"Shameful! Shameful!" cried Imnak cheerfully.
"Yes, Master," she said, sobbing, not raising her head.
"Do you know the fate for shaming the People?" he asked.
"Please, no, Master!" she said.
"Seize her," said Imnak, to two of the red hunters. They seized her, each taking an arm, and dragged her to her feet.
"They are going to put me out in the snow!" she cried to Karjuk, agdnized.
"Are you going to put her out in the snow?" asked Karjuk.
"Of course," said Imnak.
"But she has strong legs," said Karjuk.
The girl struggled in the arms of the red hunters. They released her and she flung herself to her knees before Karjuk. head down, sobbing, holding his legs.
"I suppose she could draw a sled," said one red hunter.
"Perhaps," said another.
"She might be pretty in the furs," said another.
"Keep me, Master! Keep me, Master!" begged the girl of Karjuk, sobbing. "I beg of you to keep me, Master!"
"No one wants you," said Imnak.
"Please, Master!" begged the girl, tears in her eyes, looking up at Karjuk.
"You are too good for me," said Karjuk.
"No, No, Master," she cried, "I am only a slave, a slave!"
"You are very pretty," said Kaijtik.
"A slave is pleased if her master should find her pleasing," she said.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"To kneel at your feet, and to serve you and love you." she wept.
"Shameful!" cried Imnak.
"One cannot have everything," said Karjuk, defensively.
"Please, Master," she begged.
"Let us consider important things," said Karjuk. "Can you sew, and cook?"
"Yes, Master!" she cried.
"Can you make a good sleen stew?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. "And though I know you are above such things I can show you wonders in the furs, which I have been taught as a slave."
Kaijuk shrugged. "It is not wrong to broaden one's experiences," he said.
"Keep me, Master," she begged.
"I will call you Auyark," he said.
"I am Auyark," she said, joyfully, putting her head against his leg, weeping.
He looked down at her. "I think you will make a summer in my house," he said. Auyark is a word in the language of the People which means Summer.
"Look up at me," he said, "Girl."
She looked up at him.
"I will keep you," he said, "but you must understand that you are kept as a slave, completely as a slave, and only as a slave."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"And if you are not pleasing," he said, "I will put you out into the snow."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Come now," he said. "On your feet. We must load a sled."
She stood up.
"Let me load the sled, Master," she said.
He looked at her. "Yes," he said. "You will load it, lovely slave."
They left the room, he first, she following.
"Imnak," I said, "you arranged this entire thing."
"It is not impossible," he said. "But, hurry, there are other wenches to distribute, and there is little time."
I looked down at Arlene, kneeling in line, with the other girls. She was in the first line. There were four such lines, of fifty or so girls each. They were the girls who had been slaves in the complex.
"We are your spoils," said Arlene.
All the girls were stripped. All knelt in the position of pleasure slaves.
She who had been the Lady Rosa knelt to one side, similarly exposed and positioned.
She, too, was a slave girl.
"Yes," I said to Arlene.
"Women have always been the spoils in the victories of men," she said, "the tokens, symbols, the fruits and prizes of their conquests."
"Of course," I said. "How do you feel about that?"
"I find it indescribably thrilling," she said.
"Kneel straighter," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Why are Thimble and Thistle," I asked Imnak, "in with the flesh loot?" The two Earth girls, Audrey and Barbara, knelt near Arlene.
"I have Poalu," said Imnak.
The girl Belinda, whom I had used on the steel plates of the corridor, while she wore her long neck chain, fastened in the overhead track system, knelt a few girls away, in the second row. She lifted her body to me, her eyes pleading, but did not break position.
Constance, the lovely blond-haired slave from Kassau, whom I had imbonded in the fields south of the Laurius, knelt in the fourth row.
She was very beautiful.
Chains were brought, sirik chains, with their collars, and wrist and ankle loops, all attached, strung on an individual hold chain.
I threw six sink chains over my left shoulder.
"Let us begin," said Imnak.
I threw two of the sirik chains to the tiles, one after the other.
Arlene and Audrey, swiftly, rose to their feet and ran lightly to kneel before me.
They looked up at me.
"I am a slave. I beg your chains," said Arlene.
"Pick them up," I said, indicating a sirik to her. She lifted up the chains.
"I am a slave. I beg your chains," said Audrey.
"Pick them up," I said, indicating the other sirik. She picked up the chain, with its collar, and wrist and ankle rings. I saw her lift it, tears in her eyes. Gently, head down, she licked and kissed the metal. I smiled. As I had thought, tho former rich girl was the first to lick and kiss her chaim.
Arlene, angry, lifted the chains to her lips. She, looking at me, pressed the chains to her lips and kissed them. Then, delicately, touching the chain with her small, soft tongue she licked the metal. Then she kissed it again. Then she held the chain diagonally in her mouth, her small, fine white teeth gently closed upon it. She then removed it from her mouth. "You see, I can lick and kiss my chains even better than she, Master," said Arlene.
"Oh, oh," said Audrey, softly. Her body trembled. She looked up from the chain. She was almost in orgasm.
"But do you understand the meaning of it?" I asked Arlene.
Suddenly Arlene shuddered, and looked at the chain. She held it in her small hands. It, locked on her body, would confine her obdurately, making her helplessly the rightless slave of a master. Every organism has its place in nature. That of woman is at the foot of man.
"I love being a woman, Master," she said. She held the chain against her bared beauty.
"Now lick and kiss the chain, Slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
She bent her head to the chain and, delicately, sobbing with emotion, licked and kissed at the metal. Her tears fell among the links.
I locked the sirik on Audrey. She looked at me, desperately.
"Later," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Go to the sled, Slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
They, still in sirik, would be fastened in fur sacks and tied on sleds. Later, after the first ice camp had been constructed, they would be freed from sirik, and used in the huts. Later, given garments, they would trek, In neck coffle, beside the sleds.
I took the chains from Arlene, pulling them from her, and, with five snaps, locked them roughly on her body.
I smelled the womanhood of her. She looked at me. "Later," I said. "Go to the sled, Slave."
"Yes, Master," she mid, moaning.
Men about me were enacting similar ceremonies of enslavement with other imbonded wenches. Ram, I saw, took none. He was satisfied with lovely Tina, who had been the Lady Tina of Lydius. Drusus, I saw, had put a pair of beauties in sirik. He sent them to the sled on which he had been alotted space for his belongings, including two slave girls.
I threw another sirik to the floor before me.
Barbara, the blond Earth girl, knelt before me. "I am a slave," she said. "I beg your chains."
"Pick them up," I said.
She did so, and kissed them. I locked them on her.
"Goto the sled," I said.