“And glorious and powerful,” said he who had admitted us, looking about.
I glanced about the darkness.
“If you wish,” said Kurik.
“Continue,” said he who had admitted us.
“And this beast,” said Kurik, “if it is not Kur, is assuredly Kurlike.”
“Granted,” said he who had admitted us.
“Thus,” said Kurik, “I do not think our hirsute friends, considering the presumed importance of this business, would be so negligent or stupid as to omit instructions, or forget to provide a translator.”
“I see!” said he who had admitted us. Then he turned to the beast, it crouching back in the crate. He glared at it. “Speak Gorean,” he said.
Once again a stream of sound, whose phonemes, if it were a form of speech, seemed unfamiliar, and unintelligible, emanated from the throat of the creature.
Once before, in Ar, I had heard something similar, but heavier, more explosive, more frightening.
“It cannot speak Gorean,” said he who had admitted us.
“Let us kill it, before it attacks us,” said one of the men with an armed crossbow.
The creature shrank back in the crate.
“It is frightened,” I thought. “It understands.”
“Perhaps,” said Kurik, “it is speaking Gorean.”
“Absurd,” said he who had admitted us. “A larl, a sleen, could do as well.”
“It is a different throat, a different vocal apparatus,” said Kurik. “Could you speak Kur, any dialect of Kur?”
“I could not make such noises,” said he who had admitted us. “Where is the device, the translator?”
“One, I suspect,” said Kurik, “was not deemed necessary.”
“A tragic omission,” said he who had admitted us.
“May I speak, Masters?” I asked.
“No,” said he who had admitted us. And then he turned to Kurik. “Your slave is presumptuous,” he said. “Is she so poorly trained? I fear so. Beat her, cuff her, or, if you wish, I shall have the five-stranded disciplinary device brought, and put to a richly deserved use.”
“No,” said Kurik, looking down at me. “Speak,” he said.
“I heard something, long ago, in Ar,” I said. “It was something like this.”
“Continue,” said Kurik.
“It seemed unintelligible to me,” I said. “It was so different. I would not understand it. I refused to do so. I would not try. I resisted it. I dismissed it. Yet, moments later, I trembled, frightened, for I realized I had understood it. It is much like struggling to understand a Cosian accent, and then, somehow, suddenly, it is understood. It is a matter of subtle adjustments, of transposing sounds, of substituting one sound for another.”
“Absurd,” said he who had admitted us.
“I am sure the beast understands Gorean,” I said. “Did you not note its reaction when it thought itself threatened?”
“It understood the weapon,” said he who had admitted us. “Perhaps it had seen such a thing, discharged, a kill made with such a thing. It might easily have understood the menace in the tone. Any beast could do as much.”
“May I, Master,” I asked, “attempt to communicate with the thing?”
“Do not permit her to waste our time,” said the fellow with the lantern.
“Would you prefer, instead, to engage the beast in discourse?” asked Kurik.
“No,” said he with the lantern. “It cannot be done.”
“The beast, I am sure,” said Kurik, “is female. It seems Kurlike, but it is very different from a Kur female. By now a Kur female might have torn open our throats.”
The other fellows drew back, a bit.
“It, I am sure, is a female,” said Kurik, “and the slave is a female, the most female of females, one in a collar. Perhaps there is some affinity there. Too, the slave, if she may be credited, has had some experience that might prove relevant.”
“If she is not lying,” said he who had admitted us.
“Slaves seldom lie,” said Kurik. “They are not free women. The free woman may lie with impunity, but not the slave. For the slave, the penalties are too severe.”
“Perhaps,” said he who had admitted us, “the slave is merely mistaken, possibly deluded.”
“Perhaps,” said Kurik.
“Let her try,” said he with the lantern. “She may be beaten if unsuccessful.”
“This slave,” said Kurik, “is a barbarian, brought to our markets from the slave world. And yet, you will note, her Gorean is quite passable.”
“It had better be,” laughed one of the fellows with a bow.
“The switch and whip have seen to it,” said the second fellow with a bow.
Well was I familiar with the switch. But I had never been whipped, had never had the Gorean slave lash applied to my body, for my improvement or instruction.
“Things are not so easily explained,” said Kurik. “It is well known that women, interestingly, have a surprising facility for the acquisition of languages.”
“So?” said he who had admitted us.
“Why would this be?” asked Kurik. “Surely this is not some vast, inexplicable, overwhelming coincidence.”
“What might explain it?” asked he with the lantern.
“Consider women,” said Kurik, “small, slight, lovely, desirable, an exciting and ideal form of wealth. Are not such creatures esteemed trading goods, suitable plunder, desiderated loot, sought for, and fought for? While men are slain, are they not stripped and led away on their neck ropes? Will they survive, or perish? Surely those who, first, and best, learn the languages of their masters will, on the whole, be most pleasing and survive most frequently. Thus, over millennia, in thousands of venues, the female with suitable linguistic aptitudes entwined within her hereditary coils will tend to be favored by the stern choices of a harsh world. And these linguistic aptitudes, favoring survival, like beauty and appetition, like the graceful fleetness of the tabuk, the hearing of the larl, the tracking capacity of the sleen, are transmissible. And thus women are born for masters.”
“The beast can speak Kur,” said he who had admitted us.
“Undoubtedly,” said Kurik.
“We heard it speak Kur,” said he who had admitted us.
“I am not sure,” said Kurik.
“But surely not Gorean,” said he who had admitted us.
“That remains to be seen,” said Kurik.
“If I can understand her, if it is a her,” I said, “surely you may, as well, Masters.”
“We might learn to do so,” said Kurik. “Proceed.”
With trepidation, the men watching, I rose to my feet, went to the opening of the crate, and knelt down.
I looked into the recesses of the crate, at the crouching life form near its back. It was breathing quickly. I could hear its breath. I could see it in the lifted light of the lantern.
I had learned it was too small to be a male Kur, and, for all I knew, it might be smaller, even, than the female Kur. It was, on the other hand, considerably larger than I. I conjectured it to approximate, or exceed, the height of the men, large men, behind me. To be sure, it was crouching down, apprehensively.
“I will speak to you,” I said. “If you understand me, touch your right paw to the floor of the container.”
“Ai!” cried two of the men.
“She understands Gorean!” said Kurik.
“It could be a coincidence,” said he who had admitted us.
“Possibly,” said Kurik.
“Please touch the floor of the container twice with your right paw,” I said, slowly.
“She knows Gorean,” said Kurik.
“But we do not know Kur,” said he with the lantern.
“Can you speak Gorean?” I asked.
/> There was a tiny sound, from back in the crate.
“That noise was meaningless,” said he who had admitted us.
“If you can speak Gorean,” I said, “please touch the floor of the container twice with your right paw.”
“The beast lies,” said he who had admitted us.
“Perhaps not,” said Kurik.
“It is hard for us to understand your Gorean,” I said, slowly. “Perhaps it is hard for you to understand our Gorean. I will speak slowly and carefully and I hope you will do the same. I think then, after a time, we may understand one another well enough, and may then speak more easily. Please speak to me, and I will try to understand.”
I felt sorry for the beast which, I was sure, was frightened, and disconcerted. How strange it must be for it to find itself as it was, on a foreign world, alone, queried by strangers, threatened by weapons. Then, for a time, some Ehn, it uttered its noises, slowly, and patiently. I strained to interpret these emanations, conjecturing, hazarding possibilities, making little or nothing of them.
“I have failed, Masters,” I said.
“No, you have not,” it said.
“Ai!” I cried.
“What is it?” demanded Kurik.
“I understood!” I said, trembling.
Doubtless it is difficult to understand how it is that one does not understand and then one understands, and one knows not how, or exactly when, this remarkable transition occurs. What is difficult, and perhaps impossible, is suddenly at one’s disposal, and, seemingly, familiar and even trivial. Some adjustments are doubtless made of which one is not aware. How complicated is the brain, and mysterious its secret courses and routes! Yet the phenomenon is not without precedent. One can make nothing of a gesture language and then, suddenly, it is intelligible. One does not understand a mode of speech, or an accent, and then, suddenly, one does. It is the language one knows but it was seemingly distorted, concealed, or transformed, and then, as though the curtain was swept aside or the key suddenly revealed, all that which a moment ago defied comprehension is suddenly made manifest, simple, even embarrassingly so.
“I do not understand,” said he who had admitted us.
“Continue,” said Kurik.
“Long ago, in Ar, I had had a similar experience, on Emerald, in the vicinity of the fountain of Aiakos,” I said.
“The intelligence of slaves is quick,” said the fellow with the lantern.
“Of some slaves,” said Kurik.
“That makes it more pleasant,” said the fellow with the lantern, “to subdue, own, and master them.”
“You do not think we bring them to Gor simply for their beauty, do you?” asked Kurik.
“I suppose not,” he said.
“Stupid slaves do not sell well,” said Kurik. “Who would want to own them?”
“True,” said he with the lantern.
“The intelligent woman,” said Kurik, “makes the best slave. She is more in touch with her feelings and needs. She is least a stranger to herself. She most quickly understands what it is to be in a collar, one she cannot remove, which is locked on her neck. She has longed to submit herself to a master. She is the first to come to her knees, where she knows she belongs.”
In the following, I shall proceed largely as if these exchanges occurred between the beast and myself, or between others and the beast, facilitated by my mediation. In actuality, of course, particularly in the beginning, I must translate continually, and later, often, from the beast’s Gorean into a more easily intelligible Gorean, one rendered in familiar phonemes, that the masters might at all times be fully cognizant of what was transpiring. Later, the men, in particular my master, began to fathom the discourse of the beast.
“What are you?” I asked.
“I do not know,” it said.
“Surely you know.”
“No.”
“You have heard others,” I said. “You have been explained to yourself.”
“No,” it said.
“Are you a female?” I asked.
“I do not know,” it said. “What is a female?”
“You have come from a steel world,” I said.
“From far away,” it said.
“Let me address her,” said Kurik. “She will understand my Gorean. You may translate her responses.” He then spoke to the beast slowly, more slowly, I suspect, than was necessary. “Do you understand Kur?” he asked.
“Yes,” it said. “It is the language of the great ones.”
“Can you speak it?” he asked.
“Yes,” it said, “but poorly. My throat is deformed. I was born awry, twisted, and imperfect.”
“Are you Kur?” he asked.
“I am other than the splendid ones,” it said.
“You are much like a Kur,” said Kurik.
“I am unworthy to be so,” it said.
“It is a beast,” said he who had admitted us.
“Yes,” it said.
“Are you a beast?” I asked. Surely the thing was beastlike.
“Yes, I am a beast,” it said.
“What else?” I asked.
“A monster, ill-begotten, and ill-constituted,” it said.
“Amongst the Kurii,” said Kurik, “there are three, or, if you like, four sexes, the dominants, the females, the wombs, and the nondominants. A nondominant may, in certain circumstances, become a dominant. This emergence is sometimes fearful to behold. The wombs are sensate, but sessile, and irrational.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“The seeded Kur female, after conceiving,” said Kurik, “deposits the fertilized egg in one of the living wombs, usually housed in remote areas, often in caves or tunnels. There it comes to term and, unaided, frees itself, or dies, and is ejected. It lives for a time off the tissue and blood of the womb, but it is normally collected and taken to a nursery before the womb perishes. If the womb heals, it may accept another egg.”
“This is hard to understand,” I said.
“The Kur female is dangerous and appetitious,” said Kurik. “In this way she is not slowed, or burdened, by carrying young. I do not know if this is a portion of the biological heritage of the Kur species, or if it was introduced technologically, by medical intervention, at some point in the development of the species.”
“Then there is nothing like the family,” I said.
“There are analogs,” said Kurik. “Records are kept of bloodlines.”
“This creature then, in the crate,” I said, “came so to be?”
“I do not think so,” said Kurik. “I do not think this thing, small, and different, could have bitten, clawed, and torn its way out of one of the Kur wombs.”
“How then is it brought about?” I asked.
“I think,” said Kurik, “it was delivered from a human womb.”
“Surely not,” I said.
“It had a mother,” said Kurik.
“But look at it,” I said.
“Its father, or fathers, for seeds may be mixed, and fused, was Kur,” he said.
“It could not be,” I whispered, frightened.
“An advanced biological and medical technology was doubtless involved,” said Kurik.
“Surely, Master, that is impossible,” I said.
“It is not impossible,” he said. “I know of another case.”
“Kill me,” begged the creature in the crate.
“No,” said Kurik.
“You are far from a steel world,” I said. “You are on a world called ‘Gor’. Do you know for what purpose you were brought to Gor?”
“No,” it said.
“You are a female,” said Kurik.
“What is a female?” it asked.
“It does not know why it was brought to Gor,” I said.
“
No,” said Kurik.
“Surely someone must know why it was brought to Gor,” I said.
“Someone does,” he said.
“Who?” I asked.
“One known to you,” he said.
“Who?” I asked.
“I,” said Kurik.
“You know?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I know.”
“Master has explained little to his slave,” I said.
“That is because she is a slave,” he said. “Perhaps later, if you are sufficiently pleasing, and writhe well, I may choose to assuage your curiosity.”
“Master sports with his slave,” I said. “Master well knows that I cannot bargain. Even the suspicion that I might wish to do so could bring me a beating.”
“True,” he said.
“And Master well knows,” I said, “that the whip guarantees that I will strive earnestly to be pleasing, and that, at his least touch, I cannot help but writhe spasmodically, helplessly, beggingly, in his arms.”
“True,” he said, “and I find it quite amusing, particularly given our first encounter, that on this world you are not only a defenseless, rightless, abject slave, but that you are helplessly collar hot.”
“Of course,” I said. “I am now the property of masters. I can be bought and sold. I am a slave.”
“As you should be,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I whispered, a slave.
Kurik then turned to the huddled beast in the crate.
“Why, Beast,” he said, “do you think so little of yourself? Why do you regard yourself as a monster, as a thing ill-begotten, and ill-constituted?”
“Look at me,” it said, and the bitterness of its response was clear, even in its rude approximations to the phonemes of Gorean, even in that rude, issuant conjunction of vocables scarcely distinguishable from those of a simple beast. “Consider my voice, how unnatural it is, how distorted! I cannot enunciate Kur well. I cannot enunciate Gorean well. Kurii mock me. Humans draw back, baffled, and repelled.”
“The slave,” said Kurik, “a mere slave, understands you, and I am beginning to understand you. Even amongst the Kurii, whom you call the splendid ones, few can speak Gorean. Most avail themselves of mechanical devices, translators. You are thus superior to them. You can do what they cannot. And there are many steel worlds inhabited by Kurii, and, I assure you, the Kur of some of these worlds is barbaric, even unintelligible, to those of other such worlds. Dare they openly mock one another? I think not. Would it not mean a challenge to the rings? And I suspect you speak Kur ably enough, for they mock you. Thus they understand you. Surely they need no translator, a device for deciphering alien speech, to understand you. Thus, you speak both intelligible Kur and intelligible Gorean.”
Plunder of Gor Page 36