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.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"It may take a moment to pick out one I like," he apologized."That is all right," I assured him, "take your time."I then followed Harold along one of the smooth, stonefile:///F|/rah/John%20Norman/Chronicles%20of.ounter-Earth%204%20-%20Nomads%20of%20Gor.txt (150 of 238) [1/20/03 3:28:28 AM]file:///F|/rah/John%20Norman/Chronicles%20of%20Counter-Earth%204%20-%20Nomads%20of%20Gor.txt paths leading among the trees, brushing our way through theclusters of blossoms, skirting the edge of the nearer blue pool.I could seethe three moons of Gor rejected in its surface.They were beautiful shiningamong the green and white blossoms on the water.The masses of flowers and vegetation in Saphrar's PleasureGardens filled the air with mingled, heavy sweet fragrances.Also the fountains had been scented and the pools.Harold left the walk and stepped carefully to avoid tram-pling a patch of talenders, a delicate yellow flower, often associated in theGorean mind with love and beauty.He made his way across some dark blue andyellowish orange grass and came to the buildings set against one wall of thegardens.Here we climbed several low, broad marble steps and passed down acolumned porch and entered the central building, finding ourselves in a dim,lamp-lit hall, bestrewn with carpets and cushions and decorated, here andthere, with carved, reticulated white screening.There were seven or eight girls, clad in Pleasure Silks, sleeping in thishall, scattered about, curled up on cushions.Harold inspected them, but did not seem satisfied.I looked them over nodwould have thought that any one of them would have been a prize, presuming itcould be safely trans-ported somehow to the wagons of the Tuchuks.One poor girl slept naked on thetiles by the fountain.About her neck was a thick metal collar to which aheavy iron chain had been fastened; the chain itself was attached to a largeiron ring placed in the floor.I supposed she was being disciplined.I immediately began to worry that that girl would be the one who would strikeHarold's eye.To my relief, he examined her briefly and passed on.Soon Harold had left the central hall and was making his way down a long,carpeted, lamp-hung corridor.He entered various rooms off this corridor and,after, I suppose, inspect-ing their contents, always emerged and trekked off again.We then examined other corridors and other rooms, and finally returned to themain hall and started off down another way, again encountering corridors androoms; this we did four times, until we were moving down one of the lastcorridors, leading from one of the five main corridors off the central hall.Ihad not kept count but we must have passed by more than seven or eight hundredgirls, and still, among all these riches of Saphrar, he could not seem to findthe one for which he searched.Several times, one girl or another, would rollover or shift in her sleep, or throw out an arm, and my heart would nearlystop, but none of the wenches awakened and we would troop on to the next room.- At last we came to a largish room, but much smaller than the main hall, inwhich there were some seventeen beauties strewn about, all in Pleasure Silk.The light in the room was furnished by a single tharlarion-oil lamp which hungfrom the ceiling.It was carpeted by a large red rug on which were severalcushions of different colors, mostly yellows and or-anges.There was no fountain in the room but, against one wall, there weresome low tables with fruits and drinks upon them.Harold looked the girls overand then he went to the low table and poured himself a drink, Ka-la-na wine bythe smell of it.He then picked up a juicy, red larma fruit, biting Iinto it with a sound that seemed partly crunching as he went through theshell, partly squishing as he bit into the fleshy, segmented endocarp.Heseemed to make a great deal offile:///F|/rah/John%20Norman/Chronicles%20of.ounter-Earth%204%20-%20Nomads%2Page 146 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html0of%20Gor.txt (151 of 238) [1/20/03 3:28:28 AM]file:///F|/rah/John%20Norman/Chronicles%20of%20Counter-Earth%204%20-%20Nomads%20of%20Gor.txt noise.Although one or two of the girls stirred uneasily, none,to my relief, awakened.Harold was now fishing about, still chewing on the fruit, in a wooden chest atone end of the table.He drew out of the chest some four silken scarves, afterrejecting since others which did not sufficiently please him.Then he stood up and went to where one of the girls lay curled on the thickred carpet."I rather like this one," he said, taking a bite out of the fruit, spittingsome seeds to the rug.She wore yellow Pleasure Silk, and, beneath her long black hair, on herthroat, I glimpsed a silverish Turian collar.She lay with her knees drawn upand her head resting on her left elbow.Her skin color was tarnish, not toounlike the girl Ihad seen from Port Karl I bent more closely.She was a beauty, and thediaphanous Pleasure Silk that was the only garment permitted her did not, bydesign, conceal her charms.Then, startled, as she moved her head a bit,restlessly on the rug, I saw that in her nose was the tiny golden ring of aTuchuk girl."This is the one," Harold said.It was, of course, Hereena, she of the First Wagon.Harold tossed the emptied, collapsed shell of the larma fruit into a corner ofthe room and whipped one of the scarves from his belt.He then gave the girl a short, swift kick, not to hurt her, but simply, ratherrudely, to startle her awake."On your feet, Slave Girl," he said.Hereena struggled to her feet, her trend down, but Harold had stepped behindher, pulling her wrists blind her back and tying then with the scarf in hishand."What is it?" she asked."You are being abducted," Harold informed her.The girl's head flew up and she spun to face him, pulling to free herself.When she saw him her eyes were as wide as larma fruit and her mouth flew open."It is I," said Harold, "Harold the Tuchuk.""No!" she said."Not you!""Yes," he said, "I," turning her about once again, routinely checking theknots that bound her wrists, taking her wrists in his hands, trying toseparate them, examining the knots for slippage; there was none.He permittedher to turn and face him again."How did you get in here?" she demanded."I chanced by," said Harold.She was trying to free herself.After an instant she realized that she couldnot, that she had been bound by a warrior
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