My back stung from the lash.
On my neck was a steel collar. I could not remove it.
“Slave,” said the man in the chair.
“Yes, Master!” I said, eagerly.
Once again I felt eyes upon me.
“As you have doubtless surmised,” said he, “your disposition has been decided.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. He was the sort of man whom I think even a free woman might have found herself drawn to address as “Master.”
“Perhaps you have guessed what it is to be?” he said.
“No, Master,” I said.
But naturally my mind raced ahead. I had learned in the pens that I was unusually beautiful and desirable. Similarly I had trained quickly and exceedingly well. Too, though I was often terrified, I, on the whole, loved my new life. In it I had my sex had for the first time in my life become truly meaningful. No longer was the most important thing I was to be regarded as an inconsequential accident, as a mere irrelevancy. Rather its significance was recognized and, by strong men, would be uncompromisingly enjoyed and exploited. I had found my life and my meaning in bondage. I had, in this far place, for the first time in my life, come home to myself. I had once in the pens jested with a guard, confiding to him that it seemed I was “born for the collar.’ I have not forgotten his reply. He said, simply, “So, too, are all women.” But with respect to my disposition I was sure, given my beauty and desirability, and my talents, even such as they were now, that it would be a lofty one. I was thinking in terms of the high slave, one of great value, one who might even expect sandals, to say nothing of costly, if revealing, silks, and perhaps even a golden collar. Had not that female, Dorna, a high slave, clearly exhibited jealousy of me? Perhaps I would be first girl in the slave quarters. I might receive further training. I might be displayed with pride to a master’s acquaintances, or perhaps, as a state slave, to foreign diplomats or merchants. I would not need to fear the lash like a common girl. I might be often called to the couch of high men, to kneel there, belled and perfumed, and kiss the coverlets, and then, bidden, to insinuate myself sinuously into their arms.
“Beware, slave,” said the man in the chair, “of making a false step.”
“Master?” I asked.
“Hood her,” he said.
Someone behind me, whom I did not see, placed a hood over my head and drew it down, over my features. It was then buckled shut, under my chin.
In a moment then I was lifted in someone’s arms, perhaps those of the jailer, and carried about. In a moment or so I was disoriented in the hood.
Some hoods are cruel but this was a simple, common hood, one which did not even contain a gag, part of its structure. Hoods are, of course, far more effective than the common blindfold. Sometimes we must kneel in hoods for hours, forbidden to move. We do not even know at such times whether we are under surveillance or not. Can we move with impunity, for no one is watching? Or is someone watching, and, if we move, we will be punished, terribly? We do not know. We kneel in the hood, unmoving, docile and obedient. There are many purposes for hoods. Sometimes we are put in them and handed about. I had worn on almost constantly in my journey to this place. Accordingly I had no idea how I had come here or what place this was. I have indicated, too, that such devices are frequently used in the matings of slaves.
I was now set down, on my feet. I seemed to be standing on some sort of board. My hands were free, of course. But I had not received any permission to removed the hood.
“Walk forward,” said a voice.
The board seemed wide enough. It must have been twelve or fourteen inches in width. I felt its edges once or twice with one of the other of my feet.
“She walks well,” said a man.
I had, of course, been taught in the pens how to walk. I continued to walk forward. I was a little uneasy, as the board seemed to move a bit under my weight. “Masters?” I called.
“Continue,” said a man.
“Stop!” he said.
Naturally I stopped.
“Remove the hood,” said the voice.
I unbuckled the hood, and drew it from my head.
I screamed and staggered, and put out my hands, wildly.
Below me yawned an immense drop, one of hundreds of feet, with jagged rocks below.
In an instant, with rapid steps, sure-footedly, the jailer had reached me, lifted me up, turned about and returned me, trembling, wild-eyed, to the foot of the dais.
“Beware of making a false step,” said he in the chair.
“Yes, Master! Yes, Master!” I cried from my belly, a terrified slave girl.
I had learned a lesson. This was not a place where, nor were these men among whom, false steps would be wise.
The jailer, with some difficulty, pried my fingers from the hood, and handed it behind me to someone.
“Tenrik,” said the man in the chair.
“Captain,” said the jailer.
“Bind her, hand and foot,” he said.
My hands were pulled behind me and my wrists crossed. In a moment, with a dispatch and effectiveness that could only have been the result of long experience in such things, the knots had been jerked tight. Then my ankles were crossed, and, with a separate bit of cord, lashed together.
“Carry her to the wall,” said a man in the chair.
The jailer then lifted me up and carried me in his arms to the wall, on which he stood, I in his arms. The wind blew fiercely there. I whimpered piteously, terrified.
“Look down, slave girl,” called the man in the chair.
“Please, no, Master!” I cried.
“Must a command be repeated?” he inquired.
“No, Master!” I wept.
I turned my head and, moaning, looked down. The rocks were hundreds of feet below.
“It is enough,” he said.
I closed my eyes, and put my head back, tightly, against the chest of the jailer, trembling.
“You realize you could be easily hurled to the rocks below?” inquired the man in the chair.
“Yes, Master!” I said, not even opening my eyes.
“Sleen come there at night, looking for bodies,” said the man in the chair.
“Yes, Master,” I said, keeping my eyes shut.
I was then carried down from the wall and deposited, again, before the dais. I lay on my side. How welcome was the stone flagging of the terrace floor!
I looked up, fearfully, at the man in the chair.
“You understand something now of what it might be to be a slave in this place?” asked the man in the chair.
“Yes, Master!” I said.
“You will try to be a good slave, will you not?” he inquired.
“Yes, Master!” I cried. “Yes, Master!”
I lay there, on my side, bound. They then attended to other business. I was sure that they were through with me now, at least for all practical purposes. Why then was I not carried away, or conducted somewhere?
Somehow, now, I was no longer so certain that my disposition, apparently already determined, would be as lofty and certain as I had hitherto conjectured.
I did not even want to go near the wall again, not even to the parapet. The board I had trod earlier was wide and, objectively, it was easy to tread, even hooded as I was. Certainly the folks of this world seem to have little fear of such narrow places. They are accustomed to them. They think little more of treading them than I might have of treading a sidewalk on my old world. Much depends on what is familiar to one, what one grows used to. Many of the “high bridges” in a city such as this would be regarded as quite alarming, at least initially, by most of those of Earth, as they might range from a foot to four or five feet wide, and arch over frightful drips, sometimes to a maze of bridges below, but these people, who have grown up with them, seldom give them a thought. The point of the high bridges seems to be twofold, first, they are lovely in their traceries against the sky and between the cylinderlike buildings, and such things are important to these people, who seem to have an unusually developed aesthetic sense and, second, they have military value, inasmuch as they are easy to defend. Each of these cylinders, in its way, can constitute a stronghold, a fortress or keep. To me, of course, traversing these bridges, particularly in the beginning, constituted a nightmare of terror. I would sometimes crawl on them, scarcely able to move. I would sometimes go to great lengths to avoid them, even though I must then hasten, gasping, running, on my errands, the message tube tied about my neck, my hands braceleted behind me, that I might not have been thought to have dallied. I am still uneasy on such bridges. My fears sometimes occasion amusement among the masters. But my fears, I have been told, are not unprecedented, and, indeed, are not unusual among girls of my sort, girls from my world. Brought here as slaves. But fortunately insouciance and thoughtlessness on the high bridges, common to those of this world, are not required of us. It is other things which are required of us.