Rogue of Gor

31. The Chamber of the Windlass I Begin to Put my Plan into Effect

"Cease your lying!" cried the pirate."Put your back into it." "Yes Captain," I said to him, though surely he was not a captain. The whip cracked across my back.

I, sweating, chained, pressed my bare feet against the flot wooden slats nailed on the large, raised wooden deck, the treading platforme, some five feet above the floor, encircling the windlass. I could hear the chain turning on its winding axle below the level of the platform. The gate is raised by muscle power, abetted by two heavy, drumlike weights which partically balance its weight, transmitted to the windlass by means of metal windlass poles or bars, these being used to rotate the windlass. The gate, which is heavier than the drum-like weights has a gravity descent. In lowering the gate, the windlass, under the control of the workers, serves primarily as a brake, sufficing to regulate the speed of its descent. The principles and gearing of the winlass, which is an upright windlass, are analogous, of course to those of the capstan.

I pressed against the heavy metal pole, or bar, almost five inches in diameter, fixed now, like a spoke in the shaft of the windlass. My neck, in its collar, by a chain, was fastened in this pole. It was thus that I was kept in my place. My wrists and ankles were also chained. I had some 18 inches of play for my feet.

I had some 24 inches of play for my hands. These arrangements represent what is theoretically an optimum compromise between prisoner secuity and the degress of freedom essential to efficiently operate the windlass.

"Push!" cried the pirate. Again the whip struck across my back, I thurst again against the bar. The chip, then, struck elsewhere, too, and thre were cries of pain and the sounds of men moving in chains. There were five large poles, or bars, set in the windlass. At each, five men, chained as I was, labored. There poles may be inserted into the windlass and if one wishes, removed from it. The collars and neck chains keep men fastened to the pole, whether it is inserved within the windlass or not. When moving about, the pin-and-lock device opened, the men will carry the pole with them. When the pole is on the ground, and not lifted, one can rise no higher of course, then on one's knees with one's hands deferentially lowered.

"Push, push! Move!" called the pirate. The last struck amongst us. As the windlass turned slowly, creaking, we heard, too, overhead and to the side, the movement and swining of the great drumlike sounterweights on their chains. Without these counterweights, we could not have moved the sea gate.

I again felt the lash, as did the others, too. The pirate walked about us. It is dim and musty in the chamber of the windlass. It can be hot during the day. My hands slipped on the bar. Then I had it gain. Too, at night, it can be extremely cold. There was a smell of wastes in the chamber. Perhaps it would have been less unplesasant if our captors had permitted us clothing.

"Work, work!" called the pirate. "Work!" But he did not strike us again. The weights were no in motion.

There is little to amuse one in the chamber of the windlass, save, I suppose, eating and drinking and dreams. There is a shallow trough for water, cut in the stone, near one wall, where we would be chained when not working. This is filled twice daily. Too, at the well, we would be thrown crusts of bread and scraps of meat and fruit, usually the garbage of the feasts of pirates, our captors.

Then at night, chained, cold, when we would fall asleep, we would have our dreams. These dreams would usually be of slave girls, soft and warm, lucious, licking and kissing in our arms. Then we would awaken to the straw, to the cold, to the stones, to the damp cold, heavy iron of our chains. There were no pretty slave girls in the chamber of the windlass, as Policrates had told me. But we had our dreams. One girl, more than any others, Beverly Henderson, though she now appeared generallly inmy dreams not as the lovely, free Earth girl, Miss Henderson, but under a variety of names, as a Gorean slave girl, perhaps suddenly turning to greet me perhaps in a market, imploring me to buy her; perhaps on a rounded slave block, I with a purse of gold in hand, having ready the means with which to buy her; perhaps an escaped slave, pilfering in my compartment, then turning, then knowing herself caught; perhaps being pulled from a slave sack I had bought on speculation; perhaps drawn by the hair from the tend of an enemy; perhaps chained in the darkness, and then illuminated; it would generally, almost always, suddenly, somehow, seem she. "My Master!" she would say, knowing herself mine, acknowledging herself mine, kneeling before me. One dream I had had several times. We were having dinner in the restaurant, as we had had long ago. She was wearing the white, off-the-shoulder dress. She had the beaded purse. We finished the dinner and our coffee and I told her, "I am going to make you a slave girl." "You cannot do that," she told me. "You are mistaken," I told her. "How can I be mistaken?" she asked. "It is very simple," I said. "You do not know the nature of men," "This is a public place," she said. "That is all right," I told her. She turned to a man at a nearby table. "He intends tomake me a slave," she said to him. "That is all right," said the man. "You are a slave." "Strip now, and do not daily longer, Woman," I told her. Then, in my dream, slowly and gracefully, the clothing put aside, seeming to float from her, Miss Henderson standing beside the stable on the carpet of the restaurant, stripped herself. I then unbound her hair, so that it fell loosely, almost floating, about her shoulders. No one in the restaurant paid the least attention. I then removed a black leather cord from my pocket and bound her small wrists behind her back.

The ends of the cord were long, and fell to the level of the back of her knees. "Precede me now from the restaurant," I told her. "I wish to see how you move." She made her way between the tables. On the way out we passed the two women whom we had seen long ago in the restaurant. "My Master has tied me," she said to them. "Yes," said the larger of the two women. As we approached the door of the restaurnat, we passed on our left the hat-check counter. "Excellent slave meat," said the blond hat-check girl, Peggy, behind the counter. "You, too," I told her, "are excellent slave meat." "My Master has not yet claimed me," she said. "Be patient," I told her. "Yes, Master," she said. At the door to the restaurant we stopped. "On the other side of this door at this moment," I told her, "is another world. It is quite different from your old world. If you cross this threshold now, you wil be in the world. Do you understand?" "Yes, Jason," she said. "And in that world," I told her, "you will be, legally and completely a slave." "Yes, Jason," she said. I then opened the door. Beyod that door lay not the bricks, the gutters, the dingy air, the hurrying of traffic, the triviality and misery, which had previously lain outside it, but now, as the door opened, we saw open fields, vast and green, and a sky that was gloriously blue, studded with scudding clouds. The air was gloriously fresh, pure and clean. She stepped across the dark, stained, flat board that marked the threshold of the restaurant, out onto the grass, into the sunlight and wind. "You have crossed the threshold into the world of Gor," I told her. She turned to face me. "Yes, Master," she said. I turned ad closed the door, the dark, heavy door, with the rectangular panes of glass set in it, with the curtains behind the glass. As the door closed, it, and the restaurant and tits world vanished. I turned to face the girl. We were alone in the field in the sunlight. "It is time to begin to accustom you to your slavery," I told her. "Yes, my Master," she said.

"Do not slave, you Sleen!" said the pirate, snapping his whip. "Work, work!"

We had in the last few days, many times raised and lowered the sea gate. I speculated that these activities were largely connected with the coming and going of scout ships, and supply shipes and fitting vessels.

Then yesterday, the gate had been open for some four Ahn. I speculated that the fleet of Policrates, was not abroad. In his own hall, when his girls had finished with me, making me yield in his presence, his enemy, for the amusement of himself and his men, I had heard him as he had spoken to Kliomes, declare an intention to move his fleet east. Now I gathered, he had done so. Doubtless this was to discourage the formation of an alliance among the eastern towns, and to prevent ships being sent to stop or delay Ragnar Voskjard at the chain west of Port Cos.

"Keep moing," called the pirate. Again the whip cracked. As I made my way about the windlass, treading the slatted circular platform, with my bellow prisoners, thrusting against the metal pole, I saw cained to the wall and at one side, behind the water trough cut in the stonre, their necks still fastened to their own polkes, two other sets of prisoners. There are those in reserve, additional chained crews for the work of the windlass. Too, as was clear, no one at the windlass was indispensable. This comprehension doubless played its role in keeping order amongst us. We knew that any one of us could be cut from his chains at the merest whim of our jailer.

"Hold!" called the pirate. We stopped, the gate lifted. He engged the holding pawl. The gate would not now slip. The weights, overhead and to one side, swung on their chains. We reverted our position at the poles, stepping under them and then standing, turing the chain swivels to which the chains on our collars were attached. We werer no in position to brake the gate, in its lowering. I, then, like several of the others, the holding pawl now engaged, put my head down on the bar, resting. It is not easy to raise the gate. Outside I suuupposed that one or more ships, river galleys, might be gracefully entering or leaving the lakelike couryard of this holding of Policrates. The signal to raise or lower the gate is given by a guard on the wall, at the west gate tower, one of two towers flanking the sea gate. It is a voice signal. Accordingly its authenticity is seldom in doubt. Anyone, of course, might strike on a bar or blow on a trumpet. The windlass apparatus was withing the west gate tower.

It felt good to rest.

Yesterday, the gate had been open for some four Ahn. I conjectured the fleet had left. Too, it seemed likely to me that Policrates would have accompanied the fleet.

Indeed, in his hall, I had gathered from what I had heard that the fleet was to set forth under his personal command. The work afoot thus, was doubtless too serious to be left now to suborbinates. Kliomenes, I suspected would then have been left in charge of the holding. That at any rate was my hope.

"The ate is soon to be closed," said the priate. "Be ready." It takes less time to close the gate than open it, but that too, because of the weights involved, the windlass stress and the need to control the windlass, requires a considerable effort. To make the gate fall with extreme swiftness, incidentally, as was done when my galley was shattered, it is necessary only to disengage one of the counterweights. The polelike spokes, of course, by which the windlass is normally turned or managed should be freed of the windlass before this is done, a disengagement which is effected by loosing the pin-and-lock devices and withdrawing the poles from the windlass. If this were not done, the poles would spin wickedly, turing with the rotating windlass. This eventuality would be extremely dangerous, of course, to anyone withing the compass of the pole's movement or who might be, as we were, chained to the poles themselves. There are two counterweights, as I have mentioned, which partially balance the weight of the gate. The disengagement of one is quite sufficient to permit the gate to rattle viciously downward. If both were disengaged, the gate itself might be severely damanged.

"Be ready!" called the pirate. I looked upward, the collar slipping on my neck. A golden shaft of light flitered downward, falling gently into the chamber. In it there danced a myriad specks of golden dust. It was very beautiful. I also noted that the window was too narrow to admit the egress of a man.

"I fooled Policrates, himself," I memtioned to the fellow next to me, "when I brought the topaz to him. He did not know me for an imposter, any more than the dolt, Kliomenes."

The fellow looked at me blankly. "Liar!" screamed the pirate. "I have warned you about your lies. The whip fell again and again on me. "Persist in these lies," cried the pirate, "and I will bring the matter to the attention of Kliomenes himself!" "Forgive me, Captain," I said, as though frightened.

But I had gathered from his remark that my conjecture that Policrates was not now in the holding was correct. Surely if Policrates had been in the holding, he would have threatened me with his name and not that of Kliomenes, since I had expressly mentioned Policrates and he stood higher in the holding than Kliomenes. Kliomenes must now, I gathered, be in charge of the holding. This, I felt, was in the best interests of my plan.

"Lower the gate!" we heard a man call. "Lower the gate!" Then far above us and to the right of the windlass chamber, angry, entering out onto a small balcony extending into the chamber, a balcony reached through a guardroom, we saw a pirate. "Wht is going on down there?" he called.

"Nothing!" called the pirate who had been striking me. "Did you not hear the signal?" called the man on the balcony.The pirate with us glared at me, in fury. He loosened the holding pawl. Immediately we felt the stress in the windlass gates.

"Pay attention, you fool," called the man on the balcony. "Listen! Get the gate down!" Lower the gate!" cried the pirate with us, angrily. "Hurry, you fools!"

We felt the bars pulling against our arms and slowly, with effort, as the weights ascended, permitted the descent of the gate. Then the gate was down. I met the eyes of the pirate. He looked at me in fury. I looked down as though frightened.

But I was not displeased with the occurrences of this day.