'Surely some must be,' I said, 'if only to effect the graces and utilities oftrade.'
I looked over the low roof of the barge's cabin to the canal beyond. A hundredor so feet away there was the small boat of an urt hunter. His girl, the rope onher neck, crouched in the bow. This rope is about twenty feet long. One end ofit is tied on her neck and the other end is fastened on the boat, to the bowring. The hunter stood behind her with his pronged urt spear. These men serve animportant function in Port Kar, which is to keep down the urt population in thecanals. At a word from the man the girl, the rope trailing behind her, dove intothe canal. Behind the man, in the stern, lay the bloody, white-furred bodies oftwo canal urts. One would have weighed about sixty pounds, and the other, Ispeculate, about seventy-five or eighty pounds. I saw the girl swimming in thecanal, the rope on her neck, amidst the garbage. It is less expensive and moreefficient to use a girl for this type of work than, say, a side of tarsk. Thegirl moves in the water, which tends to attract the urts and, if no mishapoccurs, may be used again and again. Some hunters use a live verr but this isless effective as the animal, squealing, and terrified, is difficult to drivefrom the side of the boat. The slave girl, on the other hand, can be reasonedwith. She knows that if she is not cooperative she will be simply bound hand andfoot and thrown alive to the urts. This modality of hunting, incidentally, isnot as dangerous to the girl as it might sound, for very few urts make theirstrike from beneath the surface. The urt, being an air-breathing mammal,commonly makes its strike at the surface itself, approaching the quarry with itssnout and eyes above the water, its ears laid back against the sides of itslong, triangular head. To be sure, sometimes the urt surfaces near the girl andapproaches her with great rapidity. Thus, in such a situation, she may not havetime to return to the boat. In such a case, of course, the girl must depend forher life on the steady hand and keen eye, the swiftness, the strength andtiming, the skill, of the urt hunter, her master. Sometimes, incidentally, amaster will rent his girl to an urt hunter, this being regarded as useful in herdiscipline.
There are very few girls who, after a day or two in the canals, and then beingreturned to their masters, do not strive to be completely pleasing.
'You need not warn Zarendargar,' said Samos. 'He knows he will be sought. Thatwe have, in effect, on the authority of one of the very beasts to whom we spokethis morning.'
'He may not know that the Death Squad has landed on Gor,' I said. 'He may notknow that they are aware of his general location. He may not know with whom itis that he will be dealing.'
'These things are his concern,' said Samos, not yours.'
'Perhaps,' I said.
'Once,' said Samos, 'he sent you forth upon the ice, to be slain by anotherKur.'
'He did his duty, as he saw it,' I said.
'And now you would render him succor?' asked Samos.
'Yes,' I said.
'He might slay you, instantly, if he saw you,' said Samos.
'It is true he is an enemy,' I said. 'That is a risk I must take.'
'He may not even recognize you,' said Samos.
'Perhaps,' I said. This was, I supposed, a danger. Just as human beings oftenfound it difficult to distinguish among various Kurii, so, too, many Kurii,apparently, often found it difficult to distinguish among various human beings.
On the other hand, I was confident that Zarendargar would know me. I had nodoubt but what I would recognize him. One does not forget a Kur such asHalf-Ear, or Zarendargar, one who stood above the rings, a war general among theKurii.
'I forbid you to go,' said Samos.
'You cannot do that,' I said.
'In the name of Priest-Kings,' he said, 'I forbid you to go.
'My wars are my own,' I said. 'I choose them as I please.'
I looked beyond Samos to the boat and urt hunter in the canal. The girl climbed,shivering, into the bow of the boat, the wet rope on her neck. In the bow of theboat, crouching there, nude and shivering, she coiled, in careful circles, inthe shallow, wooden rope bucket beside her, the central length of the rope, thatbetween her neck and the bow ring. Only then did she reach for the thick woolenblanket, from the wool of the hurt, and clutch it, shuddering, about her. Herhair, wet, was very dark against the white blanket. She was comely. I wonderedif she were being rented out for discipline, or if she belonged to the urthunter. It was not easy to tell.
Most Gorean slave girls are comely, or beautiful. This is easy to understand. Itis almost always the better looking women who are taken for slaves, and, ofcourse, in breeding slaves, it is commonly only the most beautiful of femaleslaves who are used, these usually being crossed, hooded, with handsome malesilk slaves, also hooded. The female offspring of these matings, needless tosay, are often exquisite. The male offspring, incidentally, and interestingly,to my mind, are often handsome, strong and quite masculine. This is perhapsbecause many male silk slaves are chosen to be male silk slaves not because theyare weak or like women, but because they are not; it is only that they are men,and often true men, who must serve women, totally, in the same fashion that aslave female is expected to serve a free master. To be sure, it is also true,and should be admitted in all honesty, that many male silk slaves are ratherfeminine; some women prefer this type, perhaps because they fear true men; fromsuch a silk slave they need not fear that they may suddenly be turned upon, andtied, and taught to be women. Most women, however, after a time, find this typeof silk slave a banality and a bore; charm and wit can be entertaining, but, intime, if not conjoined with intellect and true masculine power, they are likelyto wear thin.
The feminine type of male silk slave, incidentally, for better or for worse, isseldom selected for breeding purposes. Gorean slave breeders, perhaps benightedin this respect, prefer what they take to be health to what they think of assickness, and what they take to be strength to what they deem weakness. Somefemale slaves, incidentally, have a pedigreed lineage going back through severalgenerations of slave matings, and their masters hold the papers to prove this.
It is a felony in Gorean law to forge or falsify such papers. Many Goreansbelieve that all women are born for the collar, and that a woman cannot be trulyfulfilled as a woman until a strong man puts it on her, until she finds herselfreduced to her basic femaleness at his feet.
In the case of the bred female slave, of course, she has been legally andliterally, in anyone's understanding, bred to the collar, and in a fullcommercial and economic sense, as a business speculation on the part of masters.
The features most often selected for by the breeders are beauty and passion. Ithas been found that intelligence, of a feminine sort, as opposed to thepseudomasculine type of intelligence often found in women with large amounts ofmale hormones, is commonly linked, apparently genetically, with these twohitherto mentioned properties. There are few male slaves with long pedigrees.
Goreans, though recognizing the legal and economic legitimacy of male slavery,do not regard it as possessing the same biological sanction as attaches tofemale slavery. The natural situation, in the mind of many Goreans, is that themaster set/slave relation is one, which ideally exists between man and woman,with the woman in the property position. Male slaves, from time to time, canreceive opportunities to win their freedom, though, to be sure, usually insituations of high risk and great danger. Such opportunities are never accordedto the female slave. She is totally helpless. If she is to receive her freedomit will be fully and totally, and only, by the decision of her master.
'You are, then, seriously, considering going to the Barrens?' asked Samos.
'Yes,' I said.
'You are a foolish and stubborn fellow,' said Samos.
'Perhaps,' I said. I lifted the roll of kailiauk hide I carried. 'May I keepthis?' I asked.
'Of course,' said Samos.
I handed it to one of my men. I thought it might prove useful in the Barrens.
'You are fully determined?' asked Samos.
'Yes,' I said.
'Wait,' he said. He went back to the door of the enclosed cabin and re-enteredit. In a moment he re- emerged, carrying the boxlike translator, which we badbrought from the tam complex. 'You may need this,' said Samos, handing it to oneof my men.
'Thank you, Samos,' I said.
'I wish you well,' he said.
