“Hist!” she said, suddenly. “Someone is coming!”

I sat up, as I could, in the net, my hands bound behind me, my ankles crossed and tied. The net swung.

I heard nothing.

I saw nothing.

I was very still. I strained to hear. If she had truly heard something, her senses must have become considerably sharpened in this environment. To be sure, she might have learned, somehow, to detect and interpret the slightest of sounds in such a place. I did hear a stirring in the waters somewhere beneath. I had heard that sound before.

I thought I saw a light, dim, far off.

What would be done with me?

I recalled that the man in the chair had speculated that Dorna, the high slave, would not be displeased with my disposition. That recollection did not hearten me.

Closer grew the light.

“He is coming,” whispered the woman from the darkness. I heard the slight creak of the chain.

It seemed to me that at least two were in the passage, but it may be, I thought, that only one counted.

of what use, I asked myself, would be my beauty, if beauty it was, or the helplessness of my sexual reflexes, taken as a matter of course in a slave, in a place such as this?

But doubtless I would be assigned my duties!

The light came closer.

I did not even know my name! I had a name. One had been given to me by my masters. But I did not know what it was. It was on my collar. I knew that. But I did not know what it was. Indeed, I could not even read.

Now I could hear tiny sounds, unusual sounds, in the approaching passage.

I shuddered, waiting, bound in the net.

I recalled the girl from the surface, a slave, who had been whipped and sent, plunging, into the depths. She was terrified. I had no doubt she would do her best to be found pleasing.

The light was now closer, and I could determine, clearly, that there were two figures in the passage. The first was a woman, in a brief tunic. No more than a rag. She was excellently curved. She was doubtless a slave. She carried a torch. I was not sure what was behind her. I did not even know, for certain, if it were human or not. It seemed large, broad thing. But it had tiny legs. It walked bent over. I did not know if it could straighten itself or not. It less walked than shambled. It moved with small steps.

I blinked against the light. It was now bright, contrasting with the precedent darkness.

The woman continued to approach.

The thing, whatever it was, with its small steps, its lurching gait, came shuffling, shambling, behind her, snuffing, sniffing, and grunting. It was not, I surmised, human.

The woman stopped.

She now stood a few feet from me, behind a low wall. This wall was apparently circular. My net, I know discovered, was suspended almost over the center of what appeared to be a large, circular, well-like enclosure. The enclosure was perhaps some sixty-five to seventy feet in diameter. The water, several yards below, was very dark. I saw that my net had some ropes attached to it, which extended to a wall behind the walkway where the woman stood, behind what appeared to be the exterior wall of the well-like structure. I heard a creak of chain to my right, and I looked there, quickly. It was from that direction that I had heard the voice of the free woman earlier. I gasped. There, a few feet to my right, there hung, suspended from heavy chain, fixed in the ceiling, a narrow, conical-topped, cylindrical cage. It was perhaps some six feet in height, and some two to three feet in diameter. In this cage, standing within, veiled, in robes of concealment, was a woman. The arrangement of the veils suggested that they were merely tied about her features, and not pinned. Her robes of concealment seemed soiled and, at the hems, were torn. Her small hands grasped the bars of the cage. It was these she had, it seemed, futilely tested from time to time. She did not have gloves, which must have cost her modesty somewhat, but I did not find this surprising. From time to time, her wrists might have been corded before her, or behind her, and men on this world seldom, as I understand it, put bonds over such things as gloves or hose. They prefer on the whole, it seems, to place bonds upon, and to check and test their knots, the arrangement and such, on the bared limbs themselves. In this approach one obtains greater security, of course, as layers between the bonds and the flesh are avoided. I recalled her slippers had been, by her own account, taken from her to be used as evidence of her capture. Too, as I recalled, her ankles had been bound with her own hose. That sort of thing is not unusual. Indeed, the guards in the pens had said that free women were eager to oblige their captors, for they carried about with them, for the convenience of the captors, their own won bonds, one stocking for the ankles, and the other for the wrists. The free women pulled their feet back, a little more under her robes. She was doubtless terribly distressed that her feet were not covered. She was not, after all, a slave. Slaves, I might mention, are often kept barefooted.

“What is that on your neck?” suddenly cried the free woman. “I see it though the cordage of the net! It is glinting! It is a collar! You are a slave, a slave!”

I was too frightened to answer her. I had not told her that I was not a slave, of course. On the other hand, I had not corrected her misapprehension as to the matter. I hoped this would not count as lying. We can be punished terribly for lying.

“Lying slave!” she screamed.

“No, Mistress!” I cried. “Please, no!”

“Oh, you are a well-curved slave!” she cried, angrily. I hoped she would not hold this against me. What could it matter to her, a free woman, if I might bring a good price on the block?

“Deceptive, deceitful slave!” she cried.

“No, Mistress!” I said.

“Well-curved, lying slave!” she screamed.

“Forgive me, Mistress!” I begged.

“Beat her! Beat her!” she called toward the walkway, that behind the wall.

“Please, no, Masters!” I called over my shoulder.

“Deceitful, deceptive, well-curved, lying slave!” screamed the free woman.

“Forgive me, Mistress!” I wept.

“See her ears!” suddenly cried the free woman. “They are pierced!”

the torchlight, doubtless, had reflected from the tiny objects, dropletlike, with their steel pins, which were fastened in my ear lobes. The tiny pins, studlike, had snapped into small disks on the other side. I did not think that these things were intended to be so much ornaments in themselves as devices by means of which to guarantee that the penetrant channels wrought in my body by the worker’s needle could not, even in the healing of the flesh, close. They must remain open, held open by the tiny posts about which the wounds would heal, which posts could later be removed, their work done. And thus it was that portions of my body were made such that they would be ready later, at a master’s convenience, should he so desire, for the affixing of ornamentation. Even so, of course, the devices made it rather clear that my ears were pierced, as they were.

“Beat her!” screamed the free woman.

“Please, no, Mistress!” I begged.

Then I turned back, blinking against the light, for I felt myself, in the net, by means of ropes, being lowered, and being drawn toward the wall.

I did not want to be beaten!

The net neared the wall. The light was very bright.

“Close your eyes,” said the woman with the torch.

I closed my eyes, gratefully, against the light, but, too, of course, I was frightened. The light hurt my eyes. But, too I wanted to see. But, of course, I had no choice. I had been commanded. I must obey. I am a slave.

I felt the net drawn over the low wall and then I was on the walkway, supine in the net, behind the wall. I could sense the torch, reddish, though my closed eyelids. Its radiated warmth was welcome. I lay on the stones. I heard a sniffing and shuffling, a grunt. I shuddered, my eyes closed. I felt the toils of the net being drawn aside.