that, when any of the birds are free, meat is never placed on the hooks or on the floor below; the racing tarn is a valuable bird and the Tarn Keepers do not wish to have them destroy one another fighting over a verr thigh.
As soon as Mip entered the cot he picked a tarn goad from a hook on the wall over a small table with a lamp and papers on it. He then took a second goad, from a hook nearby, and handed it to me. I accepted it. Few dare to walk in a tarncot without a goad. Indeed, it is foolish to do so.
Mip, receiving and acknowledging the salutations of his men, made his rounds. With an agility that could come only from years in the cots he clambered about the tem-wood beams, sometimes forty feet from the floor, checking this bird and that; perhaps because I was slightly drunk I followed him; at last we had come to one of the four great round portals which give access to the open air from the tarncot. I could see the large, beam-like tarn perch extending from the portal, out over the street far below.
The lights of Ar were beautiful. I stepped out on the tarn perch. I looked up. The roof was only about ten feet above. A person could, I noted, if sufficiently bold or foolish, leap from the roof, seize the tarn perch and enter the tarncot. I have always been amazed at the grandeur of Ar at night, the bridges, the lanterns, the beacons, the many lamps in the windows of countless cylinders. I stepped farther out on the tarn perch. I could sense Mip a bit behind me, back in the shadows, yet also on the perch. I looked down and shook my head. The street seemed to loop and swing below me. I could see the torches of two or three men moving together far below. Mip moved a bit closer.
I turned about and smiled at him, and he stepped back.
'You'd better come in from there,' he said, grinning. 'It's dangerous.'
I looked up and saw the three moons of Gor, the large moon and the two small ones, one of the latter called the Prison Moon, for no reason I understood.
I turned about and walked back on the perch and again stood on the thick, beamed framework of tem-wood that formed the vast housing for numerous racing birds.
Mip was fondling the beak of one bird, an older bird I gathered. It was reddish brown; the crest was flat now; the beak a pale yellow, streaked with white.
'This is Green Ubar,' said he, scratching the bird's neck.
I had heard of the bird. It had been famous in Ar a dozen years ago. It had won more than one thousand races. Its rider, one of the great ones in the tradition of the greens, had been Melipolus of Cos.
'Are you familiar with tarns?' asked Mip.
I thought for a moment. Some Assassins are, as a matter of fact, skilled tarnsmen. 'Yes,' I said, 'I am familiar with tarns.'
'I am drunk,' said Mip, fondling the bird's beak. It thrust its head forward.
I wondered why the bird, as is usual, it now being rather old, surely past its racing prime, had not been destroyed. Perhaps it had been preserved as an act of sentiment, for such is not unknown among the partisans of the factions. On the other hand, the business managers of the factions have little sentiment, and an unprofitable tarn, like an unprofitable or useless slave, is customarily sold or destroyed.
'The night,' I said, 'is beautiful.'
Mip grinned at me. 'Good,' he said. He moved over the tem-wood beams until he came to two sets of racing saddles and harness, and he threw me one, indicating a brown, alert racing tarn two perches away. The racing harness, like the common tarn harness, works with two rings, the throat ring and the main saddle ring, and six straps. The major difference is the tautness of the reins between the two rings; the racing saddle, on the other hand, is only a slip of leather compared to the common tarn saddle, which is rather large, with saddle packs, weapon sheaths and paired slave rings. I fastened the saddle on the bird and, with a bit of difficulty, the bird sensing my unsure movements, the tarn harness. Mip and I, moving the lock levers, removed the hobble and chain from the two birds and took the saddle.
Mip rode Green Ubar; he looked well in the worn saddle; his stirrups were short.
We fastened the safety straps.
On the racing saddle there are two small straps, rather than the one large strap on the common saddle; both straps fasten about the rider and to the saddle, in a sense each duplicating the work of the other; the theory is that though smaller straps can break more easily the probability of both straps breaking at the same time is extremely small; further the two straps tend to divide strain between them, thereby considerably lessening the possibility of either breaking; some saving in weight, of course, is obtained with the two smaller straps; further, the broad strap would be a bit large to fasten to the small saddle; even beyond this, of course, since races take place largely and most often over a net there is normally not as much danger in a fall as there would be in common tarn flight; the main purpose of the straps is simply to keep the rider in the saddle, for the purpose of his race, not primarily to protect his life.
'Do not try to control the tarn until you are out of the cot,' said Mip. 'It will take time to accustom yourself to the harness.' He smiled. 'These are not war tarns.'
Mip, scarcely seeming to touch the one-strap with his finger, almost a tap, took the old bird from the perch and in a whip-like flurry of its wings it struck the outside perch and stood there, its old head moving alertly, the wicked black eyes gleaming. My bird, so suddenly I was startled, joined the first.
Mip and I sat on tarnback on the lofty perch outside the tarncot. I was excited, as I always was, on tarnback. Mip too seemed charged and alive.
We looked about, at the cylinders and lights and bridges. It was a fresh, cool summer evening. The stars over the city were clear and bright, the coursing moons white with splendor against the black space of the Gorean night.
Mip took his tarn streaking among the cylinders and I, on my tarn, followed him.
The first time I attempted to use the harness, though I was aware of the danger, I overdrew the strap and the suddenness of the bird as it veered in flight threw me against the two narrow safety straps; the small, broad, rapid-beating wings of the racing tarn permit shifts and turns that would be impossible with a larger, heavier, longer-winged bird. With a tap on the two-strap I took the bird in a sudden breathtaking sweep to the high right and in an instant had joined Mip in flight.
The lights of Ar, and the lanterns on the bridges, flew past below me, the roofs of cylinders looming up out of the darkness of the streets far below.
Then Mip turned his bird and it seemed to veer and slide through the air, the cylinders below slicing to the right, and he brought it to rest on a great rail above and behind the highest tier on Ar's Stadium of Tarns, where that afternoon I had watched the races.
The stadium was empty now. The crowds had gone. The long, curving terraces gleamed white in the light of Gor's three moons. There was some litter about in the tiers, which would be removed before the races of the next day. The long net under the rings had been removed and rolled, placed with its poles near the dividing wall. The painted wooden tarn heads, used for marking laps of the race, stood lonely and dark on their poles. The sand of the stadium seemed white in the moonlight, as did the broad dividing wall. I looked across to Mip. He was sitting on his tarn, silent.
'Wait here,' he said.
I waited on the height of the stadium, looking down into that vast, open structure, empty and white.
Mip on his tarn, Green Ubar, seemed a swift, dark movement against the white sand and tiers, the shadow coursing behind them, seeming to break geometrically over the tiers.
I saw the bird stop on the first perch.
They waited there for a moment. The judge's bar, hanging on its chain from a pole on the dividing wall, was silent.
Suddenly with a snap of its wings I could hear more than two hundred yards away the tarn exploded from the perch, Mip low on its back, and streaked toward the first «ring», the first of three huge metal rectangles, before the round «rings» mounted at the corners and at the end of the dividing wall. Startled, I saw the bird flash through the three first rings, veer and speed through the first of the round «rings», and in the same motion, still turning, pass through the second and third of the round «rings», and then, wings beating with incredible velocity, its beak forward, Mip low on its back, pass in a moment through the three rectangular «rings» on the other side of the dividing wall, negotiating the three round «rings» in one swift, fierce trajectory and alight, wings snapping, talons, extended, on the last perch of the line, that of the winner.
Mip and the bird remained there for some moments, and then I saw the bird lift itself and turn toward me. In a moment Mip had alighted beside me on the high rail circling the top of the stadium.
He stayed there for a moment, looking back over the stadium. Then he took his bird from the rail and I followed him. In a few Ehn we had returned to the perch outside the portal of the tarncot.
We returned the birds to their perches and put the tarn hobble on them there. We removed the small saddles and control straps from the birds, and hung them on vertical beams, a portion of the perch framework.
When we were finished I stepped again out onto the perch extending from the portal in the cot, that perch fixed far above the street below. I wanted once more to feel the air, the beauty of the night.
Mip stood somewhat behind me and I walked out to the end of the perch.
'I have enjoyed myself this night,' said I, 'Mip.'
'I am pleased,' said Mip.
I did not face him. 'I shall ask you a question,' I said, 'but do not feel obligated to answer if you do not wish.'
'Very well,' said Mip.
'You know I hunt,' I said.
'Those of the black caste often hunt,' said Mip.
'Do you know of any,' I asked, 'of the Greens who were in Ko-ro-ba in En'Var this year.'
'Yes,' said Mip.
I turned to face him.
'Only one that I know of,' said Mip.
'And who would he be?' I asked.
'I,' said Mip. 'I was in Ko-ro-ba in En'Var this year.'
In Mip's hand I saw a small dagger, a throwing knife, of a sort manufactured in Ar; it was smaller than the southern quiva; it was tapered on only one side.
'It is an interesting knife,' I said.
'All Tarn Keepers carry a knife,' said Mip, playing with the blade.
'This afternoon,' I said, 'at the races, I saw a rider cut the safety straps and free himself from a falling bird.'
'It was probably with such a knife as this,' said Mip. He now held it by the tip.
I felt the breeze pick up, moving past me, cool and fresh that summer evening.
'Are you skilled with such a knife?' I asked.
