The gladiator had already begun to ascend the ladder, Gerune on his shoulder.
“Climb the ladder, slave,” said Janina, “up, behind your master.”
The officer of the court did not bother responding to Janina. Let her think that she was a slave, and that the great lout was her master. What difference did it make? It wasn’t true, was it? She ascended the ladder.
The rope, held by Janina, was still on her neck.
In a moment she and Janina had reached the level of an outer corridor. The door to the lock, a few feet to the right of the elevator, as one would emerge from it, was open.
The gladiator, in his armor, was in the hallway, just outside the port, setting the timer.
Gerune was at his feet, kneeling. The rope was still about her neck, but now its free end had been looped about her ankles, which had been crossed, and tied there, rendering her bound, hand and foot.
“Kneel,” said Janina, looking about nervously.
The officer of the court knelt.
Her own heart was beating rapidly, seeming to pound madly within her.
She heard voices, those of barbarians, from a nearby corridor.
“The timer is set,” said the gladiator.
The officer of the court saw the hatch on the escape capsule opened.
She knew that she and Janina were then to hurry to the hatch and climb through, it doubtless then to be closed behind them by the gladiator, he the last to enter.
The officer of the court was terrified.
She realized she had knelt before this man in the darkness and proclaimed herself slave. She knew herself then, almost giddy with fear, to be subject to claimancy. Indeed, Janina seemed to think that she was already claimed, and thus, having been subject to claimancy, was now owned, indeed, that she was the gladiator’s slave!
But see the princess!
The princess was looking wildly up at the gladiator. Tears ran from her eyes, down her cheeks, against the gag. Then, to the amazement of the officer of the court, the princess put her head down to the boots of the gladiator.
She heard the sounds of voices coming nearer.
She cast a glance at exquisite Janina, now muchly bedecked in the barbaric robes of the princess.
Janina was a slave, not she!
Too, she saw the princess, her beauty brazenly bared, as it had been decided by the will of the gladiator, her head to his boots.
She felt a rush of anguish, and rage, and jealousy!
How could she compete with two such women?
“I am not a slave!” she suddenly cried, aloud. And she sprang to her feet. “Help! Help!” she cried.
The gladiator looked up, startled. His astonishment was evident.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help!”
But then the gladiator, looking past her, lifted his hands, suddenly.
The officer of the court looked back and saw, just emerged from the shaft of the lift, having climbed the ladder, the young naval officer, he of the purple cords, of the blood, whom she had not seen since the evening of the entertainment. He held a fire pistol leveled at the gladiator.
Behind the young naval officer, emerging now from the shaft of the lift, completing the ascent of the ladder, one by one, were other figures.
She was not sure how many there were.
She realized then that these must have been hiding in the hold, in Section 19.
At this moment, apparently rushing to investigate the cries of the officer of the court, several barbarian warriors, helmeted, armored, appeared in the corridor.
“Hold your fire!” cried one of them. “The princess!”
They mistook Janina in her regal garb for Gerune.
“Surrender!” cried one of the barbarians to the young naval officer.
“Be careful,” cried one of the barbarians to his fellows. “A commander, too, is in the line of fire!”
They took no thought for the real princess, who, naked, bound hand and foot, and gagged, they took naturally for a prisoner or slave.
The naval officer snapped off a charge and one of the barbarians spun about, the armor on his chest blackened.
Janina screamed.
The officer of the court, too, cried out in misery. Clearly the shot must have passed her.
“What shall we do, Commander?” called one of the men down the hall.
“Hold your fire,” said the gladiator.
Gerune, in her bonds, shrank down, small, in misery. She had been seen naked, at the feet of a man. What would be the consequences of that, when her identity might be established? Too, she had been paraded as a slave girl through the corridors, an object of lust and ridicule to hundreds of men.
“Move aside!” said the naval officer.
The gladiator stepped to the side, keeping his hands raised.
“The timer has been activated!” said the young officer. Then he cried to those with him, “Into the capsule!”
“Alert the gunners,” said a man down the hall.
One of their number lifted a communication device and began to speak rapidly into it.
The young naval officer then, carefully, fired four shots down the hall. Three of these shots struck targets. One fellow staggered back, his armor blackened and scarred; another lost part of his armor, it blasted away from him; he scrambled away; a third shot struck the helmet of a man at the side, half tearing his head from his body. The other shot, the barbarians having broken for cover, passed harmlessly down the corridor, until it subsided, and left a line of fire on the carpeting more than a hundred yards away.
“It seems we owe our lives to your presence, Princess,” said the young naval officer. Janina began to tremble.
The young naval officer then, his suspicions aroused, jerked away her hood. “You are not a princess,” he said. “I know you! You are a slave!”
He then looked down at Gerune. “Your hair,” he said, “shows you to be barbarian, and you are not ankleted, or braceleted, or collared, no mark of bondage is upon you, not even, it seems, a brand, so you must be free. Perhaps it is you who are the princess! Well, it does not matter. Many women, once barbarian princesses, are now slave girls in the empire. It is where such as you belong, at the feet of gentlemen.”
“My thanks to you, whoever you may be,” said the young naval officer to the gladiator. “We were not capable of bringing the escape capsule to the lock, the lift being inoperative. You have been of great help.”
He glanced at the timer.
“We must be leaving now,” he said.
Then he looked at the officer of the court, who was backed against the corridor wall, near the lock, on its left, as one would enter it.
He regarded her with contempt.
“I am a citizen,” she said. “I am of the blood!”
“You are a stupid, loud-mouthed bitch,” he said. “Your cries could have gotten us all killed. And why did you cry out? Are you so eager to be killed, or cast into the chains of a slave?”
“Sir!” she protested.
“Get in the capsule, bitch,” he said. She cast one wild glance at the gladiator and then, hurriedly, entered the capsule.
The timing needle was now close to the point at which the automatic launching sequence would be activated.
“How are we to escape?” asked the gladiator.
“Who are you?” asked the officer.
“He who defeated Ortog in the contest,” said the gladiator.
