There were seven or eight girls, clad in Pleasure Silks, sleeping in this hall, scattered about, curled up on cushions. Harold inspected them, but did not seem satisfied. I looked them over nod would have thought that any one of them would have been a prize, presuming it could be safely trans- ported somehow to the wagons of the Tuchuks. One poor girl slept naked on the tiles by the fountain. About her neck was a thick metal collar to which a heavy iron chain had been fastened; the chain itself was attached to a large iron ring placed in the floor. I supposed she was being disciplined. I immediately began to worry that that girl would be the one who would strike Harold's eye. To my relief, he examined her briefly and passed on.
Soon Harold had left the central hall and was making his way down a long, carpeted, lamp-hung corridor. He entered various rooms off this corridor and, after, I suppose, inspect- ing their contents, always emerged and trekked off again. We then examined other corridors and other rooms, and finally returned to the main hall and started off down another way, again encountering corridors and rooms; this we did four times, until we were moving down one of the last corridors, leading from one of the five main corridors off the central hall. I had not kept count but we must have passed by more than seven or eight hundred girls, and still, among all these riches of Saphrar, he could not seem to find the one for which he searched. Several times, one girl or another, would roll over or shift in her sleep, or throw out an arm, and my heart would nearly stop, but none of the wenches awakened and we would troop on to the next room.
— At last we came to a largish room, but much smaller than the main hall, in which there were some seventeen beauties strewn about, all in Pleasure Silk. The light in the room was furnished by a single tharlarion-oil lamp which hung from the ceiling. It was carpeted by a large red rug on which were several cushions of different colors, mostly yellows and or- anges. There was no fountain in the room but, against one wall, there were some low tables with fruits and drinks upon them. Harold looked the girls over and then he went to the low table and poured himself a drink, Ka-la-na wine by the smell of it. He then picked up a juicy, red larma fruit, biting I into it with a sound that seemed partly crunching as he went through the shell, partly squishing as he bit into the fleshy, segmented endocarp. He seemed to make a great deal of noise. Although one or two of the girls stirred uneasily, none, to my relief, awakened.
Harold was now fishing about, still chewing on the fruit, in a wooden chest at one end of the table. He drew out of the chest some four silken scarves, after rejecting since others which did not sufficiently please him.
Then he stood up and went to where one of the girls lay curled on the thick red carpet.
"I rather like this one," he said, taking a bite out of the fruit, spitting some seeds to the rug.
She wore yellow Pleasure Silk, and, beneath her long black hair, on her throat, I glimpsed a silverish Turian collar. She lay with her knees drawn up and her head resting on her left elbow. Her skin color was tarnish, not too unlike the girl I had seen from Port Karl I bent more closely. She was a beauty, and the diaphanous Pleasure Silk that was the only garment permitted her did not, by design, conceal her charms. Then, startled, as she moved her head a bit, restlessly on the rug, I saw that in her nose was the tiny golden ring of a Tuchuk girl.
"This is the one," Harold said.
It was, of course, Hereena, she of the First Wagon. Harold tossed the emptied, collapsed shell of the larma fruit into a corner of the room and whipped one of the scarves from his belt.
He then gave the girl a short, swift kick, not to hurt her, but simply, rather rudely, to startle her awake.
"On your feet, Slave Girl," he said.
Hereena struggled to her feet, her trend down, but Harold had stepped behind her, pulling her wrists blind her back and tying then with the scarf in his hand.
"What is it?" she asked.
"You are being abducted," Harold informed her.
The girl's head flew up and she spun to face him, pulling to free herself. When she saw him her eyes were as wide as larma fruit and her mouth flew open.
"It is I," said Harold, "Harold the Tuchuk."
"No!" she said. "Not you!"
"Yes," he said, "I," turning her about once again, routinely checking the knots that bound her wrists, taking her wrists in his hands, trying to separate them, examining the knots for slippage; there was none. He permitted her to turn and face him again.
"How did you get in here?" she demanded.
"I chanced by," said Harold.
She was trying to free herself. After an instant she realized that she could not, that she had been bound by a warrior. Then she acted as though she had not noticed that she had been perfectly secured, that she was his prisoner, the prisoner of Harold of the Tuchuks. She squared her small shoulders and glared up at him.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"Stealing a slave girl," he said.
"Who?" she asked.
"Oh, come now," said Harold.
"Not I!" she said.
"Of course," said he.
"But I am Hereena," she cried, "of the First Wagon!" I feared the girl's voice might awaken the others, but they seemed still to sleep.
"You are only a little Turian slave girl," said Harold, "who has taken my fancy."
"Nor" she said.
Then Harold had his hands in her mouth, holding it open. "See," he said to me.
I looked. To be sure, there was a slight gap between two of the teeth on the upper right.
Hereena was trying to say something. It is perhaps just as well she could not.
"It is easy to see," said Harold, "why she was not chosen First Stake."
Hereena struggled furiously, unable to speak, the young Tuchuk's hands separating her jaws.
"I have seen kaiila with better teeth," he said.
Hereena made an angry noise. I hoped that the girl would not burst a blood vessel. Then Harold removed his hands deftly, narrowly missing what would have been a most savage! bite.
"Sleen!" she hissed.
"On the other hand," said Harold, "all things considered, she is a not unattractive little wench."
"Sleen! Sleen!" cursed the girl.
"I shall enjoy owning you," said Harold, patting her head. "Sleep! Sleen! Sleen!" cursed the girl.
Harold turned to me. "She is, is she not all things con sidered a pretty little wench? I could not help but regard the angry, collared Hereena, furious in the swirling Pleasure Silk. "Yes," I said, "very."
"Do not fret, little Slave Girl," said Harold to Hereena. "You will soon be able to serve me and I shall see that you shall do so superbly."
Irrationally, like a terrified, vicious little animal, Hereena struggled again to free herself.
Harold stood by, patiently, making no attempt to interfere. At last, trembling with rage, she approached him, her back to him, holding her wrists to him. "Your jest has gone far enough," she said. "Free me."
"No," said Harold.
"Free me!" commanded the girl.
"No," said Harold.
She spun to face him again, tears of rage in her eyes. "No," said Harold.
She straightened herself. "I will never go with you," she hissed. "Never! Never! Never!"
"That is interesting," said Harold. "How do you propose to prevent it?" "I have a plan," she said.
"Of course," he said, "you are Tuchuk." He looked at her narrowly. "What is your plan?"