"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."
32
I Hold Converse With Zarendargar
"You see?" asked the beast, pointing upward, it seemed at a starry sky above our heads.
"Yes," I said. I did not recognize the patch of the heavens above us.
"That was our star," he said, "a yellow, medium-sized, slow-rotating star with a planetary system, one small enough to have sufficient longevity to nourish life, one large enough to have a suitable habitable zone."
"Not unlike Tor-tu-Gor, or Sol," I said. "the common star of Earth and Gor."
"Precisely," he said.
"Tell me of your world," I said.
"My worid is of steel," it said. It seemed bitter.
"Your old world," I said.
"I never saw it, of course," he said. "It was, of course, of a suitable size and distance from its star. It was small enough to permit the escape of hydrogen, large enough to retain oxygen. It was not so close to the star as to be a ball of scalding rock nor so far as to be a frozen spheroid."
"It maintained temperatures at which water could be in a liquid form."
"Yes," it said, "and the mechanisms, the atomic necessities, of chemical evolution were initiated, and the macromolecules and protocells, in time, were formed."
"Gases were exchanged, and the hydrogen-dominated atmosphere yielded to one in which free oxygen was a major component."
"It became green," it said.
"Life began its climb anew," I said.
"Out of the two billion years of the wars and the killings, and the eatings and the huntings, came my people," it said. "We were the triumph of evolution in all its heartless savagery," it said.
"And the doom of your world," I said.
"We do not speak of what happened," it said. It moved to the wall and, passing its paw before a switch, caused the projection on the ceiling to vanish. It turned then to look upon me. "Our world was very beautiful," it said. "We will have another."
"Perhaps not," I said.
"The human being cannot even kill with its teeth," it said.
I shrugged.
"But let us not quarrel," it said. "I am so pleased that you are here, and I am so fond of you."
"Out on the ice," I said, "we saw, or seemed to see, in the lights in the sky, your face."
Its lips drew back. "You did," it said.
'The lights are most normally seen in the fall and spring," I said, "near the time of the equinoxes."
"That is clever of you," it said.
"What we saw then," I said, "was artificially produced."
"Yes," it said, "but it is not unlike the natural phenomenon. It is produced by saturating the atmosphere with certain patterns of charged particles. These patterns may be arranged in given orders, to correspond to alphabetic characters, either in a Kur tongue or, say, in Gorean. The lights, apparently a natural phenomenon, are thus used as a signaling device to Kur groups and their human compatriots."
"Ingenious," I said.
"I permitted my visage to be depicted in the lights to honor you, and welcome you to the north," it said.
I nodded.
"Would you like another drink?" it asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Your complex," I said, "is doubtless impressive. Would you show me about it?"
"I can do so without leaving this room," it said. It then, turning various dials, illuminated what I had taken to be the darkened portholes, or some other sort of aperture, in the walls, which I now saw were recessed screens, coordinated with various, movable cameras, operated from the room. By means of these cameras, and the various screens, I was given to understand the immensity and intricacy of the complex. Some of the screens were over my head but, lifted to the poles, those above, I, clinging to the poles, could see well. The beast moved easily on the poles beside me.
"It is very impressive," I said.
"It is mostly automated," said the beast. "We have only two hundred humans here and some twenty of our people."