I screamed.
Lana looked out, pointing after it. "A river shark," she cried, excitedly. Several of the girls looked after it, the fin cutting the waters and disappearing in the fog on the surface.
I huddled back from the edge of the pier, between Inge and Ute. Ute put her arms about me.
A broad, low-sided barge began to back toward the pier. It had two large steering oars, manned by bargemen. It was drawn by two gigantic, web-footed river tharlarion. There were the first tharlarion that I had ever seen. They frightened me. They were scaled, vast and long-necked. Yet in the water it seemed, for all their bulk, they moved delicately. One dipped its head under the surface and, moments later, the head emerged, dripping, the eyes blinking, a silverish fish struggling in the small, triangular-toothed jaws. It engorged the fish, and turned its small head, eyes now unblinking, to regard us. They were harnessed to the broad barge. They were controlled by bargemen, with a long whipping stick, who was ensconced in a leather basket, part of the harness, slung between the two animals. He would also shout at them, commands, interspersed with florid Gorean profanity, and, slowly, not undelicately, they responded to his cries. The barge grated against the pier.
The cost of transporting a free person across the Laurius was a silver tarsk. The cost of transporting an animal, however, was only a copper tarn disk. I realized, with a start, that that was what I would cost. Targo was charged twenty one copper tarn disks for myself, the other girls, the new girl, and his four bosk. He had sold four girls before reaching the banks of the Laurius. The bosk were disengaged from the wagons and tied forward on the barge. Also forward on the barge was a slave cage, and two guards, with the sides of their spears, herded us onto the barge, across its planking and into the cage. Behind us I heard one of the bargemen slam the heavy iron door and slide the heavy iron bolt into place. I looked back. He snapped shut a heavy padlock. We were caged. I held the bars, and looked across the river to Laura. Behind me I could hear the two wagons being rolled onto the barge and then, with chains, being fastened in place. They were mounted on large circles of wood, which would rotate. Thus the wagon may be brought forward onto the barge and, when the circle is rotated, be removed the same way. The fog had begun to lift and the surface of the river, broad, slow-moving, glistened here and there in patches. A few dozen yards to my right a fish leaped out of the water and disappeared again, leaving behind him bright, glistening, spreading circles. I heard the cry of two gulls overhead.
The bargemen in the leather basket shouted out and slapped the two tharlarion on the neck with the whipping stick.
There must be someone in Laura who could return me to the United States, or who could put me in touch with those who could!
There were other barges on the river, some moving across the river, others coming toward Laura, others departing. Those departing used only the current. Those approaching were drawn by land tharlarion, plodding on log roads along the edges of the river. The land tharlarion can swim barges across the river, but he is not as efficient as the vast river tharlarion. Both sides of the river are used to approach Laura, though the northern shore is favored. Unharnessed tharlarion, returning to Lydius at the mouth of the Laurius, generally follow the southern shore road, which is not as much used by towing tharlarion as the northern.
On these barges, moving upriver, I could see many crates and boxes, which would contain such goods, rough goods, as metal, and tools and cloth. Moving downstream I could see other barges, moving the goods of the interior downriver, such objects as planking, barrels of fish, barrels of salt, loads of stone, and bales of fur. On some of the barges moving upstream I saw empty slave cages, not unlike the one in which I was secured. I saw only one slave cage on a barge moving downstream. It contained four or five nude male slaves. They seemed dejected, huddled in their cage. Strangely, a broad swath had been shaven lengthwise on their head. Lana saw this and shrieked out, hooting at them across the river. The men did not even look at us, moving slowly across the current toward Laura.
I looked at Ute.
"That means they are men who were taken by women," said Ute. "See," she said, pointing up to the hills and forests north of Laura. "Those are the great forests. No one knows how far they extend to the east, and they go north as far as Torvaldsland. In them there are the forest people, but also many bands of outlaws, some of women and some of men."
"Women?" I asked.
"Some call them forest girls," said Ute. "Other call them the panther girls, for they dress themselves in the teeth and skins of forest panthers, which they slay with their spears and bows."
I looked at her.
"They live in the forest without men," she said, "saving those they enslave, and then sell, when tiring of them. They shave the heads of their male slaves in that fashion to humiliate them. And that, too, is the way they sell them, that all the world may know that they fell slave to females, who then sold them." "Who are these women?" I asked. "Where do they come from?"
"Some were doubtless once slaves," said Ute. "Others were once free women. Perhaps they did not care for matches arranged by their parents. Perhaps they did not care for the ways of their cities with respect to women. Who knows? In many cities a free woman may not even leave her dwelling, without the permission of a male guardian or member of her family." Ute smiled up at me. "In many cities a slave girl is more free to come and go, and be happy, then a free woman."
I looked out through the bars. I could now see, fairly clearly, the wooden buildings of Laura. The water was wet and glistening on the backs of the two tharlarions drawing the barge.
"Do not be sad and miserable, El-in-or," said Ute. "When you wear a collar and have a master, you will be more happy."
I glared at her. "I will never wear a collar and have a master," I hissed at her.
Ute smiled.
"You want a collar and a master," she said.
Poor stupid Ute! I would be free! I would return to Earth! I would be rich again, and powerful! I would hire servants! I would have another Maserati! I restrained myself. "Were you ever happy with a master?" I asked, acidly. "Oh, yes!" said Ute, happily. Her eyes shone.
I looked at her, disgustedly. "What happened?" I asked.
She looked down. "I tried to bend him to my will," she said. "He sold me." I looked away, out through the bars. The fog had now dispelled. The morning sun was bright on the surface of the river.
"In every woman," said Ute, "there is a Free Companion and a slave girl. The Free Companion seeks for her companion and the slave girl seeks her master." "That is absurd," I said.
"Are you not a female?" asked Ute.
"Of course," I said.
"Then" said Ute, "there is a slave girl in you that wants her master." "You are a fool," I told her savagely. "A fool!"
"You are a female," said Ute. "What sort of man could master you?"
"No man could master me!" I told her.
"In your dreams," she asked, "what sort of man is it who touches you, who binds you and carries you away, who takes you to his fortress, who forces you to do his bidding?"
I recalled how, outside the penthouse, hurrying to the garage, a man had looked at me, and had not looked away, and how, fleeing, branded, frightened, helpless, I had felt, for the first time in my life, vulnerably and radically female. I recalled, too, how in the bungalow, when I had examined the mark on my thigh, and the collar that was then at my throat, how I had felt, briefly, helpless, owned, a captive, the property of others. I recalled the brief fantasy which had passed through my mind of myself, in such a band, marked as I was, naked in the arms of a barbarian. I had shuddered, frightened. Never before had I felt such a feeling. I recalled. I had been curious for the touch of a man a€“ perhaps for that of a master? I could not rid my mind of the brief feeling I had felt. It had recurred in my mind, from time to time, particularly at night in the wagon. Once it had made me feel so lonely and restless that I had wept. Two times I had heard other girls crying in the wagon. Once, Ute.