"You can sing, Imnak," said Poalu.

"No," said Imnak, "I cannot sing."

"Someday," said Poalu, "you will sing in the feasting house."

"No," said Imnak, "I will not sing. I cannot sing."

"Imnak," she protested.

"Go back to the feasting house," he said.

She turned about, and returned to the feasting house. The feasting house, except for being larger, was much like the other dwellings in the permanent camp. It was half underground and double walled These two walls were of stone. Between them there were layers of peat, for insulation, which had been cut from the boglike tundra Hides too, were tied on the inside, from tabuk tents, affording additional protection from the cold. There was a smoke hole in the top of the house. One bent over to enter the low doorway The ceiling, supported by numerous poles. consisted of layers of grass and mud. There was the feasting house, and some ten or eleven dwellings in the camp. Although there were some fifteen hundred red hunters they generally lived in widely scattered small groups. In the summer there was a gathering for the great tabuk hunt, when the herd of Tancred crossed Ax Glacier and came to the tundra, but, even in the summer, later, the smaller groups, still pursuing tabuk, would scatter in their hunts, following the casual dispersal of the tabuk in their extended grazings. At the end of the summer these groups, loosely linked save in the spring or early summer, would make their ways back to their own camps. There were some forty of these camps, sometimes separated by journeys of several days. Imnak's camp was one of the more centrally located of the camps. In these camps the red hunters lived most of the year. They would leave them sometimes in the winter, when they needed more food, families individually going out on the pack ice to hunt sleen. Sleen were infrequent in the winter and there would not, often, be enough to sustain ten or twelve families in a given location. When game is scarce compensation can be sometimes achieved by reducing the size of the hunting group and extending the range of the hunt. In the winter, in particular, it is important for a family to have a good hunter.

Imnak looked out, over the water.

"Once, I thought I would make up a song," he said. "I wanted to sing. I wanted very much to sing. I thought I would make up a song. I wanted to sing about the world, and how beautiful it is. I wanted to sing about the great sea, the mountains, the lovely stars, the broad sky."

"Why did you not make up a song?" I asked.

"A voice," said Imnak, "seemed to say to me, 'How dare you make up a song? How dare you sing? I am the world. I am the great sea. I am the mountains, the lovely stars, the great sky! Do you think you can put us in your little song?' Then I was afraid, and fell down."

I looked at him.

"Since that day I have never tried to sing," said Imnak.

"It is not wrong to sing," I said.

"Who am I to make up a song?" asked Imnak. "I am only a little man. I am unimportant. I am no one. I am nothing."

I did not attempt to respond to him.

"All my songs would fail," he said.

"Perhaps not," I said. "At any rate, it is better to try to make a song and fail, than not to try to make a song. It is better to make a song and fail, than not to sing."

"I am too small," said Imnak. "I cannot sing. No song will sit on my shoulder. No little song comes to me and asks me to sing it."

"No song," I said, "can catch the sky. No song can encompass the mountains. Songs do hot catch the world. They are beside the world, like lovers, telling it how beautiful it is."

"I am unworthy," said Imnak. "I am nothing."

"Perhaps one day," I said, "you will hear a voice say inside you, 'I am the world. I am the great sea, I am the mountains. the lovely stars, the great sky. And I am Imnak, too! Tell me your song, Imnak, for I cannot sing without you. It is only through you, tiny insignificant Imnak, and others like you, that I can see myself and know how beautiful I am. It is only through you, my tiny, frail precious Imnak, and others like you, that I can lift my voice in song.'"

Imnak turned away from me. "I cannot sing," he said.

We heard laughter from the feasting house. I could see the stars now above the polar sea. It was thus already the polar dusk.

The remains of the great Hunjer whale lay beached on the shore, much of it already cut away, many bones, too, taken from it.

"The meat racks are full," I said, referring to the high racks here and there in the camp.

"Yes," said Imnak.

Two weeks ago, some ten to fifteen sleeps ago, by rare fortune, we had managed to harpoon a baleen whale, a bluish, white-spotted blunt fin. That two whales had been taken in one season was rare hunting, indeed. Sometimes two or three years pass without a whale being taken.

"It is good," said Imnak, looking at the meat racks. "It may be that this winter the families will not have to go out on the ice."

Ice hunting can be dangerous, of course. The terrain beneath you, in wind and tides, can shift and buckle, breaking apart.

The sun was low on the horizon. We heard more laughter from the feasting house.

The polar night is not absolutely dark, of course. The Gorean moons, and even the stars, provide some light, which light reflecting from the expanses of the snow and ice is more than adequate to make one's way about. Should cloud cover occur, of course, or there be a storm, this light is negated and one, remaining indoors, must content oneself with the sounds of wind in the darkness, and the occasional scratching of animals on the ice outside.

"I cannot remember the racks being so heavy with meat in my lifetime," said Imnak.

"It is little .wonder the people are so pleased in the feasting house," I said.

Besides the whales many sleen and fish had been taken. Too, the families, coming north, had dragged and carried what dried tabuk meat they could with them. Even the children carried meat. With them, too, they had brought eggs and berries, and many other things, spoils from the summer, though not all for the larder, such as horn and sinew, and bones and hides. They did not carry with them much grass for the boots or mosses for the wicks of lamps as these materials could be obtained readily somewhat inland of the permanent camps.

When the sun dipped beneath the horizon it would not be seen again for half a year. I would miss it.

"I think we have enough food for the winter," said Imnak. "When night falls we will have enough to eat."

I looked at the high meat racks, some with tiers, some twenty feet or more in height, to protect the meat from sleen, both those domesticated and the wild sleen that might prowl to the shores as the hunting, the leems hibernating, grew sparse inland. Wild snow sleen, particularly when hunger drives them to run in packs, can be quite dangerous.

"Even if we have enough food for the winter," I said, "if Karjuk does not come soon, I must hunt for him, even if it means going out on the ice in the darkness."

"Remain in the camp," said Imnak.

"You need, not come with me, my friend," I said.

"Do not be foolish, Tarl, who hunts with me," he said.

"You may stay with your friends." I said, "who now so please themselves in the feasting house."

"Do not think lightly of my people," he said, "that they are pleased to laugh and to look upon one another and tell stories and sing. Life is not always pleasant for them."

"Forgive me," I said.

"There is no one in the feasting house who is of my people, who is not a child," he said, "who has not lived through a season of bad hunting. The children do not yet know about bad hunting, we do not tell them."

I did know the red hunters were extremely permissive with their children, even among Goreans. They very seldom scolded them and would almost never strike a child. They protected them as they could. Soon enough the children would learn. Until that time let them be children.

"There is no one in the feasting house who is of my people, who is not a child," he said, "who has not seen people starve to death. Many times, too, it is not the fault of the people. There is sickness, or there is bad weather. Sometimes there is a storm and the snow hides the breathing holes of the sleen." He spoke very quietly. "Sometimes," he said, "there is an accident. Sometimes one's kayak is rent. Sometimes one falls. Sometimes the ice breaks." He looked at me. "No," he said, "do not think too lightly of my people. Let them laugh and be happy. Do not despise them that they are joyful that for once their meat racks are heavy."

"Forgive me, my friend," I said.

"It is done," he said.

"You are a great hunter," I said.

"I am a terrible hunter," he said. "But once I did slay six sleen in one day," he said. He grinned.

"Let us return to the feasting house," I said.

Together we returned to the feasting house.

21.

Arlene

"Let us put the lights out!" suggested Akko, happily.

This suggestion met with enthusiastic acclaim.

"What are they doing?" asked Thimble, or Barbara, who had been serving boiled meat to the hunters and their women.

"You will learn," I told her.

I, like the others, slipped from my garments. The slave beasts in the feasting house, Poalu, Arlene, Thimble, or Barbara, and Thistle, or Audrey, were already naked. The feasting house, because of its structure, the lamps and the heat of the many bodies within it, is quite warm. I have no way of knowing precisely what its temperature often was but I would have conjectured it would often have been in the eighties. The huts, and even the houses of ice sometimes built by the hunters in their journeys and hunts, can be quite comfortable, even when the weather outside may be dozens of degrees below zero. Often, however, in the night and near morning, the lamps extinguished, and the guests departed, it can become quite cold in such dwellings, often falling below the freezing point. Often, in the morning, one must break through a layer of ice in the drinking bucket. When the houses are cold, of course, the hunters are generally sleeping in their furs, together with their women. Because of the body heat of the companion it is much warmer to sleep with someone than to sleep alone. The furs, being impervious to the passage of air, of course, tend to trap the generated body heat. It is thus possible to sleep quite comfortably in a dwelling whose objective interior temperature may be well below freezing. Also, sleeping is usually done on a sleeping platform. This is raised above the floor level. The platform is warmer than the floor level of the dwelling, of course, because of the tendency of warm air to rise. A yard of height can make a difference of several degrees of temperature inside a typical dwelling of the red hunters. Although the red hunters can and do experience intense cold their lives, generally, are not made miserable by their climate They have intelligently adapted to it and are usually quite comfortable both indoors and outdoors. Also, it seems to me objectively true that they are less sensitive to cold than many other types of individual. For one thing they are generally short and heavy, a body configuration which tends to conserve heat; for another there are serological differences between them and even other red races of Gor; these serological differences, presumably selected for in the course of generations, doubtless play some role in their adaptation to cold. I think it is probably true, though it is difficult to tell, that a given degree of severe cold will not be as unpleasant to one who is a red hunter as it would be to someone who is not of that background or stock. Red hunters, for example, will often go about cheerfully stripped to the waist in weather in which many individuals of the south would find both a tunic and a cloak comfortable.

There were six lamps in the feasting house.

One after the other began to be extinguished. Imnak had his eye on Poalu. Arlene, Barbara and Audrey looked at one another, uneasily. "What is going on?" asked Barbara. "If they put out the last lamp, the room will be dark."

The last lamp was extinguished. I saw hide pulled over the smoke hole.

"Walk around!" called Akko, cheerfully. "Do not touch anyone! Change your places!"

I moved about. It was, after all, the culture of the red hunters.

Outside, objectively, it was rather dark. Also, the feasting house had no windows. It is harder to heat a building with windows, of course. Too, hides, from tents, were hung about the inside of the feasting house, supplying additional insulation and warmth. Light in the feasting house was supplied generally from lamps. These were now extinguished, and the smoke hole covered. It was quite dark within.

No one spoke while they moved around.

I heard Barbara whimper. She was frightened. There was nothing to be frightened about. It was only that someone, she would not know who, would find her, catch her and have her.

"Now" cried Akko. "Who can you catch?"

I heard women laugh, and move swiftly. Men groped about.

I felt my way around, as I could. I heard a woman cry out with pleasure, caught.

"Be quiet!" called Akko.

I heard a pair, struggling, near me. Then the woman was, as I determined by putting forth my hand, put down on her back, on the floor of the feasting house. She squirmed in the dirt, pushing futilely up against the aggressive male who pinioned her beneath him for his pleasure. He was surprised at her resistance, so he struck her, and then she was quiet, until, in a few minutes, she began to cry out with pleasure. I felt bondage strings on her throat. I did not know if it was Thimble or Thistle. In touching the hair I knew it was not Poalu, whose hair was bound high on her head, in the usual fashion of her people.

I heard more women caught. One brushed past me but I missed her in the darkness.

Suddenly a nude girl, fleeing, struck against me. "Oh," she cried. And my arms had closed about her. She was caught. She was helpless. I put her to the floor. She squirmed. I did not permit her struggles to be successful.

In a few moments her belly and haunches were writhing with pleasure which I had enforced upon her.

Then, helpless, she yielded.

When the lamp was relit I looked down into the face of Barbara.

I had known it was she, from the bondage strings on her throat, and the responses of her body.

"You make a slave yield well, Master," she said. "You make her yield totally, leaving her no dignity."

"Did you know it was I?" I asked.

She looked up at me. She lifted her lips to mine and kissed me. "I knew it the moment your arms closed on me, Master," she said.

I shrugged.

"I have been many times in your arms, Master," she said. "And no two men, I suspect, will seize and rape a slave identically."

"I suppose not," I said. I looked about. Many of the women were laughing, and the men, too. Poalu, I saw, was beside Imnak. I suspected they had cheated. Thistle, or Audrey, and Arlene looked at me, still held by the men who had caught them.

"Let us feast!" called Akko.

The lamps were relit. The women who had been caught by given men must now serve them.

In the hours that followed this game was played again, and again, five times in all, interrupted by feasting.

In the second and third round I caught women of the red hunters. In the fourth round I got my hand on Audrey's neck and threw her down to the floor. She was quite good. I spent a long time with her. In the fifth round, when the lamps were relit, it was Arlene who looked up at me from my arms.

"Greetings," I said to her, "former agent of my enemies.

"Greetings, Master," she said to me. "Did you know it was I?" I asked.

"Must a girl tell the truth?" she smiled.

"Yes," I said.

"Yes," she said. "I knew it was you, instantly."

"How could you know?" I asked.

"Do you think a girl does not know the touch of her master?" she smiled.