concerning which murders might be done, and wars fought. Here, as we were not free, it was little more in our case than a procedure or device to improve slave stock. I wondered what would be the case if a woman, say one of my world, had a choice in such matters. Certainly I knew what the political and ideological prescriptions would be on my old world. She would be expected to prefer decrepitude, withering, aging, and death to a collar on her neck, and a master in whose arms she would be no more than a begging, enraptured chattel. Let other women see these things as they will. Let them make what choice they would. I had had no choice. It was put on my neck. But it belonged there. I had known since puberty, even before I knew of collars, that one belonged on my neck. And when I learned of collars, stunned, startled, and almost fainting, almost losing consciousness, in my junior year in high school, that there should even be such things, I knew that I belonged in one, and wanted one. I wanted to love and serve, selflessly and choicelessly, to belong, to be owned, to be possessed, to be subject to the rope and chain, to be subject to the whip, to be mastered. I wanted to be a slave at my master’s feet! How such thoughts tormented me! How I tried to fight them, and thrust them from me! How terrible I must be! Could I be so degraded a creature? Surely I was alone, terribly alone. Surely I was utterly different from tens of millions of other women? I must fight myself. I must not be myself, but another self, an external, dissatisfying, foreign self demanded of me! How I struggled to fulfill stereotypes alien to my deepest heart, to accept values which were not my own, to comply with rules and commands which would deny me to myself! Then I had found myself lying on a warehouse floor, with others, naked, bound hand and foot. Then a fellow’s foot had turned me over, and I looked up at him, bound, helpless at his feet. I was to be taken to the markets of Gor.
I kept my eyes down.
Well was I aware of the position in which I knelt.
I was uneasy.
I could not help how I felt. I feared my belly had become the belly of a slave.
The leader, with some of his men, was now by the four prone prisoners.
“Remove their necklaces, the armlets, bracelets, and such,” said the leader, “all ornaments.”
Some of the armlets and bracelets, I was sure, were of gold.
Then, at another word from the leader, the hands of the prisoners were pulled behind their back, and their wrists were laced together. So slender a bond would hold them helpless, as it would me. A man, I was confident, might have torn apart such a feeble restraint. Was this, I wondered, a mere convenience, such lacing being at hand, or was it intended to be informative, as well, reminding the proud Panther Women that they, too, were women.
“No, please, no!” whimpered Tuza, as her skins were cut away. Darla needed not be subjected to this attention, of course, as she had been similarly served, following Tuza’s victorious usurpation of leadership. Then the knife continued its rude work and Emerald and Hiza lay at men’s feet, no different from other free women, perhaps more refined, gentler creatures, who might, say, have been driven from sacked, burning cities, snared on bridges by soaring tarnsmen, netted on outings, lured into taverns, seized from caravans, gagged and abducted in darkness from inns, taken in raids on the baths.
“Neck-rope them,” said the leader.
“We will need rope,” said a fellow.
“It is at hand,” said the leader, nodding toward us with his head.
In a moment, Tula, Mila, and I had been freed of the neck rope, which had for so long held us together, like tied kaiila.
Freed of the rope I was suddenly excited and elated. What now might prevent my escape? I must strive mightily not to convey the least inkling of the ferment within me. I continued to kneel, docilely, though my heart was pounding, and my blood racing. How stupid they were! They did not know, of course, that I was from Earth. Put my knees apart, would they! I was not within walls, I was not chained. Few were about; the forest was dark, and wide. It would be easier to