Rebels of Gor Read Online Free PDF Page A

to fear in such altercations. Their fate, as that of other domestic animals, would not be slaughter, but merely a change of masters, a change of owners. It might be quite otherwise with free women. To be sure, they might strip themselves and throw themselves to the feet of conquerors, desperately, piteously licking and kissing the bootlike sandals, begging the collar. If they were found of interest, they might be spared, spared for the collar for which they had begged. Some free women, usually of high caste, if found too plain for a slave, might, to their humiliation, be kept for ransom. Some free women, too, might proclaim themselves slave, following which proclamation they would be slaves. A free woman can freely pronounce herself a slave but, following such a pronouncement, which she, then a slave, is incapable of rescinding, she is a slave, helplessly and fully.
    “There were few slaves in the original camp,” I said. “Most were housed, as perhaps you know, for safekeeping, in the holding.”
    “I see,” said Lord Okimoto.
    My Cecily, for example, had been kept within the walls of the holding, in a slave shed. So, too, had been the Jane of Pertinax. Cecily, the former Virginia Cecily Jean Pym, an aristocratic English brunette, had been mine since her acquisition on a pleasure cylinder associated with a steel world, formerly that of a Kur called “Agamemnon,” for the phonetic convenience of humans, claimedly the “Eleventh Face of the Nameless One,” now the steel world of Arcesilaus, as we speak of him, claimedly the Twelfth Face of the Nameless One. Pertinax’s Jane, whom I had purchased for him in Tarncamp, that he might learn the uncompromising mastery of women, and the rewards and pleasures attendant thereupon, was Gorean, the former Lady Portia Lia Serisia of Sun Towers, of Ar. She had been given an Earth-girl name that she might better realize, and quickly, that she was now nothing, only a man’s slave. Pertinax’s Earth-name was Gregory White, to which name he was still entitled, if he wished, as he was a free man. He had come to Gor as the timid, docile, pathetically enamored subordinate of an aggressive, ambitious, petty, vain, clever, young blonde woman named Margaret Wentworth. She, arrogant, greedy, and unscrupulous, fond of the perquisites often associated with business and finance, had been a valuable and successful asset to a large investment firm, in the service of which she was expected to use her considerable charms to solicit, acquire, influence, and manipulate male clients. She, dazzled by the prospect of considerable wealth, easily and securely acquired, had agreed to act in the interests of certain unspecified forces. Miss Wentworth, and her subordinate, Gregory White, both English speakers, were brought to Gor and trained in the language and customs of Gor. They were to serve as a link, or liaison, between myself and mysterious parties, deep within the northern forests. They were to make contact with me following my disembarkation on a designated beach north of the Alexandra, and see that I reached a rendezvous deep within the bordering northern forest, where I would be met, for some purpose unknown to them. As it turned out I was to be enlisted in the service of Pani warriors, to equip and train a tarn cavalry, for eventual deployment at the World’s End. I knew little of what lay behind these matters. It seemed likely, however, given the mysterious appearance of Pani in the northern forests, and the work on a great ship, so far from civilization, a ship which might be capable of crossing Thassa, that this business would have to do, somehow, with Kurii, or Priest-Kings, or both. In any event, Miss Wentworth, expecting riches, discovered in Tarncamp that she had been perhaps less successful in her attempts to delude, manipulate, and exploit men on Earth than she had supposed. It seems her games, pretenses, deceits, and machinations had been more transparent than she realized. Perhaps