“She will do much for a sweet,” he said.
“I, too, would like a sweet,” I said.
“You have not earned one,” he said. Then he said, “Keep working. I shall return these sheets before locking time. Hopefully this business will be finished by tomorrow.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Hopefully, Pausanias will not be satisfied with but one taste of Chloe,” he said.
“Perhaps not,” I said.
“It seems you sluts know how to manage such things almost off the block,” he said.
“We are women,” I said.
“And slaves,” he said.
“The most female of women,” I said.
“Certainly,” he said.
“Perhaps Chloe will earn another sweet,” I said.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Are you jealous?”
“No,” I said.
“Are you a liar?” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“You are pretty in your camisk,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” I said.
“Continue your work,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I paused, frightened, before the door to the Punishment Room, to which a white-faced Nora had instructed me to report.
Nora’s discipline, of late, while remaining strict, was no longer vindictive or arbitrary. This had much to do, I supposed, with having been shackled at the slave ring of Kleomenes. I still feared her, and mightily, but I knew now I would be punished only when I might be displeasing.
But I had been instructed to report to the Punishment Room.
Who then had arranged this? Who might I have displeased?
I had no idea what might lie within the Punishment Room, and I was not eager to find out.
The door of the room was slightly ajar. I could see that the wood was thick, presumably that the cries from those within might not resound in the hall outside.
I was then conscious of a figure behind me. I could not kneel for a hand on my upper right arm held me on my feet.
“Shall we enter?” inquired Desmond of Harfax.
I was conducted within the room, and looked about myself. The room was lit with energy bulbs, as were the numerous chambers and labyrinthine halls of the Cave. The room was relatively bare. I saw no chains, whips, pincers, tongs, irons, boots, crowns, knives, and such, no miscellany of paraphernalia or furniture designed to produce pain of one sort or another, to one degree or another. I detected not even a brazier, within whose coals implements of one sort or another might be heated, nor a tank within whose iced waters implements of another sort might be chilled.
Desmond of Harfax closed the door behind us, and bolted it shut, from the inside.
There was a long table in the room, with benches. Master Desmond took a seat on one of the benches, and indicated that I might kneel beside him. In the presence of a master a kneeling or lying position is common with female slaves. For example, one might lie on the floor on one’s side, looking up at him, at the foot of his couch.
“I cannot withstand torture, Master,” I said, kneeling at his knee. “I do not know what I have done, or what I might be supposed to have done. I know nothing.”
I did know that testimony from a slave, at least in a court of law, is commonly taken under torture. As noted before, the theory is that the slave may be expected to tell the truth only under duress. In fact, of course, the slave is likely to say, and quite soon, whatever the judge wishes to hear.
“Look about you,” said Master Desmond. “Do you think this is a Punishment Room?”
“It does not look like one,” I said.
“It is not a Punishment Room,” he said. “It is a room called a Punishment Room.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Would you like to see a true Punishment Room?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Calling this a Punishment Room,” he said, “discourages entry, and increases privacy. It gave us a place where Jane and Eve might work undisturbed, copying the sheets Chloe, and you, prepared for Pausanias.”
“You have bolted the door,” I said.
“We may then speak in privacy,” he said.
“I am at Master’s mercy,” I said.
“Are you alarmed?” he asked.
“A little,” I said. “But I think Master is generally disposed to be kind to an animal.”
“Unless she is in the least bit displeasing,” he said.
“Of course, Master,” I said. I was well aware of what might occur if a Gorean master found one less than fully pleasing. Accordingly, one attempts to be fully pleasing.
“We find this room a great convenience,” he said.
“We?” I asked.
“It has been arranged by another,” he said.
“Why have Jane and Eve been copying the sheets of Pausanias?” I asked.
“That we may have copies, of course,” he said.
“I understand little of this,” I said, “nothing of this.”
“Let us suppose,” he said, “that there is a vast conspiracy afoot, with one or more worlds at stake. Let us also suppose that this conspiracy’s projection is threefold, one of alliance, one of extermination, or virtual extermination, and one of ultimate victory.”
“I am only slave,” I said, frightened.
“You already know Kurii have designs on this world,” he said.
“I am only a slave,” I said.
“The first phase,” he said, “is likely to be securing the surface of Gor, with the exception, perhaps, of the Sardar Mountains, taken to be the range of Priest-Kings. The Priest-Kings, as is well known, tend to refrain from interference in the affairs of both Kurii and men, provided their weapon and technology laws are respected.”
“Do Priest-Kings exist?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Desmond of Harfax, “though their nature is little known. We think them to be much like men. Kurii perhaps think them much like Kurii. Their power makes clear their existence, for example the Flame Death, selectively used, usually to enforce the weapon and technology laws, the policing of the skies, to seek out and destroy intruding ships, the inability of tarns to fly over the palisaded Sardar, and such things. In any event, the first phase will presumably be the conquest of Gor, its surface, so to speak, largely within the circumscriptions of the laws. Given the limited numbers of Kurii on Gor at this time, they will begin by forging alliances with dissident elements in given cities, the resentful, envious, and jealous, those of thwarted ambition, and such, for there are always such, to bring them to power in their own cities, and then it will be these cities against other cities, the Kurii surreptitiously abetting their allies, as before, to the extent possible, with forbidden means. These means, together with numerous supplementary Kur contingents, as possible, will be obtained from one or more of the remote habitats of Kurii. Thus, at the end of the first phase one would have a conquered world putatively shared by men and Kurii, men who have served Kurii, and Kurii who have directed and managed men, the men unaware of their
