Lady Claudia choked back a sob.

"Glory to Ar!" said the voice behind the door, sternly.

"Glory to Ar!" cried Lady Claudia, three times. I repeated this formula, as well, three times.

The head then disappeared again from the panel. At the same there was a tiny scrape, as of wood on stone, probably from a platform on which she had stood. There was then silence, no sound of pans, or such. I quickly, to the consternation of Lady Claudia, moved to the observation panel and looked through it. I saw the warder going down the corridor. She was barefoot, and wore tatters which barely covered her calves. These tatters appeared to be the remains of what had perhaps once been a double dress, now shortened. The hems of both the inner and outer skirt, doubtless in their shortenings, had been deeply serrated, each in a series of some seven or eight large, triangular points. These points were alternated in such a way that those of the inner skirt appeared between those of the outer skirt. Thus, though the general appearance of the garment suggested rags, they were, in their way, contrived rags. In a way, though she perhaps did not understand this, they invited a man to their removal. Perhaps it was her hope that if the city fell such a garment might save her life, sparing her for the collar. The white, scarflike turban on her head, I supposed, was a vanity, to conceal shortly cropped hair. The veil, of course, was appropriate for a free female. I observed her calves, her bare feet, the cleverly contrived rags she wore. Perhaps she had already rehearsed how she would surrender herself to a man. If the time came, I was sure, stern warder though she might pretend to be, she would submit herself quickly enough and appropriately enough, ending her farce, accepting nudity and a collar, to a master. She bent down and picked up a bucket, and, before she turned back, I left the observation panel and returned to my place.

"Do not leave your kneeling position at such a time," begged Lady Claudia, tears in her eyes.

The head appeared behind the observation panel and found us in our places. As soon as it left the panel this time I bent down to see if it might be possible to seize her somehow from under the door. But, to my irritation, a pan, into which had been ladled some meal and a piece of bread was thrust beneath the door with a rod. Lady Claudia rushed to the pan and placed the meal and bread in the cell's food pan some five feet in front of her and then replaced the delivery pan half under the door. It was pulled back with the rod. The warder, given that she was a female, had been well taught suitable alterations in the common routines of warders. Doubtless, too, somewhere there were men about, to back her up, if need be. I was angry. I then straightened up in time to be in place when she looked through the panel again. The use of the two pans is not primarily for security as one pan could be used, or an exchange of pans, provided suitable distances between the prisoners and the warders are maintained, but rather to keep pans localized to given cells. This helps to prevent the spread of infections and makes each cell responsible for its own hygiene.

"Please give us more to eat!" cried Lady Claudia.

"You are too fat now," said the warder. "Please!" begged Lady Claudia.:Lady Claudia, in my opinion, was certainly not fat. On the other hand, it was probably true that she had been better fed than most in Ar's Station, at least prior to her incarceration in the cell, given her former hoarding and the additional food she had obtained at the wall, in the basket.

"Are you afraid your pretty complexion will suffer?" asked the warder. "Please!" said the Lady Claudia. "Please!"

The panel slid shut.

"The she-sleen!" cried Lady Claudia. "How I hate her!" she clenched her fists. "I hate her! I hate her!" she said. She pounded her fists on the stone, the blows softened by the intervening straw. Then she looked dismally, angrily, at the bit of meal and the crust of bread in the pan. "Surely it is their intent to starve me!"

"Us?" I asked.

"Yes, us," she said.

"You are probably being fed as well as most in Ar's Station," I said. The men on the walls, hopefully, would receive more. Yet those I had met had seemed half starved. "Too," I said, "it is not unlike the rations given to new slave girls in their training period, when they are being taught their dependence on me for their food."

She made an angry noise and stood up. She made as though to move to the pan, but stopped short. "Oh!" she said. My hand had closed about her ankle.

"Get on your belly," I told her.

"What are you doing?" she exclaimed, angrily. She could not advance toward the food.

"Now," I said.

Angrily she went to her belly and I drew her back a foot or two by the ankle. She put out her hands but could not reach the food. I then got up and went to the pan. I picked it up and took it back, toward the back of the cell, where I sat down, cross-legged, the pan before me. She turned about, not daring to leave her belly, to look at me.

"You may approach," I told her. "But do not come close enough to touch the food."

She squirmed forward, desperately.

"Are you hungry?" I asked. "Yes!" she said.

"Would you like to eat?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"Perform," I said.

"No!" she cried. "I am a free woman!"

"Very well," I said. I paid her no more attention. I fingered some of the meal into my mouth. It was in a glutinous, semisolid glob. It was neither sugared nor salted.

"Please!" she cried. She had not risen from her belly.

"Do you think you are still alone in the cell?" I asked.

"Please!" she begged.

I fingered more of the meal, a good two fingersful, into my mouth.

"I will perform!" she said.

"Stand up," I said, "back a bit, where I may see you." I put the pan to one side, on the straw, on the stone, and looked at her. She was not a woman of Earth. A woman of Earth, if not beaten, and swiftly forced to learn her womanhood, would doubtless have held out for a time, confident that Gorean men, like those to whom she had become accustomed on her native planet, would prove to be weak, that they would yield to her. They learn, soon enough, however, that the average Gorean male simply does not share the conditioned political conceptions of the female, which in so many cases have succeeded in crippling, weakening and demasculizing the men of Earth. She finds that she is viewed rather in the context of biology and nature. She quickly learns, too, that where women are concerned, and thus where she is concerned, the average Gorean male has a will of iron. She also quickly learns that he has, personally and culturally, the power to enforce this will.

"Stand straight," I said, "the palms of your hands on the sides of your legs." She did so.

The spy was lovely, though there was a kind of hardness, and nastiness, about her.

"Perform," I said.

"For such performances," I said, it is hard to believe that the guards would have fed you."

She looked at me, angrily. "Now," I said, "perform for me, as you did for them." "Not bad," I said, fingering more of the meal into my mouth. I was, after all, hungry, too. I had not eaten since early morning, at the small tent I had shared with Phoebe. To be sure, Lady Claudia would not have had anything since noon, the day before.

"Please!" she said.

"But I," I said, "am more demanding than the guards. Do you understand?" I put more meal into my mouth.

"Yes!" she said. She then began, again to try to please me, this time even more desperately. She did not do badly. Then, after a time, I helped her, giving her detailed instructions, putting her, here and there, and about the cell, through detailed woman paces. Then she lay on her belly before me, gasping, covered with sweat. I motioned that she should kneel near me, and I placed her hands on her thighs. I rubbed my hand on her head. The short-cropped hair was wet with sweat. I then, having her lean forward, eagerly. Sometimes I made her stretch, holding the food just a little out of her reach. Sometimes I had her lick and suck my fingers, too, which she did eagerly enough, that none of the meal would be lost. Then we had finished the bit of meal and bread between us. She knelt back, regarding me reproachfully.