“My voice is hideous, strange,” it said.
“It is merely different,” said Kurik, “wholly suitable for, and appropriate to, a differing form of life.”
“See my eyes,” it said. “They are the wrong shape.”
“Not wrong,” said Kurik. “Different.”
I did not think them so much different from those of a human.
“They are the wrong color,” it said.
“I cannot see the color, as you are in the darkness of the crate,” said Kurik.
“They do not speak of the night, as should those of the prowling hunter, nor of the darkness of the corridors of caves, but of the day, of the sky.”
“Perhaps you are a creature of the day, as many others,” said Kurik. “What graceful tabuk, in its sunlit glade, would envy the sleen its burrow?”
“Do not mock me,” it said. “I will show you my horrors. Prepare to be dismayed. Be strong. Brace yourself. I will show you how misshapen I am, how grotesque, twisted, and malformed.”
“Do so,” said Kurik. “I welcome the intelligence.”
I shuddered, for the creature shuffled forward, claws scraping on the wooden floor of the crate.
Then it was at the entrance to the crate, illuminated in the light of the lifted lantern.
Its eyes, I saw, were gray, or blue. It was hard to tell.
“Look!” it exclaimed, thrusting forth its paws, the digits widely spread.
“So?” said Kurik.
I was unaware of what might be awry, if anything. I had no idea what I had been expected to note, from which I might have been expected to recoil, frightened, or sickened. I was apprehensive, however, for I feared the beast might emerge from the container.
“Behold, cringe!” it said, this time more forcefully. And then it raised its paws once more, thrusting them yet more forward, and then it made a miserable, half choking noise. It was much like a sob. I did not understand this. One can tell, of course, when an animal is agitated, or disturbed, and that was surely now the case. Its eyes were bright, glistening, in the lantern light. It seemed they were indeed blue, or gray, or, more likely, some blend of such colorings. I feared it was in pain. It trembled, as though shaken with some feral emotion, doubtless naturally enough, given such a dreadful form of life. As it had emerged more into the light, I could now see that the fur at the sides of its face was wet, as though it had suffered from the coursing of small rivulets of fluid.
Surely such a thing could not cry.
It was a beast.
“I do not understand,” I whispered to my master. “What is it we are supposed to see, what unwelcome sight?”
“Five digits,” he said, “not six.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“The paws of Kurii,” he said, “are massive, and six digited, powerful, like cables, almost like tentacles.”
Then he turned to the creature, who had now turned about and retreated into the recesses of the crate. She, for I shall now so refer to her, at least frequently, was turned away from us, crouched down, her shoulders shaking.
“Most humans,” said Kurik to the beast, “have five digits on each appendage. It seldom occurs to one to bemoan this fact.”
“I am not human,” she said.
“No,” said Kurik, “you are not human.”
“I am not Kur,” she said.
“No,” said Kurik.
“What am I?” she asked.
“Part Kur, part human,” said Kurik.
“So not Kur, so not human,” she said.
“True,” said Kurik.
“I am a monster,” she said.
“Not at all,” said Kurik. “It is true that you are not human, and it is true that you are not Kur. But you are not failing to be what you are. You are exactly what you are, and were intended to be. You are a new form of life. You are merely different.”
“Different?” she said.
“Precisely,” said Kurik. “And some might find you beautiful.”
“‘Beautiful’?” she said, turning about, lifting her head.
“Yes,” said Kurik.
“I might be found beautiful?” she said.
“Yes,” said Kurik.
“By whom?” she asked.
“By one like you, or one much like you. One of your own species, so to speak. Indeed, you were doubtless formed with just such a thought in mind.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“You are a female,” said Kurik.
“I do not understand,” she said.
“Are you sure it is a female, really a female?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Consider the softness, the lesser size, the contours of the body. She is too small for an adult Kur female. Her body is not straight and hard. The Kur female does not suckle young. When they are taken from the external, rooted womb they have already fed on blood and flesh, that of the womb from which they have torn their way free.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“What is your name?” he asked.
A sound emanated from the beast, she, or it, lurking in the back of the crate.
“What did she say?” asked Kurik.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Of course,” said Kurik. “That is her name in Kur.”
“What is your name in Gorean?” he asked her.
“I have no name in Gorean,” she said.
“What is the meaning of your name in Kur?” he asked.
“It has no meaning,” she said. “It is letters, and numbers.”
“So perhaps experiments, or projects, are so identified,” said Kurik.
I feared so.
“Surely then the beast is unnatural, a monstrosity,” I whispered, in horror, in little more than a breath, an utterance intended only for the ears of my master, and scarcely for his.
“Yes,” said the beast.
I shrank back. I had not taken the beast’s hearing to be so keen.
“Not at all,” said Kurik. “All is within nature. There is not a hair in that pelt, not a corpuscle in that body, that is not natural. In nature there are many colors, and from many colors one can paint many pictures, some of which are beautiful.”
“The thing is ugly,” said he who had admitted us. “What shall we call it?”
“We will give her a barbarian name,” said Kurik.
“Good,” said the fellow who had admitted us. “Let it be so demeaned.”
“A name from a barbarian world,” said Kurik, “one I think not unfitting.”
“What?” asked he who had admitted us.
“‘Eve’,” said Kurik, my master.
I shuddered.
“As she is the first of her kind,” said Kurik.
“I do not understand,” said he who had admitted us.
“It is not necessary that you do,” said Kurik.
I thought ‘Eve’ a lovely name. How dreadful then that this monstrosity should be so designated!
“I do not like to have this thing here,” said he who had admitted us. “I do not understand what is going on. The business is strange. I suspect there may be danger.”
“You have been paid well,” said Kurik.
“And how many golden tarns will one accept for one’s life?” said he who had admitted us.
Kurik turned to the beast. “Your name,” he said, “is ‘Eve’. That will do for now. Later, if you wish, as you are free, a free person, you may choose another.”
“I am a person?” she said.
“Of course,” said Kurik.
Then he turned to me. “What is wrong?” he asked.
I was angry. That simple beast, a mere beast, a thing that was crated, was free, a person, and I was not! It was on my neck, not hers, that
there was a collar! But, of course, I was a mere woman of Earth, an object, a suitable property for the men of this world!
“Nothing, Master,” I said.
“Put your head down, as you are kneeling,” he said, “and press your right cheek against my thigh.”
I did so, and I knew I was where I belonged, at my master’s feet.
“I am afraid,” said he who had admitted us.
“Dismantle the crate,” said Kurik.
“It will be done,” said he who had admitted us.
“It was never here,” said Kurik. “There is no record, no claiming ticket.”
“No record, no claiming ticket,” said he who had admitted us.
“Nothing,” said Kurik.
“I would this business were done,” said he who had admitted us.
“Be content,” said Kurik. “We will make away, and soon, long before light.”
“I fear the second bar will ring any moment,” said he who had admitted us.
“Bring a blanket, or cloak,” said Kurik.
“Fetch something, a crate cover, or such,” said he who had admitted us, addressing one of the two fellows with him, one of those who had pried open the crate, which fellow then sped away.
Kurik then turned to the beast.
“You will accompany me unquestioningly,” he said. “You will obey me in all particulars, as would a slave. Your life and our lives may depend on this. I know your purpose, that for which you were contrived. When we are safe, and far away, I shall explain all to you.”
The beast lifted its head, quizzically.
“There was a plan, long ago, a plan of war and deceit,” he said. “You were to be a component in that plan. Accordingly you were thought of, and planned, years before your formation. But the plan proved unfeasible. It fell into ruination. There was anger, much disappointment. Later, there was civil war. On the scales of power were heaped the steel of weapons. Mighty heroes fought and died on both sides. Seed fought seed, corridors raged with fire. Then the cries were done; the flames extinguished.”
“The second bar!” said the fellow with the lantern.
“Yes,” said Kurik.
“You must trust me,” said Kurik to the beast. “I shall explain all.”
“Hurry,” said he who had admitted us, looking about, even to the higher levels, and to the shadows and darknesses in the rafters above us.
“What did she say?” asked Kurik.
“She asked,” I said, “if she should be afraid.”
“Do not be afraid,” said Kurik to the beast.
“She asks,” I said, “why we hasten, why we seek to leave before light.”
“I cannot tell her that,” said Kurik.
“She presses the question,” I said to Kurik.
Kurik turned to the beast. “To disguise your hideousness,” he said.
“I understand,” said the beast.
“Surely that is not true, Master,” I said.
“It is something she will understand,” said Kurik.
At that moment one of the two fellows who had opened the crate, he who had been sent to fetch a blanket, or such, returned, bearing a sizable scrap of canvas. It was probably from sail cloth. It was large enough to stretch over the bed of a peddler’s cart.
Kurik took the cloth and flung it at the beast. “Cover yourself,” he said, “that your ugliness not offend those who might chance to look upon you.”
Bending down she picked up the canvas, with two paws, and prepared to put it about her shoulders.
“She is crying,” I said. “I am sure she is crying.”
“No,” said Kurik. “It is a simple beast.”
“Before you were kind to her,” I said. “Now you are otherwise. I do not understand.”
“Hurry,” he said to the beast. “Hurry.”
But the beast did not move.
“What is wrong?” asked Kurik.
Her head was lifted.
“What is wrong?” asked Kurik.
The beast was unmoving, the head lifted.
“Master,” I whispered, “I think she hears something, something that we do not hear.”
“I hear nothing,” said Kurik.
“Nor I, Master,” I said.
“It is nothing,” said Kurik.
At that moment I heard a horrifying roar, husky, piercing, claimant and enunciatory, as if a larl might speak, or a storm possess a throat, a sound I shall never forget, and a huge form dropped down from the rafters, struck the flooring, and then crouched in place, surveying us. The light of the lantern was reflected from two large eyes, as though the doors of a furnace might have been flung open. The jaws opened, and I glimpsed fangs. The body was bent over, like a mountain of fur, and its mighty legs were coiled beneath it. These mighty appendages, I gathered, had cushioned the shock of its descent. With what force it might spring forward! I could not move. Almost at the same time I heard a shriek of dismay from the beast in the crate, and was aware, a moment later, of two other large, hirsute forms descending, forms in the darkness, away from the lantern, one leaping from the first level to the flooring, and the second swinging down from the second level to the first, and then swinging lightly to the floor. The arms of these creatures were long. Were they to stand upright, if such were permitted by their structure, the arms might have reached to their knees. These things were fearful, and, in a terrible way, they were graceful. I feared, further, that these things, whatever they might be, were intent, rational, and purposive. The two sprung from the balconies approached. They shuffled, bent over. I heard claws moving on the wooden flooring. The first continued to regard us, not moving. I saw, now, three belts, one at the waist, two running from the shoulders to the hips, crossed the bodies of these three beasts. I heard the jangle of accoutrements. On the left wrist of the nearest beast there were two metal rings.
At the time I did not know the terrifying meaning of these rings.
Leadership amongst these forms of life is not easily purchased.
“It is too late,” said Kurik, facing the beasts, drawing a dagger from his belt. “We have been betrayed from the steel world.”
A fierce burst of sound emanated from the first beast, it which had dropped from the darkness of the rafters, and his two confederates approached more closely.
A howl of misery escaped he who had admitted us, and he, and his fellows, fled to the sides, disappearing into the darkness. The lantern, cast down, rolled on the floor, feet away.
“Stay back!” said Kurik, brandishing his dagger. “Go! Beware! Interfere not! We labor in the cause of Arcesilaus, Twelfth Face of the Nameless One, Theocrat of the World!”
I understood nothing of this.
“Away!” said Kurik, waving his arm, dagger in hand, in what was clearly a violent, desperate, shunning, warning, gesture.
The meaning of such a gesture was easy to read.
The three beasts, now illuminated from the side by the fallen lantern, it inert but still burning, to our left, the flame oddly vertical, the lamp horizontal, shuffled a pace closer.
“They have no translators,” said Kurik. Then he called back, over his shoulder. “Warn them away!” he said.
“What did she say?” he demanded.
“They will not be warned,” I said.
“Our task,” cried Kurik, “is set by Lord Arcesilaus!”
“She says,” I said, “these are not the minions of Lord Arcesilaus.”
“I feared so,” said Kurik, “seekers of vengeance and renewed war, partisans of a more fearsome lord, adherents of a throne unforgotten and never surrendered.”
The lead beast suddenly sprang forward, and was precipitately upon us, far more quickly than I might have deemed possible, and, with a contemptuous sweep of its mighty paw, struck Kurik to the side, into the darkness. I doubted c
onsciousness could endure such a blow. I myself was seized by another of the beasts and flung rudely to the other side, a dozen yards away, skidding and rolling, into a line of boxes.
I lay there, half in shock. I could not move. I knew I must be abraded. My right shoulder and side seemed afire. I lay beside a box, against it, fighting for breath. My consciousness was oddly disrupted. The pain I felt seemed as though it might be the affliction of another. I struggled to comprehend the horror of what had occurred, not what I had felt but what I had seen. I had witnessed, for the first time, what must be Kurii. How terrible, and fearsome, seemed that form of life! What could stand against such things? Might not such things rule worlds? My comprehension, and the horror of it, seemed far more grievous than the impact I had sustained. That was easily comprehensible, a simple matter of an explicable, fierce collision of forces. But that life forms such as I had just seen might exist was other than this; it was devastatingly disconcerting. One’s position in a chain of life, one’s place in a complacent universe, is suddenly challenged. My view of the world was shaken. What an unwelcome revelation to the verr to learn that sleen exist, to the tabuk that it shares its world with the larl! I feared I might lose consciousness. I knew not if bones were broken. I seemed unable to rise. The tunic of the paga girl, I would later learn, was half torn from me.
I did hear, emanating from the large, dark crate, from within that deep, opened, splintered housing, noises from its occupant, the pathetic beast we had interrogated. She had apparently withdrawn into its recesses, as though they might afford her shelter. She was frightened. Doubtless she was speaking in Kur. I could make out nothing. The noises could be read, however, as those of any animal, whether speeched or not. They were noises of petition, of protest, of pleading, of fear.
Suddenly I hated the thing.
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