'Such pursuits, to me,' she said, 'seem disgusting and unnatural in a woman.' 'They are,' I said. 'But perhaps they are to be forgiven when men abdicate their responsibilities. Perhaps it is fit then that they be destroyed as males.' 'No, Master!' she said.
'Why not?' I asked.
'For then we cannot be truly women, Master. The equations of nature would be disrupted. It would be madness and sickness. It could mean the end of a world.' 'What do you think would happen if you were to seek power, Louise?' I asked. 'Doubtless I would be whipped and used,' she said, 'and then thrown naked, chained, into a tiny cage or slave box, and kept there until I learned my lesson, and begged to be suitably subservient. I might even be killed.'
'Yes,' I said, 'but then you, of course, are a slave.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'You are not a free woman,'
'No, Master,' she said.
'That makes a great difference,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'They do much what they please,' I said, 'even if its ultimate objective is clearly the subversion of nature, involving the reduction and debilitation of an entire sex, a sex crime than which, it seems, none could be more heinous.' 'How filled with hate they must be,' she said.
'Perhaps,' I said.
'Unable to be men,' she said, 'they try to destroy them. In this they fail also to be women.'
'Perhaps,' I said. 'I do not know.'
'They will attempt to use law,' she said, 'using men against men, using them as their dupes and tools, until the last man can be destroyed.'
'That seems the intent,' I said. 'It is not even well concealed.'
'No, Master,' she said.
'It is an interesting concept,' I said, 'that legislation could be passed against manhood, that nature can be dismissed with a statute, that her reality and aristocracy can be declared illegal. Surely there is some sort of category confusion here. Laws cannot validly be passed against facts. Any such law is automatically null and void. It is like the English king who in the legend sat upon the beach and forbade the incoming waves to touch his robes.'
'What happened?' she asked.
'He got wet,' I said. 'To be sure, he may have ordered the waves beaten, but, as far as we know, the ocean failed to take note of this.'
'At least he moved before he was drowned,' she said.
'Let us hope that all kings, however stupid they may be, would have that much sense at least.'
'Surely they would,' she said.
'Not necessarily,' I said. 'If they are sufficiently stupid, and sufficiently strongly conditioned, closing their minds to options, and such, they might remain right where they were, proceeding righteously to a watery grave. Such things are not unknown. Many people have given their lives for absurdities. Some are called heroes.'
'Surely at least some of them were idiots,' she said.
'That might seem a juster appraisal, scientifically,' I admitted. 'Still one might regret the tragedy involved, even in the case of the idiot.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I stood up. 'Master is leaving?' she asked.
I brushed her waist and flank with my foot. She shrank back a bit, on her belly, to the side. Women are so inutterably beautiful. I then put my foot on her, and let her feel a little of my weight, but not much. I then thrust down a bit, and stepped away from her. It had been an admiring, spurning caress. She lay there, the chain on her neck, on the mat. 'I am through with you now,' I said. 'The hostess will soon come to unchain you, and send you back to your waiting station. The key is on its nail.'
'And thus you leave me?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said. I glanced over at the nearby table. The fellow who had been unconscious there, the free woman, the Lady Tutina, now chained half naked at his slave ring, she still unconscious, was showing some signs of reviving. 'Master!' said the girl.
'Remain on your stomach until unchained.' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I then stepped away from her, looking about myself. I had received a note to come to this place. I had waited, but no one, it seemed, had attempted to make contact. There could, of course, be various reasons for this. I did not think, however, that among these reasons would have been the inability to recognize me. Presumably the individual, or individuals, would be familiar with my appearance, either from the plaza near the Central Cylinder or from a description. This made it seem plausible, then, as they had not yet contacted me, that their business with me might be of a clandestine nature. One might think then in terms of the possible transmission of secret information, or, perhaps more likely, of the enterprise of the assassin, the covert business of unsheathed daggers.
I looked about. I did not think there would be more than two of them. I considered the openings to the Tunnels. The main egress, which served also as the entryway, would surely be under observation. The hostess, in earlier speaking to me of the free women brought in for a joke, had spoken of putting her out back in the morning, naked, and, if she had been used, with her hands tied behind her, with a punched tarsk bit tied on her belly. That suggested a rear exit. If they thought I were making for the that they might move swiftly, hastily, too hastily. It would be dark in the tunnel. I glanced back at the Earth redhead on the mat. She was still on her belly, as she had been commanded. She looked back and up at me, pleadingly. I then left her. She was only a slave.
I walked past the waiting station. The only girl there now, the only one not now on a chain, this testifying to the traffic of the house, was Birsen, the brown-haired girl who seemed as though she could have been a fashion model on Earth, 'head down,' I said. Immediately, kneeling, she put her head to the floor, the palms of her hands, too, resting on it. It is pleasant to own and master women. Too, it is correct to do so. Bondage is merely an institutional recognition and formalization of the proper and natural relationship between the sexes. In a moment I had come to the low opening of the Al-Ka Tunnel, the first tunnel. I glanced back. In the light I could not detect whether or not anyone was noting my entrance into the tunnel. Somehow I felt, however, that my entry therein would not go unnoticed.
26 I Take my Leave of the Tunnels
In a moment I was into the tunnel. Behind me there was a bit of light coming from under the door.
In a bit, however, I was beyond it. Soon I had to crawl. The ceiling of the tunnel, in this part, I now on all fours, was about a foot over my head. In parts the tunnel was carpeted, in other parts not, and one must move on the tile or stones. There were leather-curtained alcoves here and there along the tunnel, the openings of which were circular, and about two feet in width. Occasionally there was a small lamp within, its light detectable through the cracks in the leather curtain, and about it and under it, feebly illuminating the tunnel outside. For the most part, however, the tunnel was quite dark. In two or three of the alcoves, where there was a lamp, and the curtain was not fully drawn, I saw a master and a slave. One girl was kneeling naked with her back to the wall and her hands chained up and behind her, at the sides of her head, over her shoulders. She looked at me, wildly. Then she jerked back, the master caressing her with the whip. In another alcove a girl was chained on her back, her harms and legs widely apart, spread-eagled. She was lifting her body piteously to a man who now, apparently having aroused her to a point where she was in an agony of need, was merely toying with her. I supposed he might later concede to her pleas, if only because she was quite beautiful. In another alcove there was a girl on her stomach, her wrists tied to a slave ring. I did not know if she had been put in that position for love, or for punishment, or for both.
Most of the alcoves, however, like the major lengths of the tunnel, were quite dark. Some were doubtless
