The Chieftan

burdens as before, including even the bundle of clothing and jewelry which had once graced the figure of Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks, sister of Ortog, king of the Ortungen. As she was a slave it was appropriate that she be laden. The others were, of course, free men. The party also crossed, at one point, a broad swath of blackened trees. The carcasses of incinerated animals lay here and there. An occasional scavenger looked up as the party passed. Birds had come to the area in hundreds, to peck out burned grubs and worms, and small animals, where the brush and leafy cover of the forest floor had been seared away. The ash was still warm to the bare feet of Janina.

Toward evening they arrived at the village.

That night, in the light of a great fire, blazing in the center of the village, amidst much shouting

and the beating of weapons, a new chieftain was proclaimed, that by the Wolfungs, one of the lesser tribes of the Vandals, the gladiator being lifted upon the shields of warriors.

CHAPTER 17

“I have done more than my share of work,” said the officer of the court.

“Would that you were a slave,” snapped the young naval officer. “Then you would know what work is!”

“Well, I am not a slave,” she said, angrily.

“Nor am I!” said the other young woman.

“Be silent, lowly humiliora!” said the officer of the court.

“You want to get out of all the work!” said the angry young woman who had just been addressed.

“There is much work to be done,” said an older woman. “Let us help him.”

“It is his fault that we are here!” said the officer of the court.

“It was you,” he said, angrily, “who cried out in the Alaria, who alerted the barbarians, who compromised our escape.”

“Do not speak to me so!” said the officer of the court. “I am a citizen, of the honestori, of the blood!”

“What do such things matter here?” inquired the other young woman. “What does anything matter here?”

“Be silent, shopgirl!” said the officer of the court.

“Do not quarrel,” advised the older woman.

This group, as you have doubtless conjectured, was that which had escaped the Alaria shortly before the somewhat improvised departure of the gladiator and the slave, Janina, in the second of the two escape capsules which had been stored in the hold. It consisted of the young naval officer and three women. One of these women was the officer of the court. She had been on her hands and knees, in her “same garb,” a rope on her neck, in the grasp of Janina, in the corridor near the lock where the gladiator was preparing the first capsule for launch. When the young naval officer had made his appearance in the corridor and appropriated the waiting vehicle, she had joined his party. Earlier the young naval officer had participated in the defense of the ship, which gradually, obviously, had become more and more hopeless. When a group with whom he had been fighting had surrendered, thence to meet diverse fates, he had fled, and later, seeing no prospect of recovering the vessel, had determined to seek out one of the escape capsules in the hold, hoping to make use of it to depart the vessel. It had been a great disappointment to him to discover that the lift mechanism had been inoperative, and he had been unable to get the vehicle to a lock. In the hold, he had encountered two women, who had fled there to hide, and were living on the supplies in the capsules. In a sense, we have heard of both these women, though they were strange companions, considering the hierarchies in the empire. One was the striking woman in the pantsuit, who had been in attendance at the contest, and who had invited the officer of the court to sit with her. The other was the salesgirl, or shopgirl, from whom the officer of the court had, earlier that same day, purchased certain surprising and uncharacteristic garments. The officer of the court, as we may remember, had been scandalized that an individual of that class and station, and merely a lowly employee of the line, should have been admitted to the entertainments.

“Fetch water,” said the young naval officer to the officer of the court.

“No,” she said.

“‘No’?” he asked.

“I am of the blood,” she said. “Such as I do not draw water.”

“Then you fetch it,” said the officer to the other young woman.

“Not if she does not,” she said.

“I will fetch it,” said the older woman.

She left, to go to the small stream nearby.

The capsule which had been appropriated, or commandeered, by the young naval officer, had been, as we recall, severely damaged in the incident of the pursuing missile, that which had been prematurely exploded against the jettisoned clearance thruster. As a result the capsule had been left much at the mercy of its momentum and position, lost in the winds of space, so to speak, subject to the numerous subtle forces, primarily gravitational, obtaining in that area at that time. It had eventually drifted into a scarcely tangible current, if one may so speak, and, some days later, had found itself, like a speck in an invisible whirlpool, caught in a rapidly degrading orbit, at the focus of which was a remote world, one on which they had managed, two days ago, to effect a successful landing, thanks largely to the skill of the young naval officer, the viability of certain viewing and measuring instrumentation, and the proper functioning of a manually responsive landing system.

“We will need firewood,” said the young naval officer to the officer of the court.

“Have you repaired the radio?” asked the officer of the court.

She knew, of course, that it had been damaged beyond repair, various components shattered in the injury to the capsule, others literally melted and fused as a consequence of the short-circuiting attendant on the impact. That had been determined within an hour after the impact.

“It cannot be repaired,” said the young naval officer.

The officer of the court tossed her pretty head. Why then should he expect her to gather wood? Too, had he not insulted her, by responding as though her question might have been an honest, civil one, pretending to ignore the hint that he was somehow to blame for its damage? To be sure, it was he who had interposed, almost at the last moment, the clearance thruster. Might he not have jettisoned it earlier, perhaps a hundred miles earlier?

“You go, then,” said the naval officer to the shopgirl.

“I might crack my nails,” she said, looking at the officer of the court.

“If you do not work,” said the young naval officer to the two young women, “you will not be fed.”

“Do not amuse us,” said the officer of the court.

The young naval officer clenched his fists.

“You must feed us,” said the officer of the court. “We are citizens of the empire.”

“Yes,” said the shopgirl.

“It is our right to be fed,” said the officer of the court.

“Yes!” said the shopgirl.

“Better you had both been left on the Alaria,” said the young naval officer, “at the mercy of the Ortungen.”

“Do not speak so!” chided the officer of the court.

“Perhaps they could have gotten some good out of you,” he said.

“Beware your speech!” said the officer of the court.

“But they probably would not have found either of you of sufficient interest to be kept,” he said, “even as naked slaves.”

The shopgirl gasped, putting her hand before her mouth.

The officer of the court was furious, and, for a moment, speechless. Then she said, “Arrange for our rescue!”

The young naval officer glared at her.

“Put out a signal, or something!” she said.