'Please!' she wept.
I found myself tempted to break her head against the foot of the stone couch, for she was worthless, treacherous, seductive, cruel, vicious, worthy only of the collar, irons and the whip!
She shook her head numbly as though denying charges I had not yet voiced.
'You don't understand,' she said.'I love you!'
With loathing I cast her from me.
Yet still did I not turn to face that portal.
Vika lay at my feet, a streak of blood at the corner of those lips that bore still the marks of my fierce kiss.She looked up at me, tears welling in her eyes.
'Please,' she said.
The scent was strong.I knew that it was near.How was it that the girl was not aware of it?How was it that she did not know?Was it not part of her plan?
'Please,' she said, looking up at me, lifting her hand to me. Her face was tear-stained; her voice was a broken sob.'I love you,' she said.
'Silence, Slave Girl,' I said.
She lowered her head to the stones and wept.
I knew now that it was here.
The scent was now overpowering, unmistakable.
I watched Vika and suddenly she seemed too to know and her head lifted and her eyes widened with horror and she crept to her knees, her hands before her face as though to shield herself and she shuddered and suddenly uttered a wild, long, terrible scream of abject fear.
I drew my sword and turned.
It stood framed in the doorway.
In its way it was very beautiful, golden and tall, looming over me, framed in that massive portal.It was not more than a yard wide but its head nearly touched the top of the portal and so I would judged that, standing as it did, it must have been nearly eighteen feet high.
It had six legs and a great head like a globe of gold with eyes like vast luminous disks.Its two forelegs, poised and alert, were lifted delicately in front of its body.Its jaws opened and closed once.They moved laterally.
From its head there extended two fragile, jointed appendages, long and covered with short quivering strands of golden hair. These two appendages, like eyes, swept the room once and then seemed to focus on me.
They curved toward me like delicate golden pincers and each of the countless golden strands on those appendages straightened and pointed toward me like a quivering golden needle.
I could not conjecture the nature of the creature's experience but I knew that I stood within the centre of its sensory field.
About its neck there hung a small circular device, a translator of some sort, similar to but more compact than those I had hitherto seen.
I sensed a new set of odours, secreted by what stood before me.
Almost simultaneously a mechanically reproduced voice began to emanate from the translator.
It spoke in Gorean.
I knew what it would say.
'Lo Sardar,' it said.'I am a Priest-King.'
'I am Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba,' I said.
A moment after I spoke I sensed another set of odours, which emanated perhaps from the device which hung about the neck of what stood before me.
The two sensory appendages of the creature seemed to register this information.
A new scent came to my nostrils.
'Follow me,' said the mechanically reproduced voice, and the creature turned from the portal.
I went to the portal.
It was stalking in long, delicate steps down the passageway.
I looked once more at Vika, who lifted her hand to me. 'Don't go,' she said.
I turned scornfully from her and followed the creature.
Behind me I heard her weep.
Let her weep, I said to myself, for she has failed her masters the Priest-Kings, and undoubtedly her punishment will not be light.
Had I the time, had I not more urgent business, I might have punished her myself, teaching her without mercy what could be the meaning of her collar, using her as objectively and ruthlessly as she deserved, brutally administering the discipline of a Gorean master to a treacherous slave girl.
We would see then who would conquer.
I shook these thoughts from my head and continued down the passageway.
I must forget the treacherous, vicious wench.There were more important matters to attend to.The slave girl was nothing.
I hated Vika.
I followed a Priest-King.
Chapter Ten: MISK THE PRIEST-KING
The Priest-Kings have little or no scent of their own which is detectable by the human nostrils, though one gathers there is a nest odour by which they may identify one another, and that the variations in this nest odour permit identifications of individuals.
What in the passageways I had taken to be the scent of Priest-Kings had actually been the residue of odour-signals which Priest-Kings, like certain social insects of our world, use in communicating with one another.
The slightly acrid odour I had noticed tends to be a common property of all such signals, much as there is a common property to the sound of a human voice, whether it be that of an Englishman, a Bushman, a Chinese or a Gorean, which sets it apart from, say, the growling of animals, the hiss of snakes, the cry of birds.
The Priest-Kings have eyes, which are compound and many-faceted, but they do not much rely on these organs.They are, for them, something like our ears and nose, used as secondary sensors to be relied upon when the most pertinent information in the environment is not relayed by vision, or, in the case of the Priest-Kings, by scent.Accordingly the two golden-haired, jointed appendages protruding from their globelike heads, above the rounded, disklike eyes, are their primary sensory organs.I gather that these appendages are sensitive not only to odours but, due to modification of some of the sensory hairs, may also transform sound vibrations into something meaningful in their experience.Thus, if one wishes, one may speak of them not only as smelling but hearing through these appendages.Apparently hearing is not of great importance, however, to them, considering the small number of hairs modified for this purpose.Oddly enough few of the Priest-Kings whom I questioned on this matter seemed to draw the distinction clearly between hearing and smelling. I find this incredible, but I have no reason to believe they deceived me.They recognise that we have different sensory arrangements than they and I suspect that they are as unclear as to the nature of our experience as we are of theirs.In fact, though I speak of hearing and smelling, I am not sure that these expressions are altogether meaningful when applied to Priest-Kings.I speak of them smelling and hearing through the sensory appendages, but what the quality of their experience may be I am uncertain.For example, does a Priest-King have the same qualitative experience that I do when we are confronted by the same scent?I am inclined to doubt it, for their music, which consists of rhapsodies of odours produced by instruments constructed for this purpose, and often played by Priest-Kings, some of whom I am told are far more skillful than others, is intolerable to my ear, or I should say, nose.
Communication by odour-signals can in certain circumstances be extremely efficient, though it can be disadvantageous in others.For example, an odour can carry, to the sensory appendages of a Priest-King, much further than the shout or cry of a man to another man.Moreover, if not too much time is allowed to elapse, a Priest-King may leave a message in his chamber or in a corridor for another Priest-King, and the other may arrive later and interpret it.A disdavantage of this mode of communication, of course, is that the message may be understood by strangers or others for whom it is not intended.One must be careful of what one says in the tunnels of Priest-Kings for one's words may linger after one, until they sufficiently dissipate to be little more than a meaningless blur of scent.