"It would be an incredible achievement," I marveled.

"Beware of Bila Huruma," said Samos.

"I expect to have no dealings with him," I said.

"The pole and platform below, on which is held prisoner our lovely guest," said Samos, "was suggested to me by a peacekeeping device of Ella Huruma. In Lake Ushindi, in certain areas frequented by tharlarion, there are high poles. Criminals, political prisoners, and such are rowed to these poles and left there, clinging to them. There are no platforms on the poles."

"I understand," I said.

"But I think you have nothing to fear," said Samos, "if you remain within the borders of Schendi itself."

I nodded. Schendi was a free port, administered by black merchants, members of the caste of merchants. It was also the home port of the League of Black Slavers but their predations were commonly restricted to the high seas and coastal towns well north and south of Schendi. Like most large-scale slaving operations they had the good sense to spare their own environs.

"Good luck, Captain," said Samos.

We clasped hands.

As we exited from his hall, Samos spoke to one of the guards outside the huge double doors. "Linda," he said.

"Yes, Captain," said the guard, and left, moving down the hall. The Earth slave, Linda, was not kept in the pens. She was kept in the kennels off the kitchens. In spite of this she wore only the common house collar. Too, she was allotted a full share of domestic duties. Samos did not pamper his slaves, even those who knelt often at his slave ring.

I thought of the girl below, imprisoned on the tiny platform in the tharlarion cell. She would have the ring on her neck removed and then be placed in a slave sack and taken to the house of Bejar. I supposed that Bejar, or the slaver to whom he sold her, and the others, would mark her slave.

How piteously and helplessly she had clung to the pole. She had already begun to learn that Gor was not Earth.

"I wish you well, Captain," I said to Samos.

"I wish you well, Captain," said he to me. Again we clasped hands and then I strode from him, down the hallway toward the double gates leading from his house. At the first of the two gates, the one which consists of bars, while awaiting its opening, I glanced back.

Samos was no longer in sight, having gone to his chambers. A guard was in the hallway, with his spear.

The gate of bars was unlocked and I slipped through. It closed and locked, and I waited for the outer gate, that of iron-sheathed wood, to be opened.

I glanced back again and I saw the slave, Linda, naked, on a leash, being led to her master. She saw me, and looked down, shyly.

I exited then through the second gate of the house of Samos.

I had heard that she did the tile dance exquisitely. I almost envied Samos. I decided I would have the dance taught to my own slaves. I would be curious to learn which of them could perform it well, and which brilliantly.

"Greetings, Captain," said Thurnock, from the boat.

"Greetings, Thurnock," I said. I stepped down into the boat and took the tiller. The boat was thrust off into the dark water, and, in moments, we were rowing quietly toward my house.

The girl screamed, fighting the sales collar and the position chain.

She tried to pull it from her throat.

The two male slaves, to the right, turned the crank of the windlass and she was drawn, in her turn, struggling, before the men.

The men in the crowd regarded her, curiously. Had she never been sold before?

She tried to turn away, and cover herself, her feet in the damp sawdust. The inside of her left thigh was stained yellow, as she had lost water in her terror.

The auctioneer did not strike her with his whip. He merely took her arms and lifted them, so that the position chain, attached to each side of the sales collar, lay across her upper arms. Then he had her clasp her hands behind the back of her neck, so that the chain, on each side of the collar, was in the crook of her arms, and she was exposed in such a way that she could be properly exhibited.

In a higher class market girls are usually fed a cathartic a few hours before the sale, and forced to relieve themselves shortly before their sale, a kettle passed down the line. In the current market such niceties, especially in large sales, were seldom observed.

By the hair the auctioneer pulled her head up and back so that her features might be observed by the men.

"Another loot girl taken by our noble Captain, Bejar, in his brilliant capture of the Blossoms of Telnus," called the auctioneer. He was also the slaver, Vart, once Publius Quintus of Ar, banished from that city, and nearly impaled, for falsifying slave data. He had advertised a girl as a trained pleasure slave who, as it turned out, did not even know the eleven kisses. The Vart is a small, sharp-toothed winged mammal, carnivorous, which commonly flies in flocks.

"A blond-haired, blue-eyed barbarian," called the auctioneer, "who speaks little or no Gorean, untrained, formerly free, a purse not yet rent, a thigh not yet kissed by the iron. What am I offered?"

"A copper tarsk," called a man from the floor, a fellow who rented chains of work girls.

"I hear one tarsk," called the auctioneer. "Do I hear more?"

"Let us have the next girl!" called a man. The slaves at the windlass tensed, but the auctioneer did not tell them to move the chain, removing the blond girl and bringing forth the next item on the chain.

"Surely I hear more?" called the auctioneer. "Do I hear two tarsks?" I suppose he may have paid two or three tarsks for her himself, to Bejar.

The girl was beautiful, but not as beautiful, it was true, as most Gorean slave girls. I did not think she would bring a high price. Unfortunately, then, almost anyone might buy her. I looked about. It seemed a common, motley crowd for the house of Vart, where men came generally to buy cheap girls, sometimes in lots, at bargain prices. His establishment was located in a warehouse near the docks. I conjectured there were some two hundred buyers and onlookers present. I wore the tunic, and leather apron and cap, of the metal worker.

"Look at her," said the man beside me. "How ugly she is, what a she-tarsk."

"A true she-tarsk," agreed another.

They had seen, I gathered, few Earth girls. They did not understand the effects of years of insidious, pervasive, anti-biological conditioning. Their own culture, perhaps because of the limitations imposed on it by Priest-Kings, who did not wish to be threatened or destroyed by an animal with which they shared a world, had taken different turnings. They would not understand a world in which dirty jokes had point, a world in which a woman's attractiveness was supposedly a function of the utilization of certain commercial products, or a world in which men and women were taught that they were the same, and in which they attempted to believe it, and would hysterically insist it was true, bravely ignoring the evidence of their reason, senses and experience. Civilization may be predicated upon the denial of human nature; it may also be predicated upon its fulfillment. The first word that an Earth baby learns is usually, "No." The first word that a Gorean baby learns is commonly, "Yes." The machine and the flower, I suspect, will never understand one another.

"Let us see another girl!" called yet another man.

"A new girl!" cried others.

Many women, of course, once under the helpless condition of slavery, increase considerably in beauty. This has to do primarily I think with psychological factors, in particular with the destruction of neurotic patterns, inculcated in the Earth female, of male-imitation, and the concurrent necessity imposed upon her by the whip, if necessary, to reveal and manifest her deeper self, that of a female. On the other hand, doubtless, the dieting, exercise, instruction in cosmetics and adornment, and the various forms of slave training, are also not without their effect.