by John Norman
“That has been known to me for over a year,” I said. “Why do you speak of it now?”
“We are ignorant of so many things,” mused Samos.
I shrugged. Much of Gor was terra incognita. Few knew well the lands on the east of the Voltai and Thentis ranges, for example, or what lay west of the farther islands, near Cos and Tyros. It was more irritating, of course, to realize that even considerable areas of territory above Schendi, south of the Vosk, and west of Ar, were unknown. “There was good reason to speculate that the Cartius entered the Vosk, by way of Lake Ushindi,” I said.
“I know,” said Samos, “tradition, and the directions and flow of the rivers. Who would have understood, of the cities, that they were not the same?”
“Even the bargemen of the Cartius proper, the subequatorial Cartius, and those of the Thassa Cartius, far to the north, thought the rivers to be but one waterway.”
“Yes,” said Samos. “And until the calculations of Ramani, and the expeditions of Shaba and Ramus, who had reason to believe otherwise?”
“The rain forests closed the Cartius proper for most civilized persons from the south,” I said, “and what trading took place tended to be confined to the ubarates of the southern shore of Lake Ushindi. It was convenient then, for trading purposes, to make use of either the Kamba or the Nyoka to reach Thassa.”
“That precluded the need to find a northwest passage from Ushindi,” said Samos.
“Particularly since it was known of the hostility of the river tribes on what is now called the Thassa Cartius.”
“Yes,” said Samos.
“But surely, before the expedition of Shaba,” I said, “others must have searched for the exit of the Cartius from Ushindi.”
“It seems likely they were slain by the tribes of the northern shores of Ushindi,” said Samos.
“How is it that the expedition of Shaba was successful?” I asked.
“Have you heard of Bila Huruma?” asked Samos.
“A little,” I said.
“He is a black Ubar,” said Samos, “bloody and brilliant, a man of vision and power, who has united the six ubarates of the southern shores of Ushindi, united them by the knife and the stabbing spear, and has extended his hegemony to the northern shores, where he exacts tribute, kailiauk tusks and women, from the confederacy of the hundred villages. Shaba’s nine boats had fixed at their masts the tufted shields of the officialdom of Bila Huruma.”
“That guaranteed their safety,” I said.
“They were attacked, several times,” said Samos, “but they survived. I think it true, however, had it not been for the authority of Bila Huruma, Ubar of Ushindi, they could not have completed their work.”
“The hegemony of Bila Huruma over the northern shores, then, is substantial hut incomplete,” I said.
“Surely the hegemony is resented,” said Samos, “as would seem borne out by the fact that some attacks did take place on the expedition of Shaba.”
“He must be a brave man,” I said.
“He brought six of his boats through, and most of his men,” said Samos.
“I find it impressive,” I said, “that a man such as Bila Huruma would be interested in supporting a geographical expedition.”
“He was interested in finding the northwest passage from Ushindi,” said Samos. “It could mean the opening up of a considerable number of new markets, the enhancement of trade, the discovery of a valuable commercial avenue for the merchandise of the north and the products of the south.”
“It might avoid, too, the dangers of shipment upon Thassa,” I said, “and provide, as well, a road to conquest and the acquisition of new territory.”
“Yes,” said Samos. “You think like a warrior,” he said.
“But Shaba’s work,” I said, “as I understand it demonstrated that no such passage exists.”
“Yes,” said Samos, “that is a consequence of his expedition. But surely, even if you are not familiar with the role of Bila Huruma in these things, you have heard of the further discoveries of Shaba.”
“To the west of Lake Ushindi,” I said, “there are floodlands, marshes and bogs, through which a considerable amount of water drains into the lake. With considerable hardship, limiting himself to forty men, and temporarily abandoning all but two boats, which were half dragged and thrust through the marshes eastward, after two months, Shaba reached the western shore of what we now know as Lake Ngao.”
“Yes,” said Samos.
“It is fully as large as Lake Ushindi, if not larger,” I said, “the second of the great equatorial lakes.”
“Yes,” said Samos.
I conjectured that it must have been a marvelous moment when Shaba and his men, toiling with ropes and poles, wading and shoveling, brought their two craft to the clear vista of vast, deep Lake Ngao. They had returned then, exhausted, to the balance of their party and boats, which had been waiting for them at the eastern shore of Ushindi.
“Shaba then continued the circumnavigation of Lake Ushindi,” said Samos. “He charted accurately, for the first time, the entry of the Cartius proper, the subequatorial Cartius, into Ushindi. He then continued west until he reached the six ubarates and the heartland of Bila Huruma.”
“He was doubtless welcomed as a hero,” I said.
“Yes,” said Samos. “And well he should have been.”
“The next year,” I said, “he mounted a new expedition, with eleven boats and a thousand men, an expedition financed, I now suppose, by Bila Huruma, to explore Lake Ngao, to circumnavigate it as he had Ushindi.”
“Precisely,” said Samos.
“And it was there that he discovered that Lake Ngao was fed, incredibly enough, by only one major river, as its eastern extremity, a river vast enough to challenge even the Vosk in its breadth and might, a river which he called the Ua.”
“Yes,” said Samos.
“It is impassable,” I said, “because of various falls and cataracts.”
“The extent of these obstacles, and the availability of portages, the possibility of roads, the possibility of side canals, are not known,” said Samos.
“Shaba himself, with his men and boats, pursued the river for only a hundred pasangs,” I said, “when they were turned back by some falls and cataracts.”
“The falls and cataracts of Bila Huruma, as he named them,” said Samos.
“The size of his boats made portage difficult or impossible,” I said.
“They had not been built to be sectioned,” said Samos. “‘And the steepness of the portage, the jungle, the hostility, as it turned out, of interior tribes, made retreat advisable.”
“The expedition of Shaba returned then,” I said, “to Lake Ngao, completed its circumnavigation and returned later, via the swamps, to Lake Ushindi and the six ubarates.”
“Yes,” said Samos.
“A most remarkable man,” I said.
“Surely one of the foremost geographers and explorers of Gor,” said Samos. “And a highly trusted man.”
“Trusted?” I asked.
“Shaba is an agent of Priest-Kings,” said Samos.
“I did not know that,” I said.
“Surely you suspected others, too, served, at least upon occasion, in the cause of Priest-Kings.”
“I had supposed that,” I said. But I had never pressed Samos on the matter. It seemed to be better that I not know of many agents of Priest-Kings. Our work was, in general, unknown to one another. This was an elementary security precaution. If one of us were captured and tortured, he could not, if broken, reveal what he did not know. Most agents, I did know, were primarily engaged in the work of surveillance and intelligence. The house of Samos was a headquarters to which most of these agents, directly or indirectly, reported. From it the activities of many agents were directed and coordinated. It was a clearing house, too, for information, which, processed, was forwarded to the Sardar.
“Why do you tell me this?” I asked.
“Come with me,” s
aid Samos, getting up.
He led the way from the room. I followed him. We passed guards outside the door to the great hall. Samos did not speak to me. For several minutes I followed him. lie strode through various halls, and then began to descend ramps and staircases. At various points, and before various portals, signs and countersigns were exchanged. The thick walls became damp. We continued to descend, through various levels, sometimes treading catwalks over cages. The fair occupants of these cages looked up at us, frightened. In one long corridor we passed two girls, naked, on their hands and knees, with brushes and water, scrubbing the stones of the corridor floor. A guard, with a whip, stood over them. They fell to their bellies as we passed, and then, when we had passed, rose to their hands and knees, to resume their work. The pens were generally quiet now, for it was time for sleeping. We passed barred alcoves, and tiers of kennels, and rooms for processing, training and disciplining slaves. The chamber of irons was empty, but coals glowed softly in the brazier, from. which two handles protruded. An iron is always ready in a slaver’s house. One does not know when a new girl may be brought in. In another room I saw, on the walls, arranged by size, collars, chains, wrist and ankle rings. An inventory of such things is kept in a slaver’s house. Each collar, each link of chain, is accounted for. We passed, too, rooms in which tunics, slave silks, cosmetics and jewelries were kept. Normally in the pens girls are kept naked, but such things are used in their training. There were also facilities for cooking and the storage of food; and medical facilities as well. As we passed one cell a girl reached forth, “Masters,” she whimpered. Then we were beyond her. We also passed pens of male slaves. These, usually criminals and debtors, or prisoners taken in war, then enslaved, are commonly sold cheaply and used for heavy labor.
We continued to descend through various levels. The smell and the dampness, never pleasant in the lower levels of the pens, now became obtrusive. Here and there lamps and torches burned. These mitigated to some extent the dampness, We passed a guards’ room, in which there were several slaver’s men, off duty. I glanced within, for I heard from within the clash of slave bells and the bright sound of zills, or finger cymbals. In a bit of yellow slave silk, backed into a corner, belied and barefoot, a collared girl danced, swaying slowly before the five men who loomed about her, scarcely a yard away. Then her back touched the stone wall, startling her, and they seized her, and threw her to a blanket for their pleasure. I saw her gasping, and, half fighting, half kissing at them, squirming in their arms. Then her arms and legs were held, widely separated, each of her limbs, her small wrists and belled ankles, held in the two hands of a captor. The leader was first to have her. She put her head back, helpless, crying out with pleasure, subdued.
We were soon on the lowest level of the pens, in an area of maximum security. There were trickles of water at the walls here and, in places, water between the stones of the floor. An urt slipped between two rocks in the wall.
Samos stopped before a heavy iron door; a narrow steel panel slipped back. Samos uttered the sign for the evening, and was answered by the countersign. The door opened. There were two guards behind it.
We stopped before the eighth cell on the left. Samos signaled to the two guards. They came forward. There were some ropes and hooks, and heavy pieces of meat, to one side.
“Do not speak within,” said Samos to me. He handed me a hood, with holes cut in it for the eyes.
“Is this house, or its men, known to the prisoner?” I asked.
“No,” said Samos.
I donned the hood, and Samos, too, donned such a hood. The two guards donned such hoods as well. They then slid back the observation panel in the solid iron door and, after looking through, unlocked the door, and swung it open. It opened inward. I waited with Samos. The two guards then, reaching upward, with some chains, attached above the door, lowered a heavy, wooden walkway to the surface of the water. The room, within, to the level of the door, contained water. It was murky and dark. I was aware of a rustling in the water. The walkway then, floating, but steadied by its four chains, rested on the water. On its sides the walkway had metal ridges, some six inches in height, above the water. I heard tiny scratchings at the metal, small movements against the metal, as though by numerous tiny bodies, each perhaps no more than a few ounces in weight.
Samos stood near the door and lifted a torch. The two guards went out on the walkway. It was some twenty feet in length. The flooded cell was circular, and perhaps some forty-five feet in diameter. In the center of the cell was a wooden, metal-sheathed pole, some four inches in diameter. This pole rose, straight, some four feet out of the water. About this pole, encircling it, and supported by it, was a narrow, circular, wooden, metal-sheathed platform. It was some ten inches on all sides, from the circumference of the pole to the edge of the platform. The platform itself was lifted about seven or eight inches out of the water.
One of the guards, carrying a long, wooden pole, thrust it down, into the water. The water, judging by the pole, must have been about eight feet deep. The other guard, then, thrusting a heavy piece of meat on one of the hooks, to which a rope was attached, held the meat away from the platform and half submerged in the water. Almost instantly there was a frenzy in the water near the meat, a thrashing and turbulence in the murky liquid. I felt water splashed on my legs, even standing back as I was. Then the guard lifted the roped hook from the water. The meat was gone. Tiny tharlarion, similar to those in the swamp forest south of Ar, dropped, snapping, from the bared hook. Such tiny, swift tharlarion, in their thousands, can take the meat from a kailiauk in an Ehn.
The girl on the platform, naked, kneeling, a metal collar hammered about her neck, the metal pole between her leg., grasping it with both arms, threw back her head and screamed piteously.
The two guards then withdrew. Samos, hooded, walked out on the floating walkway, steadied by its chains. I, similarly hooded, followed him. He lifted the torch.
The platform’s front edge was about a yard from the tiny, wooden, metal-sheathed, circular platform, mounted on the wooden, metal-sheathed pole, that tiny platform on which the girl knelt, that narrow, tiny platform which held her but inches from the tharlarion-filled water.
She looked up at us, piteously, blinking against the light of the torch.
She clutched the pole helplessly. She could not have been bound to it more closely if she had been fastened in close chains.
The small eyes of numerous tharlarion, perhaps some two or three hundred of them, ranging from four to ten inches in length, watching her, nostrils and eyes at the water level, reflected the light of the torch.
She clutched the pole even more closely.
She looked up at us, tears in her eyes. “Please, please, please, please, please,” she said.
She had spoken in English.
She, like Samos’ Earth girl, Linda, had blue eyes and blond hair. She was slightly more slender than Linda, She had good ankles. They would take an ankle ring nicely. I noted that she had not yet been branded.
“Please,” she whimpered.
Samos indicated that we should leave. I turned about, and preceded him from the walkway. The guards, behind us, raised the walkway, secured it in place, and swung shut the door. They slid shut the observation panel. They locked the door.
Samos, outside, returned his torch to its ring. We removed the hoods. I followed Samos from the lower level, and then from the: pens, back to his hall.
“I do not understand what the meaning of all this is, Samos,” I told him.
“There are deep matters here,” said Samos, “matters in which I am troubled as well as you.”
“Why did you show me the girl in the cell?” I asked.
“What do you make of her?” asked Samos.
“I would say about five copper tarsks, in a fourth-class market, perhaps even an item in a group sale. She is beautiful, but not particularly beautiful, as female slaves go. She is obviously ignorant and untrained. She does have good ankles.”
“She speaks the Earth language English, does she not?” asked Samos.
“Apparently,” I said. “Do you wish me to question her?”
“No,” said Samos.
“Does she speak Gorean?” I asked.
“No more than a few words,” said Samos.
There are ways of determining, of course, if one speaks a given language. One utters phrases significant in the language. There are, when cognition takes place, physiological responses which are difficult or impossible to conceal, such things as an increase in the pulse rate, and the dilation of the pupils.
“The matter then seems reasonably clear,” I said.
“Give me your thoughts,” said Samos.
“She is a simple wench brought to Gor by Kur slavers, collar meat.”
“You would think so?” he asked.
“It seems likely,” I said. “Women trained as Kur agents are usually well versed in Gorean.”
“But she is not as beautiful as the average imported slave from Earth, is she?” asked Samos.
“That matter is rather subjective, I would say”’ I smiled. “I think she is quite lovely. Whether she is up to the normal standards of their merchandise is another question.”
“Perhaps she was with a girl who was abducted for enslavement,” said Samos, “and was simply, as it was convenient, put in a double tie with her and brought along.”
“Perhaps,” I shrugged. “I would not know. It would be my speculation, however, that she had deep potential for slavery.”