I stopped on the walkway. Ahead, some yards, was a girl dark-haired, lying on her belly on the walkway, reaching with her hand down to the canal, to fish out edible garbage. She was barefoot, and wore a brief, brown rag. I did not think she was a slave. Some free girls, runaways, vagabonds, girls of no family or position, live about port cities, scavenging as they can, begging, stealing, sleeping at night in crates and under bridges and piers. They are called the she-urts of the wharves. Every once in a while there is a move to have them rounded up and collared but it seldom comes to anything.
Explorers of Gor, page 47

The girl, hearing my approach, drew her legs up quickly under her, and rose to her feet, turning to meet me. She smiled, brightly. She was pretty.
�Tal,� said she.
�Tal,� said I.
�You are strong,� she said.
We were in the vicinity of the pier of the Red Urt. It is not a desirable district.
I put down my sea bag.
She looked up at me.
�It is dangerous for you here,� I said. �You should be home.�
�I have no home,� she said.
She traced an idle pattern on my left shoulder with her finger tip.
�Who would want to hurt a little she-urt,� she said.
�What do you want?� I asked. I was alert to the tiny sound behind me.
�I will please you for a tarsk bit,� she said.
I did not speak.
She suddenly knelt before me. �I will please you as a slave girl, if you wish,� she said.
�When I want a slave girl,� I said, �I will have a real slave girl, not a free woman pretending to be a slave girl.�
She looked up at me, angrily.
�On your feet, free woman,� I said.
She got up angrily. She was not a slave. Why should I accord her the privilege of kneeling at my feet?
�I�m hot and I�m pretty,� she said. �Try me.�
I touched her flanks. They were good. I then took her by the upper arms. I looked into her eyes. She lifted her lips to mine.
�No!� she screamed, wild-eyed, as I suddenly lifted her from her feet and spun about, she knowing herself lifted helplessly into the path of the blow. I dropped her inert body to one side.
�You should take your breath,� I told him, �before you approach. Too, you should have your arm raised early, that the movement of the sleeve not be audible. Too, you should have the girl, in her diversion, keep her eyes closed. That could be natural enough, and, in that way, you would not be reflected in the mirror of her eyes.� It had not been difficult to detect his approach, even apart from the more obvious clues I had called to his attention. The senses of a warrior are trained. His life may depend on it.
Explorers of Gor, pages 47 - 48

The Ribbon is one of Port Kar�s better-known canals. A narrower canal, somewhat south of it is called the Ribbon�s alley. It was a bit past dawn and the paga taverns backing on the smaller canal would be throwing out their garbage from the preceding night. She-urts sometimes gather at such places for their pick of the remnants of feasts.
It would be less than an Ahn until the fullness of the tide. I quickly crossed two bridges, leading over canals, each joining the sea. Then I walked eastward, and took a left and a right, and crossed another small bridge. I was then on the northern shore of the Ribbon�s alley. The Ribbon�s alley, like most small canals, and many of the larger canals, does not join the sea directly but only by means of linkages with other canals. The larger canals in Port Kar, incidentally, have few bridges, and those they have are commonly swing bridges, which may be floated back against the canal�s side. This makes it possible for merchant ships, round ships, with permanently fixed masts, to move within the city, and, from the military point of view, makes it possible to block canals and also, when drawn back, isolate given areas of the city by the canals which function then as moats. The swing bridges are normally fastened back, except from the eighth to the tenth Ahn and from the fifteenth to the seventeenth Ahn. Most families in Port Kar own their own boats. These boats are generally shallow-drafted, narrow and single-oared, the one oar being used to both propel and guide the boat. Even children use these boats. There are, of course, a variety of types of craft in the canals, ranging from ramships harbored in the courts of captains to the coracles of the poor, like leather tubs, propelled by the thrusting of a pole. Along the sides of the major canals there are commonly hundreds of boats moored. These are usually covered at night.
Explorers of Gor, pages 61-62

I saw her with several other girls, behind the rear court of the Silver Collar. They were fishing through wire trash containers. These had been left outside until, later, when the girls had finished with them, when the residues would be thrown into the canals. It was not an act of pure kindness on the part of the attendants at the paga tavern that the garbage had not been flung directly into the canals.
Explorers of Gor, page 62

Suddenly her wrist was seized by the girl, a tall, lovely girl, some four inches taller than she, in a brief white rag, who stood with her at the basket. �Who are you?� demanded the girl in the white rag. �You are not one with us.� She took the pear from her, with the verr cheese in it. �You have not laid with the paga attendants for your garbage,� she said. �Get out!� Any woman, even a free woman, if she is hungry enough, will do anything. The paga attendants knew this. �Get out!� said the girl in the white rag.
Explorers of Gor, page 62

The buildings were on one side, the canal on the other. Then she began to walk toward me, to pass me. She tried to walk as a she-urt. She came closer and closer. She tried not to look at me. Then when she was quite close to me, she looked into my eyes. Then she looked down. I think she was not used to seeing how Gorean men looked at women, at least slaves and low women, such as she-urts, assessing them for the furs and the collar. Then she looked boldly up at me, brazenly, trying to pretend to be bored and casual. Then she tossed her head and walked past me. I watched her walk past me. Yes, I thought, she would make a good slave.
Explorers of Gor, page 63

�Let her go!� said the leader of the four girls. �You can�t just take us! We are free! Free!�
�We will call a guardsman!� cried another.
I grinned. How delightful are women. How weak they are. How fit they are to be made slaves.
�I am sorry I struck you as hard as I did,� I told the girl I had last struck. �I lost my patience,� I said. �I am sorry.� She, after all, was not a slave. She was a free woman. Slaves, of course, may be struck as long and as hard as one wishes. The girl between my feet, a slave, would learn that.
�Free her,� said the leader of the girls, pointing to the blond-haired barbarian helpless between my feet.
�You cannot just take her,� said another girl. �She is a free woman.�
�Do not fret your heads about her, my pretty� little she-urts,� I said. �She is not a free woman. She is an unmarked slave, escaped from Ulafi of Schendi.�
Explorers of Gor, page 64-65

�I have been had many times when I was a she-urt,� she said. �I have lain for paga attendants, hoping to be thrown a handful of garbage. I have been raped by vagabonds. Many times did I pleasure Turgus. Yet never did I feel anything like what you did to me.�
�Of the three types of experiences you have mentioned,� I said, �the nearest to what you recently felt occurred when you hoped to be thrown garbage by paga attendants.�
She looked at me with wonder. �Yes,� she said, �how did you know that?�
�Because in that experience you were most under the domination of a man, dependent on him even for food. Would he or would he not throw you a few scraps? Would you be sufficiently pleasing to win from him even a few shreds of garbage?�
�Yes,� she said. �It is the woman in the position of submission and subordination.�
�Doubtless sometimes they even ordered you to dance naked before them,� I said.
�Yes,� she said.
�What occurred later then,� I asked, �when they had you?�
�I reached orgasm quickly,� she said.
�Of course,� I said. �But still you were free. If you wished you could starve for another day, or you could seek garbage elsewhere, or beg, or fish for scraps in the canals.�
�Yes,� she said.
�You see,� I said, �you were not totally dependent on them. You were not totally helpless. You were not their slave.�
�Are you going to let me eat tomorrow?� she asked, suddenly, apprehensively.
�Perhaps,� I said. �I will make that decision in the morning.�
�Yes, Master,� she said.
�Do you begin to see what I am saying to you?� I asked.
�Yes, Master,� she whispered. �I could not have earlier had the feelings you induced in me.�
�Yes,� I said.
�Master,� she said.
�Yes,� I said.
�The very nearest thing to what I recently felt occurred on the northern walkway of the Rim canal, when you, not a vagabond, but a strong, free man, who had subdued both Turgus and myself, simply took me and used me for your pleasure.�
�I recall,� I said. �Too, I recall that you responded well. considering that you were at that time only a free woman.�
�You treated me as a slave,� she chided.
�I saw the potential slave in you,� I said. �Accordingly I handled you as I would have handled a slave.�
�That is why I could not help responding to you as I did,� she said.
�And yet,� I said, �that did not compare with what you recently felt.�
�No,� she said.
�That is because before you were a free woman,� I said. �You did not then truly belong to men.�
�I do now,� she said.
�Yes,� I said. �Now you are a slave.�
�That is the difference,� she said.
�Yes,� I said.
�The orgasm was rudimentary?� she asked.
�Yes,� I said. �Just as you could not, as a free woman, attain to the heights of the rudimentary slave orgasm recently inflicted upon you so, too, you, as a new slave, cannot yet attain to the overwhelming and degrading ecstasies familiar to a girl longer in the collar.�
�Yes, Master,� she said.
�You have a long way to go in slavery, little Sasi,� I said.
�Yes, Master,� she said.
�But in a year or two,� I said, �I think you will be superb. And beyond that it is just a matter of continued growth.�
�Does any woman ever learn her full slavery?� she asked.
�No,� I said, �I think no woman ever learns the fullness of her slavery.�
�I want to be a good slave,� she said.
�Men will see that you are,� I said.
Explorers of Gor, 90 - 92