The Panther Girl

by Xaltatun of Acheron

Chapter 1: Jason’s Trophy

Jason’s return party was, Abner thought, sizzling. At an easy two meters, Jason himself wasn’t hard to spot towering over the gaggle of adoring females clustered around him. It wasn’t just the height; the easy and overpowering masculinity that radiated almost unconsciously from his direction was an irresistible chick magnet.

His trophy wasn’t hard to spot either. A full thirty centimeters shorter, the registered leopard pattern of her slave tunic drew the eye. What it packaged stopped the roving eye in its tracks. Here was a woman who knew exactly what she was: a package of passionate sexuality who was so absolutely and unselfconsciously Jason’s that the small crowd of admiring males around her simply didn’t register with either of them as a factor. She was the one who had survived three years in the forests and jungles of the Gorean Hunting Preserve as a Panther Girl before Jason had bagged her on a hunt. Nobody else in the room stood a chance.

Abner had been covertly studying her for most of the evening from his self-appointed spot near the bar. The thought of trying to pry her away from Jason hadn’t entered his mind, let along crossed it. It wasn’t because he was a shrimp. Far from it. He stood less than fifteen centimeters shorter than Jason, and while his face would never grace a Peaceforce recruiting poster, that was because he had no interest in the Peaceforce, not because of any lack in his face.

The biggest reason why he wasn’t in the crowd of admirers around either one is that what he’d like to talk to them about wasn’t on anyone else’s agenda: forests, jungles, expeditions and survival. And he knew that Lara didn’t have any real desire to talk about it either. After three years in the forests and jungles, she’d said, quite definitely, that she had absolutely no desire to go back. Unless, of course, Jason wanted to take her. That was a completely different matter.

Jason, at the same time, was serving up baby food for the admirers. He knew that the real details of a hunt would bore them to distraction, and that most of them wouldn’t be interested in the attraction that the Gorean Hunting Preserve had for a very small number of females. In fact, talking about that would drive them away. Permanently.

Jason made a gesture in Lara’s direction. She broke free of the circle of admirers and headed toward the bar. Abner had seen the gesture, and rapidly poured Jason’s favorite drink, put it on a tray and handed it to Lara as she arrived. She took it and curtsied prettily. “Why thank you,” she said.

Abner nodded as Lara walked toward her owner with the tray. The curtsy showed what he had expected: her left thigh was adorned with the red Gorean kef. It really was a pretty mark that was hidden by the skirt of her slave livery. It wouldn’t, however, be hidden by the shorts that were the standard female daytime casual wear, weather permitting, and assuming that Jason had her wear the style on her time off.

“How’d he do that?” Falilah asked. She’d been hanging around the bar making conversation with Abner while hoping that a more suitable male would notice her. Not that she thought Abner was unsuitable; he unfortunately didn’t have a private room to take her home to for the night. She didn’t either.

“He’s wearing wrist controllers,” Abner answered. “The Goreans have a system of hand signals they train their slavegirls to react to. Always assuming that she’s looking at him at the time! His wrist controllers are linked to her control collar.”

“So he’s really got her under control.”

“He has to. She’s loyal to him because she has to be. He gives her no choice in the matter. You know the old saw about ‘I will fear no evil?”

“For I am the toughest predator in the valley?” she answered readily.

“Exactly. The forests on the Gorean Hunting Preserve aren’t parks. That’s one of the reasons they still exist: it’s a world ecology preserve. The Panther Girls are the top predators because they have to be, or they’re dead.”

“They’ve got to be insane!”

“A million credits is a major motivator.”

He noticed he suddenly had her complete interest. “A million credits?”

“That’s what they promise: survive five years as quarry without a hunter bagging her, and there’s a million credits waiting. I have no idea how many actually collect.” He shrugged.

She shuddered. “Probably not very many.”

“You’re going to do what?” Frank, Abner’s roommate, asked.

“I’m going to go on an expedition to the Gorean Hunting Preserve and bag a Panther Girl.”

“You’re insane. Or drunk. Sleep it off, guy. And turn off the f-ing lights.”

“I’m going,” Abner declared the next morning as he examined something on the display plate above his desk.

“Going where?”

“To hunt a Panther Girl.”

“You mean I wasn’t dreaming when you staggered in here drunk last night?”

“I was not drunk!”

“OK. Lit up like a holiday tree.”

“Well, I did have a few.”

“You’re still insane. So are your parents if they give you the money.”

“I want one. I can’t get Jason’s girl out of my mind.”

“I heard about that. She’s causing an epidemic of jealousy. In both sexes.”

“They’re just jealous.”

“That’s what I said. What would you do with one if you did manage to capture her?”

“Love her. She’s a prize, man.”

“Lord. Are you out of it,” Frank said. “When?”

“I’ve got enough time to take the next quarter off. That’s what Jason did.”

“So I’ve got to find a new roommate.” Frank looked around calculatingly. “I going to have to talk to my parents. Now I wonder ...”

“Oh?”

“Don’t plan on moving back in here with me when you come back. I’m not having a wild girl from the back of the forest living here: there’s no space. And if you don’t bag one, I’m keeping whoever I get.”

“I know that calculating look, and that wasn’t it.”

“Just figuring out how to rearrange it for a double bed. One double bed. It’s finally gotten through my head that you’re cramping my love life.”

“Oh, man!” Abner said a couple of nights later.

“Oh? Prof Gazinski stick you with another assignment?”

“Not that. Panther Girl Hunting Trips wants all kinds of documentation. And an exam on a pile of stuff. I’m surprised my screen didn’t overload.”

“You’re worried about that? You? The guy who brags he’s never seen a test he can’t fake out?”

“And get an A as well,” Abner said, smugly. “The doc is no problem. I’ve been on enough wilderness and hunting expeditions.”

“Which is why you don’t have any money left for an apartment. Or at least a private room. Or a girlfriend.”

“Wet blanket.”

“It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.”

Chapter 2: Arrival at the Gorean Hunting Preserve.

Abner’s first impression of the Gorean Hunting Preserve from the approaching plane was of green. Lots of green, broken by a cluster of mountains in the center of the island and smaller splotches of towns and farmland. The towns looked lost in the ocean of green.

The airport turned out to be on a much smaller island joined to the main island by a narrow isthmus. The airport seemed to be surrounded by the ubiquitous offshore wind turbine platforms.

Getting off the plane was, as usual, quite fast. The queue for visitors wasn’t nearly as fast. He had lots of time to examine the signs. They all seemed to be in English: apparently the Gorean Hunting Preserve didn’t care to cater to other nation’s languages. There were only four signs.

The first said: All females over 10 years old and slaves must wear properly initialized control collars.

The second said: All free males over 10 years old must wear properly initialized wrist controllers.

The third said: All visitors must have contracts with the Gorean Hunting Preserve Authority (the Priest-Kings). Contracts with tourist agencies are optional.

The last said: Have a nice stay.

He flexed his wrists and looked at the smoothly fitting forms of the wrist controllers. One of the first things he’d done was get them. It had taken a bit of practice to make them work fluently. Now he wondered why he hadn’t gotten them earlier. Lots earlier. Not having to fish his reader or his phone out of his purse for the least little thing was ... wonderful. In fact, he was beginning to wonder why he needed a purse at all. At least for most occasions.

He looked up at an altercation at the beginning of the line. A big guard seemed to be arguing with a small group of women. He frowned, and then tried to suppress a guffaw. At least one of the women wasn’t wearing a control collar. The guard pointed at a small office whose sign said: Control Collars Fitted. She argued. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her.

She finally threw up her hands and stomped off in the direction of the office, followed by the rest of the clique. The line started moving again.

He reached the head of the line. The guard looked at a screen mounted at eye level to the side. “You’re fine. Head for the ID booths.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

The baggage pickup went smoothly, as usual. The case with his baggage popped out of the slot just as he walked up. He pulled his field pack out of it and slung it over his shoulders.

“Hi.”

He turned in surprise. A nice blonde, a bit taller than average. She’d just slung a backpack over her shoulders as well.

“Are you going to the Games?”

“Not this time. They sound interesting though. I’m joining a Panther Girl hunt.”

“Ohhh! Now that’s interesting. If my boyfriend was interested I’d go along with him.”

“You hunt?”

“Not on Gor! There’s a lot of room for camp-tenders, though.”

“What would you do if he came back with one?”

“Make sure she could pronounce ‘mistress’ with fervent sincerity.”

Abner laughed. “You look like you would, too.”

“Better believe it. Panther Girls are dangerous trophies unless you keep the upper hand. The training area for the Panther Girl hunts is next to the Games. Want to walk together? I’m Deana, by the way.”

“I’m Abner. Won’t your boyfriend mind?”

“We’ve got different customs. In classic Gor, if a free woman was by herself outside of her city, she probably would be a slave by nightfall. The Priest-Kings don’t put up with that nonsense, but it’s still a real good idea for a free woman to have a male in sight. It saves all kinds of petty hassles.”

Abner arched his eyebrow.

“Sex? Hmmm.” She looked him over. “If you’re fit enough to take part in a Panther Girl hunt, you could overpower me. Not too easily, but you could do it. Besides landing you in real big trouble, it wouldn’t get you anywhere. Free women here all wear chastity shields. It lets me tell anyone who makes advances: ‘You look good, big guy, but my boyfriend has me locked up tight’.”

“That would do it, all right.”

“Anyway, we’re only going to spend one night at an inn before we get there. At least if we walk. It’s two if you take a cart, and I’m not going to. I want to get Pete back under my eye!”

“He sounds like a winner. If I’m not getting too personal, why haven’t you married?”

“It’s one of those things. As far as the Association is concerned, we’re Free Companions, and it doesn’t matter whether we’re married or not. The association does require that our status within the association is somewhat consistent with our status outside of it, but they’re not stickers for the details.

“He wants me to cede rights when we marry, and of course I will. Gorean wives serve their husbands. The problem is that if I do that, they’ll treat me as a slave here. No way! So either I don’t cede rights, or we quit coming to the Games. He wants to keep coming, so we stay boyfriend and girlfriend for now. The NAA Gorean Association is trying to negotiate with the Priest-Kings for a change in the laws. If it does go through, we’ll get married almost immediately. So will several other couples I know.”

“Politics,” Abner said disgustedly.

“Politics is what keeps the guys from killing each other,” Deana said.

“Hm. Interesting way of looking at it.”

“Oh, very.”

The two walked along the road in silence for a while.

“This road surprises me,” Abner said.

“How so?”

“I’d have expected concrete or dirt.”

“It’s a Roman road. They did excellent roads using fitted stone blocks as the surface. These are done by the Priest-King’s version of our Labor Battalions. The larger towns maintain their own roads the same way. The rest is good old dirt. Some of it’s got decent drainage, some doesn’t.”

“They keep this place really low tech, don’t they?”

“When they can. There are a number of reasons. One is that it’s a world nature preserve; the plants and animals do better without a lot of real high tech stuff around. These roads aren’t a barrier to animals moving. Another is that the original Gor stories were set on a low tech world, except for medicine. The third is that they don’t have a huge amount of foreign exchange, and most of it’s earmarked.”

“That’s why the ponies? We have several as students at the university I attend, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen so many working.”

“Exactly. They fill the same niche as horses and donkeys, manage themselves and eat less for the work they do. You don’t see small powered transportation equipment around here.”

They walked along again for a while.

“Um. I’ve been wondering. If it isn’t too personal, what would you do if your boyfriend won a girl in one of the games?”

“Oh, Pete does that all the time. He’s well above average as a warrior, even the ones that come to the Games. We usually end up with four or five slavegirls in the corral by the end. We sell them back to the dealers. We’ve got one we’re happy with, and we’d rather not spend the money to maintain one we don’t need. He’s won a free woman as a captive several times. Some of them we took their ransom funds; some of them we sold to a dealer because they made a higher bid.”

“Oh?”

Deana laughed. “Well, part of that is that we don’t want a slavegirl that isn’t an NAA citizen and an association member. Only two of them were, and their ransom funds were insultingly low. The first one was someone I knew, but not very well. The second was a good friend. I really agonized over it both times. I got over it; they were both milestones on my way into the Gorean world view.”

“You could have freed them?”

“No. If a girl is going to play that game, she takes the consequences. Freeing either of them without taking their ransom funds would have been a social disaster: it would have given me a reputation I can’t afford. Taking their ransom funds would have been a disaster in another way: it was almost all they had. They’d have come back with almost nothing.”

“I didn’t realize!”

“If he wins an association member this time?” she said thoughtfully. “I think I’ll keep her unless she’s completely unsuitable. We’ve got the income to maintain another one now, we’ve got enough in our training account, and we’re both into training our slavegirls ourselves.”

“We’re almost to the inn,” Deana said. “We made pretty good time, I’d have expected another hour. You’re getting a prize.”

“Oh?”

“Me. Pete’s given permission for me to serve you on the way.”

“I’m surprised.”

“I’m a Gorean female. I’m used to having a commanding male, and since Pete’s not here, you’re it. I’m also used to being used for the male’s pleasure. Gorean males almost always insure that their females get a good orgasm unless they’re being trained or punished. It’s part of the mindset: females are passionate. If a male can’t get his female to scream in lust while he’s screwing her brains out, there’s something wrong with one or the other of them.”

“So I get to screw you tonight?”

“Not that. I get to suck you off to orgasm; I’ll have mine at the same time.” She smiled wickedly. “You really are going to have an excuse to go to sleep after you shoot your load.”

“You’re confusing me,” Abner said after a while. “You’re acting like you’re his slave.”

“Well, there’s not a whole lot of difference viewed from outside,” Deana said thoughtfully. “The Gorean view is very male dominant. I’ve got rights that he’s honor bound to respect. A slave doesn’t. The Gorean view is that a slave has no more rights than any non-human animal. An intelligent owner will treat a slave in accordance with her basic nature. You don’t treat a horse like a dog, or a cat like a chicken. He respects a female slave’s basic nature, which is passion and service.”

“So he’s letting you express your passion?”

“You’re getting it.”

Abner looked at her a bit quizzically. Then he motioned her to the side of the road and pulled her into a hug. She lifted her face to his, and their lips touched.

A few minutes later they released each other.

“Whew!” Abner said. “you’re a hot piece!”

“Why, thank you. I thought you’d never notice!”

Abner laughed. “You’ve been throwing yourself at me all day.”

“I have, haven’t I? I’ve been away from Pete for most of a week, and I don’t want to wait another day!”

“That was some night,” Abner finally commented after they had walked a ways from the inn the next morning.

“It certainly was,” Deana agreed. She slipped her free arm around his waist and squeezed.

“The training session was pretty good too.”

“You liked that?” Deana giggled. “It’s been a while since Pete put me through all of the positions and hand signals.”

“You actually like it?”

“It’s part of being a Gorean woman.” She paused a moment. “It was one of the things that attracted me to the scene in the first place.”

“This,” Deana said a bit unnecessarily, “is the Games encampment.”

The road had risen somewhat on the approach so the encampment spread out below them. At first glance it appeared to be a sea of tents. All sizes of tents, from massive tents that could hold several dozen men or a major meeting, to small pup tents that might hold one or maybe two people – if they were very friendly.

They walked through the gate, and then Deana’s stride changed subtly. She walked purposely through the streets, finally arriving in a small clearing.

Then she stopped.

“Deana,” a heavily built man said, gathering her in his arms in a massive hug.

“Pete,” she answered after they released each other.

“See what I won,” Pete said, gesturing to the side.

The object of his gesture knelt in the dust, eyes properly downcast. The Y yoke of a leash clasped the sides of her control collar; the other end was tied to a post. She wore a slave tunic with the traditional black and white diagonal stripes of the Gorean slave girl. Her hands were cuffed behind her; her feet were joined by a hobble. Deana thought, from the length of the cable she could see, that it was a bit over a half meter.

Deana looked at her and gave a small gasp. “What are you calling her?”

“Tata. Do you think she’s suitable?”

“Maybe. I think our personalities are compatible, but you’re going to have a time training her properly.”

“It’ll be a challenge,” he grinned. Deana saw Tata flinch slightly at her owner’s tone.

“One you’ll rise to, I’m sure.”

“Of course,” he drew Deana close and then directed her to the far part of the clearing. He told her something that Abner couldn’t hear.

“You’re what?”

He said something else. They talked for another minute, and then Deana pulled him in for a long kiss.

He walked back and stuck out his hand. “Abner. I have to apologize for neglecting my duties as host.”

“No need,” Abner replied, “you had a domestic situation to settle first.”

“How did you like Deana?”

“She’s, um, passionate. And very helpful.”

“Watch this,” he motioned Abner to the side as Deana stood looking down at Tata. She was close enough that Tata’s downcast gaze focused on Deana’s hiking boots.

“Tata.”

The girl didn’t answer.

Deana gave her an open-handed slap to the side of the head. She held her hand so that it sounded a lot louder than it hurt. “Do I have to repeat myself?”

“No.”

“No what?” Deana’s hand caressed the spot where she’d slapped the slavegirl.

“No, Deana.”

Deana slapped her again, not quite as hard. “Did I give you permission to use my name?”

“No, mistress,” Tata said, a hitch in her voice on the last word.

“Stand.”

Tata got to her feet, stumbling a bit as the hobble stopped one of the motions.

“That movement needs to improve.” Deana pointed at the ground, two fingers held together and pointed where Tata stood.

Tata hesitated a moment and then sank to her knees.

“Stand.”

This time Tata made it upright without jerking on her hobble.

“Better. Your master has marked you?”

“Yes, mistress.” Tata blushed slightly.

“Show me.” Tata’s cuffs uncoupled. She blushed again and then shyly lifted the left side of her tunic skirt, revealing the kef. The purple of the staff came straight up her leg, about halfway between the side and the front, with the two fronds curving gracefully the same distance toward the back.

Deana dropped into a crouch and traced the kef gently with a finger. “This is Osprey’s work, is it not?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“How do you like it?”

“It suits me, mistress,” she replied flatly.

Deana rose swiftly and gave the same openhanded slap to the other side of Tata’s face. “Liar. How do you like it?”

Tata gulped, but managed to keep her eyes properly focused on the ground. “I ... I hate it, mistress.”

“What’s this I?”

Tata gulped again. “A slave girl hates it, mistress.”

“Better. Why does a slave girl hate her mark?”

“I ...” She gulped. “A slave girl never wanted to become a slave girl.”

“Then why did you offer yourself as a prize?”

“It was exciting, mistress. “

“What do you want?”

“To be free again.”

“Why do you think this is possible?”

“Uh. You’re friends?”

“Tata. You know better than that. What does the mark mean?”

“I’m a slave girl, mistress.”

“Who?”

“This one is a slave girl, mistress.”

“Do the codes provide for freeing a marked slave girl?”

“No, mistress,” she said in a low voice.

“So you want something that would make us violate the codes.”

“Uh. Yes, mistress.”

Deana laughed. “Pretty slavegirl! You’re learning. We will not violate the codes.”

She let the silence draw out a moment. “How do you like your kef?”

“It’s beautiful, mistress.”

“That sounds better. You’re weaseling. How do you like your kef?”

“Uh.” Tata hesitated. “It’s a beautiful mark for a slave girl. This one still does not like being a slave girl.”

“Very good. It will take a little time for the fact of your slavery to sink in to where it can let you begin to blossom. Your master is very good at bringing slave girls to realize the freedom of their slavery. You should be showing some promising buds when I see you next. And maybe a bud opening into a blossom.” She gestured to Tata’s feet, her first two fingers held together. Tata sank to a kneeling position, taking care to make the movement as graceful as she could manage with her feet hobbled.

“You’d like to keep her for a while?” Pete asked.

“Uh,” Abner stuttered and then stopped.

“I take it that’s a yes. I’m going to have to keep Tata’s focus on me while I’m training her, and Deana has mentioned a few times that she’d like to see a Panther Girl hunt.”

“Uh,” Abner stuttered again. “Does that mean you’re giving your girlfriend to me?”

“I’m giving you her use. I expect you to bring her back after the hunt. By then I should have Tata settled enough that Deana can start training her as well, and you’ll need your full attention on taming your Panther Girl.”

“I don’t know how to say thank you.”

“You just did,” Pete stuck out his hand again and grinned. Then he pulled Deana in for a final hug and kiss.

“Use her well,” he told Abner. Then he turned to look measuringly at his prize.

Deana drew a deep breath. “I think we’d best be going to the Panther Girl hunt encampment.”

“What was all that about?” Abner said as they worked their way back through the Games encampment.

“I’m not sure,” Deana answered, a bit of a catch in her voice. “He’s treating you as his guest, and giving me to you as a courtesy, since you didn’t bring a female and he doesn’t have a slavegirl to loan you. Or,” she giggled, “at least one that’s been properly trained.”

“You gasped?”

“Her name used to be Sharon. She’s been hanging around our group for a while. I think this was the third time she offered herself as a prize at the Games.”

“Oh?”

“She’s addicted to it. She absolutely, positively swore off both times, and did it again when she came with Kevin the next year. When Pete won her this time, he decided to have her marked rather than just putting her in the corral and using her as a prize for another match. I think he wants a new training challenge; our current slavegirl isn’t giving him enough of one any more.”

“You knocked her around a bit.”

“I had to. She knows perfectly well that I’m Pete’s Free Companion. She should have said ‘mistress’ when I said ‘Tata’. I might have accepted the word ‘mistress’ with a bit of a question the first time since I walked up with you, and it’s not a slave girl’s position to question what free men and women do, but the rest of it simply wasn’t on. Also, she lied to me. That’s not permitted. Kevin should have corrected that a long time ago. Conscious lying means she still thinks she’s got something to gain. The sooner she learns she doesn’t, the better. Unconscious lying means she still has something to learn about herself. I left that to Pete; there’s no way I could do anything productive in a few minutes.

“Second, as you’ve noticed, I’m a female, Pete is a male. She is not going to have the same instinctive reactions to me that she has to Pete. I have to establish that she has no slack. Pete can let her think she’s getting away with something. I can’t allow it until she’s firmly settled in her slavery, and maybe not even then.”

“What are those?” Abner pointed at a line of posts. Several had hooded but otherwise naked forms dangling from them. The posts had a piece that came out to the front, and then a crosspiece. The figures’ hands were stuck through the crosspiece, wrists hidden by the wood. Their feet were kept apart with a spreader bar that was anchored to a ring in the ground. A tube ran from something mounted on the pole to the base of their crotches.

“Criminals being executed,” Deana answered.

“I saw some more on the road here. There are that many?”

“Not as many as you’d think. They take a long time to die. Sometimes months. The Priest-Kings put vermin killer units here, and the life support keeps them fed and cleaned out.”

“Those hoods don’t look like they let them breathe.”

“The life support takes care of their breathing. They cut the nose and ears off and put a tube down their windpipe so they can’t make any sounds. Then they put the hood on. They’re not quite totally cut off.” Deana walked up to a male form and began to tickle his balls. The condemned man came erect almost immediately, and then jerked as he shot his load halfway across the road.

“You don’t sound all that happy about his loaning you to me.”

Deana sighed. “I want him.”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“Well, I do,” she said with a bit of asperity. She sighed again. “I’m not sure I’ll be going back to him when you’re done with me.”

“Oh?”

“Our relationship within the Association is as Free Companions. The codes let him get rid of a Free Companion at any time for cause. Outside we don’t have a contracted relationship so there’s no barrier to his kicking me out if he can find cause. He can and still stay within the codes. It’s not like I’ll be out on the street. I’ve got a decent career that gives me a good income and money of my own saved up. It’s just,” she shook her head and sighed.

“Cheer up,” Abner told her. “Now, where’s the Panther Girl hunting expedition encampment?” To his astonishment, she did cheer up. Immediately.

Chapter 3: The Rules of Engagement

“This,” Ned said to the group of nine men assembled before him, “is a crossbow. I know it doesn’t look like a crossbow. There’s no bow, let alone one that’s across the stock. We call it a crossbow because that’s what the Panther Girls in the stories used. I think.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter at all what the stories said.

“It’s actually a railgun. It shoots bolts and also paint pellets. The power pack will shoot around 500 bolts and close to a thousand pellets before it expires; we carry a recharger in camp. If you use even a tenth of that in an encounter, you’ve probably panicked.

“The bolts have enough force to take out anything in this forest, especially if you hit it in a vulnerable spot. The gun has a reaction converter; about 90 percent of the reaction gets converted back into power. That means it doesn’t kick like a mule, it’s more of a gentle shove. That really helps if you’ve got to get several shots off quickly.

“If you’re holding it properly, the selector is under your thumb. You’ve got one kind of bolt, and two kinds of paint pellet. There’s a second selector that’s not where you can reach it easily that can lock the selector so it can’t shoot bolts, or it can’t shoot pellets, or it’s on complete safety. There’s a third lever that locks the second one.

“That brings up a very fundamental question: why the complexity, and why the pellets. Someone who hasn’t been on a hunt before.”

“Um.” Dereck said. “I’m not sure. I’d think you’d have knockout darts.”

“Very good. You’ve got the real issue. We’re not out to kill Panther Girls, and we’d really like it if they weren’t out to kill us. And they could: they’ve got almost the same railguns we have, and a lot more practice in using them. There are really only three differences. They have to recharge with a hand crank, they’ve only got one kind of pellet, and the safety selectors aren’t as complicated.

“So what keeps us from using the bolts on each other? The answer is simple: the penalties for straying from the rules of engagement are, to put it mildly, Draconian. If you kill one by accident, well, accidents happen. If she kills one of us by accident, she gets a major penalty. That’s six months additional before she can walk the path to the Sardar and collect her reward, one month as one of her tribe’s camp slaves, and one stake.

“If you kill one intentionally, you will not like what happens. If she kills one of us intentionally, she’ll become one of her tribe’s camp slaves and also be staked if there’s no one ahead of her in the queue. That’s assuming the Priest-Kings or her tribe don’t execute her.”

“Stake?”

“The Panther Girls are the top predator in this forest. The Priest-Kings use them to keep the forest in balance, and they use us to keep them in check. If one of the big cats or a wolf pack gets out of hand, they tell one of the Panther Girl tribes to handle it. The tribe uses their next stake girl as bait. The bait usually survives, but it’s not the way to bet if she’s staked several times.”

“The first thing to understand about engagements is that there’s an AI that’s watching it. I assume that the Priest-Kings look at the results; they change the rules of engagement every once in a while. We can’t get the results and neither can the Panther Girls. For our purposes it signals engagement phases, which I’ll get to later.

“The rules of engagement are very simple. Your wrist controller will tell you when there’s a Panther Girl within a half kilometer or so. It won’t tell you where she is, how far away she is, what direction she’s in, or how many of them there are. It doesn’t react to Panther Girls that we’ve downed, that are in our camp’s corral, or that aren’t allowed in the engagement because they haven’t survived a year yet. The Panther Girls don’t have the same warning, but remember that they are a lot better at reading the forest than you are. They live here, and they’ve survived long enough to become our prey. The best of them can stand there in plain sight, and you’ll never see her until you’re potted with a red paintball and you’re out of the hunt.

“Red paintballs are a killing hit anywhere on the body. She, or you, are out of the hunt immediately. You pick a spot to sit and watch the fun; she will probably drop to the ground and freeze, but she may also withdraw stealthily. Green paintballs are a tranquilizing dart, but they have to hit skin to be effective. A hit on her furs doesn’t count. The girl is allowed to find somewhere within a few meters to hide. She has to stay there for fifteen minutes after the end of engagement is signaled, until a hunter finds her, or until we leave. If a hunter finds her, she has to let him complete the capture.

“Her control collar, and your wrist controller, will tell you when you’ve been hit and what kind of hit it is.

“Any significant injury is a timeout and freeze in place for long enough to determine if it’s life-threatening. If it is life-threatening, it’s the end of engagement. A life-threatening injury will result in the Priest-Kings sending a medical team by tarn-back.”

He laughed. “That was an amusing fantasy. It’ll be a surplus Peaceforce medevac chopper with an emergency team. End of engagement for a life-threatening injury is still an end of engagement. Any Panther Girls that have been hit with a green paintball have to remain frozen for either fifteen minutes or until the medevac team leaves, whichever is longer. That whole time period is legitimate search time. Regardless of who’s been hit, we’ll probably all mill around together until the medevac team leaves. This is not a situation you ever want to be in, but it will let you chat one of them up. They will not tell you if you’ve got a capture pending, though.”

“What keeps one from trying to escape?”

“Her control collar knows her status, which means that every Panther Girl tribe knows her status. So do the Priest-Kings. If she tries to escape, she’s either going to incur a really major penalty, or her team leader will march her into our camp and turn her over. It’s to her benefit to pick a really good spot and stay as still as possible. They practice hiding all the time, and as I’ve already mentioned, they’re really good at being unnoticeable when they want to be. We aren’t allowed a locater, so we don’t come close to finding all the girls we bag.

“That brings us to the end of the engagement. The engagement ends when one side has either killed or driven off the other side. The AI will signal it for us. If we’re the ones still standing, those of us who haven’t been killed can search for quarry that we’ve bagged. We’ve got fifteen minutes; our wrist controllers will signal when it’s over. If you’ve missed a girl, you might see her get up, wave saucily and walk away. If she likes what she sees, she might even walk up and ask you if you want a quick one. If you do, go for it.

“You aren’t restricted to looking for girls you’ve downed personally. Complete the capture for any girl you find. You complete the capture by putting cuffs on her wrists and ankles. As soon as you’ve done that, her control collar will reset to your wrist controller. You can then trigger her into cuffing herself with her hands behind her and her feet together. Strip her by cutting the bindings on her furs. Leash her and then put a hobble strap on her ankles. You can either bring her back immediately, or wrap the leash around something handy and keep looking for more quarry. When you’ve gotten her to a central point, you’ll normally put her in a coffle, then we’ll take the coffle to the camp where we have a corral set up for them.

“When we’re done, the bag of whatever Panther Girls we’ve captured is divided up. If you downed any, you can pick one of the ones you downed, or pass until the next step. If there are any left, we vote on most valuable team member, and they get to pick one in rank order, with hunters who passed first. Some hunts get a full bag: one Panther Girl for each hunter. I’ve seen a few where they’ve gotten more than a full bag. We have to throw the extras back, so we normally give them a choice. It’s not obvious which choice they’ll take. Throwing one back is a medium penalty: they get six months added before they can take the path to the Sardar, and they get one month as a camp slave. And of course they’ve lost their furs and crossbow unless we brought them in to sell.”

“Which ones do we give a choice to?”

He shrugged as if it should be obvious. “We rank them by desirability. Least desirable choses first.

“That’s the lecture. We’re going to spend the next week practicing everything, from weapons practice, setting up and tearing down camp, hunting strategy, and the fine art of finishing the capture and bringing them in. You’re going to have some real Panther Girls to practice on as well. Several of you brought wives, girlfriends or slavegirls with you. They’ll be part of the camp team so they’re going to be practicing their part right along with you. We’ve got some free women who want to come on a hunt as part of the camp team as well. We’ll sleep here in camp every night, and move out in a week.”

One of the men’s hands shot up. “How do we find them?”

“That’s the least of our problems. They’ll find us. Remember that they’re the top predators, and they all want that million credits at the end of the path to the Sardar. They’re not only capable of wiping out a complete hunting party on the first encounter, they do it frequently. The Priest-Kings don’t like Panther Girl tribes that try to avoid contact. That’s why we’ve got the indicators. Without them, most hunting parties would get wiped out before they even knew they were in a fight.”

Chapter 4: Second Engagement.

Abner heard the team leader’s shrill whistle, and ducked into cover. He started to scan the surrounding forest the way he’d been trained. He heard the whiz and soft plop of paint pellets around him.

There! He saw what looked like a flash of skin up in a tree. He eased his crossbow around to take a shot.

Ouch! Something stung him in the shoulder. He looked down at the red splotch. His wrist controller started throbbing. He was out of the hunt.

A red haze seemed to cover his vision. How dare they! He thumbed the safety off, shifted the selector and fired at the flash of skin he’d seen.

A piercing whistle cut what few forest sounds remained. Time-out! He barely noticed the girl fall out of the tree to hit the ground with a sodden thump.

Two of his teammates broke cover and headed for her. One started probing for broken bones. The other looked her over quickly and then slid a med-patch over the hole in her chest. He pulled an ampule out of his kit and injected it.

“She’s still breathing,” he announced. “Life-threatening.”

“They’re on the way,” a clear soprano said from behind him.

“Good. I hope the Hibernate gets her down before that bolt cuts an artery.”

“So do I, guy. So do I. Now who’s the culprit?”

“Abner,” the first team member said, looking at his wrist controller. “It’s his bolt.”

Abner managed to crawl out of cover and threw up. When he stood, the red splotch was obvious.

“Now what on earth possessed you to do that,” Ned asked him.

“I got angry at being taken out right at the beginning,” he confessed, still shaken.

“So it was intentional,” that clear soprano said, as cold as a spring mountain river.

“I’m sorry,” he answered.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it.” Ned told him, controlled fury in his voice. “A real man never loses his temper. A real man always knows where his temper is at so he can use it if he needs to. How you ever expected to be able to handle a Panther Girl if you lose your temper? You’re an utter fool!

“Look around you. These girls are just as lovely and just as deadly as the panther they’re named after. I got my girl a long time ago. She’s delightful, but she’s a handful. She never lets up testing me. That’s my kind of fun. She’d eat you alive and spit out the bones.”

Ned had barely gotten into it when the muffled sound of the medevac copter approached. It dropped lightly to the center of the clearing and the medics hurried to the downed girl.

“You got the verifier?” Ned asked, suddenly calm again.

“Right here,” the pilot answered. “That’s the idiot?”

“Yep.”

Two minutes later the pilot announced: “It was intentional.”

“Which means,” that ice cold soprano said, “that I get to pronounce sentence.” She paused, considering Abner. “I think she’ll make a perfectly lovely Panther Girl. Won’t you, Fillema?”

“Fillema?” Abner said woodenly.

“What part of Panther Girl don’t you understand? The Priest-Kings will take care of the details.”

The pilot cuffed Fillema and shoved the unresisting young man into the back of the copter.

“Here’s one,” one of the other hunters announced, half dragging a naked young woman into the clearing. He stood her in front of a tree and wrapped the leash around it.

“And here’s another,” a different voice said as he lead a second girl into the clearing. He positioned her behind the first girl, and pulled out a second leash, this one with a Y on both ends. A few seconds later he’d added her to the coffle.

“What are you doing here?” the soprano suddenly asked. “The tarn hasn’t left yet.”

“Oops!” a blonde dressed in wolfskins said, blushing at her mistake. The green splotch on her shoulder was clearly visible.

“That’s a major penalty, Tina.”

“Damn,” she said feelingly. Her face blanked for a moment as she thought. Then she drew a deep breath and looked at the men. “Which one of you potted me?”

“I think I did,” a third man said.

She walked over to him, puckered her lips, closed her eyes and tilted her head back. He looked at her, pulled her in and gave her a long, lingering kiss.

“If you want me, I’m yours.”

“I want you.”

Tina fell in a boneless heap at his feet, making sure that she didn’t bruise anything when she hit.

He bent and swiftly cuffed her, then he cut off her wolfskin garment. A half minute later he tugged on her leash. She rolled to her feet and walked to the end of the coffle.

The medics got the injured Panther Girl into the copter and took off. The end of search signal blared out.

Two more Panther Girls walked into the clearing.

“Where were you hiding?” one of the searchers blurted.

“I’ll never tell,” the redhead smirked. “You were so cute looking right at me. Three times.” She walked up and snuggled a hand around his waist. “Want some?”

“I think I will.” The Panther Girl and the hunter walked out of the clearing.

The other girl walked up and looked at the three girls in the coffle. “I think that’s all,” she suddenly announced.

“It is,” the soprano answered.

“I’ve got a question,” the third guy asked. “Why did Tina give herself up like that?”

The head of the Panther Girl team answered. “She’s picked up way too many penalties. She’s been in the forests for four years, and she’s got seven to go before she can walk the path to the Sardar. She doesn’t seem to mind camp slave duty, but they were probably going to assign her two stakes. She’s been incredibly lucky so far; she probably figured that her luck was just about to run out.”

“Better a live slavegirl than a dead Panther Girl,” a brunette wearing rabbit skin agreed. “She was so unlikely to collect her million. At least now she’s got a real man to screw her regularly.”

“You think?” Chang Li asked suddenly as the hunters were preparing to leave the clearing.

“Could be,” Ned replied thoughtfully. “I saw both the first and second girls nod when that girl inspected them.”

“Maybe that clearing about a kilometer down?”

“Possible. Let’s keep an eye out.”

The six hunters walked down the trail, two in front, then a bit of a space as one held the leash of the lead girl in the coffle, then three behind. All six of them carefully inspected the forest. Their wrist controllers indicated that there were Panther Girls about.

Ned nodded slightly as he saw a suspicious shadow in a tree. His eyes flicked ahead and spotted two more. Just about where they should be for a trap. He whistled shrilly.

The five men brought their railguns up and fired in three pellet bursts. They brought down a rain of Panther Girls. Ned whistled again, and the five of them dodged into the underbrush, just as two streams of pellets sought them out. He looked and brought his gun up, shooting at two likely targets. Two more Panther Girls dropped out of the trees to lie still on the ground.

“Seven of them,” Li said.

“That should be it, unless she was holding some out.”

“It looks like two of them were already dead, so this is probably the whole gaggle.”

The hunters spent a few minutes securing their captives. Then they resumed their progress toward their camp, ten Panther Girls in the coffle.

“Now what do we do?” Farad asked as they sat around the fire. There were fourteen very unhappy looking naked girls in the corral. The hunters had painted large numbers on their right breasts to keep track of them. “We don’t have Abner any more, so we’re five over our bag limit.”

“We head back. We got two on a violation of the rules of engagement. They were dead, but they were in the trees anyway. Has everyone got them rated and their selections picked out?”

The men nodded. Ned’s fingers twitched slightly as he looked at the display on his reader. “Nobody picked the two violators. That leaves Tina and two others.”

Chapter 5: Return To Base

Later in the day, the expedition walked back to the base. The camp support women and slavegirls set about inventorying the supplies and otherwise making sure that the equipment was cleaned, repaired and ready for use by the next hunting party.

“Ned,” Zoe, the leader of the camp support, said, “I’m worried about Deana.”

“Deana?”

“Abner brought her. She’s a free woman, and she’s kind of sliding into a funk. She won’t talk about it.”

“One of the first four was Abner’s, wasn’t she?”

“Number three, I think.”

“Cute blonde,” Ned said.

“Really. If we got choices, I’d kind of like her.”

“You know, that’s a good idea. Do you think you could handle one of them?”

Zoe laughed. “What do you think?”

“Of course. So if we give number 3 to Deana, could she handle her?”

“Absolutely. Nobody on the crew gave her any shit after the first five minutes. She’s a worker, she’s respectful, and she’s got a will of iron. Is that possible?”

“We’re five over, and we’ve got to do something. I’ll ask the Priest-King’s representative. Send Deana over here.”

“You,” Ned said, “look like hell. I’m not going to ask you to talk about it. I’m going to tell you to talk about it. We haven’t done the final postmortem, so you’re still part of the expedition. If you won’t talk to Zoe, you’ll talk to me.” He crossed his arms and looked down at her.

“My boyfriend rejected me.”

“How could he? He’s not coming back.”

“Not Abner. Pete. He loaned my use to Abner for this expedition, as guest right.”

“The way you two were making out, I thought Abner was your boyfriend. If you were that passionate with Pete, he’s got to be insane.”

“He won a new slavegirl that he’s training. I’ve been denying it for the last couple of years: he’s trained me as far as I’ll let him.”

“Clearly. Zoe gives you high marks for establishing dominance, and staying a team player while you did it.”

“Thank you,” Deana said feelingly.

“Thank Zoe. You’re going back to the NAA? How are you fixed for funds?”

“I’ve got that handled. That may be one of the things that irked Pete; I’ve got my own career and my own funds.”

“What was his pretext? Or did he need one?”

Deana took another breath to calm down. “The codes require him to have cause. What he said was that Abner was supposed to return me; I couldn’t come back on my own. Since he can’t, I can’t come back at all.”

“Talk about gaming the codes! I’ll have a word with the Games master. Have you got another protector?”

“Oh, damn. I’ve got to find one, thanks for reminding me.”

“Could I offer my services?”

“Why, yes. Thank you!” She stood on her toes and bent her head back. They kissed for a long moment.

“Wow! You really are passionate. Unfortunately I’m married. Coming back after an expedition is special; my wife will not appreciate my taking the edge off with another woman. After tonight...” He pulled her in for another lingering kiss.

“To change the subject, could you handle having a Panther Girl of your own?”

“What?”

“We’re mulling what to do with the extra five girls. Abner got number 3 fair and square before he broke, and you came with Abner, so you’ve got a claim on her. Assuming that the Priest-Kings let me give the camp crew some selections.”

“Number 3. Hum. I wasn’t paying that much attention since I thought I was going back to Pete after the expedition. Can we walk over and look?”

“Certainly,” Ned said. “You’ve got the income to maintain her after you get back?”

“Yes. I don’t think Pete knows how much I have.”

Ned laughed. “I don’t want to know. My Panther Girl is quite enough of a package to handle.”

Deana leaned on the corral rail. “3” she snapped.

The blonde looked up.

“Over here. Now.”

The blonde looked back insolently. Then her mouth opened in a soundless scream as she jerked forward, and then tried to jerk again as her cuffed hands wouldn’t come up to her neck.

“Now.” Deana pointed at the ground just inside of the invisible fence with two fingers held straight.

The blonde looked at her, and then sighed. She walked over and fell to her knees.

“Who am I?”

“Mistress?” the blonde answered hesitantly.

“Possibly. Who are you?”

She dropped her eyes. “A slave has no name.”

“Excellent. I think we’ll get along well.”

She turned to Ned. “What’s the next step?”

“I’ve got to go to town center and check with the Priest-King’s representative.”

“I’ve got to tell them I’m staying. Pete is trying to tell everyone I’m leaving. Do they have someplace I can get her marked?”

“Right next door. We’ve got reservations. It’s pretty busy; they get a lot of custom from the games.”

“That’s Osprey’s place, isn’t it? I’ve always liked his work.”

“That’s him. He does do a beautiful kef.”

“Let me leash and hobble her, and we’ll go.”

As they walked to town, Deana started with the Gorean group in her home town where she and Pete had their membership. She’d gotten the Committee straightened away and had arranged to be adopted as a niece by a couple that specialized in being aunt and uncle to unattached free women. The adoption was, of course, within the Gorean community she and Pete had come from: it had no validity in NAA law, not that it needed any. By that time they’d gotten to town.

The Priest-King’s representative turned out to be a fairly ordinary looking slavegirl, dressed in the standard diagonally striped slave tunic. Like the Panther Girls, her control collar held a single image: a praying mantis’ head. Deana nodded thoughtfully. This was the first time she’d seen one. Like she suspected, the girl had bionic eyes. The iris was distinctive if you knew what to look for. If she had the image processor as well, it would explain some of the mystery around the representatives.

Their business took only a few minutes. The Priest-King’s representative said she would ask them for a ruling, and might be able to come out herself to give it. Meanwhile Deana had got all the local authorities after she had a word with the town management. She had names to call if Pete caused any more problems.

Osprey turned out to be a tall, thin man of almost stork-like proportions. He had two workers in his shop, and a line of fifteen naked girls kneeling against the wall, each of their right ankles cuffed to a processing line. They each had notes written on their right breasts, presumably in grease pencil.

“Ned,” he said. “You’re early with her.”

“We’ll have most of the rest tomorrow,” Ned answered. “I’m over the bag limit, so I’ve asked the Priest-Kings for a ruling. If they do what I want, Deana is going to get this one for herself.”

“Ah.” He picked up a reader and looked at what it said.

“You’ll want the kef. Two leopard skins?”

“Of course. A nose ring. And two sets of casual, also in leopard skin.”

“Excellent. That’s, um, 350 credits.”

Deana sent him the funds.

“I do like dealing with a free woman who knows how to use her collar,” Osprey smiled as he bent over and snapped a cuff around 3’s ankle.

“You can resent it, or you can use it,” she answered, eyes twinkling. “I’ve always liked your work.”

“Which I’d better get back to,” he answered with a slight bow.

“And we’d better get back as well,” Ned replied as he steered Deana out the door with a slight touch on her waist.

The Priest-King’s representative arrived before they did. They found she had lined up the remaining Panther Girls and was inspecting them.

She opened her mouth and words with an inhuman accent came out: “Hear the judgment of the Priest-Kings.

“Numbers 7, 8, 10 and 11 violated the rules of engagement, as did the hunter named Abner. The hunter has been judged; the judgment is being executed.

“Number 7’s transgression was comparatively minor. We would not get involved except that she has a history of minor transgressions; her tribe had already decided, without her knowledge, that she was to be staked, permanently, the next time she transgressed.” The Panther Girl who was no longer named Tina flinched and then looked relieved when she heard it. “If she is not selected, she is to be given a choice between serving a different Panther Girl tribe as a camp slave, or an execution stake.

“Numbers 8, 10 and 11 were not only major violators; had they not agreed to violate the rules of engagement the ambush would not have been attempted, and numbers 8 through 14 would be back with their tribe rather than here awaiting assignment to their captors.

“Numbers 8, 10 and 11 are to be executed. They may be offered the choice of an execution stake instead of the usual method. They should be shown the usual method before making the choice.

“It has been suggested that Deana, being Abner’s companion and having served honorably with the camp crew, be awarded his choice. This is acceptable. We so order it.

“We also agree that the camp crew in general is an essential part of the hunt, so it is reasonable that they participate in any overage. This is our permanent decision, not restricted to this specific incident.

“Ned and Zoe may assign up to four selections to the camp crew. If they assign less than four selections, the unselected Panther Girls must be in the group of 8, 10 and 11. If they assign none, number 7 is not to be selected either.

“The Priest-Kings have spoken!” The Priest-King’s representative worked her jaw so she could close her mouth.

“Thank you,” Ned told her.

“My service,” she answered and then walked away, down the road back to the town center.

“It looks like we get to run the selection again,” Ned said. “Zoe has already indicated she wants one of the selections.” Number 7 looked relieved. “Let’s take a poll on which of the free women on the camp crew to award the other three selections to. When you vote, consider whether that person has the force of personality to handle a Panther Girl, and also consider whether she has the income to maintain one. Since we don’t know income for our outside guests, if you want to take yourself out of the running, please say so now. Oh, if your husband or boyfriend is one of the hunters, you’re not eligible unless he approves.”

Two of the free women raised their hands.

“We’ve got three left, so we don’t need to vote.” Numbers 8, 10 and 11 looked incredibly relieved.

“Let’s wait until just before dinner. I know the hunters have been chewing over their selections for a while; the other four of you need to look over the herd and decide.”

“I’ve got a curiosity question,” Dereck said. “The representative mentioned a permanent stake and an execution stake?”

“A permanent stake,” Ned answered, “means that she’s going to be used as a stakeout whenever they don’t have another girl on the list ahead of her. It won’t keep her from walking the path to the Sardar and collecting her million when her time comes, but it’s several more opportunities to die first. An execution stake is just that: she’s staked and left for the predators. She doesn’t get any supplies or weapons. She’s going to die of dehydration in a few days if a predator doesn’t get her first. It’s still,” he said a bit thoughtfully, “a much faster death than the Priest-King’s usual execution methods.”

Chapter 6: Training a Panther Girl.

Deana looked around the small apartment she’d hastily rented. It would, she thought, do quite well for the couple of weeks she’d be here while she was training her Panther Girl enough so she could take her back.

“Where are you from?” Deana asked the kneeling Panther Girl.

“From the forests, mistress.”

Deana let some anger show. “Uh. This one is originally from the European Union, mistress.”

“Better. Where did that first answer come from?”

“I ... uh ... this one used to read the Gor books, mistress.”

“Were you part of a Gorean group?”

“No, mistress.”

“How much did you know about the Gorean Hunting Preserve before you came here to be a Panther Girl?”

“Almost nothing, mistress.”

“For your reference then. The books, the Gorean Hunting Preserve and practice in Gorean groups around the world are each different from the others. You can’t take what’s in the books and assume you know what I’m talking about. You also can’t take your very limited experience with the Gorean Hunting Preserve as having anything to do with practice in the Gorean groups. How much do you know about slave practices in the North American Association?”

“Uh. This one just realized that what she thinks she knows is probably wrong.”

“You’re learning. What nation are you a citizen of?”

“The European Union? Uh. Mistress?”

“Not any longer. When you signed the Panther Girl contract you became a citizen of the Gorean Hunting Preserve. That’s why your kef is red. The GHP does not allow female slaves to be freed, and it does not allow slaves to change their citizenship. Who is your owner?”

“You are, mistress.”

“Not quite. Your owner is the Priest-Kings. They own all Panther Girls. They gave your use to me, for as long as I want, as a reward for supporting the hunt. I cannot free you. I cannot sell you. If I’m tired of you, I have to return you. If they ask the NAA politely to return you, the authorities will put you on a plane and send you back. What does that mean to you?”

“There’s no escape, mistress?”

“Is that a question or an answer?”

“It’s an answer.”

“Correct. You need to decide right now whether or not you want to live in the NAA as my slavegirl, or whether you want to live here working at whatever the Priest-Kings do with returned Panther Girls.”

“Could you tell this Panther Girl more?”

“I know nothing about what the Priest-Kings do with returned Panther Girls. You are not, and you will never be, an NAA citizen. You will always be a resident. That doesn’t mean you’re totally on the outside. You get one entitlement: the Health Service. The NAA Health Service bureaucracy doesn’t bother to distinguish citizens from residents as long as you’re not entering the country with diseases that are very expensive to treat. You also get many of the protections, including the protections on working hours as well as safe and non-debilitating workplaces. Those bureaucracies don’t distinguish between citizens and residents either.”

“After living in that damn forest, this slave girl thinks those protections sound wonderful. Uh. How do you treat slaves?”

“My outlook is Gorean. I know that doesn’t mean a whole lot, so here’s some background. You’ll hear the phrase ‘a slave is to be used’ quite a lot. That’s true of a regular NAA slave; that phrase encapsulates the situation quite nicely. The mindset is that if you can’t use her productively, sell her and get another one. She takes the same view: if she’s not being used productively, she is supposed to ask to be sold. Productively means that both of you are reasonably happy with the job you have her doing and the circumstances. The matching in the national auction insures that it works in the overwhelming majority of cases.

“A Gorean slavegirl is to be enjoyed. There’s quite a bit of overlap between the two, but they are not the same. A slavegirl can be incredibly useful even if her owner doesn’t interact with her on any regular basis; a Gorean slavegirl can be a very enjoyable property even if she’s so useless you need to get another one to keep her out of trouble. Those are obviously extremes. Most Gorean slavegirls are going to be used for the usual housekeeping tasks as well as keeping their owners amused and delighted.

“Most Gorean owners like to train their girls and develop their potential to be even more pleasing and delightful. I’m one of them. That means I’m going to get into your head and bring you to understand your slavery on a very deep level. You’ll eventually learn the freedom of slavery, and begin to blossom. That’s somewhat like the Gor books you’ve read.

“That is quite different from how slavery is generally practiced in the NAA. The general practice is that there are a couple of mind control modules that make the slave want to be useful, and the national auction system matches what the buyer wants her to do, his personality and management style against her interests, training, personality and workable style of being managed. The result is a good enough match that most slaves consider what their owner has them doing to be, if not their dream job, close enough for practical purposes.”

“This girl does not understand.”

“I can’t sell you, so the matching doesn’t apply. I don’t, at this time, have a good idea if you’re the kind of person who will blossom with the kind of deep submission we practice as Goreans. To put it bluntly, we’re stuck with each other. If you want to stay in the NAA, it’s to your advantage to minimize the hassle factor, or I send you back to the Priest-Kings.”

“This slave girl understands you to say that the price of living somewhere civilized is acting like a slave girl.”

Deana laughed. “That’s a nice way of putting it. What I don’t want out of you is what I keep hearing about Panther Girls: you keep challenging your owner. I don’t mind feisty. I like a slavegirl with spirit. What I don’t want is a continual running minor war where I have to keep slapping you down and sitting on you. If you do that enough, you’ll go on the plane to be returned. As freight in a girl box. Also, if you want to go back, just ask. That’s the same right any slave has in the NAA: the right to ask to be sold.”

“Uh. May this girl ask a question?”

“Certainly.”

“What’s my name?”

Deana looked at her.

“Oh. A slave has no name. Will mistress tell me what she’s going to call me?”

“Better. I’m going to do something a bit different with you. When we get to the NAA, I’ll give you a name because the bureaucracy there wants one. I can’t give you a name here because the bureaucracy, and their system, doesn’t have any way of recording a name for a slave. As far as they’re concerned, you really don’t have a name. You’ve got a slave inventory number that they don’t even bother tattooing on your body. They do have a way of recording what I want to call you. That’s for my convenience so they don’t have to use your number if they send me a message. It takes me about 30 seconds to change it.”

“Oh.”

“What I’m going to do is a conditioned response that’s also tied to my control collar. When I want your attention, you’ll know it without my using any kind of name. I probably won’t use the name that your control collar reports with its ID, and I will probably change what I call you regularly.”

“Oh! This slave girl is feeling ... owned?”

“You’re the one who knows, girl. Now tell me something. What were you thinking when you decided to become a Panther Girl?”

She grinned. “I liked Gor, and I liked the idea of a million credits.” She hesitated. “Oops!”

“I’ll excuse it this time. Then?”

“This slave girl found it sucked.”

“How long were you a Panther Girl?”

“Um. About four years.” She shrugged. “This slave girl got the wrong team leader this last time. This slave girl had two years to go.”

“I thought it was five years?”

“This slave girl got two medium penalties.” Deana raised an eyebrow. “That’s six months additional, including one month of being a camp slave. At least being a camp slave is safe.” She hesitated. “Would mistress please give this slave girl something to call herself other than this slave girl?”

Deana laughed. “Use Xena for a while.”

“Xena thanks mistress.”

“How big was your tribe?”

“Um. We usually had around fifty girls. Plus our three camp slaves. Two males and one female.”

“I’ll bet they were worn out.”

“The Priest-Kings did something to the males so they could satisfy ten of us a day. We rationed them so they could do some work around the camp.”

“First time I ever heard of the super stud DNA mod being useful. I’ll bet they still got worn out.”

“Not that Xena could tell, mistress. One was supposed to have been there thirty years, the other ten. The female had been with the tribe for fifteen. Both males were really good; they worked at knowing what pleased each of their girls.” She smiled reminiscently. “They were one of the few bright spots. Not bright enough to tempt Xena to want to go back, though.”

“That’s interesting. It’s enough for right now. Go organize the kitchen and bring me a light lunch. Get something for yourself.”

Xena rose gracefully, curtsied and walked out of the room. Deana nodded thoughtfully. The leopard skin tunic seemed to suit her. Now there was something about that walk that needed to be corrected. She spent a moment looking at her wrist controller. Then she shrugged and considered the room. She finally mounted a large size reader on one wall and curled up on a sofa where she could see it. A minute later she settled in to a session of studying her new Panther Girl’s collar setup and sketching out possible training plans.

Chapter 7: The Corral.

“Get your leash, Wanda,” Deana told her Panther Girl.

“As mistress pleases,” she pouted but got up fluidly and took the leash off the wall and handed it to her owner.

“We’re going to watch some of the competitions,” Deana said by way of explanation. “And then take a look at the slavegirl corrals.”

“Wanda will behave.”

“Oh, I know that. If I thought you wouldn’t, I’d cuff and hobble you. I don’t want to get people in an uproar with a Panther Girl running around loose. I want to burnish your reputation a bit.” She giggled.

Wanda giggled in response.

“I take it you’ve never seen the corrals,” Deana said.

“Uh. Only the one when Wanda was captured.”

“That one was portable. This is the same system, but the poles are set in permanent bases. Take a look at them.”

The corrals were in back of the slave dealer’s shops. The fences were built with posts that stood around half way between two and three meters tall; the posts were set immovably in concrete bases. The bases themselves formed a grid an exact three meters apart, which let the Games authority reconfigure the actual corrals as needed for the size of each dealer’s herd of slavegirls.

Each post had two three meter rails sticking out. The rails could move in a complete circle; usually they bonded to the next post. The arrangement meant that they didn’t have to have gates: each of the spaces between posts could serve as a gate if needed.

Each corral had a row of reader screens set down the center where the girls could kneel to watch entertainment, study or absorb training. It didn’t extend the length of the corral. One end had water troughs; the other had slit latrines. There were a couple of washing and grooming stations as well.

Many of the girls knelt in front of the readers. They were completely naked except for their control collars and cuffs. Most of them were hobbled, with their wrists cuffed to their upper arms, nicely framing their breasts. Their breasts, in turn, had the dealer’s inventory numbers marked in a hard to remove fashion ink.

A number of them seemed to be exercising; they were inside of their own private three meter square. These weren’t cuffed or hobbled. Most of them went through whatever routine they were being trained in. A few of them wore VR helmets.

“Observations?” Deana asked.

“This is a lot more organized than the one during the hunt,” Wanda said.

“Quite true. I don’t know how long a typical hunt lasts. I know the limit is supposed to be a week. We were only out for two days before getting over our bag limit.”

“That ...” Wanda said. Then: “she paid the price.”

“So she did. I think Chang Li ought to be able to tame her down. Anyhow, the reason I came down here, besides to look and see if there was anyone I used to know in the corrals, was to see those four.” She pointed at four girls apparently walking around aimlessly, the red kefs on their thighs clearly visible.

“What’s special about them, mistress?”

“They came in without control collars and caused a small disturbance at the airport. I heard they caused a really major disturbance here.”

“Not that bad,” a tall man standing a few feet down said. He’d been looking at the four girls intently. “I’ve seen several full fledged riots when the warriors didn’t like the officiating.”

Deana laughed. “I managed to avoid one of them, Master Sidon. It’s the first and only time I ever laid hands on my ex-boyfriend with intent. He agreed I was right to pull him away. After he’d cooled down.”

“Ex? Something happened to Pete?”

“Let’s say we broke up. I might be able to talk about it by the time I get back. At least without either spitting flames or looking for a shoulder to cry on.”

“Interesting. I heard a rumor that the Games Master had some words with him. Didn’t hear about what, but he took a hit on the standings right after for an unspecified bit of sharp practice.”

“I hadn’t heard that, so I can’t connect it up. Sorry.”

“Shouldn’t spread rumors anyway.”

“I shouldn’t take you away from what you’re doing.”

“Oh, nonsense. I’m just supervising those four in Basic Collar Obedience. It’s apprentice work, if I’d brought an apprentice. The AI is perfectly capable of yelling for help if it thinks it needs it. I was analyzing their movements to see how much I could improve their estimated sale price.”

“And then make a proposal.”

“Of course, dear. Of course. All four of them could use a lot of work in graceful movement.”

“Too true. Talk about awkward.”

“Speaking of apprentices. Since you’re at liberty, and I’ve got an open position, would you consider an apprenticeship?”

“I hadn’t thought about it, frankly. I have to admit I’d closed my eyes to what was happening, so I never thought about what to do next. I did enjoy training the girls with Pete. Wanda here is the first I’m training myself.”

“You and Pete did some decent work. Since you worked together, I don’t have a good read on which of you did what. You say you’re training your Panther Girl?”

“We had a meeting of the minds a few days ago.” Wanda laughed at the comment. “She’s cooperating.”

“How did you do that?”

“I pointed out the legal situation and the alternatives. She’s in a very different position than they are,” Deana gestured to the girls in the corral.

“Quite true. You’ve worked out training plans?”

“Several.”

“If you’re interested in that apprenticeship, let’s get together so I can review what you’re doing.”

“I think I am, Master Sidon. At least exploring the possibility.”

“Good.” He stuck out his hand. They shook on it.

Chapter 8: In the Lair of the Priest-Kings.

The medevac copter hesitated in midair, then gently settled to the heliport pad. A crew of two medical orderlies took the stretcher with the comatose Panther Girl, put it on a cart and wheeled it away.

Two burly guards took the young man named Fillema and walked him, none to gently, up an outside path to a door to a long corridor. It was lined with open doors to rooms, many of which were dark. Each of the doorways had a number above it: they seemed to start with 79 and descended from there, even numbers on the right, odd numbers on the left.

The guards hustled him into a room marked 23. One of them attached a tether to his leg. Then they left.

“Hi!” a low soprano voice said from the other side, not giving Fillema a chance to get his bearings. “Fillema is a pretty name, for a pretty girl to be.”

“Wha?” He turned to look. The voice’s owner was a beautiful slavegirl who was currently standing by a table that protruded from the wall.

“That’s hardly original,” she giggled. “Have a look around. I’ve got to get the next procedure set up; then we can get that tether off of you and talk.”

“You’re?” he asked.

“23.” She giggled again. “A slave has no name. The Priest-Kings call us room slaves by our room numbers. Don’t,” she managed to drop her voice a bit, “try to give me another one. They don’t like that.” She walked close enough that he could see the calligraphic 23 on her control collar’s cameo.

He took a deep breath and started to look around. The room seemed to be an unexceptional living space: a combined work, living, kitchen and dining room. The back wall had two openings: one to what he took to be a bathroom; another to something that might be a sleeping room. The opening to the corridor didn’t seem to have a door on this side either. What it did have was two red lights, one on either side. The front wall was lined with cabinets. The left wall had a pretty ordinary sink, stove, food storage locker and the rest of the kitchen appliances. The right side had displays and foldout tables. Possibly they were standup desks. The room seemed to lack any furniture for sitting or lying down.

While he’d been looking, she had taken some supplies from the cabinets that lined the front wall and laid them out on the desk.

“The first thing we’ve got to do is get you collared,” she said. She walked toward him with a red ribbon in her hand. He looked at it and backed up a bit.

“Oh come on. It doesn’t hurt, and the law is that all females must be collared. You’re going to be a female as soon as they build the DNA mod and it does its thing. Now hold your hair back, unless you’d prefer to do it yourself?”

He held out a hand, and she gave it to him. He looked at it and then wrapped it around his neck. It quivered a moment as it settled into place, creating a snug, but not tight, fit.

She picked up a circlet. “Put this on your head for a minute while I ask you some questions.”

He took it. “Is this a wedding circlet?”

“Of course. You don’t think the Priest-Kings are going to equip each of the rooms with a full ID booth? That’s enough of a contract machine to verify who you are and initialize your collar properly.”

He settled it on his head.

“OK. Yes or no to these statements. You’re Fillema, formerly known as Abner. You shot and almost killed a Panther Girl in a fit of anger. The Panther Girl’s team leader sentenced you to become a Panther Girl, and named you Fillema.”

He agreed to all of them.

“Great. Take it off and give it back to me.” She took it and then made a gesture. The tether fell off his leg.

“You’re probably wondering about the tether, right?” she continued without waiting for an answer. “That door is blocked two ways. There’s an invisible fence, and there’s also a pretty vicious stunner. If you’re not supposed to leave, those two lights will glow red when you approach. If you try to continue, and you’re wearing a collar, you’ll hit the fence first. If you’re not, it’ll stun you. If you’ve got medical problems, that could well trigger them and kill you.”

“Oh.”

“Now come over here so I can install the rest of the equipment. Earplugs first, then the muffler. Then we’ll wheel in the medical robot and install the micro-cables.”

“Uh. Shouldn’t that be done by a medic?”

“You think the Priest-Kings care what happens to you? Silly about to be girl! It’s a big planet, and they have more than enough silly girls lined up to become Panther Girls. Something about a million credits seems to draw them like flies. Those hunts are a cute custom, and they do draw off a certain group of people that might get up to nastier tricks otherwise, but they’re really to thin the Panther Girl population.

“The micro-cable operation will be done by a specialty robot surgeon that does just that one operation. If I had to guess, there might be a half dozen on the island, with the one at the airport and the ones that go around to the ten-year-old rite of passage collaring ceremonies being used most often.” She tilted her head prettily. “There’s probably one at the Cast of Physicians office near where they do the Games.” She pulled the block out of his mouth. “You can close your mouth now. Here’s the surgeon.”

She pulled a machine out of one of the closets. “Lie down on the floor and stick your head in. It takes about fifteen minutes. What do you do for soothing music?”

“Huh? Oh, I suppose ocean sounds. Waves, birds, that kind of thing.”

“Great!. We’ve got a lot of those.”

He looked at the thing and then lay on the floor. She slid it forward so his head went into the opening. A moment later he was plunged into utter darkness as something folded around his neck, and clamps came out to hold his head steady. The soothing sounds of the ocean filled his ears. He relaxed, and barely felt the touch of the instrument that fed the micro-cable in under his right ear. The cable slowly reeled off of the spool as it found its way first to the earplug and then down his neck to a spot under his newly installed control collar. Another one touched him on the left. A third touched just under his nose. This was the most complex one because it had to go from the muffler that had been installed on his palate all the way around to the back of his neck.

Fifteen minutes later it was all over. The instruments had withdrawn, leaving three almost microscopic scars that would vanish in a few days. It released his head, and 23 wheeled the robot surgeon back and put it into the closet.

“I see why you don’t need a doctor to do it. What did it do?”

“It installed high bandwidth connections between your earplugs and muffler and your control collar. The most import function is that it enables the brain scanners in both devices. You’ve now got your own personal verifier.”

“Huh?”

“Gorean females are not allowed to lie to their parents, husbands or owners. The verifier makes it impossible. By the time a girl has had one for a couple of years, any tendency to lie has been totally trained out. She literally can’t. The rest is that Panther Girls aren’t allowed to lie to their team leaders or tribal leaders either. That forest out there is really dangerous. The Panther Girl tribes are the top predators, but they don’t get on top and stay on top by playing the usual female clique power games.”

“So what’s next?”

“You’ll be my guest for around six weeks, then you’ll join a four month Panther Girl training group. They start every month. Most of the girls are here for a few weeks waiting for the next one. You’ll be here longer so that you’ll be a lovely young lady when you join them. Part of my job is to help you transition. The rest is standard collar training for Panther Girls, and some other basic orientation.”

Chapter 9: Decision Time.

Fillema stood at the edge of the clearing, arms crossed under her breasts, and stared at nothing. She had seen the shadow from the central stake in the same position, moving in the same direction, at sunrise and sunset ten times since she had stumbled into this Panther Girl tribe’s encampment, fresh out of the four month intensive ‘how to be a Panther Girl’ class. There were no Panther Girls left from that day. Around two thirds of them were dead. The lucky, or possibly unlucky, one third had been collected by hunting parties as prey. Exactly three in ten years had walked the path to the Sardar to collect their million credits.

The tribe called her the Old One. They gave that accolade to any Panther Girl who had survived five years, even if they had collected penalties and could not walk the path for another half year or more. Five years ago she had been glad to accept the accolade. Today it grated, not that she let it show.

The real Old Ones were the four camp slaves: two males and two females. One of them had been with the tribe for forty years. They never left the camp. They weren’t at risk for dying from one of the forest’s many hazards, or being bagged by a Panther Girl hunt.

Everyone knew why she hadn’t walked the path to the Sardar. She was a hunter who had violated the Rules of Engagement and had been sentenced to become a Panther Girl. The only way out for her was either death, or falling to a hunter’s ‘stun’ pellet.

She wasn’t going to give them that pleasure. She’d learned the rudiments of survival before she’d wound up here; then she had thought that Abner was hot stuff. Now she knew better. She had survived three stakes, once having to use her knife to finish off a tiger that didn’t know it was dead, another time killing the last three wolves in a wolfpack. That time they had left her a crossbow: bait girls didn’t tend to survive wolfpacks unless they were armed. They didn’t survive them very often even if they were, but a few survivors were better than no survivors.

She knew almost every place where they could trap hunting parties thoroughly, and she spent a great deal of time analyzing each engagement. She thought she knew the four hunting party leaders better than their own mothers. Or more to the point, better than the teachers who had taught them their trade.

They all knew her as well. Once they’d wiped out a hunting party, which they only managed about half the time, she took the opportunity to exchange a few words with them. It helped to build a reputation as the Demon of the Forest.

She stared at nothing, and finally came to a decision. Enough was enough. She had never tried the path to the Sardar. She knew what happened if you tried it too soon. Five of the Panther Girls she thought of as her tribe had done that. Three of them had wisely stopped at the invisible fence. The other two had pressed on, and had been filled with crossbow bolts from hidden weapons. There had been no way to retrieve the bodies; the predators had stripped them and their bones still lay beside the path.

The tribe had worked its way around the island to one of the paths. She nodded decisively to herself. It was best to do it quickly. One goodbye was quite enough.

She looked back at the campsite. Good. Aliya was nearby. The oldest of the two female camp slaves, and the one she enjoyed sex with the most. She walked over and said her goodbye.

“I wondered when you were going to do it?” Aliya told her.

“By know I suppose you know me.”

“Of course, girl. Of course.” The two of them hugged, and then Fillema strode off into the gathering dark.

Chapter 10: The Lair of the Priest-Kings. Ten years later.

“You’re back,” the low soprano voice said from the back of the suite.

“I’m what?” Fillema said, startled.

“You’re back,” the pretty slavegirl said. Then she giggled. “You don’t remember, do you?”

“You’re the same girl who was here before?” Fillema shook her head.

“Same one. I’ll probably be this room’s slavegirl until I’m too old to look like a prize.”

“How’d I get you?”

“It wasn’t an accident. The Priest-Kings assign you the same room when you come back.” She sighed. “I’ve been here twenty years. You’re the second Panther Girl that’s come back to me.”

“What’s next?”

“Besides getting reacquainted? You need to spend a few weeks with me. It’s been ten years since you’ve read anything; it’s been ten years since you wore anything except skins. You need to reenter the world before you go on.”

“Go on to what?”

“Your reward, of course. That million credits.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Did anyone tell you that you wouldn’t get the reward? You didn’t talk to anyone except me who actually knew whether you would or not. And my instructions were not to let you know. Just like nobody told you that you could walk the path. It’s been open to you for the last three years.”

“Three years. Five years, four penalties. I see.”

“I doubt it,” 23 replied. “The Priest-Kings like to appear mysterious, incomprehensible and capricious. They work at it. It does help to keep the more cautious from doing things they’re likely to regret, and it filters out the foolhardy. They could hardly have run this island for over half a century if they didn’t know what they were doing.”

“Call me Misk,” the man in the office said.

“Oh, come on,” she answered.

He threw his head back and laughed. “You managed to read that book.”

“Yes. I figured that I might as well learn the Gor canon, especially when 23 practically threw them at me. Awful as his writing style was, it sure beat some of the other material.”

“Call me Misk anyway. We like to be mysterious, and if you don’t know my name, you can’t let it slip. We’ve even discussed setting up a holographic scene so you could really talk to Misk, but it seems that it’s so unlikely to work that it’s not worth the bother. So what do you think is going to happen?”

“Well,” she looked around. He waved at a couch, and then sat himself. “I figure that if you wanted to kill me, you wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.”

“Right. Besides, there are a number of other winners circulating.”

“That million credits has to be a come-on. I’m a slave of the Priest-Kings. That got repeated enough times that it sank in. What use does a slavegirl have with a million credits?”

“As such, none. A million credits, invested really conservatively, gives an income of around 50 thousand credits a year. That’s your pitiful spending account.”

Fillema looked at him and giggled. “Pitiful spending account indeed!”

He laughed again. “Every NAA slavegirl I’ve ever run into describes her spending account that way. Or else keeps her mouth shut about it, which probably means she thinks her owner is overpaying her, and she’s not going to mention it to him. It’s got to be in the NAA’s Slave Code somewhere, although I’ve never found it.”

“Now I’ll admit to being even more confused.”

“Well, what did you think you were going... Oh. Strike that, you didn’t. What do you think the average empty-headed girl with a million credits in her starry-eyed gaze think she was going to do with it?”

“I heard a few of them. There were a couple of real hard luck stories that made a rather weird and pitiful amount of sense, but the rest didn’t seem to be in this universe.”

“Assume they weren’t deluded about it lasting.”

“Live happily ever after, I suppose.”

“Exactly. That’s not the only reason we’re giving you the income rather than the principle, but it’s a major one.

“The deal is this. We’re going to call on you occasionally. When we do, sometimes it’s going to be just an odd job, sometimes it’s going to be as an unofficial, but very real, representative of the Sardar. Outside of that, you can do whatever you want, as long as you are available when we call on you, and we’re not working at cross purposes. Available doesn’t necessarily mean instantly, but it wouldn’t be amiss to be able to hop on a plane on a couple of day’s notice. One would be even better. Outside of that, you’ve got a fairly long leash.”

“I have to admit I’ve got no idea.”

“I figured as much. I see all of the Panther Girls that managed to last long enough to walk the path, and maybe one out of ten has a realistic notion of what she wants to do with the rest of her life. How do you like 23?”

“She’s pretty good. I definitely like her.”

“She’s yours whenever you’re here, as long as we don’t have her assigned to someone else when you come. You’re going to be here for a while; you’ve got a lot to learn before we let you loose. We’re going to give you limited access to some parts of the installation. You’re going to have a number of improvements; the bionic eyes and ears for starters, as well as the SHAZOOM DNA modifications.”

“The what modifications?”

“SHAZOOM. It’s from a comic from over a century ago. The acronym stands for: Strength, Health, Aptitude, Zeal, Ox, power of, Ox, power of another, Money. Aptitude and zeal are something you’re going to have to find yourself, and we’ve already talked about money. It’s a spiffed up version of the super athlete’s modifications, limited by not wanting to give you extra muscle mass. Before you leave here you’ll probably spend some time shepherding various scientific teams around the forest. I know that if you’re not the top predator, you’re on the short list. We really don’t want to lose you by accident.

“23 will help you quite a bit, including a lot of the standard girl stuff as well as how to be mistress to a slavegirl. She won’t be confined to the suite while you’re here.”

“I thought they were?”

“That’s the way the original author wrote it, and we let the Panther Girls on their way in, as well as a fair number of other visitors think so. They’ve got their own section of the installation for when they don’t have a guest, and they’re allowed in the common recreation areas then as well.”

Chapter 11: Panther Girl.

Fillema looked thoughtfully at the backs of the two ponygirls trotting ahead of her. The two chestnuts moved easily, their manes and tails flowing behind them. The two wore pony tunics in the ubiquitous black and white diagonally striped pattern that the Priest-Kings used for all of their slaves. Except, she grinned slightly at the thought, her. And of course the relatively few others like her.

They trotted almost shoulder to shoulder. The traces came out from the shafts only a scant few centimeters before they attached to the tunics at the hips. The pair rested their hands on holds that came up from the shafts in front of them. The holds didn’t have anything to do with moving the cart; they were there so that the ponies had something to do with their hands. Their entire upper bodies were still and relaxed in a way that would have been completely impossible if they had been harnessed with leather straps.

Neither one wore a bridle. The reins attached to the sides of their control collars. Whoever had trained them had done an exquisite job: they obeyed the slightest touch of the reins. Right now she had the reins tied to the post at the front of the cart; they were perfectly capable of getting her to the airport without her needing to guide them.

Navigating the airport maze turned out to be so easy it was almost absurd. She’d looked at the map, decided she didn’t want to bother, and plugged in her destination with a few almost invisible twitches of her fingers. Her control collar took her through electronic checkpoints almost without breaking step, and the combined snarling panther and praying mantis on her control collar did the same for the others. The navigation module used her bionic eyes to throw direction signs into her vision at appropriate points.

Her outfit might have had something to do with it as well. It was a simple white blouse and tan knee-length skirt in the same nano-fabric used for the slave tunics, completed with heelless toe shoes and a pair of wrist controllers that looked like bracelets. The airport personnel had probably been trained to recognize the cut of her blouse on sight: it was, after all, registered to the Priest-Kings. Nobody else could use it. They only had three decorative designs for the blouses: white, jungle camouflage and panther rosettes. The skirt was a standard unregistered style that came to just above the knee. The Priest-Kings had one registered decorative skirt design: panther rosettes. They shared the jungle camouflage with several other organizations, and otherwise used generally available solid colors.

Then again, maybe it was just her. They hadn’t shrunk her at all when they changed Abner’s sex; with her feet at full extension the top of her head brushed two meters. And after ten years in that damn forest she radiated danger unconsciously. Even the warriors tended to come alert when she walked by.

Today wasn’t one of the two or three days a quarter when everyone tried to leave the Games at once. Even so, the departure lounge looked busy; they had most of it shut down. There were still quite a few people, most of them dressed for comfort. The slavegirls in their briefly skirted livery almost looked overdressed, although she knew that wasn’t the case: slave livery had built in environmental conditioning. Most of the other women wore shirts and shorts. The airport’s female workers seemed to be divided between slavegirls and free women; the only way to tell the difference was that the slavegirls wore the one shoulder livery, while the free women wore the same decorative pattern in a strapless version.

She headed for the snack line, and then stopped. Was that? Yes! That was Deana, and she had a Panther Girl on a leash. In fact... Fillema pulled up the data. That was the girl she, well, Abner, had gotten the day before he’d made his almost fatal mistake.

“Deana! It’s been a while!”

Deana turned. “Do I know you?”

Fillema laughed. “Eleven years ago. I used to be Abner, we walked from the airport to the Panther Girl hunts. I’m Fillema now.”

“You survived!” Deana exclaimed. She looked around. “You’re by yourself?”

“I survived ten years, and then walked the path to the Sardar to collect my million. The Priest-Kings are keeping me on a long leash; I’m supposed to be able to head out on a day’s notice. How I’m going to attend university while being on call is a definite mystery.”

“Eleven years? You can’t be...”

“The Demon of the Jungle. Yep. That’s me.”

“We have got to talk,” Deana said, sliding her arm around Fillema’s waist and leading her toward the snack bar.