“Perhaps an occasional silk slave, to delight a free woman,” I said.

“Mostly women,” she said.

“Almost always,” I said.

“They sell better,” she said.

“Of course,” I said. “They are the most fitting, appropriate, and natural form of such merchandise.”

“‘Merchandise’?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Goods?”

“Of course.”

“They view us as animals, as cattle,” she said.

“There is nothing personal in it, or usually not,” I said. “To be sure, one might take a particular female who has displeased one, in one fashion or another, and have her brought to Gor, to keep her, or see her sold off to the highest bidder, that sort of thing.”

“As cattle!” she said.

“No,” I said, “as less, as females.”

“It seems I have an identity, and a value,” she said.

“Certainly,” I said.

“But I was not brought to the Prison Moon by him, or by one such as he,” she said.

“No,” I said. “But do not be distressed, for he assured you that you would have been well worthy of selection and transportation, that you were exactly the sort of goods which would have been well enclosed, so to speak, in one of the capsules.”

I had found myself, months ago, imprisoned in a container on the Prison Moon, sharing the container with two individuals, a young Englishwoman, Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym, and a lovely Kur Pet, who had later come to be the Lady Bina. These were both free women and I, who had seemingly displeased Priest-Kings had been, apparently, enclosed with them as an insidious punishment, that, sooner or later, as I weakened, becoming more bitter, frustrated, outraged, and needful, my honor would be compromised, or lost. And, after that, I do not know what fate they might have planned for me, perhaps a hideous death, perhaps a wandering life of exile, beggary, and shame. One does not know. Both were, at the time, though without Home Stones, yet free women, you see, and thus, given the nobility of their status, not to be lightly put to one’s pleasure, certainly not without suitable provocation.