Captive of Gor

11 Soron of Ar

I knelt on the low wooden platform, while one of the leather workers, with a long needle, approached my face.

"See," said Targo, to the other girls, "El-in-or is brave."

Many of them were whimpering.

I closed my eyes. No anesthetic was used, for I was a slave, but it was not particularly painful.

It was said to be a Turian custom, from the far south, which was spreading north.

The leather worker then went to the other side of the platform.

There were tears in my eyes, for my eyes smarted.

I felt the second pain, sharp, followed by an unpleasant burning sensation. The leather worker stood up.

My ears had been pierced.

The girls, in line, kneeling, cried out, whimpering and shuddering. Guards stood on either side of the line.

"See how brave El-in-or is," said Targo.

The leather worker wiped away the bit of blood with a cloth.

He then fixed two tiny steel rods, with threaded ends, through the wounds. To each end of each of the rods he threaded a tiny steel disk, that the tiny rods might be held in the wounds. The disks and rods would be removed in 4 days. "Next," he said.

None of the girls moved.

I left the platform. Ute, biting her lip, tears in her eyes, said, "I will go next." The other girls gasped, and shuddered.

Ute knelt on the platform.

I stood to one side. My hand went to my right ear. "Do not touch your ear, Slave," snapped the leather worker.

"No, Master," I said.

"Stand against the wall, El-in-or," said Targo.

"Yes, Master," I said, and went to the side of the large slave room in the public pens of Ko-ro-ba.

"I, too, am of the leather workers," Ute told the leather worked, with the needle.

"No," he said, "you are only a slave."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I saw her kneel, very straight, on the wood, and watched the needle pass through her right ear lobe. She did not cry out. Perhaps she wished to show courage before one who was of the leather workers.

The lady Rena of Lydius flung herself naked, on her knees, before Targo. She lifted her hands to him.

"You took me on contract," she said. "You captured me for another! Surely you will not do this to me! My master would surely object! Do not do this cruel thing to me! My master would not wish it!"

"Your master," said Targo, "he who arranged for your capture and delivery, instructed that you be delivered to him with the pierced ears of a slave girl." "No," she wept. "No!"

A guard dragged the distraught Lady Rena of Lydius, a slave girl, back to her place in the line.

Inge then knelt before Targo. "I am of the scribes," she said, "of high caste. Do not permit this to be done to me!"

"Your ears will be pierced," said Targo.

She wept, and was dragged back to her place in line.

Lana then approached Targo.

I hated her.

She knelt before him, ingratiatingly, and put her head down. "Please, Master," she wheedled. "Let it be done to the other girls, if you wish, but not Lana. Lana would not like it. It would make Lana sad. Lana would be happy if master would not have it done to her."

I stood against the wall, in fury.

"Your ears will be pierced," said Targo.

I smiled.

"It will lower my price!" cried Lana.

"I do not think so," smiled Targo.

Ute had now had her left, as well as her right, ear lobe pierced, and had had the tiny steel rods and disks fixed in her ears. She was trying not to cry. She came and stood next to me.

She looked at me. "You are so brave, El-in-or," she said.

I did not answer her.

I was watching Lana and Targo.

"Please!" wept Lana, now genuinely frightened, and distressed, fearing that Targo would not yield to her entreaties. "Please!"

"Your ears will be pierced," said Targo.

"No," cried Lana, terrified, weeping. "Please!"

"Take this slave away," said Targo.

I smiled as Lana was dragged, weeping, by a guard to her place in line. The Lady Rena of Lydius now left the platform, the rods fixed in her ear wounds. She could scarcely walk. A guard, holding her by the arm, half carried her to the wall, where he left her. She fell to her knees, and covered her face with her hands, weeping.

"I am a slave girl," she wept. "I am a slave girl."

Inge, terrified, was now thrust onto the wooden platform.

I had no impulse to comfort the Lady Rena of Lydius. She was a fool. So, too, were Ute, and Inge, and the others.

It was interesting to me that the girls so objected to the piercing of their ears. What fools they were. I had never had my ears pierced on Earth, of course, but I had contemplated having it done. I might have had it done, if I had remained on Earth. Surely a great many of the girls and women I knew on Earth had had their ears pierced. How else would one wear the finest earrings? What fools these girls were. Inge shrieked, more with humiliation than pain, as the needle thrust through her right ear lobe.

"Be quiet, Slave," said the leather worker.

Inge stifled her sobs.

"Do not move," he cautioned her.

"Yes, Master," she whimpered.

The piercing of the ears of women, only of slave girls, of course, was a custom of distant Turia, famed for its wealth and its nine great gates. It lay on the southern plains of Gor, far below the equator, the hub of an intricate pattern of trade routes. Some two or three years ago it had fallen to barbarians, nomadic warriors, and many of its citizens, in flight from the city, had escaped north. With then had come certain articles, techniques and customs. One could tell a Turian because he insisted on celebrating the New Year at the summer solstice, for instance. They also used very sweet, syrupy wines, which were now, in many cities, available. The Turian collar, too, a looser ring of steel, large enough for a man's fist to grasp on the girl's throat, was occasionally seen now in the northern cities. The piercing of the ears of slave girls, that they might have earrings fastened in them, was another Turian custom. It has been known on Gor before, but it was only with the flight of the escaping Turians that it had become more widespread recently.

The Turian camisk was also now occasionally see. It is rather like an inverted «T», the bar of the «T» having beveled edges. It passes from the girl's throat, in front of her body, between her legs, and is then lifted, pulled tight, and wrapped about the thighs. Its single cord fastens the garment behind the girl's neck, behind her back and then, after passing about her body once or twice, ties in front. It conceals her brand but exposes her back. The cord makes it possible to adjust the garment to a given girl. Tightening the cord accentuates her figure. The Turian camisk is worn tightly. Turians are barbarians. In private pens of Ko-ro-ba, where we were taken daily for training, we were taught to wear the garment. A master might require it of us. It is said that only a man knows how to tie a Turian camisk on a girl properly. There are many such saying on Gor. Inge was thrown, forcibly, against the wall, weeping. In her ears were the tiny metal rods. She tried to pull them from her ears and the guard, angrily, cuffed her, and, with a foot of binding fiber, lashed her wrists behind her body.

Inge was such a fool.

She knelt against the wall, the side of her face thrust against the boards, staining them with tears, her entire body shaking.

Ute was kneeling beside the Lady Rena of Lydius, who seemed uncontrollable. She had her arms about her shoulders, trying to soothe her.

Ute looked up at me. "You are so brave, El-in-or," she whispered.

"You are a fool," I told her.

Lana crept to the wall and knelt there, her face in her hands.

"I hate Turians," screamed the Lady Rena of Lydius.

Ute held her more closely. She kissed her. The Lady Rena put down her head, weeping.

Turia, I had heard, had not been destroyed. Indeed, I had heard that it now stood once again, much as before, the sovereign city of the southern plains, and that much of its wealth, by exchanges and trading, had been regained. It was fortunate, I gathered, for the economy of Gor, particularly the south, that the city had not been destroyed. Much of the hides, the horn and leather which found its way northward came from Turia, obtained from the Wagon Peoples of the treeless, southern plains, and many of the manufactured goods, and goods of price, which found their way to the far south, and even to the Wagon Peoples, were produced in, or passed through Turia. Perhaps the Tuchuks, one of the fierce Wagon Peoples, traditional enemies of Turia, her conquerors, had spared her for such reasons that they might have outlet for their goods and a source of goods they could not well manufacture, or acquire, for themselves. For whatever reasons, Turia, though once conquered, had been spared. It was the best known of the Gorean cities below the equator, sometimes called Ar of the south. "I hate Turians!" screamed the Lady Rena of Lydius. "I hate them!" "Be silent, Slave," I told her.

"Do not scold her, El-in-or," chided Ute. "She is sad." Do not cry so, Lady Rena," said Ute to the girl. She again held her and kissed her.

I looked away. I was hungry. The last of the girls, her ears pierced, fled from the low, wooden platform, running to crouch among us, weeping, at the wall. I hoped that we would have a good lunch. The food was better in the private pens, where we were trained, than in the public pens of Ko-ro-ba, areas of which were available for rent to passing slavers, where we were housed at night. In the public pens, state slaves are kept as well as the merchandise of slave caravans passing through the city. A master of the city, of course, who might be leaving the city temporarily, could also rent space in the public pens, to board his slaves, there. Most masters, however, if inclined to board their slaves, would do so at the private pens, where the food and facilities were better. Another reason for a master to board a slave at the private pens, of course, is that she might, while there, be given training, or further training, that she might be more delicious slave to him upon his return. Indeed, even if a master does not leave the city, it is not unknown for him to send a girl to the private pens, that her value to him, and to others, if she be sold, might be improved. Girls, incidentally, do not care to be boarded. Life in the pens, intentionally, is made hard. When released from the pens, a girl is almost always desperately eager to please her master, that she not be returned to them, for further training.

We trained during the day, commonly in private facilities, under the tutelage of pleasure slaves, but in the evening we would be returned to the long tiers of cages in the public pens. These cages are heavily barred, and the bars are rather, irritatingly, widely set, but we cannot squeeze between them. The cages are strong enough to hold men, which, doubtless, sometimes they do. Straw is spread on the metal plating which is the floor. There are four girls to a cage. I shared mine with Ute, Inge and Lana. We are supposed to keep our own cage clean, but Lana and I let Inge and Ute do this work. We are too valuable to do such work.

I did not care particularly for the wooden bowls of stew and bread we commonly had at the public pens, but I was hungry and ready to eat even such, and with enthusiasm. In vegetables and fruits, and, if our group had trained, acceptably, after the evening meal, before being returned, hooded, to the public pens, we would be given candies or pastries, or, sometimes, a swallow of Ka-la-na wine. Once Inge had broken down in training, and wept, and we had been denied our little delicacies. When we reached the cage at the public pens Lana and I had beaten her, preventing Ute from interfering.

"El-in-or" snapped Targo.

I gathered he must have called once before, and I had not heard.

I ran to him and knelt before him.

"To the platform," he said.

I looked up at him. "Why?" I asked.

He looked at me.

Quickly I leaped up and ran to the low wooden platform, and knelt again upon it. I did not understand.

The leather worker had not left the room. He was reaching into his leather bag. I was puzzled. Then it occurred to me that he must want to check the rods in my ears, to see that they were fixed properly.

I knelt quite straight, but impatiently. I wanted my lunch.

I wished that he would hurry.

"Put your head back," he said.

I looked at him with sudden apprehension. In his hand he held something which looked like a pair of plies, except that the claws were extremely slender, and bent in such a way as to touch one another, at the tips scarcely more than a needle's width.

"What is that?" I asked. "A punch," said Targo.

"Put your head back," said the leather worker.

"No," I whispered. "What are you going to do?"

"Do not be afraid, El-in-or," called Ute. "It is nothing."

I wished she would be quiet.

"What are you going to do?" I asked, frightened.

"Someday a master may wish to put a nose ring on you," explained Targo. "This way you will be ready."

"No!" I screamed. "No! No!"

The other girls looked up, from their own misery, puzzled, watching me. "No! I wept. "Please! Please!"

"Put your head back," repeated the leather worker, irritated.

Targo looked at me puzzled. He seemed genuinely disappointed. "But you are brave," he said. "You are the brave one."

Suddenly I went to pieces, horrified, hysterical. "No!" I screamed. I tried to scramble from the platform. The leather worker seized me. "Hold her!" he said. "Bind her," said Targo.

I, held by the leather worker, cast wild eyes on Targo, "No, Master!" I implored. "Please!" but already my ankles were being tied together. Another guard pulled my hands behind my back and my wrists were lashed together. "No!" I screamed. "No!"

Two guards held me by the arms on the platform. Another guard put his left arm about my throat, from behind, and with his right hand in my hair, pulled my head back, holding it still.

I could not scream. The guard's arm on my throat was tight.

"Do not move," commanded the leather worker.

I felt the back of the claws of the punch enter my nostrils, distending them. There was a tiny, sharp click. Tears burst into my eyes. I felt acute pain for an instant, and then a prolonged, burning, stinging sensation.

Everything went black, but I did not faint, held in position by the guards. When I opened my eyes, blinded with tears, I saw the leather worker approaching my face with a tiny, steel ring, partly opened, and a pair of pliers.

As I was held he inserted the ring in my nose. It was painful. Then, with the pliers, he closed the ring, and turned it, so that its opening, where the closed edges met, was concealed within, at the side of the septum.

I began sobbing with pain, with misery and degradation.

The guards released me. One untied my ankles.

"Gag her," said Targo.

I was gagged. My wrists were not unbound, they fearing perhaps I would have torn at the ring. Perhaps I might have.

A guard, not much pleased with me, dragged me stumbling, eyes filled with tears, moaning with misery, from the platform. He threw me, half stumbling, into the wall, among the other girls. I struck the wall, and slid down it, to my knees. I could not believe what had been done to me. Everything almost went black again. I shuddered and shook, tears running from my eyes, leaning against the wall. "Next!" had called the leather worker.

Ute, who was looking at me with puzzlement, as were the other girls, rose to her feet and went obediently to the block.

When she returned, she, too, wore a tiny, steel ring in her nose. There were tears in her eyes. "It smarts," she said to Inge.

I looked at Ute, piteously. Could she not see what had been done to me, to me! Ute came to me and took me by the shoulders, and I sobbed against her, uncontrollably.

"Do not cry, El-in-or," she said.

I pressed my head against her shoulder.

She held my head to her shoulder.

"I do not understand, El-in-or, " she said. "The most terrible thing you do not mind. You are then very brave. And they you cry about a little nose ring. It is not like having your ears pierced."

"El-in-or is a coward," said Rena of Lydius. "Next!" called the leather worker.

Rena rose to her feet and went to the platform.

The piercing of the ears is far more terrible," said Ute. "Nose rings are nothing. They are even pretty. In the south even the free women of the Wagon Peoples wear nose rings." She held me more closely. "Even free women in the south," she insisted, " the free women of the Wagon Peoples, wear nose rings." She kissed me. "Besides," she said, "it may be removed, and no will ever know that you wore it. It will not show." Then Ute's eyes clouded with tears. I looked at the tiny steel rods holding open the wounds in her ears. She wept. "How can I ever hope to become a Free Companion," she wept. "What man would want a woman with the pierced ears of a slave girl? And if I were not veiled, anyone might look upon me, and laugh, and scorn me, seeing that my ears had been pierced, as those of a slave girl!"

I shook my head, and against pressed my head into her shoulder. I understood nothing. I knew only I, Elinor Brinton, once of Park Avenue, once of the restaurants and boulevards of New York and the continent, now wore in my nose a tiny ring of steel.

Inge went next to the platform, her hands still bound behind her back, that she not disturb the tiny rods in her ears. She submitted to the fixing of the ring gracefully.

She did say to Targo. "But I am of the scribes."

He said to the leather worker. "Put the ring in her nose."

She did not protest.

Lana went next to the platform. When she returned, she threw back her head, and placed her hands behind her head. "Is it not pretty?" she asked.

"It would be more beautiful if it were of gold," said Rena of Lydius. "Of course," said Lana.

"But it is pretty," said Inge to Lana. "You are so beautiful, Lana." Lana smiled.

Inge looked at her timidly. "Am I pretty?" she asked. "Yes," granted Lana, "the ring is prettya€”and you are pretty." Inge looked at her gratefully.

"What of me?" asked the Lady Rena of Lydius.

"You are beautiful," said Inge.

I did not lift my head from Ute's shoulder. I did not want anyone to see. One after the other of the girls went to the platform.

Afterwards we were fed. Inge and I were unbound, and I was ungagged. We knelt in a circle, eating from the wooden bowls of bread and stew. We were given no utensils. Our fingers served to pick out meat and bread, and the gravy we drank. The girls chatted, and most seemed to have forgotten the ordeal of the morning. If they had not forgotten it, there was very little they could do about it. Further, they knew that with their ears pierced, they might bring a somewhat higher price, and thus, perhaps, obtain a somewhat better-fixed master. Some prudish slavers, scandalized by ear piercing, refused to have it done to their girls, but Targo, doubtless because of the gold involved, had insisted upon it. Many Gorean men apparently find pierced ears in a girl extremely provocative. Craftsmen of the metal workers, men specializing in the working of gold and silver, were concerned to work out new forms of jewelry for slave females. It was said that a year ago in Ar, Marlenus, Ubar of that city, had created a sensation at a banquet given for his high officers, by presenting a slave-girl dancer before them who, though she was not in his private pleasure gardens or compartments, he had had put in earrings. Today, however, better than a year later, it was not uncommon to see a slave girl wearing, and insolently, such jewelry, even in public.

I had no objection to earrings. Indeed, if I could find an attractive pair, or pairs, I was confident I could wear them to my advantage, to please a master, to perhaps obtain my way, to perhaps help me dominate him. If I could not engage his affections, I would have him then, would I not, at my mercy? I would bend my efforts to do so, and when I had done so then I might, by granting, or refusing to grant, my favors, or the fervor of my favors, control him and, though I wore the collar, own Him! How else could a woman fight on Gor? She is not as strong as a man! She is at their mercy. The entire culture puts her at his feet. Well I was beautiful enough, and intelligent enough, to fight, and surely to win! I was truly a slave girl, and that I knew, but my master would learn that a slave girl could be a dangerous foe. I would conquer him. So I mused. The only thing that I did not take into my considerations was the Gorean male. He is unlike the men of Earth, on the whole so weak and pliable, so reasonable, so compromising, so much in need of recognition and affection, or its pretense. The only thing I failed to take into my calculations was that the Gorean male, whether by culture or genetic endowment, is unlike the typical man of Earth. He, unlike the typical man of Earth, though not unlike all, is a natural master of women. There was a time in my life when I would not have understood this, or how it could be. There was surely a time in my life when I could not have believed this, when I would have found it preposterous, absurd, incomprensible, false. But at that time I had not been brought to this world. At that time I had not been in the arms of a Gorean male.

"Eat," urged Ute.

I had scarcely touched the stew in the wooden bowl.

"We will wear the nose rings," said Ute, "until our training is finished. Then, when we leave Ko-ro-ba, they will be removed.

"Where did you hear this?" I asked. There are often rumors carried about the pens and cages.

"I heard Targo telling one of the guards," she whispered, looking about. "Good," I said. I reached into the bowl. No one ever need know that Elinor Brinton, of Park Avenue, had once had a steel ring fixed in her nose. Pleased, I joined Ute in eating.

Afterwards, after we had been hooded and taken to our private training pens in Ko-ro-ba, I trained well.

It was well I had eaten, for the work was difficult. Perhaps Targo wished to take our minds from the events of the morning. In the evening, at the private pens, we were fed well and our group, myself, Ute, Inge and Lana, were among those groups given pastries following our meal.

I was pleased with my performance. It was right that we should be rewarded. I was, indeed, rather pleased with my performance in general.

Sometimes I was irritated by the instructor, herself a slave, when she would commend me. "See," she would say to the other girls. "That is how it is done! That is how the body of a slave girl moves!" but I wanted to learn, that I might use my skills to enhance my fortunes on Gor. As a warrior applies himself to the arts of his weapons, so I applied myself to the arts of the female slave, which I was. I became sleek and more beautiful from the diet and the exercises. I learned things of which I had not dreamed. Our training, because it was limited to a few short weeks, did not include many of the elements that are normally included in a full training. I remained ignorant of Gorean cooking and the cleaning of Gorean garments. I learned nothing of musical instruments. I remained ignorant even of the arrangements of small rugs, decorations and flowers, things that any Gorean girl, slave or free, it likely to know. But I was taught to dance, and to give pleasure, and to stand, and move, and sit and turn, and lift my head and lower it, and kneel, and rise. Interestingly, and sometimes not altogether to my pleasure, I found the training becoming effective. In the early evening of the day on which our nose rings had been affixed I was returning to my cage, after having run an errand for Targo in the pens. I was one of his favorites, and he often used me for his errands. As I passed by a guard, as a slave girl passes a man, he seized me by the arm and held me, almost jerking me off my feet, pulling me to him. "You are learning to move, Slave, he said. I was frightened. Then I was not frightened. I pulled slightly against his arm as though I might be frightened, but could not hope to elude him. And indeed, of course, I could not have, in fact, eluded him, even had I cared to do so. He, being a man, was quite strong enough, as I knew, to do with me what he might please. How I resented the strength of men! I looked up at him, timidly. "Perhaps, Master," I whispered, lips timidly parted, slightly smiling, keeping my ankles together, and moving my body slightly away from him, but my shoulders pointing towards him.

"She-sleen," he said.

He grinned.

He took the nose ring between his thumb and first finger and lifted it. I stood painfully on my toes.

"You are a pretty slave," he said.

"I am white silk," I whispered, now frightened, truly frightened.

He released the ring and reached for me. "What does it matter?" he said. I backed away from him, and turned and, stumbling, striking into the wall of cages, fled down the hall. I am afraid I did not flee as a lovely slave girl. I fled clumsily, terrified, as an Earth girl fleeing from a Gorean male. I heard him laugh behind me, and stopped. He had been having sport with me. I turned and looked at him in irritation.

He clapped his hands and took a step toward me, and I turned and fled stumbling away again, hearing his laughter in the hallway behind me.

But in a moment or two I had regained my composure.

When I reached the cage I was well pleased with myself. I had attracted the guard. He had wanted me. He, of course, would not have taken me, for fear of the wrath of Targo, but I had no doubt of his desire. I shuddered. If it had not been for Targo he doubtless would have taken me, on the cement flooring, before the bars. But still, on the whole, I was quite pleased. I knew that I was desirable. I knew that I was very desirable. I was an exciting slave. I was proud. I was much pleased.

Ute and Inge asked Lana and I to help clean the cage that night but we, as usual, refused. That was the work of lesser girls. Lana and I were more valuable than Ute and Inge, or so we thought. The three of us might have forced Lana to help, but then I would have had to work, too. I realized that if I joined with Lana, thought I did not care for her, they could not force either of us to work. Since Ute and Inge were insistent that the cage be cleaned, this unpleasant task thus fell regularly to them. I liked a clean cage. I just did not wish to clean it. Lana and I, that night, thought them fools, and, satisfied with ourselves, went to sleep on the straw.

I was pleased that I was exciting. I touched the nose ring. I resented it. In the morning I would have even more reason to resent it. I became drowsy. I was pleased that I was exciting, and was pleased, too, that the hated nose ring would be removed before we left Ko-ro-ba. I rolled over, closing my eyes. Ko-ro-ba, I thought, Ko-ro-ba. I was drowsy. We had approached the city in the early morning and Targo had permitted us to leave the wagons to look upon it, in the morning sun. The city, the sun reflecting on its walls and towers, was very beautiful. It is sometimes called The Towers of the Morning, and perhaps justifiably so. I rolled again to my other side, shutting my eyes. But there was little beauty in the pens, with their heavy blocks of stone and stout bars, and straw, and the smells. I then fell asleep, pleased that I was exciting, forgetting even the nose ring. As I feel asleep I thought that Ute and Inge were busying themselves in the cage, cleaning it.

Ute was such a sweet, stupid little thing. And Inge, too.

But, as it turned out, they did not clean the cage that night.

"Awaken, Slaves!"

I felt a sharp pain in my nose, excruciating.

I was instantly awake. I heard Lana cry out with pain. I jerked my head and felt another sharp pain.

"Keep your hands at your sides," commanded Ute.

Lana and I had been thonged together by the nose rings. In our sleep it had been done. A thong had been passed through the two rings and then knotted. The knotted, double thong that fastened us together was only about a foot long. Lana and I faced one another. Ute's small fist was securely fastened on the thong.

Lana tried to reach the thong. Ute twisted it. Lana squeaked with pain. I, too, cried out, for the same thong bound me. Then Lana, tears in her eyes, had her hands down at her sides, obediently. I did, too. We dared not move. "Ute!" I protested.

She twisted the thong, and I cried out in misery.

"Be silent, Slave," said Ute, pleasantly enough.

I was silent, and so, too, was Lana.

Ute jerked us to our feet and we wept with pain. Our hands, our clenched fists, remained at our sides.

"Place your hands behind your backs," recommended Ute. Lana and I looked at one another.

Ute gave the thong a twist.

We cried out and did as we were told.

Inge then came forward with two small thongs, probably wheedled from a guard. I felt my wrists tied behind my back. Then Lana's wrists were similarly secured. "Kneel, Slaves," said Ute.

Lana and I looked at one another in fury. Her fist never left the thong. "You may call the guard," she said, "for brushes and water, and fresh straw." "Never!" said Lana.

There was a sharp twist on the thong.

"I'll call him," I cried. "Please! Please!"

"Which one of you chooses to work first?" asked Ute.

Lana looked at me. "Let El-in-or," she said.

"Let Lana," I said.

"El-in-or will work first, said Ute.

The guard brought fresh straw, and water in a leather bucket, and a heavily bristled brush.

My hands were unbound and, on my hands and knees, I began to gather the soiled, stinking straw.

"Be careful!" cried Lana. It had hurt me, too. Lana was left bound, and we were left thonged by the nose rings. It was clumsy work.

I cleaned one half of the cage, taking out the used straw and scrubbing the plating. Ute would not let me shirk. I had to scrub my section of the plating twice. My knees hurt. At last my half of the cage was clean and I spread fresh straw there. Then I was rebound and Lana was unbound, and set to her work, cleaning the other half of the cage. On my hands and knees, wrists tied behind my back, my nose ring linked to Lana's by the thong, I followed her about, as she had me. At last her work was done. She, too, was forced to scrub her portion of the cage twice. Her wrists were then rebound. Ute then took us to the bars at the front of the cage and, unknotting the thong, passed it around two of the bars and reknotted it, over one of the crossbars, about two and a half feet above the floor plating. She then left us there.

"Ute," I begged, "please let us go."

"Please," wheedled Lana.

We squirmed, but were secured.

On the outside of the bars, slave girls, and guards, passed by, on their way to the morning feeding. They laughed at us. It was well known in the pens that we had shirked the cleaning of our cage. I was humiliated. Even Lana, then, did not seem so lofty and clever, kneeling bound by the bars, for the inspection of all, thonged to them by a nose ring.

When the cage was unlocked, Ute and Inge went to breakfast. Lana and I remained behind.

When Ute and Inge returned Lana and I had had enough of this misery. "Lana will work," promised Lana.

"If you do not," warned Ute, "next time it will not go so easily with you." Lana nodded. She was strong, but she knew that in a slave cage, one is at the mercy of one's cage mates. Ute and Inge had demonstrated their power. "And you, El-in-or?" inquired Ute, pleasantly.

I hated Ute!

"El-in-or, too, will work," I said. "Good," said Ute. Then she kissed Lana and myself. "Let us now release these slaves," she said to Inge. Ute and Inge freed us.

"It is time to leave for the private pens, for morning training," said the guard, passing by.

Lana and I got to our feet and looked at Ute and Inge. We would not again shirk our work.

One day slipped into another in the pens of Ko-ro-ba. Four days after we had had ours ears pierced the leather worker returned to the pens and removed the tiny threaded rods with the disks from our ears. Behind remained the tiny, almost invisible punctures in our ear lobes, ready for whatever jewelry a master might decide to fix in them. The nose rings would not be removed until the day before our departure from the pens. We were pierced-eared girls, among the most exciting of slaves.

Day followed day, and round followed round of feedings, exercisings and training periods. One day seemed much like another, save that our lessons increased in length and complexity. I found it necessary now to apply my full attention and intelligence to master the increasingly subtle and intricate skills of a female slave. The slave mistress would switch me, and the others, when we failed. I noted the change and the improvement in the other girls. We were learning, we were increasing our skills. Even Inge! I watched her, in the training sand, dancing to hide drums, naked, in slave bracelets and jeweled dancing collar. She did not then appear to be of the blue-robed, studious scribes. She was only a naked, dancing slave girl, exciting, writhing in the sand, her body throbbing to the beat of a man's pleasure drums. I wondered if a scribe would buy her. I supposed if one did, she would pretend to be a shy girl, once of the scribes herself. But what if he should command her to perform? Would he not be astonished to find what he had purchased, a girl suddenly forced to reveal herself as a wild slave, exquisitely trained to please the senses of a master? I now saw Inge as a rival. But I resolved to best her. I could be even a more superb slave that she! Ute, of course, was incredible, superb. She would doubtless bring a high price. But I thought that I would bring a higher. It also interested me, even astonished me, to see the fervor and skill brought to her training by the refined Lady Rena of Lydius. She knew that she had already, in effect, been purchased, but she did not know who her master might be. Since her ears had been pierced she was terrified that she might not please him. She trained with almost piteous ardor. She had been a free woman; she was now a female slave, the ease of whose life and whose fortunes would now depend entirely on her capacity to be pleasing to those who might capture or purchase her, those who would own her. Lana and I, incidentally, were, by general admission, and the indications of our instructor, the finest of the slaves of our lot. Try as I would I could never best her. I hated her. But though I was not as good as Lana, I had little reason to be ashamed of my advances in the arts of the female slave. I was almost flawlessly superb. I would bring a high price. I was proud. In acknowledgment of my skills, perhaps Lana began to take me into her confidence, and though I hated her, I became her friend. We spent more time together, and I talked less with stupid Ute and skinny Inge. Lana and I were the best, the very best!

I was much pleased.

Subconsciously now, from day to day, my body began to reveal me truly as a slave girl. I was no longer even aware of it. There are dozens of subtle movements, tiny things, almost discernible, but which one notices, almost without noticing, about the movements of a slave girl, things which, cumulatively, distinguish, and very obviously, her movements from those of a free woman.

I now no longer moved as a free woman, even a beautiful one, of Earth. I now moved, and naturally, as what I was, uninhibited and shameless, taunting, catlike, insolent, a Gorean slave girl.

Once, when I got to my feet in the cage and walked across the straw, Inge, who was kneeling nearby, said, unexpectedly, suddenly, "You are a slave, El-in-or!" I leaped at her and slapped her. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Slave! she screamed. I seized her by the hair and kicked her. Then, scratching and cursing, we began to roll and fight in the straw. Lana laughed. "Do not quarrel!" suddenly it felt like the top of my head was being yanked off and I heard Inge scream with pain.

A guard was now in the cage and had each of us, separated, bend over, held by the hair.

Inge and I then did not move so much as a muscle.

I was suddenly afraid that I would be beaten. I had been beaten only once, when first enslaved by Lana, with straps, at the side of the slave wagon. Never had a man beaten me. I was terrified of having the full five-strap Gorean slave lash, wielded with the full strength of a man, used on me. I was too sensitive to pain. The other girls, common girls, might be beaten, but not I. It would hurt me too much. They could not understand how it would feel to me, how much it would hurt!

"She started it!" I cried out.

"She slapped me!" cried Inge. Inge was frightened, too. She was only of the scribes, and, too, feared the lash. Bur she would not have felt it as cruelly as I would have, for she was more common than I, less sensitive, less delicate. "She started it!" I cried. "She slapped me first!"

Ute gasped.

"Don't beat me," I wept. "She started it! She slapped me first!"

"Liar!" screamed Inge.

"Liar!" I screamed at her.

Ute was looking at me with disappointment. Lana was laughing.

"The guard outside," said Lana. "He saw!"

Held by the hair, bend over, my heart sank. I was a slave girl who had been caught in a lie. I trembled.

But neither I, nor Inge, was beaten.

The guard grinned.

It had not surprised him, as it apparently had Ute, that I was a lying slave girl. He had, apparently, to my irritation, not expected anything else of me. I realized that how I was regarded in the pens.

I was angry.

Our hands were tied behind our backs. The guard, then, pulling me by the hair, dragged me to one side of the cage, and took my hair and knotted it about one of the crossbars of the cage, about a foot above my head. He then took Inge to the opposite side of the cage, put her standing against the walls of the bars there, facing me, and similarly fastened her in place. She winced.

The guard than left the cage, locking the gate behind him. "Sleep well, Slaves," he said.

Lana rolled luxuriously on the straw. "Good-night, Master," she called. "Good-night, Wench," said he.

He looked at Ute. Ute lay down on the straw. "Good-night, Master," she whispered.

He nodded. Then he looked at me. "Good-night, Master," I said.

When he looked at Inge, she, too, responded so.

Then he left.

Some hours later, some hours before dawn, Inge looked at me, hatred in her eyes. "You are a liar, El-in-or," she said.

"You are a fool," I said.

The next morning, when the guard unbound our hair from the crossbars, Inge and I collapsed to the steel plating that floored our cage. In our misery we scarcely noticed that he had unbound our wrists. I lay in the straw, my face pressed into it, feeling the obdurate steel beneath it.

Then, after some time, I crawled to Inge. "I am sorry," I said, "Inge." Inge looked at me, her eyes hard. Her body, too, was in pain, from the miseries of the night.

"Forgive me, Inge," I asked.

Inge looked away.

"El-in-or is sorry, Inge," said Ute. I was grateful to Ute.

Inge did not look upon me.

"El-in-or was weak," said Ute. "She was afraid."

"El-in-or is a liar," said Inge. Then she looked at me, directly, with hatred. "El-in-or is a slave," said Inge.

"We are all slaves," said Ute.

Inge put her head down on her knees.

Tears came to my eyes. Ute put her arms about me. "Do not weep, El-in-or," she said.

I pulled away from Ute, suddenly angry. Ute went to her own portion of the cage. What Inge had said was true. I was a slave.

I rolled over on my back in the straw and stared at the ceiling, more steel plating, the flooring of the cage in the tier above us.

But, unlike Inge, I was a superb, and exciting, slave!

I heard the sandals of the guard approaching, outside, on the grating before the tier of cages. I leapt to my feet and pressed against the bars.

"Master!" I called.

He stopped.

I thrust my hand through the bars, toward him.

He took a hard candy from his pouch, and held it, outside of my reach. I struggled to reach the candy. I could not. Then he handed it to me. "Thank you, Master," I said. I put the candy in my mouth. I had known his step. Few of the guards carried candies. I was pleased with myself. I did not think Inge would have succeeded in winning a candy from him.

I sat in the straw and sucked the candy.

"I forgive you, El-in-or," said Inge. Her voice sounded weary.

I did not answer her, for I feared she might want to taste the candy, that it would be a trick on her part.

I heard Lana approach. She thrust out her hand. "Give it to me," she said. "It's mine," I said.

"Give it to Lana," said Lana. "I am first in the cage." She was stronger than I.

I gave her the candy and she put it in her mouth.

I crawled to Inge. "Do you really forgive me, Inge?" I asked.

"Yes," said Inge.

I crawled away from Inge, and lay down on my belly in the straw.

What Inge had said was true. I was a slave.

I rolled over on my back in the straw and again stared at the ceiling, that obdurate steel plating, the flooring of the cage in the tier above us. I lay there naked in the straw feeling the steel plating beneath my back. "Yes, I was a slave. "Yes," I said to myself, "you are a slave, Elinor." The panther girls taught you that, and the man in the hut. You are a natural slave. I lifted one knee. But you are a beautiful slave, and a clever slave, I told myself. I rolled onto my belly in the straw and picked up a bit of straw and poked at the floor with it.

Odd, I thought, how Elinor Brinton, she who had been so rich, so elegant, so arrogant, she who had been of Park Avenue, she who had owned the Maserati, was now, on a distant world, only this, a common slave, naked, on her belly in straw, steel plating beneath it, behind heavy bars, caged, merchandise. I had no hope of returning to Earth. The men in the silver ship had doubtless been of another world, not this one. I had seen no ships, nor men, such as they, on this world. Besides, for all I knew, they might be even more terrible, and fierce, than those of the black ship. I had no desire to meet them. I was also frightened by the memory of the huge golden creature who had accompanied them. Such men, and such a creature, I was sure, would not be likely to return me to Earth. I had seen their power, when they had destroyed the black ship. I was frightened. And, I mused, the men of the black, disklike ship, who had brought me here, were not such that I would expect them, even if they should find me, which I regarded as unlikely, to return me to Earth. I had learned I could not bargain with them. In the hut I had learned what I was to them, only the most abject of female slaves, a girl fit only to kneel at their feet and beg to be commanded. And even if I should serve them, might I not then, that I might not fall into the hands of their enemies, or reveal their plans and plotting, be slain? And even if I did serve them, and they, in their lenience, spared me, I knew that I would be kept by them only as a girl, another slave, to be sold or disposed of as they saw fit. I was pleased that I had escaped in the forest. They would have little hope of finding me again. The chances that I might have found my way back to Targo's chain, or be returned to him, were not high. Indeed, it would have been probable that I, naked and bound, alone, defenseless in the forest, would have died of exposure or fallen prey to panthers or sleen.

My thoughts strayed back to that terrible night, when I fled from the hut, into the darkness, leaving the beast feeding on the carcass of the destroyed, bloodied sleen.

I shuddered.

I had run madly away, through the dark trees, stumbling, falling, rolling, getting up and running again. Sometimes I ran between the great Tur trees, on the carpeting of leaves between them, sometimes I made my way through more thickset trees, sometimes through wild, moonlit tangles of brush and vines. I even found myself, once, when passing through the high Tur trees, at the circle, where the panther girls had danced. I saw the slave post to one side, where I had been tied. The circle was deserted. I fled again. At times I would stop and listen for pursuit, but there was none. The man, too, fearing the beast in its feeding frenzy, had fled. I most was afraid that the beast itself might follow me. But I was sure that it would not soon do so. I do not think it was even aware I had fled the hut. I expected it to feed until it was gorged, and then perhaps it would sleep. Once I nearly stumbled on a sleen, bending over a slain Tabuk, a slender, graceful, single-horned antelopelike creature of the thickets and forests. The sleen lifted its long, triangular jaws and hissed. I saw the moonlight on the three rows of white, needlelike teeth. I screamed and turned and fled away. The sleen returned to its kill. As I fled I sometimes startled small animals, and once a herd of Tabuk. I tried, in the moonlight, to run in the same direction, to find my way from the forest, somehow. I feared I would run in circles. The prevailing northern winds, carrying rain and moisture, had coated the northern sides of the high trees with vertical belts of moss, extending some twenty or thirty feet up the trunk. By means of this device I continued, generally, to run southward. I hoped I might find a stream, and follow it to the Laurius. As I ran through the darkness, I suddenly saw, before me, some fifty or sixty yards away, four pairs of blazing eyes, a pride of forest panthers. I pretended not to see them and, heart pounding, turned to one side, walking through the trees. At this time, at night, I knew they would be hunting. Our eyes had not met. I had the strange feeling that they had seen me, and knew that I had seen them, as I had seen them, and sensed that they had seen me. But our eyes had not directly met. We had not, so to speak, signaled to one another that we were aware of one another. The forest panther is a proud beast, but, too, he does not care to be distracted in his hunting. We had not confronted one another. I only hoped that I might not be what they were hunting. I was not. They turned aside into the darkness, padding away. I nearly fainted. I felt so helpless. I pulled at my bound wrists, but they were uncompromisingly secured behind my back.

Then, to my joy, I felt a drop of rain on my naked body, and then another. And then, suddenly, with the abruptness of the storms of the Gorean north, the cold rains, in icy sheets, began to pelt downwards. In the forest, tied, bound, in the icy rain, I threw back my head and laughed. I was overjoyed. The rain would wipe out my trail! I might escape the beast! I doubted that even a sleen, Gor's most perfect hunter, could follow my trail after such a downpour. I laughed, and laughed, and then, crouching, hid in some brush, trying to protect myself from the rain.

After some two hours the rain stopped and I crawled out from the brush and again continued my way southward.

I no longer feared pursuit, but I was now more aware that I had been of my predicament in the forest itself. I tried to run through the binding fiber that held my wrists, rubbing it against the trunk of a fallen tree, but I could not loosed it, or rub through it. Gorean binding fiber is not made to be so easily removed from a girl's wrists. After an hour I was bound as securely as before.

I decided I had better keep moving.

I felt helpless, vulnerable and futile. I was like an animal without hands, a four-footed animal, save that I had no hide to protect me, but only the softness of my flesh, and I did not have the delicate senses, the smell and the hearing of such animals to protect me, and I did not have their swiftness, the fleetness of their flight. I was ripe quarry.

I pulled at my wrists, helplessly.

I fled southward.

I was hungry.

At bushes I stopped and nibbled at berries.

Then, shortly before noon, I stumbled onto a small stream, which could only be a tributary of the Laurius.

I flung myself down on the pebbles of its shore and lapped the fresh water, slaking my thirst.

Then, rising, I entered the stream, feeling its cold waters on my ankles, and waded downstream. I wished to take this further precaution against leaving a trail behind me, a stain of odor on a twig, a dampness of perspiration on a leaf.

I followed the stream for an Ahn, sometimes stopping to lift my head to overhanging branches, to nibble at hanging fruit.

Then the stream joined a larger stream, and I followed that further. I had little doubt that this larger stream would join the Laurius.

As I waded in the water, bound, I asked myself if I should try to make my way to the Laurius, and thence to Laura. There I would be fed. There, too, I would be re-enslaved. I asked myself if I should not rather try to find a hut in the forest, where there might be a slave girl, who would unbind me, and give me food. She surely would not want her master to see me, for I was beautiful. Then I was frightened, for what if the girl would slay me, or sell me herself secretly, to hunters, or give me to panther girls, who would make me their slave, or sell me. They might even return me to the man and the beast in the hut, for more arrowpoints!

I did not know what to do. I was in misery.

Also, recalling that I had been sold for only one hundred arrowpoints, for some reason, irritated me. It made me furious. Surely I was worth much more. As girls went, I was valuable. I should have brought pieces of gold! Not arrowpoints! In my anger I did not notice the man, standing back in the brush, near the shore of the stream.

Suddenly a leather loop fell about my neck. I was startled, and turned. It drew tight. I was snared.

Bound, naked, helpless as a Tabuk, I was snared.

He drew me toward him.

I was pulled from the edge of the stream, where I had waded. I felt the pebbles of the shore under my feet, and then grass, and then, whether from hunger, or exhaustion, or fear, everything went black, and I fainted.

I awakened sometime later. I was being carried in a man's arms. I wore his shirt. It was longer than a common female slave tunic. The sleeves were rolled back. It was warm. My hands were no longer cruelly bound behind my back. A loop of binding fiber had been tied about my belly and knotted in back. My hands were confined in front of me by slave bracelets. The binding fiber, in its center, had been knotted about the chain of the bracelets, so that my hands were held close to my belly. The loose ends of the binding fiber had then been knotted together behind my back, so that I could not reach the knot. The bracelets were not tight, but I could not slip them. I did not care.

"You are awake, El-in-or," he said.

It was one of Targo's guards, he who had guarded me at the physician's. "Yes, Master," I said.

"We though that we had lost you."

"I was stolen by panther girls," I said. "They sold me to a man. There was a beast. He fled. I escaped." I was conscious of the strength of his arms. They frightened me. "I am still white silk," I told him.

"I know," he said.

I reddened.

"Fortunately for you," he said.

I looked down.

Suddenly he dropped me.

"You are awake," he said. "You can walk."

Sitting on the grass, in pain, displeased, I looked up at him.

"No, I cannot walk, I said. "I cannot even stand."

He tied up the shirt in the back, sticking it into the binding fiber. He then went and cut a switch.

When he returned I was on my feet.

"Good," he said. He pulled down the shirt and threw away the switch. I walked before him.

"Targo had already left Laura," he said. "We will join him across the river, at the night's camp."

We walked on.

"If you had left Laura with Targo," he said, "you might have seen Marlenus of Ar."

I gasped. I had heard of the great Ubar.

"In Laura?" I asked.

"Sometimes he comes north, with some hundred tarnsmen, for the hunting in the forests," said the guard.

"What does he hunt?" I asked.

"Sleen, panthers, women," said the guard.

"Oh," I said.

"He hunts for a week or two," said the guard, "and then returns to Ar." He pushed me ahead with the flat of his foot. I had been dallying. "The duties of a Ubar," said he, "are pressing, and Marlenus looks forward to his hunting." "I see," I said.

"When he is finished he sends his catch back by caravan," he said.

"Oh," I said. We walked on.

"Is he after anything in particular?" I asked.

"Yes," said the guard, "Verna, an outlaw girl."

I stopped.

"Do not turn around," he said.

I was irritated. I knew him, and he liked me, but he was my captor. He had not given me permission to face him. In his shirt, I pulled at the slave bracelets, tied against my belly with the binding fiber.

"It was Verna and her band who captured me," I said.

"It is said she is beautiful," said the guard. "Is it true?"

"Ask," I said, "the men at the camp, whom she captured and bound, when she stole me."

His fist was in my hair, bending my head back. "Yes," I said, "she is beautiful. She is very beautiful!"

He released me.

"Marlenus will capture her," he said, "and send her in a cage to Ar." "Oh?" I asked, archly.

"Yes," he said, from behind me. I felt his hands on my shoulders.

I was not displeased that Marlenus was hunting Verna, and her girls. I hoped that he would capture her, and them, and strip them, and put the blazing iron to their bodies, and lock them in collars, and whip them, and make them slave girls!

"Any woman," he said.

"I am white silk," I whispered. I pulled against his hands, and he released me. I hurried on.

I continued to walk ahead of him, in his shirt, my wrists confined before my body.

"Stop," he said.

I did.

He came behind me and, lifting the shirt some inches, tucked it into the binding fiber that was knotted about my waist. He wanted to see more of my legs.

"Continue," he said. He pressed me forward again with the flat of his foot. I stumbled forward, and was now again walking before him.

"Posture," he said.

And so I walked well, as he wished, before him.

From time to time, as we walked, he gave me food from his pouch, which he shoved into my mouth.

In the late afternoon, we rested for an Ahn. Then, at his command, I rose to my feet, and we continued on our journey to Laura, I preceding him, as before. I was acutely conscious of his watching me. I could not turn to look, of course, but I knew that every movement of my body was his to see.

"I shall be interested to see," he said, "how you train as a pleasure slave in Ko-ro-ba."

"You find me pleasing, do you not?" I asked. Then I was sorry I had asked. "You have interesting possibilities as a female slave," he said. "I find myself curious to taste you."

I hurried on. "We must hurry," I said. "We must join the wagons!

"White-silk, She-sleen," he said. "Wait until you are red silk!"

I hurried ahead.

Actually I was not displeased. When, that night, after taking a barge across the Laurius, loaded with lumber, we found Targo's encampment, I was happy. Ute and Inge were there and the other girls I knew. Even Lana. Targo was pleased that I had been returned to his chain. That night, stripped in the slave wagon, lying on the canvas, my ankles chained to the ankle bar, fed, I slept soundly, happily.

We were on our way to the city of Ko-ro-ba, where we would receive training, and from thence we would journey in a southeastern direction toward the great city of Ar.

"What are you thinking, El-in-or?" asked Ute. I lay on my belly, in the straw, in the cage in Ko-ro-ba, poling with a bit of straw at the steel plating.

"Nothing," I said.

I wondered of the man in the hut and the beast. They would not have been able to follow my trail after the rain. They would probably not suppose I could have been returned to Targo. Indeed, Targo had left Laura before I could have reached the city. I supposed that the man and the beast would look for me, if at all, in the vicinity of Laura, or northward, or even in the forest. I supposed they would regard it as likely that I had never escaped the forest. They would regard it as likely that I had fallen to beasts, perhaps, or perhaps had died of exposure.

I was safe.

A slave girl in a pen in Ko-ro-ba.

I had no hope now of returning to Earth. I knew now that on this world I would wear a collar and serve a master.

Further, I had now come to see myself as a slave girl. The panther girls in the forest, and the man in the hut, had taught me that I was slave. I now knew that even on Earth, even when I had been rich, even when I had dwelled in Park Avenue, when I had owned the Maserati, my body had been that of a slave girl, the body of a wench who, from the Gorean point of view, was fit only, and rightly so, for silk, and the whip. I had been found out. The Goreans had found me out, and would treat me accordingly. They have a way with such women. I struck the steel plating in fury, with my small fist. They bring them to heel, teach them to obey, and to serve, and deliciously. I wished that I was on Earth again, where slave girls might go free, live luxuriously, pamper themselves, and even, should it please them, command the weak men of Earth. I heard the step of a guard outside. I knew several of them by their step. It was one of whom I was frightened. I pretended to be asleep in the straw. When he had passed I rolled again to my belly and put my chin on the back of my hands, their palms resting on the plating. I would be a clever slave, a beautiful slave, and exciting one. I was a slave. I would be a superb one. I would use my intelligence and my beauty to make my life on Gor an easy one. I had learned a great deal in my training. I was eager to learn more. Already my body moved as that of a slave girl, and unconsciously, naturally! I smiled. I would bring a high price on the block. I glanced over at Inge. Poor sticklike Inge! What man would want her? And Ute was so little and stupid. Even Lana seemed dull to me. But I was superb. I recalled the man in the hut had said that the indications were that I would make a fantastic pleasure slave for a master. My brow wrinkled and my lip curled. I was irritated. It was I who would conquer. I remembered the panther girls, dancing under the moons of Gor, and how they had writhed helplessly beneath those wild moons. I despised them for their weakness. I did not have such weaknesses. I was a slave, but I did not have such weaknesses. Inside I was cold and hard, and hated men. I would conquer them.

And so I mused, an illiterate barbarian slave girl in a Ko-ro-ba slave pen.

Some four days before we were to depart Ko-ro-ba for Ar, the news swept like tarns through the pens.

"Verna the outlaw girl!" we heard the cry. "She had been taken by Marlenus of Ar."

I rushed to the bars of the cage, thrilled. I wept with joy. How I hated that proud woman, and her band! Let them be slaves! Let them be slaves!" "Poor Verna," said Ute.

Inge was silent.

"Let he be a slave!" I cried. "Like us!" I whirled to face them on the straw, my back against the bars. "Let her be a slave like us!" I cried.

Ute and Inge watched me.

I turned about again, grasping the bars, filled with a sense of triumph, with vindictive victory. Let Verna kneel to men, and fear the whip!"

"Poor Verna," said Ute. "Marlenus will tame her," I said. "In his pleasure gardens he will have her feeding from his hand."

"I hope she will be impaled," said Lana.

I did not hope that. But I hoped she would be put in slave rouge, and silk, and bells! Let her know slavery! How I hated the proud Verna! How pleased I was that she, as I, had fallen prey to me!

I looked about the cage, flushed, furious. I shook the bars. I stamped on the plating beneath the straw with my heel. I cried out with rage and picked up straw and flung it about the cage. I had been captured, and must be a slave girl!

"Pleas, El-in-or, cried Ute. "Do not behave so."

"Let Verna be a slave!" I screamed down the long hall between the cages. I wept, holding the bars. "Let her know what it is to be a slave," I whispered. A guard looked at me, curiously.

I shrieked with misery and ran across the cage, flinging myself into its back wall, pounding on it, and then I sunk to my knees by the wall and, in rage and frustration, weeping and screaming, pounded on the steel plating of the floor." "Weep, El-in-or," said Ute. "Weep."

I lay on the floor, naked in the straw, a helpless slave girl, the property of men, who must do as they commanded her, and wept, and wept.

I mention two other bits of news, which, from the outside world of laughter and daylight, filtered into the straw-strewn, barred pens.

Haakon of Skjern, from whom Targo had purchased his hundred northern beauties, now concluding their training, was in Ko-ro-ba.

This news, for no reason I clearly understood, rendered Targo apprehensive. The other news dealt with the bold raids of Task of Treve.

All Ko-ro-ba seemed aflame with fury.

Four caravans had fallen spoils to the fierce, swiftly striking tarnsmen of Treve. And his men had fired dozens of fields, destroying Sa-Tarna grains. The smoke of two of these fields had been visible even from the high bridges of Ko-ro-ba herself.

Ko-ro-ban tarnsmen flew at all hours, in the high sun, in the cold morning, at dusk, even when the beacon fires burned upon the lofty walls, flew patterned sorties, and irregular sorties, but never did they find the elusive, marauding band of the terrible Rask of Treve.

I mused to myself.

I had some reason to know that name. Rask of Treve, Targo, and others, had even more reason. It had been he, Rask of Treve, who had raided Targo's slave caravan, before, in the fields northwest of Ko-ro-ba, on the route to Laura, a wandering, strangely clad, barbarian girl had been enslaved, whose name was El-in-or. Indeed, it was because of Rask of Treve that Targo, who became that El-in-or's master, had lost most of his women and wagons, and all of his bosk. It was because of him that El-in-or, the barbarian girl, with the other girls, had been harnessed to his one remaining, partially burnt wagon, and had been forced, and under the switch, to draw it, as draft animals. Targo, as I knew, had fled into a Ka-la-na thicket with his men, saving his gold and nineteen of his girls, Inge, Ute and Lana among them. Rask of Treve, as a raider true to the codes of Treve, that hidden coign of tarnsmen, that remote, secret, mountainous city of the vast, scarlet Voltai range, had not, in these circumstances, much pushed pursuit. In the shadows of the forest the crossbow quarrel can swiftly touch, and slay. The element of the tarnsman is not the green glades, and the branches; it is the clouds, the saddle and the sky; his steed is the tarn, his field of battle, strewn with light and wind, higher than mountains, deeper than the sea, is the very sky itself. Such men do not care to venture creeping into the shadows of forests, pursuing scattered game. Victorious, they roar with laughter and, hauling on the one-straps of their tarn harness, take flight. There is always other gold, and other women. And, the Priest-Kings willing, a coin that is lost today, or a woman, may, at a later time, in a more convenient place, be found, and more! A woman, who escapes your collar this afternoon may, by nightfall, find herself chained at your feet. If the coin is to be yours, argue such men, it will be; and if the woman is destined, some night, on this or another, in your tent, on your rugs, by the light of your fire, to feel your chains locked on her body, she will. Flee though she might, that fate will be hers, and she, on the rugs spread over the sand, will be yours.

There was little known of Rask of Treve.

Indeed, there was little known even of the city of Treve. It lay somewhere among the lofty, vast terrains of the rugged Voltai, perhaps as much a fortress, a lair, of outlaw tarnsmen as a city. It was said to be accessible only by tarnback. No woman, it was said, could be brought to the city, save as a hooded, stripped slave girl, bound across the saddle of a tarn. Indeed, even merchants and ambassadors were permitted to approach the city only under conduct, and then only when hooded and in bonds, as though none not of Treve might approach her save as slaves or captive supplicants. The location of the city, it was said, was known only to her own. Even girls brought to Treve as slaves, obedient within her harsh walls, looking up, seeing her rushing, swift skies, did not know wherein lay the city in which they served. And even should they be dispatched to the walls, perhaps upon some servile errand, they could see, for looming, remote pasangs about them, only the wild, bleak crags of the scarlet Voltai, and the sickening drop below them, the sheer fall from the walls and the cliffs below to the valley, some pasangs beneath. They would know only that they were slaves in this place but would not know where this place in which they were slaves might be. It was said no woman had ever escaped from Treve.

And little more seemed known of Rask of Treve than of his remote and mysterious city.

It was said that he was young, audacious and ruthless, that he was powerful, and brutal and bold, that he was resourceful, brilliant, elusive, a master of disguises and subterfuges. It was said that a woman might not even know when she was in the presence of Rask of Treve, being casually examined, to see whether or not she was later to be acquired by him.

It was said that he was a fierce, long-haired man, a tarnsman, a warrior. It was said that he was one of the master swords of Gor.

It was said, too, that he was incredibly handsome, and merciless to women. Men feared his sword.

Women feared the steel of his slave collars.

Women, it was said, had special reason to fear Rask of Treve. It was said he had a gargantuan contempt, and appetite, for them. It was said that when he used a woman, he then branded her, with his name, as though she, once used, no matter to whom she might afterwards be given or sold, could truly belong only to him. It was also said that he would use a woman only once, claiming that he had, he, Rask of Treve, in once using her, emptied her, exhausted her, taken from her all she had to give, and that, thus, she could no longer be of interest to him. No man on Gor, it was said, could so humble, or diminish, a woman as Rask of Treve. And yet, it was said, there were few women on Gor, strangely enough to the fury of their own men, or guardians, who were not willing to be used, and branded and spurned by Rask of Treve, that young, audacious, ruthless warrior, only that they might helplessly know his touch.

Rask of Treve, it was said, had never purchased a woman. he would capture, and take by force, those that pleased him. Rask of Treve, it was said, like many Goreans warriors, preferred free women, enjoying the delicious agonies of his prey, as he reduced them to the utterness of the surrendered female slave. On the other hand, if is should please him, it was said he could take a girl who was already slave and make her more a slave than a slave.

I was later furious with myself that I had wept in the cell.

Of course I was a slave girl!

I had been taught that!

I knew it well!

But I would be a superb one! Sometimes, I thought angrily of girls on Earth, many of them, who, too, were slave girls, but who had not learned this, and who, presumably, would never do so. I thought of them, dressing for men, trying to please them, though not much caring for them, to advance themselves in powers and luxuries, using their bodies and minds, their smiles, and glances and words, and touches, clumsily perhaps, not having been trained, to obtain their desires of foolish, starved men. These were girls, not caring for men, who employ the needs of men, without penalty, intelligently to their own profit. Smile at a man of Earth and he will be grateful; pretend to be willing to please a man of Earth and he will do anything for you. You may then use them, such needful weaklings, to rise in the million strata of your intricate society, to climb, to ingratiate and insinuate yourself swiftly, expertly, into the high, warm, comfortable, luxurious places in your busy, impersonal, complex, loveless, anxious world. You will make them pay well for your favors. I held the bars. How different it was on Gor. Such an exploitative, indifferent girl, on Gor, might be simply carried off, and enslaved. Of such women the Goreans enjoy making slaves. She would find her favors were not hers to dispense, at her own pleasure and to her own profit, but his to command, as he was pleased to do so. Gorean men were not so easily fooled as the men of Earth. Gorean men do not choose to be dominated, but to dominate, to be the master. I wished, sometimes, that such girls, of Earth, might find themselves naked, branded, helpless in a Gorean slave cage, forced to be the slave girls they unknowingly were. I was taught. They were not. I was angry. But they were free. And I was caged. They, though as slave as I, had escaped; I had not; I had been captured, and, by, Gorean men, would be forced to pay my price! I had no hope of freedom. I was furious. I had hope only that, though on this world, I could use my inclinations and training, those of a slave girl, to win myself an easy life. That I did not think would be difficult to do, for a girl as clever and beautiful as I. My training, I suspected, as well as my intelligence, would make me more than a match for any man, even the strangely attractive, powerful men of Gor.

Our training continued.

Once, there was a visitor to the pens, a tall stranger, partially hooded, who wore the robes of blue and yellow silk, those of the Slavers. He had, over his left eye, a strip of leather, which was wound around his head. He was shown through our section of the pens by Targo.

"This is Soron, of Ar," said Targo, stopping before our cage. Then he said, "El-in-or."

I was apprehensive. I did not wish to be sold until we reached Ar. I wished to be sold from the great block of the Curulean Auction House. It was in that place that there were to be found the highest placed, richest buyers of Gor. It was my hope to become the preferred pleasure slave of a wealthy master, and to reside in one of the high towers of Ar, Gor's largest and most luxurious city, and to have silks and jewels wherewith to deck myself, and no work to do, saving perhaps pleasing my master or guests to whom he might, if he pleased, give me for the evening.

"El-in-or!" snapped Targo.

I went to the bars, and knelt before them. "Buy me, Master," I said. "Does this girl know how to present herself?" asked the man.

Targo was angry. "Again!" he snapped.

I was frightened now. I leapt to my feet, and went again to the rear of the cage. Then I turned, this time a slave girl, and approached the bars, as a slave girl approaches the bars, behind which a master observes her. I smiled, slightly, insolently, and knelt again before him. I felt the steel plating beneath the straw. I lowered my eyes to his sandals, which were of black, polished leather, with wide straps, and then, still smiling, tauntingly, lifted my head. I regarded him "Buy me, Master," I whispered.

"No," he said.

I rose to my feet, irritated, and backed away. He need not have been so curt. I had tried to present myself well. I had! But he had expressed no interest whatsoever. I felt the humiliation of the spurned slave girl. "Buy me, Master," said Inge, now at the bars, whom Targo had gestured forward. I did not like the way Inge had said «me» as though to contrast herself with me, and my failure! Did she think herself superior to me? Further, I was furious with how she had approached the bars. She had done so superbly, sinuously. Was she not only of the scribes! Could she, sticklike Inge, be more attractive to a man than I?

The man regarded her, appreciatively, sizing her up, as a master appraises truly high-quality feminine merchandise.

"Were you truly of the scribes?" asked the man.

"Yes," said Inge, startled.

"The refinement of your accent," he said, "suggested the scribes."

"Thank you, Master," said Inge, lowering her head.

"She is excellent merchandise," said the man. "She has the intelligence, and education, of the scribe, and yet she is obviously an exquisite and well-trained female slave."

Inge did not raise her head.

"She should be sold to a scribe," said the man.

Targo spread his hands, and smiled. "To whomever pays the most gold," he said. "You may return to your place," said the man.

As lightly and beautifully as a cat, Inge leapt to her feet and returned to the straw at the back of the cage. I hated her.

"Buy me, Master," said Ute, coming forward in her turn.

"A beauty," said the man.

Ute, though a slave, blushed with pleasure. She lowered her head. How her blush and smile, became her! I hated her!

"I am Lana," said Lana, and she came forward, and, in her turn, knelt before the bars. "Buy Lana, Master," she said.

"I did not ask to hear the name of a slave," said the man.

Lana looked at him in surprise. "Return to your place, Slave," said the man.

Angry, Lana did so.

"You may now approach again," said the man.

Lana did so. She knelt sinuously, and excitedly, before him, and looked up at him. "Buy me, Master," she whispered.

"Return to your place, Female Slave," said the man. He then turned to talk with Targo. Furious, dismissed, Lana again rose to her feet and returned to the back of the cage. She looked about, but neither Ute, Inge nor myself would meet her eyes. I looked away, and smiled.

The man, and Targo, were now prepared to go to the next cage.

I stood at the back, right-hand corner of the cage, on the steel plating, on the straw. I looked out, through the bars. The man had turned and was regarding me. I tossed my head, and, angrily, looked away. I could not, however, in a moment, resist looking again, to see if he might still be looking at me. He was. My heart skipped a beat. I felt frightened. And then he had turned away with Targo, and was then before the next cage. I heard a girl move on the straw in the next cage, approaching the bars. I heard her "Buy me, Master." I turned away, feeling uneasy. I looked about the cage. It was so strong. There was no escape for me. I felt helpless.

That evening, at our meal, I managed to steal a pastry from Ute. She did not even know who it was that removed it from her pan.

Our training in the pens of Ko-ro-ba now began to move toward its conclusion. Our bodies, superbly trained, even those of Inge and Ute, now became unmistakably those of slave girls. We had had trained into our bodies mysteries of movements of which even we, for the most part, were no longer aware, subtle signals of appetite, of passion and of obedience to a masculine touch, movements which excited the fierce jealousy, the hatred, of free women, particularly ignorant free women, who feared, and perhaps rightly, that their men might leave them for the purchase or capture of such a prize. Most slave girls, incidentally, fear free women greatly. Some of these movements are, in standing, as obvious as the turning of a hip; in reclining, as obvious as the partial extension of a leg, the pointing of toes. But many are more subtle, tiny, almost undiscernible movements, which yet, in their total effect, brand a female body as being incredibly sensuous, things like a way of glancing, a way of holding the head, subtle things like the almost invisible, sudden flexion of the diaphragm, the tiny fear movement of the shoulders, which signals that the girl, as she is, is helpless quarry. Incidentally, we also learned our own responsiveness to certain signals. For example, we could become curious, uneasy, simply by turning an open palm, perhaps unnoticeably, toward a male. It made us feel vulnerable. I did not like to do this. And, of course, we came to understand, too, the movements of men, and how to read their interest and desire. It is not really a mystery that the Gorean slave girl, who is trained, seems to anticipate her master's moods, and that he scarcely need ever speak of desire for her. She know when he does not desire her, and when he does desire her, and when he does desire her, she signals her responsiveness to him, and goes to him. I smiled to myself. Men pay higher prices for trained slave girls. Some of them do not even understand fully the training the girl receives. They think commonly only in gross terms, such as her being trained in the dances of various cities, and in the arts of love, as practiced in various cities. They often do not know she is trained to read his desires, like an animal, from his body, and to serve them promptly, subtly and fervently. The trained girl is well worth her price. I intended to use my training to enslave my master. I had little doubt I could do so. I would have an easy life. Even though a token collar might be locked on my throat, it would be I who would be master! Sometimes at night, lying in the straw of the cage, I would think of Verna and when I did so, knowing her captured, destined for brand and collar, I would laugh to myself. I wished that I might have some opportunity to show my lack of fear of her, my contempt for her, that slave!

In these days, as our training in the Ko-ro-ban pens drew to its conclusion, I forgot both Haakon of Skjern and Rask of Treve. Rask of Treve, it was said, had at last been driven from the environs and claims of the city of Ko-ro-ba. Certain of the tarnsmen of Ko-ro-ba boasted of having driven him from the lands of the state, but others, as I learned from guards, were only silent. At any rate, it seemed that Rask of Treve, and his raider's band, had left the lands of the Towers of the Morning. Sa-Tarna fields ripened in their yellow beauty, and caravans passed with safety. The skies remained clear of the thunder and screams of the tarns of Treve, the war cries of her spear-bearing warriors. Rask of Treve, it seemed, now sought elsewhere for the weight of gold and the flesh of women. Haakon of Skjern, it seemed, still remained in Ko-ro-ba. It lies west of bleak, rocky Torvaldsland, substantially above even the vast, green belt of the northern forests. The men of Skjern seldom ventured as far south, or as much inland, as Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning. Haakon, with his tarnsmen, it seemed, came in peace. They paid for their entry into the city, claiming to need supplies for ventures in trading. Their weapons, for they were a goodly number of warriors from a distant state, were surrendered at the great gate, to be returned to them upon their departure. In Ko-ro-ba the scabbards of Haakon of Skjern and his men would, by the order of the city, be empty. What was there to fear of a Haakon of Skjern with an empty scabbard? I could not understand the uneasiness of Targo, and certain of his men. Haakon had done business with them, and might wish to do so again. He might not even know we were in Ko-ro-ba. Besides, rumors had it that he would be remaining in Ko-ro-ba for days following our departure, and would then be flying northward, returning to Laura. Furthermore, in Ko-ro-ba Targo had purchased additional girls, and guards, and his caravan southeast of Ar would be a substantial one, one surely not to be endangered by some forty to fifty tarnsmen. Too, there seemed nothing menacing in the way in which Haakon spent his time in Ko-ro-ba. He seemed truly to be arranging for supplies, and his men, in their leisure, gambled and drank in the inns and taverns of the city, spending their time striking up acquaintances with men here and there, other tarnsmen, mostly men like themselves, from other cities, now, too, by coincidence within the walls of Ko-ro-ba. There was nothing to fear from Haakon of Skjern, and his men.

"Slaves out," said the guard, turning the key in the heavy lock and swinging back the barred gate of the cage.

In a few minutes I, pleased, knelt, naked, on the wooden platform in the large room in the public pens of Ko-ro-ba. This time I needed not be bound hand and foot, nor held by guards.

I put my head back and the leather worker again reached for my face. His instrument was rather like a pair of closed, long-handled pliers. He inserted the tip of this instrument, consisting of a pair of small, hinged rods, like opposing crescents, into the steel nose ring and then, with his two hands, pulling outwards on the handles, slowly, carefully, opened the instrument, spreading the ring. Then, with his fingers, he slipped it free, and dropped it on the platform.

I ran joyfully from the platform to the wall. I felt my face and laughed. I no longer wore the hated nose ring! Elinor Brinton was free of the hated nose ring! "El-in-or," said Targo.

I knelt immediately.

"You are very beautiful when you are happy," he said.

I blushed, looking down. "Thank you, Master," I said.

Ute then came to the wall. She, too, now, was free of her ring.

I wanted Ute to hold me and kiss me. I was so happy.

"Ute," I said. "I am happy." "Good," she said, and turned away.

I was hurt. When Inge came to the wall, I looked at her. She was my friend. "Inge," I cried, "I am happy!"

But Inge, too, turned away, and went to kneel beside Ute.

I felt alone, terribly alone.

When Lana came to the wall I approached her, timidly. I put out my hand to touch her.:I want to be your friend," I said.

"Find out when we are leaving for Ar," said Lana.

"I might be beaten," I whispered.

"No," said Lana. "Targo likes you. He will not beat you."

"Please, Lana," I begged.

Lana looked away.

"I will try," I whispered.

I went to Targo, trembling, and knelt at his feet, my head to the boards of the floor.

"May a slave speak?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

But I could not from the words, so frightened I was.

"Speak," he said.

"When," I asked, in a whisper, terrified, "a€”when do we leave for Ar, Master?" There was a silence.

"Curiosity," he said, "is not becoming in a Kajira." His voice was not pleasant. I moaned.

I crossed my wrists beneath me and touched my head to the floor, exposing the bow of my back. it is the submissive posture of a slave girl who is to be punished. It is called Kneeling to the Whip. I shook, visibly, at his feet. I whimpered. I waited for him to call a guard, to bring the lash.

"El-in-or," said Targo.

I looked up.

"In the morning," said Targo, "slaves will be fed before dawn. Then, at dawn, we will leave Ko-ro-ba for Ar."

"Thank you, Master," I breathed.

He smiled, releasing me. I leaped to my feet and fled back to Lana's side. "We will leave at dawn tomorrow," I told her, excitedly.

"I had thought so," said Lana.

I reached out to touch Lana's arm, and she permitted me to do so. "I want to be your friend," I said.

"All right," said Lana.

"I am your friend," I said.

"Yes," said Lana.

"And you." I begged, "you, too, are my friend?"

"Yes," said Lana, "I am your friend."

"You are the only friend I have," I told her. I felt very alone.

"That is true," said Lana.

How lonely it was, to have only one friend. But I had at least one friend, someone who liked me, someone to whom I might talk, someone whom I might trust and in whom I might confide.

"Tonight," said Lana, "if you are given a pastry, you must give it to me." "Why is that?" I asked.

"Because we are friends," said Lana.

"I do not want to do that," I said.

"If you wish to be my friend," said Lana, "you will have to please me." I said nothing.

"Very well," said Lana, looking away.

"Please, Lana," I whispered.

She did not look at me.

"I will give you the pastry," I said.

That night, before our departure, I had great difficulty in getting to sleep. Ute, Inge and Lana, all, slept soundly. I lay awake in the straw, looking up at the steel plating above me, dim, metallic, in the flicker of a lantern hung outside the cage, on a peg fixed into the wall on the opposite side of the corridor.

Tomorrow we would leave for Ar.

I was not much pleased with the evening feeding. Lana had taken the pastry, which I had agreed to give her. And when I had attempted to steal that of the Lady Rena of Lydius, unseen by Rena, Ute's hand had closed on my wrist. Her eyes were very hard. I released the pastry. And Ute and I returned to our food pans. I had had no pastry this night! I was angry.

I hated Ute, the smug, ugly, stupid little thing.

And I hated Inge, too, for she was skinny and ugly, and stupid.

And I hated Lana, though she was my friend. I did not think her much of a friend.

I hoped that I would sell for a higher price than any of them that would show them!

I got to my knees in the cell and watched my shadow on the back wall, from the lantern outside. I stretched, and threw my hair up and back, arranging it on my back. I was beautiful. I wondered what a man would pay to own me. I wondered what I would bring on the great block of Ar, when I stood there naked for the buyers, Elinor Brinton, a nude female slave to be auctioned to the highest bidder.

The thought of Verna, the outlaw girl, passed through my mind. She had captured me, and sold me for a hundred arrow points!

How humiliating, and insulting!

I was worth gold! Gold!

Perhaps Marlenus, her captor, would choose to put her on the block! Perhaps she would sell for a hundred arrow points!

But I would bring gold, much gold!

I looked about at the slave flesh in the straw, that of Ute, and Inge, and Lana. They were slaves. I hated them all. I wanted to be free of them! I wanted to be free of them! I did not need friends. I was better than all of them! I wanted only to be rid of them!

I lay there in the straw and recollected the forest north of Laura. I recalled Verna, and the panther girls, dancing in the circle. I recalled them, when they could no longer restrain themselves, throwing themselves to the grass, writhing in their helpless need, even the proud, arrogant Verna! They were all weak.

I was hard, and strong. I was Elinor Brinton. I was a slave girl, and a true slave girl, that I knew, but I was not weak. I was hard, and strong. I would enslave some man, and exploit him, and make a fool of him. I would conquer. Elinor Brinton, though only a female, and a slave, would conquer!

Now, satisfied with myself, I began to grow drowsy. For some reason my thoughts strayed back, to the time when the slaver, Soron of Ar, had passed through the pens, in the company of Targo.

"Buy me, Master," I had said to him, as I had had no choice but to do. "No," he had said.

I twisted in the straw, angrily. Then I lay still, looking up at the steel plating of the ceiling.

He had purchased no girls.

That seemed to me strange, but it was not what bothered me, as I lay there. To me he had simply said, curtly, "No."

How offended I had been.

With every other girl, as far as I knew, in our cage, and further along the tier of cages, as far as I could hear, he had either spoken with them, or dismissed them, or told them to return to their place. It was only, as far as I knew, to my "Buy me, Master" that he had said simply, "No."

He had rejected the purchase of all of us, and yet only I, as far as I knew, had been rejected in precisely that way. I t was only to my "Buy me, Master," that he had said, with such crude bluntness, "no." I did not care that he did not buy me! Indeed, I did not want him to buy me! So he would not purchase me? What was that to Elinor Brinton? She was pleased! She did not want to belong to him! But I recalled that I had seen him looking at me, afterwards. I had tossed my head and, angrily, insolently, had looked away. When I had looked again, his eyes were yet upon me, yet appraising me. I had been frightened. I had known myself helpless, held captive in the cage. I must wait there, behind bars! There had been no escape for me! Men might do with me what they pleased. I was their prisoner. I was theirs, their slave!

But after I was sold, then could I, though slave, conquer!

What could a girl do locked in a cage with other girls, some of them perhaps almost as beautiful as she?

I was a slave girl.

Very well!

I would make my master suffer, as only a woman can make a man suffer. I would humble him, and, using his needs, would bring him to his knees before me, to beg for my pleasures. I would wring from him weakness whatever I might wish to please my will!

I would conquer!

Men are beasts!

I hated them!

"Buy me, Master," I had said to Soron, the Slaver of Ar.

"No," he had said.

I think of all men, at that time, I hated Soron of Ar. How he had appraised me, as I had stood helpless, naked, behind the bars, on the straw of the slave cage, his to be seen as he wished; how he had examined me, candidly, objectively, every inch of me, Elinor Brinton, female, slave merchandise! How I hated him! How I hated men! How I hated most Soron of Ar!

I fell asleep.

I had a strange dream, turning and moaning in the straw. I dreamed that I had escaped, and that I was free, running and walking in the high grass of a Gorean Field. How pleased I was to be free!

And then suddenly I turned and, behind me, some eight or ten feet away, standing, not speaking, tall in the blue and yellow robes of the slaver, still partially hooded, the band of leather across his left eye, was Soron of Ar. I fled.

But then it seemed he was ahead of me. I turned, and ran again, back, and then to the left, and the right, but each time, as I thought myself escaped, I saw his tall figure, standing there, in the grass.

I was naked.

I ran and ran.

And then, once again, I turned.

Again, some eight to ten feet away, not speaking, he stood. We were alone, in the high grasses of the field.

"Buy me, Master," I said to him. I did not kneel.

"No," he said.

"Purchase me!" I begged. "Purchase me!"

"No," he said.

I now saw, in his hand, coiled, several slender loops of braided leather. I screamed, and turned and fled.

The leather loop suddenly dropped about me and jerked tight, pinning my arms to my sides.

I screamed.

"Be silent," cried Lana, shaking me, in the straw. "Be silent!"

I awakened, crying out. Then I saw Lana, and the straw, and the lantern on its peg on the other side of the bars, on the wall across the corridor. Ute had risen to her hands and knees, and Inge was on one elbow. Both were looking at me. Then they lay down again, sleepily, in the straw.

I reached to Lana. I was terrified. "Lana," I begged.

"Go to sleep," said Lana, and she lay down in the straw.

I crawled to Ute. "Ute," I begged. "Please hold me, Ute."

"Go to sleep," said Ute.

"Please, please!" I begged.

Ute gave me a kiss, and put her arm about my shoulder. I pressed my head against her shoulder.

"Oh, Ute!" I wept.

"It is only a dream," said Ute. "We will sit up for a time, and then we will go to sleep."

After a time, we lay down, side by side, and I, holding to Ute's hand, kissing it, fell asleep.