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."
I opened the padlock and freed her neck of the chain. The attached padlock, with its key, I snapped about a link of the chain, between some four and five feet from the floor. This is the inactive position of the chain, lock at collar level, chain terminating with a closed loop, the loop about a foot off the floor, an arrangement permitting a girl to be quickly and conveniently put on the chain and permitting the chain, if no girl is upon it, to be slid in its track without dragging on the steel plates.
She turned about, holding her bound wrists to me, that I might unbind them. Instead I took her by the hair and walked her, bent over, beside me, sliding the chain along with us, backward, until I came to a branching in a hail. I slid The chain a distance down that hall, and then, still holding her, returned to that point at which the track system terminated.
"Free me," she begged. "Oh!" she cried, as my hand twisted in her hair.
"You are too pretty to free," I told her.
I then thrust her ahead of me, down the corridor, beyond the termination point of the chain-and-track system.
She turned about, terrified. "Humans may not go beyond this point," she said.
"Precede me," I told her.
Moaning, the bound, silked girl turned about and preceded me.
I saw that no more of the lensed monitors covered this portion of the corridor. I grew uneasy, for it seemed matters proceeded too simply. A steel door lay at the end of the corridor. I had speculated that the destructive device would lie beyond the reach of slaves, and in an area secret to the monitoring system, which might be available at times to humans. Yet, now, I was apprehensive.
I tried the door at the end of the corridor. It was open. I thrust it back with the butt of the riflelike contrivance I carried.
I looked at the girl. I nodded to her to approach me. She did so. I held my left hand open, at my waist. She stiffened, and looked at me, angrily. I opened and closed my left hand once. I saw her training in Gorean customs had been thorough. But she never thought that such a gesture would be used to her. She came beside me, and a bit behind me, and, crouching, put her head down, deeply. I fastened my hand in her hair. She winced. Women are helpless in this position. I carried the dart-firing weapon, loaded, in my right hand. I looked cautiously about the frame of the door. I entered, conducting the girl. The room, large, seemed deserted.
It seemed a normal storage room, though quite large. It was filled with boxes, the markings on which I could not read. Some of the boxes were in the nature of open crates. They seemed to contain machinery and parts for machinery. There were corridors among the boxes.