'No,' he said. 'It was too darkly pelted to be an ice beast.'
'Could you lead me soon to the mountain that does not move?' I asked.
'It is the night now,' said Karjuk, 'and the time of darkness. The ice is dangerous. It is at this time that the ice beasts sometimes come inland.'
'Yet you will lead me there, will you not?' I asked. I smiled.
'Yes,' said Karjuk, 'if you wish.'
'That is my wish,' I said.
'Very well,' said Karjuk.
'There will be little danger if Karjuk is with us,' said Poalu. 'He is the guard.'
'I will come with you,' said Imnak.
'You need not do that,' I said.
Imnak looked at the severed head of the white-pelted Kur. It was difficult to read his face. 'No,' he said, 'I will come with you.'
Karjuk sipped his tea.
'I, too, of course, will accompany you,' said Ram.
'Will you trade Bazi tea to the ice beasts?' I asked.
'I am coming,' said Ram.
'Very well, my friend,' I said. I looked at Karjuk. 'When shall we leave?' I asked Karjuk.
'I must finish my tea,' he said, 'and then sleep. We may then leave.'
'Would you like the use of any of my women?' asked Imnak of Karjuk. indicating Poalu, and Thimble and Thistle.
'Or the use of my pretty slave?' I asked, indicating Arlene.
Arlene drew back. She was frightened of the thin, dour Karjuk. Yet she knew that at my slightest word, should I speak it, she would have to serve him, fully, for she was slave.
Karjuk looked at Poalu, in the two golden bracelets, which had been rings in the ears of the slain Kur. The rings, as bracelets, were pretty on her small red wrist. She was a lovely red slave.
She drew back a bit.
'No,' said Karjuk.
He finished his tea and then crawled into furs on the sleeping platform. The others, too, prepared to retire.
'Let us not bring the girls with us,' I suggested to Imnak.
'No,' said Imnak. 'We will bring them. Who else will chew the ice from our boots, and sew for us, and boil meat and tend the lamps, and keep us warm in the furs?' He rolled over in the furs. 'We will take snow sleen and women,' he said.
'Very well,' I said. I did not think, objectively, there would be great danger for the women. If what I suspected was true, uses would be found for them. They were all beautiful.
'Master,' whispered Arlene.
'Yes,' I said.
'May I crawl into your furs?' she asked.
'Are you cold?' I asked. She had her own furs. Sometimes she had to sleep alone, as when I was sleeping with Audrey or Barbara.
'No, Master,' she whispered.
'Your need to serve a man is hot on you, Slave?' I asked.
'I am frightened,' she said.
I held open the furs and let her creep into them, beside me. I held her, under the furs, in my arms. She trembled, small, against me.
'I'm frightened,' she whispered, her face, so soft, against my chest.
'Of what are you frightened?' I asked.
'Of Karjuk,' she said, 'and of going out on the ice.' She held me, closely. 'What will you find there?' she asked.
'I do not know,' I said.
'You search for the headquarters of those who were my superiors, do you not? she asked.
'Yes,' I said, 'Slave.'
'They must assuredly be dangerous,' she said.
'Perhaps,' I said.
'Avoid them then at all costs,' she said. 'Flee to the south,' she whispered.
'Do you beg it? I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'No,' I said. 'Your will means nothing.'
She sobbed.
'Do you know the nature of those who were your superiors,' I asked.
'No,' she said.
'Look,' I said to her, taking her head and turning it, so that she might see, in the dim light of the lamp, the head of the Kur. 'They are much like that,' I said.
She half choked with horror. 'No,' she said.
'It was such as they whom you, when free, served, my lovely slave beauty,' I said.
'No, no,' she whispered.
'But, yes,' I smiled. 'It is true.'
'What will be done with you, if you fall into their hands?' she asked.
'I do not know,' I said. 'I suspect it would not be pleasant.'
'What would they do with me, if I fell into their hands?' she asked.
'Perhaps you would be restored to all your rights and privileges,' I said, 'and would again become an operative for them.'
'I failed them,' she whispered.
'That is true,' I said. 'Perhaps they would find some other tasks for you to perform.'
'Like what?' she asked.
'You would look well,' I said, 'in a wisp of slave silk and a steel collar.'
'They would keep me as a slave? she asked.
'I am sure you were brought to Gor, ultimately, to be a slave,' I said. 'You are too beautiful to be indefinitely left free.'
She held me.
'Your beauty, you see,' I said, 'has a cost on this world. Its price is your freedom. Beauty, and exquisite femininity, such as yours, buys for itself on this world chains and a master.'
'I am going to say something to you,' she said, 'which I had never thought I would say to a man.'
'What is that?' I asked.
'I would love to wear your chains, Master,' she whispered. Then she sobbed, shaken with the horror of this confession.
'Do not weep,' I said. 'It is only that you are a slave.' I kissed her. 'Would you lick and kiss your chains?' I asked.
'Do not make me do that,' she begged, turning her head aside, weeping.
'It is not my intention to make you do that,' I said.
'I do not know what I would do if you were to throw your chains to my feet,' she said.
'I know what Audrey would do,' I said.
'Yes,' said Arlene, bitterly, 'so do I, the little slut. She would kneel, and lift them, and lick and kiss them.'
'I think so,' I said.
'What a slave she is,' said Arlene.
'Her intelligence,' I said, 'is fully comparable to yours, and may be superior,' I said.
'That is what I cannot understand,' said Arlene. 'How can a woman of her intelligence be such a slave?'
