Chapter 35
I Return To The Complex; What Occurred In The Complex
“It is not a Kur!” cried the man. “Fire!”
Then I had my hands on his throat, and threw him between me and his fellow. I heard the dart enter his body and I thrust him back and away from me and I saw him, rent and scattered, burst apart. The other fellow, also in what seemed to be a suit of light plastic, with a heating unit slung at his hip, fumbled with the weapon, to insert another charge in the breech. I dove toward him and the breech snapped shut and the weapon, struck to the side, discharged and I flung him to the ground, we both half tangled in the white fur of the Kur. With my left arm about his neck I struck his head to the side with the flat of my right hand. He lay still, the neck broken. It is a thing warriors are taught.
I looked up. It seemed quiet. Yet two weapons had been discharged. The tubular weapons discharge with a hiss. It is not particularly loud. The explosion of the darts, however, timed to detonate an instant after fixing themselves in the target, is much louder. The first explosion had been muffled in the body of its victim. The second, however, might have been heard. It had burst, after a long, parabolic trajectory, over a thousand feet below, showering ice upward more than two hundred feet into the air.
I had returned to the complex, crossing the ice near it, with the sled. This would assure me, I hoped, that I would not be mistaken for a common ice beast. I did not know what signs and countersigns, or signals, the white Kur might have had at its disposal to protect itself in this regard. I, at any rate, had none. Ice beasts, or common ice beasts, of course, do not use sleds. I think the sled let me approach more closely than I might otherwise have been capable of doing. The fur of the Kur, too, in the uncertain light, of course, was helpful. I had kept, too, as I could, to the cover of the pack ice. I had left the sled at the foot of the ice island and, with the fur of the Kur as a camouflage, had climbed, crag by crag, projection by projection, foothold by foothold, to the height of the island. The hatch through which I had exited did not have an obvious opening from the outside. Again, I did not know any signs or countersigns, or signals. I had climbed the height of the ice island looking for some mode of ingress to the complex. I was interested not so much in official thresholds, of a sort which I supposed would be provided to facilitate the work of lookouts and guards, as apertures more practical to my purposes, apertures unguarded through which passage would not require any system of recognition devices. The air in the complex had been fresh. It was my hope that there would be ventilation shafts. If the Kurii relied on a closed system I must take my chances with more standard portals.
It seemed quiet. I reached again for the fur of the Kur.
It came so swiftly I was not sure I saw it. I may have heard or sensed it the object cutting the fur of the parka and lodging a foot behind me in the ice and I flung myself away from it and the ice shattering and exploding outward and the blast and ice pushing me like a hand and I struck a projection of ice and slipped downward, and then I saw them coming two of them both armed and I slipped and lay contorted at the foot of the ice projection.
“He’s dead,” said one of the men.
“I shall put another dart into him,” said the other.
“Do not be a fool,” said the first.
“Can you be sure he is dead?” asked the other.
“See?” said the first. “There is no breath. If he were alive his breath, its vapor in the cold, would be clearly visible.”
“You are right,” said the second man.
Neither of these men, I gathered, had ever hunted the swift sea sleen. I was pleased that once, in kayaks, with Imnak, I had made the acquaintance of that menacing, insidious beast.
“Aiii!” cried the first man, as I leaped upward, striking him aside with my right hand. It was the second man whom I must fist reach. He was the more suspicious, the more dangerous of the two. His weapon contained a dart, at the ready. The weapon lifted swiftly but already I was behind it. The other man had not reinjected a dart into the riflelike contrivance he carried. I turned to him when I had finished the first. I did not realize until later he had struck me with its stock from behind. His scream was long and fading as he fell to the ice below the cliffs.
I quickly sorted through the accouterments of the second man. I must move quickly. Not only was dispatch of tactical significance but exposure to the arctic winter could bring a swift death on the summit of the ice island. In moments I wore one of the light, plastic suits, with hood, with the heating unit slung at the hip. I did not know how long the charge in the unit would last but I did not expect to be needing it long. I then took the sack of darts from the second man and threw it, on its strap, about my shoulder. I gathered in the two weapons which they had carried.
Another object lay on the ice, a small, portable radio. A voice, in Gorean, was speaking urgently on the device, inquiring as to what was occurring. I did not attempt to respond or confuse the operator. I thought it better to let him ponder what might have happened high above on the surface of that rugged island of ice. If I responded I was sure I would be soon marked as a human intruder. If my voice would not betray me surely my failure to produce code words or identificatory phrases would do so. As it was the operator could speculate on possibilities such as a transmitter malfunction, an accident, or an attack of wandering ice beasts. An investigatory party would soon be sent forth to investigate. This did not displease me. The more men there were outside the complex the fewer there would be inside. The various hatches, also, I was confident, would not open from the outside. If they did, the mechanisms could always be jammed or destroyed. I knew I had at least one ally within, Imnak, who would risk his life to protect me. He had already done so.
In short order I managed to find one of the ventilator shafts through which fresh air was drawn into the complex; there was a system of such shafts, some for drawing in fresh air and others for expelling used, stale air. Kurii, with their large lungs, and the need to oxygenate their large quantities of blood, are extremely sensitive to the quality of an atmosphere. Ship Kurii, crashed or marooned on Earth, have usually made their way to remote areas, not simply to avoid human habitations but to secure access to a less polluted, more tolerable atmosphere. Kurii, incidentally, because of their unusual lung capacity, can breathe easily even at relatively high altitudes. They have little tolerance, however, for pollutants. Kur agents on Earth are almost always humans.
I could not remove the grating at the top of the shaft. It was fixed into the metal, welded therein.
I stepped back and depressed the firing switch on one of the tubular weapons. I then set another dart into the breech. It was not, however, necessary. The metal was broken loose and twisted crookedly upward. The opening was not too large, but it would be enough. I felt around inside the darkened shaft with my hand, and then with the barrel of a weapon. I could find no handholds or footholds. I did not know the depth of the shaft, but I supposed it must be a hundred or more feet, at least. I had no rope. I slipped into the shaft, sweating, my back against one side, my two feet against the other side. Thus began a slow and tortuous descent, inch by inch. The slightest mistake in judgment, as to position or leverage, and I would plummet within the shaft, helpless, until I struck its bottom, however far below it might be.
It took more than a quarter of an Ahn to descend the shaft.
The last twenty feet I slipped and, pushing and thrusting. fell clattering to its bottom.
The grille at the lower end, some seven feet above a steel floor, and opening into a hall, was not fixed as solidly as the one above. Indeed, to my amazement, I lifted it out.
“What kept you?” asked Imnak.
He was sitting on two boxes, at the side, whittling a parsit fish from sleen bone.
“I was detained,” I said.
“You were very noisy,” said Imnak.
“Sorry,” I said.
I saw that the screws holding the lighter grille in place had been removed. That is why it lifted out.
“You removed the screws from the grille with your knife,” I said.
“Would you have preferred to kick it loose?” asked Imnak.
“No,” I said. Then I said, “How did you know to find me here?”
“I thought you would have difficulty explaining your right to enter to the guards at the hatches,” said Imnak.
“Surely there are many ventilator shafts,” I said.
“Yes,” said Imnak, “but not many with people crawling down them.”
“Here,” I said, handing Imnak one of the tubular weapons, and several of the darts from the bag which I carried,
“What good is this?” asked Imnak. “It blows apart the meat, and there is no place to put a line on the point.”
“It is good for shooting people,” I said.
“Yes,” said Imnak, “it might do for that.”
“It is my intention, Imnak,” I said, “to locate and detonate the device concealed in this complex which is intended to prevent the supplies here from falling into the hands of enemies.”
“That is a long thing to say,” he said.
“I want to find a switch or lever,” I said, “which will make this whole place go boom bang crash, as when the dart hits a target and makes a big noise.”
“I do not know the words ‘boom’ and ‘bang’,” said, Imnak. “Are they Gorean?”
“I want to make a thing like thunder and lightning, crash, crash,” I said, angrily.
“You want to cause an explosion?” asked linnak.
“Yes,” I said.
“That seems like a good idea,” said Imnak.
“Where did you hear about explosions?” I asked Imnak.
“Karjuk told me,” said Imnak.
“Where is Karjuk?” I asked.
“He is somewhere outside,” said Imnak.
“Did he ever speak to you of a device to destroy the complex?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Ininak.
“Did he tell you where it is?” I asked.
“No,” said Imnak. “I do not think he knows where it is.”
“Imnak,” I said, “I want you to take this weapon, and get yourself, and as many of the girls as you can, out of the complex.”
Imnak shrugged, puzzled.
“Do not dally,” I told him.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Do not worry about me,” I said.
“All right,” said Imnak.
He turned to leave. “If you see Karjuk,” I said, “kill him.”
“Karjuk would not like that,” said Imnak.
“Do it,” I said.
“But where will we get another guard?” he asked.
“Karjuk does not guard the People,” I said. “He guards Kurii.”
“How do you know what he guards?” asked Imnak.
“Forget about Karjuk,” I said.
“All right,” said Imnak.
“Hurry, hurry!” I told him. “Leave! Hurry!”
“Is it all right if I worry a little about you, Tarl, who hunts with me?” he asked.
“Yes, yes,” I said, “you can worry a little.”
“Good,” said Imnak. Then he turned about and hurried down the hall.
I looked upward. In the ceiling where the slave tracks, those steel guides determining, by virtue of the steel spheres and neck chains, the permissible movements of various girls.
At that moment, down the hall, coming about a corner, were two men, in brown and black tunics,
“Why are you in the suit?” they asked me.
“I came from the surface,” I said. “There is trouble up there.”
“What sort of trouble?” asked one.
“We do not know yet,” I said.
“Are you in security?” asked one of the men.
“Yes,” I said.
“We do not see much of you fellows,” said one.
“It is better that you fellows know only your own sections,” I said.
“There is greater security that way,” said one.
“Yes,” agreed the other.
“If you see anything suspicious, report it,” I advised them.
“We shall,” said the first man.
“In the meantime, see that the grille on that shaft is replaced,” I said.
“We’ll take care of it,” they said.
“Why is it open?” asked one.
“I was checking it,” I said.
“Oh,” said the other.
“You forgot to turn off the heat unit on your suit,” said one. “That will use up the charge.”
I pushed in the button which was more raised than its fellow on the panel of the device.
“I forgot that once,” said one of the men. “It is easy to do, the suit maintaining a standard temperature.”
“Perhaps they should have a light on the panel,” I said.
“That would show up in the dark,” said one of the men.
‘That is true,” I said.
I then left the men and they, behind me, set themselves to replace the grille in the ventilator shaft.
I encountered few humans in the corridors. Once I did encounter some twenty men, in a column of twos, moving swiftly down one hall. They were led by a lieutenant and were all armed.
I assumed they were on their way to the surface, to aid in the search and investigation which must now be underway high above.
It would be only a matter of time until the blasted ventilator grating, some two hundred feet above, at the height of the shaft, would be located.
The girl approaching me down the corridor was very beautiful. She was, of course, slave. She was barefoot. She wore a brief bit of transparent brown slave silk, gathered before her and loosely knotted at her navel. She was steel-collared. She carried a bronze vessel on her right shoulder. She was brown-haired, with long brown hair, and brown-eyed. She was a sweet-hipped slave. A chain, some feet in length, was attached to her collar, which slid easily behind her, she drawing it, as she made her way toward me. If she were to stand under the sphere holding the chain above her in its track the chain would fall, gracefully looped, behind her, almost to the back of her knees, whence it would rise again to its lock point on her collar. This slack in the chain makes it possible not only for the girl to kneel but for her to be put on her back on the steel plates.
I stopped walking in the corridor, and she continued to approach, until she was about ten feet from me. At that point she knelt, putting the bronze vessel to one side. She knelt back on her heels, her knees wide, her hands on her thighs, her back straight, her head down. It is a beautiful and significant position. It well betokens the submission of the female to the free man, her master. She was at my will.
I observed her for a time, noting her helplessness and her beauty.
“Master?” she asked, not raising her head. I did not beat her.
She lifted her head. “Master?” she asked, trembling.
“Are you so eager to feel the whip?” I asked.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said. She put her head down.
“I am new in the complex,” I said. “I would have information.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Stand, and approach me,” I said, “and turn the other way.”
She did so. I pushed her head forward and threw her hair to the side. A heavy steel padlock was attached to the chain. The tongue of this lock had been placed about the steel collar, between the metal and the back of her neck, and snapped shut. The tongue was thick and the lock must have weighed a quarter of a pound. “This must not be comfortable,” I said.
“Is Master concerned with the comfort of a slave?” she asked.
“It was merely an observation,” I said. The tiny hairs on the back of a girl’s neck are very exciting.
“There are various sorts of collars,” she said. “Some have a ring on the back, to take the lock. I think they did not realize, in the beginning, how many girls they would bring here. Some of the chains have links wide enough to simply use the chain itself, looped and locked about the girl’s throat.”
“This is an adapted slave collar,” I said, “though it is a size too large for you.”
“That is to accommodate the lock tongue, when it is shut into the lock,” she said.
“There are two tiny yellow bands on your collar,” I said.
“That is because I am a “yellow girl,” “ she said.
“There are also two yellow bands on the lock,” I said.
“Our collars are color coded to the locks and chains,” she said.
“And you are a “yellow girl,”” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Belinda,” she said, “if it pleases master.”
“It is a lovely name,” I said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said. I would not beat her for not having a pleasing name.
“What other sorts of girls are there here?” I asked.
“There are five color-coded collars,” she said, “red, orange, yellow, green and blue. Each color permits a girl a different amount of freedom in the tracks.”
“Are you kept constantly on these chains?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said. “We wear them only when sent on errands.”
“And when you are not on errands?” I asked.
“We are kept safely under lock and key,” she said.
“Are all girls in coded collars?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said, “the true beauties are kept in steel pleasure rooms, for the sport of the men.”
“Explain to me the color system,” I said.
“Blue is most limited,” she said. “Green may go where blue may go, and further. I am a yellow. I may go where blue and green may go, but, too, I have access to areas beyond theirs. I may not go as far as the orange collar permits. Where I am stopped, they may continue. The maximum amount of freedom is enjoyed by a girl who wears a collar with two red bands.”
She looked at me, over her shoulder.
“But surely Master knows these things,” she said.
I turned her about, facing me, and threw her back against the steel wall.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said,
“Place the palms of your hands back, against the wall,” I said.
She did so.
“You are not of the complex.” she said, suddenly. “You are an intruder,” she whispered.
With the barrel of the tubular weapon I tore open the loose knot holding the pleasure silk together at her navel. It fell, parted, to either side. She winced, backed against the steel wall. The barrel of the riflelike contrivance, deep in her belly, held her in place.
“Do not kill me, Master,” she said. “I am only a slave.”
“Slaves sometimes speak much,” -I told her.
“I will not speak,” she said.
“Kneel,” I said.
She did so.
“I will not speak,” she said. “I promise I will not speak, Master!”
“You are very beautiful, Belinda,” I told her. I held the barrel of the gun at her face.
“I will not speak,” she whispered. “I will not betray you.”
“Take the barrel of the gun in your mouth,” I told her, She did so, timidly.
“You know what this can do to you, do you not?” I asked, She nodded, kneeling, terrified.
“You are not going to speak, are you?” I asked.
She made tiny, terrified, negative movements of her head. Her mouth was very beautiful about the steel. She had not been given permission to release it.
“Yes, very beautiful,” I said.
With the barrel of the weapon I guided her downward, to her side, and then lay the weapon on the plates. Her head was turned to the side. She did not dare to release the weapon. I then began to caress her. To my amazement, almost immediately, she began to respond helplessly, spasmodically. “What a slave you are,” I chided. She moaned, and wept and whimpered, but could not speak. When I stood up, and took the weapon from her mouth, she looked at me, startled; she half rose from the floor, turning on her left thigh, her right leg drawn up, the palms of her hands on the floor, her lovely body deeply mottled, a terrain of crimson, with the intense capillary activity which I had induced in her. “Your slave,” she said.
I turned about. I did not think she would speak.
I continued on down the halls. Some more men passed me, and two girls. I checked the collars on the girls. One was blue, and one was yellow.
I moved swiftly, and yet the complex was a labyrinth. I did not think any of the humans in the complex would be likely to know the location of the device for which I sought. And I did not think any Kur would reveal it.
I sped rapidly down the hall.
A siren began to whine. It was very loud in the steel corridor.
I slowed my pace to pass a fellow in the brown and black tunic of the personnel of the complex.
“There is an intruder above,” I said loudly to him,
“No,” he said. “A ventilation shaft grating was found blasted on the surface. There is reason to believe he may now be within the complex.”
“Of course,” I said, “the siren. It is an internal security alert.”
“Keep a close watch,” said the fellow.
“Be assured I shall,” I said.
We hurried apart from one another. I kept my eyes on the overhead track system. Then I came to a branching in the corridor. The overhead track system, which I had hoped to follow to its termination, also branched at this point Further, I could see other branchings further away, down each of the corridors. The track system doubtless reached to the far corners, or almost to the far corners, of this level, and, descending and ascending, above stairwells, to various other levels, as well. The siren was loud, persistent, maddening. I cursed inwardly. Here and there in the corridors, and here, too, where I now stood, there was a surveillance lens mounted high in the ceiling, on a swivel. I saw it move, remotely controlled from somewhere, in a scanning pattern. The guard’s garb which I wore had been, until now, apparently, suitable disguise. I started off down one of the corridors, intent not to appear indecisive or vacillating. I wished it to seem that I knew my way about. When I glanced back the lens was oriented in a different direction. It had not been trained on me. Two more men passed me in the hall. Each carried one of the dart-firing weapons.
I cursed inwardly. It could take a great deal of time to explore the remote areas of the complex. I did not know, first, where the most remote areas accessible to the overhead track lay or where the surveillance devices, which might be available to human beings, might not scan. The destructive device I sought, I was confident, would lie in an area beyond the reach of the overhead track system and, I conjectured, in an area not public to the surveillance system. I recalled that no such device had been revealed by the monitors in the private chamber of Zarendargar, Half-Ear, war general of the Kurii.
I recalled the girl I had left on the steel plates far behind me, the chain dangling down from the overhead track system to the collar on her neck.
She was a “yellow.” I needed a “red.”
I looked up at the track above me, angrily. At one of its terminations, doubtless the most remote, lay the area which I sought.
The siren stopped whining, and a voice, over a speaker system, in Gorean began to speak. “Secure all slaves,” it said. “All personnel report to their stations.” This message was repeated five times. Some men ran past me. There was then silence in the halls.
It was an intelligent arrangement. In times of danger Gorean slaves are often chained or confined that they may in no way effect the outcome of whatever action may ensue. They will helplessly await their eventual disposition at the hands of masters. That all personnel were to report to their stations would provide the leaders in the complex with an accounting of their forces and suddenly make the surveillance system of the complex effective. A lone figure would be easily identified as the intruder.
I thrust open a door in the hallway. I saw a man within who was securing slaves. He had thrust them, ten girls, naked, in a row, kneeling, belly tight against a steel wall. On short neck chains, with collars, he fastened them in place, Their wrists, at the sides of their heads, in light manacles fastened to wall rings, were similarly secured. He looked up. “I’m hurrying!” he said, angrily. I did not speak. He snapped the right wrist of the last girl on the line in its manacle. He then slipped the key in his pouch and, looking at me angrily, hurried out of the room.
The girls, bellies and bodies tight against the wall, were frightened, but they made not the least sound.
To one side, aligned on the wall, were several track chains, with their attached locks. I found one which had a heavy lock, its key attached, which had on it two red bands. Its chain would fit the longest tracks in the complex.
I then went to the girls, to check the graceful, slender steel collars they wore, those lighter, characteristic slave collars about which the heavy iron wall collars had been closed.
I found two that were marked in two tiny red bands.
“Where is the key to your chains?” I asked one of them.
“Our keeper has it, Master.” she said.
I had feared it would be the case. I had not attempted to kill or detain their keeper. His failure to report at his station would surely have localized my whereabouts in the complex.
I looked about, angrily.
I could not free one of the red-collar girls. Both had been well chained by a Gorean master. There was no time to test and play with the locks, and each wench was secured by three devices, each sufficient to hold her. The explosive darts at my disposal, addressed to their bonds, would surely have destroyed them.
I turned about and, taking one of the chains, sliding it in its track, left the area where the girls were secured. If I were successful in detonating or initiating the trigger sequence on the apparatus I sought I hoped that it would destroy only those parts of the complex in which the munitions and supplies were stored. Perhaps Imnak would succeed in finding and freeing them, somehow. I had wanted him to evacuate as many girls as possible from the complex. And yet, nude, or in their silks, would they last more than an Ahn outside in the polar night? There were probably many such girls in the complex, now helplessly chained, beautiful, secured slaves. They would be, presumably, innocent victims in the wars of beasts and men. Then I dismissed them from my mind; I was again Gorean; I had work to do; they were only slaves.
I re-entered the hall, sliding the chain with me. I had. little doubt I would soon be noticed.
I wondered how long was the track in which the chain slid. Such a chain, without its secured beauty, would be sure to attract attention.
I passed various doors in the hall. There were training rooms, exercise chambers, apartments. If I chose merely to hide it would take the men of the complex a good deal of time to find me. But I could accomplish little by such an action.
I descended some stairs to a lower lever, following the path set by the sliding chain.
I heard some men about a corner, running in step. I let the chain dangle and, hastily, took refuge in a side room, a pantry. I took a roll from a basket and fed on it. The men passed. They had brushed aside the chain, paying it no attention. Perhaps a girl had been removed from it for chaining by the nearest guard when the instructions concerning slave security had been issued over the speaker system. When I was about to reenter the hall I suddenly stepped back. A guard and a free woman, in robes of concealment, had passed. I had not understood until then that such women might be in the complex. There was an intruder in the complex. She was being conducted, doubtless, to a place of greater security. Perhaps this level was being cleared for purposes of conducting a close search. I finished the roll taken from the basket and left the pantry area.
Outside I encountered two more pairs of individuals, two guards and two more of the free women. I gathered they might be being trained in the complex for their duties later.
“He’s not in there,” I said to the men, gesturing with my head to the pantry from which I had emerged. Then I said to them, “Hurry!”
They hurried on.
I caught sight of a flash of ankle beneath the heavy robes of concealment worn by the women. It was a trim, exciting ankle. I smiled. I supposed they had not been told that when their political and military work for their faction was completed they would be silked and collared and kept as slaves.
Another man hurried by, running a slave girl on her neck chain before him. She was a yellow-collar girl, as Belinda, whom I had earlier had in the halls. had been. She was still in a snatch of slave silk. “She should be secured,” I said to the man, sternly.
“She will be,” he said.
I heard another man coming, from behind me. I spun about, covering him with the weapon I carried.
“Do not fire,” he said. “I am Gron. from Al-Ka section.”
“What are you doing in this area.” I said.
“I have come to fetch the Lady Rosa.” he said.
“In what apartment is she,” I demanded.
“Forty-two,” he said, “Central Level Minus one, Mu corridor.”
“Correct,” I told him, lowering the weapon.
He breathed more easily.
“I will fetch her,” I said. Indeed, I had need of a wench. “Return to AI-Ka section.”
He hesitated momentarily.
“Hurry,” I said, angrily. “A condition of possible danger exists.”
He lifted his hand, acknowledging this, and turned about. He soon disappeared down the corridor.
I soon determined that I was in Mu corridor, from Gorean markings high on the wall near a point where the corridor branched in two directions. It seemed probable to me that I was on the appropriate level as I had encountered the man at some distance from the nearest stairway.
I saw no others at that time in the corridor. I slid the chain along beside me.
Soon I had come to the steel door marked forty-two. I saw that a branch of the recessed chain track, above, entered the apartment, doubtless so that the Lady Rosa could be served by appropriately secured female slaves. I opened the door and slid the chain, on its track, within the opening. Inside the apartment was luxurious. plush and silked. It was dimly lit by five candles in a tall floor stand. There was much ornate, intricate carving in the room. A woman, startled, leaped up from the large, rounded bed on which she had sat. She wore the robes of concealment. She whipped the silken sheath of a veil across her features.
“You should knock, you fool,” she said. “I had scarcely time to conceal my features.”
Sbe looked at me, her eyes flashing over the veil. Her features were, even veiled, not particularly concealed. Her face was narrow but very beautiful. She had extremely dark eyes, and dark hair, even bluish black, which, under the hood of the robes, I could see was drawn back about the sides of her head. Her cheekbones were quite high. Her face was regal, aristocratic, and cold. She was angry.
“You are the Lady Rosa?” I asked.
She drew herself up coldly. “I am the Lady Graciela Consuelo Rosa Rivera-Sanchez,” she said. “What is going on?” she asked.
“There is an intruder in the complex,” I said.
“Has he yet been apprehended?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “How long have you been in the complex?”
“Four months,” she said. Then she said, “Four Gorean months, not yet completing the fourth passage hand.”
“Are you familiar with the chain-and-track system, for controlling the movements of slaves?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said.
“At its remotest terminations?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “but humans are not allowed beyond those points.”
I smiled.
“How could an intruder penetrate the complex?” she asked.
“By means of a ventilator shaft,” I said. “You speak Gorean rather well,” I said, “though with a distinct accent.”
“I have been intensively trained,” she said.
That accent, I thought, which was aristocratic and Castilian, would not be objected to by most Gorean masters.
“I have high linguistic aptitudes,” she said, coldly.
I thought that that was fortunate for her. She would more quickly be able to understand and please a master in the subtleties of his pleasure, once she was totally owned by one. On the other hand, almost any girl, in a condition of slavery, learns quickly. She must. Slave girls are incredibly alert to the subtlest and most delicate nuances of a master’s speech. The tiniest inflection can tell her whether her master is joking with her or, if she does not do something differently almost instantaneously, that she is to be mercilessly whipped. Girls in collars strive to learn well the, language of their masters. Differences among them in the swiftness with which the various proficiency levels are attained are functions, generally, of native aptitude and exposure conditions. The slave girl is doubtless, among the most highly motivated of female language students. Yet, if they begin to learn Gorean as adults, or young adults, they will almost always retain traces of their native tongue. I have encountered girls on Gor who spoke Gorean with a variety of Earth accents.
“What does the intruder want in the complex?” inquired the woman.
“At the moment he needs a woman,” I said.
“I do not understand,” she said.
“Remove your clothing,” I said.
She looked at me, startled.
“Or I shall do it for you,” I said. “I am the intruder,” I explained.
She backed away. “Never,” she said.
“Very well,” I said. “Lie on the bed, on your stomach, with your hands and legs apart.” I drew forth the knife at the belt of the garment I wore. It is not wise to try to tear away the garments of a free woman with one’s bare hands. They may contain poisoned needles.
“You’re joking,” she said.
I gestured with the knife to the bed.
“You would not dare,” she hissed.
“To the bed,” I said.
“I am the Lady Graciela Consuelo Rosa Rivera-Sanchez,” she said.
“If you are pretty enough,” I said, “perhaps I will call you Pepita.”
“You would take away my clothes, wouldn’t you?” she said.
“I am Gorean,” I told her. I took a step toward her.
“Do not touch me,” she said. “I will do it.”
Her small hands reluctainly went to the hooks at the throat of the garments.
“The veil, and hood, first,” I said.
She brushed them back, with a movement of her hand, a toss of her head.
“You would bring a high price,” I told her. She looked at me in fury.
“Step from your slippers,” I told her.
She did so. She was then barefoot.
“Continue,” I told her.
Her hands again went to the hooks at the throat of the garments. Angrily, deliberately, she loosened the hooks, one by one.
She pulled the garments down a bit from her throat. Her throat was slender and lovely. It would take an engraved steel collar, bearing her master’s name, beautifully.
Her hands were at the two outer robes. She looked at me.
“We do not have all day,” I told her.
They fell about her ankles.
“Between the third and fourth robes,” I told her, “there is a sheathed dagger, concealed in the lining. Keep your hands away from it.”
“You are observant,” she said.
A warrior is trained to look for such things.
The third and fourth robe slipped to the floor, about her ankles.
There remained now but the fifth robe, and the light, sleeveless, greenish-silk, sliplike undergown.
Her hands hesitated at the throat of the fifth robe.
“Off with it,” I told her.
It, like the others, fell about her ankles.
“Step from the robes,” I said.
She did so.
She was yery slender, and exquisite, in the sheath of green silk.
“Do not make me strip further, I beg of you,” she said.
“Turn about,” I said.
With the knife I cut the cord binding back her hair.
“Excellent,” I said.
Her flesh was very light; her hair, long, reaching below the small of her back, thick and lovely, was marvelously black. It contrasted vividly with the remarkable paleness of her arms, her shoulders and back. I wondered if she realized that women of her paleness and beauty had, in effect, like certain other types, been sexually selected, over generations, even on her native world, a world which seldom consciously thought of itself as a world breeding slaves. Many strains and types of beautiful women, of course, had been developed on Earth. The Lady Rosa was an excellent specimen of one such type. Earth women have been bred for love and beauty; it is unfortunate that they are educated for frustration.
I found a comb on a nearby vanity. Sheathing my knife and holding her by the back of the neck with my left hand I swiftly, but with some care, combed out her hair.
She sobbed in anger when the tiny, cloth-enfolded needle, tipped with kanda, fell from her hair, caught, and drawn out, by the teeth of the comb of kailiauk tusk.
I turned her about, roughly.
I looked down at her.
She looked up at me, her eyes flashing. “I am now defenseless,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
With my knife I cut the thin shoulder straps of the sheath-like garment of greenish silk. With the back of the knife to her skin I moved the garment down and away from her, until it was at her ankles. She shuddered when the coldness of the knife blade moved against her flesh. She looked down at the knife, apprehensively. “What do you want me for?” she said. “Are you going to rape me?”
She looked at the large, round bed, soft and deep, eovered with green silk. Well could she conceive of herself upon it, at my mercy, rightless, abused for my pleasure.
“You would have to earn your right to serve upon such a bed,” I told her. “A wench such as you would have to first learn your lessons in the dirt or on straw, or on a fur thrown over cement at the foot of a master’s couch, under the slave ring.”
I took her by the hair and pulled her to the side of the room, near some chests.
There, from a chest, I took two sandal strings. With one of these I tied her hands behind her back. A sandal string is more than sufficient to hold a female. The other sandal string I tied snugly about her belly. I then took forth a long, linear face veil; it was red; it was an intimacy veil; any given layer of this veil is quite diaphanous; its opacity is a function of the number of times it is wrapped about the face; a free woman, entertaining an anxious lover, might detain him for days, each night permitting him a less obscure glimpse of her features, until the shattering moment when she perhaps permits him to gaze upon her unclothed face. Such nonsense, of course, is not tolerated from a slave girl. She is simply ordered to the slave ring. The intimacy veil, I detected, had never been worn by the Lady Rosa. Its presence in her wardrobe was doubtless merely a function of the desire of her employers to assure its completeness and her adequate familiarity with Gorean customs, a familiarity she might have to develop in order to prosecute certain missions which might be expected of her on Gor.
I looped the intimacy veil about the back of her neck and crossed it above her breasts and drew it to the sides, over her breasts, and then took both lengths around her body and behind her back, again crossing them, then looping them about the sandal string tight on her waist; I then took the two loose ends and passed them between her legs, drawing them up snugly and passing them behind and over the sandal string at her belly. I straightened the two layers of loose cloth in front; they were about six inches in width and fell beautifully below her knees.
She looked at me with horror.
“It will do for slave silk,” I said.
I pulled her by the arm before a large mirror in the room.
She moaned, regarding herself.
“Note the slip knot on the sandal string,” I said. “The string may be removed by a simple tug.”
“Beast!” she wept
I observed her slim, lovely thigh. I thought it would look well incised with the standard Kajira mark of Gor; it is the first letter, in cursive script, of the word ‘Kajira’, the most common word for a female slave in the Gorean lexicon; it is a simple, rather floral mark, simple, befitting a slave, lovely, befitting a woman.
She struggled before the mirror, but I held her in place by her left arm.
Yes, the mark would look well on her thigh.
“I have put you in red silk,” I said. “Is it appropriate?”
“It certainly is not!” she said.
“Perhaps it soon will be,” I said.
She struggled fiercely, futilely. Then she stopped struggling. “I will give you gold, much gold, to free me,” she said.
“I do not want your gold,” I said.
She looked at me, startled, frightened.
I dragged her to the threshold of her apartment. It was there that the chain dangled from its overhead track, within the door.
“What do you want of me?” she begged. “The tiles are cold on my feet,” she said. “Untie me,” she said. “No!” she cried.
I had lifted the chain and was looping it about her neck. I did so, four times. She would feel its weight. The loops would conceal to some extent that she wore no collar. The chain was color coded with two red bands. I thrust the heavy tongue of the stout padlock through two links of the chain, I then snapped it shut. It, too, was color coded with two, tiny red bands. I looked at her. She was now a component in the chain-and-track system of the complex.
“I am the Lady Graciela Consuelo Rosa Rivera-Sanchez,” she said.
“Be quiet, Pepita,” I said.
She gasped. Then she said, “No! Do not force me outside the apartment clothed like this!”
I thrust her through the door, out into the corridor. She looked at me with misery, the chain dangling behind her. She realized that she would be marched anywhere, if and as I pleased.
I looked at her. I carried the dart-firing, rifielike con-trivance with me.
I now had my guide.
The red silk would diminish suspicion. A red-silked girl in a Gorean fortress is a not uncommon sight. Suspicion, if any, would be most likely generated by the fact that she was not, under the security alert, in close chains, in a holding area. Her modesty had made it unlikely that many in the complex would recognize her body or features, which had, I gathered, been generally kept from view by the multitudinous robes and veils of concealment common to the Gorean free women of the high cities.
She sank to her knees in misery.
I expected that Kurii would be manning the lensed monitors in the hall. I did not think they would notice, with the resolution available to normal scanning, that she lacked the small brand on the thigh. They would have been more suspicious had her thighs been covered. Similarly I did not expect them to note, under the loops of chain, with the standard lens resolutions they would use, similar to those in Half-Ear’s compartment, I supposed, that she lacked the slender steel collar of the Gorean slave girl.
“On your feet,” I said.
She struggled to her feet, and stood, regarding me, “On the red-collar system,” I said, “which is the most extensive in the track, is there any termination more remote than any of the others.”
“Yes,” she said.
This surprised me.
“Take me to it,” I said.
She drew herself up, proudly. “No,” she said. She winced, the barrel of the riflelike contrivance thrust into her belly. I forced her back until she was pinned against the wall. “You would not,” she said.
“You are only a woman,” I told her.
“I will take you!” she said. “But it will do you no good, for humans are not allowed beyond that point!”
“Which way?” I asked.
Her eyes indicated the direction.
I thrust her, roughly, stumbling, with the side of the rifle-like contrivance, in that direction.
“Faster,” I told her.
We proceeded swiftly down the corridor.
“If we pass men,” she said, “you know I need only cry out to them.”
“Do so,” I said, “and half of you may remain on the chain.” I had not gagged her, for that, surely, would have provoked suspicion.
“Faster,” I ordered. I prodded her with the barrel of the riflelike contrivance and she cried out with pain, stumbling, and hurried her pace.
Soon she was gasping. She was an Earth girl. She was not in the condition of the Gorean slave girl, with her almost perfect diet, imposed by masters, her muscles toned by a regime of exercises, her legs and wind toughened by long hours of training in sensuous dance.
I saw one of the lens monitors rotate on its swivel in our direction.
“Hurry, Kajira,” I said. -“It is long past the time whea you should have been secured.”
The monitor turned away.
For several Ehn we hurried through the haIls. Sometimes we descended stairwells. She was sweating and gasping. The chain was heavy on her neck and shoulders. “Hurry, pretty Pepita,” I encouraged her.
Then, on a given level, four below the central level, we saw four men approaching.
“Walk,” I told her.
I walked beside her, obscuring her left thigh.
She shuddered, seeing how the men looked at her. One of them laughed. “A new girl,” he said.
In less than four Ehn from that point, the track system terminated.
“This is the farthest reach of the track system,” she said. The chain dangled downward, then looped up to her neck. Her small wrists twisted futilely behind her in the encircling, knotted sandal string, that simple device which constituted her bond. “Humans may not go further.”
“Have you seen those who are not humans?” I asked.
I knew there were few Kur in the complex.
“No,” she said, “but I know them to be a form of alien. Doubtless they are humanlike, perhaps indistinguishable from humans.”
I smiled. She had not seen the beasts she served.
“I have brought you here,” she said, “now free me.”
I opened the padlock and freed her neck of the chain. The attached padlock, with its key, I snapped about a link of the chain, between some four and five feet from the floor. This is the inactive position of the chain, lock at collar level, chain terminating with a closed loop, the loop about a foot off the floor, an arrangement permitting a girl to be quickly and conveniently put on the chain and permitting the chain, if no girl is upon it, to be slid in its track without dragging on the steel plates.
She turned about, holding her bound wrists to me, that I might unbind them. Instead I took her by the hair and walked her, bent over, beside me, sliding the chain along with us, backward, until I came to a branching in a hail. I slid The chain a distance down that hall, and then, still holding her, returned to that point at which the track system terminated.
“Free me,” she begged. “Oh!” she cried, as my hand twisted in her hair.
“You are too pretty to free,” I told her.
I then thrust her ahead of me, down the corridor, beyond the termination point of the chain-and-track system.
She turned about, terrified. “Humans may not go beyond this point,” she said.
“Precede me,” I told her.
Moaning, the bound, silked girl turned about and preceded me.
I saw that no more of the lensed monitors covered this portion of the corridor. I grew uneasy, for it seemed matters proceeded too simply. A steel door lay at the end of the corridor. I had speculated that the destructive device would lie beyond the reach of slaves, and in an area secret to the monitoring system, which might be available at times to humans. Yet, now, I was apprehensive.
I tried the door at the end of the corridor. It was open. I thrust it back with the butt of the riflelike contrivance I carried.
I looked at the girl. I nodded to her to approach me. She did so. I held my left hand open, at my waist. She stiffened, and looked at me, angrily. I opened and closed my left hand once. I saw her training in Gorean customs had been thorough. But she never thought that such a gesture would be used to her. She came beside me, and a bit behind me, and, crouching, put her head down, deeply. I fastened my hand in her hair. She winced. Women are helpless in this position. I carried the dart-firing weapon, loaded, in my right hand. I looked cautiously about the frame of the door. I entered, conducting the girl. The room, large, seemed deserted.
It seemed a normal storage room, though quite large. It was filled with boxes, the markings on which I could not read. Some of the boxes were in the nature of open crates. They seemed to contain machinery and parts for machinery. There were corridors among the boxes.
I heard a sound and, releasing the girl, lifted the weapon, with both hands.
A figure, in black, stood up, high, atop several boxes. “It is not here,” he said.
“Drusus,” I said. I recalled him, he of the Assassins, whom I had bested on the sand of the small arena.
He carried a dart-firing weapon.
“Put aside your weapon, slowly,” I commanded him.
“It is not here,” he said. “I have searched.”
“Put aside your weapon,” I said.
He put it at his feet.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I suspect the same as you,” he said. “I have searched for the lever or key, or wheel, or whatever it may be, which, manipulated or turned, will destroy this place.”
“You serve Kurii,” I said.
“No longer,” said he. “I fought, and was spared by one who was a man. I have thought long on this. Though I may be too weak to be an Assassin, yet perhaps I have strength sufficient unto manhood.”
“How do I know you speak the truth?” I said.
“Four Kur were here,” he said, “to guard this place, to intercept him who might attempt to attain it. Those I slew.”
He gestured to an aisle in the boxes. I could smell Kur blood. I did not take my eyes from him. The girl, turning about, shrank suddenly back, desperately, futilely, trying to free her small bands, tied behind her back, and stilled a scream.
“Four times I fired, four I slew,” he said.
“Report what you see,” I told the girl.
“There are four beasts, or parts of beasts,” she said, “three here, and one beyond.”
“Take up your weapon,” I said to Drusus.
He picked it up. He looked at the woman. “A pretty slave girl,” he said.
“I am not a slave girl!” she said. “I am a free woman! I am the Lady Graciela Consuelo Rosa Rivera-Sanchez!”
“Amusing,” he said. He descended from the boxes.
“I had thought the destructive device, if it exists, would be here,” I said.
“I thought so, too,” he said.
“If you trip or trigger the device,” said the girl, “we will all be killed!”
‘The invasion must be stopped,” I said.
“The device must not be detonated,” she cried. “We would all be killed, you fools!”
I struck her back against the boxes, blood at her mouth, and she sank to the floor.
“You think and act as a slave,” I said.
She put her head down, trembling, frightened, an instinctive gesture for a slave.
“You are a slave,” I said. “I can tell.”
She looked up at me, frightened.
“Perhaps it would be well for you to ask permission before you speak in the presence of free men,” I said.
She put her head down.
“She would look well naked, on an auction block,” said Drusus.
“Yes,” I said.
“What shall we do now?” he asked.
At that moment the large steel door, through which I had entered the room shut. It must have been done automatically. We saw no one. The wheel on our side of the door, bummed and spun, locking the door. At the same time, from the ceiling, a filtering of white, smoky gas began to descend.
“Hold your breath!” I cried. I leveled the, dart-firing weapon I carried at the door, and pressed the firing switch. The dart, like an insidious bird, sped to the steel, smoking, and pierced its outer layer. An instant later, as I flung myself downward, near the girl, Drusus with me, there was a ripping of steel which tore at my eardrums. I gestured the others to their feet, and, together, we ran through the smoke and gas to the door. It lay twisted, half wrenched from its hinges, half melted. We lowered our heads and slipped through the opening. The girl screamed as the hot metal brushed her calf. We were then free in the hall. Some eight Kurii were hurrying toward us.
Drusus lifted his weapon, calmly. A dart hissed forth. The first Kur stopped and then, suddenly, burst apart. Another reeled away from him. Another tore the blood and flesh from his face, half blinded, roaring with fury. A dart hissed above our heads and rent in its explosion the metal behind us. I fired a dart and another Kur spun about hideously, scratching at the metal, and then, before our eyes, erupted as though it had engorged a bomb. The six Kurii remaining, one with an arm dragging on the floor, hung to its body by torn shreds of muscle, scrambled backwards, snarling. Then they disappeared about a corner.
“Hurry!” I cried.
We sped forward, and, at the first branching in the corridor, turned left.
We had no desire to again encounter the Kurii.
Scarcely had we left our original corridor than we heard a great slam of steel. Looking backward we saw that it had been sealed.
“Let us move quickly,” I suggested.
We hurried up a flight of stairs.
We saw no one.
We began to ascend another flight of stairs. Near its top the girl stumbled and fell, bound, rolling, down several steps. She was bruised and sobbing.
I took her in my arms.
“Did you see the beasts!” she cried. “What are they?”
“They are those whom you served,” I informed her.
“No!” she cried.
“But you will now serve others, pretty slave,” I told her.
She looked at me with horror.
I threw her over my shoulder and ascended the stairs.
“Who goes there!” cried a man. Then he spun away from us, rolling and spattering backward.
“The way is now clear,” said Drusus. “Let us hurry.”
Another steel panel slammed down behind us. The siren then began to whine in the steel halls.
“Perhaps there was no destructive device,” said Drusus.
“I know where it is now,” I said. “We have been fools! Fools!”
“Where?” he asked, puzzled.
“Beyond the reach of slaves, beyond the scope of the monitoring devices,” I cried. “Where no one may reach, where no one may see!”
“We have journeyed already to the termination of the slave track,” he said.
“Where do all the slave tracks terminate?” I asked.
“All?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“In the center of the complex,” he said.
“At the chamber of Zarendargar,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I have seen that chamber,” I said. “It contains monitors, but it itself is not monitored.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes!”
“Where but in the chamber of the high Kur would lie that terrifying mechanism?”
“Where no one may reach, where no one may see,” he said.
“Saving Zarendargar, Half-Ear, himself,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“We have failed,” said Drusus.
I nodded in agreement. The strange common project of two men, of diverse and antagonistic, yet strangely similar castes, an Assassin and a Warrior, had failed.
“What is now to be done?” he asked.
“We must attempt to reach the chamber of Zarendargar,” I said.
“It is hopeless,” he said.
“Of course,” I said. “But I must attempt it. Are you with me?”
“Of course,” he said.
“But you are of the Assassins,” I said.
“We are tenacious fellows,” he smiled.
“I have heard that,” I said.
“Do you think that only Warriors are men?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I have never been of that opinion.”
“Let us proceed,” he said.
“I thought you were too weak to be an Assassin,” I said.
“I was once strong enough to defy the dictates of my caste,” he said. “I was once strong enough to spare my friend, though I feared that in doing this I would myself be killed.”
“Perhaps you are the strongest of the dark caste,” I said.
He shrugged.
“Let us see who can fight better,” I said.
“Our training is superior to yours,” he said.
“I doubt that,” I said. “But we do not get much training dropping poison into people’s drinks.”
“Assassins are not permitted poison,” he said proudly.
“I know,” I said.
“The Assassin,” he said, “is like a musician, a surgeon. The Warrior is like a butcher. He is a ravaging, bloodthirsty lout.”
“There is much to what you say,” I granted him. “But Assassins are such arid fellows. Warriors are more genial, more enthusiastic.”
“An Assassin goes in and does his job, and comes out quietly,” he said. “Warriors storm buildings and burn towers.”
“It is true that I would rather clean up after an Assassin than a Warrior,” I said.
“You are not a bad fellow for a Warrior,” he said.
“I have known worse Assassins than yourself,” I said.
“Let us proceed,” he said.
“Agreed,” I said. We, together, I carrying the girl, made our way up another flight of stairs.
“Wait,” I said.
“Yes” he said.
“The most obvious approaches to the chamber of Zarendargar,” I said, “will probably be heavily guarded. Thus, let us circle about and climb upward. Perhaps we can eventually cut through from the level above.”
“For a warrior,” he said, “you are not totally without cunning.”
“We have our flashes of inspiration,” I informed him.
We climbed up two more levels. Then we began to circle about, far to our right. We wanted another stairway, one more remote, to ascend yet higher.
We had scarcely attained the second level than we heard the cry, “Halt!”
Drusus spun and fired a dart, swiftly, from the hip. Men scattered. The dart caromed off a wall and exploded near them. We darted about the corner of a wall. Four darts hissed past, exploding in a succession of bursts some fifty yards from us. I threw the girl from my shoulder to my feet. We heard running feet, coming from another direction. We looked wildly about. I took the girl at my feet by the hair and yanked her to her feet. We then ran, I running the girl beside me, at my hip, to the nearest corridor.
“This is an outer corridor,” said Drusus. “In it are doors to the outside.”
We sped along the corridor. We heard feet behind us, coming down the corridor we had just vacated. Then, ahead of us, some two hundred yards away, we saw some more men.
We continued to run.
I looked back. The men behind us now seemed wary. They were not ready, apparently, to pursue us into this corridor. Similarly, the fellows in front of us, apparently trapping us, did not try to approach.
We slowed our pace, puzzled.
“Over here, Tarl who hunts with me!” called a familiar voice.
“Imnak!” I cried.
We entered a recessed, broad room, which gave access to one of the hatchways that led to the outside of the complex. To one side there was a large wheel, that operated the door. It was cold in the room. Outside was the arctic night. A man turned about. “Ram!” I cried. “Imnak freed me,” he said. I saw several of the dart-firing weapons in the room, indeed a crate filled with them, on small wheels. Too, there were several kegs of darts, wrapped in packages of six. “Oh, Master!” cried Arlene, clinging to me. “I so feared for you.” I raped her lips as a master, and she yielded, melting to me as a slave. “Master,” said she who had been the Lady Constance of Lydius, then Constance, my slave. How beautiful she was, blond, in her wisp of slave silk. I took her in my other arm, and let her lick at my neck. I felt lips at my leg. Audrey knelt there, her head pressed against my calf. Barbara knelt, too, at my feet, putting her head down to my boots. I saw Tina with Ram. and Poalu with Imnak. Besides these there were some fifteen other slave girls in the room, frightened. The only males there were Drusus, myself, Imnak and Ram.
There were, too, some furs and food. “I took what women, and weapons, and things, I could,” said Imnak.
“But you did not leave the complex,” I said.
“I was waiting for you,” he said. “And for Karjuk.”
“Karjuk?” I said. “He is an ally of the Kurii.”
“How can that be?” asked Imnak. “He is of the People.”
“We have failed to find the destructive device,” I said to Imnak. “I think it is in the chamber of Zarendargar, the high Kur in the complex, but it does not matter now,” I said. “Nothing matters any longer. All is lost”
“Do not forget Karjuk,” said Imnak. I looked at him.
“He is of the People,” Imnak reminded me.
“Where did you find this new slave?” asked Arlene of me, not too pleasantly, regarding the slim, beautiful girl I had brought with me.
“I am not a slave, Slave,” said the pale, aristocratic, black-haired girl.
Arlene looked at me, frightened.
“She is not yet a legal slave,” I told Arlene, “so treat her with the technical respect due to a free female.”
Arlene fell to her knees before her, her head down, and the girl straightened herself, proudly.
“Get up,” I said to Arlene. She did so. “Though this girl is not yet a legal slave,” I told Arlene, “she is actually a true slave.” The girl recoiled. ‘Thus,” I said, “she need not be treated with particular respect.”
“I understand perfectly, Master,” said Arlene. She regarded the pale, aristocratic girl, who shrank back. The other girls, too, regarded her. The Lady Rosa shuddered, not daring to meet their eyes. She knew that there was not one girl in that room who was not assessing her, frankly considering her, and comparing the quality of her flesh to their own. “She will make good slave meat,” said Arlene.
“But not so good as you, Wench,” I assured her.
“Thank you, Master,” said Arlene, putting her head down, smiling.
“Check the prisoner’s bonds,” I said.
“Did you tie her, Master?” asked Arlene.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then she is well secured,” said Arlene. But she checked the Lady Rosa’s wrist bonds as I had instructed her to do. She did so a bit roughly. “She is perfectly secured,” said Arlene to me, smiling innocently. The Lady Rosa tossed her head and looked away.
“There are furs here,” I said to Imnak. “I think it best that you and Ram, and the women, try to leave the compound, and make your way across the ice.
“What of you?” asked Imnak.
“I shall remain here,” I said.
“I, too,” said Drusus.
“I, too, will remain!” cried Arlene.
“You will obey, Slave,” I said to her.
“Yes, Master,” she said, tears in her eyes.
We then heard pounding on the outside of the broad hatch.
“Surrender! Open! Open!” called a voice.
“We are surrounded,” I said.
“There is no escape,” said Drusus.
“Stand back from the hatch,” I said, “lest they blow it in towards us.”
We stood back, dart-firing weapons ready.
Suddenly we heard a scream from the other side of the hatch. Then a cry of rage. Then we heard pounding, frightened, on the other side of the steel. “Help! Help!” we heard. “Let us in! Let us in!” There was more frenzied pounding. “We surrender! we heard. “Please! Please!” There were more screams. We heard something sharp strike against the steel. We heard a dart-firing weapon discharge its bolt. “We surrender! We surrender!” we heard. “Let us in!”
“It is a trick,” said Drusus.
“It is certainly a convincing one,” I averred.
We heard another man scream with pain.
Then, from the other side of the steel, we heard a voice call out. It spoke in the language of the People. I could understand very little of it.
Imnak beamed, and ran to the wheel. I did not stop him. He turned the wheel. The large, squarish hatch, some ten feet in height and width, studded with bolts, slid slowly to the side.
Ram let forth a cheer.
Outside, on the dim, polar ice, many on sleds, drawn by sleen, were hundreds of the People, men, and women and children. More were arriving, visible in the reflection from the moons on the ice. Karjuk stood near the entranceway, his strung bow of layered horn in his hand, an arrow at the string. Other hunters stood about. Men from the complex lay scattered on the ice. From the backs and chests of several protruded arrows. Red hunters stood about. Some of the men from the complex had been downed by lances. A few cowered, their weapons discarded, herded together by domesticated snow sleen, ravening and vicious, on the leashes of their red masters. Some men of the complex were thrown to their stomachs on the ice. Their hands were jerked behind them and were being tied with rawhide. Then, their suits were being slit with bone knives. “We will freeze!” cried one of them. The red hunters were putting their enemies completely at their mercy, and that of the winter night.
Karjuk called out orders. Red hunters streamed in, past me. Imnak handed the dart-firing weapons to some of them. hastily explaining their use. But most simply hurried past him, more content to rely on their tools of wood and bone. The men with the domesticated snow sleen passed me. I did not envy those on whom such animals would be set. Drusus, with a dart-firing weapon, joined one contingent of hunters, in their vanguard, to cover them and match fire with whatever resistance they might encounter; Ram, seizing up a weapon, joined another contingent I looked outside the hatch, or port. Even more of the People, women and children as well as hunters, were making their way across the ice to the complex. They were detaching many of the snow sleen from the sleds, to be used as attack sleen.
Karjuk continued to stand by the port and issue orders, in the tongue of the red hunters.
“There must be more than fifteen hundred of the hunters,” I said.
“They are from all the camps,” said Imnak. “There are more, before they have finished coming, than twenty-five hundred.”
“Then it is all the People,” I said.
“Yes,” said Imnak, “it is all the People.” He grinned at me. “Sometimes the guard cannot do everything,” he said.
I looked at Karjuk. “I thought you an ally of the beasts,” I said.
“I am the guard,” he said. “And I am of the People.”
“Forgive me,” I said, “that I doubted you.”
“It is done,” he said.
More red hunters streamed past us.
I saw two men from the complex being prodded through the halls, toward a room. Their hands were bound with rawhide, behind them. A woman was being dragged along by the hair. Her clothing had been removed. Already her captor had put bondage strings on her throat.
“I would alter the garments you wear, if I were you,” said Imnak, “for you might be mistaken for one of the men of the complex.”
I removed the suit I had worn. I donned boots and fur trousers. I did not wish to wear a shirt or parka in the complex, because of its heat.
More hunters came past us. Imnak explained to some of them the nature of the dart-firing weapons.
The prisoners, captured outside, shuddering, half-frozen, were herded within the complex, bound.
“Go to where it is warmer,” I told the girls shivering in the recessed room.
Arlene, Audrey, Barbara, Constance, and the others, hurried to a place of greater shelter.
Karjuk went then to direct the operations within the complex. He was accompanied by Imnak.
I stepped outside, into the arctic night, though bare-chested, to survey the rear of our position.
I checked the ice cliffs, the ice about, to see if any organized sortie might be obvious. I saw nothing. If men of the complex fled the complex I did not think they would last long in the arctic night. The power units in their suits would eventually be exhausted, and they would then be at the mercy of the snow and ice.
I looked about, and, suddenly, saw that the port to the complex was being slowly closed. Swiftly I re-entered. The Lady Rosa, startled, turned toward me, from the wheel which controlled the panel. She backed away, shaking her head. Her mouth had been on the wheel.
Not speaking I went to her and put her to her knees. With my knife I cut a length of her hair, about a foot in length, and crossed and tied together her ankles. I then dragged her by the arm across the steel, out through the portal, and onto the ice. “No,” she screamed, “No!” I left her on her side on the ice. “No!” she screamed.
I returned within the complex and, with the wheel, closed the heavy, sliding hatch.
I heard her screaming on the other side of the steel. “Let me in!” she cried. “I demand to be let in!” Her cries could be heard with some clarity. She had doubtless twisted and squirmed frenziedly, until she must be, on her knees, just outside of the steel.
“I am a free woman!” she cried. “You cannot do this to me!”
I did not think she would last long outside in the arctic night, silked as she was.
She had tried to kill me.
“I will be your slave,” she cried.
She did not know if I were still on the other side of the door or not.
“I am your slave!” she cried. “Master, Master, I am your slave! Please spare your slave, Master!” She wailed with misery and cold. “Please spare your slave, Master!” she wept.
I turned the wheel, opening the hatch.
She fell inward, across the threshold, shivering. I drew her within the room, and spun shut the hatch.
I looked down at her, shuddering at my feet. She looked up at me, terrorized. “What manner of man are you, my Master?” she asked. I looked down at her. She struggled to her knees and put her head down, to my feet. She began to kiss them, desperately, in an effort to placate me. “Look up,” I said to her. She did so. “You will be whipped severely,” I told her. “Yes, Master,” she said. “I tried to kill you.”
“You did that when you were a free woman,” I told her. “I discount it.”
“But then why would you have me whipped?” she asked.
“You kiss poorly,” I told her.
“I beg instruction,” she said.
“I will have a girl try to teach you some things,” I told her. Experienced slave girls are often useful in teaching a new girl, fresh to her condition, how to please men.
“I will try to learn my lessons well,” she said.
I threw her to my shoulder, to carry her within the complex to a holding area. “You will learn your lessons well,” I told her, “or you. will be thrown to sleen for feed.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“The complex is secure,” said Ram, “save for the chamber of Zarendargar, Half-Ear. None has entered there.”
“I shall go in,” I said.
“We can blast our way in,” said Ram. “Let us do that,” said Drusus.
I walked down the long hail toward the chamber of Zarendargar. Behind me, some hundred yards or so, were Ram, and Drusus, and Karjuk and Imnak, and numerous red hunters.
I carried a dart-firing weapon in my hand. It seemed a long way down the hall. I had not remembered it as being that far. The overhead track system stopped some forty feet or so from Zarendargar’s chamber. I looked at the monitor lens in the ceiling. Doubtless my approach had been observed on it. The interior of the chamber, though it contained monitors, was not itself monitored.
At the door to Zareridargar’s chamber I paused, and lifted the dart-firing weapon. But the door seemed ajar.
The fighting in the complex had been sharp and bloody. Men of the complex, and red hunters, had fallen. The resistance had been led by the giant Kur, whose left ear had been half torn away. But there had been too many red hunters, and too many weapons. He had, when the battle had turned against him, freed his Kurii and his men to flee or surrender as they would. No Kur had surrendered. Most had been slain, fighting to the last. Some had departed from the complex, hobbling wounded away into the arctic night. Zarendargar himself had withdrawn to his chamber.
The door there seemed ajar.
I thrust it open with the barrel of the dart-firing weapon.
I recalled the chamber well.
I slipped inside, furtively, but then lowered the weapon.
“Greetings, Tarl Cabot,” came from the translator.
On the furred dais, as before, I saw Zarendargar. There was a small device near him.
The great shape, stiffly, uncurled, and sat there, watching me.
“Forgive me, my friend,” it said. “I have lost a great deal of blood.”
“Let us dress your wounds,” I said.
“Have some paga,” it said. It indicated the bottles and glasses to one side.
I went to the shelves and, looping the dart-firing weapon over my shoulder, by its stock strap, poured two glasses of paga. I gave one of the glasses to Zarendargar, who accepted it, and retained the other. I went to sit, cross-legged, before the dais, but Zarendargar indicated that I should share the dais with him. I sat near him, cross-legged, as a Warrior sits.
“You are my prisoner,” I said to him.
“I think not,” he said. He indicated, holding it, the small metallic device which had lain beside him on the dais. It nestled now within his left, tentacled paw.
“I see,” I said. The hair rose on the back of my neck.
“Let us drink to your victory,” he said. He lifted his glass. “A victory to men and Priest-Kings.”
“You are generous,” I said.
“But a victory is not a war,” he said.
“True,” I said.
We touched glasses, in the manner of men, and drank.
He put aside his glass. He lifted the metallic object.
I tensed.
“I can move this switch,” he said, “before you can fire.”
“That is clear to me,” I said. “You are bleeding,” I said. The dais on which I sat was stiff with dried blood. And it was clear that so small an effort as rising to meet me, and touching his glass to mine, had opened one of the vicious wounds on his great body.
He lifted the metallic object.
“It is this which you sought,” he said.
“Of course,” I said. It was that object which lay beyond the reach of men, and where it could not be scanned by the monitoring system.
“Did you know it would be here?” he asked.
“I understood that it would be here only later,” I said.
“You will not take me alive,” it said.
“Surrender,” I said. “It is no dishonor to surrender. You have fought well, but lost.”
“I am Half-Ear, of the Kurii,” it said.
It fondled the metal device, looking at me.
“Is there so much of value here,” I asked, “that you would be willing to destroy it?”
“The supplies here, and the disposition maps, the schedules and codes, will not fall into the hands of Priest-Kings,” it said. It looked at me. “There are two switches on this mechanism,” it said. It lifted the mechanism.
There were indeed two switches on the mechanism.
“When I depress either switch,” it said, not taking its eyes from me, “a twofold, irreversible sequence is initiated. First, a signal is transmitted from the complex to the steel worlds. This signal, which can also be received by the probe ships and the fleet, will inform them of the destruction of the complex, the loss of these munitions and supplies.”
“The second portion of the sequence, simultaneously initiated, triggers the destruction of the complex,” I said.
“Of course,” he said.
His finger rested over the switch.
“There are several humans left in the complex,” I said.
“No Kurii save myself,” he said.
“True,” I said. “But there are humans here,”
“Free,” he asked.
“Some are free,” I said.
He shrugged. The great furry shoulders then hunched in pain.
I could smell blood.
“Some of the humans here,” I said, “prisoners, were among your cohorts.”
“My men?” it asked.
“They fought bravely,” I said.
The beast seemed lost in thought. “They are in my command,” he said. “Though they are human, yet they were in my command.”
He depressed the second of the two switches.
I tensed, but the room, the complex, did not erupt beneath me.
“You are a good officer,” I said.
“The second switch was depressed,” he said. “The signal to the worlds, the ships, the fleet, is transmitted. Secondly the destruct sequence is now initiated.”
“But it is a second destruct sequence,” I said.
“Yes,” said Half-Ear, “that which allows for the evacuation of the complex.”
“How much time is there?” I asked.
“Three Kur Ahn,” he said. ‘The device is set on Kur chronometry, synchronized to the rotation of the original world.”
“The same chronometry which is used in the complex?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said.
“That is a little more than five Gorean Aim,” I said.
“Two Ehn more,” he said.
I nodded. The Kur day was divided into twelve hours, the Gorean day into twenty. The periods of rotation of the original Kur world and of Gor were quite similar. That was one reason the Kurii were intesested in Gor. They wished a world which would be congenial to their physiological rhythms, developed in harmony with given environmental periodicities of darkness and light.
“But I would advise you to be better than a Kur Ahn afoot away before the time of destruction,” he said.
“I shall act quickly,” I said. “You must accompany us to safety.”
The great Kur lay back on the dais, his eyes closed.
“Come with us,” I said.
“No,” it said. I could see the blood emerging from the large body of the animal.
“We can transport you,” I said.
“I will kill any who approach me,” it said.
“As you will,” I said.
“I am Zarendargar, Hall-Ear, of the Kurii,” it said. “Though I am in disgrace, though I have failed, I am yet Zarendargar, Half-Ear, of the Kurii.”
“I will leave you alone now,” I said.
“I am grateful,” it said. “You seem to know our ways well.”
“They are not dissimilar to the ways of the warrior,” I said.
I poured him a glass of paga, and left it near him on the dais.
I then turned away and went to the portal of the chamber. He wished to be left alone, to bleed in the darkness, that no one might see or know his suffering. The Kurii are proud beasts.
I turned at the portal. “I wish you well, Commander,” I said.
No response came from the translator. I left.