The Chieftan

CHAPTER 11

The lights had continued to dim until the section of the hold was in total darkness, and then, after a moment, they came on again, suddenly.

In the ring now, on the sand, to one side, rather toward the door, there knelt a large, bearded man. His long hair, which behind him fell to his waist, was bound back with a fillet of leather. He wore a tunic of roughly sewn skins. He was heavily chained, hand and foot.

The women in the crowd, at the first sight of him, gasped, drawing back.

“He is clad as a barbarian,” said the woman who had invited the officer of the court to sit with her, to the minor officer.

“He is a barbarian,” said the officer. “He was taken on Tinos.”

On either side of the kneeling figure, standing, were two guards, armed not with stun sticks but fire pistols.

There are several varieties of such weapons. They are commonly a sidearm of imperial officers. A common form of fire pistol, and that which the guards carried, held ten reduced, controlled charges, each emitting a narrow, bright, quarter-second beam. In this fashion the beam, in the moment of its activation, might breach materials such as wood or flesh, but could do little more than scorch and disfigure metal. This was important within a carefully regulated environment, that, say, of a ship in space. Weapons in the empire, as I have earlier indicated, were carefully controlled, and this policy was one of the reasons, doubtless, for the general security of its authority. Within the empire the manufacture of such weapons was an imperial monopoly. Indeed, even within the empire primitive weapons, clubs, staffs, pointed, edged weapons, and such, were far more common than technologically sophisticated weapons. Indeed, many in the empire knew only such weapons. Some imperial troops, as a matter of fact, had been, for most practical purposes, reduced to the use of such weapons, they being supplemented, of course, to some extent by more powerful devices. Certain forms of energy within the empire were, statistically, quite rare, many sources having been exhausted centuries ago. This was the case on literally thousands of worlds. These facts, however, must not obscure the fact that the empire still had at its disposal weapons capable of dislodging planets from orbits, even of pulverizing them into miniscule, radiating debris.

“The skins he wears,” said the minor officer, to her in the pantsuit, “are from animals which he himself has killed.”

“Interesting,” she said.

But her interest, we may suspect, was taken less by those savage skins than by something else, by the savage himself, he so muscular, so mighty within them, he whom they so primitively bedecked.

The officer of the court swayed a little.

Her heart, like that of many of the other women in the tiers, was beating rapidly, fearfully.

Out there, somewhere, in the galaxy, there were men such as these!

What could be the fate of women in the hands of such men?

Did she not know?

The borders must hold!

“Are you all right?” asked the minor officer.

“Yes,” she said.

The women in the tiers, who were educated, civilized women, looked upon the barbarian, even though he was chained, with some apprehension. How different he was from the men with whom they were personally acquainted!

The officer of the court, seeing such a man, became suddenly quite conscious of the shocking undergarments she had dared to place beneath her “same garb.”

How frightening were such men. Their attitudes, their values, would doubtless be quite different from those of civilized men, gentlemen. Who knew how they might look upon a woman, or in what terms they might see her?

“Are you alarmed?” asked the minor officer, looking over to the officer of the court.

“Certainly not,” she said.

“He is now quite helpless,” said the minor officer.

“Are their women dressed similarly?” asked the officer of the court, as though idly.

“The women commonly wear cloth, some, the finest, obtained in trade, some, particularly in remoter areas, which they themselves have spun and loomed. The most common garment of free women is a long dress, which muchly covers them, that their men may not be driven mad with desire.”

“Not all their women are free?”

“No.”

“They then keep slaves.”

“They are barbarians, of course,” he said.

“And what is the most common garment of slaves?” she asked.

“Usually the long dress,” said he, “as with free women.”

“But not always?” asked the officer of the court.

“No,” said the minor officer.

“And how then would they be dressed?” asked the officer of the court.

“As slaves,” said the minor officer.

“If dressed?”

“Of course,” said he.

“How many women do such men have?” asked the officer of the court.

“Some have several,” he said.

“Both wives and slaves?”

“Sometimes,” said the officer.

Despite the ponderous chains on the barbarian, and the presence of the vigilant, armed guards, many of the women continued to be apprehensive, regarding the kneeling figure.

They knew themselves to be civilized women, of course, and thus no more than prey to such men.

Such men, they understood in their bellies, would see them as women, and put them to the uses of women.

How dreadful!

At this moment the main door to the section opened and the young naval officer, he who was putatively on leave, entered.

The officer of the court gasped.

Yesterday evening she had seen him only in a lounging robe, a leisure, or pleasure, garment, one suitable for the captain’s table, but he was now in what must be a dress uniform. It was white with gold braid. Too, she was startled to note, at the left shoulder, three purple cords.

As he entered, in uniform, the captain himself, and his officers, had risen, in salute. The two guards in whose custody knelt the prisoner, too, came to attention.

“Hail to the empire!” called the captain.

“Hail to the empire!” called the other officers, and the guards, as well. Even the minor officer who sat near the women in the tiers, the women with whom we are now familiar, had come to attention when the young officer had entered, as had some other minor officers here and there on the tiers. They, too, had joined in the greeting.

“Hail to the emperor! Hail to the empire!” said the young officer.

This cry was repeated by the officers, and by others, too, in the stands.

“See the cords,” said the woman in the pantsuit.

“Of course I see them,” said the officer of the court. She had been struck speechless when the young officer had first entered. She, of all, who was herself of the blood, would understand such insignia. But she had not realized that one of a rank far beyond hers, compared to which hers, and even that of Tuvo Ausonius, was as nothing, was aboard the vessel.

The young officer then turned to regard the prisoner, kneeling in the sand, now at his feet.

The prisoner had been made to wait, kneeling, for the arrival of the young officer.

And thus was made clear to the prisoner, and to all in the tiers, the superiority of the empire.

The naval rank of the officer was not high. We might say, to suggest something familiar, that he was an ensign. On the other hand, the cords made it clear that this was no ordinary ensign, but one of the noblest of bloods.

“The three cords,” said the woman in the pantsuit.

“Yes,” said the officer of the court, irritably. The three cords, of that color, indicated the highest of ranks. The blood of this young officer was doubtless as high as that of the imperial house itself.

How incredible it was that one such as he would be aboard this vessel.

Tears formed in the eyes of several of the men in the tiers.

With a gesture the young officer put the company at ease.

The young officer then, as would be in accord with the protocols of the service, saluted the captain, who smartly returned this greeting.

He then took his seat, beside the captain.

At this point Pulendius emerged from behind the tiers, opposite the main door, followed by four pairs of gladiators. These were powerful men, clad in brief leather, with their hair fastened back, their bodies oiled.

“There is to be an exhibition,” said the minor officer.

The gladiators, two pairs armed with blunt spears, two pairs with wooden swords, began to exercise and stretch in the tiny arena.

Some of the women inadvertently gasped, seeing the rippling of such muscles, the movements of the mighty thighs. Doubtless most had seen fighters before, but it is not likely they had seen them at this proximity.

The officer of the court looked about for a particular gladiator, he who had been the bodyguard of Pulendius, he who had been behind him and to the right.

He was nowhere in view.

Then, after a moment he, with his fellow, appeared, both at the opening in the tiers, through which Pulendius and the others had but recently emerged.

They, as was the business of such fellows, surveyed the crowd. She sat very straight, in “same garb,” with the “frame-and-curtain,” making certain that she did not look at him, or, at least, not obviously. Her interest, he must clearly understand, was on the ring. See her as a common slave, would he? Let him see her now, as she really was, a high creature, one far above him, one immeasurably above him, a woman of Terennia, one even of the blood itself!

But, of course, she looked back to see if he might be looking at her, and, as one might expect, what should happen to be the case but that, to her embarrassment, their eyes met. Swiftly then, blushing, she looked away.

At least she was in “same garb,” and in the “frame-and-curtain”! But she knew, too, that she had been before him not simply, in “same garb,” and in the “frame-and-curtain,” but in those other garments, too, those to which we earlier alluded. She could now feel them, in all their filmy, sensuous softness, on her body. She was wearing them before him. Of course, he could not see them, but she knew they were there, and that she had them on, before a man. The nature of these garments was doubtless quite innocent, but scarcely so from the point of view of a woman from Terennia. For a woman of Terennia, of her class, the garments which she now wore went well beyond the merely daring, and doubtless beyond even the perimeters of the scandalous. They were soft and sensuous, and provocative. They were the sort of thing which only a woman who should be a slave would wear. They were emphatically indecent. She could feel her breasts straining against the soft, filmy silken bonds which constrained them, she was scarcely aware of the so-brief tiny thing which enclosed her lower body, with its sweet nether intimacies, so light it was. These two garments, the brassiere and the panties, as we may think of them, not inaccurately, had both been, of course, purchased at the ship’s shop. It had required great courage for her to buy them. Had the salesgirl not looked at her askance, or had she imagined it? None, of course, would know that she had purchased them, only herself. Did the salesgirl wear such things? Had there been anything strange, or disapproving, in her expressions, in her tone of voice? Did the salesgirl, herself, wear such things, she wondered. They would be her secret, of course, her secret from all the world. She would never dare to show them to Tuvo Ausonius. He would be unwilling to let such a woman in his bed. Such a woman is rather such that she is to be chained at the foot of a bed.

He could not know, of course, that she wore such garments under the “same garb,” under the “frame and curtain.”

But she knew.

Hotly she regretted wearing such things.

Oh, she had put them on and off a dozen times in the privacy of her cabin, sometimes even daring to look at herself in the mirror. But surely the image could not be hers. Surely she could not be that lithe, graceful, curvaceous creature in the mirror. She had decided at last not to wear such things to the entertainment, but, when she had tried them on again, just for the last time, as she told herself, she realized suddenly, to her consternation, the time, and that, if she were to assure herself of a seat, she must best be on her way. Having no choice then she had put on the “same garb,” and the “frame-and-curtain,” over them, and hurried out.

How handsome was the bodyguard, how strong he seemed, how small she seemed, compared to him.

Then she sat straight on the tier. She was now pleased to have worn the intimate garments. No one could see them. And they were comfortable. That was a good reason to wear them. And no one could see them. Thus no one could ever guess what sort of woman she was, secretly.

The bodyguard was not far from her, over to her left, where one opening was in the tiers, that opposite the other, nearer the door.

Again their eyes met.

“Where is your collar?” he asked.

She stiffened, and pretended not to hear. He was referring, doubtless, to the necklace she had worn the night before. It would not go with the “same garb” and the “frame-and-curtain,” of course. Too, it was a necklace. It was not a collar. Collars were for slaves. He must know that.

The minor officer glared at the gladiator, but the gladiator met his gaze squarely, and not pleasantly, and the minor officer looked away.

The woman in the pantsuit leaned over to the officer of the court, and nodded her head, subtly, indicatively, toward the gladiator. “He finds you attractive,” she whispered confidingly, delightedly.

“‘Attractive’?” asked the officer of the court.

“Yes,” said her companion.

“I am of Terennia,” said the officer of the court. “I do not even understand such matters.”

“Very attractive,” whispered her companion.

“I am not in the least interested,” said the officer of the court.

“Why are you blushing?” asked her companion.

“I am not,” insisted the officer of the court, her skin aflame.

“He wants you,” whispered her companion.

“He is an illiterate brute,” said the officer of the court.

“He looks at you as though you were a common slave,” said her companion.

“Perhaps he will buy me,” said the officer of the court, acidly.

“And what man would not, if he could afford you?” said the woman.

The officer of the court did not deign to respond to this remark. The very thought of it, she, for sale!

“But perhaps he would merely bind and gag you, and carry you off,” she said.

“Perhaps,” said the officer of the court.

“He wants you,” she said.

“Let him want me then, in vain,” said the officer of the court.

“You might not speak so proudly,” she said, “if you were on your knees before him, naked, your

hands tied behind your back.”

“Please,” protested the officer of the court.

“And you would be made his slave,” she said.

The officer of the court trembled.

“And you would serve him well,” she said.

“Please,” said the officer of the court.

“He would see to it,” she said.

At this point the young naval officer was looking about the stands, and, to her pleasure, their eyes met. This gave her the much-desired opportunity to escape the humiliating embarrassments of her conversation with her companion on the tiers. The young officer would surely remember her from the captain’s table, the preceding evening. He would recall, too, the bit of purple accenting her sheath, which, so subtly, but nonetheless clearly, proclaimed her own nobility. She, too, was of the blood! This, too, would give her a way of putting her companion in her place, who was of the honestori, but not of noble blood. This would make it clear to her that she must not speak in such a way to her, so frankly, so intimately, as though they might be of the same station, as though they might be equals, even as though they might both be no more than women huddled naked at the foot of a slave block, each waiting, in her turn, to be dragged to its surface, to be exhibited and sold. He was only a few feet from her, in his place on the first tier, in the place of honor, between the captain and the first officer, at the edge of the circle.

“Hail to the emperor!” she said. “Hail to the empire!”

He looked away, returning his attention to the activities of the gladiators, they preparing for their exhibition.

The companion of the officer of the court, the woman in the pantsuit, tactfully took no official notice of this episode.

The officer of the court stiffened in humiliation. Tears ran down her cheeks, which she swiftly wiped away.

She, too, said nothing of the episode.

Could the naval officer, he of the blood, have somehow suspected, or guessed, that she wore soft garments beneath her “same garb”? Was that why he had not deigned to recognize her, to return her greeting, even to indicate that he had noticed it?

She looked to the gladiator, by the opening of the tiers. He regarded her. On his lips there was, playing there, ever so subtly, a smile. It was a smile of amusement, of contempt. Quickly the officer of the court jerked her head away, angrily, looking to the sand, as though something of great interest might be occurring there.

She had never been so embarrassed, so humiliated, in her life.

There were, in the empire, you see, matters of distance, of rank and hierarchy.

Such were not to be lightly violated.

She had done so.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” called Pulendius, “welcome, all, to the festivities of the evening.”

All attention was upon him.

“And let us welcome, too, our special guest, one honoring us with his presence this evening,” he called, pointing to the fellow kneeling to one side, in skins, laden with chains, “Ortog, a prince of the Drisriaks, king of the secessionist house of Ortog.”

There was laughter, and polite applause.

The fists of the barbarian, in close proximity to one another, his wrists well confined in weighty manacles, clenched in futile rage.

This, too, caused amusement in the crowd.

Even had he no acquaintance with some patois interactive with Telnarian there could be little doubt, given Pulendius’s exaggerated, pompous references, clearly directed at him, and the amusement of the crowd, that he was the object of ridicule.

It will be helpful to the reader to follow certain later events if I make clear certain relationships, certain lineages, involved here. Ortog was a prince of the Drisriaks, which was one of the eleven traditional tribes of the Alemanni nation. His house, however, was secessionist, and thusly he was a prince of one house, of the Drisriaks, and the king, or pretender to kingship, in another, his own, that of the Ortungen.

“He dared to raise arms against the empire!” said Pulendius. “Now he kneels before us, humbled, in chains, as helpless as a slave!”

There were cries of delight from the audience.

“We shall now see him bow to the empire!” said Pulendius.

But the back of the kneeling, scowling figure remained straight, quite straight.

Pulendius regarded the prisoner.

But the prisoner remained motionless.

Pulendius, for a moment, seemed nonplussed, but, at a nod from the captain, he gestured to the two guards.

They seized the prisoner and, with great difficulty, forced his head down, into the sand.

But when they released him, he straightened his body, sand clinging about his beard and face.

In his eyes there was a terrible fire, that of a cunning, and a covetousness, and a hatred almost inconceivable to the educated, sophisticated, civilized passengers of the Alaria, a hatred which burned, like watch fires, outside the walls of the empire.

“Had we your weapons!” he cried.

“Such men have their possibilities,” said the naval officer to the captain.

“They make fearless, but dangerous, auxiliaries,” said the captain.

“Fortunately they are apt to spend more time dealing out death and destruction to one another than to the empire,” said the first officer.

“The emperor is under pressure from many quarters to ponder an edict of universal citizenship,” said the young naval officer.

“That would be a military mistake of capital importance,” said the captain.

“Assuredly,” said the young officer.

As these allusions might not be clear I shall mention that citizenship within the empire was a prized possession. And more was involved, considerably more, than matters of prestige or social standing. Without it, for example, one could be denied the right to hold land, denied the right to bring legal actions, denied the right to legal representation in court, denied the right to make wills, to bequeath property, and such. Careers, too, and advancement within them, often depended on citizenship. Employment in the vast bureaucracy of the civil service, for example, required citizenship. Without citizenship one was, in certain respects, even if free, little more than an animal. It was not merely that certain offices, certain forms of political power, were closed to one, but that one was, in a sense, not being a citizen, not really a member of the community. One was, in effect, without standing before the law. It was only gradually, and over a period of centuries, even thousands of years, that citizenship had become more widely available. In the beginning it extended only to a given class on the first Telnarian world; it spread later to other classes on that world, and then to the population of that world, and then, in turn, similarly, gradually, to the other Telnarian worlds; then, of course, later, it began to spread to certain classes on the provincial worlds, and so on. The apprehension of the young officer and the captain had to do with the military as a route to citizenship. The enlistment for both the regular military and for the auxiliaries was for twenty years, followed by a pension. Sons commonly followed the craft of their fathers. On worlds where the bindings had taken place this was required, the sons of soldiers being required to be soldiers, and so on. A fellow who enlisted in the regular military, the regular forces, received citizenship after his first year of service; a fellow who enlisted in the auxiliaries received it at the end of nine years. The value of citizenship was such that noncitizens with energy and ambition often seized upon the military as a route to the prize of citizenship, which, of course, descended to their children. This policy provided the regular military, and, to a lesser extent, the auxiliaries, with a large pool of capable, eager recruits on which they could draw. Two further observations are in order. Men normally understand the value of, and respect, what has cost them much time and labor. One who has literally been forced to earn his citizenship has learned its value, and never thereafter takes it lightly. Similarly, such men tend to remain loyal to the empire. They make good citizens. The fear of the young officer and the captain is now clear: If citizenship were universally extended throughout the empire, this would remove one of the major enticements for men of quality to enter military service. Too, of course, obviously the universal extension of citizenship throughout the empire would cheapen it, and, in effect trivialize it. Those who do not care to earn their citizenship, of course, are muchly in favor of receiving it as free gift, like bread and entertainment in the cities. The agitation, and the riotous nature, of such elements constituted a force which could be exploited, of course, in a variety of ways by those politically adept at such matters. “Power to the people,” so to speak, is always a popular slogan with those who have plans for putting the people to their own purposes. We can begin to understand, then, something of the factionalisms involved in such matters, and certain of the pressures to which the emperor and senate were sure to be subject.

The barbarian, Ortog, growling with rage, more like a beast than a man, attempted to struggle to his feet, but was forced down again, on his knees. His eyes roved the tiers balefully. Women shrank back.

“Fear not, gentle ladies,” said Pulendius, “for you are safe from such monsters.”

The barbarian looked down, and fought the chains.

A ripple of uneasiness coursed among women in the tiers.

“Do not fear such brutes, beautiful, gentle ladies,” said Pulendius. “The empire will protect you.”

The barbarian suddenly, unexpectedly, cried out with rage, and, half rising, tore at the chains.

Some women in the stands cried out in fear.

The guards forced the barbarian once more to his knees.

“Do not be alarmed, beautiful, gentle ladies,” said Pulendius. “The empire, invincible and eternal, stands between you and such beasts.”

But there remained fear in the eyes of more than one. And here and there small, delicate hands fluttered at trembling breasts.

“He is quite helpless,” said Pulendius. “He is well chained, as is appropriate for such brutes.”

Again the barbarian cried out with rage, and attempted once more to rise to his feet.

A woman, startled, screamed.

Then the barbarian, sullen, his wrists bleeding, forced once more to his knees, ceased to tear at the chains.

“You see he is quite helpless,” said Pulendius. “And he knows himself such.”

A sound of relief escaped several in the stands.

“Behold him, on his knees, as such should be, before the empire.”

There was laughter in the stands.

Suddenly again, in fury, the barbarian strove to rise to his feet.

At a sign from the captain the two guards, with blows, brought the barbarian again to his knees.

Blood streamed about his head.

“An admirably dangerous man,” said the young naval officer, musingly.

“Yes, milord,” said the captain.

Again the barbarian tried to rise. This time, with the nod of the captain observed, Pulendius gestured for two of the gladiators, one of the pairs with blunted spears, to rush forward. They did so, and struck the kneeling, chained figure several times, brutally, with the shafts of their implements. He was then bent over, on his knees, in the bloody sand.

When the barbarian straightened his body he, bloodied head up, sand clinging to his face and beard, regarded the captain and the young officer. In his eyes there was smoldering hatred. The young officer, he with the cords of the blood at his left shoulder, met the gaze calmly. The barbarian then looked about the tiers. Suddenly, his gaze stopped. He regarded the gladiator near the opening of the tiers, to his left, as he knelt, with a glance that was both keen, and, to some extent, of awe. This puzzled the gladiator, for he had never seen the barbarian before. After all, he was a fighter, and, before that, a mere peasant from a festung village, that of Sim Giadini, far away. The fascination of the prisoner with the features of the gladiator was noted by the young officer, who, himself, turned and regarded the gladiator. He saw nothing unusual in his features, nothing to warrant the scrutiny, apparently a fascinated, almost an unbelieving regard, of the barbarian. Then the young officer, curious, turned, again, to the gladiator. “Do you know him?” he asked.

“No, milord,” said the gladiator.

“You have not met before?”

“Not to my knowledge,” said the gladiator.

“Let the exhibition begin!” cried Pulendius, and called forth the first pair of gladiators, one of the two pairs with wooden swords. In the exhibition some rudiments of swordsmanship were demonstrated, and, in a few minutes, Pulendius himself adjudicated a mock match, one in which blows were drawn. The second pair demonstrated certain techniques of the spear, and then, as had the first, engaged in a mock match, which Pulendius again adjudicated, and expertly. The third match was again between a pair with wooden swords, only the swords were this time not the surrogates of the common wicked, short blade of the arena, but rather of the long sword, wielded with two hands, a weapon favored by certain barbarian peoples. The last exhibition was between the last pair of gladiators, also armed with spears, these formed however to resemble the long, double-headed spears of Kiros, a world in the Lidanian system. Both ends of the shaft were painted red, indicating a scoring surface. It was with these implements that the barbarian had been beaten. Pulendius, in his expert commentary, mentioned various facts about diverse weapons, their strengths and weaknesses, the diverse techniques of their employment, and such. There is, of course, a lore and history of weaponry, and weapons of diverse types, like musical instruments, tend to be the result of a long period of refinement and development. And the profession of arms, like other professions, has its complexity, and its masters. Those who do not understand, or appreciate, the expertise, the effort, the long hours of practice, the days and nights of thought involved, are naive, and in an area where naiveté can be dangerous. The sport of arms is an intricate and demanding one. Too, it is a quite serious one. Its games are not such as may be lightly lost.

From time to time the glance of the young naval officer passed musingly, thoughtfully, from the barbarian to the gladiator who crouched, intent on the exercises, near the entrance to the tiers.

The ensign pondered, curiously, what he had earlier noted, the reaction of the barbarian upon seeing the gladiator. But the gladiator was only a paid minion of Pulendius, a common sort. Too, it was extremely unlikely their paths had crossed.

The barbarian did not note the interest of the young officer, nor did the gladiator. The barbarian, bloodied, chained, doubtless sick from his beating, continued to regard the gladiator, whom he viewed, the officer noted, with a sort of wonder, of hostility, even of apprehension. The gladiator, on the other hand, was intent on the matches, perhaps noting how one man feinted, how another moved, how another communicated his intentions by pressing the ball of his foot into the sand, firmly, just before a thrust.

“Score!” called Pulendius, slapping one of the last fighters on the back. That fighter stood over the prostrate form of the other, the blunt, red-painted end of the mock spear but an inch from his throat. Then the victor stepped back, and, sweating, grinning, lifted his spear, turning, before the crowd. The other fellow scrambled up from the sand, retrieved his broken weapon, and exited.

There was applause.

“And now,” called Pulendius, “for the climax of the evening’s entertainment!”

The small crowd on the tiers leaned forward.

Pulendius turned dramatically toward the barbarian. “Stand,” said Pulendius.

The barbarian, with some difficulty, rose to his feet. He then stood there, a little unsteadily, in the sand.

“Release him!” said Pulendius, pointing dramatically to the barbarian.

The barbarian himself did not seem surprised at this development.

“No!” cried a woman from the stands, frightened.

“Keep him chained!” cried another.

But, to the apprehension of many in the stands, and, we suspect, not merely of the women, one of the guards bent down, and undid the locks on the shackles which fettered the ankles of the barbarian.

“You see this pistol, and you know what it can do?” said one of the guards, brandishing it before the barbarian.

The barbarian did not deign to respond. But doubtless he was only too familiar with such devices, or devices of that sort.

“Undo the manacles,” said Pulendius.

“No!” cried a woman.

But the guard who had attended to the shackles, and doubtless understood what was expected of him, and the projected course of events, unlocked the manacles. The barbarian then stood there, free, but within the scope of the fire pistols, indeed, at point-blank range.

“We shall see what stuff these fellows are made of,” said Pulendius.

“He is not to reach Miton,” said the minor officer to the woman in the pantsuit.

The woman in the pantsuit looked at the minor officer reproachfully.

“He will, of course,” said the minor officer, “have his chance for life.”

“Who will you fight?” asked Pulendius.

The barbarian turned toward the young naval officer, and pointed to him. “He,” he said.

“Alas, no!” cried Pulendius, in dismay.

“They will put the barbarian against trained men, professional killers, gladiators?” said the

woman in the pantsuit angrily to the minor officer.

“He could always be nailed to a public gate on Miton, or starved to death in a cage, thence to be thrown into a garbage pit,” said the officer.

“Is this how the empire deals with its foes?” she asked.

“We deal with barbarians,” said the officer, “as they deal with us, and with one another.”

“I see,” she said.

“You do not know the nature of these creatures,” said the officer. “They must be dealt with mercilessly.”

“You speak as though we might be at war,” said the woman.

“We are always at war,” said the officer.

The woman looked at him, incredulously.

“We have exterminated worlds of such creatures,” said the officer. “But energies become precious, and it seems there are always more.”

“‘War’?” asked the woman.

“War,” said the officer.

“I did not know,” she said.

“Such things occur mostly at the borders,” he said.

“Is the empire not expanding?” asked the woman.

“The empire has contracted its borders, for defensive purposes,” said the officer.

There might then have seemed a glimmer of fear in the woman’s eyes.

“It is a strategically sound move,” said the officer. “Do not fear. There is no danger. After a respite the empire will expand once more.”

“Excellent!” she said.

“Let us enjoy the show,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“What weapons will you choose?” inquired Pulendius of the barbarian.

“Doubtless you have some in mind,” said the barbarian, looking about himself.

Pulendius then mentioned some exotic weapons, that only fighters in exotic weaponry would be practiced with, the knife buckler of Ambos, the Kurasian darts, the Loranian torch, such things.

“Perhaps, then,” said Pulendius, “the net and trident, the short sword and buckler?”

“I do not know them,” said Ortog, prince of the Drisriaks, king of the Ortungen.

He seemed for a moment, then, suddenly, in spite of his rather proud mien, his folded arms, and such, to sway a little. He caught his balance.

“He seems weak,” said the woman sitting beside the minor officer.

“He has not been overly fed,” said the minor officer.

“You have starved him, to weaken him?” she said.

“The line would not wish to have to compensate Pulendius for the loss of a man,” said the officer.

“I have chosen my weapons,” said the barbarian.

“And what are they?” asked Pulendius.

“These,” said the barbarian, lifting his hands.

Pulendius laughed.

But then he looked to the young naval officer, who lifted a hand, acceding to the barbarian’s choice.

“Hinak!” called Pulendius.

One of the two fellows who had given the exhibition with the two-headed spears of Kiros, or the semblance of such, stepped forward. It was he who had been defeated in the mock match.

“Now, you have an opportunity to redeem yourself, Hinak,” said Pulendius.

But Hinak did not seem amused.

Rather he was measuring the barbarian.

“And now, captain,” said Pulendius, “may we not add some spice to the contest?”

The captain signaled to two of his men, who had been standing rather back in the shadows, between the tiers.

They retreated behind the tiers and then, after a moment, came out again. They carried what was, in effect, a sturdy metal pipe, about five feet in length, about four inches in thickness. Fixed on it were two rings, rather toward one end, one above the other, each about four inches in diameter. One of the sailors, then, with his foot, brushed sand away from a metal cap. He then removed this cap and put it to one side, outside the perimeter of the small arena. Revealed then, hitherto concealed by the sand and cap, was a cylindrical aperture. They set the postlike stake into this aperture, or socket, which was just within the wooden ring of the tiny arena, and to the left of the captain’s party. It sank about two feet into the socket. From the sound the bottom of the socket was metal. The two rings fastened to the object clinked against its side. They secured this object in place with a bolt and lock, and put the sand back about its shaft.

The two men then went back again, behind the tiers.

Those in the tiers looked upon the pipe, with its rings, locked in place, in the sand.

One of the men in the audience slapped his knee.

The heart of the officer of the court began to pound madly.

In a moment she gasped, both in horror and protest, for the girl, Janina, by a chain and collar, she whose exquisiteness she had so envied the night before, was half led, half dragged into the tiny arena. From her right wrist, which was enclosed in a metal cuff, there dangled, on a short chain, another cuff, but one which was open. She was put down kneeling, behind the stake. The sailor who had not led her in took the free cuff through the lower of the two rings on the pipe, placed it about her left wrist and snapped it shut. She was then handcuffed to the pipe. Almost at the same time the other sailor locked the free end of the collar and chain about the higher ring on the stake. Janina was then fastened to the stake in two fashions, by the handcuffs and by the chain on her neck. Keys, tied together on a small cord, presumably to these devices, were laid on the surface of the wooden ring circling the sand, before the young naval officer.

“See how she is dressed!” exclaimed the woman in the pant-suit.

“That is called a keb,” said the minor officer.

The officer of the court felt weak.

“You would think,” said the woman in the pantsuit, “that she would at least have been permitted some form of slave tunic.”

“But she is at the stake,” said the minor officer.

There are many varieties of slave tunics. They are commonly light, sleeveless, quite short, one-piece garments, open from the hem to the waist on both sides, thus scarcely a tunic, no more, really, than a scandalously brief, revealing rag.

But the girl was not in such a garment, one so comparatively modest.

She was in a different form of garment, that called the keb. The garment, before it is worn, resembles a long, narrow sash. The material of this keb was a loosely woven gray corton. It is put on the slave by first haltering her breasts, snugly, the knot behind her back. The long, dangling end is then taken down, behind her back, and up, snugly, between her legs. There it is held at the waist with one hand while the other takes the continuing free end about the body. When the free end has circled her body, it is passed about the portion which was being held, holding it in place, and is then tied.

“How dreadful a garment,” said the woman in the pantsuit, approvingly.

“Yes,” whispered the officer of the court.

Yet the garment was not, really, too different from the intimacies which she herself wore beneath her “same garb,” only there, down there on the sand, of course, the woman was publicly so revealed.

The keb, of course, can be fastened on a slave in a variety of manners. For example, it need not be used to conceal the beauties of her breasts. It may simply be wrapped about the hips, and tucked in. An advantage of the keb, too, of course, is that it may serve a variety of purposes when not on the slave, such as hooding her, blindfolding her, gagging her, binding her, and such. Too, it might be remarked that it may be used as a sling for the carrying of burdens.

“You understand, of course,” said the minor officer, addressing the woman in the pantsuit, “that she would not be in even the keb at the stake, if this were not a civilized pleasure cruise.”

“Ah!” said the woman in the pantsuit, delightedly.

“Doubtless you are concerned for her,” said the minor officer, smiling.

“No,” said the woman in the pantsuit. “She is only a slave.”

The officer of the court, trembling, looked down to the sand.

Janina, who seemed frightened, and perhaps had never been at the stake before, clung to the metal of the pipe, pressing herself fearfully against it, the palms of her small hands, too, up, against the metal.

“Any ladies who care to do so may now leave,” suggested Pulendius, considerately.

But not a woman stirred in the tiers.

Pulendius smiled.

The officer of the court felt weak.

Pulendius turned to the barbarian, and, with his hand, indicated the girl at the pipe. “What do you

think of her?”

“She is merely another slave,” said the barbarian.

Janina moved a little, her chains making a tiny sound against the pipe.

“I do not understand,” said Pulendius.

“Like these others,” said Ortog, prince of the Drisriaks, king of the Ortungen, waving his hand toward the tiers.

Women shrank back. Many cried out in rage, in protest. Even men cried out, in anger.

“You let your slaves out of their collars,” said the barbarian.

“Those are free women!” cried Pulendius, as though offended.

“At best, slaves,” said Ortog, his arms folded across his chest.

“Absurd!” cried Pulendius.

Ortog then turned toward the young naval officer, he with the three purple cords at his left shoulder.

“Let them kneel before true men, and learn to be women,” said Ortog.

The young naval officer met his gaze dispassionately.

The officer of the court put her hand to her breast. How conscious was she then of the intimate garments she had concealed beneath her “same garb,” beneath the “frame-and-curtain.”

“Hinak!” called Pulendius, angrily.

Hinak came forth, half bent, his hands ready, toward the center of the sand.

The barbarian assumed a similar position.

They began to circle one another.

“Wait! Separate!” said Pulendius.

The contestants backed away from one another.

The door had opened, you see, that main door leading into the hold, and a minor officer had entered. He hurried about the ring, before the tiers, and spoke quickly, seemingly urgently, certainly confidentially, to the captain. The young naval officer watched, curiously.

The barbarian, too, interestingly, observed this intrusion.

In a moment the captain rose, and turned to the crowd. “Forgive me,” he said, smiling. “It is nothing. There is a small matter to attend to.” He then left, followed by the first officer and the minor officer, he who had just entered that section of the hold.

“Please continue,” said the second officer, he now of highest rank in the room.

“Begin!” said Pulendius to the contestants in the ring.

In a moment all attention was returned to the contest.

Madly was beating the heart of the officer of the court. She had never understood anything could be so real, so meaningful. Here, on the sand, knelt a girl, scarcely clad, a helpless prize, chained to a pipe, the stake. There, on the sand, men prowled about, eyeing one another, in a combat that might well issue in death for one of them.

A strange, wild, primitive dimension of possible existences opened up then before the startled, expanded imagination of the officer of the court, vistas of terrifying battles and rude kingdoms, with savage ways, vistas of huts and shelters, of halls and tents, of pavilions and palaces, of fortresses and castles, within which men were men and women, women, totally so, and other vistas, too, vistas of green leaves, and rocks, and the feel of wet earth beneath bare feet, vistas of dark forests, of the weaving of coarse cloths, of the cooking by open fires, of waiting anxiously, hopefully, for the hunters to return, vistas of truth and reality she had suspected, but had scarcely admitted could exist. How far away then seemed the dusty tomes of the law, the tedium of litigation, the procedures of the courts, the endless, meaningless trivialities of protocol, civility and discourse, which things seemed then but the remote semblance of a reality, a reality always somewhere else. There was reality here, the reality of the growth of crops, rising out of the moist earth, of rainfall, and storms, of the truths of animals, and of men and women. She had never realized the nature of reality before, that it was not documents and legalities, and banal conversation, and pretense, and hypocrisy, but that it was different, that it was as hard, and perfect, and as natural, and as simple, and as uncompromising, as wood, and stone, and iron and steel. The true world, the unsheltered world, was as real, she suspected, as a coiled rope or a diaphanous, clinging sheet of silk, as real as a weighty golden coin or the leather of a whip.

“Stop!” cried Pulendius, in alarm.

One of the guards rushed to the barbarian, holding his fire pistol to his temple.

The barbarian held Hinak from behind, his arms under Hinak’s, his hands clasped behind the back of Hinak’s neck, pressing slowly forward, and down.

With a grunt the barbarian released his hold, and Hinak went forward, on his knees, in the sand.

In another moment surely his neck would have been snapped.

Hinak rose up, and hurried away. Grateful he was to leave the sand alive.

“The barbarian has defeated a professional fighter,” said the woman in the pantsuit, wonderingly.

“By some trick of wrestling, not with weapons,” said the minor officer to her right.

At that moment there was a soft cry of surprise from many in the tiers. The officer of the court, as well, felt her body move backward, swaying back, just a little, on the tier.

“The ship is accelerating,” said the minor officer.

“Am I not victorious?” asked Ortog.

Janina looked up at Ortog. Her small hands were pressed against the pipe to which she was chained.

“Oh, the contest is not yet done,” Pulendius assured him.

The officer of the court noted how closely the steel encircled Janina’s small wrists. They were small cuffs. The officer of the court realized, suddenly, they had been made for women. They would fit her as well as Janina. The collar was about Janina’s throat. Had she been in such a collar she could have slipped it no more than the slave.

Ortog threw back his head and laughed knowingly.

“Why did you not kill him?” asked the young naval officer.

“I choose whom I kill,” said Ortog.

The question of the young officer had made it clear to those who might be perceptive in the tiers that the barbarian was not intended to survive the evening. Perhaps he might then have availed himself of the satisfaction of destroying one enemy, perhaps in the same moment that the trigger on the fire pistol could have been pulled.

“Ambos!” called Pulendius, irritably. This fighter was from the world, Ambos, and was known professionally by that name. This was not uncommon in the arena, naming the fighters for worlds, or cities, or animals, or appearance. He was the fellow who had been successful in the last mock match, that with what were intended to represent the two-headed spears of Kiros. We do not know his real name. One account gives it as ‘Elbar.’ More importantly, for our purposes, he had once wrestled professionally on Ambos, before applying to the arena masters.

Ambos came forth.

“Kill him,” said Pulendius, indicating the barbarian. He then stepped back. There was to be no mock adjudication of holds, of breaks, and such, in this match.

Ambos, of course, had watched the previous match, and had noted the fate of Hinak. The barbarian was clearly not a trained wrestler, but he was unusually strong, and that made him dangerous. Ambos had no intention of taking him lightly.

“Close! Finish him!” said Pulendius.

But the two men, together in the center of the ring, only thrusted, feinted, and reached for holds.

“Finish him!” said Pulendius.

Suddenly the two men grappled, locked together, swaying back and forth.

“Finish him!” cried Pulendius.

But to the horror of Pulendius and those in the tiers the barbarian, slowly, by sheer strength, drew Ambos from his feet, and then slowly turned him, and placed his back over his knee, his hands pressing down, the knee as the fulcrum, the spine a doomed lever, subjected to terrible force at each termination, surely in a moment to snap, surely incapable of withstanding such pressure.

But then the barbarian let Ambos, gasping, wild-eyed, slip to the sand.

The barbarian rose to his feet.

“Am I not victorious?” he asked.

“You did not kill him,” observed the young naval officer.

“I did not choose to do so,” said the barbarian.

Ambos was helped from the sand by two of Pulendius’s men.

“And whom would you choose to kill?” asked the young naval officer.

“One worthy,” said the barbarian, his arms folded.

“Me?” asked the young naval officer, quietly, amused.

The barbarian turned about and lifted his arm. He pointed at the gladiator with whom we have been hitherto acquainted, he who had been raised in a small festung village, that of Sim Giadini, he who had been behind Pulendius, and to his right, on the evening of the captain’s table, he who had looked upon the officer of the court, who was even of the blood, as though she might be naught but a common slave, one such that she might be purchased in any market, and thence put to the common purposes of slaves.

“He!” said the barbarian.

“Why?” asked the young officer, puzzled.

The barbarian was silent.

“Who is he? Who do you think he is?” asked the young officer, leaning forward, keenly interested.

Again the barbarian refused to respond.

“Where are you from, fighter?” asked the young officer of the gladiator.

“From the festung village of Sim Giadini, milord,” said the gladiator. He also identified the world, but we think it best, again, at this point, in order not to anticipate, to withhold its name. It was, however, we recall, one of the claimed worlds within the imperial system.

“No,” said the barbarian. “No.”

“It will be with weapons!” said Pulendius, angrily.

“Let him live,” called a man.

“He has been victorious!” called another. “Free him!”

Pulendius looked angrily toward the source of such cries.

“Kill him!” cried a woman.

“Kill him!” cried the woman in the pantsuit.

“Kill him!” cried another woman, a young woman. The officer of the court saw that it was the salesgirl, she from the ship’s shop, from whom, earlier that day, she had made certain purchases. She had not noticed her in the tiers before. She was terribly embarrassed, now, to see her there. After all, she knew the nature of those purchases. Had the salesgirl seen her here, had she looked at her? Would she have wondered if she, from Terennia, had such things on, beneath the “same garb,” beneath the “frame-and-curtain.” But of course she did. But would the salesgirl suspect that? How embarrassing! Too, what right had the salesgirl to be here, such a person, a mere employee of the line, at an entertainment for passengers! How embarrassing, the whole business!

“Let him live!” cried a man.

“Kill him!” cried the woman in the pantsuit.

“Kill him!” cried the salesgirl.

“It will be with weapons, and we shall choose!” said Pulendius.

“The barbarian is finished now,” said the minor officer to the woman in the pantsuit.

“The short sword, without buckler,” said Pulendius.

“Excellent,” said the minor officer.

Suddenly, again, there was an unsteadiness on the tiers, and some soft cries of surprise. One of the guards went down to one knee, his balance briefly lost, and then, again, stood.

“A change in course,” explained the minor officer to the woman in the pantsuit.

To be sure, the change in course was one rather abrupt for such a ship.

“We have a dog to set on you,” said Pulendius.

There was laughter from some of his men.

“Dog!” summoned Pulendius.

The gladiator, he with whom we have been hitherto acquainted, stepped forward, over the wooden ring, onto the sand.

Women gasped, for the figure was a mighty one, that of he who had now come onto the sand, well into the light.

“I am Ortog,” said Ortog, announcing himself to the gladiator, as he had not to the others, “prince of the Drisriaks, king of the Ortungs.”

“Do you know the short sword?” asked the gladiator.

“No,” said Ortog.

“Choose some other weapon,” advised the gladiator.

“The small blade will be satisfactory,” said Ortog.

“Some regard me as reasonably skilled with the weapon,” said the gladiator.

There was laughter from the men of Pulendius.

The gladiator, you see, was, of all the school of Pulendius, he who was most skilled with that blade. It had served him well on four worlds, and in ten arenas. Pulendius had even hopes that his skills might carry him to the imperial arenas of the Telnarian worlds themselves. Often Pulendius had wondered at his almost incomprehensible aptitude with such weapons. The naturalness, the quickness, the ease, with which he handled such weapons was not to be expected in one who was a peasant. One might expect that gigantic strength to be sometimes found in a peasant but seldom, if ever, such speed, such subtlety and finesse. It was almost as if the use of such things was as natural to him as that of teeth to the vi-cat, of talons to the hawk. It was almost as though the use of such things were somehow bred in him, were somehow in the blood itself.

“I choose the short sword,” said Ortog.

“It is my assumption then,” said the gladiator, “that you are familiar with the weapon.”

Two such weapons, wrapped in scarlet silk, were brought.

The gladiator tested each, and then indicated that Ortog might have his choice of blades.

Ortog took one and backed to the opposite side of the circle.

“Is it that you wish to die?” asked the young officer of the barbarian.

“If I am to die,” said Ortog, “it is not unfitting that it be at the hands of such.”

“A common gladiator?”

“You think him such?” asked Ortog.

The young officer shrugged.

Ortog laughed, and hefted the blade. It seemed he liked its balance.

“It is much like a knife,” he said.

It did have something of the advantages of a double-edged knife, the capacity to slash on both the forestroke and the backstroke, the capacity to shift direction quickly, the capacity to thrust, at close quarters. On the other hand it had some of the advantages of the sword. It was long enough to keep a knife at bay, to outreach a knife, and to make fencing, parrying and disengaging, and such, practical.

“He is indeed a dog,” said Ortog, viewing the gladiator. “But that is not his name.”

“His name is ‘Dog,’ “said Pulendius.

“What is your name?” asked Ortog of the gladiator.

“I am called ‘Dog,’ milord,” he said.

“Do you think I do not know your house?” asked Ortog.

“I am Dog, of the school of Pulendius,” said the gladiator.

“Do not kill him immediately,” whispered Pulendius to the gladiator. “Carry him for a bit, for the crowd.”

This remark was overheard by Ortog, and his eyes glistened wildly, just for an instant.

He looked about himself, at the enclosing steel walls of the ship.

At that moment the ship swerved and people on the tiers cried out, surprised. More than one lost his balance, and fell against others. Those standing on the sand, Pulendius, and the gladiator, and Ortog, almost lost their balance. The girl, Janina, she in the keb, chained at the pipe, was thrown to her left, and only kept from falling further by the handcuffs, the chain of which, fastened in place through the ring, pulled against the pipe. Then, again, the ship steadied itself.

The second officer rose briefly to his feet. “It is all right,” he said. “These are adjustments in our course. There is no reason to be alarmed.”

The crowd then, somewhat uneasily, returned its attention to the sand.

“Our peoples,” said Ortog to the gladiator, “have been hereditary enemies for ten thousand years.”

“I am Dog, of the festung village of Sim Giadini,” said the gladiator.

After the first moment of crossing steel, no more than four or five touches, sensitive, exploratory, the gladiator stepped back. “Choose another weapon,” he said.

“I am Ortog, prince of the Drisriaks, king of the Ortungs, of the Alemanni.”

“Choose another weapon,” advised the gladiator.

“Die, dog of an Otung!” cried the Ortung, and hurled himself at the gladiator, who stepped to one side and did not slip his blade into the side of the barbarian, who went past him.

The barbarian fell to his knees in the sand.

He turned about, on his knees, in fury. “You dare to humiliate one who is a prince and king?” he cried.

“Forgive me, milord,” said the gladiator.

The barbarian again charged the gladiator, who, again, evaded the charge. Such a charge might have been comprehensible with the mighty long sword, two-handled, like a weighty bolt of edged lightning, sweeping aside all before it, but it was not practical with the shorter blade.

The gladiator looked to Pulendius.

The disgust of Pulendius was evident.

“Kill him,” said Pulendius.

The barbarian once again engaged, but his every thrust was parried away harmlessly. He might have been trying to pierce a fence of steel.

“Kill him,” said Pulendius.

The barbarian thrust again, but the gladiator had drawn the thrust, by seeming to provide his opponent an opening, and Ortog extended his thrust, overextending it, the gladiator fading back. It was a mistake one more practiced with such a weapon would not have made. The gladiator’s blade, behind his guard, was against the side of his neck.

Both men stood very still.

“Kill him,” said Pulendius.

The gladiator then stepped away from the barbarian.

The barbarian then again, this time in mindless fury, rushed toward the gladiator and then, suddenly, was sprawled in the sand, on his back. The heel of the gladiator’s bootlike sandal crushed down on his wrist, and the sword left his hand, lost to the side, half buried in the sand, and then he lay there, sweating, gasping, in the sand, on his back, at the gladiator’s feet. The gladiator’s sword was at his heart.

“You are an Otung of Otungs,” said the barbarian, looking up at the gladiator, in awe.

“I am Dog, of the festung village of Sim Giadini,” said the gladiator.

“Strike,” said the barbarian.

“Kill him,” said Pulendius.

The gladiator looked up to the tiers.

“Let him live!” called a man in the tiers.

“Kill him,” cried many of the women.

“Kill him!” cried the woman in the pantsuit.

“Kill him!” called the salesgirl.

“Strike!” commanded the barbarian.

But the gladiator stepped away from the figure in the sand, and lowered his weapon.

“Kill him!” said Pulendius.

“No,” said the gladiator.

“Why not?” asked Pulendius.

“He was much beaten,” said the gladiator, “he is weak, he does not know the weapon.”

“Do not let one of lesser blood kill me!” said the barbarian.

The gladiator did not understand this remark.

“Fellow,” said the young naval officer.

“Milord?” said the gladiator.

“I am surprised you did not kill him,” said the officer.

“Surely, milord,” said the gladiator, “only a king may kill a king.”

“He is a barbarian,” said the officer.

“But a king,” said the gladiator.

The young naval officer picked up the keys which lay on the surface of the wooden rim circling the sand, and tossed them, on their cord, to the gladiator.

“You are victorious,” he said.

“My thanks, milord,” said the gladiator.

He looked down at the slave, who, kneeling in the keb, it twisted about her body, was looking up at him, excitedly.

“Look at her,” said the woman in the pantsuit. “She is like a pretty little animal.”

“In heat,” said the minor officer beside her.

“Yes,” said the woman in the pantsuit.

The officer of the court trembled within the “same garb,” within the “frame-and-curtain.”

A woman in heat, one with sexual needs, how fearful seemed such a thought!

“Please unchain me, Master,” said the slave to the gladiator, “that I may render my obeisance!”

The gladiator threw the keys, on their cord, to one of the sailors, who then bent to undo the locks, that on the collar, those on the cuffs, that the slave might be loosed from the pipe.

The barbarian rose unsteadily to his feet, near the center of the sand. He did not pick up his sword, which still lay in the sand, half buried.

Freed of her restraints, the cuffs, the collar and chain, the slave crawled to the feet of the

gladiator, and then, kneeling before him, looked up at him. She then put down her head and began to lick and kiss his feet.

“Who would permit a woman to do such a thing to him?” asked a woman.

“Such as he!” said another.

“And might command it!” said another.

“One who is a master!” said another, thrilled.

The gladiator did not seem surprised at the action of the slave.

The officer of the court conjectured, to her chagrin, that this might not be the first time a woman had been thusly at his feet. She suspected then that slaves might be kept, secretly, in the schools.

“Look at her,” said a woman nearby. “It is true. She is in heat.”

“She had better be,” said a man.

The officer of the court felt faint.

“See her!” said another woman.

“Such are born to lick the feet of men,” said another.

“So are you all,” said a man.

“Please!” protested the woman.

The officer of the court blushed, hotly, muchly then again sensitive to the garments beneath her drab, bulky “same garb,” beneath the “frame-and-curtain.”

The officer of the court trembled.

“What would it be like to be a slave,” she wondered, “to be owned by a man, to be subject to punishment, even to death, if he pleased, having no choice but to obey him, immediately, perfectly, unquestioningly?”

“She had better be in heat,” had suggested the man, some vulgar fellow.

“If she were a slave,” she thought, “would she not, too, at least at times, have to be in heat? Would the master not require it?”

“Too,” she thought, shuddering, “if I were owned, truly owned, I do not think I could help being in heat, at least sometimes, whether I wanted it or not.”

The gladiator stepped back from the slave. Then he, and Pulendius, turned to face the barbarian. The barbarian, arms folded, stood near the center of the ring. The sword lay near his feet, unretrieved.

The barbarian seemed to be listening, though it was not clear what he might be hearing, or thought he heard. Perhaps it was feet running in the passageway outside.

“Kill him,” said Pulendius.

“No,” said the gladiator. “Forgive me, milord.”

Pulendius looked at him.

“I am a free man, milord,” said the gladiator.

Pulendius turned to the young naval officer.

“It is quite all right,” said the young officer, rising. “Give me your pistol,” he said to one of the guards.

The weapon was instantly surrendered to him.

“Kill him!” cried the woman in the pantsuit, pointing to the barbarian.

“Kill him!” cried the salesgirl.

“Kill him!” cried others.

“You are, at most, slaves!” said the barbarian to the women.

“Kill him!” cried yet more of the women.

The young naval officer leveled the pistol at the heart of the barbarian.

At that very moment there was a deafening, crashing sound and a screaming of metal. Tiers collapsed and sand, like a storm, swirled into the air. Everyone was thrown from his feet. There were screams and curses. The lights failed, and then came on again. Doubtless many were injured. The officer of the court, and others, were now on the steel floor of the hold, splintered planking about them. The young officer, on his knees, pistol in hand, looked wildly about. He could not see the barbarian. It was not clearly understood at the time, but in that first hit, one of the upper decks of the vessel had been opened, and tons of debris were blasted loose into space.

The ship began to spin sickeningly.

The second officer, followed by others, was staggering toward the door.