The hunter drew forth from the bundle of furs two tiny pelts of the leem. These were brown, the summer coats of the animals.

"Look," said the slaver's man, gesturing at the two girls, the blond and the dark-haired girl. "Two beauties!"

The hunter drew forth two more pelts of the leem.

"Not enough," said the slaver's man.

The hunter grunted and bent down, retying the bundle of furs. He picked up the bundle and began to leave.

"Wait! laughed the slaver's man. "They are yours!"

The girls reacted. "We have been sold," whispered the dark-haired girl. I recalled she had worn soft, black, custom-fitted feminine slacks, a soft, delicious, turtle-necked, red pull-over. It had been a beautiful top and had doubtless been quite expensive. I recalled that she had been rich. She was now the naked slave girl of a red hunter.

The slaver's man put the pelts in a pouch which hung from his belt.

With his right hand he pulled the head of the blond girl down, until it was at her knees. He did the same with the head of the dark-haired girl. They knelt as they had been placed. They had felt the whip.

The slaver then went behind them and freed their ankles from the steel ankle loops. He then unlocked the two-inch-high steel cuffs which had held the hands of the girls behind them. Their platform tunics, loose, he then let fall to the boards of the platform. The hunter, meanwhile, with a knife, bad cut a length from the rope of twisted sleen hide which he wore over his shoulder. He fastened the two girls together by the neck. The slaver then unlocked the slaves' throat collars and tossed them, with the chain, to the platform.

The two beauties were drawn by the hunter from the platform and they then stood, frightened, tied together by the neck, before it.

The third and fourth girl looked upon these proceedings with unfeigned terror. They knew they themselves could be as easily the objects of so casual a transaction, putting them in the total power of a buyer, their master.

The red hunter, with two short lengths of the leather rope, jerked the hands of the beauties behind them and, swiftly, expertly, fastened them together. The blond-haired girl winced. "Oh," said the dark-haired girl, suddenly. I saw the hunter had tied women before. They were totally helpless.

The red hunters are generally a kind, peaceable folk, except with animals. Two sorts of beasts are kept in domestication in the north; the first sort of beast is the snow sleen; the second is the white-skinned woman.

"Ho," said the red hunter, and strode from the platform. The two beasts he had purchased hurried after him.

"Theirs will be a hard slavery," I said to the slaver's man.

"They will learn to pull a sled under the whip," he said.

"Yes," I said. Such women were used as draft animals. But they would serve, too, as slave girls do, many other purposes.

"Wait until the red women get hold of them," laughed the slaver's man.

"They may kill them," I said.

"They have one 'chance for life," he said, "to obey with total perfection."

"But," I asked, "is that not every slave girl's one chance for life?"

"True," he said. Then he turned and looked at the third and fourth girl.

They looked at him with terror. Beside them, on the platform, were two pairs of opened, empty ankle loops, two pairs of opened, empty wrist cuffs, two opened, empty collars, and some chain, and two platform tunics, discarded.

"I think," I said, "that these two girls might now be moved back on the platform and have their hands chained before their bodies rather than behind."

"I think you are right," he said, chuckling. He climbed to the platform and moved the girls back. He then unlocked the left cuff of the first girl and then recuffed her, this time with her small hands before her body. He did the same with the second. In doing this he had discarded their platform tunics. He then rejoined me before the platform.

They now knelt back on the platform in normal display location, their hands chained before them. They looked at him.

The slaver's man, with the whip, gestured broadly, expansively, to the passing crowd. He grinned at the girls.

The fourth girl, who had once worn the denim pants and beige flannel shirt, extended her chained hands to the crowd. "Buy me, Masters!" she cried out. "Buy me for your lover and slave. I am beautiful. I will serve you well!" She called out in English, for she knew no Gorean, but there could be little misinterpretation of her intent or of the desperate. piteous nature of her entreaties. "Buy me! Buy me!" she begged.

"I am even more beautiful!" cried the other suddenly. "Buy me instead!"

I saw men gathering about them. The girls redoubled their piteous efforts to please. "Buy me, Master!" cried one. "Buy me, kind masters!" cried the other. They sought the eyes of men in the crowd. I could see they now, though they were barbarian, excited interest. Some men like a barbarian girl. And if a girl is not fully broken to the collar, one can always teach her. There is always the whip.

"How much do you want for them?" asked a man.

"They are not cheap," said the slaver's man.

I smiled to myself and left the area of the platform. They would soon be sold.

I pressed through the crowds.

The sales in the pavillion would already have begun. "Buy these girls! Buy these girls!" I heard, as I made my way between the platforms toward the pavilion. "Buy me, Master!" called a girl, with long dark hair, naked, lying on her side on one of the darkly varnished platforms, her body hail covered with chains bound about her.

"A tarsk bit to enter, Master," said a slaver's man at the entrance to the pavilion.

I handed him a tarsk bit from my pouch, and pushed through the canvas.

My nostrils flared, my blood moved now faster in my veins. There is something charged and exhilarating about a slave market, the color, the movement, the excitement of the crowds, the bidding, the intensity, the lovely women being sold.

"Four copper tarsks!" was a bid called from the floor.

The girl stood on the block, her right side to the bidders. Her hands were behind her head, and her body was arched back. Her left leg was behind her, her right leg, flexed, thrust forth.

"Six!" was another bid.

She then faced the bidders, half crouched, her hands at her head, throwing her hair forward over her face. She regarded them angrily, sullenly, through her hair. Yet there was in her eyes a sultry need recognized by Gorean buyers. Taken home, she would soon become a satisfactory, hot slave, piteous and eager at her master's feet. She was directed by the auctioneer, responding to his voice commands and the light, deft, guiding touches of his whip.

I moved through the crowds, to get somewhat closer to the block. The girl was sold for fifteen copper tarsks to a metal worker from Tor.

I looked about in the crowd.

The next girl was a willowy blond Earth girl. She was sent to the block in what are regarded as the odd undergarments of Earth females. Both the upper undergarment and the lower were white. Her hands were braceleted behind her and the auctioneer, his whip in his belt, controlled her by the hair. She was hysterical. Her brassiere was first removed, then the panties. The latter garment, by Goreans, is regarded as a peculiarly strange one. It, silken and brier, is obviously a slave's garment, but it is closed at the bottom. It would take a man an extra moment to rape such a slave.

She was sold for four copper tarsks. I did not see who bought her. I think it was a locksmith from Ti.

I bought a slice of rolled meat, filled with sauce, in a waxed paper, from a vendor.

It was then that I saw him. Our eyes met. He turned white. Immediately, flinging aside the food, I began to thrust through the crowd toward him. He turned and, squirming and thrusting, fought his way toward the side of the tent.