John Norman - Beasts of Gor

The moons of Gor were high when I returned to the sturdy platform.

The hunt had been long. It had carried for several pasangs. Two had been foolish enough to follow me into the clouds. The other two had fled. I had not managed to overtake them until late afternoon. They had fought desperately, and well.

“You have escaped,” she said, in wonder. “There were four of them.”

My tarn, now, was weak and bloodied. I did not know if it would live.

In the end they had struck at the bird. It was shortly after that that I had finished the hunt.

“You had best flee,” she said, “before they return.”

“Do you think they will rescue you?” I asked.

“Surely.” she said.

I was weary. I put my hand on her body. It was the first time that I had touched her. She was really quite beautifuL

“Do not touch me!” she hissed.

“Do you still hope for succor?” I asked.

“Of course!” she said. Then she screamed as I threw the four heads to the turf. I was weary then, and I had lost blood, from the wound in my leg, so I turned away, descended the steps of the whipping platform, and made my way to the hall, where I would sleep.

“You are a barbarian! A barbarian!” she screamed.

I did not answer her but entered the hall, to rest, for I was weary.

In the morning I was much refreshed.

The sun was high and bright, and I had fed well, and had rigged a backpack, in which I had placed supplies and my things, when I again climbed the steps to the whipping platform.

The girl was unconscious. I slapped her awake.

“I am leaving now,” I told her.

She looked at me, dully. I looked away from her, out over the tundra, the loneliness, the blackened remains of the scattered logs which had been the wall, the ruined buildings. I would fire the hail, too, before I left. There is a bleakness to the north which, in its harsh way, can be very beautiful. It was chilly: A dust of snow had fallen in the night. I saw a group of five tabuk, stragglers, cross the line that had been the wall. They would follow the herd north. They would be unaware that there had ever been an impediment to their journey. I watched them pick their way through burned logs and, in their characteristic gait, turn northward. One stopped to nuzzle at the turf, pushing back snow with its nose, to bite at moss.

“Are you going to leave me here, to die?” she asked.

I cut her down, and cut the bonds on her wrists and ankles. She sank to the wood of the platform. It was coated with crystals of snow. She clutched the furs there to her. I had yesterday cut them from her.

I then descended the steps of the platform. In a few moments I had set fire to the hall.

As I stood before the burning edifice I turned once to look at the platform. She knelt there, small, the furs clutched to her.

She was an enemy.

I turned away, northward. I, too, would follow the herd.

I did not look back.

Toward noon I stopped to make a camp. I ate dried meat. I watched the small figure some two hundred yards behind me slowly approach.

When she was some three or four yards from me she stopped. I regarded her.

She knelt. “Please,” she said.

I threw some meat to the snow before her and, eagerly, she ate it.

The beauty was ravenous. “Please,” she begged, “give me more.”

“Crawl to me on your belly in the snow,” I told her.

“Never,” she said.

I continued to eat.

Then I reached down to where her head, as I sat cross-legged, lay in the snow by my knee. She was on her belly. “Please,” she begged. “Please.”

I thrust meat in her mouth. Gratefully she ate it. In time she looked up at me. “You made me crawl to you on my belly,” she said, resentfully.

I stood up. I must be on my way.

“I never thought I would meet a man so strong,” she said. She shuddered. I thought it must be from cold.

“The tarn?” she asked.

“It was weak,” I said. “I freed it.”

“You are going north,” she said.

“I have business in the north,” I said.

“You will go afoot?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“You will have little chance to survive,” she said.

“I will live on the herd,” I said. “The only danger, as I see it, will be the winter.”

In such times even groups of the red hunters sometimes perished.

“Do not follow me further,” I said.

“I cannot live alone in the north,” she said. “I would surely fail to reach the south safely.”

I thought her assessment of the situation accurate.

“Panther Girls,” I said, “such as, here and there, frequent the northern forests, might survive.”

“I am not a Panther Girl,” she said.

I looked at her kneeling in the snow at my feet, her small, trim figure, her soft, sweet exquisite curves, her delicately beautiful throat and face, the pleading blue eyes, the lush wealth of auburn hair loose behind her naked shoulders.

“That is true,” I said. I looked upon her. Her body, so helpless and exquisitely feminine, seemed made for rapacious seizure at the hands of a rude master. Her face, vulnerable and delicate, would be easy to read. Tears might swiftly be brought to her eyes by a word, or fear to those lovely features, by as little as an imperial gesture. I considered whether it would be worth while teaching her the collar.

“I am an Earth girl,” she said.

I nodded. She knew nothing of woodcraft or of survival. She was alone on a harsh world.

“You are an enemy,” I told her.

“Do not leave me,” she begged. She swallowed hard. “Without a man to feed and protect me,” she said, “I will die.”

I recalled how she had responded when, before I had won ray freedom, I had informed her that the red hunters might starve, if the tabuk were not permitted to continue their northward migration.

“It is not my concern,” she had said.

“Please,” she said, looking up at me.

“It is not my concern,” I said.

“Oh, no!” she wept. “Please!”

“Do not attempt to follow me,” I said. “If you persist, I shall bind you, hand and foot, and leave you in the snow.”

“I am pretty,” she said. “I know that I am pretty.” She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. “Might not men be persuaded,” she asked, “to let me live?”

I smiled, recalling what once I had suggested to her.

“Please,” she begged.

“You do not know of what you speak,” I laughed. “You are only an ignorant Earth girl.”

“Teach me,” she begged.

She put her arms to her sides and lifted her body before me.

“What a salacious tart you are,” I said.

Tears formed in her eyes.

I considered to myself how she might look in a snatch of slave silk and a steel collar, one bearing a master’s name. The prospect was not completely displeasing.

“Assume attitudes and postures,” I said to her. “Try to interest me.”

With a cry of misery she tried then to provoke my interest. She was clumsy but I learned, incontrovertibly, that which I had wished to determine. She who performed so desperately before me was a natural slave. I had thought this the first instant I had laid eyes on her. It was now confirmed beyond doubt. The insight, sensitivity, taste and lust of the Kur agents who had recruited her was surely to be commended.

“It is enough.” I told her.

She lay at my feet in the snow, terrified.

“What do you feel like?” I asked.

“It is a strange feeling,” she said. “I have never felt it before.”

“It is the feeling of being a woman,” I said.

She reached out to touch my ankle. “Please,” she said, “take me with you.”

I bent to her and began to tie together her ankles. “No!” she said. “Please! Please!”