Tarnsman of Gor   ::   Норман Джон

"The word has spread from the city, carried by all the rational creatures, whether they crawl or fly or swim." The insect lifted one foreleg, the sensory hairs trembling on my shoulder. "There is great rejoicing on Gor, but not in the city of Ar.»

"I lost the Home Stone," I said. "I was tricked by her I suppose to be the daughter of the Ubar, thrown from my own tarn, and saved from death only by your web. I think tonight there will again be gladness in Ar, when the daughter of the Ubar returns the Home Stone."

The mechanical voice spoke again. "How is it that the daughter of the Ubar will return the Home Stone of Ar when you carry in your belt the tarn-goad?"

Suddenly I realized the truth of what he had said and was amazed that it had not occurred to me before. I imagined the girl alone on the back of the fierce tarn, unskilled in the mastery of such a mount, without even a tarn-goad to protect herself if the bird should turn on her. Her chances of survival seemed now more slim than if I had cut the ladder over the cylinders of Ar when she hung helplessly in my power, the treacherous daughter of the Ubar Marlenus. Soon the tarn would be feeding. It must have been light for several hours.

"I must return to Ko-ro-ba," I said. "I have failed."

"I will take you to the edge of the swamp if you like," said the insect. I assented, thanking him, this rational creature who lifted me gently to his back and moved with such dainty rapidity, picking his way exquisitely through the swamp forest.

We had proceeded for perhaps an hour when Nar, the spider, abruptly stopped and lifted his two forelegs into the air, testing the odors, straining to.sift out something in the dense, humid air.

"There is a carnivorous tharlarion, a wild tharlarion, in the vicinity," he said. "Hold tightly."

Luckily I did immediately as he had advised, fixing my grip deep in the long black hairs that covered his thorax, for Nar suddenly raced to a nearby swamp tree and scuttled high into its branches. About two or three minutes later I heard the hunger grunt of a wild tharlarion and a moment afterward the piercing scream of a terrified girl.

From the back of Nar I could see the marsh, with its reeds and clouds of tiny flying insects below. From a wall of reeds about fifty paces to the right and thirty feet below, stumbling and screaming, came the bundled figure of a human being, running in horror, its hands flung out before it. In that instant I recognized the heavy brocaded robes, now mud-splattered and torn, of the daughter of the Ubar.