been lax, or deliberately compromised. It was a common practice for Kurii to recruit agents on Earth, usually through confederates, often slavers. There were doubtless several possible networks involved in such matters. Diverse and subtle are the tentacles of the Steel Worlds.
My convictions in this matter had primarily to do with Constantina. It seemed to me quite unlikely that she would have been recruited by Priest-Kings. What need had they, in their plenitude of power, of such instruments? She was, on the other hand, exactly the sort of woman whom slavers, abetting the schemes of Kurii, would choose to recruit. When their services were no longer required there were always other things that could be done with them. There was always the block, and collar. Such women, vain and egotistical, self-serving, greedy and deceitful, dazzled by dreams of riches and power, would think little of betraying others, but it seldom occurred to them, for some reason, that they might, in their turn, be betrayed as easily.
Expecting to be returned to Earth, to power and riches, they would commonly find themselves incarcerated, perhaps thrust into tiny cages, bewildered, grasping the bars, awaiting their sale.
Why not?
They had served their purpose.
Let them now be good for a little something further, say, whatever handful of coins they might bring on the block.
“What are we to do?” asked Pertinax.
“Link me with those who hired you,” I said.
I do not know if he slept then.
For my part, I knew that the Priest-Kings, for some reason, had arranged to have me set down on the beach, which was not far away, no more than a quarter of a pasang from this hut.
I was then certain that another was to meet me, one who truly stood in the service of Priest-Kings.
On the morrow, I would go again to the beach, to the point where I had been landed.
It was there, surely, I was to be met.
It rained heavily that night, the storm coming in from Thassa. I supposed that the seas might have been high for two or three days, perhaps for hundreds of pasangs offshore. That might delay the arrival of a ship, one approaching from the west, say, from Tyros or Cos. Gorean vessels, incidentally, are usually shallow-drafted, and usually tend to keep in sight of land. Few would risk the open sea in an inauspicious season. In storms, many would beach. On the other hand, ships from Tyros and Cos, if they were to reach shores to their east, could not coast, but must address themselves to the open sea, and for days.
I decided that on the morrow I would return to the beach.
Chapter Four
A SAIL
I stood back amongst the trees, looking out to sea.
It was early morning.
I had left the hut of Pertinax a few Ehn earlier.
It was very pleasant near the shore, with the smell of Thassa, with the cool, penetrant air, the sense of the salt of her churning waves, the sound of the surf, the incoming tide, the wash of sea weed on the shore, the water with its soft, fluid rush across the sand and amongst the stones, and then its circuitous return, and then its advance, and then again its return, and the wheeling and intermittent crying offshore of broad-winged coast gulls. Too, as it had rained the preceding night, the higher rocks and the sand above the tide line were still dark with damp. The forest, too, with its moist soil and its glistening, rustling canopies of wet, dripping leaves, shaken in the wind, had about it its sweetness of life.
I wondered if human beings were good for such a world.
Yet if they did not inhabit her would such a world not have been something of a waste, for who, then, would know how beautiful she was?
The Gorean, incidentally, is not a soiling and a plague upon his world, nor is he so arrogant as to deem himself superior to it, its guardian or steward. He regards himself, rather, as a part of her, as much so as a leaf, or tree, but an unusual part, of course, a part which knows itself a part. He is a partaker of its warmth and
My convictions in this matter had primarily to do with Constantina. It seemed to me quite unlikely that she would have been recruited by Priest-Kings. What need had they, in their plenitude of power, of such instruments? She was, on the other hand, exactly the sort of woman whom slavers, abetting the schemes of Kurii, would choose to recruit. When their services were no longer required there were always other things that could be done with them. There was always the block, and collar. Such women, vain and egotistical, self-serving, greedy and deceitful, dazzled by dreams of riches and power, would think little of betraying others, but it seldom occurred to them, for some reason, that they might, in their turn, be betrayed as easily.
Expecting to be returned to Earth, to power and riches, they would commonly find themselves incarcerated, perhaps thrust into tiny cages, bewildered, grasping the bars, awaiting their sale.
Why not?
They had served their purpose.
Let them now be good for a little something further, say, whatever handful of coins they might bring on the block.
“What are we to do?” asked Pertinax.
“Link me with those who hired you,” I said.
I do not know if he slept then.
For my part, I knew that the Priest-Kings, for some reason, had arranged to have me set down on the beach, which was not far away, no more than a quarter of a pasang from this hut.
I was then certain that another was to meet me, one who truly stood in the service of Priest-Kings.
On the morrow, I would go again to the beach, to the point where I had been landed.
It was there, surely, I was to be met.
It rained heavily that night, the storm coming in from Thassa. I supposed that the seas might have been high for two or three days, perhaps for hundreds of pasangs offshore. That might delay the arrival of a ship, one approaching from the west, say, from Tyros or Cos. Gorean vessels, incidentally, are usually shallow-drafted, and usually tend to keep in sight of land. Few would risk the open sea in an inauspicious season. In storms, many would beach. On the other hand, ships from Tyros and Cos, if they were to reach shores to their east, could not coast, but must address themselves to the open sea, and for days.
I decided that on the morrow I would return to the beach.
Chapter Four
A SAIL
I stood back amongst the trees, looking out to sea.
It was early morning.
I had left the hut of Pertinax a few Ehn earlier.
It was very pleasant near the shore, with the smell of Thassa, with the cool, penetrant air, the sense of the salt of her churning waves, the sound of the surf, the incoming tide, the wash of sea weed on the shore, the water with its soft, fluid rush across the sand and amongst the stones, and then its circuitous return, and then its advance, and then again its return, and the wheeling and intermittent crying offshore of broad-winged coast gulls. Too, as it had rained the preceding night, the higher rocks and the sand above the tide line were still dark with damp. The forest, too, with its moist soil and its glistening, rustling canopies of wet, dripping leaves, shaken in the wind, had about it its sweetness of life.
I wondered if human beings were good for such a world.
Yet if they did not inhabit her would such a world not have been something of a waste, for who, then, would know how beautiful she was?
The Gorean, incidentally, is not a soiling and a plague upon his world, nor is he so arrogant as to deem himself superior to it, its guardian or steward. He regards himself, rather, as a part of her, as much so as a leaf, or tree, but an unusual part, of course, a part which knows itself a part. He is a partaker of its warmth and
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