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IllegalThese are relevant references from the Books where Illegal is mentioned. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban A motion was on the floor that a new preserve in the northern forests be obtained, that more timber for the arsenal be available. In the northern forests Port Kar already had several such preserves. There is a ceremony in the establishment of such a preserve, involving proclamations and the soundings of trumpets. Such preserves are posted, and surrounded by ditches to keep out cattle and unlicensed wagoners. There are wardens who watch the trees, guarding against illegal cutting and pasturage, and inspectors who, each year, tally and examine them. And, after all, who knows much of Priest-Kings, other than the obvious fact that they exist. The invisible barrier about the Sardar is evidence of that, and the policing, by flame death, of illegal weapons and inventions. In most Gorean cities it is illegal to offer an unbranded woman in a public sale. Within these buildings, soldiers were looting. From the high, opened window of another building, some four or five feet below the sill, some forty feet or so above the street, its back against the stuccoed surface of the wall, there hung a body. "What is that?" I asked Mincon. "I cannot read," said Mincon. "There is a sign on its neck. What does it say?" "'Looter,'" I said. "Then that is what it was," said Mincon. "There is much looting going on," I said. "In more than a dozen buildings we have seen it." "That was a civilian," said Mincon. "It is illegal for such to loot. They are not authorized to do so." We then continued on our way. The carrying of weapons, and even their possession, was now illegal for citizens of Ar, exceptions being made for guardsmen and such. The populace of Ar, then, was disarmed. It is illegal in many cities, incidentally, to take maps of the city out of the city. More than one fellow, too, has put himself in the quarries or on the bench of a galley for having been caught with such a map in his possession. There is a technique, incidentally, based on a variation of the stabilization serums, for hastening physical maturation, but this is little used because one has then to show for one's pains only an unusual child. Much can be done with the body, it seems, but little with the mind, saving, perhaps, by Priest-Kings in the recesses of the Sardar. Gorean men are not interested in children, even if they have the bodies of women. They find them uninteresting. Nor will they be of interest until several years have passed. Then they may be interesting, perhaps quite interesting. Humanity, one notes, exceeds physiology. Unfortunately, too, several of these children will suffer confusing stress, as they lack the emotional maturation to relate comprehensibly to the needs and demands of their grown bodies, bodies hastened beyond the horizons of a child's understanding. Accordingly, this application of the stabilization serums is frowned upon in Gorean society, and in many cities is illegal. "Noble citizens," he called. "Be patient, be tolerant. Let me call to your attention the true Seremides of Ar! It is not merely that the capital charges against him were cast aside in view of his service in restoring the Home Stone to a grateful Ar. No, upon inquiry, it was discovered that those charges were false to begin with. When the vain, ambitious, greedy Talena, in the tragic, but happily temporary, absence of our beloved Ubar, Marlenus, wrongly, illegally, usurped power in Ar, Seremides had to make a fateful decision. Should he resist the usurpation and be instantly banished or executed, or should he pretend collusion, and secretly fight for right, truth, law, and justice from within? He chose the latter and long labored for these ends. He was ever the archenemy of Talena of Ar, and did his best at all times and opportunities to oppose and frustrate her wicked designs." |
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