Prize of Gor

Chapter 28 WHAT OCCURRED FOUR DAYS LATER

It was toward morning.

“Master,” whispered the slave.

“Yes?” said he.

“Will you not content your animal? Will you not pet her? Will you not stroke her, just a little, Master?”

“You, an Earth woman, beg as a slave to be touched?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” whispered Ellen, “as the most abject and needful of slaves!”

“No,” he said.

“Master,” she whimpered, “I am no longer a free woman, as once I was! I can no longer pride myself on my frigidity. I can no longer base my self-respect, my self-esteem, on my sexual inertness, on my superiority to sex. I can no longer go months or years without actual sexual relief, sublimating my physical needs into petulance, negativity, irritability, nastiness, pettiness and rivalry. I now need sex. Surely you understand, Master, that I have been embonded. I am now a slave! Men have aroused me! The collar has set me aflame. Slave fires rage now in my belly. I now belong to Masters, needfully!”

He was silent.

“Use me, Master,” she whispered. “I beg to be used!”

“No,” he said, coldly.

“You have not tied me, or chained me,” she said. “You have not braceleted me, helplessly. You have not put me in slave hobbles! Perhaps I shall run away!”

“I would not advise it,” he said, and her blood ran cold.

She heard, from the side, Portus Canio turn in his sleep. Fel Doron was yards away, on watch. To another side slept Mirus and his fellow.

“Please, use me, Master!” begged Ellen.

“No,” he said.

How different it is from Earth, she thought. But on Earth the slave fires have been lit in the bellies of few women. On Earth women guard their bellies with fervor, lest they succumb to what they know lies within them, the ready tinder which might be ignited by the torch of bondage. She did not doubt, if only from her own experiences on Earth, the depth and pervasiveness, the readiness, of female sexual needs in the women of Earth. They were surely not other, physiologically, than those of their Gorean sisters. But there were surely great differences culturally and psychologically. Gor had not had centuries of inculcated denials and loathings. But sexual needs and frustrations, so much suppressed, so hysterically denied, must then express themselves in pathological transmogrifications, express themselves in a thousand disguises, conceal themselves behind the disfigurations of a thousand masks, and issue in a multitude of seemingly unrelated illnesses, miseries, petulances and hostilities! Indeed, some women were so well conditioned that they would belittle and despise the sexual needs of the normal woman, doubtless fearing such needs in themselves, and would try to make her feel guilty and ashamed, inferior and wanting, because of her actual vitality and health. Indeed, some women even pride themselves on their supposedly inert bellies and alleged superiority to sexuality. No wonder then that the human male, on Earth, often thought of the women of his species as being, however desirable, essentially sexless creatures, as being sexually minimal and torpid, as being above sex, or disinterested in it, as being, in effect, inert and frigid. But the polar wastes of so many women’s bellies are not the results of anatomical or physiological climates or impoverishments; they are rather the engineered consequences of cultural and psychological tragedies. When an Earth woman is brought to Gor, then, at least as a slave, one of the first things done to her is to enlighten her as to her own nature and that of men, so that she will understand who it is who holds the whip and whose neck it is that is encircled with the collar, and, as a part of this, the masters, callously and brutally I fear, but they are not patient men, light the slave fires in her belly. She is then, in her collar, irremediably, a needful, sexual creature. Whereas the men of Earth, like the women of Earth, are commonly starved for sex, and are, consequently, usually the most obvious or most public victims of unsatisfied sexual need, there is little parallel to this amongst Gorean males. Whereas the sexual drives of Gorean males, not undermined by, nor diminished by, pathological, sometimes even inconsistent, conditioning programs, and such, tend to be frequently insistent, urgent, powerful, and uncompromising, they usually have at their disposal the means to satisfy their needs, and with ease. Slaves may be cheaply bought, particularly in times of unrest and war. Too, there are the paga taverns and brothels. On the other hand, the sexual needs of the slave are much at the mercy of the master. Accordingly, on Gor it is usually the slave who is the beggar in these matters and not the free man. She is in the agony of her needs. Will the master satisfy her or not? Commonly she pleads, as it is up to him, not her. This is an interesting turnabout from Earth. To be sure, doubtless there are women on Earth in whose bellies slave fires have been lit, and these, as much as any Gorean slave, must kneel or belly before their masters, beg sex, and hope that he will be kind to them. Let us suppose a male is brought to Gor as a free man. Now, let us also suppose that on Earth there is a particular woman, a desirable female of interest to him, who, in a typical Earth fashion, has frustrated him and has spurned his attentions. Let us also suppose that this woman is later brought to Gor, as a slave presumably, as she is a female, either with or without his knowledge. Let us then suppose that she is collared and slave fires are lit in her belly, and that she then comes into his ownership, either by a sheer coincidence, or by design, if he has arranged or requested her abduction. You may then imagine her at his feet, beautiful and helpless, naked in her collar, begging for sex. One supposes he would find this state of affairs unobjectionable.

She then, lying at his thigh, bit her lip, and choked back a sob. Tears rushed through her lashes. She rolled angrily, in frustration, away from him, and from the blanket, damp with dew. She pressed the side of her face, sobbing, into the grass. She felt the narrow, fibrous, cool, dawn-moist, living blades against her tear-streaked cheek.

He has not bound me, he has not shackled me, she thought. Is he so arrogant, so sure of me! Perhaps I shall run away! I could show him! I could teach him not to take me for granted! Does he think I am a slave? But, alas, I am a slave! Let him awaken and find me gone! How he treats me! I do not want to be a slave! I am miserable! But where could I, a slave, run? Should I be lost in the grasslands, or be eaten by ravaging sleen? And I am tunicked, branded, collared! There is no escape for me on this world! There is no escape for the Gorean slave girl! If I were not eaten, or did not die of exposure, nor of thirst or starvation, I would be caught and acquired, if not by him, by another, like a stray kaiila. Would my collar not show me slave? And even if I could somehow get it off, might not a man simply seize my leg and examine my thigh, noting there my brand? That would not be difficult. I am clearly marked. And what if he, my master, followed and recovered me? What would then be my fate?

She felt the wet grass on the side of her cheek. She was not then on the blanket, at the thigh of her master.

I must not displease him, she thought.

She then crept back on the blanket, to lie docilely at his thigh. She kissed his thigh, penitently. “Forgive me, Master,” she whispered. She hoped she would not be beaten in the morning. He was master. She was slave. It will be done with me as my master pleases, she thought. Let me suffer agonies of need. It matters not. I am a slave. Perhaps sometime he will caress me. I hope that I shall not be beaten in the morning.

“Am I to be whipped, Master?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“Master?”

“Go to sleep,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said, and pressed her lips again, softly, to his thigh.

Yes, she thought. He is my master, and he does with me as he pleases. Oh, would that he would take pity on his slave! Please caress her, Master. Please caress her, Master. She loves you.

Why does he, a powerful, virile man, not caress me, she asked herself.

Am I so distasteful to him?

Does he wish to torture me?

How fearful it is sometimes, she thought, to be a slave. We are so vulnerable, and helpless!

Sometimes I am terrified that I am in a collar.

But, too, it is unutterably beautiful to be in a collar. I want it on my neck, with all it means.

I am a slave, and that is what I want to be. I would not be otherwise. I love being a slave, she whispered to herself. I love being a slave. And I love my master.

But would that he caressed me! But even if I hated him I would want him to caress me.

I need to be caressed.

I am a slave!

We had begun to move generally southeastward, across the grasslands. We did not encounter more sleen. Such beasts, burrowing, six-legged, sinuous, carnivorous, unless on a scent, tend to be territorial. Perhaps as early as the morning following our departure from our earlier camp, that which had been the scene of such conflict and carnage, we had traversed, and left behind, their usual hunting range. The prairie sleen is, incidentally, I have been told, much smaller than the forest sleen, which can upon occasion reach lengths of eighteen feet and weights of several hundred pounds.

The slave lay, sleepless, needful, uncaressed, at the thigh of her master.

The grasslands were muchly quiet.

The slave, in her duties, could scarcely have avoided hearing the casual conversations of masters. Soon, she gathered, Mirus and his fellow, now muchly recovered, though still unable to walk, would leave the group and make their way toward Brundisium, Mirus dragging an improvised travois, constructed of rope, a pair of poles and a tarpaulin. This device had been constructed the preceding evening, their trek having come to a small grove of dark temwood, bordering a tiny stream. In a day or two it was anticipated that worn trails might be encountered. They had already passed two small streams.

The slave’s master had not touched her. She could not have been more deprived if she had been weeks in a dealer’s house, in a cramped, readying cage, in which she might be kept until she was ready to scratch and scream with need and beg to be sent to an auction block. Portus Canio and Fel Doron scarcely looked upon her. She tried, as though inadvertently, as though not really intending to do so, to put herself before Mirus, and as a slave. But he, too, had paid her no attention. I need relief, she had shrieked to herself. How she then cursed the very thought of men, and, in particular, of honor.

On his other side, opposite the restless, discomfited slave, Selius Arconious had laid an unsheathed weapon.

“If you will not use me, Master,” she whispered, “rent me, or assign me, to another!”

“You wish to be ordered to report to another?” he asked.

She shuddered; she could easily be put in such a situation; she could be ordered to report to another, in the full sense that is meant by “reporting to another.” She could, she knew, at her master’s merest word or whim be thusly put, in the fullness of her slaveness, to another’s feet; she was branded; she was collared; she was slave.

“No, Master,” she whispered.

He seemed to be listening, intently.

“I love you, Master,” she whispered.

“As a slave loves?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “But even if I were a free woman the love I feel for you would make me your helpless slave! But I am not free, but am a true slave, and belong in the totality of my being to my master! There can be no greater love than the love of a loving slave!”

He was silent.

“Use me,” she begged.

“No,” he said.

“Use me in any way you please, as is your right, Master! Use me with rudeness, with brutality, if you wish! Claim me with the whip, teaching me my bondage, should it be your pleasure! But see me, look at me, hear me! Let your fingers stray but idly to my hair. Let your hand but lightly touch my forehead. Cast but a glance upon me! Though I am only a slave and animal I exist! I am here! Do not be cruel! Be kind! I am yours, wholly yours! Do not ignore me!”

“Rest,” said he.

“Are you my master?” she asked, angrily.

“Yes,” he said.

“Prove to me that you are my master,” she said.

“Beware,” said he.

“If you will not use me,” she said, angrily, “sell me to one who will! Sell me to one who is a man!”

He turned then angrily, suddenly, to the slave but, at the same moment, there was a great roar splitting the silence of the camp and a dark, monstrous, violent shape leapt into the camp and Fel Doron, at the wagon, cried out, and the slave screamed, and Selius Arconious grasped for the weapon beside him and Kardok, gigantic and wild in the cold morning light, jaws slavering, eyes blazing, seized up Mirus and bent toward his throat, and Mirus, with his feet and arms, tried to fend the beast away, but he was lifted from his feet and brought, struggling, toward the distended jaws, the wet, long, curved, whitish fangs and Selius Arconious, his blade held in two hands, was hacking at the back of the beast’s neck, and then at the side of its throat, and it turned about, enraged, and put up a paw which, severed, was flung into the grass, and it turned full then upon Selius Arconious and Selius Arconious, with a cry of rage as hideous as that of the beast, thrust his blade deep into the chest of Kardok and the beast spun about wresting the blade from his hand.

Fel Doron rushed forward, Portus Canio had thrown off his blankets.

The second beast then seemed to appear from nowhere and scrambled its way on all fours, dirt spattering behind it, toward Selius Arconious and the fallen Mirus.

But at that moment it stopped, suddenly, abruptly, and lifted its hands, a great spear thrust into its body, the point and a quarter of the shaft emerging from its back.

“Bosk, Bosk of Port Kar!” cried Portus Canio.

Behind him was the warrior known as Marcus, of Ar’s Station.

Ellen could not even speak so frightened, so breathless, was she. The force of the spear thrust must have been prodigious, and its might was compounded by the charge of the beast.

He called Bosk of Port Kar, that fearful larl of a man, drew then his blade and went behind the beast, seized the fur of its head, thus holding the head, and then, with two terrible strokes of that small, wicked weapon, cut away the head.

Kardok back on its haunches, bleeding, forced the blade of Selius Arconious from his own chest, wedging it away by the hilt with one paw and the flowing stub of the other. It turned then and staggered about. Wavering, it bent down to pick up the blade, but the bootlike sandal of Bosk held it, pressed, to the grass.

Kardok, snarling, blood now bursting with air, hissing like foam, spreading about its jaws and fangs, looked about himself, from face to face.

The slave covered her face with her hands, seeing herself so regarded.

Kardok then turned about, and staggered out, into the grasslands.

Bosk of Port Kar picked up the warmed, bright, red-rich, drenched blade of Selius Arconious, and held it out to him.

Selius Arconious then followed Kardok from the camp.

“No, Master! No, Master!” cried the slave.

She would have fled after her master, but her arm was seized by the mighty hand of Bosk of Port Kar, and she, small and female, struggling, was held as helplessly as in a vise.

“Let me go! Let me go!” she screamed.

But in a matter of moments Selius Arconious returned to the camp, wading through the grass; in his right hand was a bloodied sword; in his left hand, dangling, was the massive, bleeding head of Kardok.

“Master! Master!” cried the slave, overjoyed.

“On your knees,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

Then she looked up at him from her knees. From his accent, she was certain that his origin was, like hers, Earth. She took him to have been English. Doubtless, if her surmise was correct, as to his world, and nation, of origin, he would have known her, from her accent, as easily as she knew him, known her to have been once of Earth, and doubtless it was as easy for him to conjecture her country or nation as it was for her to conjecture his. So he was an Earth man and she was an Earth woman, but here, on Gor, it was he who stood, and was perhaps even of the caste of Warriors, and she who knelt. Yes, she thought to herself. Here, on this world, it is he who stands and I who kneel! He does not in confusion, in guilty embarrassment, summon me to my feet but rather, in the order of nature, keeps me on my knees before him, where I belong!

“You deserted us, in the prairie,” said Fel Doron.

“No,” said Portus Canio. “They doubtless understood the meaning of the tarns in the sky, the scent of sleen. They then, under the cover of darkness, given the priorities of war, made their rendezvous, and saw to the care of the purloined gold.”

Selius Arconious cast aside the great head of Kardok.

“I love you, Master!” cried the slave, from her knees.

“Who were those outside the camp, our unseen allies?” asked Fel Doron.

“They,” said Portus Canio. “But there were but two, and thus they found it judicious, and most convenient, to do their work from without.”

“We owe you our lives,” said Portus Canio, “on more than one occasion.”

Bosk shrugged.

“It was you who brought the tabuk to the camp?” said Fel Doron.

“Yes,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

“You have drifted with us, have you not?” asked Portus Canio.

“Yes,” he said.

“Why did you not announce yourselves, after the departure of the Cosians?” asked Fel Doron.

“There were five beasts,” he said. “We located the bodies of only three. We conjectured then that two remained at large. As they had seemingly pursued you, we supposed they might not easily abandon that venture. Thus we stayed with you, unseen, that we might, if they should attack, act unexpectedly in your behalf, act with the element of surprise in our favor. But it seems you needed little assistance.”

“You saved my life,” said Mirus to Selius Arconious.

“Are we not then even?” asked Selius Arconious.

“Perfectly,” smiled Mirus, and the two men grasped hands, warmly.

“The beasts, and their allies,” said Portus Canio, addressing himself to Bosk of Port Kar and Marcus of Ar’s Station, “followed us, at least in part, it seems, to obtain and destroy this slave.”

“That was not my intent,” said Mirus.

“No,” smiled Fel Doron. “But it seems you were ready to carry her off.”

“I found her, as you have doubtless conjectured,” said Mirus, “a piece of goods of some interest, an attractive item of livestock.”

Ellen looked at him, suddenly. Impressed, thrilled, she on her knees. How Gorean he seemed now to be! He understood her now not as a person to be abducted, but as a slave, an item to be purchased or stolen, and mastered. At last he seemed to understand the meaning of the collar on her neck, truly. She felt slave fire within her, heat at his virility. She had no doubt that when he had a woman, perhaps a purchased barbarian, she recalled he had a score to settle with the women of Earth, he would now master her — fully. My love is Selius Arconious, she said to herself, but surely one could do worse than belong to one such as Mirus, he who once owned me. Fortunate will be the woman who finds herself in his chains! I rejoice in her happiness, whoever she may prove to be, she who will one day wear his collar!

“There was interest, as well, it seems,” said Fel Doron, “in Cosian gold.”

“I did not understand that,” said Mirus.

“Apparently not,” said Fel Doron.

“I am not clear as to the nature of their interest in the slave,” said Portus Canio. “Clearly it was not the sort of interest one would expect men to have in a well-curved slave.”

Bosk of Port Kar looked upon the kneeling Ellen.

Beneath his gaze, Ellen trembled.

Could he ever have been of Earth, Ellen asked herself.

We are both of Earth, she thought. Thus, should this not win me some concern, some understanding, some sympathy, some tenderness, some softening of his regard? Yet see how he looks upon me! I am seen merely as female and slave!

Momentarily Ellen was angry.

How complacently he regards me!

It does not matter to him that I am here, a woman of his former world, now with a collar on my neck! Indeed, I can see in his eyes that he regards it with indifference.

Then she dared to look up at him, again, briefly, furtively, and then, frightened, looked away, and down, fearing to look again into his eyes, those of a free man.

But she was angry again.

For she had seen the smile on his lips. It was as though he had read her concern, and had been amused.

How dare he look upon a woman once of Earth that way, she thought. Would he on Earth so look upon them? But presumably not, as they would be free, or most of them, save a few perhaps in secret enclaves.

She had seen the smile, that of a master.

He sees the collar on my neck as appropriate, she thought. Can he just look upon me and see that I belong in a collar?

How could he know that?

Clearly he has no intention of lifting me from my knees, and freeing me! He does not even look upon me with pity. He does not even express sympathy, or hasten to comfort and console me.

I saw his eyes!

He wants me in a collar! He likes it! If I were not collared, he might put me in one himself, if only to sell me or give me away! He looks at me! He understands me! He understands that I belong in a collar!

And doubtless he has seen many women of Earth in Gorean collars. We are nothing special. We are only more slaves.

Doubtless we belong in our collars!

Doubtless he likes us in our collars.

Would not any male?

Goreans, interestingly, believe the mistake was that we had not been made slaves on Earth. Our collaring, in their view, should have taken place on our native world.

Many Goreans also misunderstand the vaccination marks on many of us, taking them for a discreet slave mark, far inferior of course, in precision and beauty, to the various slave marks of Gor, usually burned into the thigh under the left hip.

She thought of Gorean free women.

Such hateful creatures!

He would pay heed to one of them, she thought. One does not ignore such! She would not be looked upon as he looks upon me! Would he not give her his undivided attention? Would he not treat her with the utmost civility and regard! Would he not esteem her and be solicitous for her, and see to it, as he could, that her many wants and concerns, however absurd or annoying, were attended to with alacrity and courtesy? But I, who was once a woman of his own world, how does he look upon me? How does he see me? I am at his feet, and find myself in his eyes looked upon as no more than what I now am, as no more than a slave!

But your lofty free women, she thought, would be no more than I, were they embonded!

I am half naked, kneeling, and collared, she thought.

Would you not like us all this way, or, at least, the pretty ones?

How many men of Earth, she wondered, see women so, see them as what they should be, see them as what they are?

He is now Gorean, she thought. But I, too, am now Gorean. He is Gorean as Master. I am Gorean as slave.

I am content.

“May I speak, Masters?” asked the slave.

“Yes,” said Selius Arconious.

“Perhaps they thought I had heard them speak, in the great camp, outside Brundisium, and was thus inadvertently privy to some plan, some plot, or secret,” said Ellen, “but I heard nothing, truly. It was all a terrible mistake. I am ignorant. I know nothing!”

Bosk of Port Kar turned his attention to Mirus. “You were allies of the beasts, you, and the other, there?”

“Once,” said Mirus, “but no more, enemies now, surely.”

“I think then it will not be necessary to kill you,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

“I am pleased to hear that,” said Mirus.

“I vouch for them,” said Portus Canio.

“I, too,” averred Selius Arconious.

“I, too,” said Fel Doron.

Bosk of Port Kar smiled. The one time the slave had seen him smile. “That is sufficient,” he said.

“Did you know the beasts were following you?” asked Bosk of Port Kar.

“No,” said Selius Arconious.

“We thought them probably gone,” said Fel Doron.

“But we did not know,” said Portus Canio.

“No, we did not know,” said Fel Doron.

“Yet,” said Selius Arconious, “if they were still with us, this, it seemed, would be the likely morning for them to act, for this morning Mirus and his fellow are on to Brundisium, and we, with the slave, will trek toward Ar. Thus, if they wished to destroy all three, it seems that this would be the time to strike.”

“We shortened our watches accordingly, to maximize alertness,” said Portus Canio.

“Yet,” said Fel Doron, “it seemed as though they sprang upon us as though from nowhere.”

Bosk of Port Kar nodded.

“How is it that they would have anticipated an imminent division of your party?” asked Marcus, of Ar’s Station.

“There,” said Selius Arconious, indicating the object to the side, “the preparation of the travois, the wounded fellow of Mirus no longer to be transported in the wagon.”

“He is strong enough now to travel so,” said Fel Doron.

“The slave was not apprised of your suspicions,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

“No,” said Selius Arconious, “lest she inadvertently, by signs of uneasiness, alert the beasts as to such suspicions.”

“That was wise,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

On her knees, Ellen tensed, angrily. She was then muchly aware of her collar.

“How are things in Ar?” asked Portus Canio.

“The last we have heard,” said Bosk of Port Kar, “this from those with whom we spoke at the rendezvous, the mercenaries grow increasingly restless, indeed, unpleasant. There have actually been skirmishes between them and the Cosian regulars in the city. The work of the Delta Brigade grows bolder. Rebellion may be imminent.”

“What of Marlenus of Ar?” asked Fel Doron.

“It is thought he has been found,” said Bosk of Port Kar. “To be sure, the matter seems unclear. One hears conflicting stories, of imposture, of forgetfulness, even of madness. But he is the key to open revolt. If he appears in the streets, sword in hand, standard raised, the people will cry out, and rise up. Then let Cos and her allies tremble. But without Marlenus I think the city will be uncertain and divided, and any open resistance would be foolishly precipitate, costly, and, I suspect, doomed.”

“Talena yet sits upon the throne, a puppet for Cos?” asked Fel Doron.

“Yes,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

“Torture and the impaling stake for her,” said Portus Canio.

“Or the collar,” smiled Bosk of Port Kar, regarding the collared, kneeling Ellen.

“But she is a Ubara, Master!” breathed the slave.

Then she feared she would be beaten.

Had she not spoken without permission?

But then Masters are often lenient in such matters. And, too, a slave can often sense when it is acceptable to speak and when it would be wise to request permission to speak. Often she has what might be thought of as a standing permission to speak. But this may of course be revoked, and thus is preserved the principle that a slave’s permission to speak remains at the discretion of the master. She may always be silenced with a glance or word. Sometimes the master will ask, “Did you ask permission to speak?” To this question the customary response is, “No, Master. Please forgive me, Master.” She may then be granted the permission to speak or not, as the master will have it.

“Who knows?” said Bosk of Port Kar. “Perhaps she is already a slave, and even now waits in terror, on her throne, in the loneliness of her chamber, in the empty halls of the Central Cylinder, startled by the least sound, even imagined, fearing to be claimed by her master.”

“Surely you will trek with us to Ar,” said Portus Canio.

“I and my fellow,” said Mirus, “as said, are bound for Brundisium.”

“Some pasangs from here we have fellows waiting, with tarns,” said Bosk of Port Kar. “If all goes well, we will be aflight by tomorrow at this time.”

“But surely,” said Portus Canio, “we may share our breakfast with you?”

“That will please us,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

“Get up and get to work,” said Selius Arconious, unpleasantly.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, quickly rising to her feet.

“She has pretty legs,” said Marcus, of Ar’s Station.

Ellen tried to pull down the tunic at the hems.

“Prettier than those of Phoebe?” asked Bosk of Port Kar.

“No, I do not think so,” said Marcus of Ar’s Station.

That “Phoebe,” as they spoke of her, thought Ellen, so casually, so objectively, must be a slave. Surely they would not dare to speak so of the legs of a free woman.

What beasts men are, thought Ellen, to openly compare the limbs of slaves! Are we animals? And then, of course, devastatingly, the obvious thought came to her that yes, of course, they were animals!

“Get busy!” snapped Selius Arconious. For some reason, he seemed angry with her. Perhaps she had been a bit petulant, earlier, before the attack of the beasts, but surely he would not hold that against her! Not such a small thing!

“Yes, Master!” she said, stumbling, hurrying, running to the wagon, to fetch supplies, pans, utensils, bread, grains, that she might expeditiously set about preparing the men’s breakfast.

As she worked, she saw, once, the eyes of Bosk of Port Kar upon her. About his lips there played a subtle smile. She reddened, angrily. Doubtless he knew her an Earth woman! He seemed amused then, to see her here, on this world, so far from her old world, on a world so different from her old world, she here reduced to a natural woman, reduced fittingly to a collared slave, anxiously hastening to serve masters.

Later, their simple repast finished, the men rose up.

“Well met!” said Portus Canio, gratefully.

“Well met,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

The men clasped hands, and embraced, and then Bosk of Port Kar, Port Kar a port on the Tamber Gulf, rumored to be a den of cutthroats and pirates, and Marcus, of Ar’s Station, once an outpost of Ar on the distant Vosk, took their leave.

The slave watched them disappear in the long grasses. They did not look back.

Shortly thereafter some supplies were given to Mirus. He was given, too, a sword, dagger, and spear. Then, with the help of Portus Canio and Selius Arconious, his weak fellow was placed on the travois. On this device, too, were placed the shared supplies and the weaponry. How different, thought the slave, the dagger, the sword, the spear, from the weapons with which Mirus had been hitherto familiar. They were weapons such that with them man might meet man, weapons requiring closure, and risk, weapons requiring skill and courage, not engineer’s weapons, not weapons with which the pretentious, petty, effete and craven might effortlessly outmatch and overcome the might of heroes, surpass and vanquish brave and mighty men from whom in the order of a hardy nature they must shrink and hide. Yes, they were different weapons from those with which Mirus had been hitherto familiar, but she suspected that here, on this world, he would learn them, such weapons, and perhaps master them.

“Mirus, my friend,” said Portus Canio.

“Yes?” said Mirus.

“When Bosk of Port Kar was in the camp we spoke briefly, apart, and he gave me something. I would like to show it to you.”

Portus Canio, Fel Doron near him, drew from his pouch a heavy, shapeless object of metal, which seemed as though it had been deformed, perhaps twisted, bent in upon itself, and then fused, melted, in great heat.”

“What is it?” asked Mirus.

“You do not know?”

“No.”

“After we left our camp, of some days ago, Bosk of Port Kar, and his friend, visited the site of our camp, thinking we might still be there. Subsequently they followed us.”

“What of your fellow, Tersius Major?” asked Mirus.

“No fellow of mine, he,” said Portus Canio. “But Bosk and his friend found there only bones, pieces of bones, splintered, gnawed, shreds of clothing, torn, cast about.”

“Sleen,” said Mirus.

“It would seem so,” said Portus Canio.

“Apparently sleen do not respect circles of forbidden weapons,” said Mirus. “They, at least, are not prone to baseless superstition. They, at least, do not share your concern with Priest-Kings.”

“Hold this,” said Portus Canio, extending his hand, the weighty, shapeless object within it.

Mirus took the object, and regarded it. “It is a strange thing,” he said, “possibly a meteorite, a star stone.”

“Feel the weight,” said Portus Canio. “Does it not remind you of something?”

Mirus turned white.

“Yes,” said Portus Canio. “It is the remains of one of the forbidden weapons. The others were similarly destroyed. Bosk cast them away, into the grass. He kept this one to show me.” So saying, Portus Canio took back the bit of fused, shapeless metal.

“Do you not fear to touch it?” asked Mirus.

“Not now,” said Portus Canio. “It is no longer a weapon. Now it is nothing, only what was once a weapon.”

“What force or heat could do this, and here, in the prairie?” asked Mirus, wonderingly.

“Surely the Priest-Kings have spoken,” said Fel Doron.

“Do not be absurd, my friend,” said Mirus. “There are no such things. You must overcome such beliefs.”

“There is this,” said Portus Canio, lifting the shapeless mass of fused, melted metal.

“There was a storm last night, to the north,” said Mirus. “Lightning. Lightning struck the weapons. It destroyed them. It is an obvious explanation. They were metal, they were on a high place, on a knoll.”

“That is certainly possible,” agreed Portus Canio. Then he cast the piece of metal far from him, away, out into the grass.

“Priest-Kings do not exist,” said Mirus.

“Even so,” smiled Portus Canio, “I would advise you to keep their laws.”

“They do not exist,” said Mirus.

“I do not know,” said Portus Canio. “But do not be afraid.”

“I do not understand,” said Mirus.

“If they do exist, perhaps in the Sardar Mountains, as many claim,” said Portus Canio, “I think it is clear that we have little to fear from them, indeed far less to fear from them than from the caste of Initiates, which claims to speak in their name. The Priest-Kings, it seems to me, have little or no interest in us, in our kind, in our form of life, little or no concern with the doings of men, other than that their laws be kept.”

“You suggest that they are rational? That they fear human technology?”

“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.

“They are real then?” asked Mirus.

“One does not suppose otherwise,” said Portus Canio. “Perhaps as real as mountains and storms, as real as flowers, as tarns and sleen.”

“They do not exist,” said Mirus, again.

“I do not know,” said Portus Canio.

“No,” said Mirus. “It is lightning, lightning.”

“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.

“Lightning,” repeated Mirus. “Obviously lightning.”

“That is quite possible,” said Portus Canio.

“It looks like a pleasant day for trekking,” said Mirus.

“Yes,” said Fel Doron.

“In eight or ten days,” said Portus Canio to Mirus, “you might reach the coast, and Brundisium.”

“In some twenty days,” said Fel Doron, “it is our hope to reach the Viktel Aria, near Venna.”

At hearing the name of this city, the slave thought, naturally, of the slave, Melanie, whom she had met at the festival camp. Melanie, she recalled, had been sold to a man from Venna. She thought of the hundreds of cities and towns merely in known Gor, in which thousands of women such as she, tunicked and collared, served masters. Interestingly, it gave her a warm, deep, rich sense of identity, and belonging. Gone now were the uncertainties, the castings about, the miseries, the pain, the confusions, the ambiguities, the rootlessness, the anomie, of her former existence. She was now, at last, something societally meaningful, something actual, something understood, something accepted and real, something prized, something with an actual, clear value, a slave girl. The Viktel Aria is one of the great roads of known Gor, extending north and south of Ar for thousands of pasangs.

Mirus then adjusted the travois ropes about his shoulders.

“Bid him farewell,” said Selius Arconious.

Ellen went to Mirus and knelt before him. “Farewell, Master,” she said. Then, at a gesture from Selius Arconious, she put down her head and humbly kissed his feet. Then she lifted her head and looked at him. Tears brimmed in her eyes. It was he who had brought her to Gor. “Thank you, Master,” she whispered, so that Selius Arconious, who was standing to one side, could not hear. “Thank you for bringing me here, thank you for putting me in a collar, thank you making me a slave.”

“It is nothing,” he said, a Gorean remark.

Perhaps, she thought to herself, to you it is nothing, Master, but to me it is everything!

Then she again lowered her head and, gratefully, kissed his feet, again.

He moved back a little.

The men then exchanged farewells.

“You have taught me something of this world,” said Mirus to Selius Arconious. “It is my hope that I may one day be worthy of a Home Stone.”

“It is nothing,” said Selius Arconious.

The two men clasped hands, and then embraced, and Mirus put his shoulders into the ropes. At the edge of the small camp he paused and turned, regarding Ellen. He smiled. “Farewell,” said he, “slave girl.”

“Farewell,” said she, “Master.”