The Chieftan

CHAPTER 13

“Some are still here!” said Janina, delightedly.

The officer of the court, still on her hands and knees, was on the sand, it covering her wrists, her knees, too, partly sunk in it. She could feel sand on her knees, which were sore, as were her hands. She could feel it, too, in its hundreds of tiny grains, slipped within the “same garb” where it had opened at the knees, roughened and parted by the slow procession through the corridors. Happily, elevators had been functional to this level. She could see, before her, the princess, her bared feet in the sand, it up almost to the ankles. The rope was still on her neck, and Janina held it. The princess’s rope was in the keeping of the gladiator.

Many were the ironic salutes and lustful, demeaning catcalls which had greeted the princess as she had been paraded through the corridors. She counted, the officer of the court, gathered, as a prize catch, one which would doubtless bring an excellent price in a slave market.

The officer of the court wondered if she, too, might possess such value.

To be sure, it was hard to tell, encumbered as she was with “same garb.”

“There are two left,” said Janina, peering ahead, the way illuminated by an electric torch, which implement had been numbered among the several accouterments appropriated by the gladiator.

Originally there had been several escape capsules in the hold. Several, however, had been used by passengers, and perhaps crew members, trying to escape the vessel.

These were on tracks which led to the lifts, from which, on further tracks, they could be taken to locks.

“They do not know of these, Master,” said Janina.

“I do not think so,” said the gladiator.

There was no sign, as far as they had been able to determine, that Section 19 of the hold had been entered by the barbarians. It was, at that time, among putatively less important portions of the ship, portions which might well be left for later consideration. It had not figured in the fighting.

The gladiator flashed the light of the torch about the dark hold, over the wreckage of the fallen tiers.

He flashed it, too, upward, toward the girderwork about the ceiling.

Section 19, illuminated here and there by the darting beam, seemed very different from when it had been well lit, and muchly occupied, as on the night of the entertainment.

The officer of the court found it frightening, and eerie. She wondered if they were truly alone in the place.

“Kneel them,” said the gladiator, handing the princess’s rope to Janina.

“Kneel, milady,” said Janina to the princess, who knelt in the sand.

“Kneel, slave,” said Janina to the officer of the court, “here, behind the princess, and to her left.”

The officer of the court, angrily, knelt where she had been told.

“Hands on your thighs,” said Janina to her charges. “You may keep your knees closed, milady. But you, slave, will keep yours open.”

The officer of the court was angry, but she knelt as she had been instructed. Kneeling thusly, even in the “same garb,” she could not help experiencing strange, disturbing sensations. Was it not thus that slave girls must kneel, or slave girls of a certain sort?

“It is as I feared,” said the gladiator, who was now a few feet away. “The lifts to the locks are not operational.”

It would be difficult to move the escape capsules on the tracks, not that they were large, but they were weighty, but it could be done. Two men could manage it, or one, with unusual strength.

“Oh, Master!” moaned Janina.

How then could they be brought to the level of the locks?

“The cables seem intact,” said the gladiator, with satisfaction. “There are counterweights, of course.”

The officer of the court thought she heard a small sound somewhere to her left, back, among the tiers.

Neither Janina nor the gladiator, who was concerned elsewhere, flashing the torch into the shaft, noticed it.

“I will move the capsule into the lift,” said the gladiator. “Then, perhaps, I can draw it upward.”

“It would take several men to hoist the lift, Master,” said Janina, fearfully.

But already, the iron wheels grinding on the track, the gladiator, by main strength, was moving one of the capsules into the lift.

He returned, briefly, to Janina. He handed her the fire pistol and the electric torch.

“Put them to their bellies where they are, in the sand,” said the gladiator. “If either should prove troublesome, or recalcitrant, you may burn them where they lie.”

“Yes, Master,” said Janina. Then she said to the princess, “Please assume a prone position, milady, with your legs widely spread.” The princess complied. Doubtless Janina herself had often been put, in one situation or another, in this same position. It makes it harder to rise. Then she said to the officer of the court, “To your belly, slave, and get your legs apart, as widely as you can!”

The officer of the court complied. She did not doubt but what Janina might well blast through her back, perhaps even boiling and melting the sand beneath her. The fire pistol in her grasp was not one of reduced charges, as had been those of the crew members, a safety precaution for use on the vessel. It was much more powerful, and might, if its charge was sustained, cut through metal. To be sure, it was less powerful than the Telnarian rifle which the gladiator retained.

She heard, foot by foot, the lift being raised by hand. She could scarcely believe the strength required for this. Such a man, she knew, might snap her neck with one hand. Then she thought she heard, again, a tiny sound, again back, and to her left.

It did not seem that Janina noticed this sound, if it were indeed a sound. Her interest, it seemed, was focused on the gladiator’s struggle with the weights in the lift shaft.

The gladiator then ascended the shaft by means of a ladder within it.

In a few moments he returned. “The capsule is in the lock, positioned,” he said.

“Master!” breathed Janina, delightedly.

“I have heard strangers about,” he said, “but they seem to be in another corridor.”

“What are we to do,” asked Janina, frightened.

“We must move quickly,” he said.

He took the fire pistol from Janina and replaced it in its holster.

He extinguished the torch and put it on his belt.

“Up, Gerune,” he said. As soon as she was on her feet, he scooped her up and, to her consternation, threw her lightly over his shoulder. “Come last, Janina,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. Then she said to the officer of the court, “Get up, slave, follow your master.”

“I am not a slave,” said the officer of the court. “He is not my master.”

But she rose promptly to her feet.

The gladiator had already begun to ascend the ladder, Gerune on his shoulder.

“Climb the ladder, slave,” said Janina, “up, behind your master.”

The officer of the court did not bother responding to Janina. Let her think that she was a slave, and that the great lout was her master. What difference did it make? It wasn’t true, was it? She ascended the ladder.

The rope, held by Janina, was still on her neck.

In a moment she and Janina had reached the level of an outer corridor. The door to the lock, a few feet to the right of the elevator, as one would emerge from it, was open.

The gladiator, in his armor, was in the hallway, just outside the port, setting the timer.

Gerune was at his feet, kneeling. The rope was still about her neck, but now its free end had been looped about her ankles, which had been crossed, and tied there, rendering her bound, hand and foot.

“Kneel,” said Janina, looking about nervously.

The officer of the court knelt.

Her own heart was beating rapidly, seeming to pound madly within her.

She heard voices, those of barbarians, from a nearby corridor.

“The timer is set,” said the gladiator.

The officer of the court saw the hatch on the escape capsule opened.

She knew that she and Janina were then to hurry to the hatch and climb through, it doubtless then to be closed behind them by the gladiator, he the last to enter.

The officer of the court was terrified.

She realized she had knelt before this man in the darkness and proclaimed herself slave. She knew herself then, almost giddy with fear, to be subject to claimancy. Indeed, Janina seemed to think that she was already claimed, and thus, having been subject to claimancy, was now owned, indeed, that she was the gladiator’s slave!

But see the princess!

The princess was looking wildly up at the gladiator. Tears ran from her eyes, down her cheeks, against the gag. Then, to the amazement of the officer of the court, the princess put her head down to the boots of the gladiator.

She heard the sounds of voices coming nearer.

She cast a glance at exquisite Janina, now muchly bedecked in the barbaric robes of the princess.

Janina was a slave, not she!

Too, she saw the princess, her beauty brazenly bared, as it had been decided by the will of the gladiator, her head to his boots.

She felt a rush of anguish, and rage, and jealousy!

How could she compete with two such women?

“I am not a slave!” she suddenly cried, aloud. And she sprang to her feet. “Help! Help!” she cried.

The gladiator looked up, startled. His astonishment was evident.

“Help!” she screamed. “Help!”

But then the gladiator, looking past her, lifted his hands, suddenly.

The officer of the court looked back and saw, just emerged from the shaft of the lift, having climbed the ladder, the young naval officer, he of the purple cords, of the blood, whom she had not seen since the evening of the entertainment. He held a fire pistol leveled at the gladiator.

Behind the young naval officer, emerging now from the shaft of the lift, completing the ascent of the ladder, one by one, were other figures.

She was not sure how many there were.

She realized then that these must have been hiding in the hold, in Section 19.

At this moment, apparently rushing to investigate the cries of the officer of the court, several barbarian warriors, helmeted, armored, appeared in the corridor.

“Hold your fire!” cried one of them. “The princess!”

They mistook Janina in her regal garb for Gerune.

“Surrender!” cried one of the barbarians to the young naval officer.

“Be careful,” cried one of the barbarians to his fellows. “A commander, too, is in the line of fire!”

They took no thought for the real princess, who, naked, bound hand and foot, and gagged, they took naturally for a prisoner or slave.

The naval officer snapped off a charge and one of the barbarians spun about, the armor on his chest blackened.

Janina screamed.

The officer of the court, too, cried out in misery. Clearly the shot must have passed her.

“What shall we do, Commander?” called one of the men down the hall.

“Hold your fire,” said the gladiator.

Gerune, in her bonds, shrank down, small, in misery. She had been seen naked, at the feet of a man. What would be the consequences of that, when her identity might be established? Too, she had been paraded as a slave girl through the corridors, an object of lust and ridicule to hundreds of men.

“Move aside!” said the naval officer.

The gladiator stepped to the side, keeping his hands raised.

“The timer has been activated!” said the young officer. Then he cried to those with him, “Into the capsule!”

“Alert the gunners,” said a man down the hall.

One of their number lifted a communication device and began to speak rapidly into it.

The young naval officer then, carefully, fired four shots down the hall. Three of these shots struck targets. One fellow staggered back, his armor blackened and scarred; another lost part of his armor, it blasted away from him; he scrambled away; a third shot struck the helmet of a man at the side, half tearing his head from his body. The other shot, the barbarians having broken for cover, passed harmlessly down the corridor, until it subsided, and left a line of fire on the carpeting more than a hundred yards away.

“It seems we owe our lives to your presence, Princess,” said the young naval officer. Janina began to tremble.

The young naval officer then, his suspicions aroused, jerked away her hood. “You are not a princess,” he said. “I know you! You are a slave!”

He then looked down at Gerune. “Your hair,” he said, “shows you to be barbarian, and you are not ankleted, or braceleted, or collared, no mark of bondage is upon you, not even, it seems, a brand, so you must be free. Perhaps it is you who are the princess! Well, it does not matter. Many women, once barbarian princesses, are now slave girls in the empire. It is where such as you belong, at the feet of gentlemen.”

“My thanks to you, whoever you may be,” said the young naval officer to the gladiator. “We were not capable of bringing the escape capsule to the lock, the lift being inoperative. You have been of great help.”

He glanced at the timer.

“We must be leaving now,” he said.

Then he looked at the officer of the court, who was backed against the corridor wall, near the lock, on its left, as one would enter it.

He regarded her with contempt.

“I am a citizen,” she said. “I am of the blood!”

“You are a stupid, loud-mouthed bitch,” he said. “Your cries could have gotten us all killed. And why did you cry out? Are you so eager to be killed, or cast into the chains of a slave?”

“Sir!” she protested.

“Get in the capsule, bitch,” he said. She cast one wild glance at the gladiator and then, hurriedly, entered the capsule.

The timing needle was now close to the point at which the automatic launching sequence would be activated.

“How are we to escape?” asked the gladiator.

“Who are you?” asked the officer.

“He who defeated Ortog in the contest,” said the gladiator.

“The Otung?” said the officer.

“I know not the meaning of that word,” said the gladiator.

“You are the one Pulendius calls ‘Dog’?”

“Yes,” said the gladiator.

“You may be an Otung,” said the officer. “Surely you are not of the empire.”

“I have brought the capsule to the lock,” said the gladiator.

“My thanks,” said the officer.

“How are we to escape?”

The officer threw a quick glance at the needle.

“I have no time to trust you, or disarm you,” he said. He then, twice, pulled the trigger on the fire pistol, and the gladiator staggered backwards, the armor black with heat. He then, spinning about, fell to the side of the shaft, near the ladder. Another shot blasted him back into the open area of the shaft, by the ladder.

Janina screamed.

“I am sorry,” said the officer.

He regarded both the distraught Janina and the princess, who had scrambled back as she could, bound, and was now to the left of the lift entrance, as one might enter it from the corridor. She jerked madly at the bonds, but, of course, was held, perfectly.

“You will remain here, slaves,” said the officer to Janina and the princess.

Then he hastily leaped through the lock port a moment before it shut. He slid through the hatch on the capsule and secured it. A moment later the outer portal opened, and, an instant after that, the capsule burst free of the Alaria.