Lornee led Sonji over to the bench and they sat down. She held Sonji until the crying stopped and then got a cloth from her case and dried Sonjis tears. She whispered in Sonjis ear, "Very convincing!" Sonji looked puzzled and said, "What?" Before Lornee could say anything else the judges returned and they moved in front of the desk.

The three women went through a door in the back of the room, pulling Sonji with them. In the next room a small forge smoldered in the corner and there was an anvil and some other apparatus. A keeper put some iron rivets in the hot coals and the trusty worked a bellows. The forge started to glow. The other keeper had the iron semicircle with the number on it, and she rummaged in a wooden box and found a matching semicircle, except that this one had

She was chained to the wall of a jail cell. No one on the ship knew what had happened to her, and even if they did know they couldnt violate the First Directive. She was going to be treated as if she were a real peasant girl. Sonji felt panic and then fear. Eighteen years in prison! She would be almost forty when she finished her sentence. She said to herself, "Im a Star Fleet officer.

Sonji heard heavy footsteps coming from the direction of the road and turned to see a heavy-set man running towards her. He was shirtless and his left hand was holding up his trousers. He had a wooden cudgel in his right hand and he raised it overhead as he got close to Sonji. She used a move she had mastered in her self-defense classes and kicked him in the groin. He fell to the ground, emitting loud groans. Sonji turned back to the other woman and said, "Now Ill get you loose.

At the first touch on her lips Sonji fainted. This was one of the ways her church kept the boys from being denied Enlightenment. Dag revived her and said, "Im sure that well solve this problem eventually, but Ive got to leave soon. Get dressed, and Ill take you to Bomdee." They found Bomdee taking an inventory in the kitchen. "This is Sonji. Shell be your helper when I dont need her.

The keepers dragged the wretched up onto the platform. The other keeper tied a rope to each of her wrists. The ropes were looped over hooks in the ceiling and pulled until was standing on her toes with her arms spread apart. Her smock was removed and she stood naked with her back to the assembled slaves. A keeper swung a wide, heavy strap. It hit the middle of s back and a puffy red welt sprang up. groaned.

Sonji screamed as Hodg picked her up by the rope attached to her ankles and elbows and carried her into the guardroom. He dropped her on the floor and said to the duty Civil Guard sergeant, "I want this slut arrested for assaulting a judicial officer and aiding an escape." "Are you the one she assaulted?" the sergeant asked. He looked at Sonji, who was lying on her stomach. "She really looks dangerous. You were lucky to escape with your life.

Most people have brown hair like yours and Mahoons, a few have hair as black as Regans, and there are also blondes." He waved over the communications technician. "CT Aoki will give you your comm devices and test them out." Aoki gave each woman what looked like a wooden disk, about centimeters in diameter and a half-centimeter thick. There was a hole near one edge with a leather thong threaded through it, and an eight-pointed star was burned into one side.

The next day Dag was late leaving for the university. Bomdee and Mudg had gone to the market, so he had to secure Sonji before he left the house. He took her into the storeroom intending to lock the chain to her collar, but he found that Bomdee had locked the padlock and taken the key with her. The straps were there, so he crossed Sonjis wrists behind her back and fastened them tightly using both straps. He made her lie on her stomach, released the hobble strap from her right ankle, pulled it around her wrists, and

Sonji and the other three women had been on display for almost two hours. They were standing on a low platform, and each had her hands fastened to a ring in the wooden beam over their heads. Their wrists were crossed and strapped, and they werent stretched, but after all this time they were uncomfortable. They were all naked, with each womans smock next to her feet, folded so her slave number was visible.