"Yes," I said.

"When it is safe for you to again appear publicly in Port Kar, when it is safe for you to again make contact with me, the scarlet slave silk will be replaced with yellow."

"I understand," I said.

"I wish you well," he said. We clapsed hands.

"I wish you well," I said.

Samos then withdrew from the booth. I remained inside for a few Ehn. It would not be well for him to be seen with me at this time. I looked at the man on the rug, that flooring the booth spread over the tiels of the piazza, he in whose heart I had left his own knife. I recalled the tale of Yngvar, the Far-Traveled. There was a new order, I surmised, in the Sardar. I did not regret what I had done in the case of Zarendargar. Once we had shared paga.

"I listened to the merriment of the revelers outside, to the cires, the horns and music.

I must leave Port Kar tonight. I would go to my holding; I would make arrangements; I would obtain weapons, moneys, letters of credit. I could be gone in two Ahn, on tarnback, before Priest-Kings discovered the failure of their plans.

I looked back at the samll, lovely redheaded slave bound hand and foot on the large cushion, the wallet filled with teh staters of Brundisium tied at her collar. Throughout all that had transpired in the booth she had not regained consciousness. Tassa powder is efficient.

I then left the booth. In a moment I was again making my way through the crowds of carnival.

I was bitter.

I would take no men with me. I had no wish to endanger them, nor to involve them in the dark matters of warring worlds. Too, the best guarantee of the safety of Samos, ti seemed to me, was my departure from the city. He was my friend. He had risked much fo rme. I could be gone in two Ahn, on tarnback, before Priest-Kings discovered the failure of their plans.

"Paga?" inquired a fellow.

"Of course," I said. It was carnival.

We exchanged swigs, I from his bota, he from mine. Then he turned aside, to offer paga to another. I stepped back, while one of the gigantic fellows, on stilts, stalked by. I was jostled. I checked my wallet. It was intact.

I then continued on my way, pressing through the throngs.

"Master," said a woman, kneeling before me. She put down her head and kissed my feet, and then looked up at me.

I recognized her. She was the free woman whom I had seen earlier, she masquerading as a slave, with the brief bit of cloth about her hips.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"I have been in agony for two Ahn," she said. "I am now ready, of my own free will, to go to a rack."

Ilooked down at her. Women are very beautiful on thier knees.

"Please," she said, "-Master."

"precede me," I said.

She rose to her feet and, frightened, trrembling, I behind her, made her way through the crowds.

At one point we were literally stopped in the press.

"Paga?" asked a fellow, waiting beside me. We exchanged swigs. Then, in a few moments, the ccrowd loosened and, once again, I followed the female.

She came to the foot of a rack and stopped, regarding it. It was one of the strap racks, not a simple net rack, or rope rack. It was now open. Frightened, she crawled upon it, and then lay on it, on her back, on the broad, soft, flat, smooth, comfortable interlaced straps.

"I have never been on a rack before," she said.

"Not all of them are this comfortable," I assured her.

"I do not doubt it," she smiled. The comfort of the slave may or may not be taken into consideration by the master, as it pleases him. They are only slaves.

"You are a free woman," I said. "You need not go through with this."

"Touch me," she said.

"Paga?" asked a fellow. We exchanged swigs. Then he was on his way. He had not concerned himself with the woman. He had assumed she was a slave. She was, after all, half naked, in a collar and on a pleasure rack.

"I had to wait," she said, wonderingly.

"If you are going to masquerade as a salve," I said, "you should grow accustomed, at least in some respects, to being treated as a slave."

"Yes," she said.

"Suppose it were not a masquerade," I said.

"I understand," she said. Her eyes briefly clouded. I saw that she was frightened. I saw that she had just had some inkling as to what it might be to be truly a slave, to be truly, utterly, at the mercy of masters.

"Leap up," I suggested. "Flee the rack. Hurry home. If the straps are fastened upon you, it will be too late."

"No," she whispered.

"But what of respect and dignity?" I asked. "Surely you desire these, desperately."

"I have had respect and dignity for years," she said, "and they are empty! I have had my fill of respect and dignity! For years I have been betrayed and deluded by those trivializing, vacuous, negative verbalitites! I do not want respect and dignity! Obviously they are not the answer. If they were, I should be happy, but I am not! I do not want respect and dignity! I want fulfillment, and truth!"

I saw that her sexual drives were far too strong to be appropriate for those of a free woman. In her there was an eager, succumbing slave.

"Now I want to be overwhelmed, dominated. Now I want to tatke my place in the order of nature. Now I wasnt to be what I am, and have always been, truly, a woman!"

In every woman, of course, Goreans think, there is a slave. Perhaps, in the end, there is no difference.

She looked at me, pleadingly.

"You are a free woman," I told her.

She moaned.

"It would seem thus," I said, "at least according to some, that you are entitled to respect and dignity."

"I have never encountered a convincing proof to that effect," she said. "Have you?"

"No," I said.

"Oh, would that i were a slave," she smiled. "Then I owuld not have to concern myself with such matters. Then I would only have to mind my manners and make certain that I pleased my masters, totally."

"To be sure," I said, "many of the matters with which the free woman must concern herself are simply irrelevant to the slave."

"Such as dignity and respect," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Undre those names I have gone for years," she said.

"And yet, now," I said, "you have come, and of your own free will, to a rack."

"There comes a time," she said, "when the slogans no loner suffice, a tiem when the myth is seen to be meaningless."

"And such a time came for you?" I said.

"Yes," she said.

"And then you put on a collar and came to carnival."

"Yes," she said, "and to a rack!"

"Interesting," I said.

"Are you going to touch me?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"You would use me withont a second thought if I were a slave," she said. "You are puttting me through this because I am a free woman. That is why oyu are making me suffer! That is why you are torturing me! Do you want me to beg?"

"Surely that would be unseemly in a free woman," I said.

"If I were a slave," she smiled, "I would beg quickly enough."

"I do not doubt it," I said. I could sense that whe was quite hot, for a free woman. To be sure, as a free woman, she could not even begin to suspect what it might be to tbe in the throes of slave need, to be slave hot, so to speak.

"Are you going to touch me?" she asked.

"I do not know," I siad, musingly.

She twisted her head angrily, in frustration, to dhe side, on the surface of broad, soft, interlaced straps.

"You are free to leave, of course," I said. "You have not yet been fastened in place."

"And what if I were fastened in place?" she asked.

"Then you would not be free to leave," I said.

"I see," she said. She lay back on the straps, and lifted her knees, and put her hands above and behind her, hooking her fingers in the interstices of the broad straps. She looked at me.