28 The Well

"Are you all right?" asked Tupita.

"Tupita!" I said.

"Yes," she whispered, touching my forehead, soothingly. "Rest. Do not try to rise. You were cruelly struck."

"Where am I?" I asked.

"Look up," she said.

I looked up, blinking against the light. Far above me, as at the end of some off, vertical tunnel, I could see a circular opening, perhaps some seven or eight feet across, and, across this, in open sockets, there was a peeled, rounded timber, about which a rope was wound. A few feet below this timber, attached to the rope, there dangled a bucket. Over the opening, too, there were the remains, mostly a frame, of what was once apparently a small arched roof. Through the remains of this roof I could see, framed in the wreckage, the blue sky, and, interestingly, in it, like tiny points, stars. The light of the sun not obliterating them from this perspective, one could see them, even now, in the daylight.

I rose to my knees, in the dried leaves and gravel. "Tela!" I said. "Tuka," she whispered. Tela was kneeling a few feet from me. She still wore, soiled now, the tiny, thin rectangle of red silk she had worn in the tent of Aulus. It was all that Aulus, by custom, permitted women to wear in his tent, saving their collars.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Yes," she whispered.

I kissed Tupita, and Tela.

"These," said Tupita, indicating two other girls, sitting to one side, "are Mina and Cara." They wore the shreds of work tunics. On their ankles were shackles, separated by lengths of chain such that they might not run, but such that they also would constitute no inconvenience for guards. Iron, too, was hammered shut about their wrists, these bands linked by some eighteen inches of chain. "These are the girls who were first stolen?" I said to Tupita.

"Yes," she said.

"This is Tuka," said Tupita to the two girls.

They nodded, hardly moving their heads. They were very quiet. Both seemed frightened, almost in shock.

"Greet her," said Tupita.

"Greetings, Tuka," whispered one. "Greetings, Tuka," whispered the other. They moved slightly. There was a small sound of chain.

"Mina," I said.

She looked up.

"Did you see what took you?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"Cara?" I asked.

"No," said Cara, shuddering.

"it was probably the beast, or beasts," said Tupita. "They do not know. They were struck unconscious, from behind, probably within moments of one another. I do not even know if they believe me when I tell them of the beast. Tela saw it though, at the tent of Aulus, after it had gagged her, before it put her to her belly and bound her. I, too, saw it, two days ago, but briefly in the darkness, when I was returning from the tent of Pietro Vacchi to the girl pen. It leaped out and seized me. Before I could cry out I was gagged. In another instant I was secured."

"You were used in the tent of Pietro Vacchi?" I asked.

"Two days ago," she said.

"You were freed from the chain," I said.

"The men, or most of them, were freed," she said. "I, of course, and the girls with the other chains, must simply wait to see who our new masters will be." "Of course," I said, "we are kijirae."

"Is there a beast?" asked Mina, of me.

"Yes," I said.

"Did you see it?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Our food, loaves of bread, and fruit, is thrown down to us, at night," said Tupita. "Water, too, in the darkness, is lowered in the bucket. It is then withdrawn."

"We are permitted to drink but once a day?" I said.

"Yes," she said, "so drink your fill."

"How came I here?" I asked.

"Your wrists were bound together before you," she said, "and a doubled rope put through them. When you were within our reach, and we could hold you, the other end of the rope was dropped, and it was then withdrawn. We removed your bonds." "Of what nature was the bond?" I asked.

"Binding fiber," said Tupita.

"Is it not strange that a beast would have such fiber?" I asked.

"It would seem so," said Tupita.

"Of what nature is this place?" I asked, looking up.

"It is apparently an abandoned well," said Tupita, "but it had been changed in some respects."

"How is that?" I asked.

"The bottom of the shaft, below us, is not open to the ground, to sand, or soft dirt, but filled, apparently for several feet, with large boulders. We cannot lift them. Even if we could there is no place to put them. The floor, in effect, is made of rock."

I nodded. This place was no longer a simple well, even an abandoned one. It had now, for most practical purposes, been converted into a holding hole." "If there is such a beast," said Mina, "what does it want of us?" "It is such a thing, doubtless," said Tupita, "which fed upon the aedile, outside Venna."

"Then it may be saving us, to eat us," whispered Mina.

"Perhaps," said Tupita.

We shuddered. Clearly it was possible we were being kept for such a purpose. Indeed, this place might be, in effect, its larder.

"But, as far as we know," said Tupita, "no one has been taken from this place to be eaten."

"It could be saving us for later," said Mina.

"Mina and Cara were caught days ago," said Tupita. "Indeed, the recovery period is over where they are concerned. Anyone who came on them could now claim them." To be sure, they remained, even now, the slaves of Ionicus, but this proprietorship was now such that, if the case arose, it must yield to a new claimancy. This point in Gorean law is apparently motivated by the consideration that a slave always have some master. In the case of a master" s death the slave, like other property, passes to the heirs, or, if there are no heirs, to the state. "They have not been eaten."

"Not yet," pointed out Mina.

"Consider," said Tupita. "All of us here are female."

"Yes," said Mina.

"That seems to me of interest," said Tupita.

"Yes!" I said. "It may well be it which, too, robbed the aedile." "It is surely possible," said Tupita.

"It has some sense of the value of money then," I said, "and perhaps some way of utilizing it."

"Yes," said Tupita.

"And I am told I was bound with binding fiber when I was lowered into the pit." "You were," said Tupita. "It is over there."

"What are you both saying?" asked Mina.

"We are thinking," said Tupita, "if I am not mistaken, that although this thing might eat humans, and might eat us, it may not be that we have been brought here, really, for food."

"I do not understand," said Mina.

:It may be working with men," said Tupita. "If so, they might be slavers." "But you do not know that!" said Mina.

"No," admitted Tupita. "But look about yourself. Do you not note something else of interest here? Do you not think we might not, all, be of interest to men?" I looked down, embarrassed. I, of all of the girls in the pit, was naked. Mina and Cara had the shreds of work tunics, and Tupita, too, still had much of her tunic, it ripped only a bit, perhaps when the beast had seized her. Tela had the soiled narrow rectangle of silk.

"It seems likely to me," said Tupita, "that we are being kept not for food, though such a thing, or things, might eat us, but to be turned over to our kind, to slavers."

"I remember now," I said, "in the darkness, before I was cuffed unconscious, it put me to my knees before it!"

"Excellent!" said Tupita. "Then I suggest we kneel before these beasts, and behave with them much as we might with men. They may well regard us, and correctly, as female slaves. Thus they may expect suitable subserviences." We kissed one another, then, in hope.

"What is there to do now?" asked Mina.

"You wear a collar and chains," said Tupita. "You are kajira. What do you think you will do?"