Captive of Gor

13 I Feel the Capture Loop

I stood in the swift stream, the water coming to somewhat above my knees. I had tied the camisk up about my waist, with the binding fiber. Hands poised, I scrutinized the silver form turning in the clear water. It swam near the fence of small wands which Ute had thrust into the bottom of the stream, and turned back, as though puzzled.

My hands dove for it, clutching. I touched it. There was a churning of water. I drew back my hands, with a cry of disgust. With a spattering of water and a flurry of pebbles the swift, squirming body twisted away.

I stood up again.

It was not likely to escape.

I stood within Ute's structure of wands. It consisted of two parts. The first, a few feet upstream, was in the form of a "V," which had an open bottom, which pointed downstream. This formed a funnel of wands, such that a small swimming creature could easily enter it, but would not so easily find again the opening to escape. The second part of the structure was a simple, curved fence of wands a few feet downstream of the first, forming the downstream wall of the trap. Ute was hunting. She had also set snares. She had used the pieces of binding fiber which had, by means of the perforations, fastened our throat straps on us. I again began to stalk the silver body in the trap.

Ute and I, to our astonishment, had escaped. Separated as we had been from the wagons, and doubtless, too, in virtue of the confusion, it had been our fortune not to have been noticed in our flight.

I had shaken my head. I had been afraid. What could we do? Where would we go? "You will come with me, or I will kill you! had screamed Ute.

"I'll come, Ute!" I had cried. "I'll come!"

Dismayed, terrified, bound to her by the throat strap, I had stumbled after her. We had run for perhaps an Ahn, when, gasping, exhausted, scarcely able to move, we had reached the edge of a large Ka-la-na thicket.

In this thicket, still tethered one to the other, we had thrown ourselves down on the grass.

"Ute, I am afraid," I had whispered to her. "I am afraid!"

"Do you not understand," she whispered, her eyes filled with joy, "we are free! We are free!"

"But what will we do?" I asked.

Ute crawled over to me, and began to work, with her small strong fingers, at the knot that bound the collar on my throat. "We will need this binding fiber," she said.

After a time, she managed to undo the knot. "Now," she said, "unbind me." "I cannot," I told her. I had tried before, and could not do it.

"Do it," said Ute, her eyes hard.

I again tried. I could not, with my small fingers, loosen it.

"Bring me a tiny stick," said Ute.

I did so.

She then chewed at the end of the tiny stick, sharpening it, putting a point on it.

She handed it to me.

With this tool, wedging it between the strands, I managed, after a time, to loosed them, and removed Ute's throat strap.

"Good," she said.

"What will we do, Ute?" I begged.

She coiled the heavy strap and put it about her shoulder. The two smaller pieces of binding fiber she thrust in the belt of her camisk, itself of binding fiber.

She then stood up.

"Come along," she said. "We must go deeper into the thicket."

"I cannot move," I told her. "I am too tired."

Ute looked at me.

"If you wish to leave now," I told her, "you must go on without me." "All right," said Ute. "Farewell, El-in-or," said she. She then turned and began to move away.

"Ute!" I had cried.

She did not turn.

I had leaped to my feet, running after her. "Ute!" I had wept. "Ute, take me with you!"

My hands now poised themselves over the silverish body in the water before me. I clutched again. This time I caught the thing, squirming, horned, scaly. It thrashed about. I could not hold it. It was too terrible to feel! With a slap of its tail it slithered free and darted away, downstream, but then, halted by the barrier of wands, turned and, under the water, motionless, faced me. I backed away, toward the open end of the «V», which pointed downstream. I could keep the thing in the trap. Ute would be back soon.

We had been free for five days. We had stayed in Ka-la-na thickets by day, and had moved across the fields at night. Ute was heading south and westward. The tiny village, Rarir, in which she had been born, lay south of the Vosk, and near the shores of Thassa.

"Why do you wish to go there?" I had asked Ute.

She had stolen from that village as a little girl. Her parents, the year before, had been slain by roving larls. Ute was of the leather workers. Her father had been of that caste.

"I do not much wish to go there," said Ute. "But where is one to go?" She smiled. "In my own village," she said, "they will not make me a slave." Sometimes, at night, Ute would moan the name of Barus, whom she had once loved. At the age of twelve, Ute had been purchased by a leather worker, who dwelt on the exchange island, administered by the Merchants, of Teletus. He, and his companion, had cared for her, and had freed her. They had adopted her as their daughter, and had seen that she was trained well in the work of the leather workers, that caste, which, under any circumstances, had been hers by right of birth.

On her nineteenth birthday, members of the Caste of Initiates had appeared at the door of the leather worker's hut.

It had been decided that she should now undertake the journey to the Sardar, which, according to the teachings of the Caste of Initiates, is enjoined on every Gorean by the Priest-Kings, an obligation which is to be fulfilled prior to their attaining their twenty-fifth year.

If a city does not see that her youth undertake this journey then, according to the teachings of the Initiates, misfortunes may befall the city.

It is one of the tasks of the Initiates to keep rolls, and determine that each youth, if capable, discharge this putative obligation to the mysterious Priest-Kings.

"I will go," had said Ute.

"Do you wish the piece of gold?" asked the chief of the delegation of Initiates, of the Leather Workers and his Companion.

"No," they had said.

"Yes," said Ute. "We will take it."

It is a custom of the Initiates of Teletus, and of certain other islands and cities, it the youth agrees to go to the Sardar when they request it, then his, or her, family or guardians, if they wish it, will receive one tarn disk of gold.

Ute knew that the leather worker, and his companion, could well use this piece of gold. Besides, she knew will that, some year, prior to her twenty-fifth year, such a journey must be undertaken by her. The Merchants of Teletus, controlling the city, would demand it of her, fearing the effects of the possible displeasure of the Priest-Kings on their trade. If she did not undertake the journey then, she would be simply, prior to her twenty-fifth birthday, removed from the domain of their authority, placed alone outside their jurisdiction, beyond the protection of their soldiers. Such an exile, commonly for a Gorean, is equivalent to enslavement or death. For a girl as beautiful as Ute it would doubtless have meant prompt reduction to shameful bondage, chains and the collar. Further, on other years, there would be no piece of gold to encourage her to undertake this admittedly dangerous journey.

"I will go," she had said.

She agreed to participate in the group then being organized by the Initiates. The leather worker and his companion, reluctantly, yielding to her entreaties, accepted the piece of gold.

Ute did indeed get to see the Sardar.

But she saw it in the chains of a naked slave girl.

Her ship fell to those of the black slaves of Schendi. She, and the others, were sold to merchants, who met the slaves at a secret cove, buying from them their catch. They were then transported overland in slave wagons to the Sardar, where they were sold at he great spring fair of En'Kara. When she was sold, from the block, over the palisade, she could see the peaks of the Sardar.

For four years, Ute, then a beauty, passed from one master to another, taken from city to city.

The she was taken by a master, with others of his slaves, again to the Sardar, again to be sold, to defray business debts resulting from the loss of a caravan of salt wagons.

It was there that she had been purchased by Barus, of the Leather Workers. She had had many masters, but it was only the name of Barus, which she moaned in her sleep.

She had much fallen in love with him, but she had, as she had told me, once attempted to bend him to her will.

To her horror, he had sold her.

She would never speak of him to me, but in her sleep, as I have said, she would cry his name.

"Why do you not go back to Teletus?" I asked Ute.

I did not much favor the idea of living in a village. And it was in Teletus that she had been freed, and adopted. Her foster parents might still be on the island.

"Oh," had said Ute, casually, "I cannot swim Thassa. I do not think I could very well purchase passage, either. And might not the Captain enslave me?" There seemed sense in what Ute had said.

"Besides," had sniffed Ute, "my foster parents might not even be on the island, still."

This seemed possible, for the population of an exchange island, like Teletus, tends to be somewhat more transient than that of an established city, with a tradition of perhaps a thousand or more years.

"But," I had pressed, "perhaps you could find your way back somehow, and perhaps, your foster parents still reside on Teletus."

If I were to go with Ute, I would surely prefer to go to an exchange island, with some of the amenities of civilization, rather than to a rude village south of the Vosk.

"Look at me!" had cried Ute, suddenly, to my astonishment, furious. I was startled.

"My ears have been pierced!" she screamed.

I shrank back.

"They were kind to me!" she cried. "How could I go back and shame them? Should I present myself to them, as their daughter, with pierced ears?" she cried. I could not understand Ute. She was Gorean.

She put down her head. "My ears have been pierced!" she wept. "My ears have been pierced!" She lifted her head to me. "I will hide myself in Rarir," she said. I did not respond to her.

At any rate, Ute was adamant. She would seek the village of Rarir. I kicked at the pebbles in the stream, from where I stood, in front of the ingress to the trap.

The silvery creature began to whip about the inclosure. It frightened me. Once its rough scales struck the front of my leg, above the ankle. I cried out. I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth, my fists clenched, my body contracted. When I dared to open my eyes again, the creature was again at the farther fence of wands, motionless, facing me.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It had not escaped.

If it had not been for Ute I do not think I would have survived.

I seemed so weak and frightened and helpless. Ute, though a small girl, seemed strong, and endlessly resourceful.

She had shown me what could be eaten, and what could not. It was she who had shown how the water trap might be built. She had also shown me how to make snares of binding fiber, bending down small branches, and making triggers of small twigs.

She had also shown me how, with binding fiber, a log and a stick trigger, to make a snare large enough to catch a tabuk, but we did not actually make such a snare. It might have attracted the attention of a huntsman, and provoked his curiosity. The smaller snares would be more easily overlooked. Further, it would have been difficult for Ute and I to have placed the log in such a snare, and, besides, without a knife, and wishing to move swiftly, tabuk would have been heavy game for us. She had also shown me how to make shelters of various sorts and use a small, curved stick for striking down birds and tiny animals. Ute taught me to find food where it would not have occurred to me to look for it. I relished the roots she taught me to dig for. But I was less eager to sample the small amphibians she caught in her hands, or the fat, green insects she scooped from the inside of logs and from under overturned rocks.

"They can be eaten," she said.

I, however, contented myself with nuts and fruits, and roots, and water creatures which resembled those with which I was familiar, and, of course, the flesh of small birds and animals.

Perhaps, the most extraordinary thing Ute did, to my mind, was, with sticks, a flat piece of wood and some binding fiber, make a small fire drill. How pleased I was when I saw the dried flakes of leaves suddenly redden and flash into a tiny flame, which we then fed with leaves and twigs, until it would burn sticks. Over tiny fires, using rock-sharpened, green sticks, we roasted out catches. We had seen no other human beings since our escape. We had slept by day in Ka-la-na thickets, and moved southwestward by night.

Ute had not wished to build fires, but I had insisted upon it.

We could not eat our catches raw.

"Tal," cried Ute, greeting me a free person.

"Tal!" I cried, pleased, waving to her. I was very relieved she had returned. She had, thrust in her belt, the binding fiber she had used for snares. We always took it with us, of course, when we moved. Over her shoulder she had two small, furred animals, hideous forest urts, about the size of cats, in her left hand she carried four small, green-and-yellow-plummaged birds.

Tonight we would feast.

I, too, had been successful.

"Ute," I cried. "I have caught a fish!"

"Good! cried Ute. "Bring it to the camp!"

"Ute!" I pleaded, anguished.

Ute laughed and threw her catch down on the bank. She waded into the trap. I remained where I was, blocking the exit to the trap.

Ute approached the creature very carefully, in order not to startle it. It wavered slightly in the water.

Then, suddenly, very swiftly, Ute struck for it. It backed into the fence of wands and she caught it there, against the sticks, and, in a moment, it thrashing and squirming, she lifted it from the water and carried it triumphantly to the shore.

"Destroy the trap," said Ute.

Each time we moved from a thicket, if we had built such a trap, we destroyed it. This, incidentally, is a standard Gorean practice. He never leaves a trap set to which he does not intend to return. The Goreans, often so cruel to one another, tend to have an affection for wildlife and growing things, which they regard as free, and thereby deserving of great respect. This affection and respect, unfortunately, is seldom extended to domestic animals, such as bosk and slaves. The Gorean woodsman, it might be mentioned, before he will strike a tree with his ax, speaks to the tree, begs its forgiveness and explains the use to which the wood will be put. In our case, of course, aside from such general considerations, we had a very special reason for destroying the trap. It was a piece of evidence which might betray us, which might set men upon our trail. Ute waited sitting for me on the bank, while I pulled up the sticks of the trap and cast them into the bushes.

I then helped her carry our catch, she bearing the fish, and the small birds, to our camp.

"Clean the animals," said Ute.

I did not like her giving me orders.

"I do not want to," I said.

"Then build the fire," said Ute.

"You know I cannot manage the fire drill," I said, angrily. I had never been able to master it.

"Then," said Ute, "let us not make a fire."

"No," I said. "I cannot eat raw flesh! We must have a fire!"

"It is dangerous," said Ute.

"Make a fire, Ute," I begged.

"Then clean the animals," she said.

"All right," I said. I hated that job. It was so dirty, so sticky and slimy. Ute always wanted me to do it! Who was she to give me orders? I did not like her. She was stupid. she made grammatical mistakes in speaking her own language! I hated her.

With a sharp rock and a stick I started to work on the animals.

I no longer needed Ute. She had taught me probably as much as she could. I could now get along without her. Besides, she acted superior to me. I was an Earth girl, superior to Gorean girls! She acted like she was our leader. I had not told her she could be the leader! I hated her.

"What are you thinking of, El-in-or?" asked Ute.

"Elinor," I said, sharply.

"Elinor," said Ute.

"Nothing," I said.

"Oh," said Ute.

After I had worked for awhile, Ute, taking up a rock and a stick, began to help me.

I did not thank her. She should have done the work herself. I had spent the day fishing. She had only roved about the thicket, hunting birds and checking her snares.

Ute began to hum.

"Why are you humming?" I asked her, irritated.

"Because I am happy," said Ute.

"Why are you happy? I asked.

She looked at me, puzzled. "Because I am free," she said.

When we had cleaned the animals, and the birds, and the fish, which later job I left to Ute, for I did not like to touch the creature. Ute bent over the fire drill.

"Hurry," I told her. I was hungry.

Ute worked for more than fifteen minutes, bowing the drill, sweating, her eyes fixed on that tiny, blackened pit in the wood.

"Hurry," I told her. "Hurry!"

Then, at last, a tiny flame appeared, eating at the flakes of dried leaves on forked sticks.

In a few minutes, we had our fire.

Because we had more food than usual, we set up two small spits on forked sticks. When the food was done, we removed it from the spits, placing it on leaves. I was terribly hungry. It was now dark out, and the evening was chilly. It would be pleasant to eat by the fire, and warm ourselves, while we enjoyed our open-air repast.

"What are you doing, Ute!" I cried, seizing her wrist.

She looked at me, puzzled. "Putting out the fire," she said.

"No," I cried.

"It is dangerous," she said.

"There is no one about," I said.

"It is dangerous," she repeated.

I had no wish to eat in the dark, nor to freeze. "Do not put out the fire, Ute." I said. "It is all right."

Ute shook her head, undecided.

"Please!" I pressed.

"All right," smiled Ute.

But scarcely more than a Gorean Ihn had passed before Ute, suddenly, with a look of terror in her eyes, began to fling dirt on the fire.

"What are you doing!" I cried.

"Be quiet!" she whispered.

Then I heard, far overhead, in the darkness, the scream of a tarn.

"It is a wild tarn," I said.

The fire was now out.

"We must leave now," said Ute, frightened.

"It is only a wild tarn," I insisted.

"I hope that is true," said Ute.

I felt a shiver course my spine.

Ute began to destroy, in the darkness, the small shelter of sticks and leaves we had constructed.

"Bring what food you can," she said. "We must leave now."

Angry, but frightened, I gathered what food I could find.

When she had finished with the shelter, Ute felt about and, with her hands, scooped together the bones and entrails, the furs and scales, left over from our catch, and buried them.

As well as she could, she destroyed all signs of our camp. Then, moving swiftly through the darkness, I following, carrying what food I could, Ute fled out camp.

I followed her, hating her. I was afraid to be without her.

We moved southwestward through the great thicket, and then, finally came to its edge.

The night was dark.

Ute scrutinized the skies. We saw nothing. She listened for a long time. We heard nothing.

"You see, Ute," I said, irritated. "It was nothing."

"Perhaps," agreed Ute.

"I hear no more tarn screams," I told her.

"Perhaps they have dismounted," suggested Ute.

"It was only a wild tarn," I told her.

"I hope that that is true," she said.

Together, at the edge of the thicket, we ate the remains of our meal, which I had carried.

We wiped our hands on the grass, and threw the bones into the brush. "Look!" whispered Ute.

Through the brush, some two hundred yards away, moving in the darkness, we saw two torches.

"Men," moaned Ute. "Men!"

From the thicket, running together, we fled southwestward.

By dawn we came to another large stand of Ka-la-na, in which we, wearily, concealed ourselves.

Four days later in yet another thicket, one afternoon, Ute requested that I set one of our snares on a small game trail we had found earlier.

We had heard nothing more of pursuit. We had seen no more torches, following us in the night.

We had again escaped.

Swinging the loop of binding fiber, I walked along the trail.

There were small birds about, and I saw a scurrying brush urt, even a lovely, yellowish Tabuk fawn. I crossed two tiny streams.

Suddenly I stopped, terrified.

I heard the sound of a man's voice. I slipped from the soft, gentle, green path between the trees and brush, and fell to my stomach, concealed among the brush and grasses.

They were not coming along the trail.

I inched forward, on my elbows and stomach, and then, through a tiny parting in the brush, saw them.

My heart almost stopped.

They were in a small clearing. There were two tarns hobbled nearby. The men had made no fire. They were clad in leather, and armed. They were warriors, mercenaries. They seemed rough, cruel men. I recognized them. I had seem them as long ago as Targo's compound north of Laura. They were hirelings of Haakon of Skjern, his men.

"She is nowhere in here," one of the men told the other.

"If we had hunting sleen," said the other, "and could find her trail, we would have her in our bracelets before dusk."

"I hope she is red silk," said the other.

"If she is not when we apprehend her," said the other, "by the time we turn her over to Haakon she will be of the reddest of silks."

"Haakon might not be pleased," said the other.

The first laughed. "Haakon does not know which girl is red silk and which is white silk."

"That is true," grinned the other.

"Besides," pointed out the first, "do you really think Haakon expects us to return white silk girls to his chain?"

"Of course not, laughed the second, slapping his knee. "Of course not!" "This one has led us a merry chase indeed," said the first man, grimly. "We will make her pay us back well for our time and trouble."

"But what if we do not catch her?" asked the second.

"She is indeed elusive," said the first man, "but we will catch her." Laying on my stomach in the grass, listening, I moaned inwardly. "She seems intelligent," said the second.

"Yes," pointed out the first, "we saw her fire."

"True," said the second, "though she seems clever, though she seems intelligent, though she has well eluded us this far, she yet built a fire."

The first smiled. "Any girl foolish enough to build a fire," he said, "will, sooner or later, be caught."

"What is our plan?" asked the second.

"We know that she had a fire," said the first. "One supposes she was cooking. If she was cooking, she must have caught birds or meat."

"At the edge of the thicket to the northeast, days ago," said the second man, "we found the bones of brush urts!"

"Yes," said the first man, "and nearby, in this thicket, there is a small game trail."

"It is hard to hunt in a Ka-la-na thicket," said the second man.

"More importantly," said the first man, "brush urts tend to use such trails." "Yes!" said the second.

"Sooner or later, it seems likely, does it not," asked the first, "that she will come to the trail, to hunt, or set a snare, or see if one is sprung." "There may be other trails," pointed out the second man. "If we do not catch her now," said the first man, spreading his hands, "we will catch her tomorrow, or the day after."

On my stomach, carefully, silently, I began to back away. When I was several yards away, silently, bending over, noiselessly, I slipped away.

One thought was foremost in my mind. That I must find and warn Ute, that we might escape.

But then I stopped.

I crawled into some brush, frightened. They had always spoken only of "she." As far as they knew, there was but one girl to be caught.

I shook my head. No, I must not think such thoughts. But the men frightened me. They were rough, cruel men, mercenaries, ruthless. I could not permit Elinor Brinton, the sensitive girl of Earth, to fall into the hands of such hardened brutes. I had heard them talk of what they would do to a girl, even though she might be white silk!

Ute had been a slave before.

No, I told myself, no! I must not think such thoughts.

I found myself getting up and, calmly, walking back toward our camp. The men knew of only one girl. They thought there was only one of us. I must not think such thoughts, I told myself.

Ute and I must escape.

I smiled.

Ute had thought she was my leader. She had dared to give me orders. She had commanded me, Elinor Brinton, though she was only an ignorant Gorean girl, had dared to act as the leader of a girl of Earth, and one such as I!

She would learn better.

No, I cried to myself. I must warn Ute! I must warn her!

I was now nearing our camp, walking casually.

I remembered clearly what the man had said. "If we do not catch her now," he had said, "we will catch her tomorrow, or the day after."

They had pursued us for days. They would not give up the chase. They would have us.

I smiled.

Or at least one of us.

Ute was stupid, she was ignorant, she was Gorean, she did not matter. She was a crude, simple girl. She made mistakes in speaking her own language. She did not have my fine mind, my sensitivity, my delicate nature, my cleverness. She was, I reminded myself, of low caster. She was less, far less than I.

Besides, she had dared to treat me as her inferior, ordering me about, instructing me. I hated her! Pretty little Ute, whom men found so desirable! I hated her! I was more beautiful than she. Ute had been slave before. She could be slave again! I remembered she had once thonged me by the nose ring. I hated her. We would find out who was more clever. I hated her!

I threw the piece of binding fiber, which I had been carrying for the snare, which I had not set, into the brush.

"Greetings, Ute," said I, smiling.

"Tal, El-in-or," smiled Ute, looking up from her work. She was trying, with a pointed stick, to round a pit in a new board for a new fire drill. Usually, in our night journeys, we carried with us only the precious binding fiber. Accordingly, Ute often constructed a new drill.

"Oh, Ute," I said. "I set the snare far down the game trail. And as I was going away, I heard it spring and heard an animal."

"Good," said Ute. "What was it?"

"I don't know," I said. "I looked. I had not seen one like it before. It is some kind of brush urt, I think. It is very ugly."

"Why didn't you bring it back with you? she asked.

"I did not want to touch it," I said.

"Oh, El-in-or!" laughed Ute. "You are so foolish!"

"Please get it, Ute," I begged. "I do not want to touch it. It is so ugly." "All right," said Ute. "I will get it." She returned to her work.

I cast a frightened glance backward, down the trail.:Hadn't you better hurry?" I asked.

"Why?" asked Ute.

"Might someone not find the snare?" I said.

Ute looked at me. "Yes," she said. "We must take it down quickly." She put aside her work and stood up.

"Show me where you put it," said Ute, starting off.

"No!" I cried.

She turned and looked at me.

"You can't miss it," I told her. "It is to the left. You could not miss it." "All right," said Ute, and left the camp. My heart was pounding.

Stealthily, at a distance, I followed her. A short distance from the camp, I knelt down and picked up a heavy rock. I hid in the brush beside the trail, clutching the rock.

Suddenly, some hundred yards away, I heard a man's shout.

My heart leaped. They had taken her!

But then I heard the shouts of another man, and then of both, and a crashing through the brush.

To my dismay, terrified, frantic, her eyes wide, hands extended, fleet as a Tabuk, Ute was fleeing back down the trail.

"El-in-or," she cried. "Slavers! Run!"

"I know," I said.

She looked at me, startled.

I struck her suddenly in the side of the head with the stone.

They must find her, not me!

Ute, moaning, stunned, sank to her hands and knees, shaking her head. I threw the rock down beside her. The men would assume she had fallen and struck her head.

Quickly I fled back into the brush and hid.

Ute struggled to her feet, but stumbled and fell again, moaning, to her hands and knees.

I saw them seize her.

She was still stunned, half conscious. While she was still on her hands and knees, they cut the camisk from her, discarding it. They threw her forward on her stomach. One pulling her wrists behind her back and binding them, the other crossing her ankles and lashing them together.

I was pleased. Ute had been taken.

I only feared that she might tell them that I was about. But somehow I knew that she could not. Ute was stupid. I knew she would not betray me.

I thus, cleverly, eluded my pursuers.

I would continue my journey to the village of Rarir, which I thought I might now be able to find. I could tell them, in that village, that I had been a friend of Ute's whom I hoped they would remember. They would befriend me. In time, I would use the help of the villagers to find my way to the exchange island of Teletus, where I could find, if all went well, Ute's foster parents. I had little doubt but what they would care for me, and be kind to me, for I had been a friend of Utes, their foster daughter, so long ago fallen slave on the journey to the Sardar. I could tell them and would, that Ute had told me to find them, and had promised me that they would care for me. Ute and I had been desperately trying to reach them. I would tell them, only we had fallen in with slavers and, unfortunately, only I had escaped. Would they care for me? I had little doubt but what they would. I expected that they would beg me, in Ute''s place, to permit myself to be adopted as their daughter/ I was much pleased.

I continued the journey to Rarir.

I moved by night, and, by day, slept in Ka-la-na thickets.

I was stirring in my bed of soft grasses, hidden in such thicket, half asleep. I was drowsy. There were insects about. I had been well fed the night before, for I had stopped, hidden in the darkness, near a peasant village, where, from a pole, I had stolen a piece of drying meat, bosk flesh. It was far superior to what I had been able to snare.

I had not cooked my meat since Ute's capture. I was not confident of my ability to construct or use an efficient fire drill. More importantly, I knew that it was dangerous to make a fire. I had well learned this.

Mostly I ate fruits and nuts, and some roots. Occasionally I would supplement this diet with the raw flesh of small birds, or that of an occasional brush urt, which I would manage to snare. However, last night, and the night before, at another village, I had managed to steal meat. I had resolved that I would feed myself in this fashion. I was surely not tempted to sample the small amphibians or the loathsome, fat green insects Ute had called to my attention. They might have been a source of protein, but rather than touch such things to my lips I would have preferred to starve! It was easier to steal meat, good bosk meat, from ignorant peasants! I lay on my back, drowsy, looking up at the bright sky between the interlaced branches canopied over my head. The day was warm. I smiled.

Then, suddenly, far off, I became aware of a noise. It seemed like the shouting of men, and a clanging and beating of metals, as though pans or kettles might be being struck.

I did not much care for the noise.

In a few minutes it became clear that the sounds were becoming closer. I began to grow apprehensive.

In my camisk, I climbed to my feet, lifting my head.

There was a din, coming from the direction of the village, seeming to move towards me, gradually, through the thicket.

Irritated, I shrugged, and, picking up the fibers I had used for snares, began to move away from the din. I picked some fruit and nuts on the way. The din seemed to be getting louder, which I did not care for. It was coming from behind me.

I walked before it.

It was not long before I realized that if I did not alter my direction I would have departed the vast thicket, in which I had taken refuge.

Accordingly I turned to my left, picking some fruit as I went.

Then, to my irritation, even closer, I heard the din, and now part of it seemed to be coming from before me.

I then became apprehensive, and, half running, turned back the other direction. I had run no more than two or three Ihn when it became clear to me that the din was now, too, coming from in front of me.

I turned again, this time frantically.

The din, beating on pans and kettles, and the shouting, was now sweeping towards me, in a vast semicircle.

I suddenly realized I was being hunted!

Only from before me was there no sound. I was terrified. I began to run in that direction, toward the edge of the thicket, but then I was afraid. I would lose the cover of the thicket. Moreover, they might be driving me towards hunters, or nets! The silence terrified me as much as the din.

I must slip between their lines.

Some animals fled past me, away from the din, tabuk and brush urts. Carefully, concealing myself as much as possible, I started back toward the din. The din became loud, terrible, and the shouting. The noise, the knowledge that I was being hunted, made me suddenly feel irrational, driven. I wanted only to flee from the sound.

The din became insufferably loud.

I pressed toward it.

Then my heart sank!

There must have been two hundred or more peasants, men, children and women, all shouting, and beating on their kettles and pans. The women and children carried sticks and switches, the men spears, flails, forks and clubs.

They were too close together, there were too many of them!

A child saw me and he cried out and began to beat more loudly on his pan. I turned and fled.

The din now became maddeningly pressing, intolerable, ringing in my brain, closing in on me.

I could do nothing but fly toward the silence.

Then, in the sunlight of the bright morning, late, almost at noon, I fled from the thicket, across the grass of the open field.

I ran irrationally, driven, terrified.

I kept running.

Then, exhausted, I looked back. The peasants had stopped at the edge of the Ka-la-na thicket, in their great numbers. They no longer shouted, they no longer beat on their pans.

I looked ahead of me. There was nothing. No strong peasant lads waited there, to run me down, to strip and bind me, and lead me, my neck roped, back to the village. There were no nets. There was nothing. I cried out with joy and fled across the grasses.

They had wanted only to drive me from the thicket!

I was still free.

I stopped.

I stood in the bright, knee-high grasses of that windblown, flowing field. I felt the sun on my body, the grass touching my calves. My feet felt beneath them the black, warm, root-filled, living earth of Gor. The Ka-la-na thicket was yellow in the distance, the peasants standing at its edge, not moving. The sky was deep, and blue, and bright with sunlight. I inhaled the fresh, glorious air of the planet Gor. How beautiful it was!

The peasants did not pursue me.

I was free!

I put my head back and standing feet spread, leaned backwards, with my hands spreading my hair in the wind. I felt the wind lift it. I was pleased. I was free!

Suddenly my hand flew before my mouth. High, lofty, small in the vertical depths of that glorious sky, there was a speck. I shook my head, no! No!

I looked back toward the peasants. They had not moved.

I knelt down on one knee in the grasses, my eyes fixed on the speck. It was circling.

I saw it far overhead, first to my right, and then behind me, and then to my left, and then before me.

I cried out with misery.

I knew myself, small on the grasses, far below, to be the center of that circle. I began to run, madly, frantically across the grasses.

I stopped, and turned, and looked back and upward. I cried out with misery. I saw the bird turn, swirling in the sky. I saw the sun, for a brief instant, flash from the helmet of its rider. The bird had wheeled in my direction. It was now screaming, descending, wings beating, streaking towards me.

I screamed and began to run, madly, irrationally, across the grasses. I heard the scream of the bird behind me, and the beating of its great wings, closer and closer!

I stumbled, screaming, then running again. I might have been a golden-pelted tabuk, but I was a girl!

The scream of the bird deafened me and its wings broke like thunder about my ears.

The shadow streaked past me.

The leather loop dropped about my body. In an instant it had jerked tight, pinning my arms helplessly to my sides, and I felt my body, my back almost broken, jerked from the grass. The grass rushed swiftly past below me, and I could not touch it with my feet, and then it fled from me, dropping way, and then suddenly, in the rushing air, as I twisted and turned, buffeted in the blasts of wind, a prisoner of the forces, the physics, of the braided leather rope and the accelerations and attitudes, it seemed the sky was below me and the grass overhead, and then I lost my breath, as the tarn began to climb, and I gasped, the grass and the sky, and the horizon, now spinning, and I screamed, crying out, my arms pinned, my hands helpless, unable to hold the rope, and I felt it slip an inch on my body, and I saw the earth now below, so far below, and the Ka-la-na thicket in the distance, like a patch of foliage on a lawn, and I swung, wildly, helplessly, the captive of that taut, slender leather strand by which I was bound, forty feet below the tarn, now hundreds of feet above the earth below me.

The rope slipped another quarter of an inch on my body, and I screamed! Then, the rope, pressing itself cruelly into my arms and body, lodged itself firmly.

It slipped no more.

I was effectively imprisoned by the weight of my own body. I feared only that the rope might break.

The tarn then began to wheel, and soar, and I swung below it, dangling and bound, hundreds of feet above the grasses below. It was turning back toward the Ka-la-na thicket, now remote in the distance, far below.

I felt myself being pulled, foot by foot, upward. I felt the rope press even more cruelly into my body, and I felt myself, foot by foot, lifted. My hands felt so helpless. I wanted to clutch the rope, to hold it! But I could not. Then, looking up, I saw the great talons of the tarn, held in against its body, above me. They were huge, curved and sharp.

I felt my body dragged against the side of the bird, and then I felt my shoulder rub against the metal and leather of the saddle, and a man's leg.

Then he held me in his arms. I could not move, so terrified was I.

I saw his eyes, through the apertures in his helmet. They seemed amused. I looked away.

He laughed.

It was a great, raw laugh, that of a tarnsman. I shuddered.

He removed the tarn rope from my body. On the saddle before him, facing him, I clung about his neck, terrified that I might fall. He coiled the tarn rope, and fastened it at the side of the saddle.

He then removed his tarn knife from his belt.

I felt the knife between the camisk and the binding fiber that belted it on my body. There was a movement of the knife and the binding fiber whipped from my body and, in the rushing wind, the camisk began to tug, snapping away from me, and then it was high, about my throat, pulling at my neck, flapping and snapping. He lifted it over my head and it flew behind the tarn. I felt against my body his leather, the buckle of his tarn belt. My cheek lay against the metal of his helmet. My hair streaked with the wind.

With his two hands he disengaged my arms from his neck.

"Lie before me, on your back," he said, "and cross your wrists and ankles." Terribly afraid of falling, I did so. He bent across my body and I felt my crossed wrists lashed to a saddle ring. He then bent to the other side and, in moments, I felt my crossed ankles lashed to another ring.

I lay there on my back before him, my body a bow, bound helplessly across his saddle.

He slapped my belly twice.

He then laughed another great laugh, that great raw laugh, that of a tarnsman, who has his prize bound helpless before him.

I cursed my misfortune, that I had been driven from the thicket when a tarnsman had been in the sky!

I pulled at my bound wrists, and ankles, fastened to the rings.

I turned my head to one side and wept.

I had again fallen captive.

What an incredible misfortune that I had been driven from the thicket just at the moment when a tarnsman had been in the sky!

I then became aware that the tarn was circling, and descending.

It was hard to breathe. I could see little but the sky, and the clouds. Then, with a jolt to my back, and with a scattering of dust and a snapping of wings, the tarn alit.

I became aware, as well as I could see, that we stood in the midst of a clearing in a peasant village. I could see, my head hanging down, in the distance a great thicket of Ka-la-na. Peasants were crowding about. Turning my head to one side, I could see men with spears and flails, in peasant tunics. Women and children, too, in the dusty square crowded about. I heard some clanging of pans. I saw sticks in the hands of some of the children.

"I see you have her, Warrior," said a large peasant, bearded, in a rough tunic of rep cloth.

I trembled.

"You flushed her well into the field," said the warrior. "My thanks." I groaned in misery.

"It is little enough for the many services you have rendered us," said the man. "She stole meat from us last night," said a man.

"Yes," said another, "and before that, the night before, from the village of Rorus."

"Give her to us, Warrior," said a man, "for a quarter of an Ahn, for a switching."

The warrior laughed. I trembled.

"There are men of Rorus here, too," said the man. "They, too, would like to punish her. Give her to us for a quarter of an Ahn, that we may switch her." Bound, I trembled.

"Let us switch her," cried the women and the children. "Let us switch her!" Upside down, fastened in the straps, I shook with fear.

"What is the cost of the meat?" inquired the warrior.

The people were silent.

From a pouch he threw a coin to a man of the village, and another to another man, doubtless one of the other village, called Rorus.

"Thank you, Warrior," they cried. "Our thanks!"

"Her first beating," said the warrior, in his strong voice, "is mine to bestow!" There was much laughter. I pulled helplessly at the straps.

"I wish you well!" they cried.

I felt the one-strap of the tarn harness jerk tight across my body, and suddenly, taking my breath away, the great bird screamed and began to beat its wings, and the saddle pressed up against my back, and I, upside down, saw the conical huts of the peasants drop away below us, and the bird, stroke by violent, majestic stroke, its head forward, was climbing toward the clouds.

The tarn streaked through the skies. I could fell the wind on my body. I lay bound over the saddle. My hair fled back in the wind, across his left thigh. I could scarcely move my wrists and ankles. He had lashed them securely. He was incredibly strong. Never before, even in the hut, had I been tied more tightly, more helplessly. I did not know where we were going, or even in what direction we were flying. I knew only that I, Elinor Brinton, a captured girl, was being carried helplessly, cruelly bound, tightly and uncompromisingly secured, into slavery.

It is now clear to me that we were flying southeastward.

Shortly after we had attained the skies, and he had set his direction, he turned me on my flank, facing him, and, with the fingers of his right hand, fingered my brand. "Only a Kajira," he said. Then, with the palm of his hand he thrust me back on my back.

In a moment or two, he reached down and took my hair, lifting my head, painfully, and turning it from side to side. "Your ears are pierced," he said. Then he dropped my head back against the side of the saddle.

I groaned, helplessly.

The tarn streaked on.

Once, he said to me, "We are crossing the Vosk."

I knew then we were within the territory of Ar, and must be high over the Margin of Desolation, a barren area, now recovering itself, which, years ago, had been cleared and devastated, that the northern fields of Ar by such a natural barrier, by such a wall of hunger and thirst, might be protected, presumably from invasion from the north or, more likely, from the incursions of Vosk pirates. In the reign of Marlenus, prior to his exile, and later, after his restoration, the Margin of Desolation had been deliberately left untended, that it might recover. Marlenus had set a swift fleet of light, Vosk galleys to clear the river waters adjoining his Ubarate of pirates. They had been successful, or muchly so. Seldom did Vosk pirates ply their trade where the Vosk bordered the regions of Ar. Other cities, to the north, of course, looked with apprehension on Marlenus' permitting the Margin of Desolation to recover its fertility and shade. He may have been only intending to extend the arable lands of Ar. On the other hand, under Marlenus, it became clear that Ar no longer feared for her borders. Also, the ambition of Marlenus, the Ubar of Ar, said to be the Ubar of Ubars, was well known. If it was now possible, or soon would be possible, to bring a land army easily southward to Ar, once the Vosk was traversed, by the same token, it would be similarly possible for Ar to bring, swiftly a considerable force of men northward, to the very shore of the Vosk. Of tradition, the northern shore of the Vosk was disputed by various cities. Ar, among others, had mde her claims.

Ahn after Ahn, the tarn flew.

He did not unbind me to feed me.

"Open your mouth," he said.

He thrust yellow Sa-Tarna bread into my mouth. I chewed the bread and, with difficulty, swallowed it. He then, with his tarn knife, from a piece of raw bosk meat, cut four small pieces of meat, which he placed in my mouth. "Feed," he said. I chewed the meat, eyes closed, swallowing it. "Drink," he said. He thrust the horn nozzle of a leather bota of water between my teeth. I almost choked. He withdrew the nozzle and capped the bota, replacing it in his saddle pack. I closed my eyes, miserable. I had been fed and watered.

The tarn flew on.

After a time I looked up at the warrior who had captured me.

He seemed broad chested, and broad shouldered. He had a large head, muchly concealed within the war helmet. He carried his head proudly. His arms were strong, muscular and bronzed. His hands were large, and rough, fit for weapons. He wore scarlet leather. His helmet, with its "Y"-like aperture, was gray. Neither his leather nor his helmet were distinguished by insignia. I supposed then, that he must be a mercenary, or an outlaw.

To have been taken by such a man, I had no idea what my fate would be. There seemed something familiar about the strong figure, before whom I was bound.

Somehow he frightened me. I felt I had know him, or met him before. Perhaps in Laura, near the compound of Targo!

"Are you," I asked, trembling, "a hireling of Haakon of Skjern?"

"No," he said.

"Will youa€”" I asked, "will you keep me for yourself?" I shuddered. "A smelly, dirty little Kajira, with pierced ears, who steals meat from peasant villages?" he said.

I groaned.

"I would not even put you with my women," he said.

I closed my eyes.

I realized then that such a warrior had undoubtedly captured many women, that many beauties, both slave and free, before me, and doubtless after me, would, as bound prized, helplessly grace his saddle. Among such riches, I, Elinor Brinton, realized that to such a man, a warrior, a tarnsman among tarnsmen, I was of little account, only another girl and perhaps a poor sort of one at that. He had little more interest in me than in a piece of meat, which he had captured and tied.

"You should be sold to a peddler," he said. "Or I should have left you in the peasant village. Peasants know well how to treat thieving wenches." "Please sell me in Ar," I begged. "I am white silk."

He looked at me, I could see the mouth grinning. I shuddered.

"You are unworthy of being sold in Ar," he said. "Perhaps you might be sold at a smaller town, a village, or a border outpost."

"Please," I begged.

"I will dispose of you as I wish," he said. "Now be silent on the matter." I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, I saw him regarding me. He was grinning.

"I am white silk!" I cried. "I will bring a higher price if I am sold white silk!"

"You mistake me, Lady," said he, courteously, "if you think that I am interested only in gold." "No!" I cried. "No!"

He bent to undo the lashings at my ankles.

I screamed, helplessly.

Suddenly, before he had even touched the lashings at my ankles, he turned about, abruptly, in the saddle.

A crossbow bold flashed by, like a swift, hissing needle in the sky. In one moment, as I screamed, terrified, thrown rudely against my bonds, he had jerked his shield from the saddle straps, and wheeled the tarn, with a cry of rage, a strange war cry, to face his foe.

He was met with another war cry, and suddenly, only feet from us, another tarn streaked past, and I heard the forcible, tearing scrape of a broad, bronze spear blade, its blow turned, sliding across the metal-bound, layered, bosk-hide shield of my captor.

The other tarn streaked away, and its rider, standing in his stirrups, braced in the saddle, held to it by the broad safety strap, was redrawing his crossbow, a quarrel held in his teeth.

My captor attacked, giving him no instant in which to set again his bow. When only yards separated us, the other man flung away his bow and quarrel, seizing up his shield. My captor, standing in his stirrups, flung his own great spear. it struck the other's shield, piercing it. If the other man had not been fastened in his saddle by the great strap the force of my captor's blow would have struck him from the saddle. As it was, it spun him, tearing the shield from his arm.

He cursed. "For Skjern!" he cried.

The two tarns wheeled again, for another passage.

Again the other's spear struck, and again the blow was countered by my captor's shield. I again heard the terrible, startling scrape of the spear blade diverted by the seven-layered, metal-bound boskhide shield. Twice more the attacker pressed in, and each time, again, the shield turned the blow, once but inches from my body. My captor was trying to close with him, to bring him within the range of his own steel, his now-drawn, swift, unadorned blade. Again the spear struck, but this time my captor took the point in the shield. I, bound, saw, suddenly, the bronze point, a foot of it, inches from my face, explode through the hide. I screamed. My captor then wheeled away, the other, his blade now drawn, trying to press close. My captor had wished to rid his enemy of the spear, because of its reach, but, to do so, his own defense was impaired. With incredible strength, his sword dangling from its wrist strap, commonly used by tarnsmen in flight, I saw him withdraw the spear from the shield, but at the same time the other's tarn struck ours, and his blade, flashing downwards, struck the heavy shaft of the spear, splintering it, half severing it. He struck again and the spear shaft, with a scattering of wood, split apart. My captor now thrust his shield before him, and over my body. I heard the blade of the other strike twice, ringing on the metal hoops of the shield that guarded me. Then my captor again had his sword in his grip, but the other dragged his tarn upward, cursing, and its long, curved talons raked downwards, clutching for us. I heard the talons tear across the shield. My captor was thrusting upward, to keep the bird away. Then its talons locked over the shield and it smote its wings, ripping the shield straps, half tearing my captor from the saddle, and the tarn was away, the shield then dropping like a penny, turning, toward the field below.

"Yield her!" I heard the cry.

"Her price is steel!" was the answer that met the attacker.

Bound, I screamed, helplessly.

Then the tarns swooped together again, side by side, saddle to saddle, while blades flashed over my head, in a swift dialogue of steel, debating my possession.

I screamed.

The tarns then, rearing up in the sky, facing one another, began to tear at one another with their beaks and talons, and then, talons locked, they began, beaks snapping and tearing, to twist and roll, turning, locked together, falling, climbing, tumbling, wings beating, screaming in rage.

I was thrown one way and the other, violently, helplessly. Sometimes it seemed I was standing as the tarn would veer, or hanging head downwards as it would veer, turning wildly, in another direction. When it spun onto its back, tearing upwards at its foe, I hung stomach downwards, my full weight on the lashings, seeing in terror the earth hundreds of feet below.

The men fought to regain control of their mounts.

And then again, saddle to saddle, they fought, and once more steel flashed about my face and body. My ears, had they been tongues, would have screamed for mercy. Sparks from the steel stung my body.

Then, suddenly, with a cry of rage, of frustration, the blade of the other struck downwards towards my face. My captor's steel interposed itself. I saw the broad blade of his sword but an inch from my face, for one terrifying instant of immobility, the other's blade, edge downward, resting on it, stopped. The blow would have cut my face in two.

There was blood on my face. I did not know whose it was, even if it might be mine.

"Sleen!" cried my captor. "I have played with you enough!" once more, over my head, there was a flash of steel, and I heard a cry of pain, and then suddenly the other tarn veered sharply away, and I saw its rider, clutching his shoulder, reeling in the saddle.

His tarn spun crazily, and then, a hundred yards away, to one side and below us, turned and fled.

My captor did not pursue him.

I looked up at my captor, the tarnsman whose lashings bound me.

I still lay before him, over the saddle, his.

He looked down upon me, and laughed.

I turned my head away.

He turned his tarn and we continued our journey. I had seen that his left arm, high, above the elbow, about two inches below his shoulder, had been cut. It had been blood from this cut which had struck my face.

Soon, unable to resist, I turned again, in my bonds, to look upon my captor. The cut was not serious.

It had already stopped bleeding, the fierce wind having clotted the blood in a ragged line. On the left side of his arm, running from the wound, there were several almost horizontal, reddish lines, where, but moments before, tiny trickles of blood, unable to flow downward, had been whipped backward by the wind.

He saw me looking at him, and grinned.

I looked up at the sky. It was very blue, and there were white clouds. "That was your friend," he said.

I looked at him.

"Haakon of Skjern," he said.

He looked down upon me.

I was frightened.

"How is it you know of Haakon of Skjern?" he asked.

"I was his preferred slave," I said. "I fled."

We flew on, not speaking.

Then, after perhaps a quarter of an Ahn, I asked. "May a girl speak?" "Yes," he said.

"To be the preferred slave of a man such as Haakon of Skjern, who is rich and powerful, you must understand that I am unusual, quite beautiful and skilled." "I see," he said.

"Accordingly," I said, "I should be sold in Ar. And, further, since I am white silk, I should not be used. My price will be higher if I am sold white silk." "It is unusual, I would suppose," said the man, "for the preferred slave of a man such as Haakon of Skjern to be white silk."

I reddened, all of me, before him.

"Say to me the alphabet," he said.

I did not know the Gorean alphabet. I could not read. Elinor Brinton, on Gor, was ignorant and illiterate.

"I do not know the alphabet," I confessed.

"An illiterate slave girl," said the man.:Further, you accent marks you as barbarian."

"But I am trained!" I cried. "I know," he said, "in the pens of Ko-ro-ba."

I looked at him, dumbfounded.

"Further," he said, "you never belonged to Haakon of Skjern."

"Oh yes!" I cried. "I did!"

His eyes became suddenly hard. "Haakon of Skjern is my enemy," he said. "If you were truly his preferred slave, it is your misfortune to have fallen into my hands. I shall have much sport with you."

"I lied," I whispered. "I lied."

"Now you lie," he said, sternly, "to save your flesh from the irons and the whips."

"No!" I cried.

"On the other hand," he said, "if you were indeed his preferred slave, doubtless you would bring a high prove in Ar, and would be much bid for by rich gentlemen."

I was in anguish. "Warrior," I said, "I was truly, I confess, the favored slave of Haakon of Skjern, but I fled from him, so do not be cruel to me!" "What is the fate of a slave girl who lies?" he asked me.

"Whatever the master wishes," I whispered.

"What would you do if one of your slaves lied?" he asked.

"Ia€”I would beat her," I said.

"Excellent," he said. Then he looked down at me. His eyes were not pleasant. "What is the name of the lieutenant of Haakon of Skjern?" he asked. I writhed in the lashings. "Do not beat me!" I begged. "Do not beat me!" He laughed.

"You are El-in-or," he said, "who was the slave of Targo, of the Village of Clearus, in the realm of Tor. In the pens it was well known that you did not clean your cage, and that you were a liar and a thief." He slapped my belly. "Yes," he said, "I have quite a catch her. What could it be about you that I could have found of interest?"

"You have seen me before? I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"My beauty?" I asked. He laughed. "There are many beautiful women," he said.

I felt weak before him.

"Then," I whispered, "it is your intention to put me in your collar?" "Yes," he said.

I closed my eyes. I knew then that I, Elinor Brinton, of Earth, would wear the degrading, locked metal collar of a Gorean slave girl, this man's, the collar of this brute who had captured me, and that I, Elinor Brinton, though once a free human female of Earth, would soon belong to him, totally, by all the rights and laws of Gor. I would be completely his, to do with as he pleased. I would be his female slave.

I looked again upon him. How strong he seemed.

"You sought me?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. He grinned down upon me. "I have hunted you for days." I turned my head to the side in misery. Even when I had thought myself most free, after the escape from Targo, after betraying Ute, and escaping in the Ka-la-na thicket, this beast, with his laugh, his leather rope, and his slave collar, had been upon my trail. He had marked me for his collar, and his pleasure.

How could I, a mere girl, have hoped to elude him, such a man, such a huntsman? "You saw me in the pen of Ko-ro-ba?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Do you not know me?" he asked.

"No," I said, turning to face him.

He, with his two hands, removed his helmet.

"I do not know you," I whispered.

I was terribly frightened. I had not understood his face could be so strong. He was powerful. He had a large head. The eyes were darkly fierce, his hair a pelt of shaggy sable.

I cried out with misery that I had fallen to such a man.

He laughed. The teeth in his darkly tanned, wind-burned face seemed large and white, and strong.

I trembled. I feared what they would feel like on my body.

I felt again weak. I felt like a golden-pelted tabuk, lying between the paws of the black-maned mountain larl.

I moaned with misery, for suddenly I understood the foolishness of my fantasies in the pens of Ko-ro-ba, and in the caravan of Targo, that I would conquer, that I might, by the withholding of my favors, or the fervor of my favors, reduce a master to bondage, turning him into a needful slave desperate for my smiles and pliant to my will. I realized with a blaze of misery, and self-pity, that to such a man it was only I who could be the slave. He was totally and utterly masculine, and before him I could be only totally and utterly feminine. I had no choice. My will was helpless. I suppose that a woman, like a man, has buried instincts, of which they may not even become aware, but these instincts lie within them, dispositions to respond, dispositions locked into the very genetic codes of her being, instincts awaiting only the proper stimulus situation to be elicited and emerge, overpoweringly, irresistibly, sweeping her, perhaps to her astonishment and horror, in a biological flood to her destiny, a destiny once triggered as incontrovertible and uncontrollable as the secretion of her glands and the mad beating of her heart.

I knew then that he was dominant over me. This had nothing to do with the fact that I lay stripped before him, wrists and ankles lashed, his prisoner. It had to do with the fact that he was totally masculine, and in the presence of such a stimulus, my body would permit me to be only totally feminine. I wished that he had been one of the weak men of Earth, trained in feminine values, and not a Gorean male.

I felt a mad impulse to beg him to use me.

"So you do not recognize me?" he laughed.

"No," I whispered.

He fastened his helmet to the side of the saddle and, from his saddle pack, withdrew a roll of leather. He wrapped this about his head, covering his left eye.

I remembered then, the tall figure in the blue and yellow silk, with the leather covering one eye. "Soron of Ar!" I cried.

He smiled, removing the leather, replacing it in the saddle pack.

"You are the Slaver, Soron of Ar!" I said.

I recalled I had knelt before him, as a slave girl, and he had forced me to do it twice, saying "Buy me, Master." It had only been to me that he had said, curtly, "No," so offending me! And he had looked at me, afterward, and I had tossed my head and looked angrily away, but when I had looked again, he was still observing me, nude, standing on the straw of the slave cage, and I had felt vulnerable and frightened.

And I remembered how, on the night before we left the pens of Ko-ro-ba, I had dreamed of him and had awakened in terror. "Purchase me!" I had begged, in the dream, "Purchase me!" "No," he had said. Then he had captured me. I had awakened, crying out.

Not I lay before him, in reality, fully captured, his, his helpless, bound prisoner.

"When I first saw you," said my captor, "I decided I would have you, when first you knelt before me, and said, "Buy me, Master," I resolved to own you. Then, later, when I looked upon you and you tossed your head and angrily looked away, I knew I would not rest until you were mine." He smiled. "You will pay much for that snub, my dear," he said.

"What are you going to do with me?" I whispered.

He shrugged. "I shall keep you for a time, I suppose," he said, "for my interest and sport, and then, when I weary of you, dispose of you."

"Sell me in Ar," I begged.

"I think rather," said he, "I will give you to a village of peasants." I remembered the peasants, with their switches and sticks. I trembled. I knew, too, that such men often used girls, with the bosk, to pull plows, under whips. At night, unclothed, when not being used, they were commonly chained in a straw kennel with a dirt floor.

"I am worth gold," I said. "Sell me in Ar!" "I will dispose of you as I please," he said.

"Yes, Warrior," I said.

I looked again up at him.

"Why did you not buy me from Targo?" I inquired.

He looked down at me. "I do not buy women," he said.

"But you are a slaver!" I said.

"No," he said.

"Yes," I cried. "You are Soron of Ar, the Slaver,"

"Soron of Ar," he said, "does not exist."

I looked at him with horror.

"Who are you?" I asked.

I shall never forget the words he spoke, which so terrorized me.

"Lo Rask," said he. "Rarius. Civitatis Trevis."

"I am Rask," he said, "of the caste of warriors, of the city of Treve."