Witness of Gor

I stood behind the bars.

As you have doubtless gathered by now, one such as I is usually expected to request permission to speak, before being allowed to speak, and, as you may also have gathered, this permission is not always forthcoming.

In such a case, of course, one must remain silent.

This homely device is, of course, a great convenience to the master, and, too, of course, there are very few things which so clearly help us to keep in mind our condition.

This was now my fifth day in the cell.

At various times in the past days I had seen one or more of the gigantic birds, coming or going, aflight over the valley between my location and the mountains in the distance. Sometimes there seemed great speed in the flights, moving to the left, at other times the birds smote the air with leisurely precision. Sometimes formations left the area. Twice I had heard drums and rushed to the bars to see perhaps twenty such winged monsters aflight, the second stroke of wings keeping the cadence of the drums. Once, a large formation, consisting of perhaps two hundred such creatures, wheeled about in diverse aerial maneuvers, sometimes in abrupt, breath-taking turns, and ascents and descents, sometimes breaking into smaller groups and then reuniting, as though converging on aerial prey, to piercing whistles, and sometimes in more sedate, stately evolutions, responsive to an almost ceremonial skirl of shrill pipes. It was then as though there were a parade ground in the sky itself. Sometimes I would see birds leaving or returning to whose harness were slung baskets, sometimes open, sometimes closed. I did not doubt but what I had been brought here in such a conveyance. Too, of course, I could not but wonder if others such as I, coming and going, might be cargo in such containers. Once I saw some ten birds returning in straggling formation, some struggling to remain aflight. Some riders drooped in the saddles. Others, bandaged, seemed clearly wounded. Some were tied upright in the saddle, proudly unwilling, perhaps, to bow to exhaustion or wounds. On some birds there were two riders. Some of these men lacked weapons, helmets and shields. I could see the long hair of some of them, flying in the wind.

What ma

No, this place was not some typical primitive community, sustained by some herds, by some gardens, by some fields, and such. Rather I thought that it was in its way more than that. It was, in its way, a lair of eagles.

I considered myself.

How clever, and marvelous and special, I had regarded myself on my old world. Then I had been removed from it, and brought here. Here I had found myself put in my place, not my political place, but my true place.

Truly my life had changed.

I had had little doubt, from shortly after my arrival on this world, what, in one sense, I was doing here. That had been made clear to me in the pens. I had learned to cook and clean, to sew and launder, and to perform numerous domestic tasks. Too, of course, for such domestic tasks are well within the scope of any woman, I had learned to please and serve, and, I think, with great skill, given my brief time on this world, in more significant modalities, i

And so my lift had changed.

I had been brought here, and had found myself put in my place. Here I found myself an animal, a property, subject in all things to the will of others.

But what was I doing in this particular place, here in the mountains?

I had been brought here secretly.

I had not been brought here as these others I had seen, tied at the side of a saddle, balancing another tied at the other side, or thrown over a saddle, bound there on my back, helplessly, in effect, displayed, as other booty, wrists and ankles fastened to rings.

I was not even of this world.

I was not a peasant lass, surprised in a field, nor a rich woman, one indigenous to this world, stolen from her boudoir. Surely I was not booty in the sense of these. I had been paid for.

What was I doing here?

Surely I had been brought here at least in part for the typical purposes of one such as I. That, at least, had seemed clear from the attitudes and interests of those to whose scrutiny I had been subjected, the strangers, my apparent purchasers, those who had assessed me in the pens, I performing before them, nude, clad only in my collar.

But I did not think I had been brought here merely for the typical purposes of one such as I.

Surely there was more to it than that.

I thought of these things, standing by the bars.

I was a woman from faraway, from a quite different world, a world of banality, glitter and hypocrisy, a world fearful of authenticity and truth, one afraid to understand and feel.