"Yes, Master," I said.

He went to his desk and, from one of its drawers, drew forth an opened slave collar. It was unlike most of the Gorean collars. It was a Turian collar. Most Gorean collars, decorated or not, are basically a flat, circular band, hinged, which locks snugly about the girl's neck. The Turian collar, on the other hand, fits more loosely and resembles a hinged ring, looped about the throat. A man can get his fingers inside a Turian collar and use it to drag the girl to him. It does not fit loosely enough to permit its being slipped, of course. Gorean collars are not made to be slipped by the girls who wear them.

He threw the collar to his desk. I watched it strike the desk. I had never worn a true collar before. Suddenly I was terrified that it might be put on me. It locked. I would not be able to remove it.

"No, Master," I said, "please do not put a collar on me."

He came to me and, with a key, unlocked the wrist rings. I fell to the stone floor at his feet.

"You do not want to wear a collar?" he asked.

"No, Master," I whispered.

He turned away from me. I half sat, half lay on the stone floor, my legs to the side, the palms of my hands on the stones, my head down. I did not watch him. Tup Ladletender had left. He had taken the bit of sacking I had worn, and the slave beads, and the slave bracelets, which had confined my wrists. All he had left behind was she who had been Judy Thornton, six copper tarsks worth of sold she-slave.

"I will make you beg to wear a collar," said the man.

I turned and looked up, frightened. He loomed over me. He held a slave whip.

"No, Master!" I cried.

Well did he punish me then for my insolence. There was nowhere to crawl or run. He whipped me as a Gorean master. At last I lay blubbering at his feet.

"I think now you are tamed," he said.

"Yes, Master," I sobbed, "yes!"

"Are you tamed?" he asked.

"I am tamed, Master!" I wept. "I am tamed!"

"Do you now beg to wear a collar?" he inquired.

"Yes, Master!" I cried.

"Beg," said he.

"I beg to wear a collar," I wept.

He then fastened the collar on my throat. It closed with an efficient metallic snap. I collapsed to the stones.

He turned and left me, placing the slave whip on the wall, where it had hung, convenient to hand. He rang a bell. A door opened, and a soldier, a guard, appeared. "Send for Sucha," said the captain. "There is a new girl."

I lay on the stones. Timidly, when he was not watching, but sitting behind his desk, engaged in work, perhaps entering my acquisition and price in his ledgers, I touched the collar, rounded, steel and gleaming. It was truly locked on my throat. I was collared. Only the brand had made me before feel so much a slave. I wept. I was branded and collared.

I heard the jingle of tiny bells, slave bells.

I became conscious of a woman's feet, bare, near me.

The bells, tiny, in four rows, were thonged about her left ankle. A whip touched me, prodding me, in the back. I shuddered. "Get up, Girl," said a woman's voice. I looked lip. She wore a wisp of yellow silk. Her dark hair was bound back with a yellow, silk talmit.

I stood up.

"Stand as a slave," she said.

I stood beautifully.

"A Dina," said the woman.

Her own brand was the customary Kajira brand, the initial letter in cursive Gorean script, about an inch and a half high, and a half inch wide, of the expression "Kajira," the most common Gorean expression for a female slave. It was clearly visible on her thigh. The wisp of silk she wore made no pretense to cover it.

"I am Sucha," said the woman.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Why were you whipped?" asked Sucha.

"I asked not to be put in a collar," I whispered.

"Remove it," she said.

I looked at her puzzled.

"Remove it " said the woman.

I tried to 'pull the collar from my throat. I jerked it against my neck until I cried. I struggled to force it apart. I turned the collar and, with my fingers, tore at the lock. It remained obdurately, perfectly, inflexibly fastened.

I looked at the woman with agony. "I cannot remove it," I said.

"That is true, Slave Girl," she said. "And do not forget it."

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"What were you called?" she asked.

"Dina," I said.

Sucha looked at the captain. "It is acceptable," he said.

"For the time then," said Sucha, "until masters wish otherwise, you will remain 'Dina. "

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Follow me, Dina," she said. I followed her. She, too, wore a Turian collar. The girls of the Wagon Peoples, too, I understand, wear such collars.

We walked along a long passage. Then we left that passage, and took others. We passed numerous storerooms, closed by barred gates. At one point, we passed through a heavy iron door, watched by a guard. On the other side of the door, she said, "Precede me, Dina." "Yes, Mistress," I said. I preceded her. We walked along another long passage. It, too, was lined with barred gates, giving access to store-rooms.

"You are very beautiful, Mistress," I said, over my shoulder.

"Do you wish to feel my whip?" she asked.

"No, Mistress," I said. I was then silent.

I knew why I was now preceding her. It was fairly common Gorean custom. We must be nearing the slave quarters. If I should now turn and flee, she was behind me, to stop me, with the whip. Sometimes new girls become frightened at the entrance to their slave quarters. There is something fearful about being locked within, as a slave.

"Are you tamed?" I asked her.

There was a pause. Then she said, "Yes."

We walked on.

"We are all tamed girls here," she said. "We have been taught our collars."

"Men can tame us!" I wept.

"Men tame girls or not, as they please," said Sucha. "It is their will which determines the matter. Some men do not tame their girls quickly, in order to tease and play with them longer, but the girl, if she is not a fool, knows to whom it is in the end that she belongs. In the end it is the man who holds the whip. This the girl knows. In the end, when the master wishes, we crawl into his arms, docile and tamed. We are women. We are slaves."

"I hate men!" I cried.

"Speak softly, lest you be whipped," cautioned Sucha.

"Do you not, too, hate men?" I demanded.

"I love them," said Sucha.

I cried out in anger. I turned about. "I am not tamed!" I cried. "I will never be tamed!"

"Tell it to the masters," said Sucha.

I shuddered.

"You are tamed," said Sucha.

"Yes," I said, miserably, "I have been tamed." I had been tamed since the first Gorean male had touched me, long ago, when I had worn a chain and collar in a Gorean field. Something instantly in me had told me who were my masters. And I remembered Clitus Vitellius, and Thurnus, and the captain, strict with me in his office. I touched the Turian collar which I wore, looped and locked about my neck.

"Tamed girl," said Sucha.

"Yes," said the former Judy Thornton. now the slave, Dina, "I am tamed."

I knew I must obey men.

"Here," said Sucha, "is the entrance to the kennels of the female slaves."

I shrank back. The door was small, and thick, and iron, some eighteen inches by eighteen inches square.

"Enter," said Sucha.

She stood behind me with the whip.

I turned the handle on the tiny door and, falling to my belly, squirmed through.

Sucha followed me.

Within we stood up. I gazed about myself with wonder. The room was lofty, and spacious; it contained numerous slender, white pillars, rich hangings; it was tiled in purple, and there was in it a scented pool; the walls were glossy and richly mosaiced with scenes of slave girls at the service of their masters; I uneasily touched the collar at my throat; light filtered down from narrow, barred windows, set high m the glossy, mosaiced walls. Here and there, about the pool, lay indolent girls, not set to work. They regarded me, appraising my face and figure, doubtless comparing it to their own.