“What do you suggest?” he asked. He seemed amused.

“She is from Earth,” said she.

“So?” said he.

“I then suggest,” said she, “one with an Earth-slut name on it.”

“Would you do that to her?” he asked.

“Surely no harm could come of it,” she said.

A man laughed. I felt uneasy.

“Still,” said the fellow in the thronelike chair, “she seems to have learned at least a little about our world, and, for her time here, seems unusually adept at our language. Indeed she seems, subject to what she is, and her antecedents, quite intelligent. That is clear even from her papers. Perhaps then we should be kinder to her. Perhaps we should not do that to her.”

“Oh, no, Master,” said Dorna, quickly. “She is from that place and so that should be made clear in her name. Let her wear a name that makes clear her origin, so that men will know the treatment she deserves, and how to deal with her.”

“Do you so hate those from that place?” inquired the man in the chair.

“Were it not for one such,” she cried, “I would not be here in diaphanous silk with a collar on my neck!”

“One from such a place enslaved you?” asked he.

“No,” she said, “but were it not for him I might now be tatrix in my city!”

“Your schemes failed,” said a man.

“One from Earth brought your plans to naught,” said another.

“Your city is now quite different from what it once was,” said the man in the chair.

“You are quite fortunate to be here, and in a collar,” said another man.

“Rejoice that you live,” said another.

I understood nothing of this.

“But we are now considering this little kajira,” said the man in the chair, returning his attention to me.

Dorna looked down at me, in fury.

I was frightened, and, unbidden, I knelt.

“She kneels well,” said a man.

I knelt in position, of course.

I looked up at the man in the chair. I wondered if he would send for me this evening.

I trembled, even thinking of it.

Dorna, I think, was not unaware of the fact that I fell well within the regard of him in the great chair.

“You think that a collar with an Earth-girl name would be suitable?” he asked Dorna.

“Suitable, and appropriate, Master,” she said, in honeyed tones.

This made me apprehensive, particularly when I recalled her remarks to the effect that this would let men know how I was to be treated, and such.

“Shall we give her an Earth-girl name?” asked he in the chair of the men standing about.

“Do so, Captain,” said one of them, smacking his lips.

“Yes, Captain!” approved another.

Many Earth-girl names I would discover, understandably enough, I supposed, have an exotic flavor to the men of this world. They tend to find them sexually stimulating. They are also, like certain names of this world, regarded as slave names. I am not fully certain why that is. It may be because they tend to be unfamiliar names to the men of this world. It may be because they are found on women brought to this world to be slaves. It may be because we often sold under such names, we then wearing them as slave names, put on us for the convenience of masters. To be sure, it may be for another reason, a simpler reason, the simple reason that we make excellent slaves. There are some names, of course, which are common to both this world and my old world, which suggests interesting questions of etiology. Similarly there are some names on this world which are on free women but which are also, often, found on slaves. One such is ‘Dina’. It is not unusual for a name of this world, incidentally, to be put on an Earth girl brought here. This is not entirely unnatural, of course, as such names are often beautiful, and, naturally, more familiar to the masters. Too, such names sometimes help the new slave to make the transition to her new status and condition. Indeed, they sometimes help to free her of her inhibitions and increase her sexual responsiveness. In other cases, it seems clear that wearing an Earth-girl name, whether one which was once her own, now put on her as a slave name, or another Earth-girl name, now also, of course, only a slave name, can have similar effects on a girl from my world, she now recognizing herself as, and being in effect, embonded fauna in an alien environment, singled out, and marked, as such, by the name. The contrast between the familiarity of the name, like a tie to an old world, and the new reality in which she finds herself can be both astonishing and stimulating. An interesting variation on this sort of thing is the giving of Earth-girl names to women of this world. This is a way of informing the, I gather, that great heat is now expected of them and that they are now, at best, to regard themselves as the lowest of slaves. To be sure, in time, as we learn our collars and condition, I think that the names make little difference. Many names, of diverse sorts, are stimulating and beautiful. And, of course, perhaps most importantly, we are well aware that any name we wear, whatever it may be, is, when all is said and done, a slave name.

“Very well,” said he in the chair. “Choose some collar with an Earth-girl name.”

“Yes, Master!” said Dorna, eagerly. She hurried back to the roofed defense work. I gathered that there might be several collars there, some of which bore names which either were, or might be regarded as, Earth-girl names.

In a moment or two Dorna had returned to the dais with a collar. The collar was a common collar, flat, bandlike, gleaming, not unattractive, now closed. Looped about it was a string, on which there were two tiny keys. She showed the collar to the fellow in the chair. “Excellent,” he said. She then showed the collar to the others about the dais. “Quite suitable,” said one fellow. “Indeed,” added another. She then hurried down the steps, and showed it to others. One man laughed. “Good,” said another. “Quite good,” smiled another. “Superb,” said another. “Excellent,” said another. She then hurried back to the dais and the man in the chair opened the collar and slipped off the keys and string. He handed the keys to one of the fellows near the dais. I gathered that he would put them somewhere, or would turn them over to someone. I did not know where they would be kept. The collar was then returned to Dorna and she came down the steps of the dais and stood near me, where I knelt.

I looked upon the collar.

I would wear it.

I looked up at the man in the chair.

“You now have a name,” he said. “It is that which is on the collar.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

I did not, of course, at that point, know my name, only that I had one.

“Read it!” said Dorna, holding the collar before me.

“I cannot,’ I said. The script was unintelligible to me.

“She is illiterate,” said the man in the chair.

“It is on her papers,” said another.

“Stupid illiterate slave!” said Dorna. The man in the chair looked at me.

“You belong to the city,” he said. “The collar is a state collar.”

That I had not counted on! I did not even understand what it might be, to belong to a polity, a city, a state. Who then owned me, the polity, it seemed, the city, the state. But who did I serve? What did I do? I would doubtless learn.

“Prepare her for her collaring,” said the man.

“Down on all fours, slut,” said Dorna to me.

I immediately obeyed.

Dorna walked about me, in front of me, and handed the collar, opened, as it was, to the jailer, he who had brought me, and to my left.

Dorna then crouched down, and, combing it a little with her fingers, brought my hair forward, before my shoulders. She then arranged it. It hung down before me. My neck was muchly bared.

Dorna then rose to her feet and stood a bit before me and to my right.

“Is she prepared for collaring?” asked the man in the chair.

“She is,” said Dorna.

“Tenrik,” said the man in the chair.