Kailiauk in the spring, whence, after selling his goods and making his profits, and restocking his stores, he would presumably return once more, trading, to the Barrens, this time presumably in the company of the light-skinned young man he had met amongst the Dust Legs but weeks ago, his son.
I pulled Lois' head up by the hair. 'You gave the alarm,' I said, 'when I, and two friends, stole tarns from Kinyanpi at a Yellow-Knife, camp.'
She shuddered with terror, held.
'Did you kkow that it was I with them?' I asked. 'Did you recognize me?'
She trembled. 'Yes, Master,' she whispered, terrified.
'You did well,' I said.
She looked at me, startled.
'What are you?' I asked.
'A slave girl,' she whispered.
'See that you serve your new masters even better,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I then released her, and turned about.Inez's neck, too, I had noted, looked well in its leather bond.
Others, too, there were, whose fate I had learned, Max and Kyle Hobart, and the two former Earth girls, Ginger and evelyn, who had been slaves in Kailiauk. The Hobarts, with men, had pursued Grunt into the Barrens. Dust Legs, friends of Grunt, had attacked them. Grunt, retracing his steps, had located the scene of the attack. There he had found them, the only survivors, stripped and put in leg stretchers, as though they might be slave girls, lying in the grass, awaiting his attentions. He had not killed them. He had chained them in his coffle. They, though strong men, had been forbidden to so much as touch any of the scantily clad beauties who, neck-chained, as they, preceded them in the coffle.
Near the field of the massacre and near the place where the soldiers and red savages had fought they, with two girls, Ginger and Evelyn, whom they had muchly desiered, as long ago as Kiliauk, were taken from Grunt by Sleen warriors. This was done at the same time as Yellow Knives had been approapriating Lois and three others of her sisters in bondage, Priscilla, Corinne and Inex. The Sleen had taken the Hobarts to serve as boys, perfoming lowly tasks and doing such things as watching kaiila. These girls they had taken for the common purposes for which luscious white females are employed by red masters.
During their time with the Sleen apparently Max and Kyle Hobart, unable to help themselves any longer, and finding the girls staked out, naked, in a desolate place, presumably for punishment, had raped them. Sortly after this the slaves had begun to meet. These meetings were typical of the clandestine trysts of slaves. They took place in the shadows, behind lodges and at places marked inthe high grass, where they might lie in one anothers arms, if only fearfully and briefly, fearing the step of a master, the shadow of a whip.
It was in these days, and in these meetings, so different from the alcoves of Kailiauk, that the girls learned that they were the slaves of the Hobarts and the Hobarts learned to their joy that htey, though themselves collared, owned slaves. The relationship of the Hobarts and the girls, I am sure, had not escaped the attention of the Sleen. I think it quite likely that the Sleen, in their kindness, and recognizing the need of strong men, such as the Hobarts, for women, had taken this fashion of rewarding them for good service. I am sure that it was no accident that the Hobarts had been sent on an errand near the place where the two beauties had been staked out. Similarly, there is little, I suspect, which transpires between slaves which is not known to masters. It is usually only a question as to whether the masters wish to take action or not. This hypothesis is further confirmed by the fact that the Sleen, in trading with Grunt, Grunt making use of booties acquired from the Yellow Knives, offered him, in effect, the package containing both the Hobarts and thier lovers.
The Hobarts, with whome I later discussed these things, now share my suspicions in this matter. Grunt, incidentally, has freed the Hobarts, and put them temperarily in his emply. They will accompany him to the country of the Dust Legs, helping him in the transportation of goods to that point, and will then, before winter, continue on to Kailiauk, there to arrange buyers for Grunt's hides, to be deliverd in the spring. They will then, presumably, return to their rance, ouside of Kailiauk. In payment for these services each will recive a female slave.
I saw two lovers riding by, the woman behind the man, on his kaiila. Their names wereh Witantanka and Akamda.
'Master!' cried the slave girl, desisting for the moment from following her master, and kneeling swiftly before me, and kissing my feet.
'Greetings, Oiputake,' I said.
She looked up at me. 'I thank you,' she said, 'for the most precioius gift a man can give a woman.'
'What is that?' I asked.
'Herself,' she said.
'It is nothing,' I said.
'Howo, Oiputake,' called her red master, turning about. He was Wapike, 'One-Who-Is-Fortunate,' of he Isanna.
'Ho, Intancanka!' she cried, sprining to her feet, joyfully, and running to follow him.
Two hunters I saw returning, friends; one was Cotanka, 'Love Flute,' of the Wismahi, and the other was Wayuhahaka, 'One-Who-Possessess-Much,' who had elected to remain with the Isbu. Once he had been Squash, a lad of the Waniyanpi. Across the back of he kaiila, before the lad, lay a tabuk. I was reminded that the Kaiila, in spite of the stores acquired from the Yellow Knives, much of which had been their own, from the summer camp, must still do hunting for the winter.
Hurrying at the flank of Cotanka's kaiila, welcoming him back to camp, was a blonde, barefoot, collared and wearing a brief shirtdress. It was she who had functioned, in effect, as a 'lue girl' in one of he actions at the summer camp. She now belonged to him. A thousandfold and more, doubtless, had Cotanka seen that she had repaid him for her part inthe duplicity which had endangered him before permitting her to lapse into the stringencies of a more common slavery, that of the absolute and uncompromising bondage in which female slaves are typically, and without a second thought, held on Gor.
The hunters and the slave were met at the entrance to Wayuhahaka's lodge by another slave, a blond, barefoot girl in a brief, tightly-belted tunic of Waniyanpi cloth. She greeted her master radiantly. She lowered her head and knelt, crossing her arms over her breast. This, in effect, was a mixture of sign and Gorean convention. Crossing the arms over the breast indicates love in sign. That she had done this kneeling and lowering her head, then, signified submission, love and that she was a slave. She sprang to her feet at a command from wayuhahaka. The name 'Strawberry' was still being kept upon her. This seemed a suitable name for a slave. The tabuk was then slid from the back of the kaiila into the girls' arms. They staggered under its weight as it was, for such a beast, a large one. While the women worked the men would sit before the entrance o the lodge and talk.
'Wasnapohdi!' I called, seeing her passing by, a roll of kailiauk hide on her shoulder.
She, delighted, ran to me and knelt before me.
'Are you pleased with your new maser?' I asked.
'Oh,' she cried, breathlessly, rapturously, 'he is my master! He is my master! For years, in my heart, I have known I belonged to him! Now, at last, I am his legal slave! He is so strong with me, and perfect! I am so happy!'
Her new master was a lad of the Napoktan, some two years her senior, Waiyeyeca, 'One-Who-Finds-Much,' who, long ago, had once owned her when they were both children. He was now a fine young warrior and she a needful, curvaceous slave. One who found Wasnapohdi in his arms, I thought to myself, would indeed be one who had found much.
'I was so fearful that he would not buy me,' she said. 'I was fearfully overpriced by Grunt, my former master!'
'What did you bring?' I asked. I already knew, of course.
'Four hides of the yellow kailiauk!' she said.
I whistled, softly, as though astonished.
'Can you believe it?' she asked.
'I think so,' I said. 'You are, after all, a property not without certain charms.'
'And Grunt, my master, would not even bargin,' she said. 'The price was put on me as a fixed price.'
'I see,' I said. This was unusual in the Barrens, and unusual, too, even in the cities.
'And I,' she said, 'only a white female and a slave!'
