Kajira of Gor (31 page)

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.

16
   
I Am on the Viktel Aria, in the Vicinity of Venna

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It shook me, gently. I could also feel the warm

sun on my back. There was grass under my belly. I had been awakened on an

incline. There was muddy water about my feet.

I had been three days the unsuspected guest of the tarnsman from the camp of

Miles of Argentum. On the first two nights he had camped in the open. On the

first night I had crept forth and, from his pack, after he was asleep, stole

some meat and Sa-tarna bread. I also took a drink from his canteen. I partook

sparingly in these things for fear of being discovered. If he detected any tiny

shortages in his supplies perhaps he put them to the accounts of straying

vagrants. On the second day I noticed, to my uneasiness, more dwellings below

us. Too, I noted more tended fields. On the second night I stole fruit from an

orchard and drank from a pool. I decided to risk a third day in the basket, to

put even more hundreds of pasangs between me and Argentum and Corcyrus. On this

third day, however, to my dismay, I could see roads below, and many dwellings

and fields. We passed over, even, two towns. On the third night, frightening me,

he landed within the palisade of a fortified inn. The tarn basket was left

within the palings of a special enclosure within this general palisade. Now it

was time, I knew, to take my leave. Surely I was not interested in being

delivered to Ar, the very ally of Argentum, where, presumably, it would be

impossible to escape detection. I could not, however, to my consternation, climb

the palings of the enclosure or find a space between them to squeeze through. I

hid among the tarn baskets, of which there were several there. When a new

basket, that of a late arrival, unhitched from its tarn, was being dragged

within the palings from the landing area outside, within the larger palisade,

while it was being put in its numbered space, I slipped out. I hid among garbage

boxes behind the inn. No sleen patrolled the inner yard, probably because of the

danger to guests. I fed from the garbage, ravenously. It had rained recently and

there was water in various discarded containers and lids. I drank greedily.

Muchly did I envy the people in the inn, with their viands and beverages, their

clean rooms, their clothing and warm beds. I envied even the slaves that might

be within. They, at least, were secure and well fed. What had they to worry

about, other than being pleasing to their masters? I cried out, suddenly,

softly, as the fur of a scurrying urt brushed my leg. I crawled about the inn,

keeping to the brush at its side.

I moved leaves out of the way with my hand. Leaves brushed my back.

Then I could see the main gate of the palisade. A wagon, drawn by a tharlarion,

was entering. It tipped to the left, its wheels sinking into the ruts, on the

left almost to the hubs, in the soft ground, from the rains.

The driver cracked the whip and called out to the tharlarion. “Do not make so

much noise,” he was cautioned by the porter. “People are sleeping.” The porter

then went to the tharlarion and pushing at it and striking it, urged it forward.

The great beast grunted and threw itself forward, against the harness. The wagon

was drawn through the gate, water from the ruts dripping from its wheels. To my

dismay I then saw the porter close the gates and thrust the great beam across,

through its brackets, behind them. This he secured in place with a lock and key.