"You did not even take defensive precautions," I said to Shoka.
"What good would it have done?" he asked.
I shrugged. To be sure, one merchant ship, like the Palms of Schendi, could have made little effective resistance to the ships which had just passed us, nor could she, though swift for a round ship, have outrun them.
"What if they had taken such action as an indication that we were hostile?" asked Shoka.
"That is true, too," I said.
"Our defense," said Shoka, "is that we are of Schendi."
"I see," I said.
"They need our port facilities," said Shoka. "Even the larl grows sometimes weary, and the tarn, upon occasion, must find a place in which to fold its wings."
I turned about, watching the ships vanish in the distance.
"Return to your work," said Shoka to the girls.
"Yes, Master," they said and, with a rustle of chain, fell again to their knees and, seizing up the deck stones, once more, Shoka near them, vigorously addressed themselves to their labors.
I turned again to watch the ships. They were now but specks on the horizon. They plied their way northward. In the northern autumn they would return, to be refitted and supplied again in Schendi, and would then, a few weeks later, in the southern spring, ply their way southward. Schendi, located in the vicinity of the Gorean equator, somewhat south of it, provides the ships with a convenient base, from which they may conduct their affairs seasonally in both hemispheres. I was pleased that I had seen the ships. I could not have conceived of a more pleasant way in which to have made their acquaintance. I had seen the passing of the fleet of the black slavers of Schendi.
The girls had been cleaned and combed. Shoka had soused perfume on them.
"Extend your wrists, crossed, for binding," said he to the blond-haired barbarian.
She, kneeling, complied. "Yes, Master," she said. The line which Shoka now tied around her crossed wrists was already strung through a large, metal, gold-painted ring, one of two, which were mounted in the huge wooden ears of the kailiauk head which, high above the water, surmounted the prow.
We had lain to after more closely approaching the port of Schendi in the evening of the preceding day, the day in which we had seen the fleet of the black slavers of Schendi. We could see the shore now, with its sands and, behind the sand, the dense, green vegetation, junglelike, broken by occasional clearings for fields and villages. Schendi itself lay farther to the south, about the outjutting of a small peninsula, Point Schendi. The waters here were richly brown, primarily from the outflowing of the Nyoka. emptying from Lake Ushindi. some two hundred pasangs upriver.
"Extend your wrists, crossed, for binding," said Shoka to Sasi.
"Yes, Master," she said. Her wrists then were tied to another line, it strung through the gold-painted ring fixed in the right ear of the kailiauk head at the prow. I had volunteered her, at the request of Ulafi, who had his vanities. He was an important merchant and captain in Schendi. Indeed, he had not entered port yesterday evening. The Palms of Schendi would make her entrance in the morning, when the wharves were busy, the shops open and the traffic bustling.
I looked about The Palms of Schendi sparkled. The deck was smoothed and white, ropes were neatly coiled, gear was stashed and secured, hatches were battened, and the brass and fittings were polished. Yesterday afternoon two seamen had reenameled the kailiauk head at the prow with brown, and the eyes with white and black. The golden metal rings, too, had been repainted. The Palms of Schendi would enter Schendi, her home port, in style. At sea, of course, a sensible compromise must be struck between a ship which is constantly ready, so to speak, for inspection, and one which is loose. The ship must be neat but livable; there must be order but not rigidity; the ship must be one on which men are comfortable but it must also be one on which, because of its arrangements and discipline, the efficient performance of duty is encouraged. Ulafi, it seemed to me, struck this sort of balance well with his men and ship. I thought him a good captain, somewhat begrudgingly because he was of the merchants. It was hard to fault him. He ran a clean, tight ship, but with common sense.
The light anchors were raised.
Canvas was dropped from the long, sloping yards.
Oarsmen, at the command of the first officer, a tall fellow named Gudi, he standing now on the helm deck, slid their great levers through the thole ports. Soon, to his calls, the oars drew against the brownish waters about the hull.
The girls knelt on the deck before the stem castle, their wrists bound before them, lines leading to the rings.
The Palms of Schendi began to negotiate its wide turn about Point Schendi.
"Are you proud?" I asked Sasi.
"Yes, Master," she said. "I am very proud."
I stood at the port rail, by the bow. I watched the green of the shore, moving slowly by. Last night we had had lanterns at stem and stern.
I looked at the blond-haired slave girl. She was very lovely, kneeling naked, in her collar, her wrists tied before her body, the line running to the golden ring. Seeing my eyes upon her, she put her head down, ashamed.
I smiled.
Last night, an Ahn after she had been put in her cage, I had once glanced upon her. She had been tying on her back in the cage, her knees drawn up. Her hands had been beside her thighs, their backs resting on the metal of the cage floor. Her head had been turned toward me. When she had seen me look at her, she had looked up, quickly, at the square of sheet metal above her.
I had gone to the side of the cage, and crouched there. "Nadu," I had said to her, and she had then knelt before me, within the cage, behind the bars, in the position of the pleasure slave. I had studied her body, and, in particular, her face, her eyes and expression. I had then reached through the bars and taken her by the upper arms. She seemed terrified, but made no sound. I drew her toward me, until I held her against the bars. I held her there for more than a minute, reading in her eyes, and in my grip of her soft upper arms, the tenseness, the softness, the confusion, the desire, the fear, of the lovely slave.
Then I had seen what I had wanted. She pressed herself against the bars. Her eyes were closed. The lower portion of her face, the bars cruel against it, thrust toward me. Her lips, soft and wet, opened to me.
"Oh, no," she had then breathed, softly, in English, and, frightened, had drawn back. I had then released her arms and she had crouched back in the cage, against the bars on the other side. I had neither kissed nor, really, refused to kiss her. It had happened, really, neither quickly nor slowly, but as it had happened, she offering her lips, almost inadvertently, hesitating, and then, frightened, dismayed, drawing back. I do not think I would have kissed her, as I did not own her, but she, of course, had not known that. I had been interested, of course, in assessing the current level of her development in bondage. That could make a difference in what happened to her, and what happened to her could make a difference in the success or failure of my own mission in Schendi. If she were still too rigid or irritating to men she might even, possibly, be slain before she could lead me to the mysterious Shaba. But my small test, affirmative in its results, convinced me that she was probably slave enough already to be permitted to live at least until she were thrown naked at his feet.
I had then continued to look at the girl for a few moments. She looked at me, miserably, frightened.
"I am not a slave," she said to herself, in English, and then, suddenly, put her head in her hands, sobbing.
I smiled.
Surely she must have sensed that the mouth kiss which she had so helplessly proffered, and had proffered as a slave, was the symbolic opening of her vagina to male penetration.
"I am not a slave, I am not a slave," she wept.