Kur of Gor

Chapter, the Second: THE DISRUPTION, AND WHAT OCCURRED SHORTLY THEREAFTER

For whatever reason, she had cried out angrily at him.

Then, suddenly, each of the tiered containers in the long hallway shook, and several broke from their stems, and tumbled, rolling from the tiers which, themselves, were twisting from the walls. Had there been air in the hallway there might have been much screeching of metal, and the ringing of ovoid containments striking the floor, rolling, crashing into one another.

The container with which we have been concerned tilted eccentrically, as had several others, this container toward the center of the hallway. Doubtless there was much consternation within its confines. Air began to hiss from it, and Tarl Cabot thrust his hand against the aperture through which this complex gas was escaping, rushing outside. Within the container its occupants began to suffer, almost immediately, from the diminution of its atmosphere. The human life form, as many others, requires oxygen, in one form or another to survive. Commonly, this is imbibed from an atmosphere, in an exchange of gases. One life form, for example, will exude a waste product, its poison, into the atmosphere which is, interestingly, necessary for the life of a different life form, and that life form, in turn, expels into the atmosphere another waste product, poisonous to itself, yet benign, even necessary, to, say, the first life form. It is thus by means of an exchange of poisons that the gift of life flowers. The wheels turn. The ways of the Nameless One are obscure. Kurii, incidentally, require oxygen for life, as well, as does the cobra and ost, the leopard and larl. This may, too, be the case with Priest-Kings, but one knows little about them.

The blonde, gasping, scratched at the inside of the container, wildly, as though she would scratch through it and obtain air outside, but there was, at that time, no air outside. The brunette had her hands pressed against the inside of the container. Her face, viewed from the outside, was distraught. So might be that of a small animal contained in a jar from which the air was being removed. Tarl Cabot removed his hand from the aperture through which the atmosphere was escaping, and lunged against the transparent barrier, three times, but his efforts, as he should have realized, would be ineffectual. Within the container they could probably hear the air hissing out. Outside a ripple might have been noted, but little else. He again tried to block the aperture, but with indifferent success. Too, as they breathed, the atmosphere within the container, now tenuous, became ever more toxic.

The cause of this disruption was, of course, at the time unknown to them, nor, at the time, would it have been of great interest to them. Their concern was with its effects.

The brunette was the first to lose consciousness, and, a bit later, sinking toward the tilted bottom of the container, the blonde was the second. Both were in their way small animals, small, lovely animals.

Tarl Cabot shook his head, and tried to keep his hand against the aperture, but, in a bit, his hand fell to the side. There was no longer the hiss of escaping gas, for, if any remained in the container, it was not enough to call attention to its exit. His knees buckled, and he tried to brace himself against the slanting wall of the damaged vessel. It seems likely he would have shortly lost consciousness when he became aware, dimly, that one of the loose containers was suddenly moving about, and it seemed a wind of tiny particles, like a dry blizzard of dust and scraps, invaded the corridor. He thrust his face to the small rupture in the container which he had tried to seal with his hand. There was surely there, at that small, opened gate, a welcome entrant, a whisper of air, an indisputable, salubrious freshening, within the tiny world. He saw the particles outside subsiding. He heard the sound of one of the cylinders shifting its position. Outside there was air.

At the same time he saw at the end of the corridor a red line, like a knife, slowly describing a large circle, bubbling and hissing, as it moved, in the steel. Then, as the circle was nearly completed, there was a sound as of a single blow, abrupt and impatient, on the other side, perhaps a small explosion, and the steel protruded into the hallway, as though it had been struck by a fist, and then there was another such blow, or explosion, and there was a screeching of metal, and then a large clanging sound, as the large circle of steel, with its diameter of ten feet or more, collapsed, rocking and shimmering with sound, into the hallway.

In this opening there suddenly appeared, harnessed and alert, enweaponed, ears erected, eyes blazing, head turning from side to side, a gigantic form.

Behind it, visible in the opening, some half crouched, were similarly accoutered forms.

Air was moving into the capsule rapidly; in moments the atmosphere in the capsule was in equilibrium with the circumambient atmosphere.

The blonde stirred and lifted her head, and then, pressing her hands against the glassine barrier, began to squirm and utter excited sounds.

Into the hallway now emerged ten or more of these large forms, in the hands of some were rifles, in the hands of others heat knives and double-bladed power axes. They were large-eyed, these creatures, now with verticalized pupils, in the light, pupils which could, as those of the sleen and larl, swiftly adapt themselves to anything short of total darkness. Their ears, large, pointed ears, several inches in width at the base, were erected, ears which could rotate nearly 180 degrees without the head moving, ears so keen that they could detect the movement of an urt in the grass at a hundred and fifty feet. Their nostrils in the large, flattish faces were wide and flared. In some of the faces, as the beasts, some of them hesitating briefly, entered the hallway, the nostrils contracted and distended, scanning for scents, rather as one might look, or one might listen. Their sense of scent was well developed, and useful in the hunt, and war. Their jaws were large and powerful. Those of a male could wrench the head from a tabuk in a single motion. Had they stood fully erect those of this group, carefully selected, would have averaged some ten to eleven feet in height. They were large specimens, even for their breed, having a width of three to four feet, and a weight, I conjecture, of some sixteen hundred pounds. The fur of two were erected, increasing an aspect of size and fearsomeness. And four had earned their way to the second ring.

The brunette had awakened, and, lifting her head, groggily, looked outside the container, and then, suddenly, she flung her hand before her face, and, eyes wide with horror, uttered a long, shrill scream, and fainted.

Tarl Cabot, angrily, with his foot, thrust her out of his way, to the bottom of the container.

She was useless, and a woman.

And no better, he thought, though free, than a slave, but, assuredly, one nicely curved, who should bring a good price. She would look well curled at a slave ring, he thought, where she belonged.

Let them hide behind men, he thought, whose they are, and to whom they owe their lives.

Do they not understand that, really?

They are slaves, he thought. Let them learn that, and strive to be pleasing. Free, they are without identity; free, they are meaningless and worthless; free, they are egotistical bothers, haughty nuisances, arrogant annoyances, self-alienated creatures removed from both biology and themselves, unhappy, pathetic, miserable, casting-about, frustrated creatures who do not even understand the meaning of their own malaise. But collared, marketed, and such, they are quite nice. Subject to buying and selling, and the lash, they are pleasant to have about the house. They work well, and from their thrashing, squirming bodies one may derive inordinate pleasures, pleasures not even within the ken of free women.

And is it not pleasant to have them coming to one's feet, helplessly, needfully, piteously, their slave fires ignited, to beg yet another caress?

We must not think too harshly of the brunette. We must remember that she was from Earth, and the environment in which she found herself was now quite different from that to which her upbringing, her education, and such, had accustomed her. Too, we must understand that she was weak, and a female. Too, she had never before seen Kurii.

The blonde, agitated, excited, was pounding on the glassine wall.

Had I only a weapon, thought Tarl Cabot. But, too, he was astonished at the appearance here, in the Prison Moon, of Kurii.

Why were they here?

What did they want?

Would the glassine walls not dispermit their access to the container, as effectively as it imprisoned its occupants?

Surely the Kurii had no keys, or signals, to open these sturdy cells.

But they had weaponry, surely, and if it could burn through walls, and blast steel apart, make doors where there were no doors, why should it not, cared they to do so, melt or cleave away the glassine walls which confined them?

But were they of interest?

And might they not perish in the destruction of the cell, blasted into ashes or deliquesced into boiling fluid?

One of the gigantic, shaggy creatures came to the edge of the container and peered within.

The blonde pounded on the wall, uttering eager sounds.

The jaws of the beast opened, revealing fangs.

He means to kill and eat, thought Cabot. To its sort we are food.

The blonde continued to utter eager sounds.

To Cabot, at that time, the expression of the beast seemed naught but a hideous grimace, but it was not. He would later learn that that movement of the mouth, the exposure of the fangs in that fashion, without the laying back of the ears, without the warning rumbling, was not a sign of hostility, at all. It was rather, in its way, an expression of recognition, of pleasure. I suppose one might speak of it, if it is not too absurd to do so, as a smile. And is the human smile not, in its way, similar? Is it not a baring of the teeth, a way of saying, I could bite you, and tear you, but I will not, because I like you? Is it not in its way a threat behavior revoked, withdrawn, as a sign of good will, perhaps even affection?

The long, dark tongue of the beast moved about its left fang, and then slid back into the cavernous jaw.

He will eat her, thought Cabot.

Did the blonde not understand the danger in which she stood?

The beast examined the container.

Cabot moved back within it, trying to shield the women.

The beast then slung its rifle behind its left shoulder, to a harness hook, and seized the container with its long arms, but could not fully encircle it. Its grip slipped. It then went behind the container and, bracing its back against the wall, pressed its feet against the container. Cabot heard its claws scratch on the container, outside. Then it had a better leverage. Then it exerted itself against the container, and, after a moment, broke it fully from its stem, and tubing, and wiring. Cabot and the others were thrown to the side of the container as it struck the floor, and rolled momentarily. Then it was still, on the floor.

This movement and shock awakened the brunette, who now lay immobile, terrorized, on what had been the vertical side of the container, but was now its flooring, lying as it did on the floor of the corridor.

Again she lost consciousness.

The beast then, others gathered about, unhooked his rifle, a stubby, cylindrical fire tube, and directed it toward what had been the top of the container. Cabot pushed further back, to what had been the bottom of the container, forcing the blonde behind him, she squirming and protesting, back to where the unconscious brunette lay.

A blast of force rocked the container.

Cabot, shaken, could feel the residue of the heat. There were numerous glassine droplets scattered about.

The container was open.

The blonde tried to squirm past him, but Cabot held her back.

The brunette, probably from the concussion of the blast, the movement of the container, had again recovered consciousness.

She was now on her knees, wide-eyed, trembling, behind the blonde, whose advance Cabot had arrested.

The Kur who had opened the container, as though his work was now done, returned his weapon to its hook, behind the left shoulder, and turned aside, to one of his fellows.

It was as though he need do no more.

Things, it seemed, might now take their course.

Another Kur motioned that the occupants of the container, who were back within the container, should come forth.

"Stay back!” said Cabot to the women, though only one could understand his import.

The blonde struggled.

"What are they?” begged the brunette.

"Kurii,” said Cabot. “They feed on humans."

The brunette moaned.

"I am afraid,” she said.

"Be afraid,” he said, angrily.

"Do not be angry with me,” she begged.

"You do not deserve patience,” he said. The thought crossed his mind that she should be lashed. No, he thought, she is free.

"Where are the men?” she asked.

"What men?"

"Their masters!"

"These are a rational life form,” he said.

"They have no masters?"

"If so, only of their own species,” he said.

"There are no men?"

"No,” he said, angrily. “If there were men, you would be in little danger."

The blonde continued to squirm.

"I do not understand,” said the brunette.

"If there were men,” he said, “you would be collared and sold."

"Collared?” she gasped. “Sold?"

"Certainly,” he said. “It is all you are good for, if that."

The blonde suddenly squirmed loose and darted from the container. “Come back!” cried Cabot.

He scrambled from the container, to recover her, but he was seized by a Kur, and held up short.

He struggled, futilely. The strength of a human is small, compared to that of a superior species, such as that of the Kur.

The Kur who had opened the container, once the container was open, had turned aside to a fellow, and then, after a moment, as though he had finished whatever work was to have been done, had moved down the hall, toward the still-warm wound, that improvised, burnt gate, at the end of the hallway, through which the Kurii had effected their ingress.

There, before that opening, he stopped.

His back was to the length of the hallway.

The blonde, once she was free of the container, stopped, and stood in the center of the hallway. The Kurii stood about her, but did not attempt either to deter her, or apprehend her.

They did not seize her and begin to feed.

This surprised Cabot, for the species enjoys living meat.

It is not unusual for Kurii, incidentally, to quarrel over prey, fighting for it, tearing it apart, each withdrawing then with its secured portion, to crouch down and feed, alert, watching the others.

But, to Cabot's astonishment, she stood unharmed amongst them.

The large Kur who had opened the container then turned about.

He uttered a Kur sound, and the blonde stood absolutely still, as if frozen in place. She whimpered, and tears ran down her cheeks. But she did not move.

She understands him, thought Cabot. She is under discipline!

The Kur then uttered another sound, and she fled to him, and, to Cabot's amazement, leaped into his arms. She then crawled happily to his shoulder and began to nibble and bite at his fur. He stroked her with a paw, gently.

That is why she cannot speak, thought Cabot. She is not an exotic, denied speech. She has never learned to speak. She is not of Gor. She is of the Steel Worlds! She belongs to the beast! She is his pet! Had he come to the Prison Moon, with all the attendant risk, merely to recover a pet? Cabot found this hard to believe. She may believe it, thought Cabot, but I do not.

He regarded her, she contented, elated, on the shoulder of the beast, her master. She, with all her beauty, he thought, is a Kur pet! She would sell well on Gor, he thought. But here she is only the curvaceous, sleek little pet of a Kur! And then he realized even more the insidious cleverness of the Priest-Kings. Of course, he would assume she was a freed exotic. It would never have occurred to him that she might be a Kur pet. He had not even known that such as she existed. He regarded her, on the shoulder of her master. What a loss, he thought, to the sales platform.

Cabot awaited the tearing of his body.

There are a variety of ways in which this might be done, and much depends on the individual beast. Sometimes the head is bitten free and the spurting neck is covered with the predator's mouth, which is then drenched with the imbibed, flighted blood; another way is shared by certain other forms of predator, such as the larl or forest panther, in which the prey is seized, say, at the shoulder, and then, as in a frenzy, disemboweled with the hind legs; sometimes the victim is merely held and, after a few moments, as it struggles, the throat is torn open; a clean fashion is simply to bite through the base of the neck; perhaps the least attractive Kur feeding is to torment the quarry, biting and licking here and there, perhaps a finger, a hand, a foot, and so on. The victim's pain is supposed to improve the taste of the meat. When the victim is dead, some of its choice parts, the organ meat, usually, is eaten first by some of the Kurii, particularly if others are about, but others of the Kurii, usually when alone, will save it for the last, finishing their meal with the most savory morsels. Lest we be led to think the less of the Kurii in these matters, it is only fair to point out that most of the meat eaten in the Steel Worlds is not human. It takes a long time to raise a human for meat, even a child. Even to produce a human, we note, takes most of a year. Accordingly, most of the meat raised in the Steel Worlds is verr, tarsk, vulos, and such. It might also be mentioned that many Kurii do not even enjoy human meat. It is, it seems, a matter of taste. Too, it should be noted that much of the meat available in the Steel Worlds is not obtained in the hunt or live kill, but is processed from slaughtered animals, the meat of which is then dried, salted, or frozen, for future consumption. Too, although the Kurii are well thought of, in your presumed vocabulary, as carnivores, there are a number of processed food stuffs which have been engineered to be compatible with their digestion and fit for their nourishment. This will not be surprising to anyone familiar with the same sort of thing elsewhere, say, on Earth, where, for example, natural predators, and carnivores, such as the dog and the cat are often supplied with such alternative forms of nourishment.

What are the Kurii doing here, Cabot wondered.

One of the Kurii looked into the container, to its back, to where the brunette, kneeling, bent over, trying to make herself small, as though this would somehow make her presence in the container less conspicuous, was trembling, uncontrollably. He said something, in his tongue, peering within.

Cabot had heard that noise, or one much like it, but a moment ago, a noise which had been uttered by the large Kur who had opened the container, that noise to which the blonde had responded by rushing to him.

He is calling her, thought Cabot. She was a female, naked in the container, like the blonde. He is supposing she is a Kur pet, he thought. Such females, being highly intelligent, he supposed, doubtless make excellent Kur pets. Highly intelligent, they would doubtless train quickly.

The Kur seemed puzzled that she did not emerge from the container, and repeated the noise.

He was then spoken to by one of his fellows.

He then motioned that the brunette, kneeling in the back of the container, should emerge. There was no mistaking the sweep of that mighty paw. Not surprisingly, however, this invitation was declined by the brunette, who shook her head negatively, wildly, a gesture which may have been surprising to the Kur but was clearly not an act of compliance.

The beast uttered a displeased growl.

It went to the floor, and reached its long arm within the container, but it could not reach the brunette, who whimpered and drew back even further.

The opening in the container was wide enough for the beast to enter it, but Kurii are cautious beasts and it did not understand the container, or the wiring and tubing about. Many animals are reluctant to enter small confines with which they are unfamiliar, confines which do not have a clear second exit, confines in which unseen dangers might lurk, confines in which they might be trapped. The container was transparent, and a human would have thought little of entering it, but the beast was not human; and perhaps, more importantly, it was acutely aware, as a normal human might not be, of the subtlety and power of Priest-Kings. In any event it was reluctant to crawl into it. What if there should be some sort of field which might be activated by anything of its size, or genetic constituency?

It backed away from the container, and stood up, again, as such beasts commonly stand.

Two or three of the beasts looked about, uneasily.

They cannot stay here long, thought Cabot. This breach of the Prison World must be detectable in the Sardar. They must, after sealing themselves to it, or by means of protective gear of some sort, doubtless to be reassumed later, have burned through a lock, or even the shielding of the satellite. In any event Cabot had little doubt but what Priest-Kings would even now be apprised of the presence of unauthorized Kurii in the Prison Moon.

Perhaps even now investigatory ships were rising swiftly, silently, from the Sardar.

The Kur who had reached into the container now spoke to two of his fellows, who went to the container and began to lift it, between them, tilting it toward the floor.

The brunette shrieked piteously, and tried to brace herself within the container, to keep from slipping forward, and downward.

They know she is not a pet, thought Cabot. Pets obey instantly. If they do not, they are doubtless punished, or done away with.

She will be eaten, thought Cabot.

The container was tilted further, and shaken, and the brunette, screaming piteously, was tumbled out onto the metal flooring of the hallway.

She rolled to her back and lay there, looking up at the beasts gathered about her. “Please, please,” she screamed, “do not hurt me! Do not hurt me! Please, Sirs, do not hurt me!"

How she addressed the Kurii as “Sirs"!

She had perhaps never even used that expression of the males of her world, but now it came from her in her terror, addressed not to men but to these fanged, clustered beasts looking down upon her.

Did she think they would understand what she said?

Doubtless not, but surely her terror, her plaintive mien might be intelligible, perhaps even to a lion or larl! But did she think her pleas might move such beasts, prepared to feed?

Cabot struggled, but could not free himself.

He thought she looked well on her back, in what is referred to as the “capture position.” In this position, the captive locked in the arms of the captor, the captor can assess and enjoy the least nuance of expression in the captive's countenance. This position, too, is enjoyed by many masters with their slaves. The gasping, begging, countenance of a slave, wholly surrendered, helpless, sobbing herself his, is often not displeasing to a master. Too, as a male, he could not help but suppose she would also look well on her belly, either looking up to him for mercy, or facing away, that she may the more clearly understand that she is his domestic animal.

Should he have noticed these things?

Certainly, for he was a male.

It is natural and healthy to do so.

And he was now Gorean, and Goreans see the females of their species as, literally, the females of their species.

Too, we recall that she had been selected by Priest-Kings to be excruciatingly desirable to him.

In conversations within the container, not reported in this narrative, she had learned that his name was Tarl Cabot, which name, of course, meant nothing to her, nor was she even aware that Tarl, a name which seemed strange to her, was a not uncommon name on Gor, and one, we may suppose, originally, of Torvaldslandian origin.

Her name, for at that time she had a name, was Virginia Cecily Jean Pym. She was, I think we mentioned, English, sophisticated, educated, and such. Due to family position and wealth, we would have had to account her of the English upper classes, though her origins, in actuality, as nearly as we can determine, were not to be traced through traditional aristocratic lines, at least as far as legitimacy is concerned. A female ancestor, it seems, had caught the eye of a duke of York, though well before certain wars associated with that house and another. In Tarl Cabot's view, whose origins, being mercantile, were perhaps less imposing, she was an insufferably spoiled, snobbish brat. To be fair to Cabot, however, rumors had it, at least, that he might have had some connection with that Venetian John Cabot, or Giovanni Caboto, a Fifteenth-Century (Earth Chronology) mercenary sea captain who sailed for England, in the time of Henry VII, and was the first European after several Viking explorers, mariners, pirates, or such, to make landfall on the coast of North America, which is a portion of Earth's northern hemisphere. But this connection appears dubious, for a number of reasons, primarily having to do with the lack of evidence. There were, however, Cabots in Bristol at the time of Caboto's sailing on May 2, 1497 (Earth Chronology) and that doubtless, human vanity being what it is, sufficed to embellish family lore.

It will help to make certain subsequent developments in our narrative more clear if we add in a further remark, or two, pertaining to the brunette, at that time Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym. She had, largely through her upbringing, primarily by servants, occasionally abetted by a distant father and a supercilious, frigid, unhappy mother, and a desire to be faultlessly au courant, quite ambivalent attitudes toward the male sex of her species. They did trouble her, for she was raised to suspect and detest them, but, too, to her unease, she found them troubling. She found them both attractive and repellant, such large, crude creatures. Fortunately, they were weak, easily led about, instrumentalized, and so on. In her dreams she wondered if there were other sorts of males, and, at least in her dreams, somewhat to the embarrassment of her waking hours, she discovered them. It is important to understand that her natural needs, drives, and desires were extremely strong, unusually strong, even, dare we suggest it, slave strong. Had she been a scion of a simpler time, with a more natural upbringing and environment, we hazard a conjecture she might well, herself, have captured the eye of a nobleman, as allegedly did an ancestress, a nobleman who, in those days, in one way or another, might pretty much have whatever women, or wenches, he wished. She would surely have run happily to his stirrup. The blood of a needful, yielding female ran deeply in her veins. Genetics had formed her thigh for the kiss of the iron, her throat for the encircling clasp of the collar. Lastly, recall that the Priest-Kings had selected her out, perhaps from thousands, for their purposes, and that our own esteemed confederates, who are specialists in such matters, would have, had they discovered her, unhesitantly entered her on their acquisition lists. She was the sort of woman who belonged in a cage on Gor, from which she might be extracted, to be sold. She was then, in short, a natural slave, who had not yet encountered masters. And recall, as well, that not only had she been selected out to be excruciatingly desirable to Cabot, as a slave, but that he would be to her, in virtue of the same matchings, excruciatingly desirable to her, as a master. He would see her in terms of blood-stirring, virile claimancies, and she would find herself weak and helpless before him, as no more than a begging, pathetic slave.

Would he see fit to satisfy her?

Lastly we might note that Miss Pym, despite ambivalences with respect to the male sex, enjoyed being attractive to them, as she knew she was. She was quite different from those beautiful women who, for some incomprehensible reason, do not think that they are beautiful, perhaps through a failure to fulfill some transitory stereotype of female beauty, one idiosyncratic to a particular time and place. Some of them, nicely curved and naturally bodied, do not understand that they are beautiful until they find themselves in Gorean slave chains. But Miss Pym, whether from vanity or not, was under no delusion with respect to her attractiveness. She might have been a bit shorter or more slender than some slaves but Cabot effected nothing critical on that score, nor, I think, would have many men. To be sure, in a pleasure garden, in virtue of this lack of height and weight, as trifling as it might have been, she would have been subject to several of the other, larger girls, who might have beaten her when they wished, subject, of course, to the intervention of the attendants. Such women long desperately for a private master, but this is not unusual, for any slave. A well-stocked pleasure garden is doubtless pleasant for the master but it is likely to be less pleasant for its inmates, given the boredom, the intrigues, the competitions, the tense, shifting alliances, and such. Too, such gardens are often little more than a vanity amongst rich Goreans, as might be, say, the well-kept gardens surrounding a villa or estate. Wealthy Goreans not unoften strive to rival one another in such matters, as they might in dwellings, stables, walks, parks, and colonnades, in hunting sleen, racing tharlarion, aviaries, art collections, pools, and such. Fashions, too, can change, for example, in the color of grasses favored in pleasure gardens, the hair and eye color of its slaves, and so on. In any event, Miss Pym was under no delusion as to her own attractiveness. Indeed, she probably overestimated it, somewhat, as she had never had any experience of the relevant markets, nor any understanding of how her beauty might rank with that of others, many of them doubtless her superiors. The markets, of course, sort out the beauty of women, on a monetary scale, according to what men are willing to pay for it. But, as of now, perhaps in her vanity, and surely quite complacently, Miss Pym regarded herself not only as an extraordinarily beautiful woman, but, indeed, quite possibly, as the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. And we must admit, certainly given the women she had seen, who were numerous, of course, there was some justification for this view. Certainly she had found it confirmed in her mirror. In any event, she was pleased with her attractiveness, which was of considerable quality, and enjoyed noting its effect on men. It pleased her to trouble and torment them. That is, we suppose, a pleasure natural to beautiful women, to which it would be boorish to object. It is, of course, a pleasure more safely indulged in by free women than slaves, for, in the case of slaves, men, rather than spending their time being troubled and tormented, may simply buy the slave and bring her home, collared and braceleted.

The brunette squirmed on the metal flooring. “Please do not hurt me, please, Sirs!” she cried.

She put her small hands before her face, wildly. Cabot thought they would look nicely in slave cuffs. Were not such small, lovely wrists made for a master's steel?

"Please, Sirs!” she cried. “Do not hurt me! Do not hurt me!"

What are they waiting for, Cabot wondered. Will they not feed now, perhaps even fighting for scraps?

Where are the Priest-Kings, Cabot wondered, wildly.

They must know the security of the Prison Moon has been breached. How long does it take to bring ships to this orbit, with their technology, the closest of the three moons?

"Do not hurt me, Sirs!” she wept.

Did she think the shambling brutes could understand her, other than her fear, her distress? Perhaps they could sense she was begging for mercy. That should be clear enough.

Cabot saw no translators. He knew such devices existed. Indeed, he had had the experience of one in the northern polar regions of Gor, when he had been entertained by Zarendargar, war general of the Kurii. Too, Kurii, most at any rate, would need such devices, surely so, for communicating with their human confederates. Too, there might be different languages spoken in the Steel Worlds. Some humans, incidentally, can make out carefully spoken Kur, but they are unable to reproduce the sounds. Some Kurii, on the other hand, can not only follow carefully spoken Gorean, but are able, in a rough, guttural, rather frightening fashion, to produce a facsimile of, or a form of, Gorean. To be sure it is seldom easy to make this out. With respect to translators more generally, one supposes that the Priest-Kings themselves, whoever or whatever they are, must have such devices in order to communicate with humans, and perhaps, too, with Kurii. But of such things I have no personal experience. Mysterious, one supposes, are the ways of Priest-Kings.

"Please do not hurt me, Sirs!” cried the brunette.

One of the Kurii lowered his head to her body.

It begins, thought Cabot, first the girl, who is small, soft, and tender, and then me, tougher, more sinewy.

"Don't eat me!” she wept. “I will be good. Keep me! I will be very good! I will be obedient! I will serve you! I will do whatever you want!"

You are less prissy and proud now, aren't you, Cabot thought. Would that the males whom you belittled and abused on your world, whom you treated with such disdain and insolence, whom you teased and tormented, could see you now, naked, groveling and begging, before beasts!

Why have the Kurii come to the Prison Moon, Cabot asked himself.

Surely not to rescue a pet.

Why then? For what? To probe the defenses of Priest-Kings, to test equipment, to train and season pilots and task squads, to enact a trial of courage, to fling before Priest-Kings some sort of an act of defiance, what?

Where are the Priest-Kings, Cabot asked himself.

"Masters!” cried the brunette, suddenly, squirming in terror, on the metal floor, and drawing up her legs, the breath of the beast hot on her body, “Masters!"

Cabot was startled.

Had he heard what was said?

Had she said that—what he had thought he had heard?

"Please, Masters!” she screamed, “do not eat me! I will be your slave! Keep me as a slave! Make me your slave! I will be a slave! No, no, I am a slave! I am a slave! Keep me for yourselves, or sell me to men! Do not eat me! Keep me, or sell me! I beg to be your slave, to be kept or sold, as it might please you!"

These words came from her as though from her dreams, wild, tearful, and unutterably heartfelt, but they were cried out in full consciousness, in full waking reality, as she writhed, terrified, on the metal flooring of the hallway, at the clawed feet of fanged Kurii.

She is a slave, thought Cabot. The beautiful, curved, petty, snobbish thing is a slave! Excellent! Does she not know those words cannot be unspoken? She has bespoken herself slave. In all legality the little slut is now a slave. Does she understand that? The words have done it. She is now subject to claimancy. She is now no more than an unclaimed slave!

The closest beast to her, who had put down his head, probably merely to smell her sweat and terror, and the lingering, offensive odors of the container, for most Kurii are less fastidious in such matters than many humans, extended his long, dark tongue and ran it over the side of her body on the left, and she shrieked in terror.

He put his large paw over her face, to silence her, and one could see her eyes, wild, over that hairy appendage which covered most of her face.

She seemed paralyzed with fear.

It then removed its paw from the mouth of the former Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym, now, unbeknownst to herself, no longer a free woman, but now only a nameless slave, subject to claimancy.

It stood up.

It wanted salt, thought Cabot.

The Kurii looked about, uneasily.

One of them said something to his fellows, and several of them turned toward the burned, torn metal at the end of the hallway.

They are leaving, thought Cabot.

He remained motionless in the clutch of the Kur who held him, not struggling, passive, seemingly docile, seemingly resigned to his fate, whatever it might be.

One of the Kurii reached down and seized the brunette by the right ankle, lifted it, and, by its means, turned her to her belly. Her eyes were frantic, her ankle lifted and held behind her, and she stretched out her hands to Tarl Cabot, piteously.

He remained inert.

"Mr. Cabot!” she cried. “Mr. Cabot!"

How dared she, a slave, so speak a man's name?

She was half lifted from the floor, facing him.

He did not move, nor gave he any indication he was concerned with her plight.

"Mr. Cabot!” she wept. “Mr. Cabot!"

Again she had dared to use his name!

A girl once collared would fear to do so. A slave addresses free men as Master, free women as Mistress. She would use their name, normally, only when kneeling, and in response to interrogation.

"Slave."

"Yes, Master?"

"What is your name?"

"Margaret, Master."

"Who is your master?"

"Rutilius, Rutilius of Venna, Master."

The Kur who held her ankle turned about and, the ankle retained in his grasp, began to follow those who had already departed the hallway.

"Help me!” screamed the brunette, being dragged away, backwards, on her belly, by the grasped ankle, over the metal flooring, down the hallway, toward the opening. “Help me!” she cried. “What are they going to do with me? What are they going to do with me?"

"They must leave,” said Cabot. That seemed obvious to him, given their unease, their behavior.

"What are they going to do with me?” she shrieked.

"You are being saved for later,” he said.

"What are they going to do with me!” she cried.

"Presumably you will be eaten,” he said.

She shrieked, wildly.

At this point Cabot, who had hitherto for some time remained inert, seemingly crushed and defeated, reconciled to whatever might lie in store for him, in the grasp of his captor, suddenly lashed back with his elbow, striking sharply, heavily, as an ax, into the ribs of the Kur who held him, who, startled, grunting in pain, released him.

A common principle of warfare is surprise, others being such things as concealment, deception, and so on.

In a moment Cabot, perhaps foolishly, had raced after the Kur who was drawing the sobbing, hapless brunette toward the opening at the end of the corridor. It turned suddenly, aware of the sound on the flooring, and threw up its arm before Cabot's thumbs could gouge through its eyes. Such slaves as the brunette belong more properly, after all, to human males, not to Kurii.

Cabot was smote back, and sank groggily to the flooring.

He was aware of the beast reaching for a heat knife, and saw it glow white, almost instantaneously. At the same time he heard the rapid scrape of claws on the flooring behind him, and an enraged bellowing, as of fury and pain, as the Kur he had eluded rushed forward.

Too, he became aware of a large shape, like a boulder of fur, in the doorway, behind the Kur he had attacked.

The brunette screamed in misery, crawling to the side.

He could feel the blistering heat of the knife, and his vision was blinded with its light, which was wildly reflected about, leaping on the walls of the corridor.

One is not to look at the blade of a heat knife, for that is one of its features, and advantages, that it may temporarily blind its target.

Cabot tried to leap up, blindly, but, at that moment, before he could regain his feet, the Kur behind him seized him, lifting him, and holding his arms helplessly to his sides.

Scarcely could Cabot see through the whirlpool and chaos of light which seemed to blaze before him.

He did see the arm with the knife approach.

It will be the heart, he thought, sought within the cavern of exploded ribs, severed from its vessels, and extracted with a paw, to be crammed into a fanged mouth.

But a large paw rested gently on the arm that held the knife, and the knife suddenly turned red, and then gray.

Cabot struggled, weakly, unable to escape the grip of his captor.

He shook his head, trying to restore his vision, trying to resist the saberlike afterimages which seemed to slide and glow, and emerge again and again, on the walls and surfaces of the world before him.

He became aware that a Kur had taken the brunette by the hair and pulled her to her feet, and that she then, bent over, her hair grasped tightly, cruelly, in a paw, was being conducted rapidly, she running beside him, sobbing, from the hallway.

It is a common slave leading position, thought Cabot. A slave's hair is not only beautiful, and may be used for a number of erotic purposes, and, if long enough, for custodial purposes, as well, but it also makes it easy to control her, punish her, and such. When a girl is put into such a leading position, in which she is humiliated, mortified, and helpless, and knows her least recalcitrance may bring her excruciating pain, she is well reminded that she is not a free woman, but a slave.

It was doubtless the first time that the brunette had been put in slave leading position.

It would not be the last.

Cabot struggled to free himself, to pursue the beast in whose keeping was the former Miss Pym.

One really wonders about the rationality of the human species. What could he, alone, weaponless, have done in her behalf, or in his own?

Perhaps there are genetic predispositions to madness in the human species. To be sure, Kurii, too, can be guilty of such indiscretions. Are we not dark brothers?

Cabot shook his head, to clear his vision.

From somewhere he heard a sirenlike whine. It was a signal, doubtless, perhaps of warning, of alarm, perhaps a sign of urgency, perhaps a signal for recall, for regrouping or retreat.

Cabot became aware of a large, shaggy head peering at him, but inches from his face.

The massive, fanged jaws before him seemed twisted into some contorted configuration. Was it meaningless, or did it betoken menace, or was it a smile?

"Half-Ear!” exclaimed Cabot.

He was then cuffed into unconsciousness.