Chapter 31
Half-Ear

“In here,” said the man in the brown and black livery of those men in the service of the Kurii. He indicated the metal door.

I had walked with them through the steel halls. There had been two of them. Neither of them was armed, nor was I.

I could have done little more in the steel halls than kill them.

One of the men opened the metal door. He then stood to the side, and gestured that I might go within.

I entered the door, and it was closed, and locked, behind me.

I looked about the room. It was domed, and some forty feet in height. It seemed simply furnished. It contained a few objects, mostly at the edges of the room. There were some tables, and cabinets and shelves. There were no chairs. Some chests, too, were at the side of the room. I stood upon a rug of some sort. Its nap was deep. It would give good footing to a clawed foot. The room was rather dark, but I could see dimly. There appeared to be a shallow basin of water sunk in the floor to one side. In the sides of the room, here and there, there seemed windows like portholes. Yet I did not think they opened onto the outside. I could see neither the bleak, moonlit ice of the north beyond them, nor even the lights of stars. Looking up I saw above me, beginning some ten feet from the floor, a network of widely placed wood and steel rods. Oddly, certain portholes, or apertures, or whatever they might be, were set high, too, some twenty feet from the floor, ringing the dome. One could not, given their height, look through them from the floor. By feel I determined that one of the walls, that to my right, as I had entered the room, as was the floor, was lined with some heavy ruglike substance. Thus, something suitably clawed, I supposed, could cling to it. On a table to the side, toward what I took to be the front of the room, there was a dark, boxlike object, about six inches in height, and a foot or so in width and length. At the center of the room, toward the front, there was a wide, low, circular platform. On this something lay.

I sat down, cross-legged, some twenty feet in front of the platform, and waited.

I watched the thing on the platform. It was large, and shaggy, and curled upon itself, and alive.

I was not sure, initially, if there were one or more things on the platform. But then I became confident it was only one thing. I had not realized he was so gigantic.

I sat quietly, watching it breathe.

After a time it stirred. Then, with an ease, an indolent smoothness of motion startling in so large a beast it sat up on the platform, regarding me. It blinked. The pupils of its eyes were like dark moons. It yawned. I saw the double row of fangs, inclined backward in the mouth, to move caught meat toward the throat It blinked again, and began to lick its paws. Its long, dark tongue, too, cleaned the fur about its mouth. It turned away and went to a side of the room where it relieved itself. A lever, depressed, released water, washing the waste away. The animal scratched twice on the plates near where it had relieved itself, as though reflexively covering its spoor. It then, moving on all fours, lightly, moved forward, around the platform, and went to the sunken basin of water in the room. It put down its cupped paws and splashed water in its face, and then shook its head. Too, it took water in its cupped paws, and drank. With one paw it gestured that I should approach, and palm open on the appendage, indicated that I might use the water. Crouching down I took a bit of water in the palm of my hand and drank. We looked at one another across the sunken basin.

The animal, on all fours, withdrew from the edge of the basin.

It projected its claws and scratched on the ruglike substance on the walls. Then, claws catching in the heavy material, it moved up the wall, stretching and twisting its body. Then it dropped down to a pole in the scaffolding. It sat there for a moment, and then, lightly, swung from one pole to another, and then returned, dropping lightly, for an animal of its weight, to the floor before the platform. It stretched again, catlike. And then it rose to its hind feet and looked down at me. It was more than eight feet in height I would have conjectured its weight at some nine hundred pounds. Then it dropped again to all fours and moved to the table on which there reposed the dark, boxlike object.

It moved a switch on the box. It uttered sounds, low, guttural, inquisitive. It did not use human phonemes and so it is difficult, if not impossible, to convey the quality of the sound. If you have heard the noises made by great cats, such as the Bengal tiger or the black-maned lion, and can conceive of such noises articulated with the subtlety and precision of g civilized speech, that will provide you with an approximation of what I heard. On the other hand, the vocal apparatus of the beast was not even of Earth origin. Certain of its sounds, for example, were more reminiscent of the snort of the boar, the snuffling of the grizzly, the hiss of the snake, than those of the large cats. The phonemes of such beasts are unmistakable, but they are, truly, like nothing Earth has prepared one to hear. They are different, not of Earth, alien. To hear these noises, and know they are a speech can be initially very frightening. Evolution did not prepare those of Earth to find intelligence in such a form.

The beast was then silent.

“Are you hungry?” I heard. The sounds, separate, had been emitted from the dark, flatish, boxlike object on the table. It was, then, a translator.

“Not particularly,” I said.

After a moment a set of sounds, brief, like a growl, came from the translator. I smiled.

The beast shrugged. It shambled to the side of the room, and there pressed a switch.

A metal panel slid up. I heard a squeal and a small animal, a lart, fled from within toward the opening. It happened quickly. The large six-digited paw of the beast closed about the lart, hideously squealing, and lifted it to its mouth, where it bit through the back of its neck, spitting out vertebrae. The lart, dead, but spasmodically trembling, was then held in the beast’s mouth. It then, with its claws freed, opened its furs and, by feel, delicately, regarding me, fingered out various organs which it laid on the floor before it. In moments it had removed the animal from its mouth. Absently, removing meat from the carcass, it fed.

“You do not cook your meat?” I asked.

The translator, turned on, accepted the human phonemes, processed them, and, momentarily, produced audible, correspondent phonemes in one of the languages of the Kur.

The beast responded. I waited.

“We sometimes do,” he said. It looked at me. “Cooked meat weakens the jaws,” it said.

“Fire, and cooked meat,” I said, “makes possible a smaller jaw and smaller teeth, permitting less cranial musculature and permitting the development of a larger brain case.”

“Our brain cases are larger than those of humans,” it said. “Our anatomy could not well support a larger cranial development. In our history, as in yours, larger brain cases have been selected for.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“In the killings,” it said.

“The Kur is not a social animal?” I asked, “It is a social animal,” it said. “But it is not as social as the human.”

“That is perhaps a drawback to it as a species,” I said.

“It has its advantages,” it said. “The Kur can live alone. It can go its own way. It does not need its herd.”

“Surely, in ancient times, Kurii came together,” I said.

“Yes,” it said, “in the matings, and the killings.” It looked at me, chewing. “But that was long ago,” it said. “We have had civilization for one hundred thousand years, as you would understand these things. In the dawn of our prehistory small bands emerged from the burrows and the caves and forests. It was a beginning.”

“How can such an animal have a civilizatioit?” I asked.

“Discipline,” it said.

“That is a slender thread with which to restrain such fierce, titanic instincts,” I said.

The beast extended to me a thigh of the lart. “True,” it said. “I see you understand us well.”

I took the meat and chewed on it. It was fresh, warm, still porous with blood.

“You like it, do you not?” asked the beast.

“Yes,” I said.

“You see,” it said, “you are not so different from us.”

“I have never claimed to be,” I said.

“Is not civilization as great an achievement for your species as for mine?” it asked.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Are the threads on which your survival depends stouter than those on which ours depends?” it asked.

“Perhaps not,” I said.

“I know little of humans,” it said, “but it is my understanding that most of them are liars and hypocrites. I do not include you in this general charge.”

I nodded.

“They think of themselves as civilized animals, and yet they are only animals with a civilization. There is quite a difference.”

“Admittedly,” I said.

“Those of Earth, as I understand it, which is your home world, are the most despicable. They are petty. They mistake weakness for virtue. They take their lack of appetite, their incapacity to feel, as a merit. How small they are. The more they betray their own nature the more they congratulate themselves on their perfection. And they put economic gain above all. Their greed and their fevered scratching repulses me.”

“Not all on Earth are like that,” I said.

“It is a food world,” it said, “and the food is not of the best.”

“What do you put above all?” tasked.

“Glory,” it said. It looked at me. “Can you understand that?” it asked.

“I can understand it,” I said.

“We are soldiers,” it said, “the two of us.”

“How is it that an animal without strong social instincts can be concerned with glory?” I asked.

“It emerges, we speculate, from the killings.”

“The killings?” I asked.

“Even before the first groups,” it said, “we would gather for the matings and killings. Great circles, rings of our people, would form in valleys, to watch.”

“You fought for mates?” I asked.

“We fought for the joy of killing,” it said. “Mating, however, was a prerogative of the victor.” It took a rib bone from the lart and began to thrust it, scraping, between its fangs, freeing and removing bits of wedged meat. “Humans, as I understand it, have two sexes, which, among them, perform all the functions pertinent to the continuance of the species.

“Yes,” I said, “that is true.”

“We have three, or, if you prefer, four sexes,” it said. “There is the dominant, which would, I suppose, correspond most closely to the human male. It is the instinct of the dominant to enter the killings and mate. There is then a form of Kur which closely resembles the dominant but does not join in the killings or mate. You may, or may not, regard this as two sexes. There is then the egg-carrier who is impregnated. This form of Kur is smaller than the dominant or the non-dominant, speaking thusly of the nonreproducing form of Kur.”

“The egg-earner is the female,” I said.

“If you like,” said the beast, “but, shortly after impregnation, within a moon, the egg-carrier deposits the fertilized seed in the third form of Kur, which is mouthed, but sluggish and immobile. These fasten themselves to hard surfaces, rather like dark, globular anemones. The egg develops inside the body of the blood-nurser and, some months later, it tears its way free.”

“It has no mother,” I said.

“Not in the human sense,” it said. “It will, however, usually follow, unless it itself is a blood-nurser, which is drawn out, the first Kur it sees, providing it is either an egg-carrier or a nondominant.”

“What if it sees a dominant?” I asked.

“If it is itself an egg-carrier or a nondominant, it will shun the dominant,” it said. “This is not unwise, for the dominant may kill it.”

“What if it itself is potentially a dominant?” I asked.

The lips of the beast drew back. “That is what all hope,” it said. “If it is a dominant and it encounters a dominant, it will bare its tiny fangs and expose its claws.”

“Will the dominant not kill it then?” I asked.

“Perhaps later in the killings, when it is large and strong,” he said, “but certainly not when it is small. It is on such that the continuance of the species depends. You see, it must be tested in the killings.”

“Are you a dominant?” I asked.

“Of course,” it said. Then it added, “I shall not kill you for the question.”

“I meant no harm,” I said.

Its lips drew back.

“Are most Kurii dominants?” I asked.

“Most are born dominants,” it said, “but most do not survive the killings.”

“It seems surprising that there are many Kurii,” I said.

“Not at all,” he said. “The egg-carriers can be frequently impregnated and frequently deposit the fertilized egg in a blood-nurser. There are large numbers of blood-nursers. In the human species it takes several months for a female to carry and deliver an offspring. In the same amount of time a Kur egg-carrier will develop seven to eight eggs, each of which may be fertilized and deposited in a blood-nurser.”

“Do Kur young not drink milk?” I asked.

“The young receive blood in the nurser,” he said, “When it is born it does not need milk, but water and common protein.”

“It is born fanged?” I asked.

“Of course,” it said. “And it is capable of stalking and killing small animals shortly after it leaves the nurser.”

“Are the nursers rational?” I asked.

“We do not think so,” it said.

“Can they feel anything?” I asked.

“They doubtless have some form of sensation,” it said. “They recoil when struck or burned.”

“But there are native Kurii on Gor,” I said, “or, at any rate, Kurii who have reproduced themselves on this world.”

“Certain ships, some of them originally intended for colonization, carried representatives of our various sexes, with the exception of the nondominants,” it said. “We have also, where we knew of Kurii groups, sometimes managed to bring in egg-carriers and blood-nursers.”

“It is to your advantage that there be native Kurii,” I said.

“Of course,” he said, “yet they are seldom useful allies. They lapse too swiftly into barbarism.” He lowered the bone with which he was picking his teeth and threw it, and the remains of the lart, to the side of the room. He then took a soft, white cloth from a drawer in the table on which the translator reposed, and wiped his paws. “Civilization is fragile,” he said.

“Is there an order among your sexes?” I asked.

“Of course there is a biological order,” he said. “Structure is a function of nature. How could it be otherwise?”

“There is first the dominant, and then the egg-carrier, and then the nondominant, and then, if one considers such things Kur, the blood-nurser.”

“The female, or egg-carrier, is dominant over the non-dominant?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. ‘They are despicable.”

“Suppose a dominant is victorious in the killings,” I said. “Then what occurs?”

“Many things could occur,” he said, “but he then, generally, with a club, would indicate what egg-carriers he desires. He then ties them together and drives them to his cave. In the cave he impregnates them and makes them serve him.”

“Do they attempt to run away?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “He would hunt them down and kill them. But after he has impregnated them they tend to remain, even when untied, for he is then their dominant.”

“What of the nondominants?” I asked.

“They remain outside the cave until the dominant is finished, fearing him muchly. When he has left the cave they creep within, bringing meat and gifts to the females, that they may be permitted to remain within the cave, as part of the dominant’s household. They serve under the females and take their orders from them. Most work, including the care of the young, is performed by nondominants.”

“I do net think I would care to be a nondominant,” I said.

“They are totally despicable,” he said, “but yet, oddly, sometimes a nondominant becomes a dominant. This is a hard thing to understand. Sometimes it happens when there is no dominant in the vicinity. Sometimes it seems to happen for no obvious reason; sometimes It happens when a nondominant is humiliated and worked beyond his level of tolerance. It is interesting. This occasional, almost inexplicable transformation of a nondominant into a dominant is the reason our biologists differ as to whether our species has three, or four sexes.”

“Perhaps the nondominant is only a latent dominant,” I said.

“Perhaps,” he said. “It is hard to tell.”

“The restriction of mating to the dominants,” I said, “plus the selections in the killings, must tend to produce a species unusually aggressive and savage.”

“It tends also to produce one that is extremely intelligent,” said the animal.

I nodded.

“But we are civilized folk,” said the animal. It rose to Its feet and went to a cabinet. “You must not think of us in terms of our bloody past.”

“Then, on the steel ships,” I said, “the killings, and the fierce matings, no longer take place.”

The animal, at the opened cabinet, turned to regard me. “I did not say that,” he said.

“The killings and the matings then continue to take place on the steel worlds?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said.

“The past, then, is still with you on the steel worlds,” I said.

“Yes,” it said. “Is the past not always with us?”

“Perhaps,” I said.

The beast returned from the cabinet with two glasses and a bottle.

“Is that not the paga of Ar?” I asked.

“Is it not one of your favorites?” he asked, “See,” he said, “It has the seal of the brewer, Temus.”

“That is remarkable,” I said. “You are very thoughtful.”

“I have been saving it,” he told me.

“For me?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “I was confident you would get through.’

“I am honored,” I said.

“I have waited so long to talk to you,” he said.

He poured two glasses of paga, and reclosed the bottle. We lifted the glasses, and touched them, the one to the other.

“To our war,” he said.

“To our war,” I said.

We drank.

“I cannot even pronounce your name,” I said.

“It will be sufficient,” he said, “to call me Zarendargar, which can be pronounced by human beings, or, if you like, even more simply, Half-Ear.”