I saw that a cart loaded with jugs of paga, arrived at the compound. It was greeted with cheers by the guards. Tonight was a night to for celebration. Tomorrow we would leave the compound and begin the overland journey across the river and southeast to Ko-ro-ba, and from thence to Ar.

Targo's wagons, now in the number of sixteen, the additional wagons and teams purchased in Laura, were scattered about at various distances from the compound, forming, in groups of twos and threes, small, isolated camps for the guards. Besides the nine guards who had been with him when I was captured, he had now eighteen additional men. They had been hired in Laura, known men, vouched for, not drifting mercenaries. Targo, in his way, may have been a gambler, but he was not a fool.

Ute came rushing to me, happily, and seized my arm.

"Tonight," she laughed, " when the food is served, you and I, and Lana, are not to go to the food line."

"Why not? I asked, in dismay. On Earth I had been a very finicky eater. On Gor, however, I had developed a fantastic appetite. I was not at all pleased with the prospect of losing my supper. What had we done?

Ute pointed through the bars at one of the groups of wagons, some hundred yards from the compound, toward the forests. Some five guards camped there.

"They had asked Targo to permit us to serve them," she said.

I flushed with pleasure. I liked to be outside the compound, and I enjoyed being near to the men. Never before had I served so small and intimate a group. Moreover, I knew the guards, for they had been with Targo since my capture. I liked them.

That evening, as it was growing dark, Ute and I, and Lana, did not go to the food line. A girl, however, was given a pan of food to give me for the new girl, chained in the dormitory. I took this food, and a water bag, within the darkened log enclosure.

It had been a beautiful day, and I was pleased. Moreover, I was looking forward to the evening.

This time, when I fed the new girl, the former Lady Rena of Lydius, I permitted her to eat at her own pace, and gave her the water bag more than once. When she had finished she looked at me. "May I speak?" she asked.

I saw that the hood, her gag and the bonds had taught her slavery. "Yes," I said.

"Thank you, she said.

I kissed her, and then regagged her and rehooded her.

When I went outside I returned the water bag to its hook outside the door of the dormitory, and gave the pan back to the girl who had given it to me. She was doing kitchen work that night. She was one of the village girls. The kitchen was an open, roofed shed abutting on the log dormitory, outside the bars. She was gathering pans inside the compound. They she was released to go to the kitchen, where, with some other of the northern girls, their arms immersed to the elbows in wooden tubs of heated water, she set about washing the pans. Targo had not had his older girls subjected to this kitchen work. We were pleased by this. It was surely work more fit for the blond, northern girls. I knelt with Ute and Lana inside the gate, leading from the girl cage. I was hungry, and it was now dusk.

"When do we eat? I asked Ute.

"After the masters," said Ute, referring to the guards in the plural, "if we please them."

"If we please them?" I asked.

"I am always fed," said Lana.

"Do not fear," said Ute, laughing at me, "you are white silk!"

I looked down.

"You will please them," Ute reassured me. "We all will. Why do you think they asked for us?"

"Perhaps we should have eaten in the food line," I said.

"And be beaten?" asked Lana.

"No," I said, confused.

"A hungry girl often serves better," said Ute. Then she laughed at me. "Do not fear," she said. "If they like you, they will throw you food."

"Oh," I said.

I was irritated. Elinor Brinton, of Park Avenue, of Earth, did not care to be thrown food like an animal, provided she pleased her masters!

"Wenches! boomed a voice.

We jumped. I flushed with pleasure. We leaped to our feet. Our guards had come for us!

The gate was unlocked.

We knelt on the grass. How pleasant it was not to be behind the bars of the girl cage.

Three guards had come for us. I knew them, and the other two, with whom they camped. They were among my favorites. I was excited. Sometimes, before falling asleep, or even in my dreams, I had fancied myself in their arms. I could imagine the pleasure of being held, helpless, in their strong arms. But beyond this I had only the white silk girl's dim sense of the changes they could bring about in my body, only the vague instinctual sensing, deep in my femaleness, of the fantastic pleasures to which a slave girl may be subjected by her master, pleasures by means of which he may, if it pleases him, totally and completely dominate her, making her helplessly, irreservedly his, naught but a yielded slave girl.

The men were in fine humor.

One of them pointed across the grass to the fire between the wagons. It was more than a hundred yards off, glowing in the darkness, away from the compound.

The men then removed their sword belts, holding the short swords and scabbards in their left hand, the belts in their right.

"No!" laughed Ute. "No!"

Ute and Lana sprang to their feet and raced toward the fire. I was slower than they. I was suddenly stung, smartly, with the fierce slap of a sword belt. "Oh! I cried, in pain, and leaped to my feet, and ran stumbling toward the fire. They were swifter than we, of course. Ute, Lana and I ran, laughing and stumbling, barefoot, squealing in protest, crying out in pain, through the darkness over the grass toward the fire.

Ute reached it first, laughing, falling to her hands and knees and putting her head down to the grass, her hair falling over the sandal of one of the two guards waiting there. "I beg to serve you, Masters!" she gasped, laughing. Lana was but an instant behind her and she, too, fell to her hands and knees, head down. "I beg to serve you, Masters!" she cried.

I was stung once more and then, like Ute and Lana, I too was on my hands and knees, head down, touching the grass. "I a€“ I beg to serve you, Masters!" I cried.

"Then serve!" cried one of the fellows at the fire, he whose sandal was lost in Ute's dark hair. Suddenly there were three more sharp slaps of the sword belts and, crying out, protesting, begging for mercy, laughing, we leapt to our feet to busy ourselves.

Lana, Ute and I knelt in a line, facing the players. Our hands were bound behind our backs with binding fiber.

The men, wagering, tossed us pieces of meat.

We caught them, in the firelight. A catch was two points. A piece which was dropped was fair game for any. We fought for the dropped pieces. The retrieval of such a piece was one point. Ute dropped a piece and Lana and I fought, each holding to a part of the fallen prize, rolling and tearing. I struggled back to my knees, tearing my head to one side. "Mine!" I cried, swallowing the meat, almost choking, laughing.

"Mine!" cried Lana, gorging the other half of the meat.

"Point for each," adjudicated one of the guards.

We were excited, and wanted to play further.

"We are weary," said one of the guards. We saw copper disks being exchanged. Elinor Brinton had done well for her guard. He was pleased with her. She suffused with pleasure as he snapped his fingers for her to approach him. She leaped to her feet and ran to him, where he shook her head roughly, and unbound her.

"Fetch me paga," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I went to the wagon to fetch a large bota of paga, which had been filled from one of the large jugs.

Lana and Ute, too, went to the wagon, to fetch other botas, so commanded by other guards.

Soon I returned to the firelight, the heavy bota of paga, on its strap, slung over my shoulder. Ute and Lana, with theirs, behind me.