Beasts Of Gor

28
I Must Conserve My Strength

I felt her small, soft hands on my body. "Master, Master," she said.

"He is awakening," said a girl's voice.

I was drowsy. It was not easy to come to consciousness. I shook my head. Then again I dreampt.

I had had good dreams, in my own chambers feasting and sporting with slaves in pleasure silk, luscious, hot-eyed Gorean sluts, collared and perfumed, serving me and touching me. Their mouths, their fingers, their lips and tongues, were pleasant. Some danced well, the caress of others told me of their training.

"Master," said one, and I drank of the wine she proffered. I tied the goblet in her hair and sent her back for more.

"I do not know how to dance," cried one, and I looked upon her and she tore away her silk and, trembling, danced, and well.

How beautiful are women. How little wonder it is that strong men make them slaves.

I struggled to awaken.

"He is awakening," said a girl, she who had first spoken to me.

I was vaguely aware that I was warm, and lay upon furs. I did not understand this. Beneath the furs I sensed an obdurate surface.

I opened my eyes, lying on my back. The ceiling above me swam momentarily, and then I focused. It was red.

Arlene knelt beside me. "Master," she said. I looked at her. I had never seen her before in the beautiful, subtle cosmetics of the Gorean slave girl. My strap was no longer on her throat. In its place there resided a slender steel band, locked, a Gorean slave collar. Her body was clad, if one may so speak of her garment, in a brief, obscenely luscious snatch of transparent, scarlet slave silk.

"How beautiful you are," I said.

"Master," she said.

It seemed she well belonged in my dreams. Had I brought her back to Port Kar with me it was thus that I would sometimes have attired her for my pleasure. One dresses one's girls for one's own pleasure' of course.

I looked across the furs and the floors to the other girl. "Master," she whispered. I shook my head, to clear it. She was blond. She wore a curla and chatka of yellow silk. The curla was a rope of twisted, yellow silk tied snugly about her belly and knotted, loosely, at the left hip. The chatka, about four feet in length, folded narrowly, to a width of some six inches, was thrust over the curla in front, taken between her legs and thrust behind and over the curia in back. It was drawn snugly tight. It was all she wore, save for a slave collar, like Arlene, and some beads, an armlet, and a barbaric anklet. Both girls were perfumed. How soft and exciting they were. The blond came to my side, crawling, and, putting down her head, kissed me on the belly. "Master," she wept.

"Constance," I said. I had not seen her since I had been impressed in Lydius into the service of Kurii, and taken northward to labor at the wall. She had once been free, I had made her my slave in the fields south of the Laura.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Master," she wept, kissing me.

I looked up at the ceiling, which was red. I saw it clearly now. It was a deep red, and covered with fur. The floor of the room, too, was covered with fur.

I cried out with rage, and leaped to my feet. I threw my weight against the heavy bars.

I could not budge them. I tore back the furs on the floor, and there encountered steel plates, riveted together. I put my hands over my head and tested the ceiling. It, too, seemed of steel. I tore down the overhead furs. The ceiling, uniformly, as did the floor, consisted of steel. In fury I tore away the fur at the walls. The cell was a cubic rectangle, some twelve feet by twelve feet, and eight feet in height. It was closed on five sides by steel walls, and the open side was barred.

Again I tore at the bars. They were some two and one half inches in thickness. The cell would have held a Kur and, indeed, perhaps it had been originally designed with that in mind.

I spun to look at the girls, who, frightened of my fury, cowered together in the center of the cell.

"We were brought here, somehow," said Arlene. "I awakened in slave silk, collared, in a kennel. I was brought to this cell this morning."

"Where is Imnak, Poalu, Audrey!" I said.

"I do not know," she wept.

"Constance," I said. "Where are we?"

"I do not know," she said. "I was hooded long ago in Lydius, when we were captured. I was brought northward by tarn and then sled. For months I have been here. I have never seen the outside."

"Who are our jailers?" I asked Arlene.

"I have seen only men," she said.

"There are others," said Constance, shuddering. "I have seen them, large but agile beasts."

"Neither of you know where we are?" I asked.

"No," they said.

I turned to look outside the bars. Beyond them there lay a larger room, also plated with steel. There was a door in the larger room, with a small, barred window in it.

"Do you know much of this place, Constance?" I asked.

"No," she said. "But it is large. I have not been in this part of it before."

"Speak to me further," I said.

"There is little to tell," she said. "I was brought here from Lydius. There are several other girls here, too."

"Slaves?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "all that I know of, all collared slaves."

"You are kept here to serve and entertain the garrison?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Fully?" asked Arlene.

"Of course," said Constance. "We are slaves. And so, too, are you."

Arlene trembled in the pleasure silk. She tried to pull it down a bit, about her thigh.

"How large is the garrison?" I asked.

"I do not know," she said. "I, and five other girls, serve twenty men, in one portion of this place. Our movements are restricted, by overhead neck chains and a guide track. A chain is fastened about our necks with a swivel and ball at one end. The swivel and ball is locked into one of two overhead tracks. Two tracks are used, that one girl may pass another in the hall. The smallest ball on the chain permits the slave to reach any area accessible to the full track, though only, of course, an area accessible to the track. The next smallest ball, because of baffles set in the track overhead, will permit the slave to reach only a more restricted set of areas. This principle is then used successively. My own movements have been considerably restricted. The ball on my own neck chain permits me only a very limited use of the track, since it is of the largest size in the arrangement, indeed, the most limited use possible. Originally I wanted to explore, but my neck chain was almost constantly caught in baffles. In the halls I can move only between the quarters of work and the quarters of pleasure."

"Surely you are released from this to work and serve?" I asked.

"Of course," she said, "but then we are locked within the quarters of work or those of pleasure."

"How many quarters of work or quarters of pleasure are there?" I asked.

"I do not know," she said, "but there are more than those in which I specifically serve."

"You cannot conjecture the size of the garrison then?" I asked.

"It might be a hundred, it might be a thousand," she said. "I, and my five sisters in bondage, serve twenty men."

"Are they easy to please?" asked Arlene.

"No," said Constance.

"I hope I am not put with you," she said.

Constance shrugged. "Those to whom you will be assigned will doubtless be no easier to please," she said.

Arlene shuddered.

"Do not fear, my dear," said Constance, "you will learn the whip well."

Arlene looked at me with horror.

I paid her no attention. What did she expect? She was a slave.

Arlene put down her head. She touched her silk. She moaned.

"What of beasts?" I asked Constance.

"I do not know their number either," said Constance. "But I think they are considerably fewer in number than the men."

"You are not now on a neck chain," I said.

"Nor was I this morning," she said. "I was brought here directly from my kennel. I was thrown into this cell. You were still unconscious." She looked at Arlene. not pleasantly. "This slave," she said, emphasizing the word, "was already here. The gate was then locked."

"I do not understand why this slave," said Arlene, also emphasizing the word, "was put in with us."

"I own you both," I told her.

"Oh," said Arlene. "She is very pretty," said Arlene. "Do you find her attractive?"

"Be quiet," I said to Arlene.

"Yes, Master," she said, looking away.

"I have missed the touch of my master," said Constance.

Arlene looked at her with fury.

"You said you were brought here this morning," I said. "Is it morning?"

"This complex, in its way," she said, "is its own world. It operates on a day of twelve divisions. I do not know how long the division is. I think it is well over an Ahn."

I remembered the timing devices in the crashed ship encountered in the Tahari desert, devices set to control the detonation of the fearsome explosives housed within its steel hull. They had been calibrated into twelvefold divisions. I speculated that they might be indexed to the periods of revolution and rotation of the Kurii's original world. Also, I suppose the twelvefold division may have some remote relation to the base-twelve mathematics utilized by the Kurii, itself perhaps a function of ihe six-digited paw. The complex, then, that in which I was prisoner, I conjectured, might well have a clock similar to those used on Kur ships, and in the distant steel worlds, a clock doubtless once developed for use on their former world, doubtless long since destroyed in their internecine wars.

"We can tell the morning from the night by the illumination in the complex," said Constance. "It seems to be controlled by some sort of device which regulates its intensity."

I supposed that it would not be difficult to arrange a rheostatic mechanism to control the degree of illumination. The mechanism, I conjectured, would be analogized to the waxing and waning of light on a native world.

"The beasts," she said, "move mostly at night. I sometimes hear their claws on the plates outside my kennel. There must be some light for them. But it is too dark for the human eye to see."

I nodded, understanding. The Kur, though its activities are not limited to the darkness, tends, on the whole, in most of its varieties, to be a predominantly nocturnal animal. Its hunt, and its day, commonly begins with the fall of darkness.

I grasped the bars of the cell. I shook them. They did not yield.

I heard the movement of a key in a lock, from some yards away, in the door in the larger room within which our cell lay.

I backed away from the bars. This might encourage someone to approach them more closely. I could move to them swiftly. Arlene and Constance knelt to one side and behind me. This was proper. They were slaves.

"Drusus," I said.

The man stood in the doorway, in the somber garb of his caste.

"I see you wear the scarlet of the warrior," he said. It was true. I had awakened in the tunic of my caste. The furs had been taken from me.

"And you, my friend," said I, "are clothed now in the proper habiliments of your caste." He wore now, brazenly, the black of the Assassin. Over his left shoulder, looped on a ringed strap, he wore a blade, the short sword.

"May I welcome to our humble headquarters," said he, "colleagues in the arts of steel."

I inclined my head, in courtesy.

"It pleases us to have you in our power," he said. "You were a fool to come north."

"I come visiting," I said.

"You are welcome," said he, smiling. Then he snapped his fingers. Through the door, bearing a tray, came a small, exquisite, brunet female slave. She was naked except for her collar and a leather-and-metal lock gag. Her mouth was closed. I saw the curved metal bars, rounded, about a quarter of an inch in diameter, emerging from the sides of her mouth. By means of a ratchet and pawl arrangement the device is fitted to the individual girl. It locks behind the back of the neck. It cannot be removed, even though the girl's hands are free; She knelt before the gate of the cell and put her head to the steel floor. Two flasks on the tray she placed through the bars. She then slipped the tray through an opening, some four inches in height, in the bottom of the cell door. She then again put her head to the floor, and then stood up and withdrew, backing away, her head down. She looked at Drusus, who indicated she should leave the room. She slipped swiftly out, obedient, barefoot on the steel plates.

"A pretty little slave," I said. "Why is she in lock gag?"

"It pleases me," he said.

"Of course," I said.

He turned to leave.

"Drusus," said Arlene. "You must help us!" She had once commanded him.

He looked at her, and she shrank back. "There is a pretty little slave, too," he said.

She, terrified, tried to cover her body with her hands, half naked in the pleasure silk. How vulnerable pleasure silk makes a woman.

"I own her," I told him.

"I shall have her," he said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "she was originally brought to Gor whh the eventual object of being at my feet. I picked her out from several future slaves."

"I see," I said.

"Perhaps you should join forces with us," said Drusus. "The Kurii are generous with women."

"I am of the Warriors," I said. "I will take by the sword what women please me."

"Of course," he said. He continued to look at Arlene, who put her head down, trembling.

"Too," I said, "it is my intention to keep by the sword what women should please me." I gestured to Arlene. "This one," I said, "at the moment pleases me."

She looked at me, frightened.

"We shall see," said Drusus.

I watched him, from behind the bars.

"Join us," he said.

"No," I said.

"Your friend, Imnak, has joined us," he said.

"I do not believe you," I said.

Drusus shrugged.

"The Kurii are generous with women," he said, "-and gold."

He turned to leave.

"I would see Zarendargar," I said. "Half-Ear."

"None sees him," said Drusus. Then he turned away again. The heavy metal door closed.

I grasped the bars, angrily.

Then I turned to face the girls. I strode to Arlene. "You called out to Drusus," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"You called a free man by his name," I said, "and you spoke, too, without petitioning permission."

"Forgive me, Master," she said.

I struck her down to the furs and steel.

"Master," said Constance, "there is food." She served me the hot bosk meat, the yellow bread, warm and fresh, and the wine. Later, when she had served me she mixed the water and gruel which, too, had been brought by the brunet slave. With their mouths and fingers then, kneeling, in my sight, the two girls fed upon their gruel. Arlene looked at me over the rim of her bowl. There were tears in her eyes. There was blood at her lip. When she had finished, she came near to me, to where I sat, crossed-legged, feeding. She lay on the steel, her face near my knee.

"You struck me," she said.

I looked at her. I did not speak to her. I continued feeding.

"I am sorry I displeased you, Master," she said. She then knelt beside me. She took her hair in her right hand and, gently, wiped the grease from my mouth. "I am sorry, Master," she said. Our lips were quite close. With the tip of my tongue I touched her lips. Some slave cosmetics are flavored. "Does Master enjoy my taste?" she asked. "The lipstick is flavored," I said. "I know," she said. "It reminds me of the cherries of Tyros," I said. "I do not know what the flavor is," she said, "but it is lovely, is it not?" "Yes," I said. "Taste your slave again," she begged. I kissed her. My hands were hard on her arms. "Kiss it from my mouth, ruthlessly, owning me, Master!" she begged. "Oh," she cried, my hands so hard on her arms. But then I put her from me.

"Master?" she asked.

"I must save my strength," I said. "I must think."

She crept away from me. I sat in the middle of the cell, cross-legged, in the position of the warrior.