Kajira of Gor

15 Alarm Bars

"Holdl Who goes there?" called a voice. I heard the snarling of the patrol sleen, its jerking at its chain.

Weeping, I fled back among the tents. The guardsman did not release the sleen. He would probably not want it loose among the tents.

I crouched behind a tent, in the darkness. This was the third time I had tried to leave the camp. Once there had been stakes and wire; another time there had been a deep ditch; each time there had been guardsmen with sleen. The sleen, I had little doubt, had been able to detect my approach, and had led the guardsmen to my vicinity. The perimeter of the camp seemed ringed with guards and sleen. The camp was heavily guarded. This was perhaps because it was still within the range of Corcyrus, and perhaps, too, because of a special captive, a Tatrix, thought to be chained in a suspended cage.

I looked up. I moaned. In the moonlight, not more than a hundred yards away, I could see the cage slung from its branch. In my running, and fear, disoriented, and once pursued by drunken soldiers, I had inadvertently returned to its vicinity. If I were caught I did not doubt but what I would soon again find myself the prisoner of those cramped quarters, though doubtless in fresher, sturdier bonds, probably of iron, and not locked, but hammered closed about my neck and limbs. The cage, too, then would probably be closed with plates and rivets, and the guards doubled or tripled about it. I crouched down, my head in my hands. In a little more than an Ahn, I feared, the camp would be awakened. Already it seemed to me that there were more people about than before, more men to avoid.

I shrank back into the shadows. Two men, cooks, I think, from their conversation, were passing.

I heard wings overhead. Looking up I saw a tarn. It was flying northwest. Behind it, on long ropes, dangled a tarn basket. Sleen were no problem for it, I thought bitterly. It was not the first such departure, or, indeed, arrival, I had noted in the camp.

I had hitherto avoided the more fit, busy portions of the camp, generally about the areas for tradesmen, suppliers and sutlers, and the storage, delivery and mess areas.

There were too many men there, and it would be, surely, too easy to be detected. I, then, stealthily, my heart pounding, began to follow, keeping in the shadows, the two men who had just passed. I was terribly frightened.

They were moving toward the center of the camp.

"What are you doing there, Slut, skulking about?" called a man. I had not seen him, between the tents. He had some gear slung over his shoulder. He was apparently waiting there. I backed away from him.

"Let her go," said another man, emerging from a tent. He, too, carried some gear. "You can see she is a slave, returning to her master." I then hurried away. In the darkness they had not detected that I lacked a brand. Too, they had not noticed that my neck was not encircled by a slave collar.

I was now in consternation. I did not see how I could proceed.

People seemed to be getting up now about the camp.

"Ena!" called a girl, hurrying to catch up with another.

I stepped back into the shadows.

A tall, slim girl, naked, turned about. A bit of slave silk dangled languidly from her left hand.

The new girl was short and lusciously bodied. She wore a brief, silken slave tunic, fastened with a single tie at her bosom. A single tug frees the tie and allows the garment to be parted for the view and pleasures of a master. Both women wore collars.

"And how did the night go?" asked the new girl. "Were you well used?" "Yes," responded the taller girl, dreamily. "And you?"

"Superbly," said the shorter girl.

The two girls then began to walk down the lane between the tents.

L my head down, my hair about my neck and shoulders, hopefully tending to conceal the bareness of my neck, the absence there of a steel circlet, fell into step behind them, seemingly, I hoped, only another slave on her way back to her master.

I soon became aware that this must be a lane leading to the chains.

Other girls, soon, here aid there, entered it, before and behind me, and between me and those who had been directly before me.

"And what of the resistance you -intended to offer?" one girl was asking another.

"It was crushed," said the other. "He did not choose to accept it. Then he made me serve him well."

"It is the fifth time you have served in his tent since we left Argentum," said the first girl.

"Yes," said the second. "think he likes you," said the first girl. "Perhaps," said the other.

"Do you think he will buy you?" asked the first girl.

"it matters not to me," said the other. "I do not care, one way or the other." "There are stains on your face as though you bad been crying," said the girl. "And it does not seem to me that you have been beaten."

"Oh?" asked the other.

"You pretentious tarsk sow," laughed the first girl, "you were begging him to buy youl"

"What if I was!" said the other, tossing her bead.

"And when did you beg this?" asked the girl.

"After my resistance bad been crushed, and he made me serve him without compromise as a slave," said the other, and again this morning, before we parted."

"You seem pleased enough now," observed the girl.

"Tassy," said the other, "he is going to make an offer for me!"

"That is marvelous, Yitza!" said the first girl.

"But will Myron let me go?" asked the second girl.

"I do not know," said the first. "Such matters are between the men." The second girl moaned.

"Look at it this way," said the first girl. "If we did not wear collars we would not even know the touch of such men as Rutilius. Too, if we were not slaves and sent to their tents, we would not even know what to do. We would be only ignorant free women."

"How I sometimes pity free womenl" laughed the second girl. "They are so stupidl"

"But fear them, Yitza," said the first girl, "for they are free and you are enslaved."

"Of course," said the second girl, shuddering.

"And remember that they hate you," said the first.

"I know," said the second.

A man stepped out, into the center of the lane. I stopped, frightened. But his attention was on another.

"Yeela," said lie.

A girl, addressed by a free man, fell to her knees before him.

"I have paid fee for you," he said.

"it is early, Master," she laughed. "Would you lie to a poor slave?" "Perhaps," lie said.

"If you have not, know that you will be charged," she laughed. "I am not for freel"

But then he had crouched down and taken her in his arms. She was thrown beneath him, grasping at him, to the dirt. Frightened, I took my way about them. I tried to hide among other girls. I hoped that no man would decide to pull me out from among them.

"What is for breakfast?" I heard one girl asking another.

"I have heard," said the other girl, who was a shorter one, "that each of us will have five berries put in our gruel this morning."

"Good," said the first.

Alp "If no bad reports are received on any of us," added the second.

"I was pleasing," said the first.

"So, too, was I," averred the second.

"If Jasmine is not fully pleasing again," said the first girl, "I think I will pull her hair out."

"And so, too, will the rest of the chaint" laughed the second girl, the shorter one.

Jasmine, I suspected, would soon learn to be pleasing. Certainly it would be in her best interests to be so. She would probably have to spend at least a portion of every day within the reach of her chain sisters. Doubtless soon she would be begging them for counsels in sensuality, for tricks and techniques, that she might improve herself and become less inadequate as a slave.

"He took away my clothes," one girl was telling another, "but then he did not so much as touch me. He made me serve him, rather, in small and menial ways. I must cook Sullage for him. Then I must launder and iron a tunic. Then I must dust his goods and clean and tidy his tent. Then I was made to sew, and then clean and polish his leather."

"And how did you feel," asked the girl to whom she was speaking, "performing these small tasks for him, suitable for a slave?"

"Gradually, serving him helplessly, then lovingly in these fashions, I became more and more aroused," she said. "Then, finally, after the polishing of the feather, I could stand it no longer. I threw myself to my belly before him, juicing like a larma."

"Did he then content you?" asked the other girl.

"Yes," said the girl, "though the brute made me squirm a little first." How well that master had understood sex, and the sexuality of the female, I thought. He apparently understood something of the pervasiveness and totality of female sexuality. They had been, in their way, having sex together for hours, before he even touched her. Well had he understood the woman, and her needs and desires to be pleasing, and to submit and serve in many ways. It was the total woman, in her wholeness, which he, to her joy, had chosen to dominate.

How terrible, I thought, to be a slave!

"Would you like to be sent again to his tent?" asked the other girl. "Yes," said the girl. "Yesl Oh, yesl"

What a meaningless slut she wasl How pleased I was that I was not a slave! "You, Slave!" called a voice.

I stopped in my tracks. I put my fists before my mouth, in terror, but, too, to hide my neck.

"Not you, you!" said the voice.

I quickly hurried on, trembling. It seemed that any moment I must be discovered. "I must see him again," the girl in front of me was saying.

"Why?" asked the other.

"I think he is my love master," she breathed.

"It is more likely that you are his love slave," laughed the other.

"He must call for me again!" said the girl.

"You are, of course, entitled to hope that," said the other, "when you lie alone, chained in your place."

"He must!" she wept.

"Perhaps he will have you summoned again to his tent," said the second girl. "I must see him again!" she said.

"That will be decided by masters," said the second girl. How horrifying to be a slave, I thought. How pleased I was that I was not a slave.

Swiftly, then, seeing more men waiting further down the lane, sonic with loops of chain in their hands, I slipped to the side between the tents. I could see women lining up down there, too, being put in wrist or throat coffle, each one doubtless reporting in, and in the proper position, to the appropriate slave master.

I skirted a large cooking area. I could smell freshly baked bread, and the cooking of eggs and meat.

I made my way among tents, every sense alert, sometimes crawling on my hands and knees.

It was still quite dark. Here and there, there were morning fires. The moons were down.

I cried out in misery. A sleen, snarling, leapt toward me, but was stopped by its chain.

I continued on my way, treading narrow valleys between mountains of sacks, narrow aisles separating cliffs of boxes.

"Where are you going, little lady?" called a fellow from above me.

He was standing on boxes, carrying a box. I had not even seen him.

"The chains," he said, "are behind you and to your right."

Swiftly I sped away, in the general direction he had indicated. Then, when I was confident I was out of his sight, I resumed, as nearly as I could, given the bundles, the boxes and crates, my original direction.

Then I found myself in a blind alley, a place where the passage was closed by a sheer wall of boxes, several feet over my head. I hurried back and tried another passage. It, too, to my misery, was blocked. Then I suddenly realized I had lost my direction. Between the boxes, at places, darknesses in the darkness, there were narrow cracks. I did not know which ere passages and which were mere places where several boxes had been removed. I struck with my fists at the wall of boxes.

Then, suddenly, I heard a tarn scream, and not more than o or three hundred yards away.

Too, I saw a lantern approaching behind me.

I darted through an opening, came to a wall, and crouched between two boxes. I saw the light of the lantern on the boxes ahead of me, a WO it was lifted at the passage I had entered.

"She came this way," said a voice.

I heard the two men entering the passage.

"There she is!" said one of them. I gasped, in terror.

Then I heard a sudden scrambling. "I've got you, you little she-sleen!" he said. I heard a small body flung to the dirt. Then I heard the snapping on of slave bracelets.

"Turn her over," said a voice.

I heard a body moked.

"She's a pretty one," said a voice. "Read her collar."

"Our little thief is Tula, of the chain of Ephialtes," said the other voice. "I stole nothing, Masterl" cried the girl.

"Thrust up her tunic," said the first voice. "Now split your I legs, Tula. Good girl. Now, what were you saying?" girl "It was only one pastry, Master," said the girl. "For all Tula! Do not beat herl"

"Keep those legs wide, Tula," said the first voice. con

"Yes, Master," whimpered the girl. imp I then listened, with misery, while the two men, one after hap the other, in the narrow passageway between the boxes, used brutal, forceful use of her almost overwhelmed me psychologically. How helpless, how dominated are slavesl I touched then myself. To my horror, I, too, was wet. I gritted my teeth. I her hoped they could not smell me. I trembled. I tried not to feel, with It was almost as though they, in inflicting themselves on that pathetic slave, were subjecting me, as well, to those in so debasing, masterly thrusts. Yet, of course, they were not, pum in this, to my scandal, I felt keen frustration. I found myself, envying her. I wondered what it would be like to be held not in the arms of such brutes, a cringing vessel for th pleasure, choiceless but to rhapsodically succumb. time forced such thoughts from my mind. Surely I must n such thoughts. Surely they were appropriate only for a slave I looked up, miserably. The sky was becoming gray n In a few minutes, perhaps, the cage would be lowered. my absence would be noted. girl.

Me entire camp, then, and its vicinity, I did not doubt, would be subjected to an inch-by-inch search, one that it uld be impossible to elude.

I had failed to escape.

"On your feet, Tula," said one of the men.

"Tula has served you well, has she not?" begged the girl. I heard her pull at the slave bracelets.

"Put down her tunic," said the first man.

"There," said the second.

"When we called to you to stop, Tula," said the first man, "you ran. Have You ever run away before?"

"I was not really running away," said the girl. "I just did want you to catch me."

"Must a question be repeated?" asked the first man.

"No, Master," she said, quickly. "I have never run away before!" That is fortunate for you," said the man. shuddered, crouching between the boxes. The first time a runs away she is commonly only beaten. Many girls, m they first go into a collar, do not realize that escape, for practical purposes, is impossible for them, or how easily, imonly, they can be picked up and caught. The practical ~ossibility of escape is a function of several factors. Perhaps one of the most important among them is the closely nature of Gorean society. In such a society it is difficult to establish false identities. Other factors which might be A are the support of the society for slavery, the absence i place to run, so to speak, and the relentlessness with such slaves are commonly sought.

Other factors are such as the distinctive garb of the slave, the encirclement of neck with a collar and the fact that her body is marked t a brand. The best that a slave can commonly hope for is she might fall into the power of a new master. The usual punishment for a girl's second attempt at escape is hamstring the severing of the tendons behind the knees. This does completely immobilize the girl, for she may still, for cxle, drag herself about by her hands. Such girls are sometimes used as beggars, distributed about a city by wagon in morning, and then picked up again at night, with what earnings they may have managed to obtain during the You will not beat me though, will you?" wheedled the "No," said the first man.

"Thank you, Masters!" said the girl "You have, however," said the man stolen a pastry, lied to me about it to us, and run away."

"You said you would not beat me!" protested the girl.

"We shall not," said the man. "Ephialtes might."

"Do not tell him, I beg you!" she cried.

"Do you really think that you can do the things you have done with impunity, you, a slave?" asked the man.

"No, Master," she wept.

"We have discovered you have a taste for sweets," said the and man.

"Ephialtes will discover if you have a taste for leather."

"Have pity on me, Masters," she wept. "I am only a mg helpless, braceleted slavel" I "Turn about, Tula," said the man. "You are on your way back to your master."' As I heard them leaving, I looked about the corner of my hiding place. I saw two large men. Preceding them, her hands locked behind her in slave bracelets, was a beautifully shaped little slave. She had dark hair. Her slave tunic, which was extremely short, was red.

I followed the men down the passageway. I stopped once, when they stopped, to extinguish the lantern.

Following them I came to an opening between the through which they had taken their way.

They had led me out of the maze. bacl I then saw many wagons and could smell tharlarion, and straw. I made my way swiftly through this area.

I then stopped, startled. "Me great cry of a tarn smote I fell to my hands and knees as two men passed, on the other side of a wagon. I rose up and sped as furtively and swiftly as I could toward the area from which I had heard the bird's scream. I said stopped, seeing a bird take to the air, a tarn basket, on long The ropes, trailing behind it. I put out my hands. There seemed to M be a platform in front of me. It must have been fifty yards char long. On it there seemed to be two broad, leather skids. On these skids, some twenty yards or so in front of me, there. by were four or five tarn baskets. I heard the snapping of wings I saw ropes being fastened between the tarn and the et now first in the line. I crawled forward and, as the were concerned with the tarn, it moving about and occasionally stretching and snapping its wings, crawled into the basket. Within that basket was a blanket, one which had ably been used to cover some cargo brought to the camp. w the blanket over me and lay quietly in the bottom of basket. was becoming lighter now, and I was becoming more iore afraid. ave myself little chance to escape, but I could do noth- ore. I had done all that I could. seemed I lay there for an Ahn. The heavy fiber of the et cut into my skin. I did not, however, so much as

Then other tarns were brought, one by one, to the

rm. The other baskets were lofted away. Mine only, it ed, remained. o where is Venaticus?" said a man. leeping one off," said another fellow. angled up in the chains of some slave," suggested an- think it will be another warm day," said a fellow. ood," said one of the men. "Then they may have the s down on the slave wagons." hen we dismantle," said a man, "you could always drift in the march and see Lady Slicila. She is a pretty little in her cage." hey are all pretty in chains and behind bars," said an-man.

hate to think of them shoving an impaling spear up her said a man. know an impaling spear I'd like to shove up her ass,' nother man. ere was laughter. n may do with us what they wish, I thought. Our only

e is to turn them against themselves, and use them for purposes. But in this we frustrate nature, that of men and rselves. How can we win, then? Perhaps, I thought, only sing. But these thoughts were more appropriate to Earth Gor. It did not seem possible to turn the men of Gor

st themselves. Perhaps they were less simple than the Earth, or more simple, more basic and natural. They at any rate, never permitted themselves to be tricked out of their natural rights and powers. The conniving woman of Gor, she who would seek to control and manipulate men, likely to soon find herself at the feet of her would-be victim naked, kissing them, locked in his collar.

There seemed suddenly a storm of wings in the air, beard the striking of tarn talons on the platform. Men, a St immediately, began to work about the basket. I felt the basket move as ropes were fastened, on it and jerked tight. There was a tiny space between two folds of the blanket, through Which I could see, looking then through an opening in the weaving of the basket. With two fingers I drew the blank more together.

"Your face is smeared with lipstick," said a man, "and y stink of slaves and paga."

"I cannot explain that," said a fellow, as though puzzle "for all night I have rested comfortably in the tent of cargo riders."

"The company will not be pleased," said a fellow. "if you slept a wink last night I am a purple urt."

"It is lucky for you then," said the newcomer, concerned "that indeed I neglected to slumber."

"Are you in a condition to fly?," asked a man.

"I shall sleep in the saddle," said the man.

"You have a long flight, of several stages," said a man.

"I shall be well rested then by the time of my arrival Ar," said the newcomer. "I am sure the paga slaves will be pleased," said a ra "all several hundred of them."

"Do not neglect to fasten your safety strap," said a man.

"I shall do so, unless perhaps I chance to fall asleep fir the newcomer assured the fellow.

"What is that sound?" asked a man.

"It sounds like an alarm bar, back in the south part of camp," said a man. "I wonder what is wrong," said another.

"Will I see Bemus in Ar, or Torquatus?" asked the new I comer.

"No, luckily for the paga slaves," said a man.

"It is an alarm bar," said a man, "clearly."

"I hear another, too, now," said a man.

"I wonder what is going on," said the newcomer.

"You will rendezvous with us in ten days, on the south bank of the Issus," said a man. "You will be bringing another shipment of Ka-la-na for the officers." "I wonder what is going on," said the newcomer.

"You are late," said a man, with a rustle of papers.

"I am never late," said the newcomer. "It is only that sometimes it takes me longer to be on time than others."

"I bear other alarm bars, too, now," said a man.

"Do you think the camp is under attack?" asked a man.

"No," said a man.

"It is probably a fire," said a man.

"I do not see any smoke," said a man.

"Perhaps Lady Sheila has escaped," suggested a fellow, lightly.

This suggestion was greeted with raucous laughter. The little vulo, doubtless, was still safe in her cage.

It is probably a fight between companies or platoons," said a mJr, "probably over gambling or a slave."

"I think I will go see," said the newcomer.

"Into the saddlel" said a man.

"But a fightl" said the newcomer.

"Venaticus," cautioned the man.

"Very well," he said.

"It must be important," said a man. "Hear the alarm bars low."

"If it were only a fight, there would not be that many alarm bars, said a man. "Indeed, there probably would not be any. It would not be necessary to alarm the whole camp over an incident of that sort."

"It is probably a drill," said a man.

"That is it," said another. "It must be a drill."

Suddenly there was a storm of wings and the basket, a moment later, was jerked forward, slipping along the leather Uds and then, in another instant, taking my breath away for n instant, it was lofted like the others high into the air. through tiny cracks between the woven fibers of the deep, sturdy basket I could see the ground slipping away beneath s. Wind seemed to tear through the fibers of the basket. I clutched the blanket, it being torn in the wind, more closely about me. The ropes and the basket creaked. The rider took the tarn once about the camp, doubtless to satisfy his curiosity. He could make out little, however, I suspected, from the r. I could see men below moving about in the camp, emerging from tents and such, but there seemed to be no clear pattern to their activity. Certainly the camp was not under attack, nor did there seem to be any fire. The absence of a clear pattern to the activity, too, suggested that a drill, or at least a general drill, was not in progress. Perhaps it was merely a testing of the crews of the alarm bars. He then turned the tarn about and began to take his way toward the northwest. I lay in the bottom of the basket. I pulled my legs up, and pulled the blanket about me. I was cold. I hoped that I would not freeze. I was frightened. I saw the camp disappearing in the distance. Only faintly now could I hear the ringing of the alarm bars. The fiber of the basket would be temporarily imprinting its pattern on my skin. I hoped that the ropes would hold.