The girl faced them, making herself small, kneeling, the palms of her hands on the floor, her head down to the stones. It excited me to see her in such a posture. She was a slave girl in the presence of masters.

"Have you fed the slave, Darlene?" asked one of the men, the larger of the two.

"Yes, Masters," she said, not raising her head.

"Then leave him, Darlene, Slave Girl," he said.

"Yes, Masters," she said, not raising her head.

Then the two men turned away and went down the hall.

Quickly the girl raised her head and, turning about, regarded me. Her eyes were wide. Her lip trembled. "I fear there is little time," she whispered.

I nodded.

"Do you wish to try, Jason?" she asked.

"Surely there would be incredible danger in this for you," I said.

She shrugged. "No one knows that I have the keys," she said. "They will not believe that I could free you."

"But what if you were caught?" I asked.

"I am a slave girl," she said. "Doubtless I would be fed to sleen."

"I cannot permit you to take such a risk," I said.

"They will not know it was I," she said. "They will not believe it could be I."

"Do you think you are safe?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "I will be safe. The danger will be yours."

"Free me," I said.

She rose to her feet and ran to the side of the room, where there was a small store of moss, tinder for lighting the lamp. She snatched two keys from the moss.

I clenched my fists in the manacles.

She fled back to me, wildly, and thrust one of the keys into the shackle on my right ankle. She opened it. She then, with the same key, opened the shackle on my left ankle and the manacles on my wrists.

We listened. We heard nothing in the corridor. I rubbed my wrists.

I felt her jam another key into the lock on the back of my collar. She twisted the key, freeing the single-action double bolt.

"You would not get far in a collar," she said, whispering, smiling.

"No, I would not," I said, smiling.

I jerked the collar from my throat.

She took the collar and, carefully, noiselessly, put it to the side, where it might not be seen from the threshold. I looked at the collar, lying on the stones. It was of sturdy steel. I would not have been able to remove it. It had well marked me as a slave.

"I am naked," I said. "Where is the clothing?"

She went to the side of the room and picked up a bag, fastened with a drawstring, the knot on the string sealed with a wax plate, the plate bearing the imprint of a stamp. "The guards said," she said, "that this is clothing. They did not know I overheard them. Doubtless it is true."

I looked at her.

"I did not dare to break the seal," she said. "I did not know until moments ago whether you would be willing to attempt escape or not."

"What is this seal?" I asked, indicating the wax plate with its stamp.

"That is the seal of the House of Andronicus," she said.

"When did this come to this house?" I asked, frightened.

"The day before you arrived," she said. "Do you think perhaps it is not clothing?"

I broke the seal, breaking it away from the knot. I undid the knot. I tore open the bag, thrusting back the loop of the drawstring.

My heart sank.

"Is it not clothing?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"It is clothing," I said.

"What is wrong?" she asked. "Even if they are slave garments they might serve to get you into the streets."

"Look," I said.

"Oh," she wept, miserably. "I had no way of knowing."

I lifted clothing from the bag, dismally. This was, of all things, my old clothing, the clothing I had worn on Earth the night on which Miss Beverly Henderson, a lovely quarry of Gorean slavers, had been abducted and I, unwittingly, had become implicated in her fate.

I held my old jacket clutched in my hand, angrily. I had not known what had happened to my clothing. I had awakened naked, chained, in a dungeon cell in the House of Andronicus. My clothing, unknown to me, even my jacket, and, as I saw, my coat, too, had apparently been transmitted to Gor with me, though for what purpose I could not imagine.

"How cruel they are," she said.

"I do not understand," I said.

"This was sent here, doubtless," she said, "that it might, for the instruction and amusement of buyers, be used in your sale."

"That is doubtless it," I said. I looked at her, miserably.

"The seal is broken on the bag," she said. "What can we do now?"

"We have no choice but to continue," I said.

"It is too dangerous," she said.

"We have no choice," I said. "Before, when I awakened, when I asked you what time it was, you told me, that it was early in the evening."

"Yes," she said.

"That was some time ago," I said. "Do you think that it might be dark by now?"

"Yes," she said, trembling.

"Perhaps, in the darkness," I said, "I might be briefly unnoticed, at least long enough to obtain more suitable, less conspicuous garments."

"It is all my fault," she said, miserably.

"Do not be afraid," I said to her, reassuring her. I took her by the shoulders and looked down into her uplifted eyes.

"I shall try to be brave, Jason," she said.

I lowered my head, gently, to kiss her, but she turned her head away, looking down. "Please, don't, Jason," she said. "Though I wear a collar do not forget that I am a woman of Earth"

"I'm sorry," I said. "Do not fear. I will not take advantage of you." I chastised myself. How forward I had been. I scarcely knew her. Too, I was naked, and she wore only the scandalous Ta-Teera, and her collar.

"Thank you, Jason," she whispered.

"Men have been cruel to you, haven't they?" I asked, gently.

"I am a slave girl," she shrugged.

I could well imagine the torments and ecstasies with which the Earth beauty would have been afflicted by the brutes of Gor.

"It was my intention," I said, "to kiss you only with the gentleness, and tenderness, of a man of Earth." It had not been my intention to subject her mouth, her throat and breasts, her belly, the interior of her thighs, to the cruel, commanding, raping kisses of the Gorean master.

"How wonderful you are, Jason," she said. "If only the men of Gor were more like you."

"Please let me kiss you," I said. She was so lovely.

She turned her head away. "No," she said. "I wear a collar."

"I do not understand," I said.

"I am a woman of Earth," she said. "I would be ashamed to be kissed while my throat is locked in the collar of bondage.

"Of course," I said. "I am sorry."

"Dress now, Jason," she said. "There is little time."

"I do not understand," I said.

"The guards may make their rounds soon," she said.

"I see," I said. I removed my clothing from the bag. I began to draw on my undergarments.

"There is another reason, too, why I did not let you kiss me," she said.

"What is that?" I asked.

"I scarcely dare to speak of it," she said.

"Tell me," I said.

"You do not know what a collar does to a woman," she said. "When a woman wears a collar she does not dare to let a man kiss her."

"Why?" I asked.

"She fears she might turn into a slave girl in his arms," she said, softly.

"I see," I said.

"I want you to respect me," she said.

I nodded. One might exult in a spasmodic slave, subjecting her to the conquest of the helpless bond girl, but, it was true, how could one, in such a situation, respect her? One would surely be enjoying her too much to respect her.

"Where are you from?" I asked. ' "I do not understand," she said.

"You are from Earth," I said. "I would be curious to know from what land." There is no Gorean expression for `country' in the precise sense of a nation. Men of Earth think of cities as being within countries. Men of Gor tend to think of cities and the lands controlled by them. The crucial political entity for Goreans tends to be the city or village, the place where people and power are. There can be, of course, leagues among cities and tangential territories. Men of Earth tend to think of territory in a manner that might be considered circumferential, whereas Goreans tend to think of it as a more radial sort of thing. Consider a circle with a point at its center. The man of Earth might conceive of the territory as bounded by the circumference; the man of Gor would be more likely to think of the territory as a function of the sweep of the radius which emanates from the central point. Geometrically, of course, these two conceptions are equivalent. Psychologically, however, they are not. The man of Earth looks to the periphery; the man of Gor looks to the center. The man of Earth thinks of territory as static, regardless of the waxing and wanings of the power that maintains it; the Gorean tends to think of territory as more dynamic, a realistic consequence of the geopolitical realities of power centers. Perhaps it would be better to say that the Gorean tends to think more in teens of sphere of influence than he does in terms of imaginary lines on maps which may not reflect current historical realities. Certain consequences of these attitudes may be beneficial. For example, the average Goran is not likely to feel that his honor, which he values highly, is somehow necessarily connected with the integrity of a specific, exactly drawn border. Such borders generally do not exist on Gor, though, to be sure, certain things are commonly understood, for example, that the influence of, say, the city of Ar, has not traditionally extended north of the Vosk River. Another consequence of the Gorean's tendency to think of territory in terms more analogous to an area warmed or an area illuminated than an area laid out by surveyors once and for all time is that his territoriality tends to increase with nearness to his city or village. One result of this attitude is that most wars, most armed altercations, tend to be very local. They tend to involve, usually, only a few cities and their associated villages and territories, rather than gigantic political entities such as nations. One result of this is that the number of people affected by warfare on Gor usually tends, statistically, to be quite limited. Also, it might be noted that most Gorean warfare is carried out largely by relatively small groups of professional soldiers, seldom more than a few thousand in the field at a given time, trained men, who have their own caste. Total warfare, with its arming of millions of men, and its broadcast slaughter of hundreds of populations, is Gorean neither in concept nor in practice. Goreans, often castigated for their cruelty, would find such monstrosities unthinkable. Cruelty on Gor, though it exists, is usually purposeful, as in attempting to bring, through discipline and privation, a young man to manhood, or in teaching a female that she is a slave. I think the explanation for the Gorean political arrangements and attitudes in the institution of the Home Stone. It is the Home Stone which, for the Gorean, marks the center. I think it is because of their Home Stones that the Gorean tends to think of territory as something from the inside out, so to speak, rather than from the outside in. Consider again the analogy of the circle. For the Gorean the Home Stone would mark the point of the circle's center. It is the Home Stone which, so to speak, determines the circle. There can be a point without a circle; but there can be no circle without its central point. But let me not try to speak of Home Stones. If you have a Home Stone, I need not speak. If you do not have a Home Stone, how could you understand what I might say?