"But she is subject to the law unless she chooses to change it?" asked Marcus. "Precisely," said Tolnar. "And that is the point here."
"Whatever law it is," cried the netted woman, "I change it! I herewith change it!"
"How can you change it?" asked Tolnar.
"I am Ubara!" she said.
"You were Ubara," he said.
She cried out in misery, in frustration, in the net.
"Interesting," said Marcus.
"Release me!" demanded the woman.
"Do you think we are fond of she who was once Talena," asked Tolnar, "of she who betrayed Ar, and collaborated with her enemies?"
"Release me, if you value your lives!" she cried. "Seremides will wish me free! So, too, will Myron! So, too, will Lurius of Had!"
"But we have taken an oath to uphold the laws of Ar," said Tolnar.
"Free me!" she said.
"You would have us compromise our honor?" said Tolnar.
"I order you to do so," she said.
Tolnar smiled.
"Why do you smile?" she asked.
"How can a slave order a free person to do anything?" he asked.
"A slave!" she cried. "How dare you!"
"You are taken into bondage," said Tolnar, "under the couching laws of Marlenus of Ar. Any free woman who couches with, or prepares to couch with, a male slave, becomes herself a slave, and the property of the male slave's master."
"I, property!" she cried.
"Yes," said Tolnar.
"Absurd!" she said.
"Not at all," he said. "It is, I assure you, all quite legal."
"Proceed then with your farce!" she cried. "I know Appanius well, and his position in this city is much dependent upon my support! Have I not freed him of numerous burdens? Have I not adjusted his taxes? Have I not spared his house, and those of other favorites, the exactions of the levies?"
"You acknowledge, then," said Tolnar, "that you are a slave?"
"Yes," she said, angrily. "I am a slave! Now, summon Appanius, immediately, that I may be promptly freed! Then you will see to what fates I shall consign you!"
"But what if Appanius wishes you as a slave?" asked Marcus.
She laughed. "I see you do not know our dear Appanius," she said. "The most he would want from a woman would be to have her do his cleaning and scrub his floors!"
"But what if that is precisely what he has in mind for you?" asked Tolnar. She turned white.
"Doubtless she would look well, performing lowly labors in chains," said Marcus. "Perhaps, unknown to you," said Tolnar, "Appanius is a patriot."
"Never!" she said. "Bring him here!"
"What if he would keep you in his house as a slave?" asked Marcus.
"Perhaps you think you could make your former identity known," said Tolnar. "That might be amusing."
"Amusing?" she asked.
"Who would believe you had been Talena, the Ubara of Ar?" asked Tolnar.
"More likely," said Venlisius, "you would be whipped, as a mad slave."
"While," said Tolnar, "another woman, suitably coached, and veiled, would take your place in the Central Cylinder. From the point of view of the public, things would be much the same."
"Bring Appanius here!" she cried. "I know him. I can speak with him. I can make him see, I assure you, that is to his advantage! This is, all some preposterous mistake. Free me! This is all some terrible misunderstanding! Bring Appanius here! I demand it!"
"But what has Appanius to do with this?" asked Tolnar.
"I do not understand," said the woman.
Tolnar regarded her.
"He has everything to do with it," she said. "He is Milo's master!"
"No," said Tolnar.
The prisoner turned her head about, not easily, in the net. "Appanius is your master!" she said to Milo.
"No," he said.
"Yes!" she cried. "He is your master. He is also the master of that short-haired slut!"
"No!" said Lavinia.
"You did not call me "Mistress'," Said the prisoner.
"Why should I" asked Lavinia.
"It is true that you belong to the master of Milo," said Tolnar, "But it is false that the master of Milo is Appanius."
"To whom, then, do I belong?" she asked, aghast.
"Let the papers be prepared, and the measurements, and prints, taken," said Tolnar.
"Yes, Tolnar," said Venlisius.
"Papers! Measurements! Prints!" she protested.
"I think you can understand," said Tolnar, "that in a case such as this, such documentation, guarantees and precautions are not out of order."
"No! No!" she cried.
Tolnar and Venlisius put their wands of office to the side and went to the back room, to obtain the necessary papers and materials.
"You!" cried the prisoner, looking at Marcus. "It is then you to whom I belong!" He merely regarded her.
"Who are you?" she cried.
"It does not matter," he said.
"I will buy my freedom!" she said. "I will give you a thousand pieces of gold! Two thousand! Ten thousand! Name your price!"
"But you have nothing," he said. "No more than a kaiila, or sleen."
"Contact Seremides!" she said. "Contact Myron, polemarkos of Temos! They will arrange my ransom."
"Ransom or price?" asked Marcus.
"Price!" she said, angrily.
"But you are not, as of this moment, for sale," he said.
"Sleen!" she wept. She struggled but I, behind her, kept her well in place. At this point Tolnar and Venlisius reentered the room and, in a few moments, were in the process of filling out the papers. These included an extremely complete description of the woman, exact even to details such as the structure of her ear lobes. Tolnar then, with a graduated tape, reaching in and about the net, and moving the woman as necessary, took a large number of measurements, these being recorded by Venlisius. Additional measurements were taken with other instruments, such as a caliper. With these were recorded such data as the width and length of fingers and toes, the width of her heels, the lovely tiny distance between her nostrils, and so on. The result of this examination, of course, was to produce a network of date which, to a statistical certainty, far beyond the requirements of law, would be unique to a given female. Then, one hand at a time, pulled a bit from the net, then reinserted in it, her fingerprints were taken. Following this, her toeprints were taken. Then, the woman shaken, tears on the furs, was again fully within the net, on her belly. Her fingers and toes were dark with ink, from the taking of the prints. I had taken care, behind her, holding her, and such, to see that she had not seen me.
"You will never get me out of the city!" she said, suddenly, to Marcus.
"Do you really think it would be difficult," he asked her, "gagged, hooded, perhaps in a slave sack?"
"Already the alarm may be out for me!" she said to him.
"I have not heard the alarm bars," he said.
"Do not be naA?ve," she said. "Even now, a secret alarm, a silent alarm, may be out. Even now guardsmen may be turning Ar upside down, looking for me."
"If you have planned your putative dalliance as well as you would have led us to believe," he said, "I doubt that you have even been missed. Indeed, perhaps you will not be missed until morning!"
She moaned.
"Thus, we would have plenty of time to get you out of the city, as merely another slave. If we have a tarn waiting, you could be a hundred pasangs from here by nightfall, in any direction, and by morning, with a new tarn, five hundred pasangs from there, in any direction, and in another day, who knows?" She lifted her head with difficulty in the net, to look at him. His face was stern. She put down her head, frightened, lying on her left cheek.
"But perhaps," said he, "we have no intention of taking you from the city."
"What?" she said, frightened, lifting her head again, with difficulty regarding him. Her eyes went to the dagger at his belt. His fingers were upon it. "No!" she said. "Surely you are not assassins!"