Often I had to force from my mind the look on the face of the second slave, she called Vella, of triumph, as she, small and lovely, luscious, freed of the rack ropes had sat up on the knotted ropes, after her testimony had confirmed that of others, of Zaya, the other girl, and Ibn Saran, sending me to the brine pits of Klima. She had been pleased. I would go to Klima. The slave girl had had her vengeance. She, with her lie, confirming those of others, had determined the matter well. Then, her testimony done, she, with the other wench, had been chained as a slave. I recalled her smile, and that I, though innocent, was to go to Klima.
I was not pleased with the female slave.
I looked up. With Ibn Saran were four men. One of them held up a tharlarion-oil lamp.
“Do you understand what it is,” asked Ibn Saran, “to be sent to Klima-to be a salt slave?”
“I think so,” I told him.
“There is the march to Klima.” said he, “through the dune country, on foot, chained, on which many die.”
I said nothing.
“And should you be so unfortunate,” said he, “to reach the vicinity of Klima, your feet must he bound with leather to your knees, for you will sink through the salt crusts to your knees, and, unprotected, your flesh, by the millions of tiny, heated crystals, would be grated and burned from your bones.”
I looked away, in the chains.
“In the pits,” he said, “you pump water through underground deposits, to wash salt, with the water, to the surface, and repump again the same water. Men die at the pumps, in the heat. Others, the carriers, in the brine, must fill their yoke buckets with the erupted sludge, and carry it from the pits to the drying tables; others must gather the salt and mold it into cylinders.” He smiled.
“Sometimes men kill one another for the lighter assignments.”
I did not look at him.
“But you,” said he, “who attempted to assassinate our noble Suleiman Pasha, will not be given light assignments.”
I pulled at the chains.
“It is the steel of Ar,” he said. “It is excellent, brought in by caravan.”
I fought the manacles.
“It will hold you quite well,” said he, “-Tarl Cabot.”
I looked at him.
“It will amuse me,” he said, “to think of Tarl Cabot, laboring in the brine pits. As I rest in my palace, in cool of the rooms, on cushions, relishing custards and berries, sipping beverages, delighted by my slave girls, among them your pretty Vella, I shall think of you, often, Tarl Cabot.”
I tore at the chains.
“The famed agent of Priest-Kings, Tarl Cabot,” he said, “in the brine pits!
Excellent! Superb!” He laughed. “You cannot free yourself,” he said, “You cannot win.”
I subsided in the chains, helpless.
“The day at Klima,” he said, “begins at dawn, and only ends at darkness. Food may be fried on the stones at Klima. The crusts are white. The glare from them can blind men. There are no kaiila at Klima. The desert, waterless, surrounds Klima, for more than a thousand pasangs on all sides. Never has a slave escaped from Klima. Among the less pleasant aspects of Klima is that you will not see females. You will note that, following your sentencing the sight of such flesh has been denied you. But then you can always think of your pretty Vella.”
In the manacles, my fists clenched.
“When I make her serve me,” he said, “I will think of you.”
“Where did you find her?” I asked.
“She has a very lively body, hasn’t she?” asked Ibn Saran.
“She is a female.” I said. “Where did you find her?”
“In a tavern in Lydius.” he said. “It is interesting. We bought her, originally, simply as a slave. We keep our eyes open for good female flesh, it is useful to our purposes, in infiltrating houses, in obtaining secrets, in seducing officers and important men, and, of course, to reward our followers and, naturally, as a simple item for exchange, a form of currency; the slave girl is usually in demand, particularly if beautiful and trained: at our wish, such women are conveniently marketable; there is little trouble in selling them; furthermore, they attract little undue commercial attention, for they are a familiar type of merchandise; thus, the slave girl, for us, if beautiful, and particularly if trained constitutes a reliable, safe, readily negotiable form of wealth”
“For anyone,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“And Vella?” I asked.
“The former Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, of New York City, the planet Earth?” he asked.
“You seem to have learned much,” I said.
“The Earth slave girl has taught us much,” he said. “She was a lucky catch. We were fortunate to get our chain on her collar.”
“What has she told you?” I asked.
“Whatever we wished to know,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, “I see.”
“Torture was not required,” said Ibn Saran. “Its threat was sufficient. She is only a woman. We chained her nude in a dungeon, with urts. In an hour, weeping, hysterical, she begged to speak. She was interrogated for the night. We learned all she knew. We learned much.”
“Surely you then freed her?” I asked, smiling. “For such aid?”
“It seems we promised to do so,” said he, “but, later, as I recall, it slipped our mind. We keep her slave.”
“Full slave?” I asked.
“Full slave,” he said.
“Fitting,” I said.
“She is a slave,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
“What, in particular,” I asked, “did you learn from the Earth slave girl, the former Miss Cardwell?”
“Many things,” said he, “but, doubtless of most importance, the weakness of the Nest.”
“You will now attack?” I asked.
“It will not be necessary,” he said.
“An alternate plan?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“What she told you, of course,” said I, “may not be true.”
“It tallies with the reports of other humans, who, once, long ago, fled the Sardar.”
These would have been the Nest’s humans who, following the Nest War, had elected to return to the surface of Gor.
“But are these reports true,” I asked, “or only, sincerely, believed to be true?”
“They could, of course, be implanted memories,” admitted Ibn Saran. “It could be a trick to lure an attack into a trap.”
I was silent.
“We are not unaware of such possibilities,” he said. “We have typically proceeded with caution.”
“But now it may matter less?” I asked.
“Now,” said he, “it may matter not at all. No longer need we listen with such care to the blabbering of slave girls.”
“You have a new strategy?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he said, smiling.
“Perhaps you would share it with one bound for the brine pits of Klima?” I asked.
He laughed. “And you might speak it to guards, or others!”
“My tongue could be cut out,” I said.
“And your hands cut off?” he laughed. “And then good would you be in the pits?”
“How did you learn that the slave, purchased only for her beauty in Lydius, was the former Elizabeth Cardwell?” I asked.
“Fingerprints,” he said. “Her accent, certain mannerisms, suggested Earth origin. We took her prints, curious. On our records they matched those of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, of New York City, Earth, who had been brought to Gor to wear the message collar to the Tuchuks.”
I recalled the collar. When first I had seen her, her stockings in shreds, her brief, yellow, Oxford-cloth shift dusty and stained, her neck bound to a capture lance, her wrists bound behind her, on the plains of the Wagon Peoples, a captive of Tuchuks, she had worn it. She had understood so little then, been so innocent of the affairs of worlds.
Now the girl was less innocent.
“The message collar,” said Ibn Saran, “failed to bring about your death, the termination of your quest for the last egg of Priest-Kings,” He smiled. “Indeed, the girl even became your slave.”