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"No!" I screamed. "No!" I lay on my side. My ankles were crossed and tied. I saw a large side of meat being hoisted by me, hung on a dangling hook. I had looked into the pit. I heard the raging of the animals. "No," I begged. A rope was tied, tightly, about my waist, and then tied about the linkage between the manacles confining my hands behind my back. My hands, then, must be held close to the small of my back. "Please, no, please, no!" I begged. Two men took another side of meat, large and heavy, and thrust it on a new hook. Then it was lifted up and swung, on a set of ropes, over the edge of the barrier and toward the center of the circular, sunken enclosure, whence it was lowered. I heard the snarling, the squealing, the frenzied feeding. "Please, no!" I begged. Never had I seen such beasts. They were darkly colored, usually brown, and some were black. They were, some of them, as much as twenty feet in length. Several must have weighed between twelve and fourteen hundred pounds. They were six legged, clawed, and doubly fanged. Their heads were wide and triangular, like those of vipers, but their bodies, long and sinuous, were thickly furred. They twisted and squirmed about one another. I had been held by the two men at the edge of the barrier, to see the attack on the first piece of lowered meat. The animals leaped for it, some of them thirty or more feet into the air. Some even caught and clung to it as it was being lowered, tearing at it and cutting at it with their hind pairs of feet. There was a stink in the place of the animals, and the noise of their snarling, their hissing, their squealing and challenge screams was ear-piercing and horrifying.
"No!" I screamed. One of the two men slipped a hook under the ropes that bound my ankles. In a moment it began to ascend and I was lifted, feet upward, above the walkway encircling the sunken enclosure. I hung, helpless, head downward,
"Please, no!" I wept.
The woman in the black leather, she whom I had taken as my jailer, gave a signal.
"No, please!" I cried.
Helpless I felt myself lifted higher and, on the system of ropes, carried out over the sunken enclosure, the floor of which was some seventy-five feet below me.
I could sense the animals below me, their large size, the fetid smell, almost overwhelming, swirling upward, their energetic stirring, their twisting in and about one another. I put my head back and could glimpse several of the furred bodies below. I saw their heads raised, their eyes blazing, their long, dark tongues, triangular, their distended jaws, the two rows of fangs. Then I felt the rope give a hitch and I was lowered a foot toward them.
The first of the beasts leaped upward toward me, falling short by several feet, falling back, scrambling, among the others.
I was then lowered some five to seven feet again. I wept with misery. I could feel the heavy collar now against the bottom of my chin, as it had slipped down. The metal attachment, which I took to be a ring, lay against my chin.
I was then lowered some ten more feet, then another ten feet.
The animals were now much more frenzied, save for some, here and there in the enclosure, in small groups, snarling and scratching, tearing apart meat already lowered into the pit.
The rope then again slipped, being lowered again.
"Please, stop!" I begged. I could see the woman with such white skin, she in the black leather, with the whip, at the height of the barrier. Behind her were the two brutes who had taken me from my cell. I had never seen such strength as theirs. I had been helpless in their hands. They had controlled me with utter ease.
I was now, squirming and crying, some forty feet above the floor of the pit below.
The rope lowered again.
I screamed with misery.
The animals, then, began to leap upward. I heard jaws snap not more than a yard or so below my head. I saw the raking of broad claws, exposed, curved and white, pass sweeping below me. I was certain they could, with a single, wicked blow, half tear my head from my body.
My screams mingled with the raging snarls and piercing hunger screams of the beasts.
The rope gave another hitch, and I was lowered another foot.
Then I was lowered another foot.
I cried out with misery.
Then I felt my body, suddenly, swung to the side and drawn upward. I was hoisted up, on the system of ropes, then, to the barrier, and over it. The two brutes who had taken me from my cell removed me from the hook. They then unbound my ankles. They then removed the rope from my belly, which had held the manacles close to the small of my back. Two men placed a large piece of meat on the hook from which I had been removed and, in a moment, on the system of ropes, had hoisted it over the barrier, out over the enclosure, and down to the animals. I heard them fighting, tearing at it. The large Oriental fellow pulled my hands, manacled behind my back, toward him. He then, with a key, removed them from me and replaced them in the snap strap at his belt. They had been his.
"Kneel," said the fair-skinned, leather-clad woman, my jailer.
I knelt, terrified. I could hear the animals tearing apart the meat below.
"Legs spread," she said.
I complied, shuddering.
"Do you know now you are a slave?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, "yes!"
"Yes, what?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I don't know!"
" `Yes, Mistress,'" she said.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Say now," she said, " `I am a slave, Mistress.'"
"I am a slave, Mistress," I said.
"Say now," she said, " 'I am your slave, Mistress.'"
"I am your slave Mistress," I said.
"You may now put your head down and kiss my feet," she said.
I did so. I was terrified of her.
"Do you know on what world you now find yourself?" she asked.
I dared not answer her.
"It is called 'Gor'," she said.
"Yes, Mistress," I said. I trembled. I almost fainted. There was truly a Gor.
"Look up, Slave," she said.
I looked up.
"And on Gor," she said, "you are a slave."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"On Gor," she said, "we do not accept disobedience in slaves, not the least disobedience, is that clearly understood?"
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Beyond that," she said, "a slave is expected to be fully pleasing, fully. Is that understood, perfectly?"
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"The animals you have seen are called sleen," she said. "They are used for many purposes on Gor. One purpose they are commonly used for is to hunt down and destroy slaves. That is the purpose, incidentally, for which the animals you have just seen have been trained."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"It is common also on Gor to take troublesome or disobedient slaves, or recalcitrant slaves, or slaves who have not been fully pleasing, perhaps even in a quite minor way, either male or female salves, and feed them to sleen. Indeed, sometimes slaves are fed to sleen simply for the amusement of the masters."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Do you understand now, just a little, what it might be to be a slave on Gor?" she asked.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Get on your hands and knees," she said.
I did so.
One of the men, the strong fellow with brown, shaggy hair, said something to her. She laughed, and shook her head. They exchanged a remark or two, and then the two men, the fellow with brown, shaggy hair and the other man, the large Oriental fellow, turned about and left.
"He was asking," she said, "if I wished him to accompany me back to the cell." She hung the whip on her belt, folding back its blades. There was a small ring on the butt end of the whip which fitted over a hook on the belt. The blades of the whip fitted under a clip, also on the belt. She turned the collar on my throat, so that the metal attachment, or ring, was at the back. "I told him it would not be necessary," she said. She unslung the metal chain from her belt. "I told him you were tame," she said. She then snapped the chain on the collar. She jerked it. I was on my hands and knees, leashed. "You are tamed, aren't you?" she asked.