Hunters of Gor (50 page)

drugged wine to our camp. I shall burn the tavern. His women will find

themselves in our chains. We shall bring them to Port Kar and dispose of them

there in the slave markets.”

“Good,” I said.

“And Hesius himself?” he asked.

“His strong box,” I said, “must be seized. Distribute its contents to the poor

of Laura.”

“And Hesius himself?” asked Rim.

“Strip him and leave him poor and penniless in Laura.” I said. “he will serve

our purposed well in telling and retelling, for a coin, the story of the

vengeance of those of Port Kar.”

“Our ships should be safe thereafter in Laura,” said Rim.

“I expect so,” I said.

“I must attend to arrangements,” said Rim.

“Be about your duties” said I, “Captain.”

Rim, followed by Cara, turned about and went to a longboat.

Verna’s women, one by one, were now taking leave of those of my men, whom they

had served.

They, some weeping, some turning about, tears in their eyes, lifting their

hands, bade crewmen farewell.

The men stood on the sand and watched them depart. Some lifted their hands to

them.

Then suddenly one girl turned from the forest and fled to a crewman, kneeling

before him, back on her heels, head down, arms extended, wrists crossed as

though for binding. He gestured that she should rise and get into a longboat.

She did so, his slave.

To my amazement, one after another of the girls than ran down the beach. Each,

before he who had touched her, knelt before him, making herself his and his

alone.

She, too, was ordered to a longboat, abruptly, as one commands a slave.

In the forest Verna would wait for her women, until she understood they were not

coming.

I then understood her wisdom as I had not before. She had known the touch of a

man, and such a man as Marlenus. She had feared his touch, and, even in parting,

would not permit him to so much as place his hand on hers. In Verna, as in

others, two natures warred, that to surrender and that to be free. These matters

are complex, and much remains speculative. Goreans, in their simplistic fashion,

often contend, categorically, that man is naturally free and woman s naturally

slave. But even for them the issues are more complex than these simple

formulations would suggest. For Example, there is no higher person, nor one more

respected, than the Gorean free woman. Even a slaver who has captured a free

woman often treats her with great solicitude until she is branded. Then his

behavior toward her is immediately and utterly transformed. She is then merely

an animal, and treated as such. Goreans do believe, however, that every woman

has a natural master or set of masters, with respect to whom she could not help

but be a complete and passionate slave girl. These men occur in her dreams and

fantasies. She lives in terror that she might meet one in real life. Further, of

course, if a girl should be enslaved, her slavery is supported by the entire

Gorean culture. There are hundreds of thousands of women who are also slaves. In

such a situation, with no escape, a girl has no choice but to make the best of

her bondage. Further, in the Gorean view, female slavery is a societal

institution which enables the females, as most Earth societies would not, to

exhibit, in a reinforcing environment, her biological nature. It provides a rich

soil in which the flower of her beauty and nature, and its submission to a man,

may thrive.

The Goreans, do not believe, incidentally, that the human being is a simple

function of the independent variables of his environment. They have never

endorsed the “hollow body” theory of human beings, in which a human being is

regarded as being essentially a product of externalities. They recognize the

human being has a genetic endowment which may not be, scientifically, canceled

out in favor of the predilection of theories developed by men incompetent in

physiology. For example, it would not occur to a Gorean to speak of the “role”

of a female sparrow feeding her young or the “role” of a lion in providing meat

for its cubs. Goreans do not see the world in terms of metaphors taken from the

artificialities of the theater. It is certain, of course, that certain genetic

endowments have been selected by environmental considerations, and, in this

sense, the environment is a significant factor. The teeth of the lion have had

much to do with the fleetness of the antelopes.

In Gorean thinking man and woman are natural animals, with genetic endowments

shaped by thousands of generations of natural and sexual selection. Their

actions and behavior, thus, though not independent of certain long-range

environmental and sexual relationships, cannot be understood in terms of mere

responses to the immediate present environment. The immediate environment

determines what behavior will be successful, not what behavior is performed.

Woman, like man, is the product of evolution, and, like man, is a complex

genetic product, a product not only of natural selections but sexual selections.

Natural selections suggest that a woman who wished to belong to a man, who

wished to remain with him, who wished to have children, who wished to care for

them, who loved them, would have an advantage, in the long run, as far as her

genetic type was concerned, of surviving, over a woman who did not care for men,

who did not wish for children, and so on. Female freedom, of a full sort, would

not have been biologically practical. The loving mother is a type favored by

evolution. It is natural then that in modern women certain instincts should be

felt. The sparrow does not feed her young because the society has fooled her

into playing that exploitative role. Similarly, sexual selection, as well as

natural selection, is a significant dynamic of evolution, without which it is

less comprehensible. Men, being stronger, have had, generally, the option of

deciding on women that pleases them. If women had been stronger, as in the

spiders, for example, we might have a different race.

It is not unlikely that men, over the generations, have selected out for

breeding, for marriage, women of certain sorts. Doubtless women are much more

beautiful now than a hundred generations ago. Similarly, a woman who was

particularly ugly, threatening, vicious, stupid, cruel, etc., would not be a

desirable mate. No man can be blamed for not wishing to make his life miserable.

Accordingly, statistically, he tends to select out women who are intelligent,

loving and beautiful. Accordingly, men have, in effect, bred a certain kind of

woman. similarly, of course, is so far as choice had been theirs, women have

tended to select out men who are, among other things, intelligent, energetic and

strong. Few women, in their hearts, despite propaganda, really desire weak,

feminine men. Such men, at any rate, are not those who figure in their sexual

fantasies.

Goreans believe it is the nature of a man to own, that of a woman to be owned.

I observed Verna’s women, no longer hers, but now the slaves of their masters,

in the longboats.

Verna had given them their choice, had indeed forced the choice upon them.

I wondered if, in the forest, she had expected any of them to return to her. She

had had them clad in slave silk. She had had earrings put in their ears.

Perhaps she had already gone her own way. Her women, now slaves, waited in

longboats to be carried to the Rhoda, the Tesephone.

They had made their choice, to surrender to a man. They had yielded to their

womanhood.

Verna would hunt alone in the forests. She would have her freedom. About her

neck she wore the signet ring of Ar. She would be swift and free in the dark

green glades. She would be alone. I wondered if, at times, she would lie in the

darkness, clutching the ring of Marlenus, and twist, and weep. Her pride stood

between herself, and her womanhood. Yet in the darkness, as she lay on the

leaves in her lair, in her ears would glint the gold of earrings. She had not

removed them. They had been fastened in her ears upon the order of Marlenus,

when he had been her master. She would never forget, in her freedom, nor did she

wish to do so, that she had been once his utter slave. Perhaps from time to time

she would long for his collar and touch. She had made her choice, for her

independence. She had not been exchanged that even for the throne of Ar. Her

women had, too, made their choice. Verna was free. They were shamed, as slaves.

I did not know which was happiest. They sat silently in the longboats, obedient.

The hands of each were now being fastened behind her back. I saw Rena’s wrist

secured. They, new slaves, were shy. But they did not seem unhappy. I wondered

if any, as her wrists were drawn together behind her back and fastened together,

regretted her decision. If she did, it was too late. The binding fiber was upon

her. But they did not seem unhappy. They had yielded to their womanhood. They

had surrendered themselves to bondage, and love. This gift, this choice, which

she had refused for herself, Verna had given them.

Doubtless now, alone, somewhere within the forest, in freedom and solitude there

was a panther girl. She hunted. Her name was Verna. I wished her well.

I wondered if she might, sometime, trek to Ar, to call upon its Ubar, or if he,

attending to his hunting in the northern forests, might once more chance upon

her. I did not suppose it likely. “She is only a woman,” he had said. But he had

given her the signet of Ar. I wondered if Verna knew that she who wore that ring

about her neck was the Ubara of Ar.

“We have set the logs of the palisade in the form of a great beacon,” aid

Thurnock.

I looked to the stony beach. There, high on the stones, rose the beacon, tier

upon tier of crossed logs.

“Pour oil upon it,” I said.

“Yes, Captain,” he said.

Oil was poured.

I sat high on the beach, wrapped in blankets, in the captain’s chair, cold. I

looked at the beacon.

Its light would be seen more than fifty pasangs at sea.

I turned back to the beach. My men stood about.

“Put the slave Rissia, before me, she who was of Hura’s band,” I said.

I heard Ilene’s switch strike Rissia, twice across the back. Rissia stripped,

her ankles, wrists and throat locked in the graceful chain and rings of the

sirik, stumbled forward. She knelt before my chair, on the sand. Twice more fell

Ilene’s switch, and I saw bloody stripes leap on the girl’s exposed back. Her

knees were in the sand, her head was down.

“Withdraw,” I said to Ilene, who stood over Rissia in her white woolen slave

tunic, herself barefoot, my collar at her throat. Ilene backed away, the switch

still in her hand, to stand to one side.

“This woman,” said I to Thurnock, indicating Rissia, “remained behind in the

camp of Sarus and Hura, when many of her fellow panther women were drugged.”

Thurnock nodded.

“She had a bow,” I said, “ with an arrow to the string. It was her intention to

defend her drugged sisters, to protect them.”

“I see, Captain,” said Thurnock.

“She might have slain me,” I said.

Thurnock smiled.

“What should be her fate?”

“That,” said he, “is for my captain to decide.”

“Her act,” I asked, “does it not seem brave?”

“It does indeed, my captain,” said Thurnock.

“Free her,” I told him.

Grinning, Thurnock bent to the shackles which graced Rissia’s fair limbs,

removing them one by one.

Rissia lifted her head, looking at me, dumbfounded.

“You are free,” I told her. “Depart.”

“My gratitude, Captain,” she whispered.

“Depart!” I commanded.

Rissia turned about and regarded Ilene. He Earth girl took a step backward.

“May I not remain a moment, Captain?” asked Rissia. She turned to face me.

“Very well,” I said.

“I ask the rite of knives,” she said.

“Very well,” I said.

One of my men held Ilene by the arms. She was frightened.

Two daggers were brought. One was given to Rissia. The other was pressed into

the unwilling hand of Ilene.

“I—I do not understand,” stammered Ilene,

“You are to fight to the death,” I told her.

She looked at Rissia. “No!” she wept. “No!’ Ilene threw away the knife.

“Kneel,” ordered Rissia.

Ilene did.

Rissia stood behind her.

“Do not hurt me,” begged Ilene.

“Address me as Mistress,” said Rissia.

“Please do not hurt me, Mistress,” begged Ilene.

“You do not seem so proud now, Slave, without your switch,” said Rissia.

“No, Mistress,” whispered Rissia.

With her knife, from the back, Rissia cut away Ilene’s slave tunic, stripping

her.

Rissia picked up the discarded sirik. She reached over Ilene’s head and fastened

the collar about her throat, the chain dangling before her body. Then, reaching

about her, she fastened Ilene’s hands in the bracelets attached to the chain,

confining them before her body. She then drew the chain between her legs and

under her body and fastened the two ankle rings, attached to the chain, on her

ankles. Ilene knelt stripped in sirik.

“With your permission, Captain,” said Rissia.