How these Earth women fight the natural woman in themselves. As far as I could tell it was not wrong to be a woman, any more than it was wrong to be a man. I do not know, of course, for I am not a woman. Perhaps it is wrong to be a woman. If not, why should they fight it so? But perhaps weak men, who fear true women, have conditioned them so. It is not clear that any true man would object to a true woman. It is clear, however, that those who fear to be either will object to both. Values are interesting. How transitory and peculiar are the winds which blow over the plains of biology.
"I am not a slave," wept the girl. "I am not a slave." Then she looked at me, suddenly, angrily. "You know that I am a slave, don't you, you brute?" She asked, in English.
I said nothing to her.
"Is that why I hate you so much," she wept, "because you know that I am a slave?"
I looked at her.
"Or do I hate you so much," she asked, "because I want you as my master?"
Then she put down her head, again. "No, no," she wept. "I am not a slave. I am not a slave!"
I then withdrew. I had no objection to the girl addressing herself to me in English, which she was confident I did not understand. I thought it healthy that she be given the opportunity to ventilate her feelings. Many Gorean masters permit a barbarian to prattle upon occasion in her native tongue. It is thought to be good for them.
A few minutes later I had joined Sasi on the blankets.
"Please touch me, Master," she had begged.
"Very well," I had said.
I glanced back once at the cage of the blond-haired barbarian. Shoka had covered it for the night.
I had seen her body and eyes proclaim her slavery, and I had heard her mouth both deny it, and affirm it, and then again deny it. The blond-haired girl was still fighting herself. She did not know yet who or what she was. Interestingly I had heard her ask herself if she hated me, because she wanted me as her master. I knew that a girl who wants a man for her master can perform wonders for him. And yet she was only an ignorant girl, a raw girl, new to the collar. What did she know of being the slave of a master? But then I recalled that she had again denied being a slave. I smiled to myself. What a little fool she was. She did not yet know. truly, that she was a slave.
"Oh, Master," said Sasi.
Then I turned my attention away from the blond-haired girl, her intended role in my plans and what might lie ahead In Schendi. I then turned my full attention to the sweet, squirming, collared Sasi, the branded, curvacious little beast from the wharves of Port Kar. What a delight she was. She had none of the problems of the blond-haired girl. But, too, she was Gorean. Almost as soon as the collar had been locked on her she had begun, happily, to blossom in her bondage. Slavery is cultural for Goreans. They know it is something a woman can be.
"You give me great pleasure, Master," she said.
"Be quiet," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
A quarter of an Ahn later I held and kissed her, gently, letting her subside at her own rhythms. "What are you?" I asked her.
"A slave, Master," she said.
"Whose slave?" I asked.
"Yours, Master," she said.
"Are you happy?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she whispered. "Yes, Master."
The Palms of Schendi had now begun to come about, about Point Schendi.
The yards swung on the masts, capitalizing on the wind. The oars dipped and lifted.
We were still some seven or eight pasangs from the buoy lines. I could see ships in the harbor.
We would come in with a buoy line on the port side. Ships, too, would leave the harbor with the line of their port side. This regulates traffic. In the open sea, similarly, ships keep one another, where possible, on their port sides, thus passing to starboard.
"What is the marking on the buoy line that will be used by Ulafi?" I asked Shoka, who stood near me, by the girls, at the bow.
"Yellow and white stripes," he said. "That will lead to the general merchant wharves. The warehouse of Ulafi is near wharf eight."
"Do you rent wharfage?" I asked.
"Yes, from the merchant council," he said.
White and gold, incidentally, are the colors of the merchants. Usually their robes are white, trimmed with gold. That the buoy line was marked in yellow and white stripes was indicative of the wharves toward which it led. I have never seen, incidentally, gold paint on a buoy. It does not show up as well as enameled yellow in the light of ships' lanterns.
I could see some forty or fifty sails in the harbor. There must then have been a great many more ships in the harbor, for most ships, naturally, take in their canvas when moored. The ships under sail must, most of them, have been entering or leaving the harbor. Most of the ships, of course, would be small ships, coasting vessels and light galleys. Also, of course, there were river ships in the harbor, used in the traffic on the Nyoka.
I had not realized the harbor at Schendi was so large. It must have been some eight pasangs wide and some two or three pasangs in depth. At its eastern end, of course, at one point, the Nyoka, channeled between stone embankments, about two hundred yards apart, flows into it. The Nyoka, because of the embankments, enters the harbor much more rapidly than it normally flows. It is generally, like the Kamba, a wide, leisurely river. Its width, however, about two pasangs above Schendi, is constricted by the embankments. This is to control the river and protect the port. A result, of course, of the narrowing, the amount of water involved being the same, is an increase in the velocity of the flow. In moving upstream from Schendi there is a bypass, rather like a lock system, which provides a calm road for shipping until the Nyoka can be joined. This is commonly used only in moving east or upstream from Schendi. The bypass, or "hook," as it is called, enters the Nyoka with rather than against its current. One then brings one's boat about and, by wind or oar, proceeds upstream.
The smell of spices, particularly cinnamon and cloves, was now quite strong. We had smelled these even at sea. One smell that I did not smell to a great degree was that of fish. Many fish in these tropical waters are poisonous to eat, a function of certain forms of seaweed on which they feed. The seaweed is harmless to the fish but it contains substances toxic to humans. The river fish on the other hand, as far as I know, are generally wholesome for humans to eat. Indeed, there are many villages along the Kamba and Nyoka, and along the shores of Lake Ushindi, in which fishing is the major source of livelihood. Not much of this fish, however, is exported from Schendi. I could smell, however, tanning fluids and dyes, from the shops and compounds of leather workers. Much kailiauk leather is processed in Schendi. brought to the port not only from inland but from north and south, from collection points, along the coast. I could also smell tars and resins, naval stores. Most perhaps, I could now smell the jungles behind Schendi. This smell, interestingly, does not carry as far out to sea as those of the more pungent spices. It was a smell of vast greeneries, steaming and damp, and of incredible flowers and immensities of rotting vegetation.
A dhow, with a red-and-white-striped sail, slipped past us on the port side.
The bow of the Palms of Schendi had now come about, and the peninsula of Point Schendi dropped behind us, to port. The impassive, painted eyes, white and black-pupiled, of the huge, brown kailiauk head at the prow now gazed upon the harbor of Schendi.
It lay dead ahead, some four pasangs.
The blond-haired barbarian looked across the deck to Sasi. "Mistress," she whispered to Sasi, who stood to her as first girl.
"Yes, Slave," said Sasi.
The blond lifted her bound wrists, the line running up to the golden ring in the left ear of the kailiauk head, through it, and back to the deck. "Why are we bound like this?" she asked.