Captive of Gor by John Norman Page B

and entered the current of
    the Laurius. I saw the flash of a triangular, black dorsal fin.
    I screamed.
    Lana looked out, pointing after it. “A river shark,” she cried, excitedly.
    Several of the girls looked after it, the fin cutting the waters and
    disappearing in the fog on the surface.
    I huddled back from the edge of the pier, between Inge and Ute. Ute put her arms
    about me.
    A broad, low-sided barge began to back toward the pier. It had two large
    steering oars, manned by bargemen. It (pg. 80) was drawn by two gigantic,
    web-footed river tharlarion. There were the first tharlarion that I had ever
    seen. They frightened me. They were scaled, vast and long-necked. Yet in the
    water it seemed, for all their bulk, they moved delicately. One dipped its head
    under the surface and, moments later, the head emerged, dripping, the eyes
    blinking, a silverish fish struggling in the small, triangular-toothed jaws. It
    engorged the fish, and turned its small head, eyes now unblinking, to regard us.
    They were harnessed to the broad barge. They were controlled by bargemen, with a
    long whipping stick, who was ensconced in a leather basket, part of the harness,
    slung between the two animals. He would also shout at them, commands,
    interspersed with florid Gorean profanity, and, slowly, not undelicately, they
    responded to his cries. The barge grated against the pier.
    The cost of transporting a free person across the Laurius was a silver tarsk.
    The cost of transporting an animal, however, was only a copper tarn disk. I
    realized, with a start, that that was what I would cost. Targo was charged
    twenty one copper tarn disks for myself, the other girls, the new girl, and his
    four bosk. He had sold four girls before reaching the banks of the Laurius. The
    bosk were disengaged from the wagons and tied forward on the barge. Also forward
    on the barge was a slave cage, and two guards, with the sides of their spears,
    herded us onto the barge, across its planking and into the cage. Behind us I
    heard one of the bargemen slam the heavy iron door and slide the heavy iron bolt
    into place. I looked back. He snapped shut a heavy padlock. We were caged.
    I held the bars, and looked across the river to Laura. Behind me I could hear
    the two wagons being rolled onto the barge and then, with chains, being fastened
    in place. They were mounted on large circles of wood, which would rotate. Thus
    the wagon may be brought forward onto the barge and, when the circle is rotated,
    be removed the same way. The fog had begun to lift and the surface of the river,
    broad, slow-moving, glistened here and there in patches. A few dozen yards to my
    right a fish leaped out of the water (pg. 81) and disappeared again, leaving
    behind him bright, glistening, spreading circles. I heard the cry of two gulls
    overhead.
    The bargemen in the leather basket shouted out and slapped the two tharlarion on
    the neck with the whipping stick.
    There must be someone in Laura who could return me to the United States, or who
    could put me in touch with those who could!
    There were other barges on the river, some moving across the river, others
    coming toward Laura, others departing. Those departing used only the current.
    Those approaching were drawn by land tharlarion, plodding on log roads along the
    edges of the river. The land tharlarion can swim barges across the river, but he
    is not as efficient as the vast river tharlarion. Both sides of the river are
    used to approach Laura, though the northern shore is favored. Unharnessed
    tharlarion, returning to Lydius at the mouth of the Laurius, generally follow
    the southern shore road, which is not as much used by towing tharlarion as the
    northern.
    On these barges, moving upriver, I could see many crates and boxes, which would
    contain such goods, rough goods, as metal, and tools and cloth. Moving
    downstream I could see other barges, moving the goods of the interior downriver,
    such objects as planking, barrels of