Savages of Gor (23 page)

"I do not understand," I said.

"Observe the dust," he said. "Its front is narrow, and it does not behave as though raised by the wind."

"The wind direction, too," I said, "would be incorrect."

"Accordingly," said Grunt, "you conjecture that the dust is raised by the paws of running kaiila."

"Yes," I said.

"In that you are correct," he said. "What else do you note?" he asked.

"I do not understand," I said. I was growing apprehensive. It was early in the day. I had little doubt but what the distant riders could overtake us, and easily, before nightfall.

"It is so obvious," said Grant, "that you have noted it, but have not considered its significance."

"What?" I asked.

"You can detect that dust," he said.

"Yes," I said, "of course."

"Does that not seem to you of interest?" he asked.

"I do not understand," I said.

'To raise dust like that, in this terrain," said Grunt, "you must ride across draws, rather than avoid them, and you must ride in a cluster, where the dust will rise, cloudlike, rather than rise and fall, in a narrow line, swiftly dissipated by the wind."

"What are you telling me?" I asked.

Grunt grinned. "If we were being followed by red savages," he said, "I do not think that you, with your present level of skills, would be aware of it"

"I do not understand," I said.

'That dust," he said, "does not rise from the paws of the kaiila of Dust Legs, nor of Yellow Knives nor Fleer. It is not raised, at all, by the kaiila of red savages. They would not ride so openly, so carelessly, so stupidly. They would avoid, where possible, grassless, dry areas, and they would ride at intervals, in single file. This arrangement not only obscures their numbers but lowers and narrows the dust line."

"White men, then, follow us," I said.

"I thought they would," said Grunt.

"They cannot be white men," I said. "Observe the front of dust. That must be raised by fifteen or twenty kaiila."

"True," smiled Grunt. "They are fools."

I swallowed, hard. A law, imposed on white men entering their lands by red savages, had been violated.

"Who are they?" I asked.

"I have had trouble with them before," smiled Grunt. "I have been waiting for them."

"Who are they?" I asked.

"They want you," he said. "I thought they would follow this time. You are the bait."

"I?'' I asked.

"You came with me of your own free will, did you not?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, irritably.

"Accordingly," he grinned, "you cannot blame me."

"I am not interested in blaming anyone," I said. "I would just like to know what is going on."

"They will also be interested in the second and third girls," he said.

I looked to Ginger and Evelyn, lying in the grass, exhausted, their burdens beside them.

"They are the Hobarts," I said, "and the men from the Bar Ina.

'Yes'' said Grunt.

"You said they would not make pleasant enemies," I said.

"They will not," he said.

"We cannot outrun them with the girls," I said. "We must make a stand." I looked about, swiftly, for high ground or shelter.

"No," said Grunt.

"What, then, are we to do?'' I asked.

"We shall continue on, as we were," said Grunt. "We shall not even suggest, by our behavior, that we are aware of their approach."

"I do not understand," I said.

"To be sure," said Grunt, "we should waste little time." He then rode his kaiila about the coffle of girls, cracking his whip, viciously. Several cried out in fear. They had already felt that whip, through the thin brown cloth of their slave tunics or across the backs of their legs. "Hei! Hei!" called Grunt. "On your feet, you stupid sluts, you luscious beasts! Up! Up! Burdens up! Burdens up! Have we all day to dally? No, my luscious beasts, no! Burdens up! Burdens up!" The girls scrambled to their feet, struggling to lift their burdens. The whip cracked again and a girl cried out with pain, one more tardy than the rest. Then she, too, gasping, tears in her eyes, stood ready in the coffle, the burden balanced on her head. "On!" said Grunt, with a gesture of his whip, wheeling about on his kaiila. "On!" With the sound of chains and collars, and some frightened sobbing, the neck-shackled beauties again took up the march.

I drew my kaiila alongside that of Grunt. "I think we must either run," I said, "abandoning the girls and the goods, or stop, and make a stand."

"I do not think we should make a stand," said Grunt. "We could kill the kaiila and use them, in effect, as a fort and shelter, but, even so, we would be severely outnumbered."

I said nothing. I feared his assessment of the situation was only too sound.

"If we were red savages," said Grunt, "we would run. Then, hopefully, when the pursuers were strung out, over pasangs, we would turn back on them and, two to one, one engaging, the other striking, finish them off. If this did not seem practical we might separate, dividing our pursuers, and meet later at a prearranged rendezvous, thence to return under the cover of darkness to recover, if possible, what we had lost ."

"That is interesting," I said. "Indeed, that seems a sensible plan. Let us put it immediately into effect.

"No," said Grunt.

"Why not?" I asked.

"It is pointless," he said.

"Why is it pointless?" I asked.

"It is pointless," he said, "because we are in no danger."

I looked back at the approaching dust. "We are not in danger?" I asked.

"No," said Grunt, not looking back. "It is they, rather who are in danger, grave danger."

"I think," I said, angrily, "that we are fools."

"No," said Grunt, quietly. "It is they who are the fools."

11
   
Slave Instruction; It Seems We Are No Longer Being Followed

"You seem apprehensive," said Grunt.

"They should have caught up to us by now," I said.

I stood at the edge of our small camp, in a few trees, nestled beside a small stream. It was the late afternoon.

"No," said Grunt. "Put it from your mind."

I turned back to the camp.

Ginger and Evelyn had been freed from the coffle, to gather wood and cook, and attend to the chores of the camp. The collars and chains had been rearranged on the other girls, in such a way that, by an alternation of the position of snap locks and chain segments, a free collar was now at each end of the coffle. These collars had then been fastened about two small trees, thus confining the girls, other than Ginger and Evelyn, to the line between the two trees. Last night the coffle had been taken four times about a small, sturdy tree and then the collar of the first girl had been fastened to the collar of the last girl. That, too, would be, I supposed, the procedure tonight. There are many ways to keep a line of girls in place overnight, of course. A common way is to bind their wrists behind their backs and then place them on the ground, supine, the head of one to the feet of the other. A given girl, then, by thongs on her collar, is tied to the left ankle of the girl on her left, and to the right ankle of the girl on her right; similarly, the girl on her left is thonged, by thongs passing about her collar, to the given girl's left ankle, and the girl on the given girl's right is thonged, by thongs passing about her collar, to the right ankle of the given girl.

"I am first girl," said Ginger, walking back and forth before the line of girls, kneeling before her, a switch in her small hand, "and Evelyn is second girl." She indicated Evelyn. She spoke in English, a language held in common by the new barbarian slaves. Five spoke English natively; three were American, including the red-haired girl, and two were British; two of the other girls were Swedish, and the last girl, with the short, dark hair, was French. "You will address myself, and Evelyn, as Mistress," she said. "You will learn your lessons well, both those of the language and of service."

The girls looked at one another.

'This is a switch," said Ginger, lifting the supple switch. She then struck one of the girls, one of the Swedish girls, with a stinging, slashing blow at the side of the neck.

"This is a switch," repeated Ginger.

"Yes, Mistress," said the red-haired girl, swiftly. I was pleased to see that she was quite intelligent. "Yes, Mistress," said the other girls. "Yes, Mistress!" said the Swedish girl, tears in her eyes.

"Evelyn and I," said Ginger, "do not intend to do all the work of the camp alone. In time, some of you, at least, will be freed to assist in our labors.

The girls, quickly, glanced at one another.

"Little fools!" laughed Ginger. "You are all little fools! Kneel straighter, little fools!"

Quickly the girls complied.

"Do not think of escape," she said. "There is no escape for you."

Several of the girls reddened.

"Consider your garb," said Ginger. "It is distinctive. It is that of a slave."

Several of the girls looked down at the scanty, revealing cloth in which they bad been placed.

"Similarly, you are barbarians," said Ginger. "Even as you learn the language of masters, your accent will continue to betray you. Similarly, even should you learn to speak flawlessly such things as the fillings in your teeth and the vaccination marks on your arms will continue to mark you as barbarian. So, too, will such things as the fact that you have no Home Stone and no caste, and will be ignorant of a thousand things known to any Gorean. No, do not think that you can easily shed your barbarian origin."

Some of the girls looked at her, angrily.

"Too," said Ginger, "thrust up your tunics. Examine your left thighs!

The girls did so.

"You are marked," said Ginger. "You are branded."

The girls smoothed down their tunics, some of them with tears in their eyes.

"So," said Ginger, "put all hopes of escape from your mind. It is a meaningless, foolish dream, inappropriate in a Gorean slave girl. There is no one here to save you. There is no place to go, nowhere to run. If you should seem to escape, you will be picked up by the first man who finds you, who will then return you to your master, for punishment, or keep you for his own slave. You, there! On your belly!"

The Swedish girl, frightened, she who had been struck previously, twisted in the coffle chain and put herself on her belly. The girls on her left and right knelt, frightened, heads low, collar chains taut, looking at her.

Ginger went to the girl and thrust up the tunic. "See these tendons," she asked, "at the back of each knee?"

"Yes, Mistress," said more than one, girl.

She laid the switch, cool and green, across the tendons. The Swedish girl shuddered.

"It is a common punishment for a runaway girl," said Ginger, "that these tendons are severed. The girl, then, can never stand again, but must, if she is permitted to live, drag herself about by her hands. Sometimes such girls are gathered up by masters and used as beggars, on street corners."

Several of the girls cried out with fear.

Ginger then rose to her feet and stepped away from the Swedish girl, who then, frightened, smoothing down her tunic, together with the girls on her left and right, resumed her original kneeling position.

"You are barbarians," said Ginger. "You have been brought to Gor to be slaves, and that is what you are, and it is all that you are. Do not forget it!"

"No, Mistress," said more than one girl.

"In most cities and towns," said Ginger, "you would even find your pretty necks fastened in locked, steel collars."

"Like animals!'' protested a girl.

"You are animals," said Ginger, "and the sooner you understand that, the easier it will be for you. You are beautiful, owned animals."

Several of the girls shuddered.

"And he who owns you," said Ginger, "he to whom you belong, is your master."

"Would he be our total master?" asked the red-haired girl, looking at me.

"Yes, your absolute and total master," said Ginger.

I gave no sign that I had understood the red-haired girls question.

"But how can we be slaves?" asked a girl.

"Your question is stupid and foolish," said Ginger. "You are slaves. It is as simple as that. Do not be misled by the myths and rhetorics of your former world. Indeed, even on that world slavery exists. Slavery, as you will learn, is a very real institution, and, further, it is one in which you are profoundly implicated. You are totally and legally, as well as in practical fact, the property of your master."

The girl shrank back, in horror.

"My lessons for you today," said Ginger, "are basically quite simple. I think they may be grasped even by intellects such as yours, those of slave girls. First, you are slaves, and that is all you are, nothing more, only slaves. Second, do not even think of escape. There is no escape for you. Slaves you are, my dears, and slaves you will remain.