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Seremides, and some of his men, might attempt their escape, a hope meager but not forlorn, for the sky is wide and deep. We had been told there would be tarn baskets for the women, but when I emerged on the roof, I saw no such baskets. Seremides had so bespoke himself, it seems, to calm our fears. His power of bargaining, as he saw it, was vested in his control of the Ubara herself. He intended to trade her for the escape of himself and his men. You should have seen the proud Ubara on the roof. Seremides had had her don a slave tunic, and you know what such things are.”
    “Yes,” I said, “I see one.”
    She perhaps referred to the extraordinary brevity of such a garment, its capacity to cling to a slave’s body, its brazen scantiness, its shameful display of the slave’s body as that of the animal she is, the lack of a nether closure, that she may know herself at the pleasure of masters, and such.
    “And he knelt her, roped, at his thigh, barefoot, with her head down. It much pleased me to see the Ubara on her knees, beside a man, helpless in ropes, her head down, refused permission to raise it, as though a submitted slave.”
    “Why would he so shame the Ubara,” I asked, “remove her robes of state, her veiling, and such?” I asked.
    “I think for two reasons,” she said. “”First, he wanted it to seem that he understood the uprising, even favored it, even shared its views, and was thus discountenancing the Ubara and her policies, for which he had held a secret animus for months, and, to show his allegiance to the uprising, had taken the tyranness prisoner, and was now willing, for certain considerations, his life, and that of his men, and perhaps a bag of gold, to surrender her, clad and shamed as she was, to the justice of Ar.”
    She had paused.
    “And there was perhaps a second reason,” I said.
    “I think so,” she said. “Are not men beasts?”
    “It is true they are men,” I said.
    Are not women beautiful, and desirable? Who has not seen them in the paga taverns, stripped or silked? Who has not admired them in an exposition cage, on the auction block, under torchlight? Is it not pleasant to see them slave clad and collared, in the parks, on the boulevards, in the markets? Is it not delightful to see them being walked, back-braceleted and leashed, or chained at slave rings, awaiting the return of their masters? What man, truly, does not want to own a beautiful woman, to have her in his collar and at his feet?
    “The negotiations, I take it,” I said, “did not go well.” Certainly, it seemed clear that Talena was not in the custody of the authorities of Ar.
    “They might have gone well,” she said. “But they did not even begin. Those of Ar did not care to deal. There were mobs in the streets. There was no discipline. They wanted blood.”
    “Were you not tunicked, knelt, and bound, on the roof?” I asked.
    “Certainly not,” she said. “I was in my fullness of regalia, in robes, hoods and veils. It was Talena, not I, who was shamefully exhibited, as might have been a slave. Indeed, it was I who found the Ubara cowering in her quarters and led the men to her. It was I who, at the behest of Seremides, cast her the rag of a slave, and bade her don it, and expeditiously, or the men would see to the matter. It gave me pleasure to scorn her pleadings and refuse her piteous supplications for succor. Did she truly think I was her friend? When, to her shame she divested herself of her robes, hoods, veils, and sandals, and was slave clad, I called to the men, ‘She is ready. Bring your ropes!’ On the roof, we knew the rebels were approaching. We could see rebel tarnsmen in the sky. ‘Where is the tarn basket?’ I cried to Seremides. ‘What is to become of me?’ He answered not. I seized his sleeve, but he brushed me aside, and I fell to the flooring of the cylinder’s roof. We could hear the anthem of Ar in the streets below. We knew that rebels within the cylinder would shortly