by John Norman
We nosed our kayaks on each side of the beast, approaching it from the rear.
“It is not breathing now,” I said.
“It has been hunted before,” said Imnak, “and lived.”
“It is dead,” I said. “It is not breathing.”
“It has been hunted before, and lived,” said Imnak. “Let us wait.”
We waited for a time. “Let us tow it home,” I said. “It is dead.”
I poked the beast with the tip of my lance. It did not respond, but moved inertly in the water.
“It is dead,” I said. “Let us draw it home now behind us.”
“I would not be eager to turn my back on him,” said Imnak.
“Why not?” I asked.
“He is not dead,” said Imnak.
“How can you be sure?” I asked.
“He is still bleeding,” said Imnak.
The hair rose on the back of my neck. Somewhere in that great body, apparently lifeless in the water, there still beat its heart.
“It is a broad-head.” said Imnak. “It is pretending.”
“It is losing blood,” I said. “Too, it must soon breathe.”
“Yes,” said Imnak. “It will soon make its move. Be ready.”
“We could go in with lances now,” I said.
“It is waiting for our closer approach,” said Imnak. “Do not think its senses are not keen.”
“We shall wait?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Imnak. “Of course. It is bleeding. Time is on our side.”
We waited in the polar dusk.
After a time Imnak said, “Be ready. I have been counting. It must soon breathe.”
We readied our lances, one of us on each side of the beast. Suddenly with a great, exploding noise, expelling air, the sleen leaped upward. At the height of its leap we struck it with our lances. It pulled free of the lances and, sucking in air, spun and dove. Again the harpoon line darted downward. “We struck it fairly!” said Imnak. “Watch out!” he cried. The line had grown slack. I peered downward into the water. Then I felt the swell of the water beneath me, clearly through the taut hide of the kayak. I thrust downward with the lance and was half pulled from the kayak, myself and the vessel lifted upward, as the sleen’s impaled body reared up almost beneath the craft. Imnak struck again at it from the side. It fell back in the water and I, jerking free the lance, thrust it again into the wet, bloody pelt. It attacked again, laterally in the water, fangs snapping, and I pressed it away with the lance. Imnak struck it again. It thrashed; bloody in the icy water. It turned on Imnak and I thrust my lance deeply into its side, behind the right foreflipper, seeking, hunting, the great, dark heart. It expelled air again. I pulled the lance free to drive it in again. The beast regarded me. Then it rolled in the water.
“It is dead,” said Imnak.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“The nature of your stroke, and its depth,” said Imnak. “You have penetrated to the heart.”
“Its heart is centered,” I said.
“Consider the blood on your lance,” he said.
I noted it. New blood was splashed more than twenty-eight inches along the shaft.
“You have great strength,” said Imnak.
He took his kayak to the side of the beast. With wooden plugs he began to stop up the wounds. He did not wish to lose what blood might be left in the animal. Frozen blood is nutritious.
“Will you blow air under its skin?” I asked.
“Not unless it becomes heavy in the water,” said Imnak. “We are going in now.”
“It is going to sink,” I said.
“Here,” said Imnak, “support it between the kayaks. We will use them as floats.”
We tied the great beast between the two kayaks and then. one vessel on each side of the huge sea mammal, began to paddle toward camp. There is an ivory ring below each place where the paddle is gripped, between the hand and the paddle blade. Thus, when the paddle is lifted the water, falling from its blade, does not run back down the lever and into one’s sleeve.
“I told you earlier I thought the sleen was really a good fellow,” I said.
“I was not sure of it for a time,” said Imnak.
“You doubted him,” I said.
“It was wrong of me,” granted Imnak. “But he is good at pretending. He had me fooled for a time.”
“That is the way sleen are,” I said.
“They are playful fellows,” admitted Imnak.
“You are the one who first noted that he liked me,” I said.
Imnak looked at me, and grinned. “You see,” he said, “I was right.”
“I was not sure of it for a while,” I said.
“When you are longer in the north,” said Imnak, “these things will become clearer to you.”
“Perhaps,” I admitted.
“You should thank the sleen for letting himself be harpooned by you,” said Imnak. “Not every sleen will do that.”
“Thank you, Sleen,” I said.
“Good,” said Imnak. “That is a simple courtesy. You surely cannot expect sleen to come over to be harpooned if you are not even going to be civil to them.”
“I guess you are right, Imnak,” I said.
“Of course I am right,” said Imnak. “Sleen have their pride.”
We had then arrived at the two sleen he had left floating in the water, beneath whose hides he had blown air. He deferentially thanked the two sleen for having permitted themselves to be slain by him. Then he tied them behind his kayak and, together, paddling, we headed back toward the pebbled shore.
“When the sleen are dead, how can you expect them to know they are thanked?” I asked.
“That is an interesting and difficult question,” said Imnak. “I do not really know how the sleen manage it.”
“It seems it would be hard to do,” I said.
“It is a belief of the People,” said Imnak, “that the sleen does not really die but, after a time, will be reborn again.”
“The sleen is immortal?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Imnak. “And when he comes again he will hopefully be more willing to let himself be harpooned again if he has been well treated.”
“Are men. too, thought to be immortal?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Imnak.
“I know a place,” I said, “where some people would think that men are immortal but animals are not.”
“They do not like animals?” asked Imnak.
“I do not know,” I said. “Perhaps they think they are immortal because they are smart and sleen are not.”
“Some sleen are pretty smart,” said Imnak. He thought for a bit. “If sleen were to talk these things over,” he said, “they would probably say that they were immortal and men were not, because they were better at swimming.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Who knows what life is all about?” asked Imnak.
“I do not know,” I said. “Perhaps it is not about anything.”
“That is interesting,” said Imnak. “But then the world would be lonely.”
“Perhaps the world is lonely,” I said.
“No,” said Imnak.
“You do not think so?” I asked.
“No,” said Imnak, drawing his kayak up on the shore, “the world cannot be lonely where there are two people who are friends.”
I looked up at the stars. “You are right, Imnak,” I said. “Where there is beauty and friendship what more could one ask of a world. How grand and significant is such a place. What more justification could it require?”
“Help me pull the meat up on shore,” said Imnak.
I helped him. Others came down to the shore and helped, too.
I did not know what, sort of place the world was, but sometimes it seemed to me to be very wonderful.
23. One Comes To The Feasting House
“Night has fallen,” I said to Imnak. “I do not think Karjuk is coming.”
“Perhaps not,” said
Imnak.
Snow had fallen several times, though lightly. Temperatures had dropped considerably.
Some three weeks ago, more than twenty sleeps past, Imnak and I had taken three sleen in kayak fishing. But then kayak fishing had been over for the year. The very night of our catch the sea had begun to freeze. It had first taken on a slick greasy appearance. In time tiny columns of crystals had formed within it, and then tiny pieces of ice. Then the water, in a few hours, had become slushy and heavy, and had contained, here and there, larger chunks of ice. Then, a few hours later, these reaches of ice, forming and extending themselves, had touched, and struck one another, and ground against one another, and slid some upon the others, forming irregular plates and surfaces, and then the sea, still and frozen, was locked in white, bleak serenity.
“There are other villages,” I said. “Let us travel to them, to see if Karjuk has been there.”
“There are many villages,” said Imnak. ‘The farthest is many sleeps away.”
“I wish to visit them all,” I said. ‘Then, if we cannot find news of Karjuk, I must go out on the ice in search of him.”
“You might as well look for one sleen in all the sea,” said Imnak. “It is hopeless.”
“I have waited long enough,” I said. “I must try.”
“I will put ice on the runners,” said Imnak. “Akko has a snow sleen, Naartok another.”
“Good,” I said. A running snow sleen can draw a sled far faster than a human being. They are very dangerous but useful animals.
“Listen,” said Imnak.
I was quiet and listened. Far off, in the clear, cold air I heard the squeal of a sleen.
“Perhaps Karjuk is coming!” I cried.
“No, it is not Karjuk,” said Imnak. “It is coming from the south.”
“Imnak! Imnak!” called Poalu, from outside, running up to the door of the hut. “Someone is coming!” She had been dressing skins, with the other girls, and other women, in the feasting house.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“I do not know,” she said.
“Well, climb up on the meat rack and look, lazy girl,” he said.
“Yes, Imnak,” she cried.
Imnak and I drew on our mittens and parkas and emerged from the lamp-warmed, half-underground hut. It was clear and still outside, and sounds, even slight ones, were very obvious. The snow was loud beneath our boots, crackling. Moonlight bathed the village and the snow on the tundra, and the ice on the sea. I could hear other villagers, quite clearly, as they conversed with one another. Everyone in the village seemed now to be outside of their dwellings. Several were on the meat racks, in the moonlight, trying to see out across the snow. It was not cold for the arctic night, though this sort of thing is relative. It was very calm. I suspect the temperature would have been objectively something like forty below zero. One was not really aware of the cold until one’s face became numb. There was no wind.
“What do you see?” asked Imnak.
“It is one sled and one man!” called down Poalu.
We heard the sleen again in the distance. The sound, of course, in the clear, cold air, carried extremely well. The. sleen may have been ten pasangs away or more. Sometimes one can hear them from as far away as fifteen pasangs.
“Light lamps, boil meat!” called Kadluk, who was the chief man in the village. “We must make a feast to welcome our visitor!”
Women scurried about, to obey. I saw Arlene, and Barbara and Audrey, slaves, glance at one another. If the visitor fancied white-skinned females, they knew the village, in its riches, had such delicacies, themselves, for his sexual taste. Then, under Poalu’s sharp tongue, she perched still on the meat rack, they fled to heat water for the boiling of meat.
“It is one sled and one man!” called down Poalu.
“Let us go out to meet him,” said Kadluk.
“Who from the south would come in the winter?” I asked Imnak.
“It must be a trader,” said Imnak. “But that is strange, for they do not come in the winter.”
“I know who it must be!” I said. “He may have news! Let us hurry to meet him!”
“Yes,” said Imnak. “Of course!”
“Let us hurry to meet our visitor,” called out Kadluk cheerily.
The men hurried to their huts to gather weapons. There are upon occasion wild snow sleen in the tundra, half starved and maddened by hunger. They constitute one of the dangers of traveling in the winter. Such sleen, together with the cold and the darkness, tend to close the arctic in the winter. No simple trader ventures north in that time.
Kadluk in the lead, Imnak and I following, with Akko and Naartok, and the others, too, behind him, harpoons and lances in our hands, tramped out of the village, heading toward the sound of the sleen.
A pasang outside of the village, Kadluk lifted his hand for silence.
We were suddenly quiet.
“Away!” we heard. “Away!” The sound. far off, drifted toward us.
“Hurry!” cried Kadluk.
We ran up, over a small hillock, the snow about our ankles.
A pasang or so away, in the sloping plain between low hillocks, under the moonlight, small, we saw the long sled, with its hitched sleen. Too, we saw two figures in the vicinity of the sled. One was that of a man.
“An ice beast!” cried Akko.
The other figure was that, clearly, shambling, long-armed. of a white-pelted Kur.
The man was trying to thrust it away with a lance. The animal was aggressive.
It drew back, wounded, I believe, but not grievously. It crouched down, watching the man, sucking at its arm. Then it stood on its short hind legs and lifted its two long arms into the air, lifting them and screaming with rage. It then crouched down, fangs bared, to again attack.
I was running down the hillock, slipping and sliding in the snow, my lance in my hand.
The other men, behind me, lifting their weapons and shouting, hurried after me.
The beast turned to look at us, hurrying toward him,, shouting, weapons brandished.
I had the feeling, and it startled me, as I ran towards it, that it was considering our distance from it, and the time it would take us to traverse that distance.
I sensed then it was not a simple beast, the degenerate and irrational descendant of survivors of a Kurii ship perhaps crashed generations ago, descendants to whom the discipline and loyalty of the ship codes were meaningless, descendants who had for most practical purposes, save their cunning, reverted to a simplistic animal savagery. The Kur who is only a beast is less dangerous in most situations than the Kur who is more than a beast The first is only terribly dangerous; the second is an incomparable foe.
In the moment that the Kur had turned to regard us the man had hastened to unhitch the snow sleen at the sled. When the Kur turned back suddenly to regard him the snow sleen was free and leaping for its throat.
I was now within a few hundred yards of the Kur.
I saw it fling the dead, bloodied snow sleen, torn and half bitten through, from it.
The man had struck it again when it had seized the snow sleen but the blow, again, had not proved mortal. There was blood about its neck where the blade had cut at the side of the throat.
It seized the lance from the man and broke it in two. The man then began to run towards us.
The Kur flung the pieces of the broken lance to the side. The sleen, fresh-killed meat, lay behind in the snow. The sled, too, was now abandoned. Its supplies of meat and sugar, or whatever edibles it might carry, were now free to the depredations of the Kur.
It did not concern itself with the sleen or the sled, however. It looked at the man.
I knew then it was not an ordinary beast. A simple Kur, hungry, predatory, aggressive, would have presumably seized up the body of the sleen or perhaps meat from the sled and, in the face of the charging red hunters, made away, feeding as it retreated.
It dropped to all fours and began to pursue the man. I knew then it
must be a ship Kur.