by John Norman
He nodded to the fellow who had held the girl's hair. That fellow, as she whimpered, tore open her dress at the waist on the left side. He then jerked back the sides of the dress, exposing a portion of flesh.
"The name then, of course, would be only a slave name," he said, "affixed on you by the will of the master." He smiled down at her. "Say, 'Yes, Master,'" he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
He crouched down beside her and, with the cotton onto which he had poured some fluid from one of the vials, swabbed a portion of her exposed flesh.
She shuddered.
"It's cold, isn't it?" he asked. "It's alcohol."
"Yes, Master," she whispered. He left the cotton on her body and went back to the leather case on the steel table. With another piece of cotton and some additional alcohol he sterilized the rubber diaphragm sealing the second vial. He then broke off the sanitary seal on one of the disposable syringes and, holding the second vial, now sterilized, upside down, inserted the long needle through the rubber diaphragm. He drew a greenish fluid into the needle.
"What are you doing?" begged the girl.
He replaced the second vial on the steel table and approached her. He crouched down beside her.
"I am preparing you for shipment," he said.
"Shipment!" she cried.
"Of course," he said. He lifted away the cotton he had left on her body.
"Where?" she asked.
"Can you not guess, you little fool?" he asked.
"No," she whispered.
"What a delicious, but stupid little slave you are," he said.
"Where, Master?" she asked. "Oh!" she cried, as the needle was entered into her body, in her back, just behind and above the left hip.
I tried to struggle to my feet. But a booted foot, that of one of the men behind me, pressed me down.
The girl began to sob. The heavy man, after a few moments, drew the needle from her flesh. The syringe was then empty. He again swabbed the area into which the needle had penetrated.
"Where, Master?" begged the girl, shuddering from the coolness of the alcohol. "Where?"
"Why, to the planet Gor," he said.
"Gor does not exist!" she cried.
"Let us not enter into fruitless controversy," he said.
"It does not exist!" she cried.
"You will better be able to adjudge the truth of that matter later," he said, "when you awaken chained in a Gorean dungeon."
He rose to his feet. He handed the cotton and the used disposable syringe to one of the men, who discarded them.
"I can't be a slave. I can't be a slave!" she wept.
"You are a slave," he said, looking down on her.
"No!" she said.
"Indeed," he said, "you are one of the most luscious and exquisite natural slaves I have ever seen."
"No," she said. "No!"
"Do not rise from your stomach," he cautioned her.
"Yes, Master," she wept. She trembled, and moaned. "You have drugged me," she said.
"It is kindness that we have done so," he said. "The trip, otherwise, would be very difficult for you."
She began to sob, uncontrollably.
"Relax, relax, little slave," he said to her, soothingly.
"Yes, Master," she said. Then she was unconscious.
I watched in horror as Miss Henderson's clothing was cut from her, completely. A crate was then brought forward. It opened from the side. Inside it were various straps. One of the men busied himself with gagging the girl. The gag was of leather, black, and effective. It buckled behind her neck with two buckles. I gathered they were taking no chances on the possibility of the effects of the drug prematurely wearing off. The heavy man then brought forth a long, narrow, rectangular leather case. In it, aligned, each held in its place by the construction of the interior of the case, each in its cushioned slot, was the remainder, some six or so, of what must once have been a series of something like twenty steel anklets.
Miss Henderson, now gagged, lay unconscious on her back on the cement.
The heavy man put the case down on the steel table, made a note of something in a small notebook, and then threw one of the steel devices to the fellow who stood by Miss Henderson, he who had gagged her unconscious body.
I saw then that the device was indeed a steel anklet. The man snapped it snugly about Miss Henderson's ankle, her left ankle. The snap was heavy, sharp, businesslike. Her ankle was then locked in the device. To my horror I realized she could not remove it. She would have to wear it until men chose to take it from her.
"H-4642?" asked the heavy man.
The other man lifted Miss Henderson's ankle, inspecting the steel locked there. "Yes," he said.
The heavy man closed his notebook.
He nodded to the man at the side of Miss Henderson, and to another man, as well.
Not speaking these two men then, as I watched, from my helpless, prone position, placed Miss Henderson in the crate. They placed her sitting in the crate, its open side to her left. Her head was first drawn back and fixed in place. There was a ring on the back of the gag straps and a ring within the crate. These two rings snapped together, holding her head back. A heavy black belt then, attached in the container, was looped about her waist. She was thrust back in the container further. Then the belt was tightened about her and buckled shut. Each of her wrists was then strapped back, her left wrist on her left side, her right wrist on her right side, the back of each wrist against the side of the container against which her back rested. Because of the smallness of the container her knees must be thrust up. Both ankles, then, one on the left, one on the right, were strapped in place.
The heavy man looked at the girl.
The heavy belt, buckled tightly about her belly, held her body back against one wall of the container. Her head, too, by the two rings, was held in place. Her wrists were strapped back, her ankles were strapped down. She was gagged.
The heavy man smiled. There was little doubt but what the fair prize was well secured.
I suppose I should not have looked upon her, but I could not help myself. Clothed, she had been beautiful; naked, she was fantastic. I could scarcely imagine the joy and power a man would feel, having such a woman at his feet.
"Close the crate," said the heavy man.
I saw the hinged side of the crate swung shut, enclosing Miss Henderson within it, a steel anklet, numbered, apparently an identificatory device, locked on her left ankle.
When the side of the crate had swung shut, it had snapped shut. Two fastenings had been engaged. Two men, now, twisted some ten screw bolts shut. There would be no way the container could be opened from the inside. There were two small, round holes, each about a half of an inch in width, in the upper half of the side of the crate which had served as its door. It was through these that the girl would breathe.
I looked at the crate. It occurred to me that its contents, Miss Henderson, if she were truly a slave, would one day, doubtless, be put up for sale. The thought of Miss Henderson on a slave block, actually, not just in my imagination, was almost overwhelming.
"Put the crate in the van," said the heavy man.
Two men picked up the crate and carried it from the room. Another man preceded them, presumably to facilitate their passage and, perhaps, open the van.
I felt, along the floor, a flood of fresh air. Somewhere a door had been opened. I tensed. I felt, then, a boot in the small of my back, pressing me down. "Don't try anything," said a voice, that of he who had been the driver of the cab. The fresh-air draft then ceased. I heard a door shut in another room.
The heavy man then turned and looked at me.
"You treated her like merchandise," I said, angrily, to the heavy man.
"She is merchandise, a slave," he said.
"What are you going to do with her?" I asked.
"She is to be shipped to another world, one called Gor," he said, "where she will be branded as what she is, a slave, and then sold on the open market for
whatever she will bring."
"How can you do this?" I demanded.
"It is my business," he said. "I am a slaver."
"But have you no pity for your pathetic captures?" I asked.
"They deserve no pity," he said. "They are only slaves."
"But what of their happiness?" I asked.
"It is unimportant," he said. "But, if it is of interest to you, no woman is truly happy until she is owned and mastered."
I was silent.
"Free a woman," he said, "and she will try to destroy you. Enslave her, and she will crawl to you on her belly, and beg to lick your sandals."
"Madness!" I cried. "False! False!"
The heavy man smiled at the man behind me. "He seems a typical man of Earth, does he not?" he asked.
"He does, indeed," said the man behind me. I then felt again the draft of fresh air, which then, in a moment, ceased. The other three men then re-entered the room. "The crate is in the van, with the others," said one of them.
I was startled. There must, then, be other girls, too, who were to share the sordid, horrifying fate of Miss Henderson.
I then found myself the center of the attention of the five men. I became suddenly very frightened. I began to sweat. I realized that neither Miss Henderson nor myself had been blindfolded. The men, thus, had not apparently been concerned that we would, at a future time, be able to identify either themselves or the interior of the large structure in which we had found ourselves.
"What—what are you going to do with me?" I asked.
He who had been the driver of the cab now walked about me, until he stood some eight or ten feet in front of me. I saw, then, that he carried a revolver. From his jacket pocket he took a hollow, cylindrical object. He spun it onto the barrel of the revolver. It was a silencer, which would muffle the report of a pistol.
"What are you going to do with me?" I demanded.
"You have seen too much, and you are of no use to us," said the heavy man.
I tried to struggle to my feet, but two men held me down on the cement.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the revolver, with its silencer. Then I felt the blunt end of the silencer pressing against my left temple.
"Don't shoot me," I begged. "Please!"
"He is not worth a bullet," said the heavy man. "Put him on his knees. Use a wire garrote."
The man who had driven the cab removed the silencer from his revolver. He dropped it back in his pocket and put the revolver in his belt. I was thrown to my knees, two men holding my arms, my hands helpless behind my back in the confining steel cuffs.
The fifth man, the one who had opened the door for the others with the crate, was then behind me. I felt a thin wire suddenly looped about my throat.
"I have another pickup to make tonight," said the fellow who had driven the cab.
"We will meet you on the highway," said the heavy man. "You know where."
He who had driven the cab nodded.
"We are to be at the new point of embarkation at four A.M.," said the heavy man.
"She gets off work at two," said he who had driven the cab. "I will be waiting for her."
"It will be close," said the heavy man, "but proceed. We can strip and inject her, and crate her, in the van."
I felt the wire loop tighten about my throat.
"Please, no, please, don't!" I cried.
"It will be swift," said the heavy man.
"Please, don't kill me!" I begged.
"Do you plead for your life?" asked the heavy man.
"Yes," I said, "yes, yes!"
"But what are we to do with you?" asked the heavy man.
"Don't kill me, please don't kill me," I begged. I squirmed on my knees, the wire on my throat.
The heavy man looked down at me, on my knees, helpless, before him.
"Please," I said. "Please!"
"Behold the typical man of Earth," said the heavy man.
"We are not all such weaklings and cowards," said one of the men.
"That is true," admitted the heavy man. Then he looked down at me. "Is there any hope," he asked, "for males, not men, such as you?"
"I do not understand," I stammered.
"How I despise your sort," he said, "fools, cowards, and weaklings, guilt-ridden, confused, smug, meaningless, pretentious, soft males who have permitted themselves to be tricked out of the prerogatives of their sex, robbed of the birthright of their own manhood, who dare not be true to the needs of their own blood, males too weak, too frightened and ashamed, to be men."
It startled me that he had said these things, for I had thought myself unusual among the men of Earth in my manhood. Indeed, I had often been castigated and belittled for having been too masculine. Now he spoke of me as though I had not even, as yet, begun to glimpse the meaning of true manhood. I was shaken. I began to tremble. What then could be biological manhood, in the fullness of its rationality and strength? I had, already, begun to suspect that manhood was not a mere pretension, as I had been taught, but something selected for, as seems reasonable, like the nature of the eagle and the lion, in the long, harsh realities of a brutal evolution, but now, for the first time, I had begun to suspect that my conception of manhood, so advanced I had thought, did little more than begin to hint at the possible glories of a suppressed, thwarted, tortured reality, a reality genetically dispositional in every cell in a man's body, a reality feared and castigated by a counterbiological culture. I came from a world in which eagles cannot fly. I put down my head. Lions do not well thrive in a country of poisons.
"Look up at me," said the heavy man.
I lifted my head.
"I find you guilty of treason," he said.
"I have committed no treason," I said.
"You are guilty of the most heinous of treasons," said the heavy man. "You have betrayed yourself, your sex, your manhood. You are a despicable traitor, not only to yourself but to true men, everywhere. You are an insult not only to your own manhood but to that of others. You are a sniveling coward and a weakling, worthy to be held only in the most profound of contempts."
"A man must be strong enough to be weak," I said. "He must be brave enough to be sweet. True men must be gentle and tender, and considerate, and solicitous, and do what women wish. That is how they prove they are true men."
"True men give orders to women, and women obey," said the heavy man.
"It is not what I have been taught," I said.
"You have been taught lies," said the heavy man. "Surely your own misery and unhappiness should tell you that."
"He has been found guilty of treason," said one of the men holding my arms. "What is the sentence?"
The heavy man looked at the others. I felt the wire on my throat. "What should the sentence be?" he asked.
"The termination of his miserable existence," said one of the men, "death."
The heavy man looked down at me. "I wonder," said he, "if there is any hope for such as you."
"Let the sentence be death," said another one of the men.
"Or something else," said the heavy man.
"I do not understand," said the fellow who had first suggested that I be slain.
"Look at him," said the heavy man. "Does he not seem a typical male of Earth?"
"Yes," said one of the men. "Yes," said another.
"Yet, beyond that," said the heavy man, "his features appear symmetrical and his body, though soft and weak, is large."
"Yes?" said one of the men.
"Do you think a woman might find him pleasing?" asked the heavy man.
"Perhaps." smiled one of the men.
"Throw him on his belly and tie his legs," said the heavy man. I felt the wire whipped from my throat. I was thrown forward on the cement. My belt was loosened and torn from its loops. My ankles were crossed and, with the belt, lashed together, tightly. In a few seconds I felt my shirt being jerked away from my left side, and felt the cold swab of the cotton and alcohol and, a moment later, the entrance of the needle, d
eeply, into my flesh.
"What are you going to do with me?" I asked, terrified.
"Do not talk now," he said.
I felt the fluid entering my body. It was apparently considerably more than he had injected into Miss Henderson. It was painful. Then he withdrew the needle from my back and swabbed the area again with alcohol and cotton.
"What are you going to do with me?" I whispered.
"You are going to be taken to the planet Gor," he said. "I think I know a little market where you might be of interest."
"Gor does not exist," I said.
He rose to his feet and discarded the cotton and the second syringe.
"Gor does not exist!" I said.
"Put him in the van," he said to the men.
"You are mad, all of you!" I cried. I was lifted by two men. "Gor does not exist!" I cried. I was being carried toward the door. "Gor does not exist!" I cried. "Gor does not exist!"
Then I lost consciousness.
3
The Lady Gina
I screamed with pain, awakening suddenly. I tried to get to my feet. I could not do so. My wrists and ankles seemed confined. There was something heavy on my neck. I got to my hands and knees. I could not believe my senses. I was collared, and naked and shackled. Then the lash fell again, and I cried out with misery, slipping to my stomach. I lay on a flooring of large blocks of fitted stone. My wrists were chained to one iron ring, my ankles to another. I felt wet straw beneath my body. The stones were damp. There were no windows in the room. The light was dim, being furnished by a tiny lamp in a small niche. The place was dank, and smelled of wastes. I thought it might be far below the ground. I was intensely conscious of the heavy metal collar I wore. There was, attached to it, as I conjectured, hearing the tiny sound of its movement and its clink on the stone beneath my body, a smaller piece of metal, perhaps a ring of some sort.
Then the lash, as I wept from the pain, struck me again and again.
"Please, stop!" I begged. "Please, stop!"
Then I no longer felt the disciplinary tearing of the leather at my flesh.
The gravity of this world was different from that of my own, being slightly less. I knew then I was no longer on Earth.
I turned, frightened, in the chains, to see who had struck me.