by John Norman
"Ho!" cried Rask of Treve. He drew back on the first strap of his tarn's harness.
"Ho!" cried his men.
Rask of Treve's tarn smote the air with its mighty wings. I was frightened. The span of those wings may have been thirty feet or more.
His tarn, screaming, departed the walls of the keep of Stones of Turmus. Those of his men followed him. Even in the shelter of the basket the torrent of air was frightening. If one had stood upon the parapet surely one would have been hurled in its blasts to the courtyard below.
There had been a moment of slack and then the lines on the basket had drawn taut. Our tarnsman drew the basket over the courtyard and, gaining altitude there, then departed the walls of the keep, following the others. When the basket dropped from the parapet toward the courtyard we screamed, frightened, but then it swung below the tarn, and we felt ourselves being lifted high into the air, as though toward the moons of Gor themselves.
I wondered how many slave girls, helpless and bound, a tiny silver leaf dangling from their ear, had been carried by the men of Treve in this basket, and how many more in the future would find themselves its captive.
I could see the keep of Stones of Turmus in flames, dropping away below us.
13
I am Publicly Auctioned
The sheet was ripped from me. I cried out, startled.
"Ascend the block, Slave Girl," said the man.
"Yes, Master," I said. He prodded me with his whip.
I looked at the worn stairs of solid wood, leading in their spiral upward. I glanced down at the other girls, Sulda and Tupa among them, who sat huddled at the foot of the block, clutching their sheets about them. Sucha, and others, had already been sold.
"It cannot be happening to me," I said to myself. "They cannot be going to sell me."
Had I not been of Earth?
I felt the whip push against my back. Slowly I began to ascend the wide, concave stairs, worn by the bare feet of countless slave girls before me.
There were twenty steps to the height of the block.
My hair was longer now, as it had not been cut on Gor, save to trim and shape it. It now fell below my shoulders, and swirled behind me, shaped into the "slave flame."
No longer did I wear the Turian collar; it had been roughly filed from my neck by a male slave, under the whip of his overseer. He had been struck once when he had let his finger touch the side of my neck. I do not know if he did it on purpose or not. No longer did I wear in my left ear the silver leaf, identifying me as a catch of Rask, a warrior and raider of the city of Treve. I had been sold before dawn at a slaver's camp on the outskirts of the city of Ar. I had been thrown naked to the slaver's feet. Swift, expert assessment had been done upon me. I cried out in misery. I brought Rask of Treve, my captor, fifteen copper tarsks. This was not bad for an Earth girl in the current market. This figure had been entered into accounts, on a ledger. On another ledger, one kept by one of Rask's men, this figure was also entered, with a sign following it, indicating him to whose private account the amount was to be credited, he who had taken me, Rask, the warrior of Treve. When the figure pertinent to my sale had been entered in the two ledgers the wire loop, from which dangled the silver leaf, had been cut from my ear. The silver leaf was then returned to him who kept the ledger for Rask of Treve, and he dropped the leaf, with others, into a nearby box. Humiliated, then, I was thrown to the slaver's chain, behind Sulda. A ring lock was placed through the Turian collar, which I wore at the time, and a link in the slaver's chain, and then snapped shut, securing me on the chain by the collar, with the others. The chain was heavy. Tupa was then added to the chain after me. She brought her captor only twelve copper tarsks.
"Hurry, Slave Girl," called the man at the foot of the stairs. I hesitated. About my neck I wore a light chain, locked. From it depended an oval disk. On this disk was a number, my lot number, or sales number. Sucha, who could read, told me it was 128. She had been 124. We were being sold in the auction house of Publius, on Ar's Street of Brands. It is a minor auction house, usually handling lesser, cheaper slaves, usually females, in greater volumes; it lacks the prestige of such houses as that of Claudius and the Curulean; nonetheless, it is not unfrequented and it has a reputation as a place in which, not unoften, bargains may be obtained.
I heard the step of the man on the stairs behind me. I turned about, stricken.
"I am naked," I said. Did he not understand I was of Earth? I had been sold before, but not like this. I was of Earth! Surely they could not truly be going to display me publicly and sell me at auction! I had been sold before, but privately. The thought of my beauty being exposed so publicly, so brazenly, to large numbers of men, buyers, nauseated me. I looked to the height of the block. I thought I might die.
The room was an amphitheater; it was lit by torchlight. I had earlier been exposed in the exhibition cages, that prospective buyers might scan the merchandise at close hand, forming their suppositions as to its value, that their bids later, if they cared to make them, might be shrewd and realistic. In the exhibition cages we were forced to obey the commands of the men outside the cages, moving in certain ways, and such, but they were not permitted to touch us. We were told to smile much in the cages, and be beautiful. I shared my cage with twenty girls, each of us with a chain and disk on our throats. Outside the cage, posted, were our lot numbers, or sales numbers, corresponding with the disk numbers, and a listing of certain of our features, primarily measurements.
I heard the man hurrying up the steps behind me.
I had spent eight days in the slave pens, waiting for the night of the sale. I had been examined medically, in detail, and had had administered to me, while I lay bound, helplessly, a series of painful shots, the purpose of which I did not understand. They were called the stabilization serums. We were also kept under harsh discipline, close confinement and given slave training.
I well recalled the lesson which was constantly enforced upon us: "The master is all. Please him fully."
"What is the meaning of the stabilization serums?" I had asked Sucha.
She had kissed me. "They will keep you much as you are," she said, "young and beautiful."
I had looked at her, startled.
"The masters, and the free, of course, if there is need of it, you must understand, are also afforded the serums of stabilization," she said, adding, smiling, "though they are administered to them, I suppose, with somewhat more respect than they are to a slave."
"If there is need of it?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Do some not require the serums?" I asked.
"Some," said Sucha, "but these individuals are rare, and are the offspring of individuals who have had the serums."
"Why is this?" I asked.
"I do not know," said Sucha. "Men differ."
The matter, I supposed, was a function of genetic subtleties, and the nature of differing gametes. The serums of stabilization effected, it seemed, the genetic codes, perhaps altering or neutralizing certain messages of deterioration, providing, I supposed, processes in which an exchange of materials could take place while tissue and cell patterns remained relatively constant. Aging was a physical process and, as such, was susceptible to alteration by physical means. All physical processes are theoretically reversible. Entropy itself is presumably a moment in a cosmic rhythm. The physicians of Gor, it seemed, had addressed themselves to the conquest of what had hitherto been a universal disease, called on Gor the drying and withering disease, called on Earth, aging. Generations of intensive research and experimentation had taken place. At last a few physicians, drawing upon the accumulated data of hundreds of investigators, had achieved the breakthrough, devising the first primitive stabilization serums, later to be developed and exquisitely refined.
I had stood in the cage, startled, trembling. "Why are serums of such value given to slaves?" I asked.
"Are they of such value?" she asked. "Yes," she said, "I suppose so." She took them for granted,
much as the humans of Earth might take for granted routine inoculations. She was unfamiliar with aging. The alternative to the serums was not truly clear to her. "Why should slaves not be given the serums?" she asked. "Do the masters not want their slaves healthy and better able to serve them?"
"It is true," I said, "Sucha." On Earth animals were given inoculations by farmers to protect them from diseases; on Gor it would be a matter of course, provided the serums were readily available, to administer them to slaves.
I stood with Sucha, trembling. I had received a gift which on Earth could not be purchased by the riches of the wealthiest men, a gift which was beyond the reach of Earth's mightiest millionaires, which even the billionaires of my planet could not buy, for it did not exist there.
I was incredibly rich. I looked at the bars of the cage. "But I am caged!" I cried.
"Of course," said Sucha, "you are a slave. Now rest. Tonight you are to be sold."
* * * *
I felt the hand of the man tight on my arm, beside me on the step.
"I am naked," I said.
"You are a slave," he said.
"Do not show me to the men!" I begged. "I am not as the other girls."
"Ascend the block," said he, "Slave." He thrust me upward. I fell on the stairs. My legs trembled.
I sensed him lift the whip.
"I will cut the flesh from your body with the whip," he said.
"No, Master!" I wept.
"Girl 128," called the auctioneer, from the height of the block. It was an announcement to the crowd.
I looked upward. The auctioneer came to the edge of the block. He smiled down, in a kindly fashion. He extended his hand to me. "Please," he said.
"I am naked," I said.
"Please," he said. He put his hand further toward me.
I lifted my hand to him, and he took me by the hand, helping me to the height of the block.
The block was circular, and some twenty feet in diameter. There was sawdust upon it.
By the hand he led me to the center of the block. "She is reluctant," he said to the crowd, in explanation.
I stood before the men.
"Are you comfortable now, dear lady?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "Thank you."
Suddenly, angrily, he threw me to the wood at his feet. I heard the hiss of his whip. Five times he lashed me and I screamed, covering my head with my hands. Then I lay trembling, lashed, at his feet.
"She is Girl 128," he said to the crowd. From an assistant he took a board, with rings and papers. He read from that paper which was now first upon the board, others being loose and thrown back.
"128," he said, reading irritably, "is brown haired and brown eyed. She is 51 horts in height. Her weight is 29 stones. Her block measurements, certified, are 22 horts, 16 horts, 22 horts. She will take a number-two wrist ring and a number-two ankle ring. Her collar size is ten horts. She is illiterate, and, for most practical purposes, untrained. She cannot dance. Her brand is the Dina, the slave flower. Her ears are pierced."
There was a ripple of laughter from the men when he mentioned the piercing of my ears. As I lay, lashed, quivering, in misery, on the surface of the block, I realized that that seemingly insignificant little fact, the piercing of the ears, had indeed, as I had been informed, a most significant import on Gor. It made me, in effect, a gutter slave, a low slave, so to speak, one who is helplessly, degradingly arousing. Why such a little thing is so momentous on Gor I do not know. I only report the fact. On Gor, it seems that only the lowest and most sensuous, the most helpless and vulnerably sexual, of slaves, have their ears pierced. This had been done to me in the pens. The wound in my left ear lobe, from the wire of the marking tag, had been redone, and enlarged, and then its wound was duplicated, with the same needle, in the lobe of my right ear. In the pens, to keep the apertures open, a bit of wire had been twice looped in each lobe. The wires had been removed this afternoon. A woman may wear earrings on the block early in the sale, or even ornate, expensive garments and veils, if one wishes, but before the conclusion of the sale she will be absolutely naked, that the buyers may see her without adornments, without the least enhancement, that they will see her then as she is, simply, in herself. For it is that, of course, that the men are bidding on, the woman herself.
He looked down at me, and kicked me, lightly, with the side of his foot. "Stand, Slave," he said. Swiftly I stood.
No longer was I in doubt as to what was to have been done with us, no longer was I in doubt as to what was to be done with me. We were to be marketed. We were to be sold. It had been a commercial raid, not an insult raid, nor a vengeance raid, in which, say, the free women of one city were taken to be the slaves of those of another city. It was clearly a commercial raid. We were simply to be marketed. Was that not obvious? No wonder the girls had thought me so foolish, so naive, or ignorant, or stupid, in the basket.
But how could I be sold?
They could sell the others, of course, for they were only common slaves. But surely they could not sell me. I had been Judy Thornton, of Earth! It was not my fault that I had been mixed in with the others! Was I not different?
No, I thought to myself, I am not different. I am only another slave on Gor.
I looked about myself, miserably. In the torchlight, I could see, in the rings of the amphitheater, ascending before me and above me, on three sides, the crowd. There were aisles at the side, and two aisles in the tiers, with steps. The tiers were crowded, and, on them, men ate and drank. Here and there, too, robed and veiled, I saw women among them, watching me. One woman sipped wine through her veil, staining it. All were fully clothed, save I, who wore only a light chain, locked, with its attached disk of sale.
"Stand straight," said the auctioneer.
I stood straight. My back hurt terribly from the whipping which he had given me.
"So you see 128," he said. "Are there any bids?"
The crowd was silent.
The auctioneer took my hair in his hand and, cruelly, bent me back, standing. "22 horts," said he, indicating my breasts. "16 horts," said he, slapping me on the belly. "22 horts," said he, reaching across my body and placing his hand on my right hip, indicating the width of my body. These were my block measurements. I knew a master might keep me to such measurements, with the whip, if necessary. "Small," said he, "but sweet, a delicacy, noble sirs, with promise."
"Two tarsks," called a man from the crowd.
"I hear two tarsks," said the auctioneer.
It was true that I was not large, but I did not think I was unusually small. I was, in Earth measurements, some five feet four inches in height and weighed about one hundred and sixteen pounds. My figure though delicate, was in Earth measurements approximately 28-20-28. I had not known my collar size on Earth, for I had not purchased garments with such attention to the neck. On Gor, it was ten horts. Accordingly it must have been, in Earth measurements, in the neighborhood of twelve and one half inches. I have a slender, delicate neck. I do not know what my wrist and ankle measurements would be. I do know I take a number-two wrist ring and a number-two ankle ring. These run in separate series, the ankle rings being larger, of course, than the wrist rings. It is regarded as desirable in a slave that she takes the same number wrist and ankle ring, this suggesting a delicious symmetry. There are four numbers in the series; one is regarded as small, two and three as normal, and four as large. I could not slip a four ankle ring, of course; I could slip a four wrist ring, if it were set at four; most such wrist and ankle rings, however, are adjustable to 1, 2, 3 or 4. Thus, they, like slave bracelets, lock to the perfect holding point on each girl.
The auctioneer stood very near me.
I did not know my wrist or ankle size in Earth measurements, for such measurements are not important for a girl on Earth as they are on Gor, but the interior circumference of the number-two wrist ring is 5 horts and the interior circumference of the number-two ankle ring is 7 horts; thus, my wrist size in Earth measurement must be about six i
nches and my ankle size must be about eight and one-half inches. In the slave pens, of course, a girl's measurements are taken on a tape measure marked in horts and entered on her sheet of sale.
"She wears the Dina," said the auctioneer, indicating to the crowd my brand, the slave flower. "Would you not like to own this pretty little Dina? Do you have a Dina among your girls?" He twisted my head, held by the hair, from side to side. "And her ears, noble sirs," said he, "are pierced!"
There was a murmur of approval from the crowd.
I might now be put in earrings.
I was a "pierced-ear girl."
"Five tarsks," called a man, a gross, fat man, swathed in robes, sitting in a middle tier to my right. He sipped from a cup.
I shuddered. I could not well see the faces of most of the buyers. It was I, not they, who was well illuminated by the torches.
"Stand straight, suck in your belly, turn your hip out," said the auctioneer to me, under his breath. I complied. My back still burned from his whip. "Note," said the auctioneer, indicating me with his coiled whip, "the turn of her ankle, the sweetness of her thighs, the tightness of her belly, the pleasure of her figure, the delicacy of her throat, awaiting your collar, the delicacy, sensitivity and beauty of her features." He looked to the crowd. "Would you not like her in your compartments?" he inquired. "Would you not like her in a tunic and collar of your choice, on her knees before you? Would you not like the owning of every inch of her, she your slave, yours to command, hers to obey? Would you not like her serving you, responding swiftly and perfectly in all things to the least whim of your will?"
"Six tarsks," called a man.
"Six tarsks," repeated the auctioneer. "Walk, little Dina," said he to me. "And well."
Tears sprang into my eyes; my body burned red with shame.