"Is this girl bothering you?" asked a merchant, one whose head bore the talmit of the fair's staff. Behind him were two guardsmen, with whips.

"No," I said. Then I said, "Where are the tables for the gambling on Kaissa?"

'They have been arranged but this morning," he said. 'They may be found in the vicinity of the public tents near the amphitheater."

"My thanks, Officer," said I 'The lines are long," he said. "I wish you well," I said.

"I wish you well," he said. They left.

"Thank you, Master," said the girl. At a word from me, she would have been lashed.

"Kneel and kiss my feet," I said.

She did so.

She then looked up.

"Run now to your master," I said. "Crawl to him on your belly, and beg his touch."

"Yes, Master," she said. She leaped to her feet, frightened, and sped away.

I watched her disappear in the crowds.

I laughed. What a meaningless, lovely, delicious little slave she was. How helpless she was in her needs.

Another slave girl in the crowd smiled at me. I grinned at her, and turned away.

It is pleasant to live on a world where there are female slaves. I would choose to live on no other sort of world.

Before I left, the fair I would inspect the major market, that beyond the smithies and chain shops, where the most numerous exhibition platforms were erected, near the great sales pavillion of blue and yellow silk, the colors of the slavers.

If I found girls who pleased me I could arrange for their transportation to Port Kar. The shipment and delivery of slaves is cheap.

I turned down the street of the dealers in artifacts and curios. I was making my way toward the public tents in the vicinity of the amphitheater. It was there that the tables for the odds on the Kaissa matches might be found.

In traversing the street I saw the fellow from the polar basin, he stripped to the waist, with fur trousers and boots. He was dealing with a large fellow, corpulent and gross, who managed one of the booths. There was a thin scribe present as well behind the counter. The fellow in the furs, the rope coiled over his shoulder, apparently spoke little Gorean. He was taking objects from the fur sack he had carried with him. The large fellow behind the booth's counter was examining them. The objects would not stand on the counter, for 'they were rounded, as are shapes in nature. They were intended to be kept in a pouch and, from time to time, taken forth and examined. All details must be perfect, from every perspective, as in nature. Some collectors file such objects that they may be more easily displayed on a shelf or in a case. The native of the polar basin, on the other hand, holds them when he looks at them, and they have his attention as he does so. He is fond of them. He has made them. There were carvings of sea sleen, and fish, and whales, and birds, and other creatures, large and small, of the north.

Other objects, too, other carvings, were in the bag. The carvings were of soft bluish stone and ivory, and bone.

I continued on my way.

In a few minutes I had come to the area of the public tents, and there was there no difficulty in determining where the Kaissa lines were to be found. There were dozens of tables, and the lines were long at each.

I would stay in one of the public tents tonight. For five copper tarsks one may rent furs and a place in the tent. It is expensive, but it is, after all, En'Kara and the time of the fair. In such tents it is not unusual for peasants to lie crowded, side by side, with captains and merchants. During En'Kara, at the Fair, many of the distinctions among men and castes are forgotten.

Unfortunately meals are not served in the tents. For the price it seems one should banquet. This lack, however, is supplied by numerous public kitchens and tables. These are scattered throughout the district of the fair. Also there are vendors.

I took my place at the end of one of the long lines, that which I conjectured to be the shortest.

There are some compensations in the public tents, however. One may have paga and wines there. These are served by slave girls, whose comforts and uses are also included within the price of the lodging.

"Soup!' Soup!" called a man.

"Soup!" I called, raising my hand. I purchased from him, for a copper tarsk, a bowl of soup, thick with shreds of hot bosk and porous chunks of boiled sul.

"Whom do you favor in the great match?" I asked.

"Scormus of Ar," said he.

I nodded. I handed him back the soup bowl. I feared the odds would be too high on Scormus. Yet I would wager him the winner. I was not pleased, however, that I might have to bet a golden tarn to win a silver tarsk.

I could see on hills, on either side of the amphitheater, a golden tent pitched. One of these was for Scormus of Ar, the other, on the other side of the great amphitheater, was for Centius of Cos.

"Have they drawn yet for yellow?" I asked.

"No," he said.

Normally much betting would wait until it was known which player had yellow, which determines the first move, and the first move, of course, determining the opening.

But already the betting was heavy.

I speculated on the effect which the draw for yellow might have on the odds in the match. If Centius drew yellow, I reasoned, the odds favoring Scormus might be reduced a bit, but probably not much; if Scormus, on the other hand, drew yellow, the odds might rise so in his favor as to preclude a rational wager. Few people would accept a bet of even twenty to one under such circumstances. Already I suspected I would have to wager at least ten to one to bet on Scormus, who would be champion. I noted a fellow from Cos a few men ahead of me in the line. "On whom do you wager?' I asked him. "On Centius of Cos," he said, belligerently. I smiled to myself. We would see. We would see. I wondered if his patriotism would last all the way to the betting table. Often, incidentally, the first move in a match is decided by one player's guessing in which hand the other holds a Spearman, one of the pieces of the game. In this match, however, a yellow Spearman and a red Spearman were to be placed in a helmet, covered with a scarlet cloth. Scormus of Ar and Centius of Cos would reach into the helmet and each draw forth one Spearman. He who held the yellow Spearman had the first move.

I was now some twenty men from the table.

"Look," called a man.

Two parties of men, one party from each of the tents, began to make their way toward the amphitheater. Somewhere in those parties were Scormus of Ar and Centius of Cos. The chief officer of the caste of players, with representatives of both Cos and Ar, would be waiting for them on the stone stage of the amphitheater, with the helmet.

I breathed more easily. I was confident now I would have my bet placed before the draw. If Scormus should draw yellow, and I were to place my bet after this fact was generally known, I would stand to win almost nothing, even should I wager a good deal.

"Hurry!" called a man. "Hurry!"

The two parties of men had now, from opposite sides, entered the amphitheater.

"A silver tarsk on Scormus of Ar," said the man from Cos, who stood now at the table.

"They will be raising the standard of Ar or Cos any moment!" cried a man.

In moments I was two men from the table. Then there was only one man before me. "Next," called the odds merchant.

I stood before the table.

"Fourteen to one favoring the champion of Ar," he said.

"Fourteen hundred tans of gold," said I, "on Ar's champion."

"Who are you?" asked the odds merchant. "Are you mad?'

"I am Bosk," I said, "of Port Kar."

"Done," said he, "Captain!"

I signed his sheet with the sign of the bosk.

"Look!" cried a man. "Look!"

Above the amphitheater, on its rim, a man lifted the standard of Ar.

I stepped aside. There was much shouting. Men of Ar in the crowd embraced one another. Then, beside he who bore the standard of Ar, there stood one in the garb of the players, the red and yellow checkered robe, and the checkered cap, with the board and pieces slung over his shoulder, like a warrior's accouterments. He lifted his hand. "It is Scormus!" they cried. "It is Scormus!" The ysrnng man then lifted the standard of Ar himself.

Men of Ar wept. Then the young man returned the standard to him who had first carried it to the amphitheater's rim and withdrew from sight.

There was much cheering.

Next," said the odds merchant.

The next man then stood before the table.

"Thirty-six to one, favoring the champion of Ar," he said.

The man groaned.

I grinned, and left the vicinity of the tables. I would have preferred to have had better odds, but I had managed to place my bet before they had more than doubled against poor Centius of Cos. I stood now to win a hundred golden tans. I was in a good mood.

I turned my steps toward the main market. I would look at the goods on the long wooden platforms. Perhaps I would buy a girl for the night and sell her in the morning.

In a few minutes I saw the silken summit of the gigantic sales pavilion, its pennons fluttering, its blue and yellow silk billowing in the wind.

I saw male slaves thrusting a cart filled with quarry stones. It left deep tracks in the rain-softened earth.

I smelled verr, closed in shallow pens, more than a pasang away. The air was clear and sparkling.

I came to the great sales pavilion, but it was now roped off and quiet. There was much activity, and bustle, however, among the platforms. Here and there slaves were being thrown food.

I mingled with the crowds among the platforms. There are hundreds of such platforms, long, raised about a foot from the ground, far more than one could easily examine in a day's browsing. They are rented to individual slavers, who, reserving them before the fairs, would rent one or more, or several, depending on their riches and the numbers of their stock. Small signs fixed on the platforms identify the flesh merchant, such as 'These are the girls of Sorb of Turia' or 'These slaves are owned by Tenalion of Ar'.

I penetrated more deeply among the platforms. A girl, kneeling and naked, heavily chained, extended her hands to me. "Buy me, Master!" she begged. Then I had passed her and she was behind me. I saw two girls standing, back to back, the left wrist of each chained to the right wrist of the other. "Handsome master, consider me!" cried a girl as I passed her. Most of the girls knelt or sat on the platforms. All were secured in some fashion.

"Scandalous," said a free woman, to another free woman, who was passing near me.

"Yes," said the other free woman.

"Candies! Candies!" called a hawker of sweets near me in the crowd. "Candies of Ar!"

"Buy this candy of Ar, Master!" laughed a chained girl to me. I roughly fondled her head, and she seized my wrist suddenly in her chained hands and desperately began to press kisses upon it. "Please," she wept. "Please!" "No," I said. I pulled my wrist away and continued on. She sobbed, and knelt back in her chains.

"I will make you a superb love slave," called another girl to me. I did not respond to her.

On a rounded wooden block a naked slave girl knelt, her wrists braceleted behind her. Her head was back. One of the physicians was cleaning her teeth.

By another platform a slaver's man was moving along the platform. He carried a large, handled copper tureen filled with a watery soup. The slaver's beauties, chained together by the neck, knelt at the edge of the platform. Each dipped her cupped hands twice into the tureen, and lifted them, drinking and feeding, to her mouth. They then licked and sucked their fingers and wiped their hands on their bodies.

Sales take place at night in the pavillion, from a sawdust-strewn block, under the light of torches, but girls may also be sold directly from the platforms. Indeed, many girls are sold from the platforms. Given the number of girls at the fair, and the fact that new ones are constantly being brought to the platforms, it is impractical to hope to market them all from the block. It is just not feasible. At the end of every fair there are always some hundreds of girls left unsold. These are usually sold in groups at wholesale prices In sales restricted to professional slavers, who will transport them to other markets, to dispose of them there.

"Do you think you could make me kneel to you?" asked a girl sitting on a platform, with chained neck and ankles, her knees drawn up, chewing on a larma fruit. She smiled at me, over the fruit, Then she turned white. "Forgive me, Master!" she cried. She had seen my eyes. She knelt before me on the boards, trembling, her head down. Would she be permitted to live? The fruit lay discarded beside her. I took the fruit and bit into it. I watched her for a time, and then I said, "Lift your head." She did so. I threw the fruit back to her, and she, fearfully, caught it. She held it In her bands, looking at me. "Finish it," I said, "and then, for an Ahn, lie on your belly." "Yes, Master," she said.

I looked up, beyond the crowds and platforms. From where I stood I could see the great palisade, and the black, snow-capped mountains of the Sardar.

I moved on, pushing past a man who was examining the legs of a slave girl, feeling them. He was considering her purchase.

"Where are the new slaves?" asked one man of another.

"They are on the western platforms," said the respondent. Those platforms are commonly used for processing and organization. Girls are not often sold from them. They wait there, usually, when they are brought in, before they are conducted to their proper platforms, those on which they will be displayed, those having been rented in advance by their masters.

Since I had time to spare I took my way to the western platforms. If something good might be found there perhaps I could find on which platform she was to be vended, and might then arrange to be at that platform when she arrived. As soon as the locks snap shut on a girl's chain at the platform she is available to be bid upon. Perhaps I would find something good.

I was soon at the western platforms.

It is easy to tell among girls which are familiar with their condition and which are not. Once a girl truly understands that she is a slave, and that there is no escape for her, once she understands it truly, emotionally, categorically, intellectually, physiologically, totally, deeply, profoundly, in every cell in her beautiful body, a fantastic transformation occurs in her. She then knows she is truly a slave. She then becomes wild, and free, and sexual, and cares not that he might be scorned by the free either for her miserable condition or helpless appetites; she knows she will be what she must; she has no choice; she is slave. Women, in their heart, long to submit; this is necessary for the slave girl; she must submit or die; submitted, she is thrilled to the core; she lives then for love and service, bound to the will of her master. The joy of the slave girl may seem incomprehensible to the free but it is a reality.

I heard the lamentations of girls in chains.

It must be clearly understood that the life of the slave girl, of course, can often be far from joyful.

After all, she is slave. Her wills mean nothing.

She can be bought and sold.

She is subject to the whip, and torture and even death should the master please.

She does not know who will buy her.

Her condition is objectively degrading.

Often she must labor with perfection to please a harsh master to whom she is nothing.

The glory of the slave girl is that she is a slave; and the misery of the slave girl is that she is a slave.

But all in all chains are right for a woman. They belong in them.

I looked at some of the new platforms. I could easily detect girls who were fresh to the collar. They were clumsy and tight, not yet liberated and free, not yet women.

Even as I walked about the new platforms wagons, drawn by draft tharlarion, waited to unload their lovely wares. The markets of the Sardar fairs are large and important ones in the Gorean economy. Most of the wagons were common slave wagons, with a parallel bar running down the center of the wagon box, about which the ankles of the girls were chained; others, however, were flat wagons fixed with an iron framework; two lines of girls kneel back to hack on such a wagon, their ankles and necks locked into the framework; on the flat wagons I saw the wrists of the beauties were braceleted behind them.

I inspected more of the new platforms.

It is painful for a girl to be locked in the framework of a flat wagon but, of course, she is well displayed enroute.