Beasts of Gor (5 page)

Let it suffice to say that to the Gorean sailor his ships are living things. Were they not, how could he love them so?

“This ship is essentially ready,” said Samos. “It can sail soon for the world’s end.”

“Strange, is it not,” I asked, “that when the ship is nearly ready that this message should come?”

“Yes,” said Samos. ‘That is strange.”

“The Kurii wish us to sail now for the world’s end,” I said.

“Arrogant beasts!” cried Samos, pounding down on the small table. “They challenge us now to stop them!”

“Perhaps,” I admitted.

“We have sought them in vain. We were helpless. We knew not where to look. Now they in their impatient vanity, in their mockery of our impotence, boldly announce to us their whereabouts!”

“Have they?” I asked.

“‘We are here,’ they say. ‘Come seek us, Fools, if you dare!’”

“Perhaps,” I said. “Perhaps.”

“Do you doubt the message?” asked Samos.

“I do not know,” I said. “I simply do not know.”

“They taunt us,” said Samos. “War is a sport for them.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“We must act,” he said.

“In what way?” I asked.

“You must sail immediately to the world’s end.” Samos looked at me, grimly. “There you must seek out Half-Ear, and destroy him.”

“None have returned from the world’s end,” I said.

“You are afraid?” asked Samos.

“Why,” I asked, “should the message be addressed to me?”

“The Kurii know you,” said he. “They respect you.”

I, too, respected them. I was a warrior. I enjoyed sharing with them the cruel, mortal games of war. They were cunning, and fierce, and terrible. I was a warrior. I found them precious foes.

“Does not the fate of worlds weigh upon you?” asked Samos.

I smiled.

“I know you,” he said, bitterly, “you are a warrior, a soldier, a mercenary, an adventurer. You fight for the exhilaration. You are frivolous. In your way you are as despicable as the Kur.”

“Perhaps I am an adventurer,” I said. “I do not truly know. I have stood against the Kur. I have met men with steel. I have had the women of enemies naked at my feet, suing to be my slaves.”

“You are a mercenary,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said. “but I choose my wars with care.”

“It is strange,” said Samos.

“What?” I asked.

“We fight for civilization,” said Samos, “against the barbarism of the Kur.”

I smiled that Samos should see himself so.

“And yet,” said he, “in the world for which we strive we would have no place.”

I looked at him.

“In a civilized world, Captain,” said he, “there would be no place for such as you.”

“That is true,” I said.

“Is it not a paradox?” asked Samos. “Men need us in order to bring about a world in which we may be scorned and disregarded.”

I said nothing.

“Men seldom recall who it was who brought them the fruits of victory.”

“It is true,” I conceded.

“Civilized men,” said Samos, “the small and pale, the righteous, the learned, the smug, the supercilious, the weak-stomached and contemptuous, stand upon the shoulders of forgotten, bloody giants.”

I shrugged.

“You are such a bloody giant,” he said.

“No,” I said. “I am only a tarnsman, a nomad in unusual conflicts, a friend of the sword.”

“Sometimes,” said Samos, “I weep.” He looked at me. I bad never before seen him in such a mood.

“Is our struggle, if successful,” he asked, “to issue only in the victory of defeat, the triumph of the trivial and placid, the glorification of mediocrity?”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Will our blood have been shed,” he asked, “to bring about so miniscule an achievement, the contentment of the herd browsing among the dunes of boredom?”

“They will have their petty concerns,” I said, “which will seem important to them.”

He looked down, angrily.

“And they will have their entertainments and their stimulations. There will be industries which will attempt to assuage their boredom.”

“But will nothing truly matter?” he asked.

“Perhaps men must sleep before they wake,” I said.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“There are the stars,” I said.

“The Kurii stand between us and the stars,” said Samos.

“Perhaps we labor,” said I, “to open the gates to the stars.”

“Men will never seek them,” said Samos.

“Some men will,” I said.

“But the others will not help them, and the adventure will fall,” said Samos.

“Perhaps,” I said. “I do not know.” I looked at him. “Much depends on what men are,” I said.

“His measure has not yet been taken,” said Samos.

“And perhaps it will never be taken,” I said, “and cannot he taken. Every bound you set him will show him a place beyond which he can place his foot or hand.”

“Perhaps,” smiled Samos.

“I have hunted, and I have been hunted,” I said.

“Why do you say this?” he asked.

“And in hunting, and in being hunted,” I said, “I have been alive.”

“Yes,” said Samos. “But why are you saying this?”

“Do you not see?” I asked him. ‘The conflict, the struggle, even if it should issue in the triumph of the leveled herd, each smiling and trying to be the same as the other, will yet have been ours, and cannot be taken from us.”

“Yes,” said Samos.

“Ours will have been the war,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“It is our hand that will have grasped the hilt of the sword. It is we, not they, who will have met the enemy. Let them weep that they were not there.”

“Yes,” said Samos, “I would not be other than I am, and I would not be other than where I am.”

“The meaning of history,” I said, “lies not in the future. It is like a range of mountains with many summits. Great deeds are the meaning of history. There are many meanings and many summits. One may climb different mountains at different times, but each mountain glows in the same sun.”

“The Kurii must be met!” said Samos.

“Perhaps we will choose to do so,” I said.

“You are a monster, Captain,” he laughed.

“I am of the warriors,” I said.

“I know your sort,” he said. “It is the fight you relish. What a wicked sort you are, and yet how useful!”

I shrugged.

“You see a fight you want, you take it,” he said. “You see a woman you like, you take her.”

“Perhaps if she pleased me,” I said.

“You would do as you wished,” he said.

“Of course,” I said.

“Warrior!” said he.

“Yes, Warrior,” I said.

“The eyes will be painted, and the ship will be launched at dawn,” he said.

I rose to my feet. “Let us not be precipitate,” I said.

He looked at me, startled.

“Supplies must be laid in,” I said. “Too, a crew must be recruited. Too, there must be an acceptable preliminary voyage, to test the handling of the ship, and its seaworthiness.”

“Time is crucial!” he said. “I can give you supplies, men.”

“I must think of these things,” I said. “And if I am to sail with men I must pick them myself, for our lives would depend upon one another.”

“Half-Ear waits at the world’s end!” cried Samos.

“Let him wait,” I said.

Samos looked at me, irritated.

“If he is truly waiting,” I said, “there is no great hurry.” I looked at Samos. “Besides,” said I, “it may take months to reach the world’s end, if it can be reached at all.”

“That is true,” said Samos.

“Besides,” I said, “it is En’Kara.”

“So?” asked Samos.

“It is time for the Kaissa matches at the Fair of En’Kara, at the Sardar,” I said. I found it hard to think that this was not on the mind of Samos. “Centius of Cos,” I said, “is defending his title against Scormus of Ar.”

“How can you be concerned with Kaissa at a time like this?” he asked.

“The match is important,” I pointed out. Anyone who knew anything of Kaissa knew this. It was the talk of Gor.

“I should have you whipped, and chained to an oar,” said Samos.

“I have been whipped,” I said, “at various times, and, too, I have been chained to an oar.” I had felt the leather. I had drawn the oar.

“Apparently it taught you little,” he said.

“I am difficult to teach,” I admitted.

“Kaissa!” grumbled Samos.

“The planet has waited years for this match,” I said.

“I have not,” said Samos.

It had been delayed because of the war between Ar and Cos, having to do with piracy and competitive commercial claims on the Vosk. The war persisted but now both players had been brought to the Sardar by armed men from their respective cities, under a special flag of truce, agreed upon by Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos, and Marlenus of Ar, called the Ubar of Ubars, who ruled in Ar. Hostilities between the two cities were suspended for the duration of the match. Kaissa is a serious matter for most Goreans. That Samos did not seem sufficiently impressed with the monumentality of the confrontation irritated me somewhat. It is hard to understand one who is not concerned with Kaissa.

“We all have our limitations,” I said.

“That is true,” he said.

“What did you say?” I asked. He muttered something.

“I said,” said Samos, “that Kaissa is a disease.”

“Oh,” I said. If it was a disease, and that seemed not unlikely, it was at least one which afflicted perhaps a majority of Goreans. I expected to have to pay a golden tarn disk for standing room in the amphitheater in which the match would take place. A golden tarn disk would purchase a trained war tarn, or several women.

“If there was a crucial act to be done at a given time,” said Samos, “and the fate of two worlds hung upon that act, and it interfered with a Kaissa match, what would you do?”

I grinned. “I would have to think about it,” I told him. “Who would be playing?”

Samos rose to his feet. exasperated, but grinning. “Come with me,” he said.

He conducted me to a place in the hail, where he pointed down to that portion of the intricate map mosaic which lay there.

“Cos and Tyros,” I said.

He pointed beyond them. For most practical purposes, except for a few small, close islands, of little or no importance, the mosaic ended there. No one knew what lay beyond Cos and Tyros to the west, once the small islands were passed.

“You should have your mind not on Kaissa,” said Samos, “my dear Captain, but on the world’s end.” He pointed to a place on the floor. It contained only small, smooth white tiles.

“Perhaps the world’s end,” I said, “is on the other side of the wall.”

We did not know where it might be, in the scale of the map mosaic.

“Perhaps,” laughed Samos. “Perhaps.”

He glanced about at the mosaic. For an instant his eye stopped, near its top.

“What is it?” I asked. I had noticed a bit of hesitation in him, a small movement in his shoulder, the sort of thing which suggests that a casual thought. unimportantly troubling, has occurred to someone.

“Nothing,” he said. He had dismissed the thought.

“No,” I said, curious. “What is it?”

He gestured to a guardsman to bring a lamp, for we were far from the light of the bowl of coals now, and of various torches set in the walls.

We walked slowly toward the back of the hall. The guardsman brought him the lamp there.

“As you know,” said Samos, “this house is an intelligence center, in which we receive many reports. Much of what we hear is trivial and unimportant, simply meaningless. Yet we try to remain informed.”

“Naturally,” I said. Who knew when, or if, a pattern might emerge.

“Two items of information we have received seem to us peculiar. We have received them at different times. They are in their nature, unrelated. Yet each is provocative.”

“What are they?” I asked.

“See,” said Samos, crouching down, holding the lamp about a foot above the floor, “here is Kassau, and the Skerry of Vars.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And Torvaldsland, northwards,” he said, “and Ax Glacier.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Have you heard,” he asked, “of the herd of Tancred?”

“No,” I said.

“It is a herd of northern tabuk,” said Samos, “a gigantic herd, one of several. The herd of Tancred winters in the rims of the northern forests south and east of Torvaldsland. In the spring, short-haired and hungry, they emerge from the forests hind migrate northward.” He indicated the map. “They follow this route,” he said, “emerging from the forest here, skirting Torvaldsland here, to the east, and then moving west above Torvaldsland, to the sea. They follow the shore of Thassa north, cross Ax Glacier here, like dark clouds on the ice, then continue to follow the shore north here, until they then turn eastward into the tundra of the polar basin, for their summer grazing. With the coming of winter, long-haired and fat, they return by the same route to the forests. This migration, like others of its kind, occurs annually.”