Insects

I stepped aside as a flat, sluglike creature, clinging with several legs to a small transportation disk, swept by.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 90


It was late in the afternoon, the fourteenth Gorean Ahn I would have guessed. Some swarms of insects hung in the sedge here and there but I had not been much bothered; it was late in the year, and most of the Gorean insects likely to make life miserable for men bred in, and frequented, areas in which bodies of unmoving, fresh water were plentiful.
Raiders of Gor     Book 6     Page 5


The sun was low now and insects moved in the sedge.
Raiders of Gor     Book 6     Page 31

The helmsman stood at the tiller, not moving. He had removed his helmet in the noon heat of the delta. Insects undistracted, hovered about his head, moving in his hair.
Raiders of Gor     Book 6     Page 69

But I was less eager to sample the small amphibians she caught in her hands or the fat, green insects she scooped from the inside of logs and from under overturned rocks.

"They can be eaten," she said.
Captive of Gor     Book 7     Page 236

I moved by night, and, by day, slept in Ka-la-na thickets. I was stirring in my bed of soft grasses, hidden in such thicket, half asleep. I was drowsy. There were insects about.
. . .
I was surely not tempted to sample the small amphibians or the loathsome, fat green insects Ute had called to my attention. They might have been a source of protein, but rather than touch such things to my lips I would have preferred to starve!
Captive of Gor     Book 7     Page 247

On the tenth day, instead of the pan of bread, with the water, Ute thrust a different pan under the door. I screamed. Tiny things, with tiny sounds, moved, crawling over and about one another in it. I screamed again, and thrust it back out. It had been filled with the fat, loathsome green insects which, in the Ka-la-na thicket, Ute had told me were edible.
Captive of Gor     Book 7     Page 315

The lights of the camp were now, for the most part, extinguished. I could see, here and there, in the distance, the embers of cooking fires. In some few tents there glowed a dim redness, through the canvas sides of the tent, the light of the tiny fire bowls within. The night was hot. I heard night insects. I was alone.
Captive of Gor     Book 7     Page 340

I heard night birds cry in the forest. The shrill scream of a sleen, perhaps a pasang distant, carried to the camp. I heard the sounds of insects.
Hunters of Gor     Book 8     Page 100

There was not much breeze today. The forest, for the trees were more widely spread and the brush thick, was hot. I brushed back an insect from my face.
. . .

I brushed back another insect from my face.
Hunters of Gor     Book 8     Pages 106 - 107

I listened, patient, to the drone of insects. I continued to study the shadows, and parts of shadows.
Hunters of Gor     Book 8     Page 111


The dyes used in the making of these rugs are, on the whole, natural dyes, vegetable dyes, some made from barks and leaves, and roots and flowers, others from animal products, crushed insects, etc.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 49

The mud buildings at an oasis such as that of Two Scimitars last for many years. In such an area one often goes years without rain.

When rain does fall, however, sometimes it is fierce, turning the terrain into a quagmire. Following such rains great clouds of sand flies appear, wakened from dormancy. These feast on kaiila and men. Normally, flying insects are found only in the vicinity of the oases. Crawling insects of various sorts, and predator insects, however, are found in many areas, even far from water. The zadit is a small, tawny-feathered, sharp-billed bird. It feeds on insects. When sand flies and other insects, emergent after rains, infest kaiila, they frequently alight on the animals, and remain on them for some hours, hunting insects. This relieves the kaiila of the insects but leaves it with numerous small wounds, which are unpleasant and irritating, where the bird has dug insects out of its hide. These tiny wounds, if they become infected, turn into sores; these sores are treated by the drovers with poultices of kaiila dung.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 152


I heard the sounds of the camp about me. The men were near the fire. The roasted meat was being cut. There was conversation. Eta, long-legged and beautiful, was serving the men. I looked up at the rich Gorean night, beautiful with bright stars. Turning my head I could see the three moons. I felt the smooth, brittle bark of the white-barked tree beneath my back, on the interior of my thighs, tied as I was. I could smell the roast meat, the vegetation about. I heard insects.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 60

I heard the sounds of the night outside the tent, the insects, the cries of fleers.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 126

My master, with his lieutenants, sat cross-legged in the large, thatched hut of Thurnus. It was high, and conical, and floored with rough planks, set some six or seven feet on poles above the ground, that it might be drier and protected from common insects and vermin.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 138

In another area boiled meat hung on ropes. Insects swarmed about it.
Beasts of Gor     Book 12     Page 63

At certain times in the summer even insects will appear, black, long-winged flies, in great swarms, coating the sides of tents and the faces of men.
Beasts of Gor     Book 12     Page 196

"He intends to join Lakes Ushindi and Ngao, I have heard," I said.

"It is a mad project," said Uchafu, "but what can one expect of the barbarians of the interior?"

"It would open the Ua river to the sea," I said.

"If it were successful," said Uchafu. "But it will never be accomplished. Thousands of men have already died. They perish in the heat, they die in the sun, they are killed by hostile tribes, they are destroyed by insects, they are eaten by tharlarion. It is a mad and hopeless venture, costly in money and wasteful in human life."
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Pages 125 - 126

I could not see into the other room from where I stood, nor did it obviously have windows. I backed into the dark street and then, a few feet away, saw a low, sloping roof. Most of the buildings of Schendi have wooden ventilator shafts at the roof, which may be opened and closed. These are often kept open that the hot air in the room, rising, may escape. They can be closed by a rod from the floor, in the case of rain or during the swarming seasons for various insects.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 144

I slapped at insects.

"Work," said an askari, wading by.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 221


I brushed insects away from my face.
. . .

I dug, and Shaba, my quarry, moved further away from me with each thrust of the shovel, each bite and sting of each tiny insect.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 251


In the level of the emergents there live primarily birds, in particular parrots, long-billed fleers, and needle-tailed lits. Monkeys and tree urts, and snakes and insects, however, can also be found in this highest level. In the second level, that of the canopies, is found an incredible variety of birds, warblers, finches, mindars, the crested lit and the common lit, the fruit tindel, the yellow gim, tanagers, some varieties of parrot, and many more. Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on. In the lower portion of the canopies, too, can be found heavier birds, such as the ivory-billed woodpecker and the umbrella bird. Guernon monkeys, too, usually inhabit this level. In the ground zone, and on the ground itself, are certain birds, some flighted, like the hook-billed gort, which preys largely on rodents, such as ground urts, and the insectivorous whistling finch, and some unflighted, like the grub borer and lang gim. Along the river, of course, many other species of birds may be found, such as jungle gants, tufted fishers and ring-necked and yellow-legged waders. Also in the ground zone are varieties of snake, such as the ost and hith, and numerous species of insects.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 311

I listened to the noises of the jungle night, the chattering, and the hootings, and the clickings and cries, of nocturnal animals, and birds and insects.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 312

I looked at the tharlarion.

It stood there, placidly. It slid a transparent membrane upward, covering its eye, as a broad-winged insect crawled on its lid. The insect fluttered away.
Fighting Slave of Gor     Book 14     Page 176

She turned away from me, and went out onto the balcony. The three moons were now high. We could hear insects in the hedged gardens beneath and beyond the balcony.
Fighting Slave of Gor     Book 14     Page 201


Staves for the lances are cut in the late winter, when the sap is down. Such wood, in the long process of smoking and drying over the lodge fire, which consumes several weeks, seasoning the wood and killing any insects which might remain in it, seldom splits or cracks.
Savages of Gor     Book 17     Page 43

The sleen permitted us to approach rather closely. It was reluctant to leave its location. There were insects on its brown snout, and about its eyes. Its lower jaw was wet.
. . .
I sat astride the kaiila, surveying the scene. I counted some twenty-one bodies. They were stripped. There were no kaiila. Insects swam in the air above several of the bodies.
Savages of Gor     Book 17     Page 159

I turned about in the saddle to view once more the torn, bloodied grass, the motionless figures, the insects and birds, the place where, yesterday, in brief compass, carnage had touched the prairie.
Savages of Gor     Book 17     Page 166


Between where the men sat and the coffle, a bit to the right, was the spread-out kailiauk robe under which Grunt had put Margaret, naked, her legs drawn up. She had been under the robe for hours. It would be hot under the robe, in the sun, and there would be insects in the grass. I grinned. I think she was learning her slavery.
Savages of Gor     Book 17     Page 223

I smiled. The location of large herds of kaiila is sometimes marked by the presence of circling, swarming fleer. They come to feed on the insects stirred up in the grass, activated by the movements of the beasts' paws.
Blood Brothers of Gor     Book 18     Page 95

It was very quiet, save mostly for the rustling and clicking of insects. Too I heard, intermittently, from somewhere far off, the cries of a tiny, horned gim.
Players of Gor     Book 20     Page 188

"Do you know the delta of the Vosk?" he asked.

"I once traversed it," I said.

"Tell me about it," he said.

"It is treacherous, and trackless," I said. "It covers thousands of square pasangs. It is infested with insects, snakes and tharlarion. Marsh sharks even swim among its reeds. In it there is little solid ground. Its waters are usually shallow, seldom rising above the chest of a tall man. The footing is unreliable. There is much quicksand. It protects Port Kar from the east. Few but rencers can find their way about in it. Too, for most practical purposes, they keep it closed to traffic and trade."
Mercenaries of Gor     Book 21     Page 151

"That is not an urt," said the proprietor. "They usually come out after dark. There is too much noise and movement for them during the day." The small animal skittered backward, with a sound of claws on the boards. Its eyes gleamed in the reflected light of the lamp. "Generally, too, they do not come this high," said the proprietor. "That is a frevet." The frevet is a small, quick, mammalian insectivore. "We have several in the house," he said. "They control the insects, the beetles and lice, and such."
Mercenaries of Gor     Book 21     Page 276

I shuddered. I was helpless at the bottom of the shaft. Were he to come upon me here how could I escape? Perhaps he would lower the rope and bucket for the others, and not me? Perhaps he would throw great stones down upon me? Perhaps he would lower poisonous insects or snakes into the pit? Perhaps he would leave me here to starve?
Dancer of Gor     Book 22     Page 379


I gritted my teeth against the insects crawling on my body. I turned, I shifted my position. I could not much use my hands to protect myself. I wanted to cry out in misery. I wondered if such torment could drive a man insane.
. . .
I heard a fellow a few feet away cry out in pain, and slap at his body.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 88


I tried not to feel the tiny feet on my body.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 90

"From various things," I said, "from blows, from ropes, from harness, from the slash of rence, from the bites and stings of insects, from the fastening places of marsh leeches."
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 107

The zarlit fly is very large, about two feet long, with four large, translucent wings, with a span of about a yard. It has large, padlike feet on which, when it alights, it can rest on the water, or pick its way delicately across the surface. Most of them are purple. Their appearance is rather formidable, and can give one a nasty turn in the delta, but, happily, one soon learns they are harmless, at least to humans. Some of the fellows of Ar were still uneasy when they were in the vicinity. The zarlit fly preys on small insects, usually taken in flight.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 160


Was it for this that they had done their duty, was it for this that they had faced the delta, the tracklessness, the tharlarion, the insects, the hunger, the arrows of rencers, the blades of Cos?
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 214


A very unpleasant application of this technique is to put a slave in the sun and spread eagle her "by the Master's will." One then smears her face, and body, and hair, with honey and leaves her there, her presence being soon noted by a large variety of unpleasant insects. This is, of course, a punishment. After such a bout with thousands of tiny, swarming, crawling visitors, sometimes almost obscuring her, the slave is much improved.
Witness of Gor     Book 26     Page 453

"The prisoner," said the officer of Treve, "may have died in the nest. Too, he may have been trapped beneath the water, wedged under an outcropping, or between rocks."

The latter hypothesis was an interesting one, as water urts sometimes secure prey under the water, saving it for later, rather as certain predatory beasts will bury a kill, or place it in a tree, to be finished later. Some birds impale insects on thorns, for a similar purpose.
Witness of Gor     Book 26     Page 626

"Shall we weight her ankles and hurl her into a carnarium?" asked the second man. "Shall we throw her to leech plants? Shall we stake her out to be eaten alive by insects?"
Witness of Gor     Book 26     Page 685


"Yes," she said. It was plain, but delicious. It was fresh, not shipped or stored, she supposed, for days or weeks, and frozen and such. For all she knew it had been picked or gathered that morning. Sometimes it was almost as though the dew was still upon it. Too, she doubted that it had been saturated with preservatives, or coated with poisons, to discourage the predations of insects.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 44

She lay at his thigh, covered. Sometimes she could hear the small noises of the nearby fire. A breeze ruffled the leaves of a nearby tree. Occasional insect noises might be heard.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 545


If the male were a Kur, she would groom him, smoothing and licking his fur, and searching for insects.
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 33

"In the agricultural satellites," said Pyrrhus, "a number of crops are grown, not blood food, but crops from which, suitably processed, nourishment may be obtained. We may arrange growing seasons, temperature, soil nutriments, light and darkness, and such, as we please. Thus we may have crops all year around in any fashion desired. There are no noxious insects, or such, either, to compete for the food, as we have not allowed their entry into the areas. Only such bacteria as are beneficial are admitted."
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 127

The edging of a footprint, its sharpness or lack of sharpness, may have its tale to tell. The tiny tracks of a night insect across the footprint may be a chronometer of passage.
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 589


These troops, as planned, had been decimated in the delta of the Vosk, and largely lost, the prey of heat and insects, of salt water and quicksand, of armed rencers, of serpents and tharlarion.
Swordsmen of Gor     Book 29     Page 111


In slave ships the heads are usually shaved, this reducing to some extent the dangers of insect infestation. Slave dips are not uncommon, too, after transportation, as a precaution against such infestation.
Swordsmen of Gor     Book 29     Page 122

This confirmed my suspicion that the stain, whatever might be its composition, would be temporary, evaporating, or lapsing from visibility, within twenty or so Ahn. I took this as confirming my view that we were dealing with Kurii, for their science could easily manage such a thing. To be sure, so, too, could that of Priest-Kings. I also suspected that there would be a scent, or a flavor, to such a thing, that it would attract insects who would eliminate any possible residue.
Swordsmen of Gor     Book 29     Page 142


Meanwhile, following orders, the forces of Ar, with good heart, penetrated ever more deeply into the delta. The enemy they encountered, of course, was not the expected foe, but the delta itself, with its insects, heat, humidity, uncertain footing, quicksand, tharlarion, and rencers, denizens of the delta, almost invisible, subtle in warfare, masters of the bow and ambush.
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Page 15

I brushed away insects, hovering about.
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Page 220


The expansive blanket of odor, of the blossoms of the Vine Sea, with their clouds of insects, surely pervasive, yet seldom noticed for days, seemed suddenly rent.
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Page 242

By evening the great ship was free of the Vine Sea and, sails furled, and sea hooks cast, she waited, a pasang west of the vines, the odor, and insects, while the numbers of ship's boats, and the four galleys, rejoined her.
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Pages 242 - 243


The most interesting precaution, at least to me, was the provision of nesting sites on the almost vertical slopes for the Uru, which is a small, winged, vartlike mammal. This mammal, which usually preys on insects and small urts, like several species of birds, is communally territorial.
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Page 384


Poling in the trackless delta, the rope on their neck, they are well aware of the wilderness, the vastness, the treacherous byways, the quicksand, the heat, the insects, leeches, delta sharks, winged, predatory uls, and, in particular, marsh tharlarion, which often scout the boats, and accompany them, little but the eyes visible, for pasangs.
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 487

We remained silent. There was no sound in the garden but the sudden ringing of steel, followed by silence, and then beginning again. In the silence, we could hear Lord Yamada breathing, and the hum of insects. The garden was very beautiful. I supposed it had profited from Haruki's return. Sometimes a breeze stirred the leaves. Zar flies were about. I brushed one away.
Rebels of Gor     Book 33     Page 579

Ant	To The Top

I had seen the power of the Priest-Kings at work in the mountains of New Hampshire years ago when it was so delicately exercised as to affect the needle of a compass in the Valley of Ko-ro-ba where I had found a city devastated as casually as one might crush a hill of ants.
Outlaw of Gor     Book 2     Pages 172 - 173


In the second level, that of the canopies, is found an incredible variety of birds, warblers, finches, mindars, the crested lit and the common lit, the fruit tindel, the yellow gim, tanagers, some varieties of parrot, and many more. Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 311


I let her stand there, tethered and bound, and naked, while I ate some of the roast tarsk. I brushed black ants from it.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 371

A few feet to the left of the kaiila there was a keg of sugar, which had been split open. A trail of sugar, some four inches wide, some three or four yards long, drained through the split lid, had been run out behind it. It had probably been carried under someone's arm. This trove was the object of the patient industry of ants, thousands of them, from perhaps a hundred hills about. It would be the prize, doubtless, in small and unrecorded wars.
Savages of Gor     Book 17     Page 269

"She was insufficiently deferent " said Lykos, "and she spoke ill of a free man."

"Feed her alive to sleen " said Astrinax.

"Too quick " said Lykos.

"Throw her into a pit of osts," suggested Astrinax.

"Too quick " said Lykos.

"A pool of eels?" said Astrinax.

"Better," said Lykos.

"There are many excellent possibilities," said Astrinax. "A dark cell filled with hungry urts, a garden of leech plants, smearing her with honey and staking her out for insects, ants, jards, or such."
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 639

Ant - Army

To The Top

"The marchers," said the leader of the small men, pointing. The hair on the back of my neck rose.

I saw now that the sound was the sound of millions upon millions of tiny feet, treading upon the leaves and fallen debris of the jungle floor. Too, there may have been, mixed in that sound, the almost infinitesimal sound, audible only in its cumulative effect, of the rubbings and clickings of the joints of tiny limbs and the shiftings and adjustments of tiny, black, shiny exoskeletons, those stiff casings of the segments of their tiny bodies.

"Do not go too close," said the leader of the small men.

The column of the marchers was something like a yard wide. I did not know how long it might be. It extended ahead through the jungle and behind through the jungle farther than I could see in either direction. Such columns can be pasangs in length. It is difficult to conjecture the numbers that constitute such a march. Conservatively some dozens of millions might be involved. The column widens only when food is found; then it may spread as widely as five hundred feet in width. Do not try to wade through such a flood. The torrent of hurrying feeders leaves little but bones in its path.

"Let us go toward the head of the column," said the little man.

We trekked through the jungle for several hours, keeping parallel to the long column. Once we crossed a small stream. The marchers, forming living bridges of their own bodies, clinging and scrambling on one another, crossed it also. They, rustling and black, moved over fallen trees and about rocks and palms. They seemed tireless and relentless. Flankers marshaled the column. Through the green rain forest the column moved, like a governed, endless, whispering black snake.

"Do they march at night?" I asked.

"Often," said the small man. "One must be careful where one sleeps."

We had then advanced beyond the head of the column by some four hundred yards.

"It is going to rain," I said. "Will that stop them?"

"For a time," he said. "They will scatter and seek shelter, beneath leaves and twigs, under the debris of the forest, and then, summoned by their leaders, they will reform and again take up the march."

Scarcely had he spoken but the skies opened up and, from the midst of the black, swirling clouds, while lightning cracked and shattered across the sky and branches lashed back and forth wildly in the wind, the driven, darkly silver sheets of a tropical rain storm descended upon us.

"Do they hunt?" I shouted to the small man.

"Not really," he said. "They forage."

"Can the column be guided?" I asked.

"Yes," he grinned, rubbing the side of his nose. Then he and the others curled up to sleep. I looked up at the sky, at the sheets of rain, the lashing branches. Seldom had I been so pleased to be caught in such a storm.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Pages 400 - 401

Within the stockade of the Mamba people there was much light and noise. I could hear the sounds of their musical instruments, and the pounding of the drums. Too, we could hear, within, the sounds of chanting and the beatings of the sticks carried in the hands of the dancers.

It is not so much that the column is guided as it is that it is lured.

This morning, early, the small men, with their nets and spears, had killed a small tarsk.

"Look," had said the leader of the small men this morning, "scouts."

He had thrown to the forest floor a portion of the slain tarsk. I watched the black, segmented bodies of some fifteen or twenty ants, some two hundred yards in advance of the column, approach the meat. Their antennae were lifted. They had seemed tense, excited. They were some two inches in length. Their bite, and that of their fellows, is vicious and extremely painful, but it is not poisonous. There is no quick death for those who fall to escape the column. Several of these ants then formed a circle, their heads together, their antennae, quivering, touching one another. Then, almost instantly, the circle broke and they rushed back to the column.

"Watch," had said the small man.

To my horror I had then seen the column turn toward the piece of tarsk flesh.

We had further encouraged the column during the day with additional blood and flesh, taken from further kills made by the small men with their nets and spears.

I looked up at the stockade. I remembered it, for it was the same from which we had, earlier, slipped away in the darkness of the night.

I rubbed tarsk blood on the palings. Behind me I could hear, yards away, a rustling.

"We will wait for you in the jungle," said the leader of the little men.

"Very well," I said.

The rustling was now nearer. Those inside the stockade, given their music and dancing, would not hear it. I stepped back. I saw the column, like a narrow black curtain; dark in the moonlight, ascend the palings.

I waited.

Inside the stockade, given the feast of the village, the column would widen, spreading to cover in its crowded millions every square inch of earth, scouring each stick, each piece of straw, hunting for each drop of grease, for each flake of flesh, even if it be no more than what might adhere to the shed hair of a hut urt.

When I heard the first scream I hurled my rope to the top of the stockade, catching one of the palings in its noose.

I heard a man cry out with pain.

I scrambled over the stockade wall. A woman, not even seeming to see me, crying out with pain, fled past me. She held a child in her arms.

There was now a horrified shouting in the camp. I saw torches being thrust to the ground. Men were irrationally thrusting at the ground with spears. Others tore palm leaves from the roofs of huts, striking about them.

I hoped there were no tethered animals in the camp. Between two huts I saw a man rolling on the ground in frenzied pain.

I felt a sharp painful bite at my foot. More ants poured over the palings. Now, near the rear wall and spreading toward the center of the village, it seemed there was a growing, lengthening, rustling, living carpet of insects. I slapped my arm and ran toward the hut in which, originally, our party had been housed in this village. With my foot I broke through the sticks at its back.

"Tarl!" cried Kisu, bound. I slashed his bonds. I freed, too, Ayari, and Alice and Tende.

Men and women, and children, ran past the doorway of the hut.

There was much screaming.

"Ants!" cried Ayari.

Alice cried out with pain.

We could hear them on the underside of the thatched roof. One fell from the roof and I brushed it from my shoulder.

Tende screamed, suddenly, bitten.

"Come this way," I told them. "Move with swiftness. Do not hesitate!"

We struck aside more sticks from the rear of the hut and emerged into the rustling darkness behind it.

People were fleeing the village. The stockade gate had been flung open. One of the huts was burning.

"Wait, Kisu!" I cried.

Alice cried out with misery.

Kisu, like a demented man, ran toward the great campfire in the center of the village. There, in the midst of people who did not even seem to notice him, he wildly overturned two great kettles of boiling water. Villagers screamed, scalded. The water sank into the earth. Kisu's legs were covered with ants. He buffeted a man and seized a spear from him.

"Kisu!" I cried. "Come back!" I then ran after him. A domestic tarsk ran past, squealing.

Kisu suddenly seized a man and hurled him about, striking him repeatedly with the butt of his spear, beating him as though he might be an animal. He then kicked him and drove him against the fence. It was the chieftain of the Mamba people. He drove the butt of the spear into the man's face, breaking his teeth loose. Then he thrust the blade of his spear into his belly and threw him on his face beside the wall. Again and again Kisu, as though beside himself with rage, drove the spear blade down into the man's legs until the tendons behind the knees were severed. He then, almost black with ants himself, shrieking, bit from the man's arm a mouthful of flesh which he then spat out. The chief, bleeding, cried out with misery. He lifted his hand to Kisu. Kisu turned about then and left him by the wall. "Hurry, Kisu!" I cried. "Hurry!" He then followed me. We looked back once. The chieftain of the Mamba people rolled screaming at the wall, and then, scratching and screaming, tried to drag himself toward the gate. The villagers, however, in their departure, had closed it, hoping thereby to contain the ants.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Pages 401 - 404

Ant - White

To The Top

A great spined anteater, more than twenty feet in length, shuffled about the edges of the camp. We saw its long, thin tongue dart in and out of its mouth.

The blond-haired barbarian crept closer to me.

"It is harmless," I said, "unless you cross its path or disturb heavily clawed forefeet, uttering an enraged whistling noise, clubbing and slashing, lacerating, eviscerate even a larl. It lived on the white ants, or termites, of the vicinity, breaking apart their high, towering nests of toughened clay, some of them thirty-five feet in height, with its mighty claws, then darting its four-foot-long tongue, coated with adhesive saliva, among the nest's startled occupants, drawing thousands in a matter of moments into its narrow, tubelike mouth.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 293

Arthropod

To The Top

At that moment to my horror a large, perhaps eight feet long and a yard high, multilegged, segmented arthropod scuttled near, its eyes weaving on stalks.

"It's harmless," said the Priest-King.

The arthropod stopped and the eyes leaned toward us and then its pincers clicked twice.

I reached for my sword.

Without turning it scuttled backwards away, its body plates rustling like plastic armor.

"See what you have done," said the Priest-King. "You have frightened it."

My hand left the sword hilt and I wiped the sweat from my palm on my tunic.

"They are timid creatures," said the Priest-King, "and I am afraid they have never been able to accustom themselves to the sight of your kind."
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 82

Bee	To The Top

I saw small fruit trees, and hives, where honey bees were raised;
Marauders of Gor     Book 9     Page 81

Beetle

To The Top

In the second level, that of the canopies, is found an incredible variety of birds, warblers, finches, mindars, the crested lit and the common lit, the fruit tindel, the yellow gim, tanagers, some varieties of parrot, and many more. Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 311

"Oh!" cried Boabissia, on the next landing. "An urt!"

"That is not an urt," said the proprietor. "They usually come out after dark. There is too much noise and movement for them during the day." The small animal skittered backward, with a sound of claws on the boards. Its eyes gleamed in the reflected light of the lamp. "Generally, too, they do not come this high," said the proprietor. "That is a frevet." The frevet is a small, quick, mammalian insectivore. "We have several in the house," he said. "They control the insects, the beetles and lice, and such."

Boabissia was silent.

"Not every insula furnishes frevets," said the proprietor. "They are charming as well as useful creatures. You will probably grow fond of them. You will probably wish to keep your door open at night, for coolness, and to give access to them. They cannot gnaw through walls like urts, you know."
Mercenaries of Gor     Book 21     Page 276

I scouted the area. I detected no blind, no evidence of recent occupancy by men, at least within the last several Ahn. The marsh beetle crawls upon the sand at night and its tiny passage can be marked in the sand. Of the footprints I saw several were traversed, like valleys, by the path of the marsh beetle. Accordingly the prints had been made before the preceding night. The crumbling at their edges, too, suggested a passage of several Ahn, perhaps that they had been made as long ago as yesterday morning, or the day before yesterday.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 179

"But," I said, "you shall for five days, for five encampments, as a punishment for crying out twice, after having been warned to silence, and for not having responded instantly and perfectly to a command, that connected with opening your mouth for the gag wadding, be tied as I often was in the delta, hand and foot, and bound supine between two objects. In this fashion you may better make the acquaintance of certain nocturnal insects, such as the marsh beetle."
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 240

Centipede

To The Top

In the second level, that of the canopies, is found an incredible variety of birds, warblers, finches, mindars, the crested lit and the common lit, the fruit tindel, the yellow gim, tanagers, some varieties of parrot, and many more. Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 311

Cockroach

To The Top

It might help to understand what was going on if it is kept in mind that the average Kur is not only large, impatient, short of temper, fierce, and violent, but proudly regards itself and its species as the glorious pinnacle of nature and civilization, much as many human beings so regard themselves, as well; thus, he does not appreciate having his glory besmirched by what he regards as a pretentious and annoying inferior form of life. The average human being, for example, might not care to be insulted, particularly lengthily, and grievously, by an unpleasant, loud-mouthed, upstart toad or cockroach, particularly if he had seriously negative feelings about toads and cockroaches to begin with.
Warriors of Gor     Book 37     Page 239

Flies

To The Top

From the back of Nar I could see the marsh, with its reeds and clouds of tiny flying insects below.
Tarnsman of Gor     Book 1     Page 84

In a place, on the next day, we found flies, swarming, over parched earth. There, with his great paws, slowly, painfully, the Kur dug. More than four feet below the surface he found mud.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 280

At certain times in the summer even insects will appear, black, long-winged flies, in great swarms, coating the sides of tents and the faces of men.
Beasts of Gor     Book 12     Page 196

"Are you all right?" I asked Ayari.

He wiped the flies away from his head. "I think I am sick," he said.

There was blood in the water about his leg.

"Return to work," said the askari with the torch, wading near us.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 218

In the second level, that of the canopies, is found an incredible variety of birds, warblers, finches, mindars, the crested lit and the common lit, the fruit tindel, the yellow gim, tanagers, some varieties of parrot, and many more. Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 311

The thin slicing of the meat not only abets its preservation, effected by time, the wind and sun, but makes it impractical for flies to lay their eggs in it. Jerky and pemmican, which is usually eaten cooked in the villages, is generally boiled. In these days a trade pot or kettle is normally used.
Blood Brothers of Gor     Book 18     Page 46

"Canka will never beat me," she said. Then she drew the hide cover over the meat, to protect it from the flies.
Blood Brothers of Gor     Book 18     Page 60

Here and there I could see pieces of meat, trodden into the dust.

"We could save some of it," I said, "gather it and wash it later, at the camp."

"Leave it for the flies," said Cuwignaka.
Blood Brothers of Gor     Book 18     Page 66

Lamp Fly

To The Top

Most of us took it as well that the mystery of the light, that which Leros had first seen, from the platform and ring, was solved. That was seemingly solved on the second night. What had seemed a single blaze in the darkness, far off, was now attributed to the luminescence of a gigantic swarm of lamp flies, in their hundreds of thousands, of which swarms, we later learned, here in the Vine Sea, there were several. This sort of thing usually occurs when a ship is offshore, say a pasang or so, and in the vicinity of Bazi or Schendi.
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Page 220

Cabot, carefully, began to climb one of the ship's two masts. It was some forty feet in height, and surmounted by what I took, despite its unusual appearance, bowl-like, but with a grated cover, to be a ship's lamp or lantern.

He soon attained the summit of the mast.

He was grinning. He gestured to me. "Come up!" he said.

I slowly made my way up the mast, hort by hort, and was then beside the tarnsman.

"Here," he said, "are no lamp flies." He rubbed his hand about the grating of the lamp, or lantern. His hand was dark with soot. He thrust up the grating on its hinge, and, clinging to the mast with one hand, wiped his other hand within the bowl, and his hand, withdrawn, was moist, and glistened where soot had been rubbed away. He held his hand out to me. I could smell oil, probably from tharlarion.
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Page 221

Needle Fly / Sting Fly

To The Top

A sting fly hummed by. Chained, it would be difficult to defend oneself from such a creature. It was the second I had seen this day. They generally hatch around rivers and marshes, though usually somewhat later in the season. At certain times, in certain areas, they hatch in great numbers.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 84

I heard two sting flies hum by, "needle flies," as the men of Ar called them.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 117

"Listen," said a man.

"I hear it," said another.

I myself had never heard the sound before, but I had heard of it.

"Such vast clouds, so black," said a man.

"They cover the entire horizon," said another, wonderingly.

"The sound comes from the clouds," said a man. "I am sure of it."

"I do not understand," said a man.

At such a time, which occurs every summer in the delta, the rencers withdraw to their huts, taking inside with them food and water, and then, with rence, weave shut the openings to the huts. Two or three days later they emerge from the huts.

"Ai!" cried a fellow, suddenly, in pain.

"It is a needle fly," said a fellow.

"There is another," said a man.

"And another," said another.

Most sting flies, or needle flies, as the men from the south call them, originate in the delta, and similar places, estuaries and such, as their eggs are laid on the stems of rence plants. As a result of the regularity of breeding and incubation times there tends, also, to be peak times for hatching. These peak times are also in part, it is thought, a function of a combination of natural factors, having to do with conditions in the delta, such as temperature and humidity, and, in particular, the relative stability of such conditions. Such hatching times, as might be supposed, are carefully monitored by rencers. Once outside the delta the sting flies, which spend most of their adult lives as solitary insects, tend to disperse. Of the millions of sting flies hatched in the delta each summer, usually over a period of four or five days, a few return each fall, to begin the cycle again.

"Ai!" cried another fellow, stung.

Then I heard others cry out in pain, and begin to strike about them.

"The clouds come closer!" cried a fellow.

There could now be no mistaking the steadily increasing volume of sound approaching from the west. It seemed to fill the delta. It is produced by the movement of wings, the intense, almost unimaginably rapid beating of millions upon millions of small wings.

"Needle flies are about!" cried a man. "Beware!"

"The clouds approach more closely!" cried a man.

"But what are the clouds?" cried a fellow.

"They are needle flies!" cried a man.

I heard shrieks of pain. I pulled my head back, even in the hood. I felt a small body strike against my face, even through the leather of the hood.

I recoiled, suddenly, uttering a small noise of pain, it stifled by the gag. I had been stung on the shoulder. I lowered my body, so that only my head, hooded, was raised above the water. I heard men leaping into the water. The buzzing was now deafening.

"My eyes!" screamed a man. "My eyes!"

The flies tend to be attracted to the eyes, as to moist, bright objects.

I felt the raft pitch in the water as men left it.

The sting of the sting fly is painful, extremely so, but it is usually not, unless inflicted in great numbers, dangerous. Several stings, however, and even a few, depending on the individual, can induce nausea. Men have died from the stings of the flies but usually in such cases they have been inflicted in great numbers. A common reaction to the venom of the fly incidentally is a painful swelling in the area of the sting. A few such stings about the face can render a person unrecognizable. The swelling subsides, usually, in a few Ahn.

I drew against the harness. From the feel of this I was sure the raft was empty.

"They darken the sun!" screamed a man.

I heard more fellows leaping into the water.

All about me was screaming, sounds of misery, the striking about, the slapping, the cursing of men.

I felt the small bodies pelting my hood.

Suddenly I drew the raft forward and to the right. I moved rapidly, frenziedly. I kept largely under water, raising my head in the hood from time to time. The raft, I hoped, if any noticed it, might be taken, at least for the most part, as being adrift; as perhaps abandoned, as moving much of its own accord, with the current. When I emerged to breathe I did not hear men calling after me, ordering me to halt. The buzzing was all about. I cursed, striking against a bar. I drew the raft over the bar, the water then only to my knees, and then plunged again into the deeper water. Four times in that brief time I had been stung. Too, I had felt many more insects on my body, alighting upon it, then clinging to it, but they did not sting me. I felt myself strike into some fellow, but then he was to one side. I do not even know if he knew who I was. When I raised my head for air, I felt the small bodies strike my hood, I received another sting, on the neck. When I submerged I think most, if not all, of the flies were washed from the hood. Some perhaps clung to it, unable to fly.

I did not plunge away indefinitely, but only for a few Ehn, trying even, as I could, to count paces, that I might have some idea of my distance from the column. I wished to go deeply enough into the rence to elude recapture, and not so deeply that I might lose contact with the column. I did not fear rencers during the time of the migration of the flies, which would presumably, in its several waves, take place intermittently, perhaps being completed in so short a time as a few Ahn, perhaps lasting as long as a few days.

I could feel rence all about me. I must then, to some extent, be shielded.

It was maddening to be hooded, to be unable to see. A fellow of Ar, amused, might be watching me now.

I felt something sinuous move against my neck. It was probably a marsh moccasin.

I did not want to be in the water at dusk, particularly isolated.

Too, I feared tharlarion, though now, in the heat of the day, many might be somnolent, in the water, mostly submerged, or on bars, at the water's edge, perhaps half hidden in the rence.

I clenched my fists in the manacles, bound at my waist.

There was suddenly a thrashing almost at my side, and I felt a large body move past me.

I wanted to scream in rage, in frustration. The stoppage of the gag, however, even had I chosen to scream, would have permitted me only the tiniest of noises, little more than the customary, tiny, helpless whimpers to which one who wears such a device is ordinarily limited.

I began to cut with the hood against the forward edge of the raft. This I did in the area of the gag strap, beneath the hood, on the right, that I might, as far as it might prove possible, protect my face. I could feel the flies about, swarming about, alighting on the hood. But I was muchly submerged. I tried to find a projection within the range of the harness. Then, my cheek burning, even beneath the gag strap, I began to saw the leather against the wood. It was difficult to apply continuous pressure in the same place, but I did this as best I could, compensating for the small movements and slippage of the hood. I could feel the friction, the burning, on my face. I tried to hook the closure of the hood over the projection and tear the hood off that way, upward, but this cut at the side of my neck, and, once, half choked me. Again, miserable, I moved the leather over and over again against the heavy projection. Often did the leather slip on the wet wood. Then, in a few Ehn, I could feel bark flaking from the wood. Again and again the leather slipped even more maddeningly over the smooth, wet surface. Then, after how long I do not know, I suddenly felt a tiny coolness at the side of my face. Too, within the hood there was then a tiny bit of light. I could see the inside of the hood to the right! I felt one of the sting flies crawl inside the hood, on my cheek. I did not move and it, seeking the light, crawled again to the outside. I rubbed and pushed the hood even more against the wood and then I heard the leather rip. The hood was now open on the right. The light seemed blinding, I glimpsed the projection and now, with deliberation, I hooked the hood, by means of the rent, over the projection and lowered my head. I felt even the raft tip in the water and then the hood was torn half away. Almost at the same time I saw a small tharlarion, no more than a foot in length, covered with sting flies, splash from the raft into the water. The logs, too, were dotted with sting flies. Others swarmed about. I reconnoitered swiftly. There was much rence about. There was no sign of the men of Ar. A bar was to one side. On it lay three adult tharlarion, watching me. They were covered with sting flies, which seemed no discomfort or concern to them. They watched me, unblinking, through their transparent, third eyelids. I moved the raft farther away from them, deeper into the rence. Had they approached me I would have tried to take refuge on the raft. Although such tharlarion can be extremely dangerous man is not their common prey. Also, used to taking prey in the water, or near the water, they are unlikely to clamber upon rafts, and such. Indeed rencers sometimes paddle about amidst them in their light rence craft. Similarly, they seldom ascend the rence islands. When they do even children drive them off with sticks. One that has taken human flesh, of course, for example, in attacking a rence craft, or in ascending a rence island, is particularly dangerous. Rencers usually attempt to destroy such an animal, as it represents a particular menace.

I immersed my head now and again in the water to free it, and the remnants of the hood, from flies.

Deep in a stand of rence there were fewer flies. They were much more in the open, and on the bars.

I hooked the side of my gag strap over the projection. I pulled and yanked, as I could, more than once half submerging the raft in the water. I loosened the strap a quarter of a hort. Then, with the projection, and my tongue, I moved some of the wadding out, around the strap. Then I caught the wadding on the projection and, in a moment, by means of the projection, drew it from my mouth. I threw my head back, even though the gag strap was still between my teeth, and breathed in deeply. I was pleased that I had not been put in a metal-and-leather lock gag. In one common form of such a gag the sewn leather wadding, part of the gag itself, is commonly held in place by, and generally shielded from tampering by, a metal bar or strap, which locks behind the back of the neck. In another common form the "wadding" is a metal sphere, usually covered with leather, through which passes the metal locking bar or strap. A ratchet-and-pawl arrangement, in many cases, allows these to be exactly fitted. There are two general size ranges, a larger one for men and a smaller one for women. The advantage of this form of gag is that the prisoner cannot remove it, even though his hands are free. It is the smaller range of sizes in lock gags, as you might suppose, which is most commonly used. Indeed, they are seldom worn by men. They are almost always worn by slave girls. In such a case, most commonly, her master has her hands free to please and serve but need not, unless he wishes, hear her speak. The same effect, of course, may be achieved by an ordinary gag which she is forbidden to remove, or even the gagging "by her master's will," in which she is informed that she is not to speak, unless given permission. And indeed, in such a case, she may not even ask for such permission verbally, as is usually permitted to her. Speaking under conditions of imposed silence, of course, even so much as a word, is a cause for discipline.

With some difficulty I attained the surface of the raft and, with my manacled hands, tied at my waist, bending down, bit by bit, drew up the harness behind me.

I refrained from crying out, stung.

My hands manacled before me I managed to free the harness from the raft. I could not, however, as it was fastened on me, and I bound, remove it from my body. I was now, however, free to leave the raft. No longer was I fastened to it, a harnessed draft beast of Ar. I could now move with swiftness, and, even bound, with some agility. No longer was that massive impediment to my movement enforced upon me. I was elated, kneeling on the raft. I looked about. I could see nothing but rence. I pulled at the strap holding the manacles close to my waist. I was still naked, and muchly helpless. I tried to separate the strap holding the manacles close to me, drawing on it with my hands. I could not do so. It was a stout strap. I did not wish to use the pressure of the manacles themselves directly on the strap, as this drew it, sawing, painfully, in my back. I did not wish, if I could help it, to expose open wounds to the water of the marsh. Many of the wounds of the men of Ar, even those from the lashings and cuttings of rence, had become infected. Such infections had added to the hazards and hardships of the delta. I crawled to the side of the raft and getting the strap about one of the projections there, and using my hands, moving it back and forth in small rapid movements, heating it, tearing at it, in a matter of Ehn, severed it. I now moved my arms about. It felt delicious to so move. I jerked my wrists outwards. They stopped almost immediately, at the ends of their brief, linked tether. They could move but a few inches apart. In their clasping iron, now rusted, well were they still held. Yet I was exhilarated. A man can be dangerous, even so manacled. I removed the gag strap from between my teeth. The men of Ar, doubtless, would expect me to flee into the marsh. Indeed, I might well do so. There were, however, some matters I wished to attend to first. I might, I thought, trouble them for a key. I could use that. Too, I did not doubt but what my exit from the delta, of which I now entertained little doubt, might be more felicitously accomplished if I were to take on certain supplies. Surely the men of Ar, good fellows that they were, would not begrudge me such. Too, it seemed they owed me something, considering the inconvenience to which I had been put and my labors, as yet uncompensated, on their behalf. I was, after all, a free man.

I then lowered myself from the raft, again into the water, to be less exposed to the flies, even in the thick rence. I looked up at the sky. There were still millions of flies, in dark sheets, hurrying overhead, yet the density of the swarm was less now than before.

I would wait for the next wave.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Pages 160 - 166

Many of the men of Ar had taken refuge on sand bars. Fires had been built, on which marsh growth and damp rence were thrown, to produce smoke, that this might ward off flies. Many huddled about, shuddering. Some lay about, sick. These were reactions, I was sure, to the venom of the sting flies. Many of the men had covered themselves with blankets and cloths; others sat with their heads down, with their tunics pulled up, about their faces. Others crouched and sat near the fire. Many had darkened their faces, and arms and legs, with mud and ashes, presumably as some putative protection against the flies. Many were red-eyed. There was coughing. Others had covered themselves with rence. Some had dug down into the sand. I heard a man throwing up, into the marsh. I heard weeping, and moaning. The faces of some of the men were swollen out of shape, discolored and covered with knoblike excrescences. Similar bulbous swellings appeared on many arms and legs. The eyes of some were swollen shut.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Pages 167 - 168

I heard a fellow cry out with pain, stung. But there were fewer flies about now - just now.

Indeed perhaps the men, scattered about, here and there, miserable on the bar, thought the flies had gone.

I had, however, from the rence, seen the clouds once more approaching from the west, even vaster, even darker. The first wave is never the most dense, the most terrible. The center waves, seemingly obedient to some statistical imperative, enjoyed that distinction. The final waves, of course, are smaller, and more fitful. Rencers sometimes even leave their huts during the final waves, racing overhead like scattered clouds.

As soon as I had seen the first edge of the new darkness, those new clouds, like a black rising moon, emerge on the horizon, over the rence, to the west, I had taken the rence tube, already prepared, and returned to the vicinity of the men of Ar. None here, on the bar, it seemed, was yet aware of the new clouds, rising in the west.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 168

I saw with satisfaction the men of Ar take what shelter they could, digging into the sand, pulling blankets about them, covering themselves with rence, wrapping cloths about their head and eyes, burying their head in their arms, doing whatever they could do to prepare themselves for the imminent arrival of their numerous small guests, the temporary masters of the delta of the Vosk.

At such a time I thought a larl might tread unnoticed amongst them.

"Ai!" cried a man, stung by what was, in effect, no more than one of the harbingers or precursors of the cloud. It is a bit like a rain, I thought, the first drops, then more, then torrents, perhaps for a long time, then eventually the easing, the letting up, then the last drops, then, somehow, eventually, what one had almost ceased to hope for, the clearing. To be sure it comes horizontally, and is dry, and black, and some of the "drops" linger, crawling about.

In a matter of moments the air began to be laced with movement. This movement was sudden and swift, almost blurring. Yet there was no great density in it. It was as though these small, furious flying forms sped through transparent tunnels in the air, separated from one another.

Men of Ar cried out in misery. Many lay flat, covering their head with their hands.

I dipped my head briefly under the water, to wash flies from my face. Most of the flies that alight on one do not, of course, sting. If they did, I suppose, given the cumulative effect of so much venom, so much toxin, one might be dead in a matter of Ehn.

Then, suddenly it seemed the very air was filled with swiftly moving bodies, pelting, striking even into one another.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 169

For an instant then I became aware of the flies about. They were thick. I must be covered with them. I had been stung, I think, but in the intensity of my emotion, and given my concentration on my quest, I was not even sure of it.
. . .

Flies were much about. At times I could not see him clearly for their numbers.
. . .

The buzzing of the flies was monstrous.
. . .

I could, hardly see for the flies clustered about my eyes. I brushed them away, angrily, searching again for the float.

"Aii!" cried Plenius, backing away, suddenly, thrashing about with his blade, in the air, through the flies, sometimes into the water. He now had his left hand raised to his face. I think he had been stung in the vicinity of his other eye. I did not know if he could even see me any longer.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Pages 169 - 174

Though it was hot I had covered myself with one of the blankets I had taken. This afforded me protection against the flies. Too, it should prove useful when the chills set in, a predictable consequence of the venom of sting flies, when administered in more than nominal amounts. In an Ahn, under the blanket, sweating, I felt sick. It was only then, I think, that I began to realize the extent to which I must have been stung by the flies. To be sure, of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, which had alighted on my body, probably no more than twenty or thirty had actually stung me. The swelling from such stings usually appears almost immediately, and peaks within an Ahn, and then subsides in anywhere from a few Ahn to two or three days. I was in great pain, and felt nauseous, but, in spite of these things, I was in an excellent humor.
. . .
I thought I would stay where I was for two or three days, at least. I could use a rest. It had not been easy, being beaten, drawing the raft, and such. Too, by that time the flies, or most of them, should have left the delta. Too, then I should be in less pain, and the swellings should have subsided.
. . .

I threw up into the marsh.

I shuddered on the logs.

I wanted to scream with agony, but I was silent. I wanted to tear at my body with my fingernails, but I lay still.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Pages 176 - 177

Labienus did not look directly at me while he spoke. Rather he looked out over the marsh. He did not see anything, however, as he was blind. This was the result of the work of the sting flies, or, as the men of Ar are wont to call them, the needle flies. In their attacks he had insufficiently defended himself from their depredations which, too often, are toward the eyes, the surfaces of which are moist and reflect light. Most, of course, would shut or cover their eyes, perhaps with cloth or their hands or arms. The rencers use rence mats most commonly, or hoods made of rence, for these, screenlike, permit one to see out but are too small to admit the average sting fly. Had Labienus protected himself, and not tried, at all costs, to maintain his cognizance and command, I do not doubt but what he, like the others, could have prevented the flies, in numbers, from inflicting such injuries on himself. He must have been stung several times in, or about, the eyes.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 314

Sand Fly

To The Top

Once she stole a date. I did not whip her. I chained her, arms over her head, back against the trunk, to a flahdah tree. I permitted nomad children to discomfit her. They are fiendish little beggars. They tickled her with the lanceolate leaves of the tree. They put honey about her, to attract the tiny black sand flies, which infest such water holes in the spring.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 81

The mud buildings at an oasis such as that of Two Scimitars last for many years. In such an area one often goes years without rain.

When rain does fall, however, sometimes it is fierce, turning the terrain into a quagmire. Following such rains great clouds of sand flies appear, wakened from dormancy. These feast on kaiila and men. Normally, flying insects are found only in the vicinity of the oases. Crawling insects of various sorts, and predator insects, however, are found in many areas, even far from water. The zadit is a small, tawny-feathered, sharp-billed bird. It feeds on insects. When sand flies and other insects, emergent after rains, infest kaiila, they frequently alight on the animals, and remain on them for some hours, hunting insects. This relieves the kaiila of the insects but leaves it with numerous small wounds, which are unpleasant and irritating, where the bird has dug insects out of its hide. These tiny wounds, if they become infected, turn into sores; these sores are treated by the drovers with poultices of kaiila dung.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 152

Within an Ahn after the cessation of the rain, the sun again paramount, merciless, in the now-cloudless sky, the footing was sufficiently firm, the water lost under the dust and sand, to support the footing of kaiila. The animals were unhooded, we mounted, and again our quest continued.

It was only a day later that the flies appeared. I had thought, first, it was another storm. It was not. The sun itself, for more than four Ehn, was darkened, as the great clouds moved over us. Suddenly, like darting, black, dry rain, the insects swarmed about us. I spit them from my mouth. I heard Alyena scream. The main swarms had passed but, clinging about us, like crawling spots on our garments, and in and among the hairs of the kaiila, in their thousands, crept the residue of the infestation. I struck at them, and crushed them, until I realized the foolishness of doing so. In less than four Ahn, twittering, fluttering, small, tawny, sharp-billed, following the black clouds, came flights of zadits. We dismounted and led the kaiila, and let the birds hunt, them for flies. The zadits remained with us for more than two days. Then they departed.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 169

Zarlit Fly

To The Top

In either case," I said, "they would be better informed as to our numbers, and might then depart, far more emboldened. The mighty trident-horned kailiauk of the plains goes about its business, ignoring the tiny zarlit fly."
Avengers of Gor     Book 36     Page 213

"They must wait, too, in any event," said Xenon, "to let the wagons, a marvelous diversion and decoy, mysterious and well armed, move away from the coast, drawing bounty hunters after it like zarlit flies to honey."
Warriors of Gor     Book 37     Page 118

Gitch

To The Top

"Oh!" said Boabissia, recoiling.

"You see," said the proprietor. "You will come to like the frevets." We watched a large, oblong, flat-bodied black object, about a half hort in length, with long feelers, hurry toward a crack at the base of the wall. "That is a roach," he said. "They are harmless, not like the gitches whose bites are rather painful. Some of them are big fellows, too. But there aren't many of them around. The frevets see to it. Achiates prides himself on a clean house."
Mercenaries of Gor     Book 21     Pages 276 - 277

Golden Beetle

To The Top

"The Slime Worm has earned its place in the Nest," said the other.

"How does it live?" I asked.

"It scavenges on the kills of the Golden Beetle," said the first slave.

"What does the Golden Beetle kill?" I asked.

"Priest-Kings," said the second slave.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 105

"I was on an errand for Sarm," said Misk, "which took me to unfrequented tunnels and for company I took the girl with me. We came upon a Golden Beetle though none had ever been seen in that place and I wanted to go to the Beetle and I put down my head and approached it but the girl seized my antennae and dragged me away, thus saving my life."

Misk lowered his head again and extended his antennae for grooming.

"The pain was excruciating," said Misk, "and I could not but follow her in spite of the fact that I wanted to go to the Golden Beetle. In an Ahn of course I no longer wanted to go to the Beetle and I knew then she had saved my life.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 113

"Sarm is the First Born," said Misk, "whereas I am the Fifth Born. The first five born of the Mother are the High Council of the Nest. The Second, Third and Fourth Born, in the long ages, have, one by one, succumbed to the Pleasures of the Golden Beetle. Only Sarm and I are left of the Five."
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 114

"Why do you not slay the Golden Beetles?" I asked.

"It would be wrong," said Misk.

"But they kill you," I said.

"It is well for us to die," said Misk, "for otherwise the Nest would be eternal and the Nest must not be eternal for how could we love it if it were so?"
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 118 - 119

"After I have finished with Misk are you then to kill me?" I asked.

"No," said Mul-Al-Ka, "we are simply to tell you that Vika of Treve awaits you in the tunnels of the Golden Beetle."

"That is the weak part of Sarm's plan," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "for you would never go to the tunnels of the Golden Beetle to seek a female Mul."

"True," said Mul-Al-Ka, "it is the first mistake I have known Sarm to make."

"You will not go to the tunnels of the Golden Beetle," said Mul-Ba-Ta, "because it is death to do so."

"But I will go," I said.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 160 - 161

"Where are the tunnels of the Golden Beetle?" I asked.

"Inquire," said Misk. "They are well known to all within the Nest."

"Is it as difficult to slay a Golden Beetle as a Priest-King?" I asked.

"I do not know," said Misk. "We have never slain a Golden Beetle, nor have we studied them."

"Why not?" I asked.

"It is not done," said Misk. "And," he said, peering down at me, his luminous eyes intent, "it would be a great crime to kill one."

"I see," I said.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 174 - 175

I gathered that I had arrived too late to save Vika of Treve.

Deep in the unlit tunnels of the Golden Beetle, those unadorned, tortuous passages through the solid rock, I came upon her body.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 175

The cavern in which she lay reeked of the spoor of the Golden Beetle, which I had not yet encountered. Its contrast with the fastidiously clean tunnels of the Nest of Priest-Kings made it seem all the more repulsive in its filth and litter.

In one corner there were scattered bones and among them the shards of a human skull. The bones had been split and the marrow sucked from them.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 176

From her flesh at one point I could see the gleaming eyes of a small organism, golden and about the size of a child's turtle, scrambling, trying to pull itself from the leathery shell. With my sword I dug out the egg and crushed it and its occupant with the heel of my sandal on the stone floor.

Carefully, methodically, I removed a second egg. I held it to my ear. Inside it I could hear a persistent, ugly scratching, sense the movement of a tiny, energetic organism. I broke this egg too, stamping it with my heel, not stopping until what squirmed inside was dead.

The next three eggs I disposed of similarly.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 179

At that instant I heard a slight noise and looked up to see peering at me from the darkness of one of the tunnels leading from the cavern, two flaming, luminous eyes.

The Golden Beetle was not nearly as tall as a Priest-King, but it was probably considerably heavier. It was about the size of a rhinoceros and the first thing I noticed after the glowing eyes were two multiply hooked, tubular, hollow, pincerlike extensions that met at the tips perhaps a yard beyond its body. They seemed clearly some aberrant mutation of its jaws. Its antennae, unlike those of Priest-Kings, were very short. They curved and were tipped with a fluff of golden hair. Most strangely perhaps were several long, golden strands, almost a mane, which extended from the creature's head over its domed, golden back and fell almost to the floor behind it. The back itself seemed divided into two thick casings which might once, ages before, have been horny wings, but now the tissues had, at the points of touching together, fused in such a way as to form what was for all practical purposes a thick, immobile golden shell. The creature's head was even now withdrawn beneath the shell but its eyes were clearly visible and of course the extensions of its jaws.

I knew the thing before me could slay Priest-Kings. Most I feared for the safety of Vika of Treve. I stood before her body my sword drawn.

The creature seemed to be puzzled and made no move to attack. Undoubtedly in its long life it had never encountered anything like this in its tunnels. It backed up a bit and withdrew its head further beneath the shell of its fused, golden wings. It lifted its hooked, tubular jaws before its eyes as though to shield them from the light.

It occurred to me then that the light of the Mul-Torch burning in the invariably dark tunnels of its domain may have temporarily blinded or disoriented the creature. More likely the smell of the torch's oxidation products suddenly permeating its delicate antennae would have been as cacophonous to it as some protracted, discordant bedlam of noises might have been to us.

It seemed clear the creature did not yet understand what had taken place within its cavern.

I seized the Mul-Torch from between the stones where I had placed it and, with a great shout, thrust it towards the creature's face.

I would have expected it to retreat with rapidity, but it made no move whatsoever other than to lift its tubular, pincerlike jaws to me.

It seemed to me most unnatural, as though the creature might have been a living rock, or a blind, carnivorous growth.

One thing was clear. The creature did not fear me nor the flame.

I withdrew a step and it, on its six short legs, moved forward a step.

It seemed to me that it would be very difficult to injure the Golden Beetle, particularly when its head was withdrawn beneath the shell of its enclosing wings. This withdrawal on its part, of course, would not in the least prevent it from using its great jaws to attack, but it would, I supposed, somewhat narrow the area of its sensory awareness. It would most certainly limit its vision but I did not suppose that the Golden Beetle, any more than a Priest-King, much depended on this sense. Both would be quite at home, incomprehensibly to a visually oriented organism, in utter darkness. On the other hand I could hope that somehow the sensory field of the antennae might be similarly, at least partially, restricted by their withdrawal beneath the casing of the fused, horny wings.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 180 - 181

As I touched the girl the Beetle took another step forward. It began to hiss.

This noise unnerved me for a moment because I had been used to the uncanny silence of Priest-Kings.

Now the Beetle began to poke its head out from beneath the shelter of those domed, golden wings and its short antennae, tufted with golden fluff, thrust out and began to explore the chamber.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 182

There did not seem to be much air in the tunnels of the Golden Beetle.

I supposed they were not ventilated as well as the tunnels of the Priest-Kings. There was an odor in the tunnels of the Golden Beetle, perhaps of its spoor or various exudates. The odor seemed somewhat oppressive. I had not noticed it much before. Now I became aware of how long I had been in its tunnels, how long without food and how tired I was. Surely there would be time to sleep. The Beetle was far behind. Surely there would be time, if not to sleep, to close my eyes for a moment.

I awoke with a start.

The odor was now insufferable and close.

The Mul-Torch was little more now than a glowing stub.

I saw the peering eyes.

The golden strands on its back were lifted and quivering, and it was from them that the odor came.
I cried out as I felt two long, hard, curved objects close on my body.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 183 - 184

My hands seized the narrow, hollow, pincerlike jaws of the Golden Beetle and tried to force them from my body, but those relentless, hollow, chitinous hooks closed ever more tightly. They had now entered my skin and to my horror I felt a pull against my tissues and knew that the creature was now sucking through those foul tubes, but I was a man, a mammal, and not a Priest-King, and my body fluids were locked within the circulatory system of another form of being, and I thrust against the vicious hooked tubes that were the jaws of the Golden Beetle, and they budged out an inch and the creature began to hiss and the pressure of the jaws became even more cruel, but I managed to thrust them out of my skin and inch by inch I separated them until I held them at last almost at my arms' length and then I thrust yet more, forcing them yet further apart, slowly, as implacably as the Beetle itself, and then at my arms' length with a sickening, snapping sound they broke from its face and fell to the stone floor of the passage.

The hissing stopped.

The Beetle wavered, its entire shell of golden, fused wings trembling, and it seemed as if those fused wings shook as though to separate and fly but they could not, and it pulled its head back under the shelter of the wings. It began to back away from me on its six short legs. I leaped forward and thrust my hand under the wing shell and seized the short, tufted antennae and with one hand on them twisting and the other beneath the shell I slowly managed, lifting and twisting, to force the struggling creature onto its back and when it lay on its back, rocking, its short legs writhing impotently, I drew my sword and plunged it a dozen times into its vulnerable, exposed belly, and at last the thing stopped squirming and lay still.

I shuddered.

The odor of the golden hairs still lingered in the passages and, fearing I might once again succumb to whatever drug they released into the air, I determined to make my departure.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 184 - 185

I did not wish to resheath my sword for it was coated with the body fluids of the Golden Beetle.

I wondered how many more such creatures might dwell in similar passages and caverns near the tunnels of the Priest-Kings,

The plastic tunic I wore did not provide an absorbent surface with which to clean the blade.

I thought for a moment I might clean it on the golden strands of the Beetle's strange mane but I discovered these were wet with foul, glutinous exudate, the source of that unpleasant, narcotic odor which still permeated the passageway.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 185

When I came to the portal where I had entered I found it closed as I had known it would be and there was, as I knew, no handle or obvious device for opening the door on this side, for no one returned, supposedly, from the tunnels of the Golden Beetle. The portals were opened occasionally to allow the Beetle its run of the Nest but I had no idea when this might occur again.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 187

Most savage and unnatural of all, at least to the mind of a Priest-King, was the release of the Golden Beetles from their various tunnels in the vicinity of the Nest. These creatures, perhaps two hundred or more, were loosed and by means of covered transportation disks, piloted by Priest-Kings using oxygen systems internal to the disks, were driven toward the quarters of the Nest controlled by the unsuspecting Misk and his forces.

The exudate which forms on the mane hairs of the Golden Beetle, which had overcome me in the close confines of the tunnel, apparently has a most intense and, to a human mind, almost incomprehensibly compelling effect on the unusually sensitive antennae of Priest-Kings, luring them helplessly, almost as if hypnotized, to the jaws of the Beetle, who then penetrates their body with its hollow, pincerlike jaws and drains it of body fluid.

Misk's Priest-Kings began to leave their hiding places and their posts of vantage and come into the streets, their bodies inclining forward, their antennae dipped in the direction of the lure of the Beetles. The Priest-Kings themselves said nothing, explained nothing, to their dumbfounded human companions but merely laid aside their weapons and approached the Beetles.

Then it seems that a brave female, a former Mul, unidentified, had grasped the situation and, seizing a cattle goad from one of the confused, puzzled herdsmen, had rushed upon the Beetles jabbing and striking them, driving them away with the long spearlike object, and soon the herdsmen had rushed to join her and prod away the cumbersome, domelike predators, turning them back in the direction whence they had come.

It was not more than a day later before one of Sarm's own scouts laid aside his weapon and, as the Priest-Kings say, succumbed to the Pleasures of the Golden Beetle.

Now the Beetles roamed at random throughout the Nest, more of a threat to Sarm's own forces than Misk's, for now none of Misk's Priest-Kings ventured abroad without a human to protect it should it encounter a Golden Beetle.

In the next days the Golden Beetles began, naturally enough in their hunt for food, to drift toward those portions of the Nest occupied by Sarm's Priest-Kings, for in those portions of the Nest they encountered no shouting humans, no jabbing cattle goads.

The danger became so great that all the Implanted Muls, including even the creature Parp, were sent into the streets to protect Sarm's Priest-Kings.

Oddly enough, to human thinking, neither Misk nor Sarm would permit their humans to slay the Beetles, for Priest-Kings, for a reason which I will later relate, find themselves normally unwilling to slay or order the destruction of the dangerous, fused-winged creatures.

The Golden Beetles, free within the Nest, forced Sarm, in sheer regard for survival, to turn to humans for help, for humans, particularly in the well-ventilated areas of the Nest, are relatively impervious to the narcotic odor of the Beetle's mane, an odor which is apparently almost utterly overpowering to the particular sensory apparatus of Priest-Kings.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 256 - 258

The War was at an end.

Sarm had disappeared and with his disappearance, and presumed death, the opposition to Misk evaporated, for it had been held together only by the dominance of Sarm's mighty personality and the prestige that was his in virtue of being First Born.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 267

Behind me, inching its way up the narrow walkway, clinging with its six small legs, slowly lifting its heavy domelike golden body a step at a time, came the Golden Beetle I had seen below.

The mane hairs on its back were lifted like antennae and they moved as strangely, as softly, as underwater plants might lift and stir in the tides and currents of the cold liquid of the sea.

The narcotic odor emanating from that lifted, waving
mane shook even me though I stood in the midst of free air on the top of that great blue globe.

The steel bar fell from Sarm's appendage and slid from the top of the dome to fall with a distant crash far below in the rubble.

"Kill it, Cabot," came from Sarm's translator. "Kill it, Cabot, please." The Priest-King could not move. "You are human," said the translator. "You can kill it. Kill it, Cabot, please."

I stood to one side, standing on the surface of the globe, clinging to the rail.

"It is not done," I said to Sarm. "It is a great crime to kill one."

Slowly the heavy body with its domed, fused wings pressed past me, its tiny, tuftlike antennae extending towards Sarm, its long, hollow pincerlike jaws opening.

"Cabot," came from Sarm's translator.

"It is thus," I said, "that men use the instincts of Priest-Kings against them."

"Cabot, Cabot, Cabot," came from the translator.

Then to my amazement when the Beetle neared Sarm the Priest-King sank down on his supporting appendages, almost as if he were on his knees, and suddenly plunged his face and antennae into the midst of the waving manehair of the Golden Beetle.

I watched the pincerlike jaws grip and puncture the thorax of the Priest-King.

More rock dust drifted between me and the pair locked in the embrace of death.

More rock tumbled to the dome and bounced clattering to the debris below.

The very globe and walkway seemed to lift and tremble but neither of the creatures locked together above me seemed to take the least notice.

Sarm's antennae lay immersed in the golden hair of the Beetle; his grasping appendages with their sensory hairs caressed the golden hair; even did he take some of the hairs in his mouth and with his tongue try to lick the exudate from them.

"The pleasure," came from Sarm's translator. "The pleasure, the pleasure."

I could not shut out from my ears the grim sound of the sucking jaws of the Beetle.

I knew now why it was that the Golden Beetles were permitted to live in the Nest, why it was that Priest-Kings would not slay them, even though it might mean their own lives.

I wondered if the hairs of the Golden Beetle, heavy with the droplets of that narcotic exudate, offered adequate recompense to a Priest-King for the ascetic millennia in which he might have pursued the mysteries of science, if they provided an acceptable culmination to one of those long, long lives devoted to the Nest, to its laws, to duty and the pursuit and manipulation of power.

Priest-Kings, I knew, had few pleasures, and now I guessed that foremost among them might be death.

Once as though by some supreme effort of will Sarm, who was a great Priest-King, lifted his head from the golden hair and stared at me.

"Cabot," came from his translator.

"Die, Priest-King," I said softly.

The last sound I heard from Sarm's translator was - "The pleasure."

Then in the last spasmodic throb of death Sarm's body broke free of the jaws of the Golden Beetle and reared up once more to its glorious perhaps twenty feet of golden height.

He stood thusly on the walkway at the top of the vast blue dome beneath which burned and hissed the power source of Priest-Kings.

One last time he looked about himself, his antennae surveying the grandeur of the Nest, and then tumbled from the walkway and fell to the surface of the globe and slid until he fell to the rubble below.

The swollen, lethargic Beetle turned slowly to face me. With one stroke of my blade I broke open its head.

With my foot I tumbled its heavy body from the walkway and watched it slide down the side of the globe and fall like Sarm to the rubble below.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 274 - 276

At that moment, through the drifting rock dust, I saw the heavy, domed body of one of the Golden Beetles, perhaps fifty yards away.

Almost simultaneously both Misk and Kusk lifted their antennae and shuddered.

"We are fortunate," came from Kusk's translator.

"Yes," said Misk, "now it will not be necessary to seek one of the Golden Beetles."

"You must not yield to the Golden Beetle!" I cried.

I could now see the antennae of both Misk and Kusk turning towards the Beetle, and I could see the Beetle stop, and the mane hairs begin to lift. Suddenly, through the rock dust, I could scent that strange narcotic odor.

I drew my sword, but gently Misk seized my wrist, not permitting me to rush upon the Beetle and slay it. "No," said Misk.

The Beetle drew closer, and I could see the mane hairs waving now like the fronds of some marine plant caught in the currents of its underwater world.

"You must resist the Golden Beetle," I said to Misk.

"I am going to die," said Misk, "do not begrudge me this pleasure."

Kusk took a step toward the Beetle.

"You must resist the Golden Beetle to the end!" I cried.

"This is the end," came from Misk's translator. "And I have tried. And I am tired now. Forgive me, Tarl Cabot."

"Is this how our father chooses to die?" asked Al-Ka of Kusk.

"You do not understand, my children," said Kusk, "what the Golden Beetle means to a Priest-King."

"I think I understand," I cried, "but you must resist!"

"Would you have us die working at a hopeless task," asked Misk, "die like fools deprived of the final Pleasures of the Golden Beetle?"

"Yes!" I cried.

"It is not the way of Priest-Kings," said Misk.

"Let it be the way of Priest-Kings!" I cried.

Misk seemed to straighten himself, his antennae waved about wildly, every fiber of his body seemed to shiver.

He stood shuddering in the drifting rock dust, amid the crashings of distant rocks. He surveyed the humans gathered about him, the heavy golden hemisphere of the approaching Beetle.

"Drive it away," came from Misk's translator.

With a cry of joy I rushed upon the Beetle and Vika and Al-Ka and Ba-Ta and their women joined me and together, kicking and pushing, avoiding the tubular jaws, hurling rocks, we forced away the globe of the Golden Beetle.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 284 - 285

Priest-Kings surely had energies and passions, but, I suspected, they were, on the whole, rather different from those of men, or, indeed, those of Kurii. The nature of the sensory experience of Priest-Kings was still, largely, a mystery to me. I knew their behavioral world; I did not know the world of their inner experience. Their antennae were their central organs of physical transduction. Though they had eyes, they seldom relied upon them, and were perfectly at ease in total darkness. Lights, in the Nest, were for the benefit of humans and other visually oriented creatures sharing the domicile. Their music was a rhapsody of odors, many of which were, to human olfactory organs, not even pleasant. Their decorations were largely invisible lines of scent traced with great care on the interiors of their compartments. Their most intense, pleasurable experience was perhaps to immerse their antennae in the filamented, narcotic mane of the golden beetle, which would then, piercing them with its curved, hollow, laterally moving jaw-pincers, drain them of their body fluid, feeding itself, slaying them.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Pages 30 - 31

Grasshopper

To The Top

"Oh!" cried the girl, startled. A grasshopper, red, the size of a horned gim, a small, owllike bird, some four ounces in weight, common in the northern latitudes, had leaped near the fire, and disappeared into the brush.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 293

Grub	To The Top

A small, curious bird darted to the top of the stone, and then hopped from it to the blackened grass to hunt for grubs.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 139


The mindar is adapted for short, rapid flights, almost spurts, its wings beating in sudden flurries, hurrying it from branch to branch, for camouflage in flower trees, and for drilling the bark of such trees for larvae and grubs.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 282


In the ground zone, and on the ground itself, are certain birds, some flighted, like the hook-billed gort, which preys largely on rodents, such as ground urts, and the insectivorous whistling finch, and some unflighted, like the grub borer and lang gim.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 311


Indeed, in moments, most of the beasts of the herd, in their doltish fashion, had returned to their pursuits, as though nothing had happened, scratching for grubs and worms, digging here and there to uncover edible roots. From the mouth of one dangled a small snake.
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 513

Grub Borer

To The Top

In the ground zone, and on the ground itself, are certain birds, some flighted, like the hook-billed gort, which preys largely on rodents, such as ground urts, and the insectivorous whistling finch, and some unflighted, like the grub borer and lang gim.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 311

Hala	To The Top

'Hala' is Kaiila for the Gorean hinti, which are small, active insects. They resemble fleas but are not parasitic.
Blood Brothers of Gor     Book 18     Pages 219 - 220

Hinti

To The Top

"Yes," I said. He had been a lad from among the Kaiila. He was well known to both Cuwignaka and myself. We had thrown the hoop for him many times, he then firing his small arrows through it. In the camp he had been known by the names of Hala and Owopte. 'Hala' is Kaiila for the Gorean hinti, which are small, active insects. They resemble fleas but are not parasitic.
Blood Brothers of Gor     Book 18     Pages 219 - 220

Larvae

To The Top

Overhead were several birds, bright, chattering, darting, swift among the branches and green leaves. I heard the throaty warbling, so loud for such a small bird, of the tiny horned gim. Somewhere, far off, but carrying through the forest, was the rapid, staccato slap of the sharp beak of the yellow-breasted hermit bird, pounding into the reddish bark of the tur tree, hunting for larvae.
Hunters of Gor     Book 8     Page 106


The mindar is adapted for short, rapid flights, almost spurts, its wings beating in sudden flurries, hurrying it from branch to branch, for camouflage in flower trees, and for drilling the bark of such trees for larvae and grubs.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 282

Lice	To The Top

I withdrew some of the lice, the size of marbles, which tend to infest wild tarns, and slapped them roughly into the mouth of the tarn, wiping them off on his tongue.
Tarnsman of Gor     Book 1     Page 142


Good-naturedly, I scratched out a handful or two of lice which I slopped on his tongue like candy.
Tarnsman of Gor     Book 1     Page 162

I slapped his beak affectionately and, digging among his neck feathers with my fingers, scratched out some of the lice, about the size of marbles, that infest wild tarns. I slapped them on his long tongue. After a moment of impatient, feather-ruffling protest, the tarn succumbed, if reluctantly, to this delicacy, and the parasites disappeared into that curved scimitar of a beak.
Outlaw of Gor     Book 2     Pages 181 - 182

I thrashed on the wood. I could feel the ship lice.

I could not tear at them with my fingernails; I was not chained in such a way as to permit that; this was intentional. I writhed on the slatted wood, screaming.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 318


She is chained in such a way as to preclude movement which might tear at the mesh or break it, thus making possible the entry of urts, which might eat at her, lowering her price, and to preclude her tearing hysterically with her hands and fingernails at her own body, bloodying herself, perhaps scaring herself, again lowering her price, in her attempt to obtain relief from the bites and itching consequent upon the infestation and depredation of the numerous, almost constantly active ship lice.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 319


I gritted my teeth so that I would not cry out from the misery of the lice.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 320


The hair of the below-deck girls, mercifully, is shaved off; indeed, our body hair, too, was shaved off, completely. These precautions prevent, to a great extent, the nesting of ship lice.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 321

"We are going to test you for pox," he said. The girl groaned. It was my hope that none on board the Clouds of Telnus had carried the pox. It is transmitted by the bites of lice. The pox had appeared in Bazi some four years ago. The port had been closed for two years by the merchants. It had burned itself out moving south and eastward in some eighteen months. Oddly enough some were immune to the pox, and with others it had only a temporary, debilitating effect. With others it was swift, lethal and horrifying. Those who had survived the pox would presumably live to procreate themselves, on the whole presumably transmitting their immunity or relative immunity to their offspring. Slaves who contracted the pox were often summarily slain. It was thought that the slaughter of slaves had had its role to play in the containment of the pox in the vicinity of Bazi.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Pages 325 - 326


When I had come to the Chatka and Curla I, and Narla, too, had been dipped and scrubbed, to clear us of ship lice and the residues of filth accumulated from the voyage and our consequent captivity; the dip was of water saturated with chemicals toxic to ship lice; we did not open our eyes or mouth when held under by the girls cleaning us; they controlled us by a clamp placed on the right ear lobe; later we were permitted to bathe ourselves; few baths in my life had I appreciated more than that one.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 329


"It was not a slave ship, I gather," I said, "else it is likely her head and body hair would have been shaved, to reduce the degree of infestation by ship lice in the hold."
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 26


To be sure, her hair is now growing out a bit. This is to be contrasted again, of course, with the shaven head, commonly inflicted only on a girl as a punishment or to protect her from lice in close confinements, such as on a slave ship.
Kajira of Gor     Book 19     Page 292

"Oh!" cried Boabissia, on the next landing. "An urt!"

"That is not an urt," said the proprietor. "They usually come out after dark. There is too much noise and movement for them during the day." The small animal skittered backward, with a sound of claws on the boards. Its eyes gleamed in the reflected light of the lamp. "Generally, too, they do not come this high," said the proprietor. "That is a frevet." The frevet is a small, quick, mammalian insectivore. "We have several in the house," he said. "They control the insects, the beetles and lice, and such."

Boabissia was silent.

"Not every insula furnishes frevets," said the proprietor. "They are charming as well as useful creatures. You will probably grow fond of them. You will probably wish to keep your door open at night, for coolness, and to give access to them. They cannot gnaw through walls like urts, you know."
Mercenaries of Gor     Book 21     Page 276


Too, it is common to shave a girl completely if she is to be transported in a slave ship. This is to protect her against vermin of various sorts, in particular, lice.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 126

The major reason for cropping the hair of field slaves, both male and female, and certain other forms of work slaves, is to protect them from parasites. For a similar reason the bodies of the women transported on slave ships are almost always shaved, completely. Even then it is common, shortly after debarkation, and this is required by the rules of many port authorities, to subject them to an immersion in slave dip.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 301

"She is grooming him," whispered Peisistratus. "When she encounters lice, she must eat them."
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 151


All the hair on their bodies is removed, to reduce the infestation of parasites. The chaining arrangement, incidentally, is not only to keep the girls from tearing the mesh, which might allow the entry of urts into the space, but, also, to keep them from lacerating their own bodies, tearing at them to relieve the misery consequent upon the depredations of parasites, usually ship lice.
Swordsmen of Gor     Book 29     Page 550


Too, when girls are put on slave ships, chained in their wire cages on tiered shelves in a hold, they are commonly shorn, and depilated, completely, to reduce the infestations of ship lice.
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Pages 206 - 207

"That was largely to leave my scent upon you," he said, "which was done that my fellow, who was blind, would know a Kur scent, and follow you, and, of course, not be likely to kill you. Now, of course it will be necessary to give you some training, as an actual Kur pet the biting, the nibbling, the use of your teeth, the swallowing of lice and such."
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 472

"Do not confuse him with a High One," she said. "I have bitten lice out of the fur of a dozen such beasts who would not permit him to do so much as polish their claws."
Plunder of Gor     Book 34     Page 575

"Long ago," said the Lady Bina, selecting a cube of meat from the pan, "I was a Kur pet, and groomed my master, and bit the lice from his pelt. Now I am served by a Kur, before whom, once, I would not have dared to raise my eyes."
Plunder of Gor     Book 34     Page 621

Night

To The Top

Here and there swarms of night insects began to stir, lifting themselves under the leaves of bushes by the road.
Outlaw of Gor     Book 2     Page 25

Parasites

To The Top

I slapped his beak affectionately, as if we were in a tarn cot, and shoved my hands into his neck feathers, the area where the tarn can't preen, as the tarn keepers do when searching for parasites.

I withdrew some of the lice, the size of marbles, which tend to infest wild tarns, and slapped them roughly into the mouth of the tarn, wiping them off on his tongue. I did this again and again, and the tarn stretched out his neck.
Tarnsman of Gor     Book 1     Pages 142 - 143

I slapped his beak affectionately and, digging among his neck feathers with my fingers, scratched out some of the lice, about the size of marbles, that infest wild tarns. I slapped them on his long tongue. After a moment of impatient, feather-ruffling protest, the tarn succumbed, if reluctantly, to this delicacy, and the parasites disappeared into that curved scimitar of a beak.
Outlaw of Gor     Book 2     Pages 181 - 182

The principal ingredients of Sullage are the golden Sul, the starchy, golden-brown vine-borne fruit of the golden-leaved Sul plant; the curled, red, ovate leaves of the Tur-Pah, a tree parasite, cultivated in host orchards of Tur trees, and the salty, blue secondary roots of the Kes Shrub, a small, deeply rooted plant which grows best in sandy soil.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 44 - 45


Besides several of the flower trees there were also some Ka-la-na trees, or the yellow wine trees of Gor; there was one large-trunked, reddish Tur tree, about which curled its assemblage of Tur-Pah, a vinelike tree parasite with curled, scarlet, ovate leaves, rather lovely to look upon; the leaves of the Tur-Pah incidentally are edible and figure in certain Gorean dishes, such as sullage, a kind of soup;
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Page 217

Her head had already been shaved. These girls were doubtless to be part of the cargo of a slave ship, probably bound for Cos or Tyros. The shaving is for hygienic reasons, to protect them in the crowding and the filth, on the shelves, from parasites.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Pages 455 - 456


The major reason for cropping the hair of field slaves, both male and female, and certain other forms of work slaves, is to protect them from parasites. For a similar reason the bodies of the women transported on slave ships are almost always shaved, completely. Even then it is common, shortly after debarkation, and this is required by the rules of many port authorities, to subject them to an immersion in slave dip.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 301

The hunting sleen was a much larger animal, and had been bred through generations not only for its hunting skills, but for size, ferocity, and aggressiveness. Such animals are sometimes used in sleen fights, on which bets are made. There is amongst some species, including Kurii, a common belief that the wild animal is somehow superior to the domestic animal, but this is usually false. The domestic animal has been bred from the wild animal to be its superior. Wild animals are on the whole smaller, lack stamina, are malnourished, infested with parasites, and short-lived. The domestic animal is usually larger, better fed, longer-lived, healthier, and trainable, with respect to virtues ranging from stamina to patience, to restraint, to techniques of stalking, attacking, and killing. For example, the wolf hound of Earth was originally bred to kill wolves.
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Pages 211 - 212


To be sure, even such accommodations were likely to be far superior to those afforded on typical slave ships, in which the slaves were often supine and tiered, chained, wrists over head, ankles together, on pallets of slatted wood, enclosed by mesh, to keep away the urts. All the hair on their bodies is removed, to reduce the infestation of parasites. The chaining arrangement, incidentally, is not only to keep the girls from tearing the mesh, which might allow the entry of urts into the space, but, also, to keep them from lacerating their own bodies, tearing at them to relieve the misery consequent upon the depredations of parasites, usually ship lice.
Swordsmen of Gor     Book 29     Page 550

I had hoped that the Kurii might have humans about to attend to servile tasks, in particular, female slaves. Such, as I recalled, lovely pets, served Kurii in various lowly ways on the steel world I had visited, in particular, in grooming their masters, biting parasites from their fur, and such.
Warriors of Gor     Book 37     Page 230

Parasites - Kur

To The Top

I thrust my face again into the fur.

I then heard from a second translator, apparently back a little farther than the first. "Enjoy the tiny, furtive, crawling things."

"Crack them between your teeth," came from the first translator.

"Are they not delicious?" came from the second translator.
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 474

"Kurii, not unoften," he said, "keep human females as pets. Their bodies can warm feet, their fine, small teeth are excellent for grooming, for ridding pelts of parasites."
Plunder of Gor     Book 34     Page 387

Rennel

To The Top

I was told by Kamchak that once an army of a thousand wagons turned aside because a swarm of rennels, poisonous, crablike desert insects, did not defend its broken nest, crushed, by the wheel of the lead wagon.
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Page 27


She was gasping and stumbling; her body glistened with perspiration; her legs were black with wet dust; her hair was tangled and thick with dust; her feet and ankles were bleeding; her calves were scratched and speckled with the red bites of rennels.
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Page 135

Roach

To The Top

"Oh!" said Boabissia, recoiling.

"You see," said the proprietor. "You will come to like the frevets." We watched a large, oblong, flat-bodied black object, about a half hort in length, with long feelers, hurry toward a crack at the base of the wall. "That is a roach," he said. "They are harmless, not like the gitches whose bites are rather painful. Some of them are big fellows, too. But there aren't many of them around. The frevets see to it. Achiates prides himself on a clean house."
Mercenaries of Gor     Book 21     Pages 276 - 277

Scorpion

To The Top

In the second level, that of the canopies, is found an incredible variety of birds, warblers, finches, mindars, the crested lit and the common lit, the fruit tindel, the yellow gim, tanagers, some varieties of parrot, and many more. Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 311

Slime Slug of Anango

To The Top

"Not even the slime slugs of Anango would take shelter beneath this rock!" cried Boots Tarsk-Bit, waving the stone about in his two hands.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 400

Slime Worm

To The Top

We had not walked far when we passed a long wormlike animal, eyeless, with a small red mouth, that inched its way along the corridor, hugging the angle between the wall and floor.

Neither of my two guides paid the animal any attention. Indeed, even I myself, after my experience of the arthropod on the platform and the flat, sluglike beast on its transportation disk in the plaza, was growing accustomed to finding strange creatures in the Nest of the Priest-Kings.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A Matok," said one of the slaves.

"Yes," said the other, "it is in the Nest but not of the Nest."

"But I thought I was a Matok," I said.

"You are," said one of the slaves. We continued on.

"What do you call it?" I asked.

"Oh," said one of the slaves. "It is a Slime Worm."

"What does it do?" I asked.

"Long ago it functioned in the Nest," said one of the slaves, "as a sewerage device, but it has not served that function in many thousands of years."

"But yet it remains in the Nest."

"Of course," said one of the slaves, "the Priest-Kings are tolerant."

"Yes," said the other, "and they are fond of it, and are themselves creatures of great reverence for tradition."

"The Slime Worm has earned its place in the Nest," said the other.

"How does it live?" I asked.

"It scavenges on the kills of the Golden Beetle," said the first slave.

"What does the Golden Beetle kill?" I asked.

"Priest-Kings," said the second slave.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 104 - 105

As I prepared to resheath the sword I heard a slight noise in the passage and, in the light of the dying Mul-Torch, without moving, I waited.

What approached was not another Golden Beetle, though I supposed there might have been several in those tunnels, but another inhabitant of those dismal passages, the whitish, long, slow, blind Slime Worm.

Its tiny mouth on the underside of its body touched the stone flooring here and there like the poking finger of a blind man and the long, whitish, rubbery body gathered itself and pushed forward and gathered itself and pushed forward again until it lay but a yard from my sandal, almost under the shell of the slain Beetle.

The Slime Worm lifted the forward portion of its long, tubular body and the tiny red mouth on its underside seemed to peer up at me.

"No," I said, "the Golden Beetle has not made a kill in this place."

The tiny red mouth seemed to continue to peer at me for perhaps a moment or two more and then it slowly turned away from me to the carcass of the Golden Beetle.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 186

Snail

To The Top

Once the Forkbeard went to her and taught her to check the scoop, with her left hand, for snails, that they not be thrown overboard. Returning to me he held one of the snails, whose shell he crushed between his fingers, and sucked out the animal, chewing and swallowing it. He then threw the shell fragments overboard.

"They are edible," he said. "And we use them for fish bait."
Marauders of Gor     Book 9     Page 62


In another place, that night, we found a narrow channel of baked mud, the dried bed of a tiny, vanished stream, of the sort which in the winter, should it rain, carries water for a few days. We followed this to a shallow, dried pool. Digging here we found dormant snails. In the moonlight we cracked the shells, sucking out the fluid. It stank. Only at first did I vomit.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 280

Spider - Cell

To The Top

I detected the odor of kort rinds, matted, drying, on the stones, where they had been scattered from my supper the evening before. Vints, insects, tiny, sand-colored, covered them. On the same rinds, taking and eating vints, were two small cell spiders.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Pages 115 - 116

On the rinds the spiders continued to hunt vints.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 121

On the kort rinds the spiders continued to hunt vints.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 123

Spider - Rock

To The Top

This afternoon, late, when we had come inland, almost in the dusk, she had become entangled in the web of a rock spider, a large one. They are called rock spiders because of their habit of holding their legs folded beneath them. This habit, and their size and coloration, usually brown and black, suggests a rock, and hence the name. It is a very nice piece of natural camouflage. A thin line runs from the web to the spider. When something strikes the web the tremor is transmitted by means of this line to the spider. Interestingly the movement of the web in the air, as it is stirred by wind, does not activate the spider; similarly if the prey which strikes the web is too small, and thus not worth showing itself for, or too large, and thus beyond its prey range, and perhaps dangerous, it does not reveal itself. On the other hand, should a bird, such as a mindar or parrot, or a small animal, such as a leaf urt or tiny tarsk, become entangled in the net the spider swiftly emerges. It is fully capable of taking such prey. When the blond-haired barbarian stumbled into the web, screaming, trying to tear it away from her face and hair, the spider did not even reveal itself. I pulled her away from the net and slapped her to silence. Curious, as she, sobbing, cleaned herself with leaves and saliva, I located the gentle, swaying strand which marked the location of the spider. It, immobile on the ground, was about a foot in diameter. It did not move until I nudged it with a stick, and it then backed rapidly way.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 294


Also in the ground zone are varieties of snake, such as the ost and hith, and numerous species of insects. The rock spider has been mentioned, and termites, also.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Pages 311 - 312

I went to the edge of the depression. There, a few feet below me, suspended in a gigantic web, was Janice. One of her legs was through the web, and an arm. It was not simply the adhesiveness of the web's strands which prevented her from freeing herself but, also, its swaying and elasticity, sinking beneath her as she tried to press against it.

I looked at the small men. They seemed friendly enough.

Yet none of them made any move to help Janice.

"Master!" screamed Janice.

I looked down. The web was now trembling. Approaching her now, moving swiftly across the web, was a gigantic rock spider. It was globular, hairy, brown and black, some eight feet in thickness. It had pearly eyes and black, side-hinged jaws.

Janice threw back her head and screamed with misery. I slid down the side of the depression to the edge of the net. I drew back the spear I carried. I flung it head-on into the spider. It penetrated its body and slid almost through. It reached up with its two forelegs and drew it out. It then turned toward me. As soon as it had turned in my direction, away from the girl, the small men, howling and shrieking, began to hurl their small spears into its body. It stood puzzled on the web. I scrambled about the side of the depression, slipping once, and retrieved the spear. It was wet with the viscous body fluids of the arachnid. It turned again and I, slashing with the spear blade, cut loose a jointed segment of its leg. It charged and I thrust the spear blade into its face. Some of the small men then hurried about the depression striking at the beast with palm leaves, distracting it, infuriating it. As it turned toward them I cut another segment of one of its rear legs from it. It then, unsteadily, again moved toward me. I slipped to the side and cut at the juncture of its cephalo-thorax and abdomen. It began to exude fluid. It retreated sideways from me. It turned erratically. The side-hinged jaws opened and shut. A strand of webbing from one of its abdominal glands began to emerge meaninglessly. I then, as it dragged itself backward on the web, cut away at its head. The small men then flooded past me, clambering on the web itself, and began to crawl upon the beast with their knives, cutting it to pieces. I went then to the height of the depression, the spear in hand, the fluids of the beast drying upon it. Janice lay naked, trembling, in the web. The great arachnid now lay on its back, the small men swarming over it. Some stood to their knees in its body. I cleaned the shaft and blade of the spear with moist leaves. When I returned the small men had rolled the carcass of the beast to one side. It reposed there, gigantic and globular, in the fashion of the rock spider, its legs tucked beneath it. The small men then stood again about the upper edge of the depression. "Tal," said their leader to me, grinning. "Tal," I said to him.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Pages 390 - 391

Spider - Urt

To The Top

Many are the strands of intrigue, and a tremor in one strand, as in the web of the urt spider, is often registered in several others. Not unoften he who presumes himself a spy, secure in station and privileged in access, reporting upon others, is himself under suspicion. Is it not often the case that the first is concerned with the second, and the second with the third, and the third with the first, and in the center of all this, attending to the strands, rather like the urt spider itself, there is something which observes and waits. But here the web is invisible, and what observes and waits is unseen.
Smugglers of Gor     Book 32     Page 135

Termite

To The Top

A great spined anteater, more than twenty feet in length, shuffled about the edges of the camp. We saw its long, thin tongue dart in and out of its mouth.

The blond-haired barbarian crept closer to me.

"It is harmless," I said, "unless you cross its path or disturb heavily clawed forefeet, uttering an enraged whistling noise, clubbing and slashing, lacerating, eviscerate even a larl. It lived on the white ants, or termites, of the vicinity, breaking apart their high, towering nests of toughened clay, some of them thirty-five feet in height, with its mighty claws, then darting its four-foot-long tongue, coated with adhesive saliva, among the nest's startled occupants, drawing thousands in a matter of moments into its narrow, tubelike mouth.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 293


Also in the ground zone are varieties of snake, such as the ost and hith, and numerous species of insects. The rock spider has been mentioned, and termites, also. Termites, incidentally, are extremely important to the ecology of the forest. In their feeding they break down and destroy the branches and trunks of fallen trees. The termite "dust," thereafter, by the action of bacteria, is reduced to humus, and the humus to nitrogen and mineral materials.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Pages 311 - 312

Toos	To The Top

I swung the transportation disk in a graceful arc to one side of the tunnel to avoid running into a crablike organism covered with overlapping plating and then swung the disk back in another sweeping arc to avoid slicing into a stalking Priest-King who lifted his antennae quizzically as we shot past.

"The one who was not a Priest-King," quickly said Mul-Al-Ka, "was a Matok and is called a Toos and lives on discarded fungus spores."
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 142

Vermin

To The Top

My master, with his lieutenants, sat cross-legged in the large, thatched hut of Thurnus. It was high, and conical, and floored with rough planks, set some six or seven feet on poles above the ground, that it might be drier and protected from common insects and vermin.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 138


Too, it is common to shave a girl completely if she is to be transported in a slave ship. This is to protect her against vermin of various sorts, in particular, lice.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 126


Too, girls transported in slave ships are commonly shaved completely, to protect them from vermin below decks.
Witness of Gor     Book 26     Page 442


The leader of the strangers regarded us. We kept our heads down. We dared not meet his eyes. I think there was not one of us who would not have rather, a thousand times over, been elsewhere, almost anywhere, in the heaviest of chains in the foulest of dungeons; pitching, sick, bound to our pallets, almost immobile, in the holds of stinking slave ships, covered with vermin; sweating in the mills, chained to our looms; carrying water, shackled, in the fields; even drawing sleds or wagons, padlocked in our harnesses, draft beasts.
Witness of Gor     Book 26     Page 573

Vint	To The Top

I detected the odor of kort rinds, matted, drying, on the stones, where they had been scattered from my supper the evening before. Vints, insects, tiny, sand-colored, covered them. On the same rinds, taking and eating vints, were two small cell spiders.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Pages 115 - 116


On the rinds the spiders continued to hunt vints.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 121

Worm	To The Top

Indeed, in moments, most of the beasts of the herd, in their doltish fashion, had returned to their pursuits, as though nothing had happened, scratching for grubs and worms, digging here and there to uncover edible roots. From the mouth of one dangled a small snake.
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 513

Worm - Flat

To The Top

These, in turn, become food for various flatworms and numerous tiny segmented creatures, such as isopods, which, in turn, serve as food for small, blind, white crayfish, lelts and salamanders.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 249


There is little to eat in that world; it is a liquid desert, almost barren, black, blind and cool. It swims slowly, conserving its energy, not alerting its prey, commonly flatworms and tiny segmented creatures, predominantly isopods.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 256

Worm - Ship

To The Top

The ship like most of the northern ships, was clinker built, being constructed of overlapping planks, or strakes, the frame then fitted within them. Between the strakes, tarred ropes and tar served as caulking. Outside the planks, too, was a coating of painted tar, to protect them from the sea, and the depredations of ship worms.
Marauders of Gor     Book 9     Pages 31 - 32

"The hull," he said, "is bored by ship worms, and rotted. The deck is split and the boards shrunk. Were it not for the clasp of the foliage, suspending her, she may have disappeared long ago."

He punched downward with the heel of his sea boot and the board broke under the blow, revealing a brown, spongelike mass of fiber.
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Page 219

Worm - Silk

To The Top

"Originally, doubtless beans were brought from Earth," I said, "much as certain other seeds, and silk worms and such, but I doubt very much that the ship I saw last night had in its cargo anything as trivial as the beans for black wine."
Assassin of Gor     Book 5     Page 107

Worm - Slime

To The Top

We had not walked far when we passed a long wormlike animal, eyeless, with a small red mouth, that inched its way along the corridor, hugging the angle between the wall and floor.

Neither of my two guides paid the animal any attention. Indeed, even I myself, after my experience of the arthropod on the platform and the flat, sluglike beast on its transportation disk in the plaza, was growing accustomed to finding strange creatures in the Nest of the Priest-Kings.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A Matok," said one of the slaves.

"Yes," said the other, "it is in the Nest but not of the Nest."

"But I thought I was a Matok," I said.

"You are," said one of the slaves. We continued on.

"What do you call it?" I asked.

"Oh," said one of the slaves. "It is a Slime Worm."

"What does it do?" I asked.

"Long ago it functioned in the Nest," said one of the slaves, "as a sewerage device, but it has not served that function in many thousands of years."

"But yet it remains in the Nest."

"Of course," said one of the slaves, "the Priest-Kings are tolerant."

"Yes," said the other, "and they are fond of it, and are themselves creatures of great reverence for tradition."

"The Slime Worm has earned its place in the Nest," said the other.

"How does it live?" I asked.

"It scavenges on the kills of the Golden Beetle," said the first slave.

"What does the Golden Beetle kill?" I asked.

"Priest-Kings," said the second slave.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 104 - 105

"May you bathe in the dung of Slime Worms," I called to him cheerfully. I hoped he had a translator.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 106

What approached was not another Golden Beetle, though I supposed there might have been several in those tunnels, but another inhabitant of those dismal passages, the whitish, long, slow, blind Slime Worm.

Its tiny mouth on the underside of its body touched the stone flooring here and there like the poking finger of a blind man and the long, whitish, rubbery body gathered itself and pushed forward and gathered itself and pushed forward again until it lay but a yard from my sandal, almost under the shell of the slain Beetle.

The Slime Worm lifted the forward portion of its long, tubular body and the tiny red mouth on its underside seemed to peer up at me.

"No," I said, "the Golden Beetle has not made a kill in this place."

The tiny red mouth seemed to continue to peer at me for perhaps a moment or two more and then it slowly turned away from me to the carcass of the Golden Beetle. I shook myself and resheathed my sword. I had been long enough in this place.
. . .

Behind me in the darkness I could hear the feeding of the Slime Worm.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Pages 186 - 187