Dear readers,

In place of the regular logical puzzle, here is a thinking exercise of a different sort:

There was once a young woman who knew nothing of Gor. (It is very sad, but such women do indeed exist.) A girl who might have been beautiful if she did not conceal the lineaments of her body beneath the featureless, unisex uniforms of Earth, a girl who was certainly intelligent and whose favourite reading matter was the magazine New Scientist, she lived all alone in a small bedsit furnished with a few ornaments that reflected her particular preferences. One of her most prized possessions was a Victorian grandfather clock, which stood a splendid seven feet high and kept time remarkably well. In more than a hundred years it had never needed adjusting, nor more than a minimum of attention beyond its weekly winding. Another possession in which she took great pleasure was a psaltery, with the music of which she whiled away many a quiet evening. She also had a small case filled with leather-bound books of classical English literature.

One night our nameless heroine put her book down on the bedside table, wound her alarm clock, undressed herself ready for bed and slid under the covers filled with a restless discontent for a world in which men feared to be men (although, even such as they were, they disquieted her), and she fell asleep... to be awakened by the alarm's harsh clamour in a strange bed in a strange room. Yet, oddly, her few prized possessions were still with her, and it was not until she parted the curtains and saw only a blank panel behind shedding a rough approximation of morning light that she realized she was not at home. On the mirror of her dressing table a word she did not know in an unfamiliar alphabet was written in lipstick, and below it the word "Kajira" in the English alphabet. Her hand went to her throat and found a steel collar there, and her thigh bore the imprint of a delicately-traced but indelible symbol.

Someone had thoughtfully left food on her bedside table. It was extremely palatable, though of a kind she did not recognise, and she was grateful for it, as she was alone for long enough to become quite hungry. She was also alone for long enough to be only too eager for any kind of company at all, to satisfy her curiosity on one important question if for no other reason.

When the door opened and a handsome man entered, our heroine blurted out "I'm not on Earth any more, am I?"

Very well, I have said she was intelligent. But how did she know?