For two years Alan Green had lived without hope. From the day the
spaceship had crashed on this unknown planet he had resigned himself
to the destiny created for him by accident and mathematics. Chances
against another ship landing within the next hundred years were a
million to one. Therefore it would do no good to sit around waiting
for rescue. Much as he loathed the idea, he must live the rest of his
life here, and he must squeeze as much blood as he could out of this
planet-sized turnip. There wasn't much to squeeze. In fact, it seemed
to him that he was the one losing the blood. Shortly after he'd been
cast away he'd been made a slave.

Now, suddenly, he had hope.

Hope came to him a month after he'd been made foreman of the kitchen
slaves of the Duke of Tropat. It came to him as he was standing behind
the Duchess during a meal and directing those who were waiting upon her.

It was the Duchess Zuni who had not so subtly maneuvered him from the
labor pens to his coveted, if dangerous, position. Why dangerous?
Because she was very jealous and possessive, and the slightest hint of
lack of attention from him could mean he'd lose his life or one limb
or another. The knowledge of what had happened to his two predecessors
kept him extremely sensitive to her every gesture, her every wish.

That fateful morning he was standing behind her as she sat at one end
of the long breakfast table. In one hand he held his foreman's wand,
a little white baton topped by a large red ball. With it he gestured
at the slaves who served food, who poured wine and beer, who fanned
away the flies, who carried in the household god and sat it on the god
chair, who played something like music. Now and then he bent over the
Duchess Zuni's long black hair and whispered phrases from this or that
love poem, praising her beauty, her supposed unattainability, and his
burning, if seemingly hopeless, passion for her. Zuni would smile, or
repeat the formula of thanks--the short one--or else giggle at his
funny accent.

The Duke sat at the other end of the table. He ignored the by-play,
just as he ignored the so-called secret passage inside the walls of the
castle, which Green used to get to the Duchess's apartments. Custom
demanded this, just as custom demanded that he should play the outraged

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