breathing and the beating of the heart!”
Brenner regarded her.
“It is not ugly,” she said. “It is beautiful!”
Brenner did not respond to her.
“Do you find me ugly?” she asked.
“No,” said Brenner.
“I am pleased,” she said.
“Doubtless many men have put you well to their purposes,” he said, angrily.
“Yes!” she said. “They have! And I have served them well, or to the best of my ability, and sometimes in terror!”
“I see,” said Brenner.
“They get what they want from me,” she said. “They take it, if they wish.”
“Doubtless the zard also uses you,” said Brenner.
“Certainly women of our species figure in the perversions of many other species, as you must suspect,” she said.
“I see,” said Brenner, bitterly. He did not doubt but what certain aliens could simply take the women of his species away from the men of his species, and use them as they wished. The men of his species, it seemed, were on the whole quite weak. They could not even keep their own women for themselves. On the other hand, he did not think that aliens would attempt that on the occasional strong worlds where his own species was dominant. On such worlds, as he understood it, men of his species kept their women for themselves.
“But the zard does not so touch me,” she said. “It is not that he is kind, or noble. It is just that he is not interested in such things. In this fashion he is a quite normal zard. He is not a pervert. Surely you are aware of the rareness of interspecific attraction.”
“Yes,” Brenner admitted. This rareness was to be expected, of course, given genetic selections.
“Do you think you would feel attracted to a female zard?”
“I do not think so,” said Brenner. He had once seen one, on Naxos, at a spaceport, or he thought he had seen one.
“It is the same sort of thing,” she said.
Brenner nodded.
“Would you like me better if I had scales, bulging eyes, and a tail?”
“No,” said Brenner. To be sure, this was not the answer required by his conditioning program, which was that it would not make a difference. This had to do with the equivalence of life forms, and such.
Brenner regarded her. He did not doubt but what beauty might be species relative, for example, that he and the zard might not agree on the nature of feminine charms, but that did not mean that it did not exist, either for him or for the zard. Fruit does not become unreal because there is more than one variety. Certainly Brenner found the young woman before him extremely beautiful. Indeed, she seemed to him, now, to be the most beautiful female he had ever seen. And he did not think that he was isolated in this sort of thing. Even men on Naxos, he was sure, with their rifles and whips, would agree. And even many other life forms, he was sure, though they might not find her of sexual interest, might recognize that she was an unusually lovely specimen of a human being, and would be more marketable than otherwise on that basis.
“Consider the scandalous silk you wear,” said Brenner, angrily. “It is the sort of thing in which a slave might be put. In such silk it seems you belong upon an auction block!”
“We might ascend a block in such silk, or more,” she smiled, “but it is not likely it would be upon us when we left the block.”
Brenner regarded her.
“I have been upon such a block, on Damascus,” she said, “when my contract was sold.”
She changed her position, to kneel. She arranged her silk. Then she again looked up, at Brenner.
“On the block, though we were free women, instant and perfect obedience was required of us,” she said, “even as it is of slaves.”
“Did you not demur?”
“No,” she laughed, “or at most once, briefly.”
“Oh?” asked Brenner, interested.
“They have whips,” she said.
“Not sophisticated electronic devices?”
“No,” she said. “On Damascus, as on many worlds, they are very traditional.”
“I see,” said Brenner.
“But the whip is very effective,” she said, “perhaps in its primitive simplicity and meaning even more so than more complex electronic devices. We understand the whip.”
“‘We’,” asked Brenner.
“Females,” she said. “At least once we have felt it.”
“I see,” said Brenner.
“Yes!” she laughed.
“Did you demur?” he asked.
“I did not really need to feel the lash,” she said, “but I was curious about it and so once I was hesitant. Then, instantly, I felt the lash. I did not know it could be like that. Then, I assure