by John Norman
"Step from the robes," I said.
She did so.
She was very 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 for, 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 sheathlike 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, covered 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 put the key, it, too, with its two tiny red bands, in a small pouch at my belt.
I looked at her.
She shook her head, angrily, this rustling the heavy circlets of chain on her neck.
She looked at me, reproachfully.
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, exquisite, little Pepita," I said.
"Exquisite! Little! Pepita!" she said.
"Yes," I said.
I think she then began to understand, perhaps for the first time, what it might be to be a female, in the presence of a male.
"Let us be on our way," 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, riflelike contrivance 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."
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 riflelike 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 regimen 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 when you should have been secured."
The monitor turned away.
For several Ehn we hurried through the halls. 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 Kurii 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 hall. 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 Kurii 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 hands, tied behind her back, and stifled 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 b
efore 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, hummed 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 went to her.
