He again took up his march. Carrying his shield, the pouch and bota, some eight or nine feet behind him, on his left, I followed him. I suppose I should have minded. I knew I was heeling him. How strange it seemed. I understood so little of what had occurred. I had awakened, stripped and chained, on a strange world. Men had come to the rock where I had been fastened. They had had the key to the collar. Doubtless they had come there to fetch me. But who had left me there for them? And what had they wanted of me? They had questioned me, beaten me. The word 'Bina' had often occurred in their demands. "Var Bina!" they had demanded. I, of course, had not understood. Then, angry, they had prepared to cut my throat. I had been rescued by a chance male, armed and skillful, who had happened in the fields at the time. He had been, judging from the reactions of my original captors, completely unexpected, and not welcome. By his own reactions I had gathered he knew nothing of the men he had met there, and had behaved as he might have with any others, similarly of his scarlet-clad, helmeted, armed sort. I had been part of a plan, a design, I suspected, which I did not understand, which had been, by a chance encounter, disrupted. But what did the word 'Bina' mean? There must have been something I was supposed to have, or be with me, which was not. The plan, perhaps, had been disrupted, or had failed, prior even to the arrival of the two men at the rock. I did not know. I understood nothing. But perhaps the plan had not been disrupted. Perhaps, even now, I carried some secret with me, which had been unknown to the two men. Perhaps they had not understood the way in which I was to have been useful. Perhaps their information had been incomplete or incorrect. I suspected I was intended to be instrumental in something I did not understand. I could neither explain nor understand my nature or purpose, if any, on this world. Had I been brought here merely as a naked woman, it seemed pointless to have placed me as I had been placed in the wilderness. Too, it would have been pointless to have questioned me so closely; too, why, if I had been brought to this world for an obvious purpose of men, say, for my beauty, had the men prepared, in their anger, to end my life? Surely it must have been obvious to them that I was eager to do anything they wanted, that I was eager to please them. Had I been brought here merely for my beauty surely they would not have behaved as they had. I shuddered, recalling the feel of the knife at my throat.
Then the stranger had arrived.
"Kajira canjellne!" he had said. I had been released of the chain and collar. A circle had been drawn in the turf. Bound, I had been thrown to it. Kneeling, I had watched men fight.
I now, naked and bound, carrying his shield, followed him who had been victorious.
I remembered his might, his insolence, his skill, his power. I admired the width of his shoulders as he walked before me. I remembered the simplicity and audacity with which, after his victory, he had examined me.
I now carried his shield. I walked behind him, and to the left. I suppose I should have minded. I knew, of course, that I was heeling him. I thought about it. Whereas it would have seemed unthinkable on Earth that a man could be so strong, so mighty, that a woman would walk at his heel, here, on this world, it seemed not so impossible or strange at all. There were men here strong enough to put women at their heel. I felt, briefly, profoundly stirred erotically, and, perhaps strangely, marvelously pleased to be a woman. I had never met such men as these, the former two, and he whom I now followed, mightiest among them, who would simply, unthinkingly, put a woman at their heel. I had never known such men. I had not dreamed such men could exist! I had never felt so feminine, so stirred, so alive and real, as in their presence! For the first time in my life I was pleased to be a woman.
Then I castigated myself for my terrible thoughts. Men and women I knew, as I had been taught, were identical. Biology, and a nature, the product of harsh, exacting thousands of generations of evolution, of time, and breeding and animal history, was unimportant. It must be ignored, and dismissed. It did not suggest the correct political conclusions.
I looked up at the three moons.
I did not know what to believe or how to live. But, as I followed the man, trekking through the glorious grass, under the bright, marvelous moons, carrying his shield, literally heeling him, as might have an animal, his captive, nude and bound, I felt, paradoxically, a fantastic sense, of freedom, of psychological liberation. I wanted to run to him and put my head against his shoulder.
For hours we trekked the grass.
Sometimes I fell. He did not stop far me. I would struggle to my feet, staggering under the weight of the shield, and flee to catch up with him. But then I could go no further. My body was not readied for such treks. I was only a girl of Earth. I fell. My breath was short, my legs weak. I lay in the grass. I could not move my body. I lay on my side, the weight of the shield upon my shoulder. After a time I sensed him standing near me, looking down. I looked up at him. I tried to smile. "I can go no further," I said. Surely he could see my exhaustion, my helplessness. I could not even move. I saw him loosen his belt. I struggled to my feet. He did not look pleased. He would have beaten me! He refastened his belt. He turned away. Again I followed him.
Toward morning we crossed more than one tiny stream. The water was very cold on my ankles and calves. Bordering these streams was brush, and some trees. The fields were broken now, with occasional trees, many of them flat-topped. In what I conjecture would have been an hour or so before dawn he stopped in a thicket of trees, near a small stream. He removed the pouch and bota from my neck, the shield from my back. I fell to the grass between the trees. I moved my wrists a bit, and lost consciousness. In what must have been a moment or two I was shaken awake. A handful of dried meat, cut in small pieces, was thrust in my mouth. Lying on my side I chewed and swallowed it. I had not realized how hungry I was. In a moment, he lifted me to a sitting position and, his left hand behind my back, supporting me, thrust the spike of the bota in my mouth. Eagerly then did I drink. He much watered me. I lay then again on my side. He lifted me in his arms, so lightly that it startled me, and carried me to a tree. As he tethered my right ankle to the tree I, bound as I was, overcome with exhaustion, fell asleep.