Then the sleen were outside, some twenty or thirty feet away, dark on the ice, though they were snow sleen. Some circled the shelter.
One sped toward the shelter and leaped upward but I managed to meet its charge with the lance point and it, its face bloodied, twisted, the lance through the side of the mouth, and I managed to deflect its charge to the side and it fell, snarling, slipping free of the lance, to the side of the shelter, Imnak thrust two others back.
Then it was quiet for a time.
"There are so many," said Arlene.
"It is a large pack," I said.
I could not well count the animals in the uncertain light and shadows, and with their dark minglings and changings of position, but it was clear that there were a large number of beasts there, probably more than fifty. Some sleen packs run as high as one hundred and twenty animals.
"I wish you well, Imnak," I said.
"Are you going somewhere?" he asked. "This is not a good time to do so."
"There are a great many sleen out there," I said.
"That is true," said Imnak.
"Are you not ready to die?" I asked him.
"Not me," he said. "Red hunters do not expect to die," he said. "They may die, but it always comes as a surprise to them."
I threw back my head and laughed like an idiot.
"Why do you laugh, Tarl, who hunts with me?" he asked.
"In the strait circumstances in which we now find ourselves immeshed, I gather," I said, "that you have no intention of dying."
"That is exactly it," he said. "You have hit it. That is not something I have planned on."
"Imnak," said Poalu, "does not fear the sleen of death."
"If he comes around me," said Imnak, "I will hitch him to my sled."
"I would be proud to die beside you, Imnak," I said.
"I am an even better fellow to live beside," said Imnak. "This is my view of the matter."
"I will accept that," I said.
I looked down into the eyes of Arlene.
"Is there no hope?" she asked.
"All is lost, I fear," I said. "I wish you were not here."
She put her head against my arm. She looked up at me. "I would rather be nowhere else than here," she said.
"I would rather be in the feasting house," said Imnak.
"All is not lost," said Poalu.
"Look," said Imnak.
I looked out, several feet across the ice. "No," I said, in repulsion.
"Do you wish to live?" asked Imnak.
"Yes," I said.
"Then we must do what is necessary to achieve that aim," he said.
I looked out, across the ice, understanding then the effectiveness, the hideous efficiency, of the sleen trap which Imnak had so swiftly constructed, the sleen pack nearing the shelter as he had worked.
One of the larger animals circled the meat on the knife twice and then, suddenly, bit at it, to tear it from the blade. He ripped the meat from the blade, making away with it, his jaws cut by the knife's edge. There was then hot fresh blood on the knife. Another sleen, frenzied with the smell, ribs protruding from its fur, racked with hunger, hurried to the knife, licking at the blood. As it did so, of course, the blade, anchored fixedly in the ice, cut its mouth, its lips and tongue. In the frenzy of its hunger the sleen, further stimulated by the newly shed blood, redoubled its efforts to lap it up. Another animal, larger, bit at it, and shouldered it from the blade, it then licking at the blood, unwittingly cutting itself, its mouth and tongue, as well. There was dark blood, frozen about the stained, exposed blade. One sleen attacked the first animal, which was profusely bleeding at the mouth. In a raging, vicious tangle of whirling fur and snapping jaws the two animals fought. One's throat was ripped open and, instantly, four or five dark shapes on the ice attacked the fallen animal, thrusting their heads, fangs tearing, feeding, into its belly. It squealed hideously. Other sleen tried to thrust into the orgy. Two or three scrambled literally onto the backs of the feeders, trying to push down between them. Other sleen ran to the knife. The blood on it, in the moment it had been left alone, had frozen on the steel. Two sleen fought to lick the frozen blood from the blade. Instantly as the blade cut their lips and tongue there was again hot, fresh blood on the steel. A sleen can kill itself in this manner, licking at the blade until it bleeds to death.
Arlene and Audrey looked away.
But no sleen that night bled to death, a victim of the simple, cruel trap, for there were too many animals present with too great a hunger to permit this to occur.
As a sleen weakened, or the stimulus of the blood became too great, other animals, tortured by their own hunger, attacked it.
In less than an Ahn Imnak, to my amazement, left the half-constructed shelter, and, walking among gorged sleen, and feeding sleen, and dead sleen, went to the drift and began to carry blocks back to the shelter.
In a moment I went to help him. We passed, literally, within feet of savage snow sleen, and scarcely did they notice us.
Some fifteen or twenty sleen had been killed, all by other sleen in the pack. The remaining sleen had fed on these. Some still fed, pulling and tearing at the bones and exposed ventral cavities and limbs of the fallen sleen.
Several of the animals, gorged with meat, curled in the snow, in a white coil, and slept.
Imnak added the new blocks to the snow shelter and, with his snow knife, cut those blocks he needed to finish the low, domed structure. It does not take long to construct such a shelter, if the snow is appropriate. I do not think he had worked longer, altogether, than some forty or fifty minutes on it. With the snow knife, on the outside, he trimmed and shaped the dwelling, and filled in the chinks with snow. Inside Poalu had relit the lamp and was already melting snow for drinking water and setting a pot to boil, hanging from the cooking rack, for meat.
27
The Face In The Sky; The Codes; Imnak Will Take First Watch
We pressed on, further northward.
It had been four sleeps now since we had left the first snow shelter, where we had been threatened by the sleen pack. Each sleep we had again constructed such a shelter.
The reversion frenzy of our sleen had passed quickly, even by the time the first shelter had been constructed, but we had left it tied, loosening its jaws only to feed it, because of the presence of the wild sleen in the vicinity. After our sleep in the first shelter we had reconnoitered. The majority of the sleen pack had departed, filled with meat. Imnak had retrieved his knife, it having claimed no more victims. Some five sleen had lingered in the vicinity, nosing about the fur and gnawed bones of the fallen members of the pack. From a distance they had eyed us, balefully.