Assassin of Gor

11 — TWO GIRLS

After having passed through several doors of iron, each with an observation panel, descending on a spiral ramp deeper and deeper beneath the ground level, I could at last, clearly, smell the stink of the pens.

In the cylinder there are several varieties of retention areas, ranging from the luxuriousness of the cell shown to me earlier by Ho-Tu, in which Cernus was accustomed to deep special captures, to the iron pens. Some of the facilities were simply lines of reasonably clean cells, some with windows, usually a lavatory drain and something in the way of a mat to sleep on. Other rows of cells were rather more orate, with heavy intricate grillwork taking the space of bars, hung with red silks, floored with furs and perhaps lit by a tharlarion oil lamp set in a barred recess in the ceiling. But the pens, of which there were several sorts, boasted no such luxuries.

The expression "The Iron Pens," incidentally, generally refers to all of the subterranean retention facilities in the house of a slaver, not simply cages, but pits, steel drums, wall chains, and such; it is the name of an area, on the whole, rather than a literal description of the nature of the only sort of security devices found there. The expression «kennels» is sometimes used similarly, but more often it refers to a kind of small, cement cell, customarily about three feet by three feet by four feet, with an iron gate, which can be raised and lowered; similar cells, but entirely of bars, are also common, and are to be found in the house of slavers; the smaller cells can function as separate units, and may be used to ship slaves, but they can also be locked together in groups to provide tiers of cells, usually bolted into a wall, conserving space.

Ho-Tu led the way, moving from catwalk to catwalk, spanning cages below. In these cages, through the bars, male slaves, crowded together, naked and wearing heavy collars, glared sullenly up at us.

"It would not be well to lose your footing," advised Ho-Tu.

I supposed it was from this sort of facility that the general expression "The Iron Pens" took its origin. On each cage we passed, as we took our way over it, I saw a thin metal plate covered with numbers. Some of these numbers referred to the occupants within the cage, but other numbers were coded to instruct the keepers in such matters as diet, special precautions, date of the lot's acquisition, and its intended disposition. Some of the numbers had been scratched out, and others had been hammered into the plates, which were changed from time to time.

The pens seemed humid and, though we were below ground, warm from the heat of the bodies. The only sanitation facility was an open metal mesh, supported by close-set horizontal bars, in the bottom of the cages, beneath which, some five feet below, was a cement floor, washed down and cleaned by slaves once daily. There was a feed trough at one side of each cage and a low watering pan on the other, both filled by means of tubes from the catwalk. The cages of female slaves were mixed in with those of the male slaves, presumably on no other basis than what cage happened to be empty at a given time. The female slaves, like the men, were unclothed, and wore collars; their collars, however, were not the typical locked collar of the female slave but, since they were only in the iron pens, a narrow band of iron, with a number, hammered about their neck.

I noted that the females tended to remain near the center of their cage. Their food and water areas were protected from the wall of bars shared with the next cage, which might contain male slaves, by a heavy iron mesh, rather like that of the flooring, riveted by hammer to the bars. Sometimes I supposed a girl might wander too close to the bars and be seized, but, because of the bars, little could be done with her. Mating among slaves is carefully supervised. One or two girls I noted lay on the flooring mesh, their hair cruelly tied to the bars. They had been careless.

I did not try to count the pens over which we passed, and we descended two more levels, which were similarly tenanted. We stopped on the fourth subterranean level, beneath which I was told there were three more levels, retention levels, on the whole similar to those we had just passed. The fourth level, though containing many retention facilities, is used for the processing, assignment, interrogation and examination of slaves; it can be reached independently by a spiral ramp and tunnel which does not pass through the area of the iron pens. The kitchen for the pens is on this level, and the infirmary, and certain facilities for smiths; Ho-Tu kept his chair of office on this level; also, discipline was administered on this level, I gathered, seeing certain racks and chains, certain stone tables with straps, certain carefully arranged instruments designed for the extraction of pain; certain irons and high-heat-level fires in perforated metal drums.

"I will show you the girls brought in from the Voltai," said Ho-Tu.

I followed him into a large room, barred by a heavy iron door.

There was a drum fire near the center of the room on the floor. There was a littered look about the room, some pieces of chains about. Two smiths were in the room. There was a guard talking with the smiths. There was also a man in the green of the Caste of Physicians, standing at one side, writing notes on a slip of record paper. He was a large man, smooth-shaven. I saw a branding rack, noted that there were irons in the drum fire. There was also an anvil in the room, resting on a large block of wood. Against the far wall there were thirty kennels, five rows of six each, tiered, with iron runways and iron stairs giving access to them. They reached to the ceiling of the room. Elsewhere in the room there were some slave cages, but they were now empty. Slave rings were mounted on one wall. Hanging from the ceiling, worked from a windlass, dangled a chain, attached to which was a pair of slave bracelets. Against one wall I noted a variety of slave whips, of different weights and leathers.

The Physician looked up from the paper. "Greetings, Ho-Tu," said he.

"Greetings, Flaminuis," said Ho-Tu. "May I introduce Kuurus, of the black caste, but of our employ?"

Coldly Flaminius nodded his head, and I did the same.

Then the Physician looked at Ho-Tu. "It is a good lot," he said.

"It should be," said Ho-Tu, "they have been selected with great care."

I then understood for the first time that it is not just any girl who is picked up by the Gorean slavers, but that the acquisition of each of these doubtless had been planned with the same diligence and care that is given to a slave raid on Gor itself. They had doubtless been watched, without their knowledge studied and investigated, their habits noted, their common movements and routines recorded, for months prior to the strike of the slaver at a predetermined place and time. I supposed the requirements of the slaves were high. Each of the girls, I suspected, would be vital and much alive. Each of them I knew was beautiful. Each of them I suspected would be intelligent, for Goreans, as the men of Earth commonly do not, celebrate quickness of mind and alertness in a girl. And now they were in the kennels.

"Let's look at them," said Ho-Tu, picking up a small metal hand torch with a wick of twisted, tarred straw from the floor and thrusting it into the drum fire.

I and the Physician, and the guardsman, followed him up the iron romp to the second level.

A blond girl, wearing the steel band locked on her left ankle, crouched at the barred gate, and extended her hands through. "Meine Herren!" she cried. The guard, with a heavy stick he carried, struck the bars viciously before her face and she cried out, jerking back and crouching at the rear of the cage.

"These next two," said Flaminius, indicating two cages separated by a cage from the last, "refuse to eat."

Ho-Tu lifted the torch to first one cage, and then the other. Both girls were Oriental-my guess would nave been Japanese.

"Feed this one," said Ho-Tu, pointing to the cage on his left.

The girl was dragged out and her hands were braceleted behind her back. One of the smiths from below was summoned with a bowl of slave porridge, which he mixed half with water, and stirred well, so that it could be drunk. There are various porridges given to slaves and they differ. The porridges in the iron pens, however, are as ugly and tasteless a gruel, and deliberately so, as might be imagined. As the girl knelt the guardsman pulled back her head and held her nose while the smith, with thumb and forefinger, forced open her jaws and, spilling it a bit on her chin and body, poured a half cup of gruel into her mouth. The girl tried to hold her breath but when it became necessary for her to breath she must needs swallow the gruel; twice more the smith did this, and then the girl, defeated, swallowed the gruel as he poured it into her mouth, half choking on it.

"Put her back in the kennel," said Ho-Tu.

"Will you not remove the bracelets from her?" I asked.

"No," said Ho-Tu, "that way she will not be able to rid herself of the gruel."

The second girl had been watching what had gone on. Ho-Tu, with his foot, kicked her gruel pan toward her, which slid under the bars of the gate. She lifted it to her lips and began to eat, trembling.

The last girl on the second row might have been Greek. She was quite beautiful. She sat with her chin on her knees, looking at us.

We began to go up to the third level. "They seem very quiet," I observed.

"We permit them," said Flaminius, deigning to offer a bit of explanation, "five Ahn of varied responses, depending on when they recover from the frobicain injection. Mostly this takes the form of hysterical weeping, threats, demands for explanation, screaming and such. They will also be allowed to express their distress for certain periods of stated times in the future."

"It is important for them," added Ho-Tu, "from time to time to be able to cry and scream."

"But this is now a silent period, it seems," I said.

"Yes," said Ho-Tu, "until tomorrow morning at the fifth bar."

"But what if they are not silent?" I asked.

"They would be lashed," said Ho-Tu.

"It has only been necessary to lift the whip," said the guard. "They do not speak the language, but they are not fools. They understand."

"Each girl in her processing," said Ho-Tu, "after her fingerprinting, is given five strokes of the lash, that she may feel it and know what it means. After that, to ensure prompt obedience, it is commonly enough to merely move one's hand toward the leather."

"I imagine," I said, "they can understand very little of what has happened to them."

"Of course not," said Flaminius. "Right now several of them doubtless believe they have gone insane."

"Do you lose many girls to madness?" I asked.

"Surprisingly," said Flaminius, "no."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"It probably has much to do with the selection of the girls, who tend to be strong, intelligent and imaginative. The imagination is important, that they can comprehend the enormity of what has occurred to them."

"How could you convince them they are not insane?" I asked.

Flaminius laughed. "We explain what has happened to them. They are intelligent, they have imagination, they will have understood the possibility before, though not considering it seriously, and will, in time, accept the reality."

"How can you explain to them?" I asked. "They do not speak Gorean?"

"There is no girl here," said Flaminius, "for whom there is not at least one member of our staff who can speak their language."

I looked at him, bewildered.

"Surely," said Flaminius, "you do not think we lack men who are familiar with the world from which these slaves have been brought. We have men of their world in the House and men of our world on their planet."

I said nothing.

"I myself," said Flaminius, "have visited their world and speak one of its languages."

I looked at him.

"It is called English," he said.

"Oh," I said.

We had now paused before the two last cages on the right side of the third tier. There was a black girl in each of them, both beautiful. One was sullen and quiet, sitting hunched over in the back of the kennel; the other was curled on the floor, crying softly. We continued on down the walkway until we came to the third cell from the left side of the tier.

"Why is this girl's hands braceleted through the bars?" asked Ho-Tu.

"The guard," said Flaminius, "liked her. He wanted to look on her face."

Ho-Tu, holding the torch close, lifted the girl's head. She stared at him, her eyes glazed. She was quite beautiful. Italian, I supposed.

He dropped her head. "Yes," said Ho-Tu. "She is superb."

We then climbed up the stairs to the fourth level.

When Ho-Tu held his torch to the third cell from the end, above that of the girl below, the Italian, the girl inside cried out and scrambled to the back of the cage, weeping, pressing herself against the cement, scratching at it. I could see the marks of the lash on her back. She was a short girl, dark-haired. I would have guessed French or Belgian.

"This one," said Flaminius, "started to go into shock. That can be quite serious. We lashed her that she would feel, that she would come alive under the lash, come to her senses in the pain."

I looked into the cage. The girl was terrified, and doubtless in pain, but certainly she was not in shock.

"Sometimes," said Flaminius, "shock cannot be so easily prevented. Indeed, sometimes the lash itself drives the girl into shock. Then sedations and drugs are called for. This lot, however, has been excellent."

"Have you prepared the initial papers on them?" asked Ho-Tu.

"Yes," said Flaminius.

"How many are white silk?" asked Ho-Tu.

"Six," said Flaminius.

"So many?" asked Ho-Tu.

"Yes," said Flaminius.

"Good," said Ho-Tu. The Master Keeper turned to me. "The two last girls," said he, gesturing with his head to the last two cages on the fourth level, "will be of interest to you."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"They have been selected to train with the girl Vella, who keeps your quarters."

We went to the last two cages on the tier. Flaminius turned to us. "I can communicate with these two," he said.

Ho-Tu lifted the torch closer to the two cages.

"Slaves," said Flaminius. He spoke in English.

The two girls lifted their eyes to him startled. "You speak English," said one of them, slowly, staring at him, dumbfounded. The other scrambled to the bars, thrusting her hands through. "Help us!" she cried. "Help us!" Then the first girl, too, knelt at the bars, putting her hands through. "Please!" she wept. "Please! Please!"

Flaminius stood back, expressionlessly accepting their supplications.

Then they knelt there, holding the bars, their faces stained with tears. "Please," whispered the one on the left, "Please."

"You are slaves," said Flaminius, again in English.

They shook their heads. Both, I noted, were, like Elizabeth, dark-haired. I suspected they had been chosen to train with her, at least in part, in order that they might form a matched set. The girl on the left had her hair cut rather short; the slavers would, in all probability, not permit her to continue to wear her hair in that fashion; her face was delicate, fragile, rather thin and intellectual; her body was thin; I expected her new masters would put some weight on her; her eyes were gray; the thin face was marked with several blemishes; the other girl was perhaps an inch or so shorter, though it was difficult to tell; she was more full-bodied than the first girl but not excessively so; she had fair, exciting shoulders, a good belly and wide, sweet, well-turned hips; her hair had been cut at the shoulders; her eyes, like Elizabeth's, were brown; the second girl, I supposed, if sold separately, might bring a somewhat higher price than the first. I found both extremely attractive, however.

Flaminius turned to Ho-Tu and the rest of us. "I have just told them," he said, in Gorean, "that they are slaves."

The girl on the left, the thinner one with the blemishes, spoke. "I am not a slave," she said.

Flaminius turned to us again. "She has just denied that she is a slave," he told us.

The guard with us laughed.

Tears sprang into the girl's eyes. "Please!" she said.

"You are mad!" said the second girl. "All of you are mad!"

"What is your name?" asked Flaminius of the first girl.

"Virginia," said the first girl. "Virginia Kent."

"Where are we!" demanded the second girl. "I demand that you release us! I demand an explanation! Get us out of here immediately! Hurry! Hurry, I tell you!"

Flaminius paid the second girl no attention. "Eat your gruel, Virginia," said he, soothingly, to the first girl.

"What are you going to do with us?" asked the first girl.

"Eat," said Flaminius, kindly.

"Let us out!" cried the second girl, shaking the bars. "Let us out!"

Virginia Kent picked up the gruel pan and put it to her lips, taking some of the stuff.

"Let us out!" cried the second girl.

"Now drink," said Flaminius.

Virginia lifted the pan of water, and took a sip. The pan was battered, tin, rusted.

"Let us out!" cried the second girl yet again.

"What is your name?" asked Flaminius of the second girl, very gently.

"You are mad!" cried the girl. "Let us out!" She shook the bars.

"What is your name?" repeated Flaminius.

"Phyllis Robertson," said the girl angrily.

"Eat your gruel, Phyllis," said Flaminius. "It will make you feel better."

"Let me out!" she cried.

Flaminius gestured to the guard and he, with his club, suddenly struck the bars in front of Phyllis Robertson's face and she screamed and darted back in the cage, where she crouched away from the bars, tears in her eyes.

"Eat your gruel," said Flaminius.

"No," she said. "No!"

"Does Phyllis remember the lash?" asked Flaminius.

The girl's eyes widened with fear. "Yes," she said.

"Then say so," said Flaminius.

I whispered in Gorean to Ho-Tu, as though I could not understand what was transpiring. "What is he doing with them?"

Ho-Tu shrugged. "He is teaching them they are slaves," he said.

"I remember the lash," said Phyllis.

"Phyllis remembers the lash," corrected Flaminius.

"I am not a child!" she cried.

"You are a slave," said Flaminius.

"No," she said. "No!"

"I see," said Flaminius, sadly, "it will be necessary to beat you."

"Phyllis remembers the lash," said the girl numbly.

"Excellent," said Flaminius. "Phyllis will be good. Phyllis will eat her gruel. Phyllis will drink her water."

She looked at him with hatred.

His eyes met hers and they conquered. She dropped her head, turning it to one side. "Phyllis will be good," she said. "Phyllis will eat her gruel. Phyllis will drink her water."

"Excellent," commended Flaminius.

We watched as the girl lifted first the gruel pan and then the water pan to her lips, tasting the gruel, taking a swallow of the water.

She looked at us with tears in her eyes.

"What are you going to do with us?" asked the first girl.

"As you probably have suspected, noting the difference in gravitational field," said Flaminius, "this is not Earth." He regarded them evenly. "This is the Counter-Earth," he said. "This is the planet Gor."

"There is no such place!" cried Phyllis.

Flaminius smiled. "You have heard of it?" he asked.

"It is only in books!" cried Phyllis. "It is an invention!"

"This is Gor," said Flaminius.

Virginia gasped, drawing back.

"You have heard, as many others," he asked, "of the Counter-Earth?"

"It is only in stories," she said.

Flaminius laughed.

"I read of Gor," said Virginia. "It seemed to me very real."

Flaminius smiled. "In the books of Tarl Cabot you have read of this world."

"They are only stories," said Phyllis numbly.

"There will be no more such stories," said Flaminius.

Virginia looked at him, her eyes wide.

"Tarl Cabot," said he, "was slain in Ko-ro-ba." Flaminius indicated me. "This is Kuurus, who for gold seeks his killer."

"He wears black," said Virginia.

"Of course," said Flaminius.

"You're all mad!" said Phyllis.

"He is of the Caste of Assassins," said Flaminius.

Phyllis screamed and held her head in her hands.

"This is Gor," said Virginia. "Gor."

"Why have we been brought here?" asked Phyllis.

"Strong men," said Flaminius, "have always, even in the course of your own planet's history, taken the females of weaker men for their slaves."

"We are not slaves," said Virginia numbly.

"You are the females of weaker men," said Flaminius, "the men of Earth." He looked at her intently. "We are the stronger," he said. "We have power. We have ships which can traverse space to Earth. We will conquer Earth. It belongs to us. When we wish we bring Earthlings to Gor as our slaves, as was done with you. Earth is a slave world. You are natural slaves. It is important for you to understand that you are natural slaves, that you are inferior, that it is natural and right that you should be the slaves of the men of Gor."

"We are not slaves," said Phyllis.

"Virginia," said Flaminius. "Is what I say not true? Is it not true that the women of weaker, conquered men, if permitted to live, have been kept only as the slaves of the conquerors, permitted to live only that they may serve the pleasures of victorious masters?"

"I teach classics and ancient history," said Virginia, scarcely whispering. "It is true that in much of the history of the Earth the sort of thing you say was done."

"Does it not seem natural?" asked Flaminius.

"Please," she whispered, "let us go."

"You are upset," said Flaminius, "because you deemed yourself superior. Now you find yourself in the position of the female of weaker men, taken as slave." He laughed. "How does it feel?" he asked. "To suddenly understand that you are a natural slave?"

"Please," said Virginia.

"Do not torture her so!" cried Phyllis.

Flaminius turned to Phyllis. "What is the band of steel locked on your left ankle?" he asked.

"I don't know," stammered Phyllis.

"It is the anklet of a slave," said Flaminius. Then he turned again to Virginia, putting his face close to the bars, speaking as though confidentially.

"You are intelligent," he said. "You must know two of the ancient languages of Earth. You are learned. You have studied the history of your world. You have attended important schools. You are perhaps even brilliant."

Virginia looked at him hopelessly.

"Have you not noticed," asked Flaminius, "the men of this world? Do they seem like those of Earth to you?" He pointed to the guard, who was a tall, strong fellow, rather hard-looking. "Does he seem like a man of Earth to you?"

"No," she whispered.

"What in all your femaleness do you sense of the men of this world?" asked Flaminius.

"They are men," she said, in a whisper.

"Unlike those of Earth?" asked Flaminius.

"Yes," said Virginia, "unlike them."

"They are true men, are they not?" asked Flaminius.

"Yes," she said, looking down, confused, "they are true men."

It was interesting to me that Virginia Kent, as a woman, was apparently intensely aware of certain differences between Gorean men and the men of Earth. I suspected that these differences clearly existed, but I would not, as Flaminius seemed to wish, have interpreted these differences as suggesting an inferiority of Earth stock. After all, Gorean males were surely, at one time at any rate, of the same stock as the men of Earth. The differences were surely primarily cultural and not physical or mental. I do think, of course, that the Gorean population tends to be more physically fit and mentally acute than that of Earth, but I would rate then provisionally rather than essentially superior in these respects; for example, Goreans live much out of doors and, as a very natural thing, celebrate the beauty of a healthy, attractive body; further, Goreans tend to come from intelligent, healthy stock, for such was brought over many generations to this world by the Priest-Kings' Voyages of Acquisition, curtailed now, as far as I knew, following the Nest War.

The primary differences, I suspect, to which Virginia Kent was reacting, were subtle and psychological. The male of Earth is conditioned to be more timid, vacillating and repressed than the males of Gor; to be subject, to achieve social controls, to guilts and anxieties that would be as incomprehensible to the Gorean male as a guilt over having spoken to one's father-in-law's sister would be to most of the men of Earth. Moreover, the Gorean culture tends, for better or worse, to be male oriented and male dominated, and in such a culture men naturally look on women much differently than they do in a consumer-oriented, women-dominated culture, one informed by an ethos of substantially feminine values; the women then, in coming to Gor, would naturally sense that they are looked on differently, and it was not improbable to suppose that something in them, submerged and primitive, would tend to respond to this.

"In the presence of such a man," said Flaminius, indicating the guard, "how do you sense yourself?"

"Female," she said, looking down and away.

Flaminius put his hand through the bars, his fingers gently touching her chin and throat as she looked away. Her body tensed, but she did not move. Her cheek was pressed against the bars.

"You wear on your left ankle," said Flaminius, "a locked band of steel."

The girl tried to move her head but could not. A tear coursed down her right cheek, running against the bar.

"What is it?" asked Flaminius.

"It is the anklet of a slave," she said, not facing him.

He turned her head to him. Her eyes, wide with tears, faced his. She regarded him, herself held. "Pretty slave," he said.

"Yes," she said.

"Yes what?" he asked, kindly.

"Yes," she said, "-Master." Then suddenly she cried out and broke free and knelt in the back of the kennel, her face in her hands, weeping.

Flaminius laughed.

"You beast!" cried out the second girl. "You beast!"

Flaminius suddenly reached into the cage and, taking the girl by the wrists, jerked her against the bars, painfully so, holding her at arm's length cruelly against them. "Please," she wept.

"From the time you were first anesthetized and hooded," said Flaminius, "you had but one purpose in life-to give pleasure to men."

"Please," she wept, "please."

"Bracelets," said Flaminius, in Gorean, to the guard, who produced a set of bracelets.

Flaminius then locked one on the girl's right wrist and then, her arms through the bars, bent her arms back, put the other bracelet around one of the bars in the gate, above the horizontal bar at the top of the gate, and, on the outside of the gate, about her other wrist, the left, snapped shut the second bracelet, so that her hands were now braceleted outside the gate, at its top, that she might be, on the inside, held cruelly against the bars. "Please," she wept, "Please."

"It would be pleasant to tame you," said Flaminius.

"Please let me go," she wept.

"But there are other things in store for you, pretty slave."

The girl looked at him, tears in her eyes.

"You will be trained as a slave girl," said Flaminius. "You will be taught to kneel, to stand, to walk, to dance, to sing, to serve the thousand pleasures of men." He laughed. "And when your training is complete you will be placed on a block and sold."

The girl cried out in misery, pressing her head against the bars.

Flaminius then looked into Virginia's eyes. "You, too," said he, "will be trained as a slave girl."

She looked at him, red-eyed.

"Will you train?" asked Flaminius.

"We will do whatever you wish," said Virginia. "We are slaves."

"Will you train?" asked Flaminius of the girl Phyllis, braceleted against the bars.

"What if I do not?" she asked.

"Then you will die," said Flaminius.

The girl closed her eyes.

"Will you train?" asked Flaminius.

"Yes," she said, "I will train."

"Good," said Flaminius. Then he reached into the cage and took her by the hair, twisting it. "Do you beg to be trained as a slave girl?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, in pain, "yes!"

"Yes what?" inquired the Physician.

"Yes," she said, weeping, "-Master!"

Flaminius then stood up and faced us. He was instantly again the Physician, cool and professional. He regarded Ho-Tu and spoke in Gorean swiftly. "They are both interesting girls," he said. "They resemble one another in several ways and yet each is quite different. The results of the tests I have just conducted are quite affirmative, much better than merely satisfactory, decidedly promising."

"How will they train?" asked Ho-Tu.

"It is impossible to tell," said Flaminius, "but my prognosis is that each, in her own way, will do quite well in training. I do not think drugs will be necessary, and I expect that a sparing use of the whip and slave goad will be sufficient. My prognosis is on the whole extremely favorable. Excellent merchandise, some risk, but every likelihood of achieving a status of considerable value. In short I think they are both decidedly worth development, and should prove a quite profitable investment."

"They are, however, barbarians," pointed out Ho-Tu.

"That is true," said Flaminius, "and doubtless they will always be barbarians-but that quality, for some buyers, may exercise its own fascination."

"That is the hope of Cernus," said Ho-Tu.

Flaminius smiled. "Few of the hopes of Cernus are disappointed," he said.

Ho-Tu grinned. "That is true," he said.

"If there is a demand for such girls," said Flaminius, "our house will profit handsomely indeed."

Ho-Tu slapped his thigh. "Cernus will see," said he, "that there is such a demand."

Flaminius shrugged. "I do not doubt it," he said.

I regarded the girls, piteous in their cages.

Virginia, her face stained with tears, knelt at the bars, looking up at us, holding them. Phyllis, on her knees, her wrists braceleted outside the cage, held pressed against the bars, looked at us and then turned her face away.

"I promise you, Ho-Tu," Flaminius was saying, "that each of these girls, properly trained, will provide a master with the most exquisite of delights."

I was pleased that neither of the girls understood Gorean. I suspected that what Flaminius said was true. The Gorean slaver knows his business. Both girls, I expected, would be trained as exquisite female slaves.

We then, following Ho-Tu, retraced our steps on the iron walkway, descended the steps, and, taking our way between the metal branding rack and the glowing, perforated steel drum containing irons, left the room. As we left I could hear one of the girls weeping. I did not, of course, turn back to see which one it might be.