Hunters of Gor by John Norman Page B

north.
    I removed the slave strap and bracelets from Tina. She stretched and ran like an
    exultant little animal on the deck. Cara laughed at her.
    She ran to the rail and looked over the side. Following in the wake of the
    Tesephone, to pick up litter or garbage thrown overboard, were long-bodied river
    sharks, their bodies sinuous in the half-clear water, about a foot below the
    surface.
    Tina turned about and looked at me, agony on her face.
    Then she lifted her eyes to the forests beyond. We heard, as is not uncommon,
    the screams of forest panthers within the darkness of the trees.
    I went to stand beside her.
    “Your best gamble,” I informed her, “would be to flee to the south, but there is
    little cover.”
    “In your slave tunic, with your brand and collar,” I said, “how long do you
    think it would be before you were picked up?”
    She put her head down.
    “It is not pleasant, I expect,” I said, “to belong to peasants.”
    She looked at me with horror, and then again turned to the forests on the north.
    “If you feel to the panther girls,” I asked, “ what do you surmise would be your
    fate?”
    inadvertently her hand touched the brand beneath her while woolen slave tunic.
    Then, standing beside me at the rail, looking toward the forest, she put both
    her hands on her collar. She tried to pull it from her neck.
    She knew as well as I the contempt in which panther girls held female slaves.
    She, Tina, was well marked.
    She was well marked as what she was, a female slave.
    “If they did not use you as their slave themselves,” I said, “you would be soon
    sold.”
    Tina, the slave, wept. I turned and left her.
    Cara, in her own collar, went to comfort her.
    That night I went again to the hold, to once again look upon Sheera.
    She had now been branded.
    I lifted the lamp, to better regard her.
    The brand was an excellent one.
    She knelt, chained to the ring. She did not attempt to cover herself.
    “Why did you buy me?”
    “Come to my arms,” I said.
    “No!” she said, “No!”
    “Come to my arms,” I said.
    She lifted her arms to me.
    The next night, I again looked upon Sheera. Without speaking, she opened her
    arms, and sought me, pressing her body, kneeling, to mine, her lips to mine.
    The following night, the night before we would make landfall in Laura, when I
    had finished with her, she lay on her belly on the planks, her head in her
    hands, lifted, on her elbows. Her hair was forward. She was breathing deeply.
    Even in the flickering light I could see the beautiful mottlings on her body, on
    the sides of her breasts and body, red and white, still rich and subtle in her
    hot, blood-charged skin. The chain dangled to the floor, where it lay, half
    coiled near the ring. The fruit of her body hung free, and lovely. The nipples
    were still arch.
    She turned her head toward me, and looked at me, through her hair, with glazed
    eyes.
    She put her head down.
    I knelt behind her, and above her, on one knee, and, with a snap, fastened the
    slave collar on her throat.
    She did not protest. She knew that she had yielded to me, as a slave girl to her
    master.
    I took her by the shoulders, and turned her on her back. her entire belly and
    breasts, like much the rest of her body, was rich with the beautiful mottlings.
    I touched the nipples. How beautiful there were, large, delicate, sensitive now,
    almost painfully swollen with blood. I kissed them. She reached for me again,
    lifting her head, the chain at her neck, lips parted.
    When I again noted the lamp, it had burned low.
    I rose to my knees, and looked down upon her. I saw my collar locked at her
    throat.
    “Greetings, Slave,” I said.
    She looked up at me.
    “Tomorrow,” I said, “we make landfall in Laura. I will then release you from the
    hold.”
    I bent to her throat, there was still fastened the golden chains and claws that
    she had worn when she had met us, long ago, at the exchange point, which she had
    worn when she had been