Kur of Gor

Chapter, the Thirty-Third: A RETURN TO THE HABITATS IS CONTEMPLATED

The light was bright on the lake, and it was not well to look too long on its waters.

"Why did we wait three days?” asked Cabot.

"I hoped she would return,” said Grendel.

"You could have followed her, could you not?” asked Cabot.

Grendel reached to activate the small, disklike translator on his harness.

"You do not need that,” said Cabot, irritably. “Do not put a machine between us. I can understand your Gorean."

"My Gorean is imperfect,” said Grendel. “It has to do with the throat."

"I can understand you quite well,” said Cabot. “Your Gorean is different, but comprehensible."

Grendel snapped off the translator, it seemed reluctantly.

"Yes,” said Grendel. “I suppose I might have followed her. She was barefoot, and was indiscreet in her flight, leaving various traces."

"She did have a start,” said Cabot. “Perhaps as much as three Ahn."

"Even so,” said Grendel.

"Why did we not pursue her?” asked Cabot.

"She told me she would remain in her bower,” said Grendel. “I trusted her."

"A tragic mistake,” said Cabot. “In three Ahn she might well have come to a trail, and encountered Kur patrols."

"What is love,” asked Grendel, “if there is no trust?"

"Do you think she loves you?” asked Cabot.

"No,” said Grendel.

"She is a treacherous little she-urt,” said Cabot, “and should have been kept on a tether, bound hand and foot, naked."

"Please,” said Grendel, reprovingly, “she is a free woman."

"Blindfolded and gagged,” said Cabot, angrily.

"Do not be angry with her,” said Grendel. “She is beautiful."

"She might have made contact with Agamemnon's people within Ahn of her flight,” said Cabot.

"True,” granted Grendel.

"Look,” said Cabot, suddenly, pointing to a stirring in the water.

"Tharlarion,” said Grendel, resting on the mighty oar with which he propelled the raft.

Grendel then again plied his mighty lever.

"Lita,” said Cabot, “lie nearer the center of the raft."

The slave crawled closer to the center of the large, rude raft, some yards in width, and lay there, supine, her left arm shading her eyes from the light, amidst the small store of supplies, one property amongst others. She was tunicked, and about her waist a rope was fastened, which rope was fastened, too, to the raft. By means of this arrangement, in the event of a storm, or an attack by tharlarion, should she be pitched into the water, she would not be separated from the raft, but would have at her disposal a means for regaining its surface. Cabot found it difficult to take his eyes off her. Her arms were bare, as is common with a slave tunic. The tunic itself was quite short, as is common, too, with such garments. Yes, Cabot thought, the slave is nicely legged, and that would doubtless, on a sales block, improve her price. How utterly marvelous are women, he thought. How excruciatingly desirable, and marvelous, they are! It is no wonder, he thought, that men want them, and want them as slaves. It is no wonder that they are sought, hunted, captured, and collared. He regarded the collar on her neck. How right it was there, unslippable, closely encircling her neck. How beautiful it was! And how beautiful she was, collared! And it was his collar!

"We will try to reach the far shore,” said Grendel.

"To eventually obtain access to the habitats,” said Cabot.

"Yes,” said Grendel.

"I trust,” said Cabot, “to join those who would stand against the Eleventh Face of the Nameless One."

"Perhaps,” said Grendel.

"I fear it is too late,” said Cabot. “Indeed, by now the world may be abundantly repopulated, with numerous reinforcements for Agamemnon, the fleet having returned."

"True,” said Grendel, “and we may be dealt with, on sight, with power weapons."

"I advised against dalliance,” said Cabot.

"I thought she might return,” said Grendel.

"Why did you take her with you in your flight?” asked Cabot.

"Many wanted her life,” said Grendel. “I took her with me to protect her. I feared she would be sent to the pens, as cattle."

"She betrayed you,” said Cabot.

"I strove to protect her,” said Grendel. “I could not continue to do so unless she were with me."

"And now?” asked Cabot.

"She may need me,” said Grendel.

"Forget her,” said Cabot.

"I cannot,” said Grendel.

"She is your enemy,” said Cabot.

"I am not her enemy,” said Grendel.

"You would sacrifice a world, for one sly, cunning, treacherous she-urt?"

"I love her,” said Grendel.

"I fear you are unwise, my friend,” said Cabot.

"I am part human,” said Grendel.

The slave stretched, languorously, and sat up, looking about.

She smiled at her master, and looked away, over the water.

What a clever little she-sleen she is, thought Cabot. Surely she knows what that smile can do to a man. How innocent it seems, and how devastating. How such a smile can twist the insides of a fellow! Well, he consoled himself, he could have her whenever he wished. She, that sinuous little Earth slut, now goods, now no more than salable, purchasable collar meat, was his!

"Master!” she suddenly cried, pointing upward.

Cabot and Grendel looked upward.

It was very small, and somehow between the lake and the forests overhead.

"See the wings,” said Grendel. “It is in the area where such things can propel one, where there is little fastening to the cylinder surface."

"As in the shuttles,” said Cabot.

"Yes,” said Grendel.

"Has he seen us?” asked Cabot.

"I do not think so,” said Grendel.

* * * *

They had been now on the lake for two days.

Cabot assisted with the oar from time to time, but it was Grendel who plied it tirelessly, sometimes when Cabot and his slave slept.

They had seen two tharlarion but neither had approached the raft. They had seen nothing further in the sky above them, save for the forests and meadows overhead, on the other side of the cylinder.

Two more days had then passed.

"Tomorrow we will make landfall,” said Grendel.

It was at that point that the slave had leaped to her feet, and screamed, and pointed.

Grendel thrust the oar back on the raft and seized up the long ax.

A massive head, glistening, shedding water, on a long neck, had emerged from the water, not yards from the raft.

"That is carnivorous,” said Cabot, picking up the sharpened stick he had formed into a makeshift spear.

"Master!” cried the slave, frightened, miserably.

"Get behind me,” said Cabot, and the slave scurried behind him, and crouched down.

Whether she lived or died, she well understood, would depend on the courage and prowess of others. She was half naked, collared, and weaponless. But it would not have been otherwise had she been free, and terrified, quivering helplessly within ornate robes. In either case she would be a woman dependent on men, on larger, stronger, fiercer beasts, for her very survival. When there is fighting, slaves are often chained, that they will helplessly await the outcome of war, and their disposition, and free women, too, are often sequestered, that they may not by their presence compromise defenses or complicate ensuant adjudications. Women on Gor are not men. In their smallness, softness, slightness, weakness, loveliness and beauty they are either treasures to be protected, or, if things turn out badly, prizes to be distributed. They must wait to learn if they are to be rejoicing guests at a victory banquet or stripped slaves serving it.

Gor is a man's world, you see, and women are men's.

"We are closer to land,” said Grendel. “Such things are commonly found closer to shore. Some beach at night. Some hunt on the beaches at night. There is more forage closer to shore, for fish, for herbivores, for their prey."

The head moved on the long neck, swaying, snakelike, which seemed odd in an aquatic creature.

"It may not take us as food,” said Grendel, his ax lifted.

"It is submerging!” said Cabot.

There was a subtle, gentle subsidence in the water where the great body slipped beneath the surface.

"Master!” cried the slave, pointing back.

Another large head, similar to the first, though perhaps of a different species of aquatic tharlarion, had broken the surface.

Its head was only four feet or so from the surface. Its neck was thicker and shorter than that of their first visitor.

"There is another!” shrieked the slave.

This head was similar to that of the first, doubtless of the same species. In a moment both of these new arrivals had slipped beneath the surface.

"They are gone,” said Cabot.

"Cling to the raft!” said Grendel, standing.

Cabot and the slave held to the ropes binding the huge logs together.

Almost at the same moment the raft seemed to leap upward in the water, some great back beneath it, and then, with a mighty splash that drenched the occupants of the primitive vessel it struck back down into the water.

"Master!” screamed the slave.

"Hold to the ropes!” cried Cabot.

Grendel was down on one knee, his right hand on his ax, his harnessing, and the fur beneath it, drenched with water.

He shook his massive head, to rid his eyes of water.

"It is quiet,” said Cabot, as the raft settled back, rocking on the surface.

"No, no!” said Grendel.

Then a body, that of the same behemoth or one of the others, rose under the raft and tipped it to the left, sharply. The slave screamed, losing her grip on the wet rope to which she clung, and slid over the logs and plunged into the water. Cabot reached to her rope, that fastened about her waist, and dragged her out of the water onto the raft's surface, she crying and sobbing, the raft then again righting itself.

"They cannot overturn it!” shouted Cabot.

Then the stem of the raft rose almost vertically into the air and its occupants clung to the ropes on the wet surfaced almost as if clinging to a wall. The slave screamed, and Cabot extended his hand to her, which she grasped.

Then the raft again plunged into the water, with a mighty splash.

"You built this well!” Cabot called to Grendel.

"It can be overturned,” cried Grendel. “If it is, get back on it, swiftly! Do not stay in the water!"

"It is too heavy to overturn!” said Cabot.

"No,” said Grendel. “These things have such force."

"Ai!” cried Cabot, in dismay.

He then thrust his makeshift spear under ropes, from whence, were the raft overturned, he might, from beneath the surface, have been able to recover it.

"Surely the raft is too heavy to overturn, Master,” wept the slave.

"It seems not,” said Cabot.

He then bent to free the slave's waist rope from its anchoring on the raft. “If the raft is overturned,” said Cabot, “the rope might hold you under the raft. Can you swim?"

"No!” she wept.

He then looped the rope about his arm.

"Cling to the rope,” he told her.

"Yes, Master!” she wept.

A moment later the raft again tilted to the left, and then, half visible, the mighty back of one of the gigantic saurians, like a wet, scaled mountain, rose higher and higher, and then the raft, after a moment, slid free, and struck again into the water. “He cannot do it!” called Cabot to Grendel.

"No!” said Grendel. “He now understands it can be done!"

Again the mighty body emerged under the side of the raft, and the raft again tilted to the left, and then it was vertical, and its occupants dangled from the ropes. “Jump!” cried Grendel, and leapt from the raft. Cabot seized the slave and leaped clear of the raft, just as it struck into the water, inverted. He scrambled onto the bottom of the raft, now upward, and dragged the girl onto its surface beside him. “Grendel!” called Cabot. He saw a huge paw rise out of the water, and then Grendel was on the raft. In his harness, he had thrust the haft of the long ax. “We are safe!” said Cabot.

"No, no!” said Grendel.

Again the mighty body emerged under the raft and again the raft was almost vertical in the water, and was then vertical, and then struck down again, with great force, its occupants, as before, leaping free. Cabot thrust away large jaws reaching for him, and then he, dragging his slave with him, clambered back onto the raft. A moment later Grendel had joined them. “The supplies are gone,” said Cabot.

"They are hungry,” said Grendel. “They are not finished."

The raft was now upright, having twice turned, but, as Cabot had observed, their supplies were gone.

Logs were loosened, and water washed about their feet.

"The raft is heavy!” said Cabot. “It is hard for them!"

"I fear it will break up,” said Grendel.

The slave screamed.

Cabot's foot slipped between parted logs, and he drew it up, swiftly, as the logs, loose in their ropes, clashed together.

The slave was on all fours, half in water.

She screamed.

A large head had lifted itself out of the water and was reaching, head turned, for Grendel, who struck its jaw with the ax. It drew back, flesh hanging from the side of its jaw, seemingly more puzzled than injured.

Blood spread into the water.

"We are done,” said Grendel. “There is blood! These things can smell that from a pasang away!"

Grendel stood, the ax ready, lest the large aquatic predator approach anew.

Cabot extracted his makeshift spear from its ensconcement within the ropes of the raft, and held it, crouching down.

He saw a stirring in the water, as of a large body but a yard or so below its surface, approaching smoothly, unhurried.

Another head, the shorter, wider head, on the shorter neck, emerged behind Cabot and he, alerted by the tiny sound, spun about, and, crouched down, jabbed at the head, over the slave's prone body, and the point of the stick, blackened, and fire-hardened, but perhaps over sharpened, intended not for such an application, but for the penetration of more yielding targets, say, Kurii, snapped against the jaw, much as if it might have been plunged against rock.

Cabot drew back the splintered weapon.

The beast was peering at him, unhurt as far as Cabot could tell.

He had at his disposal no Gorean spear with its stout blade, a weapon which might have been, as the ax of Grendel, more potent.

"Master!” cried the slave, pointing, for another head had emerged form the water.

There might then have been six, or seven, saurians, curious, aggressive, within a dozen yards of the raft.

"Brought by the blood,” commented Grendel. “And there will be others."

"Yes,” said Cabot.

The beasts, of course, were not accustomed to men, or Kurii, both so unlike their usual prey. Too, their usual strikes would be made within the water, or near the shore. They would not understand the raft, but they could sense food.

"It is a matter of time,” said Grendel.

Certainly they had tried to bring their quarry into the water.

They had met surprising resistance, however, in attempting this, due to the weight of the raft.

Again one of the predator's heads extended over the raft, jaws opened, reaching for Grendel.

He struck at it, and the ax was seized in the snapping jaws, and, with a wrench of the great head, flung away, into the water.

"I wish you well,” called Grendel to Cabot.

"I, too, wish you well,” said Cabot.

Cabot stood, unsteadily, on the loosened logs. He sensed the slave at his feet. She was kneeling, her head down, pressing herself against his leg.

He put his hand in her hair, fondly.

"Are we to die?” she asked.

"It would seem so,” he said.

She looked up at him, her face stained with water, and tears, and smiled.

"You are a pretty slave,” he said.

"Thank you, Master,” she said.

"I think you are clearly worth two tarsks,” he said, “and, stripped, I think you would sell for such, in almost any market."

"Thank you, my Master,” she said.

"I regret only,” said Cabot, “that I have had too little time as yet to apprise you more adequately of what it is to be the Earth-girl slave of a Gorean master."

"'As yet'?” she asked, startled, hopefully.

"Yes,” he said.

"But there is more?” she said.

"A thousand times more,” he said, “and more beyond that."

"Would that I were better apprised of that, my Master,” she said, “for I long to be so helpless, so reduced, so obedient, so submissive, so dominated, so utterly and vulnerably dominated."

"There are horizons beyond horizons,” he said, “mornings beyond mornings, nights beyond nights, pleasures beyond pleasures, fulfillments beyond fulfillments. A slave can never complete that journey, her journey into the fulfilling riches and beauties of helpless bondage and submission, for there is always more to learn, to understand, to do, and feel. The emotional, physical, and psychological rewards are endless."

"And yet we can be bought and sold!” she said.

"Certainly,” he said. “You are a slave."

"Yes, Master,” she said.

"Would you have it otherwise?” he asked.

"No, Master,” she said, “for otherwise I could not know myself so much a slave, otherwise I could not be the slave I so much long to be."

Grendel, without his ax, was standing at the stem of the half-shattered raft, looking out, over the lake.

"They are coming, two or more,” he said. “They will take us from the surface, or, if we enter the water, from the water."

"Perhaps not,” said Cabot.

"It is over,” said Grendel.

"Perhaps not,” said Cabot.

"You are a fool,” said Grendel.

"I am human,” said Cabot.

"I am Kur,” said Grendel.

Cabot then gently thrust the slave to the side, and lifted the splintered remains of his makeshift spear.

"You will fight to the end?” inquired Grendel.

"Certainly,” said Cabot. “I am human."

"I will fight, too,” said Grendel, lifting his hands, from which the claws emerged, like knives, “for I am Kur!"

"It is coming!” said Grendel, as one of the monsters, indeed, the first who had visited the raft, it seems, cleaved toward the raft, the water sliding from its back on both sides, sparkling in the light, simulating that of late afternoon.

But its advance was oddly, abruptly, arrested, and its gigantic paddlelike appendages churned in the water, but they did not move the tons of massive body forward, and then most of the body disappeared beneath the surface, almost as though drawn back, and down, and its head, on the long neck, rose up, for a moment, yards above the surface of the lake, as if to snap at a moon or star, and its large, round eyes, inches in width, under their transparent, encasing membranes, seemed to stare about, wildly, stupidly, and then the body, the neck, and head, disappeared, as though drawn downward.

"What is it?” called Cabot.

"It must be another tharlarion,” said Grendel. “I do not understand. It was not bloody. It must be another beast!"

Suddenly the saurian rose from the water, as a whale might have breached, and one of the paddlelike appendages was a massive, bleeding stump, and its belly was torn open in a wound yards long, a wound so deep it might have reached the spine of the beast, and gut and blood, and organs, burst from the rupture. Then it fell back into the lake.

Two smaller tharlarion began to attack it, while it still lived.

"Beware!” called Grendel.

Cabot turned and, with the stick, jabbed at the second large head whose jaws, turned sideways, were reaching for him.

But suddenly that beast, too, seemed drawn back, away from the raft, its head and neck sliding back, on the logs, away from the raft.

A moment later a surge of blood and tissue reddened the lake about the raft, as though the lake itself had bled.

"There is something down there!” said Grendel.

"What?” called Cabot. “What?"

"I do not know,” said Grendel.

Suddenly the slave cried out, in pain, and clambered atop one of the logs out of the water.

"What is it?” called Cabot.

"The water,” she said. “The water, Master! It hurts!"

Cabot pressed his hand into the water, and withdrew it, with a cry of pain.

"Look!” called Grendel, pointing to the lake.

Beneath the surface there seemed thousands of flashing, shimmering, lights, darting about, flickering.

With bellows of pain, tharlarion, on all sides, far more than they had understood were in the area, with a churning of water, fled.

"There are charges in the water,” said Grendel. He put his hand into the water and, wincing, drew it back, instantly. “It is not tharlarion,” he said.

"Fish, eels?” said Cabot.

"No,” said Grendel. “No."

"Surely,” said Cabot.

"No,” said Grendel.

"Look!” cried the slave, pointing forward.

There, some twenty or so feet from the raft a shape had arisen slowly, majestically, from the lake. It was certainly in the form of a gigantic aquatic tharlarion. There was the massive body, the huge, paddlelike appendages, a powerful, elongated, snakelike neck surmounted with a massive head, with mighty fanged jaws. But this was all of metal.

The head moved, surveying them. There were two reddish, jewellike lenses where the eyes of a natural saurian might be found. The body itself was scaled, in a way, but with shimmering, overlapping metal plates.

The jaws of the machine, and its rows of arrayed knifelike teeth, were scarlet, bearing traces of the work it had performed below the surface.

Grendel addressed the machine in Kur.

"Turn on your translator!” said Cabot.

Grendel did so, but there was no sound emanating from the immense object before them, either in Kur or Gorean.

The glowing lenses or optical devices regarded them for a few moments, and then the huge machine quietly submerged, leaving only some ripples in its wake.

"It is a body of the Eleventh Face of the Nameless One,” said Grendel, “a body of Agamemnon, Theocrat of the World."

"He now knows where we are,” said Cabot.

"Yes,” said Grendel.