The Last Outpost

by Hannah Ross

  Ri Omrek was beaming with delight. "You bring us good luck, Scott," he said. "It is not every hunt that we get both seals and mulluvik. Will have plenty meat, plenty fat, plenty skins for village."

  "How do you decide which way the game is shared?" Scott asked.

  "If I take animal by myself, no help from others, it is mine," Ri Omrek said. "I bring down one seal, I take it all home. Mulluvik, we took it all together. So we bring home, show Tahan, she make shares."

  "Your sister decides who gets which portion of the hunt?" Scott's eyebrows climbed upward.

  "Yes. Before Daygan go to land of dark, he the chief. Before he die, he has to choose new chief. He has no brothers, so he choose Tahan, mother of his son. That please people. Tahan is a good hand, a good hunter, too. Does not go hunt much now, with Egan, but will take him when he older."

  Scott nodded, digesting this information.

  "Careful," Ri Omrek warned, "you stain soles with blood, my sister not happy."

  Scott heeded the warning, and stepped aside from the whale, the ground near which was soaked with still-oozing blood. Now that he thought about it, he was surprised at how dry his feet felt. Despite the prolonged exposure to icy water both at sea and when they waded to the shore, his feet felt quite warm and dry. The sealskin moccasins were virtually waterproof.

  While most of the hunters and huntresses were still working on skinning the seals, the others were at consultation near the whale, debating how to deliver it to the village. It was obvious a lot more hands were needed to convey all the bounty home, and it was eventually decided that two or three men would be left to guard the whale from carrion birds, while the others would make their way home as fast as they could, and come back with reinforcements.

  Since Scott took no part in the actual hunting, skinning or butchering, he volunteered to carry as much as he could, and was laden with a waterproof leather sack, also made of sealskins, under the weight of which he nearly staggered. He resolved to keep face, however, and was soon sweating underneath his parka, though his face stung with the icy bursts of wind as the weary but triumphant procession made its way back to the village.

  The sun was beginning to lean low in the sky, and the twilight was growing longer each night. Though the days were still far longer than the nights, the cold at the bay was severe, and Scott expressed concern at the fate of the men who were left behind.

  "Not worry," Ri Omrek reassured him. "Soon as we come home, more men will go help. And meanwhile, they have plenty fat to burn, and plenty meat to eat to keep them warm."

  The entire village came forward to meet them when they crossed the river. Ki Tahan was there, beaming with excitement and chattering with her brother in the tongue of the Anai, and Scott, with a great relief, dropped the heavy sack at her feet.

  "Good hunt!" she said approvingly. "Will celebrate when men come back with mulluvik, yes? But first, you will want to wash."

  Scott looked down at his clothes. Despite his generally staying away from the bloodshed, and being careful while handling the load he was given, there were bloodstains down the front of his parka, and some spatters of it on his breeches.

  "I'm sorry," he said earnestly. "I didn't mean to spoil the clothes."

  "You did not spoil. I know how to clean blood stains well. And sealskin is easy to clean. You stay and sleep with us, then celebrate tomorrow, yes? But first, go wash."

  Scott hesitated. He had meant to go back up to AN-85 as soon as he returned to the Anai village, but he was bone tired, and he knew the researchers meant to stay for another day or two. Resolved, he nodded. "I will stay," he promised, and Ki Tahan smiled.

  He and Ri Omrek followed her to the house, where Scott stepped once more behind the partition and shed Ki Daygan's clothes. He put his orange suit and terrain boots back on, and was surprised at how bulky it felt to move around, and at how much noise his steps made. The Anai clothing was far more comfortable, and did not take long to get used to.

  While Ri Omrek was changing as well, Scott followed Ki Tahan outside, where she began to adjust her tanning frame for the new seal pelt. She wore a leather apron over her clothes, and it looked old and tattered and well-used.

  "How was hunt?" she asked, carefully putting up the hide against the frame and stretching it with whalebone hooks. It had thawed in the warm weather of the valley, and Ki Tahan allowed the remnants of blood to drip into the ground before she began scraping.

  "It was... gulluhug," Scott said, painstakingly pronouncing the Anai word for 'successful', which he had dug out of the rudimentary dictionary composed by the string of anthropologists who had researched the people of the valley throughout the years. His accent must have been atrocious, but Ki Tahan's eyes sparkled.

  "You have been learning tongue of the Anai!"

  Scott nodded. "This way, I can speak with Egan," he said half-jokingly, looking at the little boy who was playing nearby. Hearing his name, Egan looked up, smiled and waved.

  "Anders, he try to learn some too, but say is hard."

  "Would you teach me?" Scott asked.

  "Sure, I teach you. You teach me your tongue as well, yes? I want to know better," she stipulated. "So you say, hunt was gulluhug. Not..." she frowned, looking for the right word, "not fun?"

  "I'm not used to it," Scott said.

  She looked at him keenly. "You don't enjoy kill," she observed. Scott felt his face grow hot, certain he had just been caught at one of the greatest possible flaws an Anai man can display. To his surprise, however, Ki Tahan smiled and nodded understandingly.

  "I know. I feel same way. Daygan did, too. I enjoy what hunt gives – food, clothes, bone, oil – but kill does not feel good. This pelt Omrek bring me," she gestured at the tanning frame with the dense silvery-white fur of a seal pup, "it is beautiful, but I don't like kill pup. Always tell men, not kill young if you can. But if mother is killed, how can they leave pup? It will die alone, with no mother."

  Scott nodded. Indeed, this young seal was the only suckling pup taken by the Anai hunters. The other juvenile seals were supposed to be independent from their dames.

  "But fur is beautiful," Ki Tahan sighed, admiring the pelt. "Will make good winter clothes for Egan, soft and warm. And what left over will make nice trim, maybe for parka. I will see."

  Ri Omrek walked out, wearing clean, well-worn leathers. "You ready?" he asked Scott. "We go wash now. I need wash," he said, touching his hair, which was caked with blood. Scott thought to ask where they were going – were there, maybe, some public baths in the village? – but decided not to. He would soon see.

  "I'm ready," he said, "let's go."

  Chapter 10

  To Scott’s surprise, Ri Omrek and the other hunters were going in a direction quite opposite from the center of the village, where he would have expected the public houses to be. Instead, they were heading for some rocky outcroppings at the side of the valley, a site Scott had never explored before, and he soon felt a surge of warmth and a smell of sulphur, which indicated that they are getting close to some geysers.

  To his immense surprise, however, what appeared before his eyes was a small, secluded pool, with steam rising up from it, and a small rivulet trickling down into a crevice between rocks. It was obviously heated by the steam of the geysers, and served as a natural, constantly heated bath. The hunters, with joyful whoops, began shedding their garments and probing the water with their feet. Ri Omrek grinned with pleasure, seeing his guest’s wonder.

  “Here we can wash,” he said. “This is men’s place. Women have other place, on other side. Theirs is bigger. Women wash more, and take the children,” he added. Then he proceeded toward the pool like everyone else.

  Scott hesitated. Public bathing was not his thing, and he would really have preferred not to strip in front of Ne Tarveg, whose impressive musculature made him feel puny and weak. Still, there was hardly any way to hang back without losing face, and Scott took off his clothes, feeling very self-conscious of his thin arms and legs. His orang
e suit looked very odd piled up beside the leathers tunics and moccasins of the Anai.

  He approached the pool and probed the water with his big toe. It was pleasantly, but not excessively hot, and Scott got in with an increased enthusiasm. A bath was a luxury he hadn’t known since arriving at McMurdo – the quarters, even of the high rank personnel, had nothing but showers, and the though the station boasted of a gym and a heated pool, it was not anywhere as hot or relaxing as this natural bath with its rising steam and the occasional burst of bubbles from under the surface.

  Ri Omrek handed him a stiff scrubbing pad made out of dried grass, and a handful of something that looked and smelled like flower petals. Scott sniffed at them in a puzzled manner.

  “Scrub with this,” Ri Omrek explained. “Wash good, all dirt gone.”

  Scott decided to take him at his word, and understood as soon as he started rubbing the crushed petals into his skin. These wild-growing flowers were evidently rich in saponin, and while they didn’t produce suds, they were very good at removing dirt, and the grittiness of the dried petals provided something of a mild, natural peeling effect. The skin was thus left clean and nice-smelling. Other hunters cleaned up with bits of soap made of fat and ashes. Scott knew Ki Tahan saved some of the oil she rendered from seals and penguins for that purpose.

  The pool was quite large enough to accommodate fifteen men with ease, and while the water only came up as high as a man’s waist in most parts of it, it was possible to immerse with comfort by sitting on some smooth rocks close to the edge. Not far from him, Scott noticed Ne Tarveg scrubbing as vigorously as if he meant to take a layer of skin off.

  When he had had enough, he got out and briefly allowed his skin to dry in the open air before putting on his clothes. The hot, steamy air made one quite warm even outside the pool, but Scott did not feel comfortable with over a dozen Anai men staring at his pale and skinny backside.

  Once they walked back to the village, Scott and Ri Omrek were welcomed by the pleasant smells of meat roasting above an outdoor fire. It turned out that, while the hunters were gone on their trip, Ki Tahan had taken her son and walked to one of the valley edges, where the geysers were sparser and a solid wall of ice existed year-round. Holes in the ice, blocked with rocks, were used by the Anai for cold storage, and frozen food kept fresh and unspoiled for many months. Ki Tahan had taken out a frozen penguin, which her brother brought from the bay some weeks ago, thawed it, cut it into chunks and speared those on thin, sharp wooden shafts. Seasoned with ocean salt and herbs, this made the oddest, but also one of the tastiest barbecues Scott had ever tasted. A cup of fermented herb drink rounded up the dinner.

  Egan fell asleep in the middle of his dinner, and Scott, being the only one whose hands were free at the moment, gently picked up the boy and carried him to bed. When he returned, he found Ri Omrek yawning as well, fighting the urge to nod off.

  "Tired," the young man said with a smile. "Been a long day. Must sleep. You not tired, Scott?"

  Scott shook his head. "I'll stay out a little while longer, I think," he said.

  "Well, when you tired, there's a bed on the floor for you. Tomorrow, men come back with mulluvik, and we celebrate."

  Once Ri Omrek retired, Scott found himself alone with Ki Tahan. She was busy gathering the cooking utensils and putting out the remnants of the fire. "You eat enough?" she asked. "Not hungry? There's some meat left."

  "No, I couldn't possibly eat another bite," Scott said earnestly. He felt like he would not be hungry for three days at least.

  Ki Tahan took the cooking tools and the stack of clay cups back inside the house, and returned. "I would like to show you something," she said, "if you not too tired."

  Though Scott had had a very vigorous march with the hunters, carrying loads he was hardly accustomed to, and though he had lost count of the hours he had spent awake, he did not feel sleepy. Without saying a word, he got up and followed Ki Tahan who, despite the bright twilight, was carrying an oil lamp with a wick and a firestone.

  There were many nooks and paths branching off the main valley, and now Ki Tahan led him down one of them. It was a winding, narrow trail, protected by high rocky walls on both sides, and the bluish darkness of the semi-night was denser here. Ki Tahan's moccasins stepped soundlessly upon the rocks, but Scott occasionally stumbled in his terrain boots, scattering small stones around. Finally, they reached the end of the path. A tall, vast black hole yawned ahead of them.

  "A cave!" Scott exclaimed in surprise. Ki Tahan lit the oil lamp and, holding it aloft, led him in.

  He expected a large cave, for the entrance was tall and wide enough for both him and Ki Tahan to stand shoulder to shoulder and go in without bending, but the space inside surpassed his expectations. It was positively cavernous, with walls rounded and smooth and, he could see in the flickering light of the lamp, covered with many intricate drawings and paintings of men, animals, birds and plants, as well as the strange and beautiful writings of the Anai language. Here and there, he saw shelves carved out in the wall, and upon them were figures made of whale ivory and seal bone, and remnants of tallow candles that had long burned out. Something made him think that these must be offerings to some Greater Being.

  "This is secret place of the Anai," Ki Tahan said. "None of the men from beyond the sea ever see this, not even Anders. But I asked the elders, and they allowed me to take you, since you wear our clothes, carry our weapons, and hunt with us. This is where the Anai come to think, and be quiet, and be with the Great Spirits, and with those who had gone into the dark. When my mother and father, and then Daygan go to land of darkness, I come here often," she added with a flicker of sadness.

  Then, as if to dispel the melancholy memories, she got up and walked over to the most magnificent wall painting Scott had ever seen, done in a multitude of colors, which he had no idea how the Anai obtained from just the natural means of their valley. It depicted men in a boat rowing across a stormy sea. The boat was long and narrow, and its shape was unlike the leather fishing boats he had seen on the hunt. There were long oars, and a mast, and a sail to catch the wind. If he had to liken it to anything he had ever seen before, he would have said it was a Viking longboat, but how could this be possible?

  "This is picture of our fathers, the First Anai, as they come from the sea to the Frozen Land," Ki Tahan said. "There are many pictures like this, and in all, there is such boat. They know how to make boats like this, but we don't, no more. It must be great secret, too."

  "To make such a boat, you would need a lot of wood," Scott said. "You don't have that much wood in your valley. Boats of bone and leather are light and easy to make, but they won't be strong or stable enough to carry you far across the sea."

  Ki Tahan nodded solemnly. "I never think of that," she said. "Boat you came in, was it made of wood?"

  Scott frowned, puzzled as to how he might answer this question. The Anai did not know metal, and things like engines were surely beyond the scope of what he could explain in a few minutes. Finally, he pulled out his pocketknife and unfolded it. The steel blade glinted dully in the light of the lamp. He gave the knife to Ki Tahan, and she touched the sharp blade cautiously and admiringly.

  "Is this knife?" she asked. "I never see knife so sharp. How can stone be so smooth?"

  "This isn't stone," Scott said. "It is called steel." The next fifteen minutes saw him venture into a lecture on metallurgy and the making of iron and steel. Ki Tahan listened with rapt attention. Though her knowledge was naturally limited to objects found in the valley and by the sea, she was by no means deficient in understanding, and a few minutes of thorough explanation expanded her horizons more than weeks of lectures might do for the average university student.

  "So whole boats, for many men, made of this... steel?" she said incredulously. "Many wonders in the world. You soon tell me more, Scott, but let's be silent now for a bit. This is place to be silent, and spirits listen."

  She placed the lamp on the floor and sat down, cr
oss-legged. Scott settled down across her. Ki Tahan's head was bowed, and the light of the lamp glistened upon her thick golden tresses. Following her example, he looked down and was silent. The quiet and emptiness around them were not unwelcoming. In the shifting light, he could almost see the Anai warriors painted on the cave walls awaken to life and move, brandishing their spears and bows. He could almost hear the distant echo of oars splashing in the water, and whispers in an unknown tongue.

  After a while, Ki Tahan raised her head and got up. "Now look," she told Scott, holding out her hand with the lamp and making the light fall on the words of writing in Anai. "This is story of the Anai people. I teach you, and soon you can read yourself."

  Scott was a diligent pupil, making out the symbols with infinite patience and repeating word after word what Ki Tahan said. The legend of the Anai coming from across the sea was long and colorful, and its beginning went thus:

  "At the dawn of time, the First Anai lived in a land far across the sea, where days follow nights one after another. Brave men and women sailed out in a big boat, long and with wings as if it were a bird. They sailed for many days and nights, rushed forth by strong winds and currents they could not combat. Finally, they came to the shores of the Frozen Land, and they thought they would perish from the cold.

  The Spirits had mercy on them, though, and the Hand of the Spirit opened the entrance to a valley, lush and warm, where the Anai could live and thrive. The Anai gave gifts to the spirits and made the valley their home..."

  This piece of written history was long and fascinating, and once Scott, with the help of Ki Tahan, was able to decipher it, he felt a familiar but long-forgotten glow of having mastered something interesting and difficult. The written symbols of the Anai tongue, just as their spoken language, were no longer strangers. He had ventured into those waters, and he would conquer them in time.

  He was no closer to uncovering the secret of the Anai, however. The only thing that struck him was the description of a land where "days follow nights one after another". This appeared to be a real-life observation, hinting of a place much farther from the polar region. There were also some maps of constellations and star charts, which Scott observed with great fascination. He was no great expert on stars, but he recognized the constellations and their placement in the sky, and the changes visible in each separate map, and in the order of them all, hinted at a ship traveling from north to south. One map was similar to what the stars would look like at the region of the equator, and then, with mounting excitement, he saw a scheme of the constellations arranged in the same way he was familiar with in the northern hemisphere. His heart was pounding as he observed the maps. His inevitable conclusion was that the Anai had no way to know what the northern hemisphere sky looked like, unless they had come from up north themselves. This, however, did not tally with the fact that their language bore no trace of resemblance to any of the northern languages, spoken or extinct.