Then she was again the woman of Earth, though clad in Gorean slave livery.

"Return me to Earth," she said.

"Take her below to the pens," said Samos, "and sell her off."

"What did he say!" she demanded.

"Is she to be branded?" asked the guard.

"Yes," said Samos, "the common brand."

"What did he say!" she cried. Each of the two guards flanking her had now taken her by an arm. She looked very small between them. I thought the common Kajira mark would be exquisite in her thigh.

"Left thigh," I suggested.

"Yes, left thigh," said Samos to one of the guards. I liked the left-thigh branded girl. A right-handed master may caress it while he holds her in his left arm.

"Give me back my clothing!" she cried.

Samos glanced at the bundle of clothing. "Burn this," he said.

The girl watched, horrified, as one of the guardsmen took the clothing and, piece by piece, threw it into a wide copper bowl of burning coals. "No!" she cried. "No!"

The two guards then held her arms tightly and prepared in conduct her to the pens.

She looked with horror at the burnt remnants, the ashes, of her clothing.

She now wore only what Gorean men had given her, a scrap of slave livery, and a ring hammered about her neck.

She threw her head about, moving the ring. For the first time she seemed truly aware of it.

She looked at me, terrified. The guards' hands were on her upper arms. Their hands were tight.

"What are they going to do!" she cried.

"You are to be taken to the pens," I said.

"The pens!" she asked.

"There," I said, "you will be stripped and branded."

"Branded?" she said. I do not think she understood me. Her Earth mind would find this hard to understand. She was not yet cognizant of Gorean realities. She would learn them swiftly. No choice would be given her.

"Is she to be sold red-silk?" I asked Samos.

He looked at the girl. "Yes," he said. The guards grinned. It would be a girl who knew herself as a woman when she ascended the block.

"I thought you said I would be stripped and branded," she said, laughing.

"Yes," I said, "that is precisely what I said."

"No!" she screamed. "No!"

"Then," I said, "you will be raped, and taught your womanhood. When you have learned your womanhood, you will be caged. Later you will be sold."

"No!" she cried. "No!"

"Take her away," said Samos.

The guards' hands tightened even more on the beauty's arms. She might as well have been bound in steel. She must go as they conducted her. "Wait! Wait!" she cried. She struggled, squirming in their grasp, her feet slipping on the tiles. Samos motioned that they wait, momentarily. She looked at me, and at Samos, wildly. "What place is this?" she asked.

"It is called Gor," I told her.

"No!" she said. "That is only in stories!"

I smiled.

"No!" she cried. She looked about herself, at the strong men who held her. She threw her head back, moaning, sensing the ring on her throat. "No, no!" she wept. "I do not want to be a woman on Gor! Anything but a woman on Gor!"

I shrugged.

"You are joking," she said, wildly.

"No," I said.

"What language is it here which they speak?" she asked.

I smiled.

"Gorean," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"And I must learn it quickly?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "You must learn it quickly, or be slain. Gorean men are not patient"

"— Gorean," she said.

"It is the language of your masters," I said.

"— Of my masters?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "Surely you know that you are a slave girl."

"No!" she cried. "No! No! No! No!"

"Take her away," said Samos.

The girl was dragged, screaming and sobbing, from our presence, to the pens.

How feminine she seemed then. No longer did she seem an imitation male. She was then only what she was, a slave girl being taken to the pens.

Samos, thoughtfully, began to unwind the long ribbon, that which the girl had worn, and which formed the scytale, from the spear's shaft.

We heard her screaming down the corridor, and then she cried out in pain, and was silent. The guards, wearied by her outcries, had simply cuffed her to silence. Sometimes a girl is permitted to scream. Sometimes she is not It depends on the will of the man. When she is branded a girl is commonly permitted to scream, at least for a time. But we would not hear that screaming, for, when it was done, she would be below, and far away, in the pens.

I dismissed her from my mind, for she was a slave. Her history as a free woman had terminated; her history as an imbonded beauty had begun.

Samos, the ribbon freed from the spear's shaft, the spear retrieved by the guardsman, looked down at the table, at the ribbon, which now seemed only a ribbon, with meaningless marks.

"Greetings to Tarl Cabot," I said, recalling the message. "I await you at the world's end. Zarendargar. War General of the People."

"Arrogant beasts," he said.

I shrugged.

"We had no clue," he said. "Now we have this." He lifted the ribbon, angrily. "Here is an explicit message."

"It seems so," I said.

We did not know where lay the world's end, but we knew where It must be sought. The world's end was said to lie beyond Cos and Tyros, at the end of Thassa, at the world's edge. No man had sailed to the world's end and returned. It was not known what had occurred there. Some said that Thassa was endless, and there was no world's end, only the green waters extending forever, gleaming, beckoning the mariner and hero onward, onward until men, one by one, had perished and the lonely ships, their steering oars lashed in place, pursued the voyage in silence, until the timbers rotted and one day, perhaps centuries later, the brave wood, warm in the sun, sank beneath the sea.

"The ship is ready," said Samos, looking at me.

Others said, in stories reminiscent of Earth, and which had doubtless there had their origin, that the world's end was protected by clashing rocks and monsters, and by mountains that could pull the nails from ships. Others said, similarly, that the end of the world was sheer, and that a ship might there plunge over the edge, to fall tumbling for days through emptiness until fierce winds broke it apart and the wreckage was lifted up to the bottom of the sea. In the maelstroms south and west of Tyros shattered planking was sometimes found. It was said that some of this was from ships which had sought the world's end.

"The ship is ready," said Samos, looking at me.

A ship had been prepared, set to sail to the world's end. It had been built by Tersites, the half-blind, mad shipwright, long scorned on Gor. Samos regarded him a genius. I knew him for a madman; whether he might be, too, a genius, I did not know. It was an unusual ship. It was deep-keeled and square-rigged, as most Gorean ships are not. Though it was a ramship it carried a foremast. It possessed great oars, which must be handled by several men, rather than one man to an oar. Instead of two side-hung rudders, or oars, it carried a single oar, slung at the vessel's sternpost. Its ram was carried high, out of the water. It would make its strike not below, but at the waterline. It was a laughing stock in the arsenal at Port Kar, but Tersites paid his critics no attention. He worked assiduously, eating little, sleeping at the side of the ship, supervising each small detail in the great structure. It was said the deep keel would slow the ship; that the two masts would take too long to remove in the case of naval combat; that so large an oar would constitute an impractical lever, that it could not be grasped by a man, that the oarsmen could not all sit during the stroke, that if more than one man controlled an oar some would shirk their work. Why one rudder rather than two? With lateen rigging one could sail closer to the wind. Of what use is a ram which makes its strikes so high?