"I could win for myself, and you," I said, "if nothing better, an easier slavery."
"No," she said.
"Do you think I want to be only a paga girl?" I asked. "Do you think being a paga girl is an easy slavery for a girl of Earth? I am not as you. I am more sensitive. Do you think I like being at the bidding and mercy of any male who can afford a cup of paga?"
"If you spoke to Thandar of Ti," said Bina, "you would win for us both only a whipping."
"I shall take that chance," I said.
"I am sorry," said Bina. "You shall not."
"Out of my way," I said.
"This is a matter between slaves," she said, "and I have decided it."
"You may think to serve him like a little fool, he not knowing who you are," I said, "but I shall not permit that."
"Hurry! Hurry!" called one of the other girls.
"We must hurry," I cried, miserably.
"It is your intention then," said Bina, "to inform Thandar of Ti of my former identity."
"Yes," I said, "I shall. I will gamble anything for an easier slavery. Now get out of my way."
She did not move, but looked at me, angrily.
"I am stronger than you," I said. "Get out of my way." Surely she remembered how easily I had robbed her of the candy earlier in the afternoon. She was no match for me.
Suddenly I cried out, as she leaped upon me, tearing and scratching. I could scarcely defend myself. She seized me by the hair and threw me headlong across one of the vanity tables before the long mirror. I slid on the table scattering combs and perfume. She was on my back, tearing down the netting, fouling my legs in it. I still wore the hook bracelets. She pulled my wrists behind my back and, swiftly, snapped together the leather cuffs; I twisted on the vanity table, and fell to the floor, my wrists confined by the linked snaps behind my back. "I shall scream!" I cried. Swiftly Bina thrust a scarf in my mouth, wadding it tightly, and fastened it in place with another scarf, pulling the second scarf tight behind my neck, and deeply between my teeth. She then, with the netting, tied together my ankles. She then found another hunter's net, but one which had not been cut. She threw the net over me and, drawing tight its strings, confined me helplessly in it. She then pulled me by the cords to the side of the room. She sat me against the wall and, using the four cords of the net, tying them through a slave ring at the foot of the wall, fastened me, netted, to the wall.
I squirmed in the netting, but could not free myself. I looked at her in fury.
"You are the catch of the huntress," said Bina.
"Bina!" I heard. "Teela!"
"I am coming," cried Bina. "Teela is ill!" She then blew me a kiss, and hurried out of the room.
I struggled, helplessly.
It was the first hour in the morning, of the same night, when Bina returned.
She was radiant.
She removed the netting from me, and the gag from my mouth.
"Thandar of Ti?" I asked.
"He is gone now," she said. She happily undid the netting which confined my ankles.
"You did not tell him?" I asked.
"No," she said. "Of course not."
"You are a fool," I said.
"It was I," she said, "of the six girls whom he chose to pour his paga."
"Six?" I asked.
"When you were taken ill," she laughed, "Busebius sent Helen to serve with us."
"I see," I said. "Would you please unsnap the hook bracelets?"
In an instant, with infuriating ease, she had opened the snaps, freeing my wrists, one from the other. I was furious. It was so simple. She who wears the bracelets, of course, cannot reach the snaps.
"It was I, too," said Bina, dreamily, "whom he took to serve him in the alcove." She closed her eyes, holding herself with her arms. "Oh, how beautiful he is," she said, "and. how well I served him." She opened her eyes. "The pleasure he gave me!" she moaned. "I could not believe the pleasure." She looked at me, directly. "How fortunate it is," she said, "that I did not become his companion."
"I do not understand," I said.
"For then, this night, I could not have been his slave," she whispered.
"Oh," I said.
"I shall remember all my life," she said, "the night I was slave to Thandar of Ti."
I looked down. I remembered the joy of once having been the slave of Clitus Vitellius, of having been his to dominate and command.
Then I remembered that I hated him.
"Teela," said a voice, a man's voice, that of Busebius.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Are you feeling better now?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Why then," he asked, "are you not in your silk and pouring paga?"
I looked at his whip.
"I hurry, Master!" I said, quickly.
"Paga!" called a man, and I, in bells and silk, hurried to him, to pour him drink.
I was barefoot on the tiles. The slave bells, thonged, were tied about my left ankle.
There were fewer now in the tavern, and in another Ahn or two we would close the doors.
Some of the girls, already, had been permitted to retire. I knelt before the man and poured him paga, head down.
The hook bracelets had been removed from my wrists by Busebius, who held their key.
I wore only bells and silk. It was late. The earrings, the necklace, the armlet, I had left in the room of preparation. I was now only a simple paga slave.
Only one other girl was on the floor.
"Paga," said a man's voice. I turned toward him. I saw he sat with a second man.
I knelt before them, head down, and poured the paga into his cup.
"Serve me the paga," said the man.
I put down the paga flask which I carried that I might, unencumbered, assume the position of serving paga, or wine, to a Gorean male.
"First remove the silk," he said.
I did so. He was a customer. I was his to command. Then I knelt naked before him, head down.
"You may now serve the paga," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
I reached to take the cup, in both hands. One kneels, one proffers the cup, head down, with both hands, to the male.
I reached to take the cup.
Suddenly, on my closely placed wrists, ns I went to lift the cup, with a startling flash of metal and two swift snaps, slave bracelets locked.
I looked up, startled.
"No!" I cried.
"We have you," he said. I tried to jerk back but his hand, on the chain between the bracelets, held me, my hands confined in his bracelets.
"You have been the object of an intensive and difficult search," said the second voice.
I regarded them, terrified.
"I have sold you for two tarsks to these gentlemen," said Busebius. I felt him remove the thonged slave bells from my left ankle. He placed them on the table. I felt him thrust a key into the small, heavy lock at the back of my collar. He opened it, and placed it, too, on the table. "She is yours, Masters," be said.
"Oh, no, no!" I begged.
Busebius turned and left the table.
"We have paid two silver tarsks for you," said one of the men. I knelt naked before them, horrified, wearing their bracelets.
"You are now ours," said the other man.
"Do not kill me," I begged.
"Serve us paga," said the first man.
Trembling I, nude, braceleted, proffered paga first to one, and then the other. They drank slowly, enjoying their triumph and my misery.
"We must now be on our way," said the first man.
Each took one of my arms, and between them, half thrust, half dragged, they forced me from the paga tavern.
"Please do not kill me," I begged.
They were the two men whom I had first encountered on Gor, when I had awakened, nude, chained by the neck in the wilderness. They had, at one point, prepared to cut my throat.
"Please do not kill me!" I begged. "Please, Masters, do not kill me!"
Between them, held, braceleted, I was forced from the tavern, and out onto the long bridge, into the Gorean night.