“To the culture itself,” she said, “its prolongation.”
“I see,” I said.
A culture did seem to have its own dynamics, its own life, a life, a biography, to which the welfare or happiness of its components might be only indirectly related, if at all. A plant was organic, and the health of the plant assured the health of its components. A culture, on the other hand, though it might crumble and lapse into obsolescence, was commonly not organic, but mechanistic, and the functioning of the machine required not the happiness, health, or welfare of its parts, but only that they functioned appropriately, contributing to the pointless longevity of the machine itself.
“Is there no such thing as nature?” I asked. “Is there only misery, prisons, guns, and hatred?”
“Nature does not exist,” she said.
“You cannot be serious,” I said.
“It does not exist in any important sense,” she said.
“If not,” I said, “why must it be so fiercely contested, so strenuously fought against?”
“It is inimical to civilization,” she said.
“Only to unnatural civilizations,” I said.
“All civilizations are unnatural,” she said.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “There is no reason why a civilization cannot be an expression of nature, rather than her enemy, in its way an enhancement of nature, a celebration of nature.”
“There are no such civilizations!” she said.
“There have been several,” I said.
“None now!” she cried.
“I know of at least one,” I said.
“No!” she said. “No, no, no!”
“What are you afraid of?” I asked.
“I am not afraid!” she cried. She pulled down, desperately, at the hem of her tunic, with both hands. “Do not look at me so!” she cried to Pertinax.
“There is no ship,” said Pertinax.
I think Pertinax had begun to sense how a woman might be viewed, particularly one in such a tunic.
Women were not men.
They were quite different.
“Do not look at me so!” she said to Pertinax. “Are you some boor, or brute? Have you not been educated?”
“I was not educated,” said Pertinax. “I was trained, indoctrinated. Perhaps only now has my education begun.”
“Beast!” she cried.
“What of the test of life consequences?” I asked.
“I do not understand!” she wept.
“Does the mastery not fill a man with power,” I asked, “with zest, with vitality, with a sense of reality and identity, with a sense of fittingness, with a sense of being himself, with a sense at last of being a part of nature rather than a dislocated, lost, wandering fragment shorn from her?”
“Why have we not been brought before Lord Nishida!” she cried.
“The mastery fulfills a man,” I said. “What man is complete until he has at his feet a slave?”
“A slave! Oh, yes, a slave!” laughed Miss Wentworth, scornfully.
Then she turned to Cecily.
“Slave!” she said.
“Mistress?” said Cecily.
“You are a slave, are you not?” asked Miss Wentworth.
“Yes, Mistress,” said Cecily, frightened.
Surely Miss Wentworth could see that her fair throat was enclosed in the circlet of bondage.
“Worthless, degraded, meaningless, naked slave!” said Miss
Wentworth.
“Yes, Mistress,” whispered Cecily.
“You, slave,” cried Miss Wentworth scornfully to Cecily, “are you happy as a slave, do you want to be a slave, are you fulfilled as a slave?”
“It does not matter, Mistress,” said Cecily, “whether or not I am happy to be a slave, whether or not I want to be a slave, whether or not I am fulfilled as a slave. I am a slave.”
“Answer me, slut,” cried Miss Wentworth. “And speak the truth!”
“I must speak the truth, Mistress,” said Cecily. “I am a slave.”
“That is true,” I said to Miss Wentworth. “The slave must speak the truth. She is not a free woman.”
“Yes, Mistress,” said Cecily. “I am happy to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I am fulfilled to be a slave! It is what I have always been, and knew myself to be, and now the collar is on me! I am a slave, and should be a slave. It is what I am, what I want to be, and what I should be!”
“Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting!” screamed Miss Wentworth.
I did not understand her concern. If some women were slaves, and wished to be slaves, and loved being owned, and wanted to be at the feet of masters, why should she object? What was it to her?
“Have I come at an inopportune time?” inquired Tajima.
“No,” I said.
He had entered in his quiet, polite way, unobtrusively.
“Lord Nishida,” said Tajima, “regrets the delay, but he was awaiting an envoy, one from exalted personages.”
I supposed that would be some Gorean. Perhaps it would be Sullius Maximus, pretending, again, to be an agent of Priest-Kings. I had little doubt that the true agent had been disposed of, doubtless long ago, probably cast to the nine-gilled sharks of Thassa. They often follow in the wake of a ship, to retrieve garbage.
“There!” said Miss Wentworth. “At last! Now we will receive our pay, be conducted to the coast, board ship, and, soon, brought first to an appropriate base, find ourselves again on Earth.”
“Your slave is very pretty,” said Tajima, noting Cecily.
He viewed her as what she was, a lovely animal, perhaps even a prize animal.
“Thank you,” I said.
Masters are often pleased when their beasts are commended. Such commendation, you see, reflects credit on him. In such a way he is complimented on his taste in women, in slaves.
“You may finish my tea,” I told the slave, handing her the cup, with its residue, “and then you may clothe yourself.”
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”
She put her head down to drink. She held the cup with two hands, as a Gorean cup is commonly held.
“Do white women make pleasing slaves?” asked Tajima.
“Yes,” I said.
“That is well,” he said.
“I cannot see Lord Nishida like this,” said Miss Wentworth, indicating her brief tunic, little now but a rag, given our journey through the forest. “Bring me something suitable!”
“I have,” said Tajima, who held, over his left forearm, what appeared to be, arranged in several narrow folds, a sheet of rep cloth.
“Give it to me,” said Miss Wentworth, putting out her hand.
“Outside,” said Tajima, “there are three tubs, filled with hot water, in which you may soak, and enjoy yourselves. It will be very pleasant, and there are, at hand, smooth scrapers of sandalwood, scents, oils, and towels.”
“Outside?” said Miss Wentworth.
“She is not used to public bathing,” I said.
“Interesting,” said Tajima. “We shall have one of the tubs brought within the hut.”
“No,” said Miss Wentworth.
