John Norman

by Time Slave

  Brenda Hamilton knelt outside the circle of the firelight. The smell of the roasted deer was redolent in the air, with the smell of ashes and fat, and bodies.

  “They are fools,” thought Brenda Hamilton. “Anyone could untie the knots on my ankles. When I wish to do so, I will, and run off.”

  A few feet from her, crouching in the darkness, round shouldered, head set forward on her shoulders, eyes peering at the roasting deer, was the squat, clumsily bodied girl, with the blank, vacant eyes, the slack jaw, the hair down her curved back like strings.

  Brenda shuddered, repulsed, and edged to one side, to be farther from her.

  She was terribly hungry, for she had had little during the day, only the fruit and meat which her captor had given her, she bound, in the half darkness of the morning, and the bits of meat given to her by Spear before the men had put her to their pleasure. And that meat, both that of the morning and that given her by Spear, had been insufficient, and had been terribly dry, almost like cubes of leather.

  She could see the fat dripping from the roasting carcass of the deer into the fire, sizzling and flaming.

  She moved her fingers. She was pleased to see that Old Woman’s stick had not broken them.

  This afternoon, after the men had finished with her, some more than once, she had lain on her stomach, dry eyed, miserable, on the hide that had been the bed of her masters’ pleasure, for better than an hour. She had scarcely been aware, lying on the hide, that, when the men had finished, Spear had tethered her ankles, fastening on them that knotted rawhide shackle; she had known it had been done; her ankles had been handled roughly; but it had seemed almost as if it might be happening to someone else; dully only, she had comprehended that her slim ankles were now bound in leather restraints; had the men not taken much pleasure from her; was this her only reward; she hoped that they did not think of her as they did the ugly girl; but that she, and the ugly girl, were identically shackled, told her much; that whatever status in the camp might be that of the ugly girl, that that status, too, was hers.

  I am a slave, she had said to herself, lying on the hide, her ankles shackled in leather, I am a slave!

  After an hour she had risen stiffly to her feet, and looked about herself.

  She had been forgotten. The slave was no longer of interest to those of the camp.

  She smiled to herself, ironically. Your conjecture, Professor Herjellsen, she said to herself, was correct. Your experiment is eminently successful. Unfortunately you do not know how successful it was, nor how accurate your speculations were regarding my probable fate.

  Naked, hobbled, her body switched and much abused, a woman of our world, and our time, Brenda Hamilton, intelligent, sophisticated, sensitive, looked about herself, finding herself the slave of savages in a primeval camp.

  But she stood erect, her head up.

  I am alive she told herself. I am alive.

  She moved her body, slowly. It hurt her to do so. She had been suspended, for hours, from the pole, her entire weight on tightly knotted wrist thongs, and she had been, at length, and viciously, as she had hung helplessly, switched by the women and children. And her body, too, was stiff and sore, from the attacks of her captor yesterday, and during the night, and this morning, and from the rude, prolonged attentions of her other masters this afternoon.

  But I am alive, she told herself. I am alive!

  She breathed in the fragrant air of the woods, of the trees and grass.

  She smelled the roasting meat, the mingled odors of the camp.

  She heard the cries of children, naked, running about. One was pursuing the others, and then, when he would touch one, that one would turn about and, in his turn, pursue the others, or any one of them, until he managed to touch one, and that one would then take his place.

  It is tag, thought Brenda Hamilton. They are playing tag!

  She saw one of the men drawn into the game, the large fellow with the prognathous jaw, and the fearsomely extended, atavistic canine tooth on the upper right side. With the children he seemed playful and gentle, even foolish. But she recalled he had used her as brutally as had the others, and not long ago. He was almost instantly “it,” and, though he was doubtless a swift, and dexterous, hunter, he seemed clumsily unable to touch the children, who, sometimes, would even run quite closely to him, taunting him, and then dart away swiftly when he leaped toward them.

  Brenda Hamilton turned away, looking about the camp. She noted the number of huts, and their construction. When she tried to look inside one, a woman had screamed at her and raised her fist, and Brenda Hamilton had, stumbling, turned away. One of the huts, one of the two with a rectangular pit, and the side poles laid and tied about a horizontal pole, had sewn hides stretched across the openings at either end, that none might look within. Though Brenda Hamilton did not know it that was the Men’s hut. No female might enter it, not even Old Woman or Nurse. Even to look inside, if one were female, was to risk a severe switching. It was a mysterious place to the women. Sometimes the men met within to make medicine, but generally it was only a place to talk, a place to be where women might not come. One other hut, a smaller round one, which lay at the outside edge of the camp, separated from the others, also had hide across its opening. Brenda Hamilton would learn later that it was the Bleeding Hut, to which women, caught in flux, were banished by Old Woman, driven there if necessary with a stick. Old Woman, Brenda Hamilton would learn, could drive even Short Leg to the Bleeding Hut. In the hut, it was Old Woman who brought them water and food. As Old Woman had grown older her senses were not as keen as earlier, and she could not smell the bleeders as readily. It was dark, and lonely and hot in the Bleeding Hut. Many of the women, to fool Old Woman, stanched their flow with a tiny roll of hide, sneaking away and cleaning and washing themselves once or twice a day. Old Woman, as she had grown older, was less zealous in her policing of the females. The Bleeding Hut was often empty. Last to be sent to it, howling and protesting, had been the girl, Butterfly, who cut the meat for the older children. She had been within it only a day.

  At the outside of the camp, outside of its perimeter, a line scratched in the dirt with a stick, was the midden, where bones and waste were thrown. Brenda Hamilton looked at it for some time but she saw no signs of brownish rats, similar to that which Herjellsen had had caged in the translation cubicle in Rhodesia. Such rodents, she did not know, did not follow men in their marches, but remained at the greater middens, near the shelters. Only if the men failed to return, and the edible waste at the greater middens became exhausted, would the rodents again follow the men, picking up their trail, following it, reappearing at the new middens, at the new shelters, wherever they might be.

  She turned about, and, following the interior perimeter of the camp, circled the huts. In a little way, also outside the perimeter, was a waste ditch, a narrow trench, some two feet deep, some nine feet long. The dirt dug from the trench lay at its edges. The camp had two such ditches, one for the Men, the other, on the other side of the camp, for the women and children. When waste was deposited in the ditch, a small amount of the dirt from the edges of the ditch was thrown into the ditch, to cover the waste and eliminate the odor of spoor. When the ditch was filled a new ditch was dug by the women, with sticks and the flattishly curved hip bones of antelope. This trick had been learned by many of the primeval peoples. It had been learned from the great, predatory cats, who bury their wastes, thus concealing evidence of their presence in the vicinity from quarry, which might take flight, terrified by the odor of the predator. Certain human groups who had not adopted this, or a similar custom, had perished of disease. Unknown to the Men this custom, borrowed from the great cats, had, particularly in camps of long standing, sanitation values which far outweighed the concealments of scent. Another practice with indirect hygienic value was the washing of the body. Among the Men, and among their properties, their women and children, this was done with some frequency. It was done primarily that animals, either game or predators, be
less easily apprised of the presence of the Men. It, like the covering of wastes was, too, in its way, an attempt at concealment. Too, it was done, particularly by the women, for cosmetic purposes. They were far more pleasing to themselves, and to the Men, when their bodies were washed free of acrid, fetid and stale odors, leaving their natural scents, exciting, sexually provocative fresh and stimulating. The great associated advantage of washing, of course, was unknown to them, the sanitary advantage, the ridding of the body of sometimes dangerous, exodermically lodged bacterial cultures. The greatest sanitary protection of the various peoples, of course, was their isolation from one another. In these times a disease that might have later swept across continents, felling its millions destroyed or decimated only a handful of victims. Indeed, we may surmise that many noxious mutations of bacteria or viruses did arise in these times, as in later times, but that having done what damage they could they either burned themselves out, dying themselves in dying bodies, or perished, leaving behind them only the immune, the survivors. Under such circumstances it is not unlikely that many a typhus, many a cholera, perished, unnoted in medical annals, never to reappear. Microscopic organisms, like their macroscopic brethren, too, may know extinction. Of starvation virulences and plagues, like men, may die.

  That small hunting group, that band, calling itself the Men, was, from the standpoint of modern medical science, incredibly healthy. None of that band had ever had a disease. No child of that band had had a disease, no man of it, no woman of it. None of them had suffered from so much as a common cold. Subjected at times to exposures which would have induced pneumonia and death in other organisms they survived. There was no mystery in this. It was simply that, among them, disease did not exist. Disease requires its organisms. The organisms were not present. One cannot be eaten by a tiger if where one lives there are no tigers.

  In a time Brenda Hamilton had circled the camp, discovering even, on its other side, the second waste ditch. She would learn later that that was the ditch for the women and children, and slaves. She noted at this time only that it was not as well dug, as long or deep, or sharp sided, as the other. There was a reason for this. The women who dug the Men’s ditch knew they would be beaten if the Men were not pleased with it. Accordingly, they dug it well. It is one thing to be switched by a woman; it is quite another, ankles tied together, to be switched by a man. But the women who dug the woman’s ditch were not subjected to the same discipline. The Men did not care much about the woman’s ditch, except that the wastes deposited in it, too, be carefully covered, to conceal the scent of the spoor. Too, the women did not take much pride in their own ditch. They knew that they were only women.

  Brenda Hamilton turned about, and again faced the center of the camp.

  The ugly fellow, with the extended canine tooth, was, sitting cross-legged, arms wide, sweeping, regaling the children with a story. They sat clustered about him, listening, sometimes crying out, sometimes clapping their hands with pleasure.

  Two women, elsewhere, were scraping a skin. Another pair, working together, was removing, unlacing, another skin from a drying frame of peeled, notched, green-wood poles. Green wood was used that the skin, in drying and growing taut, would be less likely to tear loose from the lacings or snap the wood. The green wood provided a constant tension, keeping the hide taut, and yet was sufficiently resilient to preclude damage to the skin or the destruction of the frame.

  One of the men, Wolf, was cutting an odd piece of hide into thin strips which he would later braid into a flexible rope.

  Two of the women were giving suck to infants.

  Spear was talking to Stone.

  Brenda saw that the skinning rack and the meat-drying rack had been dismantled. She also recalled that the women had been unlacing a hide from a drying frame.

  If she had been able to read these signs she would have understood that tomorrow, at dawn, the camp was to be broken.

  One man, carefully, was feathering an arrow. He used a resinous substance, which he chewed soft, for glue, and, for twine, strands of human hair, woven into a strong thread. Another man, squatting, long-armed heavy-chested, powerful-legged, watched him. It was a skill Runner would like to acquire, the delicacy of the feathering, the placement of the feathers, that the shaft, guided, might fly true. All the Men knew how to do this, but it seemed that the best arrows were always those made by Arrow Maker. What all knew how to do, Arrow Maker, somehow, did better. He would sometimes reject an arrow with which the others could find no fault, until they had loosed it from the bow. Sometimes Arrow Maker would tap the wood and listen to it; sometimes be would balance it on a finger and see how it rested. The shafts which inclined downward slightly were usually chosen, unless a larger arrowhead were to be used. The shaft, the point, the feathers, must all be matched. Each arrow was a work of art, calling for judgment and skill. Sometimes Arrow Maker named his arrows. He had his favorites. Sometimes, as he worked, he talked with the wood, explaining to it what he was doing, and what was to be expected of it. And, as the Men said, the wood must often have listened for Arrow Maker’s arrows were almost always the best. He knew, it was said, the language of the wood. He was a good craftsman, and the wood would listen to him.

  Knife, whom Hamilton knew only by sight, as the son of the leader, slept. Fox, too, whom Hamilton knew as the fellow who had pretended to put the knife to her body, when she had hung on the rack, slept.

  Most of the women sat or knelt together, some yards from the fire. They were closely grouped, almost huddled. Some groomed one another. Others talked. Two played Shell, a guessing game in which a tiny shell is held in one hand, and the other player guesses in which hand it is held. Score was kept with pebbles, placed to one side. One woman was cutting hide with a tiny piece of sharp flint. Another, carefully, was piecing together two pieces of hide, folding their edges within one another and puncturing through the folds with a bone awl, then threading sinew through the holes. She pulled the sinew tight with her teeth and fingers, taking its tip first, as it was thrust through from beneath, in her teeth and then when she had pulled it through, in her fingers, then turning the hide for the reverse stitch. One pregnant woman was being groomed by two other women, who would sometimes rub their bodies against hers.

  Hamilton regarded the group of females. A single net might have been thrown over them all.

  How different they are from the men, she thought.

  Short Leg, whom Hamilton knew only as the leader of the women, she to whom they all deferred, stood up, angrily, and regarded her. Hamilton saw the scarred face, the crooked shoulder, the result of the shorter leg. Their eyes met. Hamilton averted her eyes, quickly. Short Leg terrified her. It was not simply that Short Leg was powerful, and free, and Hamilton was slave, or that Short Leg had, earlier, beaten her viciously; it was deeper and more terrifying than that; it was the recognition on the part of one female that she is hated and despised by another, who is quite capable of killing her and is, in every way, totally dominant over her. Hamilton did not fear the men, who seemed so rough and fierce, a thousandth as much as she feared Short Leg. Hamilton was certain she could please the men. They wanted her body. She need only, with them, she knew, work hard and be perfectly obedient. With them, she knew, her femaleness, and its desirability, would protect her. But she knew she could not please Short Leg and the other women with such ease. They did not want her; they did not want her body. To them she was a competitor, a rival, in some sense a threat. She recalled that it had been the scarred woman who had demanded the throwing of the sticks, and that something, concerning her, had been decided, or confirmed, in the throwing of the sticks. The preferences of the men had been clear; the preference of the scarred woman, and certain of the others, opposing preferences, had also been clear. But the men had won the throwing of the sticks. And, Hamilton realized, she was still alive. Suddenly she realized that the scarred woman had wanted her dead. Hamilton felt sick. Suddenly she saw Short Leg before her. Quickly Hamilton fell to her knees, and put her
head to the ground.

  Then Short Leg had turned away, and returned to the women. She was, now, no longer looking at Hamilton.

  Hamilton, red-eyed, angry, stood up.

  She knew that she must if she remained in the camp, try to please Short Leg. If she did not, she knew, she would suffer greatly; indeed, she might even be killed. She sensed Short Leg had power in the camp, even with the men. Even the leader, the heavy-jawed, narrow-eyed man, had listened when she had spoken. He had not complied with her wishes, but he had listened. She sensed that the men seldom listened to the women. That the leader had listened to the scarred woman was evidence of her power. Hamilton shuddered.

  But when she had groveled before Short Leg, kneeling and putting her head to the ground, Short Leg had not struck her, or even spoken to her. She had only turned away, and returned to the women.

  Hamilton was much relieved. She still feared Short Leg, and terribly. But Short Leg had not harmed her. Hamilton sensed that she would be unlikely to kill her, particularly if given no provocation. Hamilton would be zealous to see that Short Leg was given no provocation. She would try to be completely pleasing to her, ingratiating, obedient, servile, and give her no cause for anger. Already she had, in kneeling and putting her head to the ground, acknowledged Short Leg’s complete and absolute dominance over her. And Short Leg had turned away, satisfied.

  This made Hamilton feel strong. She now felt she might, if she were careful, control Short Leg.

  If she posed no threat to Short Leg, she might be safe.

  Hamilton’s face clouded with anger.

  Too, Short Leg might be pleased at her absolute power over such a beautiful woman. Short Leg might be pleased with the beautiful new slave’s deference to her. Would it not make Short Leg seem even more impressive and formidable among the men, to see the new slave, their prize, so small and helpless before her, so desperate to please her.