Dancer of Gor

"Some are honest fellows," I said, "caught, impressed into labor." "Such things are not done," said the girl before me.

"You are mistaken," I told her.

"There are many ways," said the girl behind me. "Some times lure girls are used." Then she said, "Perhaps Tuka knows about that."

I was silent.

"You are very pretty, Tuka," said the girl behind me.

I was silent.

"You are probably pretty enough to be a lure girl," she added.

I was silent.

"I would not wish to be a lure girl who came within their reach," she remarked. "I might be torn to pieces. It would doubtless be far worse, of course, if I were the actual girl who had been involved in their capture."

I shuddered.

"What is wrong, Tuka?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said.

"I suppose that these fellows out here, with the digging, the labor and the whip, have little to live for," she remarked, "except perhaps vengeance." I trembled in the chains.

"Do not be frightened, Tuka," she said. "You have nothing to fear, for you were surely never a lure girl."

Over the fence, in the distance, I could see the walls of a city. I had been told it was Ve

"Master!" I called to the guard. "Master, may I speak?"

"What do you want?" he asked, walking beside me now, coiling the whip. "Is that Ve

"Yes," said he.

I was confused.

"I have been sold to a chain of Ionicus," I said.

"Yes?" he said.

When I had learned, days ago, outside Argentum, that I had been sold to a chain of Ionicus, I had almost collapsed in fear. "Which chain, Masters?" I had begged. "Which chain? Please, Masters, which chain?" But my importunities had earned me then only a cuffing. It had not been until they were loading me, and four of the other girls, each of us tied within a tall, narrow leather sack, our heads exposed, the sack locked shut beneath our chins, into the cargo net, to be slung beneath a draft tarn, that I found out my specific information pertinent to my fate. "Whither are we bound, Master?" I had asked of the fellow who would fly the lead tarn, the others in a roped coffle behind him. "To the loading docks of Aristodemus," he had said, "outside the defense perimeter of Ve

I looked about myself, and back, at the long chain of me. Some of them were still looking after our coffle. I was frightened. "What chain is this, Master?" I asked.

"It is the black chain," he said.

I cried out in fear.

"What is wrong?" he gri

"The black chain," I said, "is at Torcadino. It is at Torcadino!" "It was at Torcadino," he said. "It is not there any longer. It was moved. It is here, now, at Ve

I reeled in the chains. Things seemed suddenly to move about me, dizzily, and blackness seemed to leap about me. The chain pulling at the collar ring, in front, kept me moving.

"The siegeworks at Torcadino," he said, "or most of the heavy work there, at any rate, was completed months ago."

I felt sick, but I must move in the chains.

"Perhaps you are the slut Tuka," said the guard.

I looked at him, in misery. He had heard my name. I still bore the name which had been put on me by former master, Tyrrhenius of Argentum. It had been kept on me. I now, frightened, began to suspect why.

He looked at me.

"Yes, Master," I said. "I am the slut Tuka."

"I thought so," he said. "You have many friends on the chain."

"Protect me," I begged. "Protect me!"

"Perhaps," he smiled.

"I will serve you as abjectly as the lowest slut on Gor," I wept.

"You must so serve anyway," he laughed. "You are a slave."

"Yes, Master," I moaned.

"The guards have heard that you were an excellent lure girl," he said. "They suspect, thusly, that you might be rather good. They are looking forward to trying you out."

"Yes, Master," I said. I would try to serve with perfection.

We were now ascending the rise toward the square tent, the overseer" s tent. Behind it, and to the left, at the foot of the hill, on the low ground, in a soft area, were the pens for the female work slaves. I could see a corner of them as we climbed the hill.

"I was told, Master," I said, "that I was sold to my master, Ionicus, for five silver tarsks and a tarsk bit."

"I have heard that," he said.

"Is that not a high price to pay for a female work slave?" I asked. "It would be quite high, under normal circumstances, for a normal work slave," he said, amused. "But my employer, Ionicus, enjoys a good joke. He is the sort of man who will pay high, to be amused."

I see," I whispered.

"Stop here," he called to the coffle. We had now ascended the rise, and were on a flat, open space, before the tent.

"This, ladies," said he, "is the tent of the overseer. Much may depend on how you please him."

Murmurs of fear coursed through the chain.

"You will be removed from the coffle, and taken before him, one by one," he said. "It is my advice that you open your tunics."

One by one, begi