by John Norman
I approached him and held out my hand. “I hope I did not hurt you,” I said.
It took my hand and awkwardly held it, not knowing how to shake hands apparently.
“I too am human,” said the other, looking at me rather directly.
He held his hand out with the back of his hand up. I took the hand and turned it and shook it.
“I have feelings,” said the first man.
“I, too, have feelings,” said the second man.
“We all do,” I said.
“Of course,” said the first man, “for we are human.”
I looked at him very carefully. “Which of you,” I asked, “has been synthesised?”
“We do not know,” said the first man.
“No,” said the second man. “We have never been told.”
The two Priest-Kings had watched this small concourse with some interest, but now the voice of Sarm’s translator was heard: “It is growing late,” it said, “let the Matok be processed.”
“Follow me,” said the first man and turned, and I followed him, leaving the room, the second man falling into stride beside me.
Chapter Thirteen
THE SLIME WORM
I followed Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta through several rooms and down a long corridor.
“This is the Hall of Processing,” said one of them.
We passed several high steel portals in the hallway and on each of these, about twenty feet high, at the antennae level of a Priest-King, were certain dots, which I was later to learn were scent dots.
If the scent-dots were themselves not scented one might be tempted to think of them as graphemes in the language of the Priest-Kings, but since they themselves are scented they are best construed as analogous to uttered phonemes or phoneme combinations, direct expressions of the oral syllabary of the Priest-Kings.
When surrounded by scent-dots one might suppose the Priest – King to be subjected to a cacophony of stimulation, much as we might be if environed by dozens of blaring radios and television sets, but this is apparently not the case; the better analogy would seem to be our experience of walking down a quiet city street surrounded by printed signs which we might notice but to which we do not pay much attention.
In our sense there is no distinction between a spoken and written language for the Priest-Kings, though there is an analogous distinction between linguistic patterns that are actually sensed and those which are potentially to be sensed, an example of the latter being the scents of a yet uncoiled scent-tape.
“You will not much care for the processing,” said one of my guides.
“But it will be good for you,” said the other.
“Why must I be processed?” I asked.
“To protect the Nest from contamination,” said the first.
Scents, of course, will fade in time, but the specially prepared synthetic products or the Priest-Kings can last for thousands of years and, in the long run, will surely outlast the fading print of human books, the disintegrating celluloid of our films, perhaps even the carved, weathering stones so imperishably attesting the incomparable glories of our numerous kings, conquerors and potentates.
Scent-dots, incidentally, are arranged in rows constituting a geometrical square, and are read beginning with the top row from left to right, then right to left, and then left to right and so on again.
Gorean, I might note, is somewhat similar, and though I speak Gorean fluently, I find it very difficult to write, largely because of the even-numbered lines which, from my point of view, must be written backwards. Torm, my friend of the Caste of Scribes, never forgave me this and to this day, if he lives, he undoubtedly considers me partly illiterate. As he said, I would never make a Scribe. “It is simple,” he said. “You just write it forward but in the other direction.”
The syllabary of the Priest-Kings, not to be confused with their set of seventy-three “phonemes”, consists of what seems to me to be a somewhat unwieldy four hundred and eleven characters, each of which stands of course for a phoneme or phoneme combination, normally a combination. Certain juxtapositions of these phonemes and phoneme combinations, naturally, form words. I would have supposed a simpler syllabary, or even an experimentation with a nonscented perhaps alphabetic graphic script, would have been desirable linguistic ventures for the Priest-Kings, but as far as I know they were never made.
With respect to the rather complex syllabary, I originally supposed that it had never been simplified because the Priest-King, with his intelligence, would absorb the four hundred and eleven characters of his syllabary more rapidly than would a human child his alphabet of less than thirty letters, and thus that the difference to him between more than four hundred signs and less than thirty would be negligible.
As far as it goes this was not bad guesswork on my part, but deeper reasons underlay the matter. First, I did not know then how Priest-Kings learned. They do not learn as we do. Second, they tend in many matters to have a penchant for complexity, regarding it as more elegant than simplicity. One practical result of this seems to be that they have never been tempted to oversimplify physical reality, biological processes or the operations of a functioning mind. It would never occur to them that nature is ultimately simple, and if they found it so they would be rather disappointed. They view nature as a set of interrelated continua rather than as a visually oriented organism is tempted to do, as a network of discrete objects which must be somehow, mysteriously, related to one another. Their basic mathematics, incidentally, begins with ordinal and not cardinal numbers, and the mathematics of cardinal numbers is regarded as a limiting case imposed on more intuitively accepted ordinalities. Most significantly however I suspect that the syllabary of Priest-Kings remains complex, and that experiments with unscented graphemes were never conducted, because, except for lexical additions, they wish to keep their language much as it was in the ancient past. The Priest-King, for all his intelligence, tends to be fond of established patterns, at least in basic cultural matters such as Nest mores and language, subscribing to them however not because of genetic necessity but rather a certain undoubtedly genetically based preference for that which is comfortable and familiar. The Priest-King, somewhat like men, can change its ways but seldom cares to do so.
And yet there is probably more to these matters than the above considerations would suggest.
I once asked Misk why the syllabary of Priest-Kings was not simplified, and he responded, “If this were done we would have to give up certain signs, and we could not bear to do so, for they are all very beautiful.”
Beneath the scent-dots on each high portal which Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta and I passed there was, perhaps for the benefit of humans or others, a stylised outline picture of a form of creature.
On none of the doors that we had passed thus far was the stylised outline picture of a human.
Down the hall running towards us, not frantically but rather deliberately, at a steady pace, came a young human female, of perhaps eighteen years of age, with shaved head and clad in the brief plastic tunic of a Mul.
“Do not obstruct her,” said one of my guides.
I stepped aside.
Scarcely noticing us and clutching two scent-tapes in her hands the girl passed.
She had brown eyes and, I thought, in spite of her shaved head, was attractive.
Neither of my companions showed, or seemed to show, the least interest in her.
For some reason this annoyed me.
I watched her continue on down the passageway, listened to the slap of her bare feet on the floor.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“A Mul,” said one of the slaves.
“Of course she is a Mul,” I said.
“Then why do you ask?” he asked.
I found myself nastily hoping that he was the one who had been synthesised.
“She is a Messenger,” said the other, “who carries scent – tapes between portals in the Hall of Processing.”
“Oh,” said the first
slave. “He is interested in things like that.”
“He is new in the tunnels,” said the second slave.
I was curious. I looked directly at the first slave. “She had good legs, didn’t she?” I said.
He seemed puzzled. “Yes,” he said, “very strong.”
“She was attractive,” I said to the second.
“Attractive?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “she is healthy.”
“Perhaps she is someone’s mate?” I asked.
“No,” said the first slave.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“She is not in the breeding cases,” said the man.
Somehow these laconic responses and the unquestioning acceptance of the apparent barbarities of the rule of Priest – Kings infuriated me.
“I wonder how she would feel in one’s arms,” I said.
The two men looked at me and at one another.
“One must not wonder about that,” said one.
“Why not?” I asked.
“It is forbidden,” said the other.
“But surely,” I said, “you must have wondered about that?”
One of the men smiled at me. “Yes,” he said, “I have sometimes wondered about that.”
“So have I,” said the other.
Then all three of us turned to watch the girl, who was now no more than a bluish speck under the energy bulbs far down the hall.
“Why is she running?” I asked.
“The journeys between portals are timed,” said the first slave, “and if she dallies she will be given a record-scar.”
“Yes,” said the other, “five record-scars and she will be destroyed.”
“A record-scar,” I said, “is some sort of mark on your records?”
“Yes,” said the first slave, “it is entered on your scent – tape and also, in odour, inscribed on your tunic.”
“The tunic,” said the other, “is inscribed with much information, and it is by means of the tunic that Priest – Kings can recognise us.”
“Yes,” said the first slave, “otherwise I am afraid we would appear much alike to them.”
I stored this information away, hoping that someday it might prove useful.
“Well,” I said, still looking down the hall, “I would have supposed that the mighty Priest-Kings could have devised a quicker way of transporting scent-tapes.”
“Of course,” said the first slave, “but there is no better way, for Muls are extremely inexepnsive and are easily replaced.”
“Speed in such matters,” said one, “is of little interest to Priest-Kings.”
“Yes,” said the other, “they are very patient.”
“Why have they not given her a transportation device?” I asked.
“She is only a Mul,” said the first slave.
All three of us stared down the hall after the girl, but she had now disappeared in the distance.
“But she is a healthy Mul,” said one.
“Yes,” said the other, “and she has strong legs.”
I laughed and clapped both of the slaves on the shoulders, and the three of us, arm in arm, walked down the hall.
***
We had not walked far when we passed a long, wormlike animal, eyeless, with a small red mouth, that inched its way along the corridor, hugging the angle between the wall and floor.
Neither of my guides paid the animal any attention.
Indeed, even I myself, after my experience with the arthropod on the platform and the flat, sluglike beast on its transportation disk in the plaza, was growing accustomed to finding strange creatures in the Nest of the Priest-Kings.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A Matok,” said one of the slaves.
“Yes,” said the other, “it is in the Nest but not of the Nest.”
“But I thought I was a Matok,” I said.
“You are,” said one of the slaves.
We continued on.
“What do you call it?” I asked.
“Oh,” said one of the slaves. “It is a Slime Worm.”
“What does it do?” I asked.
“Long ago it functioned in the Nest,” said one of the slaves, “as a sewerage device, but it has not served that function in many thousands of years.”
“But yet it remains in the Nest.”
“Of course,” said one of the slaves, “the Priest-Kings are tolerant.”
“Yes,” said the other, “and they are fond of it, and are themselves creatures of great reverence for tradition.”
“The Slime Worm has earned its place in the Nest,” said the other.
“How does it live?” I asked.
“It scavenges on the kills of the Golden Beetle,” said the first slave.
“What does the Golden Beetle kill?” I asked.
“Priest-Kings,” said the second slave.
I would surely have pressed forward this inquiry but at that very moment we arrived at a tall steel portal in the hallway.
Looking up I saw beneath the square of scent-dots fixed high on the steel door the stylised outline picture of what was unmistakably a human being.
“This is the place,” said one of my companions. “It is here that you will be processed.”
“We will wait for you,” said the other.
Chapter Fourteen
THE SECRET CHAMBER OF MISK
The arms of the metal device seized me and I found myself held helplessly by the arms suspended some feet above the floor.
Behind me the panel had slid shut.
The room was rather large, blean and coated with plastic. It seemed to be bare except that at one end there were several metal disks in the wall and, high in the wall, there was a transparent shield. Viewing me antiseptically through this shield was the face of a Priest-King.
“May you bathe in the dung of Slime Worms,” I called to him cheerfully. I hoped he had a translator.
Two circular metal plates in the wall beneath the shield had slid upward and suddenly long metal arms had telescoped outwards and reached for me.
For an instant I had considered scarmbling out of their reach but then I had sensed that there would be no escape in the smooth, closed, carefully prepared room in which I found myself.
The metal arms had locked on me and lifted me from the floor.
The Priest-King behind the shield did not seem to notice my remark. I supposed he did not have a translator.
As I dangled there to my irritation further devices manipulated by the Priest-King emerged from the wall and extended towards me.
One of these woth maddening delicacy snipped the clothing from my body, even cutting the thongs of my sandals. Another deftly forced a large, ugly pellet down my throat.
Considering the size of a Priest-King and the comparatively small scale of these operations I gathered that the reduction gearing on the mechanical appendages must be considerable. Moreover the accuracy with which the operations were performed suggested a magnification of some sort. I would learn later that practically the entire wall which faced me was such a device, being in effect a very large scent – reinforcer. But at the time I was in no mood to admire the engineering talents of my captors.
“May you antennae be soaked in grease!” I called to my tormentor.
His antennae stiffened and then curled a bit at the tips.
I was pleased. Apparently he did have a translator.
I was considering my next insult when the two arms which held me swung me over a metal cage with a double floor, the higher consisting of narrow bars set in a wide mesh and the lower consisting simply of a white plastic tray.
The metal appendages which held me suddenly sprang open and I was dropped into the cage.
I sprang to my feet but the top of the cage had clicked shut.
I wanted to try the bars but already I felt sick and I sank to the bottom of the cage.
I was no longer interested in insulting Priest-Kin
gs.
I remember looking up and seeing its antennae curling.
It took only two or three minutes for the pellet to do its work and it is not with pleasure that I recall those minutes.
Finally the plastic tray neatly slid out from beneath the cage and swiftly disappeared through a low, wide panel in the left wall.
I gratefully noted its departure.
Then the entire cage, on a track of some sort, began to move through an opening which appeared in the right wall.
In the following journey the cage was successively submerged in various solutions of various temperatures and densities, some of which, perhaps because I was still ill, I found exceedingly noxious.
Had I been less ill I would undoubtedly have been more offended.
At last after I, sputtering and choking, had been duly cleansed and rinsed several times, and then it seemed several times again, the cage began to move slowly, mercifully, between vents from which blasts of hot air issued, and, eventually, it passed slowly between an assortment of humming projection points for wide-beam rays, some of which were visible to my eye, being yellow, red and a refulgent green.
I would later learn that these rays, which passed through my body as easily and harmlessly as sunlight through glass, were indexed to the metabolic physiology of various organisms which can infect Priest-Kings. I would also learn that the last known free instance of such an organism had occurred more than four thousand years before. In the next frew weeks in the Nest I would occasionally come upon diseased Muls. The organisms which afflict them are apparently harnless to Priest-Kings and thus allowed to survive. Indeed, they are regarded as Matoks, in the Nest, but not of the Nest, and are thus to be tolerated with equanimity.
I was still quite ill when, clad in a red plasic tunic, I rejoined the two slaves in the hall outside the door.
“You look much better,” said one of them.
“They left the threadlike growths on your head,” said the other.
“Hair,” I said, leaning against the portal.
“Strange,” said one of the slaves. “The only fibrous body growths permitted Muls are the lashes of the eyes.”
This, I supposed, would have to do with protecting the eyes from particles. Idly, not feeling well, I wondered if there were any particles.
