Tribesmen of Gor (29 page)

   
"We are complicated," admitted the merchant.

   
"I wish that the men of other oases were so complicated," said Hassan. "In many of them they would pay high to have my head on a lance."

   
"We of Two Scimitars," said the merchant, "cannot be held accountable for the lack of sophistication in such simple rogues."

   
"But to whom do you sell the goods I bring you?" asked Hassan.

   
"To such simple rogues," smiled the merchant.

   
"They know?" asked Hassan.

   
"Of course," said the merchant.

 
  
"I see," said Hassan. "Well, it will soon be light, and I must be going."

   
He rose to his feet, somewhat stiffly, for he had been sit cross-legged for some time, and I joined him.

   
"May your water bags be never empty. May you always have water," said the merchant.

   
"May your water bags be never empty," we rejoined. "May you always have water."

Outside, shortly before dawn, when drops of moisture beaded on the rocks, Hassan and I, and his men, put our left feet into the stirrup of our saddles and mounted our swift beasts.

   
"Hassan," said I.

   
"Yes," said he.

   
"The merchant told us that six days ago Aretai from Nine Wells raided the oasis of the Sand Sleen."

   
"Yes," said Hassan.

   
"Six days ago." said I, "the soldiers at Nine Wells were in the vicinity of the oasis, hunting for a fugitive, escaped from their prison, who had been sentenced to the pits of Klima for an alleged attempt on the life of Suleiman Pasha."

   
"Did he escape?" asked Hassan, smiling.

   
"It seems so," I said.'

   
"That, too, is my intelligence," said Hassan.

   
"If the soldiers of Nine Wells were at their oasis six days ago," said I, "they were not, too, at the oasis of the Sand Sleen. "

   
"No," said Hassan.

   
"And it does not seem likely, said I. "That, last night, Aretai from Nine Wells would be here."

    
"It would be hard riding," said Hassan. "And this seems an obscure oasis, far from trade routes."

   
"Where would they have disposed of loot from the oasis of the Sand Sleen?" I asked.

   
"It might have been hidden in the desert," suggested Hassan.

   
"Why Two Scimitars?" I asked. "It is a small oasis, not even Kavar."

   
"I do not know," said Hassan.

   
"Suleiman, Pasha at Nine Wells," said 1, "lies in his palace in critical condition. It seems an unusual time for his Aretai to rush raiding about the countryside."

   
"It would, indeed," smiled Hassan.

   
"Yet the raiders wore the garments of Aretai, the saddle markings, shouted "For Nine Wells and Suleiman!"

   
"You and I, too," smiled Hassan, "might arrange such matters, and shout boldly."

   
I said nothing.

   
"Odd," said Hassan, "that they should shout 'For Nine Wells and Suleiman!'

   
"Why?" I asked.

   
"The names of leaders," said Hassan, "do not figure in the war cries of Aretai, nor of most tribes. It is the tribe, which is significant, not the man, the whole, not the part. The war Cry of the Aretai, as I am familiar with it, is 'Aretai victorious!'

   
"Interesting," I said. "Do the Kavars have a similar cry?"

   
"Yes." said Hassan. "It is 'Kavars supreme!' "

   
"It seems reasonably clear, then," said I, "that Aretai did not raid Two Scimitars."

   
"No," said Hassan, "Aretai did not raid Two Scimitars."

   
"How can you be sure?" I asked.

   
"A well was broken," said Hassan. "The Aretai are sleen, but they must be respected as foes. They are good fighters, good men of the desert. They would not destroy a well. They are of the Tahari."

   
"Who, then," I asked, "raided the oasis of the Sand Sleen, the oasis of Two Scimitars?"

   
"I do not know," said Hassan. "I would like to know. I am curious."

   
"I, too, am curious," I said.

   
"If war erupts, fully, in the desert," said Hassan, "the desert, for all practical purposes, will he closed. Trade will be disrupted, armed men will roam, strangers will be more suspect than normally. Few chances will be taken, They will, presumably, be put to death."

   
His remark did not much cheer me.

   
"Strange," said Hassan, "that these matters should occur now."

   
"Why strange now?" I asked.

   
"Doubtless it is only a coincidence," said Hassan.

   
"I do not understand you," I said.

   
"I was intending an expedition into the unexplored dune country," said he.

   
"I, too, am a traveler," I said.

   
"I thought so," said he.

   
"What do you expect to find there?" I asked.

   
"What are you?" he asked.

   
"A lowly gem merchant," I said.

   
"I saw you in Tor," said be, "with the scimitar."

   
"Oh," I said.

   
"I saw you again, noting your progress, at a watering place on the route to Nine Wells."

   
"It was there," said I, "that you, In nomad's guise, so abused my blond-haired, blue-eyed slave. "

   
"She was insolent," he said. "It was there that I determined I would have her for my own slave."

   
"After your touch, and abuse," said 1, "she begged to be taught the dances of a slave girl."

   
He smiled.

   
"You took her boldly in the palace of Suleiman," I said.

   
He shrugged.

   
"I have never seen a better whip-capture of a girl," I said.

   
He inclined his head, accepting my compliment.

   
"It is thought. I understand," he said, "that it was you, Hakim of Tor, who struck Suleiman."

   
"I did not do so," I said.

   
"Why would they think you would have done so?" he said.

   
"It is thought," I said, ''I am a Kavar spy."

   
"Oh?" he smiled.

   
"Yes," I said.

   
"Is it known to you, Hakim of Tor." asked he, "who it was who actually struck Suleiman"'

   
"Yes," I said, "it is known to me. It was Hamid, lieutenant to Shakar, captain of the Aretai."

   
"I find it of interest, that it should have been Hamid," he said. Then he said, "I have wanted to meet you."

   
"Oh?" I asked.

   
"I thought," said be, "that when I stole your pretty little slave you would pursue me into the desert. I did not know, of course, that Hamid would strike Suleiman, and that you would be detained."

   
"You wish to speak to me?" I asked.

   
"I am keeping the girl, of course," he said. He looked at me. "Do you wish to do contest for her?" he asked.

   
"I do not need to decide that at the moment, do I?" I asked.

   
"Of course not," said Hassan. "You are my guest." He grinned. "You may use her at any time you wish, of course," he said.

   
"Hassan is generous." I laughed.

   
"From the first instant I put my hands on her," he said, "I decided that I would have her for my own."

   
"Are you accustomed to taking what women you wish?" I asked.

   
"Yes," he said.

   
"If I had lost your trail," I said, "how then would you have made contact with me?"

   
"You would not have lost the trail," he said.

   
"But if so?" I asked.

   
"Then you would have been informed where to find your-my-pretty Alyena in chains. We would then have met."

   
"But what if I attempt to slay you now?" I asked.

   
"You will not, for you are my guest," said Hassan. "Besides, why should you bring such a slave into the desert with you, a blond-haired, white-skinned, blue-eyed wench?"

   
"Why?" I asked.

   
"Not as a simple slave," he said. "You could buy and rent girls at any oasis. You brought her for a purpose. You wished to sell her, or give her, to someone, in exchange for something, for aid, for information, for something."

   
"You are astute," I said.

   
"I hope," he said. "That the female slave will not complicate relations between us."

   
"How could a mere female slave, who is nothing, do that?" I asked.

   
"True," said Hassan.

   
"She seems happy in your chains," I said.

   
"She is a slave," he said.

   
"It is unfortunate," said I, "that she is white-skinned, blond-haired,
  
blue-eyed."

   
"Why is that?" he asked.

 
    
"Such women," said I, "are cold."

    
"Not when collared," he said.

   
"Is she hot?" I asked,

   
I knew that the metal collar of a female slave, that obdurate circlet of steel, locked, which she could not remove, so contrasting with her softness, so proclaiming its vulnerability and rightlessness, often transformed even an inhibited, hostile, cold wench, hating men, into an abandoned, yielding, man-vulnerable, passionate slave girl, loving to lie helpless at the mercy of their touch, that of masters.

   
Hassan threw back his head and laughed. "She is the hottest thing I have ever held in my arms," he said.

   
I smiled. I wondered how scandalized, how embarrassed and shamed the former Miss Priscilla Blake-Allen would be to hear her needs and her performance so boldly and publicly spoken of. The poor thing, however, could not help herself in the arms of a master.

   
"She loves you," I told Hassan.

   
"I have given her no choice," he said.

   
I supposed it true.

I supposed, further, that the rare event had here taken place of a girl meeting her true master, and a man his true slave girl. The girl, one among thousands less fortunate, had encountered a male. Surely, too, one among thousands, who could be, and was, to her and for her, her absolute and natural master, the ideal and perfect male for her, dominant and uncompromising, who could, and would, demand and get her full, yielding sexuality, which a woman can give only to a man who owns her totally, before whom, and to whom, she can be only an adoring slave. This happens almost never on Earth, where the normal male/female relationship is the result of a weak, pleasant male's releasing of the female's maternal instinct, rather than her usually frustrated instinct to submit herself fully to a truly dominant male as a held and owned, penetrated, submissive female; it does occur, however, with some frequency on Gor, where girls, slaves, are more frequently traded and exchanged. One tries different girls until one finds she, or those, who are the most exquisite, the most pleasing; one tends then, to keep them: this tends, too, to work out to the advantage of the women, the female slaves, but few, except themselves, are concerned with them, or their feelings: men, it is clear, have a need to dominate; few deny this: none deny it who are informed; in the Gorean culture, as it is not on Earth, institutions exist for the satisfaction of this need, rather than its systematic suppression and frustration; the major Gorean institution satisfying this need is the widespread enslavement of human females; the master/slave relationship is the deepest, clearest recognition of, and concession to, this masculine need, felt by all truly vital, sexual males: but, in the Gorean theory, this masculine need to dominate, which, thwarted, leads to misery, sickness, and petty, vicious, meaningless aggressions, is not an aberration, nor an uncomplemented biological singularity in males, but has its full complementary, correspondent need in the human female, which is the
    
need, seldom satisfied, to be overwhelmed and mastered; in primitive mate competitions, in which intelligence and cunning, and physical and psychological power, were of biological importance, rather than wealth and status, the best women, statistically, would fall to the strongest, most intelligent men; it is possible, and likely, that women, or the best women, were once fought for literally, as well as symbolically, as possessions if this were the case then it is likely that something in the female, genetically, would respond to dominance and strength: most women do not, truly, want weak men: they wish their children to be born not to an equal but a superior: how could they respect a man who in stature and power was no more than themselves, the equal of a woman, a prize; given the choice to bear the child of an equal, or a master, most women would choose to bear the child of a master: women long to bear the children of men superior to themselves: it is a defeated woman whose body grows fat with the child only of an equal: just 39 evolution, at one time, selected for strong, intelligent men, capable of combat, because they were successful in mate competitions, so, too, correspondingly, in the transmission of genetic structures, it would be selecting for women who responded to, and yielded to, such men, women who were the biologically specified and rightful property of such men, our ancestors. The dominant male is thus selected for in mate competition: the undominant male tends, statistically, to lose out to his stronger, more intelligent foe: correspondingly, evolution selected for the female who responds to the dominant male: she who fled such men either mated with weaker men, her children then being less well adapted for survival, or, perhaps, fled away, and her genes were lost, for better or for worse, to the struggling human groups; the female who was excited by such men, and longed to belong to them, to masters, and keep by them and serve them, had the best chance of survival;