Plunder of Gor (4 page)

I lifted the receiver. It was Paula!

“I hope I am not disturbing you,” she said.

“No,” I said, “not at all.”

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

“Something strange has happened,” she said.

“What?” I said.

“You sound different,” she said.

“How so?” I asked.

“Upset,” she said.

“No, no,” I said. “I'm fine.”

“Good,” she said.

“It is nice of you to call,” I said, struggling to speak calmly.

“I don't mean to bother you,” she said. “But I thought I should call. Something strange has happened. A messenger delivered an envelope to me, only moments ago, and inside the envelope was a smaller envelope, with a note, that the smaller envelope was to be delivered to you. Do you know anything about this?”

“No,” I said.

“Do you want me to open the envelope?” she asked.

“Is it a letter?” I asked.

“I do not think so,” she said. “It seems to contain something, a small, solid object.”

“Hold it up to the light,” I said.

“The envelope is opaque,” she said.

“What does it feel like?” I asked.

“I am not sure,” she said.

“A key?” I said.

“I am not sure,” she said.

“I lost a key,” I said.

“It might be a key,” she said.

“—to the lock on my suitcase,” I said.

“It's not a flat key,” she said.

“Please open the envelope,” I said.

A minute or two later, Paula spoke again. “It is a key,” she said. “I do not think it is a suitcase key.”

“Bring it to my apartment, please, and hurry!” I begged.

“Are you all right?” Paula asked, again.

“Yes, yes!” I said. “Please hurry.” I gave her my address.

“Why should someone give it to me, if it is yours?” asked Paula.

“Just bring it!” I pleaded.

“You are not all right,” said Paula. “Something is wrong.”

“Bring it,” I said. “I will tell you all I know. I must speak to someone. I am afraid. I do not know what is going on!”

“Tell me, tell me, please,” said Paula.

“You must tell no one,” I said.

“You are afraid,” said Paula.

“Hurry,” I said. “I understand little of this, but I will tell you what I can.”

“Should I call a doctor, an ambulance?” asked Paula, frightened.

“No, just hurry!” I said.

Chapter Two

“I fear,” said Paula, “it is not all nonsense.”

“It must be!” I demanded.

“Those are not nonsense,” said Paula, pointing to the opened handcuffs lying on the kitchen counter.

We were sitting about the kitchen table.

“You believe me?” I asked, plaintively.

“Many would not,” said Paula, “but I do.”

“But surely you do not believe all this about another world, another planet, one secretly in our own system, shielded by the sun, concealed by gravitational adjustments, an Antichthon, a Counter-Earth?”

“It is hard to know what to believe,” said Paula. “But the claims of a Counter-Earth have been familiar for millennia. There are difficult-to-explain signals, and many sightings, perhaps of ships harboring in unknown ports, not those of Terra, not those of Earth.”

“Such things are mythical,” I said.

“Perhaps,” said Paula. “But who knows from what seeds myths might first have sprung? Perhaps the smoke of legend hints at the fire of distant, forgotten fact. Data is real. It may be diversely understood.”

I had recounted to Paula, who had almost immediately freed me of the homely devices in which I was so helpless, the incident in the office, and the talk of slaves, of “pot girls,” of “kettle-and-mat girls,” and such. I had not, of course, recounted to Paula that I had been so characterized by the surly, uncouth ruffian I had encountered in the office. She had listened intently, even breathlessly, her eyes shining. “It may be so,” she had whispered. “How lovely, how meaningful, how glorious!” she whispered. “How fearful, how frightful, how horrifying!” I had exclaimed. “No, no,” she had whispered. I had then recounted to her the incident on the beach, the rude conversation, the photographing, it done without my permission, I unwilling to be photographed, the speculation as to measurements, the use of the word ‘kajira'. “Are you sure of the word?” she inquired, eagerly. “Yes,” I said, “they mistook me for someone else. I told them my name was not ‘Kajira' but ‘Phyllis'.”

“Oh, dear Phyllis,” she said, “how I envy you! You may be amongst the kajirae and, as yet, know nothing of it.”

“I told them my name was ‘Phyllis',” I said.

“Why do you think you were put in handcuffs?” she asked.

“I do not know,” I said.

“Perhaps to accustom you to helplessness,” she said.

“I do not understand how the apartment could have been entered,” I said. “The doors and windows were locked.”

“There are devices,” said Paula. “I have read of them.”

“I sometimes have the sense that I am being watched,” I said.

“Gorean slavers,” said Paula, “often scout ‘slave fruit', before it is picked.”

“If there were such,” I said, “doubtless.”

“They choose carefully,” she said. “They select for intelligence, beauty, and passion.”

“I am highly intelligent,” I said, “and obviously extremely beautiful. But I do not care for men.”

“Slave fires,” she said, “may be lit in the coldest of bellies, turning them helplessly needful, beggingly needful.”

I feared this might be true.

Had I not dreamed of such need, of such helplessness? Could I be turned into such a needful, helpless thing?

Surely not!

Yet had I not longed for this?

“How helpless then,” she said, “would a woman be!”

“Do not speak so,” I begged.

“What could she be then,” she said, “but a man's slave, the slave of men.”

“I would not permit it,” I said. “And who could respond to the men we know?”

“Your wishes in the matter need not be considered,” she said. “And all men may not be such as those with whom we are disappointingly familiar. I am sure, dear Phyllis, your libido, rendered helpless, dominated and mastered, will respond overwhelmingly to the lust of masters.”

“I understand little, if anything, of this,” I said.

“I think they are considering you, Phyllis,” she said, “for a Gorean ­collar.”

“Do not be absurd,” I said, uneasily.

“You might be fetching,” she said, “slave clad, if clad, collared, and owned.”

“I am a free woman,” I said, angrily.

“I suspect so,” said Paula, “but who knows what the future might hold.”

“What do you know of these things?” I asked.

“I read, I think, I wonder,” said Paula. “I am familiar with the Gorean world, as I suspect you are not.”

“I have heard of it,” I said, “a little.”

“I have lived in the books,” said Paula. “They have spoken to me. I have found myself barefoot in those green fields, I have glimpsed far horizons from the bow of a swift galley, knelt trembling before a master.”

“In your imagination!” I said.

“Yes, alas, only so,” she said.

“I did not know you were like this,” I said.

“I have often wondered,” she said, “if there is a Counter-Earth, traversing its orbit, plying its silent way about our star, a world with its own gods and beasts, its own seasons and tides, its own strifes and wars.”

“Absurd,” I said.

“If there was such a world,” she said, “might it not hint its presence in a hundred ways, content even to be perceived as fiction?”

“Absurd!” I said, angrily.

“Strange beasts, unwilling to be seen, might prowl in surprising precincts,” she said. “Reality might wear many concealments.”

“If Gor is real,” I said, “let it show itself, openly!”

“It, or its custodians, may not care to do so,” she said. “What would be the value or purpose of such a disclosure? How would it benefit either world? Would it not shatter comfortable visions, disrupt cultures, shake civilizations, alarm and unsettle populations, produce social, economic, and intellectual chaos? No, it is better for Gor to conceal itself, to the extent it can; it is better for it to maintain its privacy, its reticence. It is better for all that way.”

I looked away, angrily.

“Besides,” she said, “perhaps it is not such a well-kept secret. I am sure, if it exists, that hundreds, perhaps thousands, on this world know of it, even have dealings with it.”

“It does not exist,” I said.

“Perhaps not,” she said. “But you have had your experiences.”

“There must be an alternative explanation for them,” I said, desperately.

“Perhaps,” she said, “but I am not sure of that. Indeed, I hope that your experiences are precisely what they seem to be. On this world I feel I am a stranger. For years, since I was a girl, I have dreamed of a richer, more honest, more beautiful, more natural world, and of strong, owning men, who would own me and treat me as the woman I am!”

“Do not speak so!” I cried, dismayed. “Do not dare to speak so!”

“Forgive me,” she said.

“I am afraid,” I said.

“Perhaps there are surveillance devices, even in your apartment,” said Paula, looking about, “hidden cameras, secretly installed recording devices.”

“Impossible,” I said.

Paula sprang suddenly to her feet, wildly, hopefully.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I want to look!” she said.

She began where we were, in the kitchen, and then went to the living room, and then to the bedroom. She was concerned, thorough. She opened drawers, moved furniture, looked about lamps, looked behind chests.

I followed her, dismayed.

“Here,” she said, “perhaps here!”

“Paula!” I cried.

“No, nothing!” she said, at last, in frustration.

“There is nothing, Paula,” I insisted.

“Nothing,” she whispered, “nothing,” tears in her eyes.

“Nothing,” I said.

“But perhaps?” she said.

“No,” I said.

“Do we know?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

She looked about.

“Paula?” I said.

She lifted her head to the ceiling.

What was it but a flat, opaque, plain surface, a familiar, meaningless, inert expanse?

“Paula?” I said.

“
La kajira
!” she cried.

“Paula!” I said.

“
La kajira
!” she cried again, and then, sobbing, cried so again and again, to one side of the living room and then to the other, and even to the carpeted floor, and then, once more, she lifted her head to the ceiling. “I pronounce myself kajira!” she cried.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I am begging for the privilege of being allowed to submit myself to a master, to be the slave that I know in my heart I am.”

“Paula!” I cried, in protest.

“I long for a man to put me in his collar,” she said. “I want to be marked. I long to wear the chains of my master. I want to submit to men, to kneel before them, and serve, and love, and please them!”

“What sort of woman are you?” I cried.

“The one that I am,” she said.

“We are alone,” I said.

“I fear so,” she said.

“There are no devices,” I said.

“I fear not,” she said, softly. “And why would they need such things? And they would scarcely wish to risk their discovery.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” I said.

“What secret?” she said.

“What you said,” I said.

“Alas,” she said, “that the world is such, that need, and wanting, and honesty, and truth must be concealed.”

We returned to the kitchen table.

I was afraid she would leave.

“I will tell no one,” I said.

“I feel at ease,” said Paula, “to have confessed it. I am now at peace with myself. I have admitted to myself what I have long known, and what I have long longed to express.”

“Do not fear,” I said. “I will tell no one.”

Paula looked at me.

“Why do you smile?” I asked.

“Because I know you, Phyllis,” she said. “You are bright, but self-centered and shallow. Even now you are thinking of the attention you will receive, the gratification you will derive, from regaling the other girls with an account of what you regard as a juicy tidbit, fit for dessert gossip, at one of our luncheons.”

“No, never!” I said.

“Your promise,” she said, “is worthless, however intent you may be now to keep it. You can no more hold a promise than a sieve water, you can no more resist the temptation to gossip than straw, seeking one excuse or another, can resist flame.”

“I assure you that that is not so,” I averred.

“Perhaps I should have left you in those,” she smiled, nodding toward the handcuffs reposing on the kitchen counter.

“No!” I said. “I am your friend. You are my friend.”

“I like you,” said Paula. “I am your friend. But you are not my friend. You are not capable of being a friend. Perhaps one day you will be capable of being a friend. One might hope so. Perhaps once you have learned to kneel, and lick and kiss a whip, and feel metal on your limbs, and know yourself owned and helpless, you will be capable of friendship. One does not know.”

“I see,” I said.

“Forgive me,” she said.

“Perhaps now,” I said, angrily, “I will tell! Now perhaps I will let the others know what sort of woman you are!” Then I grew frightened. “Or would you deny it?” I asked.

“I suppose few would believe it of me,” said Paula, “but I would not deny it.”

“Then,” I said, “you are at my mercy.”

“Oh?” she said.

“Yes,” I said, “you must do what I wish!”

“Or you would tell?”

“Yes,” I said.

“In any event,” she said, “I must do what you wish.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because of what I am,” she said.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“I have learned what I am,” she said. “I have found myself. I have confessed myself before another. The war is done.”

“I might not tell,” I said.

“It does not matter to me, one way or another,” she said, “not any longer. But I would warn you that in denouncing me you may be denouncing others, as well, despite what they might profess. You may not know those to whom you speak. Do you know their wants, their fantasies, their dreams and needs? I do not think myself unique. Many, perhaps all, have visited, so to speak, the shores of Gor, even if they did not know the continent on which they touched, nor the names of its ports.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“We are women. We need a master.”

“No,” I said. “No!”

“I wonder if a master would want you,” she said.

“I am beautiful!” I said.

“It requires more than beauty to be an acceptable slave,” she said. “Perhaps you would be fed to sleen.”

“What is a sleen?” I asked.

“Hope that you will never learn,” she said.

“I will never be a slave!” I said.

“So have said many who are now in their collars,” she said.

“Why would a master not want me?” I asked, angrily.

“Do not fear,” she said, “you would be kept anyway, as a slave.”

“No!” I said.

“Masters keep their slaves,” she said. “They want them. Slaves are not to be freed, no more than other beasts.”

“Paula!” I protested.

“It is said that only a fool frees a slave girl,” she said.

“‘Slave girl'!” I said, angrily.

“But one such as you would be kept,” she said.

“Oh?” I said, archly.

“Yes,” she said, “collared, you will stay in a collar.”

“Why?” I asked, angrily.

“Because you belong in a collar,” she said.

“No!” I said.

“And once your slave fires have been ignited,” she said, “you would fear only that you might be freed. You would treasure your collar. You would kiss your fingertips and press them gratefully to the brand that marks you slave. You would beg to be kept.”