Agents Of Gor: Part 1 free porn video

This is a fan-fiction based in the Gor universe. All rights to the characters and situations of the Gor universe belong to John Norman. This work is written without his express permission. This story is explicitly not to be reposted on any pay sites. The author, Albedo, authorises the readers to archive it themselves. No other dissemination without the author's permission, please. Enjoy. Agents of Gor by Albedo Chapter 1 Armand of Tellus pulled on the six-rein, and the giant tarn obediently spiralled down towards the tall stone tower below. He was not experienced in handling the great birds, and he was thankful this specimen was a transport tarn, not one of the vicious and wilful tarns bred for skyborne warfare. During his brief training, the tarn handlers at the pens had told him gory tales of the unwary and unwise who attempted to master the war tarns. He discounted most of their tales, but he had noticed many of the tale-tellers were scarred, as if from great talons, and some had fingers, and in a couple of cases, arms missing, as if they had been ripped off by massive beaks. He was glad the journey was nearly over. Wrapped up as he was, the chill high air had frozen his bones. He had stayed low, navigating along rivers and around well-defended walled towns for most of the journey, but the Sardar Mountains were tall and bleak, and he had flown through several high passes filled with snow even in the late summer. The peaks on either side were permanently snow-capped, home of the vicious white-pelted snow url, and dangerous to travellers. The Sardar was unwelcome territory for other reasons. This was the home of the Priest-Kings, the gods and rulers of the planet Gor. Unseen, unknown, they exerted their influence on the entire world below their high fastness. Few people dared to travel in the Sardar, and none who were not expressly invited ever returned to tell tales of the Priest- Kings. Armand was well aware of his "escorts", even though they stayed almost out of sight. They had joined him on his flight as he crossed the borders of the Sardar, annoyingly indistinct patches of cloud that stubbornly followed, matching his height and speed exactly. When he had landed, to check his cargo and carefully feed a haunch of boskmeat to the ravenous tarn, the smudges had lingered a good distance away. He had resisted the temptation to wheel his tarn around and pursue them. They were one of the reasons uninvited travellers did not return from the Sardar Mountains. The tower's top platform grew bigger as the tarn backed its wings and spread its talons to take the shock of landing. The cargo basket slung under the saddle bands thumped to the platform an instant before the bird's talons dug into the wooden lattice floor. The bird tipped forward, and Armand, unused to its ways, nearly fell off over the bird's head. This would have been more than embarrassing for him, as its predatory instinct would be to grab and tear at his body as it suddenly appeared in front of its blinkered eyes. A handler approached the bird and cautiously put a dark cloth over the tarn's head, as Armand regained his balance. His mount grew still as its eyes were covered, and he undid his saddle belt before sliding gratefully off the back of the tarn. He looked back at the cargo basket behind the bird. A pair of male slaves were busy unhooking the straps from the tarn's harness. They moved steadily, like zombies, with glazed eyes. Armand knew these were some of the unwelcome visitors that had made it to the towers of the Sardar, wherein lived the Priest-Kings. Their reasons for attempting the trip - bravado, an attempt to lay a petition before the Priest- Kings, outlawry, robbery, among many others - did not mitigate or alter their punishment, to be mind-numbed slaves of the Priest-Kings for the rest of their lives. He grew cold at the thought of such a fate, but he was welcome here. He was an agent of the Priest-Kings, and he and his cargo were safely at their journey's end. He went to the basket, as the slaves righted it. They stood back, eyes down, as Armand, a free man, untied the straps holding the lid in place. The bundle inside squirmed as he loosened the buckles that held it firmly in place against the wicker weave. He heaved the bundle out of the basket, and it fell hard onto the floor. The bundle was a leather sack, big enough for a small man or a large boy to fit inside, although neither of these were in fact its contents. It was fur-lined, to ameliorate the harsh cold of the flight, but it would still have been a chilling experience to travel in such a sack, slung under a tarn, through the Sardar mountains. The top of the sack was secured with another leather strap, inaccessible from the inside. He did not release this strap, not yet. Instead, he heaved the bundle upright with some effort, then balanced it across his shoulder and stood up again. He had seen many Gorean men carry similar loads this way easily, but he was from Earth, and did not yet possess the hard-earned muscular strength almost all Gorean men acquired. On Tellus, or Earth, he had been an electronics engineer, a job which did not require large amounts of strength. On Gor, the Priest-King's careful regulation of the human population meant that even simple electric batteries were a forbidden technology, their inventors killed at a distance by the awe-inspiring Blue Fire. Success on Gor required strength, not arcane knowledge, the possession of which carried a certain death sentence. He had arrived on Gor after his father had died, following the strange instructions his father's lawyer had given him. Mysterious men had told him of his father's secret life, of his unexplained absences when he was a child, of his unknown mother, a Gorean free woman, who had died in the intrigues of the Priest-Kings and their shadowy alien enemies, the Kurii. Armand himself had been sent as a baby to Earth, to take him out of the undercover war that was his father's life on Gor. He had grown up under the care of nannies, and later tutors, well-off but undistinguished, his father only an occasional visitor to a succession of modest, comfortable homes. He would have stayed on Earth for the rest of his life, marrying a free-thinking Earth girl and raising babies, but for his father's death in a battle with Kurii agents. He was now here, in the Sardar, on Gor, to take the place of his father, to be a servant of the Priest-Kings. The bundle across his shoulders squirmed again, as the two mute slaves led the way to the staircase leading down into the tower. The sack was slung with the strapped open end to the back, as he had been taught was proper for its contents during his orientation training in a tower building in an unnamed city near the Equator of Gor. The men who had taught him there had explained, as he struggled with the Gorean language and the strange customs and the primitive weapons, that what he did not know he could not tell, even under torture. At the end of several months of training, he did not even know their true names. Even now, the Gorean language was unfamiliar to his tongue, and his accent was atrocious. He was not particularly skilled with the sword, spear and crossbow, the principal weapons of a Gorean Warrior. If he was involved in a fight, he was going to be killed. Luckily, he was simply a courier for this trip, delivering the bundle on his shoulder to the Priest-Kings. He would also meet his unseen masters here for the first time. The Priest-Kings never left the Nest, as they called their home in the Sardar. The stairs were wide and easy to walk down, and he made it to the bottom without dropping his cargo. The slaves led him to a large dimly- lit room, and he met his first Priest-King there. Even forewarned, it was a shock. He had seen pictures of both Priest- Kings and Kurii, and the shaggy, bear-like Kurii were a lot more human- looking than the figure which appeared out of the gloom. It was a giant insect, taller than he was, with an upright thorax mounted on a centaur-like abdomen. Two large arms, like preying mantis' swivelled from lumpy shoulders, but the hands ended in long slim fingers, obviously suited to fine manipulation. Overall it was a milky- white colour, with large compound eyes on either side of a nightmare face, and segmented feelers rose far above the head. He stopped as the slaves silently turned and left, watching the feelers move in the air, sampling the smell of his flesh. He felt suddenly afraid, and knew the Priest-King could smell his fear. Scent was their main method of perception, as their compound insect eyes were incapable of resolving fine details. They even communicated via scent, rather than sound, as they had no larynx or vocal cords. They breathed via gill-type slits at the base of the abdomen. The Kurii were alien too, but they were at least humanoid, and they could speak, in their own fashion. He wondered for a moment if perhaps he was on the wrong side of this war. A box slung around the insect's neck suddenly spoke in a monotone. "I am Misk, first among the Priest-Kings," it said, then it paused. Armand smelled a stray fragrance, not unpleasant, that dissipated quickly. This was the Priest-King's native speech. He knew some human agents could understand the scents to a limited extent, but they lacked the glands to produce the scents themselves. The vocoder box was the Priest-King's solution to this. It translated the smells into speech, and human speech into scents the Priest-Kings could understand. Armand had been warned it was not a perfect solution, as many of the concepts of being human or Priest-King were not translatable by the device, in either direction. Keep your statements simple, and avoid saying things that could be easily misinterpreted, he had been warned. "Drop dead" was one chilling example given by his hard-faced unsmiling tutors. "I am Armand, of Tellus," he said, and waited for the box to issue a whiff of perfume. He had chosen Tellus as his placename, as he did not want to advertise to strangers he was from Earth, a name steeped in mystery and myth. Evil sorcerers and beautiful female slaves came from Earth. It was a land of horrors and wonders. Actually claiming to be from this fabled place was like being on Earth and saying you hailed from Heaven, or Hell. Tellus sounded like the name of a Gorean city, and he could conveniently pretend to be from somewhere far away from the listener's own home city. Most Goreans were ignorant of geography - nearly all of them believed Gor was flat. Maps were usually military secrets, and knowledge of foreign lands was rare. Explorers often met locals who did not share their interest in the pursuit of knowledge, but who would pursue them with robbery and murder in mind instead. The Gorean word for "stranger" was "enemy". "You have brought it," said Misk. Armand guessed this was a question - the vocoder lacked the ability to inflect the Priest-King's "speech". "Yes," he said, sliding the leather sack off his shoulder onto the floor in front of the Priest-King. He undid the strap at the top, and opened the lacings at the side. A female head came into view. The face on the skin, what little could be seen, was flushed from containment in the sack. She wore a strap across her mouth, buckled behind her head, under her tangled brown hair. Armand knew her mouth was packed with a leather sack, to more efficiently gag her. In addition, she wore a blindfold across her eyes, which was again buckled behind her head. This was simple caution on the part of her captors. If a seam of the leather sack had split, she could have perhaps seen something of the Sardar, and the route Armand had taken to reach the Nest. The blindfold made sure this could not happen. Her subsequent discomfort was not their concern. Her security was. Armand pulled the woman from the sack gently. His upbringing on Earth had not prepared him for the way Gorean men regularly treated women, well women of a certain type, he thought grimly. Slaves. The woman before him was not a slave, exactly. She had not been put through the ritual of being made a slave. She was a captive, not quite a slave, but it was only a matter of time before her status would change from one to the other. When that happened, it was irrevocable. Slaves, female slaves, were never freed. Of course, she was an enemy agent, working for the Kurii, as he worked for the Priest-Kings. She might be killed, instead, if it was decided she knew too much to let her live. Gorean men, on the whole, would favour the first option, but they were not squeamish, and there was no Geneva Convention on Gor to protect the "rights" of captives. She was naked, as slave girls usually were, especially when being transported. Clothing might get damaged, or fouled. She was secured, too, as slave girls usually were. Her hands were held behind her in leather mittens, strapped tightly around the wrists, and clipped together. Her fingers were balled up in the tight mittens, unable to grasp or manipulate her other bonds. Her ankles were also held together, in individual leather cuffs, again linked by solid metal clips. This allowed the wearer some limited movement of her legs, to prevent cramp, but she was unable to kick, to try and break free of the leather sack, unlikely as that would be. Again, simple security dictated her current restriction. Armand undid the gag strap, and watched as the girl pushed the slimy leather packing out with her tongue. She spat, to try and rid herself of the no-doubt foul taste. He reached for the blindfold, and she froze at his touch. She started to say something, but her mouth was puckered from the gag. He unbuckled the blindfold, and she blinked, dazzled even in the gloom of the dimly-lit chamber. Then she saw the alien figure of Misk before her. She screamed, high and loud, and tried to back away, inchworm fashion, across the floor. Armand grabbed for her, missed, and grabbed again, trying not to let his Earth-born scruples about manhandling a naked woman get in the way of catching her. He managed to get between her and the Priest-King, just as she fainted in his arms. "She was scared of you," he said over his shoulder, in explanation to Misk. He turned around, to see the Priest-King shuddering. The vocoder was issuing a crude stench. After a few seconds, Misk stopped shaking, and the vocoder spoke again. "Its smell is too loud," Armand guessed Misk meant her screaming caused him discomfort. "I'll gag her again," he offered, picking up the gag strap and the leather sack. "No," Misk pointed with one of his odd arms to a bench. "Put it here." Armand picked her up again, and managed to put her on the bench Misk had indicated. She shook her head, starting to recover from her faint. Misk pushed his thorax into her face, and "spoke." The girl stilled, falling into a deep sleep. Armand guessed Misk had anaesthetised her using his scent glands. A neat trick, he mused, as Misk pulled a golden metal rod with a silver lump on the end from a rack above the bench. "This is a Nest slave gag," said Misk, as he flexed her head back, and opened her mouth. He "spoke" again, into her mouth. "Its throat is paralysed, and will not obstruct the probe." He pushed the rod into her mouth and down her throat, like a sword- swallower. He twisted a control on the handle, and there was a click. He withdrew the rod, and the silver lump was missing from the end. "It cannot smell loudly now," Misk racked the rod, and handed Armand a silver egg from the rack. "This controls the gag," One "finger" pointed to a golden button. "Push down, and it is silent. It cannot speak. Push again, and it can speak again." "What do the other buttons control?" Armand pointed to a red, a blue and a silver button on the egg, under the golden button. The "finger" lightly touched the red button. "This causes it to feel pain. Push harder, more pain," Misk indicated the blue button. "This causes paralysis. It is conscious, but unable to move," Misk pointed to the silver button. "This causes it to feel pleasure. Push harder, more pleasure." He looked at the egg. Silence is golden, he mused. The ideal gift for a girlfriend, or indeed a noisy four-year-old. The other three buttons gave him more to think about, though. Especially the silver one. "Will she be able to breathe, and eat?" he asked, fingering the egg nervously. "Yes," said Misk. "You will control it while it is in the Nest." He "spoke" into her face again, and she started to wake up, as the anaesthetic was neutralised. Her eyes opened, and she saw Misk leaning over her. She opened her mouth to scream again, and Armand stabbed at the gold button. She exhaled hard, but there was no sound, no ear-splitting scream, and Misk's vocoder didn't issue another stench. She was amazed, and tried again. The same thing happened. This distracted her so much, she stopped being afraid of Misk and tried to solve this new puzzle. Armand watched as she tried to speak, with a similar lack of success. She got more agitated, and nearly rolled off the bench. Armand moved forward, and pressed her back. "Be quiet," he said. "You've been gagged by the Priest-King. You can't make a noise, but it's not permanent. Nod if you understand me." She gulped, then nodded. She glanced over at Misk, who had backed away, to appear less threatening. "Do you want some water?" he asked. She nodded frantically. Misk brought a flask of water at Armand's request, and he carefully poured some into her mouth. She drank about half of the flask's contents before she turned her head away. The module Misk had inserted in her throat did not seem to cause any problems with her swallowing, or any discomfort. "If you don't scream, I'll ungag you," he offered, after she had finished. She took a deep breath, then nodded. He pushed the golden button again, as she watched interestedly. She tried to speak, coughed, then said, "Thank you," quietly. He looked at her properly, for the first time. He had seen her at the station, when she had been brought in as a captive. At the time, she was dressed in the all-encompassing clothing of a free woman, except her face veils had been stripped from her. She was quite pretty, with long dark hair coiled up in heavy plaits on her head in a complicated Free Woman style. Now, on the bench, in Misk's room, her hair was matted and tangled, hanging loose down her back. Her body was, well, stunning. She was slim, slimmer perhaps than Gorean men preferred, but well-proportioned. Her breasts were not over-heavy, and her hips were wide. Her legs were long and elegant, and... He suddenly realised he was staring at her, and she was naked, and bound, and his Earth reflexes took over. He tore his eyes away, and muttered, "Sorry." She laughed. "You're from Earth, aren't you?" She didn't seem embarrassed about her position. He nodded. "So am I," she said, in English. "Where are you from?" "America," he said, realising he had lost control of the situation somehow. "I'm from Britain. London, in fact," she said. She pulled at the bonds holding her hands behind her back. "Could you undo these please? They're very uncomfortable." He almost released her, but sense returned, and he shook his head. "You're a captive, an agent working for our enemies. You are here to be interrogated." "Ah," she said. "That's a problem." She lay back on the bench. "You see, I've been, well, programmed by my superiors. Drugs or torture mean I forget everything I know. Indeed, I'm a courier, and I don't consciously know what information I'm carrying. I need the right commands from the right people before I can regurgitate my information, and then I forget it straight away." "We know that," he countered. "That's why we brought you here. The Priest-Kings have other methods of interrogating Kurii agents, especially couriers like yourself." He noted she suddenly looked less sure of herself. "And afterwards? Am I to be executed?" she said with a catch in her voice. "That, or slavery," he said, trying to sound Gorean. "I think I'd rather be dead," she said despondently. Armand wondered if she realised slavery was the usual fate for female Kurii agents, after their usefulness was at an end. Their memory would be wiped of all important information, and they would be branded and collared, and either sold, or given as gifts to important members of the Kurii human establishment. This was why Earth females were particularly chosen for the job, as their realisation that slavery was their final destination brought a wonderful piquancy to their disposal. Gorean women were brought up in a world where slavery could overtake them at any time. For Earth-raised women, slavery always came as a mind-numbing shock. He unsnapped the ankle cuffs and heaved her onto her feet. She stood shakily, obviously stiff and sore from her rough handling and the chill of the flight basket. He took her arm firmly and led her over to a small slave cage in the corner of the room, and pushed her inside. Misk handed him a flat square key, and he secured the cage door. She looked at him imploringly. "Turn around," he ordered. She turned, and he unbuckled the mittens through the cage bars. She flexed her hands as he drew them off. "You don't know what it's like, to not have the use of your hands," she said, turning again. "It makes you feel like an animal. I wish you knew what it..." He pushed the golden button again, and her voice stopped short. "Get some sleep. The interrogation starts tomorrow." He turned, not before noticing tears in her eyes. He tried to harden his heart against her, but he couldn't stop thinking about those tears as he walked away, following a slave to his quarters elsewhere in the tower. *** The next day, another male slave woke him, and brought him bread and meat for his morning meal. There was no coffee or tea, or even milk, just watered wine to drink. This was another difference between Gor and Earth Armand had trouble coping with. Back home, when home meant Boston, Massachusetts, he didn't really wake up until after his second cup of coffee, and he didn't drink decaf, either. Here coffee was a rare luxury, grown in a remote mountain area called Thentis, and very difficult to obtain. It was a long time, too long perhaps, since he had had a good strong cup of java, he thought, as he finished his meal. Perhaps this trip would earn him enough credit with his superiors that he could request some of the expensive coffee beans... The slave waited patiently until he had washed, then led him back to the same room high in the tower where he had first met Misk. He checked the girl, but she was still safely secured in the small cage in the corner of the room. She was asleep, her face red and puffy. She had obviously been crying through the night. He tried to convince himself what he was doing was right. She was an agent for the Kurii, his enemy. If he was in her place, her captive, she would show no mercy to him. The Priest-Kings knew very little about her, other than she was important to the Kurii cause, or rather the information she carried locked in her brain was important. The flesh wrapped around that information was expendable, although on Gor it had a certain cash value. Slaves were bought and sold regularly. They were not particularly valuable, as they were not rare, slavery being a common fate for many women. A bosk, an ox-like farm animal and beast of burden, cost more than a typical slave girl did on market day. She had been captured on a raid on a Kurii caravan. The defenders had tried desperately to recapture her, and when she was being taken off, they had tried to kill her with crossbows. The station she was first taken to had been attacked by Kurii agents, but by that time she had been moved elsewhere. Armand knew something of the activities of the Kurii agents trying to track her location; indeed, Kur individuals, normally as secretive as the Priest-Kings, had been observed directly controlling the hunt for the girl. Misk appeared, his silent approach causing Armand to start. How something as big as a Clydesdale horse could move so quietly was a puzzle to him. "You will interrogate it," said Misk's vocoder box. He nodded. It had been briefly explained before his flight that the science of the Priest-Kings was very advanced, but they did not really understand the way humans thought. Love, anger, fear, all were truly alien to the great insects. They had their own equivalents of emotions, alien in turn to their human agents. Getting information from captured agents was best done by humans, even with the aid of the Priest-King's wondrous machines. Misk led the way to the far side of the large room, where a wall was covered in silver and gold blocks. It took Armand a moment to realise this was a machine, and a complex one at that. There were two chairs positioned beneath chandelier-like cones of crystal and gleaming wire which hung from the high ceiling. One chair was plain wood, but the other looked remarkably like an electric chair, with straps on the back, arms and legs. He looked at Misk. "This is the interrogation machine," Misk pointed at the plain chair. "You sit here." It pointed at the other, more terrifying chair. "It sits there." It pointed at the wall machinery. "This machine reads its thought patterns, and transfer them to you. Its thoughts become your thoughts. Ask it questions, and it thinks of the answers. You then learn the answers." Armand was amazed at the audacious concept. A mind-reading machine! He could see now why they needed a human being, to interpret the thoughts and concepts of the brain being "read." The Priest-Kings were great scientists, obviously, but their understanding of human thoughts would not permit them to use this machine they had built to interrogate their human prisoners directly. "Is it dangerous?" he asked, suddenly worried. "Dangerous," said the monotone voice box. "Perhaps. The machine can force thoughts from you into it. The captive might be damaged by the interrogation. If it resists, yes." "Will I know it, she, is resisting?" he asked. "You will feel what it feels," said Misk. He pointed to a hand wheel on the side of his chair. "Turn this, and you read more of its thoughts." "Is there anything we can do to prevent her resisting? Are there drugs we can use to make her more amenable?" "No," said Misk. "It has been made resistant to drugs by the Kur." It paused for a moment. "If it feels fear, confusion, shame, anger, these things, emotions, cause loss of control and prevent resistance blocking thoughts." Armand thought for a moment. "I think she has a strong will. She will resist. I have an idea which might help." He looked around the room. "I have not seen any female slaves in this tower." "Do you want one?" asked Misk. "No, not at the moment." Armand's training had been complete, if hurried, and he had made frequent use of the slave girls back in the unnamed city where he had first been introduced to Gorean customs and practices. At first, he had been tender and solicitious, as he would have been to Earth girls. The slave girls had taken advantage of his leniency, making demands of him, until he realised what they were doing. Rage, Gorean in its own way, had overtaken him, and he had punished the girls responsible, under the approving gaze of his tutors. He had learned the Gorean ways of taking a woman, willing or unwilling, and had been amazed at the turnaround in his attitude. The last couple of months had been, well, interesting and athletic, but he had now moderated his appetites. Gorean men, despite, or perhaps because of their ready access to female flesh, were not obsessed with sex. What was forbidden fruit on Earth made it endlessly fascinating. On Gor, it was a part of life, not the whole reason for living. The night before, he had been too tired to request a slave girl for his furs. Misk would have arranged it, he knew, as any Gorean host would do for a visitor, as a courtesy, but after his long flight, he had only wanted to sleep. "Do you have a collar for a female slave here?" he asked. The girl - he suddenly realised they didn't even know her name - was obviously terrified of the idea of being made a slave. She knew how female slaves were used by Gorean men, and the idea repulsed her. If he pretended to enslave her before she was put under the machine, her terror and confusion would help prevent her resisting the mind probe. Misk led him over to a large chest, near the cage containing the girl. She had woken up, and was watching them closely. Armand opened the chest. Better and better, he thought, as he sorted through the contents. There was a smooth steel collar designed to fit a slim female throat, but it was only part of a larger collection of slave paraphernalia. There were slave bracelets, ankle rings, gags, blindfold helmets, diaphanous silks, dancing bells, all that a Gorean Master would wish his slave to wear for his pleasure. He took out what he wanted, making sure she saw the items clearly. Her face was horrified, but she was silent. He realised that the electronic gag was still on from last night, and fished the control egg from his pouch. He pushed the gold button again. "If you think I'm going to wear *that*," she said angrily, when she had regained her voice, "you've got another think coming." He held the white silk strip and the light belly chain at the bars of the cage before her. "Put it on," he ordered. "Piss off," she said, crossing her arms. Interesting, thought Armand. She would rather stay naked than wear the silk. Of course, the silk was a mark of a particular kind of slave girl, the pleasure slave, created to give a man great delight. She probably didn't know that such slaves were carefully selected for native aptitude before undergoing a form of training that simply magnified their inherent instincts. Some Gorean males claimed that any woman was a pleasure slave waiting to be created by the right master, but the training establishments that produced the exquisite playthings for sale were more cynical, preferring to start with vital creatures that exhibited some potential rather than putting in a greater and more expensive effort to mould common clay. He looked down at the control unit in his hand. He could press the blue button, and paralyse her. It would then be a simple matter to dress her in the silk himself. Instead, he pressed the red button lightly. She suddenly clutched at her throat, her face twisting in pain. She whimpered, and he released the button. "Put it on," he ordered again. Three repetitions of the red button and the order later, she unsteadily reached through the bars of the cage and took the silk strip and belly chain from his hand. He held the control in her full view, as she wrapped the belly chain around her waist and snapped the clip shut. He noted with some interest she naturally positioned the clip on her left hip, where a man's right hand would naturally fall when it came time to release it. He wondered exactly how much she knew about the ways of pleasure slaves. It was not unknown for free Gorean women to take a great interest in the lifestyle and practices of female slaves, who they otherwise despised as lesser creatures, beasts and animals. This interest included dressing up in private in slave clothing, including even pleasure silks. Some free women even went as far as to try on a slave collar, although they were always careful to keep the small key that would unlock it, something a true slave girl would never have access to. Indeed, the travelling shows which moved from city to city, staging plays and farces for the mobs at fairs and festivals, had several tales in their repertoires about haughty free woman who somehow got locked in slave collars purely by accident, and their bawdy and salacious adventures whilst trying to divest themselves of their detested yet desirable badge of slavery. He watched as she took the fine white silk band, and passed it over the belly chain, then down between her legs. She reached behind her back, and pulled the strip up, and passed it over the belly chain behind her. She adjusted the fall of the silk so that it was even in front and back, as a real pleasure slave would do. The hem came halfway up her thighs, and it concealed very little, as it was designed to do. The belly chain hung gracefully over her hips, and dipped under her navel, exposing and framing the delightful double curve of her abdomen. "Happy now?" she asked sarcastically, obviously furious, but he could see her face and shoulders were flushed with embarrassment. Naked, she had kept her dignity as a captive of war. Dressed in the silk, she had lost that fragile mental defence. He took the key for the cage from his pouch and opened the cage door. "Out," he ordered, gesturing with the control. She stepped out, and he closed the cage door again. "Kneel," he said. She glared at him, but he put his thumb on the red button, and she knelt heavily on the flagstone floor. He thought of the trained slaves he had had, and the way they moved, always gracefully in the presence of men. The training even pot- and-kettle girls received made elegant movements second nature. This girl had a long way to go, if she were ever to earn the right to wear pleasure silks for real. "Open your legs," he said. She resisted, and he had to push the red button lightly again before she opened her knees. Her face was flushing even more now, and he could see the tendons in her neck stand out. "Further," he said, and she moved her knees further apart. "That's better." Experimentally, he pressed the silver button lightly. She stiffened briefly, then relaxed. He noted her hands fell naturally to the sides of her thighs, leaving the front of her body open and exposed to his gaze. Her eyes were unfocused, and her mouth fell open, as she took a sudden deep breath. Armand resisted the temptation to press the silver button again, and harder. She still wore the ankle cuffs from the night before. They were locked on, and without the key for their small padlocks, she couldn't remove them herself. He reached down behind her and clipped them together again, twisting the link so that the thick leather cuffs were held at right angles, thus keeping her knees spread well apart. "Hands behind your back," he said. She hesitated again before obeying, but finally complied. He took a pair of slave bracelets from the chest, and snapped them on her wrists. They were a snug fit, made only for feminine wrists, unlike Earth-style handcuffs which were adjustable for males and females. They were elliptical in form, and the wearer's wrists could not turn in the metal loops. Armand was careful to lock them in place such that the girl's hands were held palms out. This was more secure, as even if she could get the key to the tiny locks into her hands, she would be unable to insert it in the keyholes in each bracelet. In addition, the half-twist on each arm kept them straight, and provided a pull on the shoulders that enhanced her posture. The bracelets were joined by a short metal bar with a swivel at each end. The bar was just long enough for a male hand to grasp it firmly, to keep control of a slave girl in all situations. There were other designs possible; cross bracelets, joined solidly at right angles, keeping the wrists crossed, or short chain bracelets, for flexibility, or indeed long chain bracelets, for dancers and serving girls, not for real security but to remind them physically they were truly slaves, and incidentally to enhance their appearance, like jewellery. He dropped the bracelet keys into his pouch. A Gorean man was always careful with keys. The security of his most valuable items of personal property depended on them. Slave girls required especial care, as it was feasible for them to free themselves from their bonds if the keys fell into their hands. There were extra measures their masters could employ, though, and Armand had been drilled in them in the tower in the nameless Gorean city during his training. The bracelets Lila wore so reluctantly were a good example, he mused. Without consciously thinking about it, he had arranged it so that the small keyholes in the bracelets were on the tops of the rings, away from her fingers. The bracelet's connecting bar had limited movements in the swivels, so that even if Lila was given the keys, her fingers could not get the keys into the locks. Added to this was the way her hands were arranged, back to back, soft palms out, appearing curiously defenceless. She was well secured. He stood before her and admired her changed appearance and new position. Suddenly, she was no longer a free Earth girl with a sharp tongue but a Gorean slave girl in a provocative pose. He decided she was definitely improved by the change. She obviously didn't think so, and started squirming again. "Getting an eyeful, are we?" she asked sarcastically, pulling hard at her bracelets. He noted that her accent slipped further, and her choice of phrase got cruder, the angrier she got. He showed her the control, and she subsided again, but her breathing was getting sharper. Her slow burning fury was definitely going to be an advantage when she was put under the interrogation machine. Now for the final touch, thought Armand, and produced the open slave collar from the chest. This elicited the best response, as he had expected. She called him filthy names, shouted and screamed, and twisted in her bondage until she fell over sideways, trying to avoid Armand's attempts to slip the collar around her throat. He resorted to the golden button to silence her, and eventually the blue button to paralyse her. She stopped wriggling, and went limp on the floor. He propped her up on her knees again, and lifted her hair from her neck before placing the collar around her slim neck and pushing the ends together with a solid click. He pulled experimentally at each side, but the lock had closed securely, and would need the key to open it. The collar was a snug fit, but comfortable, with a smooth circular cross-section and no lumps or bumps to rub painfully against the skin. Unlike any other item of slave restraining equipment, it was meant to be worn permanently. Even when changing owners, a new collar would be snapped in place before the old one was removed, so that the girl would never be without a collar, and thus an owner, even for a second. It was the true visible badge of the girl's new permanent status. This was what made the act of collaring the second-most important event in a slave's initiation. The first, of course, was her branding, but Armand didn't plan on doing that himself. Branding slaves was the job of a skilled craftsman, usually a member of the Metal Workers. A clean, crisp brand enhanced a girl's chance of a good sale. A botched job could halve her block price. Armand didn't wish to ruin her value. He pushed the blue button again, freeing her from the paralysis. She started struggling again, but not so violently, as she now had no way of dislodging the collar. He prudently left the gold button alone, so she could not express her displeasure vocally, but her body said it all anyway. "I'm told the metal soon warms up. You won't even know you're wearing it in a little while," he said to rub it in. Her mouth worked, and he was suddenly glad he wasn't a lip reader. He left her for a moment while he went to the back of the room and fetched a large flat object draped in a cloth. He set this up before her, and whipped off the cloth. She froze suddenly, as she saw herself for the first time, reflected in the mirror. He surreptitiously pressed the silver button for a second as the image sank into her mind, then her struggles redoubled as she tried to deny the puzzling surge of pleasure she had felt at the sight of herself, kneeling open-legged, bound, wearing only filmy pleasure silks, and to top it all off, with a gleaming slave collar locked obdurately around her neck. She *knew* she was not really a slave, despite what he had done to her. Only a true- born natural slave should feel pleasure at the sight of themselves in such an invidious position. She wasn't! She couldn't be! Armand didn't need to use the interrogation machine to read her mind right now. She was angry, confused, disorientated and unsure of her true self. She was ready. He unsnapped the ankle cuff link and lifted her to her feet. She didn't struggle this time as he guided her towards the rear of the room. It wasn't until she saw the machine, and especially the chair, that she hesitated. He pushed her on, and the fight suddenly went out of her. He could feel the tension drain from her body as he sat her down in the chair. He unlocked the bracelets, and she naturally put her wrists into the padded leather cuffs at the end of the chair arms. He snugged the straps closed around her wrists, then bent and clipped her ankle cuffs to rings on the fixed chair legs. A wide strap went around her belly, and a last strap went around her head, holding it firmly in place in the padded headrest. Misk moved forward, to a section of the machine. The vocoder spoke, "It is ready." Another question, Armand assumed. "Yes. She is confused and afraid. She..." He gave up trying to explain. The Priest-King would never comprehend her feelings. "She is ready," he answered. Misk turned to the machine, and touched some ornately engraved sections on the panelling. The chandelier above the girl's head moved and lowered until the tip was just above her hair. "Sit down," said Misk. Armand took his seat, facing the girl. "Be still." Armand pushed his head back into his own chair's headrest, and he heard the chandelier above him tinkle and jingle faintly for a few seconds. "It is ready," said Misk. "Begin." Armand touched the wheel under his right hand, and turned it slowly, watching the girl across from him. She suddenly froze, as a faint double image came to his eyes, of himself sitting in a chair, with a conical chandelier suspended directly above his head. He moved his head fractionally, and the double image faded. He moved again, trying to line himself up again with the mind-reading device above his head. This was tricky, he thought, as he finally got back into position again. The double image returned, and he felt slightly discomfited. He started thinking questions at the girl across from him. "What is your name?" There was no real answer, but he suddenly "knew" her name was Lila Fischer, and yet... He repeated the question, putting more "force" behind his thoughts, and he "knew" Lila Fischer was a pseudonym, and her birthname was Lilianne Fisher. So, she could still lie, even in her own mind, but the machine could ferret out her innermost thoughts. More knowledge came to him - she had called herself Lila from the age of fifteen or so, preferring the more romantic and foreign-sounding Fischer to her rather prosaic original surname. He let the information cascade into his consciousness, skipping the memories of her upbringing in a run-down suburb of London, pushing forward to her first involvement with the Kurii and their agents. She was twenty-two, and had been on Gor for only a few months, about as long as Armand himself. She had been recruited on Earth when working in a bar as a barmaid, where she had been expertly short-changing drunken customers and saving money to buy her way out of the area. She had been approached by... Armand could "see" the broad-shouldered figure of her recruiter, but not his face. It was, well, not there, a fuzzy blob of darkness. He guessed her mind had been tampered with, to obscure the recruiter's identity. Armand advanced the hand control again, and the darkness resolved itself into a face. Nothing memorable, but he made a clear mental note of the man's features. After the interrogation session, he would describe the man in his report. It was unlikely even Misk's wonderful machine could provide photographic images from Lila's thoughtwaves. The double vision returned, stronger this time, as he stopped the mental pressure on Lila's mind, and her surface thoughts took over again. She was still staring at him fixedly. The discomfort had increased - he could feel his ankles and wrists chafing slightly, and pressure on his head and body. He was feeling her physical state, strapped into the chair opposite, positioned exactly under the mind- reading machine's glittering probe. He advanced the control wheel again, concentrating on her bodily sensations. He felt the silk lying on "his" thigh, the grip of the leather cuffs on "his" wrists and ankles, the straps around "his" forehead and belly. There was even - he advanced the wheel yet again - a solid weight of metal, slightly chill, lying across "his" shoulders. This was the collar she so reluctantly wore, he realised. Other feelings were added to the shared sensorium; the weight of breasts depending from "his" shoulders and a faint discomfort like a tickle which he thought might be the Nest gag Misk had placed in her throat. He was fascinated, but he was leafing though her memories for a reason. He wasn't on a pleasure trip, finding out what it was like to be somebody else, and a girl at that. He left the control wheel where it was and started formulating more questions. Who was she going to with her information? Another typically Gorean man appeared, with a totally black face. She probably didn't know what he looked like. What was his name? Nothing came back, just the idea of a superior, someone to be feared and obeyed without question even though she had never met him. Where was she to meet him? No location materialised, but she knew from overhearing the caravan guards they were still two days from their final destination when they had been attacked. He made a mental note, to check the caravan's location and direction of travel. A town name? She didn't know. He probed, and found she knew very little about the geography of Gor. He pushed at her mind again, and found her training as an agent was perfunctory to say the least - the Gorean language, and some of the customs, and nothing more. She had spent time as a Free Companion, living the part of a rich Merchant's wife in a villa outside Ar, but otherwise uninvolved in the intrigues of her secret employers. He made a note of the villa's location, and the Merchant's name, but it was old information, and probably worthless. He was getting frustrated at her lack of knowledge. She was intelligent, he knew, with a quick, logical mind. If she had applied herself, she could have made a good life for herself on Earth. She was fundamentally lazy, though, always taking the easy way out, trying to make a quick buck. She had come to Gor on the promise of a fortune but she had quickly realised she was trapped here, at the mercy of merciless people. She had figured out she would probably end up as a slave, when her usefulness to the Kurii was over, and she had been desperately trying to think of some way of escaping her fate just before she was captured by the agents of the Priest-Kings. Well, he thought, the only information she had that was worth a damn was locked away deep in her mind, behind stone walls and barred doors. He probed again, and met hard blocks. She didn't consciously know how to open the doors to the vault of her secrets. In desperation, he dredged up the dark-faced figure of her superior, and threw this image at the "door" - and he felt it give a little. Not much, but there was a weak spot, and now he had a key of sorts. He solidified the figure and stood it before the door. The face was blurred, and unrecognisable, but Lila's mind knew it was her superior, so the door responded by creaking open a little. He could "see" the treasure through the crack in the door, glistening gold, but he could make out no details. Lila's mind was imagining her cargo of information was locked in a treasure chamber, and he still couldn't get the door open. What had she said, the night before? She didn't know the treasure she held in her mind. Only when she stood before the faceless man, and heard him say - what? The words that would finally unlock the vault door. What words? Abracadabra? Open sesame? She didn't know, consciously. Damn! He needed a rest, so he backed the control off, letting the double vision fade away. The sense of being in two places at once, of being two different people, faded, and he was himself, Armand, male, once again. Lila was too distracting, he had discovered. He needed to think of a plan out here, not while he was inside her mind. Okay, he had the faceless man, and she could be fooled into thinking he was before her. That was the first key to opening her secrets. The second key was the words. The voice didn't matter. She had never met him, so she wouldn't know what his voice sounded like. Only the words were important, and they were the key. The key! What if the faceless man took out a key, and inserted it in the vault door's keyhole? Lila was very visual, and if her mind could be convinced the faceless man had the right key... He swung the control forward again, diving deep into the pool of her mind, barely noticing the sensations of her flesh as he headed straight for the vault. He created the faceless man again, and the door creaked open fractionally, as before. This time, though, the faceless man held a golden key. Armand felt Lila's mind accept the idea. Success! The faceless man moved forward, inserting the key in the lock. Armand got a sudden peripheral flash of Lila-memory - she was still a virgin, amazingly enough, despite her upbringing and experiences, and the symbolism of the key and the lock had momentarily unnerved her. Armand concentrated, making the faceless man utter indistinct words as he turned the key, to further deceive Lila's defences. He had the key, so the words must be correct. But... He could feel the key, and he couldn't turn it any further. It was sticking. She was still resisting. He advanced the control further, and he pushed himself deeper into the faceless man, turning the key more and more forcefully, pushing the control wheel further around. And the door opened. He gasped in relief, before the open vault. His perceptions were more tightly linked with Lila's mind and body than ever. He could feel her skin as if it were wrapped around his own, linked sensorially point to point. He looked, and realised the double vision had reduced to where he was seeing only a faint shadow of Lila through his own eyes. His vision was mainly through Lila's eyes, of his own body sitting in the chair opposite. He rolled the control forward again, and felt it reach its limit, although his own body's sense of touch was now being virtually overridden by Lila's. The double vision cleared almost completely. Weird, Armand thought, it's like *being* Lila. He was suddenly glad he wasn't her for real, though, knowing her ultimate fate was to be a slave girl. He was male, and happy to stay that way, especially on Gor. To business, he thought, and pushed back down towards the vault, where he found the figure of Lila, dressed in the pleasure silks, standing where the faceless man had been. He paused, nonplussed for a second. He tried to bring back the faceless man, but he wouldn't rematerialise. Odd. He tried again, and failed again, then thought for a second, trying to ignore the alien bodily sensations that threatened to overwhelm his concentration. Was it Lila that had to enter the vault, then? Of course. She had to give the information, taking it from the vault to present it to the faceless man. Afterwards, she would forget it completely, and another treasure would be locked safely in her vault for her to carry to another faceless man elsewhere. He "entered" the Lila-figure, and "saw" the vault open before him. Or was it her? He tried to step forward, but the body he inhabited in Lila's mental world refused to move. Okay, he thought, it's "her". I am Lila. Lila is - where? He found Lila's mind sharing the same space he had entered, a dormant bundle of thoughts and volition, trapped and immobilised by the power of the Priest-King's machine. Aha, too many cooks, he thought. Whimsically, he built a mental construct of his own body, then carefully picked up Lila's mind-image and placed into the Armand-figure. There, he thought, that'll keep you safe and warm for the moment. He stepped forwards again, and this time the Lila-figure advanced to the vault door. He could see the treasure more clearly now, piles of names and dates, locations of meetings to occur, and records of previous events that agents of the Kurii were involved in. There were councillors of cities who had been corrupted, and who now obeyed the dictates of the Kur race. There were secret landing sites of the Kurii spacecraft. A great hoard indeed, he thought, as he passed the doorframe. And then there was a bright flash, and the word "boobytrap" exploded in his mind, and he felt the Lila-construct rush out of the vault and rise towards the surface, carrying him along with it. Peripherally he saw the Armand-figure fly past him and away, towards a silver pipe that led off in the direction of his own body. He "surfaced" shaken and confused. The first thing he saw was his own body. Of course, he thought, the mind link is still at full power. There was not even a trace of the double vision, and the bodily sensations from Lila's bound form were so overwhelming he couldn't feel his own male body. Turn the control down, that's what to do, he thought. He reached forwards with his fingertips for the wheel. Where was it? He couldn't feel it at all. His fingers must be resting on it, but Lila's sensorium was blanking his sense of touch with hers. He glanced down, and saw Lila's fingers moving, straining to turn a control that wasn't there. He was moving Lila's fingers. Her fingers, not his. He glanced up again, only able to move his eyes, or was it Lila's eyes, because Lila's head was strapped securely in position under the machine's sensor array. He could not feel his own body at all! The only sensations he could feel were from Lila's physical body, and the only muscles he could control were Lila's. He remembered the boobytrap at the vault door. He had triggered a last- ditch defence buried deep in her mind, that had thrown him out of her secret treasure room. Something had gone wrong - the ritual hadn't been properly followed. Lila had accepted the idea of the golden key, but a hidden security "program" had detected its falsity, and had slammed the door in his face. In his face. He had been in the Lila-construct when it had happened, and for some bizarre reason, probably involving the mind-reading machine, his mind had surfaced inside Lila's sensorium. He remembered seeing the Armand-construct travelling up the silver pipe, in the direction of his own chair, and his own body. The machine still links us, he thought. I'm only here inside Lila because of the machine. He strained to get to the silver pipe, to return to his own body, but there was nothing there. Of course, he thought, the control and drive only goes from the other chair, my chair, into Lila's mind. She can't control or influence anything from this chair. But is her mind in my body? he thought anxiously. He looked across at his own rigid figure, sitting bolt upright. Nothing happened for a moment, then his body relaxed, and a slow smile crept across its face. It lifted a hand, examining it carefully, then it looked across at the other chair, where Armand-in-Lila sat securely bound, and the smile widened. Lila was in there, he decided. Come on, you bitch, he thought. Move. Move! Break the connection. He tried to speak, but nothing happened. Of course. The Nest gag was still switched on. Damn. He tried to attract Misk's attention, to get him to switch off the link, but Misk was still standing at the control panel, unaware of what had happened to the two figures in the chairs. "Misk?" said his traitor body, keeping perfectly still. The Priest-King turned, to face the other chair. Armand-in-Lila wriggled, feeling disconcerting bits of alien flesh move as he did so, but Misk ignored his silent display, and moved over to the other chair. "I have a problem," said Lila-in-Armand. "I've established a solid link with the girl, but she's still unable to give us the information we want." Lila shrugged, but was careful to keep her/his head in position under the chandelier. "I'll have to take her to certain places on Earth before she will divulge her secrets. Where she is, is a part of the security for her information." "Earth," said Misk, asking a question. "Yes, Earth. She was intended to return with information for Kurii agents there. There was to be a flight from a secret landing-area not far from where she was captured." "You need to stay linked mentally to it," said the vocoder. "Yes. Once we're at those places, her mind will open up. But in order to get that information, I'll need to stay in her mind, just as I am now. Is there any way of doing this?" Misk turned away and moved off. Armand wondered what she was up to. Move, dammit. Break the connection. Move your head, you bitch. That's all you need to do, and I'll be back where I belong, and you'll be back in this oh-so-feminine form, where you belong. Armand strained Lila's neck muscles, trying to move Lila's head away from alignment with the chandelier, but the forehead strap was too tight, and the headrest too firm. Misk came back with another golden instrument, which he plugged into the control panel, and pressed some more of the esoteric controls. Armand was getting frustrated now. He couldn't move, and Lila on the other chair, in *his* body, wouldn't move. But she had to sometime. She couldn't sit there for ever. When he was back in control of his own body, she'd better watch out! He'd make her pay for this humiliation. Misk took the instrument out of the panel and went to Armand's body. "Do not move," said Misk, as he pressed the instrument's tip against Lila-in-Armand's head. There was a slight hissing sound. Armand's eyes never left Armand-in-Lila's face, as the Priest-King came over to the other chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the golden instrument pointed at his head. There was another hissing sound, and a faint tingle in the side of his head. There was a moment's blurriness, and he thought, good, she's finally moved, but when his vision returned, he was still in the same situation, facing his own body, still occupying Lila's flesh. Misk turned to Lila-in-Armand. "I have implanted transponders in both brains. They will sustain the mental link." What was Misk talking about? he wondered, giving up struggling for the moment, waiting for Lila's inevitable move and their return to normality. Lila-in-Armand's smile returned, and her hand dropped to the control wheel on the chair arm. She paused for an instant, then twisted the wheel to its off position in one swift do-or-die motion. At last, he thought, as he waited for his vision to flip, for his body sensations to return to normal. And nothing happened. Nothing happened! Lila-in-Armand stood up gingerly, ducking out from underneath the chandelier. Shift! thought Armand, shift, damn you! The link's broken. No change of perspective occurred, though, and Lila-in-Armand moved freely away from her chair. Maybe the link stays up if *I'm* stuck under this probe, he thought frantically. When I move, or rather Lila's body moves, *then* everything will go back to the way it was. Misk's next words dashed his desperate hopes. "The machine was necessary to make the link. It is established now. The implants will sustain the link." What? Armand couldn't believe his, or rather Lila's, ears. Sustain the link? No! It couldn't be happening! But his body moved forward, to stand in front of Armand-in-Lila, still secured in the other chair. "Yes, Misk," she said, the smile growing even wider. "The link is sustained." She reached round, and undid the buckle on the headband around Armand-in-Lila's head. He frantically moved his freed head out of alignment with the sensor above, but there was no change. He was still a prisoner of the chair's straps, and he was still stuck inside Lila's sensorium. Misk moved away with the transponder insertion tool. "No sense jerking around, *girl*," she said, leering into Armand's face. "You heard Misk. The link's permanent. I'm you, and you're me, and that's the way round I prefer it." Armand shook his head, feeling Lila's long hair dash across her bare shoulders. Please let it stop! he thought desperately. I'm in a nightmare, and I can't wake up. This isn't happening to me. I'm a man, not a girl. He tried to yell for Misk to come and make it all right, to put things back to normal, but no sound came from his throat. "Oh, you want to make some noise, do you?" Lila-in-Armand said, reaching into her pouch. She pulled out the control egg. "You remember what this does, don't you?" She made a pretence of studying the buttons, then stabbed a finger down. It was the red button, of course. Lila's body convulsed as electric pains jolted through his throat and spine, tingling all the way to his fingers and toes. He screamed silently in agony, and then the pain was gone. He looked up, to see Lila still holding the egg. "Oops," she said insincerely. "Let's try this one." Her finger pushed again, and Armand felt a click in his throat. He swallowed, still shaking from the gag's punishment. "Why are you doing this to me?" he said, in Lila's contralto voice. "Because I can," she hissed. "And because if I stayed like I was, I didn't have a great retirement plan to look forward to. Now you will enjoy my exciting and interesting future, and I'll be stuck in your boring dull existence." She unbuckled the belly strap around Armand's slim waist, then picked up the open slave bracelets. She loosened the left wrist cuff, and lifting Armand's hand, snapped a bracelet into place. Armand tried to fight, but his old body was too strong for his new body, and Lila twisted his arm behind his back easily. He was pushed around on the seat, until his right wrist, still cuffed to the arm of the chair, was next to his left. Lila snapped the other bracelet into place, before undoing the leather cuff. Armand's new arms were securely fastened behind his new back, just as they had been earlier that day. It was the change in perspective that caused Armand problems. Lila backed off, and watched Armand gyrate, trying unsuccessfully to free his hands. It was a lost cause, of course. Gorean slave bracelets were as secure as a thousand years of development could make them. The tiny locks were virtually unpickable. The circlets could not be slipped off slim hands, as they were shaped to fit feminine wrists exactly, with no play permitted. The steel rings and their linking device were easily strong enough to withstand any female's attempts to escape their hold. The slim arms they restrained could not exert enough leverage to break the strong mechanisms, and Armand no longer had direct access to a man's superior strength. He was well secured. He saw Misk approach, and opened his mouth to yell, but Lila stabbed at the golden button, and Armand was silenced again. He could only mouth silently at the Priest-King, imploring him for help. Misk ignored the chained female figure still cuffed by the ankles to the chair. He spoke to Lila-in-Armand. "There is a flight from the Sardar to Earth leaving in a few days." "Excellent," Lila-in-Armand nodded. "I will work out a schedule of travel to the various locations we must visit when I get there." "Do you wish the Nest gag removed?" asked Misk, looking at Armand-in- Lila again. "No," she said quickly, as Armand twisted in his restraints again, still trying to get the great insect's attention, but Misk ignored the bound girl's gyrations. "It will come in useful to control her on Earth." Misk turned and moved away. Lila bet down and unclipped Armand's ankles