he asked.
“You unchained me this morning,” she smiled, half laughing through what seemed, unaccountably, tears. “Nor did you return me to my room.”
“Oh,” said Brenner.
“The rooms have no handles on the inside,” she said. “They cannot be opened from within.”
“And that is why you have come?” he said.
“Of course,” she laughed.
Brenner gathered that the rooms, doubtless stoutly walled and doored, must be, in effect, cells. He supposed that the maids at the hostel might have similar rooms. Perhaps this was appropriate enough for women under contract. There would doubtless be a device which, if engaged, doubtless a lock device, would prevent the closing of the door, for the convenience of coming and going during the day. Thus, there would be times at which the door could not be closed, or at least fully, and, when it was closed, could not be opened from the inside. In this fashion the woman would be, in effect, denied privacy, in the sense that she could not close her door, or granted it at the option of the contract holder, at the price of her own incarceration, an incarceration which, of course, with its attendant privacy, was again at the option of the contract holder, or his agents. Brenner did not think that in the case of the zard’s establishment there would be surveillance devices in the room. To be sure, there might be an observation portal in the door, or such. Whereas this might seem to show the free female too little respect, it is well to understand the extraordinary dignity that this affords to her, in contrast, say, with the slave, who, for example, might be kept in a barred kennel.
“Where is the blonde?” asked Brenner.
“Your friend left her chained to the bed, spread-eagled,” she said, “too, chained by the neck, as you had me.”
Her eyes clouded.
“What is wrong?” asked Brenner.
“Apparently with the permission of our contract holder, he administered a releaser to her.”
Brenner looked puzzled.
“It is quite possible she is pregnant,” she said.
“I see,” said Brenner. “Does she want money? Does she want credits?”
“Things have been arranged between your friend and the zard,” she said.
“The appropriate credits have been punched?” asked Brenner.
“Apparently,” she said.
“She will bear the child?” asked Brenner.
“That or die,” she said. “The zard reveres life.”
“As she is free,” said Brenner, “the child, if any, would be free.”
“If she proves pregnant and comes to term, her embondment, if any, is not to take place until after the delivery.”
“And provisions have been made for the child?”
“It seems so,” said the woman.
This account interested Brenner. To be sure, he did not doubt but what Rodriguez, here and there, might have sired one offspring or another, on one world or another, perhaps even in similar circumstances.
“Why have you come here?” asked Brenner. “Is it because you want credits?”
“No!” she said.
“I have told you I cannot afford your contract,” he said.
“I do not want you to buy my contract!” she said, angrily.
“Why have you come?” he asked.
She put down her head. “What you did to me last night,” she said. “What you made me feel!”
“Naturally,” said Benner, irritably. “I apologize to you for how I treated you. Surely it was inappropriate, as we are sames.”
“We are not sames!” she said. “You are a man! I am a woman!”
“I apologize,” he said.
“Do not apologize!” she exclaimed.
“I am sorry if I demeaned you,” he said.
“It is now that you are demeaning me!” she said.
Several of the Pons now crowded about them. Brenner, not politely, brushed some of them back. Their eyes seemed inquisitive through the holes in the hoods. She did not seem surprised at the proximity of the Pons. She had, apparently, seen their likes in Company Station before. For most practical purposes, she ignored them. It was easy to overlook them, given their tiny size, their nondescript garb. They, on the other hand, seemed to find her an item provoking intense curiosity. They would look from Brenner to the woman, and then back again. Brenner scarcely registered this, but, as he did, he supposed that they were not that familiar with human females. At Company Station most of their contacts would be with males, of one species or another.
Brenner was curious to know what she might be wearing under the cloak. Too, he was somewhat irritated by her demeanor. For one of these reasons, or both, or perhaps, too, because he was not really the same this morning as he had been the preceding morning, he took in hand the edges of her