Tarn goad

[Daubee]

Description

" There were two items I had hoped to find in the bundle which were not there, a tarn-goad and a tarn-whistle. The tarn-goad is a rodlike instrument, about twenty inches long. It has a switch in the handle, much like an ordinary flashlight. When the goad is switched to the on-position and it strikes an object, it emits a violent shock and scatters a shower of yellow sparks. It is used for controlling tarns, the gigantic hawklike saddlebirds of Gor. Indeed, the birds are conditioned to respond to the goad, almost from the egg."
Outlaw of Gor, page 23

[Daubee]

It is not unknown for a tarn to attack and devour his own rider. They fear nothing but the tarn-goad. They are trained by men of the Caste of Tarn Keepers to respond to it while still young, when they can be fastened by wires to the training perches. Whenever a young bird soars away or refuses obedience in some fashion, he is dragged back to the perch and beaten with the tarn-goad. Rings, comparable to those which are fastened on the legs of the young birds, are worn by the adult birds to reinforce the memory of the hobbling wire and the tarn-goad. Later, of course, the adult birds are not fastened, but the conditioning given them in their.
Tarnsman of Gor, pages 49 - 50

The tarn-goad alas is occasionally used in guiding the bird. One strikes the bird in the direction opposite to which one wishes to go, and the bird, withdrawing from the goad, moves in that direction."
Tarnsman of Gor, page 55

" In a girl's collar lock there would be either six pins or six disks, one each, it is said, for each letter in the Gorean word for female slave, Kajira; the male slave, or Kajirus, seldom had a locked collar; normally a band of iron is simply hammered about his neck; often he works in chains, usually with other male slaves; in some cities, including Ar, an unchained male slave is almost never seen; there are, incidentally, far fewer male slaves than female slaves; a captured female is almost invariably collared; a captured male is almost invariably put to the sword; further, the object of slave raids, carefully scouted, organized and conducted expeditions, is almost always the acquisition of females; commonly one cylinder is struck, its bridges sealed off, its compartments broken into and ransacked for gold and beauty; the men of the compartment are slain and the women stripped; those women who do not please the slavers are slain; those that do have the goods of the compartment tied about their necks and are herded to the roof, with whip and slave goad, either to be bound across tarn saddles or thrust bound into wicker slave baskets, covered and tied shut, carried beneath the great birds in flight; sometimes, after only a quarter of an Ahn, before adequate reinforcements can be summoned, the slavers depart with their booty, leaving behind a flaming cylinder; slavers can strike any city but they are particularly a scourge to those cities which have not trained the tarn, but depend on the ponderous tharlarion."
Assassin of Gor, page 51

My tarn was locked, talon to talon, with a non-faction bird; each was tearing at the other; the tarn goad of the rider struck me, almost blinding me with pain; for an instant my consciousness seemed nothing but a blinding shower of yellow, fiery needles; his tarn struck for me and I beat its beak away with my own tarn goad, cursing wildly; we turned and, held in the saddles by safety straps, spinning, we struck at one another, tarn goads like swords, splashing light about; and then we were past the ring and broke apart; my bird would have stayed to kill; but I drew it away. "On, Ubar of the Skies!" I cried. "On!"
Assassin of Gor, page 371

I had seldom used the on this bird. In the beginning I had refrained from using it often because I feared that the effect of the cruel stimulus might be diminished through over frequent application, but eventually I had abandoned its use altogether, retaining it only to protect myself in case the bird, particularly when hungry, should turn on me. In several cases tarns have devoured their own masters, and it is not unusual for them, when loosed for feeding, to attack a human being with the same predatory zest they bestow on the yellow antelope, the tabuk, their favorite kill, or the ill-tempered, cumbersome bosk, a shaggy, long-haired wild ox of the Gorean plains. I found that the goad, with this monster at least, did not improve but rather impaired his performance. He seemed to resent the goad, to fight it, to behave erratically when it was used; when struck with it he might even slow his flight, or deliberately disobey the commands of the tarn straps. Accordingly the goad had seldom left its sheath on the right side of the saddle.
Outlaw of Gor, page 125

The tabuk-cry is the only word to which a tarn is trained to react. Beyond this, it is all a matter of the tarn-straps and the tarn-goad. I bitterly criticized myself for not having conditioned the bird to respond to voice commands. Now, of all times, without a harness and saddle, such training would have been invaluable.
Outlaw of Gor, page 129

[Daubee]

It is extremely difficult to take a tarn far out over the water.
I did not know if they could be controlled at sea.
Generally even tarn goads cannot drive them from the sight of land.
Raiders of Gor, pages 271-272

[Daubee]

He entered my apartment, carrying a metal rod about two feet long, with a leather loop attached. It had a switch on the handle, which could be set for two positions, on and off, like a simple torch. 'What is it?' I asked. 'A Tarn Goad,' he replied. He snapped the switch in the barrel to the "on" position and struck the table. It showered sparks in a sudden cascade of yellow light, but left the table unmarked... It had been like a sudden, severe electric charge.
Tarnsman of Gor, page 50

"Several times we had taken racing tarns from the cot. He had even showed me, at night in the empty Stadium of Tarns, certain tricks of racing, about which he seemed to know a great deal, doubtless because of his connection with the Greens. I learned such things as the pacing of the bird, the model trajectories for negotiating the rings, techniques of avoiding birds and blocking others, sometimes forcing them to hit or miss the rings; racing could be, and, often was, as dangerous and cruel as the games in the Stadium of Blades, where men met men and beasts, and often fought to the death. Sometimes in the races, in pressing through the rings, fighting for position, riders used goads on one another, or tried to cut the safety or girth straps of others; more than one man had been stabbed as the birds, jammed at the comer rings, had fought for passage and position."
Assassin of Gor, page 187