We moved down another place on the bench.

"The sales go rapidly," said a girl farther down, to my right. That was a good sign. For one thing, it meant that the auctioneer would be in a good humor and that, thus, he would probably be less cruel with us on the block. We fear the auctioneer. On the block he is our master. Even when a girl is not sold, if the sales have gone well, she is less likely to be whipped.

"Move," said the slaver's man.

We moved again.

Most girls are sold singly, but sometimes they are sold in groups, in matched pairs or larger sets, usually with a theme, such as blond hair or a given dialect. Sets may also he composed of girls once of complementary castes or those marked with diverse, representative brands. When a girl is enslaved she loses caste, of course, as well as citizenship, rights and personhood; when she is enslaved she becomes an animal, subject to the whips and wills of masters. Most groups, however, are sold for field and kitchen work. The Curulean did not handle such latter groups. We did have two pairs to be sold tonight, one consisting of a singer and her lyre player, and another of identical twins, from the island of Tabor, named for its resemblance to the small Gorean drum of that name.

I could not yet hear the calls of the auctioneer. The occasional response of the crowd, however, carried through the tunnel.

The girl on my right, the slender, virginal girl, in fluff, began to cry. Instantly the slaver's man was upon her, lifting his whip. She shrank back against the cement wall. She must not stain or smear her make-up. Angrily, with a small cloth, he dabbed her face. "Save your tears for the block, sleek little animal," he said. "Yes, Master," she said.

I was Girl 91 on the chain. It was a good position. The sales begin in the early evening and usually, unless there is something special for sale, they begin a bit slowly. Men are, commonly, still entering the market at that point. Often the seats are not entirely filled until the second Ahn of the sale. I was a bit puzzled about the apparent speed of the sales. There was, as far as I knew, nothing special for sale this evening. It was, as far as I knew, a normal night at the market. At any rate, usually, it is not regarded as desirable to be among the first twenty girls on the chain; sometimes these are sold to an almost half-empty house; a reciprocity tends to become involved; the slavers tend to put their least valuable girls up first, because of the smallness of the house in the early market, and many men tend to come later because, normally, the least interesting girls are put up first; this often presents a merchandising dilemma but it was not one which hurt the slavers of the Curulean very much, for their merchandise tends to be generally of high quality and the reputation of their house is such that, even in the early hours of the market, they tend to have a sizable number of bidders on hand. Sometimes an extraordinary girl or girls are marketed almost immediately, to encourage buyers to come early. Although this does tend to bring in larger early crowds the slavers feel that, often, they do not get on these girls what they might have, had their sale taken place later in the evening, in the heat and press of more determined bidding. At any rate, from the girl's point of view, any chain position after forty and before one hundred would be good. The ideal, of course, is to be sold at the height of the sale. With one hundred and twenty girls the most serious bidding would presumably come somewhere between Girl 80 and Girl 95. Late in the sale, of course, it is not uncommon for buyers to be weary and to begin to drift away. These remarks, incidentally, pertain to a normal «long» sale, usually held four times a week at a large house. They are not meant to apply to special sales, private sales, and in-house sales. Sometimes special sales, well-publicized, are held, in which as few as fifteen or twenty girls, of great quality or interest, are sold. All Ar, it is said, tries to fill the house upon such occasions. If a Ubara of a conquered city, for example, were to be sold, it would, customarily, be in such a special sale, unless the victorious Ubar, he who had conquered her city and captured her, chose to have her sold, for his amusement, in a common sale and from an unimportant block. Normally, of course, the conquering Ubar would keep such a regal wench, now collared and debased to slavery, in his own pleasure gardens, as a delicious memento of his victory, and as a woman.

"Stand," said the slaver's man.

My group stood.

"Move to the next position," he said.

We hurried to the next position.

We were now coffled in groups of ten. Early in the sale, for the first twenty girls, the chain had been intact, one chain for us all. With each sale we had moved one position. Each time we had moved one or two positions on the bench we knew that one or two of our sisters had been sold. The psychological effect of this, methodical and relentless, tends to produce anticipation and anxiety, even in an experienced girl. No girl ever grows completely used to being exhibited and sold. Then, after the first twenty girls, when our nerves were keen and taut, we were separated into coffles of ten. We might then seem to relax. But when our nerves had eased and we might seem to breathe a bit more easily, the coffle, as a whole, would be ordered to its feet and moved ten spaces toward the end of the tunnel. The effect of this, being for a time relatively at ease, and then being forced suddenly to move ten times closer to the block tends, suddenly, to whet one's fears and anticipations anew; when one, psychologically, in spite of herself, had begun to feel a little safe one is suddenly hurried even closer to her exhibition and sale, and all it means, the uncertainty, the danger, the not knowing, the being sold, the being owned anew, by someone who can do with you what he pleases.

I could now hear the calls of the auctioneer quite clearly. I could hear individuals, too, in the crowd. A vendor was hawking sherbets.

I was now in the point coffle, that at the end of the tunnel. The sales were doing well.

The girl to my left, she in the house tunic, sat tense beside me. Her fingernails dug into the wood of the bench. Her make-up was inspected and touched up. Then she was removed from the coffle, the collar, and the length of chain on her right, attaching her to me, placed to one side. A man stood near the end of the tunnel, with a tablet and marking stick. He indicated that she should approach him. She did. He inspected her chain number, used in the Curulean as a sales number, which, tiny, was written under her left ear in lipstick. The Curulean does not use sales collars. She was Girl 90.

I heard a roar of approval and I knew the girl on the block had been sold. Another girl, Girl 89, had been waiting at the foot of the block. A man with a whip prodded her to climb to its height. She moved carefully, feeling the stairs, creeping upward. She wore a slave scarf, as a blindfold. It was all she wore. The man with the tablet quickly thrust the girl in the house tunic from the tunnel to the foot of the stairs leading to the block.

"Look at me," said a man.

I sat very still, looking at him. He examined my make-up. Deftly, he improved it.

"You are beautiful," he said.

"Thank you, Master," I whispered.

Another man removed my collar, with the chain that fastened me to the girl on my right, the virginal girl in a bit of white fluff. The man with the tablet indicated that I should stand near him, and I did. From where I stood, at the end of the tunnel, I could see the ceiling of the Curulean, and some of the buyers, crowded in the higher tiers.

Their excitement frightened me. The sales were going too well.

The crowd roared. The girl on the block, naked, was being forced to perform blindfolded before the men.