John Norman - Priest-Kings of Gor

“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’ pint 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 Ar’s 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 stabilisation 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 behavious 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 mattere, 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 anaesthetised,” 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 nbot exist,” said Misk, “ignorance exists.”