The blond-haired barbarian then put down her head, and did not speak.

"What happened then?" I asked.

She lifted her head, and smiled. "I do not know," she said. "I awakened."

"An interesting dream," I said. "Strange," I mused, "that in the dream of a naive Earth woman such details should occur, details such as the differential tension of the wrist straps in a beating and the extra stroke, given sometimes to remind a girl that she is a slave. Too, the kissing of the whip is a quite accurate detail, one practiced in many cities, but surely a surprising detail to occur in the dream of a girl ignorant of bondage. Knife branding, too, practiced by some primitive peoples, is quite rare. It is strange that you should have heard of it. It is a practice of which even many of those involved in cultural studies are ignorant." I looked at her. "You are quite inventive," I said.

"Perhaps I am an eternal slave," she smiled.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Do you believe," she asked, "that there can be warps in time?"

"It does not seem likely to me," I said, "but I would not know about such things. I am not a physicist."

"Do you think," she asked, "that people may have lived before, that they may have had many lives and have met one another perhaps time and time again?"

"I would not wish to rule out such possibilities," I said, "but such a thing seems to me very unlikely."

"It was an interesting dream," she said.

"I conjecture, though I do not know," I said, "that the dream was speaking to you not of truths of other worlds and other times, but of this world and this time. I suspect, that the dream, in the beautiful allegory of its symbolism, was conveying to you not mysterious truths of other realities but concealed truths of your own reality, truths which your conscious mind, because of its training, could not bring itself to recognize with candor."

"What truths?" she asked.

"That woman, in her nature," I said, "is the eternal slave, that man, in his nature, is the eternal master."

"The men of my world," she said, "are not masters."

"They have been crippled." I said, "and it seems, are being slowly destroyed."

"Not all of them," she said.

"Perhaps not," I said. "Yet if one of them should so much as question the renunciatory and negativistic values with which his brain has been imprinted he will be immediately assailed by the marshaled forces of an establishment jealously presiding over the dissolution of its own culture. Is it so difficult to detect the failure of public philosophies? Are unhappiness, frustration, misery, scarcity, pollution, disease and crime of no interest to those in power? I fear the reflex spasm. 'But we were not to blame, they will say, as they wade in poisoned ashes."

"Is there no hope for my world?" she asked.

"Very little," I said. "Perhaps, here and there, men will form themselves into small communities, where the names of such things as courage, discipline and responsibility may be occasionally recollected, communities which, in their small way, might be worthy of Home Stones. Such communities, emerging upon the ruins, might provide a nucleus for regeneration, a sounder, more biological regeneration of a social structure, one not antithetical to the nature of human beings."

"Must my civilization be destroyed?" she asked.

"Nothing need be done," I said. "It is now in the process of destroying itself. Do you think it will last another thousand years?"

"I do not know," she said.

"I fear only," I said, "that it will be replaced by a totalitarian superstition uglier than its foolish and ineffectual predecessor.

She looked down.

"Men would rather die than think," I said.

"Not all men," she said.

"That is true," I mused. "In all cultures there are the lonely ones, the solitary walkers, those who climb the mountain, and look upon the world, and wonder."

"Why is it," she asked, "that the men of Gor do not think and move in herds, like those of Earth?"

"I do not know," I said. "Perhaps they are different. Perhaps the culture is different. Perhaps it has something to do with the decentralization of city states, the multiplicity of traditions, the diversity of the caste codes."

"I think the men of Gor are different," she said.

"They are, presumably, or surely most of them, of Earth stock," I said.

"I think, then," she said, "that, on the whole, it must have been only a certain sort of Earth man who was brought to this world."

"What sort?" I asked.

"Those capable of the mastery," she said.

"Surely there are those of Earth," I said. "who are capable of the mastery."

"Perhaps," she said. "I do not know."

"Stand, Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You have moved well this night, Slave," I said. "You have well earned a brief rag for your thighs."

"Thank you, Master," she said. I do not think she could have been more pleased if I had considered allowing her a sheath gown of white satin, with gloves and pearls.

I cut a length from the red bark cloth, about five feet in length and a foot in width. I wrapped it about the sweetness of her slave hips and tucked it in. I pushed it down so that her navel might be well revealed. It is called the "slave belly" on Gor. Only slave girls, on Gor, reveal their navels.

"You make me show the 'slave belly, Master," she said.

"Is it not appropriate?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, "it is."

"Do you like it?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You are a slave, aren't you?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said. I liked it, too. It reveals, well, the roundness of her belly and, low at the hips, the beginning of subtle love curves.

"Do you understand the meaning of the tuck closing on the skirt?" I asked.

"Master?" she asked.

I then, rudely, tore away the garment, spinning her, stumbling, from me. She gasped, brutally and suddenly stripped. She looked at me, frightened, again naked before her master.

"Do you now understand?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I threw her the garment again.

Hastily she put it on again, not neglecting to thrust it well down on her hips, that the slave belly would be well revealed.

"Excellent, Slave," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

I then reached into a sack, near the fire. I drew forth from it a handful of strings of beads. I threw her a necklace of red and black beads, which I thought was nice.

"Master," she asked, pointing, "may I also have that string of beads."

Tende and Alice each had two strings of beads. I saw no reason why the blond-haired barbarian might not be similarly ornamented.

I handed her the second string of beads and put the others back in the sack. She had already put the first string, that of red and black beads, about her throat. She looped them twice and still they fell between her lovely breasts, one loop longer than the other. The second string of beads was blue and yellow. Both strings were of small, simple wooden beads, suitable for slave girls. "Master," she asked, holding out to me the blue and yellow beads, "would you not, please, put this string upon me?"

"Very well," I said, standing behind her, looping them twice, one loop smaller than the other, about her throat. Each loop, as with the red and black beads, fell between her sweet breasts.

"Why did you want this string?" I asked.

"Are blue and yellow not the colors of the slavers?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. Blue and yellow are often used for the tenting of slave pavilions, and in the decor of auction houses. The wagons of slavers often have blue and yellow canvas. Sometimes they bind their girls with blue and yellow ropes. Sometimes their girls wear yellow-enameled collars, and yellow-enameled wrist rings and ankle rings, with chains with blue links. In his best, a slaver will usually wear blue and yellow robes, or robes in which these colors are prominent He will, normally, in his day-to-day business, wear at least chevrons, or slashes, of blue and yellow on his lower left sleeve.