"I am not pleased, Kisu," said Tende.

He leaped across the fire bowl toward her and savagely struck her head to the left with a fierce blow of the fiat of his hand.

"Did you dare to speak my name, Slave?" he asked.

She lay at his feet, on her side, terrified, blood at her mouth, her wrists bound behind her, the line on them taut to the slave post. "Forgive me, Master," she cried. "Forgive me, Master!"

"I see it was a mistake to have permitted you any decoration or clothing whatsoever, proud slave," he said.

"Forgive me, Master," she begged. It was true that a slave may wear in the way of cosmetics, clothing or ornament only what the master sees fit to permit her. Sometimes, of course, this is nothing.

"I see another item," said Kisu, angrily, "which might perhaps be traded in the morning, before we leave the village."

"What?" she asked.

"It lies at my feet," he said.

"No, Master!" she cried.

"I wonder what you would bring in trade," he mused.

"Do not trade me, Master," she begged. She might, of course, be traded as easily as a sack of meal or a knife, or a bit of cloth, or a tarsk or vulo. She was a slave.

"You are not much good as a slave," he said.

"I will try to be better," she said, struggling to her knees. "Let me please you tonight. I will give you pleasures you did not know exist. I will so please you that in the morning you will not wish to trade me."

"It will not be easy," said he, "-with your hands tied behind you."

She looked at him, frightened.

He loosened her tether from the slave post and carried her, wrists still bound behind her back, to the side of the hut. He put her on her knees there and then, indolently, lay down, on one elbow, between her and the stick wall of the hut. He looked at her.

"Yes, Master," she said, and then, piteously, as a slave, addressed herself to his pleasure.

I sat beside the clay bowl with its small, glowing fire, thinking. In the morning, early, we must be again on our way. With a tiny stick I prodded the fire. Shaba was far ahead of us. Why, I wondered, had he fled to the Ua. With the ring he might have slipped to a thousand more secure safeties on the broad surface of Gor. Yet he had chosen the dangerous, unknown route of the Ua. Did he think men would fear to pursue him upon its lonely waters, penetrating such a lush, perilous, mysterious region? Surely he must-know that I, and others, to seek the ring, would follow him even into the steaming, flower-strewn wilderness of the Ua. He had, I conjectured, made a serious mistake, a misjudgment surprising in one of so subtle a mind.

"Master," I heard, softly.

I turned.

The first blond-haired girl, not she who had been Janice Prentiss, whom I have referred to as the blond-haired barbarian, knelt at the end of her tether, her wrists extended behind her, bound, their line taut to the slave post. This was she who had, with the blond-haired barbarian, been purchased as one of the matched set of serving slaves which Bila Huruma had given to Tende, among her other companionship gifts. This girl was also blond and barbarian, also clearly, given her accent, her teeth, which contained two fillings, and a vaccination mark, of Earth origin. She, too, like the blond-haired barbarian, bore on her left thigh the common Kajira mark of Gor.

"Master," said the first girl. The blond-haired barbarian, her wrists tied behind her, tethered to the same post, sat nearby, angrily, in the dirt.

"Yes?" I said.

"I crawl to the end of my tether, where I kneel before you," she said.

"Yes?" I said.

She put down her head. "I beg your touch," she said.

I heard the blond-haired barbarian, near her, gasp in indignation.

I could hear the sounds of pleasure, from Kisu and Tende, at the side of the hut.

The kneeling girl lifted her head, regarding me. "I beg your touch," she said. "My need is much on me."

Again I heard the blond-haired barbarian gasp, but this time in amazement. She could not believe that she had heard a woman admit to sexual desire. Did the other slut not know that this was something that no woman must do! Was it not sufficiently horrifying even to experience sexual desire, without admitting the fact?

"Slave!" chided the blond-haired barbarian. "Slave! Slave!"

"Yes, slave," said the first girl to her. "Please. Master," she said to me.

I went near to her, but not so near that she could touch me. "Please," she begged.

"You are a barbarian," I said to her.

"I am now a Gorean slave girl," she said.

"Are you not from a world called Earth?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"How long have you been on Gor?" I asked.

"More than five years," she said.

"How did you come to Gor?" I asked.

"I do not know," she said. "I went to sleep one night in my own room on my own world. I awakened, perhaps days later, chained in a Gorean market."

I nodded. Gorean slavers usually keep their lovely prizes drugged enroute between worlds.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Whatever Master wishes," she said.

"It is true," I said.

She smiled at me. "I have been owned by many men," she said. "I have had many names."

"What was your barbarian name?" I inquired.

"Alice," she said. "Alice Barnes."

"That is two names, is it not?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said. "'Alice' was my first name. 'Barnes' was my second name."

"'Alice'," I said, "is a slave name."

"So I have learned on this world," she said. "On my old world, however, it may also function as the name of a free woman."

"Interesting," I said.

She smiled. Feminine first names of Earth are often used on Gor as slave names. Sometimes they are even given to slave girls of Gorean origin. They tend to excite masters, and often improve a girl's price. The origin of the custom is probably a simple one. Most girls brought to Gor are brought as slaves. It is thus natural that their original names be regarded as the names of slaves. Many Goreans, even those educated to the second knowledge, that afforded the higher castes, find it hard to believe that the delicious Earth women who show up in their markets could possibly have been free on their native world. They are just too obviously marvelous slave meat. "If they were free, they should not have been," say many Goreans. "At any rate," they add, "they are now in the collar where they belong, and they will stay there!" It is true, incidentally, that a girl of Earth origin is almost never freed on Gor. They are on the whole just too wonderful, too desirable, to free. Perhaps one would have to be insane to free such a woman. Would it not be madness to let such beauties, kneeling before you, out of your collar? A Gorean saying, of the second knowledge, has it that a steel collar locked on the throat of an Earth woman is perfect. If you should be a female, and are reading this, and should be so unfortunate as to be taken to Gor as a slave, do not hope for freedom; rather learn your lessons swiftly and well, and resign yourself to the service of masters; fight your collar, if you wish, but in the end it will do you no good; you are slave.

"I name you 'Alice'," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"You wear the name now as a slave name," I said.

"I know," she said.

"Do you like it," I asked, "now wearing your old name, but now afresh, put upon you as a degraded slave name?"

"I love it," she said. "It is delicious. It makes me quiver with desire."

She strained at the tether, trying to reach me.

"It is said," I said, "that the women of Earth are natural slaves."

"It is true," she whispered.

"It is also said they are the lowest and most miserable of slaves, and are to be used as such."

"It is true, Master," she said. She looked down. 'That has been well taught to me on Gor," she said. She looked up. "Please take me in your arms," she said. "I am an Earth woman who has been made a Gorean slave girl. You need not respect me as you might a Gorean woman and I am further only a slave. Do not respect me!"