Then the entire cage, on a track of some sort, began to move through an opening which appeared in the right wall.
In the following journey the cage was successively submerged in various solutions of various temperatures and densities, some of which, perhaps because I was still ill, I found exceedingly noxious.
Had I been less ill I would undoubtedly have been more offended.
At last after I, sputtering and choking, had been duly cleansed and rinsed several times, and then it seemed several times again, the cage began to move slowly, mercifully, between vents from which blasts of hot air issued, and, eventually, it passed slowly between an assortment of humming projection points for wide-beam rays, some of which were visible to my eye, being yellow, red and a refulgent green.
I would later learn that these rays, which passed through my body as easily and harmlessly as sunlight through glass, were indexed to the metabolic physiology of various organisms which can infect Priest-Kings.I would also learn that the last known free instance of such an organism had occurred more than four thousand years before.In the next frew weeks in the Nest I would occasionally come upon diseased Muls. The organisms which afflict them are apparently harnless to Priest-Kings and thus allowed to survive.Indeed, they are regarded as Matoks, in the Nest, but not of the Nest, and are thus to be tolerated with equanimity.
I was still quite ill when, clad in a red plasic tunic, I rejoined the two slaves in the hall outside the door.
'You look much better,' said one of them.
'They left the threadlike growths on your head,' said the other.
'Hair,' I said, leaning against the portal.
'Strange,' said one of the slaves.'The only fibrous body growths permitted Muls are the lashes of the eyes.'
This, I supposed, would have to do with protecting the eyes from particles.Idly, not feeling well, I wondered if there were any particles.
'But he is a Matok,' said one.
'That is true,' said the other.
I was glad that the tunic I wore was not of the Ubar's purple which would proclaim me as a slave of Priest-Kings.
'Perhaps if you are very zealous,' said one, 'you can become a Mul.'
'Yes,' said the other, 'then you would be not only in the Nest but of the Nest.'
I did not respond.
'That is best,' said one.
'Yes,' said the other.
I leaned back against the portal of the Hall of Processing, my eyes closed, and took several slow, deep breaths.
'You have been assigned quarters,' said one of the two slaves, 'a case in the chamber of Misk.'
I opened my eyes.
'We will take you there,' said the other.
I looked at them blankly.'A case?' I asked.
'He is not well,' said one of the slaves.
'It is quite comfortable,' said the other, 'with fungus and water.'
I closed my eyes again and shook my head.I could feel them gently take my arms and I accompanied them slowly down the hall.
'You will feel much better,' said one of them, 'when you have had a bit of fungus.'
'Yes,' said the other.
It is not hard to get used to Mul-Fungus, for it has almost no taste, being an extremely bland, pale, whitish, fibrous vegetablelike matter.I know of no one who is moved much in one direction or the other by its taste.Even the Muls, many of whom have been bred in the Nest, do not particularly like it, nor despise it.It is eaten with much the same lack of attention that we normally breathe air.
Muls feed four times a day.In the first meal, Mul-Fungus is ground and mixed with water, forming a porridge of sorts; for the second meal it is chopped into rough two-inch cubes; for the third meal it is minced with Mul-Pellets and served as a sort of cold hash; the Mul-Pellets are undoubtedly some type of dietary supplement; at the final meal Mul-Fungus is pressed into a large, flat cake and sprinkled with a few grains of salt.
Misk told me, and I believe him, that Muls had occasionally slain one another for a handful of salt.
The Mul-Fungus, as far as I can tell, is not much different from the fungus, raised under ideal conditions from specially selected spores, which graces the feed troughs of the Priest-Kings themselves, a tiny sample of which was once given me by Misk.It was perhaps a bit less coarse than Mul-Fungus. Misk was much annoyed that I could not detect the difference. I was much annoyed when I found out later that the major difference between high-quality fungus and the lower-grade Mul-Fungus was simply the smell.I was in the Nest, incidentally, for more than five weeks before I could even vaguely detect the odour difference which seemed so significant to Misk.And then it did not strike me as being better or worse than that of the low-grade Mul-Fungus.
The longer I stayed in the Nest the more acute became my sense of smell, and it was an embarrassing revelation to me to discover how unaware I had become of these varied, rich sensory cues so abundantly available in my environment.I was given a translator by Misk and I would utter Gorean expressions into it and then wait for the translation into the language of the Priest-Kings, and in this way, after a timw, I became capable of recognising numerous meaningful odours.The first odour I came to recognise was Misk's name, and it was delightful to discover, as I became more practiced and sensitive, that the odour was the same as his own.
One of the things I did was run the translator over the red plastic tunic I had been issued and listen to the information which had been recorded on it.There was not much save my name and city, that I was a Matok under the supervision of Misk, that I had no record-scars and that I might be dangerous.
I smiled at the latter caution.
I did not even have a sword, and I was sure that, in any battle with Priest-Kings, I would constitute but a moment's work for their fierce mandibles and the bladed, hornlike projections on their forelegs.
The case which I was to occupy in Misk's chamber was not as bad as I had anticipated.
Indeed, it seemed to me far more luxurious than the appointments in Misk's own chamber, which seemed utterly bare except for the feed trough and numerous compartments, dials, switches and plugs mounted in one wall.The Priest-Kings eat and sleep standing and never lie down, except perhaps it be to die.
The bareness of Misk's chambers was, however, as it turned out, only an apparent bareness to a visually oriented organism such as myself.Actually the walls, ceilings and floor were covered with what, to a Priest-King, were excruciatingly beautiful scent-patterns.Indeed, Misk informed me that the patterns in his chamber had been laid down by some of the greatest artists in the Nest.
My case was a transparent plastic cube of perhaps eight feet square, with ventilation holes and a sliding plastic door. There was no lock on the door and thus I could come and go as I pleased.
Inside the cube there were canisters of Mul-Fungus, a bowl, a ladle, a wooden-bladed Fungus-Knife; a wooden-headed Fungus-Mallet; a convenient tube of Mul-Pellets, which discharged its contents one at a time following my depressing a lever in the bottom of the tube; and a large, inverted jar of water, by means of which an attached, somewhat shallow, watering pan was kept filled.
In one corner of the case there was a large, circular padding a few inches deep of soft, rough-cut, reddish moss which was not uncomfortable and was changed daily.
Adjoining the cube, reached from the cube by sliding plastic panels, were a lavatory facility and a washing-booth.
The washing-booth was remarkably like the showers with which we are familiar except that one may not regulate the flow of fluid.One turns on the fluid by stepping into the booth and its amount and temperature are controlled automatically.I had naturally supposed the fluid to be simply water which it closely resembled in appearance, and once had tried to fill my bowl for the morning meal there, rather than ladling the water out of the water pan.Choking, my mouth burning, I spat it out in the booth.