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It is called the Whip Dance, the dance the girl upon the sand danced.
She wore a delicate vest and belt of chains and jewels, with shimmering metal
droplets attached. And she wore ankle rings, and linked slave bracelets, again
with shimmering droplets pendant upon them; and a locked collar, matching.
She danced under ships lanterns, hanging from the ceiling of the paga tavern,
it located near the wharves bounding the great arsenal.
I heard the snapping of the whip, her cries.
The dancing girls of Port Kar are said to be the best of all Gor. They are
sought eagerly in the many cities of the planet. They are slave to the core,
vicious, treacherous, cunning, seductive, sensuous, dangerous, desirable,
excruciatingly desireable.
Your paga, said the girl, who served me.
I took it from her, again not seeing her. Go, Slave, said I.
Yes, Master, she said and, with a rustle of the chain, left my side.
I drank more paga.
So I had come to Port Kar.
Four days ago, in the afternoon, after two days in the marshes, my party had
reached the canals of the city.
We had come to one of the canals bordering on the delta.
We had seen that the canal was guarded by heavy metal gates, of strong bars,
half submerged in the water.
Telima had looked at the gates, frightened. When I escapted from Port
Kar, she said, there were no such gates.
Could you have escaped then, asked I, as you did, had there been such
gates?
No, she whispered, frightened, I could not have.
The gates had closed behind us.
Our girls, our slaves, wept at the poles, guiding the raft into the canal.
As we passed beneath windows lining the canals men had, upon occasion, leaned
out, calling us prices for them.
I did not blame them. They were beautiful. And each poled well, as could only
one from the marshes themselves. We might well have congratulated ourselves on
our catch of rence girls.
Midice, Thura, Ula, Telima.
We no longer kept them in a throat coffle. But we had, about the throat of
each, wrapped, five times, a length of binding fiber, and knotted it, that
this, serving as collar, might mark them as slave. Aside from this they were
not, at the time we had entered the city, secured, save that a long length of
binding fiber, knotted about the right ankle of each, tied them together.
Telima had been branded long ago, but the thighs of Midice, Thura and Ula had
never yet felt the iron.
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I watched the girl from Port Kar dance. We could, tomorrow, brand the three
girls, and purchase collars.
There was something of an uproar as a large, fierce-looking fellow,
narrow-eyed, ugly, missing an ear, followd by some twenty of thirty sailors,
burst into the tavern.
Paga! Paga! they cried, throwing over some tables they wished, driving men
from them, who had sat there, then righting the tables and sitting about them,
pounding on them and shouting.
Girls ran to serve them paga.
It is Surbus, said a man near me, to another.
The fierce fellow, bearded, narrow-eyed, missing an ear, who seemed to be the
leader of these men, seized one of the paga girls, twisting her arm, dragging
her toward one of the alcoves. I thought it was the girl who had served me,
but I was not certain.
Another girl ran to him, bearing a cup of paga. He took the cup in one hand,
threw it down his throat, and carried the girl he had seized, screaming, into
one of the alcoves. The girl had stopped dancing the Whip Dance, and cowered
on the sand. Other men, of those with Surbus, seized what paga girls they
could, and what vessels of the beverage, and draged their prizes toward teh
alcoves, sometimes driving out those who occupied them. Most, however,
remained at the tables, pounding on them, demanding drink.
I had heard the name of Surbus. It was well known among the pirate captains of
Port Kar, scourge of gleaming Thassa.
I threw down another burning swallow of the paga.
He was pirate indeed, and slaver, and murderer and thief, a cruel and
worthless man, abominable, truly of Port Kar. I felt little but disgust.
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