And she knew they would not hesitate to use their whips.
But would men not protect her, if she made it clear to them that she would strive to please them, and desperately and eagerly, in any way they might desire, literally in
Might they not find her body of interest, and the beauties of her face, so sensitive and expressive, and her softness, and her dispositions, to love and serve?
But how could she even think such thoughts, she, an officer of a court?
Surely they were the thoughts of a slave!
Was she naught, in her heart, but a slave?
But she had gathered that not all prisoners were assured of being kept.
She had gathered that from a remark of one of the strangers, one of the boarders, almost outside her very door.
Would they regard her as suitable to be kept, to serve them, or to be exhibited on a slave block?
She did not know.
She was afraid.
But she must have food. She must have drink.
She was frightened.
Perhaps she could continue to hide.
Then she cried out with misery, for, from where she knelt, she could see out the port, and now, outside, against the glassine substance of the port itself, adrift in space, on its back, she saw the body of the captain.
Then she fled from that place, one so open, to an emergency stairwell, one reached through a heavy steel door, in which there was a small panel with wire-reinforced glass, one from which she could reach the balcony of the theater, and thence, the upper level of the main lounge.
She stayed for a time in a narrow corridor, reached from the stairwell. She crouched there, frightened, as might have an animal in its burrow. Then she heard a sound to her right, and hurried away from it, arriving in a moment at an entrance to the balcony of the theater.
She was afraid to open the door, but heard steps behind her. She opened the door a tiny crack and crawled through, onto the carpeting of the balcony of the theater and then hid between tiers of seats. The steps passed by, outside the door. She found a piece of candy, on the carpeting beneath a seat. She seized it up and pressed it into her mouth, devouring it. She looked about for more, but found none. She heard voices below. She crawled to the front of the balcony, to look down, toward the stage. On the stage and in the area immediately below it and before it there was set up a sort of headquarters or communication center. There were several tables there and men monitored various devices. Behind one of the tables at the center of the stage, considering a chart, surrounded by men, was Ortog, prince of the Drisriaks, king of the Ortungs. How different he seemed now, no longer a haggard, demeaned, starved prisoner, but now, armed and mighty, a vital, commanding, merciless, fearful, terrible giant of a man. Seeing such a man she trembled, and muchly then did know herself a woman. Other men came and went, delivering reports, receiving orders, utilizing the lower entrances. Suspended by the wrists, at the left of the stage, and several feet above it, there hung, lifeless, two men. They had no feet. Their feet had been cut off and then they had apparently been drawn aloft, where they had bled to death. Their bodies suggested that they had undergone interrogation before being disposed of. These were the first and second officer of the ship. On the floor of the stage, to the right, chained closely, hand and foot, and by the neck, there knelt three naked, blond women. When a man glanced at them they shrank down, cowering. The officer of the court saw that they had been taught fear. “We shall have engineering shortly,” a man was informing Ortog. “Then it will be but a matter of hours.” Ortog nodded.
The officer of the court heard this with horror. She was neither a scientist nor a technician but she knew enough, surely, to surmise that somewhere within the intricate labyrinth of engineering sections would be found the control devices for the central life-support systems of the ship.
Another man brought news of major loot, imperial bullion, five imperial ingots, any one of which might purchase a ship, such serving usefully as bribes, among other things, to barbarian kings, to encourage them to keep the peace with the empire, to attack enemies of the empire, to intervene in sensitive areas on the empire’s behalf, and so on; another brought news of coined metals, gold and silver, tons thereof, taken in taxes, from four provincial worlds; and another of a bottle of wine, one of seven known to exist, from the vinyards of Kalan, on Cita, a world destroyed in the civil wars a thousand years earlier.
“It will be our victory wine!” said Ortog, of the last item in this accounting of significant loot.
There was enthusiastic assent to this.
In many sections there were self-contained support units, but these were designed to function only on a temporary, emergency basis.
It was with misery that the officer of the court crept back, again, between the seats, and began to make her way between them toward a door which led to the passageway giving access to the upper level of the main lounge.
She felt faint with hunger. She could hardly move, for her thirst.
She thought of the chained women on the stage. They were doubtless educated, civilized women, even citizens of the empire, but she did not think that that would make much difference to the barbarians, except, perhaps, to cause them to be regarded with a certain contempt, as weaklings and decadents, fit at best for the collar, in which at last they might be put to some use, in which at last they might find some justification for their existence. That they had once been citizens of the empire, prior to their embondment, might, of course, the officer of the court supposed, lend a certain flavor or pleasure to their use. But they had doubtless been chosen for their beauty. Certainly they were beautiful. Barbarians, she had heard, long ago, to her horror, enjoy exhibiting women at their courts. But how dare the barbarians exhibit these, female citizens of the empire, as though they might be no more than chained slave girls? “But is that not all they now are,” she asked herself, trembling, “chained slave girls?” “Yes,” she thought to herself, “that is now all they are, chained slave girls.” She recalled how they had cowered at the glance of a man. That frightened her. She wondered if they had been fed.
She crept along the passage toward the upper level of the lounge. The doors to the lounge were of plate glass, also on the upper level. Arriving at one of these upper doors, she edged to it and peered through it. She opened it a small bit, enough to admit herself, and then held it, easing it back, that its return be silent, and with as little motion as possible. There were the upper tables around this area, with their chairs and white cloths. She crept among them, and peered down into the main lounge. She felt sick with misery, for, below, the lounge was muchly occupied. Ship slaves, and their helpless, naked charges, came and went, entering with the charges, attractive female passengers, struggling under burdens of loot, then returning to cleared decks and cabins, to fetch more. She now noted, for the first time, the metal disks fastened to the neck chains of the ship slaves. She had no doubt but what they were meaningful. She could smell cooking. The smells made her faint. She wanted to cry out. But she dared not do so. The ship slaves were armed only with their whips, but these were quite sufficient, not only because they were frightening and terrible in themselves, and she muchly feared them, but because they were in their way symbols, symbols that behind the ship slaves, somewhere, lay the power of men. Some of the ship slaves were eating, at one table or another, or standing about, eating. In the center of the lounge, where tables had been moved to one side, there was a great heap of loot, with a diameter of several yards, a height, in the center, of better than a yard. This great heap included an incredible miscellany of items, not just necklaces, and bracelets, armlets, anklets, rings, pins, brooches, and such, but chronometers of diverse sizes and types, vessels of various sorts, craters, vases and amphoras, showers of silverware, heaped phials of perfumes, disks of cosmetics, rolled tapestries, and small rugs. Clothing, too, and footwear, was cast into that pile. She saw a shackled prisoner, one who had been surely one of the lovelier of the passengers she had seen earlier on the voyage, stagger in, bent under a bulging sack. The sack had been formed from a satin sheet. She was prodded forward by the whip of her supervising ship slave, and then, the whip held before her, was stopped. Gratefully the shackled prisoner lowered her burden and knelt wearily on the carpeting, her head down. The ship slave then emptied the sheet at the margin of that vast disorderly melange. The officer of the court noted that the clothing had been taken from her own cabin, and was the wardrobe she had brought with her, including what would have been her trousseau, anticipating her projected nuptials with the executive, Tuvo Ausonius. In the first looting of the cabin it had apparently been her jewelry, her papers, her money, her watch, such things, that had been taken. In the second looting less valuable items had been gathered. The ship slave drew forth from the garments the white sheath and held it up before another ship slave who, regarding it, laughed and made some remark. The first ship slave then held the garment
