They do not sell well. The intelligent woman is quick to understand what has become of her, that she is now a slave, and must obey instantly and with perfection. It is almost never necessary to beat her, though she understands it will be done to her, and routinely, if she is not fully pleasing to her master. Too, interestingly, the intelligent woman is likely to be much more in touch with her deepest self, her needs, her profound wants and heart, than a stupid woman. The stupid woman often struggles to be what she was told she was, or should be; seldom, in the beginning, does she, the victim and dupe of a mechanistic conditioning program, its unquestioning puppet, dare to open herself to the liberating revelation and discovery of what she truly is. She often strives to perpetrate an externally imposed stereotype rather than acknowledge a reality, often preferring to ignore nature in favor of convention and artifice, often preferring lies to truth, slogans to history, clichés to biology, and ideologies to blood. Who is it who deems reality unlawful? Those who somehow profit from its denial? Why should it be incumbent on a particular form of life to betray itself? We do not ask that of the kaiila or sleen. Who could benefit from the denial of nature but the unnatural, the fearers of nature? To be sure, all, sooner or later, learn their womanhood. The major difference is that the highly intelligent woman of the Polluted World has often arrived on Gor with, so to speak, a collar already on her neck. She wants to be a woman, to be owned, to be at the mercy of men, to be her master’s slave.
“Are not barbarians frigid?” he asked.
“Not at all,” I said. “Touch one, and see her squirm, and beg.”
“I suppose it might be nice to have one or another in one’s pleasure garden,” he said.
“I suppose,” I said, “but I have heard they also make nice private slaves, as well. It is said they are commonly devoted.”
“One must beware of caring for a slave,” he said.
“Of course,” I said. How preposterous was such a notion!
“You seem to know something of barbarians,” he said. “How is that possible?”
“I have heard things,” I said.
“I would prefer a Gorean girl,” he said.
“Asperiche?” I asked.
“She might do,” he said. “In any event,” he said, “we have located our spies.”
I glanced to the river, where the prisoners, each bearing two leather sacks of water, dangling from the ends of a curved-branch yoke on their shoulders, were climbing up toward the camp from the river bank. Donna, with her switch, was supervising them.
“For all the good it does us,” I said. “We have been forbidden to leave the camp.”
“They seem to have an interest in them, as well,” said Axel. “I am not sure what it is. It may not be easy to bring them back to Shipcamp.”
“It seems our friends might object,” I admitted.
“Too, it would be difficult to move them,” he said, “as they are close-shackled.”
“A woman’s ankles look well,” I said, “shackled.”
“To be sure,” he said, “but it is difficult, in the light of such impediments, to move prisoners rapidly.”
“The key must be somewhere in the camp,” I said.
“Be at your ease,” he said. “Consider Tiomines.”
“Quite,” I said. The massive brute lay curled about itself, sleeping. Axel could have reached out and touched him. Sometimes sleen can be not only affectionate, but possessive. I suspected it would be worth someone’s life to attack Axel, if Tiomines were about. To be sure, I was not within the shield of those claws and fangs. I wondered if our relative freedom, and even our lives, might not have something to do with the presence of Tiomines, who was not only dangerous, but, happily, valuable.
“Tula is a good cook,” said Axel. “Is Asperiche better?”
“I would suppose not,” I said. “But one can always buy them some instruction.”
“One does not buy a slave for cooking,” said Axel, “but for the furs.”
“Of course,” I said.
“What do you think of the prisoners?” he asked.
“As females?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “They are women, what else?”
“Emerald,” I said, “would sell well, and it is easy to think of Hiza being turned on the block. I do not think Darla and Tuza would do as well.”
“Perhaps not,” said Axel, “but all women have possibilities. Nature has seen to it. Put them in a collar and see what happens.”