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 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. Ageing 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, ageing. 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 ageing. 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." He looked down at me, and kicked me, lightly, with the side of his foot. "Stand, Slave," he said. Swiftly I stood.
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.