[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
different parties among them, creatures so menacing, so fierce, so aggressive, so
proud, so imperialistic, so uncompromising, factional and belligerent. After the
failure of the major probe in Torvaldsland, it seemed not unlikely a given party or
tribe might have fallen from power. I did not think it would be desirable, among
Kurii, to be among a party which had fallen from power. It seemed clear to me
then that a new force had come to power among the enemies of the Sardar, one
willing, if necessary, to sacrifice one world to gain another.
The Kur had held up a closed fist. There were no more days. I found myself
struggling to keep up with the beast.
The slave runs had been stopped. Doubtless key operatives, particularly those,
who spoke languages of Earth, had been evacuated from Gor. Others, ignorant of
the horrifying, strategy of interplanetary warfare would remain. Even Ibn Saran,
with all his brilliance, did not, I supposed, conjecture his role as dupe in this plan,
precipitating tribal warfare, thus effectively, for almost all practical purposes,
closing the desert to intruders, strangers, agents either of Priest-Kings or even of
file:///F|/My%20Shared%20Folder/John%20Norm...%20Gor%2010%20-%20Tribesmen%20of%20Gor.html (273 of 353) [1/21/03 7:52:05 PM]
10 Tribesmen of Gor
alternative Kurii parties. Kurii, I suspected, were as little united as men, for they,
too, are jealous, proud, territorial beasts.
Gor, I understood, was to be destroyed. This would eliminate a world, but with it,
Priest-Kings, and leave Earth unsheltered, vulnerable, to the attack fleets of the
steel worlds. Better one world than none.
Though it was in the heat of the Tahari noon the beast did not pause. The Kur, like
the great cats, hunts when hungry, but it is a beautifully night-adapted animal. Its
night vision is perhaps a hundred times keener than that of humans. It can see even
by starlight. It would be blind only in total darkness, as in a brine pit at Klima. The
pupils of its eyes, like those of the cat, can shrink to pinpoints and expand to wide,
dark, light-sensitive moons, capable of minute discriminations in what to a human
being would seem pitch darkness. The Kur, commonly, emerges from its lair with
the falling of darkness. It is then that its nostrils distend and its ears lift, listening,
and that it begins its hunt. I had no doubt that the destruction of the world, as
would seem fitting to a Kur, would occur with the coming of night. It is then that
the Kur, commonly, chooses to hunt.
In the late afternoon the Kur cried out with rage. It stood on the crest of a dune,
sand almost to its knees, sand sweeping about it. The wind had picked up. I saw its
fur blown.
The wind had shifted again to the east.
Within moments the storm fell. The Kur pressed on, through the pelting sand. The
sky was dark. I held to the fur at its arm, fighting to keep my balance. Suddenly
the Kur stopped, and stood, leaning against the wind. I opened my eyes, and saw,
briefly, before me, not more than a hundred yards away, in a fleeting gap in the
storm, swiftly closed again by the hastened, stinging sand, crooked, leaning to one
side, half buried in the sand, a cylinder of steel; it was perhaps twelve feet in
diameter, perhaps forty feet of it exposed; at its apex I saw clustered thrust
chambers; it was a ship; it had been crashed into the sand.
I felt the hand of the Kur close on my arm.
It is difficult to speak of what I then saw. The Kur, near me, removed his hand
from my arm. With his right hand he took the ring on his left hand, that on his
second finger, and turned the bezel inward, so that the silvered plate set in the gold
faced inward. On the exposed side of the ring there was a circular switch, which
he then depressed. For a moment in the sand, he seemed to shimmer and then I
file:///F|/My%20Shared%20Folder/John%20Norm...%20Gor%2010%20-%20Tribesmen%20of%20Gor.html (274 of 353) [1/21/03 7:52:05 PM]
10 Tribesmen of Gor
saw only the sand, the whipping, pelting sand. I was alone.
I knew then it hunted, in the vicinity of the tower. On my hands and knees I
crawled a few yards in the direction of the ship. I saw it again, once, briefly, in a
break in the storm. It seemed to me of primitive design. The thrust chambers
suggested a liquid-propellant rocket. It was not disklike. I supposed it might have
been an obsolete ship, perhaps a derelict, even an ancient ship, little more now
than the fuselage for housing a bomb.
I shuddered when I thought of the power concealed in that casing of steel.
I wanted to run, into the storm, away from it. But I knew that nowhere on Gor
would there be escape from that inert ship. Beware the steel tower, had been
written on the rock. It was a weapon, pressed to the temple of a world, set to be
discharged with the falling of darkness.
I thought I heard, wild. Though it was hard to tell in the wind, the screams of men.
Then I heard the howling of a Kur, and four sudden, swift explosions.
Then I heard only the wind.
I waited, for more than a quarter of an Ahn. Then I sensed it near me. The air
shimmered. It stood unsteadily. The Kur was before me. Its, paws were red. In its
left thigh was one, and across its chest, were three holes, three quarters of an inch
in diameter. Its eyes could not focus. It turned it s back to me. In its back, where
the force had burst loose of its body, were holes corresponding to those in his leg
and chest. I smelled burned flesh. A white smoke, tiny, in wisps, like the smoke of
dry ice, rose from the holes, then was whipped away by the wind. The Kur sank to
the sand. I knelt over it. It opened its eyes. They focused on me.
Is it accomplished? I asked. Is the work done?
With its bloodied paw the ring from its finger. It thrust it toward me. It was
covered with blood, that I assumed of men it had slain. The circle of the ring was
not made for a human finger. It was an inch and a quarter in diameter. It pressed
the ring into my hands. With a bit of leather string, from the wrappings on my feet,
I tied it about my neck.
The beast lay in the sand. It bled slowly. I suppose it had little blood to bleed. Too,
the force that had penetrated its body had, apparently, searing, half-sealed the
wounds it inflicted. It was as though a hot poker, chemically active, had been
thrust through the body. The sand beneath the beast grew red. I took wrappings
from my feet, to thrust into the wounds. The beast pushed me away. He lifted his
file:///F|/My%20Shared%20Folder/John%20Norm...%20Gor%2010%20-%20Tribesmen%20of%20Gor.html (275 of 353) [1/21/03 7:52:05 PM]
10 Tribesmen of Gor
arm to where the sun must be, could it be seen.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]