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Outside she could see, from this vantage point, the outlines of four barbarian
ships. The
Alaria was illuminated in their search beams. Here and there, there were
pieces of debris, floating in space, seemingly suspended there in a calm
steadiness and stillness. And then she saw, too, the shattered wrecks, blasted
apart, of certain escape capsules, of lifeboats. Such, clearly, had been fired
upon. Others had perhaps been blown open but propelled outward into space,
then as lifeless as small asteroids. The strangers, the boarders, doubtless
had guns ready, set to track and fire on such vessels. A number must have fled
the
Alaria in the first hours of the attack. She wondered how many might have been
successful in their escape, what the crowding would have been. She remembered
the press at the door of Section 19, in the hold. She knew nothing of the
mechanisms of the lifeboats. Too, she would be terrified to trust herself to
such things, so tiny, such frail barks in such vast seas, like lonely motes of
steel in the enormous night, so far from commercial lanes, in an area of space
scarcely charted.
Perhaps it would be too open, too bold, she thought, to proceed directly to
the lounge.
And might they not have it guarded, lest others, like herself, think to find
food or drink there?
Perhaps she could approach it, she thought, by means of the upper balcony of
the general entertainment hall, which gave access, through a passage, to the
lounge's upper balcony. Then she could look down into the lounge, the main
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floor, and see if it were safe.
At this point she heard, from the hallway behind her, feminine laughter.
She cast about, wildly, looking for a place to hide.
But there seemed none.
Then, as the voices seemed almost upon her, she crouched down, back, between
the lower rim of the port and the railing, to the right, as one would face the
port. If one were searching for her there one would doubtless have discovered
her, but if one were not looking for her, it was not unlikely that her
presence in this simple ensconcement might be overlooked.
"Move!" said a female voice, sharply.
"Yes, Mistress," said another female voice, frightened.
"It is heavy, Mistress," said another female voice.
"Hurry," said another female voice, this one, too, with uncompromising
sharpness.
"Yes, Mistress!" said the female voice which had complained of the weight of
something.
The officer of the court heard, too, the sounds of chains.
She pressed herself back into her nook.
Two women, stripped, passed her. Between them they bore a bulging silken sheet
filled with a miscellany of precious items, doubtless loot taken from cabins.
They could scarcely manage their burden. The officer of the court noted, to
her horror, that their ankles were shackled. These were the chains she had
heard. But even more startling to the officer of the court was the nature of
the two women who followed the laden pair, two who stood to them obviously in
some strict supervisory capacity, this made clear by their mien, and, too, by
the whips they carried. It was the laughter of this second pair which had
reached her ears but moments before. These two women following the shackled
pair were among the most sensuous women she had ever seen. They were garbed,
if one may so speak of it, in brief tunics, incredibly brief, and muchly open.
On the wrists of these women, and on their arms, and slung about their
throats, was much jewelry, things doubtless from the loot, with which they had
bedecked themselves. On the wrist of one was a bracelet of diamonds that might
have been the ransom of a city. Suddenly, startled, the officer of the court
noted, about the throat of the other was a golden necklace which she had
little doubt was her own, that which she had worn at the captain's table. But
beneath the necklaces, and strings of jewels, and such, which these women had
flung about their necks in lavish prodigality she could detect, clearly,
closely encircling each's neck, a different device, a chain. This was locked
shut, behind the back of the neck. Although the officer of the court could not
see this from her vantage point, there depended from this chain, in front, a
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