by John Norman
She did not then grasp herself as before, in that preposterous fashion, trying to conceal herself from him, for he had seemed to discountenance it, but she did press herself against his leg, putting her head down, so that he could not see the full slave of her.
This amused him.
Did she not know that he could seize her, and hold her, and turn her, and examine her, minutely, and then, his assessment done, discard her, casting her to the side of the container as one might a slave?
But he recalled she was a free woman.
She looked up at him, timidly, tears in her eyes. And then put her head down and softly licked the side of his leg. She then put up her head again, timidly, to see his reaction.
It was the sort of thing a slave might do.
Would her solicitation be accepted, or might he be annoyed, and cuff her from his leg?
He put his hand gently on her hair, and then she felt, in a moment, his hand close within her hair, holding it, tightly.
She was helpless.
She winced.
He seemed to struggle with himself. He wants me, she thought, trying to hold her head very still, quite aware that if she made any sudden movement or made the least attempt to escape, it would hurt even more, and that he, if he wished, with a mere tightening or twist, could subject her to the torment of hundreds of tiny scalding knives of pain, to avoid which she would do anything. Then he released her hair. She was, after all, a free woman.
She crouched as she could in the container, against his leg.
She was startled, confused.
He could have done with her what he wanted, but he had not.
She put down her head.
She kissed his leg, again.
She had strange, unaccountable sensations.
This is what it is, she thought, to be a female.
Then she thought, I want him to claim me. I want to wear his collar. Lash me, she thought, prove to me you own me.
But he did not touch her.
She was free.
She grappled with her feelings. Had women felt this way, in a thousand years, she wondered, or two thousand, perhaps in Baghdad, Damascus or Byzantium, in Athens or Rome, in Thebes or Corinth, in Gaul or Britain, or in the German forests, or in Persia or Egypt, or in Nineveh or Babylon, or in the great muddy river valleys, or in horse-haunted grasslands, the dominion of bowmen, or in clustered huts where metal was new or in fire-illuminated caves where flint was patiently shaped?
What would it be, she wondered, to struggle in the thongs of a prehistoric lover.
Where have the gods gone, she asked herself.
We no longer hear them call to one another.
What has become of us? What have we done to the world?
She felt herself touched then, you see, however softly, by the fingers of a world alien to her, a natural world of meadows and moisture, of damp rocks and blades of moist grass, a world rather like her own might once have been, unspoiled, a world quite different from the world she had known, an artificial world, a sly world, one of lies and pretense, of hypocrisy, and artifices, of convention and deception.
Am I a slave, she asked herself. Is this my master?
She looked up at him, and he smiled.
He is reading my body, my expressions, she thought. He knows, he must know, what I am thinking!
So he reads women, does he? Well, he is mistaken in the case of such as I! Perhaps there are low women who would grovel and place a man's foot upon their head, but I am not one such! My knees do not seek the tiles! My tongue is not for the feet of masters! My limbs are not for the chains of owners, my throat is not for their collars!
I am not such, she thought. I am not such.
I am not a slave, she thought. No, no, I am not a slave, not a slave!
Then suddenly, angrily, she thrust away from him, and thrust herself back against the obdurate transparent barrier which so closely confined them.
He smiled at her, and she lunged forth to strike him but he grasped her wrists and he held her helplessly before him, her struggles as futile as might have been those of a child, until tears of frustration streamed down her cheeks.
He then released her.
She regarded him angrily.
I hate you, she thought. I hate you! Then she subsided, frightened, for he had frowned.
I have displeased him, she thought.
Why does he not discipline me? Because I am a free woman, of course. She shuddered, as he looked away. If I were a slave, she thought, he would punish me. Why does he not make me his slave?
But I fear that I am not worthy to be his slave!
But clearly he desires me!
I think he would not mind having me at his feet!
Then why might he not make me his slave?
Where is Earth? Where is my old world! Where is the world where I understand myself? What is this place, or world, where I cannot understand myself, but where I am other than I was, and am hopelessly, needfully so?
I must never understand myself as I truly am, she thought, for that is forbidden!
But why, she asked herself, is it forbidden?
Teach me who I am, she thought, teach me myself! Release me! Free me, to be myself, and yours—Master!
She then cried out at him, angrily.
It was at that point that the disruption occurred.
Chapter, the Second:
THE DISRUPTION, AND WHAT OCCURRED SHORTLY THEREAFTER
For whatever reason, she had cried out angrily at him.
Then, suddenly, each of the tiered containers in the long hallway shook, and several broke from their stems, and tumbled, rolling from the tiers which, themselves, were twisting from the walls. Had there been air in the hallway there might have been much screeching of metal, and the ringing of ovoid containments striking the floor, rolling, crashing into one another.
The container with which we have been concerned tilted eccentrically, as had several others, this container toward the center of the hallway. Doubtless there was much consternation within its confines. Air began to hiss from it, and Tarl Cabot thrust his hand against the aperture through which this complex gas was escaping, rushing outside. Within the container its occupants began to suffer, almost immediately, from the diminution of its atmosphere. The human life form, as many others, requires oxygen, in one form or another to survive. Commonly, this is imbibed from an atmosphere, in an exchange of gases. One life form, for example, will exude a waste product, its poison, into the atmosphere which is, interestingly, necessary for the life of a different life form, and that life form, in turn, expels into the atmosphere another waste product, poisonous to itself, yet benign, even necessary, to, say, the first life form. It is thus by means of an exchange of poisons that the gift of life flowers. The wheels turn. The ways of the Nameless One are obscure. Kurii, incidentally, require oxygen for life, as well, as does the cobra and ost, the leopard and larl. This may, too, be the case with Priest-Kings, but one knows little about them.
The blonde, gasping, scratched at the inside of the container, wildly, as though she would scratch through it and obtain air outside, but there was, at that time, no air outside. The brunette had her hands pressed against the inside of the container. Her face, viewed from the outside, was distraught. So might be that of a small animal contained in a jar from which the air was being removed. Tarl Cabot removed his hand from the aperture through which the atmosphere was escaping, and lunged against the transparent barrier, three times, but his efforts, as he should have realized, would be ineffectual. Within the container they could probably hear the air hissing out. Outside a ripple might have been noted, but little else. He again tried to block the aperture, but with indifferent success. Too, as they breathed, the atmosphere within the container, now tenuous, became ever more toxic.
The cause of this disruption was, of course, at the time unknown to them, nor, at the time, would it have been of great interest to them. Their concern was with its effects.
The bru
nette was the first to lose consciousness, and, a bit later, sinking toward the tilted bottom of the container, the blonde was the second. Both were in their way small animals, small, lovely animals.
Tarl Cabot shook his head, and tried to keep his hand against the aperture, but, in a bit, his hand fell to the side. There was no longer the hiss of escaping gas, for, if any remained in the container, it was not enough to call attention to its exit. His knees buckled, and he tried to brace himself against the slanting wall of the damaged vessel. It seems likely he would have shortly lost consciousness when he became aware, dimly, that one of the loose containers was suddenly moving about, and it seemed a wind of tiny particles, like a dry blizzard of dust and scraps, invaded the corridor. He thrust his face to the small rupture in the container which he had tried to seal with his hand. There was surely there, at that small, opened gate, a welcome entrant, a whisper of air, an indisputable, salubrious freshening, within the tiny world. He saw the particles outside subsiding. He heard the sound of one of the cylinders shifting its position. Outside there was air.
At the same time he saw at the end of the corridor a red line, like a knife, slowly describing a large circle, bubbling and hissing, as it moved, in the steel. Then, as the circle was nearly completed, there was a sound as of a single blow, abrupt and impatient, on the other side, perhaps a small explosion, and the steel protruded into the hallway, as though it had been struck by a fist, and then there was another such blow, or explosion, and there was a screeching of metal, and then a large clanging sound, as the large circle of steel, with its diameter of ten feet or more, collapsed, rocking and shimmering with sound, into the hallway.
In this opening there suddenly appeared, harnessed and alert, enweaponed, ears erected, eyes blazing, head turning from side to side, a gigantic form.
Behind it, visible in the opening, some half crouched, were similarly accoutered forms.
Air was moving into the capsule rapidly; in moments the atmosphere in the capsule was in equilibrium with the circumambient atmosphere.
The blonde stirred and lifted her head, and then, pressing her hands against the glassine barrier, began to squirm and utter excited sounds.
Into the hallway now emerged ten or more of these large forms, in the hands of some were rifles, in the hands of others heat knives and double-bladed power axes. They were large-eyed, these creatures, now with verticalized pupils, in the light, pupils which could, as those of the sleen and larl, swiftly adapt themselves to anything short of total darkness. Their ears, large, pointed ears, several inches in width at the base, were erected, ears which could rotate nearly 180 degrees without the head moving, ears so keen that they could detect the movement of an urt in the grass at a hundred and fifty feet. Their nostrils in the large, flattish faces were wide and flared. In some of the faces, as the beasts, some of them hesitating briefly, entered the hallway, the nostrils contracted and distended, scanning for scents, rather as one might look, or one might listen. Their sense of scent was well developed, and useful in the hunt, and war. Their jaws were large and powerful. Those of a male could wrench the head from a tabuk in a single motion. Had they stood fully erect those of this group, carefully selected, would have averaged some ten to eleven feet in height. They were large specimens, even for their breed, having a width of three to four feet, and a weight, I conjecture, of some sixteen hundred pounds. The fur of two were erected, increasing an aspect of size and fearsomeness. And four had earned their way to the second ring.
The brunette had awakened, and, lifting her head, groggily, looked outside the container, and then, suddenly, she flung her hand before her face, and, eyes wide with horror, uttered a long, shrill scream, and fainted.
Tarl Cabot, angrily, with his foot, thrust her out of his way, to the bottom of the container.
She was useless, and a woman.
And no better, he thought, though free, than a slave, but, assuredly, one nicely curved, who should bring a good price. She would look well curled at a slave ring, he thought, where she belonged.
Let them hide behind men, he thought, whose they are, and to whom they owe their lives.
Do they not understand that, really?
They are slaves, he thought. Let them learn that, and strive to be pleasing. Free, they are without identity; free, they are meaningless and worthless; free, they are egotistical bothers, haughty nuisances, arrogant annoyances, self-alienated creatures removed from both biology and themselves, unhappy, pathetic, miserable, casting-about, frustrated creatures who do not even understand the meaning of their own malaise. But collared, marketed, and such, they are quite nice. Subject to buying and selling, and the lash, they are pleasant to have about the house. They work well, and from their thrashing, squirming bodies one may derive inordinate pleasures, pleasures not even within the ken of free women.
And is it not pleasant to have them coming to one's feet, helplessly, needfully, piteously, their slave fires ignited, to beg yet another caress?
We must not think too harshly of the brunette. We must remember that she was from Earth, and the environment in which she found herself was now quite different from that to which her upbringing, her education, and such, had accustomed her. Too, we must understand that she was weak, and a female. Too, she had never before seen Kurii.
The blonde, agitated, excited, was pounding on the glassine wall.
Had I only a weapon, thought Tarl Cabot. But, too, he was astonished at the appearance here, in the Prison Moon, of Kurii.
Why were they here?
What did they want?
Would the glassine walls not dispermit their access to the container, as effectively as it imprisoned its occupants?
Surely the Kurii had no keys, or signals, to open these sturdy cells.
But they had weaponry, surely, and if it could burn through walls, and blast steel apart, make doors where there were no doors, why should it not, cared they to do so, melt or cleave away the glassine walls which confined them?
But were they of interest?
And might they not perish in the destruction of the cell, blasted into ashes or deliquesced into boiling fluid?
One of the gigantic, shaggy creatures came to the edge of the container and peered within.
The blonde pounded on the wall, uttering eager sounds.
The jaws of the beast opened, revealing fangs.
He means to kill and eat, thought Cabot. To its sort we are food.
The blonde continued to utter eager sounds.
To Cabot, at that time, the expression of the beast seemed naught but a hideous grimace, but it was not. He would later learn that that movement of the mouth, the exposure of the fangs in that fashion, without the laying back of the ears, without the warning rumbling, was not a sign of hostility, at all. It was rather, in its way, an expression of recognition, of pleasure. I suppose one might speak of it, if it is not too absurd to do so, as a smile. And is the human smile not, in its way, similar? Is it not a baring of the teeth, a way of saying, I could bite you, and tear you, but I will not, because I like you? Is it not in its way a threat behavior revoked, withdrawn, as a sign of good will, perhaps even affection?
The long, dark tongue of the beast moved about its left fang, and then slid back into the cavernous jaw.
He will eat her, thought Cabot.
Did the blonde not understand the danger in which she stood?
The beast examined the container.
Cabot moved back within it, trying to shield the women.
The beast then slung its rifle behind its left shoulder, to a harness hook, and seized the container with its long arms, but could not fully encircle it. Its grip slipped. It then went behind the container and, bracing its back against the wall, pressed its feet against the container. Cabot heard its claws scratch on the container, outside. Then it had a better leverage. Then it exerted itself against the container, and, after a moment, broke it fully from its stem, and tubing, and wiring. Cabot and the others were thrown to the side of the
container as it struck the floor, and rolled momentarily. Then it was still, on the floor.
This movement and shock awakened the brunette, who now lay immobile, terrorized, on what had been the vertical side of the container, but was now its flooring, lying as it did on the floor of the corridor.
Again she lost consciousness.
The beast then, others gathered about, unhooked his rifle, a stubby, cylindrical fire tube, and directed it toward what had been the top of the container. Cabot pushed further back, to what had been the bottom of the container, forcing the blonde behind him, she squirming and protesting, back to where the unconscious brunette lay.
A blast of force rocked the container.
Cabot, shaken, could feel the residue of the heat. There were numerous glassine droplets scattered about.
The container was open.
The blonde tried to squirm past him, but Cabot held her back.
The brunette, probably from the concussion of the blast, the movement of the container, had again recovered consciousness.
She was now on her knees, wide-eyed, trembling, behind the blonde, whose advance Cabot had arrested.
The Kur who had opened the container, as though his work was now done, returned his weapon to its hook, behind the left shoulder, and turned aside, to one of his fellows.
It was as though he need do no more.
Things, it seemed, might now take their course.
Another Kur motioned that the occupants of the container, who were back within the container, should come forth.
"Stay back!” said Cabot to the women, though only one could understand his import.
The blonde struggled.
"What are they?” begged the brunette.
"Kurii,” said Cabot. “They feed on humans."
The brunette moaned.
"I am afraid,” she said.
"Be afraid,” he said, angrily.
"Do not be angry with me,” she begged.
"You do not deserve patience,” he said. The thought crossed his mind that she should be lashed. No, he thought, she is free.
"Where are the men?” she asked.