drug or sedative. They had to be. The obviously suggested alternative would be just too unthinkable, just too absurd. I hoped I had not gone mad.
I sat on the bed, my chin on my knees. I became aware that I was very hungry. One thing, at least, assured me that I had not gone mad.
That thing supplied a solid reference point in this seemingly incredible transition between environments. It had been locked on me in my own kitchen. It was a steel anklet. I still wore it.
I looked over to one of the mirrors. I looked small, sitting on the great bed. I was nude. I wondered in whose bed I was.
I then heard a sound at the door.
Terrified I knelt on the bed, snatching up a portion of the coverlet on which I knelt, and held it tightly, defensively, about me.
The door opened, admitting a small, exquisite, dark-haired woman. She wore a brief, whitish, summery, floral-print tunic, almost diaphanous, with a plunging neckline. The print was a tasteful scattering of delicate yellow flowers, perhaps silk-screened in place. The garment was belted, and rather snugly, with two turns of a narrow, silken, yellow cord, knotted at her left hip. She was barefoot. I noted that she did not wear an anklet, such as I wore. There was something on her neck, however, something fastened closely about it, encased in a silken yellow sheath or sleeve. I did not know what it was. It could not be metal, of course. That would be terrifying. I noted that the door, which now closed behind her, wag some six inches thick.
'Oh,' said the girl, softly, startled, seeing me, and knelt.
She put her head down, and then lifted it. 'Forgive me, Mistress,' she said. 'I did not know whether or not you were yet awake. I did not knock, for fear of disturbing you.'
'What do you want?' I asked.
'I have come to serve Mistress,' she said. 'I have come to see if Mistress desires aught.'
'Who are you?' I asked.
'Susan,' she said.
'Susan who?' I asked.
'Only Susan,' she said.
'I do not understand,' I said.
'That is what I have been named,' she said.
'Named?' I asked.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said.
'I am Tiffany,' I said. 'Tiffany Collins.'
'Yes, Mistress,' she said.
'Where am P' I asked.
'In the city of Corcyrus,' she said.
I had never heard of this city. I did not even know what country it was in. I did not even know in what continent it might be.
'In what country is this?' I asked.
'In the country of Corcyrus,' she said.
'That is the city,' I said.
You are then in the dominions of Corcyrus, Mistress,' she said.
'Where is Corcyrus?' I asked.
'Mistress?' asked the girl, puzzled.
'Where is Corcyrus?' I asked.
'It is here,' she said, puzzled. 'We are in Corcyrus.'
'I see that I am to be kept in ignorance,' I said, angrily, clutching the coverlet about my neck.
'Corcyrus,' said the girl, 'is south of the Vosk. It is. south-west of the city of Ar. It lies to the east and somewhat north of Argenturn.'
'Where is New York City?' I asked. 'Where are the United States?' 'They are not here, Mistress,' smiled the girl.
'Where is the ocean?' I asked.
'It is more than a thousand pasangs to the west, Mistress,' said the girl. 'Is it the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean?' I asked.
'No, Mistress,' said the girl.
'It is the Indian Ocean?' I asked.
'No, Mistress,' said the girl.
I looked at her, puzzled.
'It is Thassa, the Sea, Mistress,' said the girl.
'What sea is it?' I asked.
'That is how we think of her,' said the girl, 'as the sea, Thassa.' 'Oh' I said, bitterly.
'Has Mistress noted certain feelings or sensations in her body, perhaps of a sort with which she is unfamiliar?' asked the girl. 'Has Mistress noted any unusual qualities in the air she is breathing?'
'Perhaps,' I said. These things I had construed as the lingering effects of the substance which had been injected into me, rendering me unconscious.
'Would Mistress like for me to have her bath prepared?' she asked.
'No,' I said. 'I am clean.'
'Yes, Mistress,' she said. I realized, uneasily, that I must have been cleaned. 'I have been perfumed, have I not?' I asked. I did no know if the room had been perfumed, or if it were I.
'Yes, Mistress,' said the girl.
I pulled the coverlet up, even more closely, about my neck.
I felt its soft silk on my naked, perfumed body. The perfume was exquisitely feminine.
'Am I still a virgin?' I asked.
'I suppose so,' said the girl. 'I do not know.'
I looked uneasily at the heavy door, behind her. I did not know who might enter that door, to claim me.
'In whose bed am I' I asked.
'In your own, Mistress,' said the girl.
'Mine?' I asked.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said.
'Whose room is this?' I demanded.
'Yours, Mistress,' said the girl.
'There are bars at the window,' I said.
'They are for your protection, Mistress,' said the girl. 'Such bars are not unusual in the rooms of women in Corcyrus.
I looked at the girl in the light, floral-print tunic, kneeling a few feet from the bed. It was almost diaphanous. It was not difficult to detect the lineaments of her beauty beneath it. seemed a garment which was, in its way, demure and yet, the same time, extremely provocative. To see a woman such a garment, I suspected, might drive a man half mad with passion. I wondered what was concealed in the silken sheath about her neck.
'Why have I been brought here?' I asked. 'What am I doing here?' 'I do not know, Mistress,' said the girl. 'I am not one such as would be informed.'
'Oh,' I said. I did not fully understand her response.
'Is Mistress hungry?' she inquired.
'Yes,' I said. I was ravenous.
Smiling the girl rose lightly to her feet and left the room.
I left the bed and stood then on the tiles, near the bed, the coverlet still held about me, almost like a great cloak. The tiles felt cool to the bottoms of my feet. The weather seemed warm and sultry. I wondered if I might be in Africa or Asia.
I looked at the rings on the couch, at the ring in the floor, and the two rings in the wall, one about a yard from the floor and one about six feet from the floor.
I looked at the door. There was a handle on my side of the door, but no way to lock or bar it, at least from
