by John Norman
"What men?"
"Their masters!"
"These are a rational life form,” he said.
"They have no masters?"
"If so, only of their own species,” he said.
"There are no men?"
"No,” he said, angrily. “If there were men, you would be in little danger."
The blonde continued to squirm.
"I do not understand,” said the brunette.
"If there were men,” he said, “you would be collared and sold."
"Collared?” she gasped. “Sold?"
"Certainly,” he said. “It is all you are good for, if that."
The blonde suddenly squirmed loose and darted from the container. “Come back!” cried Cabot.
He scrambled from the container, to recover her, but he was seized by a Kur, and held up short.
He struggled, futilely. The strength of a human is small, compared to that of a superior species, such as that of the Kur.
The Kur who had opened the container, once the container was open, had turned aside to a fellow, and then, after a moment, as though he had finished whatever work was to have been done, had moved down the hall, toward the still-warm wound, that improvised, burnt gate, at the end of the hallway, through which the Kurii had effected their ingress.
There, before that opening, he stopped.
His back was to the length of the hallway.
The blonde, once she was free of the container, stopped, and stood in the center of the hallway. The Kurii stood about her, but did not attempt either to deter her, or apprehend her.
They did not seize her and begin to feed.
This surprised Cabot, for the species enjoys living meat.
It is not unusual for Kurii, incidentally, to quarrel over prey, fighting for it, tearing it apart, each withdrawing then with its secured portion, to crouch down and feed, alert, watching the others.
But, to Cabot's astonishment, she stood unharmed amongst them.
The large Kur who had opened the container then turned about.
He uttered a Kur sound, and the blonde stood absolutely still, as if frozen in place. She whimpered, and tears ran down her cheeks. But she did not move.
She understands him, thought Cabot. She is under discipline!
The Kur then uttered another sound, and she fled to him, and, to Cabot's amazement, leaped into his arms. She then crawled happily to his shoulder and began to nibble and bite at his fur. He stroked her with a paw, gently.
That is why she cannot speak, thought Cabot. She is not an exotic, denied speech. She has never learned to speak. She is not of Gor. She is of the Steel Worlds! She belongs to the beast! She is his pet! Had he come to the Prison Moon, with all the attendant risk, merely to recover a pet? Cabot found this hard to believe. She may believe it, thought Cabot, but I do not.
He regarded her, she contented, elated, on the shoulder of the beast, her master. She, with all her beauty, he thought, is a Kur pet! She would sell well on Gor, he thought. But here she is only the curvaceous, sleek little pet of a Kur! And then he realized even more the insidious cleverness of the Priest-Kings. Of course, he would assume she was a freed exotic. It would never have occurred to him that she might be a Kur pet. He had not even known that such as she existed. He regarded her, on the shoulder of her master. What a loss, he thought, to the sales platform.
Cabot awaited the tearing of his body.
There are a variety of ways in which this might be done, and much depends on the individual beast. Sometimes the head is bitten free and the spurting neck is covered with the predator's mouth, which is then drenched with the imbibed, flighted blood; another way is shared by certain other forms of predator, such as the larl or forest panther, in which the prey is seized, say, at the shoulder, and then, as in a frenzy, disemboweled with the hind legs; sometimes the victim is merely held and, after a few moments, as it struggles, the throat is torn open; a clean fashion is simply to bite through the base of the neck; perhaps the least attractive Kur feeding is to torment the quarry, biting and licking here and there, perhaps a finger, a hand, a foot, and so on. The victim's pain is supposed to improve the taste of the meat. When the victim is dead, some of its choice parts, the organ meat, usually, is eaten first by some of the Kurii, particularly if others are about, but others of the Kurii, usually when alone, will save it for the last, finishing their meal with the most savory morsels. Lest we be led to think the less of the Kurii in these matters, it is only fair to point out that most of the meat eaten in the Steel Worlds is not human. It takes a long time to raise a human for meat, even a child. Even to produce a human, we note, takes most of a year. Accordingly, most of the meat raised in the Steel Worlds is verr, tarsk, vulos, and such. It might also be mentioned that many Kurii do not even enjoy human meat. It is, it seems, a matter of taste. Too, it should be noted that much of the meat available in the Steel Worlds is not obtained in the hunt or live kill, but is processed from slaughtered animals, the meat of which is then dried, salted, or frozen, for future consumption. Too, although the Kurii are well thought of, in your presumed vocabulary, as carnivores, there are a number of processed food stuffs which have been engineered to be compatible with their digestion and fit for their nourishment. This will not be surprising to anyone familiar with the same sort of thing elsewhere, say, on Earth, where, for example, natural predators, and carnivores, such as the dog and the cat are often supplied with such alternative forms of nourishment.
What are the Kurii doing here, Cabot wondered.
One of the Kurii looked into the container, to its back, to where the brunette, kneeling, bent over, trying to make herself small, as though this would somehow make her presence in the container less conspicuous, was trembling, uncontrollably. He said something, in his tongue, peering within.
Cabot had heard that noise, or one much like it, but a moment ago, a noise which had been uttered by the large Kur who had opened the container, that noise to which the blonde had responded by rushing to him.
He is calling her, thought Cabot. She was a female, naked in the container, like the blonde. He is supposing she is a Kur pet, he thought. Such females, being highly intelligent, he supposed, doubtless make excellent Kur pets. Highly intelligent, they would doubtless train quickly.
The Kur seemed puzzled that she did not emerge from the container, and repeated the noise.
He was then spoken to by one of his fellows.
He then motioned that the brunette, kneeling in the back of the container, should emerge. There was no mistaking the sweep of that mighty paw. Not surprisingly, however, this invitation was declined by the brunette, who shook her head negatively, wildly, a gesture which may have been surprising to the Kur but was clearly not an act of compliance.
The beast uttered a displeased growl.
It went to the floor, and reached its long arm within the container, but it could not reach the brunette, who whimpered and drew back even further.
The opening in the container was wide enough for the beast to enter it, but Kurii are cautious beasts and it did not understand the container, or the wiring and tubing about. Many animals are reluctant to enter small confines with which they are unfamiliar, confines which do not have a clear second exit, confines in which unseen dangers might lurk, confines in which they might be trapped. The container was transparent, and a human would have thought little of entering it, but the beast was not human; and perhaps, more importantly, it was acutely aware, as a normal human might not be, of the subtlety and power of Priest-Kings. In any event it was reluctant to crawl into it. What if there should be some sort of field which might be activated by anything of its size, or genetic constituency?
It backed away from the container, and stood up, again, as such beasts commonly stand.
Two or three of the beasts looked about, uneasily.
They cannot stay here long, thought Cabot. This breach of the Prison World must be detectable in the Sardar. They must, after sealing themselves to it, or by means
of protective gear of some sort, doubtless to be reassumed later, have burned through a lock, or even the shielding of the satellite. In any event Cabot had little doubt but what Priest-Kings would even now be apprised of the presence of unauthorized Kurii in the Prison Moon.
Perhaps even now investigatory ships were rising swiftly, silently, from the Sardar.
The Kur who had reached into the container now spoke to two of his fellows, who went to the container and began to lift it, between them, tilting it toward the floor.
The brunette shrieked piteously, and tried to brace herself within the container, to keep from slipping forward, and downward.
They know she is not a pet, thought Cabot. Pets obey instantly. If they do not, they are doubtless punished, or done away with.
She will be eaten, thought Cabot.
The container was tilted further, and shaken, and the brunette, screaming piteously, was tumbled out onto the metal flooring of the hallway.
She rolled to her back and lay there, looking up at the beasts gathered about her. “Please, please,” she screamed, “do not hurt me! Do not hurt me! Please, Sirs, do not hurt me!"
How she addressed the Kurii as “Sirs"!
She had perhaps never even used that expression of the males of her world, but now it came from her in her terror, addressed not to men but to these fanged, clustered beasts looking down upon her.
Did she think they would understand what she said?
Doubtless not, but surely her terror, her plaintive mien might be intelligible, perhaps even to a lion or larl! But did she think her pleas might move such beasts, prepared to feed?
Cabot struggled, but could not free himself.
He thought she looked well on her back, in what is referred to as the “capture position.” In this position, the captive locked in the arms of the captor, the captor can assess and enjoy the least nuance of expression in the captive's countenance. This position, too, is enjoyed by many masters with their slaves. The gasping, begging, countenance of a slave, wholly surrendered, helpless, sobbing herself his, is often not displeasing to a master. Too, as a male, he could not help but suppose she would also look well on her belly, either looking up to him for mercy, or facing away, that she may the more clearly understand that she is his domestic animal.
Should he have noticed these things?
Certainly, for he was a male.
It is natural and healthy to do so.
And he was now Gorean, and Goreans see the females of their species as, literally, the females of their species.
Too, we recall that she had been selected by Priest-Kings to be excruciatingly desirable to him.
In conversations within the container, not reported in this narrative, she had learned that his name was Tarl Cabot, which name, of course, meant nothing to her, nor was she even aware that Tarl, a name which seemed strange to her, was a not uncommon name on Gor, and one, we may suppose, originally, of Torvaldslandian origin.
Her name, for at that time she had a name, was Virginia Cecily Jean Pym. She was, I think we mentioned, English, sophisticated, educated, and such. Due to family position and wealth, we would have had to account her of the English upper classes, though her origins, in actuality, as nearly as we can determine, were not to be traced through traditional aristocratic lines, at least as far as legitimacy is concerned. A female ancestor, it seems, had caught the eye of a duke of York, though well before certain wars associated with that house and another. In Tarl Cabot's view, whose origins, being mercantile, were perhaps less imposing, she was an insufferably spoiled, snobbish brat. To be fair to Cabot, however, rumors had it, at least, that he might have had some connection with that Venetian John Cabot, or Giovanni Caboto, a Fifteenth-Century (Earth Chronology) mercenary sea captain who sailed for England, in the time of Henry VII, and was the first European after several Viking explorers, mariners, pirates, or such, to make landfall on the coast of North America, which is a portion of Earth's northern hemisphere. But this connection appears dubious, for a number of reasons, primarily having to do with the lack of evidence. There were, however, Cabots in Bristol at the time of Caboto's sailing on May 2, 1497 (Earth Chronology) and that doubtless, human vanity being what it is, sufficed to embellish family lore.
It will help to make certain subsequent developments in our narrative more clear if we add in a further remark, or two, pertaining to the brunette, at that time Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym. She had, largely through her upbringing, primarily by servants, occasionally abetted by a distant father and a supercilious, frigid, unhappy mother, and a desire to be faultlessly au courant, quite ambivalent attitudes toward the male sex of her species. They did trouble her, for she was raised to suspect and detest them, but, too, to her unease, she found them troubling. She found them both attractive and repellant, such large, crude creatures. Fortunately, they were weak, easily led about, instrumentalized, and so on. In her dreams she wondered if there were other sorts of males, and, at least in her dreams, somewhat to the embarrassment of her waking hours, she discovered them. It is important to understand that her natural needs, drives, and desires were extremely strong, unusually strong, even, dare we suggest it, slave strong. Had she been a scion of a simpler time, with a more natural upbringing and environment, we hazard a conjecture she might well, herself, have captured the eye of a nobleman, as allegedly did an ancestress, a nobleman who, in those days, in one way or another, might pretty much have whatever women, or wenches, he wished. She would surely have run happily to his stirrup. The blood of a needful, yielding female ran deeply in her veins. Genetics had formed her thigh for the kiss of the iron, her throat for the encircling clasp of the collar. Lastly, recall that the Priest-Kings had selected her out, perhaps from thousands, for their purposes, and that our own esteemed confederates, who are specialists in such matters, would have, had they discovered her, unhesitantly entered her on their acquisition lists. She was the sort of woman who belonged in a cage on Gor, from which she might be extracted, to be sold. She was then, in short, a natural slave, who had not yet encountered masters. And recall, as well, that not only had she been selected out to be excruciatingly desirable to Cabot, as a slave, but that he would be to her, in virtue of the same matchings, excruciatingly desirable to her, as a master. He would see her in terms of blood-stirring, virile claimancies, and she would find herself weak and helpless before him, as no more than a begging, pathetic slave.
Would he see fit to satisfy her?
Lastly we might note that Miss Pym, despite ambivalences with respect to the male sex, enjoyed being attractive to them, as she knew she was. She was quite different from those beautiful women who, for some incomprehensible reason, do not think that they are beautiful, perhaps through a failure to fulfill some transitory stereotype of female beauty, one idiosyncratic to a particular time and place. Some of them, nicely curved and naturally bodied, do not understand that they are beautiful until they find themselves in Gorean slave chains. But Miss Pym, whether from vanity or not, was under no delusion with respect to her attractiveness. She might have been a bit shorter or more slender than some slaves but Cabot effected nothing critical on that score, nor, I think, would have many men. To be sure, in a pleasure garden, in virtue of this lack of height and weight, as trifling as it might have been, she would have been subject to several of the other, larger girls, who might have beaten her when they wished, subject, of course, to the intervention of the attendants. Such women long desperately for a private master, but this is not unusual, for any slave. A well-stocked pleasure garden is doubtless pleasant for the master but it is likely to be less pleasant for its inmates, given the boredom, the intrigues, the competitions, the tense, shifting alliances, and such. Too, such gardens are often little more than a vanity amongst rich Goreans, as might be, say, the well-kept gardens surrounding a villa or estate. Wealthy Goreans not unoften strive to rival one another in such matters, as they might in dwellings, stables, walks, parks, and colonnades, in hunting sleen, racing tharlarion, avia
ries, art collections, pools, and such. Fashions, too, can change, for example, in the color of grasses favored in pleasure gardens, the hair and eye color of its slaves, and so on. In any event, Miss Pym was under no delusion as to her own attractiveness. Indeed, she probably overestimated it, somewhat, as she had never had any experience of the relevant markets, nor any understanding of how her beauty might rank with that of others, many of them doubtless her superiors. The markets, of course, sort out the beauty of women, on a monetary scale, according to what men are willing to pay for it. But, as of now, perhaps in her vanity, and surely quite complacently, Miss Pym regarded herself not only as an extraordinarily beautiful woman, but, indeed, quite possibly, as the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. And we must admit, certainly given the women she had seen, who were numerous, of course, there was some justification for this view. Certainly she had found it confirmed in her mirror. In any event, she was pleased with her attractiveness, which was of considerable quality, and enjoyed noting its effect on men. It pleased her to trouble and torment them. That is, we suppose, a pleasure natural to beautiful women, to which it would be boorish to object. It is, of course, a pleasure more safely indulged in by free women than slaves, for, in the case of slaves, men, rather than spending their time being troubled and tormented, may simply buy the slave and bring her home, collared and braceleted.
The brunette squirmed on the metal flooring. “Please do not hurt me, please, Sirs!” she cried.
She put her small hands before her face, wildly. Cabot thought they would look nicely in slave cuffs. Were not such small, lovely wrists made for a master's steel?
"Please, Sirs!” she cried. “Do not hurt me! Do not hurt me!"
What are they waiting for, Cabot wondered. Will they not feed now, perhaps even fighting for scraps?
Where are the Priest-Kings, Cabot wondered, wildly.
They must know the security of the Prison Moon has been breached. How long does it take to bring ships to this orbit, with their technology, the closest of the three moons?