"What is the market of Tima?" I asked.

"You will discover, soon enough," she said. Then she said, "Lie down, Jason."

"Yes, Mistress," I said. I lay down.

She stood there for a moment, looking at me. "Lola should not have attempted to embroil you in difficulties with me," she said. "The slave oversteps herself. I am growing rather dissatisfied with her performances. She is treading a thin line. I think she is growing too bold, too pretentious. The next time she displeases us in the pens, even in the least way, I think that I will have her disciplined."

I looked at her.

"We are not of Earth here, Jason," she said. "We punish slaves when they are not pleasing. Indeed, sometimes we punish them even if they are pleasing."

"But why, Mistress?" I asked.

"Because they are slaves," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Rest now," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Incidentally, Jason," she said, "I commend you on your progress in Gorean. You have a skill with languages."

"Thank you, Mistress," I said.

"And your body, too," she said, "with the exercises and the diet, is shaping up nicely. You have gained weight but look more trim, for the weight now is more that of muscle and less that of fat."

"Thank you, Mistress," I said. Muscular tissue, to be sure, was both heavier and more compact than fatty tissue. This accounted for the paradox of increased bodily weight coupled with a thinner appearance.

"You are as large as many Gorean men, Jason," she said. "Indeed, you are even larger than many of them. It is too bad you are fit to be only a slave."

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Go to sleep now, Jason," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Interesting," said the woman. "Promising."

I trembled, involuntarily, as the coolness of the leather of the woman's whip, its blades folded back against its handle, moved upward against my right side.

"We call him `Jason'," said the Lady Gina, standing in the background.

My hands were manacled over my head to a ring in the low-ceilinged, torchlit room. My ankles, too, were manacled. They were fastened closely to a ring on the floor, near my feet. I was stripped naked.

"A nice name," said the woman, "but we can call the tarsk anything."

"Of course," said the Lady Gina.

Extending in a line to my left, the same line in which I formed the initial point, stripped, secured as I was, were twenty more male slaves. We were being examined by five women, veiled and robed, woman slavers.

"Open your mouth," said one of the women to me.

I opened my mouth.

She pushed up, under my upper teeth, with her thumb. The robes and veils the women wore were graceful and of silken sheens. They were predominantly blue and yellow in their colors, which are the colors of the slavers. As the lovely sleeve of her robe dropped back I saw, on her left wrist, a heavy, metal-studded wristlet of black leather. Her eyes were dark and shrewd, fierce, objective, appraising, merciless. I had little doubt but what, in her own pens, she would be as formidable, if not more formidable, than the Lady Gina. I did not meet her eyes. She, like the Lady Gina, when she chose to be severe, frightened me. Such women, I knew, would treat me with great strictness. They would not be easy with men so miserable as to fall into their power as slaves. Her hands were then at my mouth, pulling it more widely open, moving my head about that she might more easily conduct her examination. Then, her thumb and first finger at my chin, she turned my head from side to side. "Not bad," she said. She stepped back. "Hold your head up," she said. "Yes, Mistress," I said. I lifted my head. We were being examined by these women as what we were, animals and slaves.

"This one has good thighs," said a woman down the line.

"Good," said another.

"Keeper," said the woman who had been examining me.

"I am here," said the Lady Gina.

"In this one," said the woman, indicating me, "there is a mark on the upper left arm, and in one of the teeth on the left and in the back, a bit of metal. I have seen such things before almost only in Kajirae from the slave world."

"This is a male from the slave world," said the Lady Gina.

"I wondered if it might not be," said the woman. "But we will not pay the more for him, if we are interested in him, because of that."

"Such matters, are between you and my superiors," said the Lady Gina.

"Your superiors are men," said the woman, mockingly.

"Yes," said the Lady Gina.

"I could use a woman like you," said the woman.

"I have my work here," said the Lady Gina.

"As you wish," she said. "Are they vital?" she asked.

"I think so," said the Lady Gina, "though we have, of course, kept them suppressed in the pens, the better to control them as slaves."

"It is a delicate matter," admitted the woman who had examined me. "Yet I think an intelligent mistress will usually manage to her own satisfaction"

"This one is alive," said one of the women down the line, laughing. She drew back her hand from the slave's body.

"Let us amuse ourselves," said the woman who had examined me. "Send for a Kajira."

The Lady Gina went to the door of the long, low-ceilinged room. "Prodicus," she said. "Send Lola to us."

In a few moments Lola entered the room. I had never seen her appearing so demure. Her hair was combed back and tied with a white ribbon. She had been washed. She was dressed in a brief, sleeveless, white tunic. She was barefoot. She still had on her throat, of course, the same steel collar. Lola fled to the Lady Gina and knelt before her, putting her head to the floor. Lola, I saw, was terrified to be in the presence of the free women. I realized then, as I had not before, something of the loathing and hatred with which the enslaved female is regarded by her free sisters.

"A pretty little slave," said one of the women.

I then realized that Lola's garb, so demure and modest for a female slave, so unlike the usual bit of rag knotted at her left hip, must be because of the presence of the woman slavers in the pens. The House of Andronicus, in which I was slave, presumably did not wish to offend the female visitors. Lola, too, I imagine, was only too happy to deemphasize her sexuality before her free sisters. She did not, after all, wish to writhe beneath their whips, the lashed object of the fury and contempt of free women, jealous perhaps of the helplessness of the slave girl before men, her beauty and her collar.

When Lola looked up, the Lady Gina directed her to the woman who had examined me. Lola swiftly went and knelt before her.

"What are you called?" asked the woman.

"Lola," said the girl, looking up, fearfully.

"Stand up, Lola," said the woman, "and take off your clothes."

"Yes, Mistress," said Lola. She stood up and slipped from the tunic, which she dropped to the tiles behind her.

"You are a very pretty slave, Lola," said the woman.

"Thank you, Mistress," said Lola.

"Let her begin," said the woman to the Lady Gina.

"Lola," said the Lady Gina, "begin at the far end of the line of male slaves. Tell each that you are his slave. Kiss them. Tell them that you love them. Address them as Master. Then, kiss them again"

"Yes, Mistress," said Lola, miserably. She ran lightly to the end of the line.

The Lady Gina followed her to the end of the line. She removed the whip from its hook on her belt. This action did not pass unnoticed by Lola.

"Be sensuous, Lola," said the Lady Gina. "I think you can manage that," she added, acidly.

"Yes, Mistress," said Lola, casting a frightened glance at the Lady Gina, and, too, at the female slavers.