But, between ourselves, she could not wait for the mark.
“How terrible I am!” she thought, delightedly, squirming just a little, but hopefully not so much that her movement could be detected beneath the canvas.
But there was no laughter.
The men, it seemed, were not then concerned with her.
Their minds were on other things.
She had been forgotten.
But she was then suddenly terrified. She could be bought and sold. What if her master simply decided to rid himself of her in some way?
She knew she was passionate.
Her skin was like flame.
Now she must try to be sufficiently beautiful, sufficiently obedient, sufficiently zealous.
“I will try to please you, my master,” she said. “I will try desperately to please you, with all that I am and have! Please keep me, Master. Please keep me!”
In a few moments the hoverer had alit near the shuttler. She was aware, then, even through the canvas, through the tiny interstices of thick weaving, of the lights.
She could hear men moving about, within the hoverer, and outside, shouting, calling out.
“I ask nothing of you, my master,” she said softly, to herself, “but it is my hope that you will sometimes show me a little kindness.”
CHAPTER 13
“A drink, sir?” inquired the stewardess.
Tuvo Ausonius looked up at her, instantly noticing that the top button on the high collar of her jacket was undone.
“Sir?” she inquired.
Surely she must realize what was wrong?
It was warm in the cabin. The air conditioning was laboring, and enjoying little success. The gases were weak, the system less than tight. The motor itself could be heard. It had required two manual restarts in the past hour. Surely the procurement office could obtain parts for such devices, and services for them. Citizens were entitled, surely, to at least such minimal consideration. But it was not easy to obtain parts, or even the necessary gases, these days.
It was different, not even so long ago.
And communications were difficult, sometimes impossible.
Certain worlds had been out of touch for months, for example, Tinos, far off in the eighty-third imperial provincial sector.
It was not necessary, surely, for her to lean forward in that fashion.
“No,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
The stewardess turned away.
“You are out of uniform,” said Ausonius, after her.
She turned back, surprised, to face him.
“The upper part of your neck can be seen,” he said. “It is bare.”
She lifted her fingers to her throat.
“Button your collar,” he said.
She looked at him.
“Sir?” she asked, puzzled.
“Button it,” he said.
“It is very warm, sir,” she said.
Ausonius was irritated with this reply, that she should attempt to so mitigate her lapse, that she should attempt to excuse her provocative disarray, seizing upon so obvious a pretext as the temperature in the cabin. “That is no excuse,” he said.
“Are you an inspector?” she asked, frightened.
“I am a civil servant,” he said, modestly, dryly, leaving the nature of his duties menacingly obscure.
He had boarded at Miton. That is not one of the original Telnarian worlds, but it does lie within the first provincial quadrant. More than a million functionaries on ten thousand worlds would have gladly changed places with Tuvo Ausonius, to have a post so close to the heart of the empire.
“Ah,” she said, relieved. The line was a private one. “But one not without some importance,” he said. Private lines, of course, were licensed by the empire, and dependent on the empire for their routes.
There were also, incidentally, many imperial lines. The empire regarded it in its own best interest to maintain her own systems of communication and transportation, public as well as military.
The stewardess turned white.
Tuvo Ausonius conjectured that she was of the humiliori. “I am afraid I shall have to report you,” he said.
“No!” she said, quickly. “Please, no!”
Some other passengers looked in their direction.
Tuvo Ausonius, from her alarm, conjectured, to his satisfaction, that she was indeed of the humiliori. To be sure, that was almost certain from her position on the vessel.
Tuvo Ausonius drew out a notebook and pen.
“What is your name, and employment number,” he asked.
She fumbled with the top closure of the collar.
Ausonius regarded her.
Then, in a moment, the collar was fully fastened, the final closure pulling it up tightly under her chin.
She looked at Ausonius, pathetically.
“Please,” she said.
“Shall I call for the superintendent?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “No!”
“Sesella,” she said. “Sesella Gardener.” She then gave him the number he had requested.
She looked down at him. He now had a hold over her. It was as though he had her on a chain.
“May I speak to you privately?” she asked, urgently.
“Certainly,” smiled Tuvo Ausonius.
He followed her to a small area on the ship, in the nature of a tiny galley, which was closed off by opaque curtains from the main cabin.
In the galley she turned to face him, tears in her eyes.
He regarded her.
She wore the uniform of the line, the dark jacket and trousers, and the tight-fitting cap which kept her hair hidden. The uniform was supposedly designed to be appropriate for sames, a uniform that might with equal felicity, or, better, lack of it, conceal sexual differences. Supposedly it was designed to hide bodies. But Tuvo Ausonius’s lip curled. How he despised the line! How disgusting it was, really. There could be no doubt that the pretense of concealment was rankly hypocritical. The cabin attendant was clearly female. That could be told from the curves within the garment. Too, her face had the sweet delicacy of that of a female. Indeed, even her lips suggested the slightest tincture of lipstick. Surely she had not dared to apply cosmetics!
She looked up at him, pathetically.
“Do not report me,” she begged.
He regarded her, impassively.
“Please, do not!” she said.
He took his thumb and, to her horror, wiped it heavily across her lips. He looked down at the reddish stain on his thumb, with disgust. She had indeed been wearing lipstick, though perhaps the slightest hint of it. Yet there was no mistaking the smudge now, running from her smeared lips, to the left side of her chin. She looked up at him with misery. He held his hand out and she hurried to seize a tissue, and wipe it clean. Then she tried to cleanse her own lips and chin of the mark.
“What a profligate, wicked creature you are,” he said.
“Please, please,” she said.
His expression was impassive.
“Do not report me,” she begged. “I will do anything.”
She drew away the cap she wore, and let her hair, which was darkly lovely, fall about her shoulders.
“Wicked creature!” said Tuvo Ausonius.
“Please,” she begged.
“Perhaps you would look well on your knees,” he said.
She looked at him, wildly. Surely he was not such a man. He had not taken her by force, and put a chain on her.
“No!” she whispered.
He was surely not the sort of man before whom a woman kneels, and knows she must obey.
“How can you want that? How can you ask that? You are of Miton!”
“I only said, ‘Perhaps,’ “he said.
“But you are a same,” she said, “superior to nature, above sexuality, beyond such things, a noble, tender, sensitive, caring nonman, the truest of men!”