I shuddered.

How fearful it must be for any woman to be among such men, let alone one such as I, a slave!

I felt as though I might be a delicacy, one which, had it not been for a word from he in the chair, would by now have been seized and devoured. But on this world there were doubtless many such delicacies, silked and perfumed, combed and belled, deliciously curved, trained, eager to please. Might they not be encountered in any tavern? Indeed, I had at one time thought that I might be sent to such a tavern. Girls such as I, from my world, are apparently popular purchases with tavern keepers.

I lay there before the dais, helpless, but now, apparently, quite safe.

But I felt somehow angry, somehow vaguely dissatisfied, even irritated.

What sort of girl was I? How pleased I was that I was now safe!

They could not touch me now!

But my belly seemed aflame. My ears had been pierced! I had some sense now as to what that might mean to men such as these. I could feel the tiny rods in my ear lobes.

But I was safe now. How pleased I was!

But I was somehow angry.

I went to my back, lying on my crossed wrists, they below the small of my back. This arched my body somewhat, lifting my belly up, having my head a bit down. I breathed quickly, deeply, prominently, two or three times, and moved my shoulders a little, twisting them, and lifted my knees a bit. I did this though I knew the eyes of several were upon me.

How foolish this was, for would it not call attention to the slave at their feet? But surely this was all quite innocent, and quite unintentional, or, at least, must be seemingly so. What woman would dare to stir thusly before such men, even in all innocence, in all inadvertence, almost like a restless, frustrated, yearning, begging slave, one attempting to call attention to herself, surely only one naive, or one reckless, or one oblivious to, or heedless of, what she might be doing. Did she not understand how such things might be viewed? Had she not considered the danger of provoking them, of even in some subtle way perhaps igniting their heats and needs? How foolish must such a woman be! Might not such movements, all innocent and unintentional as they might be, be misconstrued? Might they not even be understood as slave movements? I glanced to one of the men. I am not sure then precisely what happened. I think an expression of irritation, or of annoyance, may have crossed my features, perhaps fleetingly, ending perhaps in a tiny smile, perhaps in an as-if-triumphant little smile, as I turned my head away.

I was safe from him. He could not have me now! This was all subtle, you understand. Even now I am not quite certain of everything that occurred in that moment, or half moment. What I think I may have done was to convey, or seem to convey, my contempt for them, subtly, challengingly, that I had not been seized and ravished and, at the same time, slyly, vaunt my immunity from their predations. I was, I suppose, in my way, taunting them. This was, of course, a mistake. It was not one I would make again.

"s.l.u.t!" cried a man.

"Oh!" I cried in pain, kicked.

"Throw her to sleen!" called another.

"No, please, Masters!" I wept. "Oh! Oh!" I cried, twice more kicked.

"Take that, slave!" cried another.

"Oh!" I wept.

"And that!" cried another.

"And that!" cried yet another.

"Oh! Oh!" I wept.

"Bring the whip!" cried a man.

"No, Masters!" I begged.

"I have it," cried another.

"Please, no, Masters!" I begged.

Down came the lash!

"What have I done?" I cried.

"Stupid slave!" cried a man.

"Lying slave!" cried another.

Again and again the lash fell.

"Forgive me, Masters!" I cried, writhing bound under the lash. "Forgive me! Forgive me, Masters!"

"It is enough," announced the man in the chair. "She is new to her collar, and yet naive."

"She must learn quickly," snarled a man.

"Kneel, slave," said the man in the chair.

I struggled to my knees and knelt before the dais. I put my head down to the floor before the first step of the dais, "You are a pathetic spectacle, Earth girl," said he in the great chair.

"Forgive me, Master," I said. "Forgive me, Master!"

"In the future," said he, "you will be concerned to be more pleasing, will you not?"

"Yes, Master," I said. "Yes, Master!"

"Tenrik," said the man in the chair.

"Yes, Captain," said huge Tenrik.

"Lift up the state slave," said he.

Tenrik lifted me up, in his arms. My weight was as nothing to him.

"She is to be sent below, into the keeping of the pit master."

"The Tarsk?" asked a man.

"What a waste," said a man.

"It seems a pity," said one of the men, oddly enough the one who had just used the whip on me.

"This one is pretty," said a man. "And I think she will learn quickly to serve. Choose another."

"This one has not been particularly purchased because she is pretty,"

said the man in the chair, "though I do not expect the Tarsk will object to her particular configuration of visage and curves."

"I should think not," said a man.

"The Tarsk is a lucky beast," said a fellow.

"She has been purchased primarily for her ignorance," said the man in the chair.

"She is not as ignorant now as she was a few moments ago," said a man.

"No," laughed another.

"What are her duties?" asked a man.

"She will be one of the pit slaves," said the man in the chair, "kenneled like the others, serving like them, as the Tarsk directs."

"Beyond that what are her special duties?" asked a man.

"These have been made clear to the Tarsk," said the man in the chair.

"I see," said the fellow.

"The Tarsk will see to it that she performs them," said the man in the chair.

"And doubtless others as well." said a man.

"Yes," smiled the man in the chair.

There was laughter.

"The descent is cleared, to the depths," said the man in the chair.

I understood very little, if anything of this. I was miserable. I lay on the stones. I was a bound, lashed slave. I knew only that I must strive to be more pleasing to the masters. I would so strive! I would so strive! Please Masters, I thought, I will try to be better! Please, Masters, do not lash me further! I will obey! I will try to be more pleasing!

A hood was put over my head and buckled shut under my chin.

Why was this done? The jailer turned about with me in his arms. He walked about for a bit, turning this way and that, at one angle or another, proceeding for one distance or another.

Sometimes he reversed himself. At other times he spun about, accomplishing various numbers of rotations and partial rotations. I was totally disoriented. I no longer knew where I was with respect to the dais, even whether near it or not. I might have been somewhere near the center of the surface; I might have been at an edge; I did not know.

I heard a lifting of stone, almost at our feet, one or more of the tiles, or flaggings, apparently having been moved. I then heard what sounded like a wooden trap being lifted, one which had perhaps been hidden beneath the flaggings.

The jailer set me down on stone.

I felt a rope pa.s.sed before me and then under my arms, the loose ends behind me. It was drawn back, tight against me.

"What of her tunic?" asked a man. I had put the tunic aside, a few feet before the dais, shortly after I had come to the surface of the tower. It had been the desire of the man in the great chair that the slave be bared. Too, he had had her turn before him, slowly. In this fashion may a woman be a.s.sessed. Later she had "performed." In this way a woman may be even better a.s.sessed. There are many names for this sort of performance. It is sometimes called the "dance of the displayed slave," though it is not really a dance; sometimes it is called "block movements"

or "circle movements," from the fact that such movements are sometimes called for on the sales block or within the exhibition circle; sometimes they are called "cage movements," from the necessity of performing them upon request in the exhibition cages, and so on. If the man "calls"

the movements, the activity is sometimes spoken of as putting the girl "through her paces," and so on.

Perhaps the easiest way of thinking about them is to think of them simply as display movements or exhibition movements. Their most obvious purpose is to help make clear the beauty of a slave, by displaying it in a variety of movements, att.i.tudes, and poses.

"It will be given to another," said a man.

"The Tarsk will now decide whether or not she is to be permitted clothing," said another man.

"True," laughed another.

I was moved slightly, and my feet suddenly slipped downward. I drew my feet back up, quickly. My body was thrust forward a bit. Again my feet slipped downward. I whimpered. I pulled my feet back a little. I could feel something like wood against my lower right calf. The hood was unbuckled, but not removed from me. I felt the rope which had pa.s.sed before my body and then under my arms tighten even more. As it pulled inward against me both the ends, behind me, must have been in the hands of one man.

I felt a hand reach to the hood, to its top, which would doubtless draw it away. I was then suddenly, without warning, thrust forward, and, as I cried out with alarm, I descended, in which descent the hood, by my motion downward and the grip on the hood, was removed from me, which descent, after a yard or so. was arrested by the rope. I looked up, wildly. I could see, putting my head back, through a trap above me, the sky, the two ends of the rope behind me, and some of the men. I did not have the least idea where the trap opened on the surface. I was within some sort of sectioned metal tube, perhaps a yard in diameter. I could see riveted seams here and there. Had I been free I might have controlled my descent in such a device but I was bound. "Masters!" I cried. I saw one of the ends of the rope released and it whipped downward under my left arm, across my body, half turning me, back under my right arm and upward. "Please, no!" I shrieked. I was descending in the tube and the rectangle of sky above me shrunk and disappeared, and, in a moment, even the dimness of light was gone, and I spun about, turning, crying out in misery, spiraling downward through the darkness. The descent had been cleared, I had heard, to the "depths." Thus, it seemed, there might be different levels accessible from this tube. Its major purpose presumably had to do with the rapid, perhaps secret deployment of troops among levels, Too, obviously it might serve for an emergency evacuation of the surface. It was more protected and less susceptible to fire than ladders and stairwells. It gave a possibility, too, for the immediate securing of loot.

Suppose a pursuit was hard-pressed. Might not treasures be safely herein committed? Perhaps a captive free woman dared entertain hopes of rescue, but she then finds herself, clad only in her slave bracelets, whirling helplessly downward, toward what fate she knows not, in the very bowels of the city. Too, most easily by means of ropes, the tube might be ascended, and, in such a way, defenders might appear unexpectedly on any given level. Even the surface might be regained.

"Masters! Masters!" I wept.

I plunged, and spun and slid downward. I was in utter darkness. The tube tended to spiral.

Sometimes the descent was relatively slow, and sometimes it was more precipitous. After a little I was gasping, buffeted and weeping, seemingly struck from one side to another. I tried to catch my breath. I wept. I do not know how long the descent took.

Doubtless it did not take long, but sometimes it seemed as though it would never end. There was the darkness, the movement, the terror. It is difficult to judge time in such matters.

Then I felt myself plunge into a stout, yielding, reticulated surface. Closely meshed cords were now all about me. They were tight. I swung back and forth. The device had been closed, it seemed, by my weight.

TWELVE

I swung back and forth.

About me the cords were tight. It was dank in this place, and utterly dark.

I lay very quietly in the cords, moving only a little to change my position, to twist a bit to my side, to ease the att.i.tude of my bound limbs.

I could see so little that I might as well have been hooded.

I thought I heard, several feet below me, a movement, as though in water.

I was apparently in a net of some sort. With my thigh, and my shoulder, pressing against it, and with my fingers. behind me, I tried to ascertain its nature. It was a Stout net. Its cords were perhaps a half inch in thickness. It would doubtless have served to confine something much larger, much heavier and stronger than I. On the other hand, the cords were not coa.r.s.e. I, or things such as I, would not be likely to be burned or cut in it, even if we struggled, It was not woven of those terrible ropes, sometimes used in punishment ties, in which a disobedient slave might find herself swathed from head to foot, ropes within which, in misery, she scarcely dares to move. Its mesh was apparently woven in a regular pattern, either of diamonds or squares, I suppose, depending on one's axis of viewing it. The sides of these regular diamonds, or aligned squares, were some four inches in length. This mesh was thus capable not only of holding things of my size, and larger, but also things which might be considerably smaller. The softness of the cords doubtless had to do with the fact that some of the net's catches might be expected to be such as I. I did not think particular consideration would be shown, say, to male prisoners.

Our prettiness, obviously, tends to figure in our value. We are seldom, if ever, marked unless there is a purpose to it, as, say, when we are put under the hot iron and branded, say, for purposes of identification. It is thought to be stupid to gratuitously mark a slave. Such things may lower her value.

Even the dreaded five-bladed slave whip is designed in such a way as to avoid marking the slave in any permanent fashion. One need not fear any lessening in discipline, of course, for there is, well within the parameters of protecting the master's investment, more than enough, far more than enough, I a.s.sure you, and from personal experience, which may be done with us. Perhaps a brief remark on nets might be order.

Obviously there are several kinds, and they serve several purposes. I was now enclosed, it seemed, in a general-purpose net, one of a sort which might serve many purposes, perhaps even the transfer of supplies from one side of a chasm to another, or cargo from one ship to another.