Jerome Bigge Second Dark Age of Man Dularnian Queen

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"You're `good' in bed," he observed, caressing me a bit now.
"I was a slave girl in Trelandar," I "smiled" back in reply. When a
woman is a slave girl she has no choice but to be "good".
"You're `better' than Kathi," he grinned, his fingertip now finding my
clitoris. I supposed that it was true. Kathi wasn't "done" like I was. Her
"responses" were those of any slave girl. She "did" as she was told, but that
didn't mean that she was really all that "good" in bed. When Bob and Carol had
owned her I recalled Bob once saying that his wife was noticeably "better".
"You `miss' Emily?" I asked, recalling his first slave girl.
"More of a `woman' than Kathi is," Paul answered me. A gen- tle knock at
the door then putting a quick "halt" to things now.
"Yes?" I spoke, holding the robe about myself. Karis stand- ing there
with a look on her attractive face that left no doubts as to her own thoughts
just then at seeing me so clad just then!
"There is a rainstorm coming towards us," she answered now.
"Prepare the spare sails to catch the rainwater," I replied.
"Be sure we catch every drop!" I snapped, the rainstorm sweeping down
upon us from the north. The spare sails now spread to catch the precious fresh
water. While I still had nearly ninety days supply of fresh water aboard, I
preferred if possible to keep my barrels full, just in case the unforeseen
might occur. I could see the rain like a dark mist as it fell from the clouds
into the sea. The North Star's crew now ready to catch the rain.
"Nothing like fresh water," my husband smiled, the first few drops now
falling on the deck. The rainwater cold, the sun now hidden by the clouds. We
had been at sea for three weeks now. I suspected also that we'd seen the last
of the Aleutians now, the last one having been passed only the day before, a
barren "rock" just to the north of us inhabited by nothing more than seabirds.
It was "cold" out here, colder than it normally is in spring now.
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(Two Weeks Later)
"Is it land?" the look out said to me as I stood beside her, the roll of
the ship some eighty feet beneath me disconcerting, not something that I found
enjoyable. I am not too "bothered" by heights as such, but I don't like being
carried from side to side by the roll of a ship while standing eighty feet
from the deck!
"Could be," I answered, peering through the telescope at it. It could
also be a line of clouds on the horizon, but I didn't think so. Clouds are
"soft", and this was "hard" in a way that only land is! Could it be possible
that we'd reached Asia now?
"We have arrived?" my husband asked as I stepped down on to the deck.
According to the charts we were well to the "north" of Japan, and could now
sail to the south, keeping the land there to starboard. First, however, I
wished to make a "landing" here...
"`That' is Asia," I said, the crew standing there listening. People
nodding, looking at each other, staring out beyond the bow to where only a dim
"line" still could be seen now from the deck.
"No telling what the `bottom's' like here," I said, listen- ing to the
man in the bow with the lead line making soundings. I could see the trees, the
shoreline, clouds in the sky, the sun as back home in Dularn shining down upon
us. I saw no sign of life. Human life that is, although animal life was plain
enough here...
"There's someone!" Karis breathed, looking through a tele- scope as she
swept the shoreline. "Some sort of `barbarian' dressed in skins and furs...,"
she added, turning to tell me so.
"No one here now," I spoke, looking about, my husband hold- ing his bow
at the ready, an arrow now nocked on the bow string.
"There are footprints," Karis said, squatting down then.
"We're `sitting ducks' here," Paul pointed out to me.
"Back to the boat," I said, eying the thick forest.
"We can make a landing in force," Diane said to me as we sat there in
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the stern cabin, the wind having now pushed the ship around so that she faced
out to sea with the stern towards shore.
"We are probably dealing with people similar in `culture' to those who
live to the east of us," my husband ventured, seeing me nod. Such peoples, as
"savage" as any who had ever lived, would have no difficulty at all in
destroying any landing party we put ashore now. Granted, our weapons were
probably "superior", but I had no doubt as to the consequences of any fight
between us and whoever lived here. Karis having said that the man she'd seen
had been dressed in animal skins and carried some sort of a bow. Much like the
sort of the savage tribes that lived in the interi- or of North America, most
of them much like the savages that had once inhabitanted that land many
centuries before. Such people I suspected would not be "friendly" judging from
the fact that we'd seen no other sign of human life here, the implications of
"that" something that "implied" that human slavery was "known" here too.
"We could lie here at anchor for a few days and see what happens," Karis
suggested, Diane "nodding" in agreement with her. I suspected that these
mysterious people feared ships with good reason. Human slavery is no doubt
commonplace everywhere now...
"We are well `north' of Japan," I answered. I was guessing at the Kuril
Islands, one of the more "northern" ones here now. We had sailed almost
directly "west" from North America, with a few "glimpses" of the Aleutians as
I have narrated earlier here.
"Isn't that `warm' here either," my husband smiled back. I had already
noted that fact, although we were well to the north.
"We will sail due `south', keeping the land to starboard," I ordered,
having come to a decision here. Saloma Tora standing by the stern windows,
looking out at a land even to her now legend. "And due to the fact that we
have no idea as to the conditions of things here, we will keep a closer look
out than we have before."
"Another one of these islands?" Karis said to me, lowering the
telescope. We had passed a number, with no sign of any ships or anything else
yet. I wondered if the derelict we'd found had come from Japan or China, or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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