Savages of Gor (5 page)

Kog snapped off the translator and turned to Sardak. They conversed for a moment in their own tongue. Kog then snapped the translator back on. This time, almost instantly, the small, conical red light began to glow.

"It is sufficient," said Kog.

Samos stepped back a bit.

Kog turned away, then, to a leather tube and, with his large, furred, tentacle like digits, with their blunted claws, removed the cap from this tube.

I suspected that the two creatures did not believe Samos when he protested to them that he could speak only on behalf of himself. At the least they would be certain that he would be significantly involved in the affairs of Priest-Kings. They would seem to have little alternative, then, to dealing with him.

From the long, leather tube, Kog removed what appeared to be a large piece of closely rolled, soft-tanned hide. It was very light in color, almost white, and tied with string. There was a slight smell of smoke about it, probably from the smoke of the turl bush. Such hides may be waterproofed by suspending them from, and wrapping them about, a small tripod of sticks, this set over a small fire on which, to produce the desiderated smoke, the leaves and branches of the turl bush are heavily strewn.

Kog placed the roll of hide on the table. It was not rawhide, but soft-tanned hide, as I have suggested. In preparing rawhide the skin, suitably fleshed, is pegged down and dried in the wind and sun. The hide may then, without further ado, be worked and cut. This product, crude and tough, may be used for such things as shields, cases and ropes. Softening a hide, on the other hand, is a much more arduous task. In soft tanning, the fleshed hide must be saturated with fats, and with oils and grease, usually from the brains of animals. These are rubbed into the hide, and worked into it, usually with a soft flat stone. The hide is then sprinkled with warm water and tightly rolled, after which it is put aside, away from the sun and heat, for a few days. This gives the time necessary for the softening ingredients, such as the fats and oils, to fully penetrate the leather. The skin is then unrolled and by rubbing, kneading and stretching, hand-softened over a period of hours. The resulting product ranges from tan to creamy white, and may be worked and cut as easily as cloth.

"You are familiar, are you not," asked Kog, with one known as Zarendargar?"

"Who is Zarendargar?" asked Samos.

"Let us not waste one another's time, said Kog.

Samos turned white.

I was pleased that, outside, on the platform of this anterior building of the tarn complex, there were several guards. They were armed with crossbows. The iron bolts of these devices, weighing about a pound apiece, were capable of sinking some four inches into solid wood at a range of some twenty yards. To be sure, by the time the guards might be summoned into the building Samos and I might be half eaten.

Kog looked closely at Samos.

"Zarendargar," said Samos, "is a well-known commander of the steel worlds, a war general. He perished in the destruction of a supply complex in the arctic."

"Zarendargar is alive," said Kog.

I was startled by this pronouncement. This seemed to me impossible. The destruction of the complex had been complete. I had witnessed this from pasangs across the ice in the arctic night. The complex would have been transformed into a radioactive inferno. Even the icy seas about it, in moments, had churned and boiled.

"Zarendargar cannot be alive," I said. It was the first time I had spoken to the beasts. Perhaps I should not have but I had been in the vicinity of the event in question. I had seen the explosion. I had, even from afar, been half blinded by the light, and, moments later, half staggered by the sound, the blast and heat. The shape, height and awesomeness of that towering, expanding cloud was not something I would ever forget. "Nothing could have lived in that blast," I said. "Nor in the seas about it."

Kog looked at me.

"I was there," I said.

"We know," said Kog.

"Zarendargar is dead," I said.

Kog then unrolled the hide on the table. He arranged it so that Samos and I could easily see it. The hair rose up on the back of my neck.

"Are you familiar with this sort of thing?" asked Kog of Samos.

"No," said Samos.

"I have seen things like it," I said, "but only far away, on another world. I have seen things like it in places called museums. Such things are no longer done."

"Does the skin seem to you old," asked Kog, "faded, brittle, cracked, worn, thin, fragile?"

"No," I said.

"Consider the colors," said Kog. "Do they seem old to you? Do they seem faded to you?"

"No," I said. "They are bright, and fresh."

"Analysis, in virtue of desiccation index and molecular: disarrangement, suggests that this material, and its applied I pigments, are less than two years old. This hypothesis is corroborated by correlation data, in which this skin was compared to samples whose dating is known and independent historical evidence, the nature of which should be readily apparent."

"Yes," I said. I knew that such beasts, on the steel worlds, possessed an advanced technology. I had little doubt but what their physical and chemical techniques were quite adequate to supply the dating in question to the skin and its paints. Too, of course, the nature of their historical evidence would be quite clear. To be sure, it would be historical data at their disposal, and not mine. I had no way of knowing the pertinent facts. That such beasts, on this world, carried primitive weapons was a tribute to their fear of Priest-Kings. Carrying such weapons they might be mistaken for beasts of their race who now, for all practical purposes, were native to Gor, beasts descended from individuals perhaps long ago marooned or stranded on the planet. Priest- Kings, on the,' whole, tend to ignore such beasts. They are permitted to live, as they will, where they may, on Gor, following even their ancient laws and customs, providing these do not violate the Weapons Laws and Technology Restrictions. To be sure, such beasts usually, once separated from the discipline of the ships, in a generation or two, lapsed into barbarism. On the: whole they tended to occupy portions of Gor not inhabited by human beings. The Priest-Kings care for their world, but their primary interest is in its subsurface, not its surface. For most practical purposes life goes on on Gor much as though they did not exist. To be sure, they are concerned to maintain the natural ecosystems of the planet. They are wise, but even they hesitate to tamper with precise and subtle systems, which have taken over four billion years to develop. Who knows what course a dislodged molecule may take in a thousand years?

I looked at Kog and Sardak. Such creatures, perhaps thousands of years ago, had, it seemed, destroyed their own world. They now wanted another. The Priest-Kings, lofty and golden, remote, inoffensive and tolerant, were all, for most practical purposes, that stood between the Kogs and Sardaks, and the Earth and Gor.

"This is," said Kog, to Samos, "a story skin."

"I understand," said Samos.

"It is an artifact of the red savages," said Kog, "from one of the tribes in the Barrens."

"Yes," said Samos.

The Red Savages, as they are commonly called on Gor, are racially and culturally distinct from the Red Hunters of the north. They tend to be a more slender, longer-limbed people; their daughters menstruate earlier; and their babies are not born with a blue spot at the base of the spine, as in the case with most of the red hunters. Their culture tends to be nomadic, and is based on the herbivorous, lofty kaiila, substantially the same animal as is found in the Tahari, save for the wider footpads of the Tahari beast, suitable for negotiating deep sand, and the lumbering, gregarious, short-tempered, trident-homed kailiauk. To be sure, some tribes do not have the kaiila, never having mastered it, and certain tribes have mastered the tam, which tribes are the most dangerous of all.

Although there are numerous physical and cultural differences among these people they are usually collectively referred to as the red savages. This is presumably a function of so little being known about them, as a whole, and the cunning, ruthlessness and ferocity of so many of the tribes. They seem to live for hunting and internecine warfare, which seems to serve almost as a sport and a religion for them. Interestingly enough most of these tribes seem to be united only by a hatred of whites, which hatred, invariably, in a time of emergency or crisis, takes precedence over all customary con- and rivalries. To attack whites, intruding into their lands, once the war lance has been lifted, even long-term blood enemies will ride side by side. The gathering of tribes, friends and foes alike, for such a battle is said to be a splendid sight. These things are in virtue of what, among these peoples, is called the Memory.

"The story begins here," said Kog, indicating the center of the skin. From this point there was initiated, in a slow spiral, to be followed by turning the skin, a series of drawings and pictographs. As the skin is turned each marking on it is at the center of attention, first, of course, of the artist, and, later, he follows the trail, of the viewer. The story, then, unanticipated, each event as real as any other, unfolds as it was lived.

"In many respects," said Kog, "this story is not untypical. These signs indicate a tribal camp. Because of the small number of lodges, this is a winter camp. We can also tell this from these dots, which represent snow."

I looked at the drawings. They were exactly, and colorfully done. They were, on the whole, small, and precise and delicate, like miniatures. The man who had applied the pigment to that hide canvas had been both patient and skillful. Too, he had been very careful. This care is often a feature of such works. To speak the truth is very important to the red savages.

"This jagged line," said Kog, "indicates that there is hung in the camp, the sawing feeling in the stomach. This man, whom we take to be the artist, and whom we shall call Two Feathers, because of the two feathers drawn near him, puts on snowshoes and leaves the camp. He takes with him a bow and arrows."

I watched Kog slowly turn the skin. The drawings are first traced on the skin with a sharp stick. Many of them are then outlined in black. The interior areas, thusly blocked out, may then be colored in. The primary pigments used were yellows, reds, browns and blacks. These are primarily obtained from powdered earths, clays and boiled roots. Blues can be obtained from blue mud, gant droppings and boiled rotten wood. Greens can be obtained from a variety of sources, in- earths, boiled rotten wood, copper ores and pond algae. The pigments, commonly mixed with hot water or glue, are usually applied by a chewed stick or a small brush, or pen, of porous bone, usually cut from the edge of the kailliauk's shoulder blade or the end of its hip bone. Both of these bones contain honeycombed structures useful in the smooth application of paint.

"This man travels for two days," said Kog, pointing to two yellow suns in the sky of the hide. "On the third day he finds the track of a kailiauk. He follows this. He drinks melted snow, held in his mouth until it is warm. He eats dried meat. On the third day be builds no fire. We may gather from this he is now in the country of enemies. Toward the evening of the fourth day be sees more tracks. There are other hunters, mounted on kaiila, who, too, are following the kailiauk. It is difficult to determine their number, for they ride single file, that the prints of one beast may obscure and obliterate those of another. His heart is now heavy. Should he turn back? He does not know what to do. He must dream on the matter."

"Surely," said Samos, "it could be only a coincidence."

"I do not think so," said Kog.

"This hide," said Samos, "could be nothing but the product of the crazed imagination of an ignorant savage. It might, too, be nothing more than the account of a strange dream."

"The organization and clarity of the account suggests rationality," said Kog.

"It is only the story of a dream," said Samos.

"Perhaps," said Kog.

"Such people do not distinguish clearly between dreams and reality," said Samos.

"They distinguish clearly between them," said Kog. "It is only that they regard both as real."

"Please, continue," I said.

"Here, in the dream," said Kog, indicating a series of pictographs which followed a small spiral line, "we see that the kailiauk invites the man to a feast. This is presumably a favorable sign. At the feast, however, in the lodge of the kailliauk there is a dark guest. His lineaments are obscure, as you can see. The man is afraid. He senses great power in this dark guest. The kailiauk, however, tells the man not to be afraid. The man takes meat from the hands of the dark guest. It will be his ally and protector, the kailiauk tells him. He may take it for his medicine. The man awakens. He is very frightened. He is afraid of this strange medicine. The dream is strong, however, and he knows it cannot be repudiated. Henceforth he knows his medicine helper is the mysterious dark guest."

"From where," asked Samos, "does this man think he obtained this medicine helper?"

"Surely the man will think he obtained it from the medicine world," said Kog.

"It seems an interesting anticipatory dream," I said.

"Surely the dream is ambiguous," said Samos. "See? The lineaments of the dark guest are unclear."

"True," I said. "Yet something of its size, and of its awesomeness, and force, particularly within a lodge, as evident."