Explorers of Gor coc-13

by John Norman

  “Do not lose your footing, Naked Slave!” cried Tende to the blond-haired barbarian.

  “Yes, Mistress,” she cried, over the water, struggling to remain upright.

  We had made Tende first girl. She had been, after all, the former mistress of the two white slaves.

  They would obey her with perfection. If they did not we would beat them. If Tende, for her part, did not do well as first girl Kisu and I had agreed that Alice should have the opportunity. Tende, we were sure, fearing to be at the mercy of one of her former slaves, would strive to be a good first girl.

  Tende and Alice had taken to calling the blond-haired barbarian ‘Naked Slave’. She had, among us, no other name. We had not given her one. Calling the blond-haired barbarian by that descriptive and accurate appellation made clear the distinction between her and the others. She was low girl. We all used her to fetch and carry, and perform the most servile of our tasks. The blond-haired barbarian would weep at night, but we paid her no attention, unless it be to order her to silence.

  “Hold the lines!” called Kisu.

  Ayari and Alice kept the lines taut.

  “Push!” called Kisu.

  We, wading, half blinded with water, thrust the canoe forward.

  31. We Stop To Trade; The Admissions Of A Slave

  “Trade! Trade! Friends! Friends!” they called.

  “Do not take me in there, unclothed, Master,” begged the blond-haired barbarian.

  We had pulled the canoe up on the shore. I tied the blond-haired barbarian’s hands behind her and put a rope on her neck, the loose end of which I threw to Alice. It would be more seemly, we had conjectured, if she, as she was not clothed as the other girls, was led in, like a stripped, recently captured slave. It might tend to allay suspicion that. she was not in favor. If that were known the bidding might be fierce upon her, the villagers being eager to capitalize on her dissatisfaction with her and acquire her as a cheap piece of trade goods, perhaps for transmittal into the interior. As it was, if she had been newly roped, we might not be willing to sell her, not yet having had an opportunity to truly determine whether or not she might have promise.

  “How is it that you are coming from the west on the river with her?” asked a man who knew snatches of Ushindi.

  I did not understand his question.

  The blond-haired barbarian shuddered with misery, seeing the honesty of the men’s eyes upon. her.

  “Is she a taluna?” asked a man.

  I did not understand his question.

  The blond-haired barbarian moaned in misery as the men s hands were upon her, some of them intimately. “Look,” said a man crouching beside her, holding her leg, indicating her brand. This excited interest. They had never seen a brand on a woman before. Mice’s brand was covered by her brief skirt of red bark cloth. Unnoticed she drew the skirt down an inch or so on her thigh, to better conceal her own slave mark. The blond-haired barbarian twisted in the grasp of the men. Her small hands pulled at the tightly looped, knotted strap that bound them behind her back. It was just as well, I realized, that we had tied her as we had. If she had tried to push away the villagers, or prevent them from touching her, they might have wanted her hands cut off. She cried out with anguish. I made a sign and we advanced, Alice pulling the blond-haired barbarian forward, away from the men.

  We entered the gate of the village.

  “Trade,” I called. “Friends! Friends!”

  Ayari was a remarkable man.

  I doubt that anyone in the village knew more than a few dozen words of Ushindi, but Ayari, with his Ushindi, his gestures, his quick wit and a stick, with which he drew in the dust of the village, not only conducted his trading in a brisk and genial fashion but managed to gather valuable information as well.

  “Shaba was here,” said Ayari.

  “When?” I asked.

  “The chief says only ‘long ago’,” said Ayari. “Some of his men were ill. He stayed here a week.”

  “That explains,” I said, “how it is that some here know some words of Ushindi.”

  “Of course,” said Ayari, “and doubtless Shaba and his men set themselves to learn something of the speech of this village.”

  I nodded.

  We had obtained in the trading, for some knives and colored glass, several sacks of meal, fruit and vegetables.

  “Is there anything else?” I asked.

  “Yes,” grinned Ayari. “We are supposed to turn back.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “The chief says the river is dangerous beyond this point. He says there are hostile tribes, dangerous waters, great animals, monsters and talunas, white-skinned jungle girls.” He indicated the blond-haired barbarian, kneeling, her hands tied behind her back, her neck-rope in the hands of Alice, who, in lovely repose, stood beside her. “He thought she might be one,” he said. “I told him she was only an ordinary slave.”

  I looked at the blond-haired barbarian. “That is true,” I said.

  She put her head down.

  “Shaba, did he not,” I asked, “go upriver?”

  “Yes,” said Ayari.

  “I, too, then,” I said, “am going upriver.”

  “We all are,” said Kisu.

  I looked at him.

  “It is part of my plan,” he said.

  “Your mysterious plan?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he smiled.

  “Did the chief, or the others,” I asked Ayari, “say anything about the ‘things,’ or whatever they were, which were mentioned at the fishing village, about which the fishermen were reluctant to speak.”

  “I asked them,” said Ayari. “They have seen nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Then we have lost them,” said Kisu.

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “Shall we be on our way?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” said Ayari. “There is to be a feast tonight, and singing and dancing.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  That night, late, we slept in a hut in the village, within its palisade. It was the first village we had come to on the river which was surrounded by a palisade.

  I pondered on this. The river, eastward from this point, was said to become more dangerous.

  I heard the blond-haired barbarian stirring. She, like the others, had her small hands tied behind her. A five-foot line, lying loosely behind her, ran from her bound wrists to the slave post, to which it tethered her. Through half-closed eyes, in the half-darkness, as moonlight filtered through the thatched roof and sides of the hut, I watched her struggle to her knees. She moaned, softly. On her knees, inch by inch, she moved toward me, until her wrists were extended behind her and she could approach no more closely. “I know ,that men are my masters,” she whispered, so softly that I knew she did not speak to awaken me. Too, she spoke in English, which language, native to her, she did not believe any in the hut could understand. “I have learned that, incontrovertibly, on this natural world, though I think always, in my heart, I knew it to be true. I am yours, sweet master. Why do you not take me and use me, as the slave I am? You made me yield as a slave so absolutely in Schendi. Do you think I could have forgotten those sensations which you induced in me? Do you think a girl could ever forget those feelings, so rapturously, so helplessly overwhelming, those feelings which made me, a proud Earth woman, a helplessly submitting slave girl? I, a slave, long to lie again in the arms of my master. Why have you not again taken me in your arms? I long to serve you, Master. Am I not pleasing? What is it that you would have me do? Must I crawl to you, as the slave I am, and beg your touch? Do you not understand that I cannot admit men are my masters, for I am a woman of Earth? Do you not understand that I cannot crawl to you, as the slave I am, and beg your touch, for I am a woman of Earth?” She sobbed, softly, the tortured prisoner of her conditioning. “Why have the men of Gor not surrendered their natural dominance?” she asked. “Why have they remained strong and proud, joyful and mighty, and free, so unlike the men of my world? Have
they not been taught that it is wrong for them to be true men, that it is wrong for them to fulfill themselves and be happy? Have they not been taught that frustration, and conflict and misery, is the proper condition of the human male, that he is to be approved only in so far as he subjects himself to external standards, foreign to his own nature, that he is to be praised only in so far as he denies himself to himself, that he must avoid at all costs satisfying genetic realities locked in every cell in his body? Is it truly better for a man to torture his system, inflicting guilt and fear upon it, inducing irregularities within it, and to die prematurely of a variety of loathsome diseases than to be happy? I do not know. I am only a woman. Why are the men of Gor different from those of Earth? Is it because poisoned minds were not brought to Gor? Is it that it is only a matter of chance, that on Earth and not Gor due to a chance dynamic or a particular situation, the consequences of which were not understood, civilization developed not as the expression, celebration and enhancement of nature, constituting a palace within which nature might thrive, but as its nemesis, its stunting foe? I do not know. Perhaps those they call Priest-Kings, if they exist, have been thoughtful in this respect. Or perhaps it is simply that the men of Gor, unlike the men of Earth, do not choose to unman themselves. Why should we do so, they might ask. And there is, I think, no answer to that question. The men of Gor, like beasts and loving gods, subject the women they own to their total mastery. It pleases them to do so. They are men. Should I be distressed, or displeased? Not truly, for I am a woman. I admire their honesty, that they scorn to conceal the sovereignty which is theirs by nature. They do not play games. They put me to their feet, where I belong. Should I be displeased? No, for I am a woman. Only where there are true men can there be true women. Whatever be the reasons, whether genetic or cultural, or both, the men of Gor are different from those of Earth. They have remained men, perhaps simply because it has pleased them to do so. This also pleases me because only where there are true men can there be true women.” She put down her head.

  I did not stir, but continued, through half-shut eyes, to regard her. In the filtered moonlight, in the hut, tethered to the slave post, she again lifted her head. “I did not know such men could exist,” she whispered again, again in English, which language she used to express her most intimate thoughts, again so softly that she might not awaken me. She pulled toward me, on her knees, her wrists extended behind her, tethered to the slave post. “Even to look upon them,” she whispered, ‘makes the slave in me scream for fulfillment.” She sobbed, and half choked. Then she said, “How terrible I am. It is fortunate that my tether is so short. I want to crawl to you and please you with my tongue and mouth. I hope that you would not beat me, if I so disturbed your rest.” She was silent for a moment and then she said, so softly that I could scarcely hear it, and again in English, “I, though a woman of Earth, admit that men are my masters. I, though a woman of Earth, admit that I am a slave. I, though a woman of Earth, beg my master for his touch.”

  I did not move.

  Slowly, softly, she crept back to the vicinity of the slave post, and lay down. I heard her sob, softly. I smiled to myself. She had come far this night on the road to slavery. She had uttered slave admissions, though so softly that she thought I could not hear, though in a language she thought I could not understand.

  32. Female Display Behaviors; A Slave Girl’s Dream; Bark Cloth And Beads

  “Do not drop it,” said Kisu, strained, sweating.

  The girls cried out in anguish, slipping, trying to keep the canoe from falling. Ayari struggled with the bow. Behind him were the three girls, then Kisu, amidships, and myself, at the stem. We could hear the cataract some two hundred yards away. The canoe, on our shoulders, tilted upward at a twenty-degree angle. Rocks slipped behind us, rolling down the grade.

  “This is impossible,” said Ayari.

  “Keep moving forward,” said Kisu..

  “I am tired,” said Ayari.

  “Upward, upward!” said Kisu.

  “Very well,” said Ayari. “I never argue with big fellows.”

  The portage was not easy, and it was not our first. This was the eleventh cataract of the Ua.

  Sometimes we used rollers beneath the canoe, and hauled with ropes.

  The boats of Shaba had been sectioned, to facilitate such portages. He had had numerous strong men to carry the burdens. We had only ourselves, and three slight-bodied female slaves.

  “I can go no further,” said Ayari. This was the fourth portage of the day.

  “Let us rest,” I said.

  Gently we lowered the canoe. While the others held it I, with rocks, braced it that it might not slip backwards down the grade.

  Trees surrounded us. Overhead bright jungle birds flew. We could hear the chattering of guernon monkeys about.

  “Bring up the supplies,” said Kisu.

  “Yes, Master,” said the girls, sweating. They went back down the grade some hundred yards to gather up the paddles and sacks, and roped bundles, which contained our various goods. We moved these things separately, usually a hundred or two hundred yards at a time. Kisu and I took turns at the stern. It requires great strength to brace and support the canoe at that point.

  “Shaba passed here,” said Kisu, sitting down, wiping the sweat, like river water, from his head.

  “Our portages,” I said, “would be much more difficult if he had not preceded us.”

  “That is true,” grinned Kisu. We generally followed the portage routes determined by Shaba and his scouts. They had located sensible geodesic contours and, in traversing the area, had, because of their larger vessels, cut away various trees, vines and obstacles.

  I smiled to myself. I had little doubt that we, now, were moving much more swiftly than Shaba. Too, he had lost a week, with the illness of several of his men, a dozen or so, as we had learned, at the village at which we had recently traded.

  I was pleased with the situation. I suspected, from the degree of recovery of the jungle following the passage of Shaba and his men, that he was not more than fifteen or twenty days ahead of us on the river.

  I looked down the grade. Approaching us, in single file, led by Tende, came the slaves, carrying supplies. Last in the line, naked, came the blond-haired barbarian, erect and lovely, balancing on her head, steadying it with her hands, one of the bundles of our supplies. She looked at me. I saw that she looked at me as a slave girl at her master. It pleased me. She put down the bundle. She then, like the other girls, who had also discarded their burdens, returned down the grade. These transports of goods took them two trips.

  Ayari was lying on his back, looking up at the sky. Kisu, sitting, was looking down through the trees at the swift, churning water of the river.

  In a few minutes the girls, again, made their way upward. Again they came in a single file. Again the blond-haired barbarian was the last in the line, again, lovely and erect, balancing on her head a bundle, one roped heavily and wrapped in bark cloth.

  “Do not put down your burden,” I said to her. I then rose to my feet and went to where she stood, beautiful and obedient. She straightened herself even more, steadying the bundle on her head. I walked slowly about her, inspecting the slave beauty of her.

  “You make a lovely beast of burden,” I told her.

  “I am a beast of burden, Master,” she said. “I am a slave.”

  I looked at her, and our eyes met, and she lowered her eyes, frightened. Could I know the truth of her? Could I know how she had confessed herself slave and needful of my touch? Of course not, for I had been asleep, and I could not understand her English. Yet, from the very morning following that night of her secret acknowledgments, five days ago, our relationship had been subtly, deliciously, different. She had begun, from that time, timidly, to look upon me with the vulnerable need of a slave girl. She had, secretly, acknowledged herself slave and mine. It was now merely up to me to do what I wished with her. She lifted her eyes again to mine. For an instant they were frightened.
Could I know her secret? Of course not. How could I? Swiftly she again lowered her eyes.

  “You may put down your burden,” I said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  “Rest now,” I told her. “Lie on your stomach, head to the left, with your legs spread, and your hands at your sides, backs of your wrists to the ground, palms facing upwards.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  The day had been long and hard.

  We had now made camp. A small stream was nearby, which led into the Ua..

  She stood before me and then, without asking, gently, delicately, untied, and opened and took from me the shreds of the soiled tunic which I wore. It was muddied and caked with dirt, from the days in the jungle, from the muddy banks of the Ua. As she removed it from me she kissed me softly, tenderly, about the chest and left hip.

  “Are you a trained slave?” I asked her.

  “No, Master,” she said.

  She then knelt before me, holding the tattered, muddied garment against her. “Master’s garment is muddied,” she said..

  I said nothing.

  Then she leaned forward and kissed me, softly.

  “Does the Earth woman kiss her Master?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  Then she leaned forward and again kissed me, softly.

  “Surely you are a trained slave,” I said.

  “No, Master,” she said, looking up at me. And then she rose to her feet.

  I crouched by the stream and watched her, on her knees, in the fashion of the primitive, owned female, clean and rinse the garment of her master. The proud Earth woman, unbidden, served as my laundress.

  When she had finished with the garment and wrung it much dry, I had her replace it on my body. I would let it finish its drying on my body. Before she tied shut the tunic she kissed me again, softly, this time on the chest and belly, and then again knelt before me, her head down.