John Norman - Explorers of Gor

I stopped on the walkway. Ahead, some yards, was a girl dark-haired, lying on her belly on the walkway, reaching with her hand down to the canal, to fish out edible garbage. She was barefoot, and wore a brief, brown rag. I did not think she was a slave. Some free girls, runaways, vagabonds, girls of no family or position, live about port cities, scavenging as they can, begging, stealing, sleeping at night in crates and under bridges and piers. They are called the she-urts of the wharves. Every once in a while there is a move to have them rounded up and collared but it seldom comes to anything.

I was not worried about the girl. I was more alert to the fact that, moments before, two guardsmen had passed. The rounds of guardsmen are generally randomized, usually by the tossing of coins, different combinations corresponding to different schedulings. One of the most practical strategies for those who would avoid guardsmen, of course, is to follow them in their rounds. I was very aware of the fact that I carried, in my sea bag, the ring which the blond barbarian had had on the Blossoms of Telnus and the notes, bearing the signatures and seals of Schendi bankers, who had been made out to Shaba, the geographer of Anango, the explorer of Lake Ushindi, and the discoverer of Lake Ngao and the mysterious Ua River. I thought these might bring him out of hiding, with the Tahari ring, if I could not locate him by means of the blond Earth girl who had been purchased by Ulafi, captain of the Palms of Schendi, merchant, too, of that city.

The girl, hearing my approach, drew her legs up quickly under her, and rose to her feet, turning to meet me. She smiled, brightly. She was pretty.

“Tal,” said she.

“Tal,” said I.

“You are strong,” she said.

We were in the vicinity of the pier of the Red Urt. It is not a desirable district.

I put down my sea bag.

She looked up at me.

“It is dangerous for you here,” I said. “You should be home.”

“I have no home,” she said.

She traced an idle pattern on my left shoulder with her finger tip.

“Who would want to hurt a little she-urt,” she said.

“What do you want?” I asked. I was alert to the tiny sound behind me.

“I will please you for a tarsk bit,” she said.

I did not speak.

She suddenly knelt before me. “I will please you as a slave girl, if you wish,” she said.

“When I want a slave girl,” I said, “I will have a real slave girl, not a free woman pretending to be a slave girl.”

She looked up at me, angrily.

“On your feet, free woman,” I said.

She got up angrily. She was not a slave. Why should I accord her the privilege of kneeling at my feet?

“I’m hot and I’m pretty,” she said. “Try me.”

I touched her flanks. They were good. I then took her by the upper arms. I looked into her eyes. She lifted her lips to mine.

“No!” she screamed, wild-eyed, as I suddenly lifted her from her feet and spun about, she knowing herself lifted helplessly into the path of the blow. I dropped her inert body to one side.

“You should take your breath,” I told him, “before you approach. Too, you should have your arm raised early, that the movement of the sleeve not be audible. Too, you should have the girl, in her diversion, keep her eyes closed. That could be natural enough, and, in that way, you would not be reflected in the mirror of her eyes.” It had not been difficult to detect his approach, even apart from the more obvious clues I had called to his attention. The senses of a warrior are trained. His life may depend on it.

With a cry of rage the man attacked. I caught the club hand, which was clumsy, and, twisting it, dashed his face first into the walkway. I then took him by the hair and thrust the side of his head into the wall. He slumped down, unconscious. I took binding fiber from my sea bag and tied his wrists together behind his back, and crossed and tied his ankles. I then turned to the girl. I tied her hands behind her back, and then took her by the ankles and held her upside down, thrusting her head and shoulders, and upper body, under the cold waters of the canal. In a few seconds I pulled her up, sputtering, and sat her, tied, against the wall across from me. She gasped for air; she tried to clear water from her eyes. She choked. Her hair and the rag she wore were wet. She backed further against the wall, drawing her legs up, pressing her knees closely together. She looked at me, frightened. “Please, let me go,” she said. Dawn would be well glistening now over the marshes to the east. It was still rather dark in the canal streets with the buildings on each side. There was fog visible on the canals.

“Please, let me go,” she said. “It will mean the collar for me.”

“Do you recall what you said to me,” I asked, “shortly before I turned you about?”

“No,” she said.

“Oh?” I asked.

“Yes, yes!” she said.

“Say it, again,” I told her.

“Please,” she begged.

“Say it,” I said.

“I’m hot and I’m pretty,” she stammered. “Try me,” she said. She swallowed hard.

“Very well,” I said.

I drew her to me by the ankles.

“Please let me go,” she said. “It will mean the collar for me. Oh, oh.”

Then in moments she moaned and wept.

I forced her to yield well, to the very limits of the free woman. Then I was finished with her.

She looked up at me. “Have I pleased you?” she asked, tears in her eyes.

“Yes,” I said.

“Let me go,” she said.

I took her ankles, crossed and tied them. Then I threw her beside the man, her head to his feet. I tied her neck to his feet, and her feet to his neck. They would wait, thus, for the guardsmen.

“They will banish him and collar me,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

I knelt down on one knee beside her. I took a tarsk bit from my pouch, and thrust it in her mouth. She was a free woman. Since I had no intent of enslaving her myself, it seemed fit that I should pay her for her use. She had asked, as I recalled, for a tarsk bit. Had I intended to keep her, I might have simply raped her, and then put the collar on her. A slave has no recourse.

I rose to my feet, and, shouldering my sea bag, whistling, continued on toward the pier of the Red Urt, where Ulafi’s ship, the Palms of Schendi, was moored.

I soon hurried my steps, for an alarm bar had begun to ring.

I heard steps running behind me, too, and I turned about. A black seaman ran past me, he, too, heading toward the wharves. I followed him toward the pier of the Red Urt.

“How long has she been missing?” I asked.

“Over an Ahn,” said a man. “But only now have they rung the bar.”

We stood in the vicinity of the high desk of the wharf praetor.

“There seemed no reason to ring it earlier,” said the man. “It was thought she would be soon picked up, by guardsmen, or the crew of the Palms of Schendi.”

“She was to be shipped on that craft?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the man. “I suppose now her feet must be cut off.”

“Is it her first attempt to escape?” asked another man.

“I do not know,” said another.

“Why is there this bother about an escaped slave,” demanded a man, his clothing torn and blood at his ear. “I have been robbed! What are you doing about this?”

“Be patient,” said the wharf praetor. “We know the pair. We have been searching for them for weeks.” The praetor handed a sheet of paper to one of his guardsmen. People were gathered around. Another guardsman stopped ringing the alarm bar. It hung from a projection on a pole, the pole fixed upright on the roof of a nearby warehouse.