Explorers of Gor (17 page)

“Put them at the prow!” called Ulafi.

Two seamen came to assist Shoka.

We were now some two pasangs out of Schendi. The traffic was heavier.

Shoka lifted up the blond girl, easily, in his arms. She was frightened. The line on her wrists went to, and through, the golden ring in the left ear of the kailiauk head at the prow of the Palms of Schendi. It then, from the ring, returned to the deck. The two seamen then held the line, at the deck. Shoka then threw the girl over the bow. She cried out with misery but, in a moment, swung from the tether, through the ring, fastened to her wrists. At Shoka’s direction she was drawn up until she hung, her wrists over her head, about a foot below the golden ring. One sailor held the rope then while the other secured the line to a ring on the deck. He made a loop in the line, passed the free end through the deck ring, brought the end up through the loop, about the line and down through the loop again, then tightened the knot. The girl thee swung from the ring. The knot at the ring was a simple bowline, familiar to all who know the sea, brought to Gor perhaps hundreds of years ago by mariners who had once sailed the Aegean or the Mediterranean, perhaps who had once called not such ports as Schendi or Bazi their own, but Miletus or Ephesus, or Syracuse or Carthage. h a few moments Sasi, too, swung from a golden ring, she too suspended over the brownish waters outside Schendi.

A heavy galley, out of Tyros, forty oars to a side, stroked past us, her yellow lateen sails loose on their yards. Crewmen paused in their labors to examine the beauty of the displayed slaves. Her captain, lowering his glass of the builders, lifted his hard high, fist clenched, to Ulafi, greeting him, and congratulating him on his ship and the girls which hung at its prow. Ulafi, graciously, lifting his hand, palm open, acknowledged the gesture.

We were then at the mouth of the harbor and, in a moment, had brought the line of yellow-and-white-striped buoys to port. There were already two ships behind us now, and another was ahead of us. As we moved toward the wharves three ships passed us, moving toward the open sea. There are more than forty merchant wharves at Schendi, each one of which, extending into the harbor, accommodates four ships to a side. The inmost wharves tend to have lower numbers, on the starboard side of the port, as one enters the harbor.

We could see men on the docks and on the outjutting wharves. Many seemed to recognize the Palms of Schendi and she was well received. I had not realized that Schendi was as large or busy a port as it was. Many of the wharves were crowded and there were numerous ships moored at them. On the wharves and in the warehouses, whose great doors were generally open, I could see much merchandise. Most in evidence were spice kegs and hide bales, but much else, too, could be seen, cargos in the warehouses and on the wharves, some waiting, some being actively carried about, being embarked or disembarked. As the Palms of Schendi, her canvas now taken in and the long yards swung parallel with the deck, oars lifting and sweeping, moved past the wharves many men stopped working, setting down their burdens, to wave us good greetings. Men relish the sight of a fine ship. Too, the two girls at the prow did not detract from the effect. They hung as splendid ornaments, two slave beauties, dangling over the brownish waters, from rings set in the ears of a beast. We passed the high desks of two wharf praetors. I saw, too, here and there, brief-tunicked, collared slave girls; I saw, too, at one point a group of paga girls, chained together, soliciting business for their master’s tavern. Many goods pass in and out of Schendi, as would be the case in any major port, such as precious metals, jewels, tapestries, rugs, silks, horn and horn products, medicines, sugars and salts, scrolls, papers, inks, lumber, stone, cloth, ointments, perfumes, dried fruit, some dried fish, many root vegetables, chains, craft tools, agricultural implements, such as hoe heads and metal flail blades, wines and pagas, colorful birds and slaves. Schendi’s most significant exports are doubtless spice and hides, with kailiauk horn and horn products also being of great importance. One of her most delicious exports is palm wine. One of her most famous, and precious, exports are the small carved sapphires of Schendi. These are generally a deep blue, but some are purple and others, interestingly, White or yellow. They are usually carved in the shape of tiny Panthers, but sometimes other animals are found as well, usually small animals or birds. Sometimes, however, the stone is carved to resemble a tiny kailiauk or kailiauk head. Slaves, interestingly, do not count as one of the major products in Schendi, in spite of the fact that the port is the headquarters of the League of Black Slavers. The black slavers usually sell their catches nearer the markets, both to the north and south. One of their major markets, to which they generally arrange for the shipment of girls overland, is the Sardar Fairs, in particular that of En’Kara, which is the most extensive and finest. This is not to say, of course, that Schendi does not have excellent slave markets. It is a major Gorean port. The population of Schendi is probably about a million people. The great majority of these are black. Individuals of all races, however, Schendi being a cosmopolitan port, frequent the city. Many merchant houses, from distant cities, have outlets or agents in Schendi. Similarly sailors, from hundreds of ships and numerous distant ports, are almost always within the city. The equatorial waters about Schendi, of course, are open to shipping all year around. This is one reason for the importance of the port. Schendi does not, of course, experience a winter. Being somewhat south of the equator it does have a dry season, which occurs in the period of the southern hemisphere’s winter. If it were somewhat north of the equator, this dry season would occur in the period of the northern hemisphere’s winter. The farmers about Schendi, as farmers in the equatorial regions generally, do their main planting at the beginning of the “dry season.” From the point of view of one accustomed to Gor’s northern latitudes I am not altogether happy with the geographer’s concept of a “dry season.” It is not really dry but actually a season of less rain. During the rains of the rainy season seeds could be torn out of the ground and fields half washed away. The equatorial farmer, incidentally, often moves his fields after two or three seasons as the soil, depleted of many minerals and nutriments by the centuries of terrible rains, is quickly exhausted by his croppage. The soil of tropical areas, contrary to popular understanding, is not one of great agricultural fertility. Jungles, which usually spring up along rivers or in the vicinity of river systems, can thrive in a soil which would not nourish fields of food grains. The farmers about Schendi are, in a sense, more gardeners than farmers. When a field is exhausted the farmer clears a new area and begins again. Villages move. This infertility of the soil is a major reason why population concentrations have not developed in the Gorean equatorial interior. The land will not support large permanent settlements. On the equator, itself, interestingly, geographers maintain that there are two dry seasons and two rainy seasons. Once again, if there is much to this, I would prefer to think of two rainy seasons and two less rainy seasons. My own observations would lead me to say that for all practical purposes there is, on the equator itself, no dry season. The reason for the great amount of rain in the equatorial regions is, I suppose, clear to all. At the equator the sun’s rays are most direct. This creates greater surface heat than oblique rays would. This heating of the surface causes warm air to rise. The rising of the warm air leaves a vacuum, so to speak, or, better, an area of less pressure or density in the atmosphere. Into this less dense area, this “hole,” so to speak, cooler air pours, like invisible liquid, from both the north and south. This air is heated and rises in its turn. When the warm air reaches the upper atmosphere, well above the reflecting, heated surface of the earth, it cools; as it cools, its moisture is precipitated as rain, This is, of course, a cycle. It is responsible for the incredible rains of the Gorean equatorial interior. There are often two major rains during the day, in the late afternoon, when the warm air has reached its precipitation point, and, again, in the late evening, when, due to the turning of the planet, the surface and upper atmosphere, darkened, cools. There can be rain, of course, at other times, as well, depending on the intricate interplay of air currents, pressures and temperatures.

“Oars inboard,” called Gudi, who acted as oar master.

Seamen hurled mooring lines to men on the wharf. These were looped about heavy mooring cleats. Coils of rope slung over the side cushioned the strakes of the ship, lest she grate herself on the boards of the wharf. Men gathered their gear. The gangplank was run from an opening in the starboard rail, swung open, to the wharf. The number of the wharf was eight.

I saw two slavers stop at the wharf, looking up at the slaves suspended from the rings. “If you want to sell them, bring them to the market of Kovu,” called one of them, an ugly fellow, his right cheek disfigured by a long scar.

Shoka lifted his hand to them, acknowledging that he had heard them.

They then continued on their way.

Beautiful slave girls, clothed and unclothed, are not that rare on Gor. That the two girls had attracted the attention of passing slavers was high praise indeed for their unconcealed charms.

Two men from the desk of the nearest wharf praetor, he handling wharves six through ten, a scribe and a physician, boarded the ship. The scribe carried a folder with him. He would check the papers of Ulafi, the registration of the ship, the arrangements for wharfage and the nature of the cargo. The physician would check the health of the crew and slaves. Plague, some years ago, had broken out in Bazi, to the north, which port had then been closed by the merchants for two years. In some eighteen months it had burned itself out, moving south and eastward. Bazi had not yet recovered from the economic blow. Schendi’s merchant council, I supposed, could not be blamed for wishing to exercise due caution that a similar calamity did not befall their own port.

The scribe, with Ulafi, went about his business. I, with the crew members, submitted to the examination of the physician. He did little more than look into our eyes and examine our forearms. But our eyes were not yellowed nor was there sign of the broken pustules in our flesh.

Two slave girls, white, barefoot, in ragged brown tunics, with golden rings in their ears, one chewing on a larma, came to stand on the wharf near the prow. “How ugly you are!” called up one of them to the girls at the rings.

“Have you ever been put at the prow?” called Sasi back to them, unhesitatingly.

They did not respond.

I saw the blond-haired barbarian, suspended at her ring, suddenly shudder with understanding. And then how proud she seemed, bound there, suddenly. She looked up at her bound wrists and the large ring. Her feet moved, rubbing slightly against one another; her ankles, crossed and bound, shifted in the small encircling rope loops which held them closely together. The line of her body, suspended as she was, was very beautiful. She looked over at Sasi, and Sasi smiled at her. Then, to my amazement, the blond girl, though her wrists must have hurt her, her weight drawing against them, smiled back at Sasi. Then she looked down with contempt at the ragged girls on the wharf.

“You are both homely, poor slaves!” called up one of the girls.

“You are homely, poor slaves, not we?” said Sasi. “We are at the prow!” She looked at them, angrily. “Were you ever at the prow?”

Again they did not answer.

Can your master not afford to give you a decent tunic?” asked Sasi. I smiled, for Sasi, herself, did not have a stitch to wear. I would have her improve her slave skills considerably before I would let her have so much as a rag. “I wager your master has you dance for male slaves!” cried Sasi.

The two girls cried out with rage and the one girl hurled the core of the larma at Sasi, stinging her on the lower right abdomen.

“Pierced-ear girls!” cried Saul.

The two girls suddenly looked at one another and, sobbing, turned and fled from the wharf.

Sasi looked back at me, well pleased with herself~ I had to admit she had handled the two girls well. I also recalled that she had, once, in the voyage, begged me to have her own ears pierced, that she might be then all the more helplessly and irrevocably a slave. I did not know If she had changed her mind on this issue, but it did not matter. I looked at her. Yes, rings would look well in her ears. I would, thus, have her ears pierced, or would do it myself. I also looked at the blond-haired girl. Her ears, too, I decided, would look well with rings in them. She would soon have pierced ears, set well with golden rings, should she come into my ownership.

The blond-haired girl looked at me, and then looked away. I was pleased. I could see how proud she was to have been found beautiful enough to be put at the prow of a Gorean ship. Perhaps for the first time she was beginning to sense how lovely she truly was.

How ignorant women are. Do they not know how beautiful they are? Do they not know how incredibly exciting they are to men? Do they not know how they are wanted, how fiercely they are desired. If only they could see themselves but once through a man’s eyes, would they not be terrified to leave the house, lest they be stripped and put under the iron, and collared, by the first man who sees them? Perhaps it is well for women not to know how desirable they are. How they might fear men, if they but knew. I speak, of course, of the men of Gor and those of a Gorean nature.

And yet on Gor women who are put in collars do not long remain ignorant of their own beauty and its meaning. It is soon taught to them, for they are slaves. Perhaps it is only the slave girl, of all women, kneeling and owned, placed uncompromisingly at the mercy of men, who had some sense of her own desirability. What woman can begin to understand men, who has not been owned by one?

“Bring in the slaves,” said the physician.

One seaman held Sasi’s rope taut, above the deck ring. Another undid the bowline which fastened the rope to the ring. Shoka, with a hook on a pole, drew Sasi back to the rail. He put aside the pole, and, one hand about her waist, drew her to him, lifting her then over the rail. He placed her on her back on the deck, her ankles still bound, her wrists, still tied, back over her head.