Fighting Slave of Gor

2 SYRINGES

I felt a bit of cold air, as the door of the cab was opened. Slowly, painfully, I began to come back to consciousness.

I was aware of Miss Henderson being lifted from the cab.

Then I, too, was removed from the cab, two men dragging me by the arms. We were inside a garagelike structure. The floor was cement. Miss Henderson was laid on her stomach on the cement. The light in the building was furnished by four bulbs overhead. They hung on cords from the ceiling. They had dark metal shades with white-enameled interiors, and were protected by wire frames.

I, too, was placed on my stomach on the cement. I felt my hands being drawn behind my back. They were then, to my consternation, locked in handcuffs.

I saw, from my position on the floor, five men. There was the driver of our cab, three burly fellows, two in jackets and one in a sweater, and one other man, dressed in a rumpled suit, his necktie loose about his throat. He was a large man, and heavy. He had, too, large, heavy hands. He seemed very strong. He was balding, virile.

"Awaken the slave," he said.

One of the men then, from behind, put his hands in Miss Henderson's hair and, rudely, with two hands, pulled her up backwards, she crying out suddenly with pain, awakening, finding herself kneeling, held by the hair, before the heavy man.

"It is you!" she said. "The man from the apartment!"

"You have not been given permission to speak," he said to her.

"I do not need permission to speak," she cried. "I am a free woman! I am not a slave!"

"Oh!" she cried, in pain, as the man's hands, he who held her, tightened in her hair, pulling her head back.

Her small hands, clutching at him, were helpless on his thick wrists.

"You had best form the habit early, of addressing free men as `Master,' Slave Girl," said the heavy man.

"I am not a slave girl," she cried. Then she cried out in pain, as her hair was twisted. Then she added, "-Master."

The heavy man gestured to the man who held the girl. He released the tension in the girl's hair, but he did not take his hands from it. She gasped. She looked up at the heavy man.

"That is better," he said.

"Yes," she said "-Master."

"To be sure," he said, "the point is moot, and interesting. There is a sense in which you are a slave, and a sense in which you are not a slave. The sense in which you are a slave is the sense in which I am justified in addressing you as a slave, and referring to you as a slave. That is the sense of the natural slave. Do not react so, my dear. It is true. You are a natural slave. This is fully clear to anyone who is familiar with such matters. Any slaver, any master, anyone who knows women, even another woman, but one knowledgeable in such matters, could tell it at a glance. Do not fret. It is simply true. And, indeed, if you derive any reassurance from this remark, you are one of the most obvious natural slaves I have ever seen. Your slavery, already, lies almost at the surface."

"No," she said, "no!"

"Your culture has provided little scope for the satisfaction and fulfillment of your slave needs," he said. "Other cultures, you will discover, are more tolerant and generous in this respect."

"No!" she cried.

"The sense in which you are not a slave, of course," he said, "is a trivial one. You have not yet been placed within the actual institution of slavery. You are not yet a legal slave, a slave under law. You have not yet, for example, been branded, nor have you been put in a collar, nor have you performed a gesture of submission."

She looked at him with horror.

"But do not fear," he said, "you will eventually find yourself in full compliance with any necessary legal pedantries. You will eventually find that you are, fully and legally, under law, a slave, totally a slave, and only a slave." He smiled at her. "You may now say, `Yes, Master,'" he said.

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Put the slave on her stomach," he said.

The man who held her hair threw the girl forward. She broke her fall with her hands. He then, with his foot, pressed her down to her stomach. I could see the mark of his boot on the back of her white dress.

"Put your hands at the sides of your head, palms down on the cement," said the heavy man.

"Yes," she said.

"Yes, what?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," she said. Then she cried out, "You can't enslave me!"

"Slavery is neither a new nor unusual phenomenon for women," he said. "In the course of human history many millions of lovely women have been enslaved. They have found themselves at the feet of masters. You are not special. Your fate is in no way historically unique."

He then removed a leather case from a white-enameled cabinet to one side. He placed the contents of the case on a steel table against one wall, on which there were certain tools. It contained two vials, cotton and a set of disposable syringes.

"I can't be a slave," she said. "I'm Beverly Henderson!"

"Enjoy your name while you still have it," he said. "Later you will be called only by those names by which masters please." I then understood, as I had not before, the remark of the heavy man in the apartment, which had been reported to me by the girl, that she might not have her name long. A slave, of course, would have no name in her own right. She must wear, docilely, any name her master might see fit to put upon her.

The girl moaned.

The heavy man then poured some fluid from one of the vials onto a piece of cotton.

"But, perhaps," he said, "your master will choose to call you Beverly. That, it seems to me, is a lovely name for a slave."

He nodded to the fellow who had held the girl's hair. That fellow, as she whimpered, tore open her dress at the waist on the left side. He then jerked back the sides of the dress, exposing a portion of flesh.

"The name then, of course, would be only a slave name," he said, "affixed on you by the will of the master." He smiled down at her. "Say, `Yes, Master,'" he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

He crouched down beside her and, with the cotton onto which he had poured some fluid from one of the vials, swabbed a portion of her exposed flesh.

She shuddered.

"It's cold, isn't it?" he asked. "It's alcohol."

"Yes, Master," she whispered. He left the cotton on her body and went back to the leather case on the steel table. With another piece of cotton and some additional alcohol he sterilized the rubber diaphragm sealing the second vial. He then broke off the sanitary seal on one of the disposable syringes and, holding the second vial, now sterilized, upside down, inserted the long needle through the rubber diaphragm. He drew a greenish fluid into the needle.

"What are you doing?" begged the girl.

He replaced the second vial on the steel table and approached her. He crouched down beside her.

"I am preparing you for shipment," he said.

"Shipment!" she cried.

"Of course," he said. He lifted away the cotton he had left on her body.

"Where?" she asked.

"Can you not guess, you little fool?" he asked.

"No," she whispered.

"What a delicious, but stupid little slave you are," he said.

"Where, Master?" she asked. "Oh!" she cried, as the needle was entered into her body, in her back, just behind and above the left hip.

I tried to struggle to my feet. But a booted foot, that of one of the men behind me, pressed me down.

The girl began to sob. The heavy man, after a few moments, drew the needle from her flesh. The syringe was then empty. He again swabbed the area into which the needle had penetrated.

"Where, Master?" begged the girl, shuddering from the coolness of the alcohol. "Where?"

"Why, to the planet Gor," he said.

"Gor does not exist!" she cried.

"Let us not enter into fruitless controversy," he said.

"It does not exist!" she cried.

"You will better be able to adjudge the truth of that matter later," he said, "when you awaken chained in a Gorean dungeon."

He rose to his feet. He handed the cotton and the used disposable syringe to one of the men, who discarded them.

"I can't be a slave. I can't be a slave!" she wept.

"You are a slave," he said, looking down on her.

"No!" she said.

"Indeed," he said, "you are one of the most luscious and exquisite natural slaves I have ever seen."

"No," she said. "No!"

"Do not rise from your stomach," he cautioned her.

"Yes, Master," she wept. She trembled, and moaned. "You have drugged me," she said.

"It is kindness that we have done so," he said. "The trip, otherwise, would be very difficult for you."

She began to sob, uncontrollably.

"Relax, relax, little slave," he said to her, soothingly.

"Yes, Master," she said. Then she was unconscious.

I watched in horror as Miss Henderson's clothing was cut from her, completely. A crate was then brought forward. It opened from the side. Inside it were various straps. One of the men busied himself with gagging the girl. The gag was of leather, black, and effective. It buckled behind her neck with two buckles. I gathered they were taking no chances on the possibility of the effects of the drug prematurely wearing off. The heavy man then brought forth a long, narrow, rectangular leather case. In it, aligned, each held in its place by the construction of the interior of the case, each in its cushioned slot, was the remainder, some six or so, of what must once have been a series of something like twenty steel anklets.

Miss Henderson, now gagged, lay unconscious on her back on the cement.

The heavy man put the case down on the steel table, made a note of something in a small notebook, and then threw one of the steel devices to the fellow who stood by Miss Henderson, he who had gagged her unconscious body.

I saw then that the device was indeed a steel anklet. The man snapped it snugly about Miss Henderson's ankle, her left ankle. The snap was heavy, sharp, businesslike. Her ankle was then locked in the device. To my horror I realized she could not remove it. She would have to wear it until men chose to take it from her.

"H-4642?" asked the heavy man.

The other man lifted Miss Henderson's ankle, inspecting the steel locked there. "Yes," he said.

The heavy man closed his notebook.

He nodded to the man at the side of Miss Henderson, and to another man, as well.

Not speaking these two men then, as I watched, from my helpless, prone position, placed Miss Henderson in the crate. They placed her sitting in the crate, its open side to her left. Her head was first drawn back and fixed in place. There was a ring on the back of the gag straps and a ring within the crate. These two rings snapped together, holding her head back. A heavy black belt then, attached in the container, was looped about her waist. She was thrust back in the container further. Then the belt was tightened about her and buckled shut. Each of her wrists was then strapped back, her left wrist on her left side, her right wrist on her right side, the back of each wrist against the side of the container against which her back rested. Because of the smallness of the container her knees must be thrust up. Both ankles, then, one on the left, one on the right, were strapped in place.

The heavy man looked at the girl.

The heavy belt, buckled tightly about her belly, held her body back against one wall of the container. Her head, too, by the two rings, was held in place. Her wrists were strapped back, her ankles were strapped down. She was gagged.

The heavy man smiled. There was little doubt but what the fair prize was well secured.

I suppose I should not have looked upon her, but I could not help myself. Clothed, she had been beautiful; naked, she was fantastic. I could scarcely imagine the joy and power a man would feel, having such a woman at his feet.

"Close the crate," said the heavy man.

I saw the hinged side of the crate swung shut, inclosing Miss Henderson within it, a steel anklet, numbered, apparently an identificatory device, locked on her left ankle.

When the side of the crate had swung shut, it had snapped shut. Two fastenings had been engaged. Two men, now, twisted some ten screw bolts shut. There would be no way the container could be opened from the inside. There were two small, round holes, each about a half of an inch in width, in the upper half of the side of the crate which had served as its door. It was through these that the girl would breathe.

I looked at the crate. It occurred to me that its contents, Miss Henderson, if she were truly a slave, would one day, doubtless, be put up for sale. The thought of Miss Henderson on a slave block, actually, not just in my imagination, was almost overwhelming.

"Put the crate in the van," said the heavy man.

Two men picked up the crate and carried it from the room. Another man preceded them, presumably to facilitate their passage and, perhaps, open the van.

I felt, along the floor, a flood of fresh air. Somewhere a door had been opened. I tensed. I felt, then, a boot in the small of my back, pressing me down. "Don't try anything," said a voice, that of he who had been the driver of the cab. The fresh-air draft then ceased. I heard a door shut in another room.

The heavy man then turned and looked at me.

"You treated her like merchandise;" I said, angrily, to the heavy man.

"She is merchandise, a slave," he said.

"What are you going to do with her?" I asked.

"She is to be shipped to another world, one called Gor," he said, "where she will be branded as what she is, a slave, and then sold on the open market for whatever she will bring."

"How can you do this?" I demanded.

"It is my business," he said. "I am a slaver."

"But have you no pity for your pathetic captures?" I asked.

"They deserve no pity," he said. "They are only slaves."

"But what of their happiness?" I asked.

"It is unimportant," he said. "But, if it is of interest to you, no woman is truly happy until she is owned and mastered."

I was silent.

"Free a woman," he said, "and she will try to destroy you. Enslave her, and she will crawl to you on her belly, and beg to lick your sandals."

"Madness!" I cried. "False! False!"

The heavy man smiled at the man behind me. "He seems a typical man of Earth, does he not?" he asked.

"He does, indeed," said the man behind me. I then felt again the draft of fresh air, which then, in a moment, ceased. The other three men then re-entered the room. "The crate is in the van, with the others," said one of them.

I was startled. There must, then, be other girls, too, who were to share the sordid, horrifying fate of Miss Henderson.

I then found myself the center of the attention of the five men. I became suddenly very frightened. I began to sweat. I realized that neither Miss Henderson nor myself had been blindfolded. The men, thus, had not apparently been concerned that we would, at a future time, be able to identify either themselves or the interior of the large structure in which we had found ourselves.

"What-what are you going to do with me?" I asked.

He who had been the driver of the cab now walked about me, until he stood some eight or ten feet in front of me. I saw, then, that he carried a revolver. From his jacket pocket he took a hollow, cylindrical object. He spunt it onto the barrel of the revolver. It was a silencer, which would muffle the report of a pistol.

"What are you going to do with me?" I demanded.

"You have seen too much, and you are of no use to us," said the heavy man.

I tried to struggle to my feet, but two men held me down on the cement.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the revolver, with its silencer. Then I felt the blunt end of the silencer pressing against my left temple.

"Don't shoot me," I begged. "Please!"

"He is not worth a bullet," said the heavy man. "Put him on his knees. Use a wire garrote."

The man who had driven the cab removed the silencer from his revolver. He dropped it back in his pocket and put the revolver in his belt. I was thrown to my knees, two men holding my arms, my hands helpless behind my back in the confining steel cuffs.

The fifth man, the one who had opened the door for the others with the crate, was then behind me. I felt a thin wire suddenly looped about my throat.

"I have another pickup to make tonight," said the fellow who had driven the cab.

"We will meet you on the highway," said the heavy man. "You know where."

He who had driven the cab nodded.

"We are to be at the new point of embarkation at four A.M.," said the heavy man.

"She gets off work at two," said he who had driven the cab. "I will be waiting for her."

"It will be close," said the heavy man, "but proceed. We can strip and inject her, and crate her, in the van."

I felt the wire loop tighten about my throat.

"Please, no, please, don't!" I cried.

"It will be swift," said the heavy man.

"Please, don't kill me!" I begged.

"Do you plead for your life?" asked the heavy man.

"Yes,".I said, "yes, yes!"

"But what are we to do with you?" asked the heavy man.

"Don't kill me, please don't kill me," I begged. I squirmed on my knees, the wire on my throat.

The heavy man looked down at me, on my knees, helpless, before him.

"Please," I said. "Please!"

"Behold the typical man of Earth," said the heavy man.

"We are not all such weaklings and cowards," said one of the men.

"That is true," admitted the heavy man. Then he looked down at me. "Is there any hope," he asked, "for males, not men, such as you?"

"I do not understand," I stammered.

"How I despise your sort," he said, "fools, cowards and weaklings, guilt-ridden, confused, smug, meaningless, pretentious, soft, males who have permitted themselves to be tricked out of the prerogatives of their sex, robbed of the birthright of their own manhood, who dare not be true to the needs of their own blood, males too weak, too frightened and ashamed, to be men."

It startled me that he had said these things, for I had thought myself unusual among the men of Earth in my manhood. Indeed, I had often been castigated and belittled for having been too masculine. Now he spoke of me as though I had not even, as yet, begun to glimpse the meaning of true manhood. I was shaken. I began to tremble. What then could be biological manhood, in the fullness of its rationality and strength? I bad, already, be begun to suspect that manhood was not a mere pretention, as I had been taught, but soomething selected for, as seems reasonable, like the nature of the eagle and the lion, in the long, harsh realities of a brutal evolution, but now, for the first time, I had begun to suspect that my conception of manhood, so advanced I had thought, did little more than begin to hint at the possible glories of a suppressed, thwarted, tortured reality, a reality genetically dispositional in every cell in a man's body, a reality feared and castigated by a counterbiological culture. I came from a world in which eagles cannot fly. I put down my head. Lions do not well thrive in a country of poisons.

"Look up at me," said the heavy man.

I lifted my head.

"I find you guilty of treason," he said.

"I have committed no treason," I said.

"You are guilty of the most heinous of treasons," said the heavy man. "You have betrayed yourself, your sex, your manhood. You are a despicable traitor, not only to yourself but to true men, everywhere. You are an insult not only to your own manhood but to that of others. You are a sniveling coward and a weakling, worthy to be held only in the most profound of contempts."

"A man must be strong enough to be weak," I said. "He must be brave enough to be sweet. True men must be gentle and tender, and considerate, and solicitous, and do what women wish. That is how they prove they are true men."

"True men give orders to women, and women obey," said the heavy man.

"It is not what I have been taught," I said.

"You have been taught lies," said the heavy man. "Surely your own misery and unhappiness should tell you that."

"He has been found guilty of treason," said one of the men holding my arms. "What is the sentence?"

The heavy man looked at the others. I felt the wire on my throat. "What should the sentence be?" he asked.

"The termination of his miserable existence," said one of the men, "death."

The heavy man looked down at me. "I wonder," said he, "if there is any hope for such as you."

"Let the sentence be death," said another one of the men.

"Or something else," said the heavy man.

"I do not understand," said the fellow who had first suggested that I be slain.

"Look at him," said the heavy man. "Does he not seem a typical male of Earth?"

"Yes," said one of the men. "Yes;" said another.

"Yet, beyond that," said the heavy man. "his features appear symmetrical and his body, though soft and weak, is large."

"Yes?" said one of the men.

"Do you think a woman might find him pleasing?" asked the heavy man.

"Perhaps." smiled one of the men.

"Throw him on his belly and tie his legs," said the heavy man. I felt the wire whipped from my throat. I was thrown forward on the cement. My belt was loosened and torn from its loops. My ankles were crossed and, with the belt, lashed together, tightly. In a few seconds I felt my shirt being jerked away from my left side, and felt the cold swab of the cotton and alcohol and, a moment later, the entrance of the needle, deeply, into my flesh.

"What are you going to do with me?" I asked, terrified.

"Do not talk now," he said.

I felt the fluid, entering my body. It was apparently considerably more than he had injected into Miss Henderson. It was painful. Then he withdrew the needle from my back and swabbed the area again with alcohol and cotton.

"What are you going to do with me?" I whispered.

"You are going to be taken to the planet Gor," he said. "I think I know a little market where you might be of interest"

"Gor does not exist," I said.

He rose to his feet and discarded the cotton and the second syringe.

"Gor does not exist!" I said.

"Put him in the van," he said to the men.

"You are mad, all of you!" I cried. I was lifted by two men. "Gor does not exist!" I cried. I was being carried toward the door. "Gor does not exist!" I cried. "Gor does not exist!"

Then I lost consciousness.