I still lay before him, over the saddle, his.

He looked down upon me, and laughed.

I turned my head away.

He turned his tarn and we continued our journey. I had seen that his left arm, high, above the elbow, about two inches below his shoulder, had been cut. It had been blood from this cut which had struck my face.

Soon, unable to resist, I turned again, in my bonds, to look upon my captor. The cut was not serious.

It had already stopped bleeding, the fierce wind having clotted the blood in a ragged line. On the left side of his arm, running from the wound, there were several almost horizontal, reddish lines, where, but moments before, tiny trickles of blood, unable to flow downward, had been whipped backward by the wind.

He saw me looking at him, and grinned.

I looked up at the sky. It was very blue, and there were white clouds. "That was your friend," he said.

I looked at him.

"Haakon of Skjern," he said.

He looked down upon me.

I was frightened.

"How is it you know of Haakon of Skjern?" he asked.

"I was his preferred slave," I said. "I fled."

We flew on, not speaking.

Then, after perhaps a quarter of an Ahn, I asked. "May a girl speak?" "Yes," he said.

"To be the preferred slave of a man such as Haakon of Skjern, who is rich and powerful, you must understand that I am unusual, quite beautiful and skilled." "I see," he said.

"Accordingly," I said, "I should be sold in Ar. And, further, since I am white silk, I should not be used. My price will be higher if I am sold white silk." "It is unusual, I would suppose," said the man, "for the preferred slave of a man such as Haakon of Skjern to be white silk."

I reddened, all of me, before him.

"Say to me the alphabet," he said.

I did not know the Gorean alphabet. I could not read. Elinor Brinton, on Gor, was ignorant and illiterate.

"I do not know the alphabet," I confessed.

"An illiterate slave girl," said the man.:Further, you accent marks you as barbarian."

"But I am trained!" I cried. "I know," he said, "in the pens of Ko-ro-ba."

I looked at him, dumbfounded.

"Further," he said, "you never belonged to Haakon of Skjern."

"Oh yes!" I cried. "I did!"

His eyes became suddenly hard. "Haakon of Skjern is my enemy," he said. "If you were truly his preferred slave, it is your misfortune to have fallen into my hands. I shall have much sport with you."

"I lied," I whispered. "I lied."

"Now you lie," he said, sternly, "to save your flesh from the irons and the whips."

"No!" I cried.

"On the other hand," he said, "if you were indeed his preferred slave, doubtless you would bring a high prove in Ar, and would be much bid for by rich gentlemen."

I was in anguish. "Warrior," I said, "I was truly, I confess, the favored slave of Haakon of Skjern, but I fled from him, so do not be cruel to me!" "What is the fate of a slave girl who lies?" he asked me.

"Whatever the master wishes," I whispered.

"What would you do if one of your slaves lied?" he asked.

"Ia€”I would beat her," I said.

"Excellent," he said. Then he looked down at me. His eyes were not pleasant. "What is the name of the lieutenant of Haakon of Skjern?" he asked. I writhed in the lashings. "Do not beat me!" I begged. "Do not beat me!" He laughed.

"You are El-in-or," he said, "who was the slave of Targo, of the Village of Clearus, in the realm of Tor. In the pens it was well known that you did not clean your cage, and that you were a liar and a thief." He slapped my belly. "Yes," he said, "I have quite a catch her. What could it be about you that I could have found of interest?"

"You have seen me before? I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"My beauty?" I asked. He laughed. "There are many beautiful women," he said.

I felt weak before him.

"Then," I whispered, "it is your intention to put me in your collar?" "Yes," he said.

I closed my eyes. I knew then that I, Elinor Brinton, of Earth, would wear the degrading, locked metal collar of a Gorean slave girl, this man's, the collar of this brute who had captured me, and that I, Elinor Brinton, though once a free human female of Earth, would soon belong to him, totally, by all the rights and laws of Gor. I would be completely his, to do with as he pleased. I would be his female slave.

I looked again upon him. How strong he seemed.

"You sought me?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. He grinned down upon me. "I have hunted you for days." I turned my head to the side in misery. Even when I had thought myself most free, after the escape from Targo, after betraying Ute, and escaping in the Ka-la-na thicket, this beast, with his laugh, his leather rope, and his slave collar, had been upon my trail. He had marked me for his collar, and his pleasure.

How could I, a mere girl, have hoped to elude him, such a man, such a huntsman? "You saw me in the pen of Ko-ro-ba?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Do you not know me?" he asked.

"No," I said, turning to face him.

He, with his two hands, removed his helmet.

"I do not know you," I whispered.

I was terribly frightened. I had not understood his face could be so strong. He was powerful. He had a large head. The eyes were darkly fierce, his hair a pelt of shaggy sable.

I cried out with misery that I had fallen to such a man.

He laughed. The teeth in his darkly tanned, wind-burned face seemed large and white, and strong.

I trembled. I feared what they would feel like on my body.

I felt again weak. I felt like a golden-pelted tabuk, lying between the paws of the black-maned mountain larl.

I moaned with misery, for suddenly I understood the foolishness of my fantasies in the pens of Ko-ro-ba, and in the caravan of Targo, that I would conquer, that I might, by the withholding of my favors, or the fervor of my favors, reduce a master to bondage, turning him into a needful slave desperate for my smiles and pliant to my will. I realized with a blaze of misery, and self-pity, that to such a man it was only I who could be the slave. He was totally and utterly masculine, and before him I could be only totally and utterly feminine. I had no choice. My will was helpless. I suppose that a woman, like a man, has buried instincts, of which they may not even become aware, but these instincts lie within them, dispositions to respond, dispositions locked into the very genetic codes of her being, instincts awaiting only the proper stimulus situation to be elicited and emerge, overpoweringly, irresistibly, sweeping her, perhaps to her astonishment and horror, in a biological flood to her destiny, a destiny once triggered as incontrovertible and uncontrollable as the secretion of her glands and the mad beating of her heart.

I knew then that he was dominant over me. This had nothing to do with the fact that I lay stripped before him, wrists and ankles lashed, his prisoner. It had to do with the fact that he was totally masculine, and in the presence of such a stimulus, my body would permit me to be only totally feminine. I wished that he had been one of the weak men of Earth, trained in feminine values, and not a Gorean male.

I felt a mad impulse to beg him to use me.

"So you do not recognize me?" he laughed.

"No," I whispered.

He fastened his helmet to the side of the saddle and, from his saddle pack, withdrew a roll of leather. He wrapped this about his head, covering his left eye.

I remembered then, the tall figure in the blue and yellow silk, with the leather covering one eye. "Soron of Ar!" I cried.

He smiled, removing the leather, replacing it in the saddle pack.

"You are the Slaver, Soron of Ar!" I said.

I recalled I had knelt before him, as a slave girl, and he had forced me to do it twice, saying "Buy me, Master." It had only been to me that he had said, curtly, "No," so offending me! And he had looked at me, afterward, and I had tossed my head and looked angrily away, but when I had looked again, he was still observing me, nude, standing on the straw of the slave cage, and I had felt vulnerable and frightened.