In their arrogance, self-assuredness, over-confidence or whatever you want to call it; they each believed that they could win any conflict, that their...technology was so advanced that they couldn’t lose.After thousands of years they finally realized that their enemies were just as advanced, that they were evenly matched. It took centuries for them to realize that their population was dwindling. They were so caught up in their expansion that no one was paying attention to the losses.You see, the. "Come on, Mike! We've gotta get inside!" she shouted above the roar. Slowly, I sat up and shook off the daze. The shutter still banged against the house."Help me close the shutter!" I shouted, and my sister nodded, helping me to my feet. Struggling against the wind, we closed the shutters, leaning on them long enough to get the lock in place. Finished, we rounded the corner of the house and bolted through the front door, slamming it and locking it behind us.For a moment, we stood leaning. The connection to failure for the punisher was just as frightening as for the slave who failed. It was a vicious cycle that Master had devised, making others accountable for the actions of all slaves that kept the estate autonomous. Every slave was well aware of not only their own status for failure, but also the actions of others who failed, if they were in part responsible. That meant swift correction by higher slaves to lesser slaves when an infraction occurred.When Lucinda finally tired, I. Sadia, for her part, was depressed to see such young rivals in the harem, and expected that he would soon tire of her and sell her. Naturally he would use them for the first few days he was home, and she wondered if she would ever share his bed again. After she had been dressed in the costume of his harem, a pair of sheer gauze traditional split crotch trousers and little else, he looked her over and nodded. Then he turned and left the women to their gossip. The biggest news was that he had met.