Conspirators of Gor

“It is important,” I said, “for the patron to win occasionally, else he might abandon the game, or grow suspicious.”

“And how,” he asked, “does the house obtain its advantage? Are there apertures in the ceiling through which an accomplice, perhaps with a glass, might somehow signal the house’s player, are there loitering observers nearby, in a position to read cards, and convey signals?”

“I do not think so,” I said.

“The advantage then,” he said, “lies in the cards themselves.”

“That is my understanding,” I said. “But I did not, personally, attend on the far tables.”

“There would be calls for new decks, sealed decks,” he said.

“I think that decks were prepared, and then sealed,” I said.

“The house’s player could recognize the nature and value of an opponent’s card from the back,” he said.

“There were intricate designs on the back of the cards,” I said, “apparently identical on each card.”

“But not identical,” he said, “for those who knew what to look for.”

“I think the differences were subtle,” I said, “very subtle.”

Desmond of Harfax then reached again into the leather envelope. He produced another sheet of paper. It was as unintelligible to me as the first, which had resembled, as I had been given to understand, the record, or annotation, of a kaissa game, but it was clearly different.

“What do you make of this?” he asked.

“I cannot read,” I said.

“This appears to be a list of cards,” he said. “But I am not sure what it actually is. I suspect a concealment is involved.”

“Perhaps in the manner of the preceding concealment,” I said, “a different card standing for a different letter, more than one card for a single letter, perhaps some cards standing for nothing.”

“Possibly,” he said. “But there are no doublings, or repetitions.”

“That is important?” I asked.

“I think so,” he said. “Surely it would severely restrict the potentiality for communication.”

“Perhaps it is an inferior device,” I said.

“We are not dealing with fools,” he said.

I was silent.

“In the case of the kaissa concealment,” he said, “we were fortunate enough to obtain, and later copy, crucial sheets, materials in virtue of which the message might be concealed, and then, later, revealed. But we have nothing similar here, no such sheets, no materials in virtue of which the message might be concealed or revealed.”

“In the first case,” I said, “you may have been fortunate.”

“I have a principal,” he said, “who is highly placed, who would have access to such things, if they existed.”

“Perhaps not,” I said.

“Yes, perhaps not,” he said.

“I fear I can be of little help to Master,” I said.

“Perhaps there is something simple here,” he said, “so simple we cannot see it.”

“Perhaps a single explanatory sheet, to which we lack access?” I suggested.

“Possibly,” he suggested, “but I do not think so.”

He reached again into the leather envelope. He drew out a deck of cards. He handed me the deck. “I want you to examine these cards, and see if anything occurs to you.”

“I suppose you have arranged the deck in the order prescribed by the sheet,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“And that did not prove illuminating?”

“No,” he said. “But I did not expect it to. It tells no more than the sheet itself.”

“They are very plain,” I said. “If they are prepared in such a way as to admit reading their values from the back, it must be very subtly done.”

“We are not concerned here with cheating at cards, but with concealed messages,” he said. “Does anything about the deck strike you as different, or unusual?”

“No,” I said. “You are thinking of something like the kaissa concealment.” ¹

“That would be the initial conjecture,” he said, “but it seems unlikely, as each card is different.”

“Then the order of the cards must be important,” I said.

“I think so,” he said, “but what is the relevance of the order? What would it mean if, say, a Physician’s Vulo is succeeded by a Scribe’s Tarsk?”

“Perhaps that would stand for an entire message,” I said, “something like ‘Meet at dawn’, ‘Bring gold’, ‘Depart on the morrow’, such things.”

“That is far too complex in one sense,” he said, “for it would require a storeroom of messages, and too simple in another, as one might wish to express something not in the stock of messages.”

“The arrangements of the cards would be limited,” I said.

“That is not the problem,” he said. “You are dealing with sixty cards. Consider the matter. The formula is simple and involves diminishing multiplications. If there were two cards, there would be two arrangements, as in two times one; if three cards, six arrangements, as in three times two times one; if five cards, one hundred and twenty arrangements, as in five times four, times three, times two, times one. If there were ten cards, in this fashion, there would be over three million arrangements, and so on.”

“On my former world,” I said, “I left such things to others.”

“You doubtless left many things to others.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“You were substantially useless, were you not?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“But one can find uses for such women,” he said, “whether of your former world or of Gor, when they are collared.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. On Gor I had found myself owned, under discipline, and put to work. On Gor women such as I were good for something, indeed many things. Masters saw to it. And one of the things a slave was to be good for, indeed usually the most important thing, was to give her master incredible pleasure. Surely she was expected to do more than cook and clean, shop, fetch sandals on all fours, bringing them to a fellow in her teeth, and such. Why then, I wondered, with all his opportunities, even in the slave wagon on a blanket, had he never put the slave, Allison, to use, full slave use, in the fullest sense that is understood on Gor. Ah yes, I thought, honor, honor! Mina, at least, I thought, had the reassurance and comfort of her shackle at a slave ring. To be sure, there was a difference. Trachinos had bought her.

Sometimes it is hard to be a slave. One is so much at the mercy of the free. May one be clothed? Will one be caressed, will one be given a sweet? Will one be allowed to crawl, begging, to the feet of the master?

“But even so,” he said, “even with so many possibilities, it is almost certain one would often wish to express something new or different.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“More importantly,” he said, “Kleomenes, in the camp, I am sure, conveyed something secretly to Pausanias by means of cards, furnishing him with instructions, directions, or such. Surely Kleomenes had no bundles of messages to rummage through, in the saddle bags of his tharlarion, looking for a card equivalent, nor had Pausanias a wagon load of card equivalents by means of which he might locate messages.”

“I do not think so,” I said.

“So there must be something simple here, so simple that it is hard to see, so obvious that it is not noticed.”

“Perhaps you do not have the right deck,” I said.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Yet this deck was furnished by my principal.”

“Can he not explain these things?” I asked.

“He is as baffled as we,” said Desmond of Harfax. “He has tortured himself to make sense of the possible meaning of the list, the meaning of the individual cards, their order, and such.”