Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column. After Clitus Vitellius cast her aside like an old glove, Dina (formerly Judy Thornton) spent some time as one of the slaves of Thurnus of the Peasants. But she was ill-suited to the life of a peasant’s slave, and he, after dealing with an attempted rebellion by the young, ambitious but easily led Bran Loort, and an attempted murder by his Free Companion Melina, cast the one out, enslaved the other, and traded Dina away. This was done partly to honour an agreement made by Melina, who was no longer in a position to honour her own, and partly to send Dina off to a life for which she was better suited. Her temporary owner is the trader Tup Ladletender, but he is about to dispose of her for a cash profit, as he is not himself a slaver.

Chapter Eleven

We rejoin Dina in the Turian outpost of Stones of Turmus, where Tup sells her for a mere six copper tarsks. After some brief hesitation on her part she is fitted with a slave collar for the first time in her life, and is then handed over for training to a slave named Sucha. She is acquainted with a new set of chain sisters and promptly taught her place in the pecking order, and Sucha sets about teaching her the extent of her ignorance; how to dance, how to dress, how to apply make-up.

Sucha spends some time teaching Dina such things as an untrained slave-girl can best pick up, and is pleased to learn firstly that Dina has been owned by a Warrior and secondly that a mere jingle of slave-bells fixed to her ankle is enough to turn her on. And after she has spent a few hours in such lessons, she is summoned along with the other harem girls to serve the civilized sophisticates of a Turian trading post.

Chapter Twelve

More than a month later, and it is evident that Dina is getting along well enough. Already she is no longer low girl and there are several of the hundred or so men at Stones of Turmus who are availing themselves more or less regularly of her slave-service. She has work of a more menial nature to attend to, but not such as to be irksome, and she admits that she is on the whole not badly off. Also, she has seen enough of Sucha to know that the girls are in the hands of an effective and capable First Girl, and to appreciate the value of this.

She is privileged to witness the arrival of an extra-special prisoner, who is brought into the keep under a heavy guard in the afternoon. Dina is ordered to taunt the prisoner when he is brought in, and she does this as an obedient slave girl should, but shrinks back in fear from him when he warns her she is going to far. That evening, he is treated with mock courtesy as a guest at the feast, but warned that matters will not go well with him the next day. Seeming undaunted at the prospect, the prisoner promises to loosen his tongue at the nineteenth hour (nearly 11pm by the Earth clock) and Borchoff, the outpost’s commander, amusedly orders Dina and several others to attend him. Dina, on her own initiative, offers him a further taunt without orders, which is probably unwise of her.

Plainly, being passed around the assembly like a bottle of cheap wine at a party does not disturb Dina now that she has got used to her station in life, for she is entertaining her fourth soldier that evening while a fifth is politely requesting her master-of-the-moment to hurry up. As for the prisoner, he is still close-mouthed, but the nineteenth hour is not far away. But their revelries are rudely interrupted. A guard staggers in to announce hoarsely that the tarn wire has been cut - that is, the keep is open to attack from the air. Moments later, as Borchoff is trying to issue orders to the defence of the keep, armed tarnsmen burst in and force his surrender. Dina gives us a brief run-down on how the attack was executed, showing amazing tactical comprehension for a slave girl who has yet to even see a tarn, let alone be instructed in their use in battle.

The prisoner is released and promptly instructs his rescuers as to the internal layout of the keep, having kept his eyes and ears open during his half-day’s captivity, and reveals that his capture was a put-up job with no other purpose. And as the time is now the nineteenth hour, he cheerily reveals his name: Rask the Warrior of Treve (“Captive of Gor”) . This terrifies the slave girls, and they flee, Dina joining in the general rout.

Dina runs in panic but cannot escape her pursuers. Around her, her chain-sisters are being taken off to be “tagged”; whatever that means, Dina is in no hurry to find out. But, of course, slave girls are never likely to flee with any hope of success, and this is to be no exception. Some of the invaders, spotting her, recognise her as “the Dina” (named for the type of brand she has, to remind you) and leave her for Rask himself.

It is of course only a matter of time, and no very long time at that, before he catches up with her. She has no recourse but to plead for mercy. Fortunately Rask deals with her only as with the other slaves, “tagging” her - by which is meant, wiring a small silver leaf to her ear. The keep is then fired, though Borchoff and his men are suffered to escape, and Rask and his raiders clear off with their ill-gotten gains, including the whole harem stuffed into tarn baskets. Triumphantly, Rask draws on the “first” strap of his tarn’s harness (Dina could not of course call it the “one-strap”; that would display a wholly unrealistic knowledge of tarnsmanship) and lifts off, leaving the sacked keep behind him.

Chapter Thirteen

Rask, being of the sort who does not transact much business by day, offloads Dina and company before dawn in a quick private sale. We would hardly have expected him to keep Dina, of course, as we remember from the earlier book that he has a favourite slave already. Dina’s value has now increased to fifteen copper tarsks, quite a jump from her previous sale, and she now belongs to a slave trader. While in his keeping she is given the Stabilization Serums, Gor’s immortality drug, and she is understandably staggered to learn of the gift that she has been given, though a mere slave. Sucha points out, with flawless logic, that this is only because the masters wish their slaves to be eternally young and beautiful, and Dina grasps this, by the analogy of modern Earth livestock being given medical care of which their masters would have dreamed in vain a few hundred years before.

Then she is sold again, at auction this time. Initially she attracts no interest, and she is terrified at the punishment she might suffer if the house makes a loss on her. But when her sexual responsiveness is displayed, to her humiliation, for all the buyers to see, the bidding livens up no end and she is eventually sold for a silver tarsk.

She now belongs to a paga tavern, and has quite a clear idea of what this will mean; a station in life not far removed from the complimentary bowls of peanuts to be found on the bar-tops of another world. Dina does not seem to be sorry for herself, though. She is wondering if the free women in the auction room are looking at her jealously, thinking of their menfolk frequenting a new tavern; and also, for no particular reason, she wonders how her old college rival, Elicia Nevins, would feel to see her so sold.

Chapter Fourteen

Dina, now named Teela, belongs to Busebius, owner of the Belled Collar, where she dances, serves paga, and is frequently alcoved by the tavern’s customers. By a stroke of coincidence, the tavern’s girls also number Bina, also formerly the property of Clitus Vitellius and before that a wealthy free woman intended to be married to cement an alliance, which has now not taken place. Also, the Belled Collar has none other than Bran Loort on the payroll as a menial labourer. The paga sluts would normally be a perk of the job, but his thorough hiding and shaming by Thurnus the Peasant seems to have robbed him of the capacity for such enjoyment.

There are few Gorean slave girls who are such that Teela can take them in a fair fight, but Bina is plainly one of these, as we meet them arguing over a sweet for which they fought and Bina lost. But in the name of their background as Clitus Vitellius’s girls, and having no other friends within easy reach, they decide to be each other’s best friend for now. This promises to be strained when important guests come to the tavern: Thandar of Ti, Bina’s intended when she was free. Bina, recognising that her enslavement has precluded any possibility of ever being Thandar’s Companion, is determined to serve him anonymously as a slave, but Teela resolves to spill the beans, hoping to be rewarded with freedom for doing Thandar such a favour. Even though she has previously beaten Bina in a fight, though, she cannot manage it this time; the spur of the disgrace to come lends Bina added strength, and also Teela is wearing hook bracelets, at the instigation of an earlier customer who fancied a little light bondage, and Bina succeeds in immobilizing her for the duration.

A little later, however, Teela changes hands yet again, to two visitors to the tavern who fork out two pieces of silver for her. At such a price Busebius is asking no questions. But Teela recognises her new owners with horror. They are the men who tried to kill her, before being prevented by Clitus Vitellius, way back at the start of the book. Begging for mercy, she is dragged away.

Chapter Fifteen

Teela can hardly have expected what happens next. She is ushered into the presence of Elicia Nevins, none other, whom she had imagined the better part of two hundred million miles away on Earth. She is overcome with joy, on seeing Elicia obviously free and in a position of some authority, and believing that this means she is to be returned to Earth and freedom. This notion Miss Nevins speedily disabuses her of. Elicia renames her Judy and announces that she will be kept as a serving slave, which is all she was ever fit for even on Earth. Elicia was instrumental in picking out Judy to come to Gor, though we do not yet know how. She plainly has no truck with all that sex thing, but is curious to see what a slave’s use looks like, and orders the two men under her command to see to it while she watches.

She later sees fit to explain something of what is going on. Judy was procured to be a messenger, as part of the war between Priest-Kings and Kurii, for Elicia is an agent of the latter. She is to be marked and shipped off to Cos, where she will be picked up in due course for the next stage of the plan. Then, when she has fulfilled her mission, she will be returned to her old rival as a personal serving-wench, a prospect Elicia plainly relishes.

Chapter Sixteen

A sea journey ensues. There is not much to tell of it except to say that one slave ship is very much like another, in any era and on any world. The accommodation is cruelly cramped, filthy, lousy and degrading, the food is meagre and extremely basic. Probably no-one would have expected differently. Judy tells us a little of the geography and politics of Gor’s island nations, Cos and Tyros, before a strange sail is sighted and the girls are bundled below.

Chapter Seventeen

We next meet Judy when it seems as though she has changed hands unexpectedly and is now in the hands of a black-market slaver, but her captors are not going to let her slip twice and soon catch up with her. Under the pretence of testing her for pox (Gor is normally stated to be disease-free save for Dar-Kosis, but obviously occasional exceptions are allowed as plot devices) the visitor identifies her by a chemical mark put on her at Elicia’s direction - a kind of invisible ink - and she is delivered to the Chatka and Curla, the very tavern in Telnus (Cos’s capital) that she was bound for.

Chapter Eighteen

Wondering when she is to be called upon to fulfil her secret mission, Judy, now named Yata, becomes a paga slave once again in the Chatka and Curla. As per the name of the tavern, Yata is indeed dressed in Tuchuk slave fashion, for which see “Nomads of Gor.”

When a fight breaks out, Yata reflects on the history of using such disturbances as cover for escape attempts. Of course, this being Gor, such do not have much track record of success. But while all the noise is going on, a man, under cover of being a customer, slips into an alcove with Yata, thrusts her into a slave sack, and abstracts her from the tavern.

Chapter Nineteen

Unsacked, unhooded and unbound, Yata is led into the presence of one Belisarius, who has a single simple command for her, one which has occasionally haunted her dreams: “Bead a necklace, Slave Girl”. She is given beads and thread, and as some other will seems to take over hers, she strings them together in a kind of trance. When she hands the finished article to Belisarius, he contemplates it with satisfaction. It is plainly a message that he understands and perhaps expected. His men ask if she is to be killed; but he observes contentedly that she could not bead the same necklace again even on pain of death, and there is no bar to returning her to Lady Elicia. They enjoy a quiet chuckle at the thought of Elicia herself in a collar, and Belisarius contents himself with suggesting that this may happen when she has served her purpose. For now, though, Yata is merely used for wench sport, and returned to the Chatka and Curla.

We may well ask what was in the message, whether Lady Elicia is indeed fated to wear the collar, what Judy/Dina/Teela/Judy/Yata’s next name will be, and whether the mighty Clitus Vitellius will be playing any further part in this story. All natural questions, but we have run out of time for now, and must leave such considerations for next time, and our fifth helping of the adventures of this “Slave Girl of Gor”.

I wish you well,

Socrates