Prize of Gor (109 page)

“I am well aware of the utilities of sleen,” said the subcaptain. “You are first here?”

“Yes,” said the spokesman.

“Remove your clothing,” said the subcaptain.

“What?” said the spokesman.

“It will be useful in giving your scent to sleen,” said the subcaptain.

“No!” said the spokesman.

“Also, I will determine if you are armed.”

“Here is my weapon,” said the spokesman. “It is useless now. It contains no more lightning.” He drew the weapon from its holster, and held it, butt first, toward the subcaptain. But the subcaptain drew back.

“Here,” said the spokesman.

“I will not touch it,” said the subcaptain, his face suddenly pale.

“Why not?” asked the spokesman.

“It is a forbidden weapon, surely,” said the subcaptain.

The spokesman smiled.

“Put it down there, in that bare spot, on the far side of the wagon,” said the subcaptain. This spot was yards from where they stood. Ellen had never before seen fear in the face of the subcaptain.

The spokesman went to the place indicated, and put the pistol down.

“You others, as well,” said the subcaptain, addressing himself to the sleenmaster, Mirus and their wounded fellow.

Each of these, too, put his weapon where indicated. Four weapons then lay in the dirt.

“There were six such devices,” said Portus Canio. “Two would seem to be missing.”

“There were only four,” said the spokesman.

“Six,” said Portus Canio.

“Remove your clothing,” said the subcaptain to the spokesman. “I think it is time to exercise the sleen.”

“The other two are lost!” said the spokesman.

“Now,” said the subcaptain.

“Here,” said the spokesman, miserably. He removed a second pistol, which he had thrust in his belt, behind his back.

“Does it contain lightning?” asked the subcaptain, the officer.

The spokesman hesitated. He then said, “One, one bullet, one bolt.” He had been saving this, it seemed.

“Put it with the others.”

This was done and the spokesman then, at the gesture of one of the soldiers, with the point of a drawn knife, returned to the place near the wagon.

“One such device must be still missing,” said Portus Canio.

“I do not know where it is!” cried the spokesman.

“Kill him,” said the subcaptain, the officer, to the soldier with the drawn knife.

“No, no!” cried the spokesman and began to tear away his robes. They were then to one side.

“Please!” said the spokesman.

“Kneel,” said the officer.

The spokesman, trembling, knelt naked in the grass beside the wagon.

The soldier then took him by the hair, jerked his head back, and put his knife to his throat. He then looked to the subcaptain.

“No,” said the subcaptain, musingly. “I think it will be more interesting to see him run for sleen.”

“No, no,” whimpered the spokesman.

Kardok and the two beasts, his fellows, crouched down, regarded the spokesman.

He looked at them, shaking his head, wildly.

They looked away, as though failing to comprehend his gesture.

At this point, from across the grass, at last, from the place of the last tarn basket, where it had landed some two hundred yards away, cautiously, came Tersius Major. With him were two archers and a strapmaster. He paused at the edge of the camp.

The subcaptain, with a gesture of contempt, waved him forward.

“All is secure?” inquired Tersius Major.

“Yes,” said the subcaptain.

Tersius Major surveyed Portus Canio and his party.

“We meet again,” said Portus Canio. His hands moved, ever so slightly, as though they might consider wrapping themselves about the throat of Tersius Major.

“You will pay, tharlarion of Ar,” said Tersius Major, “for the inconvenience, the humiliation, you have caused me.”

“You are less than an urt of Ar,” said Portus Canio, “for you have betrayed your Home Stone.”

“Not at all,” said the officer. “It is only that his Home Stone is not yours. His is, you see, far more valuable. It is gold.”

“What is going on here?” asked Tersius Major.

“We have conquered,” said the officer. “He who kneels before you is, I take it, first amongst our conspirators.”

“We know nothing of your charges!” said the spokesman.

One of the two sleen lifted its head, and looked about, briefly. Its ears were erected. Its nostrils flared for a moment. And then it put its head down. The other had its head on its paws.

“Where is the lightning?” asked Tersius Major, hesitantly.

“I think it is gone, or most of it,” said the subcaptain. “But some of the metal clouds from which it strikes are there.” He indicated the discarded pistols. “One lightning bolt allegedly lies within the nearest device. One device seems to be missing.”

“We do not know where it is!” said the spokesman. “It is lost, doubtless somewhere in the grass!”

Tersius Major’s eyes went from face to face, from Portus Canio, to Fel Doron, to Selius Arconious, to their other fellow, and thence to the kneeling spokesman, to the sleenmaster, to Mirus, to the wounded man. Eight men. The Cosians had some twenty soldiers at the wagon. Two tarns, unattended, with their baskets, were in the fields.

Then the eyes of Tersius Major glittered on the kneeling slave, tunicked, bound, the remainder of the rope leash, which had been slashed by Mirus’s blade, still on her neck.

“Greetings, little Ellen,” he said.

“Greetings, Master,” said Ellen.

“She is a sleek little beast,” said Tersius Major. “It will be a pleasure to own her.”

“Her disposition will be decided by higher authority,” said the officer. “I may ask for her myself. I think she will be lovely, curled in the furs at my feet.”

“We shall see about that,” said Tersius Major.

“It is not impossible that a praetor may speak for her, even a
stratigos
or a
polemarkos
.”

“She is worthy,” said Selius Arconious, “to be kept as no more than a pot girl, or a kettle-and-mat girl, or perhaps as a shaved-headed, hobbled camp slut.”

Ellen flushed, angrily.

“You should look more closely,” said the officer.

Ellen smiled at Selius Arconious, innocently. There was perhaps the flicker of a tiny triumph in her glance.

“One might always strip her, and make an assessment,” said Selius Arconious.

Ellen jerked suddenly, inadvertently, angrily at her bound wrists. She looked up angrily at Selius Arconious. He smiled down at her, benignly. She choked back a sob of frustration. She was in her place, before him, kneeling, helplessly bound, a slave.

“You are a clever fellow,” said the officer.

“Strip her,” said Tersius Major.

“I will not strip the slave here,” said the subcaptain, “for her figure is such that it might distract my men. And by the coasts of Cos, even tunicked, it is such as might drive a man wild.”

He regarded Ellen.

“You will not figure in these matters, the matters of men, pretty little slave girl,” said the officer to Ellen. “No more than a caged tarsk or a tethered kaiila, or any other domestic animal. But do not fear. You will not be forgotten.”

“Yes, Master,” whispered Ellen, in the full understanding of her condition and nature. She would remain kneeling and bound, meaningless, a slave, awaiting her disposition. Men on this world, she had learned, had not relinquished their sovereignty. They had not, on this world, permitted themselves to be deluded into subscribing to practices and institutions which carried within them the pathological seeds of the subversion of nature. The human being is the child of nature. Once he abandons nature he ceases to be human.

“You understand that you are meaningless, do you not?” asked the officer.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen.

“Such fluff as she,” he said, “is for the entertainment of men, for the sport of men, of masters. That is what they are good for, nothing else.”

Ellen flushed crimson, but her body came alive with femininity. It shuddered with meaning. Each cell in her body seemed to awaken and glow, to tremble with understanding. Each chromosome in her body seemed to quiver with vulnerability, each particle of her body seemed to burn with expectation, with readiness. This is the passion of a slave, she thought. How honestly they speak of us. How truly they speak of us! How do they know these truths? How bold they are to enforce them! Can I not, somehow, hide myself from the truths they see so clearly? No, she thought, in my collar I am not permitted to hide. Yes, yes, she thought, they speak truths, mighty truths, lovely truths, deep truths, incontrovertible truths, precious truths, yes, such as I are indeed for the entertainment of men, for the sport of men, of masters! It is that for which we exist, and desire to exist, the pleasure of men, the entertainment of men, the sport of men, of masters! It is that for which evolution has prepared us! Oh, dark, mysterious, subtle, beloved mighty forces of nature! How the world has so casually shaped our species, with such bountiful, thoughtless beneficence, shaping with wise, terrible, tender hands both men and women, giving us as gifts to one another, that they as masters will not be denied their slaves, and that we as slaves will not be denied our masters! Deny me not my subjection to the mastery, dear masters, for in that cruelty you deny me to myself!

“We must seek out the purloined fortune,” said Tersius Major. “I do not think that Lurius of Jad will be pleased if it is not recovered.”

The officer turned to the sleenmaster. “Prepare to set your sleen to hunt.”

“No!” cried the spokesman, half rising, but thrust down again.

“I will not do so,” said the sleenmaster. “And no other here knows the signals!”

“You had no sleen in the camp,” said the officer. “Thus these are not your sleen. You have rented them. They will then respond to general signals, common to many such rented animals.”

“No, no!” said the sleenmaster. “Signals pertinent to these beasts were conveyed to me at the kennels. None here know them, save I, and I will not set them to hunt.”

“That is surprising,” said the officer, “but easily tested.” He regarded the sleenmaster. “Remove his clothing, as well,” he said, “and we will see if the sleen may be put afoot.”

“No!” cried the sleenmaster. “No! I will do as you bid!”

“No!” cried the spokesman.

The sleen, perhaps recognizing the name of their kind, had lifted their heads.

“Surely you have something to contribute to the solution of this mystery, the whereabouts of Cosian gold, you who are first here,” speculated the officer.

“I know nothing of it, truly!” cried the spokesman. “The others, those, must know!” He looked about, wildly. He pointed to Portus Canio. “He!” he cried.

“He was in chains, at the festival camp,” sneered Tersius Major.

“The tarnster then!” screamed the spokesman.

“You rendezvoused in the prairie,” said the officer. “You cannot expect us to believe you pursued these men for days seeking no more than a slave.”

“We had to kill her!” cried out the spokesman.

“Why?” asked the officer. “Surely you can think of better things to do with collar sluts than kill them.”

“You do not understand!” wept the spokesman. “There is more afoot here than you understand!”

“What?” asked the officer.

Kardok growled, menacingly.

“The beast is restless,” said a soldier, uneasily.

“Worlds!” wept the spokesman. “The fate of worlds!”

“Prepare to run,” said the officer.

Kardok crouched menacingly. His powerful back legs were tensed beneath him. His forelimbs were on the ground. The claws scratched a little at the grass. Such beasts can move with great rapidity on all fours, faster than a swift man.

“I will speak!” cried the spokesman.

“Sir!” cried one of the soldiers. “The tarn!”

The tarn which had been farthest away, that in whose basket Tersius Major had arrived, was seen ascending into the air. As far as could be determined, it was not in harness. Certainly there was no tarn basket, nor trailing suspension ropes.

Almost at the same time the nearer tarn, that which had supported the closer basket, that which had soared over the camp near the conclusion of the fray, took flight. It was clearly not in harness. The tarn basket remained in the grass, ropes to the side.

“What?” cried Tersius Major. “No!”

“Use the tarn whistles! Get them back!” cried the officer.

“They are too far away!” said one of the strapmasters.

But he, and his fellow, ran to the edge of the camp, blowing piercing blasts on the whistles. If the tarns heard the blasts they did not respond. In moments they were out of sight.

The strapmasters, pale, returned to the side of the wagon.

“What is out there?” asked Tersius Major.

“Wild sleen?” suggested a man.

“Oh, yes,” said the officer, bitterly. “They chew loose the harness and let the meat escape!”

“How will we get back?” asked Tersius Major.

“We will walk, noble ally,” snarled the officer.

“It is dangerous,” said Tersius Major.

“Something is out there,” said Portus Canio.

“I see nothing,” said Fel Doron.

The soldiers looked to the officer, who was looking out, across the grass.

“Investigate!” said the officer, designating subordinates. “Into the fields!”

It was very quiet for a time, after some men, ten, five going toward the location of the first tarn basket, and five toward the second, made their way out into the grass.

“Secure a perimeter,” said the officer.

Guards took up posts. Arrows were set to bows.

After several Ehn some five soldiers returned to the camp, two from one direction, three from the other.

“We found nothing,” said the first soldier returning to the camp. Others, following him, too, signified negativity as the fruits of their endeavor.

“Where are the others?” inquired the officer.

“Surely they preceded us,” said one of the returned men.

The officer went to the perimeter of the camp. “Report!” he called. “Report!” But for an answer there was only the sound of the wind moving in the grass.