The Chieftan

washbasin, and found there was no water.

Huddling inside the cabin, behind the steel door, she occasionally heard cries outside, and running feet. More than once she heard the hiss of a weapon.

On the second day she heard pounding on cabin doors farther down the corridor, and harsh voices, ordering occupants to come forth, men standing, their hands clasped on their head, women on all fours.

She heard a scream from outside, a woman’s scream. She also heard a blow, perhaps a kick, and a cry of pain.

“Strip her,” she heard.

“A pretty one,” said a man’s voice, after a moment.

The officer of the court, incidentally, at this point, no longer wore the bulky “frame-and-curtain,” and she herself had unclasped it, fearfully, almost of necessity, in the press, in the rush and buffeting to escape from the hold, lest she be turned about by it, or even strangled in its confinement, and, in a moment, it had been torn away from her, lost and trampled somewhere below. She did, however, continue to wear the cumbersome, drab “same garb,” and, beneath it, of course, certain other garments, those of a sort which she would never have dared to show to one such as Tuvo Ausonius. He would never accept such garments on a free woman, only, if at all, on a slave. Indeed, he might command them of a slave.

“They will keep her,” said the first man.

The officer of the court wondered if she herself, under such circumstances, would be kept, if she would be found pleasing enough to be kept. She hoped so, desperately.

“Crawl, to the end of the corridor, hurry!” commanded the second man.

She heard weeping.

“Hurry!” she heard, and another cry of pain.

“Would they keep me?” wondered the officer of the court. “Would I be pleasing enough to be kept? Oh, I hope so. I hope so!”

Then, in a moment, she heard pounding on her own door, ordering that it be opened, and that men were to come forth in one fashion, and women in another.

She drew back from the door, terrified.

The door was tried.

“Bring the spike,” she heard.

She heard something being put against the door, pressed against it. Then there was a sudden whirring sound, as of metal being shaved away. She then heard something drawn back, out of the door. She then heard another sound, as of something forced into an aperture. Faint, frightened, crouching by the door in the darkness, she reached out and felt it, something like a small conical nozzle. Then, in an instant, she heard a hiss of gas. She fled back into the cabin and behind the bed, and knelt there, terrified, distraught, hearing the gas entering the cabin. Then, knowing nothing else to do, terrified, she pressed herself beneath the bed, concealing herself there. There was very little room there, no more than in some devices for the confinement of slaves, some even, barred, beneath the master’s bed, in which a slave might be kept, until she was wanted for serving. More importantly the space was small enough not to seem to afford an obvious hiding place. The officer of the court, moreover, as we remember, was a slender young woman, and such might be kept in spaces even smaller. For example, magicians have used such women for certain “vanishing tricks,” in which the woman occupies a very small space, one so small that it occurs to few that that space, perhaps at the bottom of a trunk, could afford a concealment.

She fought to retain consciousness.

She heard the door break in.

A light flashed about, in the room.

“It is empty,” said a voice.

“Look about,” said a voice. “Look in the closets, in the lavatory.”

The officer of the court, naturally, had no mask. She could feel the harsh nap of the rug against her left cheek as she lay, her head toward the door. She saw the boots of a man, or the borders of them, illuminated for a moment, in the light.

“Look under the bed,” said a man.

Her fingers, in misery, cut at the rug.

“There is no room there,” said a man.

“Look,” said the other.

She saw the light flash, the beam illuminating the gas in the room, under the side of the bed, that farthest from where she lay, that which was nearest the cabin door.

“There is nothing there,” said a voice.

It was possible he might have gone to the other side of the bed, or conducted a more thorough investigation, but, perhaps thinking it fruitless, he did not do so.

Too, just then a voice called from outside, in the corridor, and the two men exited the room.

She had then lost consciousness.

She had awakened a few hours later, sick, thirsting, and terribly hungry.

She crawled to the basin and again tried the lever, but, again there was no water. She then went to the lavatory bowl, willing to avail herself of even this source, as might have a thirsting slave, but found to her dismay that it was dry. It had been drained, and, of course, could not be replenished. Men, or slaves, had come later to the cabins, checking them, to make certain that even such sources would not be available to the defenders. The doors, too, had been set awry on their hinges so they could not be locked, or even closed. That had presumably been done by men, with tools.

She returned to her place beneath the bed but, in a few hours, miserably, weakly, crawled out.

She went to the dark corridor.

She could still smell a slight fragrance of the gas in the room, behind her, and in the corridor.

There might be some food in the lounge, she thought. Perhaps something in the adjoining serving area, or kitchen, perhaps even scraps, crumbs, on the floor, beneath the table and the chairs. Too, here and there, in the corridors, there were litter vessels, and who knew what might have been cast aside, thoughtlessly, into one, what precious things, perhaps a bit of a roll, or the core of a fruit.

She kept on all fours in the corridor.

Thusly, if light should suddenly be cast upon her, perhaps the strangers, the boarders, might not instantly fire. Was this not the fashion in which they wished civilized women, at least initially, to be before them?

Once away from her cabin area there was a dim lighting in the corridors.

This frightened her, but the corridors seemed empty, empty and very long.

She rose to her feet, but kept close to the walls of the corridors.

At points she noted certain passages, of which she would have liked to avail herself, were sealed, and the pressure gauges indicated a near vacuum behind them. The elevators were doubtless inoperable, and in any case, were to be avoided. But she would not have needed them, in any event, or stairs, to reach the lounge from her cabin, the main floor of the lounge.

She cried out.

There was a body bolted to a bulkhead, to her right. It was in uniform. It was that of the minor officer, he who had sat near her on the evening of the entertainment, he who had conversed with the woman in the pantsuit, the same evening the Alaria had come under attack. The front of his uniform had been drenched with blood, now long dried. He had served as the target, it seemed, in some primitive contest.

In a moment she had come to the large viewing port in the hall, not far from the lounge.

She had looked through this before. It was here that the gladiator had come up behind her, and here that the captain had offered to escort her to her cabin.

Outside she could see, from this vantage point, the outlines of four barbarian ships. The Alaria was illuminated in their search beams. Here and there, there were pieces of debris, floating in space, seemingly suspended there in a calm steadiness and stillness. And then she saw, too, the shattered wrecks, blasted apart, of certain escape capsules, of lifeboats. Such, clearly, had been fired upon. Others had perhaps been blown open but propelled outward into space, then as lifeless as small asteroids. The strangers, the boarders, doubtless had guns ready, set to track and fire on such vessels. A number must have fled the Alaria in the first hours of the attack. She wondered how many might have been successful in their escape,