Assassin of Gor (17 page)

I was a bit sad as I looked at the block. I knew that in such places private auctions were sometimes conducted, discreetly, for favored clientele, many times slavers themselves. At such private auctions, conducted secretly, Gorean slavers sometimes find it convenient to dispose of important, High Caste women without trace, sometimes even from the city of Ar itself, perhaps women who have lived proudly, luxuriously, not more than a pasang or two from the rounded, wooden block from which they now find themselves, to their horror, being sold. Who knows what women, freshly branded, hooded and braceleted, chained in the slave wagons, pass to and from Ar?

Passing down a corridor, trailing after Ho-Tu, we stopped briefly to peer into a large room. In this room I saw two slave girls, clad in yellow livery with yellow collars, as Elizabeth normally was, kneeling opposite one another. One girl was dictating from a piece of record paper held in her hand and the other girl was copying it rapidly on a second piece of record paper. The speed with which this was done informed me that some form of shorthand must be being used. Elsewhere in the room there were some free men, Scribes I gathered though they were stripped to the waist, who were inking, using a silk-screen process, large sheets of layered, glued rag paper. One of then held the sheet up inspecting it, and I saw that it was a bill, which might be pasted against the wall of a public building, or on the public boards near the markets. It advertised a sale. Other such sheets, hanging on wires, proclaimed games and tarn races. The common thread in these various matters was that the House of Cernus was involved, either in presenting the sale or in sponsoring the races or games.

"This may interest you," said Ho-Tu, turning down a side corridor. There was a door at the end of this corridor, and two guards posted. They recognized Ho-Tu immediately, of course, and unlocked and opened the door. I was much surprised when I saw, about four feet inside this door, a second door. In this second door there was an observation panel, which slid back. A woman looked through the panel, saw Ho-Tu and nodded. In a moment I heard two iron bolts being withdrawn and we entered another corridor. I heard the door being bolted again behind us. In the corridor we passed another woman. Both, interestingly, wore long, rather graceful white gowns, and had their hair bound back with bands of white silk. Neither had worn collars.

"Are they slaves?" I asked Ho-Tu.

"Of course," he said.

We saw another woman. We had not yet seen a man in this corridor.

Ho-Tu turned into a side corridor and we found ourselves, to my surprise, looking through a huge rectangle of glass, some twelve feet high and perhaps fifteen feet wide; it was one of a dozen such panels I could see in the corridor.

Beyond the glass I looked into what seemed to be a Pleasure Garden, lit by energy bulbs radiant in its lofty ceiling. There were various hues of grass, some secluded pools, some small trees, a number of fountains and curving walks. I heard the music of a lute from somewhere. Then I stepped back for I noted, coming along one of the curving walks, two lovely girls, clad in white, their hair bound back with white silk; they were quite young; perhaps less than eighteen.

"Do not fear," said Ho-Tu. "They cannot see you."

I studied the glass that separated us. The two girls strolled near the glass and one of them, lifting her hands behind her head, studied her reflection gravely in the mirror, retying the band of silk which confined her hair.

"On their side of the glass," said Ho-Tu, "it seems a mirror."

I looked suitably impressed, though of course, from Earth, I was familiar with the principles of such things.

"It is an invention of the Builders," said Ho-Tu. "It is common in slave houses, where one may wish to observe without being observed."

"Can they hear us?" I whispered.

"No," said Ho-Tu.

Now one of the girls laughed and pushed the other and then turned and fled, pursued by the other, also laughing.

I looked at Ho-Tu sharply.

"There is a system of sound baffles," said he. "We can hear them but they cannot hear us."

I regarded the two girls running off. Beyond them I could see some others. Two of them were playing catch with a red ball.

There seemed to me something strange about these girls, though they were beautiful. They seemed, in a way, simple, very child-like.

"Are they slaves?" I asked Ho-Tu.

"Of course," said Ho-Tu, adding, "but they do not know it."

"I do not understand," I said.

I could now see the girl playing the lute. She was lovely, as were the others. She was strolling about one of the pools. Two other girls, I now saw, were lying by the pool, putting their fingers in the water, making circles in the water.

"These are exotics," said Ho-Tu.

That expression is used for any unusual variety of slave. Exotics are generally quite rare.

"In what way?" I asked myself had never cared much for exotics, any more than I cared much for some of the species of dogs and goldfish which some breeders of Earth regarded as such triumphs. Exotics are normally bred for some deformity which is thought to be appealing. On the other hand, sometimes the matter is much more subtle and sinister. For example it is possible to breed a girl whose saliva will be poisonous; such a woman, placed in the Pleasure Gardens of an enemy, can be more dangerous than the knife of an Assassin.

Perhaps Ho-Tu guessed my line of thought, for he laughed. "No, No!" he said. "These are common wenches, though more beautiful than most."

"Then in what way are they exotic?" I asked.

Ho-Tu looked at me and grinned. "They know nothing of men," said he.

"You mean they are White Silk?" I asked.

He laughed. "I mean they have been raised from the time they were infants in these gardens. They have never looked on a man. They do not know they exist."

I then understood why only women had been seen in these rooms.

I looked again through the glass, at the gentle girls, sporting and playing together by the pool.

"They are raised in complete ignorance," said Ho-Tu. "They do not even know they are women."

I listened to the music of the lute, and was disturbed.

"Their life is very pleasant, and very easy," said Ho-Tu. "They have no duties other than to seek their own pleasure."

"And then?" I asked.

"They are very expensive," said Ho-Tu. "Normally the agent of a Ubar who has been victorious in battle will purchase one, for his high officers, to be brought to the victory feast." Ho-Tu looked at me. "The attendants, when the girl is purchased, give her a drug in her food that night, and remove her from the gardens. She is kept unconscious. She will be revived at the height of the Ubar's victory feast, commonly to find herself unclothed in a cage of male slaves set up among tables."

I looked back at the girls through the glass.

"Not infrequently," said Ho-Tu, "they go mad, and are slain the following morning."

"And if not?" I asked.

"Commonly," said Ho-Tu, "they will seek out a female slave, one who reminds them of the attendants in the garden, and this woman will comfort them, and explain to them what they are, that they are women, that they are slaves, that they must wear a collar and that they must serve men."

"Is there more to the House of Cernus?" I asked, turning away.

"Of course," bowed Ho-Tu, leading me away from the area.

One of the women looked at me as I left and smiled. I did not smile back.

10 - TO THE PENS

We had soon passed through the two doors, the first being locked behind us by one of the white-gowned women, the second by the two guardsmen.

I the hallway we passed four female slaves, naked, on their hands and knees, with sponges, rags and buckets, cleaning the tiles of the corridor. A male slave stood near, a heavy band of iron about his throat, a whipping strap dangling from his right hand.

"This is an interesting room," said Ho-Tu, opening a door and leading me through. "Sometimes it is guarded, but now it is empty."

Once again I found myself staring through a large rectangle of glass, but this time there was only one such panel.

"Yes," said Ho-Tu, "on the other side it is a mirror."

On our side of the glass there was a metal grillwork, with rectangular openings about twelve inches long and four inches high. I gathered this was in case someone on the other side would attempt to break the mirror. I saw an open wardrobe closet, some chests of silks, a silken divan of immense size, several choice rugs and cushions about, and a sunken bath to one side. It might have been the private compartment of a lady of High Caste save that, of course, in this house it was a cell.

"It is used for special captures," said Ho-Tu. "Sometimes," he added, "Cernus amuses himself with the women kept in this room, leading them to believe that if they serve him well they will be well treated." Ho-Tu laughed. "After they yield to him they are sent to the iron pens."

"And if they do not yield?" I asked.

"Then," said Ho-Tu, "they are strangled in the chain which bears the crest of the House of Cernus."

I looked down into the room.

"Cernus," said Ho-Tu, "does not like to lose."

"I gather not," I said.

"When using a woman," said Ho-Tu, "Cernus is in the habit of placing the chain about her neck."

I looked at him.

"It encourages docility and effort," said Ho-Tu.

"I expect it does," I said.

"You do not seem much pleased with the House of Cernus," observed Ho-Tu.

"Are you," I asked, "Ho-Tu?"

He looked up at me, surprised. "I am well paid," he said. Then he shrugged. "Most of the House you have seen," said he, "with the exception of training areas, the iron pens, the processing rooms, and such."

"Where are the women who were brought to the Voltai last night on the black ship?"

"In the kennels," he said. "Follow me."

On the way down the stairs to the lower portions of the cylinder, several floors of which, incidentally, are below ground level, we passed the office of Caprus. I saw Elizabeth there, in the hallway outside, carrying an armful of scrolls.

Seeing me she fell to her knees and put down her head, managing somehow to retain her hold on the several scrolls.

"I see your training has not begun even yet," I said, rather sternly.

She did not speak.

"Her training," said Ho-Tu, "will begin soon."

"What are you waiting for?" I asked.

"It is an idea of Cernus," said Ho-Tu. "He wants to train a first small set of barbarian slaves. She will be numbered among those in the first set."

"The girls who were brought in last night?" I asked.

"Only two of them in her set," said Ho-Tu. "The remaining eight will be divided into two larger sets and trained separately."

"Barbarians, I have heard," I said, "do not train well."

"It is our belief," said Ho-Tu, "that much can be done with a barbarian girl---it remains to be proven, of course."

"But such would not be likely to bring a high price," I observed.

"Who knows what may be the case by the month of En'Var?" asked Ho-Tu. "Or perhaps even by En'Kara?"

"Should the experiment be successful," I said, "it seems the House of Cernus will have the largest supply of such girls."

Ho-Tu smiled. "Of course," he said.

"You already have several in the pens?" I speculated.

"Yes," said Ho-Tu. "And more are obtained each rendezvous."

Elizabeth looked up, as though puzzled at this, as though she did not understand the reference, and then dropped her head again.

"When will you begin the training?" I asked.

"When the two new girls chosen for the first set grow weary of the kennels, and of the gruel of the iron pens."

"Do girls in training not eat such gruel?" I asked.

"Girls in training," said Ho-Tu, "partake of the finest of slave porridges. They are given mats to sleep on, and later in their training, furs. They are seldom chained. Sometimes they are even permitted, under guard, to leave the house, that they may be stimulated and pleased by the sights of Ar."

"Do you hear that, Little Vella?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," said Elizabeth, not lifting her head.

"Further," said Ho-Tu, "after the first few weeks of training, if sufficient progress is made, they will be permitted foods other than slave porridges."

Elizabeth looked up brightly.

"One might even say," said Ho-Tu, "that they will be well fed."

Elizabeth smiled.

"In order that they may bring," added Ho-Tu, looking at Elizabeth, "a higher price."

Elizabeth looked down.

At that time we heard the fifteenth bar. Elizabeth looked up at me. "You are permitted to leave," I told her. She sprang up and returned to the office of Caprus, who was closing the top of the desk before which he stood. She replaced the scrolls in the pigeonholes of a scroll bin and Caprus slid the cover over the bin and locked it, and then with a word to him, she lightly ran past us and disappeared down the hall.