Dancer of Gor

I then went to the next man, and the next. As I moved down the line I grew gradually more grateful, and elated. Each accepted water from me. It seemed I might have been any water girl serving them. It was impossible to describe my relief. It seemed they did not hold it against me, that I had been utilized in their entrapment. Perhaps they understood something of my helplessness, and that I, only a Gorean kajira, had had no choice but to obey. How astonishing it was that they bore me no ill will! How grateful I was to them for their understanding! Then I knelt before he who was last on the chain, he whom I most feared, and yet best knew, he who had been many times kind to me in Brundisium, and whom I had cleverly tricked in Argentum, bringing him to his current condition.

"Water, Master?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

I poured him the water and in that same fashion in which I had served the others proffered him the cup. He took it, and then, before my eyes, he did not drink, but regarded me, with hatred, and turned the cup, pouring the contents slowly, meaningfully, into the sand. I was terrified. This action on his part seemed some sort of signal to the others. I then found myself in the midst of them, kneeling, trembling, small, in the center of that grim circle.

"Masters?" I asked, frightened. Surely the guard must come down the incline now, to threaten them, to whip them back. But, kneeling as I was, in the midst of them, I could not even see the guard. "Masters?" I asked, terrified. They said nothing. Where was the guard!

"Please, Masters," I said. "I am only a slave. Please be kind to a slave!" "She feigns terror well," said one of the fellows.

"She is an excellent actress," commented another.

"Please, Masters!" I pleaded.He before whom I knelt threw the cup to the side, in the sand. The water bag was removed from me. It was put a few feet from me, by the cup.

I did not dare rise from my knees. I was a slave. I had not been given permission.

"You were an excellent lure girl," said one of the fellows.

"Thank you, Master," I whispered.

Even had I dared to rise, as I did not, I did not know if I, in my terror, could even have found the strength to do so. Too, even if I had dared to leap up, and had found the strength to do so, I could not have escaped them. They were all about me. Too, I could not run, chained as I was.

"She deceived me well," said a fellow.

"And me," said another.

"And me," said another.

"Forgive me, Masters!" I begged.

The guard did not appear.

"Help!" I screamed. "Help! Help, Master! Please, help! Help, Master!" But only silence greeted my cries for assistance.

"Were you given permission to speak?" asked a fellow.

"No, Master," I whispered. "Forgive me, Master!"

the fellow before whom I knelt and one of the men, a brawny fellow, lifted me up from the back, by the upper arms. Another fellow then, as I was held, cuffed me, twice. I was then dropped back into the sand, on all fours, a punished slave. "Let her try to run," said the fellow before whom I had knelt.

I looked about, wildly. I tasted blood in my mouth.

The men behind me moved to one side, opening a place between them, leading back toward the top of the ridge.

My eyes fixed on him before whom I had knelt. I rose to my feet, half crouching, and backed warily away from him, until I was beyond the line of the chain, and then, wildly, I turned about, and tried to run. I fell, again and again, and then, clawing and scrambling, I began to ascend the sandy slope. Again and again, I slipped back, inhibited in my chains. Then I had attained the summit of that ridge. I stood there, wildly. There, now, on the summit, was not only the guard and the other work slave, now kneeling, with her head down to the sand, but the overseer, and a palanquin, with eight bearers, and a man in silken robes, fat and bald, who reclined upon it, holding a short-stemmed lorgnon, in his right hand. Swiftly I knelt, covered with sand, in my chains, before the palanquin, doing obeisance. "Look up," said the overseer. The fellow regarded me through the lorgnon. "This," said the overseer, "is the girl, Tuka, who served your supplier, Tyrrhenius, in Argentum. We had her purchased, following your policy, for a tarsk bit over her former selling price. We had her brought here, as we thought would please you, to the black chain. We are gratified that this should have coincided with your tour of inspection." The overseer gestured to the guard and he open my tunic, and pulled it back. I saw the lorgnon lift a little. "As you might surmise," said the overseer, "she was an excellent lure girl. She figured in the entrapment of twenty-three of the prisoners below."

I trembled, kneeling in the soft, warm sand, it up about my thighs.

"You may greet your master," said the overseer to me.

"Greetings, Master," I said.

The man in the palanquin made a small gesture with the lorgnon, hardly a movement.