I thrust open a door in the hallway. I saw a man within who was securing slaves. He had thrust them, ten girls, naked, in a row, kneeling, belly tight against a steel wall. On short neck chains, with collars, he fastened them in place, Their wrists, at the sides of their heads, in light manacles fastened to wall rings, were similarly secured. He looked up. "I'm hurrying!" he said, angrily. I did not speak. He snapped the right wrist of the last girl on the line in its manacle. He then slipped the key in his pouch and, looking at me angrily, hurried out of the room.
The girls, bellies and bodies tight against the wall, were frightened, but they made not the least sound.
To one side, aligned on the wall, were several track chains, with their attached locks. I found one which had a heavy lock, its key attached, which had on it two red bands. Its chain would fit the longest tracks in the complex.
I then went to the girls, to check the graceful, slender steel collars they wore, those lighter, characteristic slave collars about which the heavy iron wall collars had been closed.
I found two that were marked in two tiny red bands.
"Where is the key to your chains?" I asked one of them.
"Our keeper has it, Master." she said.
I had feared it would be the case. I had not attempted to kill or detain their keeper. His failure to report at his station would surely have localized my whereabouts in the complex.
I looked about, angrily.
I could not free one of the red-collar girls. Both had been well chained by a Gorean master. There was no time to test and play with the locks, and each wench was secured by three devices, each sufficient to hold her. The explosive darts at my disposal, addressed to their bonds, would surely have destroyed them.
I turned about and, taking one of the chains, sliding it in its track, left the area where the girls were secured. If I were successful in detonating or initiating the trigger sequence on the apparatus I sought I hoped that it would destroy only those parts of the complex in which the munitions and supplies were stored. Perhaps Imnak would succeed in finding and freeing them, somehow. I had wanted him to evacuate as many girls as possible from the complex. And yet, nude, or in their silks, would they last more than an Ahn outside in the polar night? There were probably many such girls in the complex, now helplessly chained, beautiful, secured slaves. They would be, presumably, innocent victims in the wars of beasts and men. Then I dismissed them from my mind; I was again Gorean; I had work to do; they were only slaves.
I re-entered the hall, sliding the chain with me. I had. little doubt I would soon be noticed.
I wondered how long was the track in which the chain slid. Such a chain, without its secured beauty, would be sure to attract attention.
I passed various doors in the hall. There were training rooms, exercise chambers, apartments. If I chose merely to hide it would take the men of the complex a good deal of time to find me. But I could accomplish little by such an action.
I descended some stairs to a lower lever, following the path set by the sliding chain.
I heard some men about a corner, running in step. I let the chain dangle and, hastily, took refuge in a side room, a pantry. I took a roll from a basket and fed on it. The men passed. They had brushed aside the chain, paying it no attention. Perhaps a girl had been removed from it for chaining by the nearest guard when the instructions concerning slave security had been issued over the speaker system. When I was about to reenter the hall I suddenly stepped back. A guard and a free woman, in robes of concealment, had passed. I had not understood until then that such women might be in the complex. There was an intruder in the complex. She was being conducted, doubtless, to a place of greater security. Perhaps this level was being cleared for purposes of conducting a close search. I finished the roll taken from the basket and left the pantry area.
Outside I encountered two more pairs of individuals, two guards and two more of the free women. I gathered they might be being trained in the complex for their duties later.
"He's not in there," I said to the men, gesturing with my head to the pantry from which I had emerged. Then I said to them, "Hurry!"
They hurried on.
I caught sight of a flash of ankle beneath the heavy robes of concealment worn by the women. It was a trim, exciting ankle. I smiled. I supposed they had not been told that when their political and military work for their faction was completed they would be silked and collared and kept as slaves.
Another man hurried by, running a slave girl on her neck chain before him. She was a yellow-collar girl, as Belinda, whom I had earlier had in the halls. had been. She was still in a snatch of slave silk. "She should be secured," I said to the man, sternly.
"She will be," he said.
I heard another man coming, from behind me. I spun about, covering him with the weapon I carried.
"Do not fire," he said. "I am Gron. from Al-Ka section."
"What are you doing in this area." I said.
"I have come to fetch the Lady Rosa." he said.
"In what apartment is she," I demanded.
"Forty-two," he said, "Central Level Minus one, Mu corridor."
"Correct," I told him, lowering the weapon.
He breathed more easily.
"I will fetch her," I said. Indeed, I had need of a wench. "Return to AI-Ka section."
He hesitated momentarily.
"Hurry," I said, angrily. "A condition of possible danger exists."
He lifted his hand, acknowledging this, and turned about. He soon disappeared down the corridor.
I soon determined that I was in Mu corridor, from Gorean markings high on the wall near a point where the corridor branched in two directions. It seemed probable to me that I was on the appropriate level as I had encountered the man at some distance from the nearest stairway.
I saw no others at that time in the corridor. I slid the chain along beside me.
Soon I had come to the steel door marked forty-two. I saw that a branch of the recessed chain track, above, entered the apartment, doubtless so that the Lady Rosa could be served by appropriately secured female slaves. I opened the door and slid the chain, on its track, within the opening. Inside the apartment was luxurious. plush and silked. It was dimly lit by five candles in a tall floor stand. There was much ornate, intricate carving in the room. A woman, startled, leaped up from the large, rounded bed on which she had sat. She wore the robes of concealment. She whipped the silken sheath of a veil across her features.
"You should knock, you fool," she said. "I had scarcely time to conceal my features."
Sbe looked at me, her eyes flashing over the veil. Her features were, even veiled, not particularly concealed. Her face was narrow but very beautiful. She had extremely dark eyes, and dark hair, even bluish black, which, under the hood of the robes, I could see was drawn back about the sides of her head. Her cheekbones were quite high. Her face was regal, aristocratic, and cold. She was angry.
"You are the Lady Rosa?" I asked.
She drew herself up coldly. "I am the Lady Graciela Consuelo Rosa Rivera-Sanchez," she said. "What is going on?" she asked.
"There is an intruder in the complex," I said.
"Has he yet been apprehended?" she asked.
"No," I said. "How long have you been in the complex?"
"Four months," she said. Then she said, "Four Gorean months, not yet completing the fourth passage hand."
"Are you familiar with the chain-and-track system, for controlling the movements of slaves?" I asked.
"Of course," she said.
"At its remotest terminations?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "but humans are not allowed beyond those points."
I smiled.
"How could an intruder penetrate the complex?" she asked.
"By means of a ventilator shaft," I said. "You speak Gorean rather well," I said, "though with a distinct accent."
"I have been intensively trained," she said.
That accent, I thought, which was aristocratic and Castilian, would not be objected to by most Gorean masters.