Tribesmen of Gor Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the dark-haired dancer, the skirt of diaphanous scarlet dancing silk low upon her hips. Her hands moved as though she might be, starved with desire, picking flowers from a wall in a garden. One saw almost the vines from which she plucked them, and how she held them to her lips, and, at times, seemed to press herself against the wall which confined her. Then she turned and, as though alone, danced her need before the men.
          "There is much here that appears to make little sense," said Samos. "Yet, there must be a meaning, a pattern" With an eating prong, of Turian design, Samos tapped the table before him. He looked at me. "Little has of late occurred in the Wars of Priest-Kings and Others."
          "Beware of a silent enemy," I said.
          Samos smiled. "True," he said. Then he pointed the eating prong at the leather-harnessed American girl, on the tiles to our right, naked, two guards with spears at her side. The heavy butts of their spears rested, one to each side of her. Her fists were clenched in the leather, buckled cuffs of her harness, held to her thighs by the thigh straps. "We learn from this slave," he said, indicating the former Miss Blake-Alien, "that, until further orders, slave runs from Earth to Gor have been cancelled."
          "Yes, "I said.
           "Why?' he asked.
           "Have the runs actually been stopped?" I asked.
           "Information from the Sardar," said Samos, "suggests that they have. There has not been a detection, let alone a pursuit, in three weeks."
          The Gorean week consists of five days. Each month consists of five such weeks. Following each month, of which there are twelve, separating them, is a five-day Passage Hand. The twelfth Passage Hand is followed by the Waiting Hand, a five-day period prior to the vernal equinox, which marks the Gorean New Year. It was currently in the late winter of Year 3 of the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains in Port Kar, the year 10,122 C.A., Contasta Ar, from the Founding of Ar I had, two months ago, returned from Torvaldsland, where I had attended to certain matters of the sword.
           "Further," said I, "into your keeping has come a captive beast, clearly a Kur."
           "It seems irrational," said Samos. "Only a beast."
           "I think it is rational," I said. "Its intelligence, I suspect, is the equal of ours, if not greater."
           Samos regarded me.
           "It may not, of course, be able to articulate Gorean. Few of the Kurii can. It is extremely difficult for them to do so."
           "You understand the direction in which it was traveling?" asked Samos.
          "Yes," said I.
          "Strange," said Samos.
          The beast had been taken southeast of Ar, while moving southeast. Such a Path would take it below the eastern foothills of the Voltai and to the south. It was incredible.   "Who would enter such a place?" asked Samos.
          "Caravans, crossing it," I said. "Nomads, grazing their verr on the stubble of verr grass."
          "Who else?" asked Samos.
          "The mad?" I smiled.
           "Or the purposeful," said Samos, someone who had business there, who knew what he was intending?"
          "Perhaps, "I admitted.
          "Someone who had a mission, who knew precisely for what he was searching?"
          "But there is nothing there," I said. "And only the mad, deeper into the area, depart from marked caravan routes, proceeding from oasis to oasis."
          "A tender of kaiila, a boy, lost from his camp," said Samos, "found a rock. On this rock was inscribed "Beware the steel tower.'"
          "And the message girl" I said. "We do not know, I gather, whom this Abdul is of whom we are warned to beware."
          "No," said Samos, puzzled. "I know of no Abdul."
          "And who would send such a message, and why?"
          "I do not know," said Samos.
          I idly observed the dancer. Her eyes were on me. It