"Do you find her of interest?" asked the first man, he who had questioned her, to his fellow.
"Stand, Slave," said the second man.
She stood before them, beautifully, almost nude in the platform tunic.
A slaver's man, seeing their interest, came to where they stood.
"Would you care to see the pretty little slut?" he asked.
The four Earth girls, though they could not speak Gorean, watched, horrified, the enactment of a common Gorean episode, the attempt on the part of a slave to interest masters in her purchase.
The blond girl gasped and shrank back when the slaver's man, joining the girl on the platform, jerked loose the cord at her right hip and, with two hands, standing behind the girl, held back the tunic, well displaying her to the gaze of the inquirers.
They could not, of course follow the conversation, but it was clearly one of appraisal, and of commerce.
Then the Earth girls, with the exception of the dark-haired girl, who watched, fascinated, eyes shining, turned their eyes away, shuddering. One of the men had joined the slaver's man and the girl on the platform. The girl cried out, startled, being ruthlessly appraised. Then she writhed on the platform, obedient to the touch of the masters.
"Look!" said the dark-haired girl.
The other three girls then looked too, in horror and fascination.
They saw the beauty being swiftly put through slave paces.
Then they saw her sold. There was a clear exchange of money. The girl was released from her chains and braceleted by one of the men. She was put in a collar and leash and led from the platform. Behind then was left only the discarded chains and a discarded, crumpled tunic. The girl was gone.
"Do you still ask what manner of place this is?" asked the dark-haired girl bitterly of the girl at the chain's end.
That girl, dark-haired, too, shook her head with horror. "It cannot be," she whispered.
The dark-haired girl, who had worn the pull-over, turned angrily to the blond, at the other end of the chain. "Do you still think," she asked, "they will not 'dare' to look at your precious body?"
The blond shrank back, terrified in the chains.
"Do you truly think now," pressed the dark-haired girl, furiously, "that you have rights, you foolish little thing? Do you think before such men you would have rights? These are not men of Earth!"
The blond girl looked at her with horror.
"These men will have their way with women," she said. "Can you not see it in their eyes? They will have what they want from women." And she laughed bitterly, "And we are women," she said.
"This place then-" stammered the girl at the end of the chain.
"Yes," said the dark-haired girl. Then she looked at the blond. "Do you still think," she asked, "that we are merely some sort of prisoners?"
"No, no," wept the blond girl.
"This is a slave market," said the dark-haired girl, "and we are slaves."
The blond girl moaned and threw her head back. The third and fourth girl began to sob.
"Accept it, my dear," said the dark-haired girl, "our reality is now transformed."
They looked at her.
"We are now slave girls on a strange world."
"No," whispered the girl on the end.
"I am for sale," said the dark-haired girl, "and so, too, are you, and the rest of us."
"Yes," whispered the blond, suddenly shuddering, "I–I am for sale."
"As are the rest of us," said the dark-haired girl.
The girls then subsided, and were quiet.
After a time the dark-haired girl spoke. "I wonder," she said, "what it will be like, being a slave girl."
"I cannot even think of it," said the blond-haired girl.
"I wonder what it will be like, being owned by a man," mused the dark-haired girl.
"Perhaps a woman will buy us," said the girl on the end.
The blond girl, and the dark-haired girl, looked at her, apprehensively.
"We would have less to fear from a woman," said the girl on the end.
"Do you want to be owned by a woman?" asked the dark-haired girl.
"No," said the girl on the end.
"Nor would I," said the third girl.
"Nor would I," said the dark-haired girl.
"— Nor would I," said the blond.
"That is interesting, is it not?" asked the dark-haired girl, thoughtfully. She looked out at the crowd. "Have you ever seen such men?" she asked. "I had never dreamed such men could exist."
"No," whispered the blond girl.
"Do you not find them disturbing?" asked the dark-haired girl.
"Wicked girl!" cried the girl on the end.
"I will tell you something," said the dark-haired girl. "They make me feel warm inside, and hot and wet."
"Wicked girl! Wicked girl!" cried the girl on the end.
"I have never felt feelings like this before," said the dark-haired girl. "I do not know what I would do if one of them touched me."
"Feminine! Feminine!" scolded the girl on the end, who had worn the beige flannel shirt.
The dark-haired girl in the brief platform tunic, who had worn the red pull-over, knelt back. "Yes," she said, "feminine."
"If they so much as touch me, I'll scream," said the blond.
But there seemed little chance of this for there appeared to be much more choice merchandise for sale upon those long, darkly varnished, slatted platforms. I had stood back in the crowd, interested to hear them speak. But now I would move on. It was nearly time to go to the pavillion. I did see in the crowd, some platforms away, the fellow from the polar basin. He was looking at women. The rawhide rope was looped about his shoulder.
"Look," I heard a fellow say, "it is Tabron of Ar."
I turned about. A tarnsman, in the scarlet leather of his war rights, tall, was moving through the crowd. He casually stopped before the four girls.
The blond shrank back as his eyes examined her in the collar, chains and platform tunic.
He looked upon the dark-haired girl. To my surprise and pleasure I saw her kneel very straight and lift her body before him. Then he looked past her to the other two, girls and continued on his way. She knelt back in her chains.
"I saw you!" said the girl on the end, who had worn the beige flannel shirt.
"He was very handsome," said the dark-haired girl. "-And I am a slave."
"He didn't buy you," sneered the third girl, who had worn the plaid flannel shirt, "you rich tart!"
"He didn't buy you either," retorted the dark-haired girl, "you low-class idiot."
I smiled. They were both only slaves.
"I am more beautiful than you," said the third girl.
I was pleased to see that the third girl seemed now much more sensitive to her femaleness than earlier. Perhaps she would not take as long as I had thought to discover her womanhood. Gorean males, I conjectured, might teach it to her quickly. She would look lovely, I thought, crawling to her master, his sandals in her teeth.
"If we must discuss that sordid sort of thing," said the girl on the end, who had worn the beige flannel shirt, "I am the most beautiful of us four."
"I am," said the dark-haired girl, angrily, indignantly.
"No," said the blond. "I am surely the most beautiful!"
"You do not even want a man to touch you," said the dark-haired girl.
"No," said the blond. "But I am still the most beautiful."
The dark-haired girl looked out over the crowd. "They will decide who is most beautiful," she said.
"They?" asked the blond.
"The masters," said the dark-haired girl.
"Masters?" stammered the blond.
"Yes," said the dark-haired girl, "the masters, those men out there, those who will buy us, our masters, they will decide who is most beautiful."
The girls knelt back in their chains. They knelt back easily, on their heels.
"Oh!" cried the blond girL.
A stout fellow, in the garb of the tarn keepers, smelling of the tarn cots, stood looking at her. She pulled back, and shook her head, "No." Her eyes were frightened.