Beasts Of Gor

12
I Tent With Imnak At The Gathering Of The People; I Advance Arlene A Bit In Her Training

"Put them on, Slave Girl," said Thimble, not pleasantly.

"Yes, Mistress," said Arlene. In the hide tent she slipped into the brief fur panties worn by the women of the north. She had been forced to sew them herself, under the direction of Thimble and Thistle. At the left hip they bore the sign of the looped binding fiber, sewn in them with red-dyed sinew, which identified them as the garment of one who was an owned beast.

Imnak and I sat across from one another, both cross-legged. He dropped a tiny bone to the fur mat between us.

Each player, in turn, drops a bone, one of several in his supply. The bone Imnak had dropped was carved in the shape of a small tabuk. Each of the bones is carved to resemble an animal, such as an arctic gant, a northern bosk, a lart, a tabuk or sleen, and so on. The bone which remains upright is the winner. If both bones do not remain upright there is no winner on that throw. Similarly, if both bones should remain upright, they are dropped again. A bone which does not remain upright, if its opposing bone does remain upright, is placed in the stock of him whose bone remained upright. The game is finished when one of the two players is cleaned out of bones.

"Pull on the stockings," said Thimble to Arlene. Arlene did so. The stockings were of lart fur. Each, in its side, wore the sign of the looped binding fiber. "Now," said Thimble, "the boots." In cold weather a layer of grass, for warmth, for insulation, changed daily, is placed in the bottom of the boots, between the inside sole of the boot and the foot of the stocking. Arlene now, of course, did not bother with this. The best harvests of grass for use in this way occur, naturally at the foot of the bird cliffs. Arlene drew on the high boots. They reached to her crotch. It was a hot crotch, as I had determined, a superb crotch for a slave girl. The fur trim at their top touched the panties. She was stripped from the waist up. Many of the women of the red hunters, too, went about so, inside and outside the tents, in the warmer weather. They of course, being free, did not have leather, like Arlene, or bondage strings, like Thimble and Thistle, at their throats. Similarly, their garments did not bear the slave marks of the looped binding fiber. Such marks, of course, were not necessary, in the north, for determining what Thimble, and Thistle and Arlene were. Even the leather or bondage strings at their throats were not necessary for that purpose. Their white skins alone, as they were females, identified them as slave beasts.

The tiny tabuk which Imnak had dropped remained standing upright.

I took my eyes from Arlene. What a lovely catch she had been!

I had not yet bothered to teach her complete slavery. I was in no hurry. Let her retain for a time a shred of her pride and dignity. I could always rip it from her when I wished, or when she herself should beg me to take it from her.

"Try on the shirt, Slave Girl," said Thimble.

Arlene drew on the hide shirt. At the left shoulder, prominently, it bore the sign of the looped binding fiber. I glanced at her and she straightened her body, but then tossed her head and looked away, as though disdaining to take cognizance of my appraisal. The shirt fell nicely from her breasts, standing as she was. She was exquisitely figured. She stood as few Earth girls would have dared to, displaying her beauty, though she appeared to be completely disinterested in any such objective. I smiled to myself. She was discovering her sexuality. She looked at me, and then, quickly, looked away. I wondered if she knew she was being brought along slowly as a slave. Sometimes I read in her eyes a look that said, "I can resist you," and, at other times, a look that said, "I begin to sense and fear what you might do to me. Please be kind, Master." Once she had said to me, angrily, "You are dallying with me, aren't you, Master?" "Perhaps," I had told her. "Perhaps, Slave Girl."

I dropped the tiny carved tabuk I held. It, too, remained upright.

Imnak picked up his tiny carved tabuk and held it over the fur mat.

Arlene made a small noise. I sensed that she was angry that I no longer looked upon her.

Was she not sufficiently beautiful? She had a girl's vanity. Did she not yet know she was a slave, and that she might account herself fortunate should a free man so much as glance in her direction?

"Try on the first parka," said Thimble.

Arlene slipped it on, over the head, as such garments, like northern garments generally, are donned.

"Hood," said Thimble.

Arlene lifted the hood and placed it properly.

"Do I please you, Master?" asked Arlene. She wished attention.

I looked up. Her face was very beautiful, rimmed in the lart fur trimming the hood.

"It is very nice," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said, acidly.

"Put on the second parka and its hood," said Thimble. Arlene complied. Both the parkas bore, at their left shoulder, the design of looped binding fiber, identifying them as the garments of slaves.

"Master?" asked Arlene.

"Excellent," I said. 'The garments are superb, and you are very beautiful in them."

She flushed. "Thank you, Master," she said. Then she said, acidly, "A girl is pleased if her master is pleased."

"It is well," I said, soberly. She trembled, momentarily.

"Take them off," said Thimble, "all of them, everything, except the leather on your throat."

"Yes, Mistress," said Arlene.

Arlene stripped herself, to the leather collar, in Imnak's hide tent. Thimble and Thisile were also naked. All were girls, only slave beasts in the tent of their masters.

I dropped the tiny carved tabuk which was mine, that which was my piece in the game. It did not land upright.

"I have won," said Imnak.

"What are you gambling about?" asked Arlene. She was folding her garments.

"Put away the garments," I said, "drop to all fours, and come here."

Arlene put the folded garments to one side in the tent, and, in fury, on her hands and knees, crawled to where we had played.

I put my hand in her hair and pulled her to her stomach. "Here she is," I told Imnak.

"Master!" she cried.

Imnak took her and turned her over, pulling her on her back across his legs.

"Master!" cried Arlene.

"Imnak has won your use, until he chooses to leave the tent," I told her. "Obey him as though he were your own master."

"Please, no!" she cried.

"Obey him," I said, sternly, "as though he were your own master."

"Yes, Master," she said, miserably.

Imnak then dragged her to the side of the hide tent.

Perhaps I was struck most by the absence of trees.

Some five days after I had acquired the slave girl, Arlene, following the herd of Tancred, generally climbing, I came to the edge of Ax Glacier. There I found the camp of Imnak, and Thimble and Thistle.

"I have been waiting for you," had said Imnak. "I thought you would come."

"Why did you think this?" I had asked.

"I saw the furs and supplies you put aside for yourself when we were near the wall," he said. "You have business in the north."

"It is true," I said.

He did not ask me my business. He was a red hunter. If I wished to tell him, he knew that I would. I decided that I would speak to him later. In my pouch was the small carving, in bluish stone, of the head of a Kur, one with an ear half torn away.

"I had hoped you would wait for me," I said. "It might be difficult otherwise for one such as myself to cross the ice.

I knew that he had watched me prepare my pack.

Imnak grinned. "It was you," said he, "who freed the tabuk." Then he turned to his girls. "Break camp," he had told them. "I am anxious to go home."

With Imnak's help we would cross Ax Glacier and find the Innuit, as they called themselves, a word which, in their own tongue, means "the People." I recalled that in the message of Zarendargar he had referred to himself as a war general of the "People." He had meant, of course, I assumed, his own people, or kind. Various groups are inclined to so identify themselves. It is an arrogance which is culturally common. The Innuit do not have "war generals." War, in its full sense, is unknown to them. They live generally in scattered, isolated communities. It is as though two families lived separated in a vast remote area. There would be little point and little likelihood to their having a war. In the north one needs friends, not enemies. In good years, when the weather is favorable, there tends to be enough sleen and tabuk, with careful hunting, to meet their needs. One community is not likely to be much better or worse of than another. There is little loot to be acquired. What one needs one can generally hunt or make for oneself. There is little point in stealing from someone what one can as simply acquire for oneself. Within given groups, incidentally, theft is rare. The smallness of the groups provides a powerful social control. If one were to steal something where would one hide or sell it? Besides, if one wished something someone else owned and let this be known, the owner would quite possibly give it to you, expecting, of course, to receive as valuable a gift in return. Borrowing, too, is prevalent among the red hunters. The loan of furs, tools and women is common.

I looked downward, out across the ice of Ax Glacier. Beyond it lay the polar basin.

The north is a hard country. When one must apply oneself almost incessantly to the tasks of survival there is little time to indulge oneself in the luxury of conquest.

Thimble and Thistle dismantled the hides and poles of Imnak's tent, and began to load them on the sled.

Violence, of course, is not unknown among the Innuit. They are men.

Aside, however, from consideratiolis such as the fewness, comparatively, of their numbers, and their geographical separation, and the pointlessness of an economics of war in their environment, the Innuit seem, also, culturally, or perhaps even genetically, disposed in ways which do not incline one to organized, systematic group violence. For example, they seem generally to be a kindly, genial folk. Hostility seems foreign to them. Strangers are welcomed. Hospitality is generous, honest, open-hearted and sincere. Some animals, doubtless, have better dispositions than others. The Innuit, on the whole, seem to be happy, pleasant fellows.'Perhaps that is why they live where they do. They have been unable, or unwilling, to compete with more aggressive groups. Their gentleness has resulted, it seems, in their being driven to the world's end. Where no others have desired to live the Innuit, sociable and loving, have found their bleak refuge.

Imnak's whip cracked down across the bare back of Thimble, the blond, who had been Barbara Benson, and she cried out and wept, "I hurry, Master!" She busied herself with loading the sled. Thistle, the dark-haired girl, who had once been the rich Audrey Brewster, hurried, too, lest it would be her own back which next would feel the lash.

The red hunters, though a genial folk, keep their animals under a firm discipline.

"I see you, too, have a beast," he said, looking beyond me to the lovely Arlene.

She stood back, in the light snow, frightened of the red hunter. She wore a sleeveless jacket of fur, belted with binding fiber, which depended to her knees; fur leggings; and skins wrapped and tied on her feet. I had improvised these garments for her. I looked at her. She did not even know enough to kneel.

"Those garments," said Imnak, "will be insufficient in the north."

"Perhaps you could teach her," I suggested, "to sew herself more adequate clothing."

"I have showed my girls," he said. "They will teach her."

"Thank you," I said.

It was rather beneath the dignity of a man to show a girl how to sew. Imnak had done this with Thimble and Thistle and did not wish to repeat the task. It is enough for a girl to teach a girl to sew.

"I see you have leather on your throat," said Thimble to Arlene.

"I see your breasts are uncovered," said Arlene to Thimble.

"Remove your jacket," I told Arlene. Angrily, she did so. Imnak's pupils dilated. He would welcome this lovely she in our small herd.

"Into the traces," said Imnak.

Thimble and Thistle bent down and each looped the broad band of her trace across her body.

"You are animals, aren't you?" called Arlene to them.

"Can you rig another trace?" I asked Imnak.

"Of course," he said.

Soon Arlene, too, to her fury, stood in harness.

Imnak cracked his whip over their heads and they threw their weight against the traces and the long, narrow, freighted sled eased upward, over the rocks, and then slid down onto the ice of Ax Glacier. Imnak and I held the rear of the sled that it not move too rapidly downward. The ice of Ax Glacier, where we crossed it, had been cut by the countless hooves of the herd of Tancred; leaving a trial of marked ice more than one hundred and fifty yards wide. We would follow the herd.

It took ten days to cross Ax Glacier. There are many glacial lines among the rocks and mountains of the north, but Ax Glacier is easily the broadest and most famous. These glaciers, like frozen rivers or lakes of ice, or emptying seas, depend to the shores of Thassa, seeking her, flowing some few feet a year, imperceptibly like stone, to her chill waters. More than once we heard gigantic crashes as hundreds of feet or more of ice broke away from the glacial edge and tumbled roaring into the sea. It is thus, of course, that icebergs are formed. These great pieces and mountains of ice, shattering from the brinks of Ax Glacier and her smaller sisters, in time, drifting, carried by currents, would reach the northern sea, that eastward-reaching extension of Thassa rimming the polar basin. It was in that northern, or polar, sea that there was said to exist, if it were not myth or invention, the "mountain that did not move," that iceberg which, in defiance of tide, wind and current, stood immobilely fixed. Sometimes we could see, from where we stood, the sea, with these great pieces of ice within it. Some of these pieces of ice reared more than a thousand feet into the air. Sometimes they are even miles long. Their occasional vastnesses, and the might of the forces that have formed them, become even more impressive when it is understood that what one can see above the surface does little more than hint at what lies below. The fresh-water ice from which such blocks are formed is less dense than the salt water in which they float, weighing only about seven eighths as much. Thus, in a given piece of such ice, there is some seven times more beneath the surface than appears visible above it. These pieces of ice, like moving, drifting reefs, can be hazardous to shipping. The smaller ones, especially at night, can be particularly dangerous. Gorean ships, however, seldom run afoul of them. They are, generally, very shallow-drafted, which permits them to come much closer to such ice without the danger that would threaten deeper-keeled craft; too, the Gorean ship, because of the shallow draft, can occasionally run up on such ice, sliding onto it, rather than breaking apart when it strikes it; too, the Gorean vessel, because it is usually light in weight, tends to be extremely responsive to its helm or helms, this permitting such obstacles to be avoided on shorter notice than would be possible with a heavier more sluggish vessel; too, Gorean vessels, except when manned by those of Torvaldsland and the northern islands, usually beach at night; thus, when visibility is poor, they are not abroad; if they do not beach they will sometimes lower their masts and yards and throw over their anchors; that most Gorean ships are oared vessels, too, gives the crewmen recourse in an emergency; they are not at the mercy of the wind and they can, if necessary, back the ship off the ice; lastly, few Gorean ships ply the northern waters in the months of darkness; sufficiently far north, of course, the sea freezes in the winter. A much greater danger to Gorean shipping than the iceberg is the sea itself, when it begins to freeze. A ship caught in the ice, if not constantly cut and chopped free, its men on the ice itself, can become solidly frozen, arrested, in the ice; then it is at the mercy of pressures and bucklings; the ice, grinding, shifting, can shatter a ship, breaking it apart like a lacing of frozen, brittle twigs.

"Har-ta!" said Imnak to the girls. "Har-ta!" The expression 'har-ta' is Gorean. "Faster! Faster!" He spoke sometimes to them in his own tongue, and sometimes in Gorean. Imnak himself spoke fair Gorean. He had traded furs and skins south more than once. Many of the red hunters cannot speak Gorean.

Imnak and I, too, applied our strength to the haul, thrusting at the wooden uprights at the back of the sled.

Imnak wished Thimble and Thistle to know Gorean. Would a white trader not pay more to rent one if she could understand his commands?

The nose of the sled tipped upward and then fell to the level on the glacial pebbles, and Ax Glacier, like the broad blade of a Torvaldsland ax, lay behind us.

"Har-ta!" called Imnak. Again we trekked.

There are tiers of mountains, interlaced chains of them, both east of Torvaldaland and north of her. Ax Glacier lies in one valley between two of these chains. These chains, together, are sometimes called the Hrimgar Mountains, which, in Gorean, means the Barrier Mountains. They are surely not a barrier, however, in the sense that the Voltai Mountains, or even the Thentis Mountains or Ta-Thassa Mountains, are barriers. The Hrimgar Mountains are not as rugged or formidable as any of these chains, and they are penetrated by numerous passes. One such pass, through which we trekked, is called the pass of Tancred, because it is the pass used annually by the migration of the herd of Tancred.

Four days after leaving the northern edge of Ax Glacier, we climbed to the height of the pass of Tancred, the mountains of the Hrimgar flanking us on either side. Below the height, the pass sloping downward, we could see the tundra of the polar plain. It is thousands of pasangs in width, and hundreds in depth; it extends, beyond horizons we could see, to the southern edge of the northern, or polar, sea.

I think this was a moving moment for Imnak. He stopped on the height of the pass, and stood there, for a long time, regarding the vastness of the cool tundra.

"I am home," he said.

Then we eased the sled downward.

I suppose I was not watching well where I was going. I was watching the fellow being tossed in the fur blanket. The leather ball struck my back.

That was not all that struck my back. In a moment a small woman, a girl of the red hunters, fiery and very angry, was striking it. She stopped striking my back primarily because I turned to face her. She was then, however, striking my chest. After a time she stopped and, looking up at me, began to scold me vociferously.

I am pleased in some respects that words are less dangerous than arrows and daggers, else there surely would have been little left of me.

She finally grew weary of berating me. I gather she had done a good job of this from the interest and occasional commendations of the onlookers.

She looked at me, angrily. She wore the high fur boots and panties of the woman of the north. As it was, from their point of view, a hot day, one which was above the freezing point, she, like most of the women of the red hunters, was stripped to the waist. About her neck she wore some necklaces. She seemed pretty, but her temper might have shamed that of a she-sleen. The fur she wore, interestingly, was rather shabby. Her carriage and the sharpness of her tongue, however, suggested she must be someone of importance. I would later learn that the unmated daughters of even important men, namely, good hunters, were often kept in the poorest of furs. It is up to the mate, or husband, if you wish, to bring them good furs. This perhaps is intended as an encouragement to the girls to be a bit fetching, that they may attract a man and, subsequently, have something nice to wear. If this were the plan, however, clearly it had not yet worked in the case of my pretty critic. I was not surprised. It would be a bold fellow indeed who would dare to make her a present of fine feasting clothes.

She tossed her head and turned away. Her hair was worn knotted in a bun on the top of her head, like that generally of the women of the red hunters. Their hair is worn loose, interestingly, out of doors, only during their menstrual period. In a culture where the gracious exchange of mates is commonly practiced this device, a civilized courtesy, provides the husband's friends with information that may be pertinent to the timing of their visits. This culture signal, incidentally, is not applicable to a man's slaves in the north. Animals do not dress their hair and slaves, generally, do not either. Imnak sometimes did give Thimble and Thistle a red string to tie back their hair, but often he did not; he did with them what he pleased, and they did for him what they were told. He usually gave them the red string when he took them out with him, as a way of showing them off. Imnak had his vanities. I had not bothered to place Arlene under any strictures in these regards. Sometimes she wore her hair up, and sometimes let it fall loosely about her shoulders.

"You spoiled her kick," said a man to me, in Goreali.

"I am sorry," I said.

The girl, with other youths, had been playing a soccerlike game with the leather ball, with goals drawn in the turf. I had not realized, until too late, that I had been traversing the field of play.

"I am sorry," I said.

"She has a very loud mouth," said the man.

"Yes," I granted. "Who is she?"

"Poalu," he said, "the daughter of Kadluk." Red hunters, though they are reticent to speak their own names, have little reservation about speaking the names of others. This makes sense, as it is not their name, and it is not as if, in their speaking it, the name might somehow escape them. This is also fortunate. It is sometimes difficult, if not impossible, to get one of these fellows to tell you his own name. Often one man will tell you the name of his friend, and his friend will tell you his name. This way you learn the name of both, but from neither himself. The names of the red hunters, incidentally, have meaning, but, generally, I content myself with reporting the name in their own language. 'Imnak, for example, means "Steep Mountain"; 'Poalu' means «Mitten»; 'Kadluk' means «Thunder». I have spoken of 'Thimble" and 'Thistle." More strictly, their names were 'Pudjortok' and 'Kakidlamerk'. However, since these names, respectively, would be 'Thimble' and 'Thistle', and Imnak often referred to them in Gorean as 'Thimble" and 'Thistle" I have felt it would be acceptable to use those latter expressions, they being simpler from the point of view of one who does not natively speak the tongue of the People, or Innuit.

"She is a beauty, is she not?" asked the man.

"Yes," I said. "Is it your intention to offer her bright feasting clothes?"

"I am not insane," he said. "Kadluk will never unload her."

I thought his assessment of the situation was perhaps true.

"Have you a friend who might know your name?" I asked.

He called to a fellow who was nearby. "Someone would like to know the name of someone," he said.

"He is Akko," said the man. He then left.

"I can speak my own name," I said to him. "I am from the south. Our names do not go away when we speak them."

"How do you know?" asked Akko.

"I will show you," I said. "My name is Tarl. Now listen." I waited a moment. "Tarl," I said. "See?"

"Interesting," granted Akko.

"My name did not go away," I said.

"Perhaps it came back quickly," he suggested.

"Perhaps," I said.

"In the north," he said, "we do not think one should take unnecessary risks."

"That is doubtless wise," I granted.

"Good hunting," he said.

"Good hunting," I said. He left. Akko, or Shirt Tail, was a good fellow.

I smelled roast tabuk.

The great hunt had been successful. I did not know if it were morning, or afternoon, or night. In these days the sun, low on the horizon, circles, it seems endlessly, in the sky.

Six days ago Imnak and I, and our girls, had descended from the height of the pass of Tancred. The great hunt had been already in progress. Hundreds of the women and children of the red hunters, fanned out for pasangs, shouting, beating on pans had turned the herd toward the great alley of stone cairns. These cairns, of piled stone, each some four or five feet high, each topped with black dirt, form a long funnel. more than two pasangs in depth. The herd, which in the grazing on the tundra, has scattered is reformed to some extent by the drivers. It, or thousands of its animals, fleeing the drivers, pour toward the large, open end of the funnel. The stone cairns, which are perhaps supposed to resemble men, serve, perhaps psychologically, to fence in and guide the herd. The animals seem generally unwilling to break the imaginary boundary which might be projected between cairns. For example, the human seeing three dots spaced one way «sees» a line; seeing three dots spaced another way, he «sees» a triangle, and so on. One may fear to transgress a boundary which, in fact, exists only in one's mind. It is not an unusual human being who finds himself a prisoner in a cell which, if he but knew it, lacks walls. Whatever the explanation the tabuk, generally, will postpone breaking the «wall» as long as possible. They flee along the alley of cairns. At the end of the cairns, of course, they turn about, milling, and many are slain, until some, wiser or more panic-stricken than others, break loose and, nostrils wide, snorting, trot to freedom and the moss of the open tundra.

I watched two men wrestling.

I had not yet spoken to Imnak about the carving of bluish stone among my belongings, the carving of a Kur, with an ear half torn away.

I could see the blue line of the Hrimgar Mountains in the distance to the south. To the north the tundra stretched forth to the horizoll.

Many people do not understand the nature of the polar north. For one thing, it is very dry. Less snow falls there generally than falls in most lower latitudes. Snow that does fall, of course, is less likely to melt. Most of the land is tundra, a cool, generally level or slightly wavy, treeless plain. In the summer this tundra, covered with mosses, shrubs and lichens, because of the melted surface ice and the permafrost beneath, preventing complete drainage, is soft and spongy. In the winter, of course, and in the early spring and late fall, desolate, bleak and frozen, wind-swept, it presents the aspect of a barren, alien landscape. At such times the red hunters will dwell by the sea, in the spring and fall by its shores, and, in the winter, going out on the ice itself.

I stepped aside to let a young girl pass, who carried two baskets of eggs, those of the migratory arctic gant. They nest in the mountaim of the Hrimgar and in steep, rocky outcroppings, called bird cliffs, found here and there jutting out of the tundra. The bird cliffs doubtless bear some geological relation to the Hrimgar chains. When such eggs are frozen they are eaten like apples.

I saw a woman putting out a pan for a domestic snow sleen to lick clean.

In another place several women sat on a fur blanket playing a cat's cradle game. They were quite skilled. This game is generally popular in the Gorean north. It is played not only by the red hunters, but in Hunjer and Skjern, and in Torvaldsland, and as far south as the villages in the valley of the Laurius.

The tundra at this time of year belies its reputation for bleakness. In many places it bursts into bloom with small flowers. Almost all of the plants of this nature are perennials, as the growing season is too short to permit most annuals to complete their growing cycle. In the winter buds of many of these plants lie dormant in a fluffy sheath which protects them from cold. Some two hundred and forty different types of plants grow in the Gorean arctic within five hundred pasangs of the pole. None of these, interestingly, is poisonous, and none possesses thorns. During the summer plants and flowers will grow almost anywhere in the arctic except on or near the glacial ice.

At certain times in the summer even insects will appear, black, long-winged flies, in great swarms, coating the sides of tents and the faces of men.

Two children raced past me, playing tag.

I looked to the north. It was there that Zarendargar waited.

"Greetings, Master," said Thimble.

"Greetings," I said to her. She was dressed, save for her bondage strings, in much the same way as most of the women of the red hunters, bare-breasted, with high boots and panties. Thistle, however, behind her, was naked, in a northern yoke and on a leather leash. The northern yoke is either of wood or bone, and is drilled in three places. The one Thistle wore was of wood. It was not heavy. It passed behind her neck at which point one of the drilled holes occurred. The other two holes occurred at the terminations of the yoke. A leather strap is knotted about the girl's wrist, passed through the drilled hole at one end of the yoke, usually that on her left, taken up through the hole behind the neck, looped twice about her neck, threaded back down through the center hole, taken up through the other hole at the end, usually the one at her right, and tied about her right wrist. She is thus fastened in the yoke. From each end of the yoke hung a large sack.

"We are going to pick moss and grass," she said. Moss is used as wicks for the lamps. Grass, dried, is used for insulation between the inner soles of the boots and the bottom of the fur stockings in the winter.

"That is good," I said. "Why is Thistle yoked?"

"It pleased me, Master," said Thimble, first girl. There was little love lost between the girls.

"Was she insubordinate?" I asked.

"She said a sharp word to me," said Thimble.

"Did you switch her, too?" I asked.

"Of course, Master," said Thimble.

"Excellent," I said. Discipline must be kept in the tent.

I looked at Thistle. She met my eyes, briefly, and then looked down. She was quite attractive. I had not as yet had either Thimble or Thistle.

"Is Imnak finished yet with the new slave girl?" I asked, referring to Arlene.

"I think so, Master," said Thimble, smiling. "At least he has tied her to a pole behind the tent."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"I do not think she is much good, Master," said Thimble, one slave girl appraising another.

"Do not let me detain you from your labors," I said.

Thistle, suddenly, knelt down before me, yoked, and put her lips to my boot. Her head was jerked up by the leash in the hand of Thimble. Her eyes were moist "Master!" she begged.

"Come, Slave!" snapped Thimble, and pulled her to her feet and dragged her away, behind her. Thistle looked over her shoulder, at me. I gave no sign of response. She stumbled away, on Thimble's leash. I smiled to myself. Thistle, as I had expected, was the first of the girls to begin to understand and feel her slavery.

"Help us, Tarl," said Akko, whom I had met earlier in the day.

"He is a big fellow," said a man.

"Yes," said another.

I followed Akko and his friends to a place where two teams of men waited, a heavy, braided rope of twisted sleen-hide stretched between them.

They put me at the end of the rope. Soon, to the enthusiastic shouts of observers, we began the contest. Four times the rope grew taut, and four times our team won. I was much congratulated, and slapped on the back.

I was, accordingly, in a good mood when I returned to Imnak's tent.

"Greetings, my friend," I said. I had noted that Arlene, her wrists crossed and over her head, bound, was fastened to the horizontal pole of a meat rack, supported by its two tripods of inclined poles.

"Have you had a good day?" inquired Imnak, politely.

"Yes," I said.

"That is good," he said.

I waited a while. Then I said, "Have you had a good day?"

"Perhaps someone has not had a good day," said Imnak.

"I am sorry to hear that," I said.

"Perhaps someone who won a wager," he said, "is not well repaid for his having won."

"Oh?" I said.

"Sometimes," he said, "it is hardly worth winning." He shrugged.

"I will return in a moment," I said.

I went back of the tent to Arlene.

"I want to talk to you," she said. "I will have no more of this treatment on your part. You cannot simply give me to anyone you please."

"I did not hear you say, 'Master'," I said.

"Master," she said.

"You are never again," she said, "to give me to another man." Her eyes flashed.

"I gather linnak was not pleased," I said.

"Imnak!" she cried.

"Yes, Imnak," I said. I reached up and cut her loose. I, with my left hand, then took her by the hair.

"Please, stop!" she said.

I turned her face to look at me. With my right hand I jerked the leather at her throat. "What is this?" I asked.

"A collar," she said.

"You are a slave," I said.

"Yes," she whispered, "Master," frightened.

I threw her to my feet and she looked up at me. "You will now crawl to Imnak," I said, "and beg to try and please him again. If he is not pleased, do you understand, I will feed you to the sleen."

"No, no!" she whispered.

"It is up to you, Slave Girl," I said. "For what do you think you are kept and fed?"

"No," she whispered.

I looked down at her.

"You would not," she whispered.

"I should have left you at the remain of the wall," I said.

"No," she whispered. Then she looked up at me, and reached out her hand. "Sometimes I feel so slave," she said. She touched my thigh with her finger tips. "Sometimes I feel I want your touch, and as a slave girl." I could scarcely hear her. "Your touch," she said, "not his."

"What you want is unimportant," I said. "If Imnak is not pleased," I said, "you will be fed to the sleen."

She looked up at me, in horror. "Would you do that?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I do not even know how to please a man!" she wept.

"You are an intelligent woman," I said. "I suggest, if you wish to live, that you apply your intelligence to the task."

Her tears, her head down, shaking, fell into the turf.

"Do you obey your master?" I asked.

"Yes," she whispered. "I obey my master."

"On your belly," I told her.

On her belly she crawled to Imnak. No longer was she a commander among the agents of Kuril. She was now a naked slave girl obeying her master.

"Have you had a good day?" I later asked Imnak.

"Yes," he said, "I have had a good day."

"How is the auburn-haired slave beast?" I asked him.

"Splendid," he said. "But Thimble and Thistle are better."

I did not doubt but that this was true. But then they had been slaves longer, too.

"Make us tea, Arlene," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. She was very pretty. I wondered what she would look like in a snatch of a slave silk, and a true collar.

Imnak, and Thimble and Thistle were asleep. Outside the low sun, as it did in the summer, circled the sky, not setting.

"Master," whispered Arlene.

"Yes," I said.

"May I share your sleeping bag?" she asked.

"Do you beg it?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I permitted her to creep into the bag, beside me. I put my arm about her small body. Her head was on my chest.

"Today, you much increased your slavery over me, did you not?" she asked.

"Perhaps," I said.

"You forced me to crawl to a man and serve him," she said. "How strong you are," she said, wonderingly. She kissed me. "I did not know what it was like to be a slave," she said.

"You still do not know," I told her.

"But you are teaching me, aren't you?" she asked.

"Perhaps," I said.

"It is a strange feeling," she said, "being a slave."

"Does it frighten you?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "it frightens me, terribly." I felt her hair on my chest. "One is so helpless," she said.

"You are not yet a true slave," I told her.

"Sometimes I sense," she said, "what it might be, to be a true slave."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"And it frightens you?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "but, too, and this is frightening, too, I-" She was silent.

"Go on," I told her.

"Must I speak?" she asked.

"Yes," I told her.

"Too," she wept, "I–I find myself desiring it, intensely." I felt her tears. "How terrible I am!" She said.

"Such feelings are normal in feminine women," I told her. "Sometimes it takes courage to yield to them."

"I must try to fight these feelings," she said.

"As you wish," I said, "but in the end you will yield to them, either because you wish to do so or because I force you to do so."

"Oh?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "in the end you will become a true slave."

She was silent.

"You were brought to Gor to be a slave," I said. "When your tasks were finished at the wall, you would have been put in silk, collared and placed at a man's feet."

"Do you truly think so, Master?" she asked.

"Of course," I said. "Consider your beauty, and the nature of the men of Gor."

She shuddered. "I fear slavery, and myself," she said.

"You are a true slave," I told her, "No," she said.

"Only you do not yet know it," I said.

"No," she said.

"Fight your feelings," I said. "I will," she said.

"In the end it will do you no good," I said.

She was silent.

"You have been counter-instinctually conditioned," I said. "You have been programmed with value sets developed for competitive, territorial males. There are complex historical and economic reasons for this. Your society is not interested in the psycho-biological needs of human females. The machine is designed with its own best interests in mind, not those of its human components."

"I do not want to be a component in a machine," she said.

"Then," said I, "listen in the quiet for the beating of your own heart."

"It is hard to hear in the noise of the machine," she whispered.

"But it beats," I said. "Listen."

She kissed me, softly.

"You have been taught to function," I said, "not to be alive."

"How wrong it is to be alive!" she wept.

"Perhaps not," I suggested.

"I dare not be true to myself," she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because I think," she whispered, "deep within me, there lies a slave."

"One day you will be awakened," I said, "and will discover that it is you yourself who are that slave."

"Oh, no," she said.

"Surely you have been curious about her," I said, "about that girl, your deep and true self."

"No, no!" she said. Then for a long time she was quiet. Then she said, "Yes, I have wondered about her."

I put my hand gently on her head.

"Even as a girl," she said, "lying alone in bed, I wondered what it might be like to lie soft and small, perfumed, helpless, in the arms of a strong man, knowing that he would treat me as he wished, doing with me whatever he wanted."

"It is uncompromising manhood which thrills you," I said. "It is found but rarely on your native world."

"It is not useful to the machine," she said.

"No," I said, "but note, interestingly, in spite of the fact that you perhaps never in your life on Earth encountered such manhood, yet you were capable of understanding and conceiving it, and longing for its manifestation."

"How can that be?" she asked, frightened.

"It is a genetic expectation," I told her, "more ancient than the caves, a whisper in your brain bespeaking a lost world of nature, a world in which the human being, both male and female, were bred. You were fitted to one world; you found yourself in another. You were a stranger in a country not of your own choosing, a troubled guest, uneasy in a house you knew was not yours."

"I fear my feelings," she said.

"They hint to you of nature's world," I told, her. 'They are inimical to the machine."

"I must fight them," she said.

"They are a reminiscence," I said, "of a vanished reality. They whisper of old songs. The machine has not yet been able to eradicate them from your brain. Such feelings, in their genetic foundations, lie at the root of women, and of men. They antedate the taming of fire. They were ancient when the first stone knife was lifted to the sun."

"I must fight them," she wept.

"Fight yourself then," I said, "for it is your deepest self of which they speak."

"It is wrong to be true to oneself!" she said.

"Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."

"One must always pretend to be other than what one is," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"I do not know," she said.

"Gorean men," I said, "you will learn are less tolerant of pretense than the men of Earth."

"They would force me to be what I truly am, and in my heart long to be?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I'm frightened," she whispered. We did not speak for a time. "Why are there no true men on Earth?" she asked.

"I am sure there are many true men on Earth." I said. "But it is much more difficult for them."

"I do not think there are any men on Earth," she said, angrily.

"I am sure they exist," I said.

"What of the others?" she asked.

"Perhaps someday," I said, "they will cease to fear their manhood."

"Is there much hope for those of Earth?" she asked.

"Very little," I said. "A reversal of the pathology of centuries would be required." I smiled. "The wheels are heavy, and the momentum great," I said.

"The machine will tear itself apart," she said.

"I sense that, too," I said. "How long can it continue to spread, to grow and devour? Stalemate will be achieved upon the ashes of civilizations."

"It is horrible," she said.

"Perhaps it will not occur," I said.

"Perhaps the lies of civilization are preferable to the truths of barbarism," she said.

"Perhaps," I said. "It is hard to know."

"Cannot there be a civilization that makes room for the realities of men and women?" she asked.

"A civilization that makes room for life?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"I do not know," I said. "Perhaps."

"You are kind to talk to me," she said.

"Once we were both of Earth," I said.

"How can you talk to me like this and yet keep me a slave?" she asked.

"I do not detect the difficulty," I said.

"Oh," she said.

"One of the pleasant things about owning a slave," I said, "is the opportunity to converse with her, to listen to her, to hear her express herself, her feelings and ideas. One can learn much from a slave. Many slaves, like yourself, are highly intelligent. They can express themselves articulately, clearly, trenchantly and lyrically. It is a great pleasure to talk with them."

"I see," she said.

"Then, when one wishes," I said, "one puts them again on their knees."

"You are cruel," she said.

"Kiss me, Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, and kissed me, softly.

We were then silent for a time.

"Master," she whispered.

"Yes," I said.

"I begin to sense," said she, "what it might be like to be a true slave."

"You are an ignorant girl," I said.

"I have learned some things," she said.

"Very little," I said.

"I have learned to obey," she said, "and to call free men, 'Master. "

"What else have you learned?" I asked.

"Something which you have taught me," she whispered.

"What is that?" I asked.

"I have learned to need the touch of a man," she said.

"I will sleep now," I said.

"Please do not sleep now," she said. I felt her fingers tips at my shoulder.

"Touch me," she begged. "Touch me-as a slave girl."

"Do you beg it?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Very well," I said.

She looked up at me. "Are you going to make me a full slave?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I am only going to satisfy your slave needs as they exist at your present level."

"Yes, Master," she said.

Later she wept and squirmed in my arms lost in the sensations and ecstasies which she could at that time reach. Then she lay at my thigh. "Can there be more?" she asked. "Can there be more?"

"You have not yet begun to learn your slavery," I told her.

I almost cried out as her teeth bit into my side and her fingernails tore at my thigh in her frustration. She seemed almost fastened on me like an animal. With my hand in her hair I pulled her head upward. She lay then with her head just below my chest. Her eyes were wide. Her small hands held me tightly. She was breathing heavily. "Master, Master," she whispered.

"Be silent, Slave," I said. "It is now time to rest."

"Yes, Master," she whispered.