Tribesmen of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “My caravan is small,” I told him, “only a few kaiila. I doubt that I shall need more than three men.”

  “I know just the men,” grinned the man.

  “Oh?” asked I.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And where will you find them?” I asked.

  “I think,” said he, “at the Cafe of the Six Chains.”

  “I hope,” said I, “you are not thinking of the noble Zev Mahmoud and his friends.”

  He seemed startled.

  “The word has spread through Tor,” I said. “It seems there was a brawl, outside the cafe.”

  The water carrier turned white. “Then I must try to find you others, Master,” said he.

  “Do so,” I said.

  The silver tarsk slipped from his fingers. He backed away. Then, suddenly, looking over his shoulder, he turned, and fled.

  I reached down and picked up the tarsk. I slipped it back in my wallet. I was weary. I did not think I would hear, soon, from the water carrier. It would be ten days, as I recalled, before I was due to leave for Turia.

  Now I must rest, for I must be up at dawn. In the morning there were various preparations to be made. Among them, I must pick up a girl from the public pens of Tor. Achmed, the son of Farouk, would be waiting for me at the south gate of the city. We would join the caravan of Farouk on the trail, probably before noon.

  I hoped there would not be war between the Kavars and the Aretai. It would not make my work easy.

  I hoped to obtain supplies, and a guide, at the Oasis of Nine Wells. It was held, I recalled, by Suleiman, master of a thousand lances, Suleiman of the Aretai.

  I then turned and began to climb the narrow wooden stairs to my compartment. I had heard the last, I conjectured, of the water carrier, he called Abdul.

  4

  Riders Join the Caravan of Farouk

  The caravan moved slowly.

  I turned my kaiila, and, kicking its flanks, urged it down the long line of laden animals.

  With my scimitar tip I lifted aside a curtain.

  The girl, startled, cried out. She sat within, her knees to the left, her ankles together, her weight partly on her hands, to the right, on the small, silk-covered cushion of the frame. It was semicircular and about a yard in width at its widest point. The superstructure of the frame rose about four feet above the frame at its highest point, enclosing, as in an open-fronted, flat-bottomed, half globe, its occupant. This frame, however, was covered completely with layers of white rep-cloth, to reflect the sun, with the exception of the front, which was closed with a center-opening curtain, also of white rep-cloth. The wood of the frame is tem-wood. It is light. It is carried by a pack kaiila, strapped to the beast, and steadied on both sides by braces against the pack blankets. This frame is called, in Gorean, the kurdah. It is used to transport women, either slave or free, in the Tahari. The girl was not chained within the kurdah. There is no need for it. The desert serves as cage.

  “Veil yourself,” I laughed.

  Angrily Alyena, the former Miss Priscilla Blake-Allen of Earth, took the tiny, triangular yellow veil, utterly diaphanous, and held it before her face, covering the lower portion of her face. The veil was drawn back and she held it at her ears. The light silk was held across the bridge of her nose, where, beautifully, its porous, yellow sheen broke to the left and right. Her mouth, angry, was visible behind the veil. It, too, covered her chin. The mouth of a woman, by men of the Tahari, and by Goreans generally, is found extremely provocative, sexually. The slave veil is a mockery, in its way. It reveals, as much as conceals, yet it adds a touch of subtlety, mystery; slave veils are made to be torn away, the lips of the master then crushing those of the slave.

  Aside from her veil, and her collar, in the kurdah, she was stark naked.

  She held the veil before her face. I saw her eyes, very blue, over the yellow.

  “At least now,” I said to her, “you are not face-stripped.”

  Her eyes flashed.

  “Shameless!” I said.

  She held the veil to her face.

  “Fasten it,” I said, “and wear it in the kurdah. Should I find you again so shamelessly unveiled, without my permission, you will be lashed.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, and, holding the veil with one hand, groped on the cushion for the tiny golden string with which she might fasten it upon her. With the scimitar tip I let the curtain of rep-cloth fall, concealing her again in the kurdah.

  I laughed as I spun the kaiila, hearing her utter a tiny cry of rage inside the kurdah.

  I did not doubt, however, but what the next time I opened the curtain of the kurdah it would be a veiled slave I would encounter therein.

  Alyena was very lovely, though she had much to learn. She had not yet even been whipped. That detail, however, unless she displeased me, I would leave to her new master, to him to whom I would eventually give or sell her.

  The sand kaiila, or desert kaiila, is a kaiila, and handles similarly, but it is not identically the same animal which is indigenous, domestic and wild, in the middle latitudes of Gor’s southern hemisphere; that animal, used as a mount by the Wagon Peoples, is not found in the northern hemisphere of Gor; there is obviously a phylogenetic affinity between the two varieties, or species; I conjecture, though I do not know, that the sand kaiila is a desert-adapted mutation of the subequatorial stock; both animals are lofty, proud, silken creatures, long-necked and smooth-gaited; both are triply lidded, the third lid being a transparent membrane, of great utility in the blasts of the dry storms of the southern plains or the Tahari; both creatures are comparable in size, ranging from some twenty to twenty-two hands at the shoulder; both are swift; both have incredible stamina; under ideal conditions both can range six hundred pasangs in a day; in the dune country, of course, in the heavy, sliding sands, a march of fifty pasangs is considered good; both, too, I might mention, are high-strung, vicious-tempered animals; in pelt the southern kaiila ranges from a rich gold to black; the sand kaiila, on the other hand, are almost all tawny, though I have seen black sand kaiila; differences, some of them striking and important, however, exist between the animals; most notably, perhaps, the sand kaiila suckles its young; the southern kaiila are viviparous, but the young, within hours after birth, hunt by instinct; the mother delivers the young in the vicinity of game; whereas there is game in the Tahari, birds, small mammals, an occasional sand sleen, and some species of tabuk, it is rare; the suckling of the young in the sand kaiila is a valuable trait in the survival of the animal; kaiila milk, like verr milk, is used by the peoples of the Tahari; it is reddish and has a strong salty taste, features which one supposes are connected with some sort of climatological adaptation; it has a high iron content; men do not drink it unless water is not plentiful; I do not much care for it; a similar difference between the two animals, or two sorts of kaiila, is that the sand kaiila is omnivorous, whereas the southern kaiila is strictly carnivorous; both have storage tissues; if necessary, both can go several days without water; the southern kaiila also, however, has a storage stomach, and can go several days without meat; the sand kaiila, unfortunately, must feed more frequently; some of the pack animals in a caravan are used in carrying fodder; whatever is needed, and is not available enroute, must be carried; sometimes, with a mounted herdsman, caravan kaiila are released to hunt tabuk; a more trivial difference between the sand kaiila and the southern kaiila is that the paws of the sand kaiila are much broader, the digits even webbed with leathery fibers, and heavily padded, than those of its southern counterpart.

  I returned to my place in the caravan line.

  In the Tahari there is an almost constant wind. It is a hot wind, but the nomads and the men who ply the Tahari welcome it. Without it, the desert would be almost unbearable, even to those with water and whose bodies are shielded from the sun.

  I listened to the caravan bells, which sound is pleasing. The kaiila moved slowly.

  Prevailingly, the wind in the Tahari blows from the north or
northwest. There is little to fear from it, except, in the spring, should it rise and shift to the east, or, in the fall, should it blow westward.

  We were moving through hilly country, with much scrub brush. There were many large rocks strewn about. Underfoot there was much dust and gravel.

  On the shaded sides of some rocks, and the shaded slopes of hills, here and there, grew stubborn, brownish patches of verr grass. Occasionally we passed a water hole, and the tents of nomads. About some of these water holes there were a dozen or so small trees, flahdah trees, like flat-topped umbrellas on crooked sticks, not more than twenty feet high; they are narrow branched, with lanceolate leaves. About the water, little more than muddy, shallow ponds, save for the flahdahs, nothing grew; only dried, cracked earth, whitish and buckled, for a radius of more than a quarter of a pasang, could be found; what vegetation there might have been had been grazed off, even to the roots; one could place one’s hand in the cracks in the earth; each crack adjoins others to constitute an extensive reticulated pattern; each square in this pattern is shallowly concave. The nomads, when camping at a watering place, commonly pitch their tent near a tree; this affords them shade; also they place and hang goods in the branches of the tree, using it for storage.

  From time to time the caravan stopped and, boiling water over tiny fires, we made tea.

  At a watering hole, from a nomad, I purchased Alyena a brief second-hand, black-and-white-striped, rep-cloth slave djellaba. It came high on her thighs. This was that she would have something in which to sleep. She was permitted to wear it only for sleep. I slept her at my feet. I taught her to pitch a tent, and cook, and perform many useful services for a man.

  At night, when the caravan made camp, I would lift Alyena from the kurdah, and, sweeping her across the saddle and lowering her, drop her to her feet in the gravel.

  “Find Aya,” I would tell her. “Beg her to put you to work.” Aya was one of the slave women of Farouk.

  Once she had dared to say to me, “But Aya makes me do all her work!”

  I kicked the kaiila toward her, and she was buffeted from her feet rolling in the gravel, and then lay, hands shielding her face, on her back beneath the very paws of the beast, it hissing and stamping, scratching at the gravel about her.

  “Hurry!” I told her.

  She scrambled to her feet, and fled to Aya. “I hurry, Master!” she cried. Inadvertently, she had cried in Gorean. I was pleased.

  Of course Aya exploited her. It was my intention that she should. But, too, Aya, with her kaiila strap, continued her lessons in Gorean. Too, she taught her skills useful to a Tahari female, the making of ropes from kaiila hair, the cutting and plaiting of reins, the weaving of cloth and mats, the decoration and beading of leather goods, the use of the mortar and pestle, the use of the grain quern, the preparation and spicing of stews, the cleaning of verr and, primarily when we camped near watering holes in the vicinity of nomads, the milking of verr and kaiila. Too, she was taught the churning of milk in skin bags.

  “She is making me learn the labors of a free woman,” once had complained Alyena to me.

  I had gestured her to her knees. “You are a poor sort,” I told her. “To a nomad I may sell you. In his tent the heavy labors of the free woman will doubtless be yours, in addition to the labors of a slave.”

  “I would have to work as a free woman,” she whispered, “and yet be also a slave?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She shuddered. “Sell me to a rich man,” she begged.

  “I will sell you, or give you, or loan you, or rent you,” I said, “to whomsoever I please.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, angrily.

  At night, around the campfire, I knelt her behind me, her wrists braceleted behind her. By hand I fed her. On me she depended for her food.

  I listened to the caravan bells. I pulled the burnoose down about my face, shading my eyes.

  The movements of the men of the Tahari are, during the hours of heat, usually slow, almost languid or graceful. They engage in little unnecessary movement. They do not, if they can help it, overheat themselves. They sweat as little as possible, which conserves body fluid. Their garments are loose and voluminous, yet closely woven. The outer garment when in caravan, usually the burnoose, is almost invariably white. This color reflects the rays of the sun. The looseness of the garments, acting as a bellows in movement, circulates air about the body, which air, circulating, over the damp skin, cools the body by evaporation; the close weave of the garment is to keep the moisture and water, as much as possible, within the garment, preferably condensing back on the skin. There are two desiderata which are crucial in these matters; the first is to minimize perspiration; the second is to retain as much moisture, lost through perspiration, as is possible on the body.

  I was growing drowsy, lulled by the bells, the even gait of the kaiila.

  On a rise, pushing back the burnoose, I stood in my stirrups and looked back. I saw the end of the caravan, more than a pasang away. It wound, slowly, gracefully, through the hills. At its very end came a man on a single kaiila. From time to time, he dismounted, gathering shed kaiila hair and thrusting it in bags at his saddle. The kaiila, unlike the verr and hurt, is never sheared. When it sheds its hair, however, the hair may be gathered, and, depending on the hair, various cloths can be made from it. There is a soft, fine hair, the most prized, which grows on the belly of the animal; there is an undercoating of hair, soft but coarser, which is used for most cloth; and there are the long, outer hairs. These, though still soft and pliant, are, comparatively, the most coarse. The hairs of this coat are used primarily for rope and tent cloth. I scanned the horizon. I saw nothing.

  Once more I lowered myself into the saddle. Again I drew the hood of the burnoose about my face. I shut my eyes against the reflection of the sun from the dust, the gravel and rocks. I removed my slippers after a time, and thrust them under the girth strap. I put my feet against the neck of the kaiila.

  I listened to the kaiila bells.

  Alyena was learning Gorean quickly. This pleased me. When I had picked her up at the pens of Tor, she had been there for fourteen days, almost three Gorean weeks. I had asked, of course, for a report on her from the slave master, who had consulted his records. She had been placed, of course, as I had requested, in a stimulation chamber; the first five nights the rope harness had been used, as I had specified; it had not been used thereafter for discipline, however, as the girl had been cooperative and diligent; furthermore, her attention and efforts were such that it had not been deemed necessary either to deny her food or put her under the whip; she had not been starved; she had not been lashed.

  The first Gorean words the Earth girl had been taught, and she had learned them in the pens of Samos of Port Kar, were “La Kajira,” which means “I am a slave girl.”

  “The barbarian,” said the slave master, “is highly intelligent, as the intelligence of females goes, but, strangely, her body is stupid; its muscles seem locked together.”

  “Have you heard of Earth?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I have heard of it.” He looked at me. “Is there truly such a place,” he asked.

  “Yes,” I told him.

  “I had thought it might be mythical,” he said.

  “No,” I told him.

  “I have had girls in the pens,” he said, “who have claimed to have been from there. Some have begged me to return them to Earth.”

  “What did you do with them?” I asked.

  “I whipped them,” he said, “and they were silent. Interestingly, I have never had a girl who claimed to be from Earth, who had been fully owned, who wished to return. Indeed, it is enough merely to threaten such a girl with return to Earth to make them do anything.” He smiled. “They love their collars.”

  “Only in a collar can a woman be truly free,” I said. It was a Gorean saying. History on Earth, long ago, had taken a turning away from the body, from nature, from the needs of men and women, from genetic
ally linked psychobiological realities; this turning away, ultimately and inevitably, had produced an unloved, exploited, polluted planet swarming with miserable populations of unhappy, petty, self-seeking, frustrated animals; the human being of Earth had no Home Stone; this turning away had never taken place on the planet Gor.

  “The girl, then,” said the slave master, referring to Alyena, “is an Earth girl.”

  “Yes,” I said, “she is an Earth girl, brought here, like many others, by slave ship.”

  “Interesting,” he said.

  “Over several years,” I said, “entire sets of her muscles have become habituated to moving in mechanistic, conjoint patterns, like the parts of machines; other muscles, perhaps partly atrophied, were not used at all.”

  “We have subjected her to an intense exercise program,” said the man, “but we have had little success. She does not yet feel as a female, so she does not yet move as a female. I think she does not yet know what it is to be a female.”

  “That,” I said, “she will learn from a man.”

  “Are all the women of Earth like that?” asked the man.

  “Many,” I said, “not all.”

  “It must be a dreary place,” said the man.

  “On Earth,” I said, “women try to be identical with men.”

  “Why should that be?” asked the man.

  “Perhaps because there are few men,” I said.

  “The male population is small?” he asked.

  “There are many males,” I said, “but few men.”

  “I find this hard to understand,” said the slave master.

  I smiled. “The distinction,” I said, “makes little sense to a Gorean.”

  He shrugged.

  “I do not blame the males,” I said, “nor the females. Both are fellow victims. In virtue of historical factors, social, institutional and technological, having to do with the development of a given world, the male, from the cradle, is programmed with antimasculine values, taught to distrust his instincts, to hate and fear them, and, ideally, to revel in his demasculinization. He lives miserably, of course, unfulfilled, frustrated, and subject to hideous diseases, and has little to console himself with other than the ignorant servility with which he has worn his chains, taking smug, righteous pride in his allegiance to them.”