"You are a big fellow, too," said the put-upon fellow, looking at me. "I trust you do not want this place."

"No," I told him.

"If you do," he said, "I could always fling myself into the wall now. I have had experience."

"Do not be bitter." I said. "Get that thing out of my sight," said the bearded fellow, looking at Lady Temione. She still lay much where she had been thrown, away from him, on her side, much afraid to move, her hands tied behind her, her head toward my feet, the chain, and the tag, on her neck. She put her head down, not daring to look upon him.

"I rented her for an Ahn," I said. "I think the time must be nearly up, and the keeper's man should be along presently."

"What did she cost you?" he asked.

"A tarsk bit," I said.

"That is far more than she is worth," he said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"In many cities," he said, "one could have a coin girl for that." "True," I said. Coin girls were a form of street slave, usually sent into the streets around dusk by their masters, who commonly own several of them, with a chain on their neck, to which would be attached, normally, a bell, to call attention to their whereabouts, and a small, locked coin box. And woe to the girl who returns with coins jangling in the box! To be sure, in some places, one might even have a paga slave, or a brothel slave, for as little as a tarsk bit. "It is too much for a free woman," he said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Particularly one such as that," he said, contemptuously.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Perhaps it is appropriate," he said, "a tarsk bit for a fat she-tarsk." "She is not really so fat," I said. To be sure, her figure could be considerably improved, and, if she became a slave, undoubtedly it soon would be.

"I have seen tharlarion," he said, "who were better looking."

Lady Temione, lying on her side, her hands tied behind her, stiffened in anger. I did not understand her response. Certainly she did not think that she was slave attractivea€”certainly not yet.

"They could not easily have charged less than a tarsk bit," I said, somewhat irritatedly. I must try to control myself. The tarsk bit, of course, in most cities, is the smallest-denomination coin in common circulation. "For so much," he said, "they should have rented her to you for a month."

"Perhaps," I said.

"Such she-tarsks are worthless," he said. "She probably doesn't even know what to do with her toes."

"Probably not," I admitted.

Lady Temione looked up, startled.

"She should have been put in a slave harness and sent to a training school," he said.

"I doubt that there are any nearby," I said.

"She should have been apprenticed to a slave," he said.

"Perhaps she will be," I said. "As I understand it, it was only tonight that she was put in the chain collar." Such training schools are normally found only in the cities. Usually, but not always, they are attached to houses of slavers. Needless to say, their students are seldom free women, but almost always slaves. The harness he referred to was undoubtedly not a security harness but a training harness, a complex affair, consisting of numerous straps and rings. It is useful, for example, in helping a woman learn how to serve a master while being denied the use of certain of her limbs, for example, her hands. It is commonly worn naked. Similarly, it helps the woman to adjust to her helplessness and her condition, as, in it, she may be fastened in an incredible variety of attitudes and positions. Its utility is limited by little more than the imagination of the master.

"You must be a strange one," he said to me, "to make do with a free female." "She does not have to remain free," I said.

Lady Temione shuddered with fear. The tag, and padlock, shook on her collar. "That is true."

He looked at the Lady Temione. She did not dare to meet that fierce gaze. Perhaps it was just as well. She might have been cuffed or kicked. I would not have approved had he done this, but under the circumstances, considering my purposes, I would not have interfered. As she was within my rental, and a free person, of course, the administration of any such discipline was really mine to do, and not his. If he wished to beat her, he should have requested my permission. Alternatively, he might have waited a bit, and paid her next rent fee himself. Any free person, incidentally, may discipline a slave. If this were not the case, then a slave, outside the knowledge of her master, might dare to be insolent to a free person.

"It would not be worth harnessing her," he said. "She would be too stupid to learn."

"Any woman can be taught," I said.

"I am a free woman!" suddenly wept the Lady Temione.

He went and crouched beside her. She put her head down, frightened, on the blanket.

"You are not a woman," he sneered. "You are a she-tarsk."

She sobbed.

"You are not worth sleen feed," he said.

"Do not interfere," cautioned the fellow in space 98, who had been ejected from the corner space. "He is dangerous."

"I do not expect to do so," I said. I did not object, of course, to his abuse of the Lady Temione. Indeed, the insults, in their way, while certainly overdrawn, were not altogether unjustified. The danger, of course, with one of my temper, was that I might suddenly feel a point of honor touched. Then, if I should fare up and say, pin the fellow to the floor with my blade, my plans would be seriously disrupted. I would be as placid as larl feigning sleep, as placid as a Dietrich of Tarnburg.

"What are you saying," asked the fellow, wheeling about.

"Nothing," I said.

He returned his attention to the Lady Temione.

"You are worthless," he told her.

"She does have auburn hair," I informed him. "I may be hard to see in this light."

"Then shave it off, and sell it," he laughed.

"The keeper might do that," I said.

Lady Temione moaned, helplessly.

This was, of course, a genuine possibility, particularly in this area at this time. women's hair, long and silky, plaited into heavy ropes, is ideal for the cording of catapults. It is far superior, for example, to vegetable fibers. It is also superior, in length and texture, to the hair of sleen and kaiila. By now, the hair of slaves in Ar's Station, and doubtless the hair of most of her free women as well, donated in the case of the latter as a contribution to the defense effort, would have been shaved off, or, perhaps, cropped short. If the keeper did decide to shave off, or crop, the hair of the Lady Temione, and, for that matter, the others, the Lady Amina, the Lady Rimice, and so on, he would presumably sell it to suppliers to the Cosians. Under the current conditions, of course, it would be difficult to get such material into Ar's Station. Indeed, in a sense, that was the same problem I faced, finding a way into Ar's Station.

"Worthless," snarled the burly, bearded fellow to the Lady Temione. The burly fellow stood up. I saw where he had placed the pouch.

He looked down upon the Lady Temione with contempt. "Get that thing out of my sight," he said. "I do not want my digestion spoiled for breakfast." I myself did not think I would have time for breakfast. I was planning on leaving rather early in the morning.

"Did you hear me?" he asked.

"The keeper's man will be along presently," I said.

"Do you cross me in this?" he asked.

"I would not think of doing so," I said. I located the hilt of my sword. I supposed that it might be less than noble to drive a blade through the body of a drunken fellow in the dark, but it was probably preferable, all things considered, to having one driven through myself.

"I will take her away," said the fellow next to me, hastily.

"It is not your responsibility," I said, somewhat ungraciously, I fear, considering the generosity of his offer.