The Slave World (24)

(24): Going Underground

“Where are we?” I asked as Mark drove the car across some uneven waste ground and into a derelict factory covered in graffiti shortly after six thirty in the evening. Maybe it had once been a thriving centre for industry but now the building was little more than a shell; three floors of gutted interior and broken glass – a home to urban foxes and stray cats. The concrete flooring was repeatedly cracked and home to thriving colonies of weeds. Most of the window glass had been broken by kids throwing stones and bricks and what little glass remained was opaque with dirt. Mark drove the car through the open floor of the ground level and brought it to a stop close to a door set into the far wall.

“We’re here,” he said simply. We were somewhere south of the river now. I unclipped my seat belt on the back seat and tried to open the passenger door but found it locked.

“Sorry,” said Mark as he pressed a concealed button under the dashboard. I heard the sound of heavy bolts sliding back and I was then able to unlock the passenger door.

“Child locks?” I said as I swung my legs out and stood up on the broken concrete flooring of the disused factory.

“Slave girl locks,” said Mark as he emerged from the car. “The car was originally equipped to tranquillise girls for abduction in the back seat.” He pointed to some tiny apertures in the ceiling and a thin groove set into the unusual seat arrangement at the front. “Plexiglas slides up from the the backs of the front seats to lock in place against the roof of the car and gas is pumped into the airtight rear. A girl in the back would pass out within thirty seconds of inhaling the gas.”

“Are you a slaver?” I asked incredulously.

“I have been,” said Mark as he closed and locked the car doors. “Not recently though.”

“You’re part of this slave trade across space?” I was actually shocked because until now I had just assumed Mark and Adam played no part in the abduction of women.

“No, my orders are rather more selective than that. The Kurii abduct girls in bulk to sell to powerful men on Gor. It generates money, but perhaps more importantly it buys favours within the cities that the slaves are shipped to. I serve the Priest Kings, and when they require women it is for specific purposes. One acquisition for example was to procure a specimen who met the physical standards of what Tarl Cabot would think of as the perfect woman.”

“You found such a woman?”

“I found several actually. The one I eventually chose was a Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym. She was shipped to Gor in 2008 and presumably still lives there to this day.”

“Do you actually think I’m okay with any of this?” Perhaps naively I had thought of Adam and Mark as being opposed to the slave trade, but if they were indeed Goreans – Mark by birth and Adam it seems by acclimatisation – then all bets were off. “You can't possibly think I like the idea of you abducting women?”

“I don’t really care,” said Mark. “It's none of your business, Caitlin. Come.” He led me towards the thick door which I saw was secured with a heavy padlock. I watched as he inserted a key and unlocked first the padlock and then the door itself. The door opened with a grinding of dirt and stones that had found their way under the rim. He flicked on some electric lights which illuminated a cement stairwell leading into the unknown. I brushed past some spider webs as I followed Mark down the flight of stairs, descending the equivalent of two floors before reaching another door. This one had no handle or lock, but when Mark placed his palm against what seemed to be just an ordinary whitewashed brick the innocuous looking door slid open. As soon as the door was activated, strip lights came on inside. The room beyond was simple enough – a bare cement floor, whitewashed brick walls, a table, some chairs, a number of storage cupboards, another table with out of date computers and a couple of sofas. Mark tapped a brick on the side of the rom as I followed him and as soon as he did so the door slid shut again behind me.

The wall to the left was bare brick, but the one opposite had a number of barred doors. I could see inside and saw that each one was a narrow room containing a couple of rubber mattresses, a wash basin made of steel, and a radiator heater. They looked like cells.

“Are these slave pens?” I walked to one of the barred doors and rested my hands on the cold hard steel. I could see lengths of chain bolted to the far walls with ankle rings attached.

“Yes,” said Mark as he moved to one of the steel cabinets, touched his hand to a panel and opened the door. I saw a rack of guns inside from which he selected a pistol and three clips of ammunition.

“You keep women down here?”

“Yes,” said Mark, “as and when necessary.” He closed the door and I heard an electronic lock seal it again. I watched as he inserted one of the magazines but didn't chamber the first round.

“Why have you brought me here? Won't the ankle ring be transmitting my location?”

“Yes it will. But the GPS will simply show that you're in a run down area south of the river. Unless they come looking for you right away they won't know what lies beneath the factory floor. We're not staying here long.”

“You came here to get a gun?”

“I came here to get a gun.” Mark slid the double safety catches on and placed the gun in the back of his waist band and covered it with his jacket.

“Shouldn't you be using a sword? Priest King weapon laws after all.”

Mark smiled and shook his head. “You've been reading more of Tarl's books.”

“Well, a summary on the Internet. I don't have time to read them properly.”

He nodded. “The laws only apply on Gor and in actual fact don't really apply to Priest King agents at all. We enforce the laws after all. Amongst other things. We often have an exemption.”

“When you're not enslaving women.” I looked at him with a less than approving expression.

“That is not a major responsibility of mine. I simply follow orders from the Sardar. Not that I have received any for several years.” He gazed at me and added, “Yes, I have enslaved women. I am not going to apologise for that. You can either come to terms with it now or we go our separate ways. I don't have the time nor the inclination to justify what is a natural thing for men to do.”

“Natural?! Enslaving women is natural?”

“Yes. Particularly barbarian Earth women. If you saw them six months after they have been branded and collared you would understand. They are natural slaves and belong in the collar. They crawl to their men and beg to be used.”

I decided not to start an argument. What he suggested was ridiculous enough that I wasn't going to dignify it with a response. “Why haven’t you heard from the Sardar in so long?”

“The Kurii have consolidated their hold on Earth and over the last few years have been blockading the space routes between Gor and Earth. The Priest Kings presumably still hold Gor, but they seem to be consolidating their resources away from Earth. Our immediate superior was killed three years ago and since then we have lost contact with the Nest. In many ways we are left to fight a rear guard action on Earth as the Kurii systematically locate and destroy our bunkers and operational cells. We are losing the war on Earth.”

“So what do you actually do now in the absence of any new orders?”

“There are certain operational protocols that remain in force until they are actively countermanded,” said Mark. “But by and large we do what we feel is best for the Priest Kings.”

“And you’re trying to take down the House of Three Moons?”

“Well, not exactly.” Mark smiled. “Adam has certain private ambitions, as do I.”

“Such as?”

“You should ask Adam that. For my part I simply want to re-establish contact with the Nest. I have dreams of returning to Gor one day. Your planet is filthy, loud and sick. I mean no offence – that is simply a statement of fact. I yearn for the clean air of Gor, the rolling sa-tarna fields and the pleasures of a paga tavern. But that is an unrealistic ambition, and so I am content to help Adam realise his.”

“Oh-kayyy…”

“I have little opportunity to enjoy slaves on this planet. The free women here are poor substitutes unless they are collared and trained. And these days our network of operatives is mostly in hiding making such things difficult.”

“If you expect me to feel sorry for you because you don’t have a harem of silken slave girls, that’s not going to happen.”

“Your reaction is understandable I suppose,” said Mark. “Your sex is the slave sex, but often you fear to admit to yourselves that you are natural slaves and would be happier in a collar and chains.”

“Don’t you understand how insulting that sounds?”

“Again, it is a simple statement of fact. Women are the slave sex. Men know that. Come here please, Caitlin,” said Mark as he produced what looked like a hand held scanner device from one of the other storage cupboards. He then asked me to roll up my trouser leg and remove the boot from my left foot so he could scan my ankle ring. Once he had done so he put the scanner to one of the computers and typed in some commands.

“This station is now broadcasting the same GPS signal as your ankle ring. If anyone is actively monitoring you now they will see you standing still in the same spot.”

I rolled my trouser leg back down and slipped my ankle boot back on. “Why?”

“Because where I’m taking you next is too deep for the GPS signal to feed back to them. We don’t want them to know you’re going deeper underground.”

I gazed into the narrow cells again and found it hard to square away the Mark and Adam that I thought I knew with the Mark and Adam who had kept women locked in these slave pens. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym as she awoke to find herself locked in a barred cage, a helpless prisoner awaiting transport to Gor. I thought I knew Mark and Adam. Obviously I didn't truly know them.

“Why are you gazing at the slave pens?” asked Mark as he walked to the end of the room.

“I’m just imagining the women you kept in here and how they must have felt. How horrible it must have been for them.”

“Well don’t. A free woman shouldn’t concern herself with the operational details of slavery. It is not healthy. No good will ever come of it.” He placed his hand on another of the plain bricks and a section of the wall slid open to reveal another set of stairs that ventured deeper into the underground system. “We’re going out this way,” said Mark as he motioned for me to go first.

“Where are you taking me?”

“There is a system of old tunnels down here. London is a labyrinth of ancient tunnels, sewer systems and dried up riverbeds. We make use of some of them to move around beneath the city. The Kurii do the same. Come.”

“It stinks,” I said as I smelt the foul air coming out of the stairwell.

“An old sewer perhaps. The air is tainted but it will not hurt you. But I forget the delicate sensibilities of a free woman. Here.” He produced a length of cloth from a storage cupboard. I realised it was some sort of face veil. “Wind that about your lower face and breathe through it. It will help.” I did as he suggested and it did help as I took the stairs carefully, feeling my way down with my right hand against the brick work. There were no artificial lights down here but Mark carried a powerful halogen torch that illuminated the damp tunnel system. I must have descended thirty feet or so before I reached solid ground. The floor was wet with puddles of river water seeping through cracks in the the ceiling from the water table, which at times came up to my ankles.

“Are there rats?” I asked.

“Possibly, but they will run from the light.” Mark swept the light in a left and right motion ahead of me.

“Perhaps you should go first?”

“Perhaps you should just do as I say, Caitlin.”

“Okay.”

We walked and walked and then walked some more. The route we took was confined to a lengthy tunnel that turned corners and occasionally offered narrower side passages which we ignored. Occasionally I saw a few rats but as Mark had promised they retreated from the torch light. We had to be deep underground now and I felt a slight sense of claustrophobia at knowing these ancient tunnels were only held up by the strength of the columns and the knowhow of long deceased Victorian engineers who designed and built the supports. Even so we passed numerous examples of minor collapsed sections where loose bricks littered the ground from a cracked ceiling.

“How safe is this?” I asked.

“Safe enough,” replied Mark. Eventually after thirty minutes we came to a door which opened into another stairwell. Mark motioned for me to climb the steps which I did with him close behind.

“This is Earl’s Court underground station,” said Mark as he followed me onto the ancient platform. “Or rather the original one. Officially speaking it was destroyed in 1878 when the new station replaced it west of here, but the structure and tunnels were secretly preserved and we have made use of it ever since.”

“Your people have been here since the Victorian age?”

“We have been here on your planet since ancient times,” said Mark. “The people of Gor were mostly transported from Earth during the time of various ancient civilisations. Our people were seeded by the Priest Kings who wished there to be indigenous life forms on Gor. We call those days the voyages of acquisition. It is only the Kurii who are new to your planet.” Mark pointed the flashlight in random directions until he found a door in the station wall that he was looking for. “This place I wanted to show you.” He led me to the door, opened it and motioned for me to enter. I did so and found myself in an underground living space with creature comforts resembling a Gentleman's club that had seen better days. The furnishings looked Victorian or Edwardian for the most part and would probably be valuable as antiques. There was however a prevailing smell of damp and mould even through the veil scarf. Several doors led from the central room. Mark switched on the electric light system from a standard wall switch as I gazed around. This area it seemed was more low tech than the previous one. “The doors lead to bedrooms, all en-suite,” he said. “Aside from the tunnel we used, this station can be accessed from a doorway on the street above. I will send its location to your phone. This is an emergency bolt hole for you that is accessible from a Central London street should anything ever threaten you again. It is only to be used in a dire emergency because coming deep down here will mean your GPS signal disappears and the Kurii will send men to investigate. It will take them a long time to find this place, and so you can hide out here for a while or, should this location be compromised, you can fall back through the tunnel system behind us and collapse the tunnel as you evacuate with a timed explosive setting that can be activated here.” Mark pointed to a glass panel with two levers. “Break the glass. The first lever arms the explosives. The second lever starts a count down timer for 5 minutes. You’ll have plenty of time to escape and no one will be able to follow.”

“You’ll lose this place then?”

“We’ll lose this place then, Caitlin. But you'll be safe.”

“Thank you.”

“You are under my protection,” he said. “The protection given to a dignified and respectable free woman who shares my Home Stone.”

“But I don’t share your Home Stone,” I said. “I’m not of Ar.”

“I am prepared to treat you as if you are a free woman of Ar,” said Mark simply, and I could sense that in saying this he was bestowing great honour on me in his mind.

“Now come. I have shown you the refuge you can use as a last resort. It is time to return back the way we came and take you home. I believe Adam is driving back to London tomorrow.”