"Not at all. I should desire nothing more than to see the worlds of other suns, other places in the far paths of space. Yet...." "Yet what? Have you a wife here, children?" "No, not that. But I have possessions it cost me many years of effort to acquire." Carna came silently into the room, stood on the other side of the queen. For an instant Wananda closed her eyes, and some subtle sense of my own told me they were talking with each other in a way I could not hear. Wananda opened her eyes, turned to me, smiling whimsically. "Carna suggests that she will give your love to me in return for a certain favor." "Do you want my love, Wananda?" I asked softly. She did not stop smiling secretly to some sound she heard and I did not. "You see, earthman, our race has never developed the morals and inhibitions which your people find so necessary. We are polygamous, and not apt to be jealous. She offers to give you to me as a royal husband in return for the privilege of being your slave, your housekeeper, your body-servant as it were. What do you say?" I was stunned. So openly to be bargained over; frankly to be invited to marriage, to two women at the same time! Weakly I countered: "Your people would object to an alien consort!" "The word is strange to me. Among us you would be a ruler if you married me. Among us all men have several wives. But women have but one husband." "You are offering me the rule of the Schrees?" "Yes, and if our coming war with the Jivro creatures turns out well, it will mean not one planet, but many. I cannot say how many, as some of those never allied with the Schrees before will naturally gravitate to us in gratitude for our releasing them from the Jivros. I am agreeable mainly because I know that we need your earth science, your different culture--as wedded to our own science we would be invincible. We will need everything finally to conquer the ancient ingrown tyranny of the Jivros. I am not offering you exactly any bed of roses. Besides, I like and trust Carna. I can understand why she loves you, and why she bargains for any part of you. She knows I have but to exert my own wisdom of Zoorph to release you from her hold on you." "I see. Let me get this straight. You love me; it is agreeable to you that I continue to love Carna; but I will love you too. Two wives who love me, a kingdom, and the chance of knocking over a whole empire of insects who have parasitized human races in space and meant to do it here. There is no way I can refuse!" Carna laughed. "With two of us working your mind for you, how could you refuse?" Wananda frowned at Carna's frankness. "It is stated in the nineteenth law of Zoorph code that no victim is ever to be told of his enslavement openly, Carna. Why do you break the law?" "I don't know, Wananda Highest. I think it is because I want to be fair to him, and give him a chance to do his own thinking, too." I grinned.