'Of course,' she said.
'At its remotest terminations?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said, 'but humans are not allowed beyond those points.'
I smiled.
'How could an intruder penetrate the complex?' she asked.
'By means of a ventilator shaft,' I said. 'You speak Gorean rather well,' I said, 'though with a distinct accent.'
'I have been intensively trained,' she said.
That accent, I thought, which was aristocratic and Castilian, would not be objected to by most Gorean masters.
'I have high linguistic aptitudes,' she said, coldly.
I thought that that was fortunate for her. She would more quickly be able to understand and please a master in the subtleties of his pleasure, once she was totally owned by one. On the other hand, almost any girl, in a condition of slavery, learns quickly. She must. Slave girls are incredibly alert to the subtlest and most delicate nuances of a master's speech. The tiniest inflection can tell her whether her master is joking with her or, if she does not do something differently almost instantaneously, that she is to be mercilessly whipped. Girls in collars strive to learn well the, language of their masters. Differences among them in the swiftness with which the various proficiency levels are attained are functions, generally, of native aptitude and exposure conditions. The slave girl is doubtless, among the most highly motivated of female language students. Yet, if they begin to learn Gorean as adults, or young adults, they will almost always retain traces of their native tongue. I have encountered girls on Gor who spoke Gorean with a variety of Earth accents.
'What does the intruder want in the complex?' inquired the woman.
'At the moment he needs a woman,' I said.
'I do not understand,' she said.
'Remove your clothing,' I said.
She looked at me, startled.
'Or I shall do it for you,' I said. 'I am the intruder,' I explained.
She backed away. 'Never,' she said.
'Very well,' I said. 'Lie on the bed, on your stomach, with your hands and legs apart.' I drew forth the knife at the belt of the garment I wore. It is not wise to try to tear away the garments of a free woman with one's bare hands. They may contain poisoned needles.
'You're joking,' she said.
I gestured with the knife to the bed.
'You would not dare,' she hissed.
'To the bed,' I said.
'I am the Lady Graciela Consuelo Rosa Rivera-Sanchez,' she said.
'If you are pretty enough,' I said, 'perhaps I will call you Pepita.'
'You would take away my clothes, wouldn't you?' she said.
'I am Gorean,' I told her. I took a step toward her.
'Do not touch me,' she said. 'I will do it.'
Her small hands reluctainly went to the hooks at the throat of the garments.
'The veil, and hood, first,' I said.
She brushed them back, with a movement of her hand, a toss of her head.
'You would bring a high price,' I told her. She looked at me in fury.
'Step from your slippers,' I told her.
She did so. She was then barefoot.
'Continue,' I told her.
Her hands again went to the hooks at the throat of the garments. Angrily, deliberately, she loosened the hooks, one by one.
She pulled the garments down a bit from her throat. Her throat was slender and lovely. It would take an engraved steel collar, bearing her master's name, beautifully.
Her hands were at the two outer robes. She looked at me.
'We do not have all day,' I told her.
They fell about her ankles.
'Between the third and fourth robes,' I told her, 'there is a sheathed dagger, concealed in the lining. Keep your hands away from it.'
'You are observant,' she said.
A warrior is trained to look for such things.
The third and fourth robe slipped to the floor, about her ankles.
There remained now but the fifth robe, and the light, sleeveless, greenish-silk, sliplike undergown.
Her hands hesitated at the throat of the fifth robe.
'Off with it,' I told her.
It, like the others, fell about her ankles.
'Step from the robes,' I said.
She did so.
She was yery slender, and exquisite, in the sheath of green silk.
'Do not make me strip further, I beg of you,' she said.
'Turn about,' I said.
With the knife I cut the cord binding back her hair.
'Excellent,' I said.
Her flesh was very light; her hair, long, reaching below the small of her back, thick and lovely, was marvelously black. It contrasted vividly with the remarkable paleness of her arms, her shoulders and back. I wondered if she realized that women of her paleness and beauty had, in effect, like certain other types, been sexually selected, over generations, even on her native world, a world which seldom consciously thought of itself as a world breeding slaves. Many strains and types of beautiful women, of course, had been developed on Earth. The Lady Rosa was an excellent specimen of one such type. Earth women have been bred for love and beauty; it is unfortunate that they are educated for frustration.
I found a comb on a nearby vanity. Sheathing my knife and holding her by the back of the neck with my left hand I swiftly, but with some care, combed out her hair.
She sobbed in anger when the tiny, cloth-enfolded needle, tipped with kanda, fell from her hair, caught, and drawn out, by the teeth of the comb of kailiauk tusk.
I turned her about, roughly.
I looked down at her.
She looked up at me, her eyes flashing. 'I am now defenseless,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
With my knife I cut the thin shoulder straps of the sheath-like garment of greenish silk. With the back of the knife to her skin I moved the garment down and away from her, until it was at her ankles. She shuddered when the coldness of the knife blade moved against her flesh. She looked down at the knife, apprehensively. 'What do you want me for?' she said. 'Are you going to rape me?'
She looked at the large, round bed, soft and deep, eovered with green silk. Well could she conceive of herself upon it, at my mercy, rightless, abused for my pleasure.
'You would have to earn your right to serve upon such a bed,' I told her. 'A wench such as you would have to first learn your lessons in the dirt or on straw, or on a fur thrown over cement at the foot of a master's couch, under the slave ring.'
I took her by the hair and pulled her to the side of the room, near some chests.
There, from a chest, I took two sandal strings. With one of these I tied her hands behind her back. A sandal string is more than sufficient to hold a female. The other sandal string I tied snugly about her belly. I then took forth a long, linear face veil; it was red; it was an intimacy veil; any given layer of this veil is quite diaphanous; its opacity is a function of the number of times it is wrapped about the face; a free woman, entertaining an anxious
