed the transportation disk, now happily piloted by Al-Ka, down he tunnel to the Vivarium.
In the dome of the Vivarium, holding a Mul-Torch, I walked up the ramps to the fourth tier, noting that the cages had been emptied, but I suspected that there would be one that would have remained locked.
And there was, and in this case though it had been seared as if an attempt had been made to open it I found Vika of Treve.
She crouched in the corner of the case away from the door in the darkness and through the plastic I saw her in the blue radiance of the Mul-Torch.
She crept to her feet holding her hands before her face and I could see her trying to see and yet protect her eyes from the glare.
Even shorn she seemed to me incredibly beautiful, very frightened, in the brief plastic sheath that was the only garment allotted to female Muls.
I took the metal key from the loop around my neck and turned the heavy mechanism of the case lock.
I hurled the plastic partition upward opening the case.
“— Master?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
A soft cry of joy escaped her lips.
She stood before me blinking against the light of the Mul-Torch, trying to smile.
Yes as she stood there she seemed also to be frightened and to my surprise she dared not approach the door though it now stood open.
She looked rather at me.
Her eyes were apprehensive, not knowing what I would do nor why I had returned to the case.
And her fears were not lessened as she looked beyond me to see the creatures, undoubtedly hideous to her eyes, who clun
g spiderlike to the ceiling of the Vivarium chamber with their glowing Mul-Torches.
“Who are they?” she whispered.
“Unusual men,” I said
She regarded the small round bodies and the long limbs with the cushioned feet and the long-fingered hands with their heavy palms.
Hundreds of pairs of those great, round dark eyes stared at her.
She shivered.
Then she looked again at me.
She dared ask no question but submissively knelt, as befitted her station, and bowed her head.
The case, I said to myself, has taught Vika of Treve much.
Before her head fell I had read in her eyes the silent, desperate pleas of the rightless, helpless slave girl that her master, he who owns her, he who holds her chain, might be pleased to be kind to her.
I wondered if I should take her from the case.
I saw her shoulders tremble as she awaited my decision as to her fate.
I no longer wished her to be confined her now that I better understood how matters stood in the Nest. I thought, even in spite of the cage plastic, she might be safer with the forces of Misk. Moreover, the Vivarium Attendants were gone and the other cages were empty and so it would only be a matter of time before she would starve. I did not wish to return periodically to the Vivarium to feed her and I supposed, if necessary, some suitable confinement might be found for her near Misk’s headquarters. If no other choice seemed practical I supposed I could always keep her chained in my own case.
Kneeling before me Vika’s shoulders shook but she dared not raise her head to read her fate in my eyes.
I wished that I could trust her but I knew that I could not.
“I have returned for you, Vika of Treve — Slave Girl,” I said sternly,” — to take you from the case.”
Slowly, her eyes radiant, her lips trembling, Vika lifted her head to me.
“Thankyou Master,” she said softly, humbly. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Call me Cabot,” I said, “as was your wont.”
On Gor I had not minded owning women as much as I should have but I had never been overly fond of being addressed by the title of Master.
It was enough to be Master.
The women I had owned, Sana, Talena, Lara and others of whom I have not written, Passion Slaves rented for the hour in the Paga Taverns of Ko-ro-ba and Ar, Pleasure salves bestowed on me in token of hospitality for a night spent in a friend’s compartments, had known that I was master and that had been sufficient.
On the other hand I have never truly objected to the title because I had not been long on Gor before I understood, for some reason that is not yet altogether clear to me, that the work “Master’ can indescribably thrill a girl when she finds it on her lips, now those of a slave girl, and knows that it is true. Whether or not this would be the same with the girls of Earth I do not know.
“Very well, Cabot my Master,” said Vika.
As I looked into the eyes of Vika I saw there the tears of relief and gratitude but I saw too the tears of another emotion, infinitely tender and vulnerable, which I could not read.
She knelt in the position of the Pleasure Slave but her hands on her thighs had unconsciously, pleadingly, turned their palms to me, and she no longer knelt quite back on her heels. It was as though she begged to be allowed to lift and open her arms and rise and come to my arms. But as I looked upon her sternly she turned her palms again to her thighs, knelt back on her heels and dropped her head, holding her eyes as if by force of will fixed on the plastic beneath my sandals.
Her entire body trembled with the ache of her desire.
But she was a slave girl and dare not speak.
I looked down at her sternly. “Look up, Slave Girl,” I said.
She looked up.
I smiled.
“To my lips, Slave Girl,” I commanded.
With a cry of joy she flung herself into my arms weeping.
“I love you, Master,” she cried. “I love you, Cabot my Master!”
I knew the words she spoke could not be true but I did not rebuke her.
It was no longer in my heart to be cruel to Vika of Treve, no matter who or what she might be.
After some minutes I said to her, rather sternly, “I have no time for this,” and she laughed and stepped back.
I turned and left the case and Vika, as was proper, fell into step happily two paces behind me.
We walked down the ramp to the transportation disk.
Al-Ka closely scrutinised Vika.
“She is very healthy,” I said.
“Her legs do not look too strong,” said Al-Ka, regarding that lovely thighs, calves and ankles of the slave girl.
“But I do not object,” I said.
“Nor do I,” said Al-Ka. “After all, you can always have her run up and down and that will strengthen them.”
“That is true,” I said.
“I think some day,” he said, “I too will fetch a female Mul.” Then he added, “But one with stronger legs.”
“A good idea,” I said.
Al-Ka guided the transportation disk out of the Vivarium and we began the journey toward Misk’s compartment, the Gur Carriers following overhead.
I held Vika in my arms. “Did you know,” I asked, “that I would return for you?”
She shivered and looked ahead, down the darkened tunnel.
“No,” she said, “I knew only that you would do what you wished.”
She looked up at me.
“Maya poor slave girl beg,” she whispered softly, “that she be again commanded to your lips?”
“It is so commanded,” I said, and her lips again eagerly sought mine.
It was later in the same afternoon that Mul-Ba-Ta, now simply Ba-Ta, made his appearance, leading long lines of former Muls. They came from the Pastures and the Fungus Chambers and they, like the Gur Carriers, sang as they came.
Some men from the Fungus Chambers carried on their backs great bags filled with choice spores, and other labored under the burdens of huge baskets of freshly reaped fungus, slung on poles between them; and those from the Pastures drove before them with long pointed goads huge, shambling gray arthropods, the cattle of Priest-Kings; and others from the Pastures carried in long lines on their shoulders the ropelike vines of the heavy-leaved Sim plants, on which the cattle would feed.
“We will have lamps set up soon,” said Ba-Ta. “It is merely a matter of changing the chambers in which we pasture.”
“We have enough fungus to last,” said one of the Fungus growers, “until we plant these spores and reap the next harvest.”
“We burned what we did not take,” said another.
Misk looked on in wonder as these men presented themselves to me and marched past.
“We welcome your aid, “he said, “but you must obey Priest-Kings.”
“No,” said one of them, “we no longer obey Priest-Kings,”
“But,” said another, “we will take our orders from Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba.”
“I think you would be well advised,” I said, “to stay out of this war between Priest-Kings.”
“Your war is our war,” said Ba-Ta.
“Yes,” said one of the Pasturers, who held a pointed goad as though it might be a spear.
One of the Fungus Growers looked up at Misk. “We were bred in this Nest,” he told the Priest-King, “and it is ours as well as yours.”
Misk’s antennae curled.
“I think he speaks the truth,” I said.
“Yes,” said Misk, “that is why my antennae curled. I too think he speaks the truth.”
And so it was that the former Muls, humans, bringing with them the basic food supplies of the Nest, began to flock to the side of the Priest-King Misk and his few cohorts.
The battle would, I supposed, given the undoubted stores of food available to Sarm and his forces, ultimately hinge on the firepower of the silver tubes, of which Misk’s side had few, but still I conjectured that the skil
ls and courage of former Muls might yet play their part in the fierce issues to be decided in that secret Nest that lay beneath the black Sardar.
As Al-Ka had predicted, the energy bulbs in the Nest, except where they had actually been destroyed by the fire of Sarm’s silver tubes, came on again.
Former Mul engineers, trained by the Priest-Kings, had constructed an auxiliary power unit and had fed its energy into the main system.
When the lights flickered and then burst into clear, vital radiance there was a great cheer from the humans in Misk’s camp, with the exception of the Gur Carriers to whom the energy bulbs were not of great importance.
Intrigued by the hardness of the cage plastic encountered in the Vivarium I spoke to Misk and he and I, together with other Priest-Kings and humans, armoured a fleet of transportation disks, which would be extremely effective if a silver tube were mounted in them and which, even if not armed, might yet serve acceptably as scouting vehicles or relatively safe transports. The fiery blast of the silver tubes would wither and wrinkle the plastic but unless the exposure were rather lengthy they could not penetrate it. And a simple heat torch, as I had earlier leaned, could scarcely mark the obdurate material.
In the third week of the War, equipped with the armoured transportation disks, we began to carry the battle to the forces of Sarm, though they still outnumbered us greatly.
Our intelligence was vastly superior to theirs and the networks of ventilation shafts provided the quick nimble men of the Fungus Chambers and the uncanny Gur Carriers access to almost anywhere in the Nest they cared to go. Moreover, all former Muls who fought with us were clad in scent-free tunics, which in effect supplied them with a most effective camouflage in the Nest. For example, at different times, returning from a raid, perhaps bringing another captured silver tube, no longer needed by one of Sarm’s slain cohorts, I would find myself unremarked even by Misk thought I might stand but feet from him.
Somewhat to their embarrassment but for their own safety the Priest-Kings who had joined Misk wore painted on the back and front of their thorax the block letter which in the Gorean alphabet would be the first letter of Misk’s name. Originally some of them had objected to this but after a few had almost stepped on the silent Gur Carriers, or wandered unbeknownst beneath them, some of the spidery humanoids being armed perhaps with silvers tubes, their opinions changed and they became zealous to have the letter painted boldly and repainted promptly if it showed the least signs of fading. It unnerved the Priest-Kings to pass unknowingly within feet of, say, a pale, agile fellow from the Fungus Chambers, who might be crouching in a nearby ventilator shaft with a heat torch, who might have burned their antennae for them if he had pleased; or to suddenly find themselves surrounded by a ring of quiet herdsmen who might at a signal transfix them with a dozen of the spearlike cattle goads.