John Norman - Gor 12

by Beasts Of Gor(Lit)

  Imnak handed the carving back to me.

  I was at a loss. I had no clues. My northward journey had brought me to an impasse. There was now nothing to do, nowhere to go.

  I was now alone in the north, an isolated, meaningless fool.

  "After I sleep," I said, "I am going to return to the south."

  "All right," said Imnak.

  I placed the carving in the fur wrapper in which I kept it, and then put the carving, in this wrapper, in my pouch.

  "That is the work of Karjuk," he said. I looked up, suddenly.

  "You asked me who did the carving, I thought," he said.

  "Yes!" I said.

  "Karjuk did it," he said.

  I embraced him. "You are marvelous, Imnak!" I cried.

  "Once, in one day, I slew six sleen," he admitted. "But I am really a poor hunter," he insisted.

  "Where is this Karjuk?" I asked. "I would speak with him."

  "He is not here," said Imnak.

  "Where is he?" I asked.

  "In the north," said Imnak.

  "Where in the north?" I asked.

  "In the far north," said Ininak. "No man lives north of Karjuk," he added.

  "Who is Karjuk?" I asked.

  "He is the guard," said Imnak.

  "The guard?" I asked. "Yes," said Imnak, "he guards the People against the ice beasts."

  "We must find him," I said.

  "Karjuk is a strange man," he said. "If the ice beasts cannot find him how can we?"

  "I am leaving as soon as I have slept," I told Imnak..

  "You are going south?" he asked.

  "No," I laughed, "I am now going north."

  "You have business in the north?" inquired Imnak politely.

  "Yes," I said.

  "But the tabuk are not yet fat," he said, "and their coats are not yet thick and glossy."

  "I do not understand," I said.

  "It is not yet time to go north," he said. "There is a right time and a wrong time to do things. This is the time to hunt tabuk."

  "I must go north," I told him. "I can dally here no longer."

  "It is not yet time to go north," he said. `The tabuk are not yet fat."

  "Nonetheless, I must go north," I told him. "Your business seems pressing," said he.

  "It is," I said.

  He looked at me.

  "I seek an enemy," I said.

  "In the north one needs friends, not enemies," he said.

  I smiled at him.

  He looked at me. "The beast?" he asked. "You seek the beast with the torn ear? He is your enemy?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Let us hope the tabuk grow fat slowly," he said. He grinned.

  "After I sleep," I said, "I will leave for the north."

  "I will accompany you," he said.

  "But the tabuk are not yet fat," I said.

  "It is not my fault they came late to the tundra," said Imnak. He stuck his head outside of the tent.

  "Poalu," he called. "After we sleep, we are going north;"

  "It is not time to go north," she cried, horrified.

  "I know it is crazy," said Imnak, "but we are going to do it."

  "Yes, Imnak," she said, "my master."

  Imnak returned to where I sat.

  "Where will we find Karjuk?" I asked.

  Imnak shrugged. "If Karjuk does not want to be found, he will not be found," he said. "No man knows the ice like Karjuk. We will go to the permanent camp and wait for him there. Sometimes he comes to the permanent camp."

  "Where is that camp?" I asked.

  "It is by the shore of the sea," he said.

  "But what if he does not come to that camp?" I asked.

  "Then we will not be able to find him." said Imnak. "If the ice beasts cannot find Karjuk, how can we expect to do so?"

  18

  We Hunt In The Vicinity Of The Permanent Camp

  I studied the waters carefully.

  "It will be soon now," said Imnak. It was not that he had been consciously counting, but rather that he had, doubtless from his experiences in such matters, a sensitivity to the rhythms involved, and the increase in their intensity, given the stress of the beast.

  The chill waters seemed very quiet. Here and there pieces of ice drifted in them.

  The pebbled shore lay some half pasang away, behind us.

  I could see smoke from the permanent camp.

  Five men, besides myself, waited in the large skin boat, the umiak. It was some twenty feet in length and some five feet in its beam. The skins which were sewn over its frame, interestingly, were those of tabuk and not sea sleen. The skins were stretched over a framework, lashed together with sinew cord, of driftwood and long bows of bone.

  The waters did not stir.

  Usually such a boat is paddled by women, but no women were now within it. One would not risk a woman in our current work, even a slave beast.

  "It is nearly time now," said Imnak.

  Many times the umiaks, or the light, one-man vessels, the kayaks, do not return.

  "Be ready," said Imnak.

  The waters seemed very still.

  I grasped the long harpoon. It was some eight feet in length, some two and a half inches in diameter. Its major shaft was of wood, but it had a foreshaft of bone. In this foreshaft was set the head of the harpoon, of bone, drilled, with a point of sharpened slate. Through the drilled hole in the bone, some four inches below the slate point and some four inches above the base of the head, was passed a rawhide line, which lay coiled in the bottom of the boat. As the hole is drilled the line, when it snaps taut, will turn the head of the harpoon in the wound, anchoring it.

  Suddenly, not more than a dozen feet from the boat, driving upward, rearing vertically, surging, expelling air in a great burst of noise, shedding icy water, in a tangle of lines and blood, burst the towering, cylindrical tonnage of the black Hunjer whale.

  I hurled the harpoon.

  "Now!" cried Imnak.

  Four feet of the shaft disappeared into the side of the vast mammal.

  The line, uncoiling, snapping, hurtled past me, upward. The monster, as though it stood on its flukes, towered forty feet above us, the line like a tiny thread, billowing, leading downward to the boat.

  "Look out!" cried Imnak.

  The beast, grunting, expelling air, fell downward into the water. There was a great crash, that might have been heard for pasangs. The line was now horizontal. The boat was half awash. We were drenched. My parka began to freeze on my body. With leather buckets four men began to hurl water from the boat. The air was thick with vapor, like smoke, the condensing moisture in the monster's warm breath, like a fog, or cloud, on the water. I saw the small eye of the monster, that on the left side of its head, observing us.

  "It is going to dive," said Imnak. As he pointed ice broke from his parka.

  Imnak and another man began to draw on the line, to pull us to the very side of the monster.

  The other hunters in the boat, discarding their buckets, seized up their lances, slender hunting tools, with fixed heads, commonly used not in throwing but in thrusting.

  I reached out with my hand and pushed against the side of the mammal. The Hunjer whale is a toothed whale.

  Beside me now Imnak and the other hunters, ail with lances, began to drive them, like needles, into the side of the animal, again and again.

  Its flesh shook, scattering water. I feared the side of the umiak would be stove in.

  It grunted.

  "Hold the line!" cried Imnak.

  I held the line, keeping the umiak at the beast's side, so that the hunters could thrust into it at point-blank range.

  Then the animal's eye disappeared under the water. I saw the flukes rearing up.

  "Give it line!" cried Imnak.

  I threw line over the side.

  The flukes were now high above us, and the animal's body almost vertical. The line disappeared under the water.

  It was gone.

  "Now we will wait
," said Imnak. "And then it will begin again.

  I looked down at the placid waters. We would wait, until it began again.

  The waters seemed very calm. It was hard to believe that we were attached, by a thin line, to that great form somewhere below us. There was some ice in the water about us. The wind scattered the breath of the monster, dispelling the cloud of vapor.

  On the pebbled shore, some half pasang away, behind us, I could see smoke from the permanent camp.

  I was very cold. I would like some tea when we returned to camp.

  19

  I Discipline Arlene

  I looked at Arlene. She, naked, was chewing the ice from my boots. She held the boot with two hands and bit and chewed carefully.

  She looked up at me, the fur of the boot in her mouth.

  "Continue your work," I told her.

  She continued to free the fur of the tiny bits of ice, biting and chewing. How marvelous are the mouths of women, so delicate, with their small teeth, their sweet lips, their soft, warm tongues. When she had broken the ice from a place on the boot, she would place her mouth over that place, breathing upon it, softening and melting the residue of ice there. Then, with her tongue, she would lick the fur smooth.

  When she had finished with both boots she placed them on the drying rack.

  I sat in Imnak's hut, cross-legged. She returned to a place before me, and knelt.

  It is pleasant to have a slave girl kneeling before you.

  "May I have permission to speak, Master?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Why have you come north?" she asked.

  "It pleases me," I said.

  "Must I be content with that?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Why?" she asked.

  "Because it pleases me," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Spread the furs," I told her. "Your insolence requires discipline."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  20

  The Feasting House; We Return To The Feasting House

  "Aja! Aja!" sang the woman.

  I bit into the steak. Beside me, cross-legged, sat Imnak, grease from the raw blubber he chewed at the side of his mouth He wiped his face with his sleeve.

  The feasting house was full. There were some forty individuals, men and women, crowded into the structure.

  Imnak and I, and the girls, had come north in the summer, early. For weeks we had waited at the empty permanent camp. Finally, in the early fall, several families had arrived to occupy their seasonally abandoned dwellings. As it had turned out we could have taken our way north with the People, the various groups scattering to their diverse permanent camps. No time had been saved by my haste. We had hunted and fished, and sported with our slaves, and had waited.

  "I did not think Karjuk would come to an empty camp," said Imnak, "but I did not know. So I came north wAll you."

  "The camp is not now empty," I had told Imnak.

  Imnak had shrugged. "That is true," he said.

  "Where is Karjuk?" I asked.

  "Perhaps he will come," had said Imnak.

  "But what if he does not?" I asked.

  "Then," said Imnak, "he does not."

  As the weeks had passed I had grown more fretful and anxious.

  "Let us hunt for Karjuk," I had urged Imnak.

  "If the ice beasts cannot find Karjuk," said Ininak, "how can we find him?"

  "What can we do?" I asked.

  "We can wait," he said.

  We had waited.

  The drum of the red hunters is large and heavy. It has a handle and is diskilke. It requires strength to manage it. It is held in one hand and beaten with a stick held in the other. Its frame is generally of wood and its cover, of hide, usually tabuk hide, is fixed on the frame by sinew. Interestingly the drum is not struck on the head, or hide cover, but on the frame. It has an odd resonance. That drum in the hand of the hunter standing now in the midst of the group was some two and one half feet in diameter. He was now striking on it and singing. I could not make out the song, but it had to do with the mild winds which blow in the summer. These songs, incidentally, are rather like tools or carvings. They tend to be regarded as the singer's property. It is unusual for one man or woman to sing another's songs. One is expected to make up one's own songs. It is expected that every man will be able to make up songs and sing them, just as every man is supposed to be able to carve and hunt. These songs are usually very simple, but some of them are quite beautiful, and some are quite touching. Both men and women sing, of course. Men, interestingly, usually do the carving. The ulo, or woman's knife, with its semicircular blade, customarily fixed in a wooden handle, is not well suited to carving. It is better at cutting meat and slicing sinew. Also, carving ivory and bone requires strength. But women sing as well as men. Sometimes they sing of feasting clothes, and lovers, and their skill in quartering tabuk.

  Another man now took the drum and began to sing. He sang a kayak-making song, customarily sung to the leather, wood and sinew, with which he worked, that it not betray him in the polar sea. A fellow after him sang a sleen song, usually sung on the water, encouraging the sleen to swim to where he might strike them. The next song dealt with a rascal who, supposedly hunting for tabuk, lay down and rubbed his boots on a rock, later returning to his companions with a report of luckless hunting, indicating his worn boots as evidence of his lengthy trekking. From the looks cast about the room I gathered the rascal might even be present. One fellow, at least, seemed quite embarrassed. He soon leaped up, however, and sang a song about the first fellow, something about a fellow who could not make good arrows. Two women sang after this, the first one about gathering birds' eggs when she was a little girl, and the other one about her joy in seeing the face of a relative whom she had not seen in more than two years.

  It is rather commendable, I think, that the red hunters make up songs. They are not as critical as many other people. To them it is often more important that one whom they love sings than it is that his song is a good song. If it is a "true" song, and comes from the heart, they are pleased to hear it. Perhaps then it is a "good song" after all. Songs, even simple ones, are regarded by the red hunters as being precious and rather mysterious They are pleased that there are songs. As it is said, "No one know. from where songs come."

  "Sing. Imnak!" called Akko.

  "Sing, Imnak" called Kadluk.

  Imnak shook his head vigorously. "No, no," he said.

  "Imnak never sings," said Poalu, helpfully volunteering this information, forgetful apparently of the bondage strings knotted on her throat.

  "Come, Imnak," said Akko, his friend. "Sing us a song."

  "I cannot sing." said Imnak.

  "Come, come, sing!" called others.

  To my surprise Imnak rose to his feet and, hastily, left the feasting house.

  I followed him outside. So, too, concerned, did Poalu.

  "I cannot sing," said Imnak. He stood by the shore. "Songs do not come to my mouth. I am without songs. I am like the ice in the glacier on which flowers will not bloom. No song will ever fly to me. No song ever has been born in my heart."

  "You can sing, Imnak," said Poalu.

  "No," said Imnak, "I cannot sing."

  "Someday," said Poalu, "you will sing in the feasting house."

  "No," said Imnak, "I will not sing. I cannot sing."

  "Imnak," she protested.

  "Go back to the feasting house," he said.

  She turned about, and returned to the feasting house. The feasting house, except for being larger, was much like the other dwellings in the permanent camp. It was half underground and double walled These two walls were of stone. Between them there were layers of peat, for insulation, which had been cut from the boglike tundra Hides too, were tied on the inside, from tabuk tents, affording additional protection from the cold. There was a smoke hole in the top of the house. One bent over to enter the low doorway The ceiling, supported by numerous poles. consist
ed of layers of grass and mud. There was the feasting house, and some ten or eleven dwellings in the camp. Although there were some fifteen hundred red hunters they generally lived in widely scattered small groups. In the summer there was a gathering for the great tabuk hunt, when the herd of Tancred crossed Ax Glacier and came to the tundra, but, even in the summer, later, the smaller groups, still pursuing tabuk, would scatter in their hunts, following the casual dispersal of the tabuk in their extended grazings. At the end of the summer these groups, loosely linked save in the spring or early summer, would make their ways back to their own camps. There were some forty of these camps, sometimes separated by journeys of several days. Imnak's camp was one of the more centrally located of the camps. In these camps the red hunters lived most of the year. They would leave them sometimes in the winter, when they needed more food, families individually going out on the pack ice to hunt sleen. Sleen were infrequent in the winter and there would not, often, be enough to sustain ten or twelve families in a given location. When game is scarce compensation can be sometimes achieved by reducing the size of the hunting group and extending the range of the hunt. In the winter, in particular, it is important for a family to have a good hunter.