She tried to creep back, but the slaver's man, seeing this, irritably removed his whip from his belt and, with its coils, indicated the place on the platform where her knees must be. They were placed in such a way as to be a quarter of an inch over the edge of the platform. The other girls, too, made certain their knees were perfectly aligned. The robes of passing men then brushed their knees.
"I would look at this one," said a leather worker, who stopped before the blond, first on the chain.
She shrank back.
"She is a beauty, isn't she?" smiled the slaver. "Open her tunic. See what she has to offer you," he invited.
The leather worker reached toward the girl, but she scrambled back. "Don't touch me!" she cried. The dark-haired girl cried out with pain, dragged by her collar back, too. She fell twisted, on her side, in the chain.
"I'll scream," warned the blond girl.
The leather worker was quite puzzled. "I do not think I am interested," he said. "Too, this one is a barbarian. She is not broken to the collar."
"Break her to your collar," said the slaver's man.
"I do not want to take the time to break a girl in," he said.
"Wait, kind sir," said the slaver. "Wait! See what delights would await you."
The man hesitated.
"Prodicus!" called the slaver's man.
In a moment the first slaver's man, who had gone to supervise the forty through forty-five platforms, those in the two hundreds, joined his colleague.
The second slaver's man, who carried the whip, which he now uncoiled, unnoticed, I am sure, by the girls, indicated the blond with his head.
The fellow called to the platform scrambled onto it and swiftly knelt the blond before the slaver's man with the whip and the leather worker. The fellow on the platform then jerked loose the knot at the blond's right hip, which held the wrap-around tunic closed. "No!" she screamed. He jerked it back, away from her, exposing her. She was very beautiful. It lay behind her, over her chained wrists. He kicked her knees apart. Then he crouched behind her, holding her by the upper arms. She struggled, twisting, on her knees. She began to scream miserably, her head back. She pressed her knees closely together. The slaver's man with the whip angrily leaped to the platform. He kicked her knees open again. She was sobbing and screaming. Men about laughed. "See, Master?" asked the slaver's man with the whip, but the leather worker had gone. The slaver's man glared down, in fury, at the chained blond. Another man in the crowd reached to take the ankle of the dark-haired girl in his hand and she, with a rattle of chain, jerked it away. She looked at him, terrified. "They are all barbarians," said a man, "all of them." Puzzled by the reactions of the blond and the dark-haired girl other men in the crowd reached out to touch the last two girls on the chain. One held with his two hands the thighs of the third girl, who had worn the plaid flannel shirt. She screamed in the collar. Another man took the fourth girl, who had worn the beige flannel shirt, under the arms, and pulled her to him. She fought to pull her lips back, that they might not touch his. She struggled in his arms. She screamed. He thrust her back on her side on the platform, and left her. The man who had held the thighs of the third girl, too, released her. There was much laughter in the crowd. She scrambled back in her chains, sobbing. The slaver's man was furious. He looked from one girl to the other, to the stripped, chained blond, to the cowering dark-haired girl, her neck cut by the collar, from its movement, to the third girl, sobbing and looking up at him, to the fourth girl, lying on her side, her legs drawn up, crying. He gestured to his colleague. This man went to the second girl and jerked back her tunic, and to the third and jerked back her tunic, and to the fourth and jerked back her tunic. Then they lay in their chains, exposed at his feet. Then he put them under the whip.
In moments they writhed at his feet, slave girls, screaming for mercy.
Tenalion of Ar, the slaver, their master, stood at the edge of the platform. He was not pleased.
"They are worthless," said the man with the whip, coiling it.
The girls lay on the platform, sobbing. Stripes were on their bodies.
"Take anything for them," said Tenalion, and turned away.
"Two," said a voice. "Two. How much?"
It was the fellow from the polar basin, who wore no jacket, but fur trousers and boots, with the bow at his back, and the rawhide rope on his shoulder. In his left hand he carried a bundle of furs, smaller now, than it had been, and a sack, which was now less bulky than it had been when I had seen it earlier near the puppet theater. I remembered he had sold carvings to a corpulent, gross fellow, one whose booth had been set up in the street of the dealers in artifacts and curios. It was not far from the puppet theater.
I moved in more closely, thinking he might have difficulty in communicating with the slaver's man.
"Those," said the coppery-skinned fellow, pointing to the blond and the dark-haired girl, freshly whipped, crying in their chains.
"Yes?" asked the slaver's man.
"Cheap?" asked the man, a red hunter from the bleak countries north even of Ax Glacier.
"These two?" asked the slaver's man.
The hunter nodded.
The slaver's man knelt the two stripped girls before the hunter.
They looked at him with fear.
He was a man. They had felt the whip.
"Yes cheap. Very cheap," said the slaver's man. "Do you have money?"
The hunter pulled a pelt from the bundle of furs he carried. It was snowy white, and thick, the winter fur of a two-stomached snow larl. It almost seemed to glisten. The slaver's man appreciated its value. Such a pelt could sell in Ar for half a silver tarsk. He took the pelt and examined it. The snow larl hunts in the sun. The food in the second stomach can be held almost indefinitely. It is filled in the fall and must last the larl through the winter night, which lasts months, the number of months depending on the latitude of his individual territory. It is not a large animal. It is about ten inches high and, weighs between eight and twelve pounds. It is mammalian, and has four legs. It eats bird's eggs and preys on the leem, a small arctic rodent, some five to ten ounces in weight, which hibernates during the winter.
"Not enough," said the slaver's man. The hunter grunted. He had guessed this. I did not think the slaver's man was out to defraud the hunter. For one thing, the fellow, this far south, probably had some conception of the values of the furs. For another thing the hunters of the north, though a generally kind, peaceable folk, except with animals, think little of killing. They are inured to it. As hunters they live with blood and death.
The hunter drew forth from the bundle of furs two tiny pelts of the leem. These were brown, the summer coats of the animals.
"Look," said the slaver's man, gesturing at the two girls, the blond and the dark-haired girl. "Two beauties!"
The hunter drew forth two more pelts of the leem.
"Not enough," said the slaver's man.
The hunter grunted and bent down, retying the bundle of furs. He picked up the bundle and began to leave.
"Wait! laughed the slaver's man. "They are yours!"
The girls reacted. "We have been sold," whispered the dark-haired girl. I recalled she had worn soft, black, custom-fitted feminine slacks, a soft, delicious, turtle-necked, red pull-over. It had been a beautiful top and had doubtless been quite expensive. I recalled that she had been rich. She was now the naked slave girl of a red hunter.
The slaver's man put the pelts in a pouch which hung from his belt.
With his right hand he pulled the head of the blond girl down, until it was at her knees. He did the same with the head of the dark-haired girl. They knelt as they had been placed. They had felt the whip.
The slaver then went behind them and freed their ankles from the steel ankle loops. He then unlocked the two-inch-high steel cuffs which had held the hands of the girls behind them. Their platform tunics, loose, he then let fall to the boards of the platform. The hunter, meanwhile, with a knife, bad cut a length from the rope of twisted sleen hide which he wore over his shoulder. He fastened the two girls together by the neck. The slaver then unlocked the slaves' throat collars and tossed them, with the chain, to the platform.