'I did not want to die,' she said. 'I did not want to be put out to die.'
'You had best pretend well to believe their teaching,' said. 'They would not,most likely, look lightly on being deceived in this respect.'
'I do not want to live a life of hypocrisy,' she said.
'Doubtless many live such a life in the compound of the Waniyanpi,' I said.
'Should I try to believe their absurdities?' she asked.
'It might be easier on you, if you could,' I said.
'But I am not a fool,' she said.
'To be sure,' I said, 'it is easiest to subscribe to odd beliefs when they havebeen inculcated in childhood. The trenchment of eccentric beliefs is commonlyperpetrated most successfully on the innocent and defenseless, even moresuccessfully than on the ignorant and desperate.'
'I am afraid of them,' she said.
'They will treat you with dignity and respect,' I said, 'as a Same.'
'Better a collar in the cities,' she said, 'better to be abused and sold from apublic platform, better to be a slave girl fearful and obedient at the feet ofher master.'
'Perhaps,' I said.
'I am afraid of them,' she.
'Why?' I asked.
'Did you not see how they would not look at me? I am afraid they will make meashamed of my own body.'
'In all things,' I said, 'remember that you are beautiful.'
'Thank you,' she whispered.
To be sure, the danger of which she spoke was quite real. It was difficult forone's values not to be affected by the values of those about them. Even themarvelous beauties and profundities of human sexuality, I knew, incrediblyenough, in some environments tended to trigger bizarre reactions of anxiety,embarrassment and shame. To the average Gorean such reactions would seemincomprehensible. Perhaps such environments, apart from semantic might simply beregarded, if any, as insane. How tragic, in particular, it is, to see suchreactions being absorbed by children.
'Do you truly think I am beautiful?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'Then take me with you,' she begged.
'No,' I said.
'You would leave me with them?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'Why?' she asked.
'It amuses me,' I said.
'Tarsk!' she cried.
I held the quirt before her face. 'You may kiss it,' I told her, 'or be beatenwith it.'
She kissed the quirt, the supple, slim leather.
'Again,' I told her, 'lingeringly.'
She complied. Then she looked up at me. 'You called me a mercenary, ' she said.
'I was wrong,' I said. 'You are only a former mercenary.'
'And what am I now?' she asked.
'Surely you can guess,' I said.
'No!' she said.
'Yes,' I assured her.
She struggled in the yoke, unavailingly. 'I am helpless'' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
She straightened her body. She tossed her head. 'If you took me with you,' shesaid, 'I would doubtless be your slave.'
'Totally,' I told her.
'It is fortunate for me, then,' she said, 'that I will accompany the Waniyanpito their camp. There I will be free.'
'The Waniyanpi are all slaves,' I told her, 'slaves of the red savages.'
'Do the savages live in the compounds?' she asked.
'Not normally,' I said. 'They normally leave the Waniyanpi much alone. They donot much care, I think, to be around them.'
'Then, for most practical purposes,' she said, 'They are slaves withoutmasters.'
'Perhaps,' I said.
'Then I, too, would be a slave without a master,' she said.
'For most practical purposes, for most of the time, I suppose,' I said. TheWaniyanpi, incidentally, are owned by tribes, not individuals. Their slavery,thus, is somewhat remote and impersonal. That one is owned by a collectivity, ofcourse, may obscure one's slavery but, in the final analysis, it does not alterit. Some slaves believe they are notcause their masters tell them so.
'That is the best sort of slave to be,' she said, 'one without a master.'
'Is it?' I asked. Lonely and unfulfilled is the slave without a master.
'When I was taken prisoner,' she said, 'I feared I would be made a slave, a trueslave. I feared a tether would be-put on my neck and I would be ran to the campof a master, sweating at the lathered flank of his kaiila, that there I would behis, to be dressed, and worked and used as he pleased. I feared that hard laborsand degradation would be mine. I feared that a beaded collar would be tied on myneck. I feared that I would be subject to ropes and whips, unsparingly appliedif I were in the least bit unpleasing. Mostly I feared being alone with him inhis lodge, where I must, at his smallest indication, serve him intimately, andabjectly and lengthily, as his least whim might dictate, with the fullattentiveness and services of the female slave. You can imagine my terrors atthe mere thought of finding myself so helplessly belonging to a man, sohelplessly in his power, so helplessly subject to his mastery and domination.'
'Of course,' I said.
'And so it is,' she said, 'that I rejoice that I am to be spared all that. I amastonished at my good fortune. How foolish were the red savages to be so lenientwith me! ' 'They am not fools,' I said. I 'They took other girls, ' she said, 'I heard, to their camps.'
'Yes,' I said.
'That was not done with me,' she said.
'No,' I said.
'They spared me,' she said.
'Did they?' I asked.
'I do not understand,' she said.
'You were found with the soldiers,' I said. I then turned from her and mountedthe kaiila.
'Yes?' she asked.
'The other girls were simply made slaves,' I said. 'They will now have the honorof serving worthy masters.'
'And I? she asked.
'You, being found with the soldiers,' I said, 'and obviously a personage of someimportance, were singled out for punishment.'
'Punishment?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said. Indeed, I thought to myself, how much the red savages must hatethe soldiers, and those with them, and how subtle and insidious they had been.
'But I am to be respected and accorded dignity,' she said, kneeling below me inthe grass, in her yoke. 'I am to be sent to live with Waniyanpi!'
'That is your punishment,' I said. I then turned the kaiila about, and left herbehind me, in the grass, in her yoke.
