Plunder of Gor

by Norman, John;

  It was very still.

  “That is what I wanted to show you,” she said. “Attend, make no sudden moves.”

  “I am afraid,” I said.

  “Be still,” she said. “Do not draw attention to us.”

  “It moved!” I said.

  I stifled a cry of alarm.

  “It is alive,” I said.

  “Be still,” reiterated Lita.

  The Lady Bina had begun to stroll north on Emerald. She would pass us.

  As soon as she had begun to move, it had emerged from the doorway, quickly, lightly for so mighty a bulk, crouched down, bent over, looking about, alertly, from one side to the other, eyes bright, its knuckles on the paving stones, following her, a bit behind and to the left.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  “I do not know,” said Lita. “This is the first time I have seen it.”

  A fellow, in the gray of the Metal Workers, was approaching, moving south on Emerald.

  Gorean traffic generally adheres to the left side of roads, passages, and such. In this way a right-handed person’s weapon hand faces the oncoming stranger. In Gorean, as in many languages, the same word is used for both “stranger” and “enemy.”

  “I wager,” said Lita, “that fellow does not know the district.”

  The thing following the Lady Bina ceased to heel her and moved quickly to her right and placed itself, moving beside her, and a little before her, between her and the approaching fellow who, apparently surprised, and perhaps alarmed, hurried to his left, giving the unusual couple a wide berth. As he passed, the thing near the Lady Bina and somewhat in advance of her, suddenly bared its fangs and growled. The fellow hastened on.

  “They approach,” I said. “Let us flee.”

  “We are safe,” said Lita. “We are animals. We have value. No man would kill us, no more than other domestic beasts. We would merely be seized and appropriated. Our collars protect us.”

  “That is not a man,” I said.

  “Our collars will keep us safe,” she said.

  “Tell it to larls or sleen,” I said.

  “Do not be afraid,” said Lita. “If we make no sudden moves, I am sure we are in no danger. We will do nothing threatening and will not dash away, perhaps activating a pursuit reflex.”

  “It is not leashed,” I said. “And if it was, that slight woman could not hope to restrain it.”

  “It is tame, and obedient,” said Lita. “It needs no leash.”

  “Did you not hear it growl?” I said. “Did you not see it bare its fangs?”

  “It was merely warning that fellow to keep his distance,” said Lita.

  “And if he had not?” I asked.

  “He gave the fellow fair warning,” said Lita. “After that, unless he were deterred by a soft word or gentle gesture from his mistress, I would suppose he would tear him to pieces.”

  That supposition, it seemed to me, was well warranted, given the size and attitude of the beast, its apparent ferocity, its apparent menace, its seeming readiness to attack.

  The unusual couple were now close to us. Lita and I were back in the doorway.

  They suddenly stopped, and the beast turned toward us, alertly. The large pointed ears turned toward us, inquisitively. Its demeanor did not seem threatening. It did not growl, it did not bare its fangs.

  Perhaps we were safe, protected by our collars.

  We both knelt, immediately. We were in the presence of a free person, the Lady Bina.

  I realized we were not likely to be attacked. That was a welcome intelligence. Certainly, backed into the doorway, and kneeling, we would have been easy prey for such a thing.

  Its eyes, for the briefest moment, met mine, piercingly. I lowered my head, instantly.

  “Two pretty kajirae,” said the Lady Bina.

  Some noises emanated from the beast, strange noises, not altogether like animal noises.

  “Come along, shaggy friend,” said the Lady Bina, smiling. “We will proceed.”

  “She speaks to the beast,” I thought, “as though it could understand, but then, do not masters and mistresses often address their brutes, however irrationally, as though they might understand? One supposes hunters might hasten sleen on the scent, riders urge on their mounts, drivers encourage their teams. Indeed, did not men and women on my former world occasionally, however irrationally, chat pleasantly to their animals, as though such animals might comprehend their words? Does not such persiflage please the master or mistress, and the beast, as well, welcoming such sounds, however ignorant it might be of the content of such a discourse?”

  It was only when they had passed us, moving north on Emerald, that I became very frightened. Surely what I had heard were animal noises, but, in retrospect, there was something very unusual about them. Somehow, they seemed not altogether like animal noises. For example, you may become suddenly aware that a city’s time bar has been tolling, apparently without your notice, and then, surprisingly, you realize it has already tolled, say, five times. You heard it without realizing that you were hearing it, and then, later, you recall what you were earlier unaware you were hearing. What had occurred was a bit like this. Noises emanated from the beast, which noises, as I expected, were taken as simple animal noises, and dismissed as such, but, a moment later, as the hair rose on the back of my neck and on my forearms, I no longer heard them as simple animal noises. Without thinking, I must have processed those noises, and, doubtless, substituted phonemes for phonemes, much as one might accommodate oneself to an unusual accent, one which at first seems incomprehensible, but, after a moment, or two, the adjustments made, becomes intelligible.

  The couple passed, and Lita and I rose to our feet, looking after them.

  “Did you hear it?” I asked Lita, frightened.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “It spoke,” I said.

  “It made noises,” she said.

  “Words,” I said.

  “Do not be silly,” she said. “It is a beast. It rumbled, it growled.”

  “Like a sleen, a larl?” I asked.

  “Not like a sleen,” she said.

  She, Gorean, would doubtless be familiar with sleen. Domesticated sleen are not that unusual.

  “Or a larl?” I said.

  “I heard larls at the games,” she said. “No, not like a larl either. But it is a different sort of beast.”

  “It spoke,” I said.

  “It did not speak,” she said. “It would have to be rational to speak. It is a beast.”

  “It spoke,” I said.

  “What did it say?” she asked.

  “The mistress said ‘two pretty kajirae’,” I said, “and the beast responded, ‘but not so lovely as you, dear lady’.”

  Lita turned white.

  “Did it not?” I asked.

  “I am afraid,” she said. “It is late. Let us hurry to our houses!”

  At that point Lita sped away, but I remained, for a time, frightened, in the doorway.

  I was sure the thing accompanying the unusual free woman, that slight blond-haired beauty, she who dared to go about unveiled, was a rational organism. It was not a pet. I did not know what it was, but I was sure it was not a pet.

  Then I remembered how it had looked at me, so piercingly. Certainly it had not been the look of a human male, a master, that look to which a slave becomes so accustomed, say, that casual, assessing look, from hair to ankles, which undresses her, nor the simple look of a beast, say, curious, hostile, or baleful. It had been a look that seemed, somehow, to be trying to understand my expression. Did it know me? Did I know it? Had we something to do with one another?

  I think it had read more than apprehension, or fear, in my countenance, as it might have read in the countenance of Lita.

  There must have been more in my expr
ession than I understood. But then it had turned away, tamely following its companion.

  Was this only my imagination?

  I feared not.

  I leaned against the wall of the doorway.

  I had heard it speak. I was sure of that. And so, too, upon reflection, apparently, was Lita.

  “Can it read my collar?” I wondered.

  Why had that question occurred to me? Of course, it had come into my mind because of the words of my master, who had spoken of things, not men, who might not be able to read my collar, no more than I.

  And might not that insufficiency buy time?

  My master had, the night of the storm, speculated that a contact might have been made.

  And I recalled that terrifying night, that in which I had heard bars gently shaken, quietly being tested, and, then, turning, in the light of the yellow moon, had seen something in the window, behind the bars, something large and alive.

  Might it not have been something such as I had just seen on Emerald, and which had just seen me?

  I did not even pause to fill the small bucket at the fountain of Aiakos. Instead I turned my steps toward Venaticus, rushing through the half-light.

  Again and again, I turned about, fearing I might be followed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  At the entrance to the house on Venaticus, I turned about, again. The street, as far as I could see, was empty. I saw no indication that I might have been followed.

  It was now dark. The dangling lantern by the door was lit.

  I was uneasy in its light.

  I heard a sound.

  It was that of my own breathing, for I had muchly hastened.

  I saw nothing.

  I was anxious to be inside, and safe.

  I was very much afraid from the experience I had had on Emerald, near the fountain of Aiakos.

  I had now realized, for the first time, perhaps belatedly, certainly foolishly, that intelligence, rationality, a capacity to calculate and plan, to pursue far goals, might not be limited to my species, but that the dark selections of evolution, in their impersonal, blind processes, without heart, mind, thought, or reason, might endow a variety of life forms with a diversity of attributes and behaviors facilitating survival, doubtless often at the cost of suppressing, eradicating, and feeding on other life forms. Were the beautiful lines of the leaping, fleet tabuk not fashioned by the artistry of the larl, its claws and fangs; did the same blind, nameless gods not balance the swirling school of parsit fish against the strike of the swift-swimming shark; the keenness of the hawk’s eye against the tiny urt’s immediate flight to cover at the sight of a moving shadow? We find it easy to understand how nature might favor speed, strength, fangs, claws, hoofs, wings, and such in a beast, but why might it not favor, as well, intelligence and cunning, rationality and thought? And what if such attributes might be conjoined with others, such as the tenacity of the sleen, the claws and fangs of the larl?

  I must warn my master, that things may not be as before, that danger might be afoot, lurking perhaps nearby, watching, even now, from the darkness.

  The beast had not seemed to bear me ill-will, nor its companion, the lovely lady, but who can read what currents of thought might course unseen in dark places, what rivers might flow in the minds of brutes, what might lie behind unreadable eyes?

  I seized the hammer ring on the door and lifted it. I then let it fall, twice, against its heavy metal plate. I then waited for a moment, and let it fall once more.

  I then stood by the door, waiting.

  After a time the door opened, and I slipped inside. A tharlarion-oil lamp hung from the ceiling. I could see the stairs leading upstairs.

  “Master,” I called, softly.

  I heard the door close behind me.

  “Master?” I said.

  I was seized from behind, a heavy hand over my mouth. I tried to scream, but could not, for the hand over my mouth. It was removed, and I opened my mouth, widely, to scream, but a slave bit was thrust into my mouth and, a moment later, it was snapped shut behind my neck. I whimpered, almost inaudibly. What more can one do in a slave bit? Held as I was, I could not turn to see who held me. I heard a rustle of leather, and a hood was drawn over my head and fastened behind my neck. My wrists, held together behind me, in one hand, were then snapped into slave bracelets. I was then lifted to a man’s shoulder and, my head held to the rear, as a slave is often carried, I was carried upstairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At the head of the stairs, he turned right, kicking open the door of the sleeping chamber.

  He set me to one side, my back against the wall, by the door. I sat there, my knees drawn up. Where was my master? I twisted my head in the hood, I felt the bit, so tight, in my mouth. I pulled a little at the slave bracelets that confined my hands behind my back.

  How foolish it is to do that, but how can one help oneself?

  I heard him opening the chests, rummaging through their contents, casting articles about the room. I did not know for what he might be looking. I heard him move my slave mat, kept at the foot of my master’s couch, perhaps lifting and turning it over. Surely nothing was concealed within it. He tapped the walls, and floor, here and there. A blade was then rending cushions. At last, I heard him draw the furs from my master’s couch, lift and shake them, and then cast them down, to the floor at the end of the couch. I felt one of the furs fall across my foot, and I drew back my foot, quickly.

  The room was then still.

  I sensed him standing near me, perhaps looking about the room.

  I do not think his search, if search it was, had been successful.

  Might he not then be angry?

  I knew a slave whip hung on its peg, on the far wall.

  I suspected this was not a common thief.

  Where was my master?

  He took my right arm, and drew me away from the wall, and I lay on my side, I thought, across the portal.

  He tested the floor, and wall, where I had been sitting, and then, apparently, stood up, once more.

  I lay very still.

  “It is not here, of course,” he said, “no parchment, no small scroll, no slip of paper, no tiny note, coded or not. No street, no domicile. No clue. But I did not expect to find it here. But one looks. One might be dealing with fools. Why should it be here? How could it be here? How would he, one such as he, know what needs to be known?”

  I understood nothing of what he said.

  “Yes,” he said, “I am sure it is as he claimed, so insistently, that he did not know, and, I suspect, another does not know either, as he claimed, but, concealed within the other, hidden within the other, is the key to he who truly knows.”

  To me this discourse was unintelligible. What was to be known? Who would know it? Who was this “other” who knew nothing? How could one who knew nothing, who suspected nothing, who understood nothing, be the key to what must be known? And what was it that must be known, and why must it be known?

  I felt myself lifted in powerful arms, and then, lightly, cast down amongst a plethora of rich furs, at the foot of the couch, those which had been removed from the couch. I was half sunk in the furs, almost lost in them. I had never been permitted to recline on such furs, though I had often cared for them, and arranged them on the surface of my master’s couch. Many slaves are limited to their mat; other slaves are used on the furs, but the furs are commonly placed on the floor, at the foot of the master’s couch. And some slaves are permitted on the surface of the couch itself, prized slaves, favored slaves, but, even in the case of such a slave, usually the neck, or at least one ankle, commonly the left ankle, is fastened to a slave ring. The slave is not to be confused with a free companion. The free companion, incidentally, as it has been explained to me, to protect her modesty, and make clear the difference between herself and a slave, is touched, if touched,
only beneath the covers, she lightly robed, and in a dark room. Too, to preserve her virtue, she is to be dealt with succinctly, this to avoid prolonging any possible embarrassment or humiliation. This is quite different from the slave. The beauty of the slave, regardless of her possible wishes, should she dare to have them, is fully at the disposal of the master. She belongs to the master, and few masters fail, in the light of a love lamp, to relish her least expression, her tiniest movement, her smallest cry. What master would deny himself the wholeness of his property, the sight of her, the feel of her, the grasp of her, the sound of her, the intelligence of her, the emotions of her? Too, although she may be put to use briefly and abruptly, whenever and however the master wishes, as she is a slave, it is not unusual for him to sport with her, to amuse himself with her, to attend to her, intimately and patiently, for Ahn at a time. She is, after all, a slave. It will be done with her as the master might please. Let her moan, and sweat, and beg, in her chains. Doubtless the master will return to her, anon, as he is inclined.

  I sensed him standing near me, perhaps regarding me.

  “You understand gag signals, do you not?” he inquired.

  I made a tiny noise, whimpering once. One such sound means “Yes,” and two such sounds signifies “No.”

  One is taught such things in the pens, or a training house.

  “You are a barbarian, are you not?” he said.

  I whimpered once.

  “It is easy to see why you were picked up for the collar,” he said.

  I was silent.

  “Barbarians are hot,” he said. “They sell well. They are grateful to be at the feet of true men.”

  I would not have dared speak, even had it been possible.

  I supposed I was “hot,” pathetically, helplessly hot. I had been given no choice. Gorean men had made me so. They like their slaves so. But I did not object. How glorious it was, to be a vital needful woman. How wonderfully liberated we were, so alive and needful, in our collars!

  “Why do the foolish men of your dismal orb,” he asked, “not tear away the garments of their women, hurl them to their feet, put them in collars, and teach them they are women?”