by John Norman
That she might survive it seemed plausible that evolution would have favored not only the woman attractive to men but the one who had an unusual set of traits—among them perhaps the literally instinctual desire to be his, to belong to him, to seek him out for her mate and submit herself to him. Perhaps if she were thrown by her hair to the back of the cave and raped on furs in the light of the animal fire at its mouth this would have been to her little more than the proof of her mate's regard for her, the expected culmination of her innate desire to be dominated and his.
I smiled to myself as I thought of the small things on my old world that at such remoteness perhaps reenacted the ancient ceremony of the caves, the carrying of the bride over the threshold, perhaps as a prisoner, the tiny wedding bands, perhaps a small reminder of the primitive thongs that bound the wrists of the first bride, or perhaps later of the golden manacles fastened on the wrists of the daughters of kings, captive maidens led in triumph through cheering streets to the bondage of slave girls.
Yes, I said to myself, the words Vika spoke were perhaps not as strange as I had thought.
I looked at her gently. "I must go," I said.
"When first I saw you, Cabot," she said, "I knew you owned me." She looked up at me. "I wanted to be free but I knew that you owned me—though you had not touched me nor kissed me—I knew that I was from that moment your slave; your eyes told me that I was owned and my most secret heart acknowledged it."
I turned to go.
"I love you, Tarl Cabot," she said suddenly, and then, as though confused and perhaps a bit frightened, she suddenly dropped her head humbly. "I mean—" she said, "I love you—Master."
I smiled at Vika's very natural correction of her mode of addressing me, for a slave girl is seldom permitted, at least publicly, to address her master by his name, only his title. The privilege of using his name, of having it on her lips, is, according to the most approved custom, reserved for that of a free woman, in particular a Free Companion. Gorean thinking on this matter tends to be expressed by the saying that a slave girl grows bold if her lips are allowed to touch the name of her master. On the other hand, I, like many Gorean masters, provided the girl was not testing or challenging me, and provided that free women, or others, were not present whom I had no wish to offend or upset, preferred as a matter of fact to have my own name on the girl's lips, for I think, with acknowledged vanity, that there are few sounds as pleasurable as the sound of one's own name on the lips of a beautiful woman.
Vika's eyes were worried and her hands moved as though she wanted to touch me through the plastic.
"May I ask," she queried, "where my master goes?"
I considered the matter and smiled at her.
"I go," I said, "to give Gur to the Mother."
"What does that mean?" she asked, wide-eyed.
"I don't know," I said, "but I intend to find out."
"Must you go?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied, "I have a friend who may be in danger."
"A slave girl is pleased," she said, "that such a man as you is her master."
I turned to go.
I heard her voice over my shoulder. "I wish you well, Master," she said.
I briefly turned to face her again and almost unconsciously I kissed the tips of my fingers and pressed them against the plastic. Vika kissed the plastic opposite where my fingers had touched.
She was a strange girl.
Had I not known how vicious and deceitful she was, how cruel and treacherous, I might have permitted myself a word of kindness to her. I regretted that I had touched the plastic for it seemed to express a concern for her which I had intended to mask.
Her performance had been superb, almost convincing. She had almost led me to believe she cared.
"Yes," I said, "Vika of Treve—Slave Girl—you play your part well."
"No," she said, "no—Master—I love you!"
Angered at how nearly I had been deceived I laughed at her.
Now, undoubtedly realizing her game was known, she covered her eyes with her hands and sank weeping to her knees behind the heavy transparent plastic partition.
I turned away, having more important things to attend to than the faithless wench from Treve.
"I will keep the female Mul well fed and watered," said the Attendant.
"If you wish," I said, and turned away.
27
In the Chamber of the Mother
It was still the Feast of Tola.
Though the time was now past the fourth feeding.
It was almost eight Gorean Ahn, or about ten Earth hours, since I had separated from Misk and Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta early this morning.
The transportation disk which had originally taken me to the chamber where I had found Misk I had taken to the entrance to the tunnels of the Golden Beetle and I thought it well that it should stay there, as if witnessing my entrance and my supposed failure to return.
I was less pleased to have left the translator with the disk but it seemed the better thing to do, for one would not have taken a translator into the tunnels of the Golden Beetle and if it were found missing from the disk it might occasion speculation not that I had returned from the tunnels of the Golden Beetle but more likely that I had only pretended to enter. The word of the two Muls by the portal might or might not carry weight with their Priest-King Masters.
I had not walked far from the Vivarium before I was able to regather my general directions in the Nest and, as I walked impatiently along, I spied a transportation disk docked, so to speak, hovering on its cushion of gas, outside one of the tall steel portals of the Hall of Commissaries. The disk was of course, untended, for in the enclosed, regulated life of the Nest theft, save for an occasional handful of salt, was unknown.
Therefore I may have been setting something of a precedent when I leaped on the transportation disk and stepped to the accelerator strips.
I was soon gliding rapidly down the hall on my, let us say, considering the significance and urgency of my mission, commandeered vehicle.
I had gone not more than a pasang or so when I spun the disk to a stop before another portal in the Hall of Commissaries. I entered the portal and in a few moments emerged wearing the purple of a Mul. The clerk, at my request writing the expense down to Sarm, informed me that I would promptly have to have the new tunic imprinted with the scent-patterns pertaining to my identity, record-scars, etc. I assured him I would give the matter serious consideration and departed, hearing him congratulate me on my good fortune in having been permitted to become a Mul rather than having to remain a lowly Matok. "You will now be of the Nest as well as in it," he beamed.
Outside I thrust the red plastic garment I had worn into the first disposal chute I found whence it would be whisked away pneumatically to the distant incinerators that burned somewhere below the Nest.
I then leaped again on the transportation disk and swept away to Misk's compartment.
There I took a few minutes to replenish my energies from the containers of Mul-Fungus and I took a long welcome draught of water from the inverted jar in my case. As I ate the fungus and sat in the case I considered my future course of action. I must try to find Misk. Probably to die with him, or to die in the attempt to avenge him.
My thoughts wandered to Vika in her own case, though hers, unlike mine, was her prison. I fingered the key to her case which hung on its leather loop about my throat. I found myself hoping that she might not be too distressed by her captivity, and then I scorned myself this weakness and insisted to myself that I welcomed the thought that whatever miseries she endured would be richly deserved. I dropped the metal key back inside my tunic. I considered the heavy, transparent case on the fourth tier of the Vivarium. Yes, the hours would be long and lonely for the caged, shorn Vika of Treve.
I wondered what had become of Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta. They, like myself, having disobeyed Sarm, were now outlaws in the Nest. I hoped they might be able to hide and find or steal enough food to live. I did n
ot give much for their chances but even a piteous alternative to the dissection chambers was welcome.
I wondered about the young male Priest-King in the secret chamber below Misk's compartment. I supposed my best way of serving Misk might be to abandon him to his death and try to protect the young male, but these were matters in which I had little interest. I did not know the location of the female egg nor could I have tended it had I known; and, further, that the race of Priest-Kings should wither and die did not seem the proper business of a human, particularly considering my hatred for them, and my rejection of their mode of regulating in so many important respects the lives of men in this world. Had they not destroyed my city? Had they not scattered its people? Had they not destroyed men by Flame Death and brought them, willing or no, to their own world on the Voyages of Acquisition? Had they not implanted their control nets in human beings and spun the hideous mutations of the Gur Carriers off the stock of which I was a specimen? Did they not regard us as a lower order of animal and one suitably placed at the disposal of their lofty excellence? And what of the Muls and the Chamber Slaves and all those of the human kind who were forced to serve them or die? No, I said to myself, it is good for my kind that Priest-Kings should die. But Misk was different, for he was my friend. There was Nest Trust between us and accordingly, as a warrior and a man, I stood ready to give my life for him.
I checked the sword in its sheath and left Misk's compartment, stepped to the transportation disk and swept silently, rapidly, down the tunnel in the direction in which I knew lay the Chamber of the Mother.
I had spent but a few Ehn on the disk before I came to the barricade of heavy steel bars which separated those portions of the Nest open to Muls from those which were prohibited to them.
There was a Priest-King on guard whose antennae waved quizzically about as I drew the disk to a stop not twelve feet from him. His head was garlanded by a wreath of green leaves as had been that of Sarm, and also, like Sarm, there was about his neck, as well as his translator, the ceremonial string of tiny metal tools.
It took a moment for me to understand the Priest-King's consternation.
The tunic I wore carried no scent-patterns and for a moment he had thought that the transportation disk I rode was actually without a driver.
I could see the lenses of the compound eyes almost flickering as it strained to see, much as we might have strained to hear some small sound.
His reactions were almost those that a human might have had if he could hear something in the room with him but had not yet been able to see it.
At last his antennae fastened on me but I am sure the Priest-King was annoyed that he did not receive the strong signals he would have if I had been wearing my own scent-infixed tunic. Without the tunic I had worn I probably did not seem much different to him from any other male Mul he had encountered in the Nest. To another human, of course, my hair alone, which is a shaggy, bright red, would have been a clearly recognizable feature, but Priest-Kings, as I may have indicated, tend to have extremely casual visual discrimination and are, moreover, I would gather, color blind. The colors that are found in the Nest are always in the areas frequented by Muls. The only Priest-King in the Nest who could have recognized me immediately, and perhaps from a distance, was probably Misk, who knew me not as a Mul but a friend.
"You are undoubtedly the Noble Guard of the Chamber where I may have my tunic fixed with scent-marks," I called jovially.
The Priest-King seemed relieved to hear me speak.
"No," he said, "I guard the entrance to the tunnels of the Mother, and you may not enter."
Well, I said to myself, this is the right place.
"Where can I have my tunic marked?" I inquired.
"Return to whence you came and inquire," said the Priest-King.
"Thank you, Noble One!" I cried and turned the transportation disk almost as if it had a vertical central axis and sped off. I glanced over my shoulder and I could see the Priest-King still straining to sense me.
I quickly turned the disk down a side tunnel and began to hunt for a ventilator shaft.
In perhaps two or three Ehn I found one which appeared to be quite suitable. I drove the disk about a half pasang away and stopped it by an open portal within which I could see busy Muls stirring vats of bubbling plastic with huge wooden paddles.
I quickly retraced my steps to the ventilator shaft, pried open the bottom of the grille, squeezed inside and soon found myself making my way rapidly through the ventilating system in the direction of the Chamber of the Mother.
From time to time I would pass an opening in the shaft and peer out. From one of these openings I could see that I was already behind the steel barricade with its Priest-King guard, who was standing as I would have expected, in that almost vertical, slender, golden fixity that was so characteristic of his kind.
There was no sound to celebrate the Feast of Tola but I had little difficulty in locating the scene of the celebration, for I soon encountered a shaft, one of those through which used air is pumped out of the tunnels, which was rich in unusual and penetrating scents, of a sort which my stay with Misk had taught me were regarded by Priest-Kings as being of great beauty.
I followed these scents and soon found myself peering into an immense chamber. Its ceiling was only perhaps a hundred feet high but its length and width were considerable and it was filled with golden Priest-Kings, garlanded in green and wearing about their necks that shining, jangling circle of tiny, silverish tools.
There were perhaps a thousand Priest-Kings in the Nest, and I supposed that this might be almost all the Priest-Kings in the Nest, save perhaps those that might be essentially placed at a few minimum posts, such as the guard at the steel barricade and perhaps some in the Scanning Chamber or, more likely, the Power Plant.
Much of the business of the Nest, of course, even relatively technical matters, was carried on by trained Muls.
The Priest-Kings stood motionless in great circling, tiered rows which spread concentrically outward as though from a stage in an ancient theater. To one side I could see four Priest-Kings handling the knobs of a large scent-producer, about the size of a steel room. There were perhaps hundreds of knobs on each side and one Priest-King on each side with great skill and apparent rhythm touched one knob after another in intricate patterns.
I had little doubt but that these Priest-Kings were the most highly regarded musicians of the Nest, that they should be chosen to play together on the great Feast of Tola.
The antennae of the thousand Priest-Kings seemed almost motionless so intent were they on the beauties of the music.
Inching forward I saw, on the raised platform at this end of the room, the Mother.
For a moment I could not believe that it was real or alive.
It was undoubtedly of the Priest-King kind, and it now was unwinged, but the most incredible feature was the fantastic extent of the abdomen. Its head was little larger than that of an ordinary Priest-King, or its thorax, but its trunk was conjoined to an abdomen which if swollen with eggs might have been scarcely smaller than a city bus. But now this monstrous abdomen, depleted and wrinkled, no longer possessing whatever tensility it might once have had, lay collapsed behind the creature like a flattened sack of brownly tarnished golden ancient leather.
Even with the abdomen empty her legs could not support its weight and she lay on the dais with her jointed legs folded beside her.
Her coloring was not that of the normal Priest-King but darker, more brownish, and here and there black stains discolored her thorax and abdomen.
Her antennae seemed unalert and lacked resilience. They lay back over her head.
Her eyes seemed dull and brown.
I wondered if she were blind.
It was a most ancient creature on which I gazed, the Mother of the Nest.
It was hard to imagine her, uncounted generations ago, with wings of gold in the open air, in the blue sky of Gor, glistening and turning with her lover borne on the high, glori
ous, swift winds of this distant, savage world. How golden she would have been.
There was no male, no Father of the Nest, and I supposed the male had died, or had not lived long after her mating. I wondered if, among Priest-Kings, he would have helped her, or if there would have been others from the former Nest, or if she alone would have fallen to earth, to eat the wings that had borne her, and to burrow beneath the mountains to begin the lonely work of the Mother, the creation of the new Nest.
I wondered why there had not been more females.
If Sarm had killed them, how was it that the Mother had not learned of this and had him destroyed?
Or was it her wish that there should be no others?
But if so why was she, if it were true, in league with Misk to perpetuate the race of Priest-Kings?
I looked again through the grille on the shaft. It opened about thirty feet over the floor of the chamber and a bit to one side of the Platform of the Mother. I surmised there might be a similar shaft on the other side of her platform, knowing the symmetry that tends to mark the engineering aesthetics of Priest-Kings.
As the musicians continued to produce their rhapsodic, involute rhythms of aroma on the scent-producer, one Priest-King at a time, one after the other, would slowly stalk forward and approach the Platform of the Mother.
There, from a great golden bowl, about five feet deep and with a diameter of perhaps twenty feet, setting on a heavy tripod, he would take a bit of whitish liquid, undoubtedly Gur, in his mouth.
He took no more than a taste and the bowl, though the Feast of Tola was well advanced, was still almost brimming. He would then approach the Mother very slowly and lower his head to hers. With great gentleness he would then touch her head with his antennae. She would extend her head to him and then with a delicacy hard to imagine in so large a creature he would transfer a tiny drop of the precious fluid from his mouth to hers. He would then back away and return to his place where he would stand as immobile as before.
He had given Gur to the Mother.