She smiled at me. "I care deeply for you, Jason," she said. "You are the first man I have met, in years, who has been kind to me, who has regarded me with gentleness and respect"
I smiled, and shrugged.
"Too," she said, "you are the first man of my world I have seen in years. What lovely memories of their sweetness, their pleasantries and courtesies, you recall in me."
"Your life as a slave must have been hard," I said.
She smiled. "We serve, and obey," she said.
"Doubtless some of your masters must have been harsh," I said.
"Please do not ask a girl to speak of her bondage," she said. She put her head down.
"I'm sorry," I said, softly.
"You cannot even begin to suspect," she said, "what it is to be a slave girl on a world with such men as those of Gor."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"They are overwhelming," she said. "On occasion I have even been forced to yield to them."
I looked at her.
"As a slave," she said, bitterly.
"I'm very sorry," I said. I almost wanted to scream with pleasure at the thought of the lovely Darlene being forced to yield as a slave. How I envied the brute who would have held her in his arms!
"Jason," she said, softly.
"Yes," I said.
"No," she said. "It is nothing."
"What is wrong?" I asked. "You seem troubled, fearful."
"You know what room this is, do you not?" she asked.
"It is a room of slave preparation, you have told me," I said.
"Yes," she said. "Do you know what your presence in this room indicates?"
"That I am to be soon sold," I said, bitterly.
"I fear so," she said.
"How soon am I to be sold?" I asked.
"I do not know," she said. "I am not privy to the secrets of masters."
"But doubtless it will be soon," I said.
"I fear so," she said.
She was silent.
"Jason," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Do you wish to be sold?" she asked.
"No," I said. "Of course not."
"I can help you to escape." she whispered.
I shook in the chains. "How?" I said. "No," I said. "It is too dangerous."
"I have stolen the key to your chains," she said, "and to your collar. I have stolen clothing for you. I can show you a secret exit from this place."
"It is madness," I said. "What escape can there be for a slave on Gor?"
"Do you wish to try, Jason?" she asked.
Suddenly we were silent and regarded one another, alarmed. We heard two men talking, approaching.
Then two guards, gigantic fellows, brawny, stripped to the waist, their heads shaven save for a knot of hair behind the crown, stood behind the barred gate to the cell. The gate was ajar, doubtless that the girl could come and go, attending me.
The girl faced them, making herself small, kneeling, the palms of her hands on the floor, her head down to the stones. It excited me to see her in such a posture. She was a slave girl in the presence of masters.
"Have you fed the slave, Darlene?" asked one of the men, the larger of the two.
"Yes, Masters," she said, not raising her head.
"Then leave him, Darlene, Slave Girl," he said.
"Yes, Masters," she said, not raising her head.
Then the two men turned away and went down the hall.
Quickly the girl raised her head and, turning about, regarded me. Her eyes were wide. Her lip trembled. "I fear there is little time," she whispered.
I nodded.
"Do you wish to try, Jason?" she asked.
"Surely there would be incredible danger in this for you," I said.
She shrugged. "No one knows that I have the keys," she said. "They will not believe that I could free you."
"But what if you were caught?" I asked.
"I am a slave girl," she said. "Doubtless I would be fed to sleen."
"I cannot permit you to take such a risk," I said.
"They will not know it was I," she said. "They will not believe it could be I."
"Do you think you are safe?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "I will be safe. The danger will be yours."
"Free me," I said.
She rose to her feet and ran to the side of the room, where there was a small store of moss, tinder for lighting the lamp. She snatched two keys from the moss.
I clenched my fists in the manacles.
She fled back to me, wildly, and thrust one of the keys into the shackle on my right ankle. She opened it. She then, with the same key, opened the shackle on my left ankle and the manacles on my wrists.
We listened. We heard nothing in the corridor. I rubbed my wrists.
I felt her jam another key into the lock on the back of my collar. She twisted the key, freeing the single-action double bolt.
"You would not get far in a collar," she said, whispering, smiling.
"No, I would not," I said, smiling.
I jerked the collar from my throat.
She took the collar and, carefully, noiselessly, put it to the side, where it might not be seen from the threshold. I looked at the collar, lying on the stones. It was of sturdy steel. I would not have been able to remove it. It had well marked me as a slave.
"I am naked," I said. "Where is the clothing?"
She went to the side of the room and picked up a bag, fastened with a drawstring, the knot on the string sealed with a wax plate, the plate bearing the imprint of a stamp. "The guards said," she said, "that this is clothing. They did not know I overheard them. Doubtless it is true."
I looked at her.
"I did not dare to break the seal," she said. "I did not know until moments ago whether you would be willing to attempt escape or not."
"What is this seal?" I asked, indicating the wax plate with its stamp.
"That is the seal of the House of Andronicus," she said.
"When did this come to this house?" I asked, frightened.
"The day before you arrived," she said. "Do you think perhaps it is not clothing?"
I broke the seal, breaking it away from the knot. I undid the knot. I tore open the bag, thrusting back the loop of the drawstring.
My heart sank.
"Is it not clothing?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"It is clothing," I said.
"What is wrong?" she asked. "Even if they are slave garments they might serve to get you into the streets."
"Look," I said.
"Oh," she wept, miserably. "I had no way of knowing."
I lifted clothing from the bag, dismally. This was, of all things, my old clothing, the clothing I had worn on Earth the night on which Miss Beverly Henderson, a lovely quarry of Gorean slavers, had been abducted and I, unwittingly, had become implicated in her fate.
I held my old jacket clutched in my hand, angrily. I had not known what had happened to my clothing. I had awakened naked, chained, in a dungeon cell in the House of Andronicus. My clothing, unknown to me, even my jacket, and, as I saw, my coat, too, had apparently been transmitted to Gor with me, though for what purpose I could not imagine.
"How cruel they are," she said.
"I do not understand," I said.
"This was sent here, doubtless," she said, "that it might, for the instruction and amusement of buyers, be used in your sale."
"That is doubtless it," I said. I looked at her, miserably.
"The seal is broken on the bag," she said. "What can we do now?"
"We have no choice but to continue," I said.
"It is too dangerous," she said.
"We have no choice," I said. "Before, when I awakened, when I asked you what time it was, you told me, that it was early in the evening."
"Yes," she said.
"That was some time ago," I said. "Do you think that it might be dark by now?"
"Yes," she said, trembling.
"Perhaps, in the darkness," I said, "I might be briefly unnoticed, at least long enough to obtain more suitable, less conspicuous garments."