Players of Gor (28 page)

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not yet been sold. A white "holding disk" was wired to her collar. Some of the collars which had held women near her earlier were empty.

"You!" she had said, earlier, around noon, when I had first seen her there.

"You remember me?" I had said.

"A girl never forgets the first man who puts the whip to her," she had smiled.

"How are the sales going?" I had asked her.

"I do not really know, Master," she had said, "as we are kept in separate slave boxes, and are usually brought forth only to be exercised or exhibited. I myself was first put on display only this morning."

"I have seen some empty collars about, on the other platforms," I said.

"Perhaps the sales, then, are going well," she said. "I dare not turn my head to look. One girl was beaten fearfully for that, only an Ahn ago."

The matter of the empty collars was not an easy one to interpret. If there are no empty collars then customers may think that no one else in interested in the merchandise, perhaps that something might be wrong with it, and then go elsewhere. If there are only y a few girls left, and many empty collars, they may get the impression, perhaps mistakenly, that nothing much of interest is likely to be left. The ideal impression to convey to the customer is perhaps that you have marvelous merchandise for sale, that even now many people are interested and buying, that it is moving fast, and that if he sees a girl he wants, perhaps he should snatch her up before someone else does. If you see a female locked in her platform collar, with its chain, of course, and in a while you see the collar empty, it is not irrational to suppose that she has been sold. Sometimes a woman who has been sold is not immediately removed from the platform but only, in one way or another, marked "Sold." There are several ways in which this can be done. For example, she may be placed in a white hood bearing the word "Sold" in red letters, a red tag, bearing the inscription, "Sold," may be wired to her collar, or the word "Sold" may be simply written in grease pencil on her body, usually, by convention, on her left breast.

"I think the sales are not going as well as they might," I said.

"Master?" she asked, frightened.

"You were put out only this morning," I said. "That suggests that the goods are not moving as rapidly as they might. Too, it is my impression, from what I have seen here and elsewhere, that

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there is an unusual amount of high-quality merchandise available this spring. I suspect that many of the lots, even large lots, literal bevies of luscious slaves, chained together forty or fifty in a lot, may end up being simply purchased by slavers at rock-bottom prices, for purposes of later speculation."

She groaned. "I am afraid the masters will be displeased," she said.

Her apprehension was understandable. She was a slave.

"Are you interested in this slave?" asked one of the men on the platform, coming over, his whip in hand. I did not think he was of the house of Samos. I did not, at any rate, know him. He was probably a slaver's agent, licensed for work at the fair. There are many fellows who, seasonally, do this work. At other times they normally work in slaver's houses. He may, of course, have been one of the fellows on the fairs' permanent staff. there are four such fairs, administered by the merchants, held annually in the vicinity of the Sardar, those of En'Kara, En'Var, Se'Kara and Se'Var. The girl was immediately very still, and very quiet, on all fours.

"I think I can find a buyer for her," I said.

"Who?" he asked.

"Come now," I said. "Let us not be naive."

"Do you want a commission?" he asked. "We are very careful about that sort of business."

"No," I said.

"Ah," he said, pleased. What he feared, of course, particularly since he did not know me, is the trick of two friends cooperating in the purchase of a slave. One attempts to obtain a finder's commission from the merchant which he then, of course, turns back to his friend, the buyer. In this way, the salve is purchased more cheaply. AS it was, since I was not bargaining for a commission w2ith him, he presumably supposed that I would obtain a finder's fee from the buyer. Some people actually make their living in this way, acting as buying agents, providing services such as locating rare slaves for collectors and filling the "want lists" of rich men.

"I would appreciate it, however," I said, "if you would put a 'hold' on her until, say, the eighteenth Ahn."

"Impossible," he said. "Look at her. See the curves, the lines." He tapped her with the whip. "Superb slave meat."

"I cannot get the buyer here until then," I said.

"Ten copper tarsks, to hold her until then," he said.

"Absurd," I said.

"It is refundable," he said.

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"Under what conditions?" I asked.

"That you bring your buyer to the platform before the eighteenth Ahn," he said.

"What if he doesn't want her?" I asked. Actually, I was pretty confident he would want her.

"I will not hold you responsible for that," he said. "I will still give you back your tarsks."

"Good," I said. I then gave him the ten copper tarsks. His reasonableness in this matter, I suspect, was due at least in part to the slowness of the market. Indeed, some of the girls in the market, I suspected, would go for as little as that same ten copper tarsks.

"Hold still, Girl," said the man to the girl. I watched him while he, crouching down beside her, wired a circular, white tag, a holding disk, to her collar. He had placed his whip behind her. Some men place the whip where the slave can see it, noting its heavy-leather blades or coils, that she may understand its menace. Others, like this fellow, place the whip behind her, where she does not know precisely where it is, but knows very well that it is there. The second placement is perhaps, generally somewhat more to be dreaded by the female. There are no hard-and-fast rules in this sort of thing. Much can depend on the girl, on her intelligence and imagination, on the stage of her training, on the specific occasion in question, and so on. Sometimes it is desirable to have the female look very closely and clearly on the whip and, at other times, it is better for her merely to understand that it is in her immediate vicinity, somewhere, and that she may not, now, turn about to determine its specific location.

The tag on its wire now dangled some four inches below her collar. It had been one of several such tags in a small bag hooked to his belt. It had an inked "Eighteen" on it. Some of the white tags were blank, and might be written on. The red tags carry the inscription "sold." A black tag is sometimes used to indicate that a girl is ill. A yellow tag sometimes indicates that a girl is not to be sold without prior consultation with the slaver. Tags are sometimes, too, used to indicate distinctions among slaves, at least among slavers themselves, being correlated to the classes or grades of slaves. For example, a brown tag commonly signifies a low slave, such as a mere kettle-and-mat girl or a pot girl, little more than female work slaves, and so on, whereas a gold tag commonly signifies a much higher grade of slave, usually a trained pleasure slave or a dancer. There is, however, to be perfectly honest, no absolutely uniform color coding in these

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matters. different houses have their own conventions. It is unusual, incidentally, for a woman to be tagged in a regular market, except in so far as she might be marked "Sold" or have a "Hold" put on her. It is not hard in a Gorean market, for example, where the women are usually stripped, or will be stripped for they buyer's inspection, to see who is most beautiful or interesting. Too, of course, women in such a market can be literally made to display their beauty and pose and perform in various ways for the viewers. This, too, makes it easier to make choices amongst them.

One form of tagging is fairly common, however, during sales, and that is tagging during auctions, or in preparation for large sales, as when the girls are in exhibition cages, before being brought, usually serially, later, before the public. This form of tagging is the sales disk. It bears the girl's lot number on it. It is usually wired to her collar. This provides not only the seller with a convenience, helping to make certain his records remain clear, but it can be h elpful to the buyer also, who may then, presumably already having established his interests, perhaps in virtue of commands earlier addressed to the lovely chattels in the exhibition cages, simply bid by number.

I regarded the girl. She was quite beautiful, in all fours on the platform, the short chain on her neck descending to its ring in the heavy planks. There was a white disk dangling from her collar. She would be held until the eighteenth Ahn. The slaver's man was now again on h is feet. He had retrieved his whip.

I turned away.

"I know wear a holding tag, Master," she said to the slaver's man. "May I break position?"

I heard the lash fall upon her. "Forgive me, Master!" she cried.

How stupid her question had been. Did she not know that the prospective buyer might not prove to be interested in her, and that she might in the meantime, by lax postures or attitudes, be discouraging other occurrences of interest; too, what of the other slaves and the aesthetic integrity of the display line; too, the prospective buyer might appear earlier than was anticipated. Too, did she think her discipline would be relaxed because someone might be interested in her? No! It would be trebled!

"Ah!" had cried Boots, later, about the seventeenth Ahn, when he had first seen her. "But wait! She wears a holding disk!"

"Do not fear," I had said, "It is for your inspection that she is being held."

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"Oh?" said Boots.

"I arranged it," I said.

"Let us take a look at her," said Boots.

In the end Boots got her for two silver tarsks. This is a high price for an untrained slave but, to be sure, all things considered, she was an excellent buy. Too, she seemed ideal for Boots's purposes. She would doubtless make a splendid "golden courtesan" and, after performances, there was little doubt but what she would prove popular in the sex tents. Too, getting her for two silver tarsks, though perhaps somewhat more than Boots cared to pay, left him a full three silver tarsks, the residue of his profit from the sale of the Brigella. Three silver tarsks would surely tide him over, and his company, until the next performances, presumably to take place somewhere other than on the fairgrounds.

"I do not know what I shall do without my Brigella," moaned Boots, preparing to pay the slaver's man.

"Look at it this way," I said. "You are at least getting a golden courtesan."

"There are more Brigella roles," said Boots.

"Well, this girl is not a Brigella," I said.

"True," lamented Boots.

"Perhaps you should not have sold your Brigella," I said.

"I needed the money," said Boots.

"Two silver tarsks," said the slaver's man.

"The price is steep," said Boots. "Could we not reconsider the matter?"

"Two silver tarsks," said the man.

"Would you care to make it double or nothing, on the basis of some wager of your choosing, such as in cups and pebbles?" he asked.

"Two," said the man.

"I have the cups and a pebble, by some stroke of luck, in my wallet," said Boots.

"Two," said the fellow. This game, like many such games, of various types, involves guessing. Small, inverted metal cups are used. A coin, pebble, or small object is supposedly placed beneath one of the cups. They are then moved about, rapidly. The odds are with the "house," so to speak, particularly if the coin or pebble is not placed under one of the cups. I was already familiar with Boots's skill in slight-of-hand manipulations from Port Kar. "Two," repeated the man. Boots then paid him. The slaver's man, of course, was well pleased with the sale. It was a good price, and it was a particularly good one for a slow market.

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I had no difficulty in recovering m ten copper t5arsks, put down to hold the girl for Boots's later inspection.

"Are you pleased with your buy?" I asked Boots later, when we were leaving the market, the girl following behind us, heeling us, her wrists tied behind her back with a string.

"She was pretty expensive," said Boots.

"But you are pleased, are you not?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Are you grateful?" I asked.

"Eternally, undyingly," he assured me.

"Perhaps you would consider granting me a favor," I said.

"Just ask," he said.

"I would like to join your troupe," I said.

"No," he said.

"I thought you just said to 'just ask'," I said.

"You are correct," said Boots. "That is exactly what I had in mine, that you should just ask, only that, and nothing more. Now, where are my wagons?"

"You are a hard man," I said.

"Yes," he said, "I am a grim fellow. But one does not attain my heights by being soft."

"Your wagons are in that direction," I informed him.

"Thank you," he said.

"You will not reconsider?" I asked.