"We have no room for a slave," said one of the men.

"Please, Masters!" I begged.

I knelt on the planking. The yellow rep-cloth I wore was wet and thin, and clung close upon me. Gorean slave girls are commonly not permitted brassieres or undergarments.

"Please, Masters!" I begged.

They drew me into the boat.

I knelt between their feet, my head down, making myself small.

In a few moments we drew alongside the mothership and I, and the others, boarded her.

I was taken and put immediately in the hold. "A slave girl!" said a woman's voice. There was a tiny lamp. "Forgive me, Mistress," I said, and knelt. She mounted the stairs. "I will not share the hold with a slave girl!" she cried. "Be silent, Woman!" said an angry man, who was on the deck. She tried to move back the heavy hatch but it had been battened down. She came angrily back down the stairs. I did not dare to look at her. "Forgive me, Mistress," I begged. She paced back and forth. We had both been placed in the hold. We were both women.

I and the free woman, who did not deign to speak to me, remained many hours in the hold, as the fighting and maneuvering continued for several hours, through the afternoon and night. The lamp burned out and we remained in the darkness. Outside and above decks we could hear shouting, and the sound of sprung ropes, as the canisters of flaming pitch were lofted from the deck catapults. Once, late, we were partly sheared, losing several oars on the port side. A few moments later we had been boarded, but the boarders had been repelled.

After the repulsion of the boarders the hatch had been opened, briefly.

"The ship is secure, Lady," had said the captain. "I shall have food brought."

She had ascended the stairs, going to the deck. Behind her, unnoticed, I crept to the height of the stairs.

It was still dark. On deck there were dark lanterns. Sometimes, in the distance, I saw flares lofted from one ship or another, burning upward and then, their silken globelike chutes opening, burning steadily, descending, to settle into the water and be extinguished. Too, there was light on the water, to our left, from flaming ships.

"I will remain no longer in the hold," said the lady to the captain.

"I must insist," said he.

"No," she said.

"You will go below of your own free will," said he, "or I will have you put there, chained to the bottom of the steps."

"You would not dare!" she cried.

"Bring chains," he said.

"I shall comply with your wishes, Captain," she said, angrily, and descended the stairs. I slipped down before her. The hatch was again closed. It was opened in a few moments, and food and drink was brought. She did not share it with me.

I could tell when morning came as I could hear the men above changing the watch.

Then I fell asleep.

I was awakened by the free woman pounding on the hatch, demanding to be released.

That we had not been released led me to believe that there was still danger.

From what I could hear the convoy, as a whole, had maintained good discipline, and given a satisfactory account of itself. We were, apparently, now flanked by several other ships of the convoy.

Then we heard the cry of "Sail! Sail!" Once more the weary men scurried about the decks. We felt the ship shift as oars took the water. We heard the call of the oar master.

"They are coming again!" we heard. "They are coming again!"

We felt the ship come about.

"What happens," asked the free woman of me, "if we, below decks, are rammed?" it was the first time she had spoken to me.

"Perhaps, Mistress," I said, "someone will remember to open the hatch."

"But if not?" she asked.

"Let us hope they will not forget, Mistress," I said.

"We were boarded last night," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"If I had fallen into the hands of the enemy," she asked, "what would have been done to me?"

"You would have been stripped, Mistress," I said, "to see if you were pleasing to the men."

"And if I were?" she asked.

"Mistress would have been made a slave," I said. "Forgive me, Mistress," I added.

"And if I were not 'pleasing, " she asked.

"I do not know, Mistress," I said. "The enemy are men of Port Kar. Perhaps you would be thrown to the sharks."

She made a small noise of fear. It pleased me to hear it. I think she understood her womanhood a bit more clearly now than perhaps she had before.

"If we are rammed," she said, frightened, "and the men do not remember to open the hatch, or do not have time to do so, what will occur?"

"Sometimes," I said, "the planking is opened widely. Perhaps we could escape."

"It would not be likely that we would be successful," she said.

"No, Mistress," I said.

We heard the count of the oar master increasing. There was not much other noise on deck.

Then we felt the ship, perhaps half of an Ahn later, suddenly veer to one side. We heard some oars snapped.

"I want to know what is going on!" screamed the free woman. She pounded on the closed hatch. None paid her attention.

About a quarter of an Ahn later, suddenly, we hard the screaming of men and, not more than three or four Ihn afterwards, to our horror, the wall of the hull, opening into the hold, with a wrenching sound of rupturing wood, suddenly burst inward, toward us. We could see nothing at first but were struck with a torrent of cold, swirling water. We screamed. Then we could see some light, and the horizon, and the bow of a ship against us, and the curved ram of the predator among our planking. The attacker backed his oars and the ram, its work done, splintering more wood, withdrew and settled away from us. The hole in the hull was more than a yard in width. Water flowed through, making it impossible to approach. Suddenly it seemed we were to our waists in water. The ship rocked back and we saw the sky and the water stopped flowing inward, and then it rocked back again, and the water, smoothly, in a broad flow, swirled in.

We climbed the steps of the hold, each screaming.

The hatch was flung up and we saw the sky. An officer stood there, with unsheathed sword.

We climbed to the deck, scrambling, wildly. He seized the free woman by the arm. He pulled her toward a longboat. None paid me attention. The attacking ship had withdrawn, seeking other prey. I saw that there were many ships about. It was early in the morning, apparently. Wisps of fog hung upon the water, and fog was high in the north. Ships engaged. I heard shouting, and, on another ship, the clashing of weapons. Within a hundred yards there may have been as many as four or five ships. Two were aflame. Men began to crowd into the two longboats. One slid, capsizing, into the water. The free woman was handed down into the other. Men fought to right the capsized boat. The stern of the ship began to settle in the water. Men leaped into the water and began to swim toward other ships. I ran to the rail to look after them. I did not see the second ship, from behind me, from amidships, approaching. It was itself a ship of Cos, running, and could not, in the time, given the proximity of the ships, turn sufficiently aside. It, too, struck the ship on which I stood. I screamed, and fell, thrown to the deck. It tilted, and I slipped backward. I scratched at it, as though to climb it toward the bow. Then I caught the railing and, as I felt the ship slipping back into the water, the bow lifting high, I pulled myself over the railing, slipped into the water, and swam from the side of the ship. The mast of the struck ship, lowered, had come loose from its deck lashings, and had plunged through the railing and slipped into the water. It was that mast which I seized, lifting my head and arm above the water. It turned in the water, twisting, and was half submerged when the ship disappeared but, in a moment, it lifted again to the surface. I was not fifty feet from a burning ship. The water was filled with wreckage. I heard signal horns, and saw flags on the signal lines. I saw two men fighting in the water. Then, suddenly, the fog from the north began to move more steadily in about us. The burning ship seemed dim in the gray fog. I heard more signal horns. There was shouting in the water. Then it seemed there were none about me. I cried out. The burning ship sank beneath the water. The horns were now farther off. Men who had been near me in the water seemed now to be gone. I was suddenly alone.