I thrust my shoulder against the giant wooden wheel of the slave wagon.
I heard, ahead, the crying out of the driver, the snapping of his long whip overthe backs of the two draft tharlarion harnessed to the wagon.
'Pull, lazy beasts!' he cried.
Knee deep in the mire I thrust, slipping, against the thick wooden wheel.
The wheel moved and the wagon, groaning, creaking, lurched upward and rolledforward.
I waded about the wagon and then attained the graveled surface and, running,caught up with the wagon, and drew myself up to the wagon box, beside thedriver.
'Why do you wish to find Grunt?' asked the driver, a young man with shaggy hair,cut short across the base of his neck.
'I am searching for something which may be in the Barrens,' I said.
'Stay out of them,' warned the young man. 'It can be death to enter them.'
'Grunt comes and goes, as I understand it,' I said.
'Some, merchants and traders, are permitted, by some of the tribes,' said theyoung man.
'Of all,' I said, 'I have heard that he is most welcome in the Barrens, andtravels furthest within them.'
'That may be true,' said the fellow.
'Why is that, I. wonder,' I said.
'He speaks some Dust Leg, and some of the talk of other tribes,' said thefellow. 'Too, he knows sign.'
'Sign?' I asked.
'Hand talk' said the young man. 'It is the way the red savages of differenttribes communicate among one another. They cannot speak one another's languages,you know.'
'I would suppose not,' I admitted.
Hand sign, I suspected was the key to the capacity of the tribes to unite andprotect their territories against outside encroachment, that and what theycalled the Memory.
'Various traders, I suspect, know Hand Sign,' I said.
'Several,' said the young man.
'But, too, he knows some of the tribal languages,' I said.
'Not so much,' said the young man. 'A few words and phrases. The savages comesometimes to the trading points. We learn something of one another's talk. Notmuch.'
'Communication is largely conducted in Sign, then,' I said.
'Yes,' said the young man. He stood then and cracked the whip again over thebacks of the tharlarion. Then, again, he sat down.
'If various traders know Sign and some, too, have some smattering of some ofthese languages, what makes Grunt so special? Why is it he alone who ispermitted to venture so deeply into the Barrens?'
'Perhaps the savages feel they have nothing more to gain from Grunt,' laughedthe young man.
'I do not understand,' I said.
'You will,' he said.
'Can we see the boundary from here? I asked. We were now at the crest of ahill.
'Not clearly, but it is out there,' he said, pointing to our right. 'See,' heasked, 'the low hills, the grassy hills, at the horizon?'
'Yes,' I said.
'They are on the other side of the boundary,' he said.
'When do we arrive at Fort Huskiness?' I asked him.
'Tomorrow morning,' he said. 'We will camp tonight.'
'Master,' said a soft, feminine voice, from behind timidly, 'may a lowly slavespeak?'
'Yes,' said the young man.
The wagon carried ten girls. The common Gorean slave wagon has a long bed,surmounted with rectangular frame, usually covered with blue-and-yellow canvas.
A long, solid, heavy metal bar, hinged near the front, and locked in place atthe rear, runs the length of the bed. The girls enter the wagon at the rear,crawling, their ankles chained, the bar between their legs. When the bar islocked in place their ankles, thus, are chained about it. This arrangement,while providing perfect security, permits them considerable latitude ofmovement. They may, for example, sit, or kneel or lie in the wagon bed, confinedonly by the chaining on their ankles. Here, however, near the perimeter, suchluxuries were seldom available. The wagon on which I rode had, obviously,originally been intended for the transportation of sleen. It was little morethan a sleen cage, of heavy, wooden poles, lashed together, its rear gatefastened with a chain and padlock, set a flat wagon bed. Because of the natureof the cage the 7 girls imprisoned within it were bound hand and foot.
'Our bonds are cruelly tight, Masters,' said the girl. 'We beg that they may beloosened, if only slightly.'
The young man turned about, angrily, on the wagon box, and regarded the girl,who shrank back, on her knees, bound hand and foot, behind the bars.
'Be silent, Slave Girl,' he said.
'Yes, Master!' she said.
'Rejoice that I do not stop the wagon and haul you out, each of you, and giveyou ten lashes apiece,' he said.
'Yes, Master!' said the girl, struggling to move back on her knees from thebars.
'Yes, Master. Yes, Master!' said several of the other girls.
The young man then turned about, and gave his attention to the road and thetharlarionI smiled. The men of the perimeter do not pamper their slaves. Indeed, not evena blanket had been thrown into the wagon bed to soften the blows of thespringless cart, or to shield the flesh of the bound beauties from the splinteryroughness of the sturdy planks on which they rode. It is common, of course, bothin civilized areas and along the perimeter, to transport female slaves nude.
'It is interesting,' I said, 'that you do not have an armed escort.'
'You are not a highwayman, are you?' he asked.
'No,' I said.
'Women are generally cheap along the perimeter,' he said.
'Why should this be?' I asked. That seemed to me surprising.
'The perimeter has been stable for over a century,' he said. 'Accordingly womenare generally no more scarce here than elsewhere.'
'But why should they be cheap?' I asked.
'The savages,' he said. 'They raid in the south and sell in the north. They raidin the north and sell in the south.'
I nodded. The perimeter was thousands of pasangs long. There were variousoutlying farms, and many settlements and villages.
'Do they sell all the items garnered in their flesh harvests?' I asked.
'No,' he said. 'They take some with them, back into the Barrens.'
'What do they do with them there?' I asked.
'I do not know,' laughed the young man. 'Doubtless they put them to good use.'
'Doubtless,' I agreed. The red savages, I had no doubt, could find many usefulemployments for helpless, white female slaves.
'At what time tomorrow morning should we arrive at Fort Haskins?' I asked.
'I am scheduled to deliver my freight to Brint, the Slaver, at half past theninth Ahn,' he said. 'You may, of course, wish to leave the wagon before that.'
I nodded. It would be pointless to stay longer than necessary with the wagon. Iwould stay with it until it reached its destination only if that destination layon the road to Kailiauk.
'What is to be done with these slaves?' I asked. 'Are they to be sold in FortHaskins?'
'I think they are to be shipped west over the Boswell Pass,' he said, 'toThentis and, from thence, to be distributed to western markets.'
'They had better be given something to wear,' I said, 'if they are to be carriedover the pass.'
