Now it was sitting comically on its rump with its paws fluttering in the air. Now it was rolling over and over. Then it was whining, begging piteously. Frequently, from a large pocket in his robes, the mountebank would throw the animal a tiny piece of bosk meat, when it had performed well. Sometimes he would scold it, and withhold the meat. Then the animal would put down its head, and turn it to the side, like a reprimanded child. And then the mountebank would give it its piece of meat. The guards enjoyed the performance as well as the girls. I saw that even Targo laughed, holding his belly in his blue-and-yellow slaver's robes. Sometimes the mountebank would give pieces of meat to the girls to throw to the beast. Lana begged hardest and was given the most pieces of meat. She threw me a look of triumph. I threw only one piece of meat to the animal and that quickly. The beast frightened me. Lana did not seem afraid at all. The piece of meat disappeared into that vast, fanged orifice and the large, round eyes blinked sleepily, contentedly. The girls laughed. And I saw the eyes look at me once again. I put my hand before my mouth, terrified. But then I saw that they were again vacant and stupid, those of a beast. Soon, once again, telling myself how silly I had been, I was laughing again with the other girls. At the conclusion of the mountebank's performance he gave a great, deep bow, bending at the waist and doffing his hat in a great, sweeping arc. We might even have been free women! How pleased we were! We leaped up and down, we clapped our hands with pleasure, we struck our left shoulders, we cried out, we thrust our hands through the bars to him, and, to our delight, through we were slave, he came to the bars and kissed and touched our hands. Then he stood back and waved at us.

Then, to our sorrow, his performance was over.

He stepped back. There was a silence.

The beast then rose to its hind legs, sleepily, and regarded us. Then, suddenly, it gave a hideously terrifying roar and sprang toward the bars, its great clawed appendages grasping towards us, its huge, fanged hole of a mouth wild with its white traps of teeth, howling and hissing. It struck the bars, reaching through them, its teeth grating on them, its chain striking against the iron, its claws scraping towards us. We stumbled back, terrified and screaming, trying to flee, but impeding one another. I found myself thrown from my feet and helpless, tangled and pressed in upon by the bodies of my sisters in bondage. And as I could not free myself so could not those whom I and others pressed in upon. I screamed and screamed. Then we became aware that the guards, and Targo, were laughing. They had been warned. It had been part of the performance, but scarcely one to our liking. How comical we must have seemed in our rout, our terror. How comical to the guards and Targo, and the mountebank, must have seemed that undignified pile, that squirming, panic-stricken heap, that helpless, terrified, screaming tangle of slave girls. The monster was now sitting quietly beside the mountebank, licking its jaws, half-asleep, its eyes empty and vacant, blinking. The guards were still laughing, and Targo was still smiling. Body by body, the tangle of slave femininity unraveled itself. I think we were all humiliated and embarrassed, so fooled we had been, so miserable and precipitate had been our flight. But, too, we were still frightened. Some of us stood near the tiny door to the heavy log dormitory, ready to run within. Others had fled to the opposite wall of bars. Most of us stood near the bars, but back some feet from them. I angrily, but still frightened, smoothed down my camisk, as though it had been a dress. I looked at the men laughing. How clever they thought they were! They were beasts, all of them! I suppose they were big, brave men, with their spears and swords, and if the beast charged at them, they would just stand there and kill it, while we, only women, fled like screaming children. I looked at the men. I hated them. They thought they were so clever, so brave, so great, so different from us! But then I blushed red, every bit of me not covered by the camisk. We had fled like screaming children. We had fled like women! We were women! I was still terrified of the beast, even separated from it by bars. What did they expect? I did not care for their lesson. But I have never forgotten it. We learned it well. We were different! I recalled how a guard had once given me his spear, and it had been so heavy, I could throw it only a few feet. He had then taken it from me and hurled it into a block of wood, head deep, more than a hundred feet away. He sent me to fetch it for him and I had scarcely been able to work it free of the wood. His shield I had barely been able to lift. On Earth I had not thought much of the strength of men. Strength had not seemed important. It had seemed unimportant, irrelevant. But on Gor I realized that strength was important, very important. And that we were weaker than they, far, far, weaker, and that, on such a world, if they chose, we were theirs. That night I had cleaned his leather and sandals, as a slave girl, kneeling to one side, while he conversed with men. When I had finished, I remained kneeling there, waiting for him. when he had finished he arose and, without thanking me, put on the leather and sandals, then gestured that I should precede him to the compound. He unlocked the barred gate and opened it. In the threshold I turned to face him. "I, too, am a human being," I told him.

He smiled. "No," he said. "You are a Kajira." Then he turned me about and, with a proprietary slap, sped me through the gate. He then closed the gate and locked it.

I pressed against the bars putting my hands through, trying to touch him. He came back to the bars and took my hands, holding me against the bars. "When will you use me?" I asked.

"You are white silk," he had said, and turned away.

I had moaned, leaning against the bars, lonely. I was filled with strange sensations. The three moons were bright in the sky. I shook the bars, but I was locked within. I saw him disappear in the darkness, toward the wagons. I held the bars, and pressed my cheek against them, and wept.

Ute, and several of the girls, I realized, were laughing at themselves and us. It had been a splendid joke on us, the charge of an animal! What a jolly conclusion to the mountebank's performance. I could not laugh, but I did smile. The girls were now waving to the mountebank and he, smiling and bowing, acknowledged our attention and then, with his large, strange animal on its chain, turned and left.

How precious and delightful Ute was!

Soon we were all laughing with her. Several of the girls began to sing. My sense of pleasure returned. I raced Inge to the end of the compound and back, and beat her. Some of the girls began to play tag, and games. Even some of the northern girls joined with us. We had a cloth ball, stuffed with rags, and, laughing, we threw this about. Some of the girls sat in circles, telling stories. Others faced one another, kneeling, and, with string and their fingers, played an intricate cat's cradle game. Others played «Stones» where one player guesses the number of stones held in the other's hand. I tried cat's cradle game but I could not play it. I always became confused, trying to copy the intricate patterns. How beautifully they would suddenly, in all their complexity, appear. The other girls laughed at my clumsiness. The northern girls, incidentally, were very skilled at this game. They could beat us all.

"It takes much practice," said Ute.

"There is nothing much else to do in the villages," said Lana, who refused to try the game.

At «Stones» however, I was genuinely pleased with myself. It has two players, who take alternate turns. Each player has the same number of "Stones," usually two to five per player. The «Stones» are usually pebbles or beads, but in the cities one can buy small polished, carved boxes containing ten "stones," the quality of which may vary from polished ovoid stones, with swirling patterns, to gems worth the ransom of a merchant's daughter. The object of the game is simple, to guess the number of stones held the other's hand or hands. One point is scored for a correct guess, and the game is usually set for a predetermined number of paired guesses, usually fifty. Usually your opponent tries to outwit you, by either changing the number of stones held in his hand or, perhaps, keeping it the same. I was quite successful at this game, and I could beat most of the girls. I could even beat Inge, who was of the scribes. I challenged Lana to "Stones," bur she would not play with me. Ute, however, of all those I played with, I could not beat. This irritated me, for Ute was stupid. She even made mistakes in speaking her own language. She was only of the leather workers, too! But it was hard to remain angry with Ute. I was pleased with the afternoon. I was now Eleven Girl. I had seen the mountebank's performance, and I had enjoyed myself afterward.