"I am less easy to please than Krobus," he said. "Yes, Master," she said, and then turned and fled, swiftly, from the room.

"She is a pretty thing," I said.

Samos ran his tongue over his lips. "Yes," he said.

"I think you like her," I said.

"Nonsense," he said. "She is only a slave."

"Perhaps Samos has found a love slave," I said.

"An Earth girl?" laughed Samos.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Preposterous," said Samos. "She is only a slave, only a thing to serve, and to beat and abuse, if it should please me."

"But is not any slave," I asked, "even a love slave?"

"That is true," said Samos, smiling. Gorean men are not easy with their slaves, even those for whom they care deeply.

"I think Samos, first slaver of Port Kar, first captain of the council of captains, has grown fond of a blond Earth girl."

Samos looked at me, angrily. Then he shrugged. "She is the first girl I have felt in this fashion toward," he said. "It is interesting. It is a strange feeling."

"I note that you did not sell her," I said.

"Perhaps I shall," he said.

"I see," I said.

"The first time, even, that I took her in my arms," said Samos, "she was in some way piteously helpless, different even from the others."

"Is not any slave piteously helpless in the arms of her master?" I asked.

"Yes," said Samos. "But she seemed somehow different, incredibly so, vulnerably so."

"Perhaps she knew herself, in your touch, as her love master," I said.

"She felt good in my hands," he said.

"Be strong, Samos," I smiled.

"I shall," he said.

I did not doubt his word. Samos was one of the hardest of Gorean men. The blond Earth girl had found a strong, uncompromising master.

"But let us not speak of slaves," I said, "girls who serve for our diversion or recreation, but of serious matters, of the concerns of men."