by John Norman
"But we have been here,” said Peisistratus. “Nothing can change that."
"Yes,” said Cabot. “Nothing can change that."
"I think that is important,” said Peisistratus.
"I think so, too,” said Cabot. “We are part of it, and we know something of it, while it knows nothing of us."
"In us,” said Peisistratus, “as we are of it, it knows something of itself, and, in its way, of us."
"Perhaps,” said Cabot.
"We are the torch by means of which it explores its own caverns,” said Peisistratus.
"Perhaps,” said Cabot.
"I wonder if Grendel has been taken,” said Peisistratus.
"I do not know,” said Cabot.
"If he has been taken,” said Peisistratus, “his little blonde she-urt will have lost no time in uttering all she knows, to save her worthless hide."
"Doubtless,” said Cabot.
"It could be,” said Peisistratus, “that Agamemnon is unsure of the extent of the conspiracy, and will thus wait for the return of the fleet."
"That is quite possible,” said Cabot.
"You are determined to seek Grendel?” said Peisistratus.
"Yes,” said Cabot.
"Where will you seek him?"
"Where I think he will go,” said Cabot, “a place where Kurii will be reluctant to follow."
"Where?” said Peisistratus.
"There,” said Cabot, pointing upward, toward a shimmering patch of silver, seemingly small at the distance, amongst the forests above."
"Lake Fear,” said Peisistratus.
"Yes,” said Cabot.
Chapter, the Twenty-Ninth:
A SAURIAN IS ENCOUNTERED
It was some days later, perhaps five, for the records are unclear on the point, that Cabot and his pretty beast reached the sloping shores, and the graveled beach, against whose stones lapped the waters of Lake Fear.
Cabot sorted through the residue of the supplies brought from the Pleasure Cylinder.
There was little of an edible nature left.
"Master, may I speak?” she asked.
"Yes,” said Cabot.
How nicely she is learning her bondage, thought Cabot. Although she has a general permission to speak, albeit a permission subject to instantaneous revocation, and one not to be abused, still, she had requested permission. That was judicious of her, was it not? Perhaps her master was busy, and did not care to be annoyed? Perhaps she did not wish to risk having her permission to speak taken from her.
Too, requesting permission to speak is a way of showing deference to the master, and it helps the slave to keep her bondage well in mind, and that her permission to speak is, when all is said and done, contingent on the will of the master.
"It is beautiful here,” she said. “What is fearful about this place?"
"See these lines in the beach,” said Cabot. “They are the traces of the movements of large bodies. I am told there are saurians here, and they will come upon occasion to the beach."
"There are none here now."
"Examine this mark,” said Cabot. “See the edges, almost sharp. It may have been made last night."
"I do not see why Kurii should fear such things, on the land."
"If power weapons were permitted in the cylinder, they would have nothing to fear,” said Cabot, “but they are not, and these things, I understand, are far more terrible than Kurii, though on land they do not move quickly."
"But in the water?"
"There they are formidable,” said Cabot. “Many are designed for aquatic predation."
"They are reptiles, air-breathing things,” she said.
"Tharlarion of a sort, as I understand it,” said Cabot.
"We have seen no sign of Lord Grendel,” she said, “nor of Lady Bina."
"You speak of her as ‘Lady'?"
"Yes, Master, for she is free."
"We are much in the open,” said Cabot, “and with purpose. I want him to see us."
"Then it is we who will be found?"
"And in our being found, he himself is found,” said Cabot.
"If it be he who finds us,” she said.
"Yes,” said Cabot, “if it be he who finds us."
"Kurii may come here,” she said.
"Probably, at times,” said Cabot.
"Lady Bina has a name,” she said.
"She is free, as you correctly recognized. She named herself."
"I may not name myself, may I?” she asked.
"Certainly not,” he said. “You are a slave."
"'Bina’ is a beautiful name,” she said.
"I think it is nice,” said Cabot.
"It seems short for the name of a free woman,” she said.
"Perhaps,” said Cabot.
"On Earth,” she said, “female slaves were sometimes given meaningful names, things like Plum or Cherry."
"How would you know that?” he asked.
"I looked into such things, on Earth,” she said.
"You were interested in learning of the nature and lives of female slaves?” he asked.
"Yes,” she said.
"But you did not expect to become one?"
"No, Master,” she said. “What free woman expects to be collared?” She looked about. “Does ‘Bina’ have a meaning?” she asked.
"Do not concern yourself with the matter,” he said.
"Forgive me, Master,” she said.
"'Bina’ is a beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” she said.
"It is a beautiful name, in its way, and one appropriate one for her,” said Cabot, “and she is indeed a beautiful woman."
"Is she more beautiful than I?” inquired the slave.
"Of course,” said Cabot, “is not any free woman a thousand times more beautiful than the most beautiful of slaves?"
"Master?"
"That is a joke,” he said. “It is, of course, the most beautiful of women who are sought for slaves, and in bondage, however reluctantly, they become even more beautiful."
"But she is beautiful,” said the slave.
"Yes,” said Cabot, “and she belongs in a collar."
"I do not like her,” said the slave.
"She would scorn you, as the dirt beneath her feet,” said Cabot.
"As I am a slave?"
"Certainly."
"And appropriately?"
"Certainly."
"I was not always a slave,” she said.
"You were always a slave, at least since puberty,” said Cabot.
"But not as I am now, branded and collared, a slave in the fullness of all legality."
"No,” conceded Cabot.
"We were rivals, in the container,” whispered the slave.
"Oh?” said Cabot.
"Each of us wished to be the most pleasing to you."
"But you were free,” said Cabot.
"In your presence I was no more than a naked slave,” she said.
"One would have scarcely guessed that, from your demeanor,” he said.
"In the container,” she said, “I first glimpsed myself as what I truly am, a woman, and a slave."
"Interesting,” said Cabot.
"She, at least,” said the slave, “is clothed in the beauty of a name!"
"It is a beautiful name, in its way,” said Cabot.
"I have no name,” she said. “I am a nameless slave."
"As of now,” said Cabot.
"I may not name myself?"
"No."
"Are you going to name me, Master?"
"I may,” said Cabot.
"I must hope that the name my master gives me, if he chooses to name me, will be pleasing to him."
"Perhaps,” said he, “I will name you ‘Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym'."
"That is not the name of a slave,” she said.
"It was,” he said.
"Yes, Master,” she said.
"That seemed to me a very pretentious name,” he said. “Probably it was contrived i
n such an extensive and absurd way to compensate for the brevity and plainness of the surname."
"'Pym',” she said, “is among the most respected, honored, and aristocratic of surnames!"
"It is pleasant to take aristocratic women and make them slaves,” said Cabot, “to reduce them to begging, groveling sluts."
"And am I not an aristocrat so reduced?” she asked.
"No,” he said. “Not really."
"No?"
"You were clearly not an aristocrat,” he said.
"Master?"
"You may have thought yourself one, but rather, I think, despite your pretensions, you were, so to speak, a throwback."
"I do not understand,” she said.
"Though you regarded yourself as, in effect, an aristocrat, you were even then, though this was unknown to you at the time, a mere slave."
"I do not understand,” she said. “But it is true that I am a slave, and need to be a slave."
"It is not merely that you were not titled, for few are,” he said, “but rather that you carry slave-girl genes in every cell of your body."
"How is that?” she asked, puzzled.
"I shall conjecture,” he said.
"Please do so, Master,” she whispered.
"Many of the female ancestors in aristocratic lines,” he said, “were, in effect, slave girls, taken into households for their needs and beauty. Few would have been accounted slaves, perhaps, but that was, in effect, what they were, the lovely daughter of a peasant, sold for sheep, the orphaned beauty put to work in the stables, the pretty domestic servant summonable to the manor's lord's bed, and such, and, earlier, thousands of beauties sold in the markets of Roman Britain, and such. Women have always, in effect, been goods, of one sort or another, and men have always appropriated beauty. Do not doubt that many women in aristocratic lines once thrashed in the straw of stables, moaned in closets, obeyed in kitchens, and such. Many a woman, in effect, was dragged upward, from the collar to the coronet, and in the master's bed were never permitted to forget the collar."
"All were such women?” she asked.
"Certainly not all,” he said. “And many of these women, perhaps the less beautiful, were not taken into families, but merely thrown a coin, or cast aside."
"And you think I may derive from such?” she whispered.
"I find it not hard to believe that some ancestress of yours might have been sold naked from a slave block in Roman Britain,” he said.
"I only know that I am a slave, and need to be a slave, and desire to be a slave."
"Actually,” he said, “the fundamental explanation here doubtless long precedes historical variations of the sort I have suggested."
"It has to do with the nature of women, and of men?"
"Yes,” he said. “It would have to do with the natures favored by natural selection, in our species, interestingly, a radical sexual dimorphism, not only anatomically but psychologically, and the desire on the part of the smaller animal to submit and serve, to be owned and mastered, and that of the larger animal to own and master, such things."
"Nature would select for masters and slaves?"
"Yes,” he said. I suspect this all goes back at least to the caves, and to thongs and capture, or bartering or exchanging women, buying and selling them, and such."
"We would have all been slaves,” she said.
"Even a princess,” he said, “has often been exchanged for land and power."
"Yes, Master."
"Kneel more straightly,” he said.
"Forgive me, Master,” she said.
"Slavery, in a legal sense,” he said, “is a much later development. It is a sophisticated, complex social institution, one which has characterized most of the world's great civilizations. Its pervasiveness and success is doubtless to be accounted for by the fact that it has a profound natural basis. A civilization need not be antithetical to nature, a contradiction to nature, an affront to nature. It may, rather, recognize her and accept her, and, in its way, in its own complex context, celebrate her and enhance her."
"Yes, Master,” she whispered.
"Of the helpless, loving slave, needing and wanting men, desiring to please and serve them, moaning and ecstatic in their arms, and the independent free woman, with her frigidity and pride, who is most likely to replicate her genes?"
"The master,” she said, “would chain the slave to his bed."
"Of course."
Many Gorean couches, incidentally, have a slave ring at their base, to which a woman may be chained.
"Are all women slaves?"
"The Goreans have a saying,” he said, “that all women are indeed slaves, only that some are in collars and some are not."
"I think it is true,” she said.
"Certainly it is true that many are,” he said, “indeed, untold numbers, restless, unfulfilled, longing for their masters."
"Yes, Master."
"The phenomenon is so widely spread, if not absolutely universal, that there must be genetic predispositions involved."
"Yes, Master,” she said.
"Were you satisfied with the men of Earth?” he asked.
"No,” she said. “I despised them. I would not let them near me!"
"And here?” he asked.
"Here,” she said, “I have met men before whom I can be only a slave."
"They know well how to handle women like you,” he said.
"Certainly,” she said. “They collar and master us."
"Yes,” said Cabot.
"And they move me, and thrill me,” she said.
"You look well in your tunic,” he said.
"A slave tunic."
"Certainly."
"Does master wish me to remove it?"
"Not now."
"It may be easily torn from me,” she said.
"Perhaps, later,” he said.
Cabot returned to inspecting what meager supplies remained in the pouch and bundle.
"Is there a whip amongst your things?” she asked.
"Certainly,” said Cabot, “it was supplied by Peisistratus."
"Will you whip me?"
"If you are not pleasing,” he said.
"Truly?"
"Certainly."
"I will strive to be pleasing."
"Excellent."
"But perhaps sometime you may whip me,” she said.
"Why?” he asked.
"—That I may better know myself a slave,” she whispered.
"We shall see,” he said.
"Lady Bina has a name,” she said.
"Yes,” said Cabot.
"At least she is clothed in the beauty of a name,” she said.
"Yes,” said Cabot, absently.
"Will you not name me sometime?” she asked.
"Probably,” said Cabot.
"I would like a name,” she said.
"What you would like, or would not like, is of no interest,” said Cabot. “Too, you must understand that any name put on you is like the brand or collar. It is a slave name, only that."
"Of course,” she said, “for I am a slave. But, Master, would it not be better if I were named? Would it not be easier then to refer to me, to order me about, to summon me to your side, and such?"
"This matters to you, does it not?” he asked.
"Lady Bina has a name,” she said.
"She is free,” said Cabot.
The slave put down her head.
"Do not compare yourself with her,” he said.
"No, Master."
"'Lita',” said he, “is a pretty name."
"Yes, Master!” she said.
"It is a common slave name,” he said.
"Because it is such a lovely name for a slave!"
"Thousands of slaves are given the simple name, ‘Lita',” he said, “as they are such names as ‘Lana', ‘Mira', ‘Tuka', and such."
"Yes, Master!"
"I will call you ‘Lita',” he said. “You are Lita. Who are you?"
"
I am Lita!” she said, delighted. “Does it have a meaning?"
"No,” said Cabot. “It is simply a lovely, meaningless sound, for a lovely, meaningless sort of animal, a female slave."
"Then it has that meaning, at least, in a way,” she said.
"I suppose so,” said Cabot.
"It is understood as a slave name, as only the name of a slave?"
"Yes,” said Cabot. “Universally."
"Good!” she said.
"Certainly no free woman would have such a name,” he said.
"So much the worse for them,” she said.
"It would demean them, terribly."
"Perhaps not,” she said.
Then she found herself, to her apprehension, under the gaze of her master. She straightened her body.
"Master regards me strangely,” she said. “Am I not kneeling properly?"
"Lita!” he said, sharply.
"Master?” she said, startled.
"Your tunic,” he said.
"Master?” she asked, uncertainly.
"Remove it,” he said.
Swiftly, kneeling in the sand, she drew the tunic off, over her head, and put it beside her. Such garments have no nether closure, that the slave may well know herself slave.
"The first command I have been given as Lita,” she said, “is to bare myself before Master."
"Yes,” he said.
"And thus,” she said, “the better I understand my name, that it is the name of a slave."
"Yes,” said Cabot.
"I am bared before my Master,” she said.
Cabot waited for a time, scrutinizing her lineaments. Gorean masters savor such pleasures.
"Master?” she said, at last.
"Perhaps you can anticipate the second command that will be given to Lita,” said Cabot.
"I think so, Master,” she whispered.
"Lita,” said he.
"Yes, Master!” she said.
"Please me,” he said.
"Yes, Master!” she said, and crawled to him.
* * * *
Later the cylinder lights were lowered, to simulate dusk.
The slave returned to the place on the beach, with berries gathered in the woods adjacent to the slopes, those which led down to the beach.