I felt her small, soft hands on my body. 'Master, Master,' she said.
'He is awakening,' said a girl's voice.
I was drowsy. It was not easy to come to consciousness. I shook my head. Then again I dreampt.
I had had good dreams, in my own chambers feasting and sporting with slaves in pleasure silk, luscious, hot-eyed Gorean sluts, collared and perfumed, serving me and touching me. Their mouths, their fingers, their lips and tongues, were pleasant. Some danced well, the caress of others told me of their training.
'Master,' said one, and I drank of the wine she proffered. I tied the goblet in her hair and sent her back for more.
'I do not know how to dance,' cried one, and I looked upon her and she tore away her silk and, trembling, danced, and well.
How beautiful are women. How little wonder it is that strong men make them slaves.
I struggled to awaken.
'He is awakening,' said a girl, she who had first spoken to me.
I was vaguely aware that I was warm, and lay upon furs. I did not understand this. Beneath the furs I sensed an obdurate surface.
I opened my eyes, lying on my back. The ceiling above me swam momentarily, and then I focused. It was red.
Arlene knelt beside me. 'Master,' she said. I looked at her. I had never seen her before in the beautiful, subtle cosmetics of the Gorean slave girl. My strap was no longer on her throat. In its place there resided a slender steel band, locked, a Gorean slave collar. Her body was clad, if one may so speak of her garment, in a brief, obscenely luscious snatch of transparent, scarlet slave silk.
'How beautiful you are,' I said.
'Master,' she said.
It seemed she well belonged in my dreams. Had I brought her back to Port Kar with me it was thus that I would sometimes have attired her for my pleasure. One dresses one's girls for one's own pleasure' of course.
I looked across the furs and the floors to the other girl. 'Master,' she whispered. I shook my head, to clear it. She was blond. She wore a curla and chatka of yellow silk. The curla was a rope of twisted, yellow silk tied snugly about her belly and knotted, loosely, at the left hip. The chatka, about four feet in length, folded narrowly, to a width of some six inches, was thrust over the curla in front, taken between her legs and thrust behind and over the curia in back. It was drawn snugly tight. It was all she wore, save for a slave collar, like Arlene, and some beads, an armlet, and a barbaric anklet. Both girls were perfumed. How soft and exciting they were. The blond came to my side, crawling, and, putting down her head, kissed me on the belly. 'Master,' she wept.
'Constance,' I said. I had not seen her since I had been impressed in Lydius into the service of Kurii, and taken northward to labor at the wall. She had once been free, I had made her my slave in the fields south of the Laura.
'What are you doing here?' I asked.
'Master,' she wept, kissing me.
I looked up at the ceiling, which was red. I saw it clearly now. It was a deep red, and covered with fur. The floor of the room, too, was covered with fur.
I cried out with rage, and leaped to my feet. I threw my weight against the heavy bars.
I could not budge them. I tore back the furs on the floor, and there encountered steel plates, riveted together. I put my hands over my head and tested the ceiling. It, too, seemed of steel. I tore down the overhead furs. The ceiling, uniformly, as did the floor, consisted of steel. In fury I tore away the fur at the walls. The cell was a cubic rectangle, some twelve feet by twelve feet, and eight feet in height. It was closed on five sides by steel walls, and the open side was barred.
Again I tore at the bars. They were some two and one half inches in thickness. The cell would have held a Kur and, indeed, perhaps it had been originally designed with that in mind.
I spun to look at the girls, who, frightened of my fury, cowered together in the center of the cell.
'We were brought here, somehow,' said Arlene. 'I awakened in slave silk, collared, in a kennel. I was brought to this cell this morning.'
'Where is Imnak, Poalu, Audrey!' I said.
'I do not know,' she wept.
'Constance,' I said. 'Where are we?'
'I do not know,' she said. 'I was hooded long ago in Lydius, when we were captured. I was brought northward by tarn and then sled. For months I have been here. I have never seen the outside.'
'Who are our jailers?' I asked Arlene.
'I have seen only men,' she said.
'There are others,' said Constance, shuddering. 'I have seen them, large but agile beasts.'
'Neither of you know where we are?' I asked.
'No,' they said.
I turned to look outside the bars. Beyond them there lay a larger room, also plated with steel. There was a door in the larger room, with a small, barred window in it.
'Do you know much of this place, Constance?' I asked.
'No,' she said. 'But it is large. I have not been in this part of it before.'
'Speak to me further,' I said.
'There is little to tell,' she said. 'I was brought here from Lydius. There are several other girls here, too.'
'Slaves?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said, 'all that I know of, all collared slaves.'
'You are kept here to serve and entertain the garrison?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'Fully?' asked Arlene.
'Of course,' said Constance. 'We are slaves. And so, too, are you.'
Arlene trembled in the pleasure silk. She tried to pull it down a bit, about her thigh.
'How large is the garrison?' I asked.
'I do not know,' she said. 'I, and five other girls, serve twenty men, in one portion of this place. Our movements are restricted, by overhead neck chains and a guide track. A chain is fastened about our necks with a swivel and ball at one end. The swivel and ball is locked into one of two overhead tracks. Two tracks are used, that one girl may pass another in the hall. The smallest ball on the chain permits the slave to reach any area accessible to the full track, though only, of course, an area accessible to the track. The next smallest ball, because of baffles set in the track overhead, will permit the slave to reach only a more restricted set of areas. This principle is then used successively. My own movements have been considerably restricted. The ball on my own neck chain permits me only a very limited use of the track, since it is of the largest size in the arrangement, indeed, the most limited use possible. Originally I wanted to explore, but my neck chain was almost constantly caught in baffles. In the halls I can move only between the quarters of work and the quarters of pleasure.'
'Surely you are released from this to work and serve?' I asked.
'Of course,' she said, 'but then we are locked within the quarters of work or those of pleasure.'
'How many quarters of work or quarters of pleasure are there?' I asked.
'I do not know,' she said, 'but there are more than those in which I specifically serve.'
'You cannot conjecture the size of the garrison then?' I asked.
'It might be a hundred, it might be a thousand,' she said. 'I, and my five sisters in bondage, serve twenty men.'
'Are they easy to please?' asked Arlene.
'No,' said Constance.
'I hope I am not put with you,' she said.
Constance shrugged. 'Those to whom you will be assigned will doubtless be no easier to please,' she said.
Arlene shuddered.
