today,” she whispered.
“You were more than “cross”,” said Brenner. “You were angry, and I did not care for it.”
“Quirt her,” said Rodriguez.
Brenner looked at him.
“They look well, quirted,” said Rodriguez.
“There is a whip upstairs,” whispered the girl.
“You may remove your hands from your thighs,” said Brenner.
She did so, putting them on the chain, three or four inches below the collar.
“Perhaps you may free me,” said the blonde to Rodriguez, “so that I may serve you better.”
“You will stay where you are,” Rodriguez informed her.
“But perhaps others will come in,” she said.
“You will remain where you are,” said Rodriguez.
“Yes, sir,” she said, uneasily. And it seemed to Brenner that it might have been the first genuine response she had uttered all evening.
“Let us eat,” said Rodriguez.
He seized up a pair of zardian tongs. These could lift up a number of objects and could grasp quite firmly. Their width and gripping surfaces facilitated the capture of live food, scurrying about in dishes, for which zards had a taste. To be sure, as Rodriguez and Brenner were not zards, such materials had not been served to them. Zards, incidentally, particularly upper-class zards, tended to regard the use of the tongue to secure food as rude, at least in public. Certain exceptions were made for certain forms of food, of course, for which the use of the tongue was traditional.
Brenner noted the blonde, her hands on the chain, near her collar, cast a glance, and, it seemed, a somewhat uneasy one, at the brunette. He wondered how the women, generally, felt about one another. The blonde, he had surmised, held herself superior to the brunette. Now, however, it seemed that the women were rather in a commonality, and that their current predicament might take precedence over any typical competitions consequent upon their vanity. Both were now chained and collared, and kneeling. He wondered if the brunette knew that she was incredibly beautiful.
Brenner and Rodriguez then applied themselves to their repast, such as it was. In the course of the meal neither paid the women any attention. They did not, for example, offer to feed them. To be sure, at one point, Rodriguez did warn the blonde to silence.
“Not bad,” said Rodriguez, eventually, thrusting back a plate.
He then drew forth a letter, folded small, written in a feminine hand.
“No, please!” whispered the blonde, suddenly, terrified, lifting her hand to Rodriguez.
He read the letter, slowly, casually.
“Please,” whispered the blonde.
Rodriguez tossed the letter over to Brenner. “It was passed to me at the bar by this slut,” said Rodriguez.
Brenner now understood the secrecy, and the confidence, which had seemed imminent in the blonde’s manner toward Rodriguez.
“Please!” wept the blonde.
“Shut up,” said Rodriguez.
She pulled at the chain, but remained on her knees. She could not move from where she was, nor could she, of course, stand upright.
“It is a note which she wishes me to take with us when we leave Abydos, seeing that it is posted to a certain executive in the middle-management echelons of the company on Naxos,” said Rodriguez.
“Surely you will do so,” she whispered. “You are strangers here. You will be leaving Abydos. It will be easy for you to do! I have no other way to contact him, what with the censorship here, and the control of my movements! Women such as I are not even permitted within the precincts of the agent’s office!” The blonde squirmed, her hands on her chain, as Brenner read the note. It was not difficult, from the note, to gather what the situation was. The woman, now apologetic and willing, contrite, begging for another chance, wishing to be reconsidered, had refused the advances of a given executive. She had then been selected for reassignment. On Thasos, enroute to Aegina, her credits had been canceled, presumably as a matter of clerical error, from Naxos. Fortunately the company maintained offices on Thasos, to which she immediately appealed, only to discover that her identificatory credentials were no longer to be found in the company files. The agent on Thasos, it seemed, could do nothing. To be sure, he had expressed sympathy for her, in her dilemma, for it is surely not pleasant to be found stranded on a distant world, and in particular on one such as Thasos, on which visible evidence of support, sponsorship, or kinship is required. It could have been far worse, of course, for Thasos is relatively civilized. On some worlds she might have found herself in a slave pit by nightfall. The agent had suggested