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me, from the streets of Ar, some months ago, in the neighborhood of the shop of Philebus. You set two slaves upon me."
    "Do not kill me," he whispered.
    "I have heard," said I, "that you were embattled near Imam and surrendered slaves and goods."
    "On the south bank of the Olni," he said, "yes, it is true."
    "You did well," I said, "to save the lives of your men, and yourself."
    "I have lost much," he said.
    "What do you conjecture," I asked, "to be the fate of your goods and slaves?"
    "They are no longer mine," he said. "They are now the property of the river pirates, theirs by the rights of sword and power."
    "That is true," I said. "But what do you conjecture is to be their fate?"
    "It is not likely they could be sold in Lara, or northward," he said. "Usually the river pirates sell their goods and captures somewhere along the river, in one of the numerous river towns."
    "What towns?" I asked.
    "There are dozens," he said. "Perhaps Ven, Port Cos, Iskander, Tafa, who knows."
    "He who attacked you, the pirate chieftain," I said, "who was he."
    "There are many bands of river pirates," he said.
    "Who was he?" I asked.
    "Kliomenes, a lieutenant to Policrates," he said.
    "In what town does he sell his wares?" I asked.
    "It could be any one of a dozen towns," said Oneander. "I do not know."
    I seized him by the tunic, and shook him.
    "I do not know!" he said. "I do not know!"
    I held him.
    "Please do not kill me," he whispered.
    "Very well," I had said, and released him. I had then turned about and went toward the tarn cots of the loot camp, that I might arrange with some bold tarnsman to provide me with transportation, by a suitably circuitous route, to the vicinity of Lara.
     
    The girl again stirred in the corner of the room. She rolled to her back. One knee was raised. She was luscious in the slave rag and collar. She turned her head from side to side. She made a small noise. She opened and closed one small hand I wondered if she were aware, dimly, of the coarse fibers of the slave mat beneath her back. I did not think so, not yet.
    "I am a free woman of Vonda!" the woman at the counter had been crying out last night. "You cannot put me out!"
    "You will pay or be ejected," Strobius had told her.
    "You cannot put me out into the street!" she said.
    I had taken another sip of the sul porridge.
    The woman at the counter had been veiled, as is common with Gorean women, particularly those of high caste and of the high cities. Many Gorean women, in their haughtiness and pride, do not choose to have their features exposed to the common view. They are too fine and noble to be looked upon by the casual rabble. Similarly the robes of concealment worn by many Gorean women are doubtless dictated by similar sentiments. On the other hand veiling is a not impractical modesty in a culture in which capture, and the chain and the whip are not unknown. One justification for the veiling and for the robes of concealment, which is not regarded as inconsiderable, is that it is supposed to provide something of a protection against abduction and predation. Who would wish to risk his life, it is said, to carry off a woman who might, when roped to a tree and stripped, turn out to be as ugly as a tharlarion? Slave girls, by contrast, are almost never permitted veils. Similarly they are usually clad in such a way that their charms are manifest and obvious to even the casual onlooker. This, aside from having such utilities as reminding the girls that they are total slaves and giving pleasure to the men who look upon them, is supposed to make them, rather than free women, the desiderated objects of capture and rapine. I think there is something to this theory for, statistically, it is almost always the female slave and not her free sister who finds herself abducted and struggling in the lashings of captors or slavers. On the other hand, in spite of the theories pertaining to such matters, free women are certainly not immune to the fates of capture and