“What is that on your neck?” suddenly cried the free woman. “I see it though the cordage of the net! It is glinting! It is a collar! You are a slave, a slave!”
I was too frightened to answer her. I had not told her that I was not a slave, of course. On the other hand, I had not corrected her misapprehension as to the matter. I hoped this would not count as lying. We can be punished terribly for lying.
“Lying slave!” she screamed.
“No, Mistress!” I cried. “Please, no!”
“Oh, you are a well-curved slave!” she cried, angrily. I hoped she would not hold this against me. What could it matter to her, a free woman, if I might bring a good price on the block?
“Deceptive, deceitful slave!” she cried.
“No, Mistress!” I said.
“Well-curved, lying slave!” she screamed.
“Forgive me, Mistress!” I begged.
“Beat her! Beat her!” she called toward the walkway, that behind the wall.
“Please, no, Masters!” I called over my shoulder.
“Deceitful, deceptive, well-curved, lying slave!” screamed the free woman.
“Forgive me, Mistress!” I wept.
“See her ears!” suddenly cried the free woman. “They are pierced!”
the torchlight, doubtless, had reflected from the tiny objects, dropletlike, with their steel pins, which were fastened in my ear lobes. The tiny pins, studlike, had snapped into small disks on the other side. I did not think that these things were intended to be so much ornaments in themselves as devices by means of which to guarantee that the penetrant channels wrought in my body by the worker’s needle could not, even in the healing of the flesh, close. They must remain open, held open by the tiny posts about which the wounds would heal, which posts could later be removed, their work done. And thus it was that portions of my body were made such that they would be ready later, at a master’s convenience, should he so desire, for the affixing of ornamentation. Even so, of course, the devices made it rather clear that my ears were pierced, as they were.
“Beat her!” screamed the free woman.
“Please, no, Mistress!” I begged.
Then I turned back, blinking against the light, for I felt myself, in the net, by means of ropes, being lowered, and being drawn toward the wall.
I did not want to be beaten!
The net neared the wall. The light was very bright.
“Close your eyes,” said the woman with the torch.
I closed my eyes, gratefully, against the light, but, too, of course, I was frightened. The light hurt my eyes. But, too I wanted to see. But, of course, I had no choice. I had been commanded. I must obey. I am a slave.
I felt the net drawn over the low wall and then I was on the walkway, supine in the net, behind the wall. I could sense the torch, reddish, though my closed eyelids. Its radiated warmth was welcome. I lay on the stones. I heard a sniffing and shuffling, a grunt. I shuddered, my eyes closed. I felt the toils of the net being drawn aside.
“Let us see what the object looks like,” said a slurring voice, scarcely human in sound. “Oh, it is a pretty object.”
I felt something large, almost pawlike, brush back my hair. I felt my head turned, from left to right, and back.
“Its ears are pierced,” said the slurring voice.
“Yes,” said the woman.
They had apparently now determined by actual inspection, at close range, that my ears were indeed pierced, that the objects in view were not otherwise affixed, held in place by, say, clips, or tiny plates, tightened with tiny screws.
“A pierced-ear girl,” slurred the voice.
“Yes,” said the woman.
“You are a pierced-ear girl,” said the voice.
“Yes, Master,” I whispered, my eyes closed.
“You are so low?” it asked.
“Yes, Master,” I whispered.
“You may open your eyes,” said the woman.
I opened my eyes, blinking against the light. I could see her fairly well, standing over me, the torch lifted. She was a brunette, and indeed shapely, and beautiful. She wore a ta-teera, a slave rag. On her neck was a collar. It was narrow, and close-fitting, like mine, this is the sort of collar found most frequently on this world’s numerous kajirae; most of us wear it. I could not well see the features of the large, shaggy head which hung over me, as the light was behind it. I knew it could speak. But I did not know if it were human or not. I was sure, whatever it was, it was free. It was the woman behind it, in the collar, the torch lifted, who was slave.
“Untie her ankles,” said the voice, and the thing straightened itself a little.
The woman placed the torch in a holder on a nearby wall, near the exit of the passage.
She then crouched down, near my feet. The large, bent thing stood before the torch. I could see only the misshapen shadow, like something between a boulder and an animal.
“You need not look upon his face,” she whispered to me, “unless commanded to do so.”
“Mistress?” I asked.
“He does not care to have his face gazed upon,” she said.
“Is he a beast in the service of the pit master?” I asked.
“He is the pit master,” she whispered. “All here who are slave are as though his. In the pits his word is law for us. He is to be obeyed with perfection in all things, instantly, uquestioningly, with no appeal. He is here, in this place, as master.”
“Master,” I whispered, frightened.
“Yes,” she said. “That is the power he has here, total power over us, in all ways, the power of the master! We are his, fully, to do with as he pleases.”
“The state is my master,” I whispered.
“Here,” said she, “he is as the state.”
I trembled.
“This is his world,” she said, “the pits, the darkness. He has power here not only over such as we, but over the prisoners, as well.”
“Prisoners?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “And thus is order kept in this place.”
“Is he human?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“What are you saying there?” asked the slurring voice, almost like that of a beast.
“Nothing, Master,” she said.
“Nothing?” asked he.
“It is only the meaningless drivel of a slave,” she averred.
“What have you said to her?” asked he.
“Only little things,” she said. “She may desire to live.”
“Are you untying her ankles?” asked he.
“I bend to my task, Master,” she said.
She knelt by my ankles, bending forward. Her small fingers struggling with the knots. They would not be easy to undo. They had been jerked tight by a man.
“Wait,” said he.
“Master?” she asked.
“Does she appear to you sensitive, extremely feminine, even high strung?”
I looked up at the slave, startled.
“Yes, Master,” responded the slave, after a moment, thoughtfully.
“Are her ankles still tightly bound?” he asked.
“Alas, yes, Master,” said the slave, frightened.
“Desist in your efforts to free her, for the moment,” said he.
“Yes, Master,” said the slave.
“You are a newcomer to our world, are you not?” it asked.
“Is she not of the Peasants?” called the free woman from her cage, angrily, suspended of the dark waters.
But none paid her attention.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“But you have learned to call men ‘Master’?”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“This world is very different from yours, is it not?” he asked.