Read Online Prize of Gor by John Norman - Free Book Online Page B

older women, sometimes very old women, taken when they were much younger, in the bloom of their youth and beauty. One realizes then, suddenly, that once they were young, and so beautiful. How hard it seems to believe that sometimes, knowing them as they are now. But if one had known them then! Ah, if one had known them then! Then would one not have found them terribly attractive? Would one not have wanted then to know them, to approach them, to touch them?”
    “Everyone grows old,” said the older woman.
    “I promised you that I would introduce you to the individual whom you remembered from long ago,” he said.
    “Is he in the house?” she asked, suddenly.
    “Yes,” said the young man.
    “Please be merciful!” she begged. “If I am to see him, give me clothing to wear! Do not let me appear before him like this!”
    “Was he a lover?” asked the young man.
    “No!” she cried. “Of course not!”
    “I shall introduce you to him now,” he said.
    “Please, no,” she begged. “Not while I am like this!”
    “But you have already appeared before him, so clad,” he said.
    She looked at him wildly, in confusion.
    “I am he,” he smiled.
    “No,” she said. “You are too young, too young!”
    “I am he,” he repeated.
    She shook her head, disbelievingly.
    “It will all become clearer later,” he said. “Let us now simply inform you, and you may believe this or not, it makes no difference at this point, that our “supposed world,” as we spoke of it, does exist, in actuality. It lies within our very solar system. I have been there. I have seen that world. I have adopted it, and its hardy, uncompromising, fulfilling ways, as my own. I will not recognize the pathologies of this world any longer. I repudiate them. The world is called, after one of its cultural artifacts, “Home Stone.” In the language most commonly spoken on that world the word is “Gor.” Perhaps you have heard of Gor?”
    “You are mad!” she wept.
    “Have you heard of it?” he asked.
    “Of course,” she said. “But it does not exist!”
    “Later you will be in a better position to make a judgment on that,” he said.
    The older woman looked to the kneeling blonde, if only to corroborate her own consternation, her own disbelief, but Tutina stared ahead, not meeting her eyes.
    “Tutina,” said the young man, “is from Earth, like you, but she was taken, let us say, as a guest, to Gor. I bought her there.”
    “Bought her?” asked the older woman.
    “I, on the other hand,” said the young man, “was, in a way, recruited.”
    “You are not the young man I knew,” said the older woman.
    “I am,” he said. “Let us return briefly to those medical advances I mentioned earlier, those developed on Gor, or, as it is sometimes spoken of, the Antichthon , the Counter-Earth. Among these advances, or capabilities, if you prefer, are the Stabilization Serums. These ensure pattern stability, the stability of organic patterns, without degradation, despite the constant transformation of cells in the body. As you probably know, every seven years or so, every cell in your body, with the exception of the neural cells, is replaced. The continuity of neural cells guarantees the viability of memory, extending back, beyond various seven-year periods. The Stabilization Serums, in effect, arrest aging, and, thus, preserve youth. Further, the Stabilization Serums also freshen and rejuvenate neural tissue. In this way, one avoids the embarrassment of a declining brain incongruously ensconced in a youthful body. That feature represents an improvement over the original serums and dates from something like five hundred years ago.”
    “You said you bought Tutina?” she asked.
    “Yes,” he said. “Can you think of any simple way in which I might convince you that I am who I claim to be? I probably remember some of our exchanges in class, some of my fellow students, some of the reading assignments, such things. Would anything like that