The girl looked at her with horror.
'You will learn that you are an animal,' said Ginger.
'An animal?' said the girl, frightened.
'Yes,' said Ginger, 'and worth less than most animals.'
'What sort of woman am I then?' asked the girl.
'Can you not guess?' asked Ginger.
The girl looked at her, terrified.
'A female slave,' said Ginger.
'Let us now have a bid on the two tavern girls,' called the auctioneer. 'We musthave at least a tarsk apiece for them!'
The girl shook her head numbly, disbelievingly. 'No,' she whispered. 'No.'
Ginger regarded her.
'It cannot be,' said the girl.
'It is,' said Ginger.
'Not a female slave,' said the girl. She lifted the chain, disbelievingly, onher neck.
'Yes,' said Ginger.
'No!' said the girl. 'No!' She clutched the chain on her neck in terror.
'Yes,' said Ginger.
The girl leaped suddenly to her feet and, crouching over, with the fullness ofher small strength, began to tear wildly at the chain. 'No,' she cried, 'not afemale slave! No!
The men watched, with interest.
Then the girl, sobbing, her small hands raw, and cut, ceased her struggles.
'I am chained,' she said, numbly, to Ginger.
'Yes, you are,' said Ginger, adding, '-Slave.'
There was the sudden lash of the five-stranded Gorean slave whip and the girlcried out and sank down on the block, kneeling, with her head down, makingherself as small as possible. Five times did the attendant lash her beauty. Thenshe lay on her stomach on the block, sobbing, the collar and chain on her neck,her fingernails tight in the wood. 'I will be good, Masters,' she wept. 'I willbe good.'
'Do I hear a bid on the tavern girls?' asked the auctioneer.
'Five copper tarsks apiece!' laughed a man.
Ginger bit her lip, in anger. There was laughter.
'Stand straighter Slave,' said a man.
Ginger straightened her body, and lifted her head.
'Miss, oh, please, Miss! ' called the red-haired girl, plaintively, on herknees, stripped, her hands tied behind her with the cord, from the centralblock.
Ginger was startled. The red-haired slave had spoken without permission. Sheturned to face her.
'Am I, too, a slave?' called the red-haired girl.
Ginger looked about, and sensed that she might respond, without being beaten.
The experienced slave girl is very sensitive to such things.
We saw the auctioneer remove the kaiila, quirt from his belt.
'Yes,' said Ginger, 'You are all slaves! ' 'And you?' inquired the red-haired girl.
'We, too, are slaves,' said Ginger, indicating herself and Evelyn. 'Do you thinkfree women would be so rudely stripped and brazenly displayed? We, and theseothers, are on sale! Do you doubt that we are slaves? See our brands!' Sheturned her left thigh to the central platform. Evelyn, too, turned so that thered-haired girl might, as she could, observe her brand.
'You are branded!' said the red-haired girl. 'You are only branded slaves! ' 'Consider the mark burned into your own lovely hide,' said Ginger.
The girl regarded her own thigh, fearfully.
'It is no different from that which we wear,' said Ginger.
The girl regarded her with horror.
'It marks you well, does it not?' asked Ginger.
'Yes,' said the girl, in misery.
'As ours do us,' said Ginger.
'Then I, too, am nothing but a branded slave!' said the red-haired girl.
'Precisely,' said Ginger.
'Then I, too, at least in theory, could be put up for sale,' she said, aghast.
'Bids have already been taken on you,' said Ginger. 'You are up for sale.'
'No!' cried the girl. 'I am Millicent Aubrey-Welles, of Pennsylvania. I cannotbe for sale! ' 'You are a nameless slave animal, being vended for the pleasure of Masters,' said Ginger.
'I am not for sale!' cried the girl.
'You are,' said Ginger. 'And I, for one, would not pay much for you.'
Wildly the red-haired girl tried to attain her feet but the auctioneer, his handin her hair, twisted her and threw her on her belly before him. Twice he lashedher with the quirt 'Oh!' she cried. 'Oh!' He then stepped away from her. Helaughed. She had squirmed well. Her body was obviously highly sensitive. Thisportended well for her quality as a slave. She lifted her head, wildly, toGinger. 'I am truly to be sold?' she begged.
'Yes,' said Ginger.
'Oh!' cried the girt, in pain, again quirted by the auctioneer. 'Oh! Oh!' Shehad again spoken without permission. Then she lay quietly, scarcely moving,beaten, frightened, on the block. She did not care to feel the quirt again. Ithink, lying there, she now began, more fully and explicitly than she had daredbefore, to comprehend the actuality of her condition, that she might be, infact, what she seemed to be, a lashed, soon-to-be vended slave.
'What were these women inquiring of you?' inquired a man, of Ginger.
'They desired a clarification of their condition, Master,' responded Ginger.
'Are they dim-witted? ' asked the fellow.
'I do not think so, Master,' said Ginger. 'It is only that they come from aworld which has not prepared them to easily grasp the nature of certainrealities, let alone that they might find themselves implicated in them.'
'I see,' said the man.
'But do not fear, Master,' said Ginger, 'we learn swiftly.'
'That is known to me,' he grinned.
Ginger looked down, swallowing hard. It was true. On Gor, girls learned swiftly.
I saw the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat, behind Ginger and Evelyn, make a signto the auctioneer.
'If there is no one here now who wishes further to examine the tavern girls,prior to their sale, I will have them removed to a holding area,' said theauctioneer.
Ginger and Evelyn, startled, exchanged glances. As no one spoke, the auctioneernodded to two of the attendants. In a moment the girls, the upper left arm ofeach in the grasp of an attendant, were conducted, bewildered, through a sidedoor from the hall.
The fellow in the broad-brimmed hat, I gathered, had influence in Kailiauk. Hewas, obviously, at any rate, taken seriously in the house of Ram Seibar.
When the heavy door had closed behind the tavern girls, he said to theauctioneer, 'One five apiece.'
'Are there any other bids? ' inquired the auctioneer.
There was silence in the room. It interested me that there were no other bids.
'One five,' agreed the auctioneer. 'One five, for each.'
The fellow in the broad-brimmed hat then pointed to the girl on the centralblock. This did not surprise me. I had gathered that he might be interested inher. The purchase of the two tavern girls, further, I had surmised, wasintimately connected with this interest. He wanted them, doubtless, to be usedin her training, in particular, I supposed, with her training in Gorean. Otheraspects of her training he might see fit to attend to himself. Needless to say,it is pleasant to train a beautiful woman uncompromisingly to one's mostintimate pleasures. Further, there was no doubt that the girl on the block was abeauty. Yet, in some way, I still found his interest in her somewhat puzzling.
