When he was finished he mixed several powders in three or four goblets, adding water to them and stirring them. These I was ordered to drink. The last was peculiarly foul.
"She requires the Stabilization Serums," said the physician.
The guard nodded.
"They are administered in four shots," said the physician. He nodded to a heavy, beamed, diagonal platform in a corner of the room. The guard took me and threw me, belly down, on the platform, fastening my wrists over my head and widely apart, in leather wrist straps. He similarly secured my ankles. the physician was busying himself with fluids and a syringe before a shelf in another part of the room, laden with vials. I screamed. The shot was painful. It was entered in the small of my back, over the left hip.
They left me secured to the table for several minutes and then the physician returned to check the shot. There had been, apparently, no unusual reaction. I was then freed.
"Dress," the physician told me.
I gratefully donned the camisk, fastening it tightly about my waist with the double loop of binding fiber.
I wanted to speak to the physician desperately. In his house, in this room, I had seem instrumentation which spoke to me of an advanced technology, so different from what I had hitherto encountered in what seemed to me a primitive, beautiful, harsh world. The guard, with the side of the butt of his spear, pressed against my back, and I was thrust from the room. I looked over my shoulder at the physician. He regarded me, puzzled.
Outside the other four girls and their guard were waiting. I was leashed, given a burden, and, together, we all returned to Targo's compound.
I thought I saw a small man, garbed in black, watching us, but I was not sure. We returned, similarly, to the physicians house on the next four days. On the first day I had been examined, given some minor medicines of little consequence, and the first shot in the Stabilization Series. On the second, third and fourth day I received the concluding shots of the series. On the fifth day the physician took more samples.
"The serums are effective," he told the guard.
"Good," said the guard.
On the second day, after the shot, I had tried to speak to the physician, in spite of the guard, to beg him for information.
The guard did not beat me but he slapped me twice, bringing blood to my mouth. Then I was gagged.
Later, outside, the guard looked at me, amused.
I stood facing him, head down, gagged.
"Do you wish to wear your gag home to the compound?" he asked. I shook my head vigorously, No. If I did wear it back Targo would surely inquire, and I would doubtless be beaten. I had seem him, once or twice, tell a girl to ask a guard to beat her. The girl is then strung up by the wrists. And the guard uses not the handful of leather strap with which Lana, only with her woman's strength, had struck me, but the five-strap Gorean slave whip, wielded with the full, terrible strength of a man. I had no desire to feel it. I would be compliant, swift to obey and be pleasing in all things. No, I shook my head, no!
"Does the little slave beg her guard's forgiveness?" he asked, teasing me. I nodded vigorously. Yes. It was hard to be a slave girl. Men tease you, but, in an instant they may change, and their eyes grow hard. You must be careful what you say, what you do. They hold the power of the whip. I knelt to him, putting my head down to his feet. Then, as I had seen Lana do once, I gently took his leg in my hands and put my cheek, head down, against the side of his leg. "All right," he said.
He untied the gag. I looked up at him, gratefully, my hands at his hips, as I had seen Lana do.
He suddenly seized me by the arms and lifted me to face him.
Suddenly, with terror, I realized I was going to be raped.
"Ho!" said a voice, that of the other guard. "It is time to return to the compound."
Angrily, my guard released me and I staggered back.
"She is white silk!" said the other guard, laughing uproariously.
The other girls, leashed behind him, were laughing.
My guard, however, with a great laugh, seized me and, like a naughty child, threw me across his knee. He then beat me, soundly, with the stinging flat of his hand, until I cried for mercy and wept.
I was only too happy to be leashed again and carry a burden.
The girls, even Ute, were laughing.
I was annoyed, humiliated. "She's a lovely, isn't she?" said the guard who had interfered. "She is learning the tricks of the slave girl," said my guard, grinning, breathing heavily.
The other guard looked at me. "Stand straight," he said. I did so. "Yes," he said, "she makes a lovely wench." And he added, "I would not mind owning her." I walked back to the compound, proudly, with the deliberate, taunting, insolent grace of the slave girl. I knew then that men wanted me, the leashed animal carrying her burden, Elinor Brinton.
I did not, of course, try to speak again to the physician.
On the fourth day I received the last in the Stabilization Series. On the fifth day the physician had taken his tests and pronounced the serums effective. When I left his house on the fifth day I heard him tell the guard, "An excellent specimen."
The fourth and fifth days I was permitted to carry wine back to the compound. It was true that I had never felt as healthy in my life as I did then, nor had the air seemed as clear and pure, the sky so blue, the clouds so sharp and white. I suddenly realized, climbing the ramps of Laura toward the compound, leashed, under guard, carrying a jar of wine on my head, balancing it with my right hand, among my sisters on bondage, breathing the fantastic air of Gor, that I was happy. Through barefoot, though thonged by the throat, though branded, though clad in a camisk, though a degraded slave, at the mercy of men, I felt, perhaps for the first time in my life, paradoxically, vitally and joyously happy. I now thought more often of men. I knew now that they found me attractive. And, startlingly for the first time in my life, I, too, began to find them attractive, deeply and sensuously attractive, even excitingly so. One would carry his head in a certain way' another laughed well, openly, heartedly; another had sturdy legs; another had long, fine arms and strong hands, a fine chest and head. I found I wanted to look upon them, to stand near them, as if by accident, to touch them, as if inadvertently, perhaps in brushing past them. Sometimes they would discover me looking upon them, and I, responding to their grin, would look down, swiftly, shyly, sometimes I would be pleases when, among the other girls, they would throw me their leather or sandals to clean. I did so, excellently. I did not object either, at the stream on stones, near the compound, to washing their garments. I liked to handle them, to feel the strong fabric that had clung to their sweet strength. Once Ute caught me holding the tunic of the guard who had watched me at the physician's against my cheek, my eyes closed. She squealed with delight and leaped to her feet, standing between the flat rocks in the water, pointing at me. The other girls, too, looked, laughing, slapping at their knees. "El-in-or wants a master!" squealed Ute. "EL-in-or wants a master!" I pursued her into the stream splashing water at her, and she fled away, stumbling, and then turned and fled back to the bank. Ute, and the others, stood there, laughing and pointing at me. I stood knee deep in the swift stream. "El-in-or wants a master!" they cried. Laughing. I stood in the stream, furious, fists clenched. "Yes," I cried, "I want a master!"