"I will go," she had said.

She agreed to participate in the group then being organized by the Initiates. The leather worker and his companion, reluctantly, yielding to her entreaties, accepted the piece of gold.

Ute did indeed get to see the Sardar.

But she saw it in the chains of a naked slave girl.

Her ship fell to those of the black slaves of Schendi. She, and the others, were sold to merchants, who met the slaves at a secret cove, buying from them their catch. They were then transported overland in slave wagons to the Sardar, where they were sold at he great spring fair of En'Kara. When she was sold, from the block, over the palisade, she could see the peaks of the Sardar.

For four years, Ute, then a beauty, passed from one master to another, taken from city to city.

The she was taken by a master, with others of his slaves, again to the Sardar, again to be sold, to defray business debts resulting from the loss of a caravan of salt wagons.

It was there that she had been purchased by Barus, of the Leather Workers. She had had many masters, but it was only the name of Barus, which she moaned in her sleep.

She had much fallen in love with him, but she had, as she had told me, once attempted to bend him to her will.

To her horror, he had sold her.

She would never speak of him to me, but in her sleep, as I have said, she would cry his name.

"Why do you not go back to Teletus?" I asked Ute.

I did not much favor the idea of living in a village. And it was in Teletus that she had been freed, and adopted. Her foster parents might still be on the island.

"Oh," had said Ute, casually, "I cannot swim Thassa. I do not think I could very well purchase passage, either. And might not the Captain enslave me?" There seemed sense in what Ute had said.

"Besides," had sniffed Ute, "my foster parents might not even be on the island, still."

This seemed possible, for the population of an exchange island, like Teletus, tends to be somewhat more transient than that of an established city, with a tradition of perhaps a thousand or more years.

"But," I had pressed, "perhaps you could find your way back somehow, and perhaps, your foster parents still reside on Teletus."

If I were to go with Ute, I would surely prefer to go to an exchange island, with some of the amenities of civilization, rather than to a rude village south of the Vosk.

"Look at me!" had cried Ute, suddenly, to my astonishment, furious. I was startled.

"My ears have been pierced!" she screamed.

I shrank back.

"They were kind to me!" she cried. "How could I go back and shame them? Should I present myself to them, as their daughter, with pierced ears?" she cried. I could not understand Ute. She was Gorean.

She put down her head. "My ears have been pierced!" she wept. "My ears have been pierced!" She lifted her head to me. "I will hide myself in Rarir," she said. I did not respond to her.

At any rate, Ute was adamant. She would seek the village of Rarir. I kicked at the pebbles in the stream, from where I stood, in front of the ingress to the trap.

The silvery creature began to whip about the inclosure. It frightened me. Once its rough scales struck the front of my leg, above the ankle. I cried out. I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth, my fists clenched, my body contracted. When I dared to open my eyes again, the creature was again at the farther fence of wands, motionless, facing me.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It had not escaped.

If it had not been for Ute I do not think I would have survived.

I seemed so weak and frightened and helpless. Ute, though a small girl, seemed strong, and endlessly resourceful.

She had shown me what could be eaten, and what could not. It was she who had shown how the water trap might be built. She had also shown me how to make snares of binding fiber, bending down small branches, and making triggers of small twigs.

She had also shown me how, with binding fiber, a log and a stick trigger, to make a snare large enough to catch a tabuk, but we did not actually make such a snare. It might have attracted the attention of a huntsman, and provoked his curiosity. The smaller snares would be more easily overlooked. Further, it would have been difficult for Ute and I to have placed the log in such a snare, and, besides, without a knife, and wishing to move swiftly, tabuk would have been heavy game for us. She had also shown me how to make shelters of various sorts and use a small, curved stick for striking down birds and tiny animals. Ute taught me to find food where it would not have occurred to me to look for it. I relished the roots she taught me to dig for. But I was less eager to sample the small amphibians she caught in her hands, or the fat, green insects she scooped from the inside of logs and from under overturned rocks.

"They can be eaten," she said.

I, however, contented myself with nuts and fruits, and roots, and water creatures which resembled those with which I was familiar, and, of course, the flesh of small birds and animals.

Perhaps, the most extraordinary thing Ute did, to my mind, was, with sticks, a flat piece of wood and some binding fiber, make a small fire drill. How pleased I was when I saw the dried flakes of leaves suddenly redden and flash into a tiny flame, which we then fed with leaves and twigs, until it would burn sticks. Over tiny fires, using rock-sharpened, green sticks, we roasted out catches. We had seen no other human beings since our escape. We had slept by day in Ka-la-na thickets, and moved southwestward by night.

Ute had not wished to build fires, but I had insisted upon it.

We could not eat our catches raw.

"Tal," cried Ute, greeting me a free person.

"Tal!" I cried, pleased, waving to her. I was very relieved she had returned. She had, thrust in her belt, the binding fiber she had used for snares. We always took it with us, of course, when we moved. Over her shoulder she had two small, furred animals, hideous forest urts, about the size of cats, in her left hand she carried four small, green-and-yellow-plummaged birds.

Tonight we would feast.

I, too, had been successful.

"Ute," I cried. "I have caught a fish!"

"Good! cried Ute. "Bring it to the camp!"

"Ute!" I pleaded, anguished.

Ute laughed and threw her catch down on the bank. She waded into the trap. I remained where I was, blocking the exit to the trap.

Ute approached the creature very carefully, in order not to startle it. It wavered slightly in the water.

Then, suddenly, very swiftly, Ute struck for it. It backed into the fence of wands and she caught it there, against the sticks, and, in a moment, it thrashing and squirming, she lifted it from the water and carried it triumphantly to the shore.

"Destroy the trap," said Ute.

Each time we moved from a thicket, if we had built such a trap, we destroyed it. This, incidentally, is a standard Gorean practice. He never leaves a trap set to which he does not intend to return. The Goreans, often so cruel to one another, tend to have an affection for wildlife and growing things, which they regard as free, and thereby deserving of great respect. This affection and respect, unfortunately, is seldom extended to domestic animals, such as bosk and slaves. The Gorean woodsman, it might be mentioned, before he will strike a tree with his ax, speaks to the tree, begs its forgiveness and explains the use to which the wood will be put. In our case, of course, aside from such general considerations, we had a very special reason for destroying the trap. It was a piece of evidence which might betray us, which might set men upon our trail. Ute waited sitting for me on the bank, while I pulled up the sticks of the trap and cast them into the bushes.

I then helped her carry our catch, she bearing the fish, and the small birds, to our camp.