is the stirring of fog, into which the road leads. Do not all roads lead into the fog? When the wind rises and the fog dissipates, one is not unoften surprised at the country within which one finds oneself.
My purse was heavy enough, early, at any rate. Why did its weight not content me?
The venture had been productive. Each capsule had been filled. Why did I not book passage for Daphne, where the spring rendezvous was to take place? The gray sky ship does not linger long, even in that remote place. Whence came the craftsmen, I wondered, who might have fashioned such a ship. It was said there were islands in the night, even beyond the moons.
I thought of another world, wondering why fools would hasten its ruin, scorning and defiling it, contaminating its soil and darkening its skies, polluting its seas and poisoning its air, felling its forests and gouging its surface. Do they hate it so? If not, why do they neglect and injure it? Have they another world at hand, a secret one, better and more convenient? Would they not insult and despoil it, as well? What is so terrible about trees and grass, white clouds and blue skies? Perhaps they do not care for such things. Perhaps they want a world such as they have made theirs, one crowded and smoky, odorous, and filthy. Perhaps they desire such a world, and deserve it.
It is good to be again on Gor.
The sky ships pay well.
Too, we are often given our pick of the stock.
It is not unusual for a fellow to reserve to himself a particular item, usually on a temporary basis, usually one he may have found arrogant or annoying, that he may have the pleasure of introducing her to the collar. A few days later, she, now well apprised of her bondage, may be led, back-braceleted, hooded, and leashed, sobbing, begging to be kept, to the market. I was thinking of reserving to myself, temporarily, one who had been meticulously, expensively, overbearingly, and pretentiously dressed, as is sometimes the case with slave stock, who had presented herself as aloof, superior, haughty, and frigid, but I did not do so. They are quick enough, at one’s feet, incidentally, to beg a strip of cloth, a rag. I was actually puzzled about her, for when I had initially noticed her she had been quite different, modestly and tastefully garbed, given the season, in a simple sweater, blouse, and skirt, diffident and needful, muchly aware of her sex and perhaps slightly fearing it, aware of how she might appear to men, as a woman suitable to be appropriated, exquisitely female, clearly waiting and ready. Our eyes had met, and it had not been difficult to see her, standing there, startled and apprehensive, as the slave she was, though not yet in the encircling band, locked on her throat. I had half expected her to kneel, and bow her head.
She was not strikingly, even startlingly, beautiful, like many of the women we bring to Gor, but there was something, at least to me, arresting about her. Certainly my colleagues had agreed. She was, in her way, an excellent choice for a Gorean block.
I recalled her.
She was the sort of woman whom it is difficult to think of, save as barefoot, in a slave tunic.
Clearly, some women belong in such, a particularly revealing tunic, which makes it clear to the occupant and the observer, casual or otherwise, precisely what she is, and only is.
I wanted to get her out of my mind.
Why then did I occasionally visit the capsule chamber, and regard her, in her capsule, naked and sedated, the identificatory steel anklet, inscribed with its legend, locked on her left ankle? It is commonly removed before they are revived. Two hoses enter the capsule, one at the head, one at the feet, the first to supply oxygen, the second to withdraw carbon dioxide.
I often, to my annoyance, thought of her. I tried to dismiss her from my mind, but it was not easy to do.
Surely she was not that beautiful.
Or was she?
I remembered her.
Why her?
There are so many, and one puts the lash to them, as needed. It would be the same with her, if she dared to be displeasing. She had doubtless felt it in her training. Thereafter they are muchly concerned to please.
Paga was of little assistance, or the belled sluts of the taverns. The turning wheels and the cards, the dice tumbling on the felt,