Tribesmen of Gor (9 page)

     
In another stall a slave girl was being vended. I watched her for a time dance before me, then I turned away.

     
I smelled veminium oil.

 
    
The petals of veminium, the "Desert Veminium," purplish, as opposed to the "Thentis Veminium," bluish, which flower grows at the edge of the Tahari, gathered in shallow baskets and carried to a still, are boiled in water. The vapor, which boils off, is condensed into oil. This oil is used to perfume water. This water is not drunk but is used in middle and upper-class homes to rinse the eating hand, before and after the evening meal.

     
 
At one place, on a stone shelf, under awnings, several girls, chained naked, were for sale, interestingly, at set prices. It was a municipal sale, under the jurisdiction of the courts of Tor. One brown-skinned girl, black-eyed, no more than fifteen, kneeling, her wrists and ankles tightly chained, looked up at me. She was being sold to pay her father's gambling debts. I purchased her, and freed her.

     
"Where is your father?" I asked.

     
"At the gaming tables of the Golden Kaiila," she wept.

 
    
I looked at her. She was comely. I looked to the discarded chains on the stone shelf. Other girls there held out their hands to me. I looked again at the girl.

 
    
"In another year," I told her, "you will kneel again on the stone shelf, beneath the awnings." I regarded her. "Then," I said, regarding her, "you will be too beautiful to free."

 
    
"I must hurry home," she said, "to prepare supper for my father."

 
    
I watched her run, shamed, through the streets. She was lovely. I had little doubt that, in time, she would wear slave bells. Even if she were not to be sold by the magistracy of Tor I thought it not unlikely that she would fall to the noose of a slaver.

     
"Buy us! Buy us, Master!" cried the other girls on the shelf.

     
"Be slaves," I laughed to them, turning away.

 
    
They wept. I heard the lash fall among them.

     
Here and there in the bazaar I made purchases.

 
    
Twice I was passed by pairs of guardsmen, in white robes with red sashes and scimitars, the police of Tor.

     
 
Not five paces behind them I saw a ragged cutpurse cut the wallet of a merchant, dropping its contents into his hand and, bowing and whining, twist away in the crowd. The merchant huffed away. The fellow had done it neatly. I recalled a girl named Tina, once of Lydius, now of Port Kar. She, too, had

been an excellent thief. My own coins I kept in belt pockets, within my robes, save for a small wallet at my side. I went about Tor now as a traveler from Turia, a small merchant. I checked the wallet at my side. It was intact.

 
    
Some other thieves had not done so well in the bazaar. Several right hands, severed, were nailed to a board on which salt prices were affixed.

     
There were no feminine hands on the board. A female thief in Tor, even on the first offense, is immediately reduced to slavery.

 
    
I glanced behind me. For the second time I saw four men, the same four. But they were only four.

 
    
I stood aside as a chain of male slaves was herded by, with spear butts. They were bound for the brine pits of the Tahari, whence comes most of the caravan salt. I expected that less than half of them would reach the pits. Heavy collars, with rings, they wore about their necks. A heavy chain, running through the rings, linked them together by the throat. Their wrists, manacled, were behind their backs. They were naked. Men spit at them as they were herded past.

 
    
Miss Blake-Allen was no longer in my compartment. She was now in the public pens of Tor. On the morning of the second day, in the process of my work for Priest-Kings, I had entered the shaded offices of the municipal slave master of

Tor.

     
"Stand here," I told Miss Blake-Allen, indicating a place in the center of the floor, before the desk of the slave master. She stood where I had indicated. "Remove your slippers," I told her. She slipped from the slippers, black with silver thread. She was now barefoot. The slave master came around to the front of his desk. He leaned back against it, sitting on its edge. "Remove the haik," I told the girl. She removed the garment. She stood between us, nude.

 
    
The slave master regarded her. Then he walked about her, slowly. She stood straight, a female examined by a man. She did not look at him. The slave master looked at me. I nodded. Her body stiffened, and she shut her eyes, as his hands, those of a Gorean flesh appraiser, informed, sensitive, professional, proficient, made swift assessment of the textures of her skin, varying at different points on the body, the tensilities of her musculature, the varying softness and firmness of her, the sweet, complex delights of her lines, the obvious exciting contours of her, the more subtle contours, too, the curve at her hip, at her shoulder, her instep, the back of her neck; he, too, made test, to her helpless, recoiling horror, of the latent pleasures of her, swiftly revealing, then passing over, it noted, the promise of an incredible responsiveness; there were tears in her eyes; how precious and beautiful, I thought, is a woman, how unsurprising that a vital man, without compromise; simply wishes to own such a fantastic, delicious creature, how unsurprising that he wishes in the full and glorious heat of his blood to overwhelm, devour, dominate and master her. On Gor, of course, men have their will, at least with lowly slaves, such as was, against her will, the lovely, unfortunate Miss Blake-Allen.

     
The slave master stepped back from the slave.

     
"Kneel," I told her. She knelt.

     
"Blond," said he, "apparently determined to try to remain frigid, blue-eyed, not yet tamed, an incredible potential for helpless sexual heat, an incredible potential for helpless slave submission, excellent. Do you wish to sell her?"

     
"Straighten your body Slave," I told her.

 
    
Frightened, Miss Blake-Alien straightened her back, and lifted her head. She knelt back on her heels, knees wide, hands on her thighs. It was the position of the Pleasure Slave. I had taught her the position. It is one of the first things a good-looking woman, fallen slave, is taught on Gor.

     
"Do you wish to sell her?" again inquired the slave master of Tor.

 
    
I knew I would not obtain the best price from this office, for the municipal pens usually buy cheaply and sell cheaply. They exist primarily as a service for caravan masters, buying unsold girls, later retailing them to other merchants, who may be short of flesh for the oasis traffic. The municipal pens exist primarily to perform a service, not to make profit.

     
"What would you offer?" I asked.

     
"Eleven silver tarsks," he said.

     
I knew I could get twice that much from a private house.

     
"Fifteen?" he inquired.

     
"No," I smiled, "but your bids are reassuring."

 
    
He smiled. "I did not think you wished to sell her," he said. "That is why I was as honest with you as I was. Now that I know you do not wish to sell her, I will tell you that, in my opinion," he looked down at the kneeling girl, "her potentiality is fantastic."

 
    
"I am glad to hear it," I said. Miss Blake-Allen, in the position of the Pleasure Slave, was looking about the room. She could not understand us, for we spoke in Gorean. It is perhaps just as well.

 
    
The usual buying price of the municipal office was two or three silver tarsks per wench. I had learned that Miss Blake-Allen was valuable in the Tahari. This pleased me.

 
    
I looked at her. She was beautiful. I agreed with the slave master. Doubtless, someday, for someone, she would make an excellent slave.

     
"I wish," I said, "to board her, and purchase her some training."

     
"We cage a wench for a copper tarsk per day," he said. "Training is extra, but, I think, reasonable."

     
"She does not speak Gorean," I told him.

     
He smiled. "She will learn swiftly," he said.

     
Then the officer and I discussed details of training. He would include in her training the regime of the stimulation cage. For the first five nights, following my recommendation, she would wear the rope harness. After that it would be used, if necessary, for discipline.

 
    
"Let her, however," I said, "meet the eyes of her trainer, and of other males. I do not wish her to become the love slave of the first man into whose eyes she is permitted to gaze."

     
"I understand," said the man.

     
"Is there anything else?" I asked.

     
"Do we have complete food and whip rights over her?" he asked.

     
"Certainly, "I said.

     
I then turned to the girl. "What is your name?" I asked her in English.

     
"Priscilla Blake-Allen," she said.

 
    
I looked at her. Her face went white. "I have no name, Master," she whispered. "I am only a nameless slave," she whispered.

 
    
I thought to myself. Priscilla Blake-Allen. Blake-Allen. Allen. Allen. Allena. Ah-leh-na. Then I had it. An excellent name, not unknown in the Gorean Tahari.

     
"I will give you a name," I said.

     
She looked at me.

 
    
"Alyena," I told her. The 'l' sound in this name is rolled, one of two common "l" sounds in Gorean. An English transliteration, though not a perfect one, would be rather along the lines of 'Ahl-yieh-ain-nah,' where the 'ain' is pronounced such that it would rhyme with the English expression 'rain.' The accent falls on the first and third syllable. It is a melodic name. I thought it would improve her price. Names are often used by auctioneers. "Here, Noble Gentlemen, for your consideration, is the slave girl called Alyena. Regard her! Does she please you? Move for the noble gentlemen, Alyena. Display your beauty. Do not such masters excite you? Do you not long to serve them? Behold, Gentlemen, Alyena dances her beauty for you! How much am I bid for the fair Alyena?"

     
"Alyena." whispered the girl.

     
"Alyena," I said to her. "Yes, Master." she said.

 
    
"I am not selling you," I said. "These are the public pens of Tor. You are here for boarding and training. You will begin to learn Gorean. You will learn as a child learns, without the benefit of translation. You will learn swiftly. You will also he exercised and receive slave instruction."

     
"Slave instruction?" she asked.

     
"Yes," I said. "Is this clear, Alyena?"

     
"Yes, Master," she whispered.

     
"If you are uncooperative, or slow in your lessons, you may be starved or beaten--lashed--you understand?"

     
"Yes, Master," said the girl, her eyes wide.

 
    
I threw a silver tarsk to the official. He clapped his hands. Through a silver curtain, of silver strings, came a large, powerful slave girl. She wore a plain iron collar, with ring. She wore a halter of leather: she wore a belt of leather; two strips of leather girded her, falling to her knees: about her calves, crossing, leather straps bound heavy sandals on her feet. In her hand she carried a long supple kaiila quirt of leather, about a half inch in width and a yard long.

 
    
The large female slave feasted her eyes on the slender, lovely Alyena. Then she gestured with her quirt toward the threshold of silver strings. "Hurry, Pretty One," she said to Alyena, in Gorean, harshly.

Miserably, Alyena, understanding what was required of her, fled to the threshold.

 
    
There she turned to regard me. The quirt fell, viciously, across her shoulder. Crying out with pain, the lovely Alyena turned, and, weeping, stumbling, fled through the curtain of silver strings, to the pens of Tor.

 
    
"By the way," I asked the officer, casually, though it was my main reason for visiting his office, "there was a girl of interest to me who, I understand it, was named Veema, and was at one time one of your guests. I should like to discover what became of her. Would you have records on her?"