lover, might detain him for days, each night permitting him a less obscure glimpse of her features, until the shattering moment when she perhaps permits him to gaze upon her unclothed face. Such nonsense, of course, is not tolerated from a slave girl. She is simply ordered to the slave ring. The intimacy veil, I detected, had never been worn by the Lady Rosa. Its presence in her wardrobe was doubtless merely a function of the desire of her employers to assure its completeness and her adequate familiarity with Gorean customs, a familiarity she might have to develop in order to prosecute certain missions which might be expected of her on Gor.
I looped the intimacy veil about the back of her neck and crossed it above her breasts and drew it to the sides, over her breasts, and then took both lengths around her body and behind her back, again crossing them, then looping them about the sandal string tight on her waist; I then took the two loose ends and passed them between her legs, drawing them up snugly and passing them behind and over the sandal string at her belly. I straightened the two layers of loose cloth in front; they were about six inches in width and fell beautifully below her knees.
She looked at me with horror.
'It will do for slave silk,' I said.
I pulled her by the arm before a large mirror in the room.
She moaned, regarding herself.
'Note the slip knot on the sandal string,' I said. 'The string may be removed by a simple tug.'
'Beast!' she wept.
I observed her slim, lovely thigh. I thought it would look well incised with the standard Kajira mark of Gor; it is the first letter, in cursive script, of the word 'Kajira', the most common word for a female slave in the Gorean lexicon; it is a simple, rather floral mark, simple, befitting a slave, lovely, befitting a woman.
She struggled before the mirror, but I held her in place by her left arm.
Yes, the mark would look well on her thigh.
'I have put you in red silk,' I said. 'Is it appropriate?'
'It certainly is not!' she said.
'Perhaps it soon will be,' I said.
She struggled fiercely, futilely. Then she stopped struggling. 'I will give you gold, much gold, to free me,' she said.
'I do not want your gold,' I said.
She looked at me, startled, frightened.
I dragged her to the threshold of her apartment. It was there that the chain dangled from its overhead track, within the door.
'What do you want of me?' she begged. 'The tiles are cold on my feet,' she said. 'Untie me,' she said. 'No!' she cried.
I had lifted the chain and was looping it about her neck. I did so, four times. She would feel its weight. The loops would conceal to some extent that she wore no collar. The chain was color coded with two red bands. I thrust the heavy tongue of the stout padlock through two links of the chain, I then snapped it shut. It, too, was color coded with two, tiny red bands. I looked at her. She was now a component in the chain-and-track system of the complex.
'I am the Lady Graciela Consuelo Rosa Rivera-Sanchez,' she said.
'Be quiet, Pepita,' I said.
She gasped. Then she said, 'No! Do not force me outside the apartment clothed like this!'
I thrust her through the door, out into the corridor. She looked at me with misery, the chain dangling behind her. She realized that she would be marched anywhere, if and as I pleased.
I looked at her. I carried the dart-firing, rifielike con-trivance with me.
I now had my guide.
The red silk would diminish suspicion. A red-silked girl in a Gorean fortress is a not uncommon sight. Suspicion, if any, would be most likely generated by the fact that she was not, under the security alert, in close chains, in a holding area. Her modesty had made it unlikely that many in the complex would recognize her body or features, which had, I gathered, been generally kept from view by the multitudinous robes and veils of concealment common to the Gorean free women of the high cities.
She sank to her knees in misery.
I expected that Kurii would be manning the lensed monitors in the hall. I did not think they would notice, with the resolution available to normal scanning, that she lacked the small brand on the thigh. They would have been more suspicious had her thighs been covered. Similarly I did not expect them to note, under the loops of chain, with the standard lens resolutions they would use, similar to those in Half-Ear's compartment, I supposed, that she lacked the slender steel collar of the Gorean slave girl.
'On your feet,' I said.
She struggled to her feet, and stood, regarding me, 'On the red-collar system,' I said, 'which is the most extensive in the track, is there any termination more remote than any of the others.'
'Yes,' she said.
This surprised me.
'Take me to it,' I said.
She drew herself up, proudly. 'No,' she said. She winced, the barrel of the riflelike contrivance thrust into her belly. I forced her back until she was pinned against the wall. 'You would not,' she said.
'You are only a woman,' I told her.
'I will take you!' she said. 'But it will do you no good, for humans are not allowed beyond that point!'
'Which way?' I asked.
Her eyes indicated the direction.
I thrust her, roughly, stumbling, with the side of the rifle-like contrivance, in that direction.
'Faster,' I told her.
We proceeded swiftly down the corridor.
'If we pass men,' she said, 'you know I need only cry out to them.'
'Do so,' I said, 'and half of you may remain on the chain.' I had not gagged her, for that, surely, would have provoked suspicion.
'Faster,' I ordered. I prodded her with the barrel of the riflelike contrivance and she cried out with pain, stumbling, and hurried her pace.
Soon she was gasping. She was an Earth girl. She was not in the condition of the Gorean slave girl, with her almost perfect diet, imposed by masters, her muscles toned by a regime of exercises, her legs and wind toughened by long hours of training in sensuous dance.
I saw one of the lens monitors rotate on its swivel in our direction.
'Hurry, Kajira,' I said. — 'It is long past the time whea you should have been secured.'
The monitor turned away.
For several Ehn we hurried through the haIls. Sometimes we descended stairwells. She was sweating and gasping. The chain was heavy on her neck and shoulders. 'Hurry, pretty Pepita,' I encouraged her.
Then, on a given level, four below the central level, we saw four men approaching.
'Walk,' I told her.
I walked beside her, obscuring her left thigh.
She shuddered, seeing how the men looked at her. One of them laughed. 'A new girl,' he said.
In less than four Ehn from that point, the track system terminated.
'This is the farthest reach of the track system,' she said. The chain dangled downward, then looped up to her neck. Her small wrists twisted futilely behind her in the encircling, knotted sandal string, that simple device which constituted her bond. 'Humans may not go further.'
'Have you seen those who are not humans?' I asked.
I knew there were few Kur in the complex.
'No,' she said, 'but I know them to be a form of alien. Doubtless they are humanlike, perhaps indistinguishable from humans.'
I smiled. She had not seen the beasts she served.
'I have brought you here,' she said, 'now free me.'
