Explorers Of Gor

5
We Ply Toward Schendi

"Lesha," snapped the second officer to the blond girl.

She spun from facing him, and lifted her chin, turning her head to the left, placing her wrists behind her, as though for snapping them into slave bracelets.

"Nadu!" he snapped.

She swiftly turned, facing him, and dropped to her knees. She knelt back on her heels, her back straight, her hands on her thighs, her head up, her knees wide.

It was the position of the pleasure slave.

"Sula, Kajira!" said the man.

She slid her legs from under her and lay on her back, her hands at her sides, palms up. her legs open.

"Bara, Kajira!" he said.

She rolled quickly to her stomach, placing her wrists behind her, crossed, and crossing her ankles, ready to be bound.

"She is a pretty thing," said Ulafi, and turned away.

"Yes," I said.

"Sula!" said the man. "Bara! Nadu! Lesha! Nadu! Bara! Sula! Nadu!"

The girl was gasping. There were tears in her eyes, as she knelt on the deck. Once she had been struck when her transition between two of the movements had been insufficiently beautiful. Another time she had been struck when her response had been insufficiently prompt.

The trip south towards Schendi is a long one, consuming several days, even with fair winds, which we had had.

"Do you think she will make a good slave?" asked Sasi, standing beside me, eating a larma.

"Perhaps, in time," I said. "How are her lessons in Gorean coming along?"

Sasi shrugged. "I am teaching her as I can," she said. "Barbarians are so stupid."

I had had Sasi, at the invitation of Ulafi, spend several hours a day tutoring the blond girl in Gorean. Sasi enjoyed this, standing over the blond girl with a strap, striking her when she made mistakes. When she had had a good session Ulafi would sometimes, when he thought of it, throw her a bit of cake or pastry, which she would gratefully receive. She would then kneel before Ulafi and kiss his feet, clutching the bit of cake or pastry. "Thank you, Master," she would say. She would then kneel before Sasi, her teacher, and offer her the bit of cake or pastry, which Sasi would take, taking most of it and returning a portion of it to her. "Thank you, Mistress," she would say, for Sasi was first girl She would then creep to her cage, and be locked within it. She would lie curled up in it, a lovely, helpless slave, and try to make the bit of cake or pastry last as long as possible.

When more than one slave girl stands in a relationship of slave girls, as when they serve in the same shop or house, or adorn the same rich man's pleasure gardens, it is common for the master, or masters, to appoint a "first girl." Her authority is then to the other girls as is that of the master. This tends to reduce squabbling. The first girl is usually, though not always, the favorite of the master. There is usually much competition to be first girl. First girls can be cruel and petty but, commonly, they attempt to govern with intelligence and justice. They know that another girl, at the master's whim, may become first girl, and that they themselves may then be under her almost absolute power. In my own house I often rotated the position of first girl among my slaves who were native Goreans. I never made an Earth-girl slave first girl. This is fitting. Let them be always as the slaves of slaves.

I looked at the Earth girl, who had been left kneeling on the deck, the second officer having left her there. She did not move a muscle. She was being well trained.

"I hate her," said Sasi.

"Why? I asked.

"She is so stupid and slow," said Sasi.

"Things are hard for her," I told Sasi. "Remember that she is only a barbarian."

"She is stupid," said Sasi.

"I do not think she is stupid," I said.

"She is slow," said Sasi.

"She is learning," I said.

"She will always be a pitiful, clumsy slave," said Sasi.

"Perhaps," I said. "I do not know." Frankly I did not think she was, even now, a pitiful, clumsy slave. She seemed to me to learn quickly. I felt that she would, in time, particularly if put under sex conquest, prove superb.

"Are you going to train me a little tonight, Master?" asked Sasi.

"Perhaps," I said.

I had already brought her past the limitations of the free woman's heat.

Sometimes at night I would pull her forth from her cage, the key to which had been given to me, use her, and then put her back in the cage.

After the first three or four days she had begun to grow rather food of her collar. It is an interesting transition in a woman.

I looked at the blond-haired slave, kneeling in the position of the pleasure slave.

Sasi bit into the larma fruit.

The first two days the blond-haired girl could not eat. She had shrunk back in honor from the gruel of meal and fish, fit provender for slaves, thrust in its pan into her cage. She had looked at me. Compared to it, the garbage of Port Kar had been haut cuisine. But on the third day she had finished it, thrusting it with her fingers into her mouth and licking the pan clean. Slaves are often not permitted utensils. Seeing that the pan was clean, Ulafi had then had his second officer commence her lessons. The next day Sasi, at Ulafi's request of me, had begun to improve her Gorean.

"Do you think she is pretty Master? asked Sasi.

"Yes," I said. I did think she was pretty. She seemed more lovely now than when we had left Port Kar. It was probably the fresh air, the exercise and the finding of herself under the absolute domination of men. The training, too, doubtless helped.

The second officer now returned to the kneeling girl and, standing behind her, loosely, with a movement of the slave whip, looped the five broad blades of the whip about her neck. He then held the loops against the whip's staff, her neck encircled by them. He then, pulling against the side of her neck, threw her to his feet.

"What are you?" he asked.

"A slave girl, Master," she said, her neck in the loops of the whip.

"What Is a slave girl?" he asked.

"A girl who is owned," she said.

"Are you a slave girl?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Then you are owned," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Who owns you?" he asked.

"Ulafi of Schendi," she said.

"Who trains you?" he asked.

"Shoka of Schendi," she said.

"Do you have a brand?"

"Yes, Master."

"Why?"

"Because I am a slave."

"Do you wear a collar?"

"Yes, Master."

"What sort of collar do you wear?"

"A shipping collar, Master. It shows that I am a portion of the cargo of the Palms of Schendi." I thought the girl's Gorean, though the responses were generally simple, had improved considerably in the last few days.

"What is the common purpose of a collar?"

"The collar has four common purposes, Master," she said. "First, it visibly designates me as a slave, as a brand might not, if it should be covered by clothing. Second, it impresses my slavery upon me. Thirdly, it identifies my master. Fourthly-fourthly-"

"Fourthly?" he asked.

"Fourthly," she said, "it makes it easier to leash me."

He kicked her in the side. She winced. Her response had been slow.

"Do you like being a slave girl?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," she said. She sobbed. She was again kicked.

"Yes, Master! Yes, Master!" she cried.

"What does a slave girl want more than anything?" he asked.

"To please men," she said.

"What are you?" he asked.

"A slave girl," she said.

"What do you want more than anything?" he asked.

"To please men!" she cried.

"Nadu!" he cried, loosening the whip coils on her throat.

She swiftly knelt, back on her heels, back straight, head high, hands on her thighs, knees wide.

He then left her again, and she remained kneeling. She moved no muscle.

"Is she more pretty than I, Master?" asked Sasi.

"Your beauties are quite different," I said. "I think you are both quite pretty. I think you will both make superb little slaves."

"Oh," said Sasi.

An additional utility of the collar, though it did not count as one of its four common purposes, was that it made it easier to put the girl in various ties. For example, one can use it to tie her hands before her throat, or at the sides or back of her neck. One can use it with, say, rope or chain, to fasten girls together. One can tie her feet to her collar, and so on. If the feet are tied to the collar the knot is always in the front, so that the pressure will be against the back of the girl's neck and not the front. The purpose of such a tie is to hold the slave, not choke her. Gorean men are not clumsy in their binding of women.

I looked at the kneeling, blond-haired girl. How miserable, superficially, she seemed in her slavery. I supposed that if she were asked, outside the context of training, where certain answers are prescribed, if she liked being a slave girl, she would have denied it vehemently, perhaps with tears. Doubtless she would have begged piteously for her freedom. Yet I recalled that when her trainer, Shoka of Schendi, had flung her to his feet by the whip coils on her neck she had fallen in a certain way, and had lain at his feet in a certain fashion. I recalled the position of her wrists and palms, and the look in her eyes, as she had looked up at him. Her hip had been turned. Both legs had been drawn back, but one more than the other. Her toes had been pointed, accentuating the turn of her calf. She had not fallen clumsily. She had not lain clumsily at his feet. She had lain at his feet, and looked at him, as a slave. She had not been trained to do that. I did not even think she was aware of this sort of thing.

"Do you like me, Master?" asked Sasi.

"Yes," I said, "particularly since you have had a bath."

"Oh, Master," she said.

I had scrubbed her the first day out from Port Kar, she kneeling in a tub, with sea water and a deck brush.

"What was the last time you had a bath?" I asked her.

"A girl pushed me in the South canal a year ago," she said.

"I see," I said.

"Is Master fastidious?" she asked.

"Not particularly," I said, "but I will expect you to keep yourself reasonably clean from now on. You are no longer a free woman."

"No, Master," she said.

"You are now a slave girl," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. She knew that slave girls must be attentive to matters of appearance, health, cleanliness and hygiene. They are no longer free women.

Yesterday the blond-haired girl had been permitted to walk about the deck. I had stopped near her and she had, immediately, knelt, for she was in the presence of a free man. I had walked slowly about her. She was very nice. I had then stood before her, and she had, suddenly, dropped her eyes. I saw a tiny movement in her hands, on her thighs, as though she would turn them, exposing the palms to me, but then she pressed them down her thighs, hard. I crouched beside her. Then I smiled. I smelled slave heat. Then I got up and went about my business. I saw her later leaning against the main mast. Later I looked at it, and saw that she had made marks in it with her nails.

"I myself prefer the training of the furs," said Sasi, biting again into the larma fruit.

The blond-haired girl still knelt in the position of the pleasure slave. For the time her trainer had forgotten about her.

"You just do not like being struck with the whip," I told her.

"Perhaps that is it," she laughed. "Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"If I am good, you will not whip me, will you?" she asked.

"I might," I said.

"Oh," she said.

Sometimes I had had Sasi train with the blond-haired girl, but generally I did not. Ulafi had no objection to her sharing the barbarian's training. Indeed, he had even suggested the arrangement. Graciously he had made no charge for this. On the other hand I had not charged him for the instruction which Sasi was giving the blond barbarian in Gorean. Our arrangement, thus, though tacit, was a tidy one.

Sasi, Gorean, even in the collar a few days, was already far beyond the blond-haired barbarian. It was for this reason that I had had her seldom train with the barbarian. There had simply not been much point to it. The barbarian still needed the simplest and most elementary lessons of slave training.

Shoka, recollecting her, had now returned to the vicinity of the blond-haired barbarian. She did not know he was behind her. "Bara!" he called. "Sula! Nadu! Lesha! Sula! Bara! Nadu!" Instantaneously she performed. Then she was again kneeling, as before.

"Not bad," said Sasi, chewing on the larma.

"Yes," I said. Though Sasi was well advanced beyond the blond barbarian, I suspected that the blond barbarian, moving slowly at first, might in time catch up with her, and perhaps even surpass her. The blond barbarian, I suspected, had unusual slave potential.

Shoka then, without warning, struck her with his whip. She did not break position, but she gasped. Her face was startled, her eyes were wild. She did not know why she had been struck. In a sense there had been no reason. One does not need a reason to strike a slave. But in another sense, in the training situation, there had been a reason, that she was subject to discipline, and that it could be meted out by the master purely at his whim or caprice. She tensed. She did not know, Shoka behind her, if she would be struck again.

But Shoka took her by the hair and, she, pulled to her feet, bent over, was conducted to her cage. There he released her and she fell to her hands and knees, to crawl into the cage, to be locked within.

"May I speak, Master?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Why was I struck?" she asked.

"Kiss my feet," he said.

She did so.

Then she looked up at him.

"It pleased me," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Into the cage, Slave," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

In a moment she had been locked within. I saw her looking after him. Then she looked at me, too, and then she looked down. I saw her lie on her side in the cage, her legs drawn up. The cage is very tiny.

I looked out, over the rail. There were white clouds in the sky, and the sky was very blue. We would make Schendi, if the winds held, in four days.

"Master," said Sasi.

"Yes," I said. I turned to look at her.

She looked up at me. She smiled. "If I get to be good," she said, "may I have a garment?"

"Perhaps," I said.

"I think I would like a garment," she said, chewing on the larma fruit.

"It would give me something to tear off you," I admitted.

She looked up at me, smiling.

"The collar looks well on you, Sasi," I said. "You could have been born in a collar."

"For all practical purposes," she said, "I was."

"I do not understand," I said.

"I am a woman," she said, chewing on the fruit.

"Why are you bound for Schendi?" asked Ulafi of me. It was late evening now. I stood again by the rail.

"I have never been there," I said.

"You are not of the metal workers," he said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Perhaps you know Chungu," said he.

"The hand on watch," I said.

"He," said Ulafi.

"By sight," I said. I did remember him quite well. He was the fellow who had passed me on the northern walkway of the Rim canal, when I had been on my way to the pier of the Red Urt. I had seen him, too, later, in the vicinity of the desk of the wharf praetor.

"Before the general alarm was permitted to sound in Port Kar, in the matter of apprising the wharves of the news of an escaped slave," said Ulafi, "we, naturally, conducted a search for her ourselves. We expected to pick her up without difficulty in a few minutes, you understand."

"Of course," I said.

"She was naked, and a barbarian," said Ulafi. "Where could she go? What could she do?"

"Of course," I said.

"Yet she was clever," said Ulafi.

"Yes," I said. She had stolen a garment and concealed herself, unmarked and uncollared, among she-urts. I had no doubt that she was a highly intelligent girl. That intelligence could now be applied, now that she was a slave, to the pleasing of masters.

"We did not wish to annoy the praetor," said Ulafi.

"It would be embarrassing, too, I suspect," I said, "for one of Schendi, and one who was a captain, too, to call public attention to the fact that he had lost a girl."

"Would you like to be thrown overboard?" asked Ulafi.

"No," I said, "I would not like that."

"Would this not have been embarrassing for anyone?" asked Ulafi.

"Of course," I said. "Forgive me, Captain."

"When we decided to enlist the aid of guardsmen, and inquire into the reports of citizens," said Ulafi, "we had the general alarm rung. One of my men, Chungu, was hunting for the girl in the vicinity of the Rim canal. In that area he saw two assailants, a man and his female accomplice, subdued by one who wore the garb of the metal workers. Further, this deed was apparently performed with dispatch, a dispatch scarcely to be expected of one who was of the metal workers. Soon the fellow who wore the garb of the metal workers had left. He had paused little longer than was necessary to awaken the girl to consciousness, rape her and tie her to the man whose accomplice she had been."

"Oh," I said.

"When the alarm rang," said Ulafi, "Chungu returned to the ship."

"You were the fellow in the garb of the metal workers," said Ulafi.

"Yes," I said.

"When the assailants were brought to the praetor's desk, too," said he, "it was seen that their wrists had been bound with capture knots."

"I see," I said.

"Such knots are tied by a warrior," he said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Why are you bound for Schendi? asked Ulafi.

"If you knew me not of the metal workers," I asked, "why did you permit me to mark the blond-haired slave?"

"I wished to see what you would do," he said.

"You risked a badly marked thigh on the girl," I said.

"The mark was perfect," said Ulafi.

"Thus you see," said I, "that I am truly of the metal workers."

"No," said Ulafi. "I knew you were not of the metal workers. Thus I saw that you were truly of the warriors."

"Should I have blurred the brand?" I asked.

"That would have been a shame," said he, smiling.

"True," I grinned. All men like a well-marked girl.

"Too," said he, "that would have shown, had you done poorly, that you were not of the metal workers."

"Might I not have been a slaver, or one who did work with them?" I asked.

"Perhaps," said Ulafi, "but that would not have well fitted in with the dispatch with which the assailants were handled, or the knotting on their wrists, or, indeed, with your general mien, how you walk and sit, and look about yourself, your eyes, how you handle yourself."

I looked out to sea. The three moons were high abeam. The sea was sparkling.

"Was it important to you to leave Port Kar when you did?" asked Ulafi.

"I think so," I said.

"Why did you choose to voyage to Schendi?" he asked.

"Are there not fortunes to be made there?" I asked.

"In Schendi," said Ulafi, "there are fortunes and there are dangers."

"Dangers?" I asked.

"Yes," said Ulafi, "even from the interior, from the ubarate of Bila Huruma."

"Schendi is a free port, administered by merchants," I said.

"We hope that it will continue to be so," he said.

"As you have suspected," I said, "I am of the warriors."

Ulafi smiled.

"Perhaps there are some in Schendi," I said, "with whom I might take service."

"Steel can always command a price." said Ulafi. He made as though to turn away.

"Captain," I said.

"Yes," said he.

I indicated the blond-haired barbarian in her cage, a few yards forward of the mainmast. It was chained, at four points, to cleats in the deck, that it not shift its position overmuch in rough weather. A folded tarpaulin lay near it, with which it could be covered. Sasi's cage had similar appointments.

The girls relieved themselves during the day, when ordered to do so.

"I am curious about the blond-haired slave," I said. "On the wharf, the slaver, Vart, said that he had gotten a silver tarsk for her." I looked at Ulafi. "Surely such a girl, a wench of only average beauty, a tense, tight girl, awkward and clumsy, one untrained, new to the collar, one who can hardly speak Gorean, a barbarian, is worth, at best, only two or three copper tarsks."

"I can get two silver tarsks for her," said Ulafi.

"Her hair and coloring is rare in Schendi?" I asked.

"Such girls, and better, are cheap in Schendi," he said. "Do not forget that Schendi is the home port of the black slavers."

"How then will you get two silver tarsks for her?" I asked.

"She is on my conditional 'want' list," said Ulafi.

"I see," I said. That seemed to me intelligent on the part of Kur agents. They must have known that she would be sailing from Cos to Schendi. This trip, particularly because of the depredations of pirates from Port Kar, is a hazardous one. It then made sense that provisions would be made to retrieve her in a Port Kar market should she be taken and enslaved. Doubtless a similar arrangement had been made with some Schendi merchants in Tyros and perhaps in Lydius or Scagnar.

"Why are you giving her slave training?" I asked.

"She is a slave," said Ulafi. "Why should she not receive slave training?"

"True," I said. I smiled. "Who is your client?" I said.

"Is it worth a copper tarsk to you?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Uchafu," he said, "a slaver in Schendi."

I handed him the copper tarsk.

"Is Uchafu an important slaver?" I asked.

"No," said Ulafi. "He usually handles no more than two or three hundred slaves in an open market."

"Does it not seem strange to you," I asked, "that Uchafu should offer two tarsks for such a girl."

"Yes," he said. "Obviously he is conducting the transaction at the behest of another."

"Who?" I asked.

"I do not know," said Ulafi.

"I would pay a silver tarsk to know," I said.

"Ah," said Ulafi, "I see you have business in Schendi that you have hitherto concealed."

"A silver tarsk," I said.

"It pains me," said Ulafi, "but I must confess I do not know. I am sorry."

I looked at the girl. She was lying in the cage, on her side, turned away from us.

"She is pretty, isn't she?" asked Ulafi.

"Yes," I said.

We watched the girl. She lay there, quietly. She ran the index finger of her right hand idly, slowly, up and down, on one of the bars near her face. She seemed lost in thought.

"Yes, a pretty slave," said Ulafi.

"Look," I said.

The girl, very delic5tely, lifted her head a bit from the metal floor of the cage and, with her tongue, furtively, touched the bar. Then she again touched the bar, delicately, licking it, with her tongue.

"She is beginning to suspect that she may be truly a slave, said Ulafi.

"Yes," I said.

"She is beginning to learn her collar," he said.

"Yes," I said.

The girl then lay there quietly again, her head resting on her left arm, it lying, flat, elbow bent, beneath her on the sheet-metal floor of the cage. Her face, and lips, were near the bar. The small fingers of her right band touched the bar, near its base.

"Have you not noticed the improvement in her," asked Ulafi, "since the beginning of the voyage?"

"Yes," I said. "Her movements have become less constricted. She is no longer as clumsy or tight as she was. She is becoming less inhibited. She is becoming more beautiful." These things were true. She was being taught her slavery.

"I wonder who it is who has placed her on order," he said.

"I do not know," I said. "I would like to know."

"I, too, am curious," he said.

Ulafi then turned away from me. He walked down the deck, toward the stern castle.

"I again looked out to sea. I sensed then that the girl, Sasi, was near me. She knelt lightly beside me, to my left. She put her head down. I felt her tongue, soft, at my ankle. She licked and kissed at my ankle and leg for a few Ehn.

"May I speak?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

She looked up at me. "I beg training, Master," she said.

"Crawl to my blankets, beside the sea bag," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said. Head down, she crawled to the blankets, and lay there.

The blond-haired girl now knelt in her cage. Her fists were on the bars. She was watching me.

I joined Sasi on the two blankets. She lay there, quietly, in her collar. But as soon as I touched her she lifted her lips to mine, and squirmed and sobbed.

I was pleased. The branded she of her was mine.

"You train well, little slave," I said.

"Please do not stop touching me, Master," she begged.

"Perhaps I should whip you," I said.

"No, no," she begged. "Please let me try to be more pleasing to you."

I smiled to myself. Already, only a few days in the collar, she was slave hot.

"Perhaps you are ready for the first of the full slave orgasms," I said.

"Master?" she said.

Then, after a few Ehn, she clutched me wildly, her fingernails cutting into my arms.

"It cannot be! It cannot be!" she said.

"Shall I stop?" I asked.

"No, no," she said, intensely.

"Perhaps I shall stop," I said.

"Your slave begs you not to stop," she said. "Oh, oh," she said. "It is coming. I sense it. It is coming!"

"What do you feel like?" I asked her.

"A slave! A slave!" she cried. "I must yield to you!" she said. "I am going to yield to you!" she cried.

"As what?" I asked.

"As a slave!" she cried. She threw back her head and, wildly, weeping, sobbing, cried out the submission of her bondage.

I kissed her.

She had not done badly. Her body was growing in vitality. She showed promise for a new slave. I was pleased.

She clutched me. "Please do not leave me," she said. "Continue to hold me, if only for a time." There were tears in her eyes. "I beg it, Master," she said.

"Very well," I said.

I held her, and kissed her, and caressed her, keeping her close and warm beside me.

"Thank you, Master," she said. She looked up at me, frightened. "I did not know it could be like that," she said. "I had no idea."

I kissed her, gently.

"As a free woman," she said, "sometimes, late at night, or in my dreams, I had dimly sensed what might he the sexuality of the slave girl, but I had never remotely understood it could be anything like that, anything so overwhelming, so helpless, so total."

"It was only a rudimentary slave orgasm," I said. It had been.

"Rudimentary?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"You jest with a poor slave," she said.

"No," I said.

"Truly?" she asked.

"Truly," I said.

"What then lies in store for me?" she whispered.

"Slavery," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

She lay beside me then, on her back. She looked up, a slave, at the stars and moons. She touched her collar. Her body, in the moonlight, was white on the dark blankets: "After a woman has felt anything like that," she said, "how could she ever go back to being free?"

"Not many would receive the opportunity," I told her.

She laughed. It was true. Gorean men, on the whole, do not free slaves. The freeing of a girl is almost unheard of. This makes sense. They are not free women. They are belongings, valuables, slaves, treasures. Who discards precious possessions, who surrenders treasures? If the slave girl were worth less perhaps she would be freed more. She is too marvelous to free; and if she is not marvelous, she can be slain. Too, what man who has known the glory and joy of a girl at his feet is likely to wish to exchange that for the inconvenience and bother of a free woman? No, slave girls, for all practical purposes, are not freed. They will remain in one collar or another. Men will have it that way.

"I am owned," she said, her fingers touching her collar. "You own me."

"Yes," I said.

"I do not want to be free," she said.

"Do not fear," I said. "You are too pretty to free."

She kissed me.

Sometimes when a woman is freed, for one reason or another, as can happen upon rare occasions, she becomes, sometimes after an initial elation, restless, and later, miserable. She often becomes unpleasant and irritable, consequences of her frustration. Often she attempts to inflict her dissatisfaction on others. Often she tries to dominate males in her vicinity, perhaps in an attempt to punish them for their inability or cruel refusal to understand or relieve her discomfort, perhaps, too, in an attempt to provoke them into an action which will restore her to her place in nature. She has once been in that place, and she cannot fail to recollect it. Perhaps it would have been better if she had never tasted nature. It is difficult, thereafter, to be satisfied with politics. Ignorance, as always, remains myth's sturdiest bulwark. Such women often, eventually, take to walking the high bridges or frequenting exposed areas, sometimes outside the city walls. They are courting capture and the collar. They wish to kneel again, slaves, before a man.

"I have been had many times when I was a she-urt," she said. "I have lain for paga attendants, hoping to be thrown a handful of garbage. I have been raped by vagabonds. Many times did I pleasure Turgus. Yet never did I feel anything like what you did to me."

"Of the three types of experiences you have mentioned," I said, "the nearest to what you recently felt occurred when you hoped to be thrown garbage by paga attendants."

She looked at me with wonder. "Yes," she said, "how did you know that?"

"Because in that experience you were most under the domination of a man, dependent on him even for food. Would he or would he not throw you a few scraps? Would you be sufficiently pleasing to win from him even a few shreds of garbage?"

"Yes," she said. "It is the woman in the position of submission and subordination."

"Doubtless sometimes they even ordered you to dance naked before them," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"What occurred later then," I asked, "when they had you?"

"I reached orgasm quickly," she said.

"Of course," I said. "But still you were free. If you wished you could starve for another day, or you could seek garbage elsewhere, or beg, or fish for scraps in the canals."

"Yes," she said.

"You see," I said, "you were not totally dependent on them. You were not totally helpless. You were not their slave."

"Are you going to let me eat tomorrow?" she asked, suddenly, apprehensively.

"Perhaps," I said. "I will make that decision in the morning."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do you begin to see what I am saying to you?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she whispered. "I could not have earlier had the feelings you induced in me."

"Yes," I said.

"Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"The very nearest thing to what I recently felt occurred on the northern walkway of the Rim canal, when you, not a vagabond, but a strong, free man, who had subdued both Turgus and myself, simply took me and used me for your pleasure."

"I recall," I said. "Too, I recall that you responded well. considering that you were at that time only a free woman."

"You treated me as a slave," she chided.

"I saw the potential slave in you," I said. "Accordingly I handled you as I would have handled a slave."

"That is why I could not help responding to you as I did," she said.

"And yet," I said, "that did not compare with what you recently felt."

"No," she said.

'That is because before you were a free woman," I said. "You did not then truly belong to men."

"I do now," she said.

"Yes," I said. "Now you are a slave."

"That is the difference," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"The orgasm was rudimentary?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "Just as you could not, as a free woman, attain to the heights of the rudimentary slave orgasm recently inflicted upon you so, too, you, as a new slave, cannot yet attain to the overwhelming and degrading ecstasies familiar to a girl longer in the collar."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You have a long way to go in slavery, little Sasi," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"But in a year or two," I said, "I think you will be superb. And beyond that it is just a matter of continued growth."

"Does any woman ever learn her full slavery?" she asked.

"No," I said, "I think no woman ever learns the fullness of her slavery."

"I want to be a good slave," she said.

"Men will see that you are," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. "Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"May I please have my ears pierced, Master," she begged.

"Would you be so degraded a slave?" I asked. Ear piercing, on Gor, is regarded in most cities as the most degrading thing that can he done to a girl. It is commonly done only to the lowest of pleasure slaves. Compared to it, fixing a ring in a girl's nose is regarded lightly. Indeed, among the Tuchuks, one of the Wagon Peoples of Gor, even free women wear nose rings. These matters are cultural, of course.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

'That I might be kept always a slave," she said.

"I see," I said. A girl with pierced ears on Gor might as well, for all practical purposes, give up even the slimmest of hopes, should she entertain them, of freedom. What Gorean man, seeing a woman with pierced cars, could treat her as, or accept her as, anything but a slave?

"Please, Master," she said.

"I will have it done in Schendi," I said. Usually, a leather worker pierces ears. In Schendi there were many leather workers, usually engaged in the tooling of kailiauk hide, brought from the interior. Such leather, with horn, was one of the major exports of Schendi. Kailiauk are four-legged, wide-headed, lumbering, stocky ruminants. Their herds are usually found in the savannahs and plains north and south of the rain forests, but some herds frequent the forests as well. These animals are short-trunked and tawny. They commonly have brown and reddish bars on the haunches. The males, tridentlike, have three horns. These horns bristle from their foreheads. The males are usually about ten hands at the shoulders and the females about eight hands. The males average about four hundred to five hundred Gorean stone in weight, some sixteen hundred to two thousand pounds, and the females average about three to four hundred Gorean stone in weight, some twelve hundred to sixteen hundred pounds.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

She then lay quietly beside me, on the blankets. The sea bag was to my right.

"Are you going to lock me in my cage tonight, Master?" she asked.

"No," I said, "tonight you will sleep beside me."

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"At my feet," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

Sailors called the watch.

The wind was soft in the triangular sails. Though it was night Ulafi had not had them furled on their yards. The sea hooks, the light anchors at stem and stern, had not been thrown out. We would not lay to. Here the sea was open and the light, from the moons and stars, was more than ample. The Palms of Schendi, though it was night, continued to ply her way southward. Ulafi, for some reason, seemed eager to reach Schendi.

"I love being a woman," said the girl. "I love being a woman." She kissed me.

"You are a slave," I told her.

She kissed me again. "They are the same," she whispered.

I rolled over and seized her. Almost instantly, this time, she attained slave orgasm. Then she looked up at me, frightened, and I touched the side of her forehead, brushing back some hair.

"I so fear the slave in me," she said.

"You so fear the woman in you," I said.

"They are the same, Master," she said. "They are the same."

"That is known to me," I said.

She lifted her lips to mine, and kissed me softly. "Yes, Master," she said.

"To my feet," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. She crept tremblingly to my feet.

"Curl up," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I then threw the second blanket, the top blanket, over her, covering her completely. When a blanket, or cloak, or covering of any sort, is thrown over a slave like this she may not speak or rise. She must remain as she is, silent, until the master, or some free man, lifts the covering away.

I then lay on the blanket, my hands under my head, looking up at the canvas and stars. With my foot I could feel the girl. Her breathing told me that she was soon asleep.

It was the first time, since her enslavement, she had slept outside of a cage.

She was an excellent little slave. I was pleased that I had picked her up.

After a time, restless, I got up and paced the deck. Ulafi was not asleep. He was on the stem castle. Two helmsmen stood below him, on the helm deck. The only other hand awake, as far as I knew, was the lookout, some forty feet above me, on the ringed platform encircling the mainmast, the taller of the two masts.

I walked over to the cage of the blond-haired barbarian. She, I felt, was the key to the mystery, that device whereby I might locate Shaba and the fourth ring, one of the two remaining light-diversion rings, the secret of which had apparently perished long ago with Prasdak, the Kur inventor, he of the Cliff of Karrash. The fifth ring, according to Samos, was still somewhere on one of the steel worlds. It would not be risked, we speculated, on Gor or Earth. Perhaps it served to keep order on some steel world. Shielded in invisibility an executioner could come and go as he pleased. If we could acquire once more, of course, the Tahari ring, the fourth ring, which had been brought to Gor by a Kur faction intent upon preserving the planet from destruction, we could, presumably, have it duplicated in the Sardar. The use of such rings, If their use were permitted by Priest-Kings, might well make it difficult or impossible for the Kurii to function on Gor. With it their secret strongholds might be penetrated. With it one man might, in time, slaughter an army. I was pleased that the fourth ring had been brought to Gor. Without it, given to me by a dying Kur warrior, I doubted that I could have survived to prevent, some years ago, the detonation of the explosives in the steel tower, in the Tahari. Explosives that were intended to destroy Gor and the Priest-Kings, that the path to Earth might be cleared for conquest. But the faction that would have been willing to destroy one world to obtain another was, we speculated, no longer in the ascendancy on the steel worlds. Half-Ear, a war general of the Kurii, whom I had met in the north, had not been of that faction. Kurii now, it seemed reasonably clear, were again intent upon the possibilities of invasion. They sensed the weakness of Priest-Kings. Why now should they think of destroying a world which, like a ripe fruit, seemed to hang almost within their grasp?

I looked at the blond-haired barbarian. I was surprised to see that she was not asleep. Usually a girl in training sleeps well. She, has been worked hard and is tired. But she was not asleep. She knelt in the small cage, her fists on the bars. She was naked; I could see the moonlight on her flesh, striped by the shadows of the bars, and glinting.n the shipping collar locked on her throat. She was looking up at me. I smiled to myself. Clearly she was not sleepy.

If she had been mine I would have dragged her from the cage and thrown her upon the deck.

She looked over to where Sasi lay under the blanket. She looked at her, wonderingly. Then she looked at me, again. "I heard her cry out," she said, in English, half to herself. "What did you do to her?"

She had heard, an hour ago or so, Sasi's cry, emitted in the throes of her first slave orgasm, acknowledging her surrender to me as a slave girl.

"What did you do to her?" she asked, in English. Surely she must know, or suspect, what had been done to Sasi. Would not any woman know?

"What?" I asked in Gorean. I crouched down by the cage.

She drew back from the bars. "Forgive me," she said, frightened, in English. "I was only talking to myself, really. I did not mean to bother you, Master."

"What?" I asked in Gorean.

She collected herself. "It is nothing, Master," she said, in Gorean. "Forgive me, Master."

Her Gorean was still terribly limited. I saw her look again to Sasi, under the blanket, and then to me.

As she knelt before me, within the cage, I saw her straighten her back and draw back her shoulders, lifting her breasts. How beautiful they were. I do not think she even realized she had done this. It was a slave's act, displaying her imbonded beauty before the gaze of a free man. Yet I do not think she was even aware of what she had done.

I looked at her ears. They had not been pierced. I had never known a female agent of Kurii who had been brought to Gor with pierced ears. That was no accident, of course. Pierced ears in a girl mean to a Gorean that she is a slave among slaves. I looked at her. If I owned her I would have her ears pierced. That would be sufficient guarantee, on Gor, that she would always be kept in a collar.

She opened her knees, slightly, before me, as she knelt. This was done unconsciously. What a naive slave she was, doubtless still priding herself on her freedom.

Some Earth girls, of course, brought to Gor as slaves, as lovely meat for the flesh markets, did have their ears pierced. Some of them did not learn for months why it was that they were treated with a roughness and contempt far beyond that of their imbonded sisters, subjected to a harsher authority and put beneath the rudest predations of a master's lust. And yet the answer was simple. They were pierced-ear girls. It is said that the ear piercing of slaves, on Gor, originated in Turia. Certainly it was practiced there. After the fall of Turia the custom spread northward. It is now relatively common on Gor, for pleasure slaves. Slavers have discovered that a pierced-ear girl commands a higher price.

I looked into the eyes of the blond girl. She had looked again at Sasi, and then had lifted her eyes to mine. Her lower lip trembled. And then she put her head down, quickly.

I saw that she wished that it had been she, and not Sasi, who had been subjected on the blankets to the pleasure of a master. But she would not, of course, admit this to herself. Sasi, a slave, had served the pleasure of a master. She, a slave, had not. Sasi had been called to the blankets; she had been left in her cage.

Ulafi had not had her thrown to the crew. He had purchased her for another. She was to be shipped intact to her buyer in Schendi, he who had placed her on order.

She lifted her head, and our eyes met I saw her small right hand tremble. It lifted timidly from her thigh. She wanted to reach out, through the bars, to touch me. Then quickly she drew her hand back.

She put down her head.

I thought that whoever eventually owned her would be a lucky fellow. She had excellent slave potential.

I would not have minded having her in my own collar. She had grown considerably in beauty, just on the voyage.

She lifted her head again.

I looked again into her eyes. Yes, I thought, excellent slave potential.

Again she looked down. "I find you so attractive, you brute," she said, miserably, in English, much to herself. "You are so attractive to me," she said. "I hate you, you are so attractive to me," she said. "You make me weak. I hate you."

"What are you saying?" I asked her, in Gorean as though I could not understand her.

She looked at me, boldly. But she spoke in English, which she believed I could not understand. "I do not know what is going on in me," she said. "My clothes have been taken. I am caged. I wear a collar. I have been branded. I have been whipped. I am being trained as a slave. And yet I find you attractive. I am no good. I am no good. I want to he before you and lick your feet. I want to serve you, fully, and as a slave!" She looked away. "I hate myself," she said. "I hate you! I hate all of them! And yet something in me is beginning to sense happiness, joy, fulfillment. How terrible I am!" She sobbed. "perhaps I am a slave, truly," she whispered. Then she shook her head, tears in her eyes. "No, no, no, no, no," she said. "I am not a slave!"

"What are you saying?" I asked her, in Gorean.

She looked at me, and brushed back her hair. "Nothing, Master," she said. In Gorean. "Forgive~ me, Master," she said. "It is nothing."

"Nadu," I said.

Swiftly she knelt before me, in the tiny cage, in the perfection of the position of the pleasure slave.

"Good," I said. She had assumed it instantaneously, fluidly, beautifully.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"It is now time to sleep," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said, and curled up on the sheet-iron square which floored her cage.

I looked at her. Her legs were drawn up. Her toes were pointed. Her belly was sucked in, slightly. Her body was a beautiful armful of slave curves. She had not been taught to do that. I looked into her eyes. She was a natural slave, I saw, as is any woman. Too, I saw that she suspected it. I then took the tarpaulin, which lay to one side. I unfolded it, and threw it over the cage, and then tied it down, fastening it to the four cleats at the corners of the cage, covering her for the night.