by John Norman
The sleen were now, like a black cloud, breaking apart in the wind, and then rejoining, flooding toward us over the ice. The cloud was no more now than a quarter of a pasang away.
"Is this the end, Master?" asked Arlene.
"It would seem so," I said. "For my part, it will be a good fight. I am sorry, however, that you are here."
"Will you not free me?" she asked.
"No," I said.
If we were to die beneath the fangs of the sleen I would be torn apart as a free man, and she as a slave. It was what we were.
"Yes, Master," she said.
The hideous crying of the sleen was now piercing to our ears. We could hear, too, in the cold air, even the panting of the animals, their gasping, the scratching of their claws, scattering snow and ice behind them, on the ice.
Imnak now, with a knife, cut down at the ice some twenty feet from the partially erected shelter.
The sleen were now some two hundred yards away, swift, frenzied.
Imnak hurried to the low wall of the half-erected shelter. There, instead of joining us, he took from Poalu a slice of meat and, in the other hand, the handle of the water kettle. He hurried to the hole he had cut in the ice. He thrust the meat on the blade of the knife and then thrust the handle of the knife down into the hole he had cut in the ice. He poured the water then into the hole in the ice, about the handle of the knife. He waited only a moment, for the water, poured into the icy hole in the subzero temperatures, froze almost instantly, anchoring the knife with the solidity of a spike in cement.
"Hurry!" I cried.
A sleen was on Imnak. He fell rolling with the animal. I leaped over the low wall and ran to him, driving the lance into the animal, then holding it down on the ice, it snapping at the lance, while Imnak, his furs torn, leaped up. He kicked at a sleen which was leaping toward me, striking it in the snout. I pulled the lance free of the wounded animal which scrambled up, fangs wide, and, with the butt of the lance, struck back another sleen. Imnak was shouting in my ear. With the point of the lance I fended back the jaws of the wounded sleen. Then there were other sleen about us, twisting, circling. Imnak, shouting, kicking, dragged me back toward the shelter. Another sleen brushed past me. I felt another tear at the fur on my boot. Then Imnak and I stood within that small, low rampart, each armed with a lance. The full flood of sleen, the pack at large, not the lead animals, then swept about the small, circular shelter, hissing and squealing. Their eyes blazed in the moonlight. I thrust one back from the wall with the lance. Imnak, too, thrust animals away. Our own sleen was frenzied at our feet, struggling. An animal leaped into the snow circle and I, bodily, under it, lifted it over the wall and hurled it among others. Audrey screamed. Poalu threw oil from the lamp, burning, into the face of another animal. Arlene, screaming, reeled back from another animal, half over the wall, her sleeve torn open. I caught the animal under the throat with one hand and, getting another hand on its left foreleg, thrust it back over the wall among the others. Imnak thrust back another sleen. I again seized up the lance which I had carried. I thrust it into the face of another sleen, its head up, crouching to spring at the wall. It twisted away, hissing and snarling.
Then the sleen were outside, some twenty or thirty feet away, dark on the ice, though they were snow sleen. Some circled the shelter.
One sped toward the shelter and leaped upward but I managed to meet its charge with the lance point and it, its face bloodied, twisted, the lance through the side of the mouth, and I managed to deflect its charge to the side and it fell, snarling, slipping free of the lance, to the side of the shelter. Imnak thrust two others back.
Then it was quiet for a time.
"There are so many," said Arlene.
"It is a large pack," I said.
I could not well count the animals in the uncertain light and shadows, and with their dark minglings and changings of position, but it was clear that there were a large number of beasts there, probably more than fifty. Some sleen packs run as high as one hundred and twenty animals.
"I wish you well, Imnak," I said.
"Are you going somewhere?" he asked. "This is not a good time to do so."
"There are a great many sleen out there," I said.
"That is true," said Imnak.
"Are you not ready to die?" I asked him.
"Not me," he said. "Red hunters do not expect to die," he said. "They may die, but it always comes as a surprise to them."
I threw back my head and laughed like an idiot.
"Why do you laugh, Tarl, who hunts with me?" he asked.
"In the strait circumstances in which we now find ourselves enmeshed, I gather," I said, "that you have no intention of dying."
"That is exactly it," he said. "You have hit it. That is not something I have planned on."
"Imnak," said Poalu, "does not fear the sleen of death."
"If he comes around me," said Imnak, "I will hitch him to my sled."
"I would be proud to die beside you, Imnak," I said.
"I am an even better fellow to live beside," said Imnak. "This is my view of the matter."
"I will accept that," I said.
I looked down into the eyes of Arlene.
"Is there no hope?" she asked.
"All is lost, I fear," I said. "I wish you were not here."
She put her head against my arm. She looked up at me. "I would rather be nowhere else than here," she said.
"I would rather be in the feasting house," said Imnak.
"All is not lost," said Poalu.
"Look," said Imnak.
I looked out, several feet across the ice. "No," I said, in repulsion.
"Do you wish to live?" asked Imnak.
"Yes," I said.
"Then we must do what is necessary to achieve that aim," he said.
I looked out, across the ice, understanding then the effectiveness, the hideous efficiency, of the sleen trap which Imnak had so swiftly constructed, the sleen pack nearing the shelter as he had worked.
One of the larger animals circled the meat on the knife twice and then, suddenly, bit at it, to tear it from the blade. He ripped the meat from the blade, making away with it, his jaws cut by the knife's edge. There was then hot fresh blood on the knife. Another sleen, frenzied with the smell, ribs protruding from its fur, racked with hunger, hurried to the knife, licking at the blood. As it did so, of course, the blade, anchored fixedly in the ice, cut its mouth, its lips and tongue. In the frenzy of its hunger the sleen, further stimulated by the newly shed blood, redoubled its efforts to lap it up. Another animal, larger, bit at it, and shouldered it from the blade, it then licking at the blood, unwittingly cutting itself, its mouth and tongue, as well. There was dark blood, frozen about the stained, exposed blade. One sleen attacked the first animal, which was profusely bleeding at the mouth. In a raging, vicious tangle of whirling fur and snapping jaws the two animals fought. One's throat was ripped open and, instantly, four or five dark shapes on the ice attacked the fallen animal, thrusting their heads, fangs tearing, feeding, into its belly. It squealed hideously. Other sleen tried to thrust into the orgy. Two or three scrambled literally onto the backs of the feeders, trying to push down between them. Other sleen ran to the knife. The blood on it, in the moment it had been left alone, had frozen on the steel. Two sleen fought to lick the frozen blood from the blade. Instantly as the blade cut their lips and tongue there was again hot, fresh blood on the steel. A sleen can kill itself in this manner, licking at the blade until it bleeds to death.
Arlene and Audrey looked away.
But no sleen that night bled to death, a victim of the simple, cruel trap, for there were too many animals present with too great a hunger to permit this to occur.
As a sleen weakened, or the stimulus of the blood became too great, other animals, tortured by their own hunger, attacked it.
In less than an Ahn Imnak, to my amazement, left the half-constructed shelter, and, walking among gorged sleen, and feeding sleen, and dead sleen,
went to the drift and began to carry blocks back to the shelter.
In a moment I went to help him. We passed, literally, within feet of savage snow sleen, and scarcely did they notice us.
Some fifteen or twenty sleen had been killed, all by other sleen in the pack. The remaining sleen had fed on these. Some still fed, pulling and tearing at the bones and exposed ventral cavities and limbs of the fallen sleen.
Several of the animals, gorged with meat, curled in the snow, in a white coil, and slept.
Imnak added the new blocks to the snow shelter and, with his snow knife, cut those blocks he needed to finish the low, domed structure. It does not take long to construct such a shelter, if the snow is appropriate. I do not think he had worked longer, altogether, than some forty or fifty minutes on it. With the snow knife, on the outside, he trimmed and shaped the dwelling, and filled in the chinks with snow. Inside Poalu had relit the lamp and was already melting snow for drinking water and setting a pot to boil, hanging from the cooking rack, for meat.
27
The Face in the Sky;
The Codes;
Imnak Will Take First Watch
We pressed on, further northward.
It had been four sleeps now since we had left the first snow shelter, where we had been threatened by the sleen pack. Each sleep we had again constructed such a shelter.
The reversion frenzy of our sleen had passed quickly, even by the time the first shelter had been constructed, but we had left it tied, loosening its jaws only to feed it, because of the presence of the wild sleen in the vicinity. After our sleep in the first shelter we had reconnoitered. The majority of the sleen pack had departed, filled with meat. Imnak had retrieved his knife, it having claimed no more victims. Some five sleen had lingered in the vicinity, nosing about the fur and gnawed bones of the fallen members of the pack. From a distance they had eyed us, balefully.
We had left the shelter and trekked northward, our sleen again in its traces. The five sleen had drifted with us, some half pasang or so away. We saw them from time to time. Their presence no longer excited our own sleen, as it had now passed through its reversion frenzy.
"What lazy animals those sleen are," said Imnak. "They are not even really hungry, but they are keeping us in mind. They should be out hunting snow bosk, or basking sea sleen, or burrowing and scratching inland for hibernating leems."
"I suppose you are right," I said.
"But look at them," he said, righteously. "There they are, right there. They should be ashamed of themselves."
"Yes," I said, "they certainly should."
"No self-respecting sleen follows a man like that," he said.
"You are quite possibly correct," I granted him. Though sleen were not fastidious, men were surely not their preferred prey.
"But there they are," said Imnak.
"They certainly are," I said.
"We must teach those lazy, greedy fellows a lesson," he said.
"I doubt if we could get close enough to them to harm them," I said. "When they become sufficiently hungry, then they will come in."
"But then they will be extremely dangerous," said Imnak. "And there are five of them."
"True," I said. It did not seem likely that we could sustain the attack of five snow sleen without a shelter. Instinctively such animals, when in packs, tend to circle and attack simultaneously from different directions. The shelter, incidentally, tends to confuse them. It is not a shape which releases their normal attack behaviors. The best that we could do, presumably, if caught in the open, would be to fight back to back, the girls, low, at our feet. Even then they might be dragged away from us. Our best chance, presumably, would be to have pack ice behind us.
Before we had slept that night, and after Imnak had constructed our shelter, he removed from the supplies several strips of supple baleen, whale bone, taken from the baleen whale, the bluish blunt fin, which we had killed before taking the black Hunjer whale. He had brought this with him from the permanent camp. Why I had not understood.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
He worked in the light of the lamp.
"Watch," he said.
He took a long strip of baleen, about fifteen inches in length, and, with his knife, sharpened both ends, wickedly sharp. He then, carefully, folded the baleen together, with S-type folds. Its suppleness permitted this, but it was under great tension, of course, to spring straight again, resuming its original shape. He then tied the baleen, tensed as it was, together with some stout tabuk sinew. The sinew, of course, held the baleen together, in effect fastening a stout spring into a powerfully compressed position. If the sinew should break I would not have wished to be near that fierce, compressed, stout strip of sharpened baleen.
"Put it away," I said to Imnak.
Imnak made several of these objects. He then inserted them into several pieces of meat, one in each piece of meat.
He threw one of these pieces of meat, containing the compressed baleen, outside the shelter.
"Now, let us sleep," he said.
"It is a horrifying thing you are doing, Imnak," I said to him.
"Do you wish to live?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Then do not object," he said. "It is us or it is the sleen."
I lay awake for a long time. Then, suddenly, piercing, horrifying, I heard the cry of the animal. The sinew had dissolved in its stomach.
"What is it?" cried Arlene.
"It is nothing," I told her.
I then slept.
* * * *
We pressed on, further northward.
No sleen now followed us. The first of the five sleen had been killed two sleeps ago, outside one of the shelters as it had prowled about. It had been eaten by the other four. Two of those animals, apparently satisfied with the meat, had then left our trail, turning their attention elsewhere. Two others had continued to follow us. Yesterday, one sleep ago, when we had begun to trek, Imnak had cast behind the sled, in our tracks, another of his pieces of meat, containing the compressed baleen. The more aggressive of the two animals which had been following us was the first upon the meat. It died an Ahn later, while still following us. The other animal, more timid, crouched beside it. It waited until the first animal no longer moved, before it began to feed. After we had awakened after our most recent sleep and hitched the sleen to the sled Imnak had thrown out yet another of the cruel pieces of meat. Some hours later, when we heard the startled pain squeal of the mortally wounded beast, Imnak turned about in his tracks.
"Hurry!" he said. "It is meat!"
When we reached the animal it lay on the ice, its eyes open, not moving. Its pain must have been excruciating. It did not resist our lances.
* * * *
"We will now make a shelter," said Imnak.
Once again, as he had before, he found a suitable drift of snow and began to cut blocks. We may call this type of shelter an igloo, or iglu, I suppose, for that is the word, an Innuit word actually, by which we would think of it. Yet in the language of the Innuit, or of the People, the word 'igloo' or 'iglu' designates more generally a dwelling or house. For example, it is not necessary for an igloo to be made from snow or ice. Imnak's half-underground hut, or house, at the permanent camp, for example, was also called an igloo.
Soon Imnak had completed the shelter and he had then come outside, to stand with me. Within the girls were preparing supper.
"We are now free of sleen," I told him.
"It is unlikely that sleen, new sleen, would come this far out on the ice," he said.
"We have then little to fear from them," I said.
"This is, however," said Imnak, "the country of the ice beasts."
"I have not seen any," I said, "not for several sleeps."
Imnak and I had both, several sleeps ago, caught glimpses of an ice beast. We had not seen it, however, since the great storm.
"Let us go inside," said Imnak. "The night is going to be cool."
I smiled to myself.
Surely the temperature was at least sixty below zero.
I looked up at the sky, at streaks and curtains of light, mostly yellowish green, hundreds of miles in height. This is an atmospheric phenomenon, caused by electrically charged particles from the sun bombarding the upper atmosphere. It was unusual for it to occur at this time of year. The autumnal and vernal equinox times are the most frequent times of occurrence. In different light conditions these curtains and streaks can appear violet or red or orange depending on their height. This silent storm of charged particles, flung from millions of miles across space, raining upon an atmosphere, was very beautiful. On Earth this type of phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the Northern Lights or the Aurora Borealis. It occurs also, of course, in the south, in the vicinity of the southern polar circle.
I called Arlene out, and she came out, followed by Audrey. We stood for a time, quietly, watching the lights. Then I indicated that they should return inside the shelter.
Later, some Ahn later, Arlene lay within my arms. "It was very beautiful," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"The night is so still outside," she said. "How beautiful the north can be."
"Yes," I said. It was very quiet, very still, very calm, very peaceful.
"What is that?" she asked, suddenly.
"Imnak," I said, calling him.
"I hear it," he said.
We listened, carefully. For a time we heard nothing. Then, after a time, we heard the snow and ice crunch outside. Something was outside.
"Is it a sleen?" I asked.
"Listen," he said.
After a time Arlene asked, "Is it a sleen?"
"No," I said. "It is walking on two feet."
Then, after a time, the noise was gone. I heard Imnak replace the knife in its sheath. I then returned my own blade, too, to its sheath.
"I am going out," I said.
I drew on furs. The outer parka I retrieved from the long, low entrance way to the shelter. This entrance, contrived as it was, made it impossible for the direct blast of an outside wind to get inside. It is generally better for the fur of the heavy parka to be left in the entrance way, where it is colder. One brushes snow from the parka before leaning down and moving through the tunnel to the interior of the shelter, but, in the shelter, the residue of snow would melt, wetting the garment. Later, when the lamp goes out, the garment could stiffen and freeze. It is better for the fur not to be constantly put through this cycle of dampening and freezing; also, the heavy parka is rather large for the drying frame, which is generally used for smaller articles, like boots and mittens. Also, of course, the garment is more comfortable to put on if it is not cramped and frozen.