Part 32 (1/2)
That did not rea.s.sure me.
To be sure perhaps it meant only that I was not to be entered into his household. I was, I had learned, a property of the state in this place, whatever place it might be. Dorna was now no longer on the terrace.
She would thus, not immediately, at least, learn my disposition. To be sure, sometime or another it might well come within her purview.
Perhaps then, I thought, swallowing hard, she might not be displeased to learn it. I had thought of her immediately as a rival, and doubtless she had thought of me in this fas.h.i.+on, as well, even though I might be a new slave. Indeed, even in the pens I had looked upon the others, and doubtless they upon me, or most of them, as rivals. But I suppose this is natural enough for women, even on my world.
Even those who seem most hostile to men also seem, perhaps paradoxically, to desire to be pleasing to them. Perhaps this is an implicit recognition, even in such unlikely quarters, that men are the masters. But the matter is clear on this world, at least with women such as I, and she, Dorna. Here it is obvious that we are the slaves and men the masters, and that we are to please the masters. In this fas.h.i.+on it is not only the case that kajirae within the same house are likely to find themselves in rivalry, but that in the culture as a whole, wherever we are, on whatever chain, fastened to whatever wall, running whatever errand, heeling whatever masters, we tend to have a sense of such things. For example, we commonly strive on the sales block to bring the highest prices. I do not think this is merely because we wish to be purchased by more affluent masters, which suggests that our life may be easier, but because of the personal vanities involved, Each wishes to be the most precious, the most costly. This is perhaps not so different from my old world, except that here women do not vend themselves, and take their own profit, but are rather vended by others, who take the profit on them. How many women, I wonder, marry truly for love, and only love? Do we not consider many other matters-the finances of our potential spouse, his education, his family connections, his position in society, the likely location of his domicile, the presumed trajectory of his career, the prestige of the match, and such? But here, as I have suggested, we do not sell ourselves, reaping our own profits. No, here we are sold by others, and it is these others who will reap the profits.
It is they who will make the money. It is ours, rather, to be fully pleasing, and see that we obey with perfection.
”She kneels well,” said a man, observing me.
”She is from Earth,” said another.
”Yes,” said another.
”That is a land,” said one.
”Where is it?” asked another.
”To the south,” said a fellow.
”No,” said another. ”It is a world.”
”A world?”
”Yes, a different world.”
”Are you certain?”
”Yes.”
”Do not be foolish,” said another.
”No,” said another. ”He is right.”
”Tarns can fly there?” asked one.
”No,” said another, ”it is reached in s.h.i.+ps.”
”Slave s.h.i.+ps?” said one.
”Perhaps, among others,” said a man.
”Tarns do not care to leave the sight of land,” said another, as though reminding his peer of something.
”Of course,” said the fellow.
”If it is another world,” said a fellow, ”how can s.h.i.+ps sail there?”
”They are special s.h.i.+ps,” he was informed. ”They float on clouds, as other s.h.i.+ps on water.”
”Oh,” said the man.
I had occasionally heard conversations of this sort in the pens, particularly among the lower guards. The men of this world, I had gathered, differed considerably among themselves in their sophistication and information. Some seemed quite aware of the nature of my world, its civilizations, its views as to the correct relations among the s.e.xes, and so on, and others seemed astonis.h.i.+ngly ill-informed and naive. I suspected that the man in the chair, and certainly the higher officers and guards in the pens, were quite cognizant of most of the pertinent realities of my world of origin. This world seemed one of technological paradox. I had been brought here by a technology which currently, at least in certain dimensions, exceeded that of my old world.
And yet here many men, if not most, seemed unclear as to its nature, if not completely ignorant of its very existence. How astonis.h.i.+ngly paradoxical seemed my situation! Here on this world where men seemed so proud, so untamed, so unbroken, so free, so mighty, so hot-blooded, on this world seemingly so primitive, so splendid and barbaric, on this world of leather, and silk and iron, not of plastics and synthetic fibers, of heat and love, not of tepidity and hypocrisy, of ardor and skill, not of boredom and gadgetry, on this world where men had mastered monsters and seemed ready, at a word, to adjudicate disputes with edged weapons, I knelt before a dais, naked and collared, as a barbarian slave girl. Yet I could not have been brought here except in virtue of an obviously advanced technology. It was almost as though I had been somehow magically flung into the past, into a world quite different from my own, a world whose ways I must speedily learn and in which I must learn, if I would survive, to be obedient and pleasing.
But there was no magic here, no enchanted rings or sorcerer's wands.
Things here were quite real, as real as the stone flagging beneath my knees, as real as the mark in my left thigh. A sophisticated technology may have brought me here but I knelt here, literally knelt, and on my throat was a steel collar. Clearly, or, at least, so it seemed, the technology was not the property of all the men of this world but, at best, of some of them. Too, it might be furnished, I supposed, by others, say, allies or confederates, not of this world itself. That, too, I supposed, was a possibility.
”But what matters it,” asked a man, ”the place from which she came, and whether it is a land, and where it might be, to the south, or elsewhere, or a world, and wherever it might be?”
”It matters naught,” said another man.
”It is enough,” said another, ”that it be a suitable orchard from which slave fruit may be plucked, a suitable field from which may be harvested crops of slaves, a place of suitable herds, from which may be selected slave meat.”
”True,” said another.
”Women from Earth make good slaves,” said another.
”Excellent slaves,” said another.
”Yes,” said another.
I supposed there were reasons for this. Yet, I think, ultimately, the matter has to do not with geographies but with biology, not with origins but with nature. If we made good slaves it did not have ultimately to do with the fact that we were from Earth, even given its terrible conditioning programs, but that we were women. Ultimately, there are women, and there are men.
”A pretty kajira,” said one.
”Yes,” said another.
”Yes,” agreed another.
I knelt there, helplessly. I was very conscious of my nudity, my collar, my brand.
”Yes,” said another.
How helpless one is!
”Yes,” said yet another.
I was very much afraid. Men on this world, you see, had not surrendered their sovereignty.
”She is quite desirable,” said another.
”Yes,” said another.
This frightened me, but I was pleased, as well. What woman does not wish to hear that she is desirable?