John Norman - Raiders of Gor

The men who had come to the tavern were roistering but order, to some extent, had been restored. Two of the ship's lanterns had been broken. There was glass, and spilled paga about, and two broken tables. But teh musicians were again playing and again, in the square of sand, the girl performed, through not now the Whip Dance. Nude slave girls, wrists chained, hurried about. The Proprietor, sweating, aproned, was tipping yet another great bottle of paga in its sling, filling cups, that they might be borne to the drinkers. There was an occasional scream from the alcoves, bringing laughter from the tables. I heard the flash of a whip somewhere, and the cries of a girl.

I wondered if, now that the canals were barred, slaves escaped from Port Kar. The nearest solid land was about one hundred pasangs to the north, but it was open land, and, there, on the edges of the delta, there were log outposts of Port Kar, where slave hunters and trained sleen, together, patrolled the marshes' edges.

The vicious, siz-legged sleen, large-eyed, sinuous, mammalian but resermbling a furred, serpentine lizard, was a reliable, indefatigable hunter. He could follow a scent days old with ease, and then, perhaps hundreds of pasangs, and days, later, be unleashed for the sport of the hunters, to tear his victim to pieces. I expected there was not likely to be escape for slaves to the north. That left the delta, with its interminable marshes, and the thirst, and the tharlarion.

Hunting sleen are trained to scent out and destroy escaped slaves.

Their senses are unusually keen.

Tuchuks, in the sounth, as I recalled, had also used sleen to hunt slaves, and, of course, to protect their herds.

I was becoming drunk, my thoughts less connected.

The sea, I thought, the sea.

Could not Port Kar be attacked from the sea?

The music of the musicians began to beat in my blood, reeling there. I looked at the girls serving paga.

"More paga!" I cried, and anoher wench ran lightly to serve me.

But only Cos and Tyros had fleets to match those of Port Kar.

There were the northern islands, of course, and they were numerous, but small, extending in an archipelago like a scimitar northeastward from Cos, which lay some four hundred pasangs west of Port Kar. But these islands were not united, and, indeed, the government of them was usualy no more than a village council. They usually possessed no vessels more noteworthy than clinker-built skiffs and coasters.

The girl in teh sand, the dancing girl, was now performing the Belt Dance. I had seen it done once before, in Ar, in the house of Cernus, a slaver.

Only Cos and Tyros had fleets to match those of Port Kar. And they, almost of tradition, did not care to engage their fleets with hers. Doubtless all sides, including Port Kar, regarded the risks as too great; doubtless all sides, including Port Kar, were content with the stable, often profitable, situation of constant but small-scale warfare, interspersed with some trading and smuggling, which had for so long characterized their relations. Raids of one upon the other, involving a few dozen ships, were not infrequent, whether on the shipping of Port Kar, or beaching on Cos or Tyros, but major actions, those which might involve the hundreds of galleys possessed by these redoubtable maritime powers, the two island Ubarates and Port Kar, had taken place in the more than a centrury.

No, I said to myself, Port Kar is safe from the sea.

And then I laughed, for I was considering how Port Kar might fall, and yet she was my own, my own city.

"More paga!" I cried.

Tarnsmen, aflight, might annoy her with arrows or fire, but it did not seem they could seriously harm her, not unless they come in thousands upon thousands, and not even Ar, Glorious Ar, possessed tarn cavalries so great. And how, even then, could Port Kar fall, for she was a mass of holdings, each individually defensible, room to room, each separated from the others by the canals which, in their hundreds, crossed and divided the city?

No, I said to myself, Port Kar could be held a hundred years.

And even should she, somehow, fall, her men need only take ship, and then, when it pleased them, return, ordering slaves again to build in the delta a city called Port Kar.

On Gor, I told myself, and perhaps on all worlds, there will always be a Port Kar.

I found the girl on the sand seductive, and beautiful. The girls of Port Kar, I told myself are the best on Gor.

Tarnsmen, I thought, tarnsmen.

Off to my right a table was overturned and two men of the crew of Surbus were rolling about, brawling. Ohers were calling for Whip Knives to be brought. I remembered, with fondness, my own tarn, the sable monster, Ubar of the Skies. I extended my hand and the goblet was again refilled.

And I remembered, too, with bitterness, the girl, Elizabeth Cardwell, Vella of Gor, who had so helped me in my work in Ar on behalf of the Priest-kings. While returning her to the Sardar I had thought long on the matter of her safety. I surely could not permit her, though I then loved her, as I could not now, being unworthy to love, to remain longer in the dangers of Gor. Already she who doubtless be known to the Others, not Priest-Kings, who would challenge Priest-Kings for this world, and Earth. Her life would surely be in jeopardy. She had undertaken great risks with me, which I, foolishly, had permitted. When at last I had brought her safely back to the Sardar I had thus told her I would arrange with Misk, the Priest-King, that she be returned to Earth.

"No!" she had cried.

"I have made my decision," I told her. "You will be, for your own good, for your own safety and well-being, returned to the planet Earth, where you will no longer have to fear the perils of this world."

"But this is my world!" she had cried. "It is mine as much as yours! I love it and you cannot send me from it!"

"You will be returned to the planet Earth," I had informed her.

"But I love you," she said.

"I am sorry," I said, "It is not easy for me to do what I must do." There had been tears in my eyes. "You must forget me," I said. "And you must forget this world."

"You do not want me!" she cried.

"That is not true," I said, "I love you."

"You have no right," said she, "to take me from this world. It is mine, as much as yours!"

It would be hard, certainly, for her to leave this world, beautiful, bright and green, but perilous, for the cities of Earth, to breathe again its air, to live in its cubicles, to move jostled among her uncaring crowds, ot lose herself again in its mercantile grayness, its insensibilities and tediums, but it was better for her to do so. There she could be anonymous, and safe, perhaps contract a desirable marriage, and live well in a large house, perhaps with servants, and conveniences, and devices.

"You will take this world from me!" she cried.

"I have made my decision," I told her.

"You have no right," said she, "to make such a decision for me."

She looked up at me.

"It is done," I said. "Tomorrow you will be returned to Earth. Your work here is done."

I attempted to kiss her, but she had turned and, not crying, left me. My thoughts turned again to the great saddlebird, the War Tarn, Ubar of the Skies.

He had slain men who had attempted to climb to his saddle.

Yet, that night, he had permitted Elizabeth Cardwell, only a girl to saddle him, to fly away from Sardar.

He, alone, had returned four days later.

In fury I had driven the bird away.

I who had sought to protect her, had lost her.

And Talena, too, who has once been my Free Companion, years ago, I had lost. I had loved two women, and I had lost them both.

I wept at the table, foolishly.

I drank more paga, and my senses reeled.

Port Kar seemed sovereign on Thassa.