by John Norman
Ellen tried to stay awake, to listen to the men. Given the narrowness of the sheltering ravine, and its various physical limitations, boulders and such, they were only a few yard away. But, even so, they spoke softly, and she could not hear what they said. Their demeanor seemed earnest, their tones urgent. She did make out the word ‘rendezvous’, from which word she gathered that Portus, and perhaps unknown allies, would soon meet, to prosecute some plan or another. What part she might play in their plan, or plans, she had not been informed. She recalled the saying that curiosity was not becoming in a slave girl, a saying which had always seemed ironic to her, because, to the best of her knowledge, amongst such eager, bright, lively creatures, an avid curiosity was endemic. If you were a chained slave, often deliberately kept in ignorance, would you not be zealous to be apprised of the least tidbit of news, for example, that you were to be transported, sold or mated?
Why have they gagged me, wondered Ellen. Perhaps they are now in an area which they regard as sensitive, an area in which they would not care to risk the bleating of a verr, the cry of a slave.
She shuddered.
She had great difficulty in sleeping for a time, but, late in the afternoon, in the warmth, the sunlight descending gently, lazily, amongst the trees, she fell asleep. She awakened once, hearing Portus inquire of Tersius Major where he had been, and, drowsily, heard his reply, that he had gone for water. She then slept again until she felt someone turning her to her back and undoing the belly chain. It was Portus. She tried to squirm a little, to bring her tunic down from her waist, to which location it had crept in her sleep. Then she lay still, looking up at her master, over the gag. He smiled at her, in the half darkness, and put his hand gently on her. She whimpered once, and then whimpered once, again. She lifted her body to him, begging. “No, little slave girl,” he said, gently, and turned her to her stomach, freeing her hands of the bracelets. He then removed her gag. She knelt before him, taking care that her knees were piteously, beggingly, spread. “No,” he said, gently. “Help the others to pack.” She then rose, reluctantly, and went to assist the others. In her bondage, of course, slave fires had been lit in her belly. She was no longer the creature she had been on Earth. She now needed sex, and desperately, and at frequent, recurrent intervals, rather as she needed food and drink. Men had done this to her, liberating her natural sexual needs, which must then blossom, inflicting upon her their enflaming, inexorable demands. And, of course, as she was dependent on the master for her food and drink, so, too, she was dependent upon him for the satisfaction, as he might please, if he might please, of her sexual needs, the profound sexual needs of a slave.
Then, again, they were aflight, again over a district muchly watered.
She tried to despise herself for her weakness, for her behavior before Portus Canio. How terrible you are, she castigated herself. But she realized that she now was, that she had now become, despite whatever she might wish, despite what she might desire, or consider proper, a needful slave. She understood then how some of the girls in her training could moan and scratch at their kennels, and hold out their hands through the bars to a passing guard, for a mere touch. She understood then how a chained slave could scream her needs to the moons of Gor. She recalled the naked slave she had seen on the roof in Ar. Oh, she thought softly to herself, I think she is indeed well mastered.
She gritted her teeth, and clutched the wicker of the basket, holding to it in desperation.
Remember, she said to herself, you must be dignified. You must be above sex. It is for the low, and the vulgar, the unenlightened, those whose thinking has not yet been corrected. If any concession had to be made to such vulgar insistencies, it must be as limited, and despised, as possible. Sex must be kept in its place, which was a small place. It was to be regarded as, at best, only a small and unimportant part of life. Then she laughed, bitterly. What a fool I was, she thought. What a blind, naive, stupid fool!
Remember, you are a college professor, she thought. You have a Ph.D.! Again she laughed, in the whistling wind, speeding through the night. That is all behind me now, she thought. Now I am only a collared slut, an aroused, needful, begging slave! Masters, have mercy on me! I will try to please you, Masters! Take pity on a needful slave!
Then, suddenly, her attention was directed ahead. It seemed that there was, incredibly, a light in the third basket, that of Tersius Major, a sheltered lantern, swinging. Then it was gone. She looked about and saw, or thought she saw, a tiny point of light in the distance, some hundreds of feet above the ground, perhaps hundreds of yards away, to the right. Then it, too, was gone. Perhaps it was a star, she thought, now obscured by clouds. She kept her eyes on that part of the sky. It was dark, but she was not sure there were clouds there. Certainly there had been no doubt about the lantern in the third basket. Tersius Major must have been signaling Portus Canio and Fel Doron, she supposed. But they might not see, as they were ahead. Perhaps he did not wish to call out. She herself had been gagged at their last camp. How then could he signal them? Then, to her amazement, she sensed that something was very different in the tarn train, and realized, with a start, that the line connecting the tarn and basket of Tersius Major and the following tarns and baskets was free, perhaps cut. It hung below the fourth tarn. The fourth tarn, and the others, behind it, then began to veer off to one side. Tersius Major, on his tarn, was now moving rapidly to the right. The two lead tarns and baskets, those of Portus Canio and Fel Doron, continued on their way, apparently unaware that Tersius Major had left the train, and that his trailing tarns had been, in effect, loosed.
What is going on, cried Ellen to herself, clutching the sides of the basket.
The tarn and basket of Tersius Major was streaming to the right. The train in which her basket formed a part departed, too, from the line of flight, also bending to the right, but then, in a few Ihn, it turned back and began to circle about. The tarns and baskets of Portus Canio and Fel Doron continued on their way.
Why, Ellen wondered, had Tersius Major broken the line. Was this an elected point? Was this prearranged with Portus Canio and Fel Doron? They seemed to be continuing directly on. There seemed to have been signals exchanged, or at least a signal given by Tersius Major. Had that signal been intended for Portus Canio and Fel Doron, or for others? Others, surely. Indeed, perhaps Portus Canio and Fel Doron were aware of the signal, it forming a part of their plans. This must then be the rendezvous? It seemed there had been a responding signal, far off. Or one of perhaps several points of rendezvous? Would Fel Doron be the next to leave the train? But why would Tersius Major have freed the tarns and baskets in his winged retinue? That seemed to make no sense. Were they loosed to be retrieved by allies?
As these thoughts raced through Ellen’s head she noted, approaching from her present left, what would have been the right before her tarns had begun, leaderless, to veer about, and circle, a storm of wings, perhaps as many as thirty tarns. She knew these were not wild tarns, because of the orderly approach, the measured, three-dimensional spacing of the birds. She caught, in less than an Ehn, a glimpse of saddles and shields, of lances, of helmets. “Tarnsmen,” she gasped. These were no irregulars, or guerrillas, no motley assemblage of defiant, desperate, courageous patriots. These were surely no allies of Portus Canio and his tarnsters. These were professional soldiers, uniformed, organized, disciplined, well-armed.
Two tarnsmen of the flighted squad wheeled from their formation, and began to approach the loose, leaderless line of six tarns, which had been the fourth through the ninth tarns in the original train, the fourth through the seventh with baskets, Ellen in the last basket, that carried by the seventh tarn, and the eighth and ninth without baskets.
Ellen crouched down in the basket, and pulled the blanket about her, concealing herself as well as she could, crouching below the side, covered with the dark blanket, and peered out through the wicker.
One of the tarnsman, aflight, was within fifty feet of her. She saw the insignia on the shield, but made
nothing of it. It was not the sign of Cos, familiar to her from Ar. Mercenaries, she thought. Not brigands, but mercenaries! But who could hire mercenaries, she asked herself. Cos, she thought, Cos!
There was no sign of Tersius Major.
Moving in the basket, facing forward, peering again through the wicker, she saw the first tarnsman who had approached the train swoop beneath it, beat his way forward, and then seize the long rope dangling better than a hundred feet from the harness of the first tarn, that which had been the fourth in the original train. He wound this rope about the pommel of his saddle and brought his bird to the lead. Slowly the train fell into line behind him. Turning about, Ellen saw the second tarnsman was now following the last tarn, and was some fifty to seventy yards behind it. The first tarnsman turned the train westward. In that direction would lie Thassa, the sea, and perhaps the port of Brundisium.
She crouched down in the basket, and grasped the metal tag wired to her collar. Do I belong to Cos, she asked herself. What will be done with me?
Is there an escape for me, she wondered, wildly.
No, she thought, wildly. There is no escape for me. I am a Gorean slave girl. I am collared. I am branded. I have only a tunic. Even my beauty might give me away, it seeming to be a beauty appropriately that of a slave, and little things, too, about how I move, things I am not even aware of. And there is nowhere to go, nowhere to run. This culture understands, and respects, slavery. They recognize it as natural and rationally grounded. Its validity is recognized, and accepted. It is not questioned. What would be questioned would be the right of one such as I to be free. That is what would be regarded as unnatural and absurd. Here on Gor slavery is an explicitly institutionalized, culturally sanctioned recognition of certain forms of biological differentiation, and constitutes an acceptance of, and an endorsement of, certain biological proprieties. The master has the right of command, and will exercise it; and the slave has the duty of unquestioned, absolute, instant obedience.
I love my collar, but should I not seek to return to my rightful Master? Might he not search for me?
And so Ellen resolved to attempt to elude her unwitting captors. She knew that she had no hope of escaping her bondage on this world; that was not possible. Too, she did not wish to do so, having come to understand that whatever might be the case with other women, she herself belonged in the collar; the collar was her fulfillment, her dream and meaning. She belonged at the feet of a master, serving, loving and obedient. This Gor had taught her, and the lesson had been well learned. On the other hand, she was not eager to fall into the hands of strangers, to whom she would be no more than a loose verr or strayed kaiila.
When they land, thought Ellen, I will try to slip away. Then it occurred to her that they might well land after dawn, in the full daylight, and in some camp, where she would be instantly discovered. She clutched the blanket about her, angrily, crouching in her tiny tunic in the swaying basket. What hope could there be for her? What hope could there be for any Gorean slave girl?
“Away!” she heard. “Away!
Quickly she peered through the wicker.
Following, some fifty yards or so to the back, and right, and some yards above, was a great shadow.
The following tarnsman had been he who had cried out.
There was no mistaking the nature of that shadow, the breadth of wingspan, the wicked beak, the crest. It was a tarn, a wild tarn.
It has been following us, thought Ellen. It is the same tarn I saw last night! It is not clear, of course, that her surmise was correct. But it surely seemed the same bird, or one muchly similar.
“Away!” cried the tarnsman, brandishing his lance.
Ellen saw the legs of the wild tarn suddenly appear, extended forward and down, talons opened.
“Go away! Be off!” cried the tarnsman.
The most common prey of the wild tarn is the small single-horned, usually yellow-pelted, gazellelike creature called the tabuk. On the other hand, it is ready to prey upon, and sample, a variety of game. Too, it is not above raiding domesticated, as well as wild, herds of tarsk, verr or hurt, that the bounding hurt, valued for its wool. It can also, of course, be dangerous to human beings.
It is hungry, thought Ellen. But it is not likely to attack its own kind, tarns. What then? Or perhaps it is territorial, and resents the intrusion of these new birds into its hunting area. If it is the same tarn I saw last night, thought Ellen, it is probably hungry. But surely it would not attack its own kind, not our tarns. What then?
The tarn suddenly uttered a weird screaming sound and swooped downward, its talons open, grasping, toward the following tarnsman who, turning in the saddle, angrily, thrust up at it with his lance, and withdrew the lance from the feathers dark with blood. The attacking bird wheeled away.
“Begone!” cried the tarnsman.
“It is coming again!” cried the leading tarnsman who had freed the rope from his pommel, swung about, and set an arrow to a small saddle bow, used for clearing the saddle, firing to either side.
Once again the train of tarns was unled, the lead line free, dangling, uncontrolled in the sky.
This time the tarn, fiercely, perhaps in rage, in pain, hurled itself downward on the following tarnsman. The lance pierced its body, appearing through its back. But the bird, the lance like a straw in its mighty bulk, struck the tarnsman and the other bird, grasping and biting. The tarnsman’s shield was ripped from his arm and went flying into the darkness below. The bird had its talons on the man but could not pull him free, because of the safety strap. He cried out in fury, trying to fend away the beak. The two birds wheeled, and spun in the air, falling, climbing, screaming, falling. The tarnsman’s bird, doubtless a war tarn, scenting blood and battle, almost on its back on the sky, ripped upward with its talons at its wild brother. The lead tarnsman loosed, as he could, arrow after arrow into the body of the attacking bird, and then, drawing his sword, for he carried no lance, tried to close with it, to strike it somehow, across the back of the neck, in that tumbling tangle of rage and hunger. The other tarns, strung together, but not controlled, struck about, erratically. Different birds beat their way, confused, frightened, in different directions, and were then jerked up short, and lines began to twist, and the birds to scream. Feathers drifted toward the ground. Ellen’s basket swung wildly on its ropes, and she clung to the wicker with all her strength. The lines of the train of tarns were then tangled, and the train began to falter, screaming, struggling, impeded, toward the ground. One bird’s wing was tangled in a loop of the line. Another scratched and tore at one of the baskets which was near it. Another tarn, wheeling about, struck Ellen’s basket and she was nearly thrown from it. One side of the basket was ripped open. The basket began to jerk in flight, and then it was held by only three ropes, as one of the anchoring ropes slipped loose, off the torn wicker. There was ground below, and then there was water, and then ground, seeming to swing about and turn, and then water, again. The tangle of tarns were then thrashing about in the water, wing strokes pounding about, raising great, dark, leaping sheets of water. The tarn then, to whose harness Ellen’s ruined basket was insecurely fastened, began to strike out, perhaps crazed with fear, for tarns abhor water, biting, at the line, at the other tarns, at the basket, perhaps in its fear, or madness, or to rid itself of perceived obstructions or impediments. Ellen cowered back, as pieces of the basket were torn away, flung out into the water, the wicked, bright eyes of the bird near her, not a yard away, the beak slashing at the wicker. When the bird turned away, to strike at another bird, Ellen, wildly, thrust the last rope free, and found herself in the water, the basket free of the harness, clinging to the remains of the basket, little more now than two sides and a flooring. The water was dark and cold. Ellen did not know how to swim. She clung to the basket, terrified. She could hardly breathe or see, for the darkness, the thrashing shapes, the splashing water.