the Warriors. The green caste has also produced the “releaser,” as it is called, which is reputedly delicious. It removes the effects of slave wine. When administered the “releaser,” a girl may expect to be hooded and sent to the breeding stalls. Needless to say, free women are not subjected to the hateful and disgusting, the contemptible and demeaning, miseries of slave wine. Related potions which might be quaffed by free women, if they should choose to do so, for they are free, are reputedly mild and flavorful, as would be suited to their status. They, of course, are not animals to be bred or not bred as masters might choose. They are free. They are not owned. They are not slaves.
I continued on.
The ground became softer, and spongy, and water was about my feet. Wet grass, coarse, cut at my ankles.
The forest floor is far from uniform. It has its thousand rises and falls, its heights and valleys, its fallen timbers and rotting wood, its scarred, blackened trunks and scorched, lightning-fired wastes, its scattered boulders, its bare places, its flowered meadows and blossoming thickets, its crags and cliffs, its rills, and streams and rivers, its rock-cupped ponds, its galleries of tall trees with quiet aisles of leaves between them, its jumbled barriers of nigh-impenetrable brush, its innumerable geodesics, and textures. There are countries within it.
There had been much rain of late.
I hoped it might rain again, as that would wash scent away, clearing it from rocks and soil, obliterating trails.
I had no idea where I was, save that I was clearly north of the Alexandra.
I saw a tabuk, small, graceful, single-horned, here in the woods brown pelted, startled, lift its head from a water-filled declivity, and dart away. They are lovely animals, round-eyed, and alert. Usually there is more than one about.
It was now late afternoon, and still warm.
I climbed to a dry place, a small clearing amongst the trees, sat down, and, with grass, dried my feet and calves. I was weary, and hungry. I had been gone for Ahn. I would now be far from the range of the larls. I would rest for a moment, and then be, again, on my way. Nearby, in the grass, was a tangle of thick, stout, leafy vines, on several of which were large, pod-like growths. I had seen nothing like them in the vicinity of either Tarncamp or Shipcamp. I did not care for the look of them, and so I moved a bit away. I then lay down. I pulled the tunic down about my thighs, though there were none about to see. I knew masters sometimes enjoyed looking on sleeping slaves. I supposed they found them beautiful. I wondered if we were beautiful. I supposed some of us were. I wondered if I were. I did know that I had been brought to Gor, and collared.
I awakened suddenly, screaming, unable to separate my ankles, which seemed fastened together by some thick, living, coiling, fibrous material. And I felt it moving more about my legs. Then I shrieked with pain. “Ost!” I thought. But there were no osts here, surely, not here. The ost did not range this far north. If there were osts here they would be caged pets, or assassination devices. I looked down, with horror. Fastened in my right calf were two fibrous, fanglike thorns. These had been concealed within the pod, which had opened. I did not know if it had been attracted to me by heat, motion, or the scent of blood. I screamed, and tried to rise, and fell. More of the snakelike tendrils rustled toward me. I could see, about the two thorns deep in my calf, tiny rings of blood. My blood, I understood, was being drawn into the plant. I could see the moving darkness within the thorns. Other pods had now turned in my direction. I saw another tendril slithering toward me.
I screamed.
The growth was alive, not as a plant is alive, but as a nest of disturbed, excited snakes might be alive. There was a fierce rustling to my right, reflecting the agitation of the growth. A sucking, hissing, popping sound came from the pod, whose two thorns, fanglike, were deep in my leg. It trembled. It shook. It was like a tiny, fiercely respiring lung, a small pump, greedy and blind, a living engine without eyes or awareness, jerking and throbbing, fastened in my flesh, drawing blood from my body. I rolled away, to my left,