"I have explained to our 'master' why this experiment is so foolish," Lucalle told Klane. "Amongst humans it is females who choose and males who compete to impress, NOT the other way around."

"What did the creature say to that?" 

"It said 'maybe'," Lucalle admitted. "Then it said that it would soon find out and that was one purpose of the experiment." 

She crossed her arms and glowered at her fellow prisoner. It was the evening of the first day of Klane's captivity. During the hours of daylight he had been confined within his glass cage and allowed only a tiny portion of mashed grain and a cup of water. Lucalle and Ketha were freed to perform their duties; a nerve collar round their necks ensuring obedience. Try as he might, Klane could think of no way out. At length the bright winter sunshine was followed by a brief twilight and the creature released him and ordered Klane and Lucalle to the 'assessment' chamber. Here there was a simple bed, a basin with fountains of hot and cold water and a screened toilet area. It was still a prison but compared with the open air specimen jars it was the height of luxury. 

"You look too young to be a hero but that's what we need," Lucalle said lightly. Seeing his consternation she smiled sadly and sympathetically. "How did you come to fall into the creature's clutches?"

Then Klane and Lucalle discussed their respective histories and the young man revealed more of his past and his ambitions than he had shared with anyone since leaving Kalonia. In turn, he learned that Lucalle was the daughter of a local Rider chieftain and a princess. Ketha was her handmaiden. The creature had attacked the settlement on the moors in the middle of her wedding when everyone was dressed in their ceremonial finery and bore no weapons. It had killed most of the men including the groom and laid waste to the village before capturing them. A third young woman named Noureth who would have been Lucalle's future sister in law had also been taken prisoner. She had been the unfortunate subject of the creature's cruel anatomy experiments. At this point in her story Lucalle clearly had to fight not to cry and Klane felt a righteous anger rising inside him. Her voice grew stronger and her confidence returned as she told him about their daily routine. In the morning one of them would be sent to activate the alegoyle sonic scare screen. This device made the strange sounds Klane had first heard faintly when he was crossing the Glass Lands. Then they would be set to work pumping water from the well, labouring in a domed greenhouse or accompanying their master on field trips to fetch and carry as he collected plants and animals. Sometimes he would order them to work in his laboratory, stoking the furnace or climbing the endless steps of a power treadmill. 

"We will all escape this crater alive. I don't know how but I'll find a way," Klane declared at last. 

"Well I have discussed the situation with Ketha and we are agreed. We shall certainly NOT be competing to impress you! You will sleep on the floor and you won't make any move to even touch me, whatever the creature thinks!" 

Klane bit his tongue, half in admiration of the feisty princess and half with an obscure feeling of regret for Lucalle was very lovely and restraint was engaged in a confusing war with desire within him. Shy, awkward and inexperienced, Klane nevertheless knew that some show of chivalrous solidarity was called for. 

"You need have no fears on that score," he insisted with heat and pride. "I have no intention of complying with the bidding of this creature. I wouldn't even contemplate it for a moment!"

The silence that followed was charged with an indefinable tension. 

"There was no need to be quite so emphatic!" Lucalle gave a sulky pout and suddenly burst into a cascade of soft tears. Poor Klane! Whatever he said it was going to be wrong. But then, he wasn't the one with the imminent threat of the creature's fatal interest ahead of him...

After an uncomfortable night on the hard metal floor during which Klane slept only fitfully, he was startled to be woken by the light touch of Lucalle and the low whisper of her voice in his ear.

"I know the creature is recording the sights and sounds from this room so we must speak very softly and closely as if we were really lovers and I had submitted to the creature's orders. But don't go getting any wrong ideas about me! Listen carefully. I have been thinking about a way to escape from this crater for a long time and I have a plan. I had hoped to wait for a better moment but now there is no time!" 

Klane was acutely conscious of the proximity of the beautiful young woman as she pressed herself close to preserve her secret communication. The warmth of her body and the faint scent of her skin made it hard to concentrate on her words. In truth he had many doubts about her ideas but she knew more about this place than him and he didn't have any better ones himself. When she was finished, the princess surprised him by planting a light kiss on his forehead. He caught her last look of playful ambiguity - a cross between affectionate mockery, clever acting and perhaps just a tiny hint of something genuine as though despite her warning she really did reciprocate a little of the growing attraction the youth now felt for her. It was almost as disturbing to his equanimity as the prospect of facing the creature. It was a grey day. Locked in the glass prison again, Klane could only wait and worry. Lucalle was biding her time until the creature was as far away as possible. She had found a way to neutralise the control collars by shorting them out and more importantly she knew the location of the base master power switch, a blue crystalline hemisphere, lit from within. The power centre maintained the electric fields round the rim and the locks on the doors. If she could just get to the switch she thought she could free them all and they might make a run for it. 

"The fuel lines on that flying machine can be cut beforehand," she said. "It is a shame we cannot steal it and use it against the creature, either to flee or fight but I do not know how to fly it and I think it is too dangerous. We just need some time when the creature is in that metal tower at the other end of the crater. It goes there sometimes for an hour or more but its routine is not totally predictable. We must be patient. When the power is down the walls of your tube will drop automatically. At least I think so." 

"If they do not you must throw the klane to me over the lip of the cell wall," Klane whispered, knowing that with his weapon back he could cut his way free. In the end it was almost night before Lucalle was ready to make her fateful move. The subtle sabotage of the flying machine was actually carried out by Ketha in the manner the two young women had often plotted together in secret. There was no need for Lucalle to say anything other than to give and receive the private signals they had agreed long beforehand for the day when they would finally act. Now came the moment of truth. Lucalle hesitated for a long time before the blue switch but there was no way back. The creature would soon discover what had been done to the flying machine. She needed to move quickly and the princess finally slapped her hand down forcefully on the giant glass button. At first nothing happened. Then she twisted her head in alarm as a siren rang out...

The escape attempt was a disaster. Trying to shut down the power had no effect other than to trigger an alert which quickly brought the creature back to thwart her plans long before Lucalle could even think about finding Ketha or Klane. 

"Foolish girl!" the creature said. "Did you really think it would be as simple as that to disable this base? I would not have left those controls open to you if it were possible to operate them without pass codes." 

"Now you must be punished! We will start tonight. Instead of returning to your cell you will come to the laboratory and you will clean Holding Tank 4 of Wexarack mould. No sleep until it is done!" 

That was a hateful task. The strange alien fungus was a constant blight in the creature's laboratories. It smelt foul and gave off a noxious emetic gas when touched. Contact with the skin produced burning and itching sensations which were highly unpleasant. Fighting the growth of Wexarack mould usually required chemical treatments and even the creature acknowledged their speed and efficiency when compared to manual methods. Making Lucalle clean the tank by hand was unnecessary, except as a form of discipline for the rebellious prisoner. Holding Tank 4 was a large enclosure with a severe infestation. It would take several horrible hours to remove the mould. 

"You had better do a good job," the creature continued in a sly and malicious tone. "I will be using that Tank during my forthcoming experiments and my guess is that it will be your home. I don't think you impressed the male last night. You had your chance and I don't expect him to chose you. Especially since your silly little escape plan has come to nothing." Now Lucalle had to fight not to cry bitter tears for these last words had hurt her badly despite her ostentatious defiance. 

"And the Tank is just a start," the creature warned. "Tomorrow I shall decide on what further punishment you require!"

On the same evening that Lucalle started work in Holding Tank 4, Ketha and Klane were locked in the assessment chamber so that the creature's studies into human mating might continue.

"Don't worry," the youth said at once, feeling awkward and embarrassed in the proximity of this pretty girl. "I'm not going to take advantage of you. Lucalle explained everything last night; that you have both agreed not to engage in any kind of competition for me at the behest of the creature. We can't let it have what it wants." 

Ketha was sprawling on the bed and now she looked at him in a curiously frank and speculative way that made him blush unaccountably. "Never mind the creature," she said. "And never mind Lucalle. What do you want?" 

Klane struggled for an answer to that one, and Ketha finally broke the silence with a soft sigh. 

"Let me tell you something about Lucalle," she said. "She is my friend as well as my liege lady and her spirit is a fiery one and full of fervour to do right, but she is still a princess for all that. When she says 'we have agreed' something, she often just means that she has decided on her opinion. Then she assumes I agree; sometimes with only a little discussion or sometimes with none and in her own mind I have agreed. But on this occasion I have not. Now come here so we can talk properly!" 

"Now answer me honestly," Ketha said when a nervous Klane was sitting beside her on the bed. "Do you find me attractive?" 

"Y... yes. Of course!" he blurted. That much was undeniable. Ketha was lithe, sensual and disconcertingly direct. She smiled at him, a weapon of such disarming spontaneity, warmth and power that it left him defenceless. 

"And as you find me, so I find you," she said simply. "What could be more straightforward? Let us forget the creature and the world for tonight and live for one another. Please?" 

She seemed oddly tentative for a moment as she bent to kiss him, and in that moment her conquest was complete. So it was that Klane was initiated into the great mysteries of adulthood. The night was long and the rituals of the mysteries delighted them both. Yet even as he gave his body to pleasure and service his mind must have been working for a different freedom, for when he woke, drowsy and sated in the still of the morning he suddenly knew how the thraldom of the creature in the crater could be broken....