large fountain with the mythological creatures of Romaghin religion pouring water from pitchers over the heads of marble nymphets burbled gaily. There was a festive air to everything here. Buildings were colorful and in good repair. Multihued pennants were strung on glittering poles. Already, men were flocking into the square, the clots of upper class men painstakingly segregated from the fatigue-shod peasantry. But peasants, too, could visit the square, for the board of governors placed no social lines between the poor and the rich man's credits. One bill was as good as the other. Money, not ability, is the only thing that makes men equal.
“My yacht is parked in a low orbit,” one rich man was saying to another. “I brought my half-miler, for I plan to take home fifty beauties.”
“My tastes,” the other man said, fiddling with his pencil line moustache, “are not so easily satisfied. I find only one girl — if any — worth buying at an auction.”
“You are just being snobbish,” the first man said.
Tohm moved on. The majority of peasants were going to frequent the House of Love or the House of Nubile Maidens, where two bills brought fifteen minutes. Few had enough money to purchase their own slave girls, their own mistresses. They watched longingly as the merchants set up their rostrums on their respective platforms.
Slowly, as the minutes passed, more and more people began drifting into the square. There were about two hundred now, seventy-five percent peasantry. A group of caped socialites were hunched around a Kill a Mutie/ Save Your World sign posted on the bulletin board, arguing politics, all in favor, of course, of killing Muties— differing only on the proper methods of destruction.
A gong sounded, and a jester announced in singsong lyric that the market was legally open for business. The young peasants pulled out their money and ran for the doors of the pleasure houses. The older peasants were content to wait for an experience which, though necessary and desirable, was not so terribly unique any longer. The few young peasants who had denied themselves and saved their bills over months and months, stood watching the platforms, unsure to which they should run. Some would buy foolishly and quickly the-first girls they saw. Others would wait, wait until all had been shown and none were being held back.
A moment later, as if at a hidden signal, the merchants came from behind the curtains at the rear of their platforms and began hawking their wares. They were foppishly dressed in jewel-studded capes of brilliant colors with inch- rather than quarter-inch fringe. The Merchant Kinger, directly in front of Tohm, waved his hand at the curtain, beckoning forth a woman. She was truly stunning. She was blonde, very tall, six feet at least. Her great breasts were pushed upward by the thin brassiere of purple shimmercloth she wore. Her silken loincloth did little to hide the vase of her pleasure.
“I ask you gentlemen—” the merchant was saying.
Tohm swept his gaze around from platform to platform. He couldn't risk watching only one merchant and having Tarnilee sold behind his back. Raddish was offering a red-skinned lovely from Shawnee, the Indian settled and often raided planet near the rim of the galaxy. The bidders were growing frantic. She promised to bring a higher price. Fulmono was selling twins, dark maidens from the Amazon basin on Earth itself, he claimed. Fasteon was running the point of his walking stick over the legs of a lass who looked scared quite to death at all the leering faces but who seemed determined not to show fear. Fasteon remarked on the fine fullness of her calves, her dimpled knees. Rashinghi was—
His mouth fell open, closed, opened again. Rashinghi's girl, the one who would pass among the audience collecting the money of the successful bidders (all payments in cash — no refunds) was Tarnilee! She was wearing a robe of brilliant purple with a black hem. The swell of her breasts broke the “vee” of the plunging neckline. She was smiling idiotically from her seat on the edge of the platform. Rashinghi was selling a very attractive girl at the moment, but Tohm's full attention was on the face and form he knew so well. What was she doing as the merchant's woman? Why did she seem to be enjoying herself?
The excitement in the square had built to a high, sustained peak. He shuffled through the crowd, jostling rich and poor alike, trying to reach the area in front of Rashinghi's platform. He hung to the back, watching her. She laughed at things the bidders said as she collected their money in a black sack she held by a golden chain. She didn't see him. He realized, with a small shock, that she would not know him if she did see him. He was fair-haired now, not dark, not anything like her Tohm.
The lithe young girl-woman Rashinghi had up at the moment went for seven hundred and six bills.
Cheering of friends as the rich man paid…
He could smell perspiration all around him…
Tarnilee was smiling and speaking confidentially with a fat upper class man who leered rather than smiled…
The noise of bidding pounded upon his ears…
His head was spinning nearly out of control. What was she doing this for? Why was she a helper of a merchant? A bid collector was always the merchant's most trusted and favorite wife. Was she married to Rashinghi? No! Or yes?
He resolved, at that very moment, to kill Rashinghi for whatever he may have done to her. But first, how to talk with her? He felt the pouch of money in his pocket. If he bid on a girl, bought her, Tarnilee would have to come to him to collect the money.
At that moment a slim, blonde girl waited on the stage, seemingly more anxious to be bought than the others, displaying her wares with bravado.
“Fifty bills,” a rich man said.
“Seventy,” a second chimed in.
He sucked in his breath. “A hundred!” he shouted.
Every head swiveled in his direction.
Rashinghi leaned, strained his eyes. “This is cash, boy. Have ye cash to be bidding so?”
He took the money pouch from his pocket, opened it and fanned the credits. “My life savings.”
The rich man roared with laughter.
“He may have her,” the first bidder said.
The second man, however, looked at him contemptuously. “Two hundred!”
“Two fifty,” he found himself bawling.
“Four hundred!”
“Five!”
“Six!”
“Seven-fifty.” He felt the perspiration trickling down his chin, running under his collar and soaking his shirt. He should have dropped the entire thing. He should have bought someone nobody wanted. After all, he was only buying her to be able to speak with Tarnilee. But now that he had raised the rich man's ire, he knew the fellow would continually outbid him on every girl he tried for.
“I have a bid for seven hundred and fifty bills,” Rashinghi said, delighted that such a common tart — although attractive — was bringing as much as one of his virgins. “M. Glavoirei,” he said to the wealthy bidder, “do ye wish to top that?”
M. Glavoirei looked over the heads of the people at the peasant who dared to bid against him. “Top money,” he said. “One thousand bills!”
The crowd gasped as if it possessed a single set of lungs.
“One thousand and twenty-five,” Tohm said, shivering in expectation of defeat.
M. Glavoirei frowned, spat on the ground. “I have only a thousand bills with me. I will write a voucher —”
“No!” Tohm found himself shouting. “This is illegal. No checks or credit cards. The terms are cash.”
“He is right, M. Glavoirei,” Rashinghi said.
“Then permit me to call for more funds. They will arrive within the hour.”
“He must have my permission to delay the auction,” Tohm said, remembering what he had learned from Triggy Gop's books. “I deny him that permission.”
“Then,” Rashinghi said, turning to Tohm, “she is most certainly yours.”
The rich man's friends set up a howl of protest. Rashinghi waved them to silence. “It is only fair. Peasant, I will have her bathed and annointed to join ye at the fountain.” He turned and clapped for the entrance of the next item on the agenda.
Tohm scanned the crowd for the head of Tarnilee. He had won the fight to speak with her. His mind was full
