PRIEST-KINGS OF GOR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

----- by John Norman -----


Volume Three of the Chronicles of Counter-Earth


Chapter One

THE FAIR OF EN"KARA

I, TARL CABOT, FORMERLY OF Earth, am one who is known to the
Priest-Kings of Gor.

It came about late in the month of En`Kara in the year 10,117
from the founding of the City of Ar that I came to the Hall
of Priest-Kings in the Sardar Mountains on the planet Gor,
our Counter-Earth.

I had arrived four days before on tarnback at the black
palisade that encircles the dreaded Sardar, those dark
mountains, crowned with ice, consecrated to the Priest-Kings,
forbidden to me, to mortals, to all creatures of flesh and
blood.

The tarn, my gigantic, hawklike mount, had been unsaddled and
freed, for it could not accompany me into the Sardar. Once
it had tried to carry me over the palisade into the
mountains, but never again would I have essayed that flight.
It had been caught in the shield of the Priest-Kings,
invisible, not to be evaded, undoubtedly a field of some
sort, which had so acted on the bird, perhaps affecting the
mechanism of the inner ear, that the creature had become
incapable of controlling itself and had fallen disoriented
and confused to the earth below. None of the animals of Gor,
as far as I knew, could enter the Sardar. Only men could
enter, and they did not return.

I regretted freeing the tarn, for it was a fine bird,
powerful, intelligent, fierce, courageous, loyal. And,
strangely, I think it cared for me. At least I cared for it.
And only with harsh words could I drive it away, and when it
disappeared in the distance, puzzled, perhaps hurt, I wept.

It was not far to the fair of En`Kara, one of the four great
fairs held in the shadow of the Sardar during the Gorean
year, and I soon walked slowly down the long central avenue
between the tents, the booths and stalls, the pavilions and
stockades of the fair, toward the high, brassbound timber
gate, formed of black logs, beyond which lies the Sardar
itself, the sanctuary of this worlds gods, known to the men
below the mountains, the mortals, only as Priest-Kings.

I would stop briefly at the fair, for I must purchase food
for the journey into the Sardar and I must entrust a leather-
bound package to some member of the Caste of Scribes, a
package which contained an account of what had occurred at
the City of Tharna in the past months, a short history of
events which I thought should be recorded.

I wished that I had longer to visit the fair for on
another occasion at another time I should have sought eagerly
to examine its wares, drink at its taverns, talk with its
merchants and attend its contests, for these fairs are free
ground for the many competitive, hostile Gorean cities, and
provide almost the sole opportunity for the citizens of
various cities to meet peaceably with one another.

It is little wonder that the cities of Gor support and
welcome the fairs. Sometimes they provide a common ground on
which territorial and commercial dispute may be amicably
resolved without loss of honor, plenipotentiaries of warring
cities having apparently met by accident among the silken
pavilions.

Further, members of castes such as the Physicians and
Builders use the fairs for the dissemination of information
and techniques among Caste Brothers, as is prescribed in
their codes in spite of the fact that their respective cities
may be hostile. And as might be expected members of the
Caste of Scribes gather here to enter into dispute and
examine and trade manuscripts.

My small friend, Torm of Ko-ro-ba, of the Caste of Scribes,
had been to the fairs four times in his life. He informed me
that in this time he had refuted seven hundred and eight
scribes from fifty-seven cities, but I will not vouch for the
accuracy of this report, as I sometimes suspect that Torm,
like most members of his caste, and mine, tends to be a bit
too sanguine in recounting his numerous victories. Moreover
I have never been too clear as to the grounds on which the
disputes of scribes are to be adjudicated, and it is not too
infrequently that both disputants leave the field each fully
convinced that he has the best of the contest. In
differences among member of my own caste, that of the
Warriors, it is easier to tell who has carried the day, for
the defeated one often lies wounded or slain at the victors
feet. In the contests of scribes, on the other hand, the
blood that is spilled is invisible and the valiant foemen
retire in good order, reviling their enemies and recouping
their forces for the next days campaign. I do not hold this
against the contests of scribes; rather I commend it to the
members of my own caste.

I missed Torm and wondered if I would ever see him again,
bounding about excoriating the authors of dusty scrolls,
knocking the inkwell from his desk with an imperial sweep of
his blue robe, leaping on the table in birdlike fury
denouncing one scribe or another for independently
rediscovering an idea that had already appeared in a century-
old manuscript known to Torm of course but not to the
luckless scribe in question, rubbing his nose, shivering,
leaping down to thrust his feet against the everpresent
overloaded charcoal brazier that invariably burned under his
table, amid the litter of his scraps and parchments,
regardless of whatever the outside temperature might be.

I supposed Torm might be anywhere, for those of Ko-ro-ba had
been scattered by the Priest-Kings. I would not search the
fair for him, nor if he were here would I make my presence
known, for by the will of the Priest-Kings no two men of Ko-
ro-ba might stand together, and I had no wish to jeopardize
the little scribe. Gor would be the poorer were it not for
his furious eccentricities; the Counter-Earth would simply
not be the same without belligerent, exasperated little Torm.
I smiled to myself. If I should meet him I knew he would
thrust himself upon me and insist upon being taken into the
Sardar, though he would know it would mean his death, and I
would have to bundle him in his blue robes, hurl him into a
rain barrel and make my escape. Perhaps it would be safer to
drop him into a well. Torm had stumbled into more than one
well in his life and no one who knew him would think it
strange to find him sputtering about at the bottom of one.

The fairs incidentally are governed by Merchant Law and
supported by booth rents and taxes levied on the items
exchanged. The commercial facilities of these fairs, from
money changing to general banking, are the finest I know of
on Gor, save those in Ars Street of Coins, and letters of
credit are accepted and loans negotiated, though often at
usurious rates, with what seems reckless indifference. Yet
perhaps this is not so puzzling, for the Gorean cities will,
within their own walls, enforce the Merchant Law when
pertinent, even against their own citizens. If they did not,
of course, the fairs would be closed to the citizens of that
city.

The contests I mentioned which take place at the fairs are,
as would be expected, peaceable, or I should say, at least do
not involve contests of arms. Indeed it is considered a
crime against the Priest-Kings to bloody ones weapons at the
fairs. The Priest-Kings, I might note, seem to be more
tolerant of bloodshed in other localities.

Contests of arms, fought to the death, whereas they may not
take place at the fairs are not unknown on Gor, and are
popular in some cities. Contests of this sort, most often
involving criminals and impoverished soldiers of fortune,
offer prizes of amnesty or gold and are customarily sponsored
by rich men to win the approval of the populace of their
cities. Sometimes these men are merchants who wish thereby
to secure goodwill for their products; sometimes they are
practitioners of law, who hope to sway the votes of jury men;
sometimes they are Ubars or High Initiates who find it in
their interests to keep the crowds amused. Such contests, in
which life is lost, used to be popular at Ar, for example,
being sponsored in that city by the Caste of Initiates, who
regard themselves as being the intermediaries between Priest-
Kings and men, though I suspect that, at least on the whole,
they know as little about the Priest-Kings as do other men.
These contests, it might be mentioned, were banned in Ar when
Kazrak of Port Kar became administrator of that city. It was
not an action which was popular with the powerful Caste of
Initiates.

The contests at the fairs, however, I am pleased to say,
offer nothing more dangerous than wrestling, with no holds to
the death permitted. Most of the contests involve such
things as racing, feats of strength, and skill with bow and
spear. Other contests of interest pit choruses and poets and
players of various cities against one another in the several
theaters of the fair. I had a friend once, Andreas of the
desert city of Tor, of the Caste of Poets, who had once sung
at the fair and won a cap filled with gold. And perhaps it
is hardly necessary to add that the streets of the fair
abound with jugglers, puppeteers, musicians and acrobats who,
far from the theaters, compete in their ancient fashions for
the copper tarn disks of the broiling, turbulent crowds.

Many are the objects for sale at the fair. I passed among
wines and textiles and raw wool, silks, and brocades,
copperware and glazed pottery, carpets and tapestries,
lumber, furs, hides, salt, arms and arrows, saddles and
harness, rings and bracelets and necklaces, belts and
sandals, lamps and oils, medicines and meats and grains,
animals such as the fierce tarns, Gors winged mounts, and
tharlarions, her domesticated lizards, and long chains of
miserable slaves, both male and female.

Although no one may be enslaved at the fair, slaves may be
bought and sold within its precincts, and slavers do a
thriving business, exceeded perhaps only by that of Ars
Street of Brands. The reason for this is not simply that
here is a fine market for such wares, since men from various
cities pass freely to and for at the fair, but that each
Gorean, whether male or female, is expected to see the Sardar
Mountains, in honor of the Priest-Kings, at least once in
his life, prior to his twenty-fifth year. Accordingly the
pirates and outlaws who beset the trade routes to ambush and
attack the caravans on the way to the fair, if successful,
often have more than inanimate metals and cloths to reward
their vicious labors.

This pilgrimage to the Sardar, enjoyed by the Priest-Kings
according to the Caste of the Initiates, undoubtedly plays
its role in the distribution of beauty among the hostile
cities of Gor. Whereas the males who accompany a caravan are
often killed in its defense or driven off, this fate,
fortunate or not, is seldom that of the caravans women. It
will be their sad lot to be stripped and fitted with the
collars and chains of slave girls and forced to follow the
wagons on foot to the fair, or if the caravans tharlarions
have been killed or driven off, they will carry its goods on
their backs. Thus one practical effect of the edict of the
Priest-Kings is that each Gorean girl must, at least once in
her life, leave her walls and take the very serious risk of
becoming a slave girl, perhaps the prize of a pirate or
outlaw.

The expeditions sent out from the cities are of course
extremely well guarded, but pirates and outlaws too can band
together in large numbers and sometimes, even more
dangerously, one citys warriors, in force, will prey upon
another citys caravans. This, incidentally, is one of the
more frequent causes of war among these cities. The fact
that warriors of one city sometimes wear the insignia of
cities hostile to their own when they make these attacks
further compounds the suspicions and internecine strife which
afflicts the Gorean cities.

This chain of reflections was occasioned in my mind by sight
of some men of Port Kar, a savage, coastal city on the Tamber
Gulf, who were displaying a sullen chain of twenty freshly
branded girls, many of them beautiful. They were from the
island city of Cos and had undoubtedly been captured at sea,
their vessel burned and sunk. Their considerable charms were
fully revealed to the eye of appraising buyers who passed
down the line. The girls were chained throat to throat,
their wrists locked behind the small of their backs with
slave bracelets, and they knelt in the customary position of
Pleasure Slaves. When a possible buyer would stop in front
of one, one of the bearded scoundrels from Port Kar would
poke her with a slave whip and she would lift her head and
numbly repeat the ritual phrase of the inspected slave girl,
Buy Me, Master. They had thought to come to the Sardar as
free women, discharging their obligation to the Priest-Kings.
They would leave as slave girls. I turned away.

My business was with the Priest-Kings of Gor.

Indeed, I had come to the Sardar to encounter the fabled
Priest-Kings, whose incomparable power so inextricably
influences the destinies of the cities and men of the
Counter-Earth.

It is said that the Priest-Kings know whatever transpires on
their world and that the mere lifting of their hand can
summon all the powers of the universe. I myself had seen the
power of Priest-Kings and knew that such beings existed. I
myself had traveled in a ship of the Priest-Kings which had
twice carried me to this world; I had seen their power so
subtly exercised as to alter the movements of a compass
needle, so grossly demonstrated as to destroy a city, leaving
behind not even the stones of what had once been a dwelling
place of men.

It is said that neither the physical intricacies of the
cosmos nor the emotions of human beings are beyond the scope
of their power, that the feelings of men and the motions of
atoms and stars are as one to them, that they can control the
very forces of gravity and invisibly sway the hearts of human
beings, but of this latter claim I wonder, for once on a road
to Ko-ro-ba, my city, I met one who had been a messenger of
Priest-Kings, one who had been capable of disobeying them,
one from the shards of whose burnt and blasted skull I had
removed a handful of golden wire.

He had been destroyed by Priest-Kings as casually as one
might jerk loose the thong of a sandal. He had disobeyed and
he had been destroyed, immediately and with grotesque
dispatch, but the important thing was, I told myself, that he
had disobeyed, that he could disobey, that he had been able
to disobey and choose the ignominious death he knew must
follow. He had won his freedom though it had, as the Goreans
say, led him to the Cities of Dust, where, I think, not even
Priest-Kings care to follow. He had, as a man, lifted his
fist against the might of Priest-Kings and so he had died,
defiantly, though horribly, with great nobility.

I am of the Caste of Warriors, and it is in our codes that
the only death fit for a man is that in battle, but I can no
longer believe that this is true, for the man I met once on
the road to Ko-ro-ba died well, and taught me that all wisdom
and truth does not lie in my own codes.

My business with the Priest-Kings is simple, as are most
matters of honor and blood. For some reason unbeknown to me
they have destroyed my city, Ko-ro-ba, and scattered its
peoples. I have been unable to learn the fate of my father,
my friends, my warrior companions, and my beloved Talena, she
who was the daughter of Marlenus, who had once been Ubar of
Ar - my sweet, fierce, wild, gentle, savage, beautiful love,
she who is my Free Companion, my Talena, forever the Ubara of
my heart, she who burns forever in the sweet, lonely darkness
of my dreams. Yes, I have business with the Priest-Kings.


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Chapter Two

IN THE SARDAR

I LOOKED DOWN THE LONG, broad avenue to the huge timber gate
at its end, and beyond the gate to the black crags of the
inhospitable Sardar Range.

It took not much time to purchase a small bundle of supplies
to take into the Sardar, nor was it difficult to find a
scribe to whom I might entrust the history of the events at
Tharna. I did not ask his name nor he mine. I knew his
caste, and he knew mine, and it was enough. He could not
read the manuscript as it was written in English, a language
as foreign to him as Gorean would be to most of you, but yet
he would treasure the manuscript and guard it as though it
were a most precious possession, for he was a scribe and it
is the way of scribes to love the written word and keep it
from harm, and if he could not read the manuscript, what did
it matter - perhaps someone could someday, and then the words
which had kept their secret for so long would at last
enkindle the mystery of communication and what had been
written would be heard and understood.

At last I stood before the towering gate of black logs, bound
with its wide bands of brass. The fair lay behind me and the
Sardar before. My garments and my shield bore no insignia,
for my city had been destroyed. I wore my helmet. None
would know who entered the Sardar.

At the gate I was met by one of the Caste of Initiates, a
dour, thin-lipped, drawn man with deep sunken eyes, clad in
the pure white robes of his caste.

"Do you wish to speak to Priest-Kings?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Do you know what you do?"

"Yes," I said.

The Initiate and I gazed evenly at one another, and then he
stepped aside, as he must have done many times. I would not
be the first, of course, to enter the Sardar. Many men and
sometimes women had entered these mountains but it is not
known what they found. Sometimes these individuals are young
idealists, rebels and champions of lost causes, who wish to
protest to Priest-Kings; sometimes they are individuals who
are old or diseased and are tired of life and wish to die;
sometimes they are piteous or cunning or frightened wretches
who think to find the secret of immortality in those barren
crags; and sometimes they are outlaws fleeing from Gors
harsh justice, hoping to find at least brief sanctuary in the
cruel, mysterious domain of Priest-Kings, a country into
which they may be assured no mortal magistrate or vengeful
band of human warriors will penetrate. I suppose the
Initiate might account me one of the latter, for my
habiliments bore no insignia.

He turned away from me and went to a small pedestal at one
side. On the pedestal there was a silver bowl, filled with
water, a vial of oil and a towel. He dipped his fingers in
the bowl, poured a bit of oil on his hands, dipped his
fingers again and then wiped his hands dry.

On each side of the huge gate there stood a great windlass
and chain, and to each windlass a gang of blinded slaves was
manacled.

The Initiate folded the towel carefully and replaced it on
the pedestal.

"Let the gate be opened," he said.

The slaves obediently pressed their weight against the timber
spokes of the two windlasses and they creaked and the chains
tightened. Their naked feet slipped in the dirt and they
pressed ever more tightly against the heavy, obdurate bars.
Now their bodies humped with pain, clenching themselves
against the spokes. Their blind eyes were fixed on nothing.
The blood vessels in their necks and legs and arms began to
distend until I feared they might burst open through the
tortured flesh; the agonized muscles of their straining
knotted bodies, like swollen leather, seemed to fill with
pain as if pain were a fluid; their flesh seemed to fuse with
the wood of the bars; the backs of their garments discolored
with a scarlet sweat. Men had broken their own bones on the
timber spokes of the Sardar windlasses.

At last there was a great creak and the vast portal parted a
hands breadth and then the width of a shoulder and the width
of a mans body.

"It is enough," I said.

I entered immediately.

As I entered I heard the mournful tolling of the huge, hollow
metal bar which stands some way from the gate. I had heard
the tolling before, and knew that it signified that yet
another mortal had entered the Sardar. It was a depressing
sound, and not made less so by my realization that in this
case it was I who had entered the mountains. As I listened
it occurred to me that the purpose of the bar might not be
simply to inform the men of the fair that the Sardar had been
entered but to inform the Priest-Kings as well.

I looked behind myself in time to see the great gate close.
It shut without a sound.

The journey to the Hall of Priest-Kings was not as difficult
as I had anticipated. At places there were well-worn paths,
at others even stairs had been cut in the sides of mountains,
stairs worn smooth in the millennia by the passage of
countless feet.

Here and there bones littered the path, human bones. Whether
these were the remains of men who had starved or frozen in
the barren Sardar, or had been destroyed by Priest-Kings, I
did not know. Upon occasion some message would be found
scratched in the cliffs along the path. Some of these were
obscene, cursing the Priest-Kings; others were paeans in
their praise; some were cheerful, if in a rather pessimistic
way. One I remember was: "Eat, drink and be happy. The rest
is nothing." Others were rather simple, and sometimes sad,
such as "No food," "I"m cold," "I"m afraid." One such read,
"The mountains are empty. Rena I love you." I wondered who
had written it, and when. The inscription was worn. It had
been scratched out in the old Gorean script. It had
weathered for perhaps better than a thousand years. But I
knew that the mountains were not empty, for I had evidence of
Priest-Kings. I continued my journey.

I encountered no animals, nor any growing thing, nothing save
the endless black rocks, the black cliffs, and the path cut
before me in the dark stone. Gradually the air grew more
chill and wisps of snow blew about me; frost began to appear
on the steps and I trudged past crevices filled with ice,
deposits which had perhaps lain as they were without melting
for hundreds of years. I wrapped my cloak more firmly about
myself and using my spear as a staff I forced my way upward.

Some four days into the mountains I heard for the first time
in my journey the sound of a thing other than the wind, the
sighing of snow and the groaning of ice; it was the sound of
a living thing; the sound of a mountain larl.

The larl is a predator, clawed and fanged, quite large, often
standing seven feet at the shoulder. I think it would be
fair to say that it is substantially feline; at any rate its
grace and sinuous power remind me of the smaller but
similarly fearsome jungle cats of my old world.

The resemblance is, I suppose, due to the mechanics of
convergent evolution, both animals having been shaped by the
exigencies of the chase, the stealth of the approach and the
sudden charge, and by the requirement of the swift and
devastating kill. If there is an optimum configuration for a
land predator, I suppose on my old world the palm must go to
the Bengal tiger; but on Gor the prize belongs indisputably
to the mountain larl; and I cannot but believe that the
structural similarities between the two animals, though of
different worlds, are more than a matter of accident.

The larls head is broad, sometimes more than two feet
across, and shaped roughly like a triangle, giving its skull
something of the cast of a vipers save that of course it is
furred and the pupils of the eyes like the cats and unlike
the vipers, can range from knifelike slits in the broad
daylight to dark, inquisitive moons in the night.

The pelt of the larl is normally a tawny red or a sable
black. The black larl, which is predominantly nocturnal, is
manned, both male and female. The red larl, which hunts
whenever hungry, regardless of the hour, and is the more
common variety, possesses no mane. Females of both varieties
tend generally to be slightly smaller than the males, but are
quite as aggressive and sometimes even more dangerous,
particularly in the late fall and winter of the year when
they are likely to be hunting for their cubs. I had once
killed a male red larl in the Voltai Range within pasangs of
the city of Ar.

Now hearing the growl of such a beast I threw back my cloak,
lifted my shield and held my spear ready. I was puzzled that
I might encounter a larl in the Sardar. How could it have
entered the mountains? Perhaps it was native. But on what
could it live among these barren crags? For I had seen
nothing on which it might prey, unless one might count the
men who had entered the mountains, but their bones,
scattered, white and frozen, were unsplintered and
unfurrowed; they showed no evidence of having suffered the
molestation of a larls gnawing jaws. I then understood that
the larl I had heard must be a larl of Priest-Kings, for no
animal and no man enters or exists in the Sardar without the
consent of Priest-Kings and if it was fed it must be at the
hand of Priest-Kings or their servants.

In spite of my hatred of Priest-Kings I could not help but
admire them. None of the men below the mountains, the
mortals, had ever succeeded in taming a larl. Even larl cubs
when found and raised by men would, on reaching their
majority, on some night, in a sudden burst of atavistic fury
slay their masters and under the three hurtling moons of Gor
lope from the dwellings of men, driven by what instincts I
know not, to seek the mountains where they were born. A case
is known of a larl who traveled more than twenty-five hundred
pasangs to seek a certain shallow crevice in the Voltai in
which he had been whelped. He was slain at its mouth.
Hunters had followed him. One among them, an old man who had
originally been one of the party that had captured the
animal, identified the place.

I advanced, my spear ready for its cast, my shield ready to
be thrown over my body to protect it from the death throes of
the thrashing beast should the cast be successful. My life
was in my own hands and I was content that this should be so.
I would have it no other way.

I smiled to myself. I was First Spear, for there were no
others.

In the Voltai Range bands of hunters, usually from Ar, stalk
the larl with the mighty Gorean spear. Normally they do this
in single file and he who leads the file is called First
Spear, for his will be the first spear cast. As soon as he
casts his weapon he throws himself to the ground and covers
his body with his shield, as does each man successively
behind him. This allows each man to have a clean cast at the
beast and provides some protection once the spear is thrown.

The most significant reason, however, becomes clear when the
role of the last man on the file, who is spoken of as Last
Spear, is understood. Once Last Spear casts his weapon he
may not throw himself to the ground. If he should, and any
of his comrades survive, they will slay him. But this seldom
occurs for the Gorean hunters fear cowardice more than the
claws and fangs of larls. Last Spear must remain standing,
and if the beast still lives, receive its charge with only
his drawn sword. He does not hurl himself to the ground in
order that he will remain conspicuously in the larls field
of vision and thus be the object of its wounded, maddened
onslaught. It is thus that, should the spears miss their
mark, he sacrifices his life for his companions who will,
while the larl attacks him, make good their escape. This may
seem cruel but in the long run it tends to be conservative of
human life; it is better, as the Goreans say, for one man to
die than many.

First Spear is normally the best of the spearmen because if
the larl is not slain or seriously wounded with the first
strike, the lives of all, and not simply that of Last Spear,
stand in considerable jeopardy. Paradoxically, perhaps, Last
Spear is normally the weakest of the spearmen, the least
skilled. Whether this is because Gorean hunting tradition
favors the weak, protecting him with the stronger spears, or
tradition scorns the weak, regarding him as the most
expendable member of the party, I do not know. The origin of
this hunting practice is lost in antiquity, being as old
perhaps as men and weapons and larls.

I once asked a Gorean hunter whom I met in Ar why the larl
was hunted at all. I have never forgotten his reply.
"Because it is beautiful," he said, "and dangerous, and
because we are Goreans."

I had not yet seen the beast whose growl I had heard. The
path on which I trod turned a few yards ahead. It was about
a yard wide and hugged the side of a cliff, and to my left
there was a sheer precipice. The drop to its base must have
been at least a full pasang. I remembered that the boulders
below were huge but from my present height they looked like
grains of black sand. I wished the cliff were on my left
rather than my right in order to have a freer cast of my
spear.

The path was steep but its ascent, here and there, was
lightened by high steps. I have never cared to have an enemy
above me, nor did I now, but I told myself that my spear
might more easily find a vulnerable spot if the larl leapt
downwards toward me than if I were above and had only the
base of its neck as my best target. From above I would try
to sever the vertebrae. The larls skull is an even more
difficult cast, for its head is almost continually in motion.
Moreover, it possesses an unobtrusive bony ridge which runs
from its four nasal slits to the beginnings of the backbone.
This ridge can be penetrated by the spear but anything less
than a perfect cast will result in the weapons being
deflected through the cheek of the animal, inflicting a cruel
but unimportant wound. On the other hand if I were under the
larl I would have a brief but clean strike at the great,
pounding, eight-valved heart that lies in the center of its
breast.

My heart sank for I heard another growl, that of a second
beast.

I had but one spear.

I might kill one larl, but then I should almost certainly die
under the jaws of its mate.

For some reason I did not fear death but felt only anger that
these beasts might prevent me from keeping my rendezvous with
the Priest-Kings of Gor.

I wondered how many men might have turned back at this point,
and I remembered the innumerable white, frozen bones on the
cliff below. It occurred to me that I might retreat, and
return when the beasts had gone. It seemed possible that
they might not yet have discovered me. I smiled as I thought
of the foolishness of this, for these beasts before me must
be the larls of Priest-Kings, guardians of the stronghold of
Gors gods.

I loosened my sword in its sheath and continued upwards.

At last I came to the bend in the path and braced myself for
the sudden bolt about that corner in which I must cry aloud
to startle them and in the same instant cast my spear at the
nearest larl and set upon the other with my drawn sword.

I hesitated for a moment and then the fierce war cry of Ko-
ro-ba burst from my lips in the clear, chill air of the
Sardar and I threw myself into the open, my spear arm back,
my shield high.

Chapter Three

PARP

THERE WAS A SUDDEN STARTLED rattle of chains and I saw two
huge, white larls frozen in the momentary paralysis of
registering my presence, and then with but an instants
fleeting passage both beasts turned upon me and hurled
themselves enraged to the lengths of their chains.

My spear had not left my hand.

Both animals were jerked up short as mighty chains, fastened
to steel and bejeweled collars, terminated their vicious
charge. One was thrown on its back, so violent was its rush,
and the other stood wildly for a moment towering over me like
a rearing giant stallion, its huge claws slashing the air,
fighting the collar that held it from me.

Then at the length of their chains they crouched, snarling,
regarding me balefully, occasionally lashing out with a
clawed paw as if to sweep me into range of their fearsome
jaws.

I was struck with wonder, though I was careful to keep beyond
the range of their chains, for I had never seen white larls
before.

They were gigantic beasts, superb specimens, perhaps eight
feet at the shoulder.

Their upper canine fangs, like daggers mounted in their jaws,
must have been at least a foot in length and extended well
below their jaws in the manner of ancient sabre-toothed
tigers. The four nostril slits of each animal were flared
and their great chests lifted and fell with the intensity of
their excitement. Their tails, long and tufted at the end,
lashed back and forth.

The larger of them unaccountably seemed to lose interest in
me. He rose to his feet and sniffed the air, turning his
side to me, and seemed ready to abandon any intentions of
doing me harm. Only an instant later did I understand what
was happening for suddenly turning he threw himself on his
side and his head facing in the other direction hurled his
hind legs at me. I lifted the shield for to my horror in
reversing his position on the chain he had suddenly added
some twenty feet to the fearful perimeter of the space
allotted to him by that hated impediment. Two great clawed
paws smote my shield and hurled me twenty feet against the
cliff. I rolled and scrambled back further for the stroke of
the larl had dashed me into the radius of its mate. My cloak
and garments were torn from my back by the stroke of the
second larls claws.

I struggled to my feet.

"Well done," I said to the larl.

I had barely escaped with my life.

Now the two beasts were filled with a rage which dwarfed
their previous fury, for they sensed that I would not again
approach closely enough to permit them a repetition of their
primitive stratagem. I admired the larls, for they seemed to
me intelligent beasts. Yes, I said to myself, it was well
done.

I examined my shield and saw ten wide furrows torn across its
brassbound hide surface. My back felt wet with the blood
from the second larls claws. It should have felt warm, but
it felt cold. I knew it was freezing on my back. There was
no choice now but to go on, somehow, if I could. Without the
small homely necessities of a needle and thread I should
probably freeze. There was no wood in the Sardar with which
to build a fire.

Yes, I repeated grimly to myself, glaring at the larls,
though smiling, it was well done, too well done.

Then I heard the movement of chains and I saw that the two
chains which fastened the larls were not hooked to rings in
the stone but vanished within circular apertures. Now the
chains were being slowly drawn in, much to the obvious
frustration of the beasts.

The place in which I found myself was considerably wider than
the path on which I had trod, for the path had given suddenly
onto a fairly large circular area in which I had found the
chained larls. One side of this area was formed by the sheer
cliff which had been on my right and now curved about making
a sort of cup of stone; the other side, on my left, lay
partly open to the frightful drop below, but was partly
enclosed by another cliff, the side of a second mountain,
which impinged on the one I had been climbing. The circular
apertures into which the larls chains were being drawn were
located in these two cliffs. As the chains were drawn back,
the protesting larls were dragged to different sides. Thus a
passage of sorts was cleared between them, but the passage
led only, as far as I could see, to a blank wall of stone.
Yet I supposed this seemingly impervious wall must house the
portal of the Hall of Priest-Kings.

As the beasts had felt the tug of the chains they had slunk
snarling back against the cliffs, and now they crouched down,
their chains little more than massive leashes. I thought the
snowy whiteness of their pelts was beautiful. Throaty growls
menaced me, and an occasional paw, the claws extended, was
lifted, but the beasts made no effort now to pull against the
grim, jewel-set collars which bound them.

I had not long to wait for only a few moments later, perhaps
no more than ten Gorean Ihn, a section of stone rolled
silently back and upward revealing a rock passage beyond of
perhaps some eight feet square.

I hesitated, for how did I know but that the chains of the
larls might be loosed once I was between them. How did I
know what might lie before me in that dark, quiet passage?
As I hesitated that moment, I became aware of a motion inside
the passage, which gradually became a white-clad rather
short, rotund figure.

To my amazement a man stepped from the passage, blinking in
the sun. He was clad in a white robe, somewhat resembling
those of the Initiates. He wore sandals. His cheeks were
red and his head bald. He had long whiskery sideburns which
flared merrily from his muffinlike face. Small bright eyes
twinkled under heavy white eyebrows. Most was I surprised to
find him holding a tiny, round pipe from which curled a
bright wisp of smoke. Tobacco is unknown on Gor, though
there are certain vices or habits to take its place, in
particular the stimulation afforded by chewing on the leaves
of the Kanda plant, the roots of which, oddly enough, when
ground and dried, constitute an extremely deadly poison.

I carefully regarded the small, rotund gentleman who stood
framed so incongruously in the massive stone portal. I found
it impossible to believe that he could be dangerous, that he
could in any way be associated with the dreaded Priest-Kings
of Gor. He was simply too cheerful, too open and ingenious,
too frank, and only too obviously pleased to see and welcome
me. It was impossible not to be drawn to him; I found that I
liked him, though I had just met him; and that I wanted him
to like me, and that I felt he did, and that this pleased me.

If I had seen this man in my own world, this small, rotund,
merry gentleman with his florid coloring and cheerful manner
I would have thought him necessarily English, and of a sort
one seldom encounters nowadays. If one had encountered him
in the Eighteenth Century one might take him for a jolly,
snuff-sniffing, boisterous country squire, knowing himself
the salt of the earth, not above twitting the parson nor
pinching the serving girls; in the Nineteenth Century he
would have owned an old book shop and worked at a high desk,
quite outdated, kept his money in a sock, distributed it
indiscriminately to all who asked him for it, and publicly
read Chaucer and Darwin to scandalize lady customers and the
local clergy; in my own time such a man could only be a
college professor, for there are few other refuges save
wealth left in my world for men such as he; one could imagine
him ensconced in a university chair, perhaps affluent enough
for gout, reposing in his tenure, puffing on his pipe, a
connoisseur of ales and castles, a gusty aficionado of bawdy
Elizabethan drinking songs, which he would feel it his duty
to bequeath, piously, as a portion of their rich literary
heritage, to generations of recent, proper graduates of Eton
and Harrow. The small eyes regarded me, twinkling.

With a start I noticed that the pupils of his eyes were red.

When I started a momentary flicker of annoyance crossed his
features, but in an instant he was again his chuckling,
affable, bubbling self.

"Come, come," he said. "Come along, Cabot. We have been
waiting for you."

He knew my name.

Who was waiting?

But of course he would know my name, and those who would be
waiting would be the Priest-Kings of Gor.

I forgot about his eyes, for it did not seem important at the
time, for some reason. I suppose that I thought that I had
been mistaken. I had not been. He now stepped back into the
shadows of the passage.

"You are coming, arent you?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"My name is Parp," he said, standing back in the passage. He
puffed once on his pipe. "Parp," he repeated, puffing once
again.

He had not extended his hand.

I looked at him without speaking.

It seemed a strange name for a Priest-King. I do not know
what I expected. He seemed to sense my puzzlement.

"Yes," said the man, "Parp." He shrugged. "Its not much of
a name for a Priest-King, but then I"m not much of a Priest-
King." He chuckled.

"Are you a Priest-King?" I asked.

Again a momentary flicker of annoyance crossed his features.
"Of course," he said.

It seemed that my heart stopped beating.

At that moment one of the larls gave a sudden roar. I
shivered, but to my surprise the man who called himself Parp
clutched his pipe in his white hand and seemed to give a
start of terror. In a moment he was quite recovered. I
found it strange that a Priest-King should fear a larl.

Without waiting to see if I would follow him he turned
suddenly and went back down the passage.

I gathered my weapons and followed him. Only the rumbling
growl of the now sullen mountain larls as I passed between
them convinced me that I could not be dreaming, that I had
come at last to the Hall of Priest-Kings.


------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter Four

THE HALL OF PRIEST-KINGS

AS I FOLLOWED THE MAN who called himself Parp down the stone
passage the portal behind me closed. I remember one last
glimpse of the Sardar Range, the path I had climbed, the
cold, blue sky and two snowy larls, one chained on either
side of the entrance.

My host did not speak but led the way with a merry stride, an
almost constant curl of smoke from his little round pipe
encircling his bald pate and muttonchop whiskers and drifting
back down the passage.

The passage was lit with energy bulbs, of the sort which I
had encountered in the tunnel of Marlenus which led beneath
the walls of Ar. There was nothing in the lighting of the
passage, or its construction, to suggest that the Priest-
Kings Caste of Builders, if they had one, was any more
advanced than that of the men below the mountains. Too, the
passage was devoid of ornament, lacking the mosaics and
tapestries with which the beauty-loving Goreans below the
mountains are wont to glorify the places of their own
habitation. The Priest-Kings, as far as I could tell, had no
art. Perhaps they would regard it as a useless excrescence
detracting from the more sober values of life, such as, I
supposed, study, meditation and the manipulation of the lives
of men.

I noted that the passage which I trod was well worn. It had
been polished by the sandals of countless men and women who
had walked before where I now walked, perhaps thousands of
years ago, perhaps yesterday, perhaps this morning.

Then we came to a large hall. It was plain, but in its sheer
size it possessed a severe, lofty grandeur.

At the entrance to this room, or chamber, I stopped, overcome
with a certain sense of awe.

I found myself on the brink of entering what appeared to be a
great and perfect dome, having a diameter I am sure of at
least a thousand yards. I was pleased to see that its top
was a sparkling curvature of some transparent substance,
perhaps a special glass or plastic, for no glass or plastic
with which I was familiar would be likely to withstand the
stresses generated by such a structure. Beyond the dome I
could see the welcome blue sky.

"Come, come, Cabot," remonstrated Parp.

I followed him.

In this great dome there was nothing save that at its very
center there was a high dais and on this dais there was a
large throne carved from a single block of stone.

It seemed to take us a long time to reach the dais. Our
footsteps echoed hollowly across the great stone floor. At
last we arrived.

"Wait here," said Parp, who pointed to an area outside a
tiled ring which surrounded the dais.

I did not stand precisely where he asked but several feet
away, but I did remain outside the tiled ring.

Parp puffed his way up the nine steps of the dais and climbed
onto the stone throne. He was a strange contrast to the
sever regality of the majestic seat on which he perched. His
sandaled feet did not reach the floor, and he made a slight
grimace as he settled himself on the throne.

"Frankly," said Parp, "I think we made a mistake in
sacrificing certain creature comforts in the Sardar." He
tried to find some position that would satisfy him. "For
example, a cushion would not be out of place on such a
throne, do you think, Cabot?"

"On such a throne it would be out of place," I said.

"Ah yes," sighed Parp, "I suppose so."

Then, smartly, Parp cracked his pipe a few times against the
side of the throne, scattering ashes and unsmoked tobacco
about on the floor of the dais.

I regarded him without moving.

Then he began to fumble with the wallet which was slung from
his belt, and removed a plastic envelope. I watched him
closely, following every move. A frown crossed my face as I
saw him take a pinch of tobacco from the bag and refill his
pipe. Then he fumbled about a bit more and emerged with a
narrow cylindrical, silverish obect. For an instant it
seemed to point at me.

I lifted my shield.

"Please, Cabot!" said Parp, with something of impatience, and
used the silverish object to light his pipe.

I felt foolish.

Parp began to puff away contentedly on a new supply of
tobacco. He had to turn slightly on the throne to look at
me, as I had not chosen to stand directly where he had
suggested.

"I do wish you would be more cooperative," he said.

Tapping the floor with the butt of my spear, I finally stood
where he had directed.

Parp chuckled and puffed away.

I did not speak and he smoked one pipe. Then he cleaned it
as before, knocking it against the side of the throne, and
refilled it. He lit it again with the small, silverish
object, and leaned back against the throne. He gazed up at
the dome, so high above, and watched the smoke curl slowly
upward.

"Did you have a good trip to the Sardar?" asked Parp.

"Where is my father?" I asked. "What of the city of Ko-ro-
ba?" My voice choked. "What of the girl Talena, who was my
Free Companion?"

"I hope you had a good trip," said Parp.

Then I began to feel rage creeping like hot, red vines
through my blood.

Parp did not seem concerned.

"Not everyone has a good trip," said Parp.

My hand clenched on the spear.

I began to feel the hatred of all the years I had nursed
against the Priest-Kings now uncontrollably, slowly,
violently growing in my body, wild, fierce, those foliating
scarlet vines of my fury that now seemed to encircle me, to
enfold me, to engulf me, swelling, steaming, now writhing
aflame about my body and before my eyes in the turbulent,
burned air that separated me from the creature Parp and I
cried, "Tell me what I want to know!"

"The primary difficulty besetting the traveler in the
Sardar," continued Parp, "is probably the general harshness
of the environment - for example, the inclemencys of the
weather, particularly in the winter."

I lifted the spear and my eyes which must have been terrible
in the apertures of my helmet were fixed on the heart of the
man who sat upon the throne.

"Tell me!" I cried.

"The larls also," Parp went on, "are a not unformidable
obstacle."

I cried with rage and strode forward to loose my spear but I
wept and retained the weapon. I could not do murder.

Parp puffed away, smiling. "That was wise of you," he said.

I looked at him sullenly, my rage abated. I felt helpless.

"You could not have injured me, you know," said Parp.

I looked at him with wonder.

"No," he said. "Go ahead, if you wish, cast your spear."

I took the weapon and tossed it toward the foot of the dais.
There was a sudden splintering burst of heat and I fell back,
staggering. I shook my head to drive out the scarlet stars
that seemed to race before my eyes.


At the foot of the dais there was a bit of soot and some
droplets of melted bronze.

"You see," said Parp, "it would not have reached me."

I now understood the purpose of the tiled circle which
surrounded the throne.

I removed my helmet and threw my shield to the floor.

"I am your prisoner," I said.

"Nonsense," said Parp, "you are my guest."

"I shall keep my sword," I said. "If you want it, you must
take it from me."

Parp laughed merrily, his small round frame shaking on the
heavy throne. "I assure you," he said, "I have no use for
it." He looked at me, chuckling. "Nor have you," he added.

"Where are the others?" I asked.

"What others?" asked he.

"The other Priest-Kings," I said.

"I am afraid," said Parp, "that I am the Priest-Kings. All
of them."

"But you said before "We are waiting"," I protested.

"Did I?" asked Parp.

"Yes," I said.

"Then it was merely a manner of speaking."

"I see," I said.

Parp seemed troubled. He seemed distracted.

He glanced up at the dome. It was getting late. He seemed a
bit nervous. His hands fumbled more with the pipe; a bit of
tobacco spilled.

"Will you speak to me of my father, of my city, and of my
love?" I asked.

"Perhaps," said Parp, "but now you are undoubtedly tired from
your journey."

It was true that I was tired, and hungry.

"No," I said, "I would speak now."

For some reason Parp now seemed visibly uneasy. The sky
above the dome was now grey and darkening. The Gorean night
above, often black and beautiful with stars, now seemed to be
approaching with swift stealth.

In the far distance, perhaps from some passage leading away
from the Hall of Priest-Kings, I heard the roar of a larl.

Parp seemed to shiver on the throne.

"Is a Priest-King frightened of a larl?" I asked.

Parp chuckled, but not quite so merrily as usual. I could
not understand his perturbation. "Do not be afraid," he
said, "they are well secured."

"I am not afraid," I said, looking at him evenly.

"Myself," he said, "I"m forced to admit I"ve never quite
gotten used to that awful racket they make."

"You are a Priest-King," I said, "why do you not simply lift
your hand and destroy it?"

"Of what use is a dead larl?" asked Parp.

I did not reply.

I wondered why I had been allowed to reach the Sardar, to
find the Hall of Priest-Kings, to stand before this throne.

Suddenly there was the sound of a distant, reverberating
gong, a dull but penetrating sound which carried from
somewhere even into the Hall of Priest-Kings.

Abruptly Parp stood up, his face white. "This interview," he
said, "is at an end." He glanced about himself with ill-
concealed terror.

"But what of me," I asked, "your prisoner?"

"My guest," insisted Parp irritably, nearly dropping his
pipe. He pounded it once sharply against the throne and
thrust it into the wallet he wore at his side.

"Your guest?" I asked.

"Yes," snapped Parp, darting his eyes from right to left, "-
at least until it is time for you to be destroyed."

I stood without speaking.

"Yes," he repeated, looking down at me, "until it is time for
you to be destroyed."

Then it seemed in the impending darkness in the Hall of
Priest-Kings as he looked down on me that the pupils of his
eyes for an instant glowed briefly, fiercely, like two tiny
fiery disks of molten copper. I knew then that I had not
been mistaken before. His eyes were unlike mine, or those of
a human being. I knew then that Parp, whatever he might be,
was not a man.

Then again came the sound of that great unseen gong, that
distant sound, dull, penetrating, reverberating even in the
vastness of the great hall in which we stood.

With a cry of terror Parp cast one last wild glance about the
Hall of Priest-Kings and stumbled behind the great throne.

"Wait!" I cried.

But he had gone.

Wary of the tiled circle I traced its perimeter until I stood
behind the throne. There was no sign of Parp. I walked the
full ambit of the circle until I stood once more before the
throne. I picked up my helmet and tossed it toward the dais.
It clattered noisily against the first step. I followed it
across the tiled circle which seemed harmless now that Parp
had left.

Once more the distant and unseen gong rang out, and once more
the Hall of Priest-Kings seemed filled with its ominous
vibrations. It was the third stroke. I wondered why Parp
had seemed to fear the coming of night, the sound of the gong.


--------------------


I examined the throne and found no trace of a door behind it,
but I knew that one must exist. Parp was, I was sure, though
I had not touched him, as palpable as you or I. He could not
simply have vanished.

It was now night outside.

Through the dome I could see the three moons of Gor and the
bright stars above them.

They were very beautiful.

Then seized by an impulse I sat myself down on the great
throne in the Hall of Priest-Kings, drew my sword and placed
it across my knees.

I recalled Parps words, "until it is time for you to be
destroyed".

For some reason I laughed and my laugh was the laugh of a
warrior of Gor, full and mighty, unafraid, and it roared in
the dark and lonely Hall of Priest-Kings.

------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter Five

VIKA

I AWAKENED TO THE SOOTHING touch of a small sponge that
bathed my forehead.

I grasped the hand that held the sponge and found that I held
a girls wrist.

"Who are you?" I asked.

I lay on my back on a large stone platform, some twelve feet
square. Beneath me, twisted and tangled, lay heavy sleeping
pelts, thick robes of fur, numerous sheets of scarlet silk.
A cushion or two of yellow silk lay randomly on the platform.

The room in which I lay was large, perhaps forty feet square,
and the sleeping platform lay at one end of the room but not
touching the wall. The walls were of plain dark stone with
energy bulbs fixed in them; the furnishings seemed to consist
mostly of two or three large chests against one wall. There
were no windows. The entire aspect was one of severity.
There was no door on the room but there was a great portal,
perhaps twelve feet wide and eighteen feet high. I could see
a large passageway beyond.

"Please," said the girl.

I released her wrist.

She was comely to look on. Her hair was very light, the
color of summer straw; it was straight and bound simply
behind the back of her neck with a small fillet of white
wool. Her eyes were blue, and sullen. Her full, red lips,
which could have torn the heart of a man, seemed to pout;
they were sensuous, unobtrusively rebellious, perhaps subtly
contemptuous.

She knelt beside the platform.

Beside her, on the floor, rested a laver of polished bronze,
filled with water, a towel and a straight-bladed Gorean
shaving knife.

I rubbed my chin.

She had shaved me as I slept.

I shivered, thinking of the blade and my throat. "Your touch
is light," I said.

She bowed her head.

She wore a long, simple sleeveless white robe, which fell
gracefully about her in dignified classic folds. About her
throat she had gracefully wrapped a scarf of white silk.

"I am Vika," she responded, "your slave."

I sat upright, cross-legged in the Gorean fashion, on the
stone platform. I shook my head to clear it of sleep.

The girl rose and carried the bronze laver to a drain in one
corner of the room and emptied it.

She walked well.

She then moved her hand past a glass disk in the wall and
water emerged from a concealed aperture and curved into the
shallow bowl. She rinsed the bowl and refilled it, and then
took another towel of soft linen from a carved chest against
the wall. She then again approached the stone platform and
knelt before me, lifting the bowl. I took it and first drank
from it and then set it on the stone platform before me, and
washed. I wiped my face with the towel. She then gathered
up the shaving knife, the towels I had used, and the bowl and
went again to one side of the room.

She was very graceful, very lovely.

She rinsed the bowl again and set it against the wall to
drain dry. She then rinsed and dried the shaving knife and
put it into one of the chests. Then with a motion of her
hand, which did not touch the wall, she opened a small,
circular panel into which she dropped the two towels which I
had used. When they had disappeared the circular panel
closed.

She then returned into the vicinity of the stone platform,
and knelt again before me, though some feet away.

We studied one another.

Neither spoke.

Her back was very straight and, kneeling, she rested back on
her heels. In her eyes there seemed to burn an irritable
fury of helpless rage. I smiled at her, but she did not
smile back but looked away, angrily.

When she looked again my eyes fixed on hers and we looked
into one anothers eyes for a long time until her lip
trembled and her eyes fell before mine.

When she raised her head again I curtly gestured her nearer.

A look of angry defiance flashed in her eyes, but she rose to
her feet and slowly approached me, and knelt beside the stone
platform. I, still remaining cross-legged on the platform,
reached forward and took her head in my hands, drawing it to
mine. She knelt now but no longer on her heels and her face
was brought forward and lifted to mine. The sensuous lips
parted slightly and I became acutely conscious of her
breathing, which seemed to deepen and quicken. I removed my
hands from her head but she left it where I had placed it. I
slowly unwrapped the white, silken scarf from her throat.

Her eyes seemed to cloud with angry tears.

As I had expected about her white throat there was fastened,
graceful and gleaming, the slender, close-fitting collar of a
Gorean slave girl.

It was a collar like most others, of steel, secured with a
small, heavy lock which closed behind the girls neck.

"You see," said the girl, "I did not lie to you."

"Your demeanor," I said, "does not suggest that of a slave
girl."

She rose to her feet and backed away, her hands at the
shoulders of her robe. "Nonetheless," she said, "I am a
slave girl." She turned away. "Do you wish to see my
brand?" she asked, contemptuously.

"No," I said.

So she was a slave girl.

But on her collar there was not written the name of her owner
and his city, as I would have expected. Instead I had read
there only the Gorean numeral which would correspond to "708".

"You may do with me what you please," said the girl, turning
to face me. "As long as you are in this room I belong to
you."

"I dont understand," I said.

"I am a Chamber Slave," she said.

"I dont understand," I said.

"It means," she said, irritably, "that I am confined to this
room, and that I am the slave of whoever enters the room."

"But surely you can leave," I protested.

I gestured to the massive portal which, empty of a door or
gate, led only too clearly into the corridor beyond.

"No," she said bitterly, "I cannot leave."

I arose and walked through the portal and found myself in a
long stone passageway beyond it which stretched as far as I
could see in either direction. It was lit with energy bulbs.
In this passageway, placed regularly but staggered from one
another, about fifty yards apart, were numerous portals like
the one I had just passed through. From within any given
room, one could not look into any other. None of these
portals were hung with doors or gates, nor as far as I could
see had they ever been hinged.

Standing in the passageway outside the room I extended my
hand to the girl. "Come," I said, "there is no danger."

She ran to the far wall and crouched against it. "No," she
cried.

I laughed and leaped into the room.

She crawled and stumbled away, for some reason terrified,
until she found herself in the stone corner of the chamber.

She shrieked and clawed at the stone.

I gathered her in my arms and she fought like a she-larl,
screaming. I wanted to convince her that there was no
danger, that her fears were groundless. Her fingernails
clawed across my face.

I was angered and I swept her from her feet so that she was
helpless in my arms.

I began to carry her toward the portal.

"Please," she whispered, her voice hoarse with terror.
"Please, Master, no, no, Master!"

She sounded so piteous that I abandoned my plan and released
her, though I was irritated by her fear.

She collapsed at my feet, shaking and whimpering, and put her
head to my knee.

"Please, no, Master," she begged.

"Very well," I said.

"Look!" she said, pointing to the great threshold.

I looked but I saw nothing other than the stone sides of the
portal and on each side three rounded red domes, of perhaps
four inches width apiece.

"They are harmless," I said, for I had passed them with
safety. To demonstrate this I again left the chamber.

Outside the chamber, carved over the portal, I saw something
I had not noted before. In Gorean notation, the numeral
"708" was carved above the door. I now understood the
meaning of the numeral on the girls collar. I re-entered
the chamber. "You see," I said, "they are harmless."

"For you," she said, "not for me."

"Why not?" I asked.

She turned away.

"Tell me," I said.

She shook her head.

"Tell me," I repeated, more sternly.

She looked at me. "Am I commanded?" she asked.

I did not wish to command her. "No," I said.

"Then," said she, "I shall not tell you."

"Very well," I said, "then you are commanded."

She looked at me through her tears and fear, with sudden
defiance.

"Speak, Slave," I said.

She bit her lip with anger.

"Obey," I said.

"Perhaps," she said.

Angrily I strode to her and seized her by the arms. She
looked up into my eyes and shivered. She saw that she must
speak. She lowered her head in submission. "I obey," she
said, "- Master."

I released her.

Again she turned away, going to the far wall.

"Long ago," she said, "when I first came to the Sardar and
found the Hall of Priest-Kings, I was a young and foolish
girl. I thought that the Priest-Kings possessed great wealth
and that I, with my beauty -" she turned and looked at me and
threw back her head - "for I am beautiful, am I not?"

I looked at her. And though her face was stained with the
tears of her recent terror and her hair and robes were
disarranged, she was beautiful, perhaps the more so because
of her distress, which had at least shattered the icy
aloofness with which she had originally regarded me. I knew
that she now feared me, but for what reason I was uncertain.
It had something to do with the door, with her fear that I
might force her from the room.

"Yes," I said to her, "you are beautiful."

She laughed bitterly.

"Yes," she continued, "I, armed with my beauty, would come to
the Sardar and wrest the riches and power of the Priest-Kings
from them, for men had always sought to serve me, to give me
what I wanted, and were the Priest-Kings not men?"

People had strange reasons for entering the Sardar, but the
reason of the girl who called herself Vika seemed to me one
of the most incredible. It was a plot which could have
occurred only to a wild, spoiled, ambitious, arrogant girl,
and perhaps as she had said, to one who was also young and
foolish.

"I would be Ubara of all Gor," she laughed, "with Priest-
Kings at my beck and call, at my command all their riches and
their untold powers!"

I said nothing.

"But when I came to the Sardar -" She shuddered. Her lips
moved, but she seemed unable to speak.

I went to her and placed my arms about her shoulders, and she
did not resist.

"There," she said, pointing to the small rounded domes set in
the sides of the portal.

"I dont understand," I said.

She moved from my arms and approached the portal. When she
was within perhaps a yard of the exit the small red domes
began to glow.

"Here in the Sardar," she said, turning to face me,
trembling, "they took me into the tunnels and locked over my
head a hideous metal globe with lights and wires and when
they freed me they showed me a metal plate and told me that
the patterns of my brain, of my oldest and most primitive
memories, were recorded on that plate..."

I listened intently, knowing that the girl could, even if of
High Caste, understand little of what had happened to her.
Those of the High Castes of Gor are permitted by the Priest-
Kings only the Second Knowledge, and those of the lower
castes are permitted only the more rudimentary First
Knowledge. I had speculated that there would be a Third
Knowledge, that reserved for Priest-Kings, and the girls
account seemed to justify this conjecture. I myself would
not understand the intricate processes involved in the
machine of which she spoke but the purpose of the machine and
the theoretical principles that facilitated its purpose were
reasonably clear. The machine she spoke of would be a brain-
scanner of some sort which would record three-dimensionally
the microstats of her brain, in particular those of the
deeper, less alterable layers. If well done, the resulting
plate would be more individual than her fingerprints; it
would be as unique and personal as her own history; indeed,
in a sense, it would be a physical model of that same
history, an isomorphic analogue of her past as she had
experienced it.

"That plate," she said, "is kept in the tunnels of the
Priest-Kings, but these -" and she shivered and indicated the
rounded domes, which were undoubtedly sensors of some type,
"are its eyes."

"There is a connection of some sort, though perhaps only a
beam of some type, between the plate and these cells," I
said, going to them and examining them.


"You speak strangely," she said.

"What would happen if you were to pass between them?" I asked.

"They showed me," she said, her eyes filled with horror, "by
sending a girl between them who had not done her duty as they
thought she should."

Suddenly I started. "They?" I asked.

"The Priest-Kings," she replied simply.

"But there is only one Priest-King," I said, "who calls
himself Parp."

She smiled but did not respond to me. She shook her head
sadly. "Ah, yes, Parp," she said.

I supposed at another time there might have been more Priest-
Kings. Perhaps Parp was the last of the Priest-Kings?
Surely it seemed likely that such massive structures as the
Hall of Priest-Kings must have been the product of more than
one being.

"What happened to the girl?" I asked.

Vika flinched. "It was like knives and fire," she said.

I now understood why she so feared to leave the room.

"Have you tried shielding yourself?" I asked, looking at the
bronze laver which was drying against the wall.

"Yes," she said, "but the eye knows." She smiled ruefully.
"It can see through metal."

I looked puzzled.

She went to the side of the room and picked up the bronze
laver. Holding it before her as though to shield her face
she approached the portal. Once more the rounded domes began
to glow.

"You see," she said, "it knows. It can see through metal."

"I see," I said.

I silently congratulated the Priest-Kings on the efficacy of
their devices. Apparently the rays which must emanate from
the sensors, rays not within that portion of the spectrum
visible to the human eye, must possess the power to penetrate
at least common molecular structures, something like an X-ray
pierces flesh.

Vika glared at me sullenly. "I have been a prisoner in this
room for nine years," she said.

"I am sorry," I said.

"I came to the Sardar," she laughed, "to conquer the Priest-
Kings and rob them of their riches and power!"

She ran to the far wall, suddenly breaking into tears.
Facing it she pounded on it weeping.

She spun to face me.

"And instead," she cried, "I have only these walls of stone
and the steel collar of a slave girl!"

She helplessly, enraged, tried to tear the slender, graceful,
obdurate band from her white throat. Her fingers tore at it
in frenzy, in fury, and she wept with frustration, and at last
she desisted. Of course she still wore the badge of her
servitude. The steel of a Gorean slave collar is not made to
be removed at a girls pleasure.

She was quiet now.

She looked at me, curiously. "At one time," she said, "men
sought to please me but now it is I who must please them."

I said nothing.

Her eyes regarded me, rather boldly I thought, as though
inviting me to exercise my authority over her, to address to
her any command I might see fit, a command which she of
course would have no choice but to obey.

There was a long silence I did not feel I should break.
Vikas life, in its way, had been hard, and I wished her no
harm.

Her lips curled slightly in scorn.

I was well aware of the taunt of her flesh, the obvious
challenge of her eyes and carriage.

She seemed to say to me, you cannot master me.

I wondered how many men had failed.

With a shrug she went to the side of the sleeping platform
and picked up the white, silken scarf I had removed from her
throat. She wrapped it again about her throat, concealing
the collar.

"Do not wear the scarf," I said gently.

Her eyes sparkled with anger.

"You wish to see the collar," she hissed.

"You may wear the scarf if you wish," I said.

Her eyes clouded with bewilderment.

"But I do not think you should," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I think that you are more beautiful without it, "I
said, "but more importantly to hide a collar is not to remove
it."

Rebellious fire flared in her eyes, and then she smiled.
"No," she said, "I suppose not." She turned away bitterly.
"When I am alone," she said, "I pretend that I am free, that
I am a great lady, the Ubara of a great city, even of Ar -
but when a man enters my chamber, then again I am only a
slave." She slowly pulled the scarf from her throat and
dropped it to the floor, and turned to face me. She lifted
her head arrogantly and I saw that the collar was very
beautiful on her throat.

"With me," I said gently, "you are free."

She looked at me scornfully. "There have been a hundred men
in this chamber before you," she said, "and they have taught
me - and taught me well - that I wear a collar."

"Nonetheless," I said, "with me you are free."

"And there will be a hundred after you," she said.

I supposed she spoke the truth. I smiled. "In the
meantime," I said, "I grant you freedom."

She laughed. "To hide a collar," she said, in a mocking
tone, "is not to remove it."

I laughed. She had the best of the exchange. "Very
well," I conceded, "you are a slave girl."

When I said this, though I spoke in jest, she stiffened as
though I might have lashed her mouth with the back of my hand.

Her old insolence had returned. "Then use me," she said
bitterly. "Teach me the meaning of the collar."

I marveled. Vika, in spite of her nine years of captivity,
her confinement in this chamber, was still a headstrong,
spoiled, arrogant girl, and one fully aware of her yet
unconquered flesh, and the sinuous power which her beauty
might exercise over men, its capacity to torture them and
drive them wild, to bend them in the search for its smallest
favors compliantly to her will. There stood before me
insolently the beautiful, predatory girl who had come so long
ago to the Sardar to exploit Priest-Kings.

"Later," I said.

She choked with fury.

I bore her no ill will but I found her as irritating as she
was beautiful. I could understand that she, a proud,
intelligent girl, could not but resent the indignities of her
position, being forced to serve with the full offices of the
slave girl whomsoever the Priest-Kings might see fit to send
to her chamber, but yet I found in these grievances, great
though they might be, no excuse for the deep hostility
towards myself which seemed to suffuse her graceful being.
After all, I, too, was a prisoner of Priest-Kings and I had
not chosen to come to her chamber.

"How did I come to this chamber?" I asked.

"They brought you," she said.

"Priest-Kings?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Parp?" I asked.

For answer she only laughed.

"How long did I sleep?" I asked.

"Long," she said.

"How long?" I asked.

"Fifteen Ahn," she said.

I whistled to myself. The Gorean day is divided into twenty
Ahn. I had nearly slept around the clock.

"Well, Vika," I said, "I think I am now ready to make use of
you."

"Very well, Master," said the girl, and the expression by
which she had addressed me seemed dipped in irony. Her hand
loosened the clasp by which her garment was secured over her
left shoulder.

"Can you cook?" I asked.

She looked at me. "Yes," she snapped. She fumbled irritably
with the clasp of her robe, but her fingers were clumsy with
rage. She was unable to fasten the clasp.

I fastened it for her.

She looked up at me, her eyes blazing. "I will prepare
food," she said.

"Be quick, Slave Girl," I said.

Her shoulders shook with rage.

"I see," I said, "that I must teach you the meaning of your
collar." I took a step toward her and she turned stumbling
with a cry and ran to the corner of the room.

My laugh was loud.

Almost instantly, reddening, Vika regained her composure and
straightened herself, tossing her head and brushing back a
melody of blond hair which had fallen across her forehead.
The wool fillet she had worn to bind her hair had loosened.
She fixed on me a look of the most lofty disdain and,
standing against the wall, lifting her arms behind the back
of her neck, she prepared to replace the fillet.

"No," I said.

I had decided I liked her better with her hair loose.

Deliberately, testing me, she continued to tie the fillet.

My eyes met hers.

Angrily she pulled the fillet from her hair and threw it to
the floor, and turned away to busy herself with the
preparation of my meal.

Her hair was very beautiful.
Chapter Six

WHEN PRIEST-KINGS WALK

VIKA COULD COOK WELL AND I enjoyed the meal she prepared.

Stores of food were kept in concealed cabinets at one side of
the room, which were opened in the same fashion as the other
apertures I had observed earlier.

At my command Vika demonstrated for me the manner of opening
and closing the storage and disposal areas in her unusual
kitchen.

The temperature of the water which sprang from the wall tap,
I learned, was regulated by the direction in which the shadow
of a hand fell across a light-sensitive cell above the tap;
the amount of water was correlated with the speed with which
the hand passed before the sensor. I was interested to note
that one received cold water by a shadow passing from right
to left and hot water by a shadow passing from left to right.
This reminded me of faucets on Earth, in which the hot water
tap is on the left and the cold on the right. Undoubtedly
there is a common reason underlying these similar
arrangements on Gor and Earth. More cold water is used than
hot, and most individuals using the water are right-handed.

The food which Vika withdrew from the storage apertures was
not refrigerated but was protected by something resembling a
foil of blue plastic. It was fresh and appetizing.

First she boiled and simmered a kettle of Sullage, a common
Gorean soup consisting of three standard ingredients and, as
it is said, whatever else may be found, saving only the rocks
of the field. The principal ingredients of Sullage are the
golden Sul, the starchy, golden-brown vine-borne fruit of the
golden-leaved Sul plant; the curled, red, ovate leaves of the
Tur-Pah, a tree parasite, cultivated in host orchards of Tur
trees; and the salty, blue secondary roots of the Kes Shrub,
a small, deeply rooted plant which grows best in sandy soil.

The meat was a steak, cut from the loin of a bosk, a huge,
shaggy, long-horned, ill-tempered bovine which shambles in
large, slow-moving herds across the prairies of Gor. Vika
seared this meat, as thick as the forearm of a warrior, on a
small iron grill over a kindling of charcoal cylinders, so
that the thin margin of the outside was black, crisp and
flaky and sealed within by the touch of the fire was the
blood-rich flesh, hot and fat with juice.

Beyond the Sullage and the bosk steak there was the
inevitable flat, rounded loaf of the yellow Sa-Tarna bread.
The meal was completed by a handful of grapes and a draught
of water from the wall tap. The grapes were purple and, I
suppose, Ta grapes from the lower vineyards of the terraced
island of Cos some four hundred pasangs from Port Kar. I had
tasted some only once before, having been introduced to them
in a feast given in my honor by Lara, who was Tatrix of the
city of Tharna. If they were indeed Ta grapes I supposed
they must have come by galley from Cos to Port Kar, and from
Port Kar to the Fair of En`Kara. Port Kar and Cos are
hereditary enemies, but such traditions would not be likely
to preclude some profitable smuggling. But perhaps they were
not Ta grapes for Cos was far distant, and even if carried by
tarns, the grapes would probably not seem so fresh. I
dismissed the matter from my mind. I wondered why there was
only water to drink, and none of the fermented beverages of
Gor, such as Paga, Ka-la-na wine or Kal-da. I was sure that
if these were available Vika would have set them before me.

I looked at her.

She had not prepared herself a portion but, after I had been
served, had knelt silently to one side, back on her heels in
the position of a Tower Slave, a slave to whom largely
domestic duties would be allotted in the Gorean apartment
cylinders.

On Gor, incidentally, chairs have special significance, and
do not often occur in private dwellings. They tend to be
reserved for significant personages, such as administrators
and judges. Moreover, although you may find this hard to
understand, they are not thought to be comfortable. Indeed,
when I had returned to Earth from my first trip to Gor I had
found that one of the minor inconveniences of my return was
reaccustoming myself to the simple business of sitting on
chairs. I felt, for some months, rather awkward, rather
unsteady perched on a little wooden platform supported by
four narrow sticks. Perhaps if you can imagine yourself
suddenly being forced to sit on rather high end tables you
can sense the feeling.

The Gorean male, at ease, usually sits cross-legged and the
female kneels, resting back on her heels. The position of
the Tower Slave, in which Vika knelt, differs from that of a
free woman only in the position of the wrists which are held
before her and, when not occupied, crossed as though for
binding. A free womans wrists are never so placed. The
Older Tarl, who had been my mentor in arms years ago in Ko-
ro-ba, had once told me the story of a free woman,
desperately in love with a warrior, who, in the presence of
her family was entertaining him, and whose wrists,
unconsciously, had assumed the position of a slave. It was
only with difficulty that she had been restrained from
hurling herself in mortification from one of the high
bridges. The Older Tarl had guffawed in recounting this
anecdote and was scarcely less pleased by its sequel. It
seems she thereafter, because of her embarrassment, would
never see the warrior and he, at last, impatient and desiring
her, carried her off as a slave girl, and returned to the
city months later with her as his Free Companion. At the
time that I had been in Ko-ro-ba the couple had still been
living in the city. I wondered what had become of them.

The position of the Pleasure Slave, incidentally, differs
from the position of both the free woman and the Tower Slave.
The hands of a Pleasure Slave normally rest on her thighs
but, in some cities, for example, Thentis, I believe, they
are crossed behind her. More significantly, for the free
womans hands may also rest on her thighs, there is a
difference in the placing of the knees. In all these
kneeling positions, incidentally, even that of the Pleasure
Slave, the Gorean woman carries herself well; her back is
straight and her chin is high. She tends to be vital and
beautiful to look upon.

"Why is there nothing but water to drink?" I asked Vika.

She shrugged. "I suppose," she said, "because the Chamber
Slave is alone much of the time."

I looked at her, not fully understanding.

She gazed at me frankly. "It would be too easy then," she
said.

I felt like a fool. Of course the Chamber Slaves would not
be permitted the escape of intoxication, for if they were so
allowed to lighten their bondage undoubtedly, in time, their
beauty, their utility to the Priest-Kings would be
diminished; they would become unreliable, lost in dreams and
wines.

"I see," I said.

"Only twice a year is the food brought," she said.

"And it is brought by Priest-Kings?" I asked.

"I suppose," she said.

"But you do not know?"

"No," said she. "I awaken on some morning and there is food."

"I suppose Parp brings it," I said.

She looked at me with a trace of amusement.

"Parp the Priest-King," I said.

"Did he tell you that?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I see," she said.

The girl was apparently unwilling to speak more of this
matter, and so I did not press her.

I had almost finished the meal. "You have done well," I
congratulated her. "The meal is excellent."

"Please," she said, "I am hungry."

I looked at her dumbfounded. She had not prepared herself a
portion and so I had assumed that she had eaten, or was not
hungry, or would prepare her own meal later.

"Make yourself something," I said.

"I cannot," she said simply. "I can eat only what you give
me."

I cursed myself for a fool.

Had I now become so much the Gorean warrior that I could
disregard the feelings of a fellow creature, in particular
those of a girl, who must be protected and cared for? Could
it be that I had, as the Codes of my Caste recommended, not
even considered her, but merely regarded her as a rightless
animal, no more than a subject beast, an abject instrument to
my interests and pleasures, a slave?

"I am sorry," I said.

"Was it not your intention to discipline me?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Then my master is a fool," she said, reaching for the meat
that I had left on my plate.

I caught her wrist.

"It is now my intention to discipline you," I said.

Her eyes briefly clouded with tears. "Very well," she said,
withdrawing her hand.

Vika would go hungry that night.


Although it was late, according to the chamber chronometer,
fixed in the lid of one of the chests, I prepared to leave
the room. Unfortunately there was no natural light in the
room and so one could not judge the time by the sun or the
stars and moons of Gor. I missed them. Since I had
awakened, the energy bulbs had continued to burn at a
constant and undiminished rate.

I had washed as well as I could squatting in the stream of
water which emerged from the wall.

In one of the chests against the wall I had found, among the
garments of various other castes, a warriors tunic. I
donned this, as my own had been torn by the larls claws.

Vika had unrolled a straw mat which she placed on the floor
at the foot of the great stone couch in the chamber. On
this, wrapped in a light blanket, her chin on her knees, she
sat watching me.

A heavy slave ring was set in the bottom of the couch to
which I might have, had I pleased, chained her.

I buckled on my sword.

"You are not going to leave the chamber, are you?" asked
Vika, the first words she had said to me since the meal.

"Yes," I said.

"But you may not," she said.

"Why?" I asked, alert.

"It is forbidden," she said.

"I see," I said.

I started for the door.

"When the Priest-Kings wish you, they will come for you," she
said. "Until then you must wait."

"I do not care to wait," I said.

"But you must," she insisted, standing.

I went to her and placed my hands on her shoulders. "Do not
fear the Priest-Kings so," I said.

She saw that my resolve was not altered.

"If you go," she said, "return at least before the second
gong."

"Why?" I asked.

"For yourself," she said, looking down.

"I am not afraid," I said.

"Then for me," she said, not raising her eyes.

"But why?" I asked.

She seemed confused. "I am afraid to be alone," she said.

"But you have been alone many nights," I pointed out.

She looked up at me and I could not read the expression in
her troubled eyes. "One does not cease to be afraid," she
said.

"I must go," I said.

Suddenly in the distance I heard the rumble of the gong which
I had heard before in the Hall of Priest-Kings.

Vika smiled up at me. "You see," she said in relief, "it is
too late. Now you must remain."

"Why?" I asked.

She looked away, avoiding my eyes. "Because the energy bulbs
will soon be dimmed," she said, "and it will be the hours
allotted for sleep."

She seemed unwilling to speak further.

"Why must I remain?" I asked.

I held her shoulders more firmly and shook her to force her
to speak. "Why?" I insisted.

Fear crept into her eyes.

"Why?" I demanded.

Then came the second rumbling stroke of the distant gong, and
Vika seemed to tremble in my arms.

Her eyes were wide with fear.

I shook her again, savagely. "Why?" I cried.

She could hardly speak. Her voice was scarcely a whisper.
"Because after the gong -" she said.

"Yes?" I demanded.

"- they walk," she said.

"Who!" I demanded.

"The Priest-Kings!" she cried and turned from me.

"I am not afraid of Parp," I said.

She turned and looked at me. "He is not a Priest-King," she
said quietly.

And then came the third and final stroke of that distant gong
and at the same instant the energy bulbs in the room dimmed
and I understood that now somewhere in the long corridors of
that vast edifice there walked the Priest-Kings of Gor.


------------------------------------------------------------
_______

Chapter Seven

I HUNT FOR PRIEST-KINGS

IN SPITE OF VIKA"S PROTESTS it was with a light heart that I
strode into the passageway beyond her chamber. I would seek
the Priest-Kings of Gor.

She followed me almost to the portal, and I can remember how
the sensors set in that great threshold in the dimmed light
of the energy bulbs began to glow and pulse as she neared
them.

I could see her white garment and sense the pale beauty of
her skin as she stood back from the portal in the semi-
darkened chamber.

"Please do not go," she called to me.

"I must," I said.

"Come back," she cried.

I did not answer her but began to prowl down the hallway.

"I"m afraid," I heard her call.

I assumed she would be safe, as she had been on countless
nights and so I went on.

I thought I heard her weep, and supposed that she did so for
herself, because she was frightened.

I continued down the passageway.

My business was not to console her, not to tell her not to be
afraid, not to give her the comfort of another human
presence. My business was with the dread denizens of these
dim passageways which had so inspired her terror; my business
was not that of the comforter or friend, but that of the
warrior.

As I went down the passageway I looked into the various
chambers, identical with my own, which lined it. Each, like
mine, lacked a gate or door, and had for its entrance only
that massive portal, perhaps some twelve feet wide and
eighteen feet high. I would not have enjoyed sleeping in
such a room, for there was no way to protect oneself from the
hall, and of course eventually one would need sleep.

Almost all of the chambers I passed, and I passed many, seemed
to be empty.

Two, however, housed Chamber Slaves, girls like Vika, clad
and collared identically. I suppose the only difference in
the attire of the three girls would have been the numerals
engraved on their collars. Vika of course had worn a scarf
and these girls did not, but now Vika no longer wore her
scarf; now her collar, steel and gleaming, locked, encircling
her fair throat, was as evident and beautiful as theirs,
proclaiming her to the eyes of all, like them, only a slave
girl.

The first girl was a short, sturdy wench with thick ankles
and wide, exciting shoulders, probably of peasant stock. Her
hair had been braided and looped over her right shoulder; it
was hard in the light to determine its color. She had risen
from her mat at the foot of the couch unbelievingly, blinking
and rubbing her heavy-lidded, ovoid eyes. As far as I could
tell she was alone in the chamber. When she approached the
portal its sensors began to glow and pulse as had Vikas.

"Who are you?" asked the girl, her accent suggesting the Sa-
Tarna fields above Ar and toward the Tamber Gulf.

"Have you seen Priest-Kings?" I asked.

"Not this night," she said.

"I am Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," I said and went on.

The second girl was tall, fragile and willowy, with slender
ankles and large, hurt eyes; she had dark, curling hair that
fell about her shoulders and stood out against the white of
her garment; she may have been of High Caste; without
speaking to her it would be hard to tell; even then it might
be difficult to be sure, for the accents of some of the
higher artisan castes approximate pure High Caste Gorean; she
stood with her back against the far wall, the palms of her
hands against it, her eyes fastened on me, frightened,
scarcely breathing. As far as I could tell she too was alone.

"Have you seen Priest-Kings?" I asked.

She shook her head vigorously, No.

Still wondering if she were of High Caste, and smiling to
myself, I continued down the passageway.

Both of the girls had in their way been beautiful but I found
Vika superior to both.

My Chamber Slaves accent had been pure High Caste Gorean
though I could not place the city. Probably her caste had
been that of the Builders or Physicians, for had her people
been Scribes I would have expected a greater subtlety of
inflections, the use of less common grammatical cases; and
had her people been of the Warriors I would have expected a
blunter speech, rather belligerently simple, expressed in
great reliance on the indicative mood and, habitually, a
rather arrogant refusal to venture beyond the most
straightforward of sentence structures. On the other hand
these generalizations are imperfect, for Gorean speech is no
less complex than that of any of the great natural language
communities of the Earth nor are its speakers any the less
diverse. It is, incidentally, a beautiful language; it can
be as subtle as Greek; as direct as Latin; as expressive as
Russian; as rich as English; as forceful as German. To the
Goreans it is always, simply, The Language, as though there
were no others, and those who do not speak it are regarded
immediately as barbarians. This sweet, fierce, liquid speech
is the common bond that tends to hold together the Gorean
world. It is the common property of the Administrator of Ar,
a herdsman beside the Vosk, a peasant from Tor, a scribe from
Thentis, a metalworker from Tharna, a physician from Cos, a
pirate from Port Kar, a warrior from Ko-ro-ba.

I found it difficult to remove from my mind the image of the
two Chamber Slaves, and that of Vika, perhaps because the
plight of these girls touched my heart, perhaps because each,
though differently, was beautiful. I found myself
congratulating myself that I had been taken to the chamber of
Vika, for I had thought her the most beautiful. Then I
wondered if my having been brought to her chamber, and not to
that of one of the others had been simply my good fortune.
It occurred to me that Vika, in some ways, resembled Lara,
who was Tatrix of Tharna, for whom I had cared. She was
shorter than Lara and more fully bodied but they would have
been considered of the same general physical type. Vikas
eyes were a sullen, smoldering, taunting blue; the blue of
Laras eyes had been brighter, as clear and, when not
impassioned, as soft as the summer sky over Ko-ro-ba; when
impassioned they had burned as fiercely, as beautifully, as
helplessly as the walls of a raped city. Laras lips had
been rich and fine, sensitive and curious, tender, eager,
hungry; the lips of Vika were maddening; I recalled those
lips, full and red, pouting, defiant, scornful, scarlet with
a slave girls challenge to my blood; I wondered if Vika
might be a bred slave, a Passion Slave, one of those girls
bred for beauty and passion over generations by the zealous
owners of the great Slave Houses of Ar, for lips such as
Vikas were a feature often bred into Passion Slaves; they
were lips formed for the kiss of a master.

And as I pondered these things I sensed that it had not been
accident that I had been carried to Vikas chamber but that
this had been part of a plan by the Priest-Kings. I had
sensed that Vika had defeated and broken many men, and I
sensed that the Priest-Kings might be curious to see how I
might fare with her. I wondered if Vika herself had been
instructed by Priest-Kings to subdue me. I gathered that she
had not. It was not the way of Priest-Kings. Vika would be
all unconscious of their machinations; she would simply be
herself, which is what the Priest-Kings would desire. She
would simply be Vika, insolent, aloof, contemptuous,
provocative, untamed though collared, determined to be the
master though she were the slave. I wondered how many men
had fallen at her feet, how many men she had forced to sleep
at the foot of the great stone couch, in the shadow of the
slave ring, while she herself reclined on the pelts and silks
of the master.


After some hours I found myself again in the Hall of Priest-
Kings. I was gladdened to see once more the moons and stars
of Gor hurtling in the sky above the dome.

My footsteps rang hollowly on the stones of the floor. The
great chamber reposed in vastness and stillness. The empty
throne loomed silent and awesome.

"I am here!" I cried. "I am Tarl Cabot. I am a warrior of
Ko-ro-ba and I issue the challenge of a warrior to the
Priest-Kings of Gor! Let us do battle! Let us make war!"

My voice echoed for a long time in the vast chamber, but I
received no response to my challenge.

I called out again and again there was no response.

I decided to return to Vikas chamber.

On another night I might explore further, for there were
other passageways, other portals visible from where I stood.
It might take days to pursue them all.


I set out on my way back to Vikas chamber.

I had walked perhaps an Ahn and was deep inside one of the
long, dimly lit passageways which led in the direction of her
chamber when I seemed somehow to sense a presence behind me.

I spun quickly about drawing my sword in the same motion.

The corridor behind me was empty.

I slammed the blade back in the sheath and continued on.

I had not walked far when I again became uneasy. This time I
did not turn, but walked slowly ahead, listening behind me
with every fiber I could bend to the effort. When I came to
a bend in the passageway I rounded it, and then pressed
myself against the wall and waited.

Slowly, very slowly, I drew the sword, taking care that it
made no sound as it left its sheath.

I waited but nothing occurred.

I have the patience of a warrior and I waited for a long
time. When men stalk one another with weapons it is well to
have patience, great patience.

It of course occurred to me a hundred times that I was
foolish for actually I was conscious of having heard nothing.
Yet my awareness or sense that something followed me in the
corridor might well have been occasioned by some tiny sound
which my conscious mind had not even registered, but yet
which had impinged on my senses, leaving as its only
conscious trace a vague wind of suspicion. At last I decided
to force the game. My decision was motivated in part by the
fact that the hall allowed few concealments for ambush and I
would presumably see my pursuer almost as soon as he saw me.
If he were not carrying a missile weapon it would make little
difference. And if he had been carrying a missile weapon why
had he not slain me before? I smiled grimly. If it were a
matter of waiting I acknowledged that the Priest-King, if
such it were, who followed me had had the best of things.
For all I knew a Priest-King could wait like a stone or tree,
nerveless until necessary. I had waited perhaps better than
an Ahn and I was covered with sweat. My muscles ached for
motion. It occurred to me that whatever followed might have
heard the cessation of my footsteps. That it knew that I was
waiting. How acute would be the senses of Priest-Kings?
Perhaps they would be relatively feeble, having grown
accustomed to reliance on instrumentation; perhaps they would
be other than the senses of men, sharper if only from a
differing genetic heritage, capable of discriminating and
interpreting sensory cues that would not even be available to
the primitive five senses of men. Never before had I been so
aware of the thin margin of reality admitted into the human
nervous system, little more than a razors width of
apprehension given the multiple and complex physical
processes which formed our environment. The safest thing for
me would be to continue on as I had been doing, a pattern of
action which would give me the benefit of the shield formed
by the turn in the passage. But I had no wish to continue
on. I tensed myself for the leap and cry that would fling me
into the open, the sudden interruption in the stillness of
the passageway that might be sufficient to impair the
steadiness of a spear arm, the calm setting of a crossbows
iron quarrel on its guide.

And so I uttered the war cry of Ko-ro-ba and leaped, sword
ready, to face what might follow me.

A howl of bitter rage escaped my lips as I saw that the
passageway was empty.

Maddened beyond understanding I began to race down the
passageway, retracing my steps to confront what might be in
the passage. I had run for perhaps half a pasang when I
stopped, panting and furious with myself.

"Come out!" I cried. "Come out!"

The stillness of the passageway taunted me.

I remembered Vikas words, When the Priest-Kings wish you,
they will come for you.

Angrily I stood alone in the passageway in the dimmed light
of its energy bulbs, my unused sword grasped futilely in my
hand.

Then I sensed something.

My nostrils flared slightly and then as carefully as one
might examine an object by eye I smelled the air of the
passageway.

I had never much relied on this sense.

Surely I had enjoyed the scent of flowers and women, of hot,
fresh bread, roasted meat, Paga and wines, harness leather,
the oil with which I protected the blade of my sword from
rust, of green fields and storm winds, but seldom had I
considered the sense of smell in the way one would consider
that of vision or touch, and yet it too had its often
neglected store of information ready for the man who was
ready to make use of it.

And so I smelled the passageway and to my nostrils, vague but
undeniable, there came an odor that I had never before
encountered. It was, as far as I could tell at that time, a
simple odor, though later I would learn that it was the
complex product of odors yet more simple than itself. I
find it impossible to describe this odor, much as one might
find it difficult to describe the taste of a citrus fruit to
one who had never tasted it or anything much akin to it. It
was however slightly acrid, irritating to my nostrils. It
reminded me vaguely of the odor of an expended cartridge.

Although there was nothing now with me in the passage it had
left its trace.

I knew now that I had not been alone.

I had caught the scent of a Priest-King.

I resheathed my sword and returned to Vikas chamber. I
hummed a warriors tune, for somehow I was happy

Chapter Eight

VIKA LEAVES THE CHAMBER

"WAKE UP, WENCH!" I CRIED, striding into Vikas chamber,
clapping my hands sharply twice.

The startled girl cried out and leaped to her feet. She had
been lying on the straw mat at the foot of the stone couch.
So suddenly had she arisen that she had struck her knee
against the couch and this had not much pleased her. I had
meant to scare her half to death and I was pleased to see
that I had.

She looked at me angrily. "I was not asleep," she said.

I strode to her and held her head in my hands, looking at her
eyes. She had spoken the truth.

"You see!" she said.

I laughed.

She lowered her head, and then looked up shyly. "I am
happy," she said, "that you have returned."

I looked at her and sensed that she was.

"I suppose," I said, "that in my absence you have been in the
pantry."

"No," she said, "I have not," adding as an acrimonious
afterthought, "- Master."

I had offended her pride.

"Vika," I said, "I think it is time that some changes were
made around here."

"Nothing ever changes here," she said.

I looked around the room. The sensors in the room interested
me. I examined them again. I was elated. Then,
methodically, I began to search the room. Although the
sensors and the mode of their application were fiendish and
beyond my immediate competence to fully understand, they
suggested nothing ultimately mysterious, nothing which might
not eventually be explained. There was nothing about them to
encourage me to believe that the Priest-Kings, or King as it
might be, were ultimately unfathomable or incomprehensible
beings.

Moreover in the corridor beyond I had sensed the traces,
tangible traces, of a Priest-King. I laughed. Yes, I had
smelled a Priest-King, or its effects. The thought amused me.

More fully than ever I now understood how much the forces of
superstition have depressed and injured men. No wonder the
Priest-Kings hid behind their palisade in the Sardar and let
the myths of the Initiates build a wall of human terror about
them, no wonder they let their nature and ends be secret, no
wonder they took such pains to conceal and obscure their
plans and purposes, their devices, their instrumentation,
their limitations! I laughed aloud.

Vika watched me, puzzled, surely convinced that I must have
lost my mind.

I cracked my fist into my open palm. "Where is it?" I cried.

"What?" whispered Vika.

"The Priest-Kings see and the Priest-Kings hear!" I cried,
"But how?"

"By their power," said Vika, moving back to the wall.

I had examined the entire room as well as I could. It might
be possible, of course, to use some type of penetrating beam
which if subtly enough adjusted might permit the reception of
signals through walls and then relay these to a distant
screen, but I doubted that such a device, though perhaps
within the capacities of the Priest-Kings, would be used in
the relatively trivial domestic surveillance of these
chambers.

Then my eye saw, directly in the center of the ceiling,
another energy bulb, like those in the walls, only the bulb
was not lit. That was a mistake on the Priest-Kings part.
But of course the device could be in any of the bulbs.
Perhaps one of the almost inexhaustible energy bulbs, which
can burn for years, had as a simple matter of fact at last
burned out.

I leaped to the center of the stone platform. I cried to the
girl, "Bring me the laver."

She was convinced I was mad.

"Quickly!" I shouted, and she fairly leapt to fetch the
bronze bowl.

I seized the bowl from her hand and hurled it underhanded up
against the bulb which, though it had apparently burned out,
shattered with a great flash and hiss of smoke and sparks.
Vika screamed and crouched behind the stone platform. Down
from the cavity where the energy bulb had been there hung,
blasted and smoking, a tangle of wire, a ruptured metal
diaphragm and a conical receptacle which might once have held
a lens.

"Come here," I said to Vika, but the poor girl cringed beside
the platform. Impatient, I seized her by the arm and yanked
her to the platform and held her there in my arms. "Look
up!" I said. But she kept her face resolutely down. I
thrust my fist in her hair and she cried out and looked up.
"See!" I cried.

"What is it?" she whimpered.

"It was an eye," I said.

"An eye?" she whimpered.

"Yes," I said, something like the "eye" in the door." I
wanted her to understand.

"Whose eye?" she asked.

"The eye of Priest-Kings," I laughed. "But it is now shut."

Vika trembled against me and in my joy with my fist still in
her hair I bent my face to hers and kissed her full on those
magnificent lips and she cried out helpless in my arms and
wept but did not resist.

It was the first kiss I had taken from the lips of my slave
girl, and it had been a kiss of mad joy, one that astonished
her, that she could not understand.

I leaped from the couch and went to the portal.

She remained standing on the stone platform, bewildered, her
fingers at her lips.

Her eyes regarded me strangely.

"Vika," I cried, "would you like to leave this room?"

"Of course," she said. Her voice trembled.

"Very well," I said, "you shall do so."

She shrank back.

I laughed and went to the portal. Once again I examined the
six red, domed sensors, three on a side, which were fixed
there. It would be, in a way, a shame to destroy them, for
they were rather beautiful.

I drew my sword.

"Stop!" cried Vika, in terror.

She leaped from the stone couch and ran to me, seizing my
sword arm but with my left hand I flung her back and she fell
stumbling back against the side of the stone couch.

"Dont!" she cried, kneeling there, her hands outstretched.

Six times the hilt of my sword struck against the sensors and
six times there was a hissing pop like the explosion of hot
glass and a bright shower of scarlet sparks. The sensors had
been shattered, their lenses broken and the wired apertures
behind them a tangle of black, fused wire.

I resheathed my sword and wiped my face with the back of my
forearm. I could taste a little blood and knew that some of
the fragments from the sensors had cut my face.

Vika knelt beside the couch numbly.

I smiled at her. "You may now leave the room," I said,
should you wish to do so."

Slowly she rose to her feet. Her eyes looked to the portal
and its shattered sensors. Then she looked at me, something
of wonder and fear in her eyes.

She shook herself.

"My master is hurt," she said.

"I am Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," I said to her, telling her my
name and city for the first time.

"My city is Treve," she said, for the first time telling me
the name of her city.

I smiled as I watched her go to fetch a towel from one of the
chests against the wall.

So Vika was from Treve.

That explained much.

Treve was a warlike city somewhere in the trackless
magnificence of the Voltai Range. I had never been there but
I knew her reputation. Her warriors were said to be fierce
and brave, her women proud and beautiful. Her tarnsmen were
ranked with those of Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, and
Ko-ro-ba, even great Ar itself.

Vika returned with the towel and began dabbing at my face.

It was seldom a girl from Treve ascended the auction block.
I suppose Vika would have been costly had I purchased her in
Ar or Ko-ro-ba. Even when not beautiful, because of their
rarity, they are prized by collectors.

Treve was alleged to lie above Ar, some seven hundred pasangs
distant, and toward the Sardar. I had never seen the city
located on a map but I had seen the territory she claimed so
marked. The precise location of Treve was not known to me
and was perhaps known to few save its citizens. Trade routes
did not lead to the city and those who entered its territory
did not often return.

There was said to be no access to Treve save on tarnback and
this would suggest that it must be as much a mountain
stronghold as a city.

She was said to have no agriculture, and this may be true.
Each year in the fall legions of tarnsmen from Treve were
said to emerge from the Voltai like locusts and fall on the
fields of one city or another, different cities in different
years, harvesting what they needed and burning the rest in
order that a long, retaliatory winter campaign could not be
launched against them. A century ago the tarnsmen of Treve
had even managed to stand off the tarnsmen of Ar in a fierce
battle fought in the stormy sky over the crags of the Voltai.
I had heard poets sing of it. Since that time her
depredations had gone unchecked, although perhaps it should
be added that never again did the men of Treve despoil the
fields of Ar.

"Does it hurt?" asked Vika.

"No," I said.

"Of course it hurts," she sniffed.

I wondered if many of Treves women were as beautiful as
Vika. If they were it was surprising that tarnsmen from all
the cities of Gor would not have descended on the place, as
the saying goes, to try chain luck.

"Are all the women of Treve as beautiful as you?" I asked.

"Of course not," she said irritably.

"Are you the most beautiful?" I asked.

"I dont know," she said simply, and then she smiled and
added, "perhaps..."

With a graceful movement she rose and went back again to the
chests against the wall. She returned with a small tube of
ointment.

"They are deeper than I thought," she said.

With the tip of her finger she began to work the ointment
into the cuts. It burned quite a bit.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

"No," I said.

She laughed, and it pleased me to hear her laugh.

"I hope you know what you are doing," I said.

"My father," she said, "was of the Caste of Physicians."

So, I thought to myself, I had placed her accent rather well,
either Builders or Physicians, and had I thought carefully
enough about it, I might have recognized her accent as being
a bit too refined for the Builders. I chuckled to myself.
In effect, I had probably merely scored a lucky hit.

"I didnt know they had physicians in Treve," I said.

"We have all the High Castes in Treve," she said, angrily.

The only two cities, other than Ar, which I knew that Treve
did not periodically attack were mountainous Thentis, famed
for its tarn flocks, and Ko-ro-ba, my own city.

If the issue was grain, of course, there would be little
point in going to Thentis, for she imports her own, but her
primary wealth, her tarn flocks, is not negligible, and she
also possesses silver, though her mines are not as rich as
those of Tharna. Perhaps Treve has never attacked Thentis
because she, too, is a mountain city, lying in the Mountains
of Thentis, or more likely because the men of Treve respect
her tarnsmen almost as much as they do their own.

The cessation of attacks on Ko-ro-ba began during the time my
father, Matthew Cabot, was Ubar of that city.

He organized a system of far-flung beacons, set in fortified
towers, which would give the alarm when unwelcome forces
entered the territory of Ko-ro-ba. At the sight of raiders
one tower would set its beacons aflame, glittering by night,
or dampen it with green branches by day to produce a white
smoke, and this signal would be relayed from tower to tower.
Thus when the tarnsmen of Treve came to the grain fields of
Ko-ro-ba, which lie for the most part some pasangs from the
city, toward the Vosk and Tamber Gulf, they would find her
tarnsmen arrayed against them. Having come for grain and not
war, the men of Treve would then turn back, and seek out the
fields of a less well-defended city.

There was also a system of signals whereby the towers could
communicate with one another and the city. Thus if one tower
failed to report when expected the alarm bars of Ko-ro-ba
would soon ring and her tarnsmen would saddle and be aflight.

Cities, of course, would pursue the raiders from Treve, and
carry the pursuit vigorously as far as the foothills of the
Voltai, but there they would surrender the chase, turning
back, not caring to risk their tarnsmen in the rugged,
formidable territory of their rival, whose legendary ferocity
among her own crags once gave pause long ago even to the
mighty forces of Ar.

Treves other needs seemed to be satisfied much in the same
way as her agricultural ones, for her raiders were known from
the borders of the Fair of En`Kara, in the very shadow of
the Sardar, to the delta of the Vosk and the islands beyond,
such as Tyros and Cos. The results of these raids might be
returned to Treve or sold, perhaps even at the Fair of
En`Kara, or another of the four great Sardar Fairs, or if
not, they could always be disposed of easily without question
in distant, crowded, malignant Port Kar.

"How do the people of Treve live?" I asked Vika.

"We raise the verr," she said.

I smiled.

The verr was a mountain goat indigenous to the Voltai. It
was a wild, agile, ill-tempered beast, long-haired and
spiral-horned. Among the Voltai crags it would be worth
ones life to come within twenty yards of one.

"Then you are a simple, domestic folk," I said.

"Yes," said Vika.

"Mountain herdsmen," I said.

"Yes," said Vika.

And then we laughed together, neither of us able to restrain
ourselves.

Yes, I knew the reputation of Treve. It was a city rich in
plunder, probably as lofty, inaccessible and impregnable as a
tarns nest. Indeed, Treve was known as the Tarn of the
Voltai. It was an arrogant, never-conquered citadel, a
stronghold of men whose way of life was banditry, whose women
lived on the spoils of a hundred cities.

And it was the city from which Vika had come.

I believed it.

But yet tonight she had been gentle, and I had been kind to
her.

Tonight we had been friends.

She went to the chest against the wall, to replace the tube
of ointment.

"The ointment will soon be absorbed," she said. "In a few
minutes there will be no trace of it, nor of the cuts."

I whistled.

"The physicians of Treve," I said, "have marvelous
medicines."

"It is an ointment of Priest-Kings," she said.

I was pleased to hear this, for it suggested vulnerability.
"Then Priest-Kings can be injured?" I asked.

"Their slaves can," said Vika.

"I see," I said.

"Let us not speak of Priest-Kings," said the girl.

I looked at her, standing across the room, lovely, facing me
in the dim light.

"Vika," I asked, "was your father truly of the Caste of
Physicians?"

"Yes," she said, "why do you ask?"

"It does not matter," I said.

"But why?" she insisted.

"Because," I said, "I thought you might have been a bred
Pleasure Slave."

It was a foolish thing to say, and I regretted it
immediately. She stiffened. "You flatter me," she said, and
turned away. I had hurt her.

I made a move to approach her but without turning, she said,
"Please do not touch me."

And then she seemed to straighten and turned to face me, once
again the old and scornful Vika, challenging, hostile. "But
of course you may touch me," she said, "for you are my
master."

"Forgive me," I said.

She laughed bitterly, scornfully.

It was truly a woman of Treve who stood before me now.

I saw her as I had never seen her before.

Vika was a bandit princess, accustomed to be clad in silk and
jewels from a thousand looted caravans, to sleep on the
richest furs and sup on the most delicate viands, all
purloined from galleys, beached and burnt, from the ravished
storerooms of outlying, smoking cylinders, from the tables
and treasure chests of homes whose men were slain, whose
daughters wore the chains of slave girls, only now she
herself, Vika, this bandit princess, proud Vika, a woman of
lofty, opulent Treve, had fallen spoils herself in the harsh
games of Gor, and felt on her own throat the same encircling
band of steel with which the men of her city had so often
graced the throats of their fair, weeping captives.

Vika was now property.

My property.

Her eyes regarded me with fury.

Insolently she approached me, slowly, gracefully, as silken
in her menace as the she-larl, and then to my astonishment
when she stood before me, she knelt, her hands on her thighs,
her knees in the position of the Pleasure Slave, and dropped
her head in scornful submission.

She raised her head and her taunting blue eyes regarded me
boldly. "Here, Master," she said, "is your Pleasure Slave."

"Rise," I said.

She rose gracefully and put her arms about my neck and moved
her lips close to mine. "You kissed me before," she said.
"Now I shall kiss you."

I looked into those blue eyes and they looked into mine, and
I wondered how many men had been burned, and had died, in
that smoldering, sullen fire.

Those magnificent lips brushed mine.

"Here," she said softly, imperiously, "is the kiss of your
Pleasure Slave."

I disengaged her arms from my neck.

She looked at me in bewilderment.

I walked from the room into the dimly lit hall. In the
passageway, I extended my hand to her, that she might come
and take it.

"Do I not please you?" she asked.

"Vika," I said, "come here and take the hand of a fool."

When she saw what I intended she shook head slowly, numbly.
"No," she said. "I cannot leave the chamber."

"Please," I said.

She shook with fear.

"Come," I said, "take my hand."

Slowly, trembling, moving as though in a dream, the girl
approached the portal, and this time the sensors could not
glow.

She looked at me.

"Please," I said.

She looked again at the sensors, which stared out of the wall
like black, gutted metal eyes. They were burned and still,
shattered, and even the wall in their vicinity showed the
seared, scarlet stain of their abrupt termination.

"They can hurt you no longer," I said.

Vika took another step and then it seemed her legs would fail
her and she might swoon. She put out her hand to me. Her
eyes were wide with fear.

"The women of Treve," I said, "are brave, as well as
beautiful and proud."

She stepped through the portal and fell fainting in my arms.


I lifted her and carried her to the stone couch.

I regarded the ruined sensors in the portal and the wreckage
of the surveillance device which had been concealed in the
energy bulb.

Perhaps now I would not have so long to wait for the Priest-
Kings of Gor.

Vika had said that when they wished me, they would come for
me.

I chuckled.

Perhaps now they would be encouraged to hasten their
appointment.

I gently placed Vika on the great stone couch.


------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Nine

THE PRIEST-KING

I WOULD ALLOW VIKA TO share the great stone couch, its
sleeping pelts, and silken sheets.

This was unusual, however, for normally the Gorean slave girl
sleeps at the foot of her masters couch, often on a straw
mat with only a thin, cottonlike blanket, woven from the soft
fibers of the Rep Plant, to protect her from the cold.

If she has not pleased her master of late, she may be, of
course, as a disciplinary measure, simply chained nude to the
slave ring at in the bottom of the couch, sans both blanket
and mat. The stones of the floor are hard and the Gorean
nights are cold and it is a rare girl who, when unchained in
the morning, does not seek more dutifully to serve her master.

This harsh treatment, incidentally, when she is thought to
deserve it, may even be inflicted on a Free Companion, in
spite of the fact that she is free and usually much loved.
According to the Gorean way of looking at things a taste of
the slave ring is thought to be occasionally beneficial to
all women, even the exalted Free Companions.

Thus when she has been irritable or otherwise troublesome
even a Free Companion may find herself at the foot of the
couch looking forward to a pleasant night on the stones,
stripped, with neither mat nor blanket, chained to a slave
ring precisely as though she were a lowly slave girl.

It is the Gorean way of reminding her, should she need to be
reminded, that she, too, is a woman, and thus to be
dominated, to be subject to men. Should she be tempted to
forget this basic fact of Gorean life the slave ring set in
the bottom of each Gorean couch is there to refresh her
memory. Gor is a mans world.

And yet on this world I have seen great numbers of women who
were both beautiful and splendid.

The Gorean woman, for reasons that are not altogether clear
to me, considering the culture, rejoices in being a woman.
She is often an exciting, magnificent, glorious creature,
outspoken, talkative, vital, active, spirited. On the whole
I find her more joyful than many of her earth-inhabiting
sisters who, theoretically at least, enjoy a more lofty
status, although it is surely true that on my old world I
have met several women with something of the Gorean zest for
acknowledging the radiant truth of their sex, the gifts of
joy, grace and beauty, tenderness, and fathoms of love that
we poor men, I suspect, may sometimes and tragically fail to
understand, to comprehend.

Yet with all due respect and regard for the most astounding
and marvelous sex, I suspect that, perhaps partly because of
my Gorean training, it is true that a touch of the slave ring
is occasionally beneficial.

Of custom, a slave girl may not even ascend the couch to
serve her masters pleasure. The point of this restriction,
I suppose, is to draw a clearer distinction between her
status and that of a Free Companion. At any rate the
dignities of the couch are, by custom, reserved for the Free
Companion.

When a master wishes to make use of a slave girl he tells her
to light the lamp of love which she obediently does, placing
it in the window of his chamber that they may not be
disturbed. Then with his own hand he throws upon the stone
floor of his chamber luxurious love furs, perhaps from the
larl itself, and commands her to them.

I had placed Vika gently on the great stone couch.

I kissed her gently on the forehead.

Her eyes opened.

"Did I leave the chamber?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

She regarded me for a long time. "How can I conquer you?"
she asked. "I love you, Tarl Cabot."

"You are only grateful," I said.

"No," she said, "I love you."

"You must not," I said.

"I do," she said.

I wondered how I should speak to her, for I must disabuse her
of the illusion that there could be love between us. In the
house of Priest-Kings there could be no love, nor could she
know her own mind in these matters, and there was always
Talena, whose image would never be eradicated from my heart.

"But you are a woman of Treve," I said, smiling.

"You thought I was a Passion Slave," she chided.

I shrugged.

She looked away from me, toward the wall. "You were right in
a way, Tarl Cabot."

"How is that?" I asked.

She looked at me directly. "My mother," she said bitterly,
"- was a Passion Slave - bred in the pens of Ar."

"She must have been very beautiful," I said.

Vika looked at me strangely. "Yes," she said, "I suppose she
was."

"Do you not remember her?" I asked.

"No," she said, "for she died when I was very young."

"I"m sorry," I said.

"It doesnt matter," said Vika, "for she was only an animal
bred in the pens of Ar."

"Do you despise her so?" I asked.

"She was a bred slave," said Vika.

I said nothing.

"But my father," said Vika, "whose slave she was, and who was
of the Caste of Physicians of Treve, loved her very much and
asked her to be his Free Companion." Vika laughed softly.
"For three years she refused him," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because she loved him," said Vika, "and did not wish him to
take for his Free Companion only a lowly Passion Slave."

"She was a very deep and noble woman," I said.

Vika made a gesture of disgust. "She was a fool," she said.
"How often would a bred slave have a chance of freedom?"

"Seldom indeed," I admitted.

"But in the end," said Vika, "fearing he would slay himself
she consented to become his Free Companion." Vikar regarded
me closely. Her eyes met mine very directly. "I was born
free," she said. "You must understand that. I am not a bred
slave."

"I understand," I said. "Perhaps," I suggested, "your mother
was not only beautiful, but proud and brave and fine."

"How could that be?" laughed Vika scornfully. "I have told
you she was only a bred slave, an animal from the pens of Ar."

"But you never knew her," I said.

"I know what she was," said Vika.

"What of your father?" I asked.

"In a way," she said, "he is dead too."

"What do you mean, in a way?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said.

I looked about the room, at the chests against the wall dim
in the reduced light of the energy bulbs, at the walls, at
the shattered device in the ceiling, at the broken sensors,
at the great, empty portal that led into the passageway
beyond.

"He must have loved you very much, after your mother died," I
said.

"Yes," said Vika, "I suppose so - but he was a fool."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"He followed me into the Sardar, to try and save me," she
said.

"He must have been a very brave man," I said.

She rolled away from me and stared at the wall. After a time
she spoke, her words cruel with contempt.

"He was a pompous little fool," she said, "and afraid even of
the cry of a larl."

She sniffed.

Suddenly she rolled back to face me. "How," she asked,
"could my mother have loved him? He was only a fat, pompous
little fool."

"Perhaps he was kind to her," I suggested, "- when others
were not."

"Why would anyone be kind to a Passion Slave?" asked Vika.

I shrugged.

"For the Passion Slave," she said, "it is the belled ankle,
perfume, the whip and the furs of love."

"Perhaps he was kind to her," I suggested again, "- when
others were not."

"I dont understand," said Vika.

"Perhaps," I said, "he cared for her and spoke to her and was
gentle - and loved her."

"Perhaps," said Vika. "But would that be enough?"

"Perhaps," I said.

"I wonder," said Vika. "I have often wondered about that."

"What became of him," I asked, "when he entered the Sardar?"

Vika would not speak.

"Do you know?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Then what?" I asked.

She shook her head bitterly. "Do not ask me," she said.

I would not press her further on the matter.

"How is it," I asked, "that he allowed you to come to the
Sardar?"

"He did not," said Vika. "He tried to prevent me but I
sought out the Initiates of Treve, proposing myself as an
offering to the Priest-Kings. I did not, of course, tell
them my true reason for desiring to come to the Sardar." She
paused. "I wonder if they knew," she mused.

"It is not improbable," I said.

"My father would not hear of it, of course," she said. She
laughed. "He locked me in my chambers, but the High Initiate
of the City came with warriors and they broke into our
compartments and beat my father until he could not move and I
went gladly with them." She laughed again. "Oh how pleased
I was when they beat him and he cried out - for he was not a
true man and even though of the Caste of Physicians could not
stand pain. He could not even bear to hear the cry of a
larl."

I knew that Gorean caste lines, though largely following
birth, were not inflexible, and that a man who did not care
for his caste might be allowed to change caste, if approved
by the High Council of his city, an approval usually
contingent on his qualifications for the work of another
caste and the willingness of the members of the new caste to
accept him as a Caste Brother.

"Perhaps," I suggested, "it was because he could not stand
pain that he remained a member of the Caste of Physicians."

"Perhaps," said Vika. "He always wanted to stop suffering,
even that of an animal or slave."

I smiled.

"You see," she said, "he was weak."

"I see," I said.

Vika lay back in the silks and furs. "You are the first of
the men in this chamber," she said, "who have spoken to me of
these things."

I did not reply.

"I love you, Tarl Cabot," she said.

"I think not," I said gently.

"I do!" she insisted.

"Someday," I said, "you will love - but I do not think it
will be a warrior of Ko-ro-ba."

"Do you think I cannot love?" she challenged.

"I think someday you will love," I said, "and I think you
will love greatly."

"Can you love?" she challenged.

"I dont know," I said. I smiled. "Once - long ago - I
thought I loved."

"Who was she?" asked Vika, not too pleasantly.

"A slender, dark-haired girl," I said, "whose name was
Talena."

"Was she beautiful?" asked Vika.

"Yes," I said.

"As beautiful as I?" asked Vika.

"You are both very beautiful," I said.

"Was she a slave?" asked Vika.

"No," I said, "- she was the daughter of a Ubar."

Rage transfigured Vikas features and she leaped from the
couch and strode to the side of the room, her fingers angrily
inside her collar, as though they might pull it from her
throat. "I see!" she said. "And I - Vika - am only a slave
girl!"

"Do not be angry," I said.

"Where is she?" demanded Vika.

"I dont know," I admitted.

"How long has it been since you have seen her?" demanded Vika.

"It has been more than seven years," I said.

Vika laughed cruelly. "Then," she gloated, she is in the
Cities of Dust."

"Perhaps," I admitted.

"I - Vika -" she said, "am here."

"I know," I said.

I turned away.

I heard her voice over my shoulder. "I will make you forget
her," she said.

Her voice had borne the cruel, icy, confident, passionate
menace of a woman from Treve, accustomed to have what she
wanted, who would not be denied.

I turned to face Vika once more, and I no longer saw the girl
to whom I had been speaking but a woman of High Caste, from
the bandit kingdom of Treve, insolent and imperious, though
collared.

Casually Vika reached to the clasp on the left shoulder of
her garment and loosened it, and the garment fell to her
ankles.

She was branded.

"You thought I was a Passion Slave," she said.

I regarded the woman who stood before me, the sullen eyes,
the pouting lips, the collar, the brand.

"Am I not beautiful enough," she asked, "to be the daughter
of a Ubar?"

"Yes," I said, "you are that beautiful."

She looked at me mockingly. "Do you know what a Passion
Slave is?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"It is a female of the human kind," she said, "but bred like
a beast for its beauty and its passion."

"I know," I said.

"It is an animal," she said, "bred for the pleasure of men,
bred for the pleasure of a master."

I said nothing.

"In my veins," she said, "flows the blood of such an animal.
In my veins flows the blood of a Passion Slave." She
laughed. "And you, Tarl Cabot, she said, "are its master.
You, Tarl Cabot, are my master."

"No," I said.

Amused, tauntingly, she approached me. "I will serve you as
a Passion Slave," she said.

"No," I said.

"Yes," she said, "for you I will be an obedient Passion
Slave." She lifted her lips to mine.

My hands on her arms held her from me.

"Taste me," she said.

"No," I said.

She laughed. "You cannot reject me," she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I shall not allow you to do so," she said. "You see, Tarl
Cabot, I have decided that you shall be my slave."

I thrust her from me.

"Very well," she cried, her eyes flashing. "Very well,
Cabot," she said, "then I shall conquer you!"

And she seized my head in her hands and pressed her lips to
mine.

In that moment I sensed once more that slightly acrid scent
which I had experienced in the corridors beyond the chamber,
and I pressed my mouth hard into Vikas until her lips were
cut by my teeth and I had pressed her back until only my arm
kept her from falling to the stones of the floor, and I heard
her cry of surprise and pain, and then I hurled her angrily
from me to the straw slave mat which lay at the foot of the
stone couch.

Now it seemed to me that I understood but they had come too
soon! She had not had a chance to do her work. It might go
hard with her but I was not concerned.

Still I did not turn to that giant portal.

The scent was now strong.

Vika crouched terrified on the slave mat at the foot of the
couch, in the very shadow of the slave ring.

"What is the matter?" she asked. "What is wrong?"

"So you were to conquer me for them, were you?" I demanded.

"I dont understand," she stammered.

"You are a poor tool for Priest-Kings," I said.

"No," she said, "no!"

"How many men have you conquered for Priest-Kings?" I asked.
I seized her by the hair and twisted her head to face me.
"How many?" I cried.

"Please!" she wept.

I found myself tempted to break her head against the foot of
the stone couch, for she was worthless, treacherous,
seductive, cruel, vicious, worthy only of the collar, irons
and the whip!

She shook her head numbly as though denying charges I had not
yet voiced.

"You dont understand," she said. "I love you!"

With loathing I cast her from me.

Yet still did I not turn to face that portal.

Vika lay at my feet, a streak of blood at the corner of those
lips that bore still the marks of my fierce kiss. She looked
up at me, tears welling in her eyes.

"Please," she said.

The scent was strong. I knew that it was near. How was it
that the girl was not aware of it? How was it that she did
not know? Was it not part of her plan?

"Please," she said, looking up at me, lifting her hand to me.
Her face was tear-stained; her voice was a broken sob. "I
love you," she said.

"Silence, Slave Girl," I said.

She lowered her head to the stones and wept.

I knew now that it was here.

The scent was now overpowering, unmistakable.

I watched Vika and suddenly she seemed too to know and her
head lifted and her eyes widened with horror and she crept to
her knees, her hands before her face as though to shield
herself and she shuddered and suddenly uttered a wild, long,
terrible scream of abject fear.

I drew my sword and turned.

It stood framed in the doorway.

In its way it was very beautiful, golden and tall, looming
over me, framed in that massive portal. It was not more than
a yard wide but its head nearly touched the top of the portal
and so I would judged that, standing as it did, it must have
been nearly eighteen feet high.

It had six legs and a great head like a globe of gold with
eyes like vast luminous disks. Its two forelegs, poised and
alert, were lifted delicately in front of its body. Its jaws
opened and closed once. They moved laterally.

From its head there extended two fragile, jointed appendages,
long and covered with short quivering strands of golden hair.
These two appendages, like eyes, swept the room once and then
seemed to focus on me.

They curved toward me like delicate golden pincers and each
of the countless golden strands on those appendages
straightened and pointed toward me like a quivering golden
needle.

I could not conjecture the nature of the creatures
experience but I knew that I stood within the center of its
sensory field.

About its neck there hung a small circular device, a
translator of some sort, similar to but more compact than
those I had hitherto seen.

I sensed a new set of odors, secreted by what stood before
me.

Almost simultaneously a mechanically reproduced voice began
to emanate from the translator.

It spoke in Gorean.

I knew what it would say.

"Lo Sardar," it said. "I am a Priest-King."

"I am Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," I said.

A moment after I spoke I sensed another set of odors, which
emanated perhaps from the device which hung about the neck of
what stood before me.

The two sensory appendages of the creature seemed to register
this information.

A new scent came to my nostrils.

"Follow me," said the mechanically reproduced voice, and the
creature turned from the portal.

I went to the portal.

It was stalking in long, delicate steps down the passageway.

I looked once more at Vika, who lifted her hand to me.
"Dont go," she said.

I turned scornfully from her and followed the creature.

Behind me I heard her weep.

Let her weep, I said to myself, for she has failed her
masters the Priest-Kings, and undoubtedly her punishment will
not be light.

Had I the time, had I not more urgent business, I might have
punished her myself, teaching her without mercy what could be
the meaning of her collar, using her as objectively and
ruthlessly as she deserved, brutally administering the
discipline of a Gorean master to a treacherous slave girl.

We would see then who would conquer.

I shook these thoughts from my head and continued down the
passageway.

I must forget the treacherous, vicious wench. There were
more important matters to attend to. The slave girl was
nothing.

I hated Vika.

I followed a Priest-King.

Chapter Ten

MISK THE PRIEST-KING

THE PRIEST-KINGS HAVE LITTLE or no scent of their own which
is detectable by the human nostrils, though one gathers there
is a nest odor by which they may identify one another, and
that the variations in this nest odor permit identifications
of individuals.

What in the passageways I had taken to be the scent of
Priest-Kings had actually been the residue of odor-signals
which Priest-Kings, like certain social insects of our world,
use in communicating with one another.

The slightly acrid odor I had noticed tends to be a common
property of all such signals, much as there is a common
property to the sound of a human voice, whether it be that of
an Englishman, a Bushman, a Chinese or a Gorean, which sets
it apart from, say, the growling of animals, the hiss of
snakes, the cry of birds.

The Priest-Kings have eyes, which are compound and many-
faceted, but they do not much rely on these organs. They
are, for them, something like our ears and nose, used as
secondary sensors to be relied upon when the most pertinent
information in the environment is not relayed by vision, or,
in the case of the Priest-Kings, by scent. Accordingly the
two golden-haired, jointed appendages protruding from their
globelike heads, above the rounded, disklike eyes, are their
primary sensory organs. I gather that these appendages are
sensitive not only to odors but, due to modification of some
of the sensory hairs, may also transform sound vibrations
into something meaningful in their experience. Thus, if one
wishes, one may speak of them not only as smelling but
hearing through these appendages. Apparently hearing is not
of great importance, however, to them, considering the small
number of hairs modified for this purpose. Oddly enough few
of the Priest-Kings whom I questioned on this matter seemed
to draw the distinction clearly between hearing and smelling.
I find this incredible, but I have no reason to believe they
deceived me. They recognize that we have different sensory
arrangements than they and I suspect that they are as unclear
as to the nature of our experience as we are of theirs. In
fact, though I speak of hearing and smelling, I am not sure
that these expressions are altogether meaningful when applied
to Priest-Kings. I speak of them smelling and hearing
through the sensory appendages, but what the quality of their
experience may be I am uncertain. For example, does a
Priest-King have the same qualitative experience that I do
when we are confronted by the same scent? I am inclined to
doubt it, for their music, which consists of rhapsodies of
odors produced by instruments constructed for this purpose,
and often played by Priest-Kings, some of whom I am told are
far more skillful than others, is intolerable to my ear, or I
should say, nose.

Communication by odor-signals can in certain circumstances
be extremely efficient, though it can be disadvantageous in
others. For example, an odor can carry, to the sensory
appendages of a Priest-King, much further than the shout or
cry of a man to another man. Moreover, if not too much time
is allowed to elapse, a Priest-King may leave a message in
his chamber or in a corridor for another Priest-King, and the
other may arrive later and interpret it. A disadvantage of
this mode of communication, of course, is that the message
may be understood by strangers or others for whom it is not
intended. One must be careful of what one says in the
tunnels of Priest-Kings for ones words may linger after one,
until they sufficiently dissipate to be little more than a
meaningless blur of scent.

For longer periods of time there are various devices for
recording a message, without relying on complex mechanical
devices. The simplest and one of the most fascinating is a
chemically treated rope of clothlike material which the
Priest-King, beginning at an end bearing a certain scent,
saturates with the odors of his message. This coiled
message-rope then retains the odors indefinitely and when
another Priest-King wishes to read the message he unrolls it
slowly scanning it serially with the jointed sensory
appendages.

I am told that the phonemes of the language of Priest-Kings
or, better, what in their language would correspond to
phonemes in ours, since their "phonemes have to do with
scent and not sound, number seventy-three. Their number is,
of course, potentially infinite, as would be the number of
possible phonemes in English, but just as we take a subset of
sounds to be English sounds and form our utterances from
them, so they take a subset of odors as similarly basic to
their speech. The number of English phonemes, incidentally,
is in the neighborhood of fifty.

The morphemes of the language of Priest-Kings, those smallest
intelligible information bits, in particular roots and
affixes, are, of course, like the morphemes of English,
extremely numerous. The normal morpheme, in their language
as in ours, consists of a sequence of phonemes. For example,
in English "bit" is one morpheme but three phonemes, as will
appear clear if given some reflection. Similarly in the
language of the Priest-Kings, the seventy-three "phonemes or
basic scents are used to form the meaning units of the
language, and a single morpheme of Priest-Kings may consist
of a complex set of odors.

I do not know whether there are more morphemes in the
language of Priest-Kings or in English, but both are
apparently rich languages, and, of course, the strict
morpheme count is not necessarily a reliable index to the
complexity of the lexicon, because of combinations of
morphemes to form new words. German, for example, tends to
rely somewhat more on morpheme combination than does English
or French. I was told, incidentally, that the language of
the Priest-Kings does possess more morphemes than English but
I do not know if the report is truthful or not, for Priest-
Kings tend to be somewhat touchy on the matter of any
comparisons, particularly those to their disadvantage or
putative disadvantage, with organisms of what they regard as
the lower orders. On the other hand it may well be the case
that, as a matter of fact, the morpheme set of the language
of Priest-Kings is indeed larger than that of English. I
simply do not know. The translator tapes, incidentally, are
approximately the same size, but this is no help, since the
tapes represent pairings of approximate equivalents, and
there are several English morphemes not translatable into the
language of Priest-Kings, and, as I learned, morphemes in
their language for which no English equivalents exist. One
English expression for which no natural "word" in their
language exists is, oddly enough, "friendship", and certain
of its cognates. There is an expression in their language
which translates into English as "Nest Trust", however, and
seems to play something of the same role in their thinking.
The notion of friendship, it seems to me, has to do with a
reliance and affection between two or more individuals; the
notion of Nest Trust, as clearly as I can understand it, is
more of a communal notion, a sense of relying on the
practices and traditions of an institution, accepting them
and living in terms of them.

I followed the Priest-King for a long time through the
passages.

For all its size it moved with a delicate, predatory grace.
It was perhaps very light for its bulk, or very strong,
perhaps both. It moved with a certain deliberate, stalking
movement; its tread was regal and yet it seemed almost
dainty, almost fastidious; it was almost as if the creature
did not care to soil itself by contact with the floor of the
passage.

It walked on four extremely long, slender, four-jointed
stalks that were its supporting legs, and carried its far
more muscular, four-jointed grasping legs, or appendages,
extremely high, almost level with its jaw, and in front of
its body. Each of these grasping appendages terminated in
four much smaller, delicate hooklike prehensile appendages,
the tips of which normally touched one another. I would
learn later that in the ball at the end of its forelegs from
which the smaller prehensile appendages extended, there was a
curved, bladed, hornlike structure that could spring forward;
this happens spontaneously when the legs tip is inverted, a
motion which at once exposes the hornlike blade and withdraws
the four prehensile appendages into the protected area
beneath it.

The Priest-King halted before what appeared to be a blind
wall.

He lifted one foreleg high over his head and touched
something high in the wall which I could not see.

A panel slid back and the Priest-King stepped into what
seemed to be a closed room.

I followed him, and the panel closed.

The floor seemed to drop beneath me and my hand grasped my
sword.

The Priest-King looked down at me and the antennae quivered
as though in curiosity.

I resheathed my sword.

I was in an elevator.


After perhaps four or five minutes the elevator stopped and
the Priest-King and I emerged.

The Priest-King rested back on the two posterior supporting
appendages and with a small cleaning hook behind the third
joint of one of his forelegs began to comb his antennae.

"These are the tunnels of Priest-Kings," it said.

I looked about me and found myself on a high, railed platform,
overlooking a vast circular artificial canyon, lined with
bridges and terraces. In the depths of this canyon and on
the terraces that mounted its sides were innumerable
structures, largely geometrical solids - cones, cylinders,
lofty cubes, domes, spheres and such - of various sizes,
colors and illuminations, many of which were windowed and
possessed of numerous floors, some of which even towered to
the level of the platform where I stood, some of which soared
even higher into the lofty reaches of the vast dome that
arched over the canyon like a stone sky.

I stood on the platform, my hands clenched on the railing,
staggered by what I saw.

The light of energy bulbs set in the walls and in the dome
like stars shed a brilliant light on the entire canyon.

"This," said the Priest-King, still grooming the golden hairs
of his antennae, "is the vestibule of our dominion."

From my position on the platform I could see numerous tunnels
at many levels leading out of the canyon, perhaps to other
such monstrous cavities, filled with more structures.

I wondered what would be the function of the structures,
probably barracks, factories, storehouses.

"Notice the energy bulbs," said the Priest-King. "They are
for the benefit of certain species such as yourself. Priest-
Kings do not need them."

"Then there are creatures other than Priest-Kings who live
here," I said.

"Of course," it replied.

At that moment to my horror a large, perhaps eight feet long
and a yard high, multilegged, segmented arthropod scuttled
near, its eyes weaving on stalks.

"Its harmless," said the Priest-King.

The arthropod stopped and the eyes leaned toward us and then
its pincers clicked twice.

I reached for my sword.

Without turning it scuttled backwards away, its body plates
rustling like plastic armor.

"See what you have done," said the Priest-King. "You have
frightened it."

My hand left the sword hilt and I wiped the sweat from my
palm on my tunic.

"They are timid creatures," said the Priest-King, "and I am
afraid they have never been able to accustom themselves to
the sight of your kind."

The Priest-Kings antennae shuddered a bit as they regarded
me.

"Your kind is terribly ugly," it said.

I laughed, not so much because I supposed what it said was
absurd, but because I supposed that, from the viewpoint of a
Priest-King, what it said might well be true.

"It is interesting," said the Priest-King. "What you have
just said does not translate."

"It was a laugh," I said.

"What is a laugh?" asked the Priest-King.

"It is something men sometimes do when they are amused," I
said.

The creature seemed puzzled.

I wondered to myself. Perhaps men did not much laugh in the
tunnels of the Priest-Kings and it was not accustomed to this
human practice. Or perhaps a Priest-King simply could not
understand the notion of amusement, it being perhaps
genetically removed from his comprehension. Yet I said to
myself the Priest-Kings are intelligent and I found it
difficult to believe there could exist an intelligent race
without humor.

"I think I understand," said the Priest-King. "It is like
shaking and curling your antennae?"

"Perhaps," I said, now more puzzled than the Priest-King.

"How stupid I am," said the Priest-King.

And then to my amazement the creature, resting back on its
posterior appendages, began to shake, beginning at its
abdomen and continuing upward through its trunk to its thorax
and head and at last its antennae began to tremble and,
curling, they wrapped about one another.

Then the Priest-King ceased to rock and its antennae
uncurled, almost reluctantly I thought, and it once again
rested quietly back on its posterior appendages and regarded
me.

Once again it addressed itself to the patient, meticulous
combing of its antennae hairs.

Somehow I imagined it was thinking.

Suddenly it stopped grooming its antennae and the antennae
looked down at me.

"Thank you," it said, "for not attacking me in the elevator."

I was dumbfounded.

"You"re welcome," I said.

"I did not think anesthesia would be necessary," it said.

"It would have been foolish to attack you," I said.

"Irrational, yes," agreed the Priest-King, "but the lower
orders are often irrational.

"Now," it said, "I may still look forward someday to the
Pleasures of the Golden Beetle."

I said nothing.

"Sarm thought the anesthesia would be necessary," it said.

"Is Sarm a Priest-King?" I asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Then a Priest-King may be mistaken," I said. This seemed to
me significant, far more significant than the mere fact that
a Priest-King might not understand a human laugh.

"Of course," said the creature.

"Could I have slain you?" I asked.

"Possibly," said the creature.

I looked over the rail at the marvelous complexity which
confronted me.

"But it would not have mattered," said the Priest-King.

"No?" I asked.

"No," it said. "Only the Nest matters."

My eyes still did not leave the dominion which lay below me.
Its diameter might have been ten pasangs in width.

"This is the Nest?" I asked.

"It is the beginning of the Nest," said the Priest-King.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Misk," it said.


------------------------------------------------------------
_______


Chapter Eleven

SARM THE PRIEST-KING

I TURNED FROM THE RAILING to observe the great ramp which for
pasangs in a great spiral approached the platform on which I
stood.

Another Priest-King, mounted on a low, oval disk which seemed
to slide up the ramp, was approaching.

The new Priest-King looked a great deal like Misk, save that
he was larger. I wondered if men of my species would have
difficulty telling Priest-Kings apart. I would later learn
to do so easily but at first I was often confused. The
Priest-Kings themselves distinguish one another by scent but
I, of course, would do so by eye.

The oval disk glided to within some forty feet of us, and the
golden creature which had ridden it stepped delicately to the
ramp.

It approached me, its antennae scrutinizing me carefully.
Then it backed away perhaps some twenty feet.

It seemed to me much like Misk except in size.

Like Misk it wore no clothing and carried no weapons, and its
only accouterment was a translator which dangled from its
neck.

I would learn later that in scent it wore its rank, caste and
station as clearly on its body as an officer in one of the
armies of Earth might wear his distinguishing braid and metal
bars.

"Why has it not been anaesthetized?" asked the new creature,
training its antennae on Misk.

"I did not think it would be necessary," said Misk.

"It was my recommendation that it be anaesthetized," said the
newcomer.

"I know," said Misk.

"This will be recorded," said the newcomer.

Misk seemed to shrug. His head turned, his laterally opening
jaws opened and closed slowly, his shoulders rustled and the
two antennae twitched once as though in irritation, and then
idly they began to examine the roof of the dome.

"The Nest was not jeopardized," came from Misks translator.

The newcomers antennae were now trembling, perhaps with
anger.

It turned a knob on its own translator and in a moment the
air was filled with the sharp odors of what I take might
have been a reprimand. I heard nothing for the creature had
snapped off his translator.

When Misk replied he too turned off his translator.

I observed their antennae and the general posturing and
carriage of their long, graceful bodies.

They stalked about one another and some of their motions were
almost whiplike. Upon occasion, undoubtedly as a sign of
irritation, the tips of the forelegs were inverted, and I
caught my first glimpse of the bladed, hornlike structures
therein concealed.

I would learn to interpret the emotions and states of Priest-
Kings by such signs. Many of these signs would be far less
obvious than the ones now displayed in the throes of anger.
Impatience, for example, is often indicated by a trembling in
the tactile hair on the supporting appendages, as though the
creature could not wait to be off; a wandering of attention
can be shown by the unconscious movement of the cleaning
hooks from behind the third joints of the forelegs,
suggesting perhaps the creature is thinking of grooming, an
occupation in which Priest-Kings, to my mind, spend an
inordinate amount of time; I might note, however, in
deference to them, that they consider humans a particularly
unclean animal and in the tunnels normally confine them for
sanitary purposes to carefully restricted areas; the subtlety
of these signs might well be illuminated if the indications
for a wandering of attention, mentioned above, are contrasted
with the superficially similar signs which give evidence that
a Priest-King is well or favorably disposed toward another
Priest-King, or other creature of any type. In this case
there is again the unconscious movement of the cleaning hooks
but there is in addition an incipient, but restrained,
extension of the forelegs in the direction of the object
toward which the Priest-King is well disposed; this suggests
to me that the Priest-King is willing to put its cleaning
hooks at the disposal of the other, that he is willing to
groom it. This may become more comprehensible when it is
mentioned that Priest-Kings, with their cleaning hooks, their
jaws and their tongues, often groom one another as well as
themselves. Hunger, incidentally, is indicated by an acidic
exudate which forms at the edges of the jaws giving them a
certain moist appearance; thirst, interestingly enough, is
indicated by a certain stiffness in the appendages, evident
in their movements, and by a certain brownish tarnish that
seems to infect the gold of the thorax and abdomen. The most
sensitive indicators of mood and attention, of course, as you
would probably gather, are the motions and tensility of the
antennae.

The translator, incidentally, supposing it to be turned on,
would provide only the translation of what was said, and the
words, unless the volume control was manipulated during the
message, would always occur at the same sound level. An
analogue to listening to a translator would be to imagine
words as pictures which, in the same type face and size,
flash serially on a screen. There would be no clue in the
individual pictures, per se, of the rhythm of the language or
the mood of the speaker. The translator can tell you that
the speaker is angry but it cannot show you that he is angry.

After a minute or two the Priest-Kings stopped circling one
another and turned to face me. As one creature, they turned
on their translators.

"You are Tarl Cabot of the City of Ko-ro-ba," said the larger.

"Yes," I said.

"I am Sarm," it said, "beloved of the Mother and First Born."

"Are you the leader of the Priest-Kings?" I asked.

"Yes," said Sarm.

"No," said Misk.

Sarms antennae darted in Misks direction.

"Greatest in the Nest is the Mother," said Misk.

Sarms antennae relaxed. "True," said Sarm.

"I have much to speak of with Priest-Kings," I said. "If the
one whom you call the Mother is chief among you, I wish to
see her."

Sarm rested back on his posterior appendages. His antennae
touched one another in a slightly curling movement. "None
may see the Mother save her caste attendants and the High
Priest-Kings," said Sarm, "the First, Second, Third, Fourth
and Fifth Born."

"Except on the three great holidays," said Misk.

Sarms antennae twitched angrily.

"What are the three great holidays?" I asked.

"The Nest Feast Cycle," said Misk, "Tola, Tolam and Tolama."

"What are these feasts?" I asked.

"They are the Anniversary of the Nuptial Flight," said Misk,
"the Feast of the Deposition of the First Egg and the
Celebration of the Hatching of the First Egg."

"Are these holidays near?" I asked.

"Yes," said Misk.

"But," said Sarm, "even on such feasts none of the lower
orders may view the Mother - only Priest-Kings."

"True," said Misk.

Anger suffused my countenance. Sarm seemed not to notice
this change but Misks antennae perked up immediately.
Perhaps it had had experience with human anger.

"Do not think badly of us, Tarl Cabot," said Misk, "for on
the holidays those of the lower orders who labor for us - be
it even in the pastures or fungus trays - are given surcease
from their labors."

"The Priest-Kings are generous," I said.

"Do the men below the mountains do as much for their
animals?" asked Misk.

"No," I said. "But men are not animals."

"Are men Priest-Kings?" asked Sarm.

"No," I said.

"Then they are animals," said Sarm.

I drew my sword and faced Sarm. The motion was extremely
rapid and must have startled him.

At any rate Sarm leaped backward on his jointed, stalklike
legs with almost incredible speed.

He now stood almost forty feet from me.

"If I cannot speak to the one you call the Mother," I said,
"perhaps I can speak to you."

I took a step towards Sarm.

Sarm pranced angrily backward, his antennae twitching with
agitation.

We faced one another.

I noticed the tips of his forelegs were inverted, unsheathing
the two curved, hornlike blades which reposed there.

We watched one another carefully.

From behind me I heard the mechanical voice of Misks
translator: "But she is the Mother," it said, "and we of the
Nest are all her children."

I smiled.

Sarm saw that I did not intend to advance further and his
agitation decreased, although his general attitude of
awareness was not relaxed.

It was at this time that I first saw how Priest-Kings
breathed, probably because Sarms respiratory movements were
now more pronounced than they had been hitherto. Muscular
contractions in the abdomen take place with the result that
air is sucked into the system through four small holes on
each side of the abdomen, the same holes serving also as
exhalation vents. Usually the breathing cycle, unless one is
quite close and listens carefully, cannot be heard, but in
the present case I could hear quite clearly from a distance
of several feet the quick intake of air through the eight
tiny, tubular mouths in Sarms abdomen, and its almost
immediate expellation through the same apertures.

Now the muscular contractions in Sarms abdomen became almost
unnoticeable and I could no longer hear the evidence of his
respiratory cycle. The tips of his forelegs were no longer
inverted, with the result that the bladed structures had
disappeared and the small, four-jointed, hooklike prehensile
appendages were again fully visible. Their tips delicately
touched one another. Sarms antennae were calm.

He regarded me.

He did not move.

I would never find myself fully able to adjust to the
incredible stillness with which a Priest-King can stand.

He reminded me vaguely of the blade of a golden knife.

Suddenly Sarms antennae pointed at Misk. "You should have
anaesthetized it," he said.

"Perhaps," said Misk.

For some reason this hurt me. I felt that I had betrayed
Misks trust in me, that I had behaved as a not fully
rational creature, that I had behaved as Sarm had expected me
to.

"I"m sorry," I said to Sarm, resheathing my sword.

"You see," said Misk.

"Its dangerous," said Sarm.

I laughed.

"What is that?" asked Sarm, lifting his antennae.

"It is shaking and curling its antennae," said Misk.

On the receipt of this information Sarm did not shake nor did
his antennae curl; rather the bladelike structures snapped
out and back, and his antennae twitched in irritation. I
gathered one did not shake and curl ones antennae at Priest-
Kings.

"Mount the disk, Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," said Misk,
gesturing with his foreleg to the flat oval disk which had
brought Sarm to our level.

I hesitated.

"He is afraid," said Sarm.

"He has much to fear," said Misk.

"I am not afraid," I said.

"Then mount the disk," said Misk.

I did so, and the two Priest-Kings stepped delicately onto
the disk to join me, in such a way that one stood on each
side and slightly behind me. Scarcely had they placed their
weight on the disk when it began to smoothly and silently
accelerate down the long ramp which led toward the bottom of
the canyon.

The disk moved with great swiftness and it was with some
difficulty that I managed to stand on my feet, leaning into
the blast of air which rushed past me. To my annoyance both
of the Priest-Kings seemed immobile, leaning alertly forward
into the wind, their forelegs lifted high, their antennae
lying flat, streaming backwards.

------------------------------------------------------------
_______

Chapter Twelve

THE TWO MULS

ON A MARBLE CIRCLE OF some half pasang in width, in the
bottom of that vast, brilliantly lit, many-colored
artificial canyon the oval disk diminished its speed and drew
to a stop.

I found myself in some sort of plaza, surrounded by the
fantastic architecture of the Nest of Priest-Kings. The
plaza was crowded, not only with Priest-Kings but even more
with various creatures of other forms and natures. Among
them I saw men and women, barefoot with shaven heads, clad in
short purple tunics that reflected the various lights of the
plaza as though they might have been formed of some
reflective plastic.

I stepped aside as a flat, sluglike creature, clinging with
several legs to a small transportation disk, swept by.

"We must hurry," said Sarm.

"I see human beings here," I said to Misk. "Are they slaves?"

"Yes," said Misk.

"They wear no collars," I pointed out.

"It is not necessary to mark a distinction between slave and
free within the Nest," said Misk, "for in the Nest all humans
are slaves."

"Why are they shaven and clad as they are?" I asked.

"It is more sanitary," said Misk.

"Let us leave the plaza," said Sarm.

I would learn later that his agitation was principally due to
his fear of contracting filth in this public place. Humans
walked here.

"Why do the slaves wear purple?" I asked Misk. "That is the
color of the robes of a Ubar."

"Because it is a great honor to be the slave of Priest-
Kings," said Misk.

"Is it your intention," I asked, "that I should be so shaved
and clad?"

My hand was on my sword hilt.

"Perhaps not," said Sarm. "It may be that you are to be
destroyed immediately. I must check the scent-tapes."

"He is not to be destroyed immediately," said Misk, "nor is
he to be shaved and clad as a slave."

"Why not?" asked Sarm.

"It is the wish of the Mother," said Misk.

"What has she to do with it?" asked Sarm.

"Much," said Misk.

Sarm seemed puzzled. He stopped. His antennae twitched
nervously. "Was he brought to the tunnels for some purpose?"

"I came of my own accord," I avowed.

"Dont be foolish," said Misk to me.

"For what purpose was he brought to the tunnels?" asked Sarm.

"The purpose is known to the Mother," said Misk.

"I am the First Born," said Sarm.

"She is the Mother," said Misk.

"Very well," said Sarm, and turned away. I sensed he was not
much pleased.

At that moment a human girl walked near and wide-eyed circled
us, looking at me. Although her head was shaved she was
pretty and the brief plastic sheath she wore did not conceal
her charms.

A shudder of repulsion seemed to course through Sarm.

"Hurry," he said, and we followed him as he scurried from the
plaza.


"Your sword," said Misk, extending one foreleg down to me.

"Never," I said, backing away.

"Please," said Misk.

For some reason I unbuckled the sword belt and reluctantly
handed the weapon to Misk.

Sarm, who stood in the long room on an oval dais, seemed
satisfied with this transaction. He turned to the walls
behind him which were covered with thousands of tiny
illuminated knobs. He pulled certain of these out from the
wall and they seemed to be attached to slender cords which he
passed between his antennae. He spent perhaps an Ahn in this
activity and then, exasperated, turned to face me.

I had been pacing back and forth in the long room, nervous
without the feel of the sword steel at my thigh.

Misk during all this time had not moved but had remained
standing in that incredible fixity perhaps unique to Priest-
Kings.

"The scent-tapes are silent," said Sarm.

"Of course," said Misk.

"What is to be the disposition of this creature?" asked Sarm.

"For the time," said Misk, "it is the wish of the Mother that
it be permitted to live as a Matok."

"What is that?" I asked.

"You speak much for one of the lower orders," said Sarm.

"What is a Matok?" I asked.

"A creature that is in the Nest but is not of the Nest," said
Misk.

"Like the arthropod?" I asked.

"Precisely," said Misk.

"If I had my wish," said Sarm, "he would be sent to the
vivarium or the dissection chambers."

"But that is not the wish of the Mother," said Misk.

"I see," said Sarm.

"Thus," said Misk, "it is not the wish of the Nest."

"Of course," said Sarm, "for the wish of the Mother is the
wish of the Nest."

"The Mother is the Nest and the Nest is the Mother," said
Misk.

"Yes," said Sarm, and the two Priest-Kings approached one
another, bowed and gently locked their antennae.

When they disengaged themselves, Sarm turned to face me.
"Nonetheless," he said, "I shall speak to the Mother about
this matter."

"Of course," said Misk.

"I should have been consulted," said Sarm, "for I am First
Born."

"Perhaps," said Misk.

Sarm looked down at me. I think he had not forgiven me the
start I had given him on the platform high above the canyon,
near the elevator.

"It is dangerous," he said. "It should be destroyed."

"Perhaps," said Misk.

"And it curled its antennae at me," said Sarm.

Misk was silent.

"Yes," said Sarm. "It should be destroyed."

Sarm then turned from me and with his left, forward
supporting appendage depressed a recessed button in the dais
on which he stood.

Hardly had his delicate foot touched the button than a panel
slid aside and two handsome men, of the most symmetrical form
and features with shaven heads and clad in the purple,
plastic tunics of slaves, entered the room and prostrated
themselves before the dais.

At a signal from Sarm they leaped to their feet and stood
alertly beside the dais, their feet spread, their heads high,
their arms folded.

"Behold these two," said Sarm.

Neither of the two men who had entered the room had seemed to
notice me.

I now approached them.

"I am Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," I said to them, extending my
hand.

If they saw my hand they made no effort to accept it.

I assumed they must be identical twins. They had wide, fine
heads, strong, broad bodies, and a carriage that suggested
calmness and strength.

Both were a bit shorter than I but were somewhat more
squarely built.

"You may speak," said Sarm.

"I am Mul-Al-Ka," said one, "honored slave of the glorious
Priest-Kings."

"I am Mul-Ba-Ta," said the other, ""honored slave of the
glorious Priest-Kings."

"In the Nest," said Misk, "the expression "Mul" is used to
designate a human slave."

I nodded. The rest of it I did not need to be told. The
expressions "Al-Ka" and "Ba-Ta" are the two first letters of
the Gorean alphabet. In effect these men had no names, but
were simply known as Slave A and Slave B.

I turned to Sarm.

"I assume," I said, "you have more than twenty-eight human
slaves." There were twenty-eight characters in the Gorean
alphabet. I had intended my remark to be rather vicious but
Sarm took no offense.

"Others are numbered," he said. "When one dies or is
destroyed, his number is assigned to another."

"Some of the low numbers," volunteered Misk, "have been
assigned as many as a thousand times."

"Why do these slaves not have numbers?" I asked.

"They are special," said Misk.

I regarded them closely. They seemed splendid specimens of
mankind. Perhaps Misk had meant merely that they were
unusually excellent representatives of the human type.

"Can you guess," asked Sarm, "which one has been synthesized?"

I must have given quite a start.

Sarms antennae giggled.

"Yes," said Sarm, "one was synthesized, beginning with the
synthesis of the protein molecules, and was formed molecule
by molecule. It is artificially constructed human being. It
is not of much scientific interest but it has considerable
curiosity value. It was built over a period of two centuries
by Kusk, the Priest-King, as a way of escaping in his leisure
hours from the burdens of his serious biological
investigations.

I shuddered.

"What of the other?" I asked.

"It too," said Sarm, "is not without interest and is also
bestowed upon us by the avocational whims of Kusk, one of the
greatest of our Nest."

"Is the other also synthesized?" I asked.

"No," said Sarm, "it is the product of genetic manipulation,
artificial control and alteration of the hereditary coils in
gametes."

I was sweating.

"Not the least interesting aspect of this matter," said Sarm,
"is the match."

To be sure I could not tell the two men, if they were men,
apart.

"That is the evidence of real skill," said Sarm.

"Kusk," said Misk, "is one of the greatest of the Nest."

"Which of these slaves," I asked, "is the one who was
synthesized?"

"Cant you tell?" asked Sarm.

"No," I said.

Sarms antennae shivered and wrapped themselves about one
another. He was shaking with the signs I knew now to be
associated with amusement.

"I will not tell you," he said.

"It is growing late," said Misk, "and the Matok, if he is to
remain in the Nest, must be processed."

"Yes," said Sarm, but he seemed in no hurry to conclude his
gloating. He pointed one long, jointed foreleg at the Muls.
"Gaze upon them with awe, Matok," said he, "for they are the
product of Priest-Kings and the most perfect specimens of
your race ever to exist."

I wondered about what Misk meant by "processing" but Sarms
words irritated me, as did the two grave, handsome fellows
who had so spontaneously groveled before his dais. "How is
that?" I asked.

"Is it not obvious?" asked Sarm.

"No," I said.

"They are symmetrically formed," said Sarm. "Moreover they
are intelligent, strong and in good health." Sarm seemed to
wait for my reply but there was none. "And," said Sarm,
"they live on fungus and water, and wash themselves twelve
times a day."

I laughed. "By the Priest-Kings!" I roared, the rather
blasphemous Gorean oath slipping out, somehow incongruously
considering my present location and predicament. Neither
Priest-King however seemed in the least disturbed by this
oath which might have brought tears to the eyes of a member
of the Caste of Initiates.

"Why do you curl your antennae?" asked Sarm.

"You call these perfect human beings?" I asked, waving my
arms toward the two slaves.

"Of course," said Sarm.

"Of course," said Misk.

"Perfect slaves!" I said.

"The most perfect human being is of course the most perfect
slave," said Sarm.

"The most perfect human being," I said, "is free."

A look of puzzlement seemed to appear in the eyes of the two
slaves.

"They have no wish to be set free," said Misk. He then
addressed the slaves. "What is your greatest joy, Muls?" he
asked.

"To be slaves of Priest-Kings," they said.

"You see?" asked Misk.

"Yes," I said. "I see now that they are not men."

Sarms antennae twitched angrily.

"Why do you not," I challenged, "have your Kusk, or whoever
he is, synthesize a Priest-King?"

Sarm seemed to shiver with rage. The bladed hornlike
projections snapped into view on his forelegs.

Misk had not moved. "It would be immoral," he said.

Sarm turned to Misk. "Would the Mother object if the Matoks
arms and legs were broken?"

"Yes," said Misk.

"Would the Mother object if its organs were damaged?" asked
Sarm.

"Undoubtedly," said Misk.

"But surely," said Sarm, "it can be punished."

"Yes," said Misk, "undoubtedly it will have to be disciplined
sometime."

"Very well," said Sarm and directed his antennae at the two
shaven-headed, plastic-clad slaves. "Punish the Matok," said
Sarm, "but do not break its bones nor injure its organs."

No sooner had these words been emitted from Sarms translator
than the two slaves leaped toward me to seize me.

In that same instant I leaped toward them, taking them by
surprise and compounding the momentum of my blow. I thrust
one aside with my left arm and crushed my fist into the face
of the second. His head snapped to the side and his knees
buckled. He crumpled to the floor. Before the other could
regain his balance, I had leaped to him and seized him in my
hands and lifted him high over my head and hurled him on his
back to the stone flooring of the long chamber. Had it been
combat to the death in that brief instant I would have
finished him leaping over him and gouging my heels into his
stomach rupturing the diaphragm. But I had no wish to kill
him, nor a matter of fact to injure him severely. He managed
to roll over on his stomach. I could have snapped his neck
then with my heel. The thought occurred to me that these
slaves had not been well trained to administer discipline.
They seemed to know almost nothing. Now the man was on his
knees, gasping, supporting himself on the palm of his right
hand. If he was right-handed, that seemed foolish. Also he
made no effort to cover his throat.

I looked up at Sarm and Misk, who, observing, stood in that
slightly inclined, infuriatingly still posture.

"Do not injure them further," said Misk.

"I will not," I said.

"Perhaps the Matok is right," said Misk to Sarm. "Perhaps
they are not perfect human beings."

"Perhaps," admitted Sarm.

Now the slave who was conscious lifted his hand piteously to
the Priest-Kings. His eyes were filled with tears.

"Please," he begged, "let us go to the dissection chambers."

I was dumbfounded.

Now the other had regained consciousness and, on his knees,
joined his fellow. "Please," he cried, "let us go to the
dissection chambers."

My astonishment could not be concealed.

"They feel that they have failed the Priest-Kings and wish to
die," said Misk.

Sarm regarded the two slaves. "I am kind," he said, "and it
is near the Feast of Tola." He lifted his foreleg with a
gentle, permissive gesture, almost a benediction. "You may
go to the dissection chambers."

To my amazement, gratitude transfigured the features of the
two slaves and, helping one another, they prepared to leave
the room.

"Stop!" I cried.

The two slaves stopped and looked at me.

My eyes were fixed however on Sarm and Misk. "You cant send
them to their deaths," I said.

Sarm seemed puzzled.

Misks antennae shrugged.

Frantically I groped for a plausible objection. "Kusk would
surely be displeased if his creatures were to be destroyed,"
I said. I hoped it would do.

Sarm and Misk touched antennae.

"The Matok is right," said Misk.

"True," said Sarm.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Sarm then turned to the two slaves. "You may not go to the
dissection chambers," he said.

Once more the two slaves, this time apparently without
emotion, folded their arms and stood, legs apart, beside the
dais. Nothing might have happened in the last few moments
save that one was breathing heavily and the others face was
splattered with his own blood.

Neither of them showed any gratitude at being reprieved nor
did either evince any resentment at my having interfered with
their executions.

I was, as you might suppose, puzzled. The responses and
behavior of the two slaves seemed to be incomprehensible.

"You must understand, Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," said Misk,
apparently sensing my puzzlement, "that it is the greatest
joy of Muls to love and serve Priest-Kings. If it is the
wish of a Priest-King that they die they do so with great
joy; if it is the wish of a Priest-King that they live, they
are similarly delighted."

I noted that neither of the two slaves looked particularly
delighted.

"You see," continued Misk, "these Muls have been formed to
love and serve Priest-Kings."

"They have been made that way," I said.

"Precisely," said Misk.

"And yet you say they are human," I said.

"Of course," said Sarm.

And then to my surprise one of the slaves, though which one I
could not have told, looked at me and spoke. "We are human,"
it said very simply.

I approached him and held out my hand. "I hope I did not
hurt you," I said.

It took my hand and awkwardly held it, not knowing how to
shake hands apparently.

"I too am human," said the other, looking at me rather
directly.

He held his hand out with the back of his hand up. I took
the hand and turned it and shook it.

"I have feelings," said the first man.

"I, too, have feelings," said the second man.

"We all do," I said.

"Of course," said the first man, "for we are human."

I looked at him very carefully. "Which of you," I asked,
"has been synthesized?"

"We do not know," said the first man.

"No," said the second man. "We have never been told."

The two Priest-Kings had watched this small concourse with
some interest, but now the voice of Sarms translator was
heard: "It is growing late," it said, "let the Matok be
processed."

"Follow me," said the first man and turned, and I followed
him, leaving the room, the second man falling into stride
beside me.

Chapter Thirteen

THE SLIME WORM

I FOLLOWED MUL-AL-KA AND MUL-Ba-Ta through several rooms and
down a long corridor.

"This is the Hall of Processing," said one of them.

We passed several high steel portals in the hallway and on
each of these, about twenty feet high, at the antennae level
of a Priest-King, were certain dots, which I was later to
learn were scent dots.

If the scent-dots were themselves not scented one might be
tempted to think of them as graphemes in the language of the
Priest-Kings, but since they themselves are scented they are
best construed as analogous to uttered phonemes or phoneme
combinations, direct expressions of the oral syllabary of the
Priest-Kings.

When surrounded by scent-dots one might suppose the Priest-
King to be subjected to a cacophony of stimulation, much as
we might be if envisioned by dozens of blaring radios and
television sets, but this is apparently not the case; the
better analogy would seem to be our experience of walking
down a quiet city street surrounded by printed signs which we
might notice but to which we do not pay much attention.

In our sense there is no distinction between a spoken and
written language for the Priest-Kings, though there is an
analogous distinction between linguistic patterns that are
actually sensed and those which are potentially to be sensed,
an example of the latter being the scents of a yet uncoiled
scent-tape.

"You will not much care for the processing," said one of my
guides.

"But it will be good for you," said the other.

"Why must I be processed?" I asked.

"To protect the Nest from contamination," said the first.

Scents, of course, will fade in time, but the specially
prepared synthetic products or the Priest-Kings can last for
thousands of years and, in the long run, will surely outlast
the fading print of human books, the disintegrating celluloid
of our films, perhaps even the carved, weathering stones so
imperishably attesting the incomparable glories of our
numerous kings, conquerors and potentates.

Scent-dots, incidentally, are arranged in rows constituting a
geometrical square, and are read beginning with the top row
from left to right, then right to left, and then left to
right and so on again.

Gorean, I might note, is somewhat similar, and though I speak
Gorean fluently, I find it very difficult to write, largely
because of the even-numbered lines which, from my point of
view, must be written backwards. Torm, my friend of the
Caste of Scribes, never forgave me this and to this day, if
he lives, he undoubtedly considers me partly illiterate. As
he said, I would never make a Scribe. "It is simple," he
said. "You just write it forward but in the other direction."

The syllabary of the Priest-Kings, not to be confused with
their set of seventy-three "phonemes, consists of what seems
to me to be a somewhat unwieldy four hundred and eleven
characters, each of which stands of course for a phoneme or
phoneme combination, normally a combination. Certain
juxtapositions of these phonemes and phoneme combinations,
naturally, form words. I would have supposed a simpler
syllabary, or even an experimentation with a nonscented
perhaps alphabetic graphic script, would have been desirable
linguistic ventures for the Priest-Kings, but as far as I
know they were never made.

With respect to the rather complex syllabary, I originally
supposed that it had never been simplified because the
Priest-King, with his intelligence, would absorb the four
hundred and eleven characters of his syllabary more rapidly
than would a human child his alphabet of less than thirty
letters, and thus that the difference to him between more
than four hundred signs and less than thirty would be
negligible.

As far as it goes this was not bad guesswork on my part, but
deeper reasons underlay the matter. First, I did not know
then how Priest-Kings learned. They do not learn as we do.
Second, they tend in many matters to have a penchant for
complexity, regarding it as more elegant than simplicity.
One practical result of this seems to be that they have never
been tempted to oversimplify physical reality, biological
processes or the operations of a functioning mind. It would
never occur to them that nature is ultimately simple, and if
they found it so they would be rather disappointed. They
view nature as a set of interrelated continua rather than as
a visually oriented organism is tempted to do, as a network
of discrete objects which must be somehow, mysteriously,
related to one another. Their basic mathematics,
incidentally, begins with ordinal and not cardinal numbers,
and the mathematics of cardinal numbers is regarded as a
limiting case imposed on more intuitively accepted
ordinalities. Most significantly however I suspect that the
syllabary of Priest-Kings remains complex, and that
experiments with unscented graphemes were never conducted,
because, except for lexical additions, they wish to keep
their language much as it was in the ancient past. The
Priest-King, for all his intelligence, tends to be fond of
established patterns, at least in basic cultural matters such
as Nest mores and language, subscribing to them however not
because of genetic necessity but rather a certain undoubtedly
genetically based preference for that which is comfortable
and familiar. The Priest-King, somewhat like men, can change
its ways but seldom cares to do so.

And yet there is probably more to these matters than the
above considerations would suggest.

I once asked Misk why the syllabary of Priest-Kings was not
simplified, and he responded, "If this were done we would
have to give up certain signs, and we could not bear to do
so, for they are all very beautiful."

Beneath the scent-dots on each high portal which Mul-Al-Ka
and Mul-Ba-Ta and I passed there was, perhaps for the benefit
of humans or others, a stylized outline picture of a form of
creature.

On none of the doors that we had passed thus far was the
stylized outline picture of a human.

Down the hall running towards us, not frantically but rather
deliberately, at a steady pace, came a young human female, of
perhaps eighteen years of age, with shaved head and clad in
the brief plastic tunic of a Mul.

"Do not obstruct her," said one of my guides.

I stepped aside.

Scarcely noticing us and clutching two scent-tapes in her
hands the girl passed.

She had brown eyes and, I thought, in spite of her shaved
head, was attractive.

Neither of my companions showed, or seemed to show, the least
interest in her.

For some reason this annoyed me.

I watched her continue on down the passageway, listened to
the slap of her bare feet on the floor.

"Who is she?" I asked.

"A Mul," said one of the slaves.

"Of course she is a Mul," I said.

"Then why do you ask?" he asked.

I found myself nastily hoping that he was the one who had
been synthesized.

"She is a Messenger," said the other, "who carries scent-
tapes between portals in the Hall of Processing."

"Oh," said the first slave. "He is interested in things like
that."

"He is new in the tunnels," said the second slave.

I was curious. I looked directly at the first slave. "She
had good legs, didnt she?" I said.

He seemed puzzled. "Yes," he said, "very strong."

"She was attractive," I said to the second.

"Attractive?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Yes," he said, she is healthy."

"Perhaps she is someones mate?" I asked.

"No," said the first slave.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"She is not in the breeding cases," said the man.

Somehow these laconic responses and the unquestioning
acceptance of the apparent barbarities of the rule of Priest-
Kings infuriated me.

"I wonder how she would feel in ones arms," I said.

The two men looked at me and at one another.

"One must not wonder about that," said one.

"Why not?" I asked.

"It is forbidden," said the other.

"But surely," I said, "you must have wondered about that?"

One of the men smiled at me. "Yes," he said, "I have
sometimes wondered about that."

"So have I," said the other.

Then all three of us turned to watch the girl, who was now no
more than a bluish speck under the energy bulbs far down the
hall.

"Why is she running?" I asked.

"The journeys between portals are timed," said the first
slave, "and if she dallies she will be given a record-scar."

"Yes," said the other, "five record-scars and she will be
destroyed."

"A record-scar," I said, "is some sort of mark on your
records?"

"Yes," said the first slave, "it is entered on your scent-
tape and also, in odor, inscribed on your tunic."

"The tunic," said the other, "is inscribed with much
information, and it is by means of the tunic that Priest-
Kings can recognize us."

"Yes," said the first slave, "otherwise I am afraid we would
appear much alike to them."

I stored this information away, hoping that someday it might
prove useful.

"Well," I said, still looking down the hall, "I would have
supposed that the mighty Priest-Kings could have devised a
quicker way of transporting scent-tapes."

"Of course," said the first slave, "but there is no better
way, for Muls are extremely inexpensive and are easily
replaced."

"Speed in such matters," said one, "is of little interest to
Priest-Kings."

"Yes," said the other, "they are very patient."

"Why have they not given her a transportation device?" I
asked.

"She is only a Mul," said the first slave.

All three of us stared down the hall after the girl, but she
had now disappeared in the distance.

"But she is a healthy Mul," said one.

"Yes," said the other, "and she has strong legs."

I laughed and clapped both of the slaves on the shoulders,
and the three of us, arm in arm, walked down the hall.


We had not walked far when we passed a long, wormlike animal,
eyeless, with a small red mouth, that inched its way along
the corridor, hugging the angle between the wall and floor.

Neither of my guides paid the animal any attention.

Indeed, even I myself, after my experience with the arthropod
on the platform and the flat, sluglike beast on its
transportation disk in the plaza, was growing accustomed to
finding strange creatures in the Nest of the Priest-Kings.

"What is that?" I asked.

"A Matok," said one of the slaves.

"Yes," said the other, "it is in the Nest but not of the
Nest."

"But I thought I was a Matok," I said.

"You are," said one of the slaves.

We continued on.

"What do you call it?" I asked.

"Oh," said one of the slaves. "It is a Slime Worm."

"What does it do?" I asked.

"Long ago it functioned in the Nest," said one of the slaves,
"as a sewerage device, but it has not served that function in
many thousands of years."

"But yet it remains in the Nest."

"Of course," said one of the slaves, "the Priest-Kings are
tolerant."

"Yes," said the other, "and they are fond of it, and are
themselves creatures of great reverence for tradition."

"The Slime Worm has earned its place in the Nest," said the
other.

"How does it live?" I asked.

"It scavenges on the kills of the Golden Beetle," said the
first slave.

"What does the Golden Beetle kill?" I asked.

"Priest-Kings," said the second slave.

I would surely have pressed forward this inquiry but at that
very moment we arrived at a tall steel portal in the hallway.

Looking up I saw beneath the square of scent-dots fixed high
on the steel door the stylized outline picture of what was
unmistakably a human being.

"This is the place," said one of my companions. "It is here
that you will be processed."

"We will wait for you," said the other.


------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Fourteen

THE SECRET CHAMBER OF MISK

THE ARMS OF THE METAL device seized me and I found myself
held helplessly by the arms suspended some feet above the
floor.

Behind me the panel had slid shut.

The room was rather large, bleak and coated with plastic. It
seemed to be bare except that at one end there were several
metal disks in the wall and, high in the wall, there was a
transparent shield. Viewing me antiseptically through this
shield was the face of a Priest-King.

"May you bathe in the dung of Slime Worms," I called to him
cheerfully. I hoped he had a translator.

Two circular metal plates in the wall beneath the shield had
slid upward and suddenly long metal arms had telescoped
outwards and reached for me.

For an instant I had considered scrambling out of their reach
but then I had sensed that there would be no escape in the
smooth, closed, carefully prepared room in which I found
myself.

The metal arms had locked on me and lifted me from the floor.

The Priest-King behind the shield did not seem to notice my
remark. I supposed he did not have a translator.

As I dangled there to my irritation further devices
manipulated by the Priest-King emerged from the wall and
extended towards me.

One of these with maddening delicacy snipped the clothing
from my body, even cutting the thongs of my sandals. Another
deftly forced a large, ugly pellet down my throat.

Considering the size of a Priest-King and the comparatively
small scale of these operations I gathered that the reduction
gearing on the mechanical appendages must be considerable.
Moreover the accuracy with which the operations were
performed suggested a magnification of some sort. I would
learn later that practically the entire wall which faced me
was such a device, being in effect a very large scent-
reinforcer. But at the time I was in no mood to admire the
engineering talents of my captors.

"May your antennae be soaked in grease!" I called to my
tormentor.

His antennae stiffened and then curled a bit at the tips.

I was pleased. Apparently he did have a translator.

I was considering my next insult when the two arms which held
me swung me over a metal cage with a double floor, the higher
consisting of narrow bars set in a wide mesh and the lower
consisting simply of a white plastic tray.

The metal appendages which held me suddenly sprang open and I
was dropped into the cage.

I sprang to my feet but the top of the cage had clicked shut.

I wanted to try the bars but already I felt sick and I sank
to the bottom of the cage.

I was no longer interested in insulting Priest-Kings.

I remember looking up and seeing its antennae curling.

It took only two or three minutes for the pellet to do its
work and it is not with pleasure that I recall those minutes.

Finally the plastic tray neatly slid out from beneath the
cage and swiftly disappeared through a low, wide panel in the
left wall.

I gratefully noted its departure.

Then the entire cage, on a track of some sort, began to move
through an opening which appeared in the right wall.

In the following journey the cage was successively submerged
in various solutions of various temperatures and densities,
some of which, perhaps because I was still ill, I found
exceedingly noxious.

Had I been less ill I would undoubtedly have been more
offended.

At last after I, sputtering and choking, had been duly
cleansed and rinsed several times, and then it seemed several
times again, the cage began to move slowly, mercifully,
between vents from which blasts of hot air issued, and,
eventually, it passed slowly between an assortment of humming
projection points for wide-beam rays, some of which were
visible to my eye, being yellow, red and a refulgent green.

I would later learn that these rays, which passed through my
body as easily and harmlessly as sunlight through glass, were
indexed to the metabolic physiology of various organisms
which can infect Priest-Kings. I would also learn that the
last known free instance of such an organism had occurred
more than four thousand years before. In the next few weeks
in the Nest I would occasionally come upon diseased Muls.
The organisms which afflict them are apparently harmless to
Priest-Kings and thus allowed to survive. Indeed, they are
regarded as Matoks, in the Nest, but not of the Nest, and are
thus to be tolerated with equanimity.

I was still quite ill when, clad in a red plastic tunic, I
rejoined the two slaves in the hall outside the door.

"You look much better," said one of them.

"They left the threadlike growths on your head," said the
other.

"Hair," I said, leaning against the portal.

"Strange," said one of the slaves. "The only fibrous body
growths permitted Muls are the lashes of the eyes."

This, I supposed, would have to do with protecting the eyes
from particles. Idly, not feeling well, I wondered if there
were any particles.

"But he is a Matok," said one.

"That is true," said the other.

I was glad that the tunic I wore was not of the Ubars purple
which would proclaim me as a slave of Priest-Kings.

"Perhaps if you are very zealous," said one, "you can become
a Mul."

"Yes," said the other, "then you would be not only in the
Nest but of the Nest."

I did not respond.

"That is best," said one.

"Yes," said the other.

I leaned back against the portal of the Hall of Processing,
my eyes closed, and took several slow, deep breaths.

"You have been assigned quarters," said one of the two
slaves, "a case in the chamber of Misk."

I opened my eyes.

"We will take you there," said the other.

I looked at them blankly. "A case?" I asked.

"He is not well," said one of the slaves.

"It is quite comfortable," said the other, "with fungus and
water."

I closed my eyes again and shook my head. I could feel them
gently take my arms and I accompanied them slowly down the
hall.

"You will feel much better," said one of them, "when you have
had a bit of fungus."

"Yes," said the other.


It is not hard to get used to Mul-Fungus, for it has almost
no taste, being an extremely bland, pale, whitish, fibrous
vegetablelike matter. I know of no one who is moved much in
one direction or the other by its taste. Even the Muls, many
of whom have been bred in the Nest, do not particularly like
it, nor despise it. It is eaten with much the same lack of
attention that we normally breathe air.

Muls feed four times a day. In the first meal, Mul-Fungus is
ground and mixed with water, forming a porridge of sorts; for
the second meal it is chopped into rough two-inch cubes; for
the third meal it is minced with Mul-Pellets and served as a
sort of cold hash; the Mul-Pellets are undoubtedly some type
of dietary supplement; at the final meal Mul-Fungus is
pressed into a large, flat cake and sprinkled with a few
grains of salt.

Misk told me, and I believe him, that Muls had occasionally
slain one another for a handful of salt.

The Mul-Fungus, as far as I can tell, is not much different
from the fungus, raised under ideal conditions from specially
selected spores, which graces the feed troughs of the Priest-
Kings themselves, a tiny sample of which was once given me by
Misk. It was perhaps a bit less coarse than Mul-Fungus.
Misk was much annoyed that I could not detect the difference.
I was much annoyed when I found out later that the major
difference between high-quality fungus and the lower-grade
Mul-Fungus was simply the smell. I was in the Nest,
incidentally, for more than five weeks before I could even
vaguely detect the odor difference which seemed so
significant to Misk. And then it did not strike me as being
better or worse than that of the low-grade Mul-Fungus.

The longer I stayed in the Nest the more acute became my
sense of smell, and it was an embarrassing revelation to me
to discover how unaware I had become of these varied, rich
sensory cues so abundantly available in my environment. I
was given a translator by Misk and I would utter Gorean
expressions into it and then wait for the translation into
the language of the Priest-Kings, and in this way, after a
time, I became capable of recognizing numerous meaningful
odors. The first odor I came to recognize was Misks name,
and it was delightful to discover, as I became more practiced
and sensitive, that the odor was the same as his own.

One of the things I did was run the translator over the red
plastic tunic I had been issued and listen to the information
which had been recorded on it. There was not much save my
name and city, that I was a Matok under the supervision of
Misk, that I had no record-scars and that I might be
dangerous.

I smiled at the latter caution.

I did not even have a sword, and I was sure that, in any
battle with Priest-Kings, I would constitute but a moments
work for their fierce mandibles and the bladed, hornlike
projections on their forelegs.

The case which I was to occupy in Misks chamber was not as
bad as I had anticipated.

Indeed, it seemed to me far more luxurious than the
appointments in Misks own chamber, which seemed utterly bare
except for the feed trough and numerous compartments, dials,
switches and plugs mounted in one wall. The Priest-Kings eat
and sleep standing and never lie down, except perhaps it be
to die.

The bareness of Misks chambers was, however, as it turned
out, only an apparent bareness to a visually oriented
organism such as myself. Actually the walls, ceilings and
floor were covered with what, to a Priest-King, were
excruciatingly beautiful scent-patterns. Indeed, Misk
informed me that the patterns in his chamber had been laid
down by some of the greatest artists in the Nest.

My case was a transparent plastic cube of perhaps eight feet
square, with ventilation holes and a sliding plastic door.
There was no lock on the door and thus I could come and go as
I pleased.

Inside the cube there were canisters of Mul-Fungus, a bowl, a
ladle, a wooden-bladed Fungus-Knife; a wooden-headed Fungus-
Mallet; a convenient tube of Mul-Pellets, which discharged
its contents one at a time following my depressing a lever in
the bottom of the tube; and a large, inverted jar of water,
by means of which an attached, somewhat shallow, watering pan
was kept filled.

In one corner of the case there was a large, circular padding
a few inches deep of soft, rough-cut, reddish moss which was
not uncomfortable and was changed daily.

Adjoining the cube, reached from the cube by sliding plastic
panels, were a lavatory facility and a washing-booth.

The washing-booth was remarkably like the showers with which
we are familiar except that one may not regulate the flow of
fluid. One turns on the fluid by stepping into the booth and
its amount and temperature are controlled automatically. I
had naturally supposed the fluid to be simply water which it
closely resembled in appearance, and once had tried to fill
my bowl for the morning meal there, rather than ladling the
water out of the water pan. Choking, my mouth burning, I
spat it out in the booth.

"It is fortunate," said Misk, "that you did not swallow it
for the washing fluid contains a cleansing additive that is
highly toxic to human physiology."

Misk and I got on rather well together after a few small
initial frictions, particularly having to do with the salt
ration and the number of times a day the washing-booth was to
be used. If I had been a Mul I would have received a record-
scar for each day on which I had not washed completely twelve
times. Washing-booths, incidentally, are found in all Mul-
cases and often, for convenience, along the tunnels and in
public places, such as plazas, shaving-parlors, pellet-
dispensaries, and fungus commissaries. Since I was a Matok I
insisted that I should be exempted from the Duty of the
Twelve Joys, as it is known. In the beginning I held out for
one shower a day as quite sufficient but poor Misk seemed so
upset that I agreed to up my proposal to two. He would still
hear nothing of this and seemed firm that I should not fall
below ten. At last, feeling that I perhaps owed something to
Misks acceptance of me in his chamber, I suggested a
compromise at five, and, for an extra salt packet, six on
alternate days. At last Misk threw in two extra salt packets
a day and I agreed to six washings. He himself, of course,
did not use a washing-booth but groomed and cleaned himself
in the age-old fashion of Priest-Kings, with his cleaning
hooks and mouth. Occasionally after we got to know one
another better, he would even allow me to groom him, and the
first time he allowed me, with the small grooming fork used
by favored Muls, to comb his antennae I knew that he trusted
me, and liked me, though for what reason I could not tell.

I myself grew rather fond of Misk.

"Did you know," said Misk once to me, "that humans are among
the most intelligent of the lower orders?"

"I"m glad to hear it," I said.

Misk was quiet and his antennae waved nostalgically.

"I once had a pet Mul," he said.

I looked at my case.

"No," said Misk, "when a pet Mul dies the case is always
destroyed, lest there be contamination."

"What happened to him?" I asked.

"It was a small female," said Misk. "It was slain by Sarm."

I felt a tension in the foreleg of Misk which I was grooming
as though it were involuntarily prepared to invert, bringing
out the bladelike projection.

"Why?" I asked.

Misk said nothing for a long time, and then he dejectedly
lowered his head, delicately extending his antennae to me for
grooming. After I had combed them for a bit, I sensed he was
ready to speak.

"It was my fault," said Misk. "She wanted to let the
threadlike growths on her head emerge, for she was not bred
in the Nest." Misks voice came from the translator as
consecutively and mechanically as ever, but his whole body
trembled. I removed the grooming fork from his antennae in
order that the sensory hairs not be injured. "I was
indulgent," said Misk, straightening up so that his long body
now loomed over me, inclined forward slightly from the
vertical in the characteristic stance of Priest-Kings. "So
that it was actually I who killed her."

"I think not," I said. "You tried to be kind."

"And it occurred on the day on which she saved my life," said
Misk.

"Tell me about it," I said.

"I was on an errand for Sarm," said Misk, "which took me to
unfrequented tunnels and for company I took the girl with me.
We came upon a Golden Beetle though none had ever been seen
in that place and I wanted to go to the Beetle and I put my
head down and approached it but the girl seized my antennae
and dragged me away, thus saving my life."

Misk lowered his head again and extended his antennae for
grooming.

"The pain was excruciating," said Misk, "and I could not but
follow her in spite of the fact that I wanted to go to the
Golden Beetle. In an Ahn of course I no longer wanted to go
to the Beetle and I knew then she had saved my life. It was
the same day that Sarm ordered her given five record-scars
for the growths on her head and had her destroyed."

"Is it always five record-scars for such an offense?" I asked.

"No," said Misk. "I do not know why Sarm acted as he did."

"It seems to me," I said, "that you should not blame yourself
for the girls death, but Sarm."

"No," said Misk. "I was too indulgent."

"Is it not possible," I asked, "that Sarm wished you to die
by the Golden Beetle?"

"Of course," said Misk. "It was undoubtedly his intention."

I puzzled to myself why Sarm might want Misk to be killed.
Undoubtedly there was some type of rivalry or political
division between them. To my human mind, used to the
cruelties with which selfish men can implement their schemes,
I saw nothing incomprehensible in the fact that Sarm would
have attempted to engineer Misks death. I would learn later
however that this simple fact was indeed almost
incomprehensible to Priest-Kings, and that Misk, though he
readily accepted it as a fact in his mind, could not bring
himself, so to speak, in the furthest reaches of his heart to
acknowledge it as true, for were not both he and Sarm of the
Nest, and would not such an action be a violation of Nest
Trust?

"Sarm is the First Born," said Misk, "whereas I am the Fifth
Born. The first five born of the Mother are the High Council
of the Nest. The Second, Third and Fourth Born, in the long
ages, have, one by one, succumbed to the Pleasures of the
Golden Beetle. Only Sarm and I are left of the Five."

"Then," I suggested, "he wants you to die so that he will be
the only remaining member of the Council and thus have
absolute power."

"The Mother is greater than he," said Misk.

"Still," I suggested, "his power would be considerably
augmented."

Misk looked at me and his antennae had a certain lack of
resilience and the golden hairs had seemed to lose some of
their sheen.

"You are sad," I said.

Misk bent down until his long body was horizontal and then
inclined downward yet more towards me. He laid his antennae
gently on my shoulders, almost as though a man might have put
his hands on them.

"You must not understand these things," said Misk, "in terms
of what you know of men. It is different."

"It seems no different to me," I said.

"These things," said Misk, "are deeper and greater than you
know, then you can now understand."

"They seem simple enough to me," I remarked.

"No," said Misk. "You do not understand." Misks antennae
pressed a bit on my shoulders. "But you will understand," he
said.

The Priest-King then straightened and stalked to my case.
With his two forelegs he gently lifted it and moved it aside.
The ease with which he did this astonished me for I am sure
its weight must have been several pounds. Beneath the case I
saw a flat stone with a recessed ring. Misk bent down and
lifted this ring.

"I dug this chamber myself," he said, "and day by day over
the lifetimes of many Muls I took a bit of rock dust away and
scattered it here and there unobserved in the tunnels."

I looked down into the cavern which was now revealed.

"I requisitioned as little as possible," you see," said Misk.
"Even the portal must be moved by mechanical force."

He then went to a compartment in the wall and withdrew a
slender black rod. He broke the end of the rod off and it
began to burn with a bluish flame.

"This is a Mul-Torch," said Misk, "used by Muls who raise
fungus in darkened chambers. You will need it to see."

I knew that the Priest-King had no need of the torch.

"Please," said Misk, gesturing toward the opening.
Chapter Fifteen

IN THE SECRET CHAMBER

HOLDING THE SLENDER MUL-TORCH over my head I peered into the
cavern now revealed in the floor of Misks chamber. From a
ring on the underside of the floor, the ceiling of the
chamber, there dangled a knotted rope.

There seemed to be very little heat from the bluish flame of
the Mul-Torch but, considering the size of the flame, a
surprising amount of light.

"The workers of the Fungus-Trays," said Misk, "break off both
ends of the torch and climb about on the trays with the torch
in their teeth."

I had no mind to do this, but I did grasp the torch in my
teeth with one end lit and, hand over hand, lower myself down
the knotted rope.

One side of my face began to sweat. I closed my right eye.

A circle of eerie, blue, descending light flickered on the
walls of the passage down which I lowered myself. The walls
a few feet below the level of Misks compartment became damp.
The temperature fell several degrees. I could see the
discolorations of slime molds, probably white, but seeming
blue in the light, on the walls. I sensed a film of moisture
forming on the plastic of my tunic. Here and there a trickle
of water traced its dark pattern downward to the floor where
it crept along the wall and, continuing its journey,
disappeared into one crevice or another.

When I arrived at the bottom of the rope, some forty feet
below, I held the torch over my head and found myself in a
bare, simple chamber.

Looking up I saw Misk, disdaining the rope, bend himself
backwards through the aperture in the ceiling and, step by
dainty step, walk across the ceiling upside down and then
back himself nimbly down the side of the wall.

In a moment he stood beside me.

"You must never speak of what I am going to show you," said
Misk.

I said nothing.

Misk hesitated.

"Let there be Nest Trust between us," I said.

"But you are not of the Nest," said Misk.

"Nonetheless," I said, "let there be Nest Trust between us."

"Very well," said Misk, and he bent forward, extending his
antennae towards me.

I wondered for a moment what was to be done but then it
seemed I sensed what he wanted. I thrust the torch I carried
into a crevice in the wall and, standing before Misk, I
raised my arms over my head, extending them towards him.

With extreme gentleness, almost tenderness, the Priest-King
touched the palms of my hands with his antennae.

"Let there be Nest Trust between us."

It was the nearest I could come to locking antennae.


Briskly Misk straightened up.

"Somewhere here," he said, "but unscented and toward the
floor, where a Priest-King would not be likely to find it, is
a small knob which will look much like a pebble. Find this
knob and twist it."

It was but a moments work to locate the knob of which he
spoke though I gathered from what he said that it might have
been well concealed from the typical sensory awareness of a
Priest-King.

I turned the knob and a portion of the wall swung back.

"Enter," said Misk, and I did so.

Scarcely were we inside when Misk touched a button I could
not see several feet over my head and the door swung smoothly
closed.

The only light in the chamber was from my bluish torch.

I gazed about myself with wonder.

The room was apparently large, for portions of it were lost
in the shadows from the torch. What I could see suggested
paneling and instrumentation, banks of scent-needles and
gauges, numerous tiered decks of wiring and copper plating.
There were on one side of the room, racks of scent-tapes,
some of which were spinning slowly, unwinding their tapes
through slowly rotating translucent, glowing spheres. These
spheres in turn were connected by slender, woven cables of
wire to a large, heavy boxlike assembly, made of steel and
rather squarish, which was set on wheels. In front of this
assembly, one by one, thin metal disks would snap into place,
a light would flash as some energy transaction occurred, and
then the disk would snap aside, immediately to be replaced by
another. Eight wires led from this box into the body of a
Priest-King which lay on its back, inert, in the center of
the room on a moss-softened stone table.

I held the torch high and looked at the Priest-King, who was
rather small for a Priest-King, being only about twelve feet
long.

What most astonished me was that he had wings, long, slender,
beautiful, golden, translucent wings, folded against his back.

He was not strapped down.

He seemed to be completely unconscious.

I bent my ears to the air tubes in his abdomen and I could
hear the slight whispers of respiration.

"I had to design this equipment myself," said Misk, and for
that reason it is inexcusably primitive, but there was no
possibility to apply for standard instrumentation in this
case."

I didnt understand.

"No," said Misk, "and observe I had to make my own mnemonic
disks, devising a transducer to read the scent-tapes, which
fortunately are easily available, and record their signals on
blank receptor-plating, from there to be transformed into
impulses for generating and regulating the appropriate neural
alignments."

"I dont understand," I said.

"Of course," said Misk, "for you are a human."

I looked at the long, golden wings of the creature. "Is it a
mutation?" I asked.

"Of course not," said Misk.

"Then what is it?" I asked.

"A male," said Misk. He paused for a long time and the
antennae regarded the inert figure on the stone table. "It
is the first male born in the Nest in eight thousand years."

"Arent you a male?" I asked.

"No," said Misk, "nor are the others."

"Then you are a female," I said.

"No," said Misk, "in the Nest only the Mother is female."

"But surely," I said, "there must be other females."

"Occasionally," said Misk, "an egg occurred which was female
but these were ordered destroyed by Sarm. I myself know of
no female egg in the Nest, and I know of only one which has
occurred in the last six thousand years."

"How long," I asked, "does a Priest-King live?"

"Long ago," said Misk, "Priest-Kings discovered the secrets
of cell replacement without pattern deterioration, and
accordingly, unless we meet with injury or accident, we will
live until we are found by the Golden Beetle."

"How old are you?" I asked.

"I myself was hatched," said Misk, "before we brought our
world into your solar system." He looked down at me. "That
was more than two million years ago," he said.

"Then," I said, "the Nest will never die."

"It is dying now," said Misk. "One by one we succumb to the
Pleasures of the Golden Beetle. We grow old and there is
little left for us. At one time we were rich and filled with
life and in that time our great patterns were formed and in
another time our arts flourished and then for a very long
time our only passion was scientific curiosity, but now even
that lessens, even that lessens."

"Why do you not slay the Golden Beetles?" I asked.

"It would be wrong," said Misk.

"But they kill you," I said.

"It is well for us to die," said Misk, "for otherwise the
Nest would be eternal and the Nest must not be eternal for
how could we love it if it were so?"

I could not follow all of what Misk was saying, and I found
it hard to take my eyes from the inert figure of the young
male Priest-King which lay on the stone table.

"There must be a new Nest," said Misk. "And there must be a
new Mother, and there must be the new First Born. I myself
am willing to die but the race of Priest-Kings must not die."

"Would Sarm have this male killed if he knew he were here?" I
asked.

"Yes," said Misk.

"Why?" I asked.

"He does not wish to pass," said Misk simply.

I puzzled on the machine in the room, the wiring that seemed
to feed into the young Priest-Kings body at eight points.
"What are you doing to him?" I asked.

"I am teaching him," said Misk.

"I dont understand," I said.

"What you know - even a creature such as yourself -" said
Misk, "depends on the charges and microstates of your neural
tissue, and, customarily, you obtain these charges and
microstates in the process of registering and assimilating
sensory stimuli from your environment, as for example when
you directly experience something, or perhaps as when you are
given information by others or you peruse a scent-tape. This
device you see then is merely a contrivance for producing
these charges and microstates without the necessity for the
time-consuming external stimulation."

My torch lifted, I regarded with awe the inert body of the
young Priest-King on the stone table.

I watched the tiny flashes of light, the rapid, efficient
placement of disks and their almost immediate withdrawal.

The instrumentation and the paneling of the room seemed to
loom about me.

I considered the impulses that must be transmitted by those
eight wires into the body of the creature that lay before us.

"Then you are literally altering his brain," I whispered.

"He is a Priest-King," said Misk, "and has eight brains,
modifications of the ganglionic net, whereas a creature such
as yourself, limited by vertebrae, is likely to develop only
one brain."

"It is very strange to me," I said.

"Of course," said Misk, "for the lower orders instruct their
young differently, accomplishing only an infinitesimal
fraction of this in a lifetime of study."

"Who decides what he learns?" I asked.

"Customarily," said Misk, "the mnemonic plates are
standardized by the Keepers of the Tradition, chief of whom
is Sarm." Misk straightened and his antennae curled a bit.
"As you might suppose I could not obtain a set of
standardized plates and so I have inscribed my own, using my
own judgment."

"I dont like the idea of altering its brain," I said.

"Brains," said Misk.

"I dont like it," I said.

"Do not be foolish," said Misk. His antennae curled. "All
creatures who instruct their young alter their brains. How
else could learning take place? This device is merely a
comparatively considerate, swift and efficient means to an
end that is universally regarded as desirable by rational
creatures."

"I am uneasy," I said.

"I see," said Misk, "you fear he is becoming a kind of
machine."

"Yes," I said.

"You must remember," said Misk, "that he is a Priest-King and
thus a rational creature and that we could not turn him into
a machine without neutralizing certain critical and
perceptive areas, without which he would no longer be a
Priest-King."

"But he would be a self-governing machine," I said.

"We are all such machines," said Misk, "with fewer or a
greater number of random elements." His antennae touched me.
"We do what we must," he said, "and the ultimate control is
never in the mnemonic disk."

"I do not know if these things are true," I said.

"Nor do I," said Misk. "It is a difficult and obscure
matter."

"And what do you do in the meantime?" I asked.

"Once," said Misk, "we rejoiced and lived, but now though we
remain young in body we are old in mind, and one wonders more
often, from time to time, on the Pleasures of the Golden
Beetle."

"Do Priest-Kings believe in life after death?" I asked.

"Of course," said Misk, "for after one dies the Nest
continues."

"No," I said, "I mean individual life."

"Consciousness," said Misk, seems to be a function of the
ganglionic net."

"I see," I said. "And yet you say you are willing to, as you
said, pass."

"Of course," said Misk. "I have lived. Now there must be
others."

I looked again at the young Priest-King lying on the stone
table.

"Will he remember learning these things?" I asked.

"No," said Misk, "for his external sensors are now being
bypassed, but he will understand that he has learned things
in this fashion for a mnemonic disk has been inscribed to
that effect."

"What is he being taught?" I asked.

"Basic information, as you might expect, pertains to
language, mathematics, and the sciences, but he is also being
taught the history and literature of Priest-Kings, Nest
mores, social customs; mechanical, agricultural and
husbanding procedures, and other types of information."

"But will he continue to learn later?"

"Of course," said Misk, "but he will build on a rather
complete knowledge of what his ancestors have learned in the
past. No time is wasted in consciously absorbing old
information, and ones time is thus released for the
discovery of new information. When new information is
discovered it is also included on mnemonic disks."

"But what if the mnemonic disks contain some false
information?" I asked.

"Undoubtedly they do," said Misk, "but the disks are
continually in the process of revision and are kept as
current as possible.


------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Sixteen

THE PLOT OF MISK

I TOOK MY EYES FROM THE young Priest-King and looked up at
Misk. I could see the disklike eyes in that golden head
above me and see the flicker of the blue torch on their
myriad surfaces.

"I must tell you, Misk," I said slowly, "that I came to the
Sardar to slay Priest-Kings, to take vengeance for the
destruction of my city and its people."

I thought it only fair to let Misk know that I was no ally of
his, that he should learn of my hatred for Priest-Kings and
my determination to punish them, to the extent that it lay
within my abilities, for the evil which they had done.

"No," said Misk. "You have come to the Sardar to save the
race of Priest-Kings."

I looked at him dumbfounded.

"It is for that purpose that you were brought here," said
Misk.

"I came of my own free will!" I cried. "Because my city was
destroyed!"

"That is why your city was destroyed," said Misk, "that you
would come to the Sardar."

I turned away. Tears burned in my eyes and my body trembled.
I turned in rage on the tall, gentle creature who stood,
unmoving, behind that strange table and that still form of
the young Priest-King.

"If I had my sword," I said, pointing to the young Priest-
King, "I would kill it!"

"No, you would not," said Misk, "and that is why you and not
another were chosen to come to the Sardar."

I rushed to the figure on the table, the torch held as though
to strike it.

But I could not.

"You will not hurt it because it is innocent," said Misk. "I
know that."

"How can you know that?"

"Because you are of the Cabots and we know them. For more
than four hundred years we have known them, and since your
birth we have watched you."

"You killed my father!" I cried.

"No," said Misk, "he is alive and so are others of your city,
but they are scattered to the ends of Gor."

"And Talena?"

"As far as we know she is still alive," said Misk, "but we
cannot scan her, or for others of Ko-ro-ba, without raising
suspicion that we are solicitous for you - or are bargaining
with you."

"Why not simply bring me here?" I challenged. "Why destroy a
city?"

"To conceal our motivation from Sarm," said Misk.

"I dont understand," I said.

"Occasionally on Gor we destroy a city, selecting it by means
of a random selection device. This teaches the lower orders
the might of Priest-Kings and encourages them to keep our
laws."

"But what if the city has done no wrong?" I asked.

"So much the better," said Misk, "for the Men below the
Mountains are then confused and fear us even more - but the
members of the Caste of Initiates, we have found, will
produce an explanation of why the city was destroyed. They
invent one and if it seems plausible they soon believe it.
For example, we allowed them to suppose that it was through
some fault of yours - disrespect for Priest-Kings as I recall
- that your city was destroyed."

"Why when first I came to Gor, more than seven years ago, did
you not do this?" I asked.

"It was necessary to test you."

"And the siege of Ar," I asked, "and the Empire of Marlenus?"

"They provided a suitable test," said Misk. "From Sarms
point of view of course your utilization there was simply to
curtail the spread of the Empire of Ar, for we prefer humans
to dwell in isolated communities. It is better for observing
their variations, from the scientific point of view, and it
is safer for us if they remain disunited, for being rational
they might develop a science, and being subrational it might
be dangerous for us and for themselves if they did so."

"That is the reason then for your limitations of their
weaponry and technology?"

"Of course," said Misk, "but we have allowed them to develop
in many areas - in medicine, for example, where something
approximating the Stabilization Serums has been independently
developed."

"What is that?" I asked.

"You have surely not failed to notice," said Misk, "that
though you came to the Counter-Earth more than seven years
ago you have undergone no significant physical alteration in
that time."

"I have noticed," I said, "and I wondered on this."

"Of course," said Misk, "their serums are not as effective as
ours and sometimes do not function, and sometimes the effect
wears off after only a few hundred years."

"This was kind of you," I said.

"Perhaps," said Misk. "There is dispute on the matter." He
peered intently down at me. "On the whole," he said, "we
Priest-Kings do not interfere with the affairs of men. We
leave them free to love and slay one another, which seems to
be what they enjoy doing most."

"But the Voyages of Acquisition?" I said.

"We keep in touch with the earth," said Misk, "for it might,
in time, become a threat to us and then we would have to
limit it, or destroy it or leave the solar system."

"Which will you do?" I asked.

"None, I suspect," said Misk. "According to our
calculations, which may of course be mistaken, life as you
know it on the earth will destroy itself within the next
thousand years."

I shook my head sadly.

"As I said," went on Misk, "man is subrational. Consider
what would happen if we allowed him free technological
development on our world."

I nodded. I could see that from the Priest-Kings point of
view it would be more dangerous than handing out automatic
weapons to chimpanzees and gorillas. Man had not proved
himself worthy of a superior technology to the Priest-Kings.
I mused that man had not proved himself worthy of such a
technology even to himself.

"Indeed," said Misk, "it was partly because of this tendency
that we brought man to the Counter-Earth, for he is an
interesting species and it would be sad to us if he
disappeared from the universe."

"I suppose we are to be grateful," I said.

"No," said Misk, "we have similarly brought various species
to the Counter-Earth, from other locations."

"I have seen few of these "other species"," I said.

Misk shrugged his antennae.

"I do remember," I said, "a Spider in the Swamp Forests of
Ar."

"The Spider People are a gentle race," said Misk, "except the
female at the time of mating."

"His name was Nar," I said, "and he would rather have died
than injure a rational creature."

"The Spider People are soft," said Misk. "They are not
Priest-Kings."

"I see," I said.

"The Voyages of Acquisition," said Misk, "take place normally
when we need fresh material from Earth, for our purposes."

"I was the object of one such voyage," I said.

"Obviously," said Misk.

"It is said below the mountains that Priest-Kings know all
that occurs on Gor."

"Nonsense," said Misk. "But perhaps I shall show you the
Scanning Room someday. We have four hundred Priest-Kings who
operate the scanners, and we are accordingly well informed.
For example, if there is a violation of our weapons laws we
usually, sooner or later, discover it and after determining
the coordinates put into effect the Flame Death Mechanism."

I had once seen a man die the Flame Death, the High Initiate
of Ar, on the roof of Ars Cylinder of Justice. I shivered
involuntarily.

"Yes," I said simply, sometime I would like to see the
Scanning Room."

"But much of our knowledge comes from our implants," said
Misk. "We implant humans with a control web and transmitting
device. The lenses of their eyes are altered in such a way
that what they see is registered by means of transducers on
scent-screens in the scanning room. We can also speak and
act by means of them, when the control web is activated in
the Sardar."

"The eyes look different?" I asked.

"Sometimes not," said Misk, sometimes yes."

"Was the creature Parp so implanted?" I asked, remembering
his eyes.

"Yes," said Misk, "as was the man from Ar whom you met on the
road long ago near Ko-ro-ba."

"But he threw off the control web," I said, "and spoke as he
wished."

"Perhaps the webbing was faulty," said Misk.

"But if it was not?" I asked.

"Then he was most remarkable," said Misk. "Most remarkable."

"You spoke of knowing the Cabots for four hundred years," I
said.

"Yes," said Misk, "and your father, who is a brave and noble
man, has served us upon occasion, though he dealt only,
unknowingly, with Implanted Ones. He first came to Gor more
than six hundred years ago."

"Impossible!" I cried.

"Not with the stabilization serums," remarked Misk.

I was shaken by this information. I was sweating. The torch
seemed to tremble in my hand.

"I have been working against Sarm and the others for
millennia," said Misk, "and at last - more than three hundred
years ago - I managed to obtain the egg from which this male
emerged." Misk looked down at the young Priest-King on the
stone table. "I then, by means of an Implanted Agent,
unconscious of the message being read through him, instructed
your father to write the letter which you found in the
mountains of your native world."

My head was spinning.

"But I was not even born then!" I exclaimed.

"Your father was instructed to call you Tarl, and lest he
might speak to you of the Counter-Earth or attempt to
dissuade you from our purpose, he was returned to Gor before
you were of an age to understand."

"I thought he deserted my mother," I said.

"She knew," said Misk, "for though she was a woman of Earth
she had been to Gor."

"Never did she speak to me of these things," I said.

"Matthew Cabot on Gor," said Misk, "was a hostage for her
silence."

"My mother," I said, "died when I was very young..."

"Yes," said Misk, "because of a petty bacillus in your
contaminated atmosphere, a victim to the inadequacies of your
infantile bacteriology."

I was silent. My eyes smarted, I suppose, from some heat or
fume of the Mul-Torch.

"It was difficult to foresee," said Misk. "I am truly sorry."

"Yes," I said. I shook my head and wiped my eyes. I still
held the memory of the lonely, beautiful woman whom I had
known so briefly in my childhood, who in those short years
had so loved me. Inwardly I cursed the Mul-Torch that had
brought tears to the eyes of a Warrior of Ko-ro-ba.

"Why did she not remain on Gor?" I asked.

"It frightened her," said Misk, "and your father asked that
she be allowed to return to Earth, for loving her he wished
her to be happy and also perhaps he wanted you to know
something of his old world."

"But I found the letter in the mountains, where I had made
camp by accident," I said.

"When it was clear where you would camp the letter was placed
there," said Misk.

"Then it did not lie there for more than three hundred years?"

"Of course not," said Misk, "the risk of discovery would have
been too great."

"The letter itself was destroyed, and nearly took me with
it," I said.

"You were warned to discard the letter," said Misk. "It was
saturated with Flame Lock, and its combustion index was set
for twenty Ehn following opening."

"When I opened the letter it was like switching on a bomb," I
said.

"You were warned to discard the letter," said Misk.

"And the compass needle?" I asked, remembering its erratic
behaviors which had so unnerved me.

"It is a simple matter," said Misk, "to disrupt a magnetic
field."

"But I returned to the same place I had fled from," I said.

"The frightened human, when fleeing and disoriented, tends to
circle," said Misk. "But it would not have mattered, I could
have picked you up had you not returned. I think that you
may have sensed there was no escape and thus, perhaps as an
act of pride, returned to the scene of the letter."

"I was simply frightened," I said.

"No one is ever simply frightened," said Misk.

"When I entered the ship I fell unconscious," I said.

"You were anaesthetized," said Misk.

"Was the ship operated from the Sardar?" I asked.

"It could have been," said Misk, "but I could not risk that."

"Then it was manned," I said.

"Yes," said Misk.

I looked at him.

"Yes," said Misk. "It was I who manned it." He looked down
at me. "Now it is late, past the sleeping time. You are
tired."

I shook my head. "There is little," I said, "which was left
to chance."

"Chance does not exist," said Misk, "ignorance exists."

"You cannot know that," I said.

"No," said Misk, "I cannot know it." The tips of Misks
antennae gently dipped towards me. "You must rest now," he
said.

"No," I said. "Was the fact that I was placed in the chamber
of the girl Vika of Treve considered?"

"Sarm suspects," said Misk, "and it was he who arranged your
quarters, in order that you might succumb to her charms, that
she might enthrall you, that she might bend you helplessly,
pliantly to her will and whim as she had a hundred men before
you, turning them - brave, proud warriors all - into the
slaves of a slave, into the slaves of a mere girl, herself
only a slave."

"Can this be true?" I asked.

"A hundred men," said Misk, "allowed themselves to be chained
to the foot of her couch where she would upon occasion, that
they might not die, cast them scraps of food as though they
might have been pet sleen."

My old hatred of Vika now began once again to enfuse my
blood, and my hands ached to grip her and shake her until her
bones might break and then throw her to my feet.

"What became of them?" I asked.

"They were used as Muls," said Misk.

My fists clenched.

"I am glad that such a creature," said Misk, "is not of my
species."

"I am sorry," I said, "that she is of mine."

"When you broke the surveillance device in the chamber," said
Misk, "I felt I had to act quickly."

I laughed. "Then," I said, "you actually thought you were
saving me?"

"I did," said Misk.

"I wonder," I said.

"At any rate," said Misk, "it was not a risk we cared to
take."

"You speak of "we"?"

"Yes," said Misk.

"And who is the other?" I asked.

"The greatest in the Nest," said Misk.

"The Mother?"

"Of course."

Misk touched me lightly on the shoulder with his antennae.
"Come now," he said. "Let us return to the chamber above."

"Why," I asked, "was I returned to Earth after the siege of
Ar?"

"To fill you with hatred for Priest-Kings," said Misk. "Thus
you would be more willing to come to the Sardar to find us."

"But why seven years?" I asked. They had been long, cruel,
lonely years.

"We were waiting," said Misk.

"But for what?" I demanded.

"For there to be a female egg," said Misk.

"Is there now such an egg?"

"Yes," said Misk, "but I do not know where it is."

"Then who knows?" I asked.

"The Mother," said Misk.

"But what have I to do with all this?" I demanded.

"You are not of the Nest," said Misk, "and thus you can do
what is necessary."

"What is necessary?" I asked.

"Sarm must die," said Misk.

"I have no wish to kill Sarm," I said.

"Very well," said Misk.

I puzzled on the many things which Misk had told me, and then
I looked up at him, lifting my torch that I might better see
that great head with its rich, disklike, luminous eyes.

"Why is this one egg so important?" I asked. "You have the
stabilization serums. Surely there will be many eggs, and
others will be female."

"It is the last egg," said Misk.

"Why is that?" I demanded.

"The Mother was hatched and flew her Nuptial Flight long
before the discovery of the stabilization serums," said Misk.
"We have managed to retard her aging considerably but eon by
eon it has been apparent that our efforts have been less and
less successful, and now there are no more eggs."

"I dont understand," I said.

"The Mother is dying," said Misk.

I was silent and Misk did not speak and the only noise in
that paneled metallic laboratory that was the cradle of a
Priest-King was the soft crackle of the blue torch I held.

"Yes," said Misk, "it is the end of the Nest."

I shook my head. "This is no business of mine," I said.

"That is true," said Misk.

We faced one another. "Well," I said, "are you not going to
threaten me?"

"No," said Misk.

"Are you not going to hunt down my father or my Free
Companion and kill them if I do not serve you?"

"No," said Misk. "No."

"Why not?" I demanded. "Are you not a Priest-King?"

"Because I am a Priest-King," said Misk.

I was thunderstruck.

"All Priest-Kings are not as Sarm," said Misk. He looked
down at me. "Come," he said, "it is late and you will be
tired. Let us retire to the chamber above."

Misk left the room and I, bearing the torch, followed him.


------------------------------------------------------------
_______

Chapter Seventeen

THE SCANNING ROOM

THOUGH THE MOSS IN THE CASE was soft I had great difficulty
in falling asleep that night, for I could not rid my mind of
the turbulence which had been occasioned in it by the
disclosures of Misk, the Priest-King. I could not forget the
plot of Misk, the threat which loomed over the Nest of
Priest-Kings. In fevered sleep it seemed I saw Sarms great
head with its powerful, laterally moving jaws hovering over
me, that I heard the cry of larls and saw the burning pupils
of Parps eyes and his reaching toward me with instruments
and a golden net, and I found myself chained to the foot of
Vikas couch and heard her laugh and I cried aloud and
shouted and sat up on the moss startled.

"You are awake," said a voice on a translator.

"I rubbed my eyes and stood up, and through the transparent
plastic of the case I saw a Priest-King. I slid the door
open and stepped into the room.

"Greetings, Noble Sarm," I said.

"Greetings, Matok," said Sarm.

"Where is Misk?" I asked.

"He has duties elsewhere," said Sarm.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"It is near the Feast of Tola," said Sarm, "and it is a time
of pleasure and hospitality in the Nest of Priest-Kings, a
time in which Priest-Kings are well disposed to all living
things, whatever be their order."

"I am pleased to hear this," I said. "What are the duties of
Misk which keep him from his chamber?"

"In honor of the Feast of Tola," said Sarm, "he is now
pleased to retain Gur."

"I dont understand," I said.

Sarm looked about himself. "It is a beautiful compartment
which Misk has here," he said, examining the visually bare
walls with his antennae, admiring the scent-patterns which
had been placed on them.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"I want to be your friend," said Sarm.

I made no move but I was startled to hear the Gorean
expression for "friend" emanate from Sarms translator. I
knew there was no expression in the language of the Priest-
Kings which was a satisfactory equivalent for the expression.
I had tried to find it on the translator and lexical tapes
which Misk had placed at my disposal. Literally what hearing
the expression from Sarm meant was that he had had the item
specially entered into his translator tapes and correlated
with a random odor, much as if we had decided to invent a
name to stand for some novel relation or object. I wondered
if Sarm had much idea of the meaning of the expression
"friend" or if it were merely used because he calculated that
it would produce a favorable impression on me. He might
have asked Mul Translator Engineers for such an expression
and an explanation of it, and I supposed they might have
given him the expression "friend" and explained it for him,
more or less adequately, in terms of the normal consequences
of the relation designated, such things as tending to be well
disposed toward one, tending to want to do well by one, and
so on. The occurrence of the expression on Sarms translator
tape, simple as it was, indicated that he had gone to a good
deal of trouble, and that the matter, for some reason, was
rather important to him. I did not, however, betray my
surprise and acted as though I did not know that the
expression was a new addition to the Gorean lexicon on his
tapes.

"I am honored," I said simply.

Sarm looked at the case. "You were of the Caste of
Warriors," he said. "Perhaps you would like to be given a
female Mul?"

"No," I said.

"You may have more than one if you wish," said Sarm.

"Sarm is generous," I said, "but I decline his kind offer."

"Perhaps you would like a supply of scarce metals and stones?"

"No," I said.

"Perhaps you would like to be the Mul-supervisor of a
warehouse or fungus farm?"

"No," I said.

"What would you like?" asked Sarm.

"My freedom," I said, "the restoration of the City of Ko-ro-
ba, the safety of its people - to see my father again, my
friends, my Free Companion."

"Perhaps these things can be arranged," said Sarm.

"What must I do?" I asked.

"Tell me why you have been brought to the Nest," said Sarm,
and suddenly his antennae snapped downward towards me like
whips, and now rigid, they seemed to be trained on me, as
though they might be weapons.

"I have no idea," I said.

The antennae quivered briefly in anger and the bladelike
structures at the tips of Sarms forelegs snapped out and
back, but then the antennae relaxed and once again the four
hooklike grasping appendages at the termination of each
foreleg lightly, almost meditatively, touched one another.
"I see," came from Sarms translator.

"Would you care for a bit of fungus?" I asked.

"Misk has had time to speak to you," said Sarm. "What did he
say?"

"There is Nest Trust between us," I said.

"Nest Trust with a human?" asked Sarm.

"Yes," I said.

"An interesting concept," said Sarm.

"You will excuse me if I wash?" I asked.

"Of course," said Sarm, "please do."

I stayed a long time in the washing-booth and when I came out
and donned my plastic tunic it took quite some time to make
the Mul-Fungus Porridge of just the consistency at which I
preferred it, and then, since I had finally managed to make
it the way in which it was least unpalatable, I took some
time to, as one might say, almost enjoy it.

If these tactics were calculated to have some effect on Sarm
I think they most miserably failed of that effect, for during
the entire time I took, which was considerable, he stood
motionless in the room, save for an occasional movement of
his antennae, frozen in that maddening, immobile but alert
posture of Priest-Kings.

At last I emerged from the case.

"I want to be your friend," said Sarm.

I was silent.

"Perhaps you would like to see the Nest?" asked Sarm.

"Yes," I said, "I would enjoy that."

"Good," said Sarm.


I did not ask to see the Mother, for I knew that was forbidden
to those of the human kind, but I found Sarm a most attentive
and gracious guide, quick to answer my questions and suggest
places of interest. Part of the time we rode on a
transportation disk, and he showed me how to operate it. The
disk flows on a tread of volatile gas and is itself lightened
by its construction from a partially gravitationally
resistant metal, of which I shall speak later. Its speed is
controlled by the placement of the feet along double
accelerator strips which lie flush with the surface of the
disk; its direction is controlled by the rider who bends and
turns his body, thereby transmitting force to the lightly
riding disk, the principles involved being no more unusual
than those employed in such homely devices as roller skates
or the now vanishing skate boards once popular with Earth
children. One stops the disk by stepping off the accelerator
strips, which brings the disk to a smooth halt depending on
the area available for braking. There is a cell in the
forward portion of the disk which casts an invisible beam
ahead and if the area for stopping is small, the stop is
accordingly more abrupt. This cell, however, does not
function as the accelerator strips are depressed. I would
have thought that some type of cells for avoiding collisions
when the accelerator strips are depressed might have been
useful or that a bumper of gas, or a field of some sort,
might have been practical improvements but Sarm felt that
such refinements would be excessive. "No one is ever injured
by a transportation disk," he told me, "except an occasional
Mul."

At my request Sarm took me to the Scanning Room, whence the
surface of Gor is kept under selective surveillance by the
Priest-Kings.

Patterns of small ships, not satellites, invisible from the
ground and remotely controlled, carry the lenses and
receptors which beam information to the Sardar. I suggested
to Sarm that satellites would be less expensive to maintain
in flight but he denied this. I would not have made this
suggestion at a later time but then I did not understand the
Priest-Kings" utilization of gravity.

"The reason for observation within the atmosphere," said
Sarm, "is that it is simpler to get more definition in the
signal because of greater proximity to its source. To get
comparable definition in an extra-atmospheric surveillance
device would require more refined equipment."

The receptors on the surveillance craft were equipped to
handle patterns of light, sound and scent, which, selectively
collected and reconcentrated, were beamed to the Sardar for
processing and analysis. Reconstituted in large observation
cubes these patterns might then be monitored by Priest-Kings.
Provisions were available also, as you might suppose, for
taping the transmissions of the surveillance craft.

"We use random scanning patterns," said Sarm, "for we find in
the long run, over centuries, they are more effective than
following fixed scanning schedules. Of course, if we know
that something of interest or importance to us is occurring
we lock onto its coordinates and follow its developments."

"Did you make a tape," I asked, "of the destruction of the
City of Ko-ro-ba?"

"No," said Sarm, "it was not of sufficient interest or
importance to us."

My fists clenched, and I noted that Sarms antennae curled
slightly.

"I once saw a man die the Flame Death," I said. "Is that
mechanism also in this room?"

"Yes," said Sarm, indicating with one foreleg a quiet-looking
metal cabinet to one side possessing several dials and knobs.
"The projection points for the Flame Death are located in the
surveillance craft," said Sarm, "but the coordinates are
fixed and the firing signal is relayed from this room. The
system is synchronized, or course, with the scanning
apparatus and may be activated from any of the control panels
at the observation cubes."

"Of course," I said.

I looked about the room. It was an exceedingly long chamber
and built on four levels, almost like steps. Along each of
these levels, spaced a few feet from one another, were the
observation cubes, which resembled cubes of transparent
glass, and were approximately sixteen feet square. I was
told by Sarm that there were four hundred such cubes in the
room, and monitoring each, I could see a Priest-King, tall,
alert, unmoving. I walked along one of the levels, gazing
into the cubes. Most of them were simply filled with the
passing scenery of Gor; once I saw a city, but what city it
was I could not tell.

"This might interest you," said Sarm, indicating one of the
observation cubes.

I regarded the cube.

The angle from which the lens was functioning was unlike that
of most of the other cubes. The lens was apparently parallel
to rather than above the scene.

It was merely a scene of a road, bordered by some trees,
which seemed to slowly approach the lens and then pass behind
it.

"You are seeing through the eyes of an Implanted One," said
Sarm.

I gasped.

Sarms antennae curled. "Yes," he said, "the pupils of his
eyes have been replaced with lenses and a control net and
transmitting device have been fused with his brain tissue.
He himself is now unconscious for the control net is
activated. Later we will allow him to rest, and he will see
and hear and think again for himself."

The thought of Parp crossed my mind.

Once again I looked into the observation cube.

I wondered of the man through whose eyes I was now seeing,
who he was, what he had been, that unknown Implanted One who
now walked some lonely road somewhere on Gor, a device of
Priest-Kings.

"Surely," I said bitterly, "with all the knowledge and power
of Priest-Kings you could build something mechanical, a
robot, which might resemble a man and do this work for you."

"Of course," said Sarm, "but such an instrument, if it were
to be a genuinely satisfactory substitute for an Implanted
One, would have to be extremely complex - consider provisions
for the self-repair of damaged tissue alone - and thus, in
the end, would itself have to approximate a humanoid
organism. Accordingly with humans themselves so plentiful
the construction of such a device would be nothing but an
irrational misuse of our resources."

Once again I looked into the observation cube, and wondered
about that unknown man, or what had been a man, through whose
eyes I now looked. I, in the very Nest of Priest-Kings, was
more free than he who walked the stones of some road in the
bright sun, somewhere beyond the palisade, far from the
mountains of Priest-Kings yet still in the shadow of the
Sardar.

"Can he disobey you?" I asked.

"Sometimes there is a struggle to resist the net or regain
consciousness," said Sarm.

"Could a man so resist you that he could throw off the power
of the net?"

"I doubt it," said Sarm, "unless the net were faulty."

"If it could be done," I said, "what would you do?"

"It is a simple matter," said Sarm, "to overload the nets
power capacity."

"You would kill the man?"

"It is only a human," said Sarm.

"Is this what was done once on the road to Ko-ro-ba, to a man
from Ar, who spoke to me in the name of Priest-Kings?"

"Of course," said Sarm.

"His net was faulty?" I asked.

"I suppose so," said Sarm.

"You are a murderer," I said.

"No," said Sarm, "I am a Priest-King."


Sarm and I passed further on down one of the long levels,
looking into one or another of the observation cubes.

Suddenly one of the cubes we passed locked onto a given scene
and no more did the scenery move past me as though in a
three-dimensional screen. Rather the magnification was
suddenly increased and the air became suddenly filled with
more intense odors.

On a green field somewhere, I had no idea where, a man in the
garments of the Caste of Builders, emerged from what was
apparently an underground cave. He looked furtively about
himself as though he feared he might be observed. Then,
satisfied that he was alone, he returned to the cave and
emerged once more carrying what resembled a hollow pipe.
From a hole in the top of this pipe there protruded what
resembled the wick of a lamp.

The man from the Caste of Builders then sat cross-legged on
the ground and took from the pouch slung at his waist a tiny,
cylindrical Gorean fire-maker, a small silverish tube
commonly used for igniting cooking fires. He unscrewed the
cap and I could see the tip of the implement, as it was
exposed to the air, begin to glow a fiery red. He touched
the fire-maker to the wicklike projection in the hollow tube
and, screwing the fire-maker shut, replaced it in his pouch.
The wick burned slowly downward toward the hole in the pipe.
When it was almost there the man stood up and holding the
pipe in both hands trained it at a nearby rock. There was a
sudden flash of fire and a crack of sound from the hollow
tube as some projectile hurtled through it and shattered
against the rock. The face of the rock was blackened and
some stone chipped from its surface. The quarrel of a
crossbow would have done more damage.

"Forbidden weapon," said Sarm.

The Priest-King monitoring the observation cube touched a
knob on his control panel.

"Stop!" I cried.

Before my horrified eyes in the observation cube the man
seemed suddenly to vaporize in a sudden blasting flash of
blue fire. The man had disappeared. Another brief
incandescent flash destroyed the primitive tube he had
carried. Then once again, aside from the blackened grass and
stone, the scene was peaceful. A small, curious bird darted
to the top of the stone, and then hopped from it to the
blackened grass to hunt for grubs.

"You killed that man," I said.

"He may have been carrying on forbidden experiments for
years," said Sarm. "We were fortunate to catch him.
Sometimes we must wait until others are using the device for
purposes of war and then destroy many men. It is better this
way, more economical of material."

"But you killed him," I said.

"Of course," said Sarm, "he broke the law of Priest-Kings."

"What right have you to make the law for him?" I asked.

"The right of a higher-order organism to control a lower-
order organism," said Sarm. "The same right you have to
slaughter the bosk and the tabuk, to feed on the flesh of the
tarsk."

"But those are not rational animals," I said.

"They are sentient," said Sarm.

"We kill them swiftly," I said.

Sarms antennae curled. "And so too do we Priest-Kings
commonly kill swiftly and yet you complain of our doing so."

"We need food," I said.

"You could eat fungus and other vegetables," said Sarm.

I was silent.

"The truth is," said Sarm, "that the human is a dangerous and
predatory species."

"But those animals," I said, "are not rational."

"Is that so important?" asked Sarm.

"I dont know," I said. "What if I claimed it was?"

"Then I should reply," said Sarm, "that nothing below a
Priest-King is truly rational." He looked down at me.
"Remember that as you are to the bosk and the sleen so are we
to you." He paused. "But I see that you are distressed by
the Scanning Room. You must remember that it was at your own
request that I brought you here. I did not wish you to be
unhappy. Do not think badly of Priest-Kings. I wish you to
be my friend."

Chapter Eighteen

I SPEAK WITH SARM

IN THE NEXT DAYS, WHEN I could escape from the attentions of
Sarm, on occasions when he was undoubtedly drawn elsewhere by
his numerous duties and responsibilities, I searched the Nest
by myself, on a transportation disk furnished by Sarm,
looking for Misk, but I found no trace of him. I knew only
that he had been, as Sarm had put it, pleased to retain Gur.

No one to whom I spoke, principally Muls, would explain the
meaning of this to me. I gathered that the Muls to whom I
spoke, who seemed well enough disposed towards me, simply did
not know what was meant, in spite of the fact that several of
them had been bred in the Nest, in the breeding cases located
in certain special vivaria set aside for the purpose. I even
approached Priest-Kings on this subject and they, since I was
a Matok and not a Mul, gave me of their attention, but
politely refused to furnish me with the information I sought.
"It has to do with the Feast of Tola," they said, "and is not
the concern of humans."

Sometimes on these excursions Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta would
accompany me. On the first time they accompanied me I
obtained a marking stick, used by Mul clerks in various
commissaries and warehouses, and inscribed their appropriate
letters on the left shoulders of their plastic tunics. Now I
could tell them apart. The visual mark was plain to human
eyes but it would not be likely to be noticed by Priest-
Kings, any more than a small, insignificant sound is likely
to be noticed by a human who is not listening for it and is
attending to other things.

One afternoon, as I judged by the feeding times, for the
energy bulbs always keep the Nest of Priest-Kings at a
constant level of illumination, Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta and I
were swiftly passing through one tunnel on my transportation
disk.

"It is pleasant to ride thusly, Cabot," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Yes, it is pleasant," agreed Mul-Ba-Ta.

"You speak much alike," I said.

"We are much alike," pointed out Mul-Al-Ka.

"Are you the Muls of the biologist Kusk?" I asked.

"No," said Mul-Al-Ka, "we were given by Kusk to Sarm as a
gift."

I stiffened on the transportation disk and it nearly ran into
the wall of the tunnel.

A startled Mul had leaped back against the wall. Looking
back I could see him shaking his fist and shouting with rage.
I smiled. I gathered he had not been bred in the Nest.

"Then," I said to the Muls who rode with me, "you are spying
on me for Sarm."

"Yes," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"It is our duty," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"But," said Mul-Al-Ka, should you wish to do something which
Sarm will not know of, simply let us know and we will avert
our eyes."

"Yes," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "or stop the disk and we will get off
and wait for you. You can pick us up on your way back."

"That sounds fair enough," I said.

"Good," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Is it human to be fair?" asked Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Sometimes," I said.

"Good," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Yes," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "we wish to be human."

"Perhaps you will teach us someday how to be human?" asked
Mul-Al-Ka.

The transportation disk sped on and none of us spoke for some
time.

"I am not sure I know how myself," I said.

"It must be very hard," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Yes," I said, "it is very hard."

"Must a Priest-King learn to be a Priest-King?" asked Mul-Ba-
Ta.

"Yes," I said.

"That must be even more difficult," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Probably," I said, "I dont know."

I swung the transportation disk in a graceful arc to one side
of the tunnel to avoid running into a crablike organism
covered with overlapping plating and then swung the disk back
in another sweeping arc to avoid slicing into a stalking
Priest-King who lifted his antennae quizzically as we shot
past.

"The one who was not a Priest-King," quickly said Mul-Al-Ka,
"was a Matok and is called a Toos and lives on discarded
fungus spores."

"We know you are interested in things like that," said Mul-
Ba-Ta.

"Yes, I am," I said. "Thank you."

"You are welcome," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Yes," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

For a while we rode on in silence.

"But you will teach us about being human, will you not?"
asked Mul-Al-Ka.

"I do not know a great deal about it," I said.

"But more than we, surely," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

I shrugged.

The disk flowed on down the tunnel.

I was wondering if a certain maneuver was possible.

"Watch this!" I said, and turning my body I swung the
transportation disk in a sudden, abrupt complete circle and
continued on in the same direction we had been traveling.

All of us nearly lost out footing.

"Marvelous," cried Mul-Al-Ka.

"You are very skilled," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"I have never seen even a Priest-King do that," said Mul-Al-
Ka with something of awe in his voice.

I had been wondering if such a turn was possible with a
transportation disk and I was rather pleased with myself that
I had accomplished it. The fact that I had nearly thrown
myself and my two passengers off the disk at high speed onto
the flooring of the tunnel did not occur to me at the time.

"Would you like to try guiding the transportation disk?" I
asked.

"Yes!" said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Yes," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "we would like that very much!"

"But first," asked Mul-Al-Ka, "will you not show us how to be
human?"

"Why, how foolish you are!" scolded Mul-Ba-Ta. "He is
already showing us."

"I dont understand," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Then you are probably not the one who was synthesized," said
Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Perhaps not," said Mul-Al-Ka, "but I still do not
understand."

"Do you think," said Mul-Ba-Ta loftily, "that a Priest-King
would have done so foolish a thing with a transportation
disk?"

"No," said Mul-Al-Ka, his face beaming.

"You see," said Mul-Ba-Ta. "He is teaching us to be human."

I reddened.

"Teach us more about these things," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"I told you," I said, "I dont know much about it."

"If you should learn, inform us," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Yes, do," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Very well," I said.

"That is fair enough," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Yes," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"In the meantime," said Mul-Al-Ka, gazing with unconcealed
fascination at the accelerator strips in the transportation
disk, "let us concentrate on the matter of the transportation
disk."

"Yes," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "that will be quite enough for us for
now - Tarl Cabot."


I did not object to the time I spent with Sarm, however, for
he taught me far more of the Nest in a much shorter time than
would have otherwise been possible. With him at my side I
had access to many areas which would otherwise have been
closed to a human.

One of the latter was the power source of the Priest-Kings,
the great plant wherein the basic energy is generated for
their many works and machines.

"Sometimes this is spoken of as the Home Stone of all Gor,"
said Sarm, as we walked the long, winding, iron spiral that
clung to the side of a vast, transparent blue dome. Within
that dome, burning and glowing, emitting a bluish, combustive
refulgence, was a huge, crystalline reticulated hemisphere.

"The analogy, of course," said Sarm, "is incorrect for there
is no Home Stone as such in the Nest of Priest-Kings, the
Home Stone being a barbarous artifact generally common to the
cities and homes of Gorean humans."

I was somewhat annoyed to find the Home Stones, taken so
seriously in the cities of Gor that a man might be slain if
he did not rise when speaking of the Home Stone of his city,
so airily dismissed by the lofty Sarm.

"You find it hard to understand the love of a man for his
Home Stone," I said.

"A cultural oddity," said Sarm, "which I understand perfectly
but find slightly preposterous."

"You have nothing like the Home Stone in the Nest?" I asked.

"Of course not," said Sarm. I noticed an involuntary, almost
spasmlike twitch of the tips of the forelegs, but the bladed
projections did not emerge.

"There is of course the Mother," I said innocently.

Sarm stopped on the narrow iron railing circling the huge,
glassy blue dome and straightened himself and turned to face
me. With one brush of a foreleg he might have sent me
hurtling to my death some hundreds of feet below. Briefly
the antennae flattened themselves on his head and the
bladelike projections snapped into view, and then the
antennae raised and the bladelike projections disappeared.

"That is very different," said Sarm.

"Yes, it is different," I said.

Sarm regarded me for a moment and then turned and continued
to lead the way.

At last we had reached the very apex of the great blue dome
and I could see the glowing, bluish, refulgent, reticulated
hemisphere far below me.

Surrounding the bluish dome, in a greater concentric dome of
stone I saw walkway upon walkway of paneling and
instrumentation. Here and there Priest-Kings moved lightly
about, occasionally noting the movements of scent-needles,
sometimes delicately adjusting a dial with the nimble,
hooklike appendages at the tips of their forelegs.

I supposed the dome to be a reactor of some sort.

I looked down through the dome beneath us. "So this is the
source of the Priest-Kings power," I said.

"No," said Sarm.

I looked up at him.

He moved his forelegs in a strange parallel pattern, touching
himself with each leg at three places on the thorax and one
behind the eyes. "Here," he said, "is the true source of our
power."

I then realized that he had touched himself at the points of
entry taken by the wires which had been infixed in the young
Priest-Kings body on the stone table in the secret
compartment below Misks chamber. Sarm had pointed to his
eight brains.

"Yes," I said, "you are right."

Sarm regarded me. "You know then of the modifications of the
ganglionic net?"

"Yes," I said, "Misk told me."

"It is well," said Sarm. "I want you to learn of Priest-
Kings."

"In the past days," I said, "you have taught me much, and I
am grateful."

Sarm, standing on that high platform with me, over the bluish
dome, over the refulgent power source so far below, lifted
his antennae and turned, sweeping them over this vast,
intricate, beautiful, formidable domain.

"Yet," said Sarm, "there are those who would destroy all
this."

I wondered if hurling my weight against Sarm I might have
tumbled him from that platform to his death far below.

"I know why you were brought to the Nest," said Sarm.

"Then you know more than I do," I said.

"You were brought here to kill me," said Sarm, looking down.

I started.

"There are those," he said, "who do not love the Nest, who
would wish to see it pass."

I said nothing.

"The Nest is eternal," said Sarm. "It cannot die. I will
not let it die."

"I dont understand," I said.

"You understand, Tarl Cabot," said Sarm. "Do not lie to me."

He turned to me and the antennae lowered themselves toward
me, the slender, golden hairs on the antennae slightly
oscillating. "You would not wish to see this beauty and this
power pass from our common world, would you?" asked Sarm.

I looked about myself at the incredible complex which lay
below me. "I dont know," I said. "I suppose if I were a
Priest-King I would not wish to see it pass."

"Precisely," said Sarm, "and yet there is one among us -
himself incredibly enough a Priest-King - who could betray
his own kind, who would be willing to see this glory vanish."

"Do you know his name?" I asked.

"Of course," said Sarm. "We - both of us - know his name.
It is Misk."

"I know nothing of these matters," I said.

"I see," said Sarm. He paused. "Misk believes that he
brought you to the Nest for his own purposes, and I have
allowed him to suppose so. I allowed him also to suppose
that I suspected - but not that I knew - of his plot, for I
had you placed in the chamber of Vika of Treve, and it was
there he proved his guilt beyond doubt by rushing to protect
you."

"And had he not entered the room?" I asked.

"The girl Vika of Treve has never failed me," said Sarm.

My fists clenched on the railing and bitterness choked in my
throat, and the old hatred I had felt for the girl of Treve
lit once again its dark fires in my breast.

"What good would I be to you chained to her slave ring?" I
asked.

"After a time, perhaps a year," said Sarm, "when you were
ready, I would free you on the condition that you would do my
bidding."

"And what would that be?" I asked.

"Slay Misk," said Sarm.

"Why do you not slay him yourself?" I asked.

"That would be murder," said Sarm. "He for all his guilt and
treason is yet a Priest-King."

"There is Nest Trust between myself and Misk," I said.

"There can be no Nest Trust between a Priest-King and a
human," said Sarm.

"I see," I said. I looked up at Sarm. "And supposing I had
agreed to do your bidding, what would have been my reward for
all this?"

"Vika of Treve," said Sarm. "I would have placed her at your
feet naked and in slave chains."

"Not so pleasant for Vika of Treve," I said.

"She is only a female Mul," said Sarm.

I thought of Vika and of the hatred I bore her.

"Do you still wish me to slay Misk?" I asked.

"Yes," said Sarm. "It was for that purpose I brought you to
the Nest."

"Then give me my sword," I said, "and take me to him."

"Good," said Sarm, and we began to trace our way downward
around that vast bluish globe that sheltered the power source
of Priest-Kings.


------------------------------------------------------------
_______

Chapter Nineteen

DIE, TARL CABOT

NOW ONCE AGAIN I WOULD have my sword in my hands and at last
I would be able to find Misk, for whose safety I feared.

Beyond this I had no definite plan.

Sarm did not act as quickly as I had anticipated and, from
the room of the power source had simply returned me to Misks
compartment, where my case was kept.

I spent an uneasy night on the moss.

Why had we not gotten on directly with the business at hand?

In the morning, after the hour of the first feeding, Sarm
entered Misks compartment, where I was waiting for him. To
my surprise his head was crowned with an aromatic wreath of
green leaves, the first thing green I had seen in the Nest,
and about his neck there hung, besides the invariable
translator, a necklace, perhaps of accouterments, perhaps of
pure ornaments, small pieces of metal, some shallow and
rounded like tiny scoops, others rounded and pointed, others
slender and bladed. His entire person I also noted was
anointed with unusual and penetrating scents.

"It is the Feast of Tola - the Feast of the Nuptial Flight,"
said Sarm. "It is fitting that your work should be done
today."

I regarded him.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Good," said Sarm, and went to one of the high cabinets in
Misks chamber and touching a button in a certain sequence of
long and short presses opened it. Sarm was apparently
familiar with Misks compartment. I wondered if the
compartments of all Priest-Kings were so similar, of if he
had investigated it at various times in the past. I wondered
if he knew about the chamber which lay beneath my case. From
the high cabinet Sarm withdrew my sword belt, my scabbard,
and the short, sharp blade of Gorean steel which I had
earlier yielded at the request of Misk.

The weapon felt good again in my hand.

I calculated the distance between myself and Sarm and
wondered if I could reach him and kill him before he could
bring his jaws into play, or those formidable blades on his
forelegs. Where would one strike a Priest-King?

To my surprise Sarm then jerked at the door of the compartment
from which he had withdrawn my sword. He bent it outward and
downward and then, with one of the pieces of metal hanging
from the necklace at his throat he scraped at the front edge
of the door and bent it a bit outward; following this he
attacked the interior edge of the cabinet similarly.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I am making sure," said Sarm, "that no one will lock your
sword up again in this compartment." He added, as an
afterthought, "I am your friend."

"I am indeed fortunate to have such a friend," I said. It
was obvious that the compartment was being fixed in such a
way as to suggest that it had been broken open.

"Why," I asked, "are you adorned as you are today?"

"It is the Feast of Tola," said Sarm, "the Feast of the
Nuptial Flight."

"Where did you get green leaves?" I asked.

"We grow them in special chambers under lamps," said Sarm.
"They are worn on Tola by all Priest-Kings in memory of the
Nuptial Flight, for the Nuptial Flight takes place above the
ground in the sun and there on the surface there are many
things which are green."

"I see," I said.

Sarms foreleg touched the metals dangling from his necklace.
"These, too," he said, "have their significance."

"They are an ornament," I suggested, "in honor of the Feast
of Tola."

"More than that," said Sarm, "look at them closely."

I approached Sarm and regarded the pieces of metal. Some of
them reminded me of shallow scoops, others of awls, others of
knives.

"They are tools," I said.

"Long ago," said Sarm, "in Nests long before this one, in
times of which you cannot conceive, it was by means of these
small things that my people began the journey that led in
time to Priest-Kings."

"But what of the modifications of the ganglionic net?" I
asked.

"These things," said Sarm, "may be even older than the
modifications of the net. It is possible that had it not
been for them and the changes they wrought in an ancient form
of life there might have been no such modifications, for such
modifications might then have been of little practical
utility and thus, if they had occurred, might not have been
perpetuated."

"Then it might seem," I proposed, somewhat maliciously, "that
from one point of view, contrary to your suggestion of
yesterday, that these tiny pieces of metal - and not the
modifications of the ganglionic net - are the true and
ultimate source of the Priest-Kings power."

Sarms antennae twitched irritably.

"We had to pick them up and use them, and later make them,"
said Sarm.

"But they may have come before the modifications of the net,
you said," I reminded him.

"The matter is obscure," said Sarm.

"Yes, I suppose so," I said.

Sarms bladelike projections snapped into view and
disappeared again.

"Very well," said Sarm, "the true source of the Priest-Kings
power lies in the microparticles of the universe."

"Very well," I agreed.

I was pleased to note that it was only with genuine effort
that Sarm managed to control himself. His entire body seemed
to tremble with rage. He pressed the tips of his forelegs
forcibly together to prevent the spontaneous triggering of
the bladed projections.

"By the way," I asked, "how does one kill a Priest-King?" As
I asked this I found myself unconsciously measuring my
distance from Sarm.

Sarm relaxed.

"It will not be easy with your tiny weapon," he said, "but
Misk will be unable to resist you and so you may take as much
time as you wish."

"You mean I could simply butcher him?"

"Strike at the brain-nodes in the thorax and head," said
Sarm. "It will probably not take more than half a hundred
strokes to cut through."

My heart fell.

For all practical purposes it now seemed that Priest-Kings
would be invulnerable to my blade, though I supposed I might
have injured them severely if I sliced at the sensory hairs
on the legs, at the trunk adjoining thorax and abdomen, at
the eyes and antennae if I could reach them.

Then it occurred to me that there must be some vital center
not mentioned by Sarm, probably a crucial organ or organs for
pumping the body fluids of the Priest-Kings, most simply
something corresponding to the heart. But of course he would
not tell me of this, nor of its location. Rather than reveal
this information he would undoubtedly prefer that I hack away
at doomed Misk as though he were a block of insensate fungus.
Not only would I not do this because of my affection for Misk
but even if I intended to kill him I surely would not have
done so in this manner, for it is not the way a trained
warrior kills. I would expect to find the heart, or its
correspondent organ or organs, in the thorax, but then I
would have supposed that the respiratory cavities were also
in the thorax and I knew that they were actually in the
abdomen. I wished I had time to investigate certain of
Misks scent-charts, but even if I had had the time, I might
not have found helpful charts and, anyway, my translator
scanning them could only read labels. It would be simpler,
when I approached Misk with my sword in hand, to see if he
would volunteer this information. For some reason I smiled
as I considered this.

"Will you accompany me," I asked, "to the slaying of Misk?"

"No," said Sarm, "for it is Tola and I must give Gur to the
Mother."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It is not a matter of concern for humans," said Sarm.

"Very well," I said.

"Outside," said Sarm, "you will find a transportation disk
and the two Muls, Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta. They will take
you to Misk and later will direct you as to the disposal of
the body."

"I can depend on them?" I asked.

"Of course," said Sarm. "They are loyal to me."

"And the girl?" I asked.

"Vika of Treve?"

"Of course."

Sarms antennae curled. "Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta will tell
you where to find her."

"Is it necessary for them to accompany me?" I asked.

"Yes," said Sarm, "to ensure that you do your work well."

"But it will be too many who will know of the thing," I
suggested.

"No," said Sarm, "for I have instructed them to report to the
dissection chambers following the completion of your work."

I said nothing for a moment, but simply looked at the Priest-
King who loomed above me.

"Kusk," said Sarm, anticipating me, "may be displeased for a
time, but it cannot be helped, and he may always produce
others if he pleases."

"I see," I said.

"Besides," said Sarm, "he gave them to me and I may do with
them as I please."

"I understand," I said.

"Do not worry about Kusk," said Sarm.

"Very well," I said, "I shall try not to worry about Kusk."

Sarm pranced backwards on those long, delicate, jointed legs,
clearing the passage to the door. He lifted his long,
bladelike body almost to the vertical.

"I wish you good fortune in this venture," he said. "In the
accomplishing of this matter you do a great service to the
Nest and to Priest-Kings, and thereby will you gain great
glory for yourself and a life of honor and riches, the first
of which will be the slave girl Vika of Treve."

"Sarm is most generous," I said.

"Sarm is your friend," came from the Priest-Kings translator.

As I turned to leave the chamber I noted that the grasping
appendages on Sarms right foreleg turned off his translator.

He then raised the limb in what appeared to be a magnanimous,
benevolent salute, a wishing of me well in my venture.

I lifted my right arm somewhat ironically to return the
gesture.

To my nostrils, now alert to the signals of Priest-Kings and
trained by my practice with the translator Misk had allowed
me to use, there came a single brief odor, the components of
which I had little difficulty in discriminating. It was a
very simple message and was of course not carried by Sarms
translator. It was: "Die, Tarl Cabot."

I smiled to myself and left the chamber.


------------------------------------------------------------
_______


Chapter Twenty

COLLAR 708

OUTSIDE I ENCOUNTERED MUL-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta.

Although they stood on a transportation disk and this would
customarily have been enough to delight both of them, today,
and for good reason as I recognized, neither of them looked
particularly pleased.

"We are instructed," said Mul-Al-Ka, "to take you to the
Priest-King Misk, whom you are to slay."

"We are further instructed," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "to help you
dispose of the body in a place of which we have been
informed."

"We are also instructed," said Mul-Al-Ka, "to express our
encouragement for you in this fearsome undertaking and to
remind you of the honors and riches that await you upon its
successful termination."

"Not the least of which, we are requested to point out," said
Mul-Ba-Ta, "is the enjoyment of the female Mul Vika of Treve."

I smiled and boarded the transportation disk.

Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta took up positions in front of me, but
standing with their backs to me. It would have been easy to
fling both of them from the disk. Mul-Al-Ka stepped on the
accelerator strips and guided the disk from the vicinity of
Misks portal and out into the broad, smooth thoroughfare of
the tunnel. The disk flowed silently down the tunnel on its
wide gaseous tread. The air of the tunnel moved against us
and the portals we passed slid behind in a soft blur.

"It seems to me," I said, "you have well discharged your
instructions." I clapped them on the shoulders. "Now tell
me what you really wish."

"I wish that we could, Tarl Cabot," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"But undoubtedly it would be improper," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Oh," I said.

We rode on for a while more.

"You will note," said Mul-Al-Ka, "that we are standing in
such a way that you might, without our being able to stop
you, hurl us both from the transportation disk."

"Yes," I said, "I noted that."

"Increase the speed of the transportation disk," said Mul-Ba-
Ta, "in order that his action may be the more effective."

"I dont wish to throw you from the disk," I said.

"Oh," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"It seemed a good idea to us," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Perhaps," I said, "but why should you wish to be thrown from
the disk?"

Mul-Ba-Ta looked at me. "Well, Tarl Cabot," he said, "that
way you would have some time to run and hide. You would be
found, of course, but you might survive for a while longer."

"But I am supposed to have honor and riches," I reminded
them.

Neither of the Muls spoke further but they seemed plunged
into a sadness that I found in its way touching, but yet I
could scarcely refrain from smiling for they looked so
precisely similar.

"Look, Tarl Cabot," said Mul-Al-Ka suddenly, "we want to show
you something."

"Yes," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

Mul-Al-Ka swung the transportation disk suddenly down a side
tunnel and, accelerating fiercely, flowed like sound down the
tunnel for several portals and then stepped of the
accelerator strips and, as the disk slowed and stopped,
brought it neatly to rest at a tall steel portal. I admired
his skill. He was really rather good with the disk. I would
have liked to have raced him.

"What is it you wish to show me?" I asked.

Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta said nothing but stepped from the
transportation disk and, pressing the portal switch, opened
the steel portal. I followed them inside.

"We have been instructed not to speak to you," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Were you instructed to bring me here?" I asked.

"No," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Then why have you brought me here?"

"It seemed good for us to do so," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Yes," said Mul-Ba-Ta. "This has to do with honors and
riches and Priest-Kings."

The room in which we found ourselves was substantially empty,
and not too much different in size and shape from the room in
which my processing had been initiated. There was, however,
no observation screen and no wall disks.

The only object in the room other than ourselves was a heavy,
globelike contrivance, high over our heads, attached to a set
of jointed extensions fastened in the ceiling of the chamber.
In the floor side of the globelike contrivance there was an
adjustable opening which was now of a diameter of perhaps six
inches. Numerous wires extended from the globe along the
metal extensions and into a panel in the ceiling. Also, the
globe itself bristled with various devices, nodes, switches,
coils, disks, lights.

Vaguely I sensed that I had heard of this thing somewhere
before.

In another chamber I heard a girl cry out.

My hand went to my sword.

"No," said Mul-Al-Ka, placing his hand on my wrist.

Now I knew the purpose of the device in the room - why it was
there and what it did - but why had Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta
brought me here?

A panel to the side slid open and two plastic-clad Muls
entered. Leaning forward they were pushing a large, flat
circular disk. The disk floated on a thin gas cushion. They
placed the disk directly under the globelike object in the
ceiling. On the disk there was mounted a narrow, closed
cylinder of transparent plastic. It was approximately
eighteen inches in diameter and apparently constructed so
that it might be opened along its vertical axis, although it
was now securely locked. In the cylinder, save for her head
which was held in place by a circular opening in the top of
the cylinder, was a girl, clad in the traditional robes of
concealment, even to the veil, whose gloved hands pressed
helplessly against the interior of the cylinder.

Her terrified eyes fell on Mul-Al-Ka, Mul-Ba-Ta and myself.
"Save me!" she cried.

Mul-Al-Kas hand touched my wrist. I did not draw my sword.

"Greetings, Honored Muls," said one of the two attendants.

"Greetings," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Who is the other?" asked one of the attendants.

"Tarl Cabot of the City of Ko-ro-ba," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"I have never heard of it," said the other attendant.

"It is on the surface," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Ah well," said the attendant. "I was bred in the Nest."

"He is our friend," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Friendship between Muls is forbidden," said the first
attendant.

"We know," said Mul-Al-Ka, "but we are going to the
dissection chambers anyway."

"I am sorry to hear that," said the other attendant.

"Yes," said Mul-Al-Ka, "we were sorry to hear it too."

I gazed at my companions with amazement.

"On the other hand," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "it is the wish of a
Priest-King and thus we also rejoice."

"Of course," said the first attendant.

"What was your crime?" asked the second attendant.

"We do not know," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"That is always annoying," said the first attendant.

"Yes," agreed Mul-Ba-Ta, "but not important."

"True," agreed the first attendant.

The attendants now busied themselves with their work. One of
them climbed onto the disk beside the plastic cylinder. The
other went to a panel at the side of the room and by pushing
certain buttons and turning a dial, began to lower the globe
object down toward the girls head.

I pitied her as she turned her head up and saw the large
object, with an electronic hum, descend slowly towards her.
She gave a long, frantic, terrified, wild scream and squirmed
about in the cylinder, her small gloved fists striking
futilely at the strong, curved plastic walls that confined
her.

The attendant who stood on the disk then, to her horror,
pushed back the hood of her garment and the ornate, beautiful
veils that masked her features, face-stripping her as
casually as one might remove a scarf. She trembled in the
cylinder, pressing her small hands against it, and wept. I
noted that her hair was brown and fine, her eyes dark and
longly lashed. Her mouth was lovely, her throat white and
beautiful. Her final scream was muffled as the attendant
adjusted the heavy globe over her head and locked it in
place. His companion then snapped a switch at the wall panel
and the globe seemed to come alive, humming and clicking,
coils suddenly glowing and tiny signal lights flashing on and
off.

I wondered if the girl knew that a plate of her brain traces
was being prepared, which would be correlated with the
sensors guarding the quarters of a Chamber Slave.

While the globe did its work, and held the girls head in
place, the attendant at the cylinder unlocked the five
latches which held it shut and swung it open. Swiftly and
efficiently he placed her wrists in retaining devices mounted
in the cylinder and, with a small, curved knife, removed her
clothing, which he cast aside. Bending to a panel in the
disk he took out three objects: the long, classic, white
garment of a Chamber Slave, which was contained in a wrapper
of blue plastic; a slave collar; and an object of which I did
not immediately grasp the import, a small, flat boxlike
object which bore the upraised figure that, in cursive Gorean
script, is the first letter in the expression for slave
girl".

On the latter object he pressed a switch and almost
immediately, before I became aware of it, the upraised
portion turned white with heat.

I lunged forward but Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta, sensing my
intention, seized my arms and before I could shake them off I
heard, muffled but agonized from within that terrible metal
globe, the cry of a branded slave girl.

I felt helpless.

It was too late.

"Is your companion well?" asked the attendant at the wall.

"Yes," said Mul-Al-Ka, "he is quite well, thank you."

"If he is not well," said the attendant on the disk, "he
should report to the infirmary for destruction."

"He is quite well," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Why did he say "destruction"?" I asked Mul-Al-Ka.

"Infected Muls are disposed of," said Mul-Al-Ka. "It is
better for the Nest."

The attendant on the disk had now broken open the blue
plastic wrapper that held, fresh and folded, the garment of a
Chamber Slave. This, with its clasp on the left shoulder, he
fastened on the girl. He then sprung her wrists free of the
retaining devices and reclosed the plastic cylinder, locking
her inside once again. She was now contained precisely as
she had been originally save that she had exchanged the
thick, multitudinous, ornate Robes of Concealment, the proud,
cumbersome insignia of the free woman of Gor, for the simple
garment of a Chamber Slave and a burning wound on her left
thigh.

The globelike object which had been fastened over her head
now stopped humming and flashing, and the attendant on the
disk opened it, releasing the girls head. He shoved the
globe up and a foot or so to the side and then with a quick
movement reclosed it in such a way that once again its
floorside aperture described an opening of approximately six
inches in diameter. The attendant at the wall panel then
pressed a button and the entire apparatus raised on its
extension arms to the ceiling.

As well as she could, sobbing and trembling, the girl looked
downward through the transparent top of the plastic cylinder
and regarded herself. She now saw herself in a strange
garment. She touched her left hand to her thigh and cried
out in pain.

She shook her head, her eyes bursting with tears. "You dont
understand," she whimpered. "I am an offering to the Priest-
Kings from the Initiates of Ar."

The attendant on the disk then bent down and picked up the
slender, graceful metal collar.

These collars are normally measured individually to the girl
as is most slave steel. The collar is regarded not simply as
a designation of slavery and a means for identifying the
girls owner and his city but as an ornament as well.
Accordingly the Gorean master is often extremely concerned
that the fit of the graceful band will be neither too tight
nor too loose. The collar is normally worn snugly, indeed so
much so that if the snap of a slave leash is used the girl
will normally suffer some discomfort.

The girl continued to shake her head. "No," she said, "no,
you do not understand." She tried to twist away as the
attendants hands lifted the collar towards her. "But I came
to the Sardar," she cried, "in order that I might never be a
slave girl - never a slave girl!"

The collar made a small, heavy click as it closed about her
throat.

"You are a slave girl," said the attendant.

She screamed.

"Take her away," said the attendant by the wall panel.

Obediently the attendant on the disk lightly jumped down and
began to push the disk and its cylinder from the room.

As it passed from the chamber, followed by the attendant who
had operated the wall panel, I could see the dazed, confused
girl, sobbing and in pain, trying to reach the collar through
the plastic of the cylinders top. "No, no," she said, "you
do not understand." She threw me one last look, not
comprehending, hopeless, wild, reproachful.

My hand tightened on the hilt of my sword.

"There is nothing you can do," said Mul-Al-Ka.

I supposed that he might well be right. Should I kill the
innocent attendants, merely Muls who were performing the
tasks allotted to them by Priest-Kings? Would I then have to
slay Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta as well? And what would I do
with the girl in the Nest of Priest-Kings? And what of Misk?
Would I not then lose my opportunity, if any, of saving him?

I was angered toward Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Why did you bring me here?" I demanded.

"Why," said Mul-Al-Ka, "did you not notice her collar?"

"It was a slave collar," I said.

"But the engraving was large and very plain," he said.

"Did you not read it?" asked Mul-Ba-Ta.

"No," I said irritably, "I did not."

"It was the numeral "708"," said Mul-Al-Ka.

I started and did not speak. 708 had been the number of
Vikas collar. There was now a new slave for her chamber.
What did this mean?

"That was the collar number of Vika of Treve," I said.

"Precisely," said Mul-Al-Ka, she whom Sarm promised to you
as part of the riches accruing from your part in his plan to
slay Misk."

"The number, as you see," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "has been
reassigned."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means," said Mul-Al-Ka, "that Vika of Treve no longer
exists."

I suddenly felt as though a hammer had struck me, for though
I hated Vika of Treve I would not have wished her dead.
Somehow, unaccountably in spite of my great hatred for her, I
was shaking, sweating and trembling. "Perhaps she has been
given a new collar?" I asked.

"No," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Then she is dead?" I asked.

"As good as dead," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"What do you mean!" I cried, seizing him by the shoulders and
shaking him.

"He means," said Mul-Al-Ka, "that she has been sent to the
tunnels of the Golden Beetle."

"But why?" I demanded.

"She was useless any longer as a servant to Priest-Kings,"
said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"But why!" I insisted.

"I think we have said enough," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"That is true," said Mul-Ba-Ta. "Perhaps we should not have
spoken even this much to you, Tarl Cabot."

I placed my hands gently on the shoulders of the two Muls.

"Thank you, my friends," I said. "I understand what you have
done here. You have proved to me that Sarm does not intend
to keep his promises, that he will betray me."

"Remember," said Mul-Al-Ka, "we have not told you that."

"That is true," I said, "but you have showed me."

"We only promised Sarm," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "that we would not
tell you."

I smiled at the two Muls, my friends.

"After I have finished with Misk are you then to kill me?" I
asked.

"No," said Mul-Al-Ka, "we are simply to tell you that Vika of
Treve awaits you in the tunnels of the Golden Beetle."

"That is the weak part of Sarms plan," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "for
you would never go to the tunnels of the Golden Beetle to
seek a female Mul."

"True," said Mul-Al-Ka, "it is the first mistake I have known
Sarm to make."

"You will not go to the tunnels of the Golden Beetle," said
Mul-Ba-Ta, "because it is death to do so."

"But I will go," I said.

The two Muls looked at one another sadly and shook their
heads.

"Sarm is wiser than we," said Mul-Al-Ka.

Mul-Ba-Ta nodded his head. "See how he uses the instincts of
humans against themselves," he said to his companion.

"A true Priest-King," said Mul-Al-Ka.

I smiled to myself for I thought how incredible that I should
find myself naturally and without a second thought
considering going to the rescue of the worthless, vicious
wench, Vika of Treve.

And yet it was not a strange thing, particularly not on Gor,
where bravery is highly esteemed and to save a females life
is in effect to win title to it, for it is the option of a
Gorean male to enslave any woman whose life he has saved, a
right which is seldom denied even by the citizens of the
girls city or her family. Indeed, there have been cases in
which a girls brothers have had her clad as a slave, bound
in slave bracelets, and handed over to her rescuer, in order
that the honor of the family and her city not be besmirched.
There is, of course, a natural tendency in the rescued female
to feel and demonstrate great gratitude to the man who has
saved her life, and the Gorean custom is perhaps no more than
an institutionalization of this customary response. There
are cases where a free woman in the vicinity of a man she
desired has deliberately placed herself in jeopardy. The man
then, after having been forced to risk his life, is seldom in
a mood to use the girl other than as his slave. I have
wondered upon occasion about this practice so different on
Gor than on Earth. On my old world when a woman is saved by
a man she may, I understand, with propriety bestow upon him a
grateful kiss and perhaps, if we may believe the tales in
these matters, consider him more seriously because of his
action as a possible, eventual companion in wedlock. One of
these girls, if rescued on Gor, would probably be dumbfounded
at what would happen to her. After her kiss of gratitude
which might last a good deal longer than she had anticipated
she would find herself forced to kneel and be collared and
then, stripped, her wrists confined behind her back in slave
bracelets, she would find herself led stumbling away on a
slave leash from the field of her champions valor. Yes,
undoubtedly our Earth girls would find this most surprising.
On the other hand the Gorean attitude is that she would be
dead were it not for his brave action and thus it is his
right, now that he has won her life, to make her live it for
him precisely as she pleases, which is usually, it must
unfortunately be noted, as his slave girl, for the privileges
of a Free Companionship are never bestowed lightly. Also of
course a Free Companionship might be refused, in all Gorean
right, by the girl, and thus a warrior can hardly be blamed,
after risking his life, for not wanting to risk losing the
precious prize which he has just, at great peril to himself,
succeeded in winning. The Gorean man, as a man, cheerfully
and dutifully attends to the rescuing of his female in
distress, but as a Gorean, as a true Gorean, he feels,
perhaps justifiably and being somewhat less or more romantic
than ourselves, that he should have something more for his
pains than her kiss of gratitude and so, in typical Gorean
fashion, puts his chain on the wench, claiming both her and
her body as his payment.

"I thought you hated her," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"I do," I said.

"Is it human to act as you do?" inquired Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Yes," I said, "it is the part of a man to protect a female
of the human kind, regardless of who she may be."

"Is it enough that she be merely a female of our kind?" asked
Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Yes," I said.

"Even a female Mul?" asked Mul-Al-Ka.

"Yes," I said.

"Interesting," said Mul-Ba-Ta. "Then we should accompany you
for we too wish to learn to be men."

"No," I said, "you should not accompany me."

"Ah," said Mul-Al-Ka bitterly, "you do not truly regard us
yet as men."

"I do," I said. "You have proved that by informing me of
Sarms intentions."

"Then we may accompany you?" asked Mul-Ba-Ta.

"No," I said, "for I think you will be able to help me in
other matters."

"That would be pleasant," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"But we will not have much time," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"That is true," said Mul-Al-Ka, "for we must soon report to
the dissection chambers."

The two Muls looked understandably dejected.

I thought about things for a moment or so and then I shrugged
and fixed on them both a look of what I hoped would be a
somewhat poignant disappointment.

"You may if you wish," I said, "but it is not really very
human on your part."

"No?" asked Mul-Al-Ka, perking up.

"No?" asked Mul-Ba-Ta, showing sudden interest.

"No," I said, "definitely not."

"Are you sure?" inquired Mul-Al-Ka.

"Truly sure?" pressed Mul-Ba-Ta.

"I am positive," I said. "It is simply not human at all to
just go off and report to the dissection chambers."

The two Muls looked at me for a long time, and at themselves,
and at me again, and seemed to reach some sort of accord.

"Well then," said Mul-Al-Ka, "we shall not do so."

"No," said Mul-Ba-Ta rather firmly.

"Good," I said.

"What will you do now, Tarl Cabot?" asked Mul-Al-Ka.

"Take me to Misk," I said.
Chapter Twenty-One

I FIND MISK

I FOLLOWED MUL-AL-KA AND MUL-Ba-Ta into a damp, high, vaulted
chamber, unlit by energy bulbs. The sides of the chamber
were formed of some rough, cementlike substance in which
numerous rocks of various sizes and shapes inhered as in a
conglomerate mass.

At the entrance to the chamber, from a rack, Mul-Al-Ka had
taken a Mul-Torch and broken off its end. Holding this over
his head he illuminated those portions of the chamber to
which the light of the torch would reach.

"This must be a very old portion of the Nest," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Where is Misk?" I asked.

"He is here somewhere," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "for so we were told
by Sarm."

As far as I could tell the chamber seemed empty. In
impatience I fingered the chain of the translator I had had
the two Muls pick up on the way to Misks prison. I was not
sure that Misk would have been allowed to retain his
translator and I wished to be able to communicate with him.

My eyes drifted upward and I froze for an instant and then,
scarcely moving, touched Mul-Ba-Tas arm.

"Up there," I whispered.

Mul-Al-Ka lifted the torch as high as he could.

Clinging to the ceiling of the chamber were numerous dark,
distended shapes, apparently Priest-Kings but with abdomens
swollen grotesquely. They did not move.

I turned on the translator. "Misk," I said into it. Almost
instantly I recognized the familiar odor.

There was a rustling among the dark, distended shapes that
clung to the ceiling.

No response came from my translator.

"He is not here," proposed Mul-Al-Ka.

"Probably not," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "for had he replied I think
your translator would have picked up his response."

"Let us look elsewhere," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"Give me the torch," I said.

I took the torch and went around to the edges of the room.
By the door I saw a series of short bars which emerged from
the wall, which might be used as a ladder. Taking my torch
in my teeth I prepared to climb the set of bars.

Suddenly I stopped, my hands on one of the bars.

"What is the matter?" asked Mul-Al-Ka.

"Listen," I said.

We listened carefully and in the distance it seemed we heard,
incredibly enough, the mournful singing of human voices, as
though of many men, and the sound was as we determined by
listening for a minute or two gradually nearing.

"Perhaps they are coming here," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"We had better hide," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

I left the bars and led the two Muls to the far side of the
room. There I directed them to take cover as well as they
could behind some of the conglomerate material which had
crumbled from the wall and lay at its base. Grinding out the
Mul-torch on the stones I crouched down with them behind some
of this debris and together we watched the door.

The singing grew louder.

It was a sad song, mournful and slow, almost a dirgelike
chant.

The words were in archaic Gorean which I find very difficult
to understand. On the surface it is spoken by none but the
members of the Caste of Initiates who use it primarily in
their numerous and complex rituals. As nearly as I could
make it out the song, though sad, was a paean of some sort to
Priest-Kings, and mentioned the Feast of Tola and Gur. The
refrain, almost constantly repeated, was something to the
effect that We Have Come for Gur, On the Feast of Tola We
Have Come for Gur, We Rejoice For on the Feast of Tola We
Have Come for Gur.

Then, as we crouched in the darkness of the far side of the
chamber, the doors opposite us swung open and we observed two
long lines of strange men, marching abreast, each of whom
carried a Mul-Torch in one hand and in the other by a handle
what resembled a deflated wineskin of golden leather.

I heard Mul-Al-Ka draw in his breath quickly beside me.

"Look, Tarl Cabot," whispered Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Yes," I said, cautioning him to silence, "I see."

The men who came through the door in the long mournful
procession may have been of the human kind or they may not
have been. They were shaven and clad in plastic as are all
Muls of the Nest, but their torsos seemed smaller and rounder
than those of a human being and their legs and arms seemed
extraordinarily long for their body size and the hands and
feet seemed unusually wide. The feet had no toes but were
rather disklike, fleshy cushions on which they padded
silently along, and similarly on the palms of their wide
hands there seemed to be a fleshy disk, which glistened in
the blue light of the Mul-Torches. Most strange perhaps was
the shape and width of the eyes, for they were very large,
perhaps three inches in width, and were round and dark and
shining, much like the eyes of a nocturnal animal.

I wondered at what manner of creature they were.

As more of them filed abreast into the room the increased
torchlight well illuminated the chamber and I quietly warned
my companions to make no movement.

I could now see the Priest-Kings clearly where they clung
upside down to the ceiling, the great swollen abdomens almost
dwarfing their thoraxes and heads.

Then to my amazement, one by one, the strange creatures,
disdaining the bars near the door began simply to pad up the
almost vertical walls to the Priest-Kings and then,
astonishingly, began to walk upside down on the ceiling.
Where they stepped I could see a glistening disk of exudate
which they had undoubtedly secreted from the fleshy pads
which served them as feet. While the creatures remaining on
the floor continued their mournful paean, their fellow
creatures on the walls and ceiling, still carrying their
torches, and scattering wild shadows of their own bodies and
those of swollen Priest-Kings against the ceiling, began to
fill their golden vessels from the mouths of the Priest-
Kings. Many times was a golden vessel held for a Priest-King
as it slowly yielded whatever had been stored in its abdomen
to the Muls.

There seemed to be almost an indefinite number of the Muls
and of clinging Priest-Kings there were perhaps a hundred.
The strange procession to and fro up the walls and across the
ceiling to Priest-Kings and back down to the floor, continued
for more than an hour, during which time the Muls who stood
below, some of them having returned with a full vessel, never
ceased to chant their mournful paean.

The Muls made no use of the bars and from this I gathered
that they might have been placed where they were in ancient
times before there were such creatures to serve Priest-Kings.

I assumed that the exudate or whatever it might be that had
been taken from the Priest-Kings was Gur, and that I now
understood what it was to retain Gur.

Finally the last of the unusual Muls stood below on the stone
flooring.

In all this time not one of them had so much as glanced in
our direction, so single-minded were they in their work.
When not actively engaged in gathering Gur their round dark
eyes were lifted like dark curves to the Priest-Kings who
clung to the ceiling far over their heads.

At last I saw one Priest-King move from the ceiling and climb
backwards down the wall. His abdomen drained of Gur was now
normal and he stalked regally to the door, moving on those
light, feathery feet with the delicate steps of one of
natures masters. When there several Muls flanked him on
either side, still singing, and holding their torches and
carrying their vessels which now brimmed with a pale, milky
substance, something like white, diluted honey. The Priest-
King, escorted by Muls, then began to move slowly, step by
majestic step, down the passage outside of the chamber. He
was followed by another Priest-King, and then another, until
all but one Priest-King had departed the chamber. In the
light of the last torches which left the chamber I could see
that there remained one Priest-King who, though emptied of
Gur, still clung to the ceiling. A heavy chain, fastened to
a ring in the ceiling, led to a thick metal band which was
locked about his narrow trunk between the thorax and the
abdomen.

It was Misk.

I broke off the other end of the Mul-Torch, igniting it, and
walked to the center of the chamber.

I lifted it as far over my head as I could.

"Welcome, Tarl Cabot," came from my translator. "I am ready
to die."


------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Twenty-Two

TO THE TUNNELS OF THE GOLDEN BEETLE

I SLUNG THE TRANSLATOR ON its chain over my shoulder and went
to the bars near the door. Putting the torch in my teeth, I
began to climb the bars rapidly. One or two of them, rusted
through, broke away in my hands, and I was nearly plunged to
the rocky floor beneath. The bars were apparently very old
and had never been kept in a state of repair or replaced when
defective.

When I reached the ceiling I saw, to my relief, that further
bars projected downwards from the ceiling and that the bottom
of each was bent outwards in a flat, horizontal projection
that would afford me a place to put my feet. Still holding
the Mul-Torch in my teeth because I wanted both hands free I
began to make my way toward Misk, hand and foot, across these
metal extensions.

I could see the figures of Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta beneath
me, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet below.

Suddenly one of the extensions, the fourth I believe, slipped
with a grating sound from the ceiling and I leaped wildly for
the next bar, just managing to catch it in my fall. I heard
the other bar drop with a great clang to the floor. For a
moment I hung there sweating. My mouth seemed to be filled
with carbon and I realized I must have almost bitten through
the Mul-Torch.

Then the bar to which I clung moved an inch from the ceiling.

I moved a bit and it slipped another inch.

If I drew myself up on it I was afraid it would fall
altogether.

I hung there and it slipped a bit more, perhaps a fraction of
an inch.

I swung forward and back on the bar and felt it loosen almost
entirely in the ceiling but on the next forward swing I
released it and seized the next bar. I heard the bar I had
just left slide out and fall like its predecessor to the
stone floor below.

I looked down and saw Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta standing below,
looking up. Concern for me was written on their faces. The
two fallen bars lay almost at their feet.

The bar to which I now clung seemed relatively stable and
with relief I drew myself up onto it, and then stepped
carefully to the next.

In a moment I stood by Misks side.

I took the Mul-Torch out of my mouth and spit out some
particles of carbon. I lifted the torch and looked at Misk.

He, hanging there upside down, reflected in the blue
torchlight, regarded me calmly.

"Greetings, Tarl Cabot," said Misk.

"Greetings, Misk," I said.

"You were very noisy," said Misk.

"Yes," I said.

"Sarm should have had those bars checked," said Misk.

"I suppose so," I said.

"But it is difficult to think of everything," said Misk.

"Yes, it is," I agreed.

"Well," said Misk, "I think perhaps you should get busy and
kill me now."

"I do not even know how to go about it," I said.

"Yes," said Misk, "it will be difficult, but with
perseverance I think it may be accomplished."

"Is there some central organ that I might attack?" I queried.
"A heart for example?"

"Nothing that will be of great use," said Misk. "In the
lower abdomen there is a dorsal organ which serves to
circulate the body fluids but since our tissues are, on the
whole, directly bathed in body fluid, injuring it would not
produce death for some time, at least not for a few Ehn.

"On the other hand," said Misk, "I suppose you have the time."

"Yes," I said.

"My own recommendation," said Misk, "would be the brain-
nodes."

"Then there is no swift way to kill a Priest-King?" I asked.

"Not really with your weapon," said Misk. "You might
however, after some time, sever the trunk or head."

"I had hoped," I said, "that there would be a quicker way to
kill Priest-Kings."

"I am sorry," said Misk.

"I guess it cant be helped," I said.

"No," agreed Misk. And he added, "And under the
circumstances I wish it could."

My eye fell on a metal device, a square rod with some tiny
projections at one end. The device hung from a hook about a
foot out of Misks reach.

"What is that?" I asked.

"A key to my chain," said Misk.

"Good," I said and walked over a few bars to get the device,
and returned to Misks side. After a moments difficulty I
managed to insert the key into the lock on Misks trunk band.

"Frankly," said Misk, "it would be my recommendation to slay
me first and then unlock the band and dispose of my body, for
otherwise I might be tempted to defend myself."

I turned the key in the lock, springing it open.

"But I have not come to kill you," I said.

"But did Sarm not send you?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then why do you not kill me?"

"I do not wish to do so," I said. "Besides, there is Nest
Trust between us."

"That is true," agreed Misk and with his forelegs removed the
metal band from his trunk and let it dangle from the chain.
"On the other hand you will now be killed by Sarm."

"I think that would have happened anyway," I said.

Misk seemed to think a moment. "Yes," he said.
"Undoubtedly." Then Misk looked down at Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-
Ba-Ta. "Sarm will have to dispose of them also," he observed.

"He has ordered them to report to the dissection chambers," I
said, adding, "but they have decided not to do so."

"Remarkable," said Misk.

"They are just being human," I said.

"I suppose it is their privilege," said Misk.

"Yes, I think so," I said.

Then, almost tenderly, Misk reached out with one foreleg and
gathered me from the bar on which I stood. I found myself
pressed up tightly against his thorax. "This will be a great
deal safer," he said, and added, unnecessarily to my mind,
"and probably a good deal less noisy." Then, clutching me
securely, he scampered away across the ceiling and backed
down the wall.

Misk, the Muls and I now stood on the stone floor of the
chamber near the door.

I thrust the Mul-Torch which I still carried into a narrow
iron receptacle, consisting mainly of two connected rings and
a base plate, which was bolted to the wall. There were
several of these, I noted, around the walls and they seemed
obviously intended to hold Mul-torches or some similar
illuminating device.

I turned to the Priest-King.

"You must hide yourself somewhere," I said.

"Yes," said Mul-Al-Ka, "find yourself some secret place and
stay, and perhaps someday Sarm will succumb to the Pleasures
of the Golden Beetle and you can emerge in safety."

"We will bring you food and water," volunteered Mul-Ba-Ta.

"That is very kind of you," responded Misk, peering down at
us, "but it is of course impossible to do so."

The two Muls stood back aghast.

"Why?" I asked, bewildered.

Misk drew himself up to his proud, almost eighteen feet of
height, save that he inclined slightly forward from the
vertical, and fixed on us with his antennae what I had come
to recognize in the last few weeks as a look of rather
patient, gentle reproach.

"It is the Feast of Tola," he said.

"So?" I asked.

"Well," said Misk, "it being the Feast of Tola I must give
Gur to the Mother."

"You will be discovered and slain," I said. "Sarm if he
finds you are alive will simply bring about your destruction
as soon as possible.

"Naturally," said Misk.

"Then you will hide?" I asked.

"Dont be foolish," said Misk, "it is the Feast of Tola and I
must give Gur to the Mother."

I sensed there was no arguing with Misk, but his decision
saddened me.

"I am sorry," I said.

"What was sad," said Misk, "was that I might not have been
able to give Gur to the Mother, and that thought troubled me
grievously for the days in which I retained Gur, but now
thanks to you I will be able to give Gur to the Mother and I
will stand forever in your debt until I am slain by Sarm or
succumb to the Pleasures of the Golden Beetle."

He placed his antennae lightly on my shoulders and then
lifted them and I held up my arms and he touched the palms of
my hands with the tips of his antennae, and once again we
had, in so far as we could, locked our antennae.

He extended his antennae toward the two Muls but they
withdrew in shame. "No," said Mul-Al-Ka, "we are only Muls."

"There can be no Nest Trust between a Priest-King and Muls,"
said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Then," said Misk, "between a Priest-King and two of the
human kind."

Slowly, fearfully, Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta lifted their hands
and Misk touched them with his antennae.

"I will die for you," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"And I," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"No," said Misk, "you must hide and try to live."

The Muls looked at me, stricken, and I nodded. "Yes," I
said, "hide and teach others who are of the human kind."

"What will we teach them?" asked Mul-Al-Ka.

"To be human," I said.

"But what is it to be human," begged Mul-Ba-Ta, "for you have
never told us."

"You must decide that for yourself," I said. "You must
yourself decide what it is to be human."

"It is much the same thing with a Priest-King," said Misk.

"We will come with you, Tarl Cabot," said Mul-Al-Ka, "to
fight the Golden Beetle."

"What is this?" asked Misk.

"The girl Vika of Treve lies in the tunnels of the Golden
Beetle," I said. "I go to her succor."

"You will be too late," said Misk, "for the hatching time is
at hand."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Are you going?" asked Misk.

"Yes," I said.

"Then," said he, "what I said will be evident."

We looked at one another.

"Do not go, Tarl Cabot," he said. "You will die."

"I must go," I said.

"I see," said Misk, "it is like giving Gur to the Mother."

"Perhaps," I said, "I dont know."

"We will go with you," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"No," I said, "you must go to the human kind."

"Even to those who carried Gur?" asked Mul-Ba-Ta, shivering
at the thought of those small round bodies and the strange
arms and legs, and eyes.

"They are mutations," said Misk, "bred long ago for service
in the darkened tunnels, now preserved for ceremonial
purposes and for the sake of tradition."

"Yes," I said to Mul-Ba-Ta, "even to those who carried Gur."

"I understand," said Mul-Ba-Ta, smiling.

"Everywhere in the Nest," I said, "you must go everywhere
that there is something human to be found."

"Even in the Fungus Chambers and the Pastures?" asked Mul-Al-
Ka.

"Yes," I said, "wherever there is something human - wherever
it is to be found and however it is to be found."

"I understand," said Mul-Al-Ka.

"And I too," said Mul-Ba-Ta.

"Good," I said.

With a last handclasp the two men turned and ran toward the
exit.

Misk and I stood alone.

"That will mean trouble," said Misk.

"Yes," I said, "I suppose it will."

"And you will be responsible," said Misk.

"In part," I said, "but mostly what it means will be decided
by Priest-Kings and men."

I looked up at him.

"You are foolish," I said, "to go to the Mother."

"You are foolish," he said, "to go to the tunnels of the
Golden Beetle."

I drew my sword, lifting it easily from the sheath. It
cleared the leather as easily and swiftly as a larl might
have bared its fangs. In the blue torchlight I examined the
blade and the light coat of oil that protected it. I tried
the balance, and dropped the steel back into its sheath. I
was satisfied.

I liked the blade which seemed so simple and efficient
compared to the manifold variations in sword steel that were
possible. I supposed one of the reasons for the short blade
was that it could clear the sheath a fraction of a second
before a longer blade. Another advantage was that it could
be moved with greater swiftness than a longer blade. The
primary advantage I supposed was that it allowed the Gorean
warrior to work close to his man. The brief reach of the
blade tended to be more than compensated for by the rapidity
with which it might be wielded and the ease with which it
might work beneath the guard of a longer weapon. If the
swordsman with a longer weapon could not finish the fight in
the first thrust or two he was a dead man.

"Where are the tunnels of the Golden Beetle?" I asked.

"Inquire," said Misk. "They are well known to all within the
Nest."

"Is it as difficult to slay a Golden Beetle as a Priest-
King?" I asked.

"I do not know," said Misk. "We have never slain a Golden
Beetle, nor have we studied them."

"Why not?" I asked.

"It is not done," said Misk. "And," he said, peering down at
me, his luminous eyes intent, "it would be a great crime to
kill one."

"I see," I said.

I turned to go but then turned once again to face the Priest-
King. "Could you, Misk," I asked, "with those bladelike
structures on your forelegs slay a Priest-King?"

Misk inverted his forelegs and examined the blades. "Yes,"
he said. "I could."

He seemed lost in thought.

"But it has not been done in more than a million years," he
said.

I lifted my arm to Misk. "I wish you well," I said, using
the traditional Gorean farewell.

Misk lifted one foreleg in salute, the bladelike projection
disappearing. His antennae inclined toward me and the golden
hairs with which the antennae glistened extended towards me
as though to touch me. "And I, Tarl Cabot," he said, "wish
you well."

And we turned, the Priest-King and I, and went our separate
ways.


------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Twenty-Three

I FIND VIKA

I GATHERED THAT I HAD arrived too late to save Vika of Treve.

Deep in the unlit tunnels of the Golden Beetle, those
unadorned, tortuous passages through the solid rock, I came
upon her body.

I held the Mul-Torch over my head and beheld the foul cavern
in which she lay on a bedding of soiled mosses and stems.

She wore only brief rags, the remains of her once long and
beautiful garment, torn and stained by what must have been
her terrified flight through these dark, rocky tunnels,
running, stumbling, screaming, futilely trying to escape the
pursuing jaws of the implacable Golden Beetle.

Her throat, I was pleased to see, no longer wore the collar
of a slave.

I wondered if her collar had been the same as that placed on
the girl I had seen. If the sizes matched I supposed it
would have been. The Priest-Kings often practice such small
economies, jealously conserving the inanimate resources of
the Nest.

I wondered if the removal of the collar meant that Vika had
been freed before being closed within the tunnels of the
Golden Beetle. I recalled vaguely that Misk had once said to
me that in deference to the Golden Beetle it was given only
free women.

The cavern in which she lay reeked of the spoor of the Golden
Beetle, which I had not yet encountered. Its contrast with
the fastidiously clean tunnels of the Nest of Priest-Kings
made it seem all the more repulsive in its filth and litter.

In one corner there were scattered human bones and among them
the shards of a human skull. The bones had been split and the
marrow sucked from them.

How long Vika had been dead I had no way of judging, though I
cursed myself for it would not have appeared to be a matter
of more than a few hours. Her body, though rigid in the
appearance of recent death, did not have the coldness I would
have expected. She was unmoving and her eyes seemed fixed on
me with all the horror of the last movement in which the jaws
of the Golden Beetle must have closed upon her. I wondered
if in the darkness she would have been able to see what had
attacked her. I found myself almost hoping that she had not,
for it would have been more than enough to have heard it
following in the tunnels. Yet I myself I knew would have
preferred to see the assailant and so I found myself wishing
that this brief, terrible privilege had been Vika of Treves,
for I remembered her as a woman of courage and pride.

Her skin seemed slightly dry but not desiccated.

Because of the lack of coldness in the body I listened for a
long time for a heartbeat. Holding her wrist I felt for the
slightest sign of a pulse. I could detect neither heartbeat
nor pulse.

Though I had hated Vika of Treve I would not have wanted this
fate to be hers, nor could I believe that any man, even those
whom she had injured, could have wished it to be so. As I
looked upon her now I felt strangely sad, and there was
nothing left in my bosom of the bitterness with which I had
earlier regarded her. I saw her now as only a girl, surely
too innocent for this, who had met the Golden Beetle and had
in consequence died one of the most horrible of deaths. She
was of the human kind and whatever might have been her
faults, she could not have deserved this grotesque, macabre
fate, the jaws and cavern of the Golden Beetle. And looking
upon her I now realized too that somehow, not fully
understanding, I had cared for her.

"I am sorry," I said, "I am sorry, Vika of Treve."

Strangely there did not seem to be severe wounds on her body.

I wondered if it were possible that she had died of fear.

There were no lacerations or bruises that might not have been
caused by her flight through the tunnels. Her body and arms
and legs, though cut and injured, were neither torn nor
broken.

I found nothing that could have caused her death unless
perhaps a small puncture on her left side, through which some
poison might have been injected.

There were, however, though I could not conceive of how they
could have killed her, five large round swellings on her
body. These extended in a line along her left side, reaching
from the interior of her left thigh to her waist to a few
inches below her shoulder. These swellings, hard, round and
smooth, seemed to lie just beneath the skin and to be roughly
the size of ones fist. I supposed they might have been some
unusual physiological reaction to the poison which I
conjectured had been injected into her system through the
small, livid puncture, also on her left side.

I wiped the back of my forearm across my eyes.

There was nothing I could do for her now, save perhaps hunt
for the Golden Beetle.

I wondered if I could bury the body somewhere, but dismissed
the thought in view of the stony passages I had just
traversed. I might move it from the filth of the Golden
Beetles den but it, until the creature itself was slain,
would never be safe from its despoiling jaws. I turned my
back on Vika of Treve, and carrying the torch left the
cavern. As I did so I seemed almost to hear a silent,
horrible, pleading shriek but there was of course no sound.
I returned and held the torch and her body was the same as
before, the eyes fixed with the same expression of frozen
horror, so I left the chamber.

I continued to search the stony passages of the tunnels of
the Golden Beetle but I saw no sign of the creature.

I held my sword in my right hand and the Mul-Torch in my left.

When I made a turn I would take the hilt of the sword, in
order to protect the blade, and scratch a small sign
indicating the direction from which I had come.

It was a long, eerie search, in the blue light of the Mul-
Torch, thrusting it into one crevice and another, trying one
passage and then the next.

As I wandered through these passages my sorrow for Vika of
Treve struggled with my hatred for the Golden Beetle until I
forced myself to clear my head of emotion and concentrate on
the task at hand.

But still, as the Mul-Torch burned lower and I yet
encountered no sign of the Golden Beetle, my thoughts turned
ever and again to the still form of Vika lying in the cavern
of the Golden Beetle.

It had been weeks since I had last seen her and I supposed it
would have been at least days since she had been closed in
the tunnels of the Golden Beetle. How was it that she had
been captured only so recently by the creature? And if it
were true that she had only been captured so recently how
would she have managed to live in the caverns for those days?
Perhaps she might have found a sump of water but what would
there have been to eat, I wondered? Perhaps, I told myself,
she, like the Slime Worm, would have been forced to scavenge
on the previous kills of the Beetle but I found this hard to
believe, for the condition of her body did not suggest an
ugly, protracted, degrading battle with the worms of
starvation.

And how was it, I asked myself, that the Golden Beetle had
not already feasted on the delicate flesh of the proud beauty
of Treve?

And I wondered on the five strange protuberances that nested
so grotesquely in her lovely body.

And Misk had said to me he thought I would be too late for it
was near hatching time.

A cry of horror from the bottom of my heart broke from my
lips in that dark passage and I turned and raced madly back
down the path I had come.

Time and time again I stumbled against outcroppings of rock
and bruised my shoulders and thighs but never once did I
diminish my speed in my headlong race back to the cavern of
the Golden Beetle. I found I did not even have to stop and
search for the small signs I had scratched in the walls of
the passages to guide my way for as I ran it seemed I knew
each bend and turn of that passageway as though it had
suddenly leaped alive flaming in my memory.

I burst into the cavern of the Golden Beetle and held the
torch high.

"Forgive me, Vika of Treve!" I cried. "Forgive me!"

I fell to my knees beside her and thrust the Mul-Torch into a
space between two stones in the floor.

From her flesh at one point I could see the gleaming eyes of
a small organism, golden and about the size of a childs
turtle, scrambling, trying to pull itself from the leathery
shell. With my sword I dug out the egg and crushed it and
its occupant with the heel of my sandal on the stone floor.

Carefully, methodically, I removed a second egg. I held it
to my ear. Inside it I could hear a persistent, ugly
scratching, sense the movement of a tiny, energetic organism.
I broke this egg too, stamping it with my heel, not stopping
until what squirmed inside was dead.

The next three eggs I disposed of similarly.

I then took my sword and wiped the oil from one side of the
blade and set the shining steel against the lips of the girl
from Treve. When I removed it I cried out with pleasure for
a bit of moisture had formed on the blade.

I gathered her in my arms and held her against me.

"My girl of Treve," I said. "You live."


------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Twenty-Four

THE GOLDEN BEETLE

AT THAT INSTANT I HEARD a slight noise and looked up to see
peering at me from the darkness of one of the tunnels leading
from the cavern, two flaming, luminous eyes.

The Golden Beetle was not nearly as tall as a Priest-King,
but it was probably considerably heavier. It was about the
size of a rhinoceros and the first thing I noticed after the
glowing eyes were two multiply hooked, tubular, hollow,
pincerlike extensions that met at the tips perhaps a yard
beyond its body. They seemed clearly some aberrant mutation
of its jaws. Its antennae, unlike those of Priest-Kings,
were very short. They curved and were tipped with a fluff of
golden hair. Most strangely perhaps were several long,
golden strands, almost a mane, which extended from the
creatures head over its domed, golden back and fell almost
to the floor behind it. The back itself seemed divided into
two thick casings which might once, ages before, have been
horny wings, but now the tissues had, at the points of
touching together, fused in such a way as to form what was
for all practical purposes a thick, immobile golden shell.
The creatures head was even now withdrawn beneath the shell
but its eyes were clearly visible and of course the
extensions of its jaws.

I knew the thing before me could slay Priest-Kings.

Most I feared for the safety of Vika of Treve.

I stood before her body my sword drawn.

The creature seemed to be puzzled and made no move to attack.
Undoubtedly in its long life it had never encountered
anything like this in its tunnels. It backed up a bit and
withdrew its head further beneath the shell of its fused,
golden wings. It lifted its hooked, tubular jaws before its
eyes as though to shield them from the light.

It occurred to me then that the light of the Mul-Torch
burning in the invariably dark tunnels of its domain may have
temporarily blinded or disoriented the creature. More likely
the smell of the torchs oxidation products suddenly
permeating its delicate antennae would have been as
cacophonous to it as some protracted, discordant bedlam of
noises might have been to us.

It seemed clear the creature did not yet understand what had
taken place within its cavern.

I seized the Mul-Torch from between the stones where I had
placed it and, with a great shout, thrust it towards the
creatures face.

I would have expected it to retreat with rapidity, but it
made no move whatsoever other than to lift its tubular,
pincerlike jaws to me.

It seemed to me most unnatural, as though the creature might
have been a living rock, or a blind, carnivorous growth.

One thing was clear. The creature did not fear me nor the
flame.

I withdrew a step and it, on its six short legs, moved
forward a step.

It seemed to me that it would be very difficult to injure the
Golden Beetle, particularly when its head was withdrawn
beneath the shell of its enclosing wings. This withdrawal on
its part, of course, would not in the least prevent it from
using its great jaws to attack, but it would, I supposed,
somewhat narrow the area of its sensory awareness. It would
most certainly limit its vision but I did not suppose that
the Golden Beetle, any more than a Priest-King, much depended
on this sense. Both would be quite at home, incomprehensibly
to a visually oriented organism, in utter darkness. On the
other hand I could hope that somehow the sensory field of the
antennae might be similarly, at least partially, restricted
by their withdrawal beneath the casing of the fused, horny
wings.

I slipped my sword into its sheath and knelt beside Vikas
body, not taking my eyes off the creature who stood about
four yards distant.

By feeling I closed the lids of her eyes in order that they
might no longer stare blindly out with that look of frozen
horror.

Her body was stiff yet from the venom which had induced the
paralysis, but now, perhaps because of the removal of the
five eggs, it seemed somewhat warmer and more yielding than
before.

As I touched the girl the Beetle took another step forward.

It began to hiss.

This noise unnerved me for a moment because I had been used
to the uncanny silence of Priest-Kings.

Now the Beetle began to poke its head out from beneath the
shelter of those domed, golden wings and its short antennae,
tufted with golden fluff, thrust out and began to explore the
chamber.

With my right hand I lifted Vika to my shoulder and stood up.

The hissing now became more intense.

Apparently the creature did not wish me to remove Vika from
the cavern.

Walking backwards, Vika on my shoulder, the Mul-Torch in my
hand, I slowly retreated from the cavern of the Golden Beetle.

When the creature, following me, crawled over the pile of
soiled moss and stems on which Vika had lain, it stopped and
began to poke among the shattered remains of the eggs I had
crushed.

I had no notion of the speed of the creature but at this
point I turned and began to jog away down the passage, back
toward the entrance tunnels of the Golden Beetle. I hoped,
considering the size and shape and probable weight of the
creature, and the comparative tininess of its legs, that it
would not be able to move quickly, at least not for a
sustained period.

About an Ehn after I had turned and began to move away from
the cavern, Vika on my shoulder, I heard from the cavern one
of the strangest and most horrifying sounds I had ever heard
in my life, a long, weird, frantic, enraged rush of sound,
more than a rush of air, more than a wild hiss, almost a cry
of pain, of comprehension and agony.

I stopped for a moment and listened.

Now, scrambling after me in the tunnel, I could hear the
approach of the Golden Beetle.

I turned and jogged on.

After a few Ehn I stopped again and once more listened.

Apparently my conjecture as to the mobility of the Golden
Beetle had been correct and the speed of its pursuit had
quickly slackened. Yet I knew that somewhere back there it
would still be coming, that it would not yield its vengeance
and its prey so easily. It was still coming, somewhere back
there in the darkness, slowly, patiently, implacably, like
the coming of winter or the weathering of a stone.

I wondered at the nature of the Beetles pursuit of his prey.

How horrible I thought it would be to be trapped in these
tunnels, waiting for the Beetle, able to avoid it perhaps for
hours, perhaps days, but not daring to sleep or to stop, not
knowing if one were going down a blind passage, if the Beetle
were suddenly to confront one at the next turn.

No, I supposed the Beetle did not need speed in its tunnels.

I set Vika down.

I leaned the Mul-Torch against the side of the passage.

And yet it seemed strange to me to think of the Beetle as
pursuing its prey in these tunnels for hours, perhaps days.
It seemed foolish, unlikely, a puzzle of nature. But I
myself had seen its body and knew now that it was incapable
of prolonged, rapid movement. How was it then, I asked
myself, that such a slow, awkward, clumsy creature, no matter
how formidable at close range, could capture and slay an
organism as alert and swift as Priest-Kings?

I moved Vikas limbs and rubbed her hands to see if I could
restore her circulation to a more normal level.

Bending my ear to her heart I was pleased to detect its faint
beat. Holding her wrist I sensed a tiny movement of blood in
her veins.

There did not seem to be much air in the tunnels of the
Golden Beetle.

I supposed they were not ventilated as well as the tunnels of
the Priest-Kings. There was an odor in the tunnels of the
Golden Beetle, perhaps of its spoor or various exudates. The
odor seemed somewhat oppressive. I had noticed it much
before. Now I became aware of how long I had been in its
tunnels, how long without food and how tired I was. Surely
there would be time to sleep. The Beetle was far behind.
Surely there would be time, if not to sleep, to close my eyes
for a moment.

I awoke with a start.

The odor was now insufferable and close.

The Mul-Torch was little more now than a glowing stub.

I saw the peering eyes.

The golden strands on its back were lifted and quivering, and
it was from them that the odor came.

I cried out as I felt two long, hard, curved objects close on
my body.


------------------------------------------------------------
_______

Chapter Twenty-Five

THE VIVARIUM

MY HANDS SEIZED THE NARROW, hollow, pincerlike jaws of the
Golden Beetle and tried to force them from my body, but those
relentless, hollow, chitinous hooks closed ever more tightly.
They had now entered my skin and to my horror I felt a pull
against my tissues and knew that the creature was now sucking
through those foul tubes, but I was a man, a mammal, and not
a Priest-King, and my body fluids were locked within the
circulatory system of another form of being, and I thrust
against the vicious hooked tubes that were the jaws of the
Golden Beetle, and they budged out an inch and the creature
began to hiss and the pressure of the jaws became even more
cruel, but I managed to thrust them out of my skin and inch
by inch I separated them until I held them at last almost at
my arms length and then I thrust yet more, forcing them yet
further apart, slowly, as implacably as the Beetle itself,
and then at my arms length with a sickening, snapping sound
they broke from its face and fell to the stone floor of the
passage.

The hissing stopped.

The Beetle wavered, its entire shell of golden, fused wings
trembling, and it seemed as if those fused wings shook as
though to separate and fly but they could not, and it pulled
its head back under the shelter of the wings. It began to
back away from me on its six short legs. I leaped forward
and thrust my hand under the wing shell and seized the short,
tufted antennae and with one hand on them twisting and the
other beneath the shell I slowly managed, lifting and
twisting, to force the struggling creature onto its back and
when it lay on its back, rocking, its short legs writhing
impotently, I drew my sword and plunged it a dozen times into
its vulnerable, exposed belly, and at last the thing stopped
squirming and lay still.

I shuddered.

The odor of the golden hairs still lingered in the passages
and, fearing I might once again succumb to whatever drug they
released into the air, I determined to make my departure.

The Mul-Torch began to sputter.

I did not wish to resheath my sword for it was coated with
the body fluids of the Golden Beetle.

I wondered how many more such creatures might dwell in
similar passages and caverns near the tunnels of the Priest-
Kings.

The plastic tunic I wore did not provide an absorbent surface
with which to clean the blade.

I thought for a moment I might clean it on the golden strands
of the Beetles strange mane but I discovered these were wet
with foul, glutinous exudate, the source of that unpleasant,
narcotic odor which still permeated the passageway.

My eyes fell on Vika of Treve.

She had not yet made her contribution to the business of the
day.

So I tore a handful of cloth from her garment and on this I
wiped my hands and the blade.

I wondered how proud Vika would have responded to that.

I smiled to myself for I could always tell her, and
truthfully, that having saved her life she was now mine by
Gorean law, so brief had been her freedom, and that it was up
to me to determine the extent and nature of her clothing, and
indeed, whether or not she would be allowed clothing at all.

Well could I imagine her fury upon the receipt of this
announcement, a fury not diminished in the least by the
knowledge that the words I spoke were simply and prosaically
true.

But now it was important to get her from the tunnels, to find
her a place of refuge and safety where I hoped she might
recover from the venom of the Golden Beetle.

I worried, for where could I find such a place?

By now it might be well known to Sarm that I had refused to
slay Misk and the Nest would no longer be safe for me, or for
anyone associated with me.

For whether I wished it or not my action had placed me in the
party of Misk.

As I prepared to resheath the sword I heard a slight noise in
the passage and, in the light of the dying Mul-Torch, without
moving, I waited.

What approached was not another Golden Beetle, though I
supposed there might have been several in those tunnels, but
another inhabitant of those dismal passages, the whitish,
long, slow, blind Slime Worm.

Its tiny mouth on the underside of its body touched the stone
flooring here and there like the poking finger of a blind man
and the long, whitish, rubbery body gathered itself and
pushed forward and gathered itself and pushed forward again
until it lay but a yard from my sandal, almost under the
shell of the slain Beetle.

The Slime Worm lifted the forward portion of its long,
tubular body and the tiny red mouth on its underside seemed
to peer up at me.

"No," I said, "the Golden Beetle has not made a kill in this
place."

The tiny red mouth seemed to continue to peer at me for
perhaps a moment or two more and then it slowly turned away
from me to the carcass of the Golden Beetle.

I shook myself and resheathed my sword.

I had been long enough in this place.

I lifted the girl Vika of Treve in my arms. I could feel the
tremble of life in her body and the touch of her breath on my
cheek made me happy.

The Mul-Torch suddenly sputtered out leaving us in darkness.

Gently I kissed her cheek.

I was happy. We were both alive.

I turned and with the girl in my arms began to trace my way
slowly down the passage.

Behind me in the darkness I could hear the feeding of the
Slime Worm.

Although it was slow work I had little difficulty in finding
my way back to where I had entered the tunnels of the Golden
Beetle.

When I had entered I had immediately marked my passage with
small arrows scratched by the hilt of my sword at eye level
on the left side of the passages. Now, by touch, I was able
to retrace my journey. I had made the marks because, unlike
others who had entered the tunnels, I fully intended to
return.

When I came to the portal where I had entered I found it
closed as I had known it would be and there was, as I knew,
no handle or obvious device for opening the door on this
side, for no one returned, supposedly, from the tunnels of
the Golden Beetle. The portals were opened occasionally to
allow the Beetle its run of the Nest but I had no idea when
this might occur again.

Although the portal was thick I supposed that I might have
been heard on the outside if I had pounded on it with the
hilt of my sword.

On the other hand I had been informed, graciously, by the
Muls who manned the portal that it might not be opened by
them to release me once I had decided to enter. As they put
it, they were simply not permitted to do so. It was the law
of Priest-Kings. I was not certain whether, as a matter of
fact, they would open the door or not, but I thought it best
that both of them could honestly report that they had seen me
enter the tunnels and had not seen me return.

It had been Sarms intention apparently that I should enter
the tunnels of the Golden Beetle and die there and so I
thought it expedient to allow him to believe I had done so.

I knew the tunnels of the Golden Beetle, like those of the
Nest itself, were ventilated and I hoped to be able to use
one of the shafts to leave the tunnels undetected. If this
were not possible I would explore the tunnels seeking some
other exit, and if worse came to worst, I was sure that Vika
and I, now that I knew the dangers and strengths and
weaknesses of the Golden Beetle, might manage to survive
indefinitely in the tunnels, however despicably, and escape
eventually when the portal was opened to release yet another
of the Priest-Kings golden assassins.

In the vicinity of the portal itself I remembered, when I had
had the Mul-Torch, seeing a ventilation shaft some twenty or
thirty yards inside the passage and fixed in the ceiling of
the passage some nine feet from the floor. A metal grille
had been bolted over the shaft but it was fairly light and I
did not expect much difficulty in wrenching it loose.

The problem would be Vika.

I could now feel a bit of fresh air and, in the darkness,
Vika in my arms, I walked until I could feel it best, and it
seemed to be blowing directly down upon me. I then set Vika
to one side and prepared to leap up to seize the grille.

A shattering flash of energy seemed to explode in my face and
burn through my body as my fingers touched the metal grille.

Shivering and numb and disoriented I crumpled to the floor
beneath it.

In the flash of light I had seen the mesh clearly and the
shaft beyond and the rings set in the shaft used by Muls who
upon occasion clean the shafts and spray them with
bactericides.

My limbs shaking, clouds of yellow and red fire moving in
tangled afterimages across my field of vision in the
darkness, I struggled to my feet.

I walked a bit up and down in the shaft rubbing my arms and
shaking my head until I felt ready to try again.

This time, with luck, I could hook my fingers in the grille
and hang on.

I leaped again and this time managed to fasten my fingers in
the grille and cried out in pain turning my face away from
the heat and fire that seemed to transform its surface
erupting over my head with torturing, savage incandescence.
Then I could no longer release the grille had I wanted to and
I hung there agonized, a prisoner of the charges flashing
through my body and the bolts wrenched loose from the
ceiling, and I fell again to the floor, the grille clattering
beside me, my fingers still hooked in its mesh.

I pulled my hands free and crawled in the darkness to one
side of the passage and lay down against the wall. My body
ached and trembled and I could not control the involuntary
movements of its muscles. I shut my eyes but to no avail
against the burning universes that seemed to float and
explode before my eyes.

I do not know if I lost consciousness or not but I suppose I
may have for the next thing I remember was that the pain had
gone from my body and that I lay against the wall weak and
sick. I crawled to my knees and threw up in the passage. I
stood up then unsteadily and walked beneath the shaft and
stood there with my head back drawing in the welcome fresh
air that blew down towards me.

I shook myself and moved my limbs.

Then, gathering my strength, I leaped up and easily seized
one of the rings inside the chamber shaft, held it for a
moment and then released it and dropped back to the floor.

I went to Vikas side.

I could hear the clear beat of her heart, and the pulse was
now strong. Perhaps the fresh air in the vicinity of the
shaft was doing its part in reviving her.

I shook her. "Wake up," I said. "Wake up!" I shook her
again, harder, but she could not regain consciousness. I
carried her beneath the shaft and tried to hold her upright,
but her legs crumpled.

Strangely I sensed that somehow within her she was vaguely
conscious of what was occurring.

I lifted her to her feet again and slapped her face four
times, savagely, sharply. "Wake up!" I cried, but though her
head jerked from side to side and my hand felt afire she did
not regain consciousness.

I kissed her and lowered her gently to the floor.

I had no wish to remain indefinitely in the passage, nor
could I bring myself to abandon the girl.

There seemed to be but one thing to do.

I took off my sword belt and, rebuckling it, made a loop
which I managed to hook over the closest ring in the shaft.
I then removed the thongs from my sandals. With one thong I
tied them together about my neck.

With the other thong I bound Vikas wrists securely together
before her body and placed her arms about my neck and left
shoulder. Thus carrying her I climbed the sword belt and
soon had attained the first ring. Once in the shaft I
rebuckled the belt about my waist and, still carrying Vika as
before, began to climb.

After perhaps two hundred feet of climbing the rings in the
shaft I was pleased to reach two branching shafts which led
horizontally from the vertical shaft which I had just
ascended.

I removed Vikas arms from my neck and shoulder and carried
her in my arms down the shaft which led, to the best of my
reckoning, in the general direction of the major complexes of
the Nest.

A slight moan escaped the girl and her lips moved.

She was regaining consciousness.

For perhaps an Ahn I carried her through the network of
ventilation shafts, sometimes walking on the level, sometimes
climbing. Occasionally we would pass an opening in the shaft
where, through a grille, I could see portions of the Nest.
The light entering at these openings was very welcome to me.

At last we came to an opening which gave onto something of
the sort for which I was looking, a rather small complex of
buildings, where I saw several Muls at work but no Priest-
Kings.

I also noted, against the far wall of the brilliantly lit
area, tiers and tiers of plastic cases, much like the one I
had occupied in Misks compartment. Some of these cases were
occupied by Muls, male or female, sometimes both. Unlike the
case in Misks compartment and others I had seen, these were
apparently locked.

Fungus, water and pellets, and whatever else was needed, were
apparently administered to the occupants of these cases from
the outside by the Muls who attended them.

I was reminded a bit of a zoo with its cages. Indeed, as I
spied through the grille I saw that not all of the cases were
occupied by humans but some by a variety of other organisms,
some of the types with which I was familiar in the Nest but
others not, and some of the others were, as far as I could
tell, even mammals.

There was, I could see, a pair of sleen in one case, and two
larls in another pair of cases, with a sliding partition
between them. I saw one humanoid creature, small with a
receding forehead and excessively hairy face and body,
bounding about in one case, racing along and leaping with his
feet against the wall and then with the momentum established
dashing along the next wall of the case and then dropping to
the floor to repeat again this peculiar circuit.

In a vast low case, on the floor of which apparently grew
real grass, I saw a pair of shaggy, long-horned bosk grazing,
and in the same case but in a different corner was a small
herd, no more than five adult animals, a proud male and four
does, of tabuk, the single-horned, golden Gorean antelope.
When one of the does moved I saw that moving beside her with
dainty steps were two young tabuk, the first I had ever seen,
for the young of the tabuk seldom venture far from the
shaded, leafy bowers of their birth in the tangled Ka-la-na
thickets of Gor. Their single horns were little more than
velvety stubs on their foreheads and I saw that their hide,
unlike that of the adults, was a mottled yellow and brown.
When one of the attendant Muls happened to pass near the case
the two little tabuk immediately froze, becoming almost
invisible, and the mother, her bright golden pelt gleaming,
began to prance away from them, while the angry male lowered
his head against the Mul and trotted in a threatening manner
to the plastic barrier.

There were several other creatures in the cases but I am not
sure of their classification. I could, however, recognize a
row of brown varts, clinging upside down like large matted
fists of teeth and fur and leather on the heavy, bare,
scarred branch in their case. I saw bones, perhaps human
bones, in the bottom of their case.

There was a huge, apparently flightless bird stalking about
in another case. From its beak I judged it to be carnivorous.

In another case, somnolent and swollen, I saw a rare golden
hith, a Gorean python whose body, even when unfed, it would
be difficult for a full-grown man to encircle with his arms.

In none of these cases did I spy a tarn, one of the great,
predatory saddle birds of Gor, perhaps because they do not
thrive well in captivity. To live a tarn must fly, high, far
and often. A Gorean saying has it that they are brothers of
the wind, and how could one expect such a creature to survive
confinement? Like its brother the wind when the tarn is not
free it has no choice but to die.

As I gazed on this strange assemblage of creatures in the
tiered cases it seemed clear to me that I must be gazing upon
one of the vivaria of which I had heard Sarm speak.

Such a complex might ideally serve my purpose of the moment.

I heard a groan from Vika and I turned to face her.

She lay on her side against the wall of the shaft, some seven
or eight feet back from the grille.

The light pouring through the grille formed a reticulated
pattern of shadows on her body.

I stood to one side, back a bit from the grille so as not to
be observed from the outside, and watched her.

Her wrists of course were still bound.

She was very beautiful and the brief rags that were all that
remained of her once long and lovely garment left little of
her beauty to conjecture.

She struggled to her hands and knees, her head hanging down,
her hair falling over her head to the floor of the shaft.
Slowly she lifted her head and shook it, a small beautiful
movement that threw her hair back from her face. Her eyes
fell on me and opened wide in disbelief. Her lips trembled
but no word escaped them.

"Is it the custom of the proud women of Treve," I asked, "to
appear so scantily clad before men?"

She looked down at the brief rags she wore, insufficient even
for a slave girl, and at her bound wrists.

She looked up and her eyes were wide and her words were
scarcely a whisper. "You brought me," she said, "from the
tunnels of the Golden Beetle."

"Yes," I said.

Now that Vika was recovering I suddenly became aware of the
difficulties that might ensue. The last time I had seen this
woman conscious had been in the chamber where she had tried
with the snares of her beauty to capture and conquer me for
my archenemy, Sarm the Priest-King. I knew that she was
faithless, vicious, treacherous and because of her glorious
beauty a thousand times more dangerous than a foe armed only
with the reed of a Gorean spear and the innocence of sword
steel.

As she gazed upon me her eyes held a strange light which I
did not understand.

Her lips trembled. "I am pleased to see that you live," she
whispered.

"And I," I said sternly, "am pleased to see that you live."

She smiled ruefully.

"You have risked a great deal," she said, "to thong the
wrists of a girl."

She lifted her bound wrists.

"Your vengeance must be very precious to you," she said.

I said nothing.

"I see," she said, "that even though I was once a proud woman
of the high city of Treve you have not honored me with
binding fiber but have bound my limbs only with the thong of
your sandal, as though I might be the lowest tavern slave in
Ar - carried off on a wager, a whim or caprice."

"Are you, Vika of Treve," I asked, "higher than she of whom
you speak, the lowest tavern slave in Ar?"

Her astounded me. She lowered her head. "No," she said, "I
am not."

"Is it your intention to slay me?" she asked.

I laughed.

"I see," she said.

"I have saved your life," I said.

"I will be obedient," she said.

I extended my hands to her and her eyes met mine, blue and
beautiful and calm, and she lifted her bound wrists and
placed them in my hands and kneeling before me lowered her
head between her arms and said softly, very clearly, "I the
girl Vika of Treve submit myself - completely - to the man
Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba."

She looked up at me.

"Now, Tarl Cabot," she said, "I am your slave girl and I must
do whatever you wish."

I smiled at her. If I had had a collar I would then have
locked it on her beautiful throat.

"I have no collar," I said.

To my amazement her eyes as they looked up into mine were
tender, moist, submissive, yielding. "Nonetheless, Tarl
Cabot," she said, "I wear your collar."

"I do not understand," I said.

She dropped her head.

"Speak, Slave Girl," I said.

She had no choice but to obey.

The words were spoken very softly, very slowly, haltingly,
painfully, and it must have cost the proud girl of Treve much
to speak them. "I have dreamed," she said, since first I
met you, Tarl Cabot, of wearing - your collar and your
chains. I have dreamed since first I met you of sleeping
beneath the slave ring - chained at the foot of your couch."

It seemed to me incomprehensible what she had said.

"I do not understand," I said.

She shook her head sadly. "It means nothing," she said.

My hand fixed itself in her hair and gently turned her face
up to mine.

"- Master?" she asked.

My stern gaze demanded an answer.

She smiled, my hand in her hair. Her eyes were moist. "It
means only," she said, "that I am your slave girl - forever."

I released her head and she dropped it again.

To my surprise I saw her lips gently kiss the cruel leather
thong which so tightly bound her wrists.

She looked up. "It means, Tarl Cabot," she said, her eyes
wet with tears, "that I love you."

I untied her wrists and kissed her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
THE SAFEKEEPING OF VIKA OF TREVE

IT WAS HARD TO BELIEVE that the gentle, obedient girl who 
nestled in my arms, who had so leaped and sobbed with pleasure, 
was the proud Vika of Treve.
I still had not determined to my satisfaction that she might 
be fully trusted, much to her distress, and I would take no 
chances with her for I knew who she was, the bandit princess 
of the lofty plundering Treve of the Voltai Range. No, I would 
take no chances with this girl, whom I knew to be as treacherous 
and vicious as the nocturnal, sinuous, preda-tory sleen.

"Cabot," she begged, "what must I do that you will trust me?"
"I know you," I said.
"No, dear Cabot," she said, "you do not know me." She shook 
her head sadly.
I began to move the grille at one corner to allow us to drop 
to the floor beneath in the vivarium chamber. Fortunately this 
grille was not charged, and I had not supposed it would be.
"I love you," she said, touching my shoulder.
I pushed her back roughly.
It seemed to me I now understood her treacherous plan and some-
thing of the same bitterness with which I had earlier regarded 
this woman tended to fill my breast.
"But I do," she said.
I turned and regarded her coldly. "You play your role well," I 
said, "and nearly was I fooled, Vika of Treve."
"I dont understand," she stammered.
I was irritated. How convincing she had been in her role of 
the enamored slave girl, hopelessly, desperately mine, 
undoubtedly waiting her chance to betray me.
"Be silent, Slave," I told her.
She blushed with shame and hung her head, her hands before 
her face, and sank to her knees weeping softly, her body 
shaken with sobs.

For a moment I almost yielded, but I steeled myself against 
her trick-ery and continued my work.
She would be treated with the coldness and harshness which 
she deserved as what she was, a beautiful and treacherous 
slave girl.
At last I moved the corner of the large grille sufficiently 
to allow me to slip through to the floor beneath and then 
Vika followed me and I helped her to the floor.
The grille snapped back into place.
I was rather pleased with the discovery of the network of 
ventilator shafts for it suggested to me almost a private 
and extensive highway to any place in the Nest I might wish 
to reach.
Vika was still crying a bit, but I took her hair and wiped 
her face and told her to stop her noise. She bit her lip and 
choked back a sob and stopped crying, though her eyes still 
brimmed with tears.
I regarded her garment which, however soiled and torn, was 
still recog-nizably that of a Chamber Slave.
It would never do. It would be a clue to her identity. It 
would surely provoke curiosity, perhaps even suspicion.
My plan was a bold one.
I looked at Vika sternly. "You must do whatever I say," I 
said, "and quickly, without question."
She hung her head. "I will be obedient," she said softly, 
"- Master."
"You will be a girl brought from the surface," I said, "for 
you are still unshaved, and you are to be delivered to the 
vivarium on the orders of Sarm, the Priest-King."
"I do not understand," she said.
"But you will obey," I said.
"Yes," she said.
"I will be your keeper," I said, "and I am bringing you as 
a new female Mul to the breeding cases."
"A Mul?" she asked. "Breeding cases?"
"Remove your clothing," I commanded, "and place your hands 
behind your back."
Vika looked at me with surprise.
"Quickly!" I said.
She did as I commanded and I thonged her wrists behind her back.
I then took the handful of rags she had worn and discarded 
them in a nearby waste container, a convenience with which 
the Nest was, to my mind, excessively provided.
In a few moments, putting on something of an air of authority, 
I pre-sented Vika to the Chief Attendant of the Vivarium.
He looked at her unshaved head and long, beautiful hair with 
disgust. "How ugly she is," he said.
I gathered he had been bred in the Nest and therein had formed 
his con-cepts of female beauty.
Vika, I was pleased to note, was considerably shaken by his 
appraisal, and I supposed it was the first time a man had ever 
looked upon her with disfavor.
"Surely there is some mistake?" asked the Attendant.
"None," I said. "Here is a new female Mul from the surface. 
On the orders of Sarm shave her and clothe her suitably and 
place her in a breeding case, alone and locked. You will 
receive further orders later."
It was a most miserable and bewildered Vika of Treve whom 
I bundled into a small but comfortable plastic case on the 
fourth tier of the Vi-varium. She wore the brief tunic of 
purple plastic allotted to female Muls in the nest and save 
for her eyelashes her hair had been completely removed.
She saw her reflection in the side of her plastic case and 
screamed throwing her hands before her face.
Actually she was not unattractive and she had a well-shaped 
head. It must have been a great shock for Vika to see herself 
as she now was. She moaned and leaned against the side of 
the case, her eyes closed.
I took her briefly in my arms.
This seemed to surprise her.
She looked up at me. "What have you done to me?" she whispered.
I felt that I might tell her what I had done was perhaps to 
save her life, at least for a time, but I did not say this 
to her. Rather I looked sternly down into her eyes and said 
simply, "What I wished."
"Of course," she said, looking away bitterly, "for I am only 
a slave girl."
But then she looked up at me and there was no bitterness in 
her eyes, no reproach, only a question. "But how can I please 
my Master," she asked, "- like this?"
"It pleases me," I said.
She stepped back. "Ah yes," she said, "I forgot - your vengeance." 
She looked at me. "Earlier," she said, "I thought -" but she 
did not finish her sentence and her eyes clouded briefly with 
tears. "My Master is clever," she said, straightening herself 
proudly. "He well knows how to punish a treacherous slave."
She turned away.
I heard her voice from over her shoulder and I could see her 
reflection in the side of the plastic case before which she 
stood. "Am I now to be abandoned?" she asked. "Or are you not 
yet done with me?"
I would have responded, in spite of my better judgment, to 
reassure her of my intentions to free her as soon as practicable, 
and to tell her that I believed her greatest chance of safety lay 
in the anonymity of a specimen in the Vivarium, but it would have 
been foolish to inform her, treacherous as she was, of my plans, 
and fortunately there was no oppor-tunity to do so because the 
Chief Attendant at that moment approached the case and handed me 
a leather loop on which dangled the key to Vikas case.
"I will keep her well fed and watered," said the Attendant.
At these words Vika suddenly turned to face me, desperately, her 
back against the plastic side of the case, the palms of her hand 
against it.
"I beg of you, Cabot," she said, "please do not leave me here."
"It is here you will stay," I said.
In my hand she saw the key to her case.
She shook her head slowly, numbly. "No, Cabot," she said, "- please."
I had made my decision and I was now in no mood to debate the 
matter with the slave girl, so I did not respond.
"Cabot," she said, "- what if my request were on the lips of 
a woman of High Caste and of one of the high cities of all 
Gor - could you refuse it then?"
"I dont understand," I said.
She looked about herself at the plastic walls, and shivered. 
Her eyes met mine. I could see that not only did she not wish 
to stay in this place but that she was terrified to do so.
Suddenly she fell on her knees, her eyes filled with tears, 
and ex-tended her hands to me. "Look, Warrior of Ko-ro-ba," 
she said, "a woman of High Caste of the lofty city of Treve 
kneels before you and begs you that you will not leave her here."
"I see at my feet," I said, "only a slave girl." And I added, 
"And it is here that she will stay."
"No, no," said Vika.
Her eyes were fixed on the key that dangled from the leather 
loop in my hand.
"Please -" she said.
"I have made my decision," I said.
Vika fell to her hands and slumped to the floor moaning, 
unable to stand.
"She is actually quite beautiful," said the Attendant, 
appraisingly.
Vika looked up at him dully as though she could not comprehend 
what he had said.
"Yes," I said, she is quite beautiful."
"It is amazing how proper clothing and a removal of the 
threadlike growths improve a female Mul," observed the Attendant.
"Yes," I agreed, "it is truly amazing."
Vika lowered her head to the floor again and moaned.
"Is there another key?" I asked the Attendant.
"No," he said.
"What if I should lose this?" I asked.
"The plastic of the case," said the Attendant, "is cage 
plastic and the lock is a cage lock, so it would be better 
not to lose it."
"But if I should?" I asked.
"In time I think we could cut through with heat torches," 
said the Attendant.
"I see," I said. "Has it ever been done?" I asked.
"Once," said the Attendant, "and it took several months 
but there is no danger because we feed and water them from the outside."
"Very well," I said.
"Besides," said the Attendant, "a key is never lost. 
Nothing in the Nest is ever lost." He laughed. "Not even a Mul."
I smiled, but rather grimly.
Entering the case I checked the containers of fungus.
Vika had now regained her feet and was wiping her eyes 
with her arm in one corner of the case.
"You cant leave me here, Cabot," she said, quite simply 
as though very sure of it."
"Why not?" I asked.
She looked at me. "For one thing," she said, "I belong to you."
"I think my property will be safe here," I said.
"You"re joking," she said, sniffing.
She watched me lift the lids of the fungus containers. 
The materials in the containers seemed fresh and of good sort.
"What is in the containers?" she asked.
"Fungus," I said.
"What for?" she asked.
"You eat it," I said.
"Never," she said. "I"ll starve first."
"You will eat it," I said, "when you are hungry enough."
Vika looked at me with horror for a moment and then, to 
my astonish-ment, she laughed. She stood back against the 
rear of the case scarcely able to stand. "Oh Cabot," she 
cried with relief, reproachingly, "how frightened I was!" 
She stepped to my side and lifted her eyes to mine and 
gently placed her hand on my arm. "I understand now," she 
said, almost weeping with relief, "but you frightened me so."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
She laughed. "Fungus indeed!" she sniffed.
"Its not bad when you get used to it," I said, "but on the 
other hand it is not really particularly good either."
She shook her head. "Please, Cabot," she said, "your joke has 
gone far enough." She smiled. "Have pity," she said, "if not 
on Vika of Treve - on a poor girl who is only your slave."
"I"m not joking," I told her.
She did not believe me.
I checked the tube of Mul-Pellets and the inverted jar of 
water. "We do not have the luxuries in the Nest that you 
had in your chamber," I said, "but I think you will manage quite well."
"Cabot," she laughed, "please!"
I turned to the Attendant. "She is to have a double salt 
ration each evening," I told him.
"Very well," he said.
"You will explain to her the washings?" I asked.
"Of course," he said, "and the exercises."
"Exercises?" I asked.
"Of course," he said, "it is important to exercise in confinement."
"Of course," I admitted.
Vika came up behind me and placed her arms around me. She 
kissed me on the back of the neck. She laughed softly. "You 
have had your joke, Cabot," she said, "now let us leave 
this place for I do not like it." There was no scarlet moss 
in the case but there was a straw mat on one side. It was 
better than the one she had had in her own chamber.
I looked about the case and it seemed that everything,
considering the circumstances, was quite comfortable.
I stepped to the door and Vika, holding my arm, smiling and 
looking up into my eyes, accompanied me.
At the door I stopped and as she made as if to pass through
the door my hand on her arm stopped her.
"No," I said, "you remain here."
"You are joking," she said.
"No," I said, "I am not."
"Yes you are!" she laughed, clinging ever more tightly to my arm.
"Release my arm," I said.
"You cannot seriously mean to leave me here," she said, shaking 
her head. "No," she said, "you cant - you simply can" leave me 
here, not Vika of Treve." She laughed and looked up at me. "I 
simply will not permit it," she said.
I looked at her.
The smile fled from her eyes and the laugh died in her lovely throat.
"You will not permit it?" I asked.
My voice was the voice of her Gorean master.
She removed her hand from my arm and stepped back, trembling, 
her eyes frightened. The color had drained from her face. 
"I did not think of what I was saying," she said.
Terrified, she, as the expression is, knelt to the whip, 
assuming the position of the slave girl who is to be punished, 
her wrists crossed beneath her as though bound and her head touching 
the floor, leaving the bow of her back exposed.
"I have no wish to punish you," I said.
Bewildered she lifted her head and there were tears in her eyes.
"Beat me if you wish," she begged, "but please - please - take me with you."
"I told you," I said, "my decision has been made."
"But you could change your decision, Master," she said, wheedling, "- for me."
"I do not," I said.
Vika struggled to restrain her tears. I wondered if this were 
perhaps the first time in her life in a matter of importance 
to her that she had not had her way with a man.
At a gesture from me she rose timidly to her feet. She wiped 
her eyes and looked at me. "May your girl ask a question, Master?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Why must I stay here?" she asked.
"Because I do not trust you," I said simply.
She reacted as if struck and tears welled in her eyes. I could 
not un-derstand why this assertion of mine should have troubled 
one of Vikas proud and treacherous nature but she seemed somehow 
more hurt than if I had administered to her when she had knelt 
the blows of a slave whip or the lashings of my sword belt.
I looked upon her.
She stood, very much alone, in the center of the smooth plastic 
case, numb, not moving. There were tears in her eyes.
I was forced to remind myself in no uncertain terms of the 
cleverness of this consummate actress, and how so many men 
had weakened to her insidious blandishments. Yet I knew that 
I would not weaken, though I was sorely tempted to believe 
that she might be trusted, that the feelings she expressed 
were truly those she felt.
"Is this," I asked, "how you chained men to your slave ring?"
"Oh Cabot," she moaned, "Cabot -"
Saying nothing further I stepped outside.
Vika shook her head slowly and numbly looked about herself 
disbeliev-ingly - at the mat, the jar of water, the canisters 
along the wall.
I reached up to slide the plastic door downward.
This gesture seemed to shake Vika and her entire frame 
suddenly trem-bled with all the panic of a beautiful, trapped animal.
"No!" she cried. "Please Master!"
She rushed across the case and into my arms. I held her for 
a moment and kissed her and her kiss met mine wet and warm, 
sweet and hot and salty with the tears that had coursed down 
her cheeks and then I drew her back and she stumbled across 
the case and fell to her knees against the wall on the opposite 
side. She turned to face me there, on her hands and knees. She 
shook her head in denial of what was happening and her eyes filled 
with tears. She lifted her hands to me. "No, Cabot," she said. "No!"
I slid the plastic door down and clicked it into place.
I turned the key in the lock and heard the firm, heavy snap of the mechanism.
Vika of Treve was my prisoner.
With a cry she leaped to her feet and threw herself against the 
door, her face suddenly wild with tears, and pounded on it madly
with her small fists. "Master! Master!" she cried.
I slung the key on its leather loop around my neck.
"Good-bye, Vika of Treve," I said.
She stopped pounding on the plastic partition and stared 
out at me, her face stained with tears, her hands pressed 
against the plastic.
Then to my amazement she smiled and wiped back a tear, 
and shook her head as though to throw the hair from her 
eyes and smiled at the fool-ishness of the gesture.
She looked out at me.
"You are truly leaving," she said.
I could hear her voice through the vent holes in the 
plastic. It did not sound much different.
"Yes," I said.
"I knew before," she said, "that I was truly your slave 
but I did not know until now that you were truly my master." 
She looked up at me through the plastic, shaken. "It is a 
strange feeling," she said, "to know that someone - truly - 
is your master, to know that not only has he the right to 
do with you as he pleases but that he will, that your will 
is nothing to him, that it is your will and not his that 
must bend, that you are hopeless and must - and will - do 
what he says, that you must obey."
It made me a bit sad to hear Vika recount the woes of female 
slavery.
Then to my astonishment she smiled up at me. "It is good to 
belong to you, Tarl Cabot," she said. "I love belonging to you."
"I dont understand," I said.
"I am a woman," she said, "and you are a man, and stronger 
than I am and I am yours and this you knew and now I have 
learned it too."
I was puzzled.
Vika dropped her head. "Every woman in her heart," said Vika, 
"wants to wear the chains of a man."
This seemed to me quite doubtful.
Vika looked up and smiled. "Of course," she said, "we would 
like to choose the man."
This seemed to me only a bit less doubtful. "I would choose 
you, Cabot," she said. "Women wish to be free," I told her.
"Yes," she said, "we also wish to be free." She smiled. "In 
every woman," she said, "there is something of the Free Companion 
and some-thing of the Slave Girl."
I wondered at the things she said to me for they seemed strange, 
per-haps more so to my ears than they would have to one bred and 
raised from infancy as a Gorean, one as much accustomed to the 
submission of women as to the tides of the gleaming Thassa or 
the phases of the three moons.
As the girl spoke and I tried to lightly dismiss her words I 
wondered at the long processes of evolution that had nurtured 
over thousands of generations what had in time become the human 
kind. I wondered of the struggles of my own world as well as on 
Gor, struggles which over mil-lennia had shaped the blood and 
inmost being of my species, perhaps con-flicts over tunnels in 
cliffs to be fought with the savage cave bear, long dangerous 
weeks spent hunting the same game as the sabre-toothed tiger, 
perhaps years spent protecting ones mate and brood from the 
dep-redations of carnivores and the raids of ones fellow creatures.
As I thought of our primeval ancestor standing in the mouth of 
his cave one hand gripping a chipped stone and perhaps the other 
a torch, his mate behind him and his young hidden in the mosses 
at the back of the cave I wondered at the genetic gifts that would 
insure the survival of man in so hostile a world, and I wondered 
if among them would not be the strength and the aggressiveness 
and the swiftness of eye and hand and the courage of the male 
and on the part of the woman - what?
What would have been the genetic truths in her blood without which 
she and accordingly man himself might have been overlooked in the 
vicious war of a species to remain alive and hold its place on an 
unkind and savage planet?
It seemed possible to me that one trait of high survival value might 
be the desire on the part of the woman to belong - utterly - to a man.
It seemed clear that woman would, if the race were to survive, 
have to be sheltered and defended and fed - and forced to 
reproduce her kind.
If she were too independent she would die in such a world and 
if she did not mate her race would die.
That she might survive it seemed plausible that evolution would 
have favored not only the woman attractive to men but the one who 
had an un-usual set of traits - among them perhaps the literally 
instinctual de-sire to be his, to belong to him, to seek him out 
for her mate and sub-mit herself to him. Perhaps if she were 
thrown by her hair to the back of the cave and raped on furs 
in the light of the animal fire at its mouth this would have 
been to her little more than the proof of her mates regard for 
her, the expected culmination of her innate desire to be dominated and his.
I smiled to myself as I thought of the small things on my old 
world that at such remoteness perhaps reenacted the ancient 
ceremony of the caves, the carrying of the bride over the 
threshold, perhaps as a pris-oner, the tiny wedding bands, 
perhaps a small reminder of the primitive thongs that bound 
the wrists of the first bride, or perhaps later of the golden 
manacles fastened on the wrists of the daughters of kings, 
cap-tive maidens led in triumph through cheering streets to 
the bondage of slave girls.
Yes, I said to myself, the words Vika spoke were perhaps not 
as strange as I had thought.
I looked at her gently. "I must go," I said.
"When I first saw you, Cabot," she said, "I knew you owned me." 
She looked up at me. "I wanted to be free but I knew that you 
owned me - I knew that I was from that moment your slave; your 
eyes told me that I was owned and my most secret heart acknowledged it."
I turned to go.
"I love you, Tarl Cabot," she said suddenly, and then, as 
though con-fused and perhaps a bit frightened, she suddenly 
dropped her head hum-bly. "I mean -" she said, "I love you - Master."
I smiled a Vikas very natural correction of her mode of 
addressing me, for a slave girl is seldom permitted, at 
least publicly, to address her master by his name, only 
his title. The privilege of using his name, of having it 
on her lips, is, according to the most approved custom, 
re-served for that of a free woman, in particular a Free 
Companion. Gorean thinking on this matter tends to be 
expressed by the saying that a slave girl grows bold if 
her lips are allowed to touch the name of her master. On 
the other hand, I, like many Gorean masters, provided the 
girl was not testing or challenging me, and provided that 
free women, or others, were not present whom I had no wish 
to offend or upset, preferred as a matter of fact to have 
my own name on the girls lips, for I think, with acknowledged 
vanity, that there are few sounds as pleasurable as the sound 
of ones own name on the lips of a beautiful woman.
Vikas eyes were worried and her hands moved as though she 
wanted to touch me through the plastic.
"May I ask," she queried, "where my master goes?"
I considered the matter and smiled at her.
"I go," I said, "to give Gur to the Mother."
"What does that mean?" she asked, wide-eyed.
"I dont know," I said, "but I intend to find out."
"Must you go?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied, "I have a friend who may be in danger."
"A slave girl is pleased," she said, "that such a man as you is her master."
I turned to go.
I heard her voice over my shoulder. "I wish you well, Master," she said.
I briefly turned to face her again and almost unconsciously I 
kissed the tips of my fingers and pressed them against the plastic. 
Vika kissed the plastic opposite where my fingers had touched.
She was a strange girl.
Had I not known how vicious and deceitful she was, how cruel and 
treacherous, I might have permitted myself a word of kindness to her. 
I regretted that I had touched the plastic for it seemed to express a 
con-cern for her which I had intended to mask.
Her performance had been superb, almost convincing. She had almost 
led me to believe she cared.
"Yes," I said, "Vika of Treve - Slave Girl - you play your part well."
"No," she said, "no - Master - I love you!"
Angered at how nearly I had been deceived I laughed at her.
Now undoubtedly realizing her game was known she covered her eyes 
with her hands and sank weeping to her knees behind the heavy 
transparent plastic partition.
I turned away, having more important things to attend to than 
the faith-less wench from Treve.
"I will keep the female Mul well fed and watered," said the Attendant.
"If you wish," I said, and turned away.

------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Twenty-Seven
IN THE CHAMBER OF THE MOTHER

IT WAS STILL THE FEAST of Tola.
Though the time was now past the fourth feeding.
It was almost eight Gorean Ahn, or about ten Earth hours, since 
I had separated from Misk and Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta early this morning.

The transportation disk which had originally taken me to the chamber 
where I had found Misk I had taken to the entrance of the tunnels of 
the Golden Beetle and I thought it well that it should stay there, as 
if witnessing my entrance and my supposed failure to return.

I was less pleased to have left the translator with the disk but it 
seemed the better thing to do, for one would not have taken a translator 
into the tunnels of the Golden Beetle and if it were found missing from 
the disk it might occasion speculation not that I had returned from the 
tunnels of the Golden Beetle but more likely that I had only pretended 
to enter. The word of the two Muls by the portal might or might not carry 
weight with their Priest-King Masters.

I had not walked far from the Vivarium before I was able to regather my 
general directions in the Nest and, as I walked impatiently along, I spied 
a transportation disk docked, so to speak, hovering on its cushion of gas, 
outside one of the tall steel portals of the Hall of Commissar-ies. The 
disk was, of course, untended, for in the enclosed, regulated life of the 
Nest theft, save for an occasional handful of salt was un-known.
Therefore I may have been setting something of a precedent when I leaped 
on the transportation disk and stepped to the accelerator strips.

I was soon gliding rapidly down the hall on my, let us say, considering 
the significance and urgency of my mission, commandeered vehicle.
I had not gone more than a pasang or so when I spun the disk to a stop 
before another portal in the Hall of Commissaries. I entered the portal 
and in a few moments emerged wearing the purple of a Mul. The clerk, at 
my request writing down the expense to Sarm, informed me that I would 
promptly have to have the new tunic imprinted with the scent-patterns 
pertaining to my identity, record-scars, etc. I assured him I would give 
the matter serious consideration and departed, hearing him con-gratulate 
me on my good fortune in having been permitted to become a Mul rather than 
having to remain a lowly Matok. "You will now be of the Nest as well as in 
it," he beamed.

Outside I thrust the red plastic garment I had worn into the first 
dis-posal chute I found whence it would be whisked away pneumatically 
to the distant incinerators that burned somewhere below the Nest.
I then leaped again on the transportation disk and swept away to Misks 
compartment.

There I took a few minutes to replenish my energies from the containers 
of Mul-Fungus and I took a long welcome draught of water from the in-verted 
jar in my case. As I ate the fungus and sat in the case I con-sidered my 
future course of action. I must try to find Misk. Probably to die with him, 
or to die in the attempt to avenge him.

My thoughts wandered to Vika in her own case, though hers, unlike mine, 
was her prison. I fingered the key to her case which hung on its leather 
loop about my throat. I found myself hoping that she might not be too 
distressed by her captivity, and then I scorned myself this weak-ness 
and insisted to myself that I welcomed the thought that whatever miseries 
she endured would be richly deserved. I dropped the metal key back inside 
my tunic. I considered the heavy, transparent case on the fourth tier of 
the Vivarium. Yes, the hours would be long and lonely for the caged, shorn 
Vika of Treve.

I wondered what had become of Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta. They, like my-self, 
having disobeyed Sarm, were now outlaws in the Nest. I hoped they might be 
able to hide and find or steal enough food to live. I did not give much for 
their chances but even a piteous alternative to the dis-section chambers 
was welcome.

	I wondered about the young male Priest-King in the secret chamber below Misks 
compartment. I supposed my best way of serving Misk might be to abandon him to 
his death and try to protect the young male, but these were matters in which I 
had little interest. I did not know the loca-tion of the female egg not could 
I have tended it had I known; and, fur-ther, that the race of Priest-Kings 
should wither and die did not seem the proper business of a human, particularly 
considering my hatred for them, and my rejection of their mode of regulating 
in so many important respects the lives of men in this world. Had they not 
destroyed my city? Had they not scattered its people? Had they not destroyed 
men by Flame Death and brought them, willing or no, to their own world on the 
Voyages of Acquisition? Had they not implanted their control nets in human 
beings and spun the hideous mutations of the Gur Carriers off the stock of 
which I was a specimen? Did they not regard us as a lower or-der of animal 
and one suitably placed at the disposal of their lofty ex-cellence? And what 
of the Muls and the Chamber Slaves and all those of the human kind who were 
forced to serve them or die? No, I said to my-self, it is good for my kind 
that Priest-Kings should die. But Misk was different, for he was my friend. 
There was Nest Trust between us and accordingly, as a warrior and a man, I 
stood ready to give my life for him.

	I checked the sword in its sheath and left Misks compartment, stepped to 
the transportation disk and swept silently, rapidly, down the tunnel in the 
direction in which I knew lay the Chamber of the Mother.

	I had spent but a few Ehn on the disk before I came to the barricade of heavy 
steel bars which separated those portions of the Nest open to Muls from those 
which were prohibited to them.

	There was a Priest-King on guard whose antennae waved quizzically about as I 
drew the disk to a stop not twelve feet from him. His head was garlanded by 
a wreath of green leaves as had been that of Sarm, and also, like Sarm, 
there was about his neck, as well as his translator, the ceremonial string 
of tiny metal tools.

	It took a moment for me to understand the Priest-Kings consternation.
The tunic I wore carried no scent-patterns and for a moment he had thought 
that the transportation disk I rode was actually without a driver.
I could see the lenses of the compound eyes almost flickering as it strained 
to see, much as we might have strained to hear some small sound.
His reactions were almost those that a human might have had if he could hear 
something in the room with him but had not yet been able to see it.
At last his antennae fastened on me but I am sure the Priest- King was annoyed 
that he did not receive the strong signals he would have if I had been wearing 
my own scent-infixed tunic. Without the tunic I had worn I probably did not 
seem much different to him from any other male Mul he had encountered in the 
Nest. To another human, of course, my hair alone, which is a shaggy, bright 
red, would have been a clearly recognizable feature, but Priest-Kings, as I 
may have indicated, tend to have extremely casual visual discrimination and 
are, moreover, I would gather, color blind. The colors that are found in the 
Nest are always in the areas frequented by Muls. The only Priest-King in the 
Nest who could have recognized me immediately, and perhaps from a distance, 
was probably Misk, who knew me not as a Mul but as a friend.

	"You are undoubtedly the Noble Guard of the Chamber where I may have my tunic 
fixed with scent-marks," I called jovially.
The Priest-King seemed relieved to hear me speak.
"No," he said, "I guard the entrance to the tunnels of the Mother, and you may 
not enter."
Well, I said to myself, this is the right place.
"Where can I have my tunic marked?" I inquired.
"Return to whence you came and inquire," said the Priest-King.
"Thank you, Noble One!" I cried and turned the transportation disk al-most as 
if it had a vertical central axis and sped off. I glanced over my shoulder and 
I could see the Priest- King still straining to sense me.

	I quickly turned the disk down a side tunnel and began 
to hunt for a ventilator shaft.
In perhaps two or three Ehn I found one which appeared to be quite suitable. I 
drove the disk about half a pasang away and stopped it by an open portal within 
which I could see busy Muls stirring vats of bub-bling plastic with huge wooden 
paddles.

	I quickly retraced my steps to the ventilator shaft, pried open the bottom of 
the grille, squeezed inside and soon found myself making my way rapidly through 
the ventilating system in the direction of the Cham-ber of the Mother.
From time to time I would pass an opening in the shaft and peer out. From one 
of these openings I could see that I was already behind the steel barricade with 
its Priest-King guard, who was standing as I would have expected, in that almost 
vertical, slender golden fixity that was so characteristic of his kind.

	There was no sound to celebrate the Feast of Tola but I had little dif-ficulty 
in locating the scene of the celebration for I soon encountered a shaft, one of 
those through which used air is pumped out of the tun-nels, which was rich in 
unusual and penetrating scents, of a sort which my stay with Misk had taught me 
were regarded by Priest-Kings as being of great beauty.

	I followed these scents and soon found myself peering into an immense chamber. 
Its ceiling was only perhaps a hundred feet high but its length and width were 
considerable and it was filled with golden Priest-Kings, garlanded in green and 
wearing about their necks that shining, jangling circle of tiny, silverish tools.
There were perhaps a thousand Priest-Kings in the Nest, and I supposed that this 
might be almost all the Priest-Kings in the Nest, save perhaps those that might 
be essentially placed at a few minimum posts, such as the guard at the steel 
barricade and perhaps some in the Scanning Cham-ber or, more likely, the Power 
Plant.

	Much of the business of the Nest, of course, even relatively technical matters, 
was carried on by trained Muls.
The Priest-Kings stood motionless in great circling, tiered rows which spread 
concentrically outward as though from a stage in an ancient theater. To one 
side I could see four Priest-Kings handling the knobs of a large scent-producer, 
about the size of a steel room. There were perhaps hundreds of knobs on each 
side and one Priest-King on each side with great skill and apparent rhythm 
touched one knob after another in intricate patterns.
I had little doubt but that these Priest-Kings were the most highly re-garded 
musicians of the Nest, that they should be chosen to play to-gether on the 
great Feast of Tola.

	The antennae of the thousand Priest-Kings seemed almost motionless so intent 
were they on the beauties of the music.
Inching forward I saw, on the raised platform at this end of the room, the Mother.
For a moment I could not believe that it was real or alive. It was un-doubtedly 
of the Priest-King kind, and it now was unwinged, but the most incredible 
feature was the fantastic extent of the abdomen. Its head was little larger 
than that of an ordinary Priest-King, or its thorax, but its trunk was 
conjoined to an abdomen which if swollen with eggs might have been scarcely 
smaller than a city bus. But now this mon-strous abdomen, depleted and wrinkled, 
no longer possessing whatever tensility it might once have had, lay collapsed 
behind the creature like a flattened sack of brownly tarnished golden ancient 
leather. Even with the abdomen empty her legs could not support its weight and 
she lay on the dais with her jointed legs folded beside her.
Her coloring was not that of a normal Priest-King but darker, more brownish, 
and here and there black stains discolored her thorax and ab-domen.
Her antennae seemed unalert and lacked resilience. They lay back over her head.
Her eyes seemed dull and brown.
I wondered if she were blind.
It was a most ancient creature on which I gazed, the Mother of the Nest.
It was hard to imagine her, uncounted generations ago, with wings of gold in 
the open air, in the blue sky of Gor, glistening and turning with her lover 
borne on the high, glorious, swift winds of this distant, savage world. How 
golden she would have been.
There was no male, no Father of the Nest, and I supposed the male had died, 
or had not lived long after her mating. I wondered if, among Priest-Kings, 
he would have helped her, or if there would have been others from the former 
Nest, or if she alone would have fallen to earth, to eat the wings that had 
borne her, and to burrow beneath the mountains to begin the lonely work of 
the Mother, the creation of the new Nest.
I wondered why there had not been more females.
If Sarm had killed them, how was it that the Mother had not learned of this 
and had him destroyed?
Or was it her wish that there should be no others?
But if so why was she, if it were true, in league with Misk to perpetu-ate 
the race of Priest-Kings?
I looked again through the grille on the shaft. It opened about thirty feet 
over the floor of the chamber and a bit to one side of the Platform of the 
Mother. I surmised there might be a similar shaft on the other side of her 
platform, knowing the symmetry that tends to mark the engi-neering aesthetics 
of Priest-Kings. As the musicians continued to pro-duce their rhapsodic, 
involute, rhythms of aroma on the scent-producer, one Priest- King at a time, 
one after the other, would slowly stalk for-ward and approach the Platform of 
the Mother.
There, from a great golden bowl, about five feet deep and with a diame-ter 
of perhaps twenty feet, setting on a heavy tripod, he would take a bit of 
whitish liquid, undoubtedly Gur, in his mouth. He took no more than a taste 
and the bowl, though the Feast of Tola was well advanced, was still almost 
brimming. He would then approach the Mother very slowly and lower his head 
to hers. With great gentleness he would then touch her head with his antennae. 
She would extend her head to him and then with a delicacy hard to imagine 
in so large a creature he would transfer a tiny drop of the precious fluid 
from his mouth to hers. He would then back away and return to his place where 
he would stand as im-mobile as before.
He had given Gur to the Mother.
I did not know at the time but Gur is a product originally secreted by large, 
grey, domesticated, hemispheric arthropods which are, in the morning, taken 
out to pasture where they feed on special Sim plants, ex-tensive, rambling, 
tangled vine-like plants with huge, rolling leaves raised under square energy 
lamps fixed in the ceilings of the broad pas-ture chambers, and at night are 
returned to their stable cells where they are milked by Muls. The special Gur 
used on the Feast of Tola is, in the ancient fashion, kept for weeks in the 
social stomachs of spe-cially chosen Priest-Kings to mellow and reach the exact 
flavor and con-sistency desired, which Priest-Kings are then spoken of as 
retaining Gur.
I watched as one Priest-King and then another approached the Mother and 
repeated the Gur Ceremony.
I was perhaps the first human who had ever beheld this ceremony.
Considering the number of Priest-Kings and the time it took for each to give 
Gur to the Mother, I conjectured that the ceremony must have begun hours ago. 
Indeed, it did not seem incredible to me at all that the giving of Gur might 
well last an entire day.
I was already familiar with the astounding patience of Priest-Kings and so I 
was not surprised at the almost total lack of movement in the lines of that 
golden pattern, formed of Priest-Kings, which radiated out from the Platform 
of the Mother. But I now understood as I observed the slight, almost enraptured 
tremor of their antennae responding to the scent- music of the musicians that 
this was not a simple demonstration of their patience but a time of exaltation 
for them, of gathering, of bringing the Nest together, of reminding them of their 
common, remote origins and their long, shared history, of reminding them of their 
very being and nature, of what they perhaps alone in all the universe were - Priest-Kings.
I looked at the golden rows of Priest-Kings, alert, immobile, their heads wreathed 
in green leaves, about their necks dangling the tiny, primitive, silverish tools 
telling of a distant, simpler time before the Scanning Chamber, the Power Plant 
and the Flame Death.
I could not to my emotional satisfaction conjecture the ancientness of this 
people on which I gazed, and I could but dimly understand their powers, what 
they might feel, what they might hope of dream, supposing that so old and wise 
a people were still akin to the simple dream, the vagrant, insuppressible perhaps, 
folly of hope.
The Nest, had said Sarm, is eternal.
But on the platform before which these golden creatures stood there lay the 
Mother, perhaps blind, almost insensate, the large, feeble thing they revered, 
weak, brownish, withered, the huge worn body at last wrin-kled and empty.
You are dying, Priest-Kings, I said to myself.
I strained my eyes to see if I could pick out either Sarm or Misk in those golden rows.
I had watched for perhaps an hour and then it seemed that the ceremony might 
be over, for some minutes passed and no further Priest-Kings ap-proached the Mother.
Then almost at the same time I saw Sarm and Misk together.
The rows of the Priest-Kings separated forming an aisle down the middle of the 
chamber and the Priest-Kings now stood facing this aisle, and down the aisle 
together came Sarm and Misk.
I gathered that perhaps this was the culmination of the Feast of Tola, the 
giving of Gur by the greatest of the Priest- Kings, the First Five Born, save 
that of that number there were only two left, the First Born and the Fifth, 
Sarm and Misk. As it turned out later I was correct in this surmise and the 
moment of the ceremony is known as the March of the First Five Born, in which 
these five march abreast to the Mother and give her Gur in inverse order of 
their priority.
Misk of course lacked the wreath of green leaves and the
chain of tools about his neck.
If Sarm were disturbed at finding Misk, whom he thought to
have had killed, at his side, he gave no sign to this effect. Together, in 
silence to human ears but to the swelling intensities of scent-music, in 
stately, stalking procession the two Priest-Kings approached the Mother, and 
I saw Misk, first, dip his mouth to the great golden bowl on its tripod and 
then approach her.
As his antennae touched her head her antennae lifted and seemed to tremble 
and the ancient, brownish creature lifted her head and on her ready tongue 
from his own mouth Misk, her child, delicately and with su-preme gentleness 
placed a glistening drop of Gur.
He backed away from her.
Now did Sarm, the First Born, approach the Mother and dip his jaws too to 
the golden bowl and stalk to the Mother and place his antennae gently on 
her head, and once again the old creatures antennae lifted but this time 
they seemed to retract.
Sarm placed his jaws to the mouth of the Mother but she did not lift her 
head to him.
She turned her face away.
The scent-music suddenly stopped and the Priest-Kings seemed to rustle as 
though an unseen wind had suddenly stirred the leaves of autumn and I heard 
even the surprised jangling of those tiny metal tools.
Well could I now read the signs of consternation in the rows of Priest-Kings, 
the startled antennae, the shifting of the supporting ap-pendages, the 
sudden intense inclination of the head and body, the straining of the 
antennae toward the Platform of the Mother.
Once again Sarm thrust his jaws at the face of the Mother and once 
again she moved her head away from him.
She had refused to accept Gur.
Misk stood by, immobile.

	Sarm pranced backwards from the Mother. He stood as though stunned. 
His antennae seemed to move almost randomly. His entire frame, that long, 
slender golden blade, seemed to shudder. Trembling, with none of that 
delicate grace that so typically characterizes the movements of Priest-Kings, 
he once again tried to approach the Mother. His movements were awkward, 
uncertain, clumsy, halting.
This time even before he was near her she again turned aside that 
an-cient, brownish, discolored head.
Once again Sarm retreated.
Now there was no movement among the rows of Priest-Kings and they 
stood in that uncanny frozen stance regarding Sarm.
Slowly Sarm turned toward Misk.

	No longer was Sarm trembling or shaken but he had drawn his frame 
to its full and golden height.
Before the Platform of the Mother, facing Misk, rearing perhaps two 
feet over him, Sarm stood with what, even for a Priest-King, seemed 
a most terrible quietude.
For a long moment the antennae of the two Priest-Kings regarded one 
another and then Sarms antennae flattened themselves over his head 
and so, too, did Misks.
Almost at the same time the bladelike projections on their forelegs 
snapped into view.
Slowly the Priest-Kings began to circle one another in a ritual more 
ancient perhaps even than the Feast of Tola, a ritual perhaps older than 
even the days and objects celebrated by the string of metal tools that 
hung jangling about the neck of Sarm.
With a speed that I still find hard to comprehend Sarm rushed upon Misk 
and after a blurring moment I saw them on their posterior supporting appendages 
locked together rocking slowly back and forth, trying to bring those great 
golden, laterally chopping jaws into play.

	I knew the unusual strength of Priest-Kings and I could well imagine the 
stresses and pressures that throbbed in the frames of those locked creatures 
as they rocked back and forth, to one side and another, each pressing and 
seeking for the advantage that would mean death to the other.
Sarm broke away and began to circle again, and Misk turned slowly, watching 
him, his antennae still flattened.
I could now hear the sucking in of air through the breathing- tubes of both 
creatures.
Suddenly Sarm charged at Misk and slashed down at him with one of those 
bladelike projections on his forelegs and leaped away even before I saw 
the green-filled wound opening on the left side of one of those great, 
compound luminous disks on Misks head.
Again Sarm charged and again I saw a long greenish-wet opening appear as 
if by magic on the side of Misks huge golden head, and again Sarm, whose 
speed was almost unbelievable, leaped away before Misk could touch him and 
was again circling and watching.
Once more Sarm leaped to attack and this time a green-flowing wound 
sprang into view on the right side of Misks thorax in the neighborhood 
of one of the brain-nodes.
I wondered how long it would take to kill a Priest-King.
Misk seemed stunned and slow, his head dropped and the antennae seemed 
to flutter, exposing themselves.
I noted that already the green exudate which flowed from Misks wounds 
was turning into a green, frozen sludge on his body, stanching the flow 
from the wounds.
The thought crossed my mind that Misk, in spite of his apparently 
bro-ken and helpless condition, had actually lost very little body fluid.
I told myself that perhaps the stroke in the vicinity of the brain-nodes 
had been his undoing.
Cautiously Sarm watched Misks fluttering, piteous, exposed antennae.
Then slowly one of Misks legs seemed to give way beneath him and he 
tilted crazily to one side.
In the frenzy of the battle I had apparently failed to note the injury 
to the leg.
Perhaps so too had Sarm. I wondered if Sarm, considering Misks des-perate 
condition and plight, would offer quarter.
Once again Sarm leaped in, his bladed projection lifted to strike, but 
this time Misk suddenly straightened himself promptly on the leg which 
had seemed to fail him and whipped his antennae back behind his head an 
instant before the stroke of Sarms blade and when Sarm struck he found 
his appendage gripped in the hooklike projections on the end of Misks 
foreleg.
Sarm seemed to tremble and he struck with his other foreleg but this one 
too Misk seized with his other foreleg and once again they stood rocking 
on their posterior appendages for Misk, having learned their strengths in 
the first grappling, and lacking the swiftness of Sarm, had decided to 
close with his antagonist.
Their jaws locked together, the great heads twisting.
Then with a force that might have been that of clashing, golden gla-ciers 
Misks jaws tightened and turned and suddenly Sarm was thrown to his back 
beneath him and in the instant Sarm struck the floor Misks jaws had slipped 
their grip to the thick tube about which hung the string of Tolas silverish 
tools, that tube that separated the head from the thorax of Sarm, what on a 
human would have been the throat, and Misks jaws began to close.
In that instant I saw the bladelike projections disappear from the tips of 
Sarms forelegs and he folded his forelegs against his body and ceased resistance, 
even lifting his head in order to further expose the crucial tube that linked thorax 
with head.
Misks jaws no longer closed but he stood as if undecided.
Sarm was his to kill.
Though the translator which still hung about Sarms neck with the string of 
silverish tools was not turned on I would not have needed it to interpret the 
desperate odor-signal emitted by the First Born. It was, indeed, though shorter 
and more intense, the first odor-signal that had ever been addressed to me, 
only then it had come from Misks trans-lator in the chamber of Vika. Had the 
translator been turned on, I would have heard "Lo Sardar" - "I am a Priest-King".
Misk removed his jaws from the throat of Sarm and stepped back.
He could not slay a Priest-King.
Misk slowly turned away from Sarm and with slow, delicate steps ap-proached 
the Mother, before whom he stood, great chunks of greenish coagulated body 
fluid marking the wounds on his body.
If he spoke to her or she to him I did not detect the signals.
Perhaps they merely regarded one another.
My interest was more with Sarm, whom I saw lift himself with delicate menace 
to his four posterior appendages. Then to my horror I saw him remove the 
translator on its chain from his throat and wielding this like a mace and 
chain he rushed upon Misk and struck him viciously from behind.
Misks legs slowly bent beneath him and his body lay on the floor of the chamber.
Whether he was dead or stunned I could not tell.
Sarm had drawn himself up again to his full height and like a golden blade 
he stood behind Misk and before the Mother. He looped the trans-lator again 
about his throat.
I sensed a signal from the Mother, the first I had sensed, and it was 
scarcely detectable. It was, "No".
But Sarm looked about himself to the golden rows of immobile Priest-Kings 
who watched him and then, satisfied, he opened those great, laterally moving 
jaws and advanced slowly on Misk.
At that instant I kicked loose the grille on the ventilator shaft and uttering 
the war cry of Ko-ro-ba sprang to the Platform of the Mother and in another 
instant had leaped between Sarm and Misk, my sword drawn.
"Hold, Priest-King!" I cried.

Never before had a human set foot in this chamber and I knew not if 
I had committed sacrilege but I did not care, for my friend was in 
danger.
Horror coursed through the ranks of the assembled Priest- Kings and 
their antennae waved wildly and their golden frames shook with rage, 
and hundreds of them must have simultaneously turned on their translators 
for I heard almost immediately from everywhere before me the contrast-ingly 
calm translation of their threats and protests. Among the words I heard were 
"He must die," "Kill him," "Death to the Mul". I almost had to smile in 
spite of myself for the unmoved, unemotional emissions of the translators 
seemed so much at odds with the visible agitation of the Priest-Kings and 
the dire import of their messages.

But then, from the Mother herself, behind me, I sensed once again the 
transmission of negation, and I heard on the thousand translators that 
faced me, the single expression "No". It was not their message, but that 
of she who lay brown and wrinkled behind me. "No."
The rows of Priest-Kings seemed to rustle in confusion and anguish but 
in a moment, incredibly enough, they were as immobile as ever, standing 
as if statues of golden stone, regarding me.
Only from Sarms translator came a message. "It will die," he said.
"No," said the Mother, her message being caught and transmitted by Sarms 
own translator.
"Yes," said Sarm, "it will die."
"No," said the Mother, the message coming again from Sarms translator.
"I am the First Born," said Sarm.
"I am the Mother," said she who lay behind me.
"I do what I wish," said Sarm.
He looked around him at the rows of silent, immobile Priest- Kings 
and found none to challenge him. Now the Mother herself was silent.
"I do what I wish," came again from Sarms translator.

His antennae peered down at me as though trying to recognize me. 
They examined my tunic but found on it no scent-markings.
"Use your eyes," I said to him.
The golden disks on his great globular head seemed to flicker and they fastened themselves upon me.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," I said.
Sarms bladelike projections snapped viciously into view and remained exposed.
I had seen Sarm in action and I knew that his speed was incredible. I 
hoped I would be able to see his attack. I told myself it would proba-bly 
come for the head or the throat, if only because these were, from his height, 
easier to reach and he would wish to kill me quickly and with little difficulty, 
for he would surely regard his main business as the slaying of Misk, who still 
lay, either dead or unconscious, behind me.

"How is it," asked Sarm, "that you have dared to come here?" 
"I do what I wish," I told him. 
Sarm straightened. The bladelike projections had never been 
withdrawn. His antennae flattened themselves over his head. 
"It seems that one of us must die," said Sarm.
"Perhaps," I agreed.
"What of the Golden Beetle?" asked Sarm. "I killed it," I said. I ges-tured 
to him with my sword.
"Come," I said, "let us make war."
Sarm moved back a step.
"It is not done," he said, echoing words I had heard once from Misk. "It is 
a great crime to kill one."
"It is dead," I said. "Come, let us make war."

Sarm moved back another step. He turned to one of the closest Priest-Kings. 
"Bring me a silver tube," he said.
"A silver tube to kill only a Mul?" asked the Priest-King.
I saw the antennae of several of the Priest-Kings curling.
"I spoke in jest," said Sarm to the other Priest-King, who made no re-sponse 
but, unmoving, regarded him.
Sarm approached me again. He turned his translator down.
"It is a great crime to threaten a Priest-King," he said. "Let me kill you 
quickly or I will have a thousand Muls sent to the dissection cham-bers."
I thought about this for a moment. "if you are dead," I asked," how will you 
have them sent to the dissection chambers?"
"It is a great crime to kill a Priest-King," said Sarm. 
"Yet you would slay Misk," I said.
"He is a traitor to the Nest," said Sarm.
I lifted my voice, hoping that the sound waves would carry to those transducers 
that were the translators of the Priest-Kings.
"It is Sarm," I called," who is a traitor to the Nest, for this Nest will die, 
and he has not permitted the founding of a new Nest."
"The Nest is eternal," said Sarm.
"No," said the Mother, and the message again came from Sarms own trans-lator, 
and was echoed a thousand times by those of the other Priest-Kings in the great 
chamber.
Suddenly with a vicious, almost incalculable speed Sarms rightbladed projection 
flashed toward my head, I hardly saw it coming but an in-stant before its flight 
began I had seen the tremor of a fiber in his shoulder and I knew the signal for 
its strike had been transmitted.
I counterslashed.
And when the swift living blade of Sarm was still a full yard from my throat it 
met the lightning steel of a Gorean blade that had once been carried at the siege 
of Ar, that had met and withstood and conquered the steel of Pa-Kur, Gors Master 
Assassin, until that time said to be the most skilled swordsman on the planet.
A hideous splash of greenish fluid struck me in the face and I leaped aside, in the 
same movement shaking my head and wiping the back of my fist across my eyes.
In an instant I was again on guard, my vision cleared, but I saw that Sarm was now 
some fifteen yards or more away and was slowly turning and turning in what must have 
been some primitive, involuntary dance of agony. I could sense the intense, weird 
odors of pain uncarried by his translator which now filled the chamber.
I returned to the place where I had struck the blow.
To one side I saw the bladed projection lying at the foot of one of the low stone 
tiers on which Priest-Kings stood.
Sarm had thrust the stub of his foreleg beneath his shoulder and it seemed frozen 
there in the coagulating green slush that emanated from the wound.
Shaking with pain, his entire frame quivering, he turned to face me, but he did not 
approach.
I saw that several Priest-Kings who stood behind him began to edge for-ward.
I raised my blade, resolved to die well.
Behind me I sensed something.
Glancing over my shoulder I saw the welcome, now standing golden form of Misk.
He placed one foreleg on my shoulder.
He regarded Sarm and his cohorts, and his great laterally chopping jaws opened 
and closed once.
The golden Priest-Kings behind Sarm did not advance further.
Misks message to Sarm was carried on Sarms own translator. "You have disobeyed 
the Mother," said Misk.
Sarm said nothing.
"Your Gur as been refused," said Misk. "Go."
Sarm seemed to tremble and so, too did those Priest-Kings who stood behind him.
"We will bring silver tubes," said Sarm.
"Go," said Misk.
Suddenly, strangely carried on the many translators in the room, were the words, 
"I remember him--I have never forgotten him--in the sky--in the sky--he with wings 
like showers of gold."
I could not understand this but Misk, paying no attention to Sarm, or his cohorts 
or the other Priest-Kings, rushed to the Platform of the Mother.
Another Priest-King and then another pressed more closely and I went with them to 
the platform.
"Like showers of gold," she said.
I heard the message on the translators of Priest-Kings who, like Misk, approached 
the platform.
The ancient creature on the platform, brown and wrinkled, lifted her antennae and 
surveyed the chamber and her children. "Yes," she said," he had wings like showers 
of gold."
"The Mother is dying," said Misk.
This message was echoed by every translator in the room and a thousand times 
again and again as the Priest-Kings repeated it in disbelief to one another.
"It cannot be," said one.
"The Nest is eternal," said another.
The feeble antennae trembled. "I would speak," she said," with him who saved 
my child."
It was strange to me to hear her speak of the powerful, golden creature Misk 
in such a way.
I went to the ancient creature.
"I am he," I said.
"Are you a Mul?" she asked.
"No," I said, "I am free."
"Good," she said.
At this moment two Priest-Kings carrying syringes pressed through their brethren 
to approach the platform.
When they made as though to inject her ancient boy in what must have been yet another 
in a thousand times, she shook her antennae and warned them off.
"No," she said.
One of the Priest-Kings prepared to inject the serum despite her refusal to accept 
it but Misks foreleg rested on his and he did not do so.
The other Priest-King who had come with a syringe examined her antennae and the 
brown, dull eyes.
He motioned his companion away. "It would make a difference of only a few Ehn," 
he said.
Behind me I heard one of the Priest-Kings repeat over and over, "The Nest is eternal."
Mist placed a translator on the platform beside the dying creature.
"Only he," said the Mother.
Misk motioned away the physicians and the other Priest-Kings and set the translator 
on the platform at its lowest volume. I wondered how long the scent-message, whatever 
it was to be, would linger in the air before fading into an unrecognizable blur of 
scent to be drawn, through the ventilator system and dispelled somewhere far above 
among the black crags of the treeless, frozen Sadar.
I bent my ear to the translator.
At the low volume I received the message the other translators in the room would not 
be likely to pick it up and transduce the sounds into odor-signals.
"I was evil," said she.
I was astounded.
"I wanted to be," said the brown, dying creature, "the only Mother of Priest-Kings, 
and I listened to my First Born who wanted to be the only first Born of a Mother 
of Priest-Kings."
The old frame shook, though whether with pain or sorrow, or both, I could not tell.
"Now," she said, "I die and the race of Priest-Kings must not die with me."
I could barely hear the words from the translator.
"Long ago," she said, "Misk, my child, stole the egg of a male and now he has 
hidden it from Sarm and others who do not wish for there to be another Nest."
"I know," I said softly.
"Not long ago," said she, "perhaps no more that four of your centuries, he told 
me of what he had done and of his reasons for doing so." The withered antennae 
trembled, and the thin brown threads on them lifted as though stirred by a chill 
wind, the passing foot of mortality. "I said nothing to him but I considered what 
he had said, and I thought on this matter, and at last--in league with the Second 
Born, who has since suc-cumbed to the Pleasures of the Golden Beetle, I set aside 
a female egg to be concealed from Sarm beyond the Nest."
"Where is this egg?" I asked.
She seemed not to understand my question and I was afraid for her as I saw her 
ancient brown carcass begin to shake with spasmodic tremors which I feared might 
herald the close of that vast life.
One of the physicians rushed forward and thrust the long syringe deep through 
her exoskeleton into the fluids of her thorax. He drew out the syringe and held 
his antennae to hers for a moment. The tremors sub-sided.
He withdrew and stood watching us from some distance away, not moving, as still 
as the others, like a thousand statues of tortured gold.
Once again a sound came from my translator. "the egg was taken from the Next by 
tow humans," she said, "men who were free-like yourself--not Muls--and hidden."
"Where was it hidden?" I asked.
"These men," she said, "returned to their own cities speaking to no one as they 
had been commanded. In this undertaking on behalf of Priest-Kings they had been 
united and together had suffered many dangers and privations and had done their 
work well and were as brothers."
"Where is the egg?" I repeated.
"But their cities fell to warring," said the withered ancient one, "and these 
men in battle slew one another and with them dead the secret as far as it was 
known among men." The huge, tarnished head lying on the stone platform tried 
to lift itself but could not. "Strange is your kind," she said. "Half larl, 
half Priest-King."
"No," I said, "half larl, half man."
She said nothing for a time. Then once again the voice of the transla-tor was heard.
"You are Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"I like you," she said.
I knew not how to respond to this and so I said nothing.
The old antennae stretched forward, inching themselves toward me and I took 
them gently in my hands and held them.
"Give me Gur," she said.
Amazed, I stepped away from her and went to the great golden bowl on its 
heavy tripod and took out a few drops of the precious liquid in the palm 
of my hand and returned to her.
She tried to lift her head but still could not do so. Her great jaws moved 
slowly apart and I saw the long, soft tongue that lay behind them.
"You wish to know of the egg," she said.
"If you wish to tell me," I said.
"Would you destroy it?" she asked.
"I dont know," I said.
"Give me Gur," she said.
Gently I placed my hand between those huge ancient jaws and with my palm I 
touched her tongue that she might taste what adhered to it.
"Go to the Wagon Peoples, Tarl of Ko-ro-ba," she said. "Go to the Wagon Peoples."
"But where is it?" I asked.
Then before my horrified eyes the carcass of that ancient she began to 
shiver and tremble and I stood back as she struggled to my amazement to 
her feet and reared herself to the height of a Priest-King, her antennae 
extended to their very lengths as though grasping, clutching, trying to 
sense something, though what she sought I did not know, but in her sud-den 
fantastic strength, the gasp of her delirium and power, she seemed suddenly 
the Mother of a great race, very beautiful and very strong and very splendid.
And then thousand translators rang the message she cried out over those 
golden heads to the blank stone ceiling and walls of her chamber and I 
shall never forget it as it was in all the sorrow and the joy of her 
trembling dying magnificence; I and all could read it in the attitude 
of her body, the alertness of the forelegs, the suddenly sensing antennae, 
even in those dull brown disks which had been eyes and now seemed to be for 
that one last moment luminous again. The voices of the translators were 
simple and quiet and mechanical. The message was given to my ears as would 
have been any message. It said: "I see him, I see him, and his wings are 
like showers of gold."
Then slowly the great form sank to the platform and the body no longer 
trembled and the antennae lay limp on the stone.
Misk approached her and touched her gently with his antennae.
He turned to the Priest-Kings.
"The Mother is dead," he said.

------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Twenty-Eight
GRAVITATIONAL DISRUPTION

WE WERE IN THE FIFTH week of the War in the Nest and the issue still hung 
in the balance.
After the death of the Mother, Sarm an those who followed him, most of the 
Priest-Kings for he was the first Born, fled from the chamber to fetch, as 
it was said, silver tubes.
These were charged, cylindrical weapons, manually operated but incorpo-rating 
principles much like those of the Flame Death Mechanism. Unused, they had lain 
encased in plastic quivers for a matter of centuries and yet when these quivers 
were broken open and the weapons seized up by angry Priest-Kings they were as 
ready for their grim work as they had been when first they were stored away.
I think with one such weapon a man might have made himself Ubar of all Gor.
Perhaps there were only a hundred Priest-Kinds who rallied to the call of Mist 
and among them there were no more than a dozen silver tubes.
The headquarters for the forces of Misk lay in his compartment and there, 
pouring over the scent maps of the tunnels, he directed the placement of 
his defenses.

Thinking to overcome us with little difficulty the forces of Sarm, mounted 
on transportation disks, swept through the tunnels and plazas, but the 
Priest-Kings of Misk, hidden in rooms, concealed behind portals, firing 
from the ramps and the roofs of buildings in the open complexes, soon took 
fierce toll of Sarms unwary and overconfident troops.

In such war the much larger forces of the First Born tended to be neutralized 
and a situation of infiltration and counterinfiltration developed, marked 
by frequent sniping and occasional skirmishes.
On the second day of the second week of battle, after the forces of Sarm 
had withdrawn, I, armed with sword and silver tube, mounted a transpor-tation 
disk and swept through the no mans land of unoccupied tunnels toward the Vivarium.
Although constantly on the alert I saw no sign of enemy forces, nor even of 
Muls or Matoks of various kids. The Muls, I supposed, terrified and confused, 
had scattered and hidden themselves in their cases, living on their fungus 
and water, while over their heads hissed the weapons of their masters.
Therefore it was much to my surprise when I heard a distant singing in the 
tunnel that grew louder as I approached and soon I slowed the trans-portation 
disk and waited, my weapon ready.
As I waited, the tunnel and, as I later learned, the entire complex, were 
suddenly plunged into darkness. The energy bulbs, for the first time in 
centuries perhaps, had been shut down.
And yet there was not an instants pause in that singing nor the drop-ping 
of beat of tempo. It was as if the darkness made no difference.
and as I waited on the still disk in the darkness, my weapon ready, I suddenly 
saw far down the tunnel the sudden blue flash of an opened Mul-torch and 
then its steady blaze, and then I saw another flash and blaze and another 
and to my amazement it seemed that these fires hung from the very ceiling 
of the tunnel.
It was the carriers of Gur but far from the Gur Chamber and I watched with 
something of awe as the long procession of humanoid creatures, two abreast,
marched along the ceiling of the tunnel until they stopped above me.
"Greetings, Tarl Cabot," said a voice from the floor of the tunnel.
I had not even seen him to this moment so intent had I been on the 
strange procession above me.
I read the mark on his tunic. "Mul-Al)Ka!" I cried.
He came to the disk and seized my hand firmly.
"Al-Ka," said he. "I have decided I am no longer a Mul." "Then Al-Ka 
it is!" I cried.
Al-Ka raised his arm and pointed to the creatures above us.
"They too," said Al-Ka, "have decided they will be free."
A thin voice yet strong, almost like that of something that was at 
once an old man and a child, rang out above me.
"We have waited fifteen thousand years for this moment," it said.
And another voice called out. "Tell us what to do."
I saw that the creatures above me, whom I shall now speak of as Gur 
Car-riers, for they were no longer Muls, still carried their sacks 
of golden leather.
"They bring not Gur," said Al-Ka, "but water and fungus."
"Good," I said, "but tell them that this war is not theirs, but that 
of Priest-Kings, and that they may return to the safety of their chambers."
"The Nest is dying," said one of the creatures hanging above me, "and 
we have determined that we will die free."
Al-Ka looked at me in the light of the hanging torches.
"They have decided," he said.
"Very well" I said.
"I admire them," said Al-Ka, "for they can see a thousand yards in the 
darkness by the light of a single Mul-torch and they can live on a hand-ful 
of fungus and a swallow of water a day and they are very brave and proud."
"Then," said I, "I too admire them."
I looked at Al-Ka. "Where is Mul-Ba-Ta?" I asked, It was the first time 
I had ever seen the two men separated.
"He has gone to the Pastures and the Fungus Chambers," said Al-Ka.
"Alone?" I asked.
"Of course," said Al-Ka, "we could do twice as much that way."
"I hope to se him soon," I said.
"I think you will," said Al-Ka, "for the lights have been shut down. 
Priest-Kings do not need light, but humans are handicapped without it."
"Then," I said, "the lights have been shut down because of the Muls."
"The Muls are rising," said Al-Ka simply.
"They will need light," I said.
"There are humans in the Nest who know of these matter," said Al-Ka. 
"The lights will be on again as so as the equipment can be built and 
the power fed into the system."
The calmness with which he spoke astonished me. After all, Al-Ka, and 
other humans of the Nest, with the exception of the Gur Carriers, would 
never have known darkness.
"Where are you going?" asked Al-Ka.
"To one of the vivaria," I said, "to fetch a female Mul."
"That is a good idea," said Al-Ka. "Perhaps I too will someday fetch 
a female Mul."
And so it was a strange procession that followed the transportation disk, 
now happily piloted by Al-Ka, down the tunnel to the Vivarium.
In the dome of the Vivarium, holding a Mul-Torch, I walked up the ramps to 
the fourth tier, noting that the cages had been emptied, but I sus-pected 
that there would be one that would have remained locked.
And there was, and in this cage though it had been seared as if an attempt 
had been made to open it I found Vika of Treve.
She crouched in the corner of the case away from the door in the dark-ness 
and through the plastic I saw her in the blue radiance of the Mul-Torch.
She crept to her feet holding her hands before her face and I could see her 
trying to see and yet protect her eyes from the glare.
Even shorn she seemed to me incredibly beautiful, very frightened, in the 
brief plastic sheath that was the only garment allotted to female Muls.
I took the metal key from the loop around my neck and turned the heavy 
mechanism of the case lock.
I hurled the plastic partition upward opening the case.
"--Master?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
A soft cry of joy escaped her lips.
She stood before me blinking against the light of the Mul-torch, trying 
to smile.
Yet as she stood there she seemed also to be frightened and to my sur-prise 
she dared not approach the door through it now stood open.
She looked rather at me.
Her eyes were apprehensive, not knowing what I would do nor why I had 
returned to the case.
And her fears were not lessened as she looked beyond me to see the crea-tures, 
undoubtedly hideous to her eyes, who clung spiderlike to the ceiling of the 
Vivarium chamber with their glowing Mul-Torches.
"Who are they?" she whispered.
"Unusual men," I said.
She regarded the small round bodies and the long limbs with the cush-ioned 
feet and the long-fingered hands with their heavy palms.
Hundreds of pairs of those great, round dark eyes stared at her.
She shivered.
Then she looked again at me.
She dared ask no question, but submissively knelt, as befitted her sta-tion, 
and bower her head.
The case, I said to myself, has taught Vika of Treve much.
Before her head fell I had read in her eyes the silent, desperate plea of 
the righteous, helpless slave girl that her master, he who owns her, he who 
holds her chain, might be pleased to be kind to her.
I wondered if I should take her from the case.
I saw her shoulders tremble as she awaited my decision as to her fate.
I no longer wished her to be confined here now that I better understood how 
matters stood in the Nest. I thought, even in spite of the cage plastic, she 
might be safer with the forces of Misk. Moreover, the Vivarium Attendants were 
gone and the other cages were empty and so it would only be a matter of time 
before she would starve. I did not wish to return periodically to the Vivarium 
to feed her and I supposed, if necessary, some suitable confinement might be 
found for her near Misks headquarters. If no other choice seemed practical I 
supposed I could always keep her chained in my own case.
Kneeling before me Vikas shoulders shook but she dared not raise her head to 
read her fate in my eyes.
I wished that I could trust her but I knew that I could not.
"I have returned for you, Vika of Treve--Slave Girl," I said sternly,"--to 
take you from the case."
Slowly, her eyes radiant, her lips trembling, Vika lifted her head to me.
"Thank you, Master," she said softly, humbly. Tears welled in her eyes.
"Call me Cabot," I said, "as was your wont."
On Gor I had not minded owning women as much as I should have but I had never 
been overly fond of being addressed by the title of Master.
It was enough to be Master.
The women I had owned, Sana, Talena, Lara, and others of whom I have not written, 
Passion Slaves rented for the hour in the Paga Taverns of Ko-ro-ba and Ar, 
Pleasure Slaves bestowed on me in token of hospitality for a night spent in 
a friends compartments, had known that I was master and that had been sufficient.
On the other hand I have never truly objected to the title because I had not 
been long on Gor before I understood, for some reason that is not yet altogether 
clear to me, that the word "Master" can indescribably thrill a girl when she finds 
it on her lips, now those of a slave girl, and knows that it is true. Whether or 
not this would be the same with the girls of Earth I do not know.
"Very well, Cabot my Master," said Vika.
As I looked into the eyes of Vika I saw there the tears of relief and gratitude 
but I saw too the tears of another emotion, infinitely tender and venerable, 
which I could not read.
She knelt in the position of the Pleasure Slave but her hands on her thighs had
unconsciously, pleadingly, turned their palms to me, and she no longer knelt 
quite back on her heels. It was as though she begged to be allowed to lift 
and open her arms and rise and come to my arms. But as I looked upon her 
sternly she turned her palms again to her thighs, knelt back on her heels 
and dropped her head, holding her eyes as if by force of will fixed on the 
plastic beneath my sandals.
Her entire body trembled with the ache of her desire.
But she was a slave girl and dare not speak.
I looked down at her sternly. "Look up, Slave Girl," I said.
She looked up.
I smiled.
"To my lips, Slave Girl," I commanded.
With a cry of joy she flung herself into my arms weeping. "I love you, Master," 
she cried. "I love you, Cabot my Master!"
I knew the words she spoke could not be true but I did not rebuke her.
It was no longer in my heart to be cruel to Vika of Treve, no matter who or 
what she might be.
After some minutes I said to her, rather sternly, "I have no time for this," 
and she laughed and stepped back.
I turned and left the case and Vika, as was proper, fell into step hap-pily 
two paces behind me.
We walked down the ramp to the transportation disk.
Al-Ka closely scrutinized Vika.
"She is very healthy," I said.
"Her legs do not look to strong," said Al-Ka, regarding the lovely thighs, 
calves and ankles of the slave girl.
"But I do not object," I said.
"Nor do I," aid Al-Ka. "After all, you can always have her run up and down 
and that will strengthen them."
"That is true," I said.
"I think someday," he said, "I too will fetch a female Mul." Then he added, 
"But one with stronger legs."
"A good idea," I said.
Al-Ka guided the transportation disk out of the Vivarium and we began the 
journey toward Misks compartment, the Gur Carriers following over-head.
I head Vika in my arms. "Did you know," I asked, "that I would return for 
you?"

She shivered and looked ahead, down the darkened tunnel. "No," she 
said, "I knew only that you would do what you wished."
She looked up at me.
"May a poor slave girl beg," she whispered softly, "that she be again 
commanded to your lips?"
"It is so commanded," I said and her lips again eagerly sought mine.
It was later in the same afternoon that Mul-Ba-Ta, now simply Ba-Ta, 
made his appearance, leading long lines of former Muls. They came from 
the Pastures of the Fungus Chambers and they, like the Gur Carriers, sang 
as they came.
Some men from the Fungus Chambers carried on their backs great bags filled 
with choice spores, and others labored under the burdens of huge baskets 
of freshly reaped fungus, slung on poles between them; and those from the 
pastures drove before them with long pointed goads huge, sham-bling gray 
arthropods, the cattle of Priest-Kings, and others from the Pastures 
carried in long lines on their shoulders the ropelike vines of the 
heavy-leaved Sim plants, on which the cattle would feed.
"We will have lamps set up soon," said Ba-Ta. "It is merely a matter of 
changing the chambers in which we pasture."
"We have enough fungus to last," said one of the Fungus Growers, "until 
we plant these spores and reap the next harvest."
"We burned what we did not take," said another.
Misk looked on in wonder as these men presented themselves to me and marched 
past.
"We welcome your aid," he said, "but you must obey Priest-Kinds."
"No," said one of them, "we no longer obey Priest-Kings."
"But," said another, "we will take our orders from Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba."
"I think you would be well advised," I said, "to stay out of this war between 
Priest-Kings."
"Your war is our war," said Ba-Ta.
"Yes," said one of the Pasturers, who held a pointed goad as though it might 
be a spear.
One of the Fungus Growers looked up at Misk. "We were bred in this Nest," he 
told the Priest-King, "and it is ours as well as yours."
Misks antennae curled.
"I think he speaks the truth," I said.
"Yes," said Misk, "that is why my antennae curled. I too think he speaks the 
truth."
And so it was that the former Muls, humans, bringing with them the basic food 
supplies of the Nest, began to flock to the side of the Priest-King Misk and 
his few cohorts.
the battle would, I supposed, given the undoubted stores of food avail-able to 
Sarm and his forces, ultimately hinge on the firepower of the silver tubes, of 
which Misks side had few, but still I conjectured that the skills and courage 
of former Muls might yet play their part in the fierce issues to be decided in 
that secret Nest that lay beneath the black Sardar.
As Al-Ka had predicted, the energy bulbs in the Nest, except where they had 
actually been destroyed by the fire of Sarms silver tubes, came on again.
Former Mul engineers, trained by Priest-Kings, had constructed an auxil-iary 
power unit and had fed its energy into the main system.
When the lights flickered and then burst into clear, vital radiance there was 
a great cheer from the humans in Misks camp, with the excep-tion of the Gur 
Carriers to whom the energy bulbs were not of great im-portance.
Intrigued by the hardness of the cage plastic encountered in the Vivar-ium I 
spoke to Misk and he and I, together with other Priest-Kings and humans, armored 
a fleet of transportation disks, which would be ex-tremely effective if a silver 
tube were mounted in them and which, even if not armed, might yet serve acceptably 
as scouting vehicles or rela-tively safe transports. The fiery blasts of the 
silver tubes would wither and wrinkle the plastic but unless the exposure were 
rather lengthy they could not penetrate it. And a simple heat torch, as I had 
earlier learned, could scarcely mark the obdurate material.
In the third week of the War, equipped with the armored transportation disks, 
we began to carry the battle to the forces of Sarm, though they still outnumbered 
us greatly.
Our intelligence was vastly superior to theirs and the networks of ven-tilation 
shafts provided the quick nimble men of the Fungus Chambers and the uncanny Gur 
Carriers access to almost anywhere in the Nest they cared to go. Moreover, all former 
Muls who fought with us were clad in scent-free tunics which in effect supplied them 
with a most effective camouflage in the nest. For example, at different times, 
returning from a raid, perhaps bringing another captured silver tube, no longer 
needed by one of Sarms slain cohorts, I would find myself unremarked even by 
Misk though I might stand but feet from him.
Somewhat to their embarrassment but for their own safety the Priest-Kings who 
had joined Misk wore painted on the back and front of their thorax the block 
letter which in the Gorean alphabet would be the first letter of Misks name. 
Originally some of them had objected to this but after a few had almost stepped 
on the silent Cur Carriers, or wandered unbeknownst beneath them, some of the 
spidery humanoids being armed perhaps with silver tubes, their opinions changed 
and they became zealous to have the letter painted boldly and repainted promptly 
if it showed the least signs of fading. It unnerved the Priest-Kings to pass 
unknowingly within feet of, say, a pale, agile fellow from the Fungus Chambers, 
who might be crouching in a nearby ventilator shaft with a heat torch, who might 
have burned their antennae for them if he had pleased; or to suddenly find 
themselves surrounded by a ring of quiet herdsmen who might at a signal transfix 
them with a dozen of the spear-like cattle goads.
Together the humans and the Priest-Kings of Misk made a remarkable effective 
fighting team. What sensory data might escape the antennae might well be discovered 
by the sharp-eyed human, and what subtle scent might escape the human senses 
would likely be easily picked up by the Priest-King in the group. And as they 
fought together they came, as creatures will, to respect one another and to 
rely on one another, becoming, incredibly enough, friends. Once a brave Priest-King 
of Misks forces was slain and the humans who had fought with him wept. 

Another time a Priest-King braved the fire of a dozen silver tubes to rescue 
one of the spidery Gur Carriers who had been injured.
Indeed, in my opinion, the greatest mistake of Sarm in the War in the Nest 
was in his poor handling of the Muls.
As soon as it became clear to him that the Muls of the Fungus Chambers and 
the Pastures, and the Gur Carriers, were coming over to Misk he apparently 
assumed, for no good reason, that all Muls in the Nest were to be regarded 
as enemies. Accordingly he set about systematically exterminating those who 
fell within the ranges of his silver tubes and this drove many Muls, who 
would undoubtedly have served him, and well, into Misks camp.
With these new Muls, not from the Fungus Chambers and the pastures, but 
from the complexes of the Nest proper, came a new multitude of capaci-ties 
and talents. Further, from reports of these incoming Muls, the food sources 
of the Priest-Kings of Sarm were not as extensive as we had supposed. 
Indeed, many of the canisters of fungus now in the stores of Sarm were 
reportedly canisters of simple Mul-Fungus taken from the cases of Mils 
who had been killed or fled. Rumor had it that the only Muls whom Sarm 
had not ordered slain on sight were the Implanted Ones, among whom would 
be such creatures as Parp, whom I had met long ago when I first entered 
the lair of Priest-Kings.
One of the most marvelous ideas to further our cause was provided by MISK 
who introduced me to what I had only heard rumored before, the Priest-Kings 
mastery of the pervasive phenomena of gravity.
"Would it not be useful at times," he asked, "if the armored transporta-tion 
disk could fly?"
I thought he joked, but I said, "Yes, at times it would be very useful."
"Then we shall do it," said Misk, snapping his antennae.
"How?" I asked.
"Surely you have noted the unusual lightness of the transportation disk 
for its size?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"It is," he said, "built with a partially gravitationally resistant material."
I admit I laughed.
Misk looked at me with puzzlement.
"Why do you curl your antennae?" he asked.
"Because," I said, "there is no such thing as a gravitationally resis-tant metal."
"But what of the transportation disk?" he asked.
I stopped laughing.
Yes, I asked myself, what of the transportation disk?
I looked at Misk. "Response to gravity," I said to him ,"is as much a 
characteristic of material objects as size and shape."
"No," said Misk.
"Therefore," I said, "there is no such thing as a gravitationally 
resistant metal."
"But there is the transportation disk," he reminded me.
I thought Misk was most annoying, "Yes," I said, "there is that."
"On your world," said Misk, "gravity is still as unexplored a natural 
phenomenon as electricity and magnetism once were, and yet you have 
mas-tered to some extent those phenomena--and we Priest-Kings have 
to some extent mastered gravity."
"Gravity is different," I said.
"Yes it is," he aid, "and that is why perhaps you have not yet mastered 
it. Your own work with gravity is still in the mathematical descriptive 
stage, not yet in the stage of control and manipulation."
"You cannot control gravity," I said, "the principles are different; it 
is pervasive; it is simply there to be reckoned with."
"What is gravity?" asked Misk.
I thought for a time, "I dont know," I admitted.
"I do," said Misk, "let us get to work."
In the fourth week of the War in the Nest our ship was outfitted and 
armored. I am afraid it was rather primitive, except that the princi-ples 
on which it operated were far more advanced than anything now available 
to Earths, as I now understand, somewhat painfully rudimen-tary science. 
The ship was simply a transportation disk whose underside was coated 
with cage plastic and whose top was a transparent dome of the same material. 
There were controls in the forward position of the ship and ports about the 
sides for silver tubes. There were no propellers or jets or rockets and I 
find it difficult to understand of explain the drive save that it used the 
forces of gravity against themselves in such a way that the amount, if 
one may use so inept an expression, of gravi-tational Ur, which is the 
Gorean expression for the gravitational primi-tive, remains constant though 
redistributed. I do not think force, or charge, or any of the other expressions 
which occur to ones mind is a good translation for Ur, and I prefer to regard 
it as an expression best left untranslated, though perhaps one could say that 
Ur is whatever it was that satisfied the gravitational equations of Misk. Most 
briefly the combined drive and guidance system of the disk functioned by means 
of the focusing of gravitational sensors on material objects and using the 
gravitational attraction of these objects while in effect screening out the 
attraction of others. I would not have believed the ship was possible but I 
found it difficult to offer the arguments of my old worlds physics against 
the fact of Misks success.
Indeed, it is through the control of gravity that the Priest-Kings had, long 
ago, brought their world into our system, an engineering feat which might have 
been otherwise impossible without perhaps the draining of the gleaming 
Thassa itself for its hydrogen nuclei.
The flight of the disk itself is incredibly smooth and the effect is much 
as if the world and not yourself were moving. When one lifts the craft it 
seems the earth moves from beneath one; when one moves it for-ward it seems 
as though the horizon rushed toward one; if one should place it in reverse, 
it seems the horizon glides away. Perhaps one should not expatiate on this 
matter but the sensation tends to be an unsettling one, particularly at first. 
It is much as if one sat still in a room and the world whirled and sped about 
one. This is undoubtedly the effect of lacking the resistance of gravitational 
forces which nor-mally account for the sometimes unpleasant, but reassuring, 
effects of acceleration and deceleration.
Needless to say, although ironically, the first transportation disk pre-pared 
for flight was a ship of war. It was manned by myself and Al-Ka and Ba-Ta. 
Misk would pilot the craft upon occasion but it was, in fact, rather cramped 
for him and he could not stand within it, a fact that bothered him no end for 
a Priest-King, for some reason, becomes extremely agitated when he cannot stand. 
I gathered it would be some-thing like a man being forced to lie on his back 
when something of importance is taking place. To lie on ones back is to feel 
exposed and vulnerable, helpless, and the nervousness we would feel in such a 
pos-ture is undoubtedly due as much to ancient instinct as to rational awareness. 
On the other hand, since Misk did not construct the craft large enough for him 
to stand in, I suspect he did not really wish to take part in its adventures. 
To be sure, a smaller dome would make the craft more maneuverable in the tunnels, 
but I think Misk did not trust himself to do battle with his former brethren. 
He might intellectually recognize that he must slay but perhaps he simply could 
not have pressed the firing switch of the silver tube. Unfortunately Sarms 
cohorts, and perhaps fortunately, most of Misks, did not suffer from this 
perilous inhibition. To be so inhibited among a field of foes, none of whom 
suf-fered from the same inhibition, seemed to me a good way to get ones head 
burned off.

When we had constructed the ship we felt that now we had what might 
proved to be, in this strange subterranean war, the decisive weapon. 
The fire of silver tubes could damage and in time destroy the ship 
but yet its cage plastic offered considerable protection to its crew 
who might, with some degree of safety, mete out destruction to all 
that crossed its path.
Accordingly it seemed to Misk, and I concurred, that an ultimatum 
should be issued to Sarms troops and that, if possible, the ship 
should not be used in battle. If we had used it immediately, decisively, 
we might have wrought great damage, but neither of us wished to take 
the enemy by devastating surprise if victory might be won without 
bloodshed.
We were considering this matter when suddenly without warning one wall 
of Misks compartment seemed suddenly to blur and lift and then silently 
to vanish into powder, so light and fine that some of it drifted upward 
to be withdrawn through the ventilator shaft through which used air was 
drawn from the compartment.
Misk seized me and with the harrowing speed of the Priest-King leaped 
across the room, buffering the case I had occupied ten yards across 
the chamber, bent down and flung up the trap and, carrying me, darted 
into the passage below.
My senses were reeling but now in the distance I could hear cries and 
shouts, the screaming of the dying, the unutterable horrifying noises 
of the broken, the torn and maimed.
Misk clung to the wall below the trap door, holding me to his thorax.
"What is it?" I demanded.
"Gravitational disruption," said Misk. "It is forbidden even to Priest-Kings."
His entire body shook with horror.
"Sarm could destroy the Nest," said Misk, "even the planet."
We listened to the screams and cries. We could hear no fall of build-ings, 
no clatter of rubble. We heard only human sounds and the extent and fearfulness 
of these were our only index to the destruction being wrought above.

------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ANESTHETIZATION

"SARM IS DESTROYING THE UR bonding." said Misk.
"Lift me up," I cried.
"You will be slain," said Misk.
"Quickly!" I cried.
Misk obeyed and I crawled out of the trap and to my wonder gazed 
on the patterns of desolation that met my eyes. Misks compartment 
was gone, only powdery stains marking the place where the walls had 
been. Through the very stone of the tunnel which lay outside Misks 
compartment, now opened like a deep window. I could see the next 
large Nest complex which lay beyond. I ran across the flooring of 
the tunnel and through the switch of nothingness that had been cut 
through the stone and looked on the complex. Over it hung ten ships, 
perhaps of the sort used for surveillance on the surface, and in the 
nose of each of these ships there was mounted a conelike projection.
I could see no beam extend from these projections but where they pointed 
I say material objects seem to shake and shudder and then vanish in a 
fog of dust. Clouds of particles from this destruction hung in the air, 
gray under the energy bulbs. The cones were methodically cutting geo-
metrical patterns through the complex. Here and there where a human or 
Priest-King would dart into the open the cone nearest to him would focus 
on him and the human or Priest-King, like the buildings and the walls, 
would seem to break apart into powder.
I ran toward the workshop where Misk and I had left the ship we had 
fashioned from the transportation disk.
At one point I was faced with a ditch, cut by the disruption cones 
with geometrical precision in the very stone of the Nest. It lay across 
my path, perhaps thirty-five feet wide, perhaps forty feet deep.
I cried out with dismay but knew what I must do, and retraced my steps 
to try the ditch. Gor is somewhat smaller than the earth and, accord-ingly, 
its gravitational pull is less. If it were not for that what I intended 
to hazard would possibly have been beyond human capacity. As it was I could 
not be sure that I could make the leap but I knew that I must try.
I took a long run and with a great bound cleared the ditch by perhaps two 
feet and was soon speeding on my way to Misks workshop.
I passed a group of huddled humans, crouched behind the remains of a wall 
which had been sheared away about two feet from the floor for a length of 
a hundred feet.
I saw one man who lacked an arm, lying on the floor, groaning, the limb 
having been lost to the unseen beam of the ships above. "My fingers," he cried, 
"my fingers hurt!" One of the humans by the wall, a girl, knelt by him, holding 
a cloth, trying to stanch the bleeding. It was Vika! I rushed to her side. "Quick,
 Cabot!" she cried, "I must make a tourniquet!" I seized the limb of the 
man and pressing the flesh together managed to retard the bleeding. Vika 
took the cloth from his wound and, ripping it and using a small steel bar 
from the sheared wall, quickly fashioned a tourniquet, wrapping it securely 
about the remains of the mans arm. The physicians daughter did the work 
swiftly, expertly. I rose to leave.
"I must go," I said.
"May I come?" she asked.
"You are needed here," I said.
"Yes, Cabot," she said, "you are right."
As I turned to go she lifted her hand to me. She did not ask where I was 
going nor did she ask again to accompany me. "Take care," she said. "I will," 
I said. There was another groan from the man and the girl turned to comfort him.
Had it truly been Vika of Treve?
I raced to the workshop of Misk and flung open the double doors and leaped 
into the ship and secured the hatch, and in a moment it seemed the floor 
dropped a foot beneath me and the doors rushed forward.
In less than a few Ihn I had brought the ship into the large Nest com-plex 
where the ten ships of Sarm still followed their grim, precise, destructive 
pattern, as placidly and methodically as one might paint lines on a surface 
or mow a lawn.
I knew nothing of the armament of the ships of Sarm and I knew I had only 
the silver tube in my own craft, a weapon far outclassed in destructive 
potential by the gravitational disrupters mounted in the ships of Sarm. 
Moreover, I knew that the cage plastic with which my own ship was protected 
would be no more protection than tissue paper against Sarms weapons, the 
nature of which was not to pierce or melt but, from a given center, radiating 
outwards, to shatter material gravitationally, breaking it apart and scattering it.
I broke into the open and the floor of the complex shot away from beneath 
me and I hung near the energy bulbs at the very apex of the dome. None of 
the ships of Sarm had apparently noted me.
I took the lead ship into my sights and dropped toward it, narrowing the 
range to increase the effectiveness of the silver tube. I was within two 
hundred yards when I opened fire, attacking from the rear, away from the 
destructive cone in its bow.
To my joy I saw the metal blacken and burst apart like swollen tin as I 
passed beneath it and began to climb rapidly toward the belly of the second 
craft which I ripped open with a sizzling burst of fire. The first craft 
began to turn slowly, uncontrollable, in the air and the plunged toward the 
ground. I hoped Sarm himself might have been in that flagship. The second 
craft shot wildly toward the ceiling of the com-plex and shattered on the stone 
ceiling, falling back to the ground in a shower of wreckage.
The other eight craft suddenly stopped their destructive work and seemed to 
hover in indecision. I wondered if they were in communication with one another. 
I supposed so. Undoubtedly they had not expected to be met with opposition. 
They may not even have seen me. While they seemed to hang undecided in space, 
almost like puzzled cells in a droplet of water, I dove again, and the third 
ship broke apart as though it were a toy beneath a falling cutlass of fire, 
and I climbed once more, the flame of the silver tube stabbing ahead of me 
hitting the fourth ship amidships and flinging it burning a hundred yards 
from my path.

Now the remaining six ships hovered closely together, disruptor cones 
radiating outward in different directions, but I was above them.
This time, should I dive again, I knew it would be impossible to conceal 
my position from them, for they would then know I was below them and at 
least one of the ships would be almost certain to cover me with its weapon.
It would be but a moment before they would discover my position.
Even now two of the ships were moving their place, one to cover the area 
beneath the small fleet and the other above. In a moment there would be 
no avenue of attack which would not mean sure death.
The ceiling of the complex leapt away from above me and I found myself 
in the very center of the six ships, surrounded on the four sides, and 
above and below.
I could see the scanners mounted in the nose of the ships probing about.
But I was nowhere to be found.
From this distance I could see hatches in the ships, on the top, and 
there was sufficient oxygen in the complex to permit exposed visual 
observations, but none of the Priest-Kings peered out of any of the 
hatches. Rather they continued to concentrate on their instruments. 
They must have been puzzled by the failure of the instrumentation to 
detect me.
Two hypotheses would seem most likely to explain this phenomenon to them, 
first that I had fled the complex, second that I was nes-tled among them, 
and I smiled to myself, for I was certain that the second hypothesis would 
never occur to a Priest-King, for it was too improbable and Priest-Kings 
were too rational a kind of creature.
For half a Gorean Ahn we hung there, none of us moving. Then for a full 
Gorean Ahn did we remain there, motionless above the complex. Again I 
smiled to myself. For once I was sure I could outwait a Priest-King.
Suddenly the ship beneath me seemed to quiver and then it blurred and 
disappeared.
My heart leaped!
Ground fire!
I could imagine Misk hastening to his tools and the vast assemblage of 
instrumentation in his shop, or perhaps sending as outraged Priest-King 
to make some secret arsenal where lay a forbidden weapon, one to which 
Misk would never have had recourse were it not for the hideous precedent 
of Sarm!
Almost immediately the remaining five ships fell into a line and raced 
down toward one of the tunnel exits that led from the complex.
The first ship to near the exit seemed to burst into a cloud of powder 
but the next four ships, and myself, who had fallen into line with them, 
pierced the veil of powder and found ourselves coursing through the 
tun-nel back toward Sarms domain.
There were now four ships ahead of me in the tunnel, fleeing.
With satisfaction I noted the width of the tunnel did not permit them 
to turn.
With grim decision I pressed the firing switch of the silver tube 
and there was a shattering burst of fire and I heard and felt 
branches of steel and tubing flying back against my armored 
transportation disk.
Some of the materials, flew with such a force that gashes were 
cut in the obdurate cage plastic, and the ship was buffeted and 
jostled but it cut its way through this jungle of flying parts 
and found itself again streaming down the tunnel.
Now the three ships were far ahead and I thrust open the speed 
valve on the armored transportation disk to overtake them.
Just as the three ships burst into the open of another huge 
complex I caught up with them and opened fire on the third ship 
but my fire seemed less effective this time and though I gave it 
a full burst the charging of the tube seemed at last almost 
exhausted. The third ship moved erratically, one side black and 
wrinkled with the scar of my attack. Then it seemed to come under 
control and turned like a cornered rat to face me. In an instant 
I would be within the firing radius of the dis-ruptor cone. I took 
my ship up over the craft and tried another burst, which was even 
weaker than the last. I tried to keep above the ship, staying away 
from the disruptor cone on its bow. I was dimly aware of the other 
two ships now turning to bring me within range.
At that moment I saw the hatch on the injured but threatening ship 
fly up and the ahead of a Priest-King emerge. I suppose that some 
of the scanning instrumentation had been damaged in the ship. His 
antennae swept the area and focused on me at the same time that I 
pressed the firing switch, and it seemed the golden head and antennae
blew away in ashes and the golden body slumped downward in the hatch. 
The silver tube might be draining its power but it was still a fearsome 
weapon against an exposed enemy. Like an angry hornet I flew to the 
open hatch of the injured ship and blasted away into the hatch, filling 
the insides with fire. It tumbled away like a balloon and exploded in 
the air as I dropped my ship almost to the ground. I was quick but not 
quick enough because the plastic dome of my ship above me seemed to 
fly away in the wind leaving a trail of particles behind. Now, in the 
shattered rim of the plastic dome, scarcely protected against the 
rushing wind, I fought to regain control of the craft. The silver tube 
still lay intact in the firing port but its power was so considerably 
reduced that it was no longer a menace to the ships of Sarm. A few 
yards from the flooring of the plaza I brought the craft again into 
order and throwing open the speed valve, darted into the midst of a 
complex of buildings, where I stopped, hovering a few feet above the 
street passing between them.
The ship of Sarm passed overhead like a hawk and then began to circle. 
I would have had a clean burst at the ship but the tube was, for all 
practical purposes, no longer an effective weapon.
A building on my left seemed to leap into the air and vanish.
I realized there was little I could do so I took the ship up and 
under the attacker.
He turned and twisted but I kept with him, close, too close for 
him to use his disruptor cone.
The wind whistled past and I was almost pulled from the controls 
of the ship.
Then I saw what I would not have expected.
The other ship of Sarm was turning slowly, deliberately, on its 
fellow.
I could not believe what I saw but there was no mistaking the 
elevation of the disruptor cone, the calm, almost unhurried 
manner in which the other ship was drawing a bead on its fellow.
The ship above me seemed to tremble and tried to turn and flee 
and then sensing the futility of this it turned again and tried 
to train its own disruptor cone on its fellow.
I flashed my ship to the ground only an instant before the entire 
ship above me seemed to explode silently in a storm of metallic 
dust glinting in the light of the energy bulbs above.
In the cover of the drifting remains of the ship shattered above 
me I darted among the streets of the complex and rose behind the 
last ship. This time my own craft seemed sluggish, and it was 
only too clear that it was not responding properly to the controls. 
To my dismay I saw the last ship turning slowly toward me and I 
saw the disruptor cone rise and focus on me. It seemed I hung 
helpless in the air, floating, waiting to be destroyed. I knew 
that I could not evade the wide-angle scope of the disruptor beam. 
I savagely hurled my weight against the controls but they remained 
unresponsive. I floated above the enemy craft but it tipped, 
keeping me in the focus of its beam. Then without warning it 
seemed the stern of my craft vanished and I felt the deck suddenly 
give way and as half of the craft vanished in powder and the other 
half crum-bled to the buildings below I seized the silver tube from 
the firing port and leaped downward to the back of the enemy ship.
I crawled to the hatch and tugged at the hatch ring.
It was locked!
The ship began to bank. Probably the pilots had heard wreckage hit 
their ship and were banking to drip it into the streets below, or 
per-haps they were actually aware that I had boarded them.
I thrust the silver tube to the hinges on the hatch and pressed 
the fir-ing switch.
The ship banked more steeply.
The tube was almost drained of power but the point-blank range and 
the intensity of even the diminished beam melted the hinges from 
the hatch.
I wrenched the hatch open and it swung wildly out from its locked 
side and suddenly I hung there, one hand on the rim, one hand on 
the silver tube, as the ship lay on its side in the air. Then before 
the ship could roll I tossed the tube inside and squirmed in after 
it. The ship was now on its back and I was standing inside on its 
ceiling and then the ship righted itself and I found the silver 
tube again. The inside of the ship was dark for its only intended 
occupants were Priest-Kings, but the open hatch permitted some light.
A forward door opened and a Priest-King stepped into view, puzzled, 
startled at the sensing of the open hatch.
I pressed the firing switch of the silver tube and it gave forth 
with a short, abortive scorching blast and was cold, but the golden 
body of the Priest-King blackened and half sliced through, reeled 
against the wall and fell at my feet.
Another Priest-King followed the first and I pressed the firing 
switch again but there was no response.
In the half darkness I could see his antennae curl.
I threw the useless tube at him and it bounded from his thorax.
The massive jaws opened and closed once.
The hornlike projection on the grasping appendages snapped into 
view.
I seized the sword which I had never ceased to wear and uttering 
the war cry of Ko-ro-ba rushed forward but as I did so I suddenly 
threw myself to the ground beneath those extended projections and 
slashed away at the Priest-Kings posterior appendages.
There was a sudden fearful scream of odor from the signal glands 
of the Priest-King and he tipped to one side reaching for me with 
his grasping appendages.
His abdomen now dragged on the ground but he pushed himself toward 
me, jaws snapping, by means of the two forward supporting appendages 
and the remains of his posterior appendages.
I leaped between the bladed projections and cut halfway through 
its skull with my sword.
It began to shiver.
I stepped back.
So this was how a Priest-King might be slain, I thought, somehow 
here one must sever the ganglionic net in mortal fashion. And 
then it seemed to me not improbably that this might be the case, 
for the major sensory apparatus, the antennae, lie in this area.
Then, as though I were a pet Mul, the Priest-King extended his 
antennae toward me. There was something piteous in the gesture. 
Did it wish me to comb the antennae? Was it conscious? Was it 
mad with pain?
I stood not understanding and then the Priest-King did what he 
wished: with a toss of his great golden head he hurled his 
antennae against my blade, cutting them from his head, and
then after a moment, having closed himself in the world of 
his own pain, abandoning the external world in which he was 
no longer master, he slipped down to the steel flooring of 
the ship, dead.
The ship, as I discovered, had been manned by only tow Priest-
Kings, probably one at the controls, the other at the weapon. 
Now that it was not being controlled it hovered where the second 
Priest-King, probably its pilot, had left it, when he had come 
to investigate the fate of his companion.
It was dark in the ship, except in the vicinity of the opened hatch.
But, groping my way, I went forward to the controls.
There, to my pleasure, I found two silver tubes, fully charged.
Feeling what seemed to be a blank area of the ceiling of the 
control area I fired a blast upward, using the simple expedient 
of the tube to open a hole in the craft through which light might enter.
In the light which now entered the control area I examined the controls.
There were numerous scent-needles and switches and buttons and dials, 
none of which made much sense to me. The controls n my own craft 
had been designed for a primarily visually oriented creature. 
Nonetheless, reasoning analogously from my own controls, I managed 
to locate the guidance sphere, by means of which one selects any 
one of the theoreti-cally infinite number of directions from a 
given point and the dials for the height and speed control. Once 
I bumped the craft rather severely into the wall of the complex 
and I could see the explosion of an energy bulb outside through 
my makeshift port, but I soon managed to bring the ship down safely. 
Since there was, from my point of view, no way of seeing just where 
I was going, since I could not use the sensory instru-mentation of 
Priest-Kings, without cutting more holes in the ship and perhaps 
starting a fire or causing an explosion of some sort, I decided to 
abandon the ship. I was particularly worried about guiding it back 
through the tunnel. Moreover, if I could bring it to the first Nest 
complex, Misk would probably destroy it on sight with his own disruptor. 
Accordingly, it seemed safest to leave the ship and find some ventilator 
shaft and make my way back to Misks area by means of it.
I crawled out of the ship through the hatch and slid over the side to
the ground.
The buildings in the complex were deserted.
I looked about myself, at the empty streets, the empty windows, 
the silence of the once bustling complex.
I thought I heard a noise and listened for some time, but there 
was nothing more.
It was hard to rid my mind of the feeling that I was followed.
Suddenly, I heard a voice, a mechanically transmitted voice. "You 
are my prisoner, Tal Cabot," it said.
I spun, the silver tube ready.
A strange odor came to my nostrils before I could press the firing 
switch. Standing nearby I saw Sarm, and behind him the creature 
Parp, he whose eyes had been like disks of fiery copper.
Though my finger was on the firing switch it lacked the strength 
to depress it.
"He has been suitably anesthetized," said the voice of Parp.
I fell at their feet.
------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Thirty
Sarms Plan

"YOU HAVE BEEN IMPLANTED."
I heard the words from somewhere, vague, distant, and I tried 
to move but could not.
I opened my eyes to find myself looking into the twin fiery 
disks of the sinister-appearing, rotund Parp. Behind him I 
was a battery of energy bulbs that seemed to burn into my 
eyes. to one side I saw a brownish Priest-King, very thin and 
angular, wearing the appearances of age but yet his antennae 
seemed as alert as those of any one of the golden crea-tures.
My arms and legs were bound with hands of steel to a flat, narrow, 
wheeled platform; my throat and waist were similarly locked in place.
"May I introduce the Priest-King Kusk," said Parp, gesturing to 
the tall, angular figure who loomed to one side.
So it was he, I said to myself, who formed Al-Ka and Ba-Ta, he 
the biologist who was among the first in the Nest.
I looked about the room, turning my head painfully, and saw that 
the room was some sort of operating chamber, filled with instrumentation, 
with racks of delicate tongs and knives. In one corner there was a 
large drumlike machine with a pressurized door which might have been 
a sterilizer.
"I am Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," I said weakly, as though to assure 
myself of my own identity.
"No longer," smiled Parp. "You are now honored to be as I, a 
creature of Priest-Kings."
"You have been implanted," came from the translator of the tall, 
brownish figure beside Parp.
I felt suddenly sick and helpless.
Though I felt no pain nor any of the discomfort I would have 
expected I now understood that these creatures had infused into 
the very tissues of my brain one of the golden control webs that 
could be operated from the Scanning Chamber of the Priest-Kings. 
I recalled the man from Ar, met on the lonely road to Ko-ro-ba 
long ago, who like a robot had been forced to obey the signals of 
Priest-Kings until at last he had tried to throw over the net, and 
its overload had burned away the insides of his skull, giving him at 
last the freedom of his own mortal dust.
I was horrified at what had been done and I wondered what the sensations 
would be or even if I would be aware of what I was doing when under the 
control of Priest-Kings. But most I feared how I might now be used to 
injure Misk and my friends. I might be sent back among them to spy, to 
foil their plans, perhaps even to destroy, perhaps even to slay Misk, 
Al-Ka and Ba-Ta and other leaders, my friends all. My frame shook with 
the horror of what I had become and seeing this Parp chuckled. I wanted 
to get my hands on his fat throat.
"Who has done this?" I asked.
"I," said Parp. "the operation is not as difficult as you might expect 
and I have performed it many times."
"He is a member of the Caste of Physicians," said Kusk, "and his manual 
dexterity is superior to that of Priest-Kings."
"Of what city?" I asked.
Parp looked at me closely, "Treve," he said.
I closed my eyes.
It seemed to me that under the circumstances, while I was still my own 
master, I should perhaps slay myself. Otherwise I would be used as a 
weapon by Sarm, used to injure and destroy my friends. The thought of 
suicide has always horrified me, for life seems precious, and the mortal 
moments that one has, so brief a glimpse of the vistas of reality, it 
seemed to me should be cherished, even though they might be lived in 
pain or sorrow. But under the circumstances--it seemed that I should 
perhaps surrender the gift of life, for there are some things more 
pre-cious than life, and were it not so I think that life itself 
would not be as precious as it is.
Kusk, who was a wise Priest-King and perhaps aware of the psychology 
of humans, turned to Parp.
"It must not be permitted to end its own life before the control
web is activated," he said.
"Of course not," said Parp.
My heart sank.
Parp wheeled the platform on which I lay from the room.
"You are a man," I said to him, slay me."
He only laughed.
Out of the room he took a small leather box from his pouch, 
removed a tiny sharp blade from it and scratched my arm.
It seemed the ceiling began to rotate.
"Sleen," I cursed him.
And was unconscious.
My prison was a rubber disk, perhaps a foot thick and ten feet 
in diame-ter. In the center of this disk, recessed so I could 
not dash my head against it, was an iron ring. Running from this 
ring was a heavy chain attached to a thick metal collar fastened 
about my throat. Further, my ankles wore manacles and my wrists 
were fastened behind my back with steel cuffs.
The disk itself lay in Sarms command headquarters and I think 
that he was pleased to have it so. He would occasionally loom 
above me, gloat-ing, informing me of the success of his battle 
plans and strategies.
I noted that the appendage which I had severed with my sword in 
the Chamber of the Mother had now regrown.
Sarm brandished the appendage, more golden and fresh than the rest 
of his body. "It is another superiority of Priest-Kings over humans," 
he said, his antennae curling.
I conceded the point in silence, amazed at the restorative powers 
of Priest-Kings, those redoubtable golden foes against which mere 
men had dared to pit themselves.
How much of what Sarm told me in those days was true I could not 
be sure but I was confident of a few things, and others I learned 
inadvertently from the reports of Priest-Kings and the few Implanted 
Muls who served him. There was normally a translator on in the 
headquarters and it was not difficult to follow what was said. 
the translator was for the bene-fit of creatures such as Parp, 
who spent a good deal of time in the headquarters.
for days in impotent fury I knelt of lay chained on the disk while 
the battles raged outside.
Still, for some reason, Sarm had not activated the control net and 
sent me to do his bidding.
The creature Parp spent a great deal of time in the vicinity, 
puffing on that small pipe, keeping it lit interminably with the 
tiny silver lighter which I had once mistaken for a weapon.
In the War gravitational disruption was now no longer used. It turned 
out that Misk, not trusting Sarm from the very beginning, had prepared 
a disruption device which he would not have used had it not been 
for Sarms employment of that devastating weapon. But now that Misks 
forces possessed a similar weapon Sarm, in fear, set his own similar 
de-vices aside.
There were new ships flying in the Nest, I understood, ships that had 
been built by Misks men and disks that had now been armored by those 
of Sarm. I gathered there were no more available surveillance craft 
han-gared in the Nest. On the other hand the ships of the two forces 
tended, it seemed, to neutralize one another, and the war in the air, 
far from being decisive, as Misk and I had hoped, had begun to turn 
into the same stalemate that had developed on the ground.
Not long after the failure of his gravitational disruption attack
Sarm had spread throughout Misks portion of the Next various disease 
organ-isms, many of which had not had a free occurrence in centuries. 
On the other hand, vicious as were those invisible assailants, the 
extreme habitual hygiene of Priest-Kings and Muls, coupled with misks, 
use of bactericidal rays dissolved this new threat.
Most savage and unnatural of all, at least to the mind of a Priest-King, 
was the release of the Golden Beetles from their various tunnels in the 
vicinity of the Nest. These creatures, perhaps two hundred or more, were 
loosed and by means of covered transportation disks, piloted by Priest-Kings 
using oxygen systems internal to the disks, were driven toward the 
quarters of the Nest controlled by the unsuspecting Misk and his forces.
The exudate which forms on the man hairs of the Golden Beetle, which 
had overcome me in the close confines of the tunnel, apparently had a 
most intense and, to a human mind, almost incomprehensibly compelling 
effect on the unusually sensitive antennae of Priest-Kings, luring them 
help-lessly almost as if hypnotized, to the jaws of the Beetle, who 
then penetrates their body with its hollow, pincerlike jaws and drains 
it of body fluid.
Misks Priest-Kings began to leave their hiding places and their posts 
of vantage and come into the streets, their bodies inclining forward, 
their antennae dipped in the direction of the lure of the Beetles. The 
Priest-Kings themselves said nothing, explained nothing, to their 
dumb-founded human companions but merely laid aside their weapons and 
approached the Beetles.
Then it seems that a brave female, a former Mul, unidentified, had 
grasped the situation and, seizing a cattle goad from one of confused, 
puzzled herdsmen, had rushed upon the Beetles jabbing and striking them, 
driving them away with the long spearlike object, and soon the herdsmen 
has rushed to join her and prod away the cumbersome, domelike predators, 
turning them back in the direction whence they had come.
It was not more than a day later before one of Sarms own scouts laid 
aside his weapon and, as the Priest-Kings ventured abroad without a 
human to protect it should it encounter a Golden Beetle.
Now the Beetles roamed at random throughout the Nest, more of a threat 
to Sarms own forces than Misks, for now none of Misks Priest-Kings 
ventured abroad without a human to protect it should it encounter a 
Golden Beetle.
In the next days the Golden Beetles began, naturally enough in their 
hunt for food, to drift toward those portions of the Nest occupied by 
Sarms Priest-Kings, for in those portions of the Nest they encountered 
no shouting humans, no jabbing cattle goads.
The danger became so great that all the Implanted Muls, including even 
the creature Parp, were sent into the streets to protect Sarms Priest-Kings.
Oddly enough, to human thinking, neither Misk nor Sarm would permit 
their humans to slay the Beetles, for Priest-Kings, for a reason which 
I will later relate, find themselves normally unwilling to slay or order
the destruction of the dangerous, fused-winged creatures.
Accordingly Sarm broadcast throughout the Nest his general amnesty for 
former Muls, offering them again the opportunity to become the slaves 
of Priest-Kings. To this generous proposal he added, sensing it might 
not in itself be irresistible, a tub of salt per man and two female 
Muls, to be provided after the defeat of Misks forces, when presumably 
there would be captured females to distribute to the victors. To the 
females of Misks forces he offered gold, jewelry, precious stones, 
delicious silks, the permission to allow their hair to grow, and male 
slaves, the latter again to be provided after the projected defeat of 
Misks forces. to these proposals he added the very definite considerations 
that his forces still substantially outnumbered those of Misk in both 
number of Priest-Kings and firepower, and that victory would be his inevitably, 
and that it would be well at such a time to be in his good favor.
Whereas I would not have abandoned Misk and freedom to join the forces 
of Sarm I was forced to admit that the probably victory in the end would 
be his, and that his proposals might well be attractive to some former 
Muls, particularly those who had occupied a position of some importance 
in the Nest prior to the War.
I should not have been surprised, but I was, when the first deserter from 
the forces of Misk proved to be the treacherous Vika of Treve.
My first knowledge of this came one morning when suddenly I awakened in my 
chains to the fierce bite of a leather lash.
"Awake, Slave!" cried a voice.
With a cry of rage I struggled in my chains to my knees, pulling against 
the metal collar that held me to my place. Again and again the lash struck 
me, wielded by the gloved hand of a girl.
Then I heard her laugh and knew who was my tormentor.
Though her features were concealed in the folds of a silken veil and she 
wore the Robes of Concealment there was no mistaking her voice, her eyes, 
her carriage. The woman who stood over me with the whip, the woman clad 
in the most marvelous array of the most beautiful silks, wearing golden 
sandals and purple gloves, was Vika of Treve.
She shook the veil from her face and threw back her head and laughed.
She struck me again.
"Now," she hissed, "it is I who am Master!"
I regarded her evenly.
"I was right about you," I said. "I had hoped that I was not."
"What do you mean?" she demanded.
"You are worthy only to be a slave girl," I said.
Her face was transformed with rage and she struck me again, this time 
across the face. I could taste the blood from the wound of the whip.
"Do not yet injure him severely," said Sarm, standing to one side.
"He is my slave!" she said.
Sarms antennae curled.
"He will be delivered to you only after my victory," said Sarm. "In the 
meantime I have use for him."
Vika threw him a glance of impatience, almost of contempt, and shrugged. 
"Very well," she said, "I can wait." She sneered down at me. "You will 
pay for what you did to me," she said. "You will pay," she said. "You 
will pay as only I, Vika of Treve, know how to make a man pay."
I myself was pleased that it had taken a Priest-King to have me chained 
at Vikas feet, that it had not been I myself who, in the hope of her 
favors, had fastened about my own throat the collar of a slave.
Vika turned with a swirl of her robes and left the headquarters chamber.
Sarm stalked over. "You see, Mul," said he, "how Priest-Kings use the 
instincts of men against them."
"Yes," I said, "I see."
Though my body burned from the whip I was more hurt by the thought of 
Vika, surprisingly perhaps, hurt by the thought that I had known who 
and what she was all along, though somewhere in my heart I had always 
hoped I was wrong.
Sarm then strode to a panel set in one wall. He twiddled a knob. "I 
am activating your control net," he said.
In my chains I tensed.
"These preliminary tests are simple," said Sarm, "and may be of 
interest to you."
Parp had now entered the room and stood near me, puffing on his pipe. 
I saw him turn off the switch on his translator.
Sarm turned a dial.
"Close your eyes," whispered Parp.
I felt no pain. Sarm was regarding me closely.
"Perhaps more power," said Parp, raising his voice so that his words 
might be carried by Sarms own translator.
Sarm, at this suggestion, touched the original knob again. Then he 
reached for the dial again.
"Close your eyes," whispered Parp, more intensely.
I did so.
"Lower your head," he said.
I did so.
"Now rotate your head clockwise," said Parp. "Now counterclockwise."

Mystified, I did as he recommended.
"You have been unconscious," Parp informed me. "Now you are no 
longer controlled."
I looked about myself. I saw that Sarm had turned off the machine.
"What do you remember?" asked Sarm.
"Nothing," I said.
"We will check sensory data later," said Sarm.
"The initial responses," said Parp, raising his voice, 
seem quite prom-ising."
"Yes," said Sarm, "you have done excellent work."
Sarm then turned and left the headquarters room.
I looked at Parp, who was smiling and puffing on that pipe of his.
"You did not implant me," I said.
"Of course not," said Parp.
"what of Kusk?" I asked.
"he too is one of us," said Parp.
"But why?" I asked.
"You saved his children," said Parp.
"But he has no sex, no children," I said.
"Al-Ka and Ba-Ta," said Parp. "Do you think a Priest-King 
is incapable of love?"
Now my imprisonment on the rubber disk seemed less 
irritating than it had.
Parp had again been sent into the streets to fend off 
Golden Beetles should they approach too closely any 
of the Priest-Kings of Sarm.
I learned from conversation in the headquarters room 
that not many of the humans who fought with Misks 
forces had responded to the blandish-ments of Sarm, 
though some, like Vika of Treve, had deserted to cast 
their fortune with what appeared to be the winning side. 
From what I could gather only a handful of humans, some 
men, some women, had actu-ally crossed the lines and 
taken service with Sarm.

Sarm, one day, brought down from the halls of the 
Priest-Kings above, all the humans who were quartered 
there, mostly Chamber Slaves, to aid his cause. The 
latter, of course terrified, bewildered, would be of 
little service themselves, but they were offered as 
inducements to the males of Misks forces to encourage 
their desertion; the girls were, so to speak, a bounty 
for treachery, and since the beauty of Chamber Slaves 
was well known in the Nest, I supposed they might well 
prove quite effective in this role; yet, somewhat to 
my surprise and pleasure, no more than a half dozen or 
so men came forth to claim these lovely prizes. As the 
War continued I became more and more impressed with the 
loyalty and courage of the men and women serving Misk, 
who for a bit of fungus and water and freedom, were willing 
to sell their lives in one of the strangest conflicts ever 
fought by men, boldly serving one of the most unusual causes 
that had ever asked for the allegiance of the human kind.
Vika would come to torment me each day but no longer was 
she permitted to whip me.
I supposed that there was reason for her hatred of me but 
still I won-dered at its depth and fury.
She was later given charge of my feeding and she seemed to 
enjoy throw-ing me scraps of fungus or watching me lay at 
the water in the pan she placed on the disk. I ate because 
I wished to keep what I could of my strength, for I might 
have need of it again.
Sarm, who was normally in the room, seemed to take great 
pleasure in Vikas baiting me, for he would stand by, antennae 
curling, as she would insult me, taunt me, sometimes strike 
me with her small fist. He appar-ently became rather fond of 
the new female Mul and, upon occasion, he would order her to 
groom him in my presence, a task which she seemed to enjoy.
"What a piteous thing you are," she said to me, "and how 
golden and strong and brave and fine is a Priest-King!"
And Sarm would extend his antennae down to her that she 
might delicately brush the small golden hairs which adorned them.
For some reason Vikas attentions to Sarm irritated me and 
undoubtedly I failed to conceal this sufficiently because 
Sarm often required this task of her in my presence and, 
I noted with fury, she invariably delighted to comply with 
his request.
Once I called angrily to her. "Pet Mul!"
"Silence, Slave," she responded haughtily. Then she looked 
at me and laughed merrily. "For that," she said, "you will 
go hungry tonite!"
I remembered, smiling to myself, how when I was master I had 
once, to discipline her, refused her food one night. Now it 
was I who would go hungry, but I told myself, it was worth it. 
Let her think over that, I said to myself, think over that--Vika 
of Treve--Pet Mul!
I found myself wanting to take her body in my arms and shatter 
it to my breast, forcing back her head, taking her lips in the 
kiss of a master as though I once more owned her.
Meanwhile, slowly, incredibly, the War in the Nest began to turn 
against Sarm. The most remarkable event was a delegation of Sarms 
Priest-Kings, led by Kusk himself, who surrendered to Misk, pledging 
themselves to his cause. This transfer of allegiance was apparently 
the result of long discussion and consideration by the group of 
Priest-Kings, who had followed Sarm because he was First Born, 
but had at many points objected to his conduct of the War, in 
particular to his treatment of the Muls, his use of the gravitational 
disruption devices, his attempt to spread disease in the Nest and 
last, his, to a Priest-Kings thinking, hideous recourse to the 
Golden Beetles. Kusk and his delegation went over to Misk while 
the fighting still hung in stale-mate and there was no question, 
at that time, of their decision being motivated by considerations 
of personal interest. Indeed, at that time, it seemed they had, 
almost unaccountably, for reasons of principle, joined a cause 
which was in all probability a lost one. But not long after this 
took place other Priest-Kings, startled by the decision of Kusk, 
began to speak of ending the War, and some others too began to 
cross the lines. Growing more desperate, Sarm rallied his forces 
and armored six dozen transportation disks and swept into Misks 
domain. Apparently Misks forces were waiting for them, as might 
have been ex-pected given the superior intelligence afforded by 
the numerous humans in Misks camp and the disks were stopped by 
barricades and withered in the intense fire from nearby rooftops. 
Only four disks returned.
It now became clear that Sarm was on the defensive, for I heard 
orders being issued to block the tunnels leading into the areas 
of the Nest he controlled. Once I heard the hiss of silver tubes 
not more than a few hundred yards away. I struggled, enraged, 
against the chains and collar that held me a helpless prisoner 
while the issues of the day were being decided by fire in the 
streets outside.
Then there came a calm in the War and I gathered that Misks 
forces had been driven back.
My rations of Mul-Fungus had been cut by two-thirds since I had 
been captured. And I noted that some of Sarms Priest-Kings 
were less golden that I had known them, having now a slightly 
brownish cast on the thorax and abdomen, signs I new to be 
associated with thirst.
I think it was only now that the absence of the supplies 
captured or destroyed by the Fungus Growers and Herdsmen had 
begun to make itself keenly felt.
At last Sarm made clear to me why I had been kept alive, 
why I had not been destroyed long ago.
"It is said that there is Nest Trust between you and Misk," 
he said. "Now we will see if that is truly so."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"If there is Nest Trust between you," said Sarm, his antennae 
curling, "Misk will be ready to die for you."
"I dont understand," I said.
"His life for yours," said Sarm.
"Never," I said.
"No," cried Vika, who had been standing in the background, 
"he is mine!"
"Do not fear, Little Mul," said Sarm. "We will have Misks 
life and you will still have your slave."
"Sarm is treacherous," I said.
"Sarm is a Priest-King." he said.

------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Thirty-One
Sarms Revenge

THE PLACE OF MEETING WAS arranged.
It way in one of the plazas in the area controlled by 
the forces of Sarm.
Misk was to come alone in the plaza, to be met by myself 
and Sarm. No one was to bear arms. Misk would surrender 
himself to Sarm and I, theo-retically, would then be 
allowed to go free.
But I knew that Sarm had no intention of keeping his part 
of the bar-gain, and that he intended to slay Misk, 
destroying hopefully thereby the effective leadership 
of the opposition, and then either keep me as a slave for 
Vika, or, more likely, killing me as well, even though that 
might disappoint the expectations of vengeance nourished in 
the bosom of his pet Mul.
When I was unchained, I was informed by Sarm that the small 
box he car-ried activated my control net and at the first sign 
of disobedience or difficulty he would simply raise the power 
level--literally boiling brain away.
I said that I understood.
I wondered what Sarm would say if he knew that Parp and 
Kusk had not actually implanted me.
In spite of the agreement about arms, Sarm hung from the 
back of his translator strap, invisible from the front, 
a silver tube.
To my surprise his pet Mul, Vika of Treve, demanded to 
accompany her golden master. I supposed that she feared 
he might slay me, thus depriving her of her revenge for 
which she had waited so long. He would have refused her, 
but she pleaded so earnestly that at last he agreed that 
she might accompany us. "I wish to see my master triumph!" 
she begged, and that argument seemed to sway golden Sarm, 
and Vika found herself a member of our party.
I myself was forced to walk perhaps a dozen paces in front 
of Sarm, who held his grasping appendage near the control 
box which would, he sup-posed, activate the golden net he 
believed to be fused into the tissues of my brain. Vika 
walked at his side.
At last I saw, far across the plaza, the slowly stalking 
figure of Misk.
How tender I felt toward the golden giant in that moment 
as I realized that he, though a Priest-King, had come to 
give his life for mine, sim-ply because we had once locked 
antennae, simply because we were friends, simply because 
there was Nest Trust between us.
He stopped and we stopped.
And then we began to walk slowly towards one another again 
across the square tiles of that plaza in the secret Next of 
Priest-Kings.
When he was still out of range of the silver tube of Sarm but 
close enough, I hoped, to be able to hear me. I ran forward, 
throwing my hands high, "Go back!" I cried. "It is a trick! 
Go back!"
Misk stopped in his tracks.
I heard Sarms translator behind me. "You will die for that, 
Mul," it said.
I turned and saw Sarm, his entire golden bladelike form 
convulsed with rage. Two of the tine hooklike appendages 
on his foreleg spun the power dial on the control box. 
"Die, Mul," said Sarm.
But I stood calmly before him.
It took Sarm but an instant to realize he had been tricked 
and he hurled the box from him and it shattered on the tiles 
of the plaza.
I stood ready now to receive the blast of Sarms silver tube 
which he had whipped from its place of concealment and 
trained on my breast.
"Very well," said Sarm, "let it be the silver tube."
I tensed myself for the sudden burst of fire, that incandescent 
torrent that would burst and burn the flesh from my bones.
The firing switch was depressed and I heard the soft click 
but the tube failed to fire. Once again, desperately, Sarm 
pressed the firing switch.
"It does not fire!" came from Sarms translator and his entire 
frame was startled, shaken with incomprehension.
"No," cried Vika, "I discharged it this morning!"
the girl ran to my side in a swirl of many-colored silks and 
from beneath the Robes of Concealment she withdrew my sword 
and kneeling at my side lowered her head and placed it in my 
hand. "Cabot my Master!" she cried.
I took the blade.
"Rise," I said. "Vika of Treve--you are now a free woman."
"I do not understand," came from Sarms translator.
"I came to see my Master triumph!" cried Vika of Treve, her 
voice thrilled with emotion.
Gently I thrust the girl to one side.
"I do not understand," came from Sarms translator.
"That is how you have lost," I said.
Sarm hurled the silver tube at my head and I ducked and heard 
it clatter across the tiles of the plaza for perhaps a hundred 
yards.
Then to my amazement Sarm turned and though I was but a human 
he fled from the plaza.
Vika was in my arms weeping.
In a moment we were joined by Misk.
The War was at an end.
Sarm had disappeared and with his disappearance, and presumed 
death, the opposition to Misk evaporated, for it had been held 
together only by the dominance of Sarms mighty personality 
and the prestige that was his in virtue of being First Born.
The Priest-Kings who had served him had, on the whole at least, 
believed that what they were doing was required by the laws of 
the Nest, but now with Sarms disappearance Misk, though only 
Fifth Born, acceded to the same laws of the Nest, that their 
allegiance was now owed.
There was a greater problem as to what to do with the former 
Muls who had deserted to join the forces of Sarm, for the 
blandishments he had offered, and because they had thought 
that his side was the one which was winning. I was pleased 
to see that there were only about sev-enty-five or eighty wretches 
in this latter category. About two-thirds of them were men, and 
the rest women. None of them, interestingly enough, were Gur Carriers, 
or from the Fungus Chambers or the Pastures.
Al-Ka and Ba-Ta arrived with two prisoners, female Muls, frightened, 
sullen girls, lovely, clad now only in brief, sleeveless plastic, 
who knelt at their feet. The were joined together by a length of 
chain that had been, by means of two padlocks, fastened about their 
throats. Their wrists were secured behind their backs by slave bracelets.
"Deserters," said Al-Ka.
"Where now," asked Ba-Ta of the girls, "is your gold, your jewelry 
and silks?"
Sullenly they looked down.
"Do we kill them now?" asked Al-Ka.
The girls looked at one another and trembled in fear.
I looked at Al-Ka and Ba-Ta rather closely.
They winked at me. I winked back at them. I perceived their plan. 
I could see that neither of them had the least intention of injuring 
one of the lovely creatures in their power.
"If you wish--" I said.
a cry of fear escaped the girls.
"Please dont!" said one, looking up, pleading, and the other 
pressed her head to the floor at Ba-Tas feet.
Al-Ka regarded them. "this one," he said, "has strong legs."
Ba-Ta regarded the other. "This one," he said, seems healthy."
"Do you wish to live?" asked Al-Ka of the first girl.
"Yes!" she said.
"Very well," said Al-Ka, "you will do so--as my slave."
"--Master!" said the girl.
"And you?" asked Ba-Ta sternly of the second girl.
Without raising her head she said, "I am your slave girl, Master."
"Look up," commanded Al-Ka, and both of the girls lifted their 
heads trembling.
Then to my surprise, Al-Ka and Ba-Ta, from their pouches, 
produced golden collars, only too obviously prepared in advance. 
There were two heavy, short clicks and the lovely throats of the 
two girls were encir-cled. I gathered it was the only gold they 
would see for some time. On one collar there was engraved "Al-Ka" 
and on the other "Ba-Ta".
Then Al-Ka unlocked the throat chain worn by the female Muls and
he went off in one direction and Ba-Ta in the other. No longer did 
it seem the two former Muls were inseparable. Each departed, 
followed by his girl, her wrists still bound behind her back.
"And what," laughed Vika of Treve, "is to be my fate?"
"You are free," I reminded her.
"But my fate? she asked, smiling at me.
I laughed. "It is similar to that of the others." I said, and 
swept her from her feet and carried her, Robes of Concealment 
swirling, from the room.
Misk and I had been trying to decide, for the past five days, 
how to organize the Nest in the wake of the War. The simplest 
matters had to do with restoring its services and its capacity 
to sustain both Priest-Kings and humans. The more difficult 
matters had to do with the political arrangements that would 
allow these two diverse species to inhabit peaceably and 
prosperously the same dwelling. Misk was quite ready, as I 
was afraid he might not be, to allow humans a voice in affairs 
of the Nest and, moreover, to arrange for the return to their 
cities of those humans who did not wish to remain in the Nest.
We were considering these matters when suddenly the entire floor 
of the compartment in which we sat seemed to buckle and break apart. 
At the same time two walls shattered and fell crumbling in rubble to 
the floor. Misk covered my body with his own and then with his great 
strength, reared up, stones falling from his back like water from the 
body of a swimmer.
The entire Nest seemed to shiver.
"An earthquake?" I cried.
"Sarm is not dead," said Misk. Dusty, covered with whitish 
powder, he looked about himself disbelievingly at the ruins. 
In the distance we could hear the domed side of a complex 
begin to crumble, raining down huge blocks of stone on the 
building beneath. "He is going to destroy the Nest," said Misk. 
"He is going to break apart the planet."
"Where is he?" I demanded.
"The Power Plant," said Misk.
I climbed over the fallen stones and ran from the room and 
leaped on the first transportation disk I could find. Though 
the path it had to travel was broken and littered the cushion 
of gas on which the disk flowed lifted the vehicle cleanly, 
though bucking and tilting, over the debris.
In a few moments, though the disk was damaged by falling stone 
and I could barely see through the powdery drifts of rock hanging 
in the col-lapsing tunnels. I had come to the Power Plant and 
leaped from the disk and raced to its doors. They were locked but 
it was only a moments work to find the nearby ventilator shaft 
and wrench away the screen. In less than a minute I had kicked 
open another grille and dropped inside the great domed room of 
the Power Plant. I saw no sign of Sarm. I myself would not know 
how to repair his damage so I went to the doors of the chamber, 
which were locked on the inside, and thrust up the latching mechanism. 
I swung them open. Now Misk and his engineers would be able to enter 
the room. I had scarcely thrust up the latch when a burst of fire 
from a silver tube scorched the door over my head. I looked up to 
see Sarm on that narrow passage that traced its precarious way 
around the great blue dome that covered the power source. Another 
flash of fire burned near me, leaving a rupture of molten marble 
in the floor not five feet from where I stood. Running irregularly, 
dodging bursts of fire, I ran to the side of the dome where Sarm, 
from his position some-where above, would not be likely to be able 
to reach me with his fire.
Then I saw him through the sides of the blue dome that covered 
the power source, far above, a golden figure on the narrow walkway 
at the crest of the dome. He fired at me, burning a hole in the 
dome near him, exposing the power source, and the same flashing 
burst of fire tore at the area of the dome behind which I stood. 
The burst had spent itself and only managed to scorch the dome, 
but the next, fired through the hole already made above, might 
do more damage, so I changed my position. Then Sarm seemed to 
lose interest in me, perhaps thinking I had been slain, more 
likely to conserve the charge in the silver tube for more important 
mat-ters, for he then began, methodically, to fire at the paneling 
across from the dome, destroying one area after another. As he was 
doing this the entire Nest seemed to shift and the planet convulsed, 
and fire spurted from the paneling. Then he fired a burst directly 
down into the power source and it began to rumble and throw geysers 
of purple fire up almost to the hole which Sarm had burned in the 
globe. To one side, though I scarcely noticed it at the time, I saw 
a vague, domelike golden shape, one of the Beetles which, undoubtedly 
confused and terrified, had crept into the room of the Power Plant 
from the tunnel outside, through the door I had opened for Misk and 
his Priest-Kings. Where were they? I surmised the tunnels might have 
collapsed and they were even now try-ing to cut their way through to 
the Chamber of the Power Plant.
I knew that somehow I must try to stop Sarm but what could I do? He 
was armed with a silver tube and I with nothing but the steel of a 
Gorean sword.
Sarm kept firing long, persistent bursts of fire at the paneling 
against the walls, undoubtedly attempting to destroy the instrumentation. 
I hoped that such firing might exhaust the charge of the weapon.
I left cover and rushed to the walkway and was soon climbing up the 
nar-row path that crept around the surface of the globe that now barely 
con-tained the frenzied, bubbling fury, the turbulence of the hissing, 
erupting substance that leaped and smote against the smooth enclosing 
walls.
I climbed the walkway rapidly and soon could see Sarm clearly at the 
very top of the dome, whence he had once displayed to me the majesty 
of the Priest-Kings accomplishments, where he had once indicated to 
me the modifications of the ganglonic net by means of which his people 
had won to the enormous power they possessed. He was not yet aware of 
my ap-proach, perhaps not believing I would be fool enough to climb the 
ex-posed walkway to pursuit.
Then suddenly he wheeled and saw me and seemed startled but then the 
silver tube flew up and I threw myself rolling back down the walkway, 
the steel stairs bubbling away following me. Then I had the curve of 
the dome between me and the Priest-King. His weapons fired again, 
slic-ing through the top of the dome in his vicinity and striking beneath 
me, melting a hole in the dome below me. Twice more Sarm fired and twice 
more I scrambled about on the walkway trying to keep the two surfaces of 
the globe between myself and his weapon. Then angrily I saw him turn away 
and commence firing again at the paneling. As he did so, I began to climb 
once more. As I climbed, to my elation, I saw the tubes flame sputter and 
stop and knew the weapon was at last discharged.
I wondered what more Sarm could do now.
Nothing from his position at the top of the globe, though it had been an 
ideal vantage point for firing the tube into the instrumentation.
I wondered if he regretted wasting a large part of his weapons charge on 
firing at me. To do more damage he would not have to descend on the walkway 
and reach the paneling itself, perhaps that on the other side of the room, 
but to do this he would have to pass me, and I was determined that I should 
not, if possible, allow that to happen.
Slowly I climbed the walkway, stepping with care past the ruined 
por-tions of the steel steps leading to the crest of the dome.
Sarm seemed in no hurry. He seemed quite content to wait for me.
I saw him toss the silver tube away, and saw it fall through one of 
the great holes he had blasted in the globe and disappear in the 
violent, bubbling purple mass seething below.
At last I stood not more than a dozen yards from the Priest-King.
He had been watching me approach and now his antennae focused on 
me and he drew himself up to his full golden height.
"I knew you would come," he said.
One wall to the left began to crumble, fitted stone from its 
sides edg-ing outwards and breaking loose to clatter down the 
ramps and tumble even to the floor so far beneath.
"I am destroying the plant," he said. "It has served its 
purpose." He regarded me. "It has sheltered the Nest of 
Priest-Kings but now there are no more Priest-Kings--only 
I, only Sarm is left."
"There are still many Priest-Kings in the Nest," I said.
"No," he said, "there is only one Priest-King, the First 
Born, Sarm--he who did not betray the Nest, he who was 
beloved of the Mother, he who kept and honored the ancient 
truths of his people."
The bladelike figure of the Priest-King seemed to waver on 
the walkway and the antennae seems blown about as though by 
the wind.
More stones fell from the ceiling of the chamber now, 
clattering and bouncing off the surface of the blue, 
scarred seething dome.
"You have destroyed the Nest," said Sarm, looking 
wildly down at me.
I said nothing. I did not even draw my sword.
"But now," said Sarm. "I will destroy you."
the weapon left my sheath.
Sarm reached to the steel bar that formed the railing 
to his left on the walkway and with the incredible strength 
Priest-Kings with one motion twisted and tore free a length 
of perhaps eighteen feet. He swung this lightly, as easily 
as I might have lifted and moved a stick of wood.
The bar he wielded was a fearsome weapon and with it he could 
strike me from the walkway, hurling me perhaps two hundred 
feet to the opposite wall, before I could get within yards 
of him.
I stepped back and Sarm advanced a delicate pace.
"Primitive," said Sarm, regarding the club of steel which he 
held, and then he looked down at me, his antennae curling, 
"but fitting."
I knew I could not retreat back down the walkway for Sarm 
was much faster than I and would be upon me perhaps even 
before I could turn.
I could not leap to the sides for there was only the smooth 
sheer curve of the blue globe and I would slide to my death 
and fall like one of the stones from the roof above to the 
dusty, smoking rubble below.
And ahead of me stood Sarm, his club ready. If his first 
blow missed perhaps I could get close enough to strike but 
it did not seem probable his blow would miss.
It did not seem to me a bad place to die.
If I had dared to take my eyes from Sarm I might have looked 
about the wonder of the Nest and the destruction in which it 
was being consumed. Drifts of rock powder hung in the air, 
fitted stone tumbled to the flooring far below, the walls 
trembled, the very globe and walkway fas-tened to it seemed 
to shift and shudder. I supposed there might be tidal waves 
in the distant Thassa, that crags in the Sardar and the 
Vol-tai and Thentis. Ranges might be collapsing, that 
mountains might be falling and new ones rising, that the 
Sa-Tarna fields might be broken apart, that towers of 
cities might be falling, that the ring of black logs 
which encircled the Sardar might rupture and burst open 
in a hun-dred places. I imagined the panic in the cities 
of Gor, the pitching ships at sea, the stampedes of animals, 
and only I, of all humans, was at the place where this 
havoc had begun, only I was there to gaze upon the author 
of the destruction of a world, the golden destroyer of 
a planet.
"Strike," I said. "Be done with it."
Sarm lifted the bar and I sensed the murderous intensity 
that trans-formed his entire being, how each of those 
golden fibers like springs of steel would leap into play 
and the long bat would slash in a blur toward my body.
I crouched, sword in hand, waiting for the blow.
But Sarm did not strike.
Rather to my wonder the bar of steel lowered and Sarm 
seemed frozen sud-denly in an attitude of the most rapt 
perception. His antennae quivered and tensed but not 
stiffly and each of the sensory hairs on his body lifted 
and extended. His limbs seemed suddenly weak.
"Kill it," he said. "Kill it."
I thought he might be telling himself to be done with me, 
but somehow I knew this could not be.
Then I too sensed it and I turned.
Behind me, inching its way up the narrow walkway, clinging 
with its six small legs, slowly lifting its heavy domelike 
golden body a step at a time, came the Golden Beetle I had 
seen below.
The mane hairs on its back were lifted like antennae and 
they moved as strangely, as softly, as underwater plants 
might lift and stir in the tides and currents of the cold 
liquid of the sea.
The narcotic odor emanating from that lifted, waving mane 
shook even me though I stood in the midst of free air on 
the top of that great blue globe.
The steel bar fell from Sarms appendage and slide from 
the top of the dome to fall with a distant crash far below 
in the rubble.
"Kill it, Cabot," came from Sarms translator. "Kill it, 
Cabot please." The Priest-King could not move. "You are 
human," said the translator. "You can kill it. Kill it, 
Cabot, please."
I stood to one side, standing on the surface of the globe, 
clinging to the rail.
"It is not done," I said to Sarm. "It is a great crime to 
kill one."
Slowly the heavy body with its domed, fused wings pressed 
past me, its tiny, tuftlike antennae extending towards Sarm, 
its long, hollow pincer-like jaws opening.
"Cabot," came from Sarms translator.
"It is thus," I said, "that men use the instincts of 
Priest-Kings against them."
"Cabot--Cabot--Cabot," came from the translator.
Then to my amazement when the Beetle neared Sarm the 
Priest-King sank down on his supporting appendages, 
almost as if he were on his knees, and suddenly plunged 
his face and antennae into the midst of the waving manehair 
of the Golden Beetle.
I watched the pincerlike jaws grip and puncture the thorax 
of the Priest-King.
More rock dust drifted between me and the pair locked in 
the embrace of death.
The very globe and walkway seemed to lift and tremble but 
neither of the creatures locked together above me seemed 
to take the least notice.
Sarms antennae lay immersed in the golden hair of the Beetle; 
his grasping appendages with their sensory hairs caressed the 
golden hair; even did he take some of the hairs in his mouth 
and with his tongue try to lick the exudate from them.
"The pleasure," came from Sarms translator. "The pleasure, 
the pleas-ure."
I could not shut out from my ears the grim sound of the sucking 
jaws of the Beetle.
I knew now why it was that the Golden Beetles were permitted 
to live in the Nest, why it was that Priest-Kings would not 
slay them, even though it might mean their own lives.
I wondered if the hairs of the Golden Beetle, heavy with the 
droplets of that narcotic exudate, offered adequate recompense 
to a Priest-King for the ascetic millennia in which he might 
have pursued the mysteries of science, if they provided an 
acceptable culmination to one of those long, long lives devoted 
to the Nest, to its laws, to duty and the pur-suit and manipulation 
of power.
Priest-Kings, I knew, had few pleasures, and now I guessed that 
foremost among them might be death.
Once as though by some supreme effort of will Sarm, who was a 
great Priest-King, lifted his head from the golden hair and 
stared at me.
"Cabot," came from his translator.
"Die, Priest-King," I said softly.
The last sound I heard from Sarms translator was--"The pleasure."

Then in the last spasmodic throb of death Sarms body broke 
free of the jaws of the Golden Beetle and reared up once more 
to its glorious per-haps twenty feet of golden height.
He stood thusly on the walkway at the top of the vast blue 
dome beneath which burned and hissed the power source of 
Priest-Kings.
One last time he looked about himself, his antennae surveying
the gran-deur of the Nest, and then tumbled from the walkway 
and fell to the sur-face of the globe and slid until his fell
to the rubble below.
The swollen, lethargic Beetle turned slowly to face me.
With one stroke of my blade I broke open its head.
With my foot I tumbled its heavy body from the walkway and 
watched it slide down the side of the globe and fall like 
Sarm to the rubble below.
I stood there on the crest of the globe, and looked about 
the crumbling Nest.
Far below, at the door to the chamber, I could se the golden
figures of Priest-Kings, Misk among them, I turned and 
retraced my steps down the walkway.

------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
TO THE SURFACE
"IT IS THE END," SAID Mist, "the end." He frantically adjusted 
the con-trols on a major panel, his antennae taut with concentration 
reading the scent-needle on a boxlike gauge.
Other Priest-Kings worked beside him.
I looked at the body of Sarm, golden and broken, lying among 
the rubble on the floor, half covered in the powdery dust 
that hung like fog in the room.
I heard the choking of a girl next to me and put my arm 
about the shoul-ders of Vika of Treve.
"It took time to cut through to you," said Misk. "Now it 
is too late."
"The planet?" I asked.
"The Nest--the World," said Misk.
Now the bubbling mass inside the purple globe began to 
burn through the globe itself and there were cracking 
sounds and rivulets of thick, hiss-ing substance, like 
blue lava, began to press through the breaks in the globe. 
Elsewhere droplets of the same material seemed to form 
on the outside of the globe.
"We must leave the chamber," said Misk, "for the globe 
will shatter."
He pointed an excited foreleg at the scent-needle which 
I, of course, could not read.
"Go," came from Misks translator.
I swept Vika up and carried her from the trembling 
chamber and we were accompanied by hurrying Priest-Kings 
and those humans who had accompa-nied them.
I turned back only in time to see Misk leap from the 
panel and rush to the body of Sarm lying among the rubble.
There was a great spitting sound and the entire side of 
the globe cracked open and began to pour forth its 
avalanche of thick, molten fluid into the room.
Still Misk tugged at the broken body of Sarm among the 
rubble.
The purple mass of bubbling fury poured over the rubble 
toward the Priest-King.
"Hurry!" I cried to him.
But the Priest-King paid me no attention, trying to move 
a great block of stone which had fallen across one of 
the supporting appendages of the dead Sarm.
I thrust Vika behind me and leaped over the rubble, 
running to Misks side.
"Come!" I cried, pounding my fist against his thorax. "Hurry!"
"No," said Misk.
"Hes dead!" I said. "Leave him!"
"He is a Priest-King," said Misk.
Together Misk and I, as the blue lavalike mass began to 
hiss over the rubble bubbling towards us, forced aside the 
great block of stone and Misk tenderly gathered up the broken 
carcass of Sarm in his forelegs and he and I sped toward the 
opening, and the blue molten flux of burning, seething, 
hissing substance engulfed where we had stood.
Misk, carrying Sarm, and the other Priest-Kings and humans, 
including Vika and myself, made our way from the Power 
Plant and back toward the complex which had been the heart 
of Sarms territory.
"Why?" I ask Misk.
"Because he is a Priest-King," said Misk.
"He was a traitor," I said, "and betrayed the Nest and 
would have slain you by treachery and has now destroyed 
your Nest and world."
"But he was a Priest-King," said Misk, and he touched the 
crushed, torn figure of Sarm gently with his antennae. "And 
he was First Born," said Misk. "And he was beloved of the Mother."
There was a hugs explosion from behind us and I knew that the 
globe had now burst and the chamber that housed it was 
shattered in its destruc-tion.
The very tunnel we walked in pitched and buckled under our 
feet.
We came to the hole where Misk and his fellow Priest-Kings 
and humans had cut through fallen debris and climbed out 
through it, finding our-selves in one of the major complexes 
again.
It was cold and the humans, including myself, shivered in 
the simple plastic we wore.
"Look" cried Vika pointing upward.
And we looked, all of us, and saw, far above, perhaps more 
than a mile above, the open blue sky of Gor. A great 
opening, from the sides of which stones still fell, 
had appeared in the ceiling of the Nest com-plex, 
opening the thick, numerous strata above it until at 
last through that rupture could be seen the beautiful 
calm sky of the world above.
Some of the humans with us cried aloud in wonder for 
never had they seen the sky.
The Priest-Kings shielded their antennae from the 
radiation of the sun-lit heavens far above.
It sprang into my mind suddenly why they needed men, 
how dependent they were upon us.
Priest-Kings could not stand the sun!
I looked up at the sky.
And I understood as I had not before what must be the 
pain, the glory and the agony of the Nuptial Flight. 
His wings, she had said, had been like showers of gold.
"How beautiful it is!" cried Vika.
"Yes," I said, "it is very beautiful."
I recalled that it would have been nine years since 
the girl had looked upon the sky.
I put my arm about her shoulders, holding her as she 
wept, her face lifted to the distant blue sky.
At this moment, skimming over the buildings in the 
complex, no more than a few feet from their roofs, 
came one of the ships of Misk, piloted by Al-Ka, 
accompanied by his woman.
It landed near us.
A moment later another ship, piloted by Ba-Ta, 
appeared and settled by its sister ship. He too 
had his woman with him.
"It is now time to choose," said Misk, "where one 
will die."
The Priest-Kings, of course, would not leave the 
Nest, and, to my sur-prise, most of the humans, 
many of whom had been bred in the Nest or now regarded 
it as their home, insisted also on remaining where they were.
Others, however, eagerly boarded the ships to be flown 
through the open-ing to the mountains above.
"We have made many trips," said Al-Ka, "and so have 
others in the other ships, for the Nest is broken in 
a dozen places and open to the sky."
"Where will you choose to die?" I asked Vika of Treve.
"At your side," she said simply.
Al-Ka and Ba-Ta, as I would have expected, turned their 
ships over to others to pilot, for they would choose to 
remain in the Nest. Their women, too, to my amazement, 
freely elected to remain by the sides of the men who had 
fastened golden collars about their throats.
I saw Kusk in the distance, and both Al-Ka and Ba-Ta, 
followed by their women, began to walk towards him. 
They met perhaps a hundred yards from where I stood and 
I saw the Priest-King place a foreleg on the shoulder of 
each and together they stood and waited for the final 
crumbling of the Nest.
"There is no safety above," said Misk.
"Nor any here," I said.
"True," said Misk.
In the distance we could hear dull explosions and the 
crash of falling rock.
"The entire Nest is being destroyed," said Misk.
I saw tears in the eyes of humans.
"Is there nothing that can be done?" I demanded.
"Nothing," said Misk.
Vika looked up at me. "Where will you choose to die, 
Cabot?" she asked.
I saw that the last ship was preparing to take flight 
through the hole torn above in the ceiling of the complex. 
I would have liked to have seen once more the surface of 
the world, the blue sky, the green fields beyond the 
black Sardar, but rather I said, "I choose to remain 
here with Misk, who is my friend."
"Very well," said Vika, putting her head against my 
shoulder. "I will also remain."
"Something you have said does not translate," said Misk, 
his antennae dipping towards me.
I looked up into the huge, peering golden eyes of Misk, 
the left one lined with a whitish seam where Sarms bladed
projection had once torn it open in the battle of the Chamber of the Mother.
I could not even tell him how I felt about him, for his 
language did not contain the expression I needed.
"I said," I told him, "I choose to remain here with you-
-and I said something like "There is Nest Trust between us"."
"I see," said Misk, and touched me lightly with his antennae.
With my right hand I gently pressed the sensory appendage 
which rested on my left shoulder.
Then together we watched the ship float swiftly upward 
like a small white star and disappear in the blue distance beyond.
Now Kusk, Al-Ka and Ba-Ta, and their women, slowly walked 
across the rubble to join us.
We stood now on the uneven, shifting stones of the floor. 
To one side, high in the domed wall some energy bulbs 
burst, emitting a cascade of sparks that looped downwards 
burning themselves out before striking the floor. Some 
more tons of stone fell from the hole torn in the ceiling, 
raining down on the buildings beneath, breaking through 
the roofs, shat-tering to the streets. Drifting dust 
obscured the complex and I drew the folds of Vikas 
robes more about her face that she might be better protected. 
Misks body was coated with dust and I felt it in my hair 
and eyes and throat.
I smiled to myself, for Misk seemed now to busy himself 
with his clean-ing hooks. His world might be crumbling 
about him but he would not forgo his grooming. I supposed 
the dust that clung to his thorax and abdomen, that 
adhered to the sensory hairs on his appendages might 
be distressing to him, more so perhaps than the fear 
that he might be totally crushed by one of the great 
blocks of stone that occasionally fell clattering near us.
"It is unfortunate," said Al0Ka to me, " that the 
alternative power plant is not near completion."
Misk stopped grooming and Kusk, too, peered down at Al-Ka.
"What alternative power plant?" I asked.
"The plant of the Muls," said Al-Ka, "which we have been 
readying for five hundred years, preparing for the revolt 
against Priest-Kings."
"Yes," said Ba-Ta, "built by Mul engineers trained by 
Priest-Kings, con-structed of parts stolen over centuries 
and hidden in an abandoned por-tion of the Old Nest."
"I did not know of this," said Misk.
"Priest-Kings often underestimate Muls," said Al-Ka.
"I am proud of my sons," said Kusk.
"We are not engineers," said Al-Ka.
"No," said Kusk, "but you are humans."
"As far as that goes," said Ba-Ta, "no more than a few 
Muls knew of the plant. We ourselves did not find out 
about it until some technicians joined our forces in 
the Nest War."
"Where are these technicians now!" I demanded.
"Working," said Al-Ka.
I seized him by the shoulders. "Is there a chance 
the plant can become operational?"
"No," said Al-Ka.
"Then why are they working?" asked Misk.
"It is human," said Ba-Ta.
"Foolish," observed Misk.
"But human," said Ba-Ta.
"Yes, foolish," said Misk, his antennae curling a bit, 
but then he touched Ba-Ta gently on the shoulders to 
show him that he meant no harm.
"What is needed?" I demanded.
"I am not an engineer," said Al-Ka, "I do not know." 
He looked at me. "But is has to do with Ur Force."
"That secret," said Ba-Ta, "has been well guarded by 
Priest-Kings.
Misk lifted his antennae meditatively. "There is the 
Ur disruptor I constructed in the War," came from his 
translator. He and Kusk touched antennae quickly and 
held them locked for a moment. Then Misk and Kusk separated 
antennae. "The components in the disruptor might be rea-ligned," 
he said, "but there is little likelihood that the power 
loop could be satisfactorily closed."
"Why not?" I asked.
"For one thing," said Misk, "the plant built by Muls is 
probably funda-mentally ineffective to begin with; for 
another if it is constructed of parts stolen over 
centuries it would be probably impossible to achieve 
satisfactory component integration with the elements 
in the Ur disrup-tor."
"Yes," said Kusk, and his antennae dipped disconsolately, 
"the prob-abilities are not at all in our favor."
A huge boulder fell from the roof and bounded, almost 
like a giant rub-ber ball, past our group. Vika screamed 
and I pressed her more tightly against me. More than 
anything I began to be exasperated with Misk and Kusk.
"Is there any chance at all?" I demanded of Misk.
"Perhaps," said Misk, "for I have not seen the plant 
they have built."
"But in all probability," pointed out Kusk, "there is 
really no chance."
"An extremely small but yet finite possibility," 
speculated Misk, groom-ing one foreleg.
"I think so," acknowledged Kusk.
I seized Misk, stopping him from that infernal grooming. 
"If there is any chance at all," I cried, "you must try!"
Misk peered down at me and his antennae seemed to lift
 with surprise. "I am a Priest-King," he said. "The 
probability is not such that a Priest-King, who is a 
rational creature, would act upon it."
"You must act!" I cried.
Another boulder fell clattering down a hundred yards 
from us and bounded past.
"I wish to die with dignity," said Misk, gently 
pulling his foreleg away and recommencing his grooming. 
"It is not becoming to a Priest-King to scramble about 
like a human--still scratching here and there when 
there is no likelihood of success."
"If not for your own sake," I said, "then for the 
sake of humans--in the Nest and outside of it--who 
have no hope but you."
Misk stopped grooming and looked down. "Do you wish 
this thing, Tarl Cabot?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
And Kusk looked at Al-Ka and Ba-Ta. "Do you, too, 
wish this thing?" he asked.
"Yes," said Al-Ka and Ba-Ta.
At that moment, through the drifting rock dust, I 
saw the heavy, domed body of one of the Golden Beetles, 
perhaps fifty yards away.
Almost simultaneously both Misk and Kusk lifted 
their antennae and shud-dered.
"We are fortunate," came from Kusks translator.
"Yes," said Misk, "now it will not be necessary to 
seek one of the Golden Beetles."
"You must not yield to the Golden Beetle!" I cried.
I could now see the antennae of both Misk and Kusk 
turning towards the Beetle, and I could see the Beetle 
stop, and the mane hairs begin to lift. Suddenly, 
through the rock dust, I could scent that strange nar-cotic odor.
I drew my sword, but gently Misk seized my wrist, not 
permitting me to rush upon the Beetle and slay it. 
"No," said Misk.
The Beetle drew closer, and I could see the mane 
hairs waving now like the fronds of some marine 
plant caught in the currents of its underwater world.
"You must resist the Golden Beetle," I said to Misk.
"I am going to die," said Misk, "do not begrudge me 
this pleasure."
Kusk took a step toward the Beetle.
"You must resist the Golden Beetle to the end!" I 
cried.
"This is the end," came from Misks translator. 
"And I have tried. And I am tired now. Forgive me, Tarl Cabot."
"Is this how our father chooses to die?" asked Al-Ka of Kusk.
"You do not understand, my children," said Kusk,
"what the Golden Beetle means to a Priest-King."
"I think I understand," I cried, "but you must resist!"
"Would you have us die working at a hopeless task," 
asked Misk, "die like fools deprived of the final Pleasures of the Golden Beetle?"
"Yes!" I cried.
"It is not the way of Priest-Kings," said Misk.
"Let it be the way of Priest-Kings!" I cried.
Misk seemed to straighten himself, his antennae 
waved about wildly, every fiber of his body seemed 
to shiver.
He stood shuddering in the drifting rock dust, 
amid the crashings of distant rocks. He surveyed 
the humans gathered about him, the heavy golden 
hemisphere of the approaching Beetle.
"Drive it away," came from Misks translator.
With a cry of joy I rushed upon the Beetle and 
Vika and Al-Ka and Ba-Ta and their women joined 
me and together, kicking and pushing, avoiding the 
tubular jaws, hurling rocks, we forced away the 
globe of the Golden Beetle.
We returned to Misk and Kusk who stood together, 
their antennae touch-ing.
"Take us to the plant of the Muls," said Misk.
"I will show you," cried Al-Ka.
Misk turned again to me. "I wish you well, Tarl Cabot, 
human," he said.
"Wait," I said, "I will go with you."
"You can do nothing to help," he said. Misks antennae 
inclined toward me. "Go to the surface," said Misk. 
"Stand in the wind and see the sky and sun once more."
I lifted my hands and Misk touched the palms gently 
with his antennae.
"I wish you well, Misk, Priest-King," I said.
Misk turned and hurried off, followed by Kusk and the 
others.
Vika and I were left alone in the crumbling complex. 
Over our heads it seemed suddenly that, splitting from 
the hole already there, the entire roof suddenly shattered 
apart and seemed for a moment to hang there.
I seized Vika, sweeping her into my arms, and fled from 
the chamber.
With uncanny speed it seemed we almost floated to a tunnel 
entrance and I looked behind us and saw the ceiling descending 
with incredible soft-ness, almost like a snowfall of stones.
I sensed the difference in the gravitation of the planet. 
I wondered how long it would take before it broke apart and 
scattered in a belt of dust across the solar system, only to 
bend inward at last and spiral like a falling bird into the 
gases of the burning sun.
Vika had fainted in my arms.
I rushed onwards through the tunnels, having no clear idea
of what to do or where to go.
Then I found myself in the first Nest Complex, where first 
I had laid eyes on the Nest of Priest-Kings.
Moving as though in a dream, my foot touching the ground 
only perhaps once in thirty or forty yards, I climbed the 
circling ramp upward toward the elevator.
But I found only the dark open shaft.
The door had been broken away and there was rubble in the 
shaft. There were no hanging cables in the shaft, and I could 
see the shattered roof of the elevator some half a hundred feet below.
It seemed I was trapped in the Nest, but then I noted, 
perhaps fifty yards away, a similar door, though smaller.
With one slow, strange bound I was at the door and threw 
the switch which was placed at the side of the door.
It opened and I leaped inside and pushed the highest disk 
on a line of disks mounted inside.
The door closed and the contrivance swiftly sped upward.
When the door opened I found myself once more in the Hall 
of Priest-Kings, though the great dome above it was now broken 
and portions of it had fallen to the floor of the hall.
I had found the elevator which had originally been used by 
Parp, whom I had learned was a physician of Treve, and who 
had been my host in my first hour in the domain of Priest-Kings. 
Parp, I recalled, with Kusk, had refused to implant me, and had 
formed a portion of the underground which had resisted Sarm. 
When he had first spoken to me I knew now he would have been 
under the control of Priest-Kings, that his control net would 
have been activated and his words and actions dictated, at 
least substantially, from the Scanning Room below, but now 
the Scanning Room, like most of the Nest, was demolished, 
and even if it had not been, there were none who would now 
care to activate his net. Parp would now be his own master.
Vika still lay unconscious in my arms and I had folded her 
robes about her in order to protect her face and eyes and 
throat from the rock dust below.
I walked before the throne of Priest-Kings.
"Greetings, Cabot," said a voice.
I looked up and saw Parp, puffing on his pipe, sitting 
calmly on the throne.
"You must not stay here," I said to him, uneasily 
looking up at the rem-nants of the dome.
"There is nowhere to go," said Parp, puffing contentedly 
on the pipe, He leaned back. A puff of smoke emerged 
from the pipe but instead of drifting up seemed instead 
almost immediately to pop apart. "I would have like to 
enjoy a last, proper smoke," said Parp. He looked down at 
me kindly and in a step or two seemed to float down the 
steps and stood beside me. He lifted aside the fold of 
Vikas robes which I had drawn about her face.
"She is very beautiful," said Parp, "much like her mother."
"Yes," I said.
"I wished that I could have known her better," said Parp. 
He smiled at me. "But then I was an unworthy father for 
such a girl."
"You are a very good and brave man," I said.
"I am small and ugly and weak," he said, "and fit to be 
despised by such a daughter."
"I think now," I said, she would not despise you."
He smiled and replaced the fold of the garment over 
her face.
"Do not tell her that I saw her," he said. "Let her 
forget Parp, the fool."
In a bound, almost like a small balloon, he floated 
up, and twisting about, reseated himself in the throne. 
He pounded on the arms, once and the movement almost 
thrust him up off the throne.
"Why have you returned here?" I asked.
"To sit once more upon the throne of Priest-Kings," 
said Parp, chuck-ling.
"But why?" I asked.
"Perhaps vanity," said Parp. "Perhaps memory." Then he 
chuckled again and his eyes, twinkling, looked down at 
me. "But I also like to think," he said, "it may be 
because this is the most comfortable chair in the entire Sardar."
I laughed.
I looked up at him. "You are from Earth, are you not?" 
I asked.
"Long, long ago," he said. "I never did get used to 
that business of sitting on the floor." He chuckled 
again. "My knees were too stiff."
"You were English," I said.
"Yes," he said, smiling.
"Brought here on one of the Voyages of Acquisition?"
"Of course," he said.
Parp regarded his pipe with annoyance. It had gone 
out. He began to pinch some tobacco from the pouch 
he wore at his belt.
"How long ago?" I asked.
He began to try to stuff the tobacco into the bowl 
of the pipe. Given the gravitational alteration this 
was no easy task. "Do you know of these things?" asked 
Parp, without looking up.
"I know of the Stabilization Serums," I said.
Parp glanced up from the pipe, holding his thumb over 
the bowl to pre-vent the tobacco from floating out of 
it, and smiled. "Three centu-ries," he said, and then 
returned his attention to the pipe.
He was trying to thrust more tobacco into it but was 
having difficulty because the tiny brown particles 
tended to lie loosely about a quarter of an inch above 
the bowl. At last he wadded enough in for the pressure 
to hold it tight and, using the silver lighter, sucked 
a stream of flame into the bowl.
"Where did you get tobacco and a pipe?" I asked, for I 
knew of none such on Gor.
"As you might imagine," said Parp, "I acquired the habit 
originally on Earth and, since I have returned to Earth 
several times as an Agent of Priest-Kings, I have had the 
opportunity to indulge it. On the other hand, in the last 
few years, I have grown my own tobacco below in the Nest 
under lamps."
The floor buckled under my feet and I changed my position. 
The throne tilted and then fell back into place again.
Parp seemed more concerned with his pipe, which seemed 
again in danger of going out, than he did with the world 
that was crumbling about him.
At last he seemed to get the pipe under control.
"Did you know," he asked, "that Vika was the female Mul 
who drove away the Golden Beetles when Sarm sent them against 
the forces of Misk?"
"No," I said, "I did not know."
"A fine, brave girl," said Parp.
"I know," I said. "She is truly a great a beautiful woman."
It seemed to please Parp that I had said this.
"Yes," he said, "I believe she is." And he added, rather 
sadly I thought, "and such was her mother."
Vika stirred in my arms.
"quick," said Parp, who seemed suddenly afraid, "take her 
from the cham-ber before she regains consciousness. She must 
not see me!"
"Why?" I asked.
"Because," said Parp, she despises me and I could not 
endure her con-tempt."
"I think not," I said.
"Go," he begged, "go!"
"Show me the way," I said.
Hurriedly Parp knocked the ashes and sparks from his pipe 
against the arm of the throne. The ashes and unused tobacco 
seemed to hang in the air like smoke and then drift apart. 
Parp thrust the pipe in his pouch. He seemed to float down 
to the floor and, touching one sandaled foot to the ground 
only every twenty yards or so, began to leave the chamber 
in slow dreamlike bounds. "Follow me," he called after him.
Vika in my arms I followed the bounding body of Parp, 
whose robes seemed to lift and flutter softly about him 
as he almost floated down the tun-nel before me.
Soon we had reached a steel portal and Parp threw back 
a switch and it rolled upward.
Outside I saw the two snow larls turn to face the portal. 
The were un-chained.
Parps eyes widened in horror. "I thought they would be 
gone." he said. "Earlier I freed them from the inside in 
order that they might not die chained."
He threw the switch again and the portal began to roll 
down but one of the larls with a wild roar threw himself 
towards it and got half his body and one long, raking 
clawed paw under it. We leaped back as the clawed paw 
swept towards us. The portal struck the animals back and, 
frightened, it reared up, forcing the portal up, twisting 
it in the frame. the larl backed away but the portal, in 
spite of Parps efforts, now refused to close.
"You were kind," I said.
"I was a fool," said Parp. "Always the fool!"
"You could not have known," I said.
Vikas hand went to the folds of the robe and I could 
feel her squirm to regain her feet.
I set her down and Parp turned away, covering his face 
with his robe.
I stood at the portal, sword drawn, to defend it against 
the larls should they attempt to enter.
Vika now stood on her feet, a bit behind me, taking in 
at a glance the jammed door and the two unchained larls 
without. Then she saw the fig-ure of Parp and cried out 
with a tiny gasp, and looked back again at the larls, 
and then to the figure.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her put out her hand 
gently and ap-proach Parp. She pulled aside the folds of 
his robe and I saw her touch his face which seemed filled with tears.
"Father!" she wept.
"My daughter," he said, and took the girl gently in his arms.
"I love you, my Father," she said.
And Parp, uttered a great sob, his head falling against 
the shoulder of his daughter.
One of the larls roared, the hunger roar that preceded 
the roar of the charge.
This was a sound I knew well.
"Stand aside," said Parp, and I barely knew the voice that spoke.
But I stood aside.
Parp stood framed in the doorway holding that tiny silver 
lighter with which it seemed I had seen him fumble and 
light his pipe a thousand times, that small cylinder I 
had once mistaken for a weapon.
Parp reversed the cylinder and leveled it at the breast 
of the nearest larl. he turned it suddenly and a jolt of 
fire that threw him five feet back into the cave leapt 
from that tiny instrument, and the nearest larl suddenly 
reared, its paws lifted wildly, its fangs bared, its snowy 
pelt burned black about the hole that had once housed its 
heart, and then it twisted and fell sprawling from the ledge.
Parp threw the tiny tube away.
He looked at me. "Can you strike though to the heart of 
a larl?" he asked.
With a sword it would be a great blow.
"If I had the opportunity," I said.
The second larl, enraged, roared and crouched to spring.
"Good," said Parp, not flinching, "follow me!"
Vika screamed and I cried out for him to stop but Parp 
dashed forward and threw himself into the jaws of the 
startled larl and it lifted him in its jaws and began 
to shake him savagely and I was at it feet and thrust
my sword between its ribs plunging it deep into its heart.
The body of Parp, half torn apart, neck and limbs broken, 
fell from the jaws of the larl.
Vika rushed upon it weeping.
I drew out the sword and thrust it again and again into 
the heart of the larl until at last it lay still.
I went to stand behind Vika.
Kneeling by the body she turned and looked up at me. 
"He so feared larls," she said.
"I have never known many brave men," I said to her, 
"but none were more brave than Parp of Treve."
She lowered her head to the torn body, its blood 
staining the silks she wore.
"We will cover the body with stones," I said. "And 
I will cut robes from the pelt of the larl. We have 
a long way to go and it will be cold."
She looked up at me and, her eyes filled with tears, 
nodded her agree-ment.

------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Out of the Sardar
VIKA AND I, CLAD IN robes cut from the pelt of the 
snow larl I had slain, set out for the great black 
gate in the somber timber palisade that encircles the 
Sardar. It was a strange but rapid journey, and as we 
leaped chasms and seemed almost to swim in the cold air 
I told myself that Misk and his Priest-Kings and the 
humans that were engineers in the Nest were losing the
battle that would decide whether men and Priest-Kings 
might, working together, save a world or whether in the 
end it would be the sabotage of Sarm, First Born, that 
would be triumphant and the world I loved would be scattered 
into fugitive grains destined for the flaming pyre of the sun.
Whereas it had taken four days for me to climb to the lair 
of Priest-Kings in the Sardar it was on the morning of the 
second day that Vika and I sighted the remains of the great 
gate, fallen, and the pali-sade, now little more than broken 
and uprooted timbers.
The speed of our return journey was not due primarily to the 
fact that we were now on the whole descending, though this 
helped, but rather to the gravitational reduction which made 
it possible for me, Vika in my arms, to move with a swift 
disregard for what, under more normal condi-tions, would 
have been at times a dangerous, tortuous trail. Several 
times, in fact, I had simply leaped from one portion of 
the trail to float more than a hundred feed downward to 
land lightly on another por-tion of the trail, a point 
which, on foot, might have been separated by more than 
five passangs from the point above from which I had leaped. 
Sometimes I even neglected the trail altogether and leaped 
from one cliff to another in improvised short cuts. It was 
late in the morning of the second day, about the time that 
we sighted the black gate, that the gravitational reduction 
reached it maximum.

"It is the end, Cabot," said Vika.
"Yes," I said. "I believe so."
From where Vika and I stood together on the rocky trail, 
now scarcely able to keep our feet on the path, we could 
see vast crowds, robed in all the caste colors of Gor, 
clustered outside the remains of the pali-sade, looking 
fearfully within. I supposed there might have been men 
from almost all of Gors cities in that frightened, 
teeming throng. In the front, several deep, in lines 
that extended as far as I could see in both directions,
were the white robes of the Initiates. Even from where 
we stood I could smell the innumerable fires of their 
sacrifices, the burning flesh of bosks, smell the heady 
fumes of the incense they burned in brass censers swinging 
on chains, hear the repetitious litanies of their pleas, 
observe their continual prostrations and grovelings by 
which they sought to make themselves and their petitions 
pleasing to Priest-Kings.
I swept Vika again to my arms and, half walking, half 
floating, made my way downward toward the ruins of the 
gate. There was a great shout from the crowd when they 
saw us and then there was enormous quiet and every pair 
of eyes in that teeming throng was fixed upon us.
It suddenly seemed to me that Vika was a bit heavier 
than she had been and I told myself that I must be tiring.
I descended with Vika from the trail and, as I floated 
down to the bot-tom of a small crevice between the trail 
and the gate, the bottoms of my sandals stung when I hit 
the rock. I had apparently slightly misjudged the distance.
The top of the crevice was only about thirty feet away. 
It should take one leap and a step to clear it, but when 
I leaped my leap carried me only about fifteen feet and 
where my foot scraped the side a pebble, dislodged, bounded 
downward and I could hear it strike the floor of the crevice. 
I took another leap, this time putting some effort into it, 
and cleared the top of the crevice by some ten feet to land 
between it and the gate.
In my heart something seemed to be speaking, but I could not 
dare to listen.
Then I looked through the ruins of the palisade and over the 
fallen gate, at the smoke from the countless sacrificial fires 
that burned there, at the smoke from the swinging censers. 
No longer did it seem to pop apart and dissipate. Now it 
seemed to lift in slender strands to-ward the sky.
A cry of joy escaped my lips.
"What is it, Cabot?" cried Vika.
"Misk has won!" I cried. "We have won."
Not stopping even to set her on her feet I now raced in 
long, soft bounds toward the gate.
As soon as I reached the gate I placed Vika on her feet.
Before the gate, facing me, I saw the astonished throng.
I knew that never before in the history of the planet had 
a man been seen to return from the Sardar.
The Initiates, hundreds of them, knelt in long lines 
to the crags of the Sardar, to the Priest-Kings. I saw 
their shaven heads, their faces dis-traught in the bleak 
white of their robes, their eyes wide and filled with fear,
their bodies trembling in the robes of their caste.
Perhaps they expected me to be cut down by the Flame Death 
before their very eyes.
Behind the Initiates, standing, as befits the men of other 
castes, I saw men of a hundred cities, joined here in their 
common fear and plea to the denizens of the Sardar. Well 
could I suppose the terror and upheav-als that had brought 
these men, normally so divided against one another in the 
strife of their warring cities, to the palisade, to the dark 
shadows of the Sardar--the earthquakes, the tidal waves, the 
hurricanes and atmospheric disturbances, and the uncanny 
lessening of the gravita-tional attraction, the lessening 
of the bonding that held the very earth together beneath their feet.
I looked upon the frightened faces of the Initiates. I wondered 
if the shaven heads, traditional for centuries with Initiates, 
held some dis-tant connection, lost now in time, with the hygienic practices of the Nest.
I was pleased to see that the men of other castes, unlike the 
Initiates, did not grovel. There were men in that crowd from Ar, 
from Thentis, from Tharna, recognized by the two yellow cords in 
their belt; from Port Kar; from Tor, Cos, Tyros; perhaps from Treve, 
Vikas home city; perhaps even from fallen, vanished Ko-ro-ba; and 
the men in that crowd were of all castes, and even of castes as low 
as the Peasants, the Saddle Mak-ers, the Weavers, the Goat Keepers, 
the Poets and Merchants, but none of them groveled as did the Initiates; 
how strange, I thought--the Initi-ates claimed to be most like Priest-Kings, 
even to be formed in their image, and yet I knew that a Priest-King 
would never grovel; it seemed the Initiates, to their efforts to be 
like gods, behaved like slaves.
One Initiate stood on his feet.
I was pleased to see that.
"Do you come from Priest-Kings?" he asked.
He was a tall man, rather heavy, with bland soft features, but his 
voice was very deep and would have been quite impressive in one of 
the temples of the Initiates, constructed to maximize the acoustical 
effects of such a voice. His eyes, I noted, in contrast with his bland 
features, his almost pudgy softness, were very sharp and shrewd. He 
was no mans fool. His left hand, fat and soft, wore a heavy ring set 
with a large, white stone, carved with the sign of Ar. He was, I 
gathered, correctly as it turned out, the High Initiate of Ar, he 
who had been appointed to fill the post of the former High Initiate 
whom I had seen destroyed by the Flame Death years earlier.
"I come from the place of the Priest-Kings," I said, raising my voice 
so that as many could hear as possible. I wanted to carry on no private 
conversation with this fellow, which he might later report as he saw fit.
I saw his eye furtively flit to the smoke of one of the sacrificial fires.
It was now ascending in a gentle swirl to the blue sky of Gor.
He knew!
He knew as well as I that the gravitational field of the planet was
be-ing re-established.
"I wish to speak!" I cried.
"Wait," he said, "oh welcome messenger of Priest-Kings!"
I kept silent, waiting to se what he wanted.
The man gestured with his fat hand and a white bosk, beautiful with 
its long, shaggy coat and its curved, polished horns, was led forward. 
Its shaggy coat had been oiled and groomed and colored beads were hung 
about its horns.
Drawing a small knife from his pouch the Initiate cut a strand of hair 
from the animal and threw it into a nearby fire. Then he gestured to a 
subordinate, and the man, with a sword, opened the throat of the animal 
and it sank to its knees, the blood from its throat being caught in a 
golden laver held by a third man.
While I waited impatiently two more men cut a thigh from the slain beast 
and this, dripping with grease and blood, was ordered cast upon the fire.
"All else has failed!" cried the Initiate, weaving back and forth, his 
hands in the air. Then he began to mumble prayers very quickly in archaic 
Gorean, a language in which the Initiates converse among them-selves 
and conduct their various ceremonies. At the end of this long but speedily 
delivered prayer, refrains to which were rapidly furnished by the 
Initiates massed about him, he cried, "Oh, Priest-Kings, let this our 
last sacrifice turn aside your wrath. Let this sacrifice please your 
nostrils and now consent to hear our pleas! It is offered by Om, Chief 
among all the High Initiates of Gor!"

"No!" cried a number of other Initiates, the High Initiates of various 
other cities. I knew that the High Initiate of Ar, following the poli-cies 
of the high Initiate before him, wished to claim hegemony over all 
other Initiates, and claimed to possess this already, but his claim, 
of course, was denied by the other High Initiates who regarded 
themselves as supreme in their own cities. I surmised that, pending 
some form of military victory of Ar over the cities or some form of 
large-scale political reordering of the planet, the Initiate of 
Ars claims would remain a matter of dispute.
"It is the sacrifice of all of us!" cried one of the other High Initiates.
"Yes!" cried several of the others.
"Look!" cried the High Initiate of Ar. He pointed to the smoke 
which was now rising in an almost natural pattern. He jumped up 
once and came down, as though to illustrate a point. "My 
sacrifice has been pleasing to the nostrils of Priest-Kings!" 
he cried.
"Our sacrifice!" cried the other Initiates, joyfully.
A wild, glad shout broke from the throats of the assembled
multitude as the men suddenly began to understand that their 
world was returning to its normal order. There were thousands 
of cheers and cries of gratitude to the Priest-Kings.
"See!" cried the High Initiate of Ar. He pointed to the 
smoke which, as the wind had changed somewhat, was now 
drifting toward the Sardar. "The Priest-Kings inhale the 
smoke of my sacrifice!"
"Our sacrifice!" insisted the other High Initiates.
I smiled to myself, I could well imagine the antennae of 
the Priest-Kings shuddering with horror at the very 
thought of that greasy smoke.
Then somewhat to his momentary embarrassment the wind 
shifted again and the smoke began to blow away from the 
Sardar and out towards the crowd.
Perhaps the Priest-Kings are exhaling now, I thought to 
myself, but the High Initiate had more practice in the 
interpretation of signs than myself.
"See!" he cried. "Now the Priest-kings blow the breath 
of my sacrifice as a blessing upon you, letting it travel 
to the ends of Gor to speak of their wisdom and mercy!"
There was a great cry of joy from the crowd and shouts 
of gratitude to the Priest-Kings.
I had hoped that I might have used those moments, that 
priceless opportunity, before the men of Gor realized 
the restoration of gravity and normal conditions was 
occurring, to command them to give up their warlike ways 
and turn to the pursuit of peace and brotherhood, but 
the moment, before I realized it, had been stolen from 
me by the High Initiate of Ar, and used for his own purposes.
Now as the crowd rejoiced and began to disband I knew 
that I was no longer important, that I was only another 
indication of the mercy of Priest-Kings, that someone-
-who had it been?--had returned from the Sardar.
At that moment I suddenly realized I was ringed by Initiates.
Their codes forbade them to kill but I knew that they 
hired men of other castes for this purpose.
I faced the High Initiate of Ar.
"Who are you, Stranger?" he asked.
The words for stranger" and "enemy" in Gorean, 
incidentally, are the same word.
"I am no one," I said.
I would not reveal to him my name, my caste, nor city.
"It is well," said the High Initiate.
His brethren pressed more closely about me.
"He did not truly come from the Sardar," said another 
Initiate.
I looked at him puzzled.
"No," said another. "I saw him. He came from the crowd 
and only went within the ring of the palisade and wandered 
towards us. He was terrified. He did not come from the mountains."
"Do you understand?" asked the High Initiate.
"Perfectly," I said.
"But it is not true," cried Vika. "We were in the Sardar. 
We have seen Priest-Kings!"
"She blasphemes," said one of the Initiates.
I cautioned Vika to silence.
Suddenly I was very sad, and I wondered what would 
be the fate of humans from the Nest, if they should 
attempt to return to their cities or the world above. 
Perhaps, if they were silent, they might return to 
the surface, but even then, probably not to their 
own cities, for the Initiates of their cities would 
undoubtedly recall that they had left for, and perhaps 
entered, the Sardar.
With great suddenness I realized that what I knew, 
and what other knew, would make no difference to 
the world of Gor.
The Initiates had their way of life, their ancient 
traditions, their given livelihood, the prestige of 
their caste, which they claimed to be the highest on 
the planet, their teachings, their holy books, their 
services, their role to play in the culture. Suppose 
that even now if they knew the truth--what would change? 
Would I really expect them--at least on the whole--to burn 
their robes, to surrender their claims to secret knowledge 
and powers, to pick up the hoes of Peasants, the needles of 
the Cloth Workers, to bend their energies to the humble tasks 
of honest work?
"He is an impostor," said one of the Initiates.
"He must die," said another.
I hoped that those humans who returned from the Nest would 
not be hunted by Initiates and burned or impaled as heretics 
and blasphemers.
Perhaps they would simply be treated as fanatics, as daft 
homeless wanderers, innocent in the madness of their delusions. 
Who would believe them? who would take the word of scattered 
vagrants against the word of the mighty Caste of Initiates? 
And, if he did believe them, who would dare to speak out that 
he did so?
The Initiates, it seemed, had conquered.
I supposed many of the humans might even return to the Nest, 
where they could live and love and be happy. Others, 
perhaps, to keep the skies of Gor over their head, might 
confess to deceit; but I suspected there would be few of 
those; yet I was sure that there would indeed be confessions 
and admissions of guilt, from individuals never within the 
Sardar, but hired by Initiates to discredit the tales of 
those who had returned. Most who had returned from the 
Sardar would eventually at least, I was sure, try to gain 
admittance in new cities, where they were not known, and 
attempt to work out new lives, as though they did not keep 
in their hearts the secret of the Sardar.
I stood amazed at the greatness and smallness of man.
And then with shame I realized how nearly I myself had come 
to betraying my fellow creatures. I had intended to make use 
of that moment myself, pretending to have come with a message 
from Priest-Kings, to encourage man to live as I wished him to 
live, to respect himself and others, to be kind and to be 
worthy of the heritage of a rational animal, and yet of what 
worth would these things be if they came not from the heart 
of man himself, but from his fear of Priest-Kings or his desire 
to please them? No, I would not try to reform man by pretending 
that my wishes for him were the wishes of Priest-Kings, even 
though this might e effective for a time, for the wishes that 
reform man, that make him what he is capable of becoming, and 
has not yet become, must be his own and not those of another. 
If man rises, he can do so only on his own two feet.
And I was thankful that the High Initiate of Ar had interfered.
I thought how dangerous might be the Initiates if, intertwined 
with their superstitious lore and their numerous impressive 
ceremonies, there had been a truly moral message, something 
that might have spoken to the nobility of men.
The High Initiate of Ar gestured to the others who crowded 
about, pressing in on me.
"Stand back," he said, and he was obeyed.
Sensing that he wished to speak to me I asked Vika to withdraw 
somewhat, and she did so.
The High Initiate of Ar and myself regarded one another.
Suddenly I did not feel him as an enemy any longer and I 
senses that somehow he did not regard me either as a threat or foe.
"Do you know of the Sardar?" I asked him.
"Enough," he said.
"Then why?" I asked.
"It would be hard for you to understand," he said.
I could smell the smoke from the burning thigh of the bosk 
as it hissed and popped on the sacrificial fire.
"Speak to me," I said.
"With most," he said, "it is as you think, and they are 
simple, believing members of my caste, and there are others
who suspect the truth and are tormented, or who suspect the 
truth and will pretend--but I, Om, High Initiate of Ar, and 
certain of the High Initiates are like none of these."
"And how do you differ?" I asked.
"I--and some others--" he said, "wait for man." He looked at
me. "He is not yet ready."
"For what?" I asked.
"To believe in himself," said Om, incredibly. He smiled at me. 
"I and others have tried to leave open the gap that he might 
see it and fill it--and some have--but not many."
"What gap is this?" I asked.
"We speak not to mans heart," said Om, "but only to his fear.
 We do not speak of love and courage, and loyalty and 
nobility--but of practice and observance and the punishment 
of the Priest-Kings--for if we so spoke, it would be that 
much harder for man to grow beyond us. Thus, unknown to member 
of my caste, we exist to be overcome, thus in our way pointing 
the way to mans greatness."
I looked at the Initiate for a long time, and wondered if he 
spoke the truth. These were the strangest things I had heard 
from the lips of an Initiate, most of whom seemed interminably 
embroiled in the rituals of their caste, in the arrogance and
archaic pedantry of their kind.
I trembled for a moment, perhaps from the chill winds 
sweeping down the Sardar.
"It is for this reason," said the man, "that I remain 
an Initiate."
"There are Priest-Kings," I said at last.
"I know," said Om, "but what have they to do with what 
is most important for man?"
I thought about it for a moment. "I suppose," I said,
 "--very little."
"Go in peace," said the Initiate, stepping aside.
I extended my hand to Vika and she joined me.
The High Initiate of Ar turned to the other Initiates 
about. He raised his voice. "I saw no one emerge from 
the Sardar," he said.
The other Initiates regarded us.
"Nor did I," said several of them.
the parted, and Vika and I walked between them, and 
through the ruined gate and palisade which had once 
encircled the Sardar.

------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Men of Ko-ro-ba

"MY FATHER!", I CRIED. "MY father!"
I rushed to the arms of Matthew Cabot who, weeping, 
caught me in his arms and held me as though he might 
never let me go.
Once again I saw that strong, lined face, that square 
jaw, that wild, flowing mane of fiery hair so much like
 my own, that spare, ready frame, those gray eyes,
 now rimmed with tears.
I felt a sudden blow on my back and nearly lost my
 breath and twisted to see the gigantic brawny Older 
Tarl, my former Master at Arms, who clapped me on the 
shoulders, his hands like the talons of tarns.
There was a tugging at my sleeve and a blubbering and 
I looked down and nearly poked a scroll in my eye which 
was carried by the small blue-clad figure at my side.
"Torm!" I cried.
But the little fellows sandy hair and pale, watery 
eyes were hidden in the vast sleeve of his blue robe 
and he leaned against my side and wept unabashedly.
"You will stain your scroll," I cautioned him.
Without looking up or missing a sob he shifted the 
scroll to a new position under his other arm.
I swept him off his feet and spun him around and the 
robes flew from his head and Torm of the Caste of 
Scribes cried aloud in joy and that sandy hair whoofed 
in the wind and tears ran sideways down his face and he 
never lost hold of the scroll although he nearly batted 
the Older Tarl with it in one of his orbits and then he 
began to sneeze and I gently put him down.
"Where is Talena!" I begged my father.
Vika, as I scarcely noted, stepped back when I had said 
this.
But in that instant my joy was gone, for my fathers 
face became grave.
"Where is she!" I demanded.
"We do not know," said the Older Tarl, for my father 
could not bring himself to say the words.

My father took me by the shoulders. "My son," he said, 
"the people of Ko-ro-ba were scattered and none could 
be together and no stone of that city might stand upon 
another stone."
"But you are here," I said, "three men of Ko-ro-ba."
"We met here," said the Older Tarl, "and since it seemed 
the world would end we decided that we would stand together
one last time--in spite of the will of Priest-Kings-that 
we would stand together one last time as men of Ko-ro-ba."
I looked down at the little scribe, Torm, who had stopped 
sneezing, and was not wiping his nose on the blue sleeve 
of his robes. "Even you, Torm?" I asked.
"Of course," said Torm, "after all a Priest-King is only 
a Priest-King." He rubbed his nose meditatively. "Of 
course," he admitted, "that is quite a bit to be." He 
looked up at me. "Yes," he said, "I suppose that I am 
brave." He looked at the Older Tarl. "You must not tell 
other members of the Caste of Scribes," he cautioned.
I smiled to myself. How clearly Torm wished to keep 
caste lines and virtues demarcated.
"I will tell everyone," said the Older Tarl kindly, 
"that you are the bravest of the Caste of Scribes."
"Well," said Torm, "thus qualified, perhaps the 
information will do no harm.
I looked at my father. "Do you suppose Talena is
here?" I asked.
"I doubt it," he said.
I knew how dangerous it would be for a woman to travel 
unattended on Gor.
"Forgive me, Vika," I said, and introduced her to my 
father, to the Older Tarl and Torm, the Scribe, and 
explained as briefly as I could what had befallen us 
in the Sardar.
My father, the Older Tarl and Torm listened amazed to 
my account of the truths of the Sardar.
When I had finished I looked at them, to see if they 
believed me.
"Yes," said my father, "I believe you."
"And I," said the Older Tarl.
"Well," said Torm, thoughtfully, for it did not behoove 
a member of his caste to volunteer an opinion too rapidly 
on any matter, "it does not contradict any text with which 
I am familiar."
I laughed and seized the little fellow by the robes of his 
castes and swung him about.
"Do you believe me?" I asked.
I swung him about by the hood of his garment twice more.
"Yes!" he cried, "I do, I do!"
I set him down.
"But are you sure?" he asked.
I reached for him again and he leaped backwards.
"I was just curious," he said. "After all," he muttered, 
"it is not written down in a text."
This time the Older Tarl lifted him up by the scruff of 
his robes and held him dangling, kicking, a foot from the 
ground. "I believe him!" cried Torm. "I believe him!"
Once safely down Torm came over to me and reached up and 
touched my shoulder.
"I believed you," he said.
"I know," I said, and gave his sandy-haired head a rough 
shake. He was, after all, a Scribe, and had the proprieties 
of his caste to observe.
"But," said Matthew Cabot, "I think it would be wise to 
speak little of these matters."
All of us agreed to this.
I looked at my father. "I am sorry," I said, "that 
Ko-ro-ba was destroyed."
My father laughed. "Ko-ro-ba was not destroyed," he said.
I was puzzled, for I myself had looked upon the valley 
of Ko-ro-ba and had seen that the city had vanished.
"Here," said my father, reaching into a leather sack 
that he wore slung about his shoulder, "is Ko-ro-ba," 
and he drew forth the small, flat Home Stone of the 
City, in which gorean custom invests the meaning, the 
significance, the reality of a city itself. "Ko-ro-ba 
cannot be destroyed, said my father, "for its Home Stone 
has not perished!"
My father had taken the Stone from the City before it
 had been destroyed. For years he had carried it on his
 own person.
I took the small stone in my hands and kissed it, for 
it was the Home Stone of the city to which I had pledged 
my sword, where I had ridden my first tarn, where I had
 met my father after an interval of more than twenty 
years, where I had found new friends, and to which I 
had taken Talena, my love, the daughter of Marlenus, 
once Ubar of Ar, as my Free Companion.
"And here, too, is Ko-ro-ba," I said, pointing to the 
proud giant, the Older Tarl, and the tiny, sandy-haired 
scribe, Torm.
"Yes," said my father, "here too is Ko-ro-ba, not only 
in the particles of its Home Stone, but in the hearts of its men."
And we four men of Ko-ro-ba clasped hands.
"I understand," said my father, "from what you have told 
us, that now once more a stone may stand upon a stone, 
that two men of Ko-ro-ba may once again stand side by side."
"Yes," I said, "that is true."
My father and the Older Tarl and Torm exchanged glances. 
"Good," said my father, "for we have a city to rebuild."
"How will we find others of Ko-ro-ba?" I asked.
"The word will spread," and my father, "and they will 
come in tows and threes from all corners of Gor, singing, 
each carrying a stone to add to the walls and cylinders 
of their city."
"I am glad," I said.
I felt Vikas hand on my arm. "I know what you must do, 
Cabot," she said. "And it is what I want you to do."
I looked down at the girl from Treve. She knew that I must 
search out Talena, spend my life if need be in the quest
for she whom of all women I had chosen for my Free Companion.
I took her in my arms and she sobbed. "I must lose all," 
she wept. "All!"
"Do you wish me to stay with you?" I asked.
She shook the tears from her eyes. "No," she said. 
"Seek the girl you love."
"What will you do?" I asked.
"There is nothing for me," said Vika. "Nothing."
"You may return to Ko-ro-ba," I said. "My father and 
Tarl, the Master-of-Arms, are two of the finest swords on Gor."
"No," she said, "for in your city I would think only of 
you and if you should return there with your love, then 
what should I do?" She shook with emotion. "How strong 
to you think I am, dear Cabot?" she asked.
"I have friends in Ar," I said, "even Kazrak, the 
Administrator of the City. You can find a home there."
"I shall return to Treve," said Vika. "I shall continue 
there the work of a physician from Treve. I know much of 
his craft and I shall learn more."
"In Treve," I said, "you might be ordered slain by members
of the Caste of Initiates."

She looked up.
"Go to Ar," I said. "You will be safe there." And I added, 
"And I think it will be a better city for you than Treve."
"Yes, Cabot," she said, "you are right. It would be hard to 
live now in Treve."
I was pleased that she would go to Ar, where she, though 
a woman, might learn the craft of medicine under masters
appointed by Kazrak, where she might found a new life for 
herself far from warlike, plundering Treve, where she might 
work as befitted the daughter of a skilled, courageous father, 
where she might perhaps forget a simple warrior of Ko-ro-ba.
"It is only, Cabot," she said, "because I love you so much 
that I do not fight to keep you."
"I know," I said, holding her head to my shoulder.
She laughed. "If I loved you only a little less," she said,
"I would find Talena of Ar myself and thrust a dagger into her heart."
I kissed her.
"Perhaps someday," she said, "I will find a Free 
Companion such as you."
"Few," I said, "would be worthy of Vika of Treve."
She burst into tears and would have clung to me but 
I handed her gently into the arms of my father.
"I will see that she gets to Ar safely," he said.
"Cabot!" cried Vika and broke away from him and hurled 
herself into my arms weeping.
I held her and kissed her again, gently, tenderly, and 
then wiped the tears from her eyes.
She straightened herself.
"I wish you well, Cabot," she said.
"And I," I said, "wish you well, Vika, my girl of Treve."
She smiled and turned away and my father gently put his 
arm about her shoulder and led her away.
For some unaccountable reason tears has formed in my own 
eyes, though I was a Warrior.
"She was very beautiful," said the Older Tarl.
"Yes," I said, she was very beautiful." I wiped the 
back of my hand across my eyes.
"But," said the Older Tarl, "you are a Warrior."
"Yes," I said, "I am a Warrior."
"Until you find Talena," he said, "your companion is 
peril and steel."
It was on old Warrior saying.
I drew the blade and examined it.
The Older Tarls eyes, like mine, ran the edge, and I 
saw that he approved.
"You carried it at Ar," he said.
"Yes," I said. "The same."
"Peril and steel," said he.
"I know," I said. "I have before me the work of a Warrior."
I resheathed the blade.
It was a lonely road that I now had to walk, and I 
wished to set out upon it as soon as possible, I told 
the Older Tarl and Torm to say good-bye to my father, 
as I did not trust myself to see him longer, for fear 
that I would not wish so soon to part from him again.
And so it was that I wished my two friends well.
thought I had met them only for a moment in the shadow
of the Sardar, we had renewed our affection and 
comradeship, one to the other, in the timeless instant 
of friendship.
"Where will you go?" asked Torm. "What will you do?"
"I dont know," I said, and I spoke honestly.
"It seems to me," said Torm, "that you should come 
with us to Ko-ro-ba and wait there. Perhaps Talena 
will find her way back."
The Older Tarl smiled.
"It is a possibility," said Torm.
Yes I said to myself, it is a possibility, but not a 
likely one. The probability of so beautiful a woman as 
Talena finding her way through the cities of Gor, over 
the lonely roads, among the open fields to at last 
return to Ko-ro-ba was not high.
Somewhere even now she might be facing danger that 
she would not face in Ko-ro-ba and there might be none 
to protect her.
Perhaps she was even now threatened by savage beasts of 
even more savage men.
Perhaps, she, my Free Companion, even now lay chained in 
one of the blue and yellow slave wagons, or served Paga 
in a tavern or was a belled adornment to some warriors 
Pleasure Gardens. Perhaps even now she stood upon the 
block in some auction in Ars Street of Brands.
"I will return to Ko-ro-ba from time to time," I said, 
"to see if she has returned."
"Perhaps," said the Older Tarl, she attempted to reach 
her father, Marlenus, in the Voltai."
That was possible, I thought, for Marlenus, since his 
deposition from the throne of Ar, had lived as an Outlaw 
Ubar in the Voltai. It would be natural for her to try to 
reach him.
"If that is true," I said, "and it is heard that Ko-ro-ba 
is being rebuilt Marlenus will see that she reaches the city."
"That is true," said the Older Tarl.
"Perhaps she is in Ar," suggested Torm.
"If so, and Kazrak knows of it," I said, "he will return her."
"Do you wish me to accompany you?" asked the Older Tarl.
I thought his sword might indeed have been welcome, but I 
knew his first duty lay to his city. "No," I said.
"Well then," said Torm, shouldering his scroll like a lance, 
"that leaves only two of us."
"No," I said to him. "Go with Tarl, the Master-of-Arms."
"You have no idea how useful I might be," said Torm.
He was right, I had no idea.
"I am sorry," I said.
"There will be many scrolls to examine and catalog when the 
city is rebuilt," observed the Older Tarl. "Of course," he 
added, "I might do the work myself!"
Torm shook with horror. "Never!" he cried.
The Older Tarl roared with laughter and swept the little 
scribe under his arm.
"I wish you well," said the Older Tarl.
"And I wish you well," I said.
He turned and strode off, saying no more. Torms chest and 
head sticking out behind from under his arm. Torm hit him 
several times with the scroll but the blows seems not to 
phase him. At last Torm, before he disappeared from sight, 
waved his scroll in farewell.
I lifted my hand to him. "I wish you well, little Torm," I 
said. I would miss him, and the Older Tarl. Any my father,
my father. "I wish all of you well," I said softly.
Once more I looked to the Sardar.
I was alone again.
There were few, almost none on Gor, who would believe my 
story.
I supposed that there would be few on my old world--Earth--too, 
who would believe it.
Perhaps it was better that way.
Had I not lived these things, did I not know whereof I speak, 
I ask myself if I--Tarl Cabot himself--would accept them, and 
I tell myself frankly, in all likelihood, No. So then why have 
I written them? I do not know, save that I thought these things
worth recording, whether they are to be believed or not.
There is little more to tell now.
I remained some days beside the Sardar, in the camp of some men
from Tharna, whom I had known several months before. I regret 
that among them was not the dour, magnificent, yellow-haired 
Kron of Tharna, of the Caste of Metal Workers, who had been my friend.
These men of Tharna, mostly small tradesmen in silver, had come 
for the autumn fair, the fair of Se`Var, which was just being 
set up at the time of the gravitational lessening. I remained 
with them, accepting their hospitality, while going out to meet 
various delegations from different cities, as they came to the 
Sardar for the fair.
Systematically and persistently I questioned these men of various 
cities about the whereabouts of Talena of Ar, hoping to find some 
clue that might lead me to her, even if it might be only the 
drunken memory of some herdsman of a vision of beauty once encountered 
in a dim and crowded tavern in Cos or Port Kar. But in spite of my best 
efforts I was unable to uncover the slightest clue to her fate.
This story is now, on the whole, told.
But there is one last incident which I must record.

------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Night of the Priest-King

IT OCCURRED LATE LAST NIGHT.
I had joined a group of men from Ar, some of whom remembered me
from the Siege of Ar more than seven years before.
We had left the Fair of Se`Var and were making our way around 
the perimeter of the Sardar Range before crossing the Vosk on 
the way to Ar.
We had made camp.
We were still within sight of the crags of the Sardar.
It was a windy, cold night and the three moons of Gor were full 
and the silvery grasses of the fields were swept by the chill 
blasts of the passing wind. I could smell the cold tang of 
approaching winter. There had already been a heavy frost the 
night before. It was a wild, beautiful autumn night.
"By the Priest-Kings!" shouted a man, pointing to a ridge. 
"What is it?"
I and the others leaped to our feet, swords drawn, to see 
where he had pointed.
About two hundred yards above the camp, toward the Sardar, 
whose crags could be seen looming in the background against 
the black, star-shattered night was a strange figure, outlined 
against one of the white, rushing moons of Gor.
There were gasps of astonishment and horror from all save 
myself. Men seized weapons.
"Let us rush on it and kill it!" they cried.
I sheathed my sword.
Outlined against the largest of Gors three hurling moons 
was the black silhouette, as sharp and keen as a knife, of 
a Priest-King.
"Wait here!" I shouted and I ran across the field and climbed 
the knoll on which it stood.
The two peering eyes, golden and luminous, looked down at me. 
The antennae, whipped by the wind, focused themselves. Across
the left eye disk I could see the whitish seam that was the 
scar left from the slashing bladelike projection of Sarm.
"Misk!" I cried, rushing to the Priest-King and lifting my 
hands to receive the antennae which were gently placed in them.
"Greetings, Tarl Cabot," came from Misks translator.
"You have saved our world," I said.
"It is empty for Priest-Kings," he said.
I stood below him, looking up, the wind lifting and tugging 
at my hair.
"I came to see you one last time," he said, "for there is 
Nest Trust between us."
"Yes," I said.
"You are my friend," he said.
My heart leaped.
"Yes," he said, "the expression is now ours as well as yours 
and you and those like you have taught us its meaning.
"I am glad," I said.
That night Misk told me of how affairs stood in the Nest. It 
would be long before the powers of the broken Nest could be 
restored, before the Scanning Chamber could function again, 
before the vast damages done to the Nest could be repaired, 
but men and Priest-Kings were even now at work, side by side.
The ships that had sped from the Sardar had now returned, for 
as I had feared, they were not made welcome by the cities of Gor, 
nor by the Initiates, and those who had ridden the ships had not 
been accepted by their cities. Indeed, the ships were regarded as 
vehicles of a type forbidden to men by Priest-Kings and their 
passengers were attacked in the name of the very Priest-Kings 
from which they had come. In the end, those humans who wished 
to remain on the surface had landed elsewhere, far from their 
native cities, and scattered themselves as vagabonds about the 
roads and alien cities of the planet. Others had retired to the 
Nest, to share in the work of its rebuilding.
The body of Sarm, I learned, had been burned in the Chamber of 
the Mother, according to the custom of Priest-Kings, for he 
had been First Born and beloved of the Mother.
Misk apparently bore him not the least ill will.
I was amazed at this, until it occurred to me that I did not 
either. He had been a great enemy, a great Priest-King, and 
had lived as he had thought he should. I would always remember 
Sarm, huge and golden, in the last agonizing minute when he 
had pulled free of the Golden Beetle and had stood upright 
and splendid in the crumbling, perishing Nest that he was 
determined must be destroyed.
"He was the greatest of the Priest-Kings," said Misk.
"No," I said, "Sarm was not the greatest of the Priest-Kings."
Misk looked at me quizzically, "The Mother," he said, "was 
not a Priest-King--she was simply the Mother."
"I know," I said, "I did not mean the Mother."
"Yes," said Misk, "Kusk is perhaps the greatest of the living 
Priest-Kings."
"I did not mean Kusk," I said.
Misk looked at me in puzzlement. "I shall never understand 
humans," he said.
I laughed.
I truly believe it never occurred to Misk that I meant 
that he himself, Misk, was the greatest of the Priest-Kings.
But I truly believe he was.
He was one of the greatest creatures I had known, brilliant, 
courageous, loyal, selfless, dedicated.
"What of the young male?" I asked. "Was he destroyed?"
"No," said Misk. "He is safe."
For some reason this pleased me. Perhaps I simply was 
pleased that there had not been further destruction, further loss of life.
"Have you had the humans slay the Golden Beetles?" I asked.
Misk straightened. "Of course not," he said.
"But they will kill other Priest-Kings," I said.
"Who am I," asked Misk, "to decide how a Priest-King should live--or die?"
I was silent.
"I regret only," said Misk, "that I never learned the 
location of the last egg, but that secret died with the 
Mother. Now the race of Priest-Kings itself must die."
I looked up at him. "The Mother spoke to me." I said.
"She was going to tell me of the location of the egg but 
could not."
Suddenly Misk was frozen the attitude of utter attention, 
the antennae lifted, each sensory hair alive on his golden body.
"What did you learn?" came from Misks translator.
"She only said," I told him, "Go to the Wagon Peoples."
Misks antennae moved thoughtfully. "Then," he said, "it
must be with the Wagon Peoples--or they must know where it is."
"By now," I said, "any life in the egg would surely have perished."
Misk looked at me with disbelief. "It is the egg of Priest-Kings," 
he said. Then his antennae fell disconsolately. "But it could 
have been destroyed," he said.
"By this time," I said, "it probably has been."
"Undoubtedly, said Misk.
"Still," I said, "you are not sure."
"No," said Misk, "I am not."
"You could send Implanted Ones to spy," I suggested.
"There are no more Implanted Ones," said Misk. "We have 
recalled them and are removing the control nets. They may 
return to their cities or remain in the Nest, as they please."
"Then you are voluntarily giving up a valuable surveillance 
device," I said.
"Yes," said Misk.
"But why?" I asked.
"It is wrong to implant rational creatures," said Misk.
"Yes," I said, "I think that is true."
"The Scanning Chamber," said Misk, "will not be operational 
for an indefinite period--and even so we can scan only 
objects in the open."
"Perhaps you could develop a depth scanner," I suggested, 
"one that could penetrate walls, ground, ceilings."
"We are working on it," said Misk.
I laughed.
Misks antennae curled.
"If you should regain your power," I said, "what do you 
propose to do with it? Will you still set forth the law 
in certain matters for men?"
"Undoubtedly," said Misk.
I was silent.
"We must protect ourselves and those humans who live 
with us," said Misk.
I looked down the hill to where the campfire gleamed 
in the darkness. I could see human figures huddled about 
it, looking up at the hill.
"What of the egg?" asked Misk.
"What of it?" I asked.
"I cannot go myself" said Misk. "I am needed in the Nest 
and even so my antennae cannot stand the sun--not for 
more than a few hours at most--and if I so much as 
approached a human being it would probably fear me 
and try to slay me."
"Then you will have to find a human," I said to him.
Misk looked down at me.
"What of you, Tarl Cabot?" he asked.
I looked up at him.
"The affairs of Priest-Kings," I said "--are not mine."
Misk looked about himself, an lifted his antennae toward 
the moons and the wind-swept grass. He looked down at the 
distant campfire. He shivered a bit in the cold wind.
"The moons are beautiful," I said, "are they not?"
Misk looked back at the moons.
"Yes," he said, "I think so."
"Once you spoke to me," I said, "of random elements." I 
looked up at the moons. "Is that--" I asked, "--seeing 
that the moons are beautiful--is that a random element 
in man?"
"I think," said Misk, "it is part of man."
"You spoke once of machines," I said.
"Howsoever I spoke," said Misk, "words cannot diminish 
men or Priest-Kings--for who cares what we are--if we 
can act, decide, sense beauty, seek right, and have hopes 
for our people?"
I swallowed hard, for I knew I had hopes for my race, 
and I sensed how Misk must have them for his, only his 
race was dying, and would sooner or later, one by one, 
meet with accident or succumb to the Pleasures of the 
Golden Beetle. And my race--it would live on Gor--at 
least for the time because of what Misk and Priest-Kings 
had done to preserve their world for them.
"Your affairs," I told him, but speaking to myself, 
"are your affairs--and not mine."
"Of course, agreed Misk.
If I should attempt to help Misk, what would this mean, 
ultimately? Would it not be to surrender my race to the 
mercies of the people of Sarm and the Priest-Kings who 
had served him, or would it be ultimately to protect my 
race until it had learned to live with itself, until it,
together with the people who called themselves Priest-Kings,
could address itself to a common world, and to the galaxy beyond?
"Your world is dying," I said to Misk.
"The universe itself will die," said Misk.
He had his antennae lifted to the white fires that burned 
in the black night over Gor.
I surmised he was speaking of those entropic regularities 
that apparently prevailed in reality as we know it, the loss
of energy, its transformation into the ashes of the stellar night.
"It will grow cold and dark," said Misk.
I looked up at him.
"But in the end," said he, "life is as real as death and 
there will be a return of the ultimate rhythms, and a new 
explosion will cast forth the primitive particles and we 
shall have another turn of the wheel, and someday, sometime, 
in eons which defy the calculations even of Priest-Kings, 
there may be another Nest, and another Earth, and Gor, and 
another Misk and another Tarl Cabot to stand upon a windy hill 
in the moonlight and speak of strange things."
Misks antennae looked down at me.
"Perhaps," he said, "we have stood here, on this hill, thusly 
together, unknown to either of us, already an infinite number 
of times."
The wind seemed now very cold and very swift.
"And what did we do?" I asked.
"I do not know what we did," said Misk. "But I think I would 
now choose to do that action which I would be willing that I 
should do again and again with each turning of the wheel. I 
would choose so to live that I might be willing that I should 
live that life a thousand times, even forever. I would choose 
so to live that I might stand boldly with my deed without 
regret throughout eternity."
The thoughts that he had spoken horrified me.
But Misk stood, the wind whipping his antennae, as though he 
were exalted.
Then he looked down at me. His antennae curled. "But I speak 
very foolishly," he said. "Forgive me, Tarl Cabot."
"It is hard to understand you," I said.
I could see climbing the hill towards us, a warrior. He 
grasped a spear.
"Are you all right?" he called.
"Yes", I called back to him.
"Stand back, he cried, so I can have a clean cast."
"Do not injure it!" I called to him. "It is harmless."
Misks antennae curled.
"I wish you well, Tarl Cabot," he said.
"The affairs of Priest-Kings," I said to him, more insistently
than ever, "are not my affairs." I looked up at him. "Not mine!" 
I cried.
"I know," said Misk, and he gently extended his antennae towards me.
I touched them.
"I wish you well, Priest-King," I said.
Abruptly I turned from Misk and rushed down the hill, 
almost blindly. I stopped only when I reached the side 
of the warrior. He was joined by two or three more of 
the men from the camp below, who were also armed. We were 
also joined by an Initiate, of unimportant ranking.
Together we watched the tall figure on the hill, outlined 
against the moon, not moving, standing in the uncanny, 
marvelous immobility of the Priest-King, only its antennae 
blowing back over its head in the wind.
"What is it?" asked one of the men.
"It looks," said the Initiate, "like a giant insect."
I smiled to myself. "Yes," I said, "it does look like a 
giant insect."
"May the Priest-Kings protect us." breathed the Initiate.
One of the men drew back his spear arm but I stayed his arm. 
"No," I said. "Do not injure it."
"What is it?" asked another of the men.
How could I tell them that he looked, with incredulity and 
horror, on one of the awesome denizens of the grim Sardar, 
on one of the fabulous and mysterious monarchs of his very 
world, on one of the gods of Gor--on a Priest-King?
"I can hurl my spear through it," said the man with the spear.
"It is harmless," I said.
"Lets kill it anyway," said the Initiate nervously.
"No," I said.
I lifted my arm in farewell to Misk, and, to the surprise of 
the men with me, Misk lifted one foreleg, and then turned 
and was gone.
For a long time I, and the others, stood there in the windy 
night, almost knee-deep in the flowing, bending grass, and 
watched the knoll, and the stars behind it, and the white 
moons above.
"Its gone," said one of the men at last.
"Yes," I said.
"Thank the Priest-Kings," breathed the Initiate.
I laughed and the men looked at me as though I might be mad.
I spoke to the man with the spear. He was also the leader 
of the small group.
"Where," I asked him, "is the land of the Wagon People?"


