Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column.

As the nights draw in all over Earth’s Northern hemisphere, and the days grow short and chill, we may envy Tarl Cabot his present climate, which is a good deal warmer and more cheering. On the other hand, he has plenty of worries which we do not share, including being so far up the uncharted watercourses of Gor’s jungle interior that even his native guides only know of the locale by reputation, having as yet unfinished business with Shaba the Geographer and the duplicitous Msaliti, being an uncertain distance ahead of the mighty Ubar Bila Huruma, and being in the company of Kisu, a card-carrying madman who intends to try conclusions with that same Ubar as soon as an opportunity presents itself, though to be sure, Kisu intends to let the jungle and its inhabitants do a good deal of softening-up for him first. But there is only one way to find out what happens next, and we had better resort to it at once.

Chapter Thirty-four

Tarl is on a hunting expedition with only the “blond barbarian” (the former Janice Prentiss of Earth) for company and assistance. Needless to say her major function so far as the actual hunting is concerned is merely to get in the way and be a liability, but after the hunting is done for the day, Tarl and the slave set about more mutually enjoyable business. She was broken in (ahem) in Schendi, many chapters ago, and appeared at that time reasonably ready to embrace her slavery, but she regressed into Earth-style denial shortly afterwards and it has taken as long as this for her to become ready to confront her own needs and drives again. Tarl again uses the imagery of a girl shut in a dungeon fearing to emerge into the light, where she need no longer be ashamed of her biologically-validated desire to submit to male domination; and this time there is no turning back. She first begs to be allowed to dance for her master and then is put to slave use, Gorean style, to which she responds as girls so treated by Tarl invariably do, and he at last gives her a name: Janice. And so, by way of erotically-charged slaves responding to their needs by awakening their masters with unsolicited oral ministrations (some guys really do have all the luck) and other such pleasantries, they make their way back to their fellow-adventurers with most of a roasted tarsk.

Chapter Thirty-five

Alice, Tarl’s other Earth-girl slave of the moment and until that point the only one who was not in denial of her sexual needs, is moved to jealousy by Janice’s sexual awakening and the consequent neglect of herself. Tarl amusedly permits them to squabble, but when Janice appears to get ideas above her station he is not slow to demonstrate that she, too, is a slave just as Alice is, and needn’t put on airs just because she is Master’s presently-preferred sex-toy.

Chapter Thirty-six

Shortchapteritis sets in again for a while. The expedition encounters a shipwreck, implying that Shaba’s expedition is now short of a galley. Tarl disentangles the wreck and lets it drift away, viewing this as more fitting for something that used to be a ship than leaving it aground.

Chapter Thirty-seven

The chief of a village where they have stopped intends to buy Tende, Kisu’s slave. He does not wish to sell her, and they make a hasty exit.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Ayari thinks he has seen Janice in the forest. It is quickly established that he is mistaken.

Chapter Thirty-nine

The people of a village the heroes are approaching try to ambush them, but fail. Tarl and company resolve to press on.

Chapter Forty

Tende complains that the two white slaves are not tied at night, but she is. Kisu responds by untying her ankles, in response to her suggestion, and making use of her. He does not retie her ankles, saying he may want her again by morning.

Chapter Forty-one

Jungle natives try to trap the expedition with a net, but don’t succeed.

Chapter Forty-two

Four months have passed on the river since the expedition spotted Bila Huruma on their tail, and they still have neither overtaken Shaba nor been overtaken by the Ubar. Enjoying the hospitality of a village, they are disturbed to find that the locals’ refuse heap conceals human bones, and deducing that their hosts may be having some people for dinner, as it were, they make yet another hasty exit, but none too hasty, at that.

Chapter Forty-three

Ayari’s mysterious sighting five chapters ago is explained as the party encounters a couple of white-skinned Gorean-speaking girls. These endeavour to lure the travellers into an ambush, although it is hard to imagine how they ever have any success with such tactics, as every male in the party sees through the subterfuge instantly (although Janice, Alice and Tende alike are all taken in). Tarl harks back to an earlier stop where someone wanted to know if Janice were a taluna, and (correctly) deduces that this is what they have just seen.

Chapter Forty-four

While Tarl is supervising Janice at her bath, he is obliged to fight off a predatory fish, a kind of lobe-finned creature that pursues her onto the land, and while he is dealing with this, Janice blunders into the web of a giant spider. This is not one of the intelligent arachnoids such as Tarl encountered way back in Tarnsman, but it is absurdly huge and takes a little dealing with. He is observed by a group of pygmies, who are at first reluctant to interfere but then lend Tarl a hand in slaying the spider. They object, however, when he frees Janice from its web and it soon emerges that they think she is a taluna, for they are the slaves of such - white-skinned women who are too large and strong for them. Tarl, of course, normally has no objection to larger, stronger humans enslaving those who are smaller and weaker, but in this case he is prepared to make an exception.

Despite thinking it a shame, though, he is too preoccupied with his own business, which he is about to go and mind; but when he makes the disturbing discovery that his companions have been ambushed in his absence and carried off by one of the local tribes, the Mamba people (nothing to do with the Earth snake of that name), who are cannibals, he quickly resolves to trade favours with the pygmies, forming a plan to deal with the talunas in a matter of moments.

Chapter Forty-five

A lost tribe of white women in the equatorial jungle? Well, we have encountered similar creatures before in the northern forests - the “Panther Girls” - and it took Tarl most of Book Eight, Hunters of Gor, to deal with them. He is older and wiser now, though, and we rejoin him as he is about to effect the capture of the taluna chief in her lair by night, with his journey their and the effecting of his entry not even meriting comment. Without more ado he takes her prisoner, reads in her body’s response a silent plea to be put immediately to slave use (which is of course any woman’s instinctive reaction to awakening to find herself bound and gagged, and one that he kindly sees fit to gratify), and absconds with her, taking pains to make himself easy to follow.

Chapter Forty-six

With remarkable ease Tarl completes the utter defeat of the talunas within about four pages of having undertaken the task, as they are led blundering into the nets of the pygmies (it is astonishing that the natives never dreamt this one up themselves), bound and collared. He advises the pygmies to check out the taluna compound, where he believes there is a prisoner, and they agree and also inform him that there is about to be war on the river. The drums tell of the massing of the peoples of the interior, no doubt to deal with Shaba and, separately, Bila Huruma. As to the Mamba tribe, the pygmies have a plan of their own, involving the “marchers”. Who might these be?

Chapter Forty-seven

Making their way by night to the village of the Mamba tribe, Tarl and the pygmies arrive with their still smaller allies - army ants, such as are also found on Earth, individually harmless but usually encountered by the million, in which numbers they will strip anything living to the bone. The pygmies know the trick of luring the ants from their migratory path and direct them into the Mamba enclosure, where chaos ensues on a readily-imagined scale. Tarl expresses silent sympathy for any livestock there might be within the walls, though he passes over the flight of a woman and child with complete dispassion, and taking advantage of the confusion he liberates Kisu, Ayari and their slave girls. Kisu, infuriated at being captured, goes to the trouble of seeking out the Mamba chieftain and leaving him hamstrung and bleeding to be eaten alive as the adventurers make good their escape.

Chapter Forty-eight

The long arm of coincidence has its way once again as the prisoner in the taluna stockade turns out to have been Turgus, encountered so long ago on the wharves of Port Kar when he tried to rob Tarl and was banished as punishment. He, it turns out, also took ship for Schendi and there fell in with Shaba, who recently dismissed whoever of his expedition had no stomach to travel further. He soon had ill luck and was captured by the talunas, but Tarl orders him freed, for which Turgus begs leave to join Tarl’s party. Tarl gives him a good hiding to teach him his place but otherwise accepts him, although as the lowest-ranking male in the expedition. As for the talunas, Tarl leaves most of them to the pygmies but takes two with him, and after the usual shenanigans involving the prospect of being left manacled and helpless in the wild jungle, the two talunas come to a startling revelation concerning their true slave nature, and it is as slaves that they are taken along, one of them given to Turgus. (They explain, by the way, that they are fugitives from Turia and other southern cities, much as the Panthers were fugitives from the northern cities.)

Chapter Forty-nine

The expedition encounters the bodies of casualties from Shaba’s expedition, and hear the sound of jungle drums announcing war. Soon an immense fleet of canoes heads downriver, covertly observed by Tarl and company, bearing such numbers of warriors as will surely swallow Bila Huruma’s expeditionary force without even needing to chew. Tarl congratulates Kisu on his strategy, and Kisu, in celebratory mood, announces that he will not tie Tende that night.

Chapter Fifty

Some more weeks hence Tarl’s party finds itself at yet another immense lake which must surely be the source of the river Ua (although we could wax pedantic here, since the lake itself has many sources). Here there is an ages-lost ruined city fit to gladden H. Rider Haggard’s heart, and here at last Tarl is confident of finding Shaba. He is obliged to immobilise Turgus, who is loyal to his former employer who treated him well, and sets off to find the traitorous geographer.

Chapter Fifty-one

Tarl and company cannot search the entire city in five minutes or anything like it, for it is very large, and they treat themselves to a civilised evening’s entertainment by their slave girls. But their intimate moments are rudely interrupted by the arrival of a host of askaris, some two hundred strong, and their leader, none other than Bila Huruma, with Msaliti in tow.

Chapter Fifty-two

Tende at once surrenders herself to Bila Huruma, pleading for Kisu’s life, but the Ubar is uninterested. She is, by now, only a slave, and he has many slaves, some more beautiful than her. He does remark conversationally that he had heard of “Tende of Ukungu”, who was notoriously cold, and is impressed to see the change in her; but he orders her back to her master.

Now Kisu wants to have it out with Bila Huruma, who remembers seeing him before as a prisoner, and remarks on his having “the size and temper of a kailiauk”. Unfortunately Bila Huruma, whose able generalship has brought two hundred men through the worst the interior could throw at him, is disinclined to take Kisu seriously, and also informs him that if he did see fit to fight, his superior short spear would make short work of Kisu’s unhandy weaponry. Ayari rebukes Kisu for his foolishness and Tarl endorses Bila Huruma’s calmly factual statement, that Kisu cannot hope to win a fair fight; and Kisu obtains muchly in the modality of peeve.

This diversion dealt with, Tarl turns to the matter of Shaba, and at this juncture a Scribe enters, calling for Tarl Cabot.

Chapter Fifty-three

Tarl is led, manacled, into the presence of Shaba, who is terminally ill. He occupies a citadel where a moat swarming with hungry fish (grunts) has kept all comers at bay for a few days; but this is the last night on which such protection will be effective. Suddenly Tarl realizes that, contrary to expectations, Shaba has been waiting and hoping for Tarl to catch up with him. The Geographer explains that he absconded with the ring only because it represented his chance of a lifetime to track the Ua to its source and that his wrongdoing has resulted in a vast store of knowledge uncovered, which now waits only to be returned to civilization, though Shaba will never live to see it. Also, he fled Bila Huruma’s court to ensure that there would be no further attempts on the Ubar’s life by Msaliti, but he expresses sorrow for using Bila Huruma for his purposes. Before Tarl can find out what he means, though, they are interrupted by the arrival of the Kurii.

A bloody battle promptly breaks out, in which the men of Bila Huruma have nothing but courage and discipline to match against the superior size, strength and weaponry of the Kurii. As Tarl points out, the short spear may be enough to win Bila Huruma mastery over the peoples of the jungle, but it doesn’t match up to the fearsome Torvaldsland axe nor yet the huge steel pangas wielded by the Kurii. For all that, their bravery allows them to hold their own for a while, until the Kurii find it necessary to resort to tactics. But as Bila Huruma, responding to a salute from the Kur leader, who acknowledges bravery when he sees it, prepares his outmatched command for their last stand, the traitorous Msaliti stabs poor Shaba and seizes the ring.

This is enough for the Kurii for the time being, as they have yet a long and dangerous journey before them, and they withdraw in good order leaving Tarl to lament his failure once again; but they have little time for traitors and throw Msaliti to the swarming grunts. Bila Huruma has him fished out, but on ascertaining that Shaba is indeed dead, he has him thrown back in again.

Chapter Fifty-four

Bitterly rueing yet another bungled task, Tarl makes ready to depart. Both Shaba’s notes and Bila Huruma have survived, along with ninety of the latter’s men. The Ubar reveals that it was part of Shaba’s plan all along that Tarl would follow him, and that Bila Huruma would follow them both, to ensure that the geographer’s priceless research would be returned to civilization. As for the ring, Bila Huruma is in on that secret too. Shaba has handed it on to him and he, knowing what a treasure he is surrendering, gives it to Tarl simply because his now-dead friend wished it so; and so luck is Tarl’s ally yet again, as many times before.

Chapter Fifty-five

As the remnants of Shaba’s expedition, and Bila Huruma’s, prepare to leave along with Tarl and company, the Kurii demonstrate that they are somewhat short on the smarts you would expect of a race that has had interstellar flight technology for millennia. Specifically, an enormous and fortunately distant explosion serves notice that they have foolishly failed to consider that, there being a booby-trapped counterfeit ring in circulation, this might be the one they have actually won possession of. Oops.

Chapter Fifty-six

Returning to Ukungu, Kisu finds that Mwoga (we saw him back in chapter 23, two Booknotes ago) has usurped the throne, once his and later Aibu’s (Tende’s father). He issues a challenge to Mwoga, who at least has the cojones to accept it, and a short fight later Kisu has disposed of the usurper. Bila Huruma quizzes him on his future intentions and, liking the answer he receives, first offers him the post of his own second-in-command, and then when this is turned down proclaims Kisu once more the ruler of Ukungu, and Ukungu independent from his empire.

Chapter Fifty-seven

And matters are finally wound up as Tarl returns to Schendi and prepares to return to Port Kar. He leaves behind him Bila Huruma; Ayari, replacing the vile Msaliti as Bila’s wazir; Turgus, whom he writes a letter of pardon should he ever wish to return to Port Kar; and most of the talunas. But he picks up Sasi and Evelyn Ellis, both of whom have been gainfully employed in taverns during his absence and whom he has now repurchased, and also has Janice and Alice to add to his household.

Leaving Tarl Cabot striding manfully up the gangplank, we must now take our leave of him for a year or so. Winter is falling outside my study window and the seasons will have fully turned before we see him again, for in the next book we meet a new narrator who will have a whole three-volume mini-series to himself. So we bid adieu to Tarl and await the arrival in the New Year of Jason Marshall, the eponymous “Fighting Slave of Gor”!

I wish you well,

Socrates