1 If one of them did see her, she would doubtless have shrieked the alarm, to a guard. The slaves, utterly at the mercy of the guards, are eager to please them. Many of them are little more than bred properties, domesticated animals. Some of them have not even been taught to speak. They run panting to the mating stalls, eagerly placing their wrists and ankles in the shackles. Some of the stud slaves are similarly bred. Most girls, however, and men, are taught a slave version (limited vocabulary, simplified grammar, distinctive pronounciation) of Heisa, a language important on rocky Telnaris (Telos II) of the Telian system. In the preceding century, Telnaris was a significant power. Heisa, one of its major languages, followed its conquering ships. Today, following the decline of the Telnarian hegemony, their ships departed, Heisa remains behind, a suitable lingua franca, common on several systems, one of the subtle traces, like ruins and rusted armaments, of a vanished Telnarian glory. Slave Heisa, incidentally, is the butt of many jokes. These jokes are usually told in dialect. One of the advantages of Heisa, it should be noted, making it suitable as a lingua franca, is that most of its sounds are feasible to a large variety of vocal and near-vocal mechanisms. There are only a few sounds in Heisa, for example, which are anatomically impossible for a human to imitate.

She has not gone far. She is perhaps only to these hills, from which we now look down at the breeding facility, when the lights of the camp go on, and the sirens whine. A breeder is missing. (It is girl 187 of herd 40, series 117, camp 9, i.e., Girl 9-117-40-187. This number appears on a small metal plate, dangling, punched into her left ear lobe.) She, naked in the hills, barefoot, sees the patrol cars leaving the farm. She notes small air cars, with search-lights, lifting from the farm. She sees a pack of six-legged, howling creatures released from a van, dragging on chain leashes held by attendants.

She runs helplessly, a vulnerable female. Never before had she been so conscious of her slightness, her breasts, the width of her hips. She knows she cannot escape her hunters. She hides in brush as an air car glides swiftly overhead, its light a rapid disk scuttling across the ground. She emerges and runs again. The howling grows closer. She is exhausted. Her feet and legs are bleeding. She can run no more. She falls. Will the jaws of the beasts tear her to pieces? She struggles to her feet, stumbles on, and then falls again.

Suddenly, about her neck, a rope draws tight. The slave has been caught. She cannot cry out. She turns and looks up. It is not an alien. It is a human male. He is rough. He is an outlaw. Long ago he himself escaped from aliens. He has been living in the brush, usually far from the camp.

She looks at him, her eyes wild.