by John Norman
"The restriction of mating to the dominants," I said, "plus the selections in the killings, must tend to produce a species unusually aggressive and savage."
"It tends also to produce one that is extremely intelligent," said the animal.
I nodded.
"But we are civilized folk," said the animal. It rose to its feet and went to a cabinet. "You must not think of us in terms of our bloody past."
"Then, on the steel ships," I said, "the killings, and the fierce matings, no longer take place."
The animal, at the opened cabinet, turned to regard me. "I did not say that," he said.
"The killings and the matings then continue to take place on the steel worlds?" I asked.
"Of course," he said.
"The past, then, is still with you on the steel worlds," I said.
"Yes," it said. "Is the past not always with us?"
"Perhaps," I said.
The beast returned from the cabinet with two glasses and a bottle.
"Is that not the paga of Ar?" I asked.
"Is it not one of your favorites?" he asked. "See," he said. "It has the seal of the brewer, Temus."
"That is remarkable," I said. "You are very thoughtful."
"I have been saving it," he told me.
"For me?" I asked.
"Of course," he said. "I was confident you would get through."
"I am honored," I said.
"I have waited so long to talk to you," he said.
He poured two glasses of paga, and reclosed the bottle. We lifted the glasses, and touched them, the one to the other.
"To our war," he said.
"To our war," I said.
We drank.
"I cannot even pronounce your name," I said.
"It will be sufficient," he said, "to call me Zarendargar, which can be pronounced by human beings, or, if you like, even more simply, Half-Ear."
32
I Hold Converse with Zarendargar
"You see?" asked the beast, pointing upward, it seemed at a starry sky above our heads.
"Yes," I said. I did not recognize the patch of the heavens above us.
"That was our star," he said, "a yellow, medium-sized, slow-rotating star with a planetary system, one small enough to have sufficient longevity to nourish life, one large enough to have a suitable habitable zone."
"Not unlike Tor-tu-Gor, or Sol," I said, "the common star of Earth and Gor."
"Precisely," he said.
"Tell me of your world," I said.
"My world is of steel," it said. It seemed bitter.
"Your old world," I said.
"I never saw it, of course," he said. "It was, of course, of a suitable size and distance from its star. It was small enough to permit the escape of hydrogen, large enough to retain oxygen. It was not so close to the star as to be a ball of scalding rock nor so far as to be a frozen spheroid."
"It maintained temperatures at which water could be in a liquid form."
"Yes," it said, "and the mechanisms, the atomic necessities, of chemical evolution were initiated, and the macromolecules and protocells, in time, were formed."
"Gases were exchanged, and the hydrogen-dominated atmosphere yielded to one in which free oxygen was a major component."
"It became green," it said.
"Life began its climb anew," I said.
"Out of the two billion years of the wars and the killings, and the eatings and the huntings, came my people," it said. "We were the triumph of evolution in all its heartless savagery," it said.
"And the doom of your world," I said.
"We do not speak of what happened," it said. It moved to the wall and, passing its paw before a switch, caused the projection on the ceiling to vanish. It turned then to look upon me. "Our world was very beautiful," it said. "We will have another."
"Perhaps not," I said.
"The human being cannot even kill with its teeth," it said.
I shrugged.
"But let us not quarrel," it said. "I am so pleased that you are here, and I am so fond of you."
"Out on the ice," I said, "we saw, or seemed to see, in the lights in the sky, your face."
Its lips drew back. "You did," it said.
"The lights are most normally seen in the fall and spring," I said, "near the time of the equinoxes."
"That is clever of you," it said.
"What we saw then," I said, "was artificially produced."
"Yes," it said, "but it is not unlike the natural phenomenon. It is produced by saturating the atmosphere with certain patterns of charged particles. These patterns may be arranged in given orders, to correspond to alphabetic characters, either in a Kur tongue or, say, in Gorean. The lights, apparently a natural phenomenon, are thus used as a signaling device to Kur groups and their human compatriots."
"Ingenious," I said.
"I permitted my visage to be depicted in the lights to honor you, and welcome you to the north," it said.
I nodded.
"Would you like another drink?" it asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Your complex," I said, "is doubtless impressive. Would you show me about it?"
"I can do so without leaving this room," it said. It then, turning various dials, illuminated what I had taken to be the darkened portholes, or some other sort of aperture, in the walls, which I now saw were recessed screens, coordinated with various, movable cameras, operated from the room. By means of these cameras, and the various screens, I was given to understand the immensity and intricacy of the complex. Some of the screens were over my head but, lifted to the poles, those above, I, clinging to the poles, could see well. The beast moved easily on the poles beside me.
"It is very impressive," I said.
"It is mostly automated," said the beast. "We have only two hundred humans here and some twenty of our people."
"That is incredible," I said. Clearly the complex was tiers in depth and pasangs in width.
"It was simple to gyroscopically stabilize and mine an ice island," it said. "We have created this within the ice, and the mined ice is simply shredded and discarded in the sea, attracting no attention."
"You wanted to close the tabuk off in their northward migration to drive the red hunters south and away from the area?" I asked.
"Particularly before the winter," it said, "when they might roam too far northward on the ice."
"There is a fantastic amount of stores here," I said.
"Electrical equipment, explosives, weapons, supplies, vehicles," it said. "And much, much more."
"It would take years to assemble this depot," I said.
"It did," it said. "But only recently did I assume command."
"The Kur invasion then, using this staging area, is imminent."
"We did not wish to risk the great fleet," it said. "With this depot we need bring in, in the fierce strike, little more than the hibernated marches." A march is a Kur military expression. It refers to twelve bands and their officers. It consists of between twenty-one hundred and twenty-two hundred animals.
"In twelve Kur hours, all cities on Gor can be destroyed," it said.
"What of the Priest-Kings?" I asked.
"I do not think they can meet an attack in force," he said.
"Are you sure of that?" I asked.
"I am sure," he said, drawing back his lips about his fangs. "Though not all are sure," he said.
"That is why the great fleet is not being risked?" I asked.
"Of course," he said. "I could urge the launching of the great fleet. But then I am only a simple soldier. Others stand higher on the cliff than I."
"Troopships, beaching their personnel, should be sufficient," I said, "given the supplies present here."
"Yes," he said, "on the assumption that the Priest-Kings are as weak as I speculate."
"Why do you think them weak?" I asked.
"The Nest War," he said. "Surely you have heard of it."
"I have heard stories," I said.
/> "I believe them true," he said. "Now is the time for the People to strike." He looked at me. "Oh, I could have your mind torn open, and could break you, or kill you, as anything can be torn and broken, or killed, but, in the end I, at best, would know only what you believed to be true, and that may or may not be true." He dropped down to the floor, and I dropped down beside him. "Priest-Kings are clever," he said.
"I have heard that," I said.
"I think I could not break you," he said. "I think I could only kill you."
I shrugged.
"You are like a Kur," he said. "That is why I like you." He put a heavy paw on my shoulder. "It would be wrong for you to die in the machine of truth," he said.
"There are many valuable supplies in the complex," I said. "What if they should fall into the hands of the Priest-Kings?"
"There is an arrangement to prevent that," he said.
"I had thought there would be," I said. Not all areas in the complex, I was confident, had been scanned by the cameras I had seen. The overhead tracks, too, those controlling the movements of neck-chained slaves, presumably did not reach to all areas.
"What are Priest-Kings like?" asked the beast. "Are they like us?"
"No," I said, "they are not like us."
"They must be fearsome things," said the beast.
I thought of the lofty, delicate, golden creatures. "Perhaps," I said.
"Have you ever seen one?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"You do not wish to speak?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I would prefer not to speak."
He put both paws on my shoulders. "Good," he said. "You are loyal. I will not press you!"
"Thank you," I said.
"But someday," he said, "we will know."
I shrugged. "Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."
"Let us speak of less sensitive topics," he said.
"Agreed," I said.
We returned to the table, on which reposed the paga.
"How was I captured?" I asked.
The beast poured another glass of paga for each of us. "That was simple," it said. "A gas was introduced into your shelter of snow, from the outside, rendering you, and the others, unconscious."
"Imnak was on guard," I said.
"The red hunter, like Karjuk?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Karjuk spoke to him and he, a rational fellow, in the light of economic and prudential considerations, joined us promptly."
"I never doubted that Imnak was a man of decision," I said.
"Do not be bitter," he said.
"What would you think if a Kur betrayed his own kind?" I asked.
He looked at me, startled. "It could not happen," he said.
"Surely Kurii, in their own wars, have occasionally demonstrated treachery."
"Never to men, never to another species," said the beast. "That is unthinkable."
"Kurii, then," I said, "are in this regard nobler than men."
"It is my supposition," it said, "that in all respects Kurii are nobler than men." It looked at me. "But I except you," he said. "I think there is something of the Kur in you."
"In the room of the dueling," I said. "There was a large mirror."
"An observation port," it said.
"I thought so," I said.
"You fought splendidly," he said. "You are very skilled with that tiny weapon."
"Thank you," I said.
"I, too, am skilled in weaponry," it said, "in various weapons traditional with my people, and in modern weapons, as well."
"You maintain, even with your technology, a dueling tradition?" I asked.
"Of course," it said. "And the tradition of the fang and claw is continued as well."
"Of course," I said.
"I am not fond of modern weapons," it said. "An egg-carrier or even a nondominant could use them. They put one at too great a distance from the kill. They can be effective, and that is their justification, but they are, in my opinion, boring. They tend to rob one, because of their nature, of the closeness, the immediacy, the joy of the hot kill. That is the greatest condemnation of them. They take the pleasure out of killing." It looked at me. "What can compare," it asked, "with the joy of real victory? Of true victory? When one has risked one's life openly and then, after a hard-fought contest, has one's enemy at one's feet, lacerated, and bleeding, and dying, and can then tear him in victory and feast in his body, what can compare with the joy of that?"
The eyes of the beast blazed, but then the fierce light subsided. It poured us again a glass of paga.
"Very little, I suppose," I said.
"Do I horrify you?" it asked.
"No," I said.
"I knew I would not," it said.
"How did you know that?" I asked.
"I saw you fight," it said.
I shrugged.
"You should have seen your face," it said. "You cannot tell me you did not like it."
"I have not told you that," I said.
"In time the war will be finished," it said. It looked at me. 'If we should survive it, there will be afterwards no use for such as we."
"We will, at least," I said, "have known one another."
"That is true," it said. "Would you like to see my trophies?" it asked.
"Yes," I said.
33
I Leave the Complex
It was chilly in the low, steel room, one serving as a port to the outside ice.
Near the circular, heavy door, now closed, stood the white-pelted Kur, that which had rings in its ears, that which had accompanied Karjuk, the traitor to his people. It held a leather harness looped in its paw.
I donned the furs.
I was to be taken outside and there, some distance from the complex, out on the ice, slain. It would seem as though the sled sleen had turned upon me. If I was found, it would be conjectured that the death, violent though it might have been, was not one unnatural for the Gorean north. I would have been lost in the north, apparently lost in a fruitless, misguided venture, one ill-fated from the beginning, one in which nothing but a meaningless, bloody conclusion would have been encountered. If there were a search for me, or curiosity concerning me, it would terminate when the carcass, torn and frozen, was found.
No sleen would draw the sled, of course.
The beast looped the harness about me, and I stood, waiting, in the harness, before the sled.
Its teeth would be sufficient to mock the predations of a reverted, starving sleen upon my body. He must be sure, however, to leave enough to be found, some bones and furs, the broken sled, some chewed traces.
I was pleased to have met Zarendargar, or Half-Ear. We had talked long.
Strange that I could converse with him, for he was only a beast.
I think he regretted sending me out upon the ice, to be rent by the white Kur. Zarendargar, or Half-Ear, I think, was a lonely soldier, a true soldier, with few with whom he could speak, with few with whom he could share his thoughts. I suspect there were few, if any, in that steel complex, even of his own breed, with whom he could converse warmly, excitedly, swiftly, in detail, as he did with me, where a word might suggest a paragraph, a glance, a lifted paw signify what might with a less attuned interlocutor require hours of converse to convey. He seemed to think we were, in some sense, kindred, that despite alien evolutions, remote origins and diverse histories. How preposterous was that concept! One does not find one's brother upon the shores of foreign worlds. "The same dark laws which have formed the teeth and claws of the Kur have formed the hand and brain of man," had said Half-Ear. This seemed to me, however, quite unlikely. Surely the same noble, high laws which had formed the lofty brain and useful hand of man could not have been responsible for the fangs and claws of the predatory Kur. We were men and they were beasts. Was that not clear to all?
I felt the leather of the sleen harness being drawn more tightly about me. It was cinched upon my body.
I thought of the melting of copper, the flame of
sulfur, the structure of salt, of jagged Eros in its orbit, of the crags of Titan, of the interactions of compounds, the stirring of molecules, the movement of atoms, the trajectories of electrons. How formidable seem the implacable correlations. Perhaps what is alien to us is only ourselves in a different visage. Perhaps the other is not different but, ultimately, the same. When we seek the unknown is it ourselves for which we truly search?
Then I dismissed such foolish thoughts.
Surely it could not be that the dark rhythms and the brotherhoods of diverse chemistries could have combined to produce on an alien sphere those who were our brothers. He had spoken of convergent evolution. I had scoffed at this. One need only use one's eyes to see the difference between a Kur and a man. We were men, they were beasts, no more. Yet I had not been unfond of Half-Ear. I had felt, in meeting him, that I had known him for a long time, and I felt that he had had similar feelings. It was strange. We were so different, and yet, somehow, not so unlike as one might think. Then I reminded myself again that I was a man, and he a beast, no more. How shamed I was that he should compare himself to me. How offensive I found his allegations!
One need only use one's eyes to see how different we were!
How incredible it would be if one landed upon a foreign shore, a planet remote from our own, and found, emerging from its dark forests, shambling toward one, its eyes blazing, one's brother.
The white Kur stepped back. I was harnessed to the sled.
Last night I had been locked in my cell. It had not been unpleasant, however. Half-Ear had seen to that. Delicate viands, and furs and wines had been placed in the cell for me. Too, two slave girls, in pleasure silk, perfumed and collared, had been thrust into the cell for my use. I read the collar of each. The collar of each said, "I belong to Tarl Cabot." They had knelt at my feet, weeping. But that night I had well taught them their slavery. In the morning, when the white Kur had come to fetch me, and I had left the cell, both Arlene and Constance had had to be beaten back from the gate with whips. Then they were locked behind me in the cell. They had thrust their arms through the bars, crying out, weeping. With whips they were driven back further in the cell. I saw them, beautiful, inside the bars. They were not permitted to touch them. "Master," they wept. "Master!" They fell to their knees. "Master!" they cried. "Master! Master!" I turned and left the larger room, that in which the cell was located. I did not look back.
