Captive of Gor

by John Norman

  "But what will we do?" I asked.

  Ute crawled over to me, and began to work, with her small strong fingers, at the knot that bound the collar on my throat. "We will need this binding fiber," she said.

  After a time, she managed to undo the knot. "Now," she said, "unbind me."

  "I cannot," I told her. I had tried before, and could not do it.

  "Do it," said Ute, her eyes hard.

  I again tried. I could not, with my small fingers, loosen it.

  "Bring me a tiny stick," said Ute.

  I did so.

  She then chewed at the end of the tiny stick, sharpening it, putting a point on it.

  She handed it to me.

  With this tool, wedging it between the strands, I managed, after a time, to loosen them, and removed Ute's throat strap.

  "Good," she said.

  "What will we do, Ute?" I begged.

  She coiled the heavy strap and put it about her shoulder. The two smaller pieces of binding fiber she thrust in the belt of her camisk, itself of binding fiber.

  She then stood up.

  "Come along," she said. "We must go deeper into the thicket."

  "I cannot move," I told her. "I am too tired."

  Ute looked at me.

  "If you wish to leave now," I told her, "you must go on without me."

  "All right," said Ute. "Farewell, El-in-or," said she. She then turned and began to move away.

  "Ute!" I had cried.

  She did not turn.

  I had leaped to my feet, running after her. "Ute!" I had wept. "Ute, take me with you!"

  My hands now poised themselves over the silverish body in the water before me.

  I clutched again. This time I caught the thing, squirming, horned, scaly. It thrashed about. I could not hold it. It was too terrible to feel! With a slap of its tail it slithered free and darted away, downstream, but then, halted by the barrier of wands, turned and, under the water, motionless, faced me.

  I backed away, toward the narrower, open end of the "V," which pointed downstream.

  I could keep the thing in the trap. Ute would be back soon.

  We had been free for five days. We had stayed in Ka-la-na thickets by day, and had moved across the fields at night. Ute was heading south and westward. The tiny village, Rarir, in which she had been born, lay south of the Vosk, and near the shores of Thassa.

  "Why do you wish to go there?" I had asked Ute.

  She had been stolen from that village as a little girl. Her parents, the year before, had been slain by roving larls. Ute was of the leather workers. Her father had been of that caste.

  "I do not much wish to go there," said Ute. "But where else is there to go?" She smiled. "In my own village," she said, "they will not make me a slave."

  Sometimes, at night, Ute would moan the name of Barus, whom she had once loved.

  At the age of twelve, Ute had been purchased by a leather worker, who dwelt on the exchange island, administered by the Merchants, of Teletus. He, and his companion, had cared for her, and had freed her. They had adopted her as their daughter, and had seen that she was trained well in the work of the leather workers, that caste which, under any circumstances, had been hers by right of birth.

  On her nineteenth birthday, members of the Caste of Initiates had appeared at the door of the leather-worker's hut.

  It had been decided that she should now undertake the journey to the Sardar, which, according to the teachings of the Caste of Initiates, is enjoined on every Gorean by the Priest-Kings, an obligation which is to be fulfilled prior to their attaining their twenty-fifth year.

  If a city does not see that her youth undertake this journey then, according to the teachings of the Initiates, misfortunes may befall the city.

  It is one of the tasks of the Initiates to keep rolls, and determine that each youth, if capable, discharge this putative obligation to the mysterious Priest-Kings.

  "I will go," had said Ute.

  "Do you wish the piece of gold?" asked the chief of the delegation of Initiates, of the leather worker and his companion.

  "No," they had said.

  "Yes," said Ute. "We will take it."

  It is a custom of the Initiates of Teletus, and of certain other islands and cities, if the youth agrees to go to the Sardar when they request it, then his, or her, family or guardians, if they wish it, will receive one tarn disk of gold.

  Ute knew that the leather worker, and his companion, could well use this piece of gold.

  Besides, she knew well that, some year, prior to her twenty-fifth year, such a journey must be undertaken by her. The Merchants of Teletus, controlling the city, would demand it of her, fearing the effects of the possible displeasure of the Priest-Kings on their trade. If she did not undertake the journey then, she would be simply, prior to her twenty-fifth birthday, removed from the domain of their authority, placed alone outside their jurisdiction, beyond the protection of their soldiers. Such an exile, commonly for a Gorean, is equivalent to enslavement or death. For a girl as beautiful as Ute it would doubtless have meant prompt reduction to shameful bondage, chains and the collar. Further, on other years, there would be no piece of gold to encourage her to undertake this admittedly dangerous journey.

  "I will go," she had said.

  She agreed to participate in the group then being organized by the Initiates. The leather worker and his companion, reluctantly, yielding to her entreaties, accepted the piece of gold.

  Ute did indeed get to see the Sardar.

  But she saw it in the chains of a naked slave girl.

  Her ship fell to those of the black slavers of Schendi. She, and the others, were sold to merchants, who met the slavers at a secret cove, buying from them their catch. They were then transported overland in slave wagons to the Sardar, where they were sold at the great spring fair of En'Kara. When she was sold, from the block, over the palisade, she could see the peaks of the Sardar.

  For four years, Ute, then a beauty, passed from one master to another, taken from city to city.

  Then she was taken by a master, with others of his slaves, again to the Sardar, again to be sold, to defray business debts resulting from the loss of a caravan of salt wagons.

  It was there that she had been purchased by Barus, who, as she had once been, was of the leather workers.

  I wondered if he had wanted her to help in the shop.

  Then I smiled—perhaps, but I suspected that after one glimpse of Ute on the block he would not have minded if she had once been of the Perfumers.

  She had had many masters, but it was only the name of Barus, which she moaned in her sleep.

  She had much fallen in love with him, but she had, as she had told me, once attempted to bend him to her will.

  To her horror, he had sold her.

  She would never speak of him to me, but in her sleep, as I have said, she would cry his name.

  "Why do you not go back to Teletus?" I asked Ute.

  I did not much favor the idea of living in a village. And it was in Teletus that she had been freed, and adopted. Her foster parents might still be on the island.

  "Oh," had said Ute, casually, "I cannot swim Thassa. I do not think I could very well purchase passage, either. And might not the captain simply make me his?"

  There seemed sense in what Ute had said.

  "Besides," had sniffed Ute, "my foster parents might not even be on the island, still."

  This seemed possible, for the population of an exchange island, like Teletus, tends to be somewhat more transient than that of an established city, with a tradition of perhaps a thousand or more years.

  "But," I had pressed, "perhaps you could find your way back somehow, and perhaps your foster parents still reside on Teletus."

  If I were to go with Ute, I would surely prefer to go to an exchange island, with some of the amenities of civilization, rather than to a rude village south of the Vosk.

  "Look at me!" had cried Ute, suddenly, to my astonishment, furious.


  I was startled.

  "My ears have been pierced!" she screamed.

  I shrank back.

  "They were kind to me!" she cried. "How could I go back and shame them? Should I present myself to them, as their daughter, with pierced ears?" she cried.

  I could not understand Ute. She was Gorean.

  She put down her head. "My ears have been pierced!" she wept. "My ears have been pierced!" She lifted her head to me. "I will hide myself in Rarir," she said.

  I did not respond to her.

  At any rate, Ute was adamant. She would seek the village of Rarir.

  I kicked at the pebbles in the stream, from where I stood, in front of the ingress to the trap.

  The silvery creature began to whip about the enclosure. It frightened me. Once its rough scales struck the front of my leg, above the ankle. I cried out. I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth, my fists clenched, my body contracted. When I dared to open my eyes again, the creature was again at the farther fence of wands, motionless, facing me.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. It had not escaped.

  If it had not been for Ute I do not think I would have survived.

  I seemed so weak and frightened and helpless. Ute, though a small girl, seemed strong, and endlessly resourceful.

  She had shown me what could be eaten, and what could not. It was she who had shown how the water trap might be built. She had also shown me how to make snares of binding fiber, bending down small branches, and making triggers of small twigs.

  She had also shown me how, with binding fiber, a log and a stick trigger, to make a snare large enough to catch a tabuk, but we did not actually make such a snare. It might have attracted the attention of a huntsman, and provoked his curiosity. The smaller snares would be more easily overlooked. Further, it would have been difficult for Ute and I to have placed the log in such a snare, and, besides, without a knife, and wishing to move swiftly, tabuk would have been heavy game for us. She had also shown me how to make shelters of various sorts and use a small, curved stick for striking down birds and tiny animals. Ute taught me to find food where it would not have occurred to me to look for it. I relished the roots she taught me to dig for. But I was less eager to sample the small amphibians she caught in her hands or the fat, green insects she scooped from the inside of logs and from under overturned rocks.

  "They can be eaten," she said.

  I, however, contented myself with nuts and fruits, and roots, and water creatures which resembled those with which I was familiar, and, of course, the flesh of small birds and animals.

  Perhaps the most extraordinary thing Ute did, to my mind, was, with sticks, a flat piece of wood and some binding fiber, make a small fire drill. How pleased I was when I saw the small, pointed stick whirling in its wooden pit, and saw the dried flakes of leaves suddenly redden and flash into a tiny flame, which we then fed with leaves and twigs, until it would burn sticks.

  Over tiny fires, using rock-sharpened, green sticks, we roasted our catches.

  We had seen no other human beings since our escape. We had slept by day in Ka-la-na thickets, and moved southwestward by night.

  Ute had not wished to build fires, but I had insisted upon it.

  We could not eat our catches raw.

  "Tal," cried Ute, greeting me as a free person.

  "Tal!" I cried, pleased, waving to her. I was very relieved that she had returned.

  She had, thrust in her belt, the binding fiber she had used for snares. We always took it with us, of course, when we moved. Over her shoulder she had two small, furred animals, hideous forest urts, about the size of cats, and in her left hand she carried four small, green-and-yellow-plumaged birds.

  Tonight we would feast.

  I, too, had been successful.

  "Ute," I cried, "I have caught a fish!"

  "Good!" cried Ute. "Bring it to the camp!"

  "Ute!" I pleaded, anguished.

  Ute laughed and threw her catch down on the bank. She waded into the trap. I remained where I was, blocking the exit to the trap.

  Ute approached the creature very carefully, in order not to startle it.

  It wavered slightly in the water.

  Then, suddenly, very swiftly, Ute struck for it. It backed into the fence of wands and she caught it there, against the sticks, and, in a moment, it thrashing and squirming, she lifted it from the water and carried it triumphantly to the shore.

  "Destroy the trap," said Ute.

  Each time we moved from a thicket, if we had built such a trap, we destroyed it. This, incidentally, is a standard Gorean practice. He never leaves a trap set to which he does not intend to return. The Goreans, often so cruel to one another, tend to have an affection for wildlife and growing things, which they regard as free, and thereby deserving of great respect. This affection and respect, unfortunately, is seldom extended to domestic animals, such as bosk and slaves. The Gorean woodsman, it might be mentioned, before he will strike a tree with his ax, speaks to the tree, begs its forgiveness and explains the use to which the wood will be put. In our case, of course, aside from such general considerations, we had a very special reason for destroying the trap. It was a piece of evidence which might betray us, which might set men upon our trail.

  Ute waited sitting for me on the bank, while I pulled up the sticks of the trap and cast them into the bushes.

  I then helped her carry our catch, she bearing the fish, and the small birds, to our camp.

  "Clean the animals," said Ute.

  I did not like her giving me orders.

  "I do not want to," I said.

  "Then build the fire," said Ute.

  "You know I cannot manage the fire drill," I said, angrily. I had never been able to master it.

  "Then," said Ute, "let us not make a fire."

  "No," I said, "I cannot eat raw flesh! We must have a fire!"

  "It is dangerous," said Ute.

  "Make a fire, Ute," I begged.

  "Then clean the animals," she said.

  "All right," I said. I hated that job. It was so dirty, so sticky and slimy. Ute always wanted me to do it! Who was she to give me orders? I did not like her. She was stupid. She made grammatical mistakes in speaking her own language! I hated her.

  With a sharp rock and a stick I started to work on the animals.

  I no longer needed Ute. She had taught me probably as much as she could. I could now get along without her. Besides, she acted superior to me. I was an Earth girl, superior to Gorean girls! She acted like she was our leader. I had not told her she could be the leader! I hated her.

  "What are you thinking of, El-in-or?" asked Ute.

  "Elinor," I said, sharply.

  "Elinor," said Ute.

  "Nothing," I said.

  "Oh," said Ute.

  After I had worked for a while, Ute, taking up a rock and a stick, began to help me.

  I did not thank her. She should have done the work herself. I had spent the day fishing. She had only roved about the thicket, hunting birds and checking her snares.

  Ute began to hum.

  "Why are you humming?" I asked her, irritated.

  "Because I am happy," said Ute.

  "Why are you happy?" I asked.

  She looked at me, puzzled. "Because I am free," she said.

  When we had cleaned the animals, and the birds, and the fish, which latter job I left to Ute, for I did not like to touch the creature, Ute bent over the fire drill.

  "Hurry," I told her. I was hungry.

  Ute worked for more than fifteen minutes, bowing the drill, sweating, her eyes fixed on that tiny, blackened pit in the wood.

  "Hurry," I told her. "Hurry!"

  Then, at last, a tiny flame appeared, eating at the flakes of dried leaves wedged about the pit.

  In a few minutes, we had our fire.

  Because we had more food than usual, we set up two small spits on forked sticks.

  When the food was done, we removed it from the spits, placing it on leaves. I wa
s terribly hungry. It was now dark out, and the evening was chilly. It would be pleasant to eat by the fire, and warm ourselves, while we enjoyed our open-air repast.

  "What are you doing, Ute!" I cried, seizing her wrist.

  She looked at me, puzzled. "Putting out the fire," she said.

  "No," I cried.

  "It is dangerous," she said.

  "There is no one about," I said.

  "It is dangerous," she repeated.

  I had no wish to eat in the dark, nor to freeze. "Do not put out the fire, Ute," I said. "It is all right."

  Ute shook her head, undecided.

  "Please!" I pressed.

  "All right," smiled Ute.

  But scarcely more than a Gorean Ihn had passed before Ute, suddenly, with a look of terror in her eyes, began to fling dirt on the fire.

  "What are you doing!" I cried.

  "Be quiet!" she whispered.

  Then I heard, far overhead, in the darkness, the scream of a tarn.

  "It is a wild tarn," I said.

  The fire was now out.

  "We must leave now," said Ute, frightened.

  "It is only a wild tarn," I insisted.

  "I hope that is true," said Ute.

  I felt a shiver course my spine.

  Ute began to destroy, in the darkness, the small shelter of sticks and leaves we had constructed.

  "Bring what food you can," she said. "We must leave now."

  Angry, but frightened, I gathered what food I could find.

  When she had finished with the shelter, Ute felt about and, with her hands, scooped together the bones and entrails, the fur and scales, left over from our catch, and buried them.

  As well as she could, she destroyed all signs of our camp.

  Then, moving swiftly through the darkness, I following, carrying what food I could, Ute fled our camp.

  I followed her, hating her. I was afraid to be without her.

  * * * *

  We moved southwestward through the great thicket, and then, finally came to its edge.

  The night was dark.

  Ute scrutinized the skies. We saw nothing. She listened for a long time. We heard nothing.

  "You see, Ute," I said, irritated. "It was nothing."

  "Perhaps," agreed Ute.

  "I hear no more tarn screams," I told her.

  "Perhaps they have dismounted," suggested Ute.