“Perhaps,” she laughed.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
She had heard that female slaves were sometimes kept in cages, sometimes quite small cages.
“I bid you a joyous evening,” said the captain.
“Captain!” she said.
“Yes?”
“There is to be some sort of entertainment tomorrow evening?”
“Entertainment?”
“Games,” she said, “a contest?”
“Yes,” he said.
“A contest?”
“Yes,” he said.
“At what time and place may I inquire?”
“It is nothing in which you would be interested, milady,” he said.
“It is in the lower portions of the ship,” he said.
“In the hold,” said he, “Section Nineteen, an hour after supper.”
“I will see how I feel tomorrow evening,” she said. “If I am bored, I might look in.”
“You should not wish to see it,” he said.
“Oh?” she asked.
“I am not sure you would find it appropriate,” he said.
“Other women will attend, I trust?” she asked.
“Doubtless,” he said.
“I have every right to attend, do I not?” she asked.
“Of course,” said he.
“This is a pleasure ship, a cruise ship,” she said. “Entertainments are afforded. I have paid my passage.”
“You are entirely welcome, of course,” said the captain.
“Is anything wrong?”
“No,” he said. “It is only that you are of Terennia.”
“And what has that to do with it?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“We shall see how I feel tomorrow evening,” she said.
The captain’s offer to escort her to her cabin was declined. She was, after all, of Terennia. Yet, to recount matters accurately we must mention that after his departure, for whatever reason, she began to tremble. She looked out, again, onto the night, and the stars, the worlds, and was afraid. She felt very small, and helpless. The ship itself, with its light, its warmth, its steel, its numerous life-support systems, did little to allay her apprehension. It would not have hurt, she thought, even though she was of Terennia, and who would know, to have had the company of the captain to her cabin. It was a long way there, through several passages, and she was clad in such a way that it was made quite clear, in spite of the teachings of Terennia, that she was not really a “same.” She looked at herself in the mirror of the portal. No, she was clearly other than a “same.” She was something else, quite different from a “same.” She then hurried to her cabin, looking about her, even stopping to peer down adjoining passages, before crossing other corridors, and then, in a little while, frightened, and breathless, for she had at times even run a little, in short, hurrying steps, the most permitted to her by the garment in which she fled, she arrived at her door. In a moment she was within, and stood on the inside of the cabin, her back against the door, the door double-locked. She was frightened, and was breathing heavily. Then she moaned, and turned about, and sank to her knees behind the door, and put her hands out, touching it, touching the steel.
She was not a slave!
She was safe.
CHAPTER 10
“What a dreadful outfit!” laughed one of the women on the tiers.
The officer of the court did not deign to respond.
“Do not be angry!” called the woman. “Come, sit here beside me!” She patted a place on the tier.
The officer of the court smiled, and climbed to sit beside her.
“Have I missed much?” asked the officer of the court, lightly.
“Not at all, you are quite early,” the woman assured her.
The performers, if one may speak of them in that fashion, had not yet entered the wooden-rimmed circle of sand which was ringed by the tiers. The room in the hold, Section 19, was a high one. One could see, above, the lofty girders, and steelwork, which the shipwrights had not been concerned to conceal in this area. In this section, one of a hundred such sections, one might have stored several tons of cargo. There was little in it now but the tiers, and, about the edges, some boxes, some escape capsules, or lifeboats, one might say, and such. Light in the section was from powerful overhead bulbs. They flooded the small ringed area with bright light. They were animated by switches near the door. Elsewhere the area was much in shadow. Presumably the performers were somewhere in the darkness, or, perhaps, in some adjoining area, waiting to enter this section. If there was to be an entertainment, it did not seem to be professionally, carefully staged, like the other entertainments, the shows, the concerts.
“What is to be the nature of the contest?” asked the officer of the court.
Yes, she was early. There were only a few now present.
“I do not know,” the woman assured her. She was one of those who had been at the table with her, the captain’s table, the evening before. She was one of those who had wished her happiness, and kissed her after the supper.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, my dear,” said the woman to the officer of the court. “I am sure that your ensemble is quite appropriate for Terennia.”
“It is the customary garb of my class,” said the officer of the court.
“For both men and women?”
“Yes,” she was informed.
“I see,” said the woman, it being clear she really didn’t.
“We are ‘sames,’ “she was informed.
“The men and women?” she was asked.
“Yes,” said the officer of the court.
“Don’t you find that silly?” asked the woman.
The officer of the court did not choose to respond to this inquiry.
“I’m sorry,” said the woman.
“That is all right,” the officer of the court assured her.
The woman who had invited the officer of the court to join her on the tiers was now dressed not in the gown of the preceding evening, fit for the honor of the captain’s table, but in something more appropriate for attendance at a contest, in a well-tailored pantsuit.
“It is very different,” said the woman, “from the way you were dressed last night.”
That was true. A world of difference separated the sleek, white, off-the-shoulder sheath, purchased in a ship’s shop, which the officer of the court had dared to wear yesterday, from the version of Terennian “same garb,” which she wore this evening. “Same garb” was designed to conceal sexual differences. There were many ways in which to attempt this, none of which was entirely successful. The officer of the court now wore, however, a fairly common form of “same garb,” an intentionally bulky, formless, sacklike one-piece garment. It covered her completely from the neck to the ankles. It had legs. It was a sort of gray overall. In addition, she wore the “frame- and-curtain.” From a projecting rectangular extension, the frame, put about the neck, there dangled, to the sides,
