The brunette squirmed on the metal flooring. “Please do not hurt me, please, Sirs!” she cried.
She put her small hands before her face, wildly. Cabot thought they would look nicely in slave cuffs. Were not such small, lovely wrists made for a master's steel?
"Please, Sirs!” she cried. “Do not hurt me! Do not hurt me!"
What are they waiting for, Cabot wondered. Will they not feed now, perhaps even fighting for scraps?
Where are the Priest-Kings, Cabot wondered, wildly.
They must know the security of the Prison Moon has been breached. How long does it take to bring ships to this orbit, with their technology, the closest of the three moons?
"Do not hurt me, Sirs!” she wept.
Did she think the shambling brutes could understand her, other than her fear, her distress? Perhaps they could sense she was begging for mercy. That should be clear enough.
Cabot saw no translators. He knew such devices existed. Indeed, he had had the experience of one in the northern polar regions of Gor, when he had been entertained by Zarendargar, war general of the Kurii. Too, Kurii, most at any rate, would need such devices, surely so, for communicating with their human confederates. Too, there might be different languages spoken in the Steel Worlds. Some humans, incidentally, can make out carefully spoken Kur, but they are unable to reproduce the sounds. Some Kurii, on the other hand, can not only follow carefully spoken Gorean, but are able, in a rough, guttural, rather frightening fashion, to produce a facsimile of, or a form of, Gorean. To be sure it is seldom easy to make this out. With respect to translators more generally, one supposes that the Priest-Kings themselves, whoever or whatever they are, must have such devices in order to communicate with humans, and perhaps, too, with Kurii. But of such things I have no personal experience. Mysterious, one supposes, are the ways of Priest-Kings.
"Please do not hurt me, Sirs!” cried the brunette.
One of the Kurii lowered his head to her body.
It begins, thought Cabot, first the girl, who is small, soft, and tender, and then me, tougher, more sinewy.
"Don't eat me!” she wept. “I will be good. Keep me! I will be very good! I will be obedient! I will serve you! I will do whatever you want!"
You are less prissy and proud now, aren't you, Cabot thought. Would that the males whom you belittled and abused on your world, whom you treated with such disdain and insolence, whom you teased and tormented, could see you now, naked, groveling and begging, before beasts!
Why have the Kurii come to the Prison Moon, Cabot asked himself.
Surely not to rescue a pet.
Why then? For what? To probe the defenses of Priest-Kings, to test equipment, to train and season pilots and task squads, to enact a trial of courage, to fling before Priest-Kings some sort of an act of defiance, what?
Where are the Priest-Kings, Cabot asked himself.
"Masters!” cried the brunette, suddenly, squirming in terror, on the metal floor, and drawing up her legs, the breath of the beast hot on her body, “Masters!"
Cabot was startled.
Had he heard what was said?
Had she said that—what he had thought he had heard?
"Please, Masters!” she screamed, “do not eat me! I will be your slave! Keep me as a slave! Make me your slave! I will be a slave! No, no, I am a slave! I am a slave! Keep me for yourselves, or sell me to men! Do not eat me! Keep me, or sell me! I beg to be your slave, to be kept or sold, as it might please you!"
These words came from her as though from her dreams, wild, tearful, and unutterably heartfelt, but they were cried out in full consciousness, in full waking reality, as she writhed, terrified, on the metal flooring of the hallway, at the clawed feet of fanged Kurii.
She is a slave, thought Cabot. The beautiful, curved, petty, snobbish thing is a slave! Excellent! Does she not know those words cannot be unspoken? She has bespoken herself slave. In all legality the little slut is now a slave. Does she understand that? The words have done it. She is now subject to claimancy. She is now no more than an unclaimed slave!
The closest beast to her, who had put down his head, probably merely to smell her sweat and terror, and the lingering, offensive odors of the container, for most Kurii are less fastidious in such matters than many humans, extended his long, dark tongue and ran it over the side of her body on the left, and she shrieked in terror.
He put his large paw over her face, to silence her, and one could see her eyes, wild, over that hairy appendage which covered most of her face.
She seemed paralyzed with fear.
It then removed its paw from the mouth of the former Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym, now, unbeknownst to herself, no longer a free woman, but now only a nameless slave, subject to claimancy.
It stood up.
It wanted salt, thought Cabot.
The Kurii looked about, uneasily.
One of them said something to his fellows, and several of them turned toward the burned, torn metal at the end of the hallway.
They are leaving, thought Cabot.
He remained motionless in the clutch of the Kur who held him, not struggling, passive, seemingly docile, seemingly resigned to his fate, whatever it might be.