Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column and a further foray into volume 3, "Priest-Kings of Gor". When we last saw him, Tarl Cabot had been taken into the confidence of Misk, a Priest-King with a big secret. Misk has revealed to Tarl that he has a young male Priest-King in hiding, ready to breed a new generation of his insectoid kind; but what Tarl’s part in this might be, Misk has yet to reveal. We had better get to it, no?

Chapter Sixteen.

Tarl views the young male with mixed emotions. He blames Priest-Kings for the destruction of Ko-ro-ba and the loss of his Free Companion, Talena, and his purpose in coming to the Sardar was to seek revenge. Misk reveals however that all of Tarl’s adventures on Gor have been designed to ensure that he would come here, thinking it was of his own free will. Resenting such manipulation, Tarl threatens to kill the young male, but Misk knows his Cabots better than that: it is not in Tarl’s nature to harm an innocent creature. Moreover, Tarl’s father and friends, as well as Talena, are alive and well, though their whereabouts is not known.

Misk explains at some length about Priest-King policy concerning men; limiting their technology and encouraging them to maintain a fragmented society, so as to pose the less threat to Priest-Kings; periodically maintaining contact with the Earth in order to bring fresh blood to Gor and also to ascertain whether Earth men might in time become a threat to the Priest-Kings. It would lie within the Priest-Kings’ power to destroy Earth or move Gor out of the solar system should this ever become the case, but Misk claims that the Priest-Kings predict the self-destruction of Earth men within a thousand years.

Tarl’s father, Matthew Cabot, has been known to the Priest-Kings for several centuries, and Misk’s plan has been millennia in the making, culminating in the abduction of Tarl, a feat Misk accomplished himself, and Tarl reflects that there is little that Misk left to chance. Misk reveals that Vika was an unexpected complication, for she has wheedled a hundred men into her chains before and might well have done so with Tarl.

(That’s quite a mind-blowing thought. It is truly remarkable that no fewer than one hundred glandularly sufficient Goreans, untrammelled by the feminized weak societal Earth values under which Tarl’s countrymen labour, should have so far forgotten their natural position vis-à-vis a slave girl as to have voluntarily submitted to real chains; but such, we are baldly assured, is the case.)

Setting this aside, Misk returns to his muttons. After the siege of Ar, Tarl was forcibly separated from Talena in order to swell his hatred for Priest-Kings, so that he would be sure to come to the Sardar; and once a female egg existed, Tarl was returned to Gor to fulfil his destiny. This, Misk explains, is simple and unambiguous: Tarl must kill Sarm.

There is one flaw in this plan. Tarl does not wish to kill Sarm and considers the whole affair none of his business. And Misk, though this female egg will be the last ever owing to the Mother’s extremely advanced age, will not compel or threaten Tarl. This is a startling insight into the character of Misk. The plan has been thousands of years in the making, it has but one chance to succeed, and if it fails then the whole race of Priest-Kings is certainly doomed; but Misk respects Tarl’s freedom of choice, though Tarl is only a man and demonstrably a lower form of life. With no argument whatever, Misk allows Tarl to leave the chamber and return to his case to sleep.

Chapter Seventeen.

After an uneasy sleep, Tarl awakens to find himself the guest of Sarm, who tells him that Misk has gone to "retain Gur". The reference puzzles Tarl, but Sarm is not forthcoming with an explanation. He avows friendship for Tarl, which actually arouses his suspicions: Tarl, knowing that Priest-Kings have no concept of "friendship", guesses that Sarm must have deliberately learned the word solely to make a favourable impression on him. He keeps a straight face however, as Sarm proceeds to offer him women, wealth and power.

It’s obvious what Sarm wants, of course, and he is not slow in asking Tarl why he has been brought to the Sardar. Tarl claims ignorance and, after a futile attempt to bore Sarm into giving up and going away, Sarm offers to show Tarl some of the interesting sights in the Nest. They go for another ride on the transportation disk, visiting the Scanning Room where a watch is maintained on the Men Below the Mountains; and Tarl is treated to a view through the eyes of an "Implanted One", a Priest-King agent with a control web built into his skull. It was one of these that Tarl met early on in "Outlaw", on the road to Ko-ro-ba; and Sarm explains that if an Implanted One does resist control, the web itself can be overloaded. He is in time to witness the fiery demise of a Builder who was caught trying out a primitive gunpowder weapon. This arrogant exercise of the Priest-Kings’ authority upsets Tarl, and after a brief dissertation on the superiority of Priest-King to Man, Sarm takes Tarl elsewhere.

Chapter Eighteen.

Tarl is unable either to find Misk or to get an explanation of what it means to "retain Gur"; the humans in the Nest do not know and the Priest-Kings he dares to ask, though not punishing him for asking, refuse to discuss the matter with a human. He is often accompanied by Mul Al-Ka and Mul Ba-Ta, who now belong to Sarm and are under orders to report Tarl’s doings to him. But they are learning something of independence and volunteer not to watch if there is anything Tarl wishes to do that Sarm ought not to know about.

Nevertheless Sarm’s guidance is still interesting to Tarl, for he gets to see a lot more of the Nest this way, including a huge power plant. Suddenly Sarm confronts Tarl with the assertion that he knows Tarl’s purpose in the Nest. Sarm corroborates Misk’s story concerning Vika, and adds that once Tarl had been properly broken to her will, he would have been freed, in order that Tarl could kill Misk. Misk, Sarm claims, is a traitor to the Nest, but being a Priest-King himself, he cannot kill another. Hearing this, and that his reward is to be Vika, in chains and at his feet, Tarl tells Sarm to give him his sword and take him to Misk.

Chapter Nineteen.

Despite his agreement…intended to get his sword back into his possession, and to enable him to find Misk…Tarl finds himself returned to his case, there to spend another uneasy night. When Sarm next comes for him it is obviously party time, for Sarm is garlanded in green and wears a necklace of primitive tools, commemorating the unimaginably distant past when Priest-Kings first became tool-users. Sarm immediately unlocks the cabinet where Tarl’s sword is stowed, and gives him the weapon. While Tarl wonders where a Priest-King’s vitals might be, or whether he could possibly get to grips with Sarm before being scragged by his awesome strength and natural weaponry, Sarm wrecks the cabinet, ostensibly to ensure that Tarl can’t be deprived of his sword again. Of course Tarl is not so childishly simple as to buy this likely story, but nor does he annoy Sarm by pointing this out.

Before dispatching Tarl on his deadly mission, Sarm discusses his party-wear with him, and in the course of this conversation Tarl innocently enquires as to what vulnerable spots of Misk he should strike at in order to kill him efficiently. Sarm, whether or not he understands Tarl’s studied nonchalance, explains that there are no vital areas, and Tarl will just have to hew Misk to pieces; but, fortunately, Misk will be in no condition to resist or interfere. This is not good news for Tarl, who has been entertaining thoughts of doing what Misk asked of him in the first place, but there is no help for it. Sarm will not even be coming along to lend aid or advice, for, today being the Feast of Tola, it is his duty to offer Gur to the Mother. This is, of course, Priest-King business which he is not disposed to explain to Tarl.

Tarl does get some help however, in the shape of Mul Al-Ka and Mul Ba-Ta, who are under orders to convey him to Misk, tell him where to find Vika, and then report for dissection in order to keep the whole business secret. Sarm adds some words to the effect that invoking Kusk’s name is not going to save the two Muls this time. He turns off his translator and waves Tarl a cheery farewell; but he has not accounted for Tarl’s sense of smell, which has become educated enough to discern a few basic Priest-King scent signals: in this case, the mocking utterance, "Die, Tarl Cabot."

And we all thought Sarm was such a nice guy, too, didn’t we?

Chapter 20

Awaiting him, transportation disk at the ready, Mul Al-Ka and Mul Ba-Ta are less than chatty, and after telling Tarl of Sarm’s instructions to them they both ostentatiously position themselves so that Tarl could, if he wished, throw them from the disk and make his escape. He suggests that they tell him what’s on their mind but they are unwilling to do so, being under orders from Sarm. After some thought however, the two Muls reach a consensus.

They take him to a chamber…which they were under no orders not to do…where a girl is being collared and branded. This is done in a much less personal manner than on the surface, but the upshot is much the same; a girl has a metal collar fixed on her neck and her thigh branded, though by an automatic device rather than the brawny arm of a Warrior or a slaver, and she is dressed in the clothing generally issued to female Muls in the Nest. Mul Al-Ka and Mul Ba-Ta advise Tarl not to interfere, which instruction he regretfully heeds; Tarl in these early days would certainly be inclined to rescue an innocent girl from an unwanted collaring, even if he did have to fight his way out of the Nest to do it, but in the circumstances he yields to the inevitable.

His attention isn’t a hundred percent on what the Muls are showing him, and it isn’t until they point out the new slave’s collar to him that he gets the point. The collar was number 708, which was the number of Vika’s collar when he last saw her; and this obviously means that Vika doesn’t need the collar any more and hence that Sarm’s promise of rewards isn’t worth a bag of wind. Vika, the Muls tell him, is not yet dead; she has been consigned to the Tunnels of the Golden Beetle, where Tarl will no doubt die attempting to rescue her. This, the Muls agree, is the one weak point in Sarm’s well-laid plan, for obviously Tarl will do nothing so foolish; but they don’t know our Tarl. Goreans rescue females quite as readily as Earthmen do, if not more so, for the rescued woman belongs to her rescuer.

Hearing this, the Muls reflect glumly that Sarm is cleverer than they thought, so to use the instincts of humans against them, but their growing curiosity to learn what it is to be human leads them to volunteer their aid. Tarl says that he may have another mission for them, and with a little persuasion he gets them to recognize that it might be possible to defy Sarm’s order to report for dissection. Once that tarsk-bit has dropped, Tarl instructs them to take him to Misk.

Now the die is cast, Tarl has had his sides chosen for him, the damsel is well and truly in distress, and any time soon Tarl is due to find out what "retaining Gur" actually means… all of which obviously means it is high time to bring this month’s Booknotes to a conclusion, and urge all readers to join us again next month!