→A great place this, floored with stone and surrounded by the ranked pens that held the human cattle. A block raised itself at one end, and guards, armed and watchful, paced the edges of the cleared area before it. An auctioneer stood at the block, an old man dressed all in white, and around him his assistants awaited his terse commands. The rest of the area was filled with a motley collection of starmen, traders, nomads, wealthy profligates, hard-faced harridans, veiled men of the cloud-worlds and near-naked men of the strange planets circling a double sun.