Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt

by Players of Gor [lit]

  “Are you sure these are your people?” I asked, curious about the matter. Urts

  looked much alike from my point of view. To be sure, I supposed one could come

  to distinguish them individually after a time.

  “yes,” said Nim Nim proudly. “There is,” and he made a whistling sound, “and

  there is,” and there again he made a piping, h issing, whistling noise, pointing

  out two urts. “and there is,” he said, adding in another noise, “our leader!” he

  had indicated a large, dark-furred, broken-tusked urt, a gigantic creature for

  this type of animal, with small eyes and a silvered snout.

  I did not doubt that Nim Nim knew what he was talking about. This was surely his

  pack. There could be no doubt about it.

  “The people tear Bosk to pieces!” called Nim Nim. “The people do not hurt Nim

  Nim! Nim Nim is of the people. Nim Nim safe!”

  I looked back at the crest of the hill. The sleen had not yet been released.

  “Nim Nim tricked pretty Bosk!” he said. “Nim Nim smart! Nim Nim free now! Nim

  Nim safe!”

  I wondered how it was that the urt people could travel with the urt packs. I

  knew that even strange urts were often torn to pieces when they attempted to

  approach a new pack. How, then, could the urt people, who were obviously human,

  or something like human, run with impunity with them? It made no sense. But

  there must be an explanation, a reason, I thought, some sort of empirical,

  scientific explanation or reason. Perhaps something had been selected for,

  somehow, in the recognition and acceptance dispositions of the urt people and

  the packs. I saw the leader of the pack, he identified as that by Nim Nim,

  looking at me. I doubted that it could see me too well. Urts tend to be myopic.

  He had his nose lifted toward me. I saw it twitching and sniffing. Suddenly the

  hair rose on the back of my neck. “Do not enter the pack!” I called out to Nim

  Nim. “Don’t!”

  “Pretty Bosk want to hurt Nim Nim!” he cried. He moved toward the pack.

  “Don’t go into the pack!” I cried out to him. “I am staying

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  here! I am not approaching! I will not hurt you! Do not enter the pack!”

  Nim Nim had been caught in a state orchard. he had been imprisoned in

  Brundisium. That had been at least six months ago. I remembered the laughter of

  the men on the hill, as Nim Nim had hurried down to join the pack. Too, I

  thought of the stately, delicate, golden Priest-Kings in their tunneled recesses

  and chambers underlying the Sardar Mountains. “Do not enter the pack!” I cried.

  Nim Nim darted into the pack.

  “No!” I cried. It seemed almost as though he was wading in beasts. Then the

  animals seemed to draw apart about him and he was left standing as though in a

  dry pool, an empty place, an isolated, lonely place surrounded by tawny waters,

  waters which seemed somehow, inexplicably, to have drawn back about him, waters

  with eyes and teeth, ringing him. I saw that he did not understand what was

  going on.

  “Come out!” I called to him. “Come out, while you can!”

  Eyes regarded him on all sides. I saw those narrow, elongated snouts lifted

  towards him, the nostrils twitching and flaring.

  Nim Nim began to utter reassuring noises to the urts. he began to whistle and

  hiss at them. In this fashion I supposed the urt people might speak with one

  another. Perhaps, too, some of these were signals used by the urts themselves.

  Then animals, I could see, were becoming more and more excited. They were now

  quivering. There was an almost feverish intensity in their reactions.

  “Come out!” I called to him.

  There was suddenly from one of the urts an angry, intense, shrill, high-pitched,

  hideous squeal. In an instant, almost like an electric shock, a movement seemed

  to course through the animals in the circle. Indeed, this tremorlike reaction,

  like a shock, seemed to move through the entire pack. Its passage’s swift route

  was actually visible in the animals, like a wave spreading along, and registered

  in, their backs and fur, in their sudden stillness, then in the sudden alertness

  of them, then in the quivering agitation which seemed to transform the entire

  pack, hitherto seemingly so tranquil, suddenly into a restless, roiling lake of

  ugly energy.

  “Come out!” I screamed at him.

  Another animal in the circle ringing Nim Nim now took up that angry, hideous,

  ear-splitting squeal, then another, and another. They began to quiver

  uncontrollably; their eyes bulged in their sockets; their fur erected, with a

  crackle of static electricity; their

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  ears laid back, flattened, against the sides of their heads. Every animal in

  that vast pack was now oriented toward that location, that sound. Several of the

  other animals began to press eagerly toward the sound, some even crawling and

  scrambling over the backs of others. Every animal in that circle about Nim Nim

  had now taken up that horrifying squeal. It, too, was now being taken up by the

  entire pack. It reverberated in the area, striking against the nearby cliffs,

  the stones and outcroppings, rebounding, resounding, again and again in that

  natural bowl, torturing the ear, tearing and shocking the air, seeming as though

  it must frighten and terrify even the clouds themselves, which seemed to flee

  before it, perhaps even the sky, and a world. I suspected it could be heard in

  distant Brundisium.

  I cupped my hands to my mouth. “Come out!” I screamed.

  “I cannot!” he screamed.

  The animals then charged, swarming in upon him. He tried to run between them, to

  reach the edge of the pack. I saw him fall twice, and each time get up. By the

  time he came near the edge of the back he had lost a foot and a hand. He could

  not now fall, however, because of the animals pressing about him. Several had

  their teeth fastened in his body, tearing at him, eating. By the time he was

  within a few feet of me he had lost half of his face. His head rolled wildly on

  his shoulders. I was not even sure he was still alive then until I saw his eyes.

  IN fury I sprang towards him, tearing urts back and ;away from him. I caught

  some by the scruff of the neck and others by the hind legs and hurled them back

  into the pack. Tearing at him they seemed oblivious of me. I was among them. I

  caught one and thrusting my arms under its forelegs and clasping my hands

  together behind its neck, broke its neck. I threw it behind me. Other urts

  pressed forward, many of them squealing and trying to clamber over their

  fellows, in order to reach what was now left of Nim Nim. I then, my legs

  brushing against urts, backed from the pack. I saw, between pressing tawny

  bodies, parts of Nim Nim being dragged backwards, back into the pack. I now

  stood, breathing heavily, at the edge of the pack. I trembled. I threw up into

  the grass.

  Clearly, as I now understood, the recognition and acceptance disposition of the

  pack was connected with smell. There must be, in effect, a pack odor. I
f

  something had this it would be accepted. If it lacked it, it would not be

  accepted. Indeed, the lack of the pack odor apparently triggered the attack

  response. the hideous squeal which was so terrifying, so shrill and piercing,

  which had such an effect on the other animals, was presumably something like a

  stranger-in-our-midst signal, a stranger-recognition

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  signal, so to speak. It, too, presumably, was intimately involved in the pack’s

  general response, its defense response, or stranger-rejection response, so to

  speak. Clearly, it played a role in calling forth the attack response, or in

  transmitting its message to the other members of the pack.

  I looked at the pack. It was now relatively calm. There was no sign of Nim Nim.

  I looked back to the men at the crest of the hill. They had not yet released the

  sleen. Perhaps they wanted me to have a bit more time to think about things, a

  bit more time to anticipate what might occur to me, before they released the

  animals.

  I looked back at the pack. The matter had to do with odor, I was sure. That

  would explain why a strange urt, though even of the pack’s own species, would be

  fallen upon and killed if it attempted to join the pack. That explained, too,

  why Nim Nim had no longer been accepted. In his time in prison, some six months

  or so, he would have lost the pack odor. The Priest-Kings, I recalled, had

  recognized who was “of the Nest,” and who was not, by means of the Nest odor.

  This odor is acquired, of course, after time is spent in the nest. Similarly, I

  supposed, the pack odor would be acquired after some time in the pack. How, I

  wondered, did the first of the urt people gain admittance to their packs. I

  suspected it had occurred hundreds of years ago. Some very clever individual, or

  individuals, must have suspected the mechanisms involved. They might then have

  considered how they might be circumvented. This secret, in the successive

  generations, might have been lost to the urt people, or, perhaps, it had been

  deliberately allowed to vanish in time by the discoverers of the secret, that

  others could not reveal it, or take advantage of it, to their detriment. Now, I

  supposed, the urt people, their children and such, would simply grow up with the

  packs, thinking perhaps that this was just the way things had been,

  inexplicably, or naturally, from time immemorial. yet is it not likely, I

  pondered, there would once have been a reason or reasons. Surely it is not

  always to be assumed that it is a mere inexplicable fact, a simply brute given,

  something not to be inquired into, that things are as they now are. Might there

  not be a reason why grass is green, and the sky blue? Might there not be a

  reason for the movement of the winds and the rotation of the night sky, and a

  reason, say, why men are as they are, and women as they are?

  I suddenly leapt to the beast who’s neck I had broken. I looked to the men on

  the hill. They had not yet released the sleen. I tore away a tusk, breaking it

  loose, from the side of the

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  jaw of the dead animal. Then, feverishly, with a will, I thrust it through its

  pelt and, pulling and tearing, using my hands, and teeth, as well, I began to

  remove its skin. Perhaps they would think I had gone mad. Yet I did not think it

  would take Flaminius long to grasp my intent.

  I looked back wildly back to the crest of the hill. Already the sleen,

  unleashed, were racing down the grassy slope.

  I continued my work.

  I tore loose part of the skin. I ran the side of my hand, like a knife, between

  it and organs and hot fat. I put my foot on the rib cage and, pressing down,

  then release the pressure, then pressing down, and releasing again, I turned the

  rib cage, drawing the pelt, rip by rip, away from it. I turned again to see the

  progress of the sleen. They could be upon me now in by Ihn. I could see their

  eagerness, their eyes. I tore the pelt mostly away from the animal. I had no

  time to remove the lolling, dangling head. With my foot, thrusting, I removed

  most of the remaining body and entrails from the hide, and clutching it, with

  both hands, wrapping it about my hips, I entered the pack.

  Part of the hide was still warm on my skin. It was wet and sticky about me. MY

  legs and thighs were bloody from it. I wedged between urts. Their fur was warm

  and oily. I felt their ribs through it, the movement of muscles beneath it.

  Noses pushed toward me. I pushed on, fighting to make my way through the bodies.

  Almost at the same instant the sleen reached the pack and plunged toward me. One

  climbed over the bodies of the closely packed urts, snapping and snarling. Its

  jaws came within a foot of me, and then it fell between the startled urts, it

  spinning about then, confused. I kept pushing through the urts, toward the other

  side of the pack, more than a hundred and fifty yards away. Behind me I suddenly

  heard again that hideous squeal of an urt, once ore the stranger-recognition

  signal.

  The sleen is a tenacious tracker, I told myself. It is a tireless, determined,

  tenacious tracker. Such thoughts had run through my mind earlier, when I had

  first come to the edge of the pack. They had then seemed provocatively, somehow

  significantly, but with no full significance which I had then grasped, lurking,

  prowling, at the borders of my understanding. Now I realized the thought with

  which my mind must have then been toying, the marvelous, astounding possibility

  which at that time I had not fully grasped, that possibility which would have

  seemed then, had I been fully aware of it, so disappointingly remote, yet so

  intriguing. But had I not acted upon this understanding, immediately, almost

  instinctively, whose earlier significance only

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  now came fully home to me? I had. What had once been only a hint, a puzzling,

  intriguing thought which I had scarcely understood, had, in the thicket of

  circumstances, in the crisis of an instant, become a coercive modality of

  action, that path upon which one must boldly and irrevocably embark. I had

  required only the mchanism of my p[passage. Given that, everything, luminously,

  like the pieces of a puzzle, had fallen into place. Nothing could follow me

  through the urts. Nothing, not even sleen.

  I pressed on. Behind me I heard the intensification and multiplication of the

  squeals. The sleen is a tenacious tracker. In its way it is an admirable animal.

  It does not give up; it will not retreat. I turned about to look back. I could

  see three swarming locations in the pack, almost as though gigantic tawny

  insects infested the area, clambering about atop each other. I saw a sleen

  rearing up on its hind legs, its shoulders and head emergent from the hill of

  swarming, clambering urts. An urt was clutched lifeless in its jaws. It shook it

  savagely. Then it fell back under the urts, and I could no longer see it. I

  pushed on. Then I could not move further. Too many urts, seemingly intent upon

  me, crowded about me. I was ringed. Then it seemed I stood in a clear place, an

  open place, an empty place, a central place, almost like a dry, lonely pool,

  separat
ed out from, isolated in the midst of, those tawny bodies. I did not

  move. Necks craned towards me, noses twitching and sniffing. I did not move.

  Through the bodies an urt came pressing towards me. It was a large urt, darkly

  furred. It had one tusk broken at the side of its jaw. it was about four feet

  high at the shoulder, extremely large for this type of animal. It had a silvered

  snout. I recognized it. it was the urt Nim Nim had earlier identified as the

  leader of the pack. It began to sniff me, its nose moving and twitching.

  “Tal, ugly brute,” I said, softly.

  I turned, keeping it in sight as it circled me, sniffing. Then it had completed

  its circuit. Those small, myopic eyes peered up at me.

  “You are a stinking, ugly brute,” I whispered.

  It sniffed me again, beginning at my feet and then lifting its head until it

  seemed, again, to look me in the eyes. When it had lowered its head I had

  lowered the pelt I grasped, holding it about me, that it might be near its nose.

  When it had lifted its head I had raised the pelt, too, keeping it muchly

  between us. It did not seem muchly concerned with the head of the urt which was

  still, by the skin, attached to the pelt. Its responses in this situation I

  assumed, I trusted, I hoped, would be activated almost

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  exclusively by smell, and not by the smell of blood, or human, but by the smell

  of the pelt, by the pack odor.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. It had turned away. The animals now returned to

  their business. Again was the pack tranquil, save where some animals, here and

  there, fed on sleen.

  “Farewell, ugly brute,” I said.

  I then began, again, to press through the urts, wading through the pack. Once, a

  few yards before me and to my right, I saw a small, elongated head rise up

  suddenly, peering at me. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it disappeared.

  Again, then, I could see only the animals. This was the only concrete sign I had

  to suggest that there might be urt people traveling with the pack.

  In a moment or two, now, I had emerged on the other side of the pack. I could

  see Flaminius, and his men, on the other side of the pack, quite near, now, to

  its edge. I observed them for a time. I watched while tow or three crossbow

  quarrels, their energy spent in the distance, looped over the pack and fell