“We are ready, are we not?” asked the leader.
“Yes,” said Aeson.
“You understand,” said the leader, turning to Axel and myself, “that we will not brook interference.”
“We will remain here, quietly,” said Axel.
“I am sure of it,” said the leader. “Bind them.”
Our wrists and ankles were then well-corded.
The leader then looked to the men about. They nodded. Two raised their spears, a common signal of readiness before an engagement. The three with nets lifted them, shook them a bit, and spread them a little. Nets are often used in Gorean hunting. Smaller nets can be cast; larger nets may be spread between poles or trees, to intercept driven game.
“You have done well, Donna,” said the leader to his slave.
“A slave is pleased, if her master is pleased,” she said.
“This is a day to which you have looked forward,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“She tracked them like a sleen,” said Aeson.
“A she-sleen,” said a fellow.
“Quite so, Genak,” said Aeson, regarding the slave.
It was surely true, whatever might once have been the case, that the slave was now incontrovertibly, and manifestly, female, indeed, helplessly and desirably so. It was hard to believe she had once been a Panther Girl. But are not all women pretty much of a muchness when stripped on a sales block? Is there that much difference, then, between a Ubar’s daughter and a barbarian recently brought from the sordid towers of an abused world, one recently removed from her slave capsule and branded?
“Today, lovely, tunicked Donna,” said the leader, “you will sip from the cup of vengeance.”
“Perhaps, Master,” she said.
“A wine sweeter than ka-la-na,” he said.
“I do not think it will be bitter,” she said.
“You were betrayed,” he said.
“Yes, Master.”
“And sold.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Doubtless you will be pleased to see them bound naked to selling poles on the coast,” he said.
“Why do you think they have been careless, why have they posted no scouts or guards?” she asked.
“They are stupid,” he said.
“I do not think they are stupid,” she said.
“They are thoughtless,” he said.
“In the sea,” she said, “perhaps there are currents, stirrings, and movements of which there is little evidence on the surface. Behind mountains there may be mountains. Who knows about the depths of the sea, the farther mountains?”
“A trap?” asked the leader, warily.
“Perhaps,” she said, “but for whom?”
“No animal lays a trap for itself,” said the leader.
“Many do,” she said.
“What animal would do that?” he asked, scornfully.
“One who wishes to be caught,” she said.
“Absurd,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “it is absurd.”
“Let us make haste,” said Aeson.
“Bind her, hand and foot,” said the leader, indicating the lovely, scarlet-clad slave, to one of his men.
“Rather, Master,” begged the slave, “let me accompany the masters.”
“You wish to see the acquisition?”
“Yes, Master.”
“I do not want Genak encumbered with a leashed slave,” he said.
“Let me go, unleashed,” she said, “that I may lead the masters directly to the prey. Let me announce the acquisition.”
“You would like to do that, would you not?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Then it would be yours,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “in a way.”
“You are a pleasant piece of slave meat,” he said. “I would not care to lose you.”
“You have tunicked me, Master, so that I might not escape, but would stand out in the forest.”
“And should you slip your tunic,” he laughed, “your sweet, pale body would stand out, as well.”
“I know escape is impossible for me,” she said, “as I am marked and collared, but I do not care to escape my master. I do not wish to do so.”
She pressed her cheek to his thigh.
“There is another reason I placed you in a scarlet tunic,” he said.
“Master?”
“It proclaims to all the world,” he said, “that you kick, moan, and squirm well.”
She put her head down. “I am my master’s slave,” she said.
“Relieve her of the leash,” he said. “And let her lead the acquisition.”
The fellow who was called Genak, in whose care she had been, unbuckled the leash from her neck.
She sprang up. “Follow me, Masters!” she said, in exhilaration.
“Prepare to trek,” had said Tuza, and she had lifted her hand.
We had steadied our bundles. When she lowered her hand, we would move, making the first step with the left foot.
We had then heard a wild cry from our right, from amongst the trees. Tuza had not even lowered her hand. “Seize them!” we had heard, a woman’s voice.
She appeared to be a slave, but there were men behind her, seemingly several men.
“Seize them!” she had cried again, standing, pointing to our group. What exultancy, what triumph, had there been in that voice!
“Donna!” had cried Tuza.
Darla turned about, in her shackles, and fell. I saw a fellow bending over her, quickly lacing her ankles together. Emerald turned about and fled toward the river. Hiza sped down the back trail. A large fellow followed Emerald. I saw nothing of Hiza. Turning about I saw Tuza standing, stupefied. Her hands were raised, over her head. A hunting spear was at her breast. Her weapon belt was being cut from her. Emerald was now in the river, in the water to her waist, facing back toward the shore, facing her pursuer, so close to her. Her dagger had been drawn. She struck at the fellow but he seized her wrist, and disarmed her. They stood facing one another, apart. She rubbed her wrist, which must have been painful. He slipped her dagger in his own belt. She then, wildly, tried to throw herself upon him, striking him with her small fists. But both her wrists were caught. She struggled, squirming, held, pitting her woman’s strength against his. I feared for her. Did she not know the danger in which she stood? What if the master found her behavior displeasing? He held her until she stopped struggling, knowing herself helpless. He then released her, and indicated that she should precede him to the shore. But she disobeyed. She spun about, suddenly, to plunge away, into the river, to swim, but her pursuer was too close to her. He seized her by an ankle, and drew her to him, and then seized her hair and forced her head under the water. Her small hands were helpless on his wrist. I feared he would drown her. Then, after a time, he pulled her head up, out of the water, and she looked at him, turning her head as she could, sputtering, coughing, water in her eyes, his hand tight in her hair, gasping for breath. “No!” she begged, as her head was again forced under the water. Again, I feared she would be drowned. The next time he drew her head up, free of the water, he released her hair. They stood in the water, she half bent over, looking at one another. He then gestured toward the shore, as he had before, and this time she, head down, frightened, obedient, waded to the shore. Shortly thereafter, approaching from the east, I saw Hiza, the upper part of her body wrapped in a slave net, stumbling toward the camp. Behind her there were two men, one of whom was prodding her to greater haste with the butt of a hunting spear. Mila, Tula, and I had been, I am sure, in the first moment or two, as startled, and frightened as the mistresses, the woman’s cries, the men like rapid shadows amongst the trees, moving toward us. Two of us had screamed. I fear I was one of these. The other may have been unable to make a sound. We had spun about, to our right, confused, in alarm, trying to discern what was occurring, our burdens tumbled away. Surely it was natural for us, then, desperate and frightened, in our consternation, to wish to withdraw from what it might be, not clearly understood, so menacing, that was rushing upon us, but we were in our neck rope. Tula tried to dart away, but was held to us. Mila and I were jerked from our feet, and Tula, too, fell. We were tangled with one another. I feared I might be choked. Tula sprang to her feet. Mila and I, too, leaped to our feet. All of us were looking about, wildly. The rope was on our neck. How could we run? Which direction might we run? Where could we run? Confused, frightened, looking about, we knew not what to do. Our first impulse had been to run, but we had impeded our own efforts. Did we think we could slip the neck loops? But how foolish it would have been, too, to try to flee. Did we not know what we were, that we were kajirae, only kajirae, roped domestic animals? But when things occur suddenly one has no time to reflect. I doubt that any animal would have behaved much differently from how we did. But then, almost immediately, Tula, wild-eyed, looking about, a rope burn on her neck, turned to us. “We are fools,” she said, falling to her knees. “Kneel!” she hissed. We then knelt, as befitted what we were. “It is not Panther Women,” said Mila, observing the pandemonium in the camp about us. “It is men!” “Yes, men, men!” said Tula. “They will know what to do with us!” “We must obey with perfection,” said Mila. “They will have it so,” said Tula, joyfully. I was frightened, seeing strange men in the camp. Yet I knew that as slaves we belonged to men; it was men who were our appropriate masters.
Tuza, weaponless, had been put to her belly in the center of the camp. Soon, in virtue of the keys surrendered by Tuza, Darla, now relieved of her impediments, and her ankles freed of the ankle shackling, lay beside her. Then Emerald, at a gesture from her captor, put herself in place, prone, beside Tuza and Darla. Hiza next, now freed of the capture netting, was flung to the ground, belly down, to Emerald’s left. All were women, disarmed, prone, before men.
Two of the raiders then strode toward us, who were aligned, kneeling. We quickly straightened our bodies, and lowered our heads. Our hands, palm down, were on our thighs. It is a lovely position, and, of course, a common submission posture. We kept our knees tightly closed. We dared not be taken as pleasure slaves. How much we would then be at men’s mercy! To be sure, a portion of my training, and doubtless of that of Tula and Mila, as well, had been that of the pleasure slave. It is assumed that any woman sold off the block is, or may be expected to make, a suitable pleasure slave. Even laundresses, mill girls, water bearers in the fields, and such, are not likely to be unfamiliar with what is expected of a pleasure slave. Certainly in the slave house I had served as such a slave. Some of the men, in assessing my promise, had even had me kneel before them in the position of the pleasure slave, my knees spread invitingly before them. How I had sensed then, even before being so commanded, sometimes to my embarrassment, my receptivity. Soon, sometimes to my shame, I had wanted their arms about me. Many times they made me beg. Men are cruel. I was changed, I knew, after my time in the slave house. How much I was then a slave! Not every slave, I knew, is sent to the slave house.
“Look up,” said the large, bearded fellow, whom I took to be the leader of the intruders.
“What do you think, Aeson?” he asked.
“My original conjecture is confirmed,” he said. “Acceptable, all of them.”
“And as kajirae?” asked the bearded fellow.
“Yes,” said Aeson.
He did not know, of course, that I was a barbarian. Yet, what difference should that make? Certainly many barbarians were taken for the markets, and thus deemed suitable for kajirae. I recalled a given master, perhaps the first who had ever looked upon me, though I could not be sure of that. What woman knows if the man who looks upon her, perhaps casually, perhaps appraisingly, is a master? How I hated the brute who had first discerned me in the aisle of the large emporium, he who had brought me to the degradation of the collar, for which I had yearned, he at whose feet I longed to lie, a submitted, nude, and collared slave.
“You may lower your heads,” said the bearded fellow, the leader.
We lowered our heads.
I felt a boot-like sandal, with its high, wide thongs, thrust between my knees, and then they were forced apart. I kept my head down. I did not dare meet the eyes of a master.
I did not know what man had forced my knees apart. I thought it likely that it had been the leader, but it may have been the other, perhaps prompted by a cursory glance or gesture.
The two men then turned away.
I knew in what position I now knelt. Only I had had my position so adjusted. I wondered if I were attractive. I had not thought myself particularly so on Earth. I had not regarded myself much different from other women. Could it be, I wondered, that I possessed attractions of which I was unaware? Perhaps I was not as plain as I had thought. But I had been, I realized, chosen for the collar. Certainly not all women were. What had slavers seen in me, which I had not been aware of in myself? Perhaps I was more attractive than I thought, with all the attendant dangers that that might mean on Gor, a world on which men were masters and some women were their slaves. Had it been thought, long ago, that I might, at least eventually, do well off the block? In any event, I had apparently been favorably assessed. Certainly I had been brought to Gor. I had been put in the collar. I was both thrilled, and terrified. I had been found acceptable for a Gorean slave girl. I had been administered the stabilization serums which on Gor, of course, are administered even to slaves. It is desired by the masters that we retain our energy and vitality, our needs and passion, our attractiveness and desirability, our helplessness and responsiveness, our youth and beauty, doubtless not for our sake, as we are only slaves, but for their sake, that we may be more pleasing to them. On my world I supposed this might count as a gift beyond price, concerning which murders might be done, and wars fought. Here, as we were not free, it was little more in our case than a procedure or device to improve slave stock. I wondered what would be the case if a woman, say one of my world, had a choice in such matters. Certainly I knew what the political and ideological prescriptions would be on my old world. She would be expected to prefer decrepitude, withering, aging, and death to a collar on her neck, and a master in whose arms she would be no more than a begging, enraptured chattel. Let other women see these things as they will. Let them make what choice they would. I had had no choice. It was put on my neck. But it belonged there. I had known since puberty, even before I knew of collars, that one belonged on my neck. And when I learned of collars, stunned, startled, and almost fainting, almost losing consciousness, in my junior year in high school, that there should even be such things, I knew that I belonged in one, and wanted one. I wanted to love and serve, selflessly and choicelessly, to belong, to be owned, to be possessed, to be subject to the rope and chain, to be subject to the whip, to be mastered. I wanted to be a slave at my master’s feet! How such thoughts tormented me! How I tried to fight them, and thrust them from me! How terrible I must be! Could I be so degraded a creature? Surely I was alone, terribly alone. Surely I was utterly different from tens of millions of other women? I must fight myself. I must not be myself, but another self, an external, dissatisfying, foreign self demanded of me! How I struggled to fulfill stereotypes alien to my deepest heart, to accept values which were not my own, to comply with rules and commands which would deny me to myself! Then I had found myself lying on a warehouse floor, with others, naked, bound hand and foot. Then a fellow’s foot had turned me over, and I looked up at him, bound, helpless at his feet. I was to be taken to the markets of Gor.