I smiled.
Last night, an Ahn after she had been put in her cage, I had once glanced upon her. She had been tying on her back in the cage, her knees drawn up. Her hands had been beside her thighs, their backs resting on the metal of the cage floor. Her head had been turned toward me. When she had seen me look at her, she had looked up, quickly, at the square of sheet metal above her.
I had gone to the side of the cage, and crouched there. 'Nadu,' I had said to her, and she had then knelt before me, within the cage, behind the bars, in the position of the pleasure slave. I had studied her body, and, in particular, her face, her eyes and expression. I had then reached through the bars and taken her by the upper arms. She seemed terrified, but made no sound. I drew her toward me, until I held her against the bars. I held her there for more than a minute, reading in her eyes, and in my grip of her soft upper arms, the tenseness, the softness, the confusion, the desire, the fear, of the lovely slave.
Then I had seen what I had wanted. She pressed herself against the bars. Her eyes were closed. The lower portion of her face, the bars cruel against it, thrust toward me. Her lips, soft and wet, opened to me.
'Oh, no,' she had then breathed, softly, in English, and, frightened, had drawn back. I had then released her arms and she had crouched back in the cage, against the bars on the other side. I had neither kissed nor, really, refused to kiss her. It had happened, really, neither quickly nor slowly, but as it had happened, she offering her lips, almost inadvertently, hesitating, and then, frightened, dismayed, drawing back. I do not think I would have kissed her, as I did not own her, but she, of course, had not known that. I had been interested, of course, in assessing the current level of her development in bondage. That could make a difference in what happened to her, and what happened to her could make a difference in the success or failure of my own mission in Schendi. If she were still too rigid or irritating to men she might even, possibly, be slain before she could lead me to the mysterious Shaba. But my small test, affirmative in its results, convinced me that she was probably slave enough already to be permitted to live at least until she were thrown naked at his feet.
I had then continued to look at the girl for a few moments. She looked at me, miserably, frightened.
'I am not a slave,' she said to herself, in English, and then, suddenly, put her head in her hands, sobbing.
I smiled.
Surely she must have sensed that the mouth kiss which she had so helplessly proffered, and had proffered as a slave, was the symbolic opening of her vagina to male penetration.
'I am not a slave, I am not a slave,' she wept.
How these Earth women fight the natural woman in themselves. As far as I could tell it was not wrong to be a woman, any more than it was wrong to be a man. I do not know, of course, for I am not a woman. Perhaps it is wrong to be a woman. If not, why should they fight it so? But perhaps weak men, who fear true women, have conditioned them so. It is not clear that any true man would object to a true woman. It is clear, however, that those who fear to be either will object to both. Values are interesting. How transitory and peculiar are the winds which blow over the plains of biology.
'I am not a slave,' wept the girl. 'I am not a slave.' Then she looked at me, suddenly, angrily. 'You know that I am a slave, don't you, you brute?' She asked, in English.
I said nothing to her.
'Is that why I hate you so much,' she wept, 'because you know that I am a slave?'
I looked at her.
'Or do I hate you so much,' she asked, 'because I want you as my master?'
Then she put down her head, again. 'No, no,' she wept. 'I am not a slave. I am not a slave!'
I then withdrew. I had no objection to the girl addressing herself to me in English, which she was confident I did not understand. I thought it healthy that she be given the opportunity to ventilate her feelings. Many Gorean masters permit a barbarian to prattle upon occasion in her native tongue. It is thought to be good for them.
A few minutes later I had joined Sasi on the blankets.
'Please touch me, Master,' she had begged.
'Very well,' I had said.
I glanced back once at the cage of the blond-haired barbarian. Shoka had covered it for the night.
I had seen her body and eyes proclaim her slavery, and I had heard her mouth both deny it, and affirm it, and then again deny it. The blond-haired girl was still fighting herself. She did not know yet who or what she was. Interestingly I had heard her ask herself if she hated me, because she wanted me as her master. I knew that a girl who wants a man for her master can perform wonders for him. And yet she was only an ignorant girl, a raw girl, new to the collar. What did she know of being the slave of a master? But then I recalled that she had again denied being a slave. I smiled to myself. What a little fool she was. She did not yet know. truly, that she was a slave.
'Oh, Master,' said Sasi.
Then I turned my attention away from the blond-haired girl, her intended role in my plans and what might lie ahead In Schendi. I then turned my full attention to the sweet, squirming, collared Sasi, the branded, curvacious little beast from the wharves of Port Kar. What a delight she was. She had none of the problems of the blond-haired girl. But, too, she was Gorean. Almost as soon as the collar had been locked on her she had begun, happily, to blossom in her bondage. Slavery is cultural for Goreans. They know it is something a woman can be.
'You give me great pleasure, Master,' she said.
'Be quiet,' I told her.
'Yes, Master,' she whispered.
A quarter of an Ahn later I held and kissed her, gently, letting her subside at her own rhythms. 'What are you?' I asked her.
'A slave, Master,' she said.
'Whose slave?' I asked.
'Yours, Master,' she said.
'Are you happy?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she whispered. 'Yes, Master.'
The Palms of Schendi had now begun to come about, about Point Schendi.
The yards swung on the masts, capitalizing on the wind. The oars dipped and lifted.
We were still some seven or eight pasangs from the buoy lines. I could see ships in the harbor.
We would come in with a buoy line on the port side. Ships, too, would leave the harbor with the line of their port side. This regulates traffic. In the open sea, similarly, ships keep one another, where possible, on their port sides, thus passing to starboard.
'What is the marking on the buoy line that will be used by Ulafi?' I asked Shoka, who stood near me, by the girls, at the bow.
'Yellow and white stripes,' he said. 'That will lead to the general merchant wharves. The warehouse of Ulafi is near wharf eight.'
'Do you rent wharfage?' I asked.
'Yes, from the merchant council,' he said.
White and gold, incidentally, are the colors of the merchants. Usually their robes are white, trimmed with gold. That the buoy line was marked in yellow and white stripes was indicative of the wharves toward which it led. I have never seen, incidentally, gold paint on a buoy. It does not show up as well as enameled yellow in the light of ships' lanterns.
I could see some forty or fifty sails in the harbor. There must then have been a great many more ships in the harbor, for most ships, naturally, take in their canvas when moored. The ships under sail must, most of them, have been entering or leaving the harbor. Most of the ships, of course, would be small ships, coasting vessels and light galleys. Also, of course, there were river ships in the harbor, used in the traffic on the Nyoka.
I had not realized the harbor at Schendi was so large. It must have been some eight pasangs wide and some two or three pasangs in depth. At its eastern end, of course, at one point, the Nyoka, channeled between stone embankments, about two hundred yards apart, flows into it. The Nyoka, because of the embankments, enters the harbor much more rapidly than it normally flows. It is generally, like the Kamba, a wide, leisurely river. Its width, however, about two pasangs above Schendi, is constricted by the embankments. This is to control the river and protect the port. A result, of course, of the narrowing, the amount of water involved being the same, is
