"You have had us dismiss the guards," said the pit master.

"The prisoner must have opened the panels," said a man.

"But the beasts are here, beyond the gate," said a man.

"The gate, it seems, was not locked," said the pit master.

"That would seem an unfortunate oversight," said the lieutenant.

"Yes," said the pit master, "it would seem so."

"Doubtless it was lifted by the prisoner," said a man.

"Doubtless," said another.

"Will the urt charge?" asked the lieutenant.

"I do not know," said the pit master. "I would not approach it too closely."

"It is dangerous?"

"Quite."

"Kill it," said the lieutenant.

"Perhaps your colleague, Gito, can turn it," suggested the pit master.

"No, no!" said Gito.

But the urt did turn then, of its own accord, and scampered back down the pa.s.sageway. The other, which had been behind it, hesitated for a moment, and then followed it.

"Advance," said the lieutenant.

I felt the b.u.t.t of a crossbow prod me.

We continued down the pa.s.sageway. We came, in a moment, to a turning.

"The lamps are out," said a man.

"He must be ahead," said a man.

"He must be trapped," said another.

"Take lamps from the pa.s.sage," said the lieutenant.

Two of the men went back and fetched the nearest lamps.

"Will you truly walk down this pa.s.sage, carrying light?" asked the officer of Treve.

"Free slaves, that they may do so," said one of the black-tunicked men.

"They are the shield," said a man.

"You," said the lieutenant to the officer of Treve, "will do so."

"I think not," he said.

"Prepare then to die," said the lieutenant, angrily.

"The pit guard will be reporting in soon," said the pit master.

"You will dismiss them, as before," said the lieutenant.

"They may be looking for us now. I doubt that they would be pleased to learn that you had slain a captain of Treve. Too, perhaps your men would like to leave the depths alive."

The black-tunicked men exchanged glances.

"You will dismiss them," said the lieutenant.

"That is difficult to do until they have reported," said the pit master.

But at that moment we heard, from down the pa.s.sage, in the darkness, a hideous, but unmistakable human cry, which was followed, almost instantly, by a violent squealing of urts.

"Urts!" cried a man.

"They have him!" cried another.

"Our work is done for us!" cried another, elatedly.

The lieutenant, followed by his six men, thrust about us, and between us, pushing us to the side, lifting the rope on our necks. Gito remained behind us. The officer of Treve and the pit master followed the black-tunicked men in their rush forward. "Hurry!"

said Fina, dragging her group forward. Ours, perhaps fearing to be separated in this place, we helpless, urts about, hurried behind. I could see the two lamps flickering down the pa.s.sage.

Also, in a moment, I could see a mound of twisting, squealing urts, clambering over and about something, biting at it. Some scampered about the edge of the group, as though seeking some avenue of approach, some entrance into that heap of squirming, frenzied animals, some ingress into that broiling tumult of glistening fur and slashing fangs, that they, too, might feast. The peasant, I a.s.sumed, from the horrifying cry I had heard, must be beneath that terrible living hill of beasts. Behind them I could see the bars of the gate. The gate was down. The darkness of the walk ringing the urt pool was behind. I also became aware, vaguely now, of a woman's screaming. That must be the Lady Ilene, whom I had met in the chamber of the commercial praetor, kept now, I knew, pending the arrival of her ransom, in the tiny cage suspended over the urt pool, that cage which had been for some time the residence of the Lady Constanzia, that cage which could be opened at the tug of a cord.

The lieutenant, the six men, two with lamps, stood back from the pile of frenzied urts. The fur of some of them was bloodied, they apparently having been, crowding in and about, in the haste and excitement of the feeding, bitten by their fellows. "Pull them off," said the lieutenant, to one of the men who had not attacked the sleen.

The woman was screaming, from within, over the urt pool.

The man put aside his bow and reached into the pile of animals, seizing one after another and throwing it to the side. I thought this took great courage. To be sure the animals seemed on the whole hardly aware of him. Some did twist about to tear at him, as might have fighting dogs. As soon as he would fling one to the side it would turn about and try to thrust its snout back into the pack.

The two men with the lamps lifted them higher.

The smell of blood was strong in the pa.s.sageway. The pa.s.sageway, too, was loud with the squealing of the beasts. From within, over the urt pool, we could still hear the screaming of the woman.

"It is a dead urt!" said a man, suddenly.

"We heard a cry," said another. "It was human."

The fellow who had been pulling the urts aside now stood back. His hands and forearms were covered with blood, but much of it, I am sure, was from the fur and jaws of the urts. He had been bitten at least twice. His left sleeve was in shreds. The urts now dragged the body of the dead urt, now half eaten, its bones about, to the wall, where they continued their feeding.

"He must have been attacked on the other side of the gate," said a man.

One of the black-tunicked fellows went to the bars of the gate, peering through, into the darkness.

"Bring a lamp," he said.

"How did the urt die?" asked a man.

Urts seldom attack their own kind unless their fellow behaves in an erratic fashion, as it might if injured or ill.

"What difference does it make?" asked a man.

"What do you see?" asked the lieutenant of the fellow by the bars. He now seemed to be gripping them with great tightness. Indeed, he seemed to have pulled himself closely to them, even pressing himself against them. Too, oddly, he seemed taller now, as though he might have stood on his toes.

"What do you see?" asked the lieutenant, again.

"There is a quarrel in the urt!" said a man, suddenly, the beasts, in their feeding, moving about.

"Extinguish the lamps!" cried the lieutenant.

I heard the heavy, vibratory snap of the cable, but did not see the quarrel. ft rnus~ have been fired from only a foot or so behind the bars of the gate. I did see the lamp move strangely in the hand of the fellow who held it, he who had been summoned to the bars. The other lamp, in the hand of the other fellow, had been dashed from his hand by the lieutenant. "Fire through the gate!" cried the lieutenant, wildly. I heard three bows fire, one after the other. Then I heard a fourth. Urts still squealed and stirred to the side.

"Draw back, reload!" said the lieutenant.

Men thrust past us. Indeed, we fell, or my "cord" did. I was bruised by a weapon as someone went past us.

"Get the slaves across the pa.s.sage," said the lieutenant. "Block it!"

The girl next to me cried out with pain. I think she had been grasped by the hair and pulled to her feet, Certainly the cord on my neck, rasping, jerked upward. I cried out in misery. I crouched. The cord was still taut. Then it grew fiercely insistent. The side of my neck burned. I must rise. I was subject to the cord. I must be compliant. I scrambled to my feet, in misery, in the crowded darkness, obedient to the imperative of my constraint. The rest of the "cord" rose, too. I then heard another girl cry out with pain, perhaps Fina, kicked, and then that "cord," too, to the side of us, to our right, was on its feet.

We were frightened. We gasped for breath.

I think they feared that the gate might be lifted in the darkness. That their foe, blade in hand, in the darkness, might come through, either to do them greater injury or slip past them.

But I was sure the gate had remained down, Had it risen, I was sure I could have heard it, in its tracks.

Too, the urts were quieter now. We could, however, still hear them feeding.

"An interesting stratagem," said the officer of Treve, in the darkness.

"Excellent Kaissa," said the pit master.

It was only later that I understood their probable meanings. I was, at the time, confused, sick, afraid, almost unable to stand, waiting there in the darkness, with the others, not knowing if something, an urt, or the prisoner, armed, intent, might suddenly be upon us, perhaps slashing to one side or the other, in some eagerness to get at the men.

But he did not come through the gate in the darkness.

The lifting of the gate, of course, would have marked his position, if only for a moment.

The prisoner had apparently lifted the panels to the urt nest, permitting them access to the walkway, the gate having been raised to permit them, or some at least, into the pa.s.sageway, the gate then being lowered. It is terribly dangerous, of course, to trap an urt against a barrier, as it will then fight with terrible ferocity. To approach the gate would have trapped them in this fashion, thus making them his allies. But his plan, it seemed, had been even subtler than this.

Urts on the other side of the barrier, the men approaching, the corridor dark, necessitating the bringing of light into it, he had apparently, probably with his own body, if not blood, lured urts back, close to the gate. He had then cried out, as though under attack, and, doubtless at the same time, during that seemingly agonized, hideous cry, fired into the urts at point-blank range, thereby killing or wounding one of them, and initiating the feeding frenzy. By the time it had been determined that the victim was another urt the men would have been within range. I was sure now that the one man who had clung, so closely, so stiffly, to the bars, had been struck, through them, with a thrust of the sword, to the heart. I was sure he had not come back with us. The prisoner would then have lifted the crossbow, the quarrel set, and fired again, through the bars, at the man with the lamp, the light illuminating the target. He had killed two men in this fashion and, had the urts behaved differently, might have accomplished the destruction of one or two others. The lieutenant had four men left.

Gratefully, something like a quarter of an Ahn later, kneeling on the floor of the pa.s.sage, I rubbed my wrists.

"I do not think he will fire on you," said the pit master. "There are ten slaves, and he will know that there are several, at least. He is limited in his quiver, and he is not likely to use quarrels on slaves."

"Yes, Master," I said. But I was not greatly rea.s.sured by these words.

I was more rea.s.sured by the fact that I was in a rear group. Yet I had little doubt that he was sincere in his remarks, as he was obviously willing to let Fina be in one of the forward groups. We had now fetched torches and lamps from the pa.s.sages, whatever was available. Indeed, even the pit master had fetched himself a torch.

"Let us get more men," said Gito.

"We have taken fee," said the lieutenant, "as have you."

"Where is the pit guard?" asked the officer of Treve.

"They have reported in by now, and have not been dismissed," said the pit master. "I would suppose they are searching for us."

"Up," said a man to the slaves, and we rose to our feet.

We were now differently arranged. We were now in five groups of two each, a pair for each of the black-tunicked men, including the lieutenant. Each girl in a pair was tied by the neck to the other with cord, I was with Fecha, on her left, about two feet from her, that much lat.i.tude and no more permitted to me by the cord. She had been given a small torch, and I carried a lamp.

As we were fastened together we could not well bolt, as coordination in such a matter would be difficult, Too, tied as we were, we const.i.tuted, as before, something of a shield, in this case for the one man behind us. We were the fourth group. The pair including Fina, the second group, was appropriated by the lieutenant, who seemed aware of her specialness to the pit master The pit master, with his torch, stayed close to them. The officer of Treve, too, remained in the vicinity of this group. Gito followed the fifth group, several paces behind. This new arrangement, that of five groups, made possible a more diversified deployment of the men, presumably an advantage on the walkway about the urt pool. On the other hand, it would presumably be less effective in blocking pa.s.sages or in providing a barrier which could be, at a word, a command, raised and lowered, from behind which volley firing might take place.

"Look," said the man in the lead, He was the second of the two men who had not joined in the attack on the sleen earlier. The first was he who had been given the unenviable task of separating the feeding urts.

He had, it seemed, lost a great deal of blood. His bow had been set for him by his fellow, "The gate is open," said another man.

I did not look at the remains of the man who lay in the pa.s.sage. The urts had been much at him. It was he who had requested the first shot earlier.

He had been left where he was, that the urts would be less dangerous, from a heavy feeding.

The other fellow who had died at the gate, who had brought the lamp forward, had been hauled back in the corridor. In this fashion, if the urts pressed on us again, there would be meat to interpose between us and their reawakened appet.i.tes.

Had it been deemed useful I had little doubt that one or more slaves might have been sacrificed, to accomplish the same purpose.

It would have been easy enough to do, as we were bound, and conveniently at hand, in our neck-cords.

I feared these sober, strange men in their sable habiliments. A normal Gorean male, I was sure, would have defended a jeopardized kajira to the death. But, too, he would not have relaxed the perfection of his mastery over her in the least. Is she not, it might be asked, a desirable, beautiful animal worth saving for his pleasure? An Earth woman, incidentally, if rescued on Gor by a Gorean, might be surprised at the aftermath of her rescue. Half hysterical with relief, overwhelmed with grat.i.tude, say, she is prepared to throw herself into his arms and grant him, even though he is a stranger, the inestimable favor of a kiss.

Many Earth women seem to think their kisses are of great value, whereas most of them do not know how to kiss. The kisses of a slave on the other hand, so subtle, and humble, and well-placed, coupled with her entire demeanor, the meaning of her collar, and such, can drive a man mad with pleasure. But then that is understandable; she is a slave. To be sure, as the slave is further and further aroused by the master, in his turn, her kisses may become more and more piteously and helplessly o.r.g.a.s.mic. But then to her surprise, and, one supposes, consternation, the Earth woman finds herself enfolded helplessly in mighty arms and kissed in turn and kissed as she had never dreamed she might be kissed, with such ferocity, and mastery and power, and ownership, and then as she reels, giddy and dazed, she is taken in hand and turned about, and thrown to the ground, on her stomach, her clothing, she almost failing to comprehend what is occurring, is ripped from her, all of it, she feels the air on her body and the gra.s.s on her belly and b.r.e.a.s.t.s she protests, she struggles, she tries to rise, his hand holds her in place, she cannot rise; her wrists are jerked behind her and enclosed in slave bracelets, she is then leashed, and led from the field, if she resists or dailies she will be whipped, if he has a collar with him it will undoubtedly be put on her, he has saved her life and it now belongs to him, and he will do with it what he wants. He will keep her, have pleasure with her, sell her, or give her away, as he pleases.

This will become more intelligible to her as she becomes more aware of the ways of Gor.

Not all cultures are the same.

She is now a slave, with all that that means on Gor.