"You are very clever, Mistress," I said.

"Further," she said, "even should the message fall into the wrong hands, it is concealed, and would not be understood as a message, and even if it were understood as a message, its secret would be kept for it is well enciphered."

"Your security is brilliant, Mistress," I whispered.

She lifted one of her arms, bathing it, letting the water fall from it.

"You are involved in a struggle," I said.

"Yes," she said. "I am an agent of a military and political power, a greater power than you understand exists, one of interplanetary scope. It is called the Kurii. Worlds are locked in war, a fierce, silent war, unknown to you, unknown to millions. At stake are Gor, and Earth."

"In such a war," I said, "communication is important."

"And difficult," she said. "The enemy are not fools."

"Could not radio be used?" I asked. I assumed such devices must be available.

"Signals can be jammed and scrambled," she said. "And it is dangerous to bring such material to the surface of Gor. The enemy swiftly locates and destroys it," She lifted one slim, lovely ankle, observing it, and then dipped it again into the foams of her bath. I thought she would take, like myself, a number-two ankle ring. "As you note," she said, "there is nothing here at Six Towers which suggests that I am not an ordinary woman of Ar."

"What is the message I carry?" I asked.

"I do not know," she said.

"Any girl," I said, "might have carried this message."

"Any piece of suitable slave flesh," said the Lady Elicia.

"Then why was I chosen?" I asked.

She laughed. "At the college," she said, "you competed with me, you challenged me, you dared to set yourself up as a rival to me. It was then that I determined, you lovely, meaningless little fool, that I would have you as my serving slave."

"What is to be done with me?" I asked.

"In the morning," she said, "you will be appropriately identified and transmitted as a naked slave by tarn to the port of Schendi, whence, by slave ship, you will be transported to the island of Cos."

"Identified?" I asked. "Slave ship?"

"A small chemical brand," she said, "which you will wear in your flesh, something by which our agents in Cos will recognize you."

"Chemical brand?" I said.

"It will remain invisible until the proper reagent is applied," she said.

"Can it be removed?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "but you cannot remove it. It requires the proper combination of chemicals."

"Will it be removed?" I asked.

"Of course," she said, "after it has done its work, identifying you for our agents. It would be foolish to leave it fixed in your body, would it not, to arouse the puzzlement of the curious, perhaps even to identify you as our message girl to the agents of the enemy?"

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

She blew foam from her hand, watching the bubbles drift in the air. "The slave ship," she said, "will not be pleasant."

"What will be done to me in Cos?" I asked.

"You will be placed in the Chatka and Curla, a paga tavern," she said. "And from there our agents will make their contact."

"Will I understand the message?" I asked.

"No," she said. "You will not understand it. You will only deliver it."

"And," I asked, "when the message is delivered?"

"Then," she said, "you will be returned to me."

"And then?" I asked.

"Then," she said, leaning back in the sunken bath, luxuriating in the warm, foamy water, "you will begin your life as my serving slave, Judy."

"Yes, Lady Elicia, my mistress," I said.

16

A Sail

I screamed wildly in the darkness, jerking back my ankle from the edge of the sturdy mesh about me. My ankles would pull back toward me only some six inches as they were chained. I lay on my back. I clasped my shaven head in my hands. My hands, too, were chained, the two chains running to a heavy ring over and above my head, in the slatted wood of the tier on which I lay. I could lower the heel of my hands only to the side of my neck; but it was enough to cover my ears, when it became necessary to do so. I screamed and thrashed; I could tell my ankle was bleeding, from the feeling of the wound and the wetness about my shin and on the wood. I tried with my right foot to press against the wound, to stanch the flow of blood. I saw the blazing, coppery eyes of the long-haired ship urt on the other side of the mesh. I had let the shin of my left foot rest against the mesh.

"Let me out!" I screamed. "Let me out!"

Sometimes an urt manages to force its way through the mesh, or between one of the vertical cage lids, one at each end of the cage, and the cage. The girl then, chained as she is, is at its mercy.

"Be silent," said a girl's voice, from the next cage. I could not see her, or the others.

"Please, Masters!" I wept. "Let me out! Let me out, Masters!"

"Be silent!" she scolded.

I tried to be silent. I twisted on the slatted wood.

"Please, Master," I had wept. "Put me in a deck cage!" These were small cages, lashed down, sometimes kept on the deck of a crowded slave ship. This ship, a small one, had only twenty such cages, arranged amidships in two rows, back to back, two cages high, five cages long. In harsh weather, and at night, these cages are often covered with tarpaulins; this tends to prevent undue weathering of the cage.metal due to salt and moisture. During the day the tarpaulins are usually laid aside, unless they are tied over the cages to discipline the girls. There are two major advantages to having the tarpaulins put aside. First, the sailors may then, for their pleasure, gaze upon the lovely prisoners of the cages; secondly, the girls, when they reach their port of sale, will be tanned perfectly, completely. Any girl on the ship, incidentally, unless she is certified "white silk," a virgin, is free to the sailors for their sport. There were no "white silk" girls on board; we were all "red silk." This was not unusual. There are few virgin slaves. Their virginity usually does not last more than an Ahn beyond their first sale. It is the deck-cage girls who are most often used for the sport of the sailors. In daylight hours their charms are on almost constant display. They are not chained in the hold. They may pose and wheedle, and thrust their arms through the bars to touch the sailors. Also they are more readily available. A cage door need only be opened and the girl pulled to the deck, or thrown across the tarpaulins. "Put me in a deck cage, Master!" I had begged. He had looked down upon me, captain of the ship. "Chain her below," he had said. I had been dragged from his feet.

I screamed again.

"Be silent," said another girl, angrily.

I thrashed on the wood. I could feel the ship lice.

I could not tear at them with my fingernails; I was not chained in such a way as to permit that; this was intentional. I writhed on the slatted wood, screaming.

"Be silent," said the first girl. "It is not the time permitted for screaming!"

"I do not care!" I cried.

I heard a noise. I was frightened.

A hatch was thrown open, and a man descended the stairs into the hold.

Suddenly, in the dim light, falling through the opened hatch, I could see the musty tiers and their helpless, fair occupants.

The man looked about.

"She it was! She it was who screamed!" cried the girl next to me, indicating me with her head.

"No!" I cried. "It was not I!"

"It was she!" cried the first girl.

"Yes, she!" cried several others.

I sensed the man standing behind me, on a ramp. "I was bitten," I said. "I was bitten!" I twisted on the wood, trying to see him. "Have mercy, Master!" I said. "I was bitten!"