The Chieftan th-1 Page 20

  Too, just then a voice called from outside, in the corridor, and the two men exited the room.

  She had then lost consciousness.

  She had awakened a few hours later, sick, thirsting, and terribly hungry.

  She crawled to the basin and again tried the lever, but, again there was no water. She then went to the lavatory bowl, willing to avail herself of even this source, as might have a thirsting slave, but found to her dismay that it was dry. It had been drained, and, of course, could not be replenished. Men, or slaves, had come later to the cabins, checking them, to make certain that even such sources would not be available to the defenders. The doors, too, had been set awry on their hinges so they could not be locked, or even closed. That had presumably been done by men, with tools.

  She returned to her place beneath the bed but, in a few hours, miserably, weakly, crawled out.

  She went to the dark corridor.

  She could still smell a slight fragrance of the gas in the room, behind her, and in the corridor.

  There might be some food in the lounge, she thought. Perhaps something in the adjoining serving area, or kitchen, perhaps even scraps, crumbs, on the floor, beneath the table and the chairs. Too, here and there, in the corridors, there were litter vessels, and who knew what might have been cast aside, thoughtlessly, into one, what precious things, perhaps a bit of a roll, or the core of a fruit.

  She kept on all fours in the corridor.

  Thusly, if light should suddenly be cast upon her, perhaps the strangers, the boarders, might not instantly fire. Was this not the fashion in which they wished civilized women, at least initially, to be before them?

  Once away from her cabin area there was a dim lighting in the corridors.

  This frightened her, but the corridors seemed empty, empty and very long.

  She rose to her feet, but kept close to the walls of the corridors.

  At points she noted certain passages, of which she would have liked to avail herself, were sealed, and the pressure gauges indicated a near vacuum behind them. The elevators were doubtless inoperable, and in any case, were to be avoided. But she would not have needed them, in any event, or stairs, to reach the lounge from her cabin, the main floor of the lounge.

  She cried out.

  There was a body bolted to a bulkhead, to her right. It was in uniform. It was that of the minor officer, he who had sat near her on the evening of the entertainment, he who had conversed with the woman in the pantsuit, the same evening the Alaria had come under attack. The front of his uniform had been drenched with blood, now long dried. He had served as the target, it seemed, in some primitive contest.

  In a moment she had come to the large viewing port in the hall, not far from the lounge.

  She had looked through this before. It was here that the gladiator had come up behind her, and here that the captain had offered to escort her to her cabin.

  Outside she could see, from this vantage point, the outlines of four barbarian ships. The Alaria was illuminated in their search beams. Here and there, there were pieces of debris, floating in space, seemingly suspended there in a calm steadiness and stillness. And then she saw, too, the shattered wrecks, blasted apart, of certain escape capsules, of lifeboats. Such, clearly, had been fired upon. Others had perhaps been blown open but propelled outward into space, then as lifeless as small asteroids. The strangers, the boarders, doubtless had guns ready, set to track and fire on such vessels. A number must have fled the Alaria in the first hours of the attack. She wondered how many might have been successful in their escape, what the crowding would have been. She remembered the press at the door of Section 19, in the hold. She knew nothing of the mechanisms of the lifeboats. Too, she would be terrified to trust herself to such things, so tiny, such frail barks in such vast seas, like lonely motes of steel in the enormous night, so far from commercial lanes, in an area of space scarcely charted.

  Perhaps it would be too open, too bold, she thought, to proceed directly to the lounge.

  And might they not have it guarded, lest others, like herself, think to find food or drink there?

  Perhaps she could approach it, she thought, by means of the upper balcony of the general entertainment hall, which gave access, through a passage, to the lounge’s upper balcony. Then she could look down into the lounge, the main floor, and see if it were safe.

  At this point she heard, from the hallway behind her, feminine laughter.

  She cast about, wildly, looking for a place to hide.

  But there seemed none.

  Then, as the voices seemed almost upon her, she crouched down, back, between the lower rim of the port and the railing, to the right, as one would face the port. If one were searching for her there one would doubtless have discovered her, but if one were not looking for her, it was not unlikely that her presence in this simple ensconcement might be overlooked.

  “Move!” said a female voice, sharply.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said another female voice, frightened.

  “It is heavy, Mistress,” said another female voice.

  “Hurry,” said another female voice, this one, too, with uncompromising sharpness.

  “Yes, Mistress!” said the female voice which had complained of the weight of something.

  The officer of the court heard, too, the sounds of chains.

  She pressed herself back into her nook.

  Two women, stripped, passed her. Between them they bore a bulging silken sheet filled with a miscellany of precious items, doubtless loot taken from cabins. They could scarcely manage their burden. The officer of the court noted, to her horror, that their ankles were shackled. These were the chains she had heard. But even more startling to the officer of the court was the nature of the two women who followed the laden pair, two who stood to them obviously in some strict supervisory capacity, this made clear by their mien, and, too, by the whips they carried. It was the laughter of this second pair which had reached her ears but moments before. These two women following the shackled pair were among the most sensuous women she had ever seen. They were garbed, if one may so speak of it, in brief tunics, incredibly brief, and muchly open. On the wrists of these women, and on their arms, and slung about their throats, was much jewelry, things doubtless from the loot, with which they had bedecked themselves. On the wrist of one was a bracelet of diamonds that might have been the ransom of a city. Suddenly, startled, the officer of the court noted, about the throat of the other was a golden necklace which she had little doubt was her own, that which she had worn at the captain’s table. But beneath the necklaces, and strings of jewels, and such, which these women had flung about their necks in lavish prodigality she could detect, clearly, closely encircling each’s neck, a different device, a chain. This was locked shut, behind the back of the neck. Although the officer of the court could not see this from her vantage point, there depended from this chain, in front, a disk. On this disk appeared the name of the barbarian ship to which each was assigned, and a designation of the quarters upon it which each must serve and clean. These two women were vital, and held themselves beautifully. Muchly did their appearance contrast with that of the wretched, shackled creatures they supervised, creatures which they obviously held in the greatest contempt. One of these women held in her hand a piece of roasted fowl.

  “Please, Mistress, let us pause, but for a moment!” begged one of the bearers of loot. Indeed, it is not unlikely that precious objects once her own lay mixed somewhere within that weighty heap which so tested the strength of herself and her miserable companion. Indeed, perhaps she could see them.

  “Very well,” said one of the muchly bejeweled women. They were ship slaves. Barbarians do not like to be without their slaves.

  The burden of the two shackled women was lowered to the floor, gratefully.

  The officer of the court, fearfully, shrank back further in her nook.

  “Kneel,” said one of the supervisors, “hands on your thighs, where we can see them.”

  Inst
antly the two shackled women obeyed.

  “You need not open your knees,” said the other supervisor. “You are not now before men.”

  One of the shackled women moaned.

  The supervisors laughed.

  The supervisor with the bit of roast fowl tore off a bit of it in her teeth, and chewed on it.

  “Please, Mistress,” said one of the kneeling women, “may we not be fed?”

  “Do not dare to look upon us,” said one of the supervisors. “Keep your head down.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” said the woman, hurriedly lowering her head.

  “You have not yet finished your work,” she was told.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said the woman.

  Suddenly the other supervisor, laughing, cracked her whip.

  The two shackled women cried out in misery.

  “Up,” said the supervisor, “resume your burden!”

  “But Mistress!” protested one of the women, for they had knelt but a moment before.

  Then she cried out as the lash fell upon her.

  “Please, no, Mistress!” she wept.

  “Instant obedience is required of slaves,” she was informed.

  “Yes Mistress!” she wept, and she and her companion hastily rose to their feet, and each, again, seized up two corners of the sheet and, with difficulty swung it up, free of the floor.

  “Turn about, move, slaves!” said the angry supervisor.

  Then the two shackled women bore again, between them, their heavy burden.

  The one supervisor cast aside the bit of roast fowl, having had what she wanted of it.

  She wiped her hand on her thigh.

  The officer of the court heard the lash fall twice more.

  “Hurry, slaves!” she heard.

  “Yes, Mistress,” she heard. “Yes, Mistress!”

  When the women had disappeared down the corridor the officer of the court crept forth from her hiding place and seized up the bit of roast fowl, eagerly biting away what particles of it clung still to the light, hollow bone. Then she licked and sucked the bone, and her fingers, for the least bit of grease. But such minums of provender could do little more than mock the rage of her hunger. Bitterly she knelt on the floor, before the window, recalling food she had refused, dishes she had rejected, returning them to kitchens with her sharp words for cooks. Now she would have eagerly addressed herself to such largesse, such gifts, even head down, feeding from a plate set on the floor, beside a master’s chair. And her throat was parched. Never had she been so hungry and so thirsty.

  Were there passengers and crew members still free on the ship? She did not know.

  Could the ship be regained?

  It did not seem likely. She recalled the openness, the indifference, the assurance with which the two women, supervising the bearers of loot, those bearers, too, doubtless loot as much as any they bore, had walked the corridor.

  She recalled the two women with the whips. They had been among the best-postured, best-figured and most sensuous women she had ever seen. She had no doubt but that they were dieted, exercised and trained. Such, you see, is permissible with animals, and slaves. What was she to do? She was afraid to surrender.

  She did not even know if she would be permitted to do so. She might not even receive an opportunity to do so. She might be fired upon, a moving object, instantly, at first sight, cut in two in some corridor by a blast of fire.

  Perhaps she might surrender to ship slaves.

  But she was afraid of them, and their strictness, and the contempt in which she knew they would hold her.

  She thought of herself naked, in shackles.

  And she knew they would not hesitate to use their whips.

  But would men not protect her, if she made it clear to them that she would strive to please them, and desperately and eagerly, in any way they might desire, literally in any way they might desire?

  Might they not find her body of interest, and the beauties of her face, so sensitive and expressive, and her softness, and her dispositions, to love and serve?

  But how could she even think such thoughts, she, an officer of a court?

  Surely they were the thoughts of a slave!

  Was she naught, in her heart, but a slave?

  But she had gathered that not all prisoners were assured of being kept.

  She had gathered that from a remark of one of the strangers, one of the boarders, almost outside her very door.

  Would they regard her as suitable to be kept, to serve them, or to be exhibited on a slave block?

  She did not know.

  She was afraid.

  But she must have food. She must have drink.

  She was frightened.

  Perhaps she could continue to hide.

  Then she cried out with misery, for, from where she knelt, she could see out the port, and now, outside, against the glassine substance of the port itself, adrift in space, on its back, she saw the body of the captain.

  Then she fled from that place, one so open, to an emergency stairwell, one reached through a heavy steel door, in which there was a small panel with wire-reinforced glass, one from which she could reach the balcony of the theater, and thence, the upper level of the main lounge.

  She stayed for a time in a narrow corridor, reached from the stairwell. She crouched there, frightened, as might have an animal in its burrow. Then she heard a sound to her right, and hurried away from it, arriving in a moment at an entrance to the balcony of the theater.

  She was afraid to open the door, but heard steps behind her. She opened the door a tiny crack and crawled through, onto the carpeting of the balcony of the theater and then hid between tiers of seats. The steps passed by, outside the door. She found a piece of candy, on the carpeting beneath a seat. She seized it up and pressed it into her mouth, devouring it. She looked about for more, but found none. She heard voices below. She crawled to the front of the balcony, to look down, toward the stage. On the stage and in the area immediately below it and before it there was set up a sort of headquarters or communication center. There were several tables there and men monitored various devices. Behind one of the tables at the center of the stage, considering a chart, surrounded by men, was Ortog, prince of the Drisriaks, king of the Ortungs. How different he seemed now, no longer a haggard, demeaned, starved prisoner, but now, armed and mighty, a vital, commanding, merciless, fearful, terrible giant of a man. Seeing such a man she trembled, and muchly then did know herself a woman. Other men came and went, delivering reports, receiving orders, utilizing the lower entrances. Suspended by the wrists, at the left of the stage, and several feet above it, there hung, lifeless, two men. They had no feet. Their feet had been cut off and then they had apparently been drawn aloft, where they had bled to death. Their bodies suggested that they had undergone interrogation before being disposed of. These were the first and second officer of the ship. On the floor of the stage, to the right, chained closely, hand and foot, and by the neck, there knelt three naked, blond women. When a man glanced at them they shrank down, cowering. The officer of the court saw that they had been taught fear. “We shall have engineering shortly,” a man was informing Ortog. “Then it will be but a matter of hours.” Ortog nodded.

  The officer of the court heard this with horror. She was neither a scientist nor a technician but she knew enough, surely, to surmise that somewhere within the intricate labyrinth of engineering sections would be found the control devices for the central life-support systems of the ship.

  Another man brought news of major loot, imperial bullion, five imperial ingots, any one of which might purchase a ship, such serving usefully as bribes, among other things, to barbarian kings, to encourage them to keep the peace with the empire, to attack enemies of the empire, to intervene in sensitive areas on the empire’s behalf, and so on; another brought news of coined metals, gold and silver, tons thereof, taken in taxes, from four provincial worlds; and another of a bottle of wine, one of seven known to exist, from the vinyards of Kalan, on
Cita, a world destroyed in the civil wars a thousand years earlier.

  “It will be our victory wine!” said Ortog, of the last item in this accounting of significant loot.

  There was enthusiastic assent to this.

  In many sections there were self-contained support units, but these were designed to function only on a temporary, emergency basis.

  It was with misery that the officer of the court crept back, again, between the seats, and began to make her way between them toward a door which led to the passageway giving access to the upper level of the main lounge.

  She felt faint with hunger. She could hardly move, for her thirst.

  She thought of the chained women on the stage. They were doubtless educated, civilized women, even citizens of the empire, but she did not think that that would make much difference to the barbarians, except, perhaps, to cause them to be regarded with a certain contempt, as weaklings and decadents, fit at best for the collar, in which at last they might be put to some use, in which at last they might find some justification for their existence. That they had once been citizens of the empire, prior to their embondment, might, of course, the officer of the court supposed, lend a certain flavor or pleasure to their use. But they had doubtless been chosen for their beauty. Certainly they were beautiful. Barbarians, she had heard, long ago, to her horror, enjoy exhibiting women at their courts. But how dare the barbarians exhibit these, female citizens of the empire, as though they might be no more than chained slave girls? “But is that not all they now are,” she asked herself, trembling, “chained slave girls?” “Yes,” she thought to herself, “that is now all they are, chained slave girls.” She recalled how they had cowered at the glance of a man. That frightened her. She wondered if they had been fed.

  She crept along the passage toward the upper level of the lounge. The doors to the lounge were of plate glass, also on the upper level. Arriving at one of these upper doors, she edged to it and peered through it. She opened it a small bit, enough to admit herself, and then held it, easing it back, that its return be silent, and with as little motion as possible. There were the upper tables around this area, with their chairs and white cloths. She crept among them, and peered down into the main lounge. She felt sick with misery, for, below, the lounge was muchly occupied. Ship slaves, and their helpless, naked charges, came and went, entering with the charges, attractive female passengers, struggling under burdens of loot, then returning to cleared decks and cabins, to fetch more. She now noted, for the first time, the metal disks fastened to the neck chains of the ship slaves. She had no doubt but what they were meaningful. She could smell cooking. The smells made her faint. She wanted to cry out. But she dared not do so. The ship slaves were armed only with their whips, but these were quite sufficient, not only because they were frightening and terrible in themselves, and she muchly feared them, but because they were in their way symbols, symbols that behind the ship slaves, somewhere, lay the power of men. Some of the ship slaves were eating, at one table or another, or standing about, eating. In the center of the lounge, where tables had been moved to one side, there was a great heap of loot, with a diameter of several yards, a height, in the center, of better than a yard. This great heap included an incredible miscellany of items, not just necklaces, and bracelets, armlets, anklets, rings, pins, brooches, and such, but chronometers of diverse sizes and types, vessels of various sorts, craters, vases and amphoras, showers of silverware, heaped phials of perfumes, disks of cosmetics, rolled tapestries, and small rugs. Clothing, too, and footwear, was cast into that pile. She saw a shackled prisoner, one who had been surely one of the lovelier of the passengers she had seen earlier on the voyage, stagger in, bent under a bulging sack. The sack had been formed from a satin sheet. She was prodded forward by the whip of her supervising ship slave, and then, the whip held before her, was stopped. Gratefully the shackled prisoner lowered her burden and knelt wearily on the carpeting, her head down. The ship slave then emptied the sheet at the margin of that vast disorderly melange. The officer of the court noted that the clothing had been taken from her own cabin, and was the wardrobe she had brought with her, including what would have been her trousseau, anticipating her projected nuptials with the executive, Tuvo Ausonius. In the first looting of the cabin it had apparently been her jewelry, her papers, her money, her watch, such things, that had been taken. In the second looting less valuable items had been gathered. The ship slave drew forth from the garments the white sheath and held it up before another ship slave who, regarding it, laughed and made some remark. The first ship slave then held the garment against the kneeling prisoner, she who had brought in the garments, and then jerked it away from her. The two ship slaves laughed. The kneeling prisoner kept her head down and her hands on her thighs. The first ship slave then threw the garment to the pile. Also, among other items, she drew forth a pair of black high-heeled pumps. She tied these together and flung them onto the pile where there was an assemblage of footwear. The officer of the court had worn these pumps with the white sheath at the captain’s table. The shackled prisoners were barefoot. So, too, were the ship slaves. The officer of the court wore the mannish boots which were a portion of her “same garb,” and, within these boots, drawn up closely about her small, shapely feet and lovely legs, high black stockings, those of a sort common with women of her class on Terennia. The officer of the court had sewn some purple thread at the top of these stockings, to indicate that she was of the blood.