The Chieftan

CHAPTER 17

“I have done more than my share of work,” said the officer of the court.

“Would that you were a slave,” snapped the young naval officer. “Then you would know what work is!”

“Well, I am not a slave,” she said, angrily.

“Nor am I!” said the other young woman.

“Be silent, lowly humiliora!” said the officer of the court.

“You want to get out of all the work!” said the angry young woman who had just been addressed.

“There is much work to be done,” said an older woman. “Let us help him.”

“It is his fault that we are here!” said the officer of the court.

“It was you,” he said, angrily, “who cried out in the Alaria, who alerted the barbarians, who compromised our escape.”

“Do not speak to me so!” said the officer of the court. “I am a citizen, of the honestori, of the blood!”

“What do such things matter here?” inquired the other young woman. “What does anything matter here?”

“Be silent, shopgirl!” said the officer of the court.

“Do not quarrel,” advised the older woman.

This group, as you have doubtless conjectured, was that which had escaped the Alaria shortly before the somewhat improvised departure of the gladiator and the slave, Janina, in the second of the two escape capsules which had been stored in the hold. It consisted of the young naval officer and three women. One of these women was the officer of the court. She had been on her hands and knees, in her “same garb,” a rope on her neck, in the grasp of Janina, in the corridor near the lock where the gladiator was preparing the first capsule for launch. When the young naval officer had made his appearance in the corridor and appropriated the waiting vehicle, she had joined his party. Earlier the young naval officer had participated in the defense of the ship, which gradually, obviously, had become more and more hopeless. When a group with whom he had been fighting had surrendered, thence to meet diverse fates, he had fled, and later, seeing no prospect of recovering the vessel, had determined to seek out one of the escape capsules in the hold, hoping to make use of it to depart the vessel. It had been a great disappointment to him to discover that the lift mechanism had been inoperative, and he had been unable to get the vehicle to a lock. In the hold, he had encountered two women, who had fled there to hide, and were living on the supplies in the capsules. In a sense, we have heard of both these women, though they were strange companions, considering the hierarchies in the empire. One was the striking woman in the pantsuit, who had been in attendance at the contest, and who had invited the officer of the court to sit with her. The other was the salesgirl, or shopgirl, from whom the officer of the court had, earlier that same day, purchased certain surprising and uncharacteristic garments. The officer of the court, as we may remember, had been scandalized that an individual of that class and station, and merely a lowly employee of the line, should have been admitted to the entertainments.

“Fetch water,” said the young naval officer to the officer of the court.

“No,” she said.

“‘No’?” he asked.

“I am of the blood,” she said. “Such as I do not draw water.”

“Then you fetch it,” said the officer to the other young woman.

“Not if she does not,” she said.

“I will fetch it,” said the older woman.

She left, to go to the small stream nearby.

The capsule which had been appropriated, or commandeered, by the young naval officer, had been, as we recall, severely damaged in the incident of the pursuing missile, that which had been prematurely exploded against the jettisoned clearance thruster. As a result the capsule had been left much at the mercy of its momentum and position, lost in the winds of space, so to speak, subject to the numerous subtle forces, primarily gravitational, obtaining in that area at that time. It had eventually drifted into a scarcely tangible current, if one may so speak, and, some days later, had found itself, like a speck in an invisible whirlpool, caught in a rapidly degrading orbit, at the focus of which was a remote world, one on which they had managed, two days ago, to effect a successful landing, thanks largely to the skill of the young naval officer, the viability of certain viewing and measuring instrumentation, and the proper functioning of a manually responsive landing system.

“We will need firewood,” said the young naval officer to the officer of the court.

“Have you repaired the radio?” asked the officer of the court.

She knew, of course, that it had been damaged beyond repair, various components shattered in the injury to the capsule, others literally melted and fused as a consequence of the short-circuiting attendant on the impact. That had been determined within an hour after the impact.

“It cannot be repaired,” said the young naval officer.

The officer of the court tossed her pretty head. Why then should he expect her to gather wood? Too, had he not insulted her, by responding as though her question might have been an honest, civil one, pretending to ignore the hint that he was somehow to blame for its damage? To be sure, it was he who had interposed, almost at the last moment, the clearance thruster. Might he not have jettisoned it earlier, perhaps a hundred miles earlier?

“You go, then,” said the naval officer to the shopgirl.

“I might crack my nails,” she said, looking at the officer of the court.

“If you do not work,” said the young naval officer to the two young women, “you will not be fed.”

“Do not amuse us,” said the officer of the court.

The young naval officer clenched his fists.

“You must feed us,” said the officer of the court. “We are citizens of the empire.”

“Yes,” said the shopgirl.

“It is our right to be fed,” said the officer of the court.

“Yes!” said the shopgirl.

“Better you had both been left on the Alaria,” said the young naval officer, “at the mercy of the Ortungen.”

“Do not speak so!” chided the officer of the court.

“Perhaps they could have gotten some good out of you,” he said.

“Beware your speech!” said the officer of the court.

“But they probably would not have found either of you of sufficient interest to be kept,” he said, “even as naked slaves.”

The shopgirl gasped, putting her hand before her mouth.

The officer of the court was furious, and, for a moment, speechless. Then she said, “Arrange for our rescue!”

The young naval officer glared at her.

“Put out a signal, or something!” she said.

“Do you think you are on a beach, on some civilized world, with transports overhead every hour?” he asked.

“Light a beacon,” said the officer of the court.

“And who would see it?” he asked.

“Surely there is someone on this world,” she said.

“That is possible,” he said.

“Surely someone!” she said.

“But who?” he asked, meaningfully.

The officer of the court, and the shopgirl, were silent.

The young naval officer withdrew.

The shopgirl stood up, and looked about herself. “This is a beautiful world,” she said.

The officer of the court sniffed.

“It is primeval,” said the girl, “untouched, unspoiled.”

“I am glad you like it,” said the officer of the court. “You may spend the rest of your life here.”

“What did he mean,” asked the shopgirl, “that he did not know who might see a beacon?”

“I do not know,” said the officer of the court. “I am sure we are alone on this world.”

“I am not so sure,” said the shopgirl.

“Why do you say that?” asked the officer of the court.

“I thought I saw something, yesterday,” she said.

“What?” asked the officer of the court, apprehensively.

“I do not know,” she said.

“Perhaps it was a beast,” said the officer of the court, uneasily. Surely, last night, when they were locked in the capsule, they had heard things outside, prowling about. Too, there had been howling, roars, in the forest.

“Perhaps,” said the shopgirl.

“He took the pistol, of course!” said the officer of the court, angrily.

“It has only a charge or two left, surely,” said the shopgirl.

“What will protect us, if something comes?” said the officer of the court, looking about herself.

“We can run to the capsule,” said the shopgirl.

“Where is he?” asked the officer of the court.

“Doubtless he has gone for firewood,” she said.

“I’m hungry,” said the officer of the court.

“I wonder if there are men here, on this world,” said the shopgirl, looking at the darkness of the trees.

“I would not know,” said the officer of the court.

“It there were, they would almost certainly be barbarians,” she said.

“Undoubtedly,” said the officer of the court.

“I wonder how they would view us,” she said.

“As persons, as ladies,” said the officer of the court.

“But if they were truly barbarians —” said the shopgirl.

“I wonder where Oona is,” said the officer of the court. This was the name of the woman in the pantsuit, it now frayed and dirty, who had gone to fetch water.

It seemed she should have returned by now.

There was some cause, incidentally, for the guarded reply of the young naval officer, that having to do with his response to who might see a signal, or beacon, if one were set. He had, you see, seen earlier some signs of human habitation, footprints by a stream, and a broken spearblade. Too, yesterday they had smelled smoke, from afar. He had climbed a tree and discerned the fire, but it seemed no ordinary fire, centered in a locale, then spreading, much at the mercy of wind. Rather, though he had not called this to the attention of his companions, it had been a fire of unusual pattern, one seemingly in defiance of nature, surely nothing one would expect to result from a simple blast of lightning, and, too, from where would have come such a blast, out of a clear sky?

“I am hungry,” said the officer of the court, and began to sort through the rations, put outside the capsule, to be sorted and divided. This was in connection with an inventory intended by the

young naval officer. It was now miserably close in the capsule, the life-support systems shut down.

“Do not touch the rations!” said the shopgirl.

“Do not speak so to me, humiliora!” snapped the officer of the court.

“You are fat enough!” said the shopgirl.

“I am not fat!” said the officer of the court. “It is the modesty of my garmenture!”

“You look like a balloon and you smell!” said the shopgirl.

“My garb is designed with a purpose in mind, one which you are incapable of appreciating, in your pretty little slacks and jacket!” said the officer of the court. “And you smell, too!” she added.

The officer of the court and the salesgirl refrained from making further untactful allusions to certain odors, as this was a sensitive issue, and one in terms of which they were both clearly vulnerable. The young naval officer and the woman in the pantsuit had, yesterday, gratefully, after weeks in space, at respectfully separate intervals, washed in the nearby stream. The waters, however, had been much too cold for the likings of the officer of the court and the salesgirl. Too, who knew who might be watching? This consideration, in particular, alarmed the officer of the court. For example, could she truly trust the young naval officer? Too, they could always bathe tomorrow. It might be warmer then.

“It is designed to conceal from others, and from yourself, that you are a woman!” said the shopgirl.

“Insolent bitch!” said the officer of the court.

“But then you are probably not a woman,” said the shopgirl.

“I am a woman!” said the officer of the court, somewhat surprising herself by this declaration, one not really to be expected from a woman of Terennia.

“Fat!” said the shopgirl.

“I am not fat!” said the officer of the court.

“If you were a slave,” said the shopgirl, “your figure would be trimmed until it was sexually stimulating to men!”

“Do not dare to speak to me in that fashion,” cried the officer of the court. “I am an officer of a court, of the honestori! You are only an employee, a salesgirl, working in a shop on a cruise ship. You are only of the humiliori. Do not dare speak so to me, you meaningless little snip. I am of the blood itself!”

“See if you speak so proudly when your hair is pulled out!” said the shopgirl, angrily.

“Do not dare touch me!” said the officer of the court, alarmed.

Angrily the salesgirl turned away. The least that might happen to her now would be that she would lose her position with the line. The humiliori were expected to exhibit a proper deference toward those of the honestori. Too, she might then find it difficult to locate another position. On certain worlds she could be fined, or sentenced to a penal brothel, even to being close-chained to her pallet. On many other worlds she could be simply remanded to slavery. Perhaps she would be purchased by the person whom she had offended.

The officer of the court opened a box, one containing concentrated survival chocolate.

“Do not eat that,” said the shopgirl.

“I do as I please,” said the officer of the court.

“It is for all of us!” said the salesgirl.

“Be quiet,” said the officer of the court.

“Fat!” said the shopgirl.

“I am not fat,” said the officer of the court.

“Where are you going?” asked the shopgirl.

“I am going to the stream, to get a drink,” said the officer of the court.

Their water, you see, had been muchly depleted in the capsule, not only over time, but in virtue of their needs, given the physical dehydration which tends to occur in such an environment. The water in the stream, too, constituted a considerable improvement over the water in the capsule’s stores. The water in the stream, tested pure, was cold and fresh. It was not stale. It did not reek of the taste of containers. Indeed, it was the best water that the officer of the court had ever tasted. On Terennia, the water in certain town reservoirs, such as that in which the officer of the court had resided, tended to be heavy with the taste of various sanitizing chemicals.

Chocolate, too, of course, of which the officer of the court had taken a considerable portion, and was eating even now, on her way to the stream, tends, predictably, to make one thirsty.

“Fat!” called the salesgirl after her.

“I am not fat!” said the officer of the court, angrily.

The stream was not far from the camp, where the capsule was. The officer of the court walked through the trees. They were tall and thick, on both sides of her. There were many shadows at any time in that place, but there were a great many more now, as it was rather toward dusk. As she

made her way toward the stream she finished the chocolate. She wiped her fingers on the thighs of her “same garb.” Near the edge of the stream, no more than a few yards from it, she stopped. Ahead, a few feet back from the edge of the stream, fallen, she saw an object. She approached it more closely and discovered it to be the container which the woman in the pantsuit had borne toward the stream, to fill with water. Almost at the same time she heard, from her right, tiny, helpless, muffled sounds. She turned in that direction and saw, to her consternation, the figure of the woman in the pantsuit. Her back was to a large tree, and her arms were back, one on either side of the tree. Behind the tree her wrists had apparently been linked by some device, perhaps a foot of rope. The lower portion of her face seemed muffled in heavy cloths.

The officer of the court did not know what to do. She took a step, a frightened, uncertain step, toward her, but the woman shook her head, wildly. Then the officer of the court thought she saw a shadow among the trees, and then another. The tiny, muffled cries emanating from the bound woman seemed clearly enough to constitute a warning.

The officer of the court turned about and fled back toward the capsule.

She broke into the small clearing of the camp, and her distraught condition startled and alarmed the salesgirl, who leaped to her feet.

Breathless the officer of the court, her eyes wide, pointed back wildly toward the stream.

She had no sooner turned back toward the camp, gasping for breath, than she detected, emerging from the opposite side of the camp, not far from the capsule itself, the stumbling figure of the young naval officer. It seemed he had been pushed forward. But she could see no one behind him. His upper body was swathed with rope. Cords had been tightened in his mouth, pulled back tightly between the teeth.

“Run! Hide!” wept the officer of the court and she fled toward the capsule. The salesgirl, terrified by her demeanor, followed her. They hastily entered the capsule and closed the hatch, spinning the wheel which secured it.

They crouched inside, in the darkness.

“I can’t breathe!” said the salesgirl.

“Go outside,” said the officer of the court, angrily.

For a time there was silence about, and then the two young women cried out, suddenly, in alarm, startled by a sudden pounding of metal on the outside of the capsule.

“They can’t get in,” said the officer of the court.

“Who are they?” asked the salesgirl.

The officer of the court crept to one of the tiny ports, something like four inches in diameter.

“I cannot see who they are,” she said.

Then she drew back, because a stone, held in a fist, struck against the port.

“They cannot get in,” said the officer of the court, backing away.

There was more pounding on the exterior of the capsule. They could also hear the external hatch wheel being tried. It would not open, of course, as the hatch had been sealed from the inside. Then there was more pounding at the port. After a time the heavy material in the port was chipped away. A stick was thrust into the capsule, jutting in, then rimming flakes of glasseous substance away.

“We are safe,” said the officer of the court. “They cannot enter.”

The salesgirl drew a deep breath. It was less stifling now in the capsule. Air could enter through the opened port.

“Are they men?” asked the salesgirl.

“I do not know,” said the officer of the court.

“Look!” said the salesgirl.

“You look!” said the officer of the court.

The salesgirl rose to her feet and timidly looked out the nearest port.

She quickly drew her head back.

“What are they?” asked the officer of the court, crouching on the floor of the capsule, anxiously.

“They are men,” said the salesgirl.

“What sort of men?”

“By their garb — barbarians,” said the salesgirl, crouching down.

“Be pleased,” said the officer of the court, bitterly. “You will make a pretty little slave girl.”

“So, too, would you!” said the salesgirl.

“I jest,” said the officer of the court. “It is fortunate for us that they are barbarians. That means we have little to fear.”

“How is that?” asked the salesgirl.

“As barbarians,” said the officer of the court, “they will be stupid. They will have no patience.

They will soon leave.”

“What if they do not?” asked the salesgirl.

“They will,” said the officer of the court. “They are stupid.”

“I have heard that barbarians enjoy making slaves of civilized women,” said the salesgirl.

“If they can get them,” said the officer of the court.

“What if they wait outside?” asked the salesgirl. “We have nothing to eat or drink within.”

“They do not know that,” said the officer of the court.

“I am afraid,” said the salesgirl.

“Do not be afraid,” said the officer of the court. “They are barbarians. They are stupid. They will quickly grow weary of waiting, and depart. We will then leave the capsule, and escape. Nothing could be simpler.”

“We shall outsmart them,” said the salesgirl.

“Certainly,” said the officer of the court. “We are far more clever than they are. We are civilized women.”

“How then is it,” asked the salesgirl, “that we are bought and sold, and kept as helpless slaves, on so many worlds?”

“It is quiet outside now,” said the officer of the court.

“What of Oona and the ensign?” asked the salesgirl.

“We must think of ourselves,” said the officer of the court. “They were stupid enough to permit themselves to be captured.”

“It seems very quiet,” said the salesgirl.

“Perhaps they have already left,” said the officer of the court.

The salesgirl stood up and looked through a port. “They have not left,” she whispered.

“Then they are not as impatient as I thought,” said the officer of the court.

“No,” said the salesgirl. “They are even more impatient than you thought.”

“They are leaving?”

“No.”

“I do not understand.”

“But they are not as stupid as you thought,” said the salesgirl.

“I don’t understand,” said the officer of the court.

“They are bringing brush, and wood,” said the salesgirl, “and placing it about the capsule.”

In a few moments the flames were roaring about the lower hull of the capsule.

“I cannot breathe!” wept the salesgirl.

“Ai!” cried the officer of the court, touching the side of the capsule.

The officer of the court lifted one foot, and then the other, from the heated floor.

The salesgirl wept with pain, wringing her hands.

“What are we to do?” wept the officer of the court.

“That has been decided for us, has it not!” cried the salesgirl.

“What choice have we?” wept the officer of the court.

“The only choice they have accorded us!” wept the salesgirl. “A slave’s choice!”

“Ohh,” wept the officer of the court, crying, gasping for breath in the heated vehicle.

Then she heard the salesgirl struggling with the hatch wheel.

“Me first! Me first!” cried the officer of the court, thrusting the salesgirl aside. The hatch wheel burned her hand. Then she thrust it up. Her hands were burned on the rungs of the hatch ladder.

The outside of the capsule had begun to glow redly.

The officer of the court burst from the hatch, crying, and gasping for air. She felt herself seized in strong hands, on each side, and flung to the dirt on her belly beside the roaring fire heating the capsule. She turned her face away from the blaze. She felt her hands pulled behind her and tied there, securely. She was aware, too, of a similar fate befalling the salesgirl, who had followed her from the capsule a moment later. She was still gasping for breath, shuddering, on her belly, trying to pull her hands apart, when she felt a rope being tied about her neck. She turned about and saw that the salesgirl was bound, too, just as she herself was, and that she, too, now, had a rope on her neck.