Why had I been put here?
"Let her be chained under the moons of Gor," had said Vern, and Rask of Treve, laughing, had had it done.
The chain was heavy on my left ankle.
The moons had not yet risen. The night was hot.
As I could, during the day, I had made it my business to pass near the tent of Rask of Treve, that he might see me.
But he had scarcely seemed to notice me.
Last night it had been different!
He had noticed me then!
I lay on my back, chained on the grass of the knoll, and laughed deliciously. I recalled each instant of the hours in his tent, and later, when I had lain at his side, holding him, my cheek pressed against his thigh, my hair about his body. He had slept, but I had not slept, not until morning, for I had wanted to continue to hold him.
At dawn he had sent me from his tent, to the shed for female work slaves. I had gone.
This evening Rask of Treve had supped with Verna, and I it was who had served them, only as before, their menial slave. Rask of Treve did not look upon me differently than he had before. It might have been as though the preceding night had not existed. I served well, and deferentially.
Would I be again summoned to his tent?
But he had called a guard. "Yes, Captain," has said the guard.
"Tonight," has said Rask of Treve, casually, "send the girl, Talena, to my tent."
"Yes, Captain," said the guard, and left.
My fingers went white on the plate that I had been holding. For a moment I could not see. I could not breathe. And then my face went white, with suppressed fury, concealing the scarlet rage that burned in my body.
"Wine," had said Rask of Treve.
I had poured him wine.
"Wine," had said Verna.
I served her.
I went to the side of the low table, and knelt there. I hated Talena! I wanted to throw myself upon her and scratch out her eyes, and tear her hair and bite and kick her until she screamed and screamed, and fled away! The daughter of a Ubar! She was only a slave! I was as good as she! I hated her! I hated her! "Your slave seems disturbed," said Verna, smiling.
I put my head down.
"Slave," said Verna.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"It is said, among the other girls, that you have told them that you are not as other women, that you do not have their weaknesses."
I recalled that one, in anger, I had told them this. I looked at Verna. I hated her. I knew, and she knew, that I had once seen her in the forest, helpless in her need. She was not likely to forget that, now was I eager that she do so. I smiled. Rask of Treve had given me some pleasure, of course. But, still, I was, I knew, not as other women. I was not as they. I did not have their weaknesses. "I cannot help the way I am," I told Verna, looking down, deferentially. Rask of Treve smiled.
"Let her be chained under the moons of Gor," had said Verna.
I looked at her, in anger.
Rask of Treve laughed. "Guard!" he called A guard entered the tent. Rask of Treve indicated me. "Chain her," he said, "under the moon of Gor."
"Come, Girl," said the guard.
I followed him.
I could now see the moons beginning to rise over the points of the palisade. What did I care that the girl, Talena, was tonight sent to the tent of Rask of Treve?
I hated him!
I hated her, even more than him!
I wished the guard had not taken my clothes.
But when a girl is chained under the moons of Gor, she is chained naked. I did not understand their intention.
I lay back in the grass. I felt it with my hands. I closed my eyes. I smiled.
I was furious, of course, with what he had done to me, but also, I could not have helped responding to him as I had. He had, cruelly, mercilessly, unfairly, giving me no option, elicited from me fantastic depths of sensation of which I had not even realized my body was capable. His touch, as that of a master, had commanded my body, totally, and I had swum in sensation, clutching him, fearing I might drown with pleasure in his arms. Laugh if you will, but I could call him nothing but "Master." Do not scorn me, nor mock me, until you yourself, perhaps, on a distant world, someday wear a collar, until you, yourself, as a slave, have know the touch of such a man as Rask of Treve.
I opened my eyes. The moons now reared over the palisade, low in the night sky, looming.
My throat had been encircled with slave steel, and I had been taught its meaning. I recalled, long ago, how, in a motel on Earth, I had regarded myself naked, branded, collared, in a mirror, and had wondered, frightened, what it would be like to lie in the arms of a barbarian, helpless, so stripped, so marked. I now knew! I cried out, and tore a handful of grass from the knoll. Why did he not send for me?
Had I not pleased him? I could do more for him, more!
The moons were now high in the night sky, the looming three, dominating, fierce moons of Gor I felt my nudity beneath them, and the grass.
I cried out with misery.
"Send for me, Rask of Treve!" I whimpered. "Send for me!" I rolled on my stomach in the grass. "I want to serve you," I wept. I bit at the grass.
I looked up at the moons, tears in my eyes.
The lights of the camp were now, for the most part, extinguished. I could see, here and there, in the distance, the embers of cooking fires. In some few tents there glowed a dim redness, through the canvas sides of the tent, the light of the tiny fire bowls within. The night was hot. I heard night insects. I was alone. Far off, in the tarn compound, a tarn screamed, and then there was only the silence, except for the sounds of the insects.
On the grassy knoll I was chained, alone.
If I could free myself I would run to Rask of Treve! I would beg him for his touch! I pulled at the chain, so heavy on my ankle. It was some eight feet long. I could not slip the manacle from my ankle; I could not free the chain from its ring.
I wept.
I threw myself against the chain, running toward his tent, and fell in the grass, my ankle burning, scraped from the steel that obdurately clasped it. On my hands and knees I tried to crawl to the tent. My left leg stretched taut behind me, held. I cried out with frustration, and pounded the grassy earth, weeping, with my fists.
I rolled on my back and looked up at the moons.
I lay there, my fists clenched.
Then I closed my eyes. I could not dare to look upon them again, the great, white, looming moons of Gor, dominating the sky.
I pounded the grass with the sides of my fists, in misery.
Then I dared to look again upon the vast, looming moons of Gor. What choice did I have? I was only a girl who had been chained naked beneath them. I screamed and leaped to my feet, my hands extended to the moons. I stood helplessly beneath them, chained, naked, reaching for them.
Then I began to dance the madness of my need, writhing, tearing at it, whimpering.
And as I gasped, and wept, I saw, suddenly, in the shadows, watching me, Verna, the panther girl.