In such a world, largely the ideological product of superstition and hysteria, it is difficult for manhood to exist, even dormantly. Accordingly, when an Earth female finds herself translated to Gor, she finds herself, for the first time, in the presence of large numbers of men to whom nature and power are not anathema. Moreover, she is likely to find herself belonging to them. Beyond this, of course, the culture itself, for all its possible defects and faults, is one which has been constructed to be congenial to the natural biological order, and neither antithetical to, nor contradictory of it. The culture has not suppressed the biotruths of human nature but found a place for them.

The culture is a setting which transforms and enhances the simplicities and rudenesses of nature, ennobling her and exalting her, lending her glory and articulation, refining her, fulfilling her, rather than a sewer and a trap, in which she is kept half-starved and chained.

An example of this sort of thing is the institution of female slavery. It is clearly founded on, and expressive of, the order of nature, but what a wonder has civilization wrought here, elevating and transforming what is in effect a genetically coded biological datum, male dominance and female submission, into a complex, historically developed institution, with its hundreds of aspects and facets, legal, social and aesthetic.

What a contrast is the beautiful, vended girl, branded and collared, desiring a master and trained to please one, kneeling before her purchaser and kissing his whip, with the brutish female, cowering under her master's club at the back of his cave. And yet, of course, both women are owned, and completely. But the former, the slave girl, is owned with all the power and authority of law. If anything, she is owned even more completely than her primitive forebear. Civilization, as well as nature, collaborates in her bondage, sanctifying and confirming it.

It is no wonder that the institution of slavery provides the human female, in all her sensitivities and vulnerabilities, in all her psychophysical complexity, with the deepest fulfillments and most exquisite emotions she can know.

Briefly put, the second reason that Earth girls make such astoundingly desirable slaves is that they have been, in their Earth years, subjected, in effect, to sexual and emotional starvation. They have labored in a fruitless desert, often not even understanding the causes of their unhappiness, of their misery and frustration. Confused, they have lashed out at themselves and others, ultimately profitlessly and meaninglessly.

Translated to Gor, encountering true men in large numbers, in overwhelming numbers, so different from the crippled males of Earth, finding themselves in an exotic environment, and participating in a culture markedly different from their own, and in many respects both fearful and beautiful, and founded on the order of nature, they find themselves, in effect, restored to love. The Gorean girl knows such joys can exist, though she may or may not have experienced them. The Earth girl, commonly, did not know that such joys, truly, could exist. Only in her troubled sleep, perhaps, did the Earth girl dream of the slaver's noose or the harsh, flat stones of the dungeon on which she might be forced to kneel.

There was a sudden, loud pounding on the cabin door.

The startled girl lifted her head, suddenly, fearfully, looking at me.

With a curt gesture I signaled she should flee to the captain's berth. She crawled rapidly into it. I accompanied her to the berth, and stood beside her. She knelt there, on the berth, frightened. If she were to speak, her voice must be recognized, through the door, as coming from the vicinity of the berth.

She knelt there, clutching the scarlet sheet. I did not speak.

Again came the pounding. "Luta," called a voice. "Luta!"

"Respond to the false name," I told the girl.

"Yes, Master," she called.

"Are you naked, and in the berth?" called the voice.

"Yes, Master," she called.

"Are you all right?" he asked, through the door.

I drew the knife from my belt and thrust its point a quarter of an inch into her sweet, rounded belly. She looked down at it, wincing.

"Yes, Master," she called.

"Who is it?" I whispered.

"Artemidorus," she whispered, "first officer."

"Are you certain that you are all right?" asked the officer, through the door.

I placed my left hand behind the small of her back, so that she could not pull back from the point of the knife. A plunging slash, she knew, might disembowel her.

"Yes, Master," she called.

"Are you keeping yourself hot for your master?" laughed the voice, roughly.

"Yes, Master!" she called. "Is the battle nearly over?" We could hear the occasional sounds of fighting outside, from some hundreds of yards off, across the water.

"Curiosity is not becoming in a Kajira," laughed the fellow.

"Yes, Master. Forgive me, Master," she said.

"Keep yourself hot," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I then heard him laugh again, and then turn about and climb five stairs, which must have led to the main deck, from a short companionway.

"The battle must be nearly over," she said.

"Why do you think so?" I asked.

"My readiness for the master was being checked," she said.

"It is fortunate that he did not choose to check it by hand," I said.

"Yes," she said, shuddering. She looked down at the knife.

I was curious to know how the battle outside waged. I removed my hand from the small of her back, and the knife from its ready and threatening location at her belly. She respired in relief. I placed the knife in my belt again. I saw that her lower belly, so sweetly rounded, was beautiful.

"Lie down," I told her.

She lay on her back, and by the brass rings, some two inches in diameter, and by the leather thongs, near her shoulders, and at the bottom sides of the berth, tied her upon it.

I looked down upon her. She was beautiful, and secured.

I then went to the shattered window at the rear of the cabin. I did not make my surveillance obvious.

"May I inquire as to the situation, Master?" she asked.

"No," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

Through a gap in the pirate fleet, I could see that the beleaguered, desperate ships of the defenders fought on, stoutly.

I was convinced that they, still active, pennons still flying on their stem-castle lines, could hold out until nightfall. Yet I did not think they could withstand the concerted attacks of the pirate fleets for another day. How nobly, and well, they had fought. I was bitter. I looked back to the berth. There, tied upon it, helpless, was she who had been the woman of a pirate captain, she who had been the woman of one of my enemies. I then looked again out the window. In the water, among the larger ships, were small boats, manned by pirates. Considering them I became furious. These were being used to hunt for survivors, luckless fellows, struggling in the water, fishing for them with attentive leisure, with arrows, and with spear and knife. They would also make it difficult to return to the _Tina_. I glanced to the table, to the packet, now in its oil-cloth envelope, which lay there. It had immense value, if only it could be exploited. I looked again, out the window, at the ships of the pirate fleet, and at the defenders, and then I returned to the table, and sat before it.

"Master," said the girl.

I did not respond to her.

"Forgive me, Master," she whispered.

That the defenders had lasted this long was a function largely of two factors, first, of the crowding of the pirate fleet which made it difficult for them to bring their rams and shearing blades into play, and, secondly, the unusually large numbers, and skill, of the soldiers of Ar who had been transported in the holds of the ships of Ar's Station, making boarding hazardous and costly.