Chapter 33
I Leave The Complex

It was chilly in the low, steel room, one serving as a port to the outside ice.

Near the circular, heavy door, now closed, stood the white-pelted Kur, that which had rings in its ears, that which had accompanied Karjuk, the traitor to his people. It held a leather harness looped in its paw.

I donned the furs.

I was to be taken outside and there, some distance from the complex, out on the ice, slain. It would seem as though the sled sleen had turned upon me. If I was found, it would be conjectured that the death, violent though it might have been, was not one unnatural for the Gorean north. I would have been lost in the north, apparently lost in a fruitless, misguided venture, one ill-fated from the beginning, one in which nothing but a meaningless, bloody conclusion would have been encountered. If there were a search for me, or curiosity concerning me, it would terminate when the carcass, torn and frozen, was found.

No sleen would draw the sled, of course.

The beast looped the harness about me, and I stood, waiting, in the harness, before the sled.

Its teeth would be sufficient to mock the predations of a reverted, starving sleen upon my body. He must be sure, however, to leave enough to be found, some bones and furs, the broken sled, some chewed traces.

I was pleased to have met Zarendargar, or Half-Ear. We had talked long.

Strange that I could converse with him, for he was only a beast.

I think he regretted sending me out upon the ice, to be rent by the white Kur. Zarendargar, or Half-Ear, I think, was a lonely soldier, a true soldier, with few with whom he could speak, with few with whom he could share his thoughts. I suspect there were few, if any, in that steel complex, even of his own breed, with whom he could converse warmly, excitedly, swiftly, in detail, as he did with me, where a word might suggest a paragraph, a glance, a lifted paw signify what might with a less attuned interlocutor require hours of converse to convey. He seemed to think we were, in some sense, kindred, that despite alien evolutions, remote origins and diverse histories. How preposterous was that concept! One does not find one’s brother upon the shores of foreign worlds. “The same dark laws which have formed the teeth and claws of the Kur have formed the hand and brain of man,” had said Half-Ear. This seemed to me, however, quite unlikely. Surely the same noble, high laws which had formed the lofty brain and useful hand of man could not have been responsible for the, fangs and claws of the predatory Kur. We were men and they were beasts. Was that not clear to all?

I felt the leather of the sleen harness being drawn more tightly about me. It was cinched upon my body.

I thought of the melting of copper, the flame of sulphur, the structure of salt, of jagged Eros in its orbit, of the crags of Titan, of the interactions of compounds, the stirring of molecules, the movement of atoms, the trajectories of electrons. How formidable seem the implacable correlations. Perhaps what is alien to us is only ourselves in a different visage. Perhaps the other is not different but, ultimately, the same, When we seek the unknown is it ourselves for which we truly search?

Then I dismissed such foolish thoughts.

Surely it could not be that the dark rhythms and the brotherhoods of diverse chemistries could have combined to produce on an alien sphere those who were our brothers. He had spoken of convergent evolution. I had scoffed at this. One need only use one’s eyes to see the difference between a Kur and a man. We were men, they were beasts, no more. Yet I had not been unfond of Half-Ear. I had felt, in meeting him, that I had known him for a long time, and I felt that he had had similar feelings. It was strange. We were so different, and yet, somehow, not so unlike as one might think. Then I reminded myself again that I was a man, and he a beast, no more. How shamed I was that he should compare himself to me. How offensive I found his allegations!

One need only use one’s eyes to see how different we were!

How incredible it would he if one landed upon a foreign shore, a planet remote from our own, and found, emerging from its dark forests, shambling toward one, its eyes blazing, one’s brother.

The white Kur stepped back. I was harnessed to the sled.

Last night I had been locked in my cell. It had not been unpleasant, however. Half-Ear had seen to that. Delicate viands, and furs and wines had been placed In the cell for me. Too, two slave girls, in pleasure silk, perfumed and collared, had been thrust into the ccll for my use. I read the collar of each. The collar of each said, “I belong to Tarl Cabot.” They had knelt at my feet, weeping. But that night I had well taught them their slavery. In the morning, when the white Kur had come to fetch me, and I had left the cell, both Arlene and Constance had had to be beaten back from the gate with whips. Then they were locked behind me in the cell, They had thrust their arms through the bars, crying out, weeping. With whips they were driven back further in the cell. I saw them, beautiful, inside the bars. They were not permitted to touch them. “Master,” they wept. “Master!” They fell to their knees. “Master!” they cried. “Master! Master!” I turned and left the larger room, that in which the cell was located. I did not look back.

The white Kur reached to the lever which, rotated, would swing back the thick, circular steel hatch.

“Greetings, Tarl, who hunts with me,” said Imnak, grinning, entering the room.

“Greetings, Traitor,” I said.

“Do not be bitter, Tarl, who hunts with me,” said Imnak. “One must look out for one’s own best interest.”

I said nothing.

“I want you to know that I, and all the People,” he said, “will be forever grateful to you for having freed the tabuk.”

“That is a comforting thought,” I said.

“One in your position can probably use a comforting thought,” speculated Imnak.

“That is true,” I said. It was difficult to be angry with Imnak.

“I hold no hard feelings toward you,” said Imnak.

“That is a relief,” I said.

“I have brought you something to eat,” he said. He lifted up a sack.

“No thank you,” I said.

“But you may grow hungry before you reach your destination,” said Imnak.

“I do not think so,” I said.

“Perhaps then your companion,” said Imnak, indicating the Kur with his head, “might enjoy something to eat. You must not be selfish. You should think of him, too, you know.”

“I will not be likely to forget him,” I said.

“Take the food,” said Imnak.

“I do not want it,” I said.

Imnak looked stricken.

Suddenly I was startled. My heart leaped.

“Sleen like it,” said Imnak, hopefully.

“Let me see it,” I said. I looked into the sack. “Yes, I will take it,” I said.

The Kur came away from the lever which controlled the hatch to the outside. It smelled the sack and looked within. It handled the chunks of meat, large and thick, in the sack. It satisfied itself the sack contained no knives or weapon.

“It is for me,” I said to the Kur.

The lips of the Kur drew back. It took the sack and put it on the sled. It then went back to the lever and rotated it. The hatch opened slowly. I could see the darkness, the moonlit ice beyond. The temperature in the steel room, almost immediately, fell thirty or forty points in temperature. Wind whipped into the room, blowing the Kur’s fur, and Imnak’s black hair about his head.

“Tal,” said Imnak to me, not as though bidding me farewell, but as though greeting me.

“Tal,” said I to him.

The Kur took his place behind the sled. I leaned forward and, putting my weight against the traces, drew the sled over the steel plates and out onto the ice.