'He is of the Caste of Assassins,' said Flaminius.
Phyllis screamed and held her head in her hands.
'This is Gor,' said Virginia. 'Gor.'
'Why have we been brought here?' asked Phyllis.
'Strong men,' said Flaminius, 'have always, even in the course of your own planet's history, taken the females of weaker men for their slaves.'
'We are not slaves,' said Virginia numbly.
'You are the females of weaker men,' said Flaminius, 'the men of Earth.' He looked at her intently. 'We are the stronger,' he said. 'We have power. We have ships which can traverse space to Earth. We will conquer Earth. It belongs to us. When we wish we bring Earthlings to Gor as our slaves, as was done with you. Earth is a slave world. You are natural slaves. It is important for you to understand that you are natural slaves, that you are inferior, that it is natural and right that you should be the slaves of the men of Gor.'
'We are not slaves,' said Phyllis.
'Virginia,' said Flaminius. 'Is what I say not true? Is it not true that the women of weaker, conquered men, if permitted to live, have been kept only as the slaves of the conquerors, permitted to live only that they may serve the pleasures of victorious masters?'
'I teach classics and ancient history,' said Virginia, scarcely whispering. 'It is true that in much of the history of the Earth the sort of thing you say was done.'
'Does it not seem natural?' asked Flaminius.
'Please,' she whispered, 'let us go.'
'You are upset,' said Flaminius, 'because you deemed yourself superior. Now you find yourself in the position of the female of weaker men, taken as slave.' He laughed. 'How does it feel?' he asked. 'To suddenly understand that you are a natural slave?'
'Please,' said Virginia.
'Do not torture her so!' cried Phyllis.
Flaminius turned to Phyllis. 'What is the band of steel locked on your left ankle?' he asked.
'I don't know,' stammered Phyllis.
'It is the anklet of a slave,' said Flaminius. Then he turned again to Virginia, putting his face close to the bars, speaking as though confidentially.
'You are intelligent,' he said. 'You must know two of the ancient languages of Earth. You are learned. You have studied the history of your world. You have attended important schools. You are perhaps even brilliant.'
Virginia looked at him hopelessly.
'Have you not noticed,' asked Flaminius, 'the men of this world? Do they seem like those of Earth to you?' He pointed to the guard, who was a tall, strong fellow, rather hard-looking. 'Does he seem like a man of Earth to you?'
'No,' she whispered.
'What in all your femaleness do you sense of the men of this world?' asked Flaminius.
'They are men,' she said, in a whisper.
'Unlike those of Earth?' asked Flaminius.
'Yes,' said Virginia, 'unlike them.'
'They are true men, are they not?' asked Flaminius.
'Yes,' she said, looking down, confused, 'they are true men.'
It was interesting to me that Virginia Kent, as a woman, was apparently intensely aware of certain differences between Gorean men and the men of Earth. I suspected that these differences clearly existed, but I would not, as Flaminius seemed to wish, have interpreted these differences as suggesting an inferiority of Earth stock. After all, Gorean males were surely, at one time at any rate, of the same stock as the men of Earth. The differences were surely primarily cultural and not physical or mental. I do think, of course, that the Gorean population tends to be more physically fit and mentally acute than that of Earth, but I would rate then provisionally rather than essentially superior in these respects; for example, Goreans live much out of doors and, as a very natural thing, celebrate the beauty of a healthy, attractive body; further, Goreans tend to come from intelligent, healthy stock, for such was brought over many generations to this world by the Priest-Kings' Voyages of Acquisition, curtailed now, as far as I knew, following the Nest War.
The primary differences, I suspect, to which Virginia Kent was reacting, were subtle and psychological. The male of Earth is conditioned to be more timid, vacillating and repressed than the males of Gor; to be subject, to achieve social controls, to guilts and anxieties that would be as incomprehensible to the Gorean male as a guilt over having spoken to one's father-in-law's sister would be to most of the men of Earth. Moreover, the Gorean culture tends, for better or worse, to be male oriented and male dominated, and in such a culture men naturally look on women much differently than they do in a consumer-oriented, women-dominated culture, one informed by an ethos of substantially feminine values; the women then, in coming to Gor, would naturally sense that they are looked on differently, and it was not improbable to suppose that something in them, submerged and primitive, would tend to respond to this.
'In the presence of such a man,' said Flaminius, indicating the guard, 'how do you sense yourself?'
'Female,' she said, looking down and away.
Flaminius put his hand through the bars, his fingers gently touching her chin and throat as she looked away. Her body tensed, but she did not move. Her cheek was pressed against the bars.
'You wear on your left ankle,' said Flaminius, 'a locked band of steel.'
The girl tried to move her head but could not. A tear coursed down her right cheek, running against the bar.
'What is it?' asked Flaminius.
'It is the anklet of a slave,' she said, not facing him.
He turned her head to him. Her eyes, wide with tears, faced his. She regarded him, herself held. 'Pretty slave,' he said.
'Yes,' she said.
'Yes what?' he asked, kindly.
'Yes,' she said, '-Master.' Then suddenly she cried out and broke free and knelt in the back of the kennel, her face in her hands, weeping.
Flaminius laughed.
'You beast!' cried out the second girl. 'You beast!'
Flaminius suddenly reached into the cage and, taking the girl by the wrists, jerked her against the bars, painfully so, holding her at arm's length cruelly against them. 'Please,' she wept.
'From the time you were first anesthetized and hooded,' said Flaminius, 'you had but one purpose in life-to give pleasure to men.'
'Please,' she wept, 'please.'
'Bracelets,' said Flaminius, in Gorean, to the guard, who produced a set of bracelets.
Flaminius then locked one on the girl's right wrist and then, her arms through the bars, bent her arms back, put the other bracelet around one of the bars in the gate, above the horizontal bar at the top of the gate, and, on the outside of the gate, about her other wrist, the left, snapped shut the second bracelet, so that her hands were now braceleted outside the gate, at its top, that she might be, on the inside, held cruelly against the bars. 'Please,' she wept, 'Please.'
'It would be pleasant to tame you,' said Flaminius.
'Please let me go,' she wept.
'But there are other things in store for you, pretty slave.'
The girl looked at him, tears in her eyes.
'You will be trained as a slave girl,' said Flaminius. 'You will be taught to kneel, to stand, to walk, to dance, to sing, to serve the thousand pleasures of men.' He laughed. 'And when your training is complete you will be placed on a block and sold.'
The girl cried out in misery, pressing her head against the bars.
Flaminius then looked into Virginia's eyes. 'You, too,' said he, 'will be trained as a slave girl.'
She looked at him, red-eyed.
'Will you train?' asked Flaminius.
'We will do whatever you wish,' said Virginia. 'We are slaves.'
'Will you train?' asked Flaminius of the girl Phyllis, braceleted against the bars.
'What if I do not?' she asked.
'Then you will die,' said Flaminius.
The girl closed her eyes.
'Will you train?' asked Flaminius.
'Yes,' she said, 'I will train.'
'Good,' said Flaminius. Then he reached into the cage and took her by the hair, twisting it. 'Do you beg to be trained as a slave girl?' he asked.
'Yes,' she said, in pain, 'yes!'
'Yes what?' inquired the Physician.
'Yes,' she said, weeping, '-Master!'
Flaminius then stood up and faced us. He was instantly again the Physician, cool and professional. He regarded Ho-Tu and spoke in Gorean swiftly. 'They are both interesting girls,' he said. 'They resemble one another in several ways and yet each is quite different. The results of the tests I have just conducted are quite affirmative, much better than merely satisfactory, decidedly promising.'
'How will they train?' asked Ho-Tu.
'It is impossible to tell,' said Flaminius, 'but my prognosis is that each, in her own way, will do quite well in training. I do not think drugs will be necessary, and I expect that a sparing use of the whip and slave goad will be sufficient. My prognosis is on the whole extremely favorable. Excellent merchandise, some risk, but every likelihood of achieving a status of considerable value. In short I think they are both decidedly worth development, and should prove a quite profitable investment.'
'They are, however, barbarians,' pointed out Ho-Tu.
