"No matter," said Aemilianus.

"But, of course," said Calliodorus, "it is probably best for them to begin to learn quickly that they are slaves."

"Certainly," said Aemilianus.

"Doubtless in the morning they will be willing and eager to leave the cages, under any conditions," said Calliodorus.

"Excellent," smiled Aemilianus.

"I would recommend, however," said Calliodorus, "that the one called Publia be taken from the cage for a time this evening, to be given a good hiding at the mast."

"Of course," said Aemilianus.

It was only fitting, after all, that she be punished, and well. She had attempted to take advantage of the fact that she had not yet been branded and collared. She had attempted to pass herself off as a free woman. In many cities, such a thing is a capital offense. Here, however, in accord with a fortune much greater than she would be likely to realize for a few days, she, a naA?ve young slave, and guilty of what, in effect, was a first offense, was only to be whipped. Still, even so, I did not think she would be likely to forget her little bout this evening with the leather. For one thing, few slave girls forget their first whipping. Too, if nothing else it would impress upon her that she was a slave and that masters would think nothing of punishing her if she was not pleasing. That is a good thing for a girl to learn. I supposed, too, that it might have an effect in discouraging her, should the opportunity arise, as I did not think it would, from seeking to implement another deceit with respect to her status in the immediate future. Later, of course, as she began to understand what it was to be a slave girl, as she began to grasp something of the nature of her condition, and its categoricality, she would hastily, and fearfully, on her own, reject such thoughts. She would not dare to countenance them. She might find herself trembling in terror if even the smallest and most casual of such thoughts chanced to enter her mind.

I saw the fellow who had conducted the slaves to the hold emerge through the hatch and close it, after him. I supposed the slaves in their cages. Calliodorus, too, seemed to note the reappearance of the fellow.

"The former Lady Claudia and I were cellmates," I said to Calliodorus. "I determined at that time that she, though then free, would make an excellent slave."

"Good," he said. Slaves, of course, are not only trained in a broad spectrum of sexual arts, such as how to kiss and caress, and such, but much attention is given, too, to their own responsiveness and pleasure. There is nothing surprising about this. Their responsiveness and pleasure puts them far more under the master's power. Too, as might be imagined, it is very pleasant for a man to see the marvelous changes and effects which he can induce in a woman, for example, to have her thrashing helplessly at his touch, crying out her submission, begging for more. The slave, because of her training, her emotional freedom, thousands of times greater than that of a free woman, the discipline she is under, and such, can attain orgasm much more quickly than a free woman, sometimes, particularly if she has been deprived for a time, almost immediately. A response which might take a free woman a third to a half of an Ahn to attain a slave, and not an unusual slave, might attain in three or four Ehn. Beyond this the slave is often forced to endure lengthy, multiple orgasms, sometimes being carried by the will of the master for Ahn, whether she wills it or not, from one peak to another.

"She served Cosians, and declared for them," I said to Calliodorus. "Do you think that might put her in good stead with Cosians, should she come into their keeping, as that is what seems to be in store for her, at least in the near future?"

"In what way?" asked Calliodorus.

"That they might then see fit to reward her with her freedom," I said. "No," said Calliodorus. "She is now a slave. That changes everything. Even if she had once been a Cosian girl, even of Telnus, of good family and high caste, she would still, now, be a slave, and only a slave. Too, Cosians, I assure you, are not overly fond of traitresses. One who is willing to betray her own Home Stone would presumably not hesitate to betray someone else's. indeed, I would not have been surprised, had she surrendered herself at Ar's Station, claiming immunity, or such, that she would have quickly found herself, if, indeed, she were not slain, in the lowest of slaveries, as would seem fitting for her."

"I see," I said. It was, of course, as I had supposed it would be.

"Her slavery, thus," he said, "will presumably be either simple, and uncompromised, or excessively cruel, an uncompromised."

I nodded.

"But inasmuch as the crimes of the free woman are seldom held against the slave, for the slave has her own concerns, and fears, such as whether or not she is sufficiently pleasing, and so on, I would expect it to be simple, and uncompromised."

"I think you are probably right," I said. Many theorists regard reduction to slavery as wiping the slate clean, so to speak. The woman is then thought, in effect, to be beginning lift anew, but now as a mere property, a mere animal. To be sure, her past status and deeds do remain a part of her history, even if she is now only an animal. Thus, at least for a time, a maser might relish the consideration that his abject slave was once perhaps a haughty free woman, or such. But, in time, it is likely that their relationship, mercifully, as such things fade into the past and tend to be forgotten, will become a simpler one, that merely of master and slave.

"In my uses of the former Lady Claudia, in the cell," I said, "I sometimes gave her the use name of "Chloe'."

"A Cosian name," observed Calliodorus.

"She had declared for Cos," I reminded him.

"Did the use name help her to dissociate herself from the proprieties which she might have thought appropriate to a Lady Claudia? he asked.

"I think it helped," I said. Certainly a woman's sexual relationship to a man is often improved when she begins to think of herself as having a quite different relationship to him than the one in which she has been accustomed to think of herself. The change of name can help in this matter. No woman, of course, takes her former name into slavery. In her reduction to bondage she loses that name. Even if the same name, in one sense, should be put on her as a slave, it is not the same name in the crucial sense; it is not now a legal name to which one has title in one's own right. It is a slave name. In this sense, the name "Claudia' as the name of a free woman is a quite different name from the name "Claudia' as the name of a slave. The slave name, for example, can be changed at a master's whim. This loss of the old name, incidentally, and the susceptibility to being named, and the new name, if the master decides to give her a name, and such, although they are simple, legal consequences of the name of reduction to bondage, are also, I think, psychologically useful in helping her understand that she is now a slave, and that she is now radically and absolutely different from what she was. Too, I think that such things, a new name, for example, showing her that she is now in a new reality, and so on, can help her make the transition more smoothly into bondage.

"'Chloe' is an excellent name," he said. "I have known several slaves with that name."

"Do you think," asked Aemilianus of Calliodorus, "that "Claudia' is too fine a name for a slave?"

"I think it is an excellent name for a slave," he smiled.

"You would," smiled Aemilianus. I supposed that Aemilianus might think that Cosian names might be better for slaves, whereas Calliodorus might tend to approve more of names more typical of the south, say, those of Venna or Ar. I myself thought there was much to be said for both, and, indeed, for many other sorts of names, as well. Many Goreans, incidentally, as is well known, regard Earth-girl names as slave names. Aemilianus's slave, for example, who was Gorean, was named "Shirley."