Players of Gor

by Norman, John;

  Flaminius then took the garment, and looked at me. “Behold, Bosk of Port Kar,” he laughed, “naked and kneeling before us, outwitted, terrified into the desire for escape, then led to believe his escape was successful, then his hopes dashed, now realizing how he was never out of our grasp. Behold the stupid, outwitted fool!”

  I was silent.

  “Are you not curious as to your fate?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Flaminius then threw me the garment he had taken from the sleen keeper. It was in shreds, little more than dangling tatters, from the teeth of the ravaging, contesting sleen. “Put it on,” he said. “No, do not rise. Draw it on as you kneel.”

  The men laughed at me as I knelt before them then, a few dangling tatters about my neck and body. The sleen eyed me eagerly.

  “Would not the stroke of the sword be quicker?” I asked.

  “Yes, but not as amusing,” said Flaminius.

  “Perhaps you should draw back, that you not be injured in the charge of the sleen,” I suggested.

  “Remain kneeling,” he warned me.

  “I am somewhat mystified about many things,” I said. “Perhaps this is an opportune moment to request an explanation. May I inquire, accordingly, what might be your interest in me, or that of your party? Why, for example, was the fellow named Babinius sent against me in Port Kar? What was the point of that? Similarly, why should there have been an interest in Brundisium in my apprehension? Who, or what, in Brundisium, has this interest in me, and why?”

  “You would like me to respond to your questions, would you not?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I do not choose to do so,” he said.

  I clenched my fists. Those with him laughed.

  “But do not think that we are not capable of acts of incredible kindness, or that mercy is beyond our ken,” he said.

  “Oh?” I said.

  “We are willing to permit you a choice of fates,” he said. “And we are willing to give you a certain amount of time, to agonize over them.”

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “Surely you do not think it is an accident that we used our little friend here in our plans? Surely you do not think it is a mere coincidence that you have been brought to this place?”

  “I suppose not,” I said. I shuddered.

  Nim Nim leaped up and down gleefully. “Nim Nim help. Nim Nim good urt!” he squealed.

  “Go, little urt,” said Flaminius, kindly. “Run to your people.”

  “Nim Nim smart!” it cried. “Nim Nim trick pretty Bosk!”

  “Hurry home, little urt,” said Flaminius, kindly.

  Nim Nim looked up at me with his ovoid eyes, set in that small, elongated face. “Worse than pit,” he said to me, “worse, far worse. Nim Nim help. Nim Nim trick pretty Bosk. Too bad, pretty Bosk!”

  “Hurry, hurry,” urged Flaminius.

  Nim Nim scampered down the grassy slope toward the huge urt pack in the distance. Flaminius laughed. So, too, did some of the others. The laughter was not pleasant.

  “You will now turn about, slowly, on your knees,” said Flaminius to me. “You will then rise slowly and slowly descend the hill. You will go to the edge of the urt pack. We will remain, for a time, here on the hill. You will be under our observation at all times. If you should attempt to run or move to one side, as though thinking of skirting the pack, we will immediately release the sleen. You must then, if you wish, enter the urt pack. If you do not wish to do this we will, after a time, release the sleen, and they will set upon you wherever they find you. Is this all clear?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I wonder what you will choose,” said Flaminius.

  “I bet he will enter the pack,” said one of the men.

  “I wager he will wait for the sleen,” said another.

  “Do not permit us to sway your decision,” said Flaminius, “but it has been our usual experience in similar situations, that the individual involved waits until the sleen are almost upon him and then, seemingly almost uncontrollably, runs into the pack. To be sure, it would probably have been better for him if he had waited for the sleen.”

  “Sleen are quicker,” said one of the men.

  “Few have the courage, however, to wait for them,” said another.

  “What will you do, Bosk of Port Kar?” asked Flaminius.

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “An excellent answer,” said Flaminius. “Many men think they know what they will do, but when the moment comes it seems it does not always turn out as they expected. Sometimes he who thinks he is brave learns he is a coward, and sometimes, too, I suppose, he who thought himself a coward learns that he is brave.”

  I turned away from them, slowly, on my knees, and then rose to my feet.

  “Slowly, slowly now,” said Flaminius.

  I began to walk slowly down the hill, toward the urt pack. Nim Nim had not yet entered it. I supposed he might be waiting to see what I might do.

  I went to within a few yards of the edge of the pack. Most of the animals did not pay me any attention. A few regarded me suspiciously. I did not, of course, infringe the perimeter of their group, or approach within a critical distance. I looked back to the crest of that low hill. I could see Flaminius there, and his men, and the sleen. I had a few Ehn, doubtless, before they were released. I was supposed to be spending that time, it seemed, agonizingly pondering which fate I would choose for myself. Needless to say, I was not enthusiastic about either of the obvious alternatives. I looked at the urt pack. I had never seen one so large. It contained a very large number of animals. The smell of it even was oppressive. I looked to the ends of the pack; they extended for about a quarter of a pasang on either side of me. If I were to run for them the sleen, doubtless, would be immediately freed. They could be upon me in a matter of Ihn. I looked across the pack. It was some two or three hundred yards across. I did not think that even sleen would be able to make it through them. No, it did not seem likely that even sleen could make it through such a dense thicket of large, vicious creatures. I fingered the tattered garment I wore. Sleen, I knew, are indefatigable hunters, fearless, tenacious trackers, very tenacious trackers.

  I looked over to Nim Nim, a few yards from me, much closer to the pack. He was obviously prepared, if I approached him, to dart into the pack.

  “Nim Nim safe here!” he called. He pointed to the pack. “The people do not hurt Nim Nim!”

  I wondered if somewhere in that vast pack of animals there might be other representatives of the urt people. If there were, however, they were keeping themselves concealed. They do not always stay with the pack, of course, but almost always they remain in its vicinity, seldom gone from it for long. Nim Nim, as I recalled, had been netted in a state orchard.

  “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 then again he made a piping, hissing, 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 trick 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 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.

  “Do not go into the pack!” I cried out to him. “I am staying 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. The 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 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 affright 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 pack 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. If 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 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 simple, 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 whose neck I had broken. I looked to the men on the hill. They had not yet released the sleen. I tore away a t
usk, breaking it loose, from the side of the 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 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 releasing 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 but 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 more 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 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 mechanism of my 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.