“You do not return my greeting,” said Portus. “I find this unmannerly, even surly. What do you want here? We are poor men, but note that we are armed men. What do you seek?”
Mirus smiled.
“If you need food we will share some bread, your due in the hospitality of the wilderness, but you must then be on your way.”
“Or,” said Selius Arconious, “you could butcher and roast one of your shaggy friends.”
Ellen shuddered. She had little doubt but what the dark beasts were themselves carnivorous.
“Though,” said Selius Arconious, “I expect their meat would be tough.”
Most of the shaggy beasts did not respond to this, but one ran its long, dark tongue about its lips. Ellen saw the canine fangs glisten in the saliva, “It can understand, too,” she thought to herself.
“What do you seek?” asked Portus, again, this time not pleasantly. He was, after all, Gorean.
“Ask the slave,” suggested Mirus.
Portus Canio, puzzled, looked to Ellen.
“I fear, Master,” she said, “it is I whom they seek.”
“Why?” asked Portus.
“Wait,” said Selius Arconious, “I know you. You are the fellow who bid against me at the auction, and I was fool enough not to let you have this worthless bit of collar fluff. How rash I was! Surely you must have suspected how often I have regretted that lapse, that catastrophe of indiscretion.”
“Permit me to be even more foolish,” said Mirus. “I am prepared to take her off your hands now.”
“But misery and woe,” said Selius Arconious, “even if I were to give her to you for nothing, I would be cheating you. For she is less than worthless. I may be a poor businessman, but I am not a dishonest fellow. You may not have her.”
“Oh?” said Mirus, seemingly amused.
“She is not for sale,” said Selius Arconious.
“But she could, of course, be sold,” said Mirus. Ellen did not doubt but what that remark was for her benefit, to remind her of what she was on this world.
To be sure she needed no reminding.
She well understood her status on this world, and had long understood it, that she was goods, a shapely commodity with which men might do as they wished.
“Of course,” said Selius Arconious, “as she is a slave.”
“I said nothing about buying,” said Mirus.
Ellen heard the men move restlessly.
“Do not think we do not know you,” said Mirus. “We recognize you as the tarnster who paid for a slave with Cosian gold, from the mint at Jad.”
“I do not know from whence it came,” said Selius Arconious. “That seems to me quite mysterious. I merely found it.”
“Where?”
“Here and there.”
“We have no Cosian gold,” said Portus Canio. “If you wish to look about, do so. Otherwise, be off. Our patience grows short.”
“Then they have put it somewhere,” snapped one of the men behind Mirus. It was the first time he had spoken. Ellen had sensed, from some days ago, in the tent, that he stood high in the group, perhaps amongst the top two or three, at least amongst the men.
“I have little interest in the Cosian gold,” said Mirus. “That is the concern of Cos. But know that the Cosians are interested in you, tarnster, and some others here, if I am not mistaken, who escaped chains in the festival camp. There is a reward out for you, tarnster, and for your fellows, if I am not mistaken. Cos would like to know your whereabouts. Tarn patrols abound. They may be signaled. Give me the slave, and we will leave.”
“You have brought five men, and five beasts, and two sleen, to regain a single slave?” asked Portus Canio.
Mirus shrugged. “They wished to accompany me. I, alone, with a sleen, would have been enough.”
“We are nine men,” said Portus Canio, puzzled.
“I have this,” said Mirus, reaching within his robes.
Ellen cried out in misery.
“Perhaps the slave can explain it to you,” said Mirus.
In the hand of Mirus, brandished, glinting, there shone the grayish steel of an automatic pistol.
“Beware, Masters!” cried Ellen. “It is a weapon!”
“Surely an unlikely weapon,” said Selius Arconious. “It seems blunt for a knife, and small for a club.”
“Perhaps he stabs melons with it,” said one of the fellows at the wagon.
“And you draw the juice out through the hole?” speculated another.
“It might do to give an urt a headache, if you hit it hard enough,” suggested another. “Perhaps that is what it is for.”
“No, no, please, Masters!” cried Ellen. “I know what that is! I have seen such things! I do not know a word in Gorean for it. I do not think there is such a word. But it is dangerous. It can kill, kill! Believe me! It is a bow, a bow, or like that, or like a sling. It ejects pellets, stones, small knives, or however you can understand this! Try to understand what I am saying! Please! It is dangerous! It can kill! It is like lightning! Like lightning! I know! Please believe me, Masters!”
“Shall I demonstrate?” asked Mirus.
He was greeted by silence.
“I have no wish to kill anyone,” said Mirus, “but I am prepared to do so, if necessary.”
At this point the five men behind him loosened their outer riding robes, brushing them back over the left shoulder. Revealed then, in their keeping, sheathed, or, better, holstered, were similar devices. They did not move to draw them. The convenience, and stolid, latent menace of the devices, however, to any who understood them, was obtrusively evident.
“You cannot stand against them, Masters!” wept Ellen. “Give me to them!”
“This is called a gun, or a pistol,” said Mirus. “Now you have words for it. Now it is real to you.”
“Do not hurt them, Master!” wept Ellen. “I will go with you!”
“You will not ‘go with us’,” said Mirus. “You will be taken with us, whether you wish it or not, bound across a saddle, as the property slut you are.”
“That is theft,” said a man.
“Yes,” said Mirus.
Ellen moaned, softly, miserably.
Mirus regarded her, amused. “Are you standing in the presence of free men?” he asked.
“Forgive me, Master,” sobbed Ellen, and knelt.
“Spread your knees, slave girl,” said Mirus.
“Yes, Master,” said Ellen. “Forgive me, Master.”
“Do you want to go with them?” asked Selius Arconious.
Ellen looked up at him, tears in her eyes, her lip trembling, her body shaking. Though Mirus was now muchly Gorean, he, as she, was once of Earth, and thus there would be some commonality between them. He might understand something of her feelings, her fears. Might he not pity her, if only eventually, a former woman of his world, now a slave, helpless in her collar, as it might not occur to a Gorean to do? And did she not fear Selius Arconious whom she was sure would not be slow with the whip, should she prove in the least displeasing? And did she not hate Selius Arconious, for his coldness, his indifference and arrogance? And was not Selius Arconious a primitive barbarian, and not a cultured gentleman? And was he not a mere tarnster, whereas Mirus was apparently well placed and surely wealthy.
“Do not respond,” said Selius Arconious. “The question was foolish. I regret it. You have nothing to say in this matter. Your feelings, sleek little collared animal, are of no interest or importance. They are completely irrelevant. These matters have to do with men. And they will be decided by men, not livestock.” Then he turned to Mirus, who was astride the tharlarion. “Why do you want her?” he asked.