"Kettle Girl," I said.

She sniffed.

"I would say," laughed Thurnock, grinning, "kettle and mat!" He had one tooth missing on the upper right.

I held Telima by the chin, regarding her. "Yes," I said, "doubtless both kettle and mat."

"As Master wishes," said the girl, smiling.

"I think I will call you — " I said, "- Pretty Slave."

She did not seem, to my amazement, much distressed nor displeased.

"Beautiful Slave would be mor appropriate," she said.

"You are a strange woman," said I, "Telima."

She shrugged.

"Do you think your life with me will be easy?" I asked.

She looked at me, frankly. "No," she said, " I do not."

"I thought you would never wish to go again to Port Kar," I said.

"I would follow you," she said, "-even to Port Kar."

I did not understand this.

"Fear me," I said.

She looked up at me but did not seem afraid.

"I am of Port Kar," I told her.

She looked at me. "Are we not both," she asked, "of Port Kar?"

I remembered her cruelties, her treatment of me. "yes," I said, "I suppose we are."

"Then, Master," said she, "let us go to our city."

I watched the dancing girl of Port Kar writhing on the square of sand between the tables, under the whips of masters, in a Paga tavern of Port Kar. "Your paga," said the nude slave girl, who served me, her wrists chained. "It is warmed as you wished."

I took it from her, not even glancing upon her, and drained the goblet. She knelt beside the low table, at which I sat cross-legged.

"More," I said, handing her back the goblet, again not deigning to even glance upon her.

"Yes, Master," she said, rising, taking the goblet.

I liked paga warm. One felt it so much the sooner.

It is called the Whip Dance, the dance the girl upon the sand danced. She wore a delicate vest and belt of chains and jewels, with shimmering metal droplets attached. And she wore ankle rings, and linked slave bracelets, again with shimmering droplets pendant upon them; and a locked collar, matching. She danced under ships' lanterns, hanging from the ceiling of the paga tavern, it located near the wharves bounding the great arsenal.

I heard the snapping of the whip, her cries.

The dancing girls of Port Kar are said to be the best of all Gor. They are sought eagerly in the many cities of the planet. They are slave to the core, vicious, treacherous, cunning, seductive, sensuous, dangerous, desirable, excruciatingly desireable.

"Your paga," said the girl, who served me.

I took it from her, again not seeing her. "Go, Slave," said I.

"Yes, Master," she said and, with a rustle of the chain, left my side. I drank more paga.

So I had come to Port Kar.

Four days ago, in the afternoon, after two days in the marshes, my party had reached the canals of the city.

We had come to one of the canals bordering on the delta.

We had seen that the canal was guarded by heavy metal gates, of strong bars, half submerged in the water.

Telima had looked at the gates, frightened. "When I escapted from Port Kar," she said, "there were no such gates."

"Could you have escaped then," asked I, "as you did, had there been such gates?" "No," she whispered, frightened, "I could not have."

The gates had closed behind us.

Our girls, our slaves, wept at the poles, guiding the raft into the canal. As we passed beneath windows lining the canals men had, upon occasion, leaned out, calling us prices for them.

I did not blame them. They were beautiful. And each poled well, as could only one from the marshes themselves. We might well have congratulated ourselves on our catch of rence girls.

Midice, Thura, Ula, Telima.

We no longer kept them in a throat coffle. But we had, about the throat of each, wrapped, five times, a length of binding fiber, and knotted it, that this, serving as collar, might mark them as slave. Aside from this they were not, at the time we had entered the city, secured, save that a long length of binding fiber, knotted about the right ankle of each, tied them together. Telima had been branded long ago, but the thighs of Midice, Thura and Ula had never yet felt the iron.

I watched the girl from Port Kar dance.

We could, tomorrow, brand the three girls, and purchase collars.

There was something of an uproar as a large, fierce-looking fellow, narrow-eyed, ugly, missing an ear, followd by some twenty of thirty sailors, burst into the tavern.

"Paga! Paga!" they cried, throwing over some tables they wished, driving men from them, who had sat there, then righting the tables and sitting about them, pounding on them and shouting.

Girls ran to serve them paga.

"It is Surbus," said a man near me, to another.

The fierce fellow, bearded, narrow-eyed, missing an ear, who seemed to be the leader of these men, seized one of the paga girls, twisting her arm, dragging her toward one of the alcoves. I thought it was the girl who had served me, but I was not certain.

Another girl ran to him, bearing a cup of paga. He took the cup in one hand, threw it down his throat, and carried the girl he had seized, screaming, into one of the alcoves. The girl had stopped dancing the Whip Dance, and cowered on the sand. Other men, of those with Surbus, seized what paga girls they could, and what vessels of the beverage, and draged their prizes toward teh alcoves, sometimes driving out those who occupied them. Most, however, remained at the tables, pounding on them, demanding drink.

I had heard the name of Surbus. It was well known among the pirate captains of Port Kar, scourge of gleaming Thassa.

I threw down another burning swallow of the paga.

He was pirate indeed, and slaver, and murderer and thief, a cruel and worthless man, abominable, truly of Port Kar. I felt little but disgust.

And then I reminded myself of my own ignobility, my own cruelties and my own cowardice.

I, too, was of Port Kar.

I had learned that beneath the hide of men burned the hearts of sleen and tharlarion, and that their moralities and ideals were so many cloaks to conceal the claw and tooth. Greed and selfishness I now, for the first time, understood. There is more honesty in Port Kar, I thought, than in all the cites of Gor. Here men scorn to sheath the claws of their heart in the pretenses of their mouth. Here, it this city, alone of all the cities of Gor, men did not stoop to cant and prattle. Here they knew, and would acknowledge, the dark truths of human life, that, in the end, there was only gold, and power, and the bodies of women, and the steel of weapons. Here they concerned themselves only with themselves. Here they behaved as what they were, cruelly and with ruthlessness, as men, despising, and taking what they might, should it please them to do so. And it was in this city, now mine, that I belonged, I who had lost myself, who had chosen ignominious slavery to the freedom of honorable death.

I took yet another swallow of paga.

There was a girl's scream and, from the alcove into which Surbus had dragged her, the girl, bleeding, fled among the tables, he plunging drunken after her. "Protect me!" she cried, to anyone who would listen. But there was only laughter, and men reaching out to seize her.

She ran to my table and fell to her knees before me. I saw not she was the one who had served me earlier.

"Please," she wept, her mouth bloody, "protect me." She extended her chained wrists to me.

"No," I said.

Then Surbus was on her, his hand in her hair, and he bent her backwards. He scowled at me.

I took another sip of paga. It was no business of mine.

I saw the tears in the eyes of the girl, her outstretched hands, and then, with a cry of pain, she was draged back to the alcove by the hair.