Rhana looked at the women beside her, as though to see what they thought of me. She was smiling with faint amusement. “You want food--now?” “Yes.” I added boldly: “And here. I want it here with you.” She said something about me to the other women. They nodded, smiled and regarded me with a new interest--as though I were a precocious child, to be admired and tolerated. “Here with me?” “Yes.” A man was near me, standing by an empty chair. I shoved him out of the way, and sat down, as though I were a willful child. But there was something else in the expressions of these women. I was a man; it was to them a new masculinity, instinctively to be admired. The Gian man shrank from my frowning aspect. Rhana said: “So? You are very bad--but interesting. You shall be fed here, if you do not annoy me.” “I’ll sit over there.” Another empty chair, much nearer one of the windows. But these women were not fools. Rhana gestured sharply. Two armed men--they looked like beribboned popinjays in their bright gaudy costumes--moved quickly over between me and the window. Rhana went back to her work. I sat there perhaps an hour. Food and drink came to me. I tasted it cautiously. But I was famished, and glad of the strength it would give me. Strange things--but I ate and drank with relish. * * * * * The activity of the room went on. I could not understand anything that was said. The garden was active--every appearance of bustling, feverish haste. The aëro--a gray thing a hundred feet in length--was loaded and got away. Another, empty, came sailing down to take its place. Gians were arriving. Men and women; and there were children. Food; apparatus--all loaded on the arriving and departing aëros. A line of marching gray men assembled, and were loaded on an aërocar. It left. I saw not a single Middge. But down in the city I could hear occasional cries. Once, a throng of Gian families--carrying children and household goods--came up from the city escorted by soldiers. There had been a disturbance a moment before; I imagine a mob of the Middge may have assailed them. Rhana issued angry commands, and several messengers dashed away. A stream of couriers constantly arrived with what seemed reports from distant localities. Rhana and the other women consulted over them. The room at last began quieting. There was a lull in the garden. I wondered if my chance had come. But I was constantly being closely watched. There were three of these popinjays near me now. Each had a small black weapon in his hand; they never took their eyes off me. Rhana at last stood up. Her command cleared the room of its waiting people. The women at the table went up the steps to the roof and vanished. I was alone with Rhana, save for my three men guards. They were still beside me, alert as ever. She gestured. “Come over here--sit by me. I am tired now. It will amuse me to talk with you.”