The Chieftan

skins. He was heavily chained, hand and foot.

The women in the crowd, at the first sight of him, gasped, drawing back.

“He is clad as a barbarian,” said the woman who had invited the officer of the court to sit with her, to the minor officer.

“He is a barbarian,” said the officer. “He was taken on Tinos.”

On either side of the kneeling figure, standing, were two guards, armed not with stun sticks but fire pistols.

There are several varieties of such weapons. They are commonly a sidearm of imperial officers. A common form of fire pistol, and that which the guards carried, held ten reduced, controlled charges, each emitting a narrow, bright, quarter-second beam. In this fashion the beam, in the moment of its activation, might breach materials such as wood or flesh, but could do little more than scorch and disfigure metal. This was important within a carefully regulated environment, that, say, of a ship in space. Weapons in the empire, as I have earlier indicated, were carefully controlled, and this policy was one of the reasons, doubtless, for the general security of its authority. Within the empire the manufacture of such weapons was an imperial monopoly. Indeed, even within the empire primitive weapons, clubs, staffs, pointed, edged weapons, and such, were far more common than technologically sophisticated weapons. Indeed, many in the empire knew only such weapons. Some imperial troops, as a matter of fact, had been, for most practical purposes, reduced to the use of such weapons, they being supplemented, of course, to some extent by more powerful devices. Certain forms of energy within the empire were, statistically, quite rare, many sources having been exhausted centuries ago. This was the case on literally thousands of worlds. These facts, however, must not obscure the fact that the empire still had at its disposal weapons capable of dislodging planets from orbits, even of pulverizing them into miniscule, radiating debris.

“The skins he wears,” said the minor officer, to her in the pantsuit, “are from animals which he himself has killed.”

“Interesting,” she said.

But her interest, we may suspect, was taken less by those savage skins than by something else, by the savage himself, he so muscular, so mighty within them, he whom they so primitively bedecked.

The officer of the court swayed a little.

Her heart, like that of many of the other women in the tiers, was beating rapidly, fearfully.

Out there, somewhere, in the galaxy, there were men such as these!

What could be the fate of women in the hands of such men?

Did she not know?

The borders must hold!

“Are you all right?” asked the minor officer.

“Yes,” she said.

The women in the tiers, who were educated, civilized women, looked upon the barbarian, even though he was chained, with some apprehension. How different he was from the men with whom they were personally acquainted!

The officer of the court, seeing such a man, became suddenly quite conscious of the shocking undergarments she had dared to place beneath her “same garb.”

How frightening were such men. Their attitudes, their values, would doubtless be quite different from those of civilized men, gentlemen. Who knew how they might look upon a woman, or in what terms they might see her?

“Are you alarmed?” asked the minor officer, looking over to the officer of the court.

“Certainly not,” she said.

“He is now quite helpless,” said the minor officer.

“Are their women dressed similarly?” asked the officer of the court, as though idly.

“The women commonly wear cloth, some, the finest, obtained in trade, some, particularly in remoter areas, which they themselves have spun and loomed. The most common garment of free women is a long dress, which muchly covers them, that their men may not be driven mad with desire.”

“Not all their women are free?”

“No.”

“They then keep slaves.”

“They are barbarians, of course,” he said.

“And what is the most common garment of slaves?” she asked.

“Usually the long dress,” said he, “as with free women.”

“But not always?” asked the officer of the court.

“No,” said the minor officer.

“And how then would they be dressed?” asked the officer of the court.

“As slaves,” said the minor officer.

“If dressed?”

“Of course,” said he.

“How many women do such men have?” asked the officer of the court.

“Some have several,” he said.

“Both wives and slaves?”

“Sometimes,” said the officer.

Despite the ponderous chains on the barbarian, and the presence of the vigilant, armed guards, many of the women continued to be apprehensive, regarding the kneeling figure.

They knew themselves to be civilized women, of course, and thus no more than prey to such men.

Such men, they understood in their bellies, would see them as women, and put them to the uses of women.

How dreadful!

At this moment the main door to the section opened and the young naval officer, he who was putatively on leave, entered.

The officer of the court gasped.

Yesterday evening she had seen him only in a lounging robe, a leisure, or pleasure, garment, one suitable for the captain’s table, but he was now in what must be a dress uniform. It was white with gold braid. Too, she was startled to note, at the left shoulder, three purple cords.

As he entered, in uniform, the captain himself, and his officers, had risen, in salute. The two guards in whose custody knelt the prisoner, too, came to attention.

“Hail to the empire!” called the captain.

“Hail to the empire!” called the other officers, and the guards, as well. Even the minor officer who sat near the women in the tiers, the women with whom we are now familiar, had come to attention when the young officer had entered, as had some other minor officers here and there on the tiers. They, too, had joined in the greeting.

“Hail to the emperor! Hail to the empire!” said the young officer.

This cry was repeated by the officers, and by others, too, in the stands.

“See the cords,” said the woman in the pantsuit.

“Of course I see them,” said the officer of the court. She had been struck speechless when the young officer had first entered. She, of all, who was herself of the blood, would understand such insignia. But she had not realized that one of a rank far beyond hers, compared to which hers, and even that of Tuvo Ausonius, was as nothing, was aboard the vessel.

The young officer then turned to regard the prisoner, kneeling in the sand, now at his feet.

The prisoner had been made to wait, kneeling, for the arrival of the young officer.

And thus was made clear to the prisoner, and to all in the tiers, the superiority of the empire.

The naval rank of the officer was not high. We might say, to suggest something familiar, that he was an ensign. On the other hand, the cords made it clear that this was no ordinary ensign, but one of the noblest of bloods.

“The three cords,” said the woman in the pantsuit.

“Yes,” said the officer of the court, irritably. The three cords, of that color, indicated the highest of ranks. The