'Do not fear, my dear,' said Constance, 'you will learn the whip well.'
Arlene looked at me with horror.
I paid her no attention. What did she expect? She was a slave.
Arlene put down her head. She touched her silk. She moaned.
'What of beasts?' I asked Constance.
'I do not know their number either,' said Constance. 'But I think they are considerably fewer in number than the men.'
'You are not now on a neck chain,' I said.
'Nor was I this morning,' she said. 'I was brought here directly from my kennel. I was thrown into this cell. You were still unconscious.' She looked at Arlene. not pleasantly. 'This slave,' she said, emphasizing the word, 'was already here. The gate was then locked.'
'I do not understand why this slave,' said Arlene, also emphasizing the word, 'was put in with us.'
'I own you both,' I told her.
'Oh,' said Arlene. 'She is very pretty,' said Arlene. 'Do you find her attractive?'
'Be quiet,' I said to Arlene.
'Yes, Master,' she said, looking away.
'I have missed the touch of my master,' said Constance.
Arlene looked at her with fury.
'You said you were brought here this morning,' I said. 'Is it morning?'
'This complex, in its way,' she said, 'is its own world. It operates on a day of twelve divisions. I do not know how long the division is. I think it is well over an Ahn.'
I remembered the timing devices in the crashed ship encountered in the Tahari desert, devices set to control the detonation of the fearsome explosives housed within its steel hull. They had been calibrated into twelvefold divisions. I speculated that they might be indexed to the periods of revolution and rotation of the Kurii's original world. Also, I suppose the twelvefold division may have some remote relation to the base-twelve mathematics utilized by the Kurii, itself perhaps a function of ihe six-digited paw. The complex, then, that in which I was prisoner, I conjectured, might well have a clock similar to those used on Kur ships, and in the distant steel worlds, a clock doubtless once developed for use on their former world, doubtless long since destroyed in their internecine wars.
'We can tell the morning from the night by the illumination in the complex,' said Constance. 'It seems to be controlled by some sort of device which regulates its intensity.'
I supposed that it would not be difficult to arrange a rheostatic mechanism to control the degree of illumination. The mechanism, I conjectured, would be analogized to the waxing and waning of light on a native world.
'The beasts,' she said, 'move mostly at night. I sometimes hear their claws on the plates outside my kennel. There must be some light for them. But it is too dark for the human eye to see.'
I nodded, understanding. The Kur, though its activities are not limited to the darkness, tends, on the whole, in most of its varieties, to be a predominantly nocturnal animal. Its hunt, and its day, commonly begins with the fall of darkness.
I grasped the bars of the cell. I shook them. They did not yield.
I heard the movement of a key in a lock, from some yards away, in the door in the larger room within which our cell lay.
I backed away from the bars. This might encourage someone to approach them more closely. I could move to them swiftly. Arlene and Constance knelt to one side and behind me. This was proper. They were slaves.
'Drusus,' I said.
The man stood in the doorway, in the somber garb of his caste.
'I see you wear the scarlet of the warrior,' he said. It was true. I had awakened in the tunic of my caste. The furs had been taken from me.
'And you, my friend,' said I, 'are clothed now in the proper habiliments of your caste.' He wore now, brazenly, the black of the Assassin. Over his left shoulder, looped on a ringed strap, he wore a blade, the short sword.
'May I welcome to our humble headquarters,' said he, 'colleagues in the arts of steel.'
I inclined my head, in courtesy.
'It pleases us to have you in our power,' he said. 'You were a fool to come north.'
'I come visiting,' I said.
'You are welcome,' said he, smiling. Then he snapped his fingers. Through the door, bearing a tray, came a small, exquisite, brunet female slave. She was naked except for her collar and a leather-and-metal lock gag. Her mouth was closed. I saw the curved metal bars, rounded, about a quarter of an inch in diameter, emerging from the sides of her mouth. By means of a ratchet and pawl arrangement the device is fitted to the individual girl. It locks behind the back of the neck. It cannot be removed, even though the girl's hands are free; She knelt before the gate of the cell and put her head to the steel floor. Two flasks on the tray she placed through the bars. She then slipped the tray through an opening, some four inches in height, in the bottom of the cell door. She then again put her head to the floor, and then stood up and withdrew, backing away, her head down. She looked at Drusus, who indicated she should leave the room. She slipped swiftly out, obedient, barefoot on the steel plates.
'A pretty little slave,' I said. 'Why is she in lock gag?'
'It pleases me,' he said.
'Of course,' I said.
He turned to leave.
'Drusus,' said Arlene. 'You must help us!' She had once commanded him.
He looked at her, and she shrank back. 'There is a pretty little slave, too,' he said.
She, terrified, tried to cover her body with her hands, half naked in the pleasure silk. How vulnerable pleasure silk makes a woman.
'I own her,' I told him.
'I shall have her,' he said.
'Oh?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said, 'she was originally brought to Gor whh the eventual object of being at my feet. I picked her out from several future slaves.'
'I see,' I said.
'Perhaps you should join forces with us,' said Drusus. 'The Kurii are generous with women.'
'I am of the Warriors,' I said. 'I will take by the sword what women please me.'
'Of course,' he said. He continued to look at Arlene, who put her head down, trembling.
'Too,' I said, 'it is my intention to keep by the sword what women should please me.' I gestured to Arlene. 'This one,' I said, 'at the moment pleases me.'
She looked at me, frightened.
'We shall see,' said Drusus.
I watched him, from behind the bars.
'Join us,' he said.
'No,' I said.
'Your friend, Imnak, has joined us,' he said.
'I do not believe you,' I said.
Drusus shrugged.
'The Kurii are generous with women,' he said, '-and gold.'
He turned to leave.
'I would see Zarendargar,' I said. 'Half-Ear.'
'None sees him,' said Drusus. Then he turned away again. The heavy metal door closed.
I grasped the bars, angrily.
Then I turned to face the girls. I strode to Arlene. 'You called out to Drusus,' I said.
'Yes,' she said.
