Beasts of Gor (40 page)

Imnak sat in the corner of the tent, aimlessly whittling at a piece of tabuk horn.

Once in a while he would stop and turn the ivory, and look at it. Sometimes he would whisper, “Who hides in there? Who are you?” Then he would begin to carve again. Then, suddenly, he said, “Ah, sleen!”

I watched him flake and trim ivory from the horn. Slowly, as I watched, I saw the shape of a sleen emerging, almost as though it had been hidden in the ivory, the snout and legs, and the long, sinuous shape. Its ears were flat back against its head.

Often the red hunter does not set out to carve something, but rather to carve, patiently waiting to see if there is something there, waiting to be released. It is a little like hunting. He is open to what may be found. Sometimes there is a shape in the ivory or bone, or stone. Sometimes there is not. He removes the excess ivory and there, where it had lain hidden before, now revealed, is the shape.

Imnak’s knife had a wooden handle, some fourteen inches long. Its point was some three inches in length. He braced it on his leg in carving, his fingers near the blade end where they might delicately control the movement of the metal. Bracing the knife permits force from the leg to be applied, whereas balance and control are not sacrificed, because the point is subtly guided by the movement of the fingers.

Imnak held up the sleen.

In the language of the Innuit there is no word for art or artist.

“It is a handsome animal,” I said.

They need no such words. Why should there be special words for men who find beauty in the world. Is this not a concern of all men?

“It is your sleen,” said Imnak, giving it to me.

“I am grateful,” I said. I looked at it. It was a snow sleen, easily identified by the thickness of the coat, the narrowness of the ears, the breadth of the paws.

“I am very grateful,” I said.

“It is nothing,” he said.

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“But I have never seen it before,” said Imnak.

He examined the carving.

It was the head of a Kur, in bluish stone, the ear at the left side of its head half torn away. I had brought it with me from Port Kar. I had originally obtained it at the Sardar Fair, at the booth of the curio dealer.

“I thought you had sold it to the dealer at the fair,” I said.

“I sold carvings at the fair,” said Imnak, “yes, but I did not sell this.”

“I had thought you did,” I said.

“No,” said Imnak.

“Then he must have obtained the carving from some other,” I said.

Imnak shrugged. “It would seem so,” he said.

“Who other than you of the Innuit,” I asked, “journeyed this year to the lair?”

“Only I,” said Imnak.

“Can you be sure?” I asked.

“Reasonably so,” said Imnak. “It is a long journey to go to the fair. If some other had gone I think I would have heard of this. It makes good telling in the tents.”

“Where then,” I asked, “might the dealer have obtained this carving?”

“I do not know,” said Imnak. “I am sorry, Tarl, who hunts with me.”

“Forgive me, Imnak, who hunts with me,” I said, “it was not my intent to impugn your honesty.” I had pressed the matter too much with him. He had told me he had not seen the carving before. For a red hunter that was sufficient.

“Can you tell from the styling or toolwork,” I asked, “who might have made this carving.”

The art of the Innuit is often similar, from object to object. Yet to a subtle eye there are slight differences. One man will release from bone or ivory, or stone, a figure in a way which is slightly different from the way in which another will release it.

Imnak examined the carving carefully, turning it about in his hand.

I felt sick. That carving had, in effect, brought me to the north. Now it seemed it had led me only to a dead end. Miserably in my mind I contemplated the vastness of the polar basin. The summer, too, was already advanced.

“Imnak,” I asked, “have you heard of a mountain that does not move?”

He looked at me.

“A mountain of ice,” I said, “in the polar sea.”

“No,” said Imnak.

“Have you not even heard the story of such a mountain?” I asked.

“No,” said Imnak.

I looked down at the mat. “Imnak,” I said, “have you ever seen such a beast as is represented in that carving?”

“Yes,” he said.

I looked up at him, quickly.

“North of Torvaldsland,” he said, “I saw one once, some years ago. I threatened it with my harpoon, and it went away.”

“Was its ear thusly torn?” I asked.

“It was night,” he said. “I did not see it well. I do not think so.”

“Was it a large animal?” I asked.

“Not too large,” he said.

“What do you call such animals?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Beasts,” he said.

I sighed. Some years ago Imnak had seen a Kur north of Torvaldsland. It had probably been a young beast, an offspring of ship Kurii, stranded long ago on Gor. Such animals are found occasionally, usually in remote areas.

“But it was not an ice beast,” he said. I did not understand him.

“It was not white,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “Are there such beasts in the north?”

“Yes,” he said, “here and there, on the ice.”

These too, I assumed would be native Kurii, the survivors of stranded ship Kurii, perhaps crashed, brought down or marooned generations ago. There were different races of Kurii, I knew, though from my point of view there did not seem much point in discriminating among them. It was speculated that it had been fratricidal wars among such various forms of Kur which had resulted in the destruction of their native world.

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?”

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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.

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