“Greetings, Slave,” he says. He speaks in English.

She cannot speak.

He loosens the rope, slightly.

Mindful of her Earth training, though overjoyed that he speaks English, she knows that she must be outspoken, that she must take the initiative. He is, after all, only a man.

“I am not a slave,” she says, as irritably as she can.

His hand lashes out, snapping her head viciously to one side. There is a hot, sticky smear of blood at the side of her mouth, at the side of her face and over her chin. Her lip has been split. She is bleeding. She tastes blood in her mouth. She feels it on her left breast. She looks at him with horror. She can scarcely comprehend. No man of Earth would have done that.

“Be silent, Slave,” says the man.

The rope tightens, choking her, then loosens.

“Yes,” she says.

“Yes, what?” he demands.

“Yes—Master,” she whispers.

He holds her to the ground as another air car passes overhead.

When it passes, disappearing, low over the brush, he gags her. Then, his fist in the rope at her throat he drags her to a concealment of vegetation, in which his mount waits, a gigantic, swift, shaggy animal, which frightens her. The howling of the hunting beasts grows nearer. He binds her, hand and foot, gagged, belly up, over the saddle. Then he speeds from the concealment, making good his escape.

She has escaped from one slavery, to that of another, to that of a man.