Free Rogue of Gor by John Norman

inquired a fellow.
    "I would deal with others," I told him.
    "We are cheap," he called. "Cheap!"
    "Thank you," I said to him, and continued on. I had discovered, in various towns, that I was likely to get the best fares at the quays themselves.
    On the way down to the river I passed four of the log warehouses whose doors were marked with the Kajira sign. I saw tiny barred windows high in their outer walls. During daylight hours a small amount of light can filter through such a window and then fall through a matching, somewhat lower window, to the interior of the holding area. There are similar apertures, too, sometimes, in the roofs of such structures. In some of the warehouses, incidentally, those which seem to be but one story high, the logged holding areas are substantially underground, as though in a log-walled, sunken room. Windows are commonly small and from eight to ten feet above a girl's head. The light in such structures is, at best, dim. The floor areas are commonly wood except for a central strip of dirt some twenty feet wide. This is primarily for drainage. A network of welded iron bars, set an inch or two beneath the surface, underlies the planking of the floor and the surface of the dirt. Straw is scattered at the edges of the room, on the wood. In the log walls, at various heights, but usually less than a yard from the floor, there occur slave rings. The ground level is commonly reached by ascending a dirt ramp. Such places, as one might suppose, are usually characterized by the smells of held slaves. "Eat!" I heard a man say, from within one of those structures. Then I heard the lash of a whip and a girl's cry of pain. "Yes, Master!" she cried. "Yes, Master!"
    I continued toward the quays. Sometimes I almost despaired of finding Miss Beverly Henderson. How could one hope to find one girl among thousands, even tens of thousands, scattered throughout the cities and towns, the fields and villages, of Gor. Too, if she had been transported by caravan or tarn she might, by now, be almost anywhere. Yet I was determined to continue my search., I had two things clearly in my favor. I knew she had been taken recently, and by Kliomenes, the pirate. My search was thus far from hopeless. Indeed, I had little doubt but what I might find Miss Henderson, if I could but find in what market, or markets, Kliomenes would see fit to dispose of his most recent prizes.
    "You there, Fellow," said a captain, at the quays. "You seem strong. Look you for work?"
    "I am intending to go downriver," I said.
    "We are bound for Tafa," he said. "We are short an oarsman."
    The next towns west on the river were Victoria and Tafa. West of Tafa was Port Cos, which had been founded by settlers from Cos over a century ago. The major towns west of Port Cos, discounting minor towns, were Tetrapoli, Ven and Turmus, Ven at the junction of the Ta-Thassa Cartius and the Vosk, and Turmus, at the eastern end of the Vosk's great delta, the last town on the river itself.
    "I would go to Victoria," I said. That was the next town west on the river.
    "You are an honest fellow, are you not?" asked the captain.
    "I think so, reasonably so," I said, warily. "Why?"
    "If you are an honest fellow," said the captain, "why would you wish to go to Victoria?"
    "Surely there are honest doings in Victoria," I said.
    "I suppose so," said the captain.
    "Is it a dangerous place?" I asked.
    "You must be new on the river," he said.
    "Yes," I said.
    "Avoid Victoria," he said.
    "Why?" I asked.
    "Are you a slaver?" he asked.
    "No," I said.
    "Then avoid Victoria," he said.
    "Why?" I asked.
    "It is a den of thieves," he said. "It is little more than a market and slave town."
    "There is an important slave market there?" I asked.
    "You can sometimes get cheap prices on luscious goods there," he said.
    "Why are the prices sometimes so cheap?" I asked.
    "Girls who cost nothing can be sold cheaply," he said.
    "The marketed girls are then primarily captures?" I asked.
    "Of course," he