The young master spoke the word Grey believed was now her name. He tapped her behind the knees with his antenna and she knelt without thinking. She thought her name meant Grey. She had no reason to think this but no one had contradicted her.

She had spent the night in the street, secured to what looked as if it had been a streetlight with a single rope round her neck. A quarter-full rainwater butt was within reach saving her masters the problem of watering her. Grey was no longer surprised by their physical weakness; the difficulty they had lifting even quite small weights.

The rope was fixed with a simple hitch, or so it seemed. In the past she had thought about freeing herself but something about the knot had always defeated her. Since she could not understand this she had ceased thinking about it.

Her masters had passed the night in one of the ruins that used to be houses, where they spent so much time. Grey could hardly recall the sensation of being inside a building. She thought that she had known at one time, just as she almost remembered clothing, but she was unsure.

Unusually the street contained one solid building in reasonable repair. Almost certainly her masters would have used that one, except that it was already occupied. Two male humans had been, as she was, tied up outside for the night. With the dawn they had become interested in her and moved as close as they could get, almost touching. They snorted, grunted, and stroked themselves excitedly but, though she felt herself responding, they remained out of reach.

It was the males’ masters that emerged first carrying saddles which they dumped in the road. They untied the men and each began to lead one on a short rope. For a moment Grey thought the men were being brought to her. The men thought so too and growling eagerly began to pull on the ropes and drag their masters along. Their masters lashed them casually into obedience. The nearer master gave Grey a cut across the face. She whimpered, retreated as far as she could, and crouched there. They ignored her. They had only wanted water.

She watched cautiously as the men were bridled, as the saddles were strapped on to their shoulders, as they were mounted and ridden away, showing their reflective brands.

The shadows had moved considerably before her masters came and untied Grey. Even kneeling she towered over them and when one touched the gash on her face with his antenna he had to reach up. He made a complex clicking-whistling sound, which the second answered, but they took no other action.

Once they had been frightening beings. Dark red they resembled a blend of small monkey and giant squid. They had no obvious sense organs but they did have a large, blunted beak, two sets of short tentacles which they used to manipulate objects, and one antenna which could be extended an extraordinary distance and could deliver shocks of varying severity. Grey was no longer fearful. She obeyed them; they fed her.

She was unsurprised when the young master took the heavy draught collar from the wall and, reaching up, heaved it over her head and on to her shoulders. For a few moments the front piece rested uncomfortably on her breasts until her forearms were taken up and buckled to each side of the collar. Next, he put the blinkers on her. She liked this. Since she had started to wear them her restricted field of vision had greatly improved her concentration. That meant fewer stumbles and fewer beatings.

The older master, (Grey thought of him as older only because he was slightly larger and seemed to leave the heavier work to the other one), attached her bridle, inserting the bit and making adjustments until he was satisfied. Here was another mystery; had she once been able to put her thoughts into sounds? She thought it was likely she had been able to do that but she could not understand how she would have done it. Wouldn’t that mean she had once been a master? It made no sense.

The older master pulled suddenly on the reins leading from her bit and Grey was jerked back to the present. She was led to the side of building, turned, and backed between the shafts of the wagon. To her the wagon was a flimsy, wickerwork object. Although it had four wheels, when it was empty she hardly knew it was following her. Now it was partly loaded with objects taken from the buildings they had visited this trip.

The older master put the rounded metal crossbar in front of her, hip-high, and clipped it to the shafts. He pulled feebly on the reins but Grey leant forward as she had been trained, until the collar was directly between the raised ends of the shafts where it could be firmly attached. Now her head and hands were fixed in place by the collar while the crossbar kept her legs back, forcing her to lean forwards. For the moment, though, she could rest most of her weight on one or the other while her masters busied themselves with the wagon.

Soon the older master came back into her view, passed the reins over her head, and vanished again. She felt the wagon come alive as its load shifted. The reins twitched and her head came up. There was a series of clucks. (Was it meant for her?). She felt a flick on her brand – they always aimed for her brand – and she leant into the collar and walked easily forwards on to the street.

Before her head was guided to the left she knew her young master had the reins. Even if she had been able to do so she would not have needed to look round to know. On the one hand he was less skilled and more likely to put them in an awkward position. On the other hand she could sometimes take liberties, such as slight turns of her head, and somehow she never seemed to get so tired as when the older master was driving her.

They travelled for some while, mostly at a fast trot. The road was level and they soon left the buildings in the past. Grey wondered how it was that the roads were well maintained while most structures were in decay. She had never seen a road-worker.

Occasionally she caught a glimpse of off-road activity. There seemed to be considerable numbers of masters gathering a harvest possibly, though of what she did not know. There were humans too either pulling carts as she was or turning pumps or something similar. A few masters were riding through the others. Grey assumed these were supervisors. It occurred to her that these days she saw far more masters and fewer humans than ever before.

More clucks, a turn of her head, and they left the road, moving slowly along a rough track shaded by spreading trees in full leaf. Now that it was directly in front of her Grey could see another partly collapsed building, this time isolated. If forced to guess she would have thought this was their destination for now. But she was not forced to guess and wrong anticipations had cost her pain before now. She kept drawing the wagon until she was pulled up. After a short pause she relaxed against her harness.

The older master scuttled straight into the ruins. The younger master removed her bit and stroked her face. His touch on the wound she received earlier was painful and she flinched, but he persisted. Grey hoped they would stay long enough for her to be unharnessed and fed but the younger master did not free her. Instead, when he had tired of examining her, if he was examining her, he took a sack from the wagon and emptied it on the ground in front of her. Then, having released her bit on one side, he strolled into the building.

Almost immediately the flies, which had clustered around her wound and around the crossbar where she had been rubbing against it, began to inspect this new source of interest. Grey knelt, bringing the shafts right down to the ground so that she was able to reach the food by leaning forward. She did not know what it was she was eating and the bit dangled awkwardly under her chin, but she knew she would not be fed again that day. Concentrating as she was, and still blinkered, she was unaware of the newcomers until they touched her. Three masters she did not know had moved close to her from the direction she had come earlier. She moved restlessly. She was still hungry and wished they would leave her but they assessed her thoroughly with their antennae, clicking softly as they did so. One of them examining the bit surprised her by replacing it in her mouth while another held the reins and pulled up her head.

This did not seem to her much like a regular sale but that was not her concern. Her concern was the food. Two of the newcomers appeared in front her, one of them holding two huge feathers that caught her eye. While her head was pulled back as far as it would go she felt something (the feathers?) being attached to her hair, one to each side of her head. She was also aware of the third master doing something she could not see to the crossbar.

Grey felt the reins released as the three moved away from her. They stood without moving, silent, regarding her. She turned her head from side to side and regarded them dully.

A soft sound of objects being dropped on to the earth indicated the return of the older and younger masters. This was followed by an ear-aching clamour as they rushed the newcomers. There was much waving of tendrils, though not of the antennae Grey knew so well. There appeared to be no actual physical contact but the intruders backed off rapidly. Soon they were out of sight.

The older master examined the wagon while the younger examined Grey. He tugged at one the feathers, failed to detach it but caused her to yelp. After a few more tries he gave up. The masters clicked and wheezed more than ever. Grey, frustrated by her bit, put her head to the ground near the remaining food but her masters ignored her and continued loading their finds.

Grey had wondered whether her masters were scrap dealers. They certainly took metal. But they also took plastic, bricks, and textiles. As they worked she was given glimpses of glass bottles and splintered floorboards. Perhaps they were archeologists?

When they had finished loading the wagon was much heavier and moving off caused Grey to strain for the first time that day. Even with the older master driving Grey was allowed a little leeway in picking her footing as she turned the wagon on the rough track and headed back to the road. Whenever she had to make the greatest effort with her upper body low and stretching forward she could feel that there was something wrong with the crossbar. She could not see what it was but she knew some projection was rubbing her lower belly. The wagon’s shafts were slightly wider than her hips and she wriggled to one side to avoid the irritation. Either for reasons of aesthetics or for reasons of mechanical efficiency the older master would not allow this and immediately shocked her hindquarters central again.

Grey endured until they reached the road. Once on the easier going she held her body higher and the annoyance reduced to a tickle. She tried to empty her mind; to be aware of nothing but the reins connecting her body to her master’s mind. Nevertheless the tickling warmed her and, as the day cooled, the warmth began slowly to spread.

The Sun was setting as they came in sight of the hill that was the masters’ base of operations. Grey was tiring badly and there was an abnormal skittishness in her performance. The older master had to work harder than usual to keep the wagon up to speed. For the last half mile, although Grey kept moving after a fashion, she bucked repeatedly and she writhed and waggled her hips no matter how much she was struck. The feeling that she must be obedient had long since been burnt into her far more deeply than any brand. Now it was at war with another feeling, one that was new to her, wasn’t it? As soon as the wagon was halted by the masters’ large skin tent she fell as much as she could in the harness, trying to bite through the bit while simultaneously moaning round it.

When the young master, after a struggle, removed her bridle and bit she screamed with relief and gulped air. When he released her from the harness she fell where she was, unconscious.

Shortly before dawn she woke sore, aching and, briefly happy. For the first time ever a blanket, or more probably, an old rug had been tossed over her as she lay. Then she remembered what had happened and gave a small shudder, but she knew there was more to it. Something was wrong with her mind; something she did not wish to think about. But it was no use. Remembering the humiliations of yesterday affected her mind in the manner of a single pebble setting off an avalanche that had been waiting an age for its opportunity and recollection now swept away all imposed barriers. Throwing off the blanket she half rose until stopped by the rope round her neck.

“I”, she whispered to the uncaring sky, “am Grace Klinsman. I teach physical education”

Her voice was rough. She did not say any more but instead she thought of the day it had started. Reports on all the media of extraordinary events in many places at once. Sightings of strange creatures; angels to the faithful, aliens to others, delusions to the rest; but no pictures, no confirmation. Spaceships of all descriptions were seen by people of all sorts except astronomers. A consensus began to form around a mixture of mass suggestibility, hysteria, and willful self-delusion. Then, between one heartbeat and the next, the media outlets and everyone she met could only grunt, weep or scream.

On the same day the first masters came. Not like the masters she knew now but creatures whose presence no human could endure, whose form no human could observe. Trying to avoid these beings the human race had been driven into vast herds. Millions died of panic or starvation or cannibalism. The last thing Grace recalled from this time was her mind crumbling as, finally, one of the beings touched her.

Remembering this now Grace put it together with what had been her earliest memory for, well, who knew how long? She had found herself fastened in position on her hands and knees. There had been a sudden soulless sobbing near her and she realized she was one of a line of similarly placed people. The man next to her was having his body and face examined by one the red monkeylike tentacled creatures; the first Grace had seen. The man shook continually, threatening to break his own neck, always crying meaninglessly. The master had reached out and used his antenna to brand the man’s hindquarters. The master waited but the man kept up his shaking and then wet himself. The master bit off the man’s head, spat it on the ground, and moved to Grace.

How long ago had this happened she wondered again. She knew she had changed master four times, once perhaps she had been stolen. Of course, that assumed the masters had the concept of personal possessions.

Angrily she got on to her feet. Stop dreaming, she told herself, decide, and do it now! Maybe the mental block wears off with time or maybe I was lucky, but there must be others.

Somewhere.

Quickly Grace untied both ends of the rope and coiled it. She picked up the blanket and walked into the dying night.