I cried out with fear. One of the men shouted with anger. Rising from under the grunt swiftly was a long-bodied shark, white, nine-gilled. It tore the grunt from the line and bore it away. Other dorsal fins, of smaller sharks, trailed it, waiting. Sharks, and sometimes marine saurians, sometimes trail the ships, to secure discarded garbage and rob the lines of the fishermen. The convoy, by its size, had doubtless attracted many such monsters. I had seen, yesterday, the long neck of a marine saurian lift from the waters of gleaming Thassa, It had a small head, and rows of small teeth. Its appendages were like broad paddles. Then it had lowered its head and disappeared. Such beasts, in spite of their frightening appearance, are apparently harmless to men. They can take only bits of garbage and small fish. Certain related species thrive on crustaceans found among aquatic flora. Further, such beasts are rare. Some sailors, reportedly, have never seen one. Far more common, and dangerous, are certain fishlike marine saurians, with long, toothed snouts; they are silent and aggressive, and sailors fear them as they do the long-bodied sharks. The sea sleen, vicious, fanged aquatic mammals, apparently related to the land forms of sleen, are the swiftest predators to be found in Thassa; further, they are generally conceded to be the most dangerous; they tend, however, to frequent northern waters. Occasionally they have been found as far south, however, as the shores of Cos and the deep inlets of Tyros.

I walked back toward the bow of the ship.

I reached into a wooden bucket and took a tospit, bit it open and began to suck at the juice. No one stopped me.

Although the cargo officer, my first day on board, had warned me that I would not be treated easily, he had not been as good as his word. I was permitted the freedom of the ship. I was not even chained at night. The men were fond of me, and they treated me well, with the rough comraderie and friendship that is sometimes accorded an owned girl, one who is common to all, and must obey all. For all the restraints placed upon me I might have been a free woman, save that the distinction between us, apart from my tunic and collar, would have been clear when a man snapped his fingers and pointed to the deck at his feet, or whistled for me in the night, and I must run to him, as might a pet sleen, to serve him. A slave girl, one who truly serves men, has often much freedom. Since they have everything, and anything, they want from her, and she is complete slave, and they total master, there is no struggle between them; she, accordingly, in a strange way, is prized and treasured; how many women of Earth, I wonder, are prized and treasured by their men; one can prize and treasure, of course, only something which one owns; a free person can be respected, and even loved, but cannot stand to another in that unique relationship which is that of prize and treasure; to stand in that relationship a woman must be owned; further, since each man, in his heart, desires a beautiful woman as a slave, he is, when he owns one, at least in this respect, contented, satisfied and pleased; a contented, pleased, satisfied man is a happy man, and a happy man is a kind man, and a generous man; he is jealous only of his prerogatives over the slave; of course, when his heat is upon him, then he becomes less kind and generous, and more the harsh master; she then, to her pleasure, well understands his dominance over her; then her slavery is truly brought home to her; even among free lovers, I have heard, the man, in the fullness of his heat, often laughs at the woman's illusion of freedom and seizes her to him as a slave; how marvelous to the man, then, if she is truly a slave. With what joy may such a woman, in true bondage, be seized and used. Moreover, her bondage, naturally, extends beyond the brief, several hours of pleasure; she simply belongs to him, and must continue to serve him, however he pleases; how exciting it must be for a man to own so delicious a creature as a woman; how utterly marvelous for him! It is more difficult to speak of women. In my heart, I know, there lies a slave girl, once denied, then secretly feared, now openly and joyously recognized, who longs for a master. I do not know if this is true for other women or not. Let them look into their own secret hearts. I do not think the longing of men is an oddity in the genetic history of a species; I think there is a reciprocity which has been intricately evolved; this desire, this longing for a beautiful slave, for a beautiful female, who stands to him as slave to master, which is universal in glandularly normal, strong men does not seem likely to have evolved in isolation; the evolution of the tiger's tooth suggests the presence of game; the evolution of the eye suggests the existence of light; the existence of blood suggests the organism's presence in an environment which supplies water and salt; similarly a man's desire to own a slave suggests that there are slaves to be owned, waiting to be mastered; in the animal kingdom the instinct to dominate and the instinct to submit are functions of one another, each real and deep in the blood of the evolved, complementary beasts; let the woman who desires to kneel naked before her male and put her head to his feet do so; but let her be wary as he cries out with pleasure and seizes her, for she is then a slave.

"Sail!" cried a man. "Sail!" I looked up. He was high above the deck. He stood, barefoot, on the lookout platform, high on the tall, single mast, well above the long yard and the billowing, triangular sail; the lookout platform is a wooden disk, fixed on the mast; his hands were on a ring, also encircling the mast.

"Where away?" called an officer, on the high deck, whipping out a small telescope.

"Schendi half ship!" called the man. The new vessel was abeam on our port side. Sailors of Cos usually refer to the left side of the ship by the port of destination and the right side of the ship by the port of registration; this alters, of course, when the ports of destination and registration are the same; in that case the sailors of Cos customarily refer to the left side of the ship as the "harbor side," the right side of the ship normally continuing to be designated as before, by reference to the port of registration. This sort of thing occasionally presents problems in translation between Gorean and English. For example, an expression in Gorean which might intelligently be translated as "Off the starboard bow," would be more literally translated, for the ship on which we were, as "To the Telnus bow." The exact expressions «port» and «starboard» do not exist in Gorean, though there are, naturally, equivalent expressions. The English expression «starboard» is a contraction of "steering board," and refers to the side of certain ships, particularly northern ships, on which the steering board, or rudder, was to be found. Most Gorean vessels, on the other hand, like many early vessels of Earth, are double ruddered. A reference to the "rudder side" would thus, in Gorean, be generally uninformative. It might be noted, however, if it is of interest, that the swift, square-rigged ships of Torvaldsland are single ruddered, and on the right side. A reference to the "rudder side" or "steering-board," or "steering-oar," side would be readily understood, at least by sailors, if applied to such a ship.

The Captain of the Jewel of lad hurried to the high deck, The officer there on watch handed him the telescope.

"It has two masts, two sails," he said, "and ten oars to a side. It must, thus, be a round ship."

"It flies the flag of Port Kar," said the captain, with pleasure.

"See now," said the officer, pointing.

"I see," said the captain. "She is turning about."

Another officer ascended to the high deck. He, too, bore a glass.

"It is a round ship," said the first officer.