We had left the shelter and trekked northward, our sleen again in its traces. The five sleen had drifted with us, some half pasang or so away. We saw them from time to time. Their presence no longer excited our own sleen, as it had now passed through its reversion frenzy.
"What lazy animals those sleen are," said Imnak. "They are not even really hungry, but they are keeping us in mind. They should be out hunting snow bosk, or basking sea sleen, or burrowing and scratching inland for hibernating leems."
"I suppose you are right," I said.
"But look at them," he said, righteously. "There they are, right there. They should be ashamed of themselves."
"Yes," I said, "they certainly should."
"No self-respecting sleen follows a man like that," he said.
"You are quite possibly correct," I granted him. Though sleen were not fastidious, men were surely not their preferred prey.
"But there they are," said Imnak.
"They certainly are," I said.
"We must teach those lazy, greedy fellows a lesson," he said.
"I doubt if we could get close enough to them to harm them," I said. "When they become sufficiently hungry, then they will come in."
"But then they will be extremely dangerous," said Imnak. "And there are five of them."
"True," I said. It did not seem likely that we could sustain the attack of five snow sleen without a shelter. Instinctively such animals, when in packs, tend to circle and attack simultaneously from different directions. The shelter, incidentally, tends to confuse them. It is not a shape which releases their normal attack behaviors. The best that we could do, presumably, if caught in the open, would be to fight back to back, the girls, low, at our feet. Even then they might be dragged away from us. Our best chance, presumably, would be to have pack ice behind us.
Before we had slept that night, and after Imnak had constructed our shelter, he removed from the supplies several strips of supple baleen, whale bone, taken from the baleen whale, the bluish blunt fin, which we had killed before taking the black Hunjer whale. He had brought this with him from the permanent camp. Why I had not understood.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
He worked in the light of the lamp.
"Watch," he said.
He took a long strip of baleen, about fifteen inches in length, and, with his knife, sharpened both ends, wickedly sharp. He then, carefully, folded the baleen together, with S-type folds. Its suppleness permitted this, but it was undet great tension, of course, to spring straight again, resuming its original shape. He then tied the baleen, tensed as it was, together with some stout tabuk sinew. The sinew, of. course, held the baleen together, in effect fastening a stout spring into a powerfully compressed position. If the sinew should break I would not have wished to be near that fierce, compressed, stout strip of sharpened baleen.
"Put it away," I said to Imnak.
Imnak made several of these objects. He then inserted them into several pieces of meat, one in each piece of meat.
He threw one of these pieces of meat, containing the compressed baleen, outside the shelter.
"Now, let us sleep," he said.
"It is a horrifying thing you are doing, Imnak," I said to him.
"Do you wish to live?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Then do not object," he said. "It is us or it is the sleen."
I lay awake for a long time. Then, suddenly, piercing, horrifying, I heard the cry of the animal. The sinew had dissolved in its stomach.
"What is it?" cried Arlene.
"It is nothing," I told her.
I then slept.
We pressed on, further northward.
No sleen now followed us. The first of the five sleen had been killed two sleeps ago, outside one of the shelters as it had prowled about. It had been eaten by the other four. Two of those animals, apparently satisfied with the meat, had then left our trail, turning their attention elsewhere. Two others had continued to follow us. Yesterday, one sleep ago, when we had begun to trek, Imnak had cast behind the sled, in our tracks, another of his pieces of meat, containing the compressed baleen. The more aggressive of the two animals which had been following us was the first upon the meat. It died an Ahn later, while still following us. The other animal, more timid, crouched beside it. It waited until the first animal no longer moved, before it began to feed. After we had awakened after our most recent sleep and hitched the sleen to the sled Imnak had thrown out yet another of the cruel pieces of meat. Some hours later, when we heard the startled pain squeal of the mortally wounded beast, Imnak turned about in his tracks.
"Hurry!" he said. "It is meat!"
When we reached the animal it lay on the ice, Its eyes open, not moving. Its pain must have been excruciating. It did not resist our lances.
"We will now make a shelter," said Imnak.
Once again, as he had before, he found a suitable drift of snow and began to cut blocks. We may call this type of shelter an igloo, or iglu, I suppose, for that is the word, an Innuit word actually, by which we would think of it. Yet in the language of the Innuit, or of the People, the word 'igloo' or 'iglu' designates more generally a dwelling or house. For example, it is not necessary for an igloo to be made from snow or ice. Imnak's half-underground hut, or house, at the permanent camp, for example, was also called an igloo.
Soon Imnak had completed the shelter and he had then come outside, to stand with me. Within the girls were preparing supper.
"We are now free of sleen," I told him.
"It is unlikely that sleen, new sleen, would come this far out on the ice," he said.
"We have then little to fear from them," I said.
"This is, however," said Imnak, "the country of the ice beasts."
"I have not seen any," I said, "not for several sleeps."
Imnak and I had both, several sleeps ago, caught glimpses of an ice beast. We had not seen it, however, since the great storm.
"Let us go inside," said Imnak. "The night is going to be cool."
I smiled to myself. Surely the temperature was at least sixty below zero.
I looked up at the sky, at streaks and curtains of light, mostly yellowish green, hundreds of miles in height. This is an atmospheric phenomenon, caused by electrically charged particles from the sun bombarding the upper atmosphere. It was unusual for it to occur at this time of year. The autumnal and vernal equinox times are the most frequent times of occurrence. In different light conditions these curtains and streaks can appear violet or red or orange depending on their height. This silent storm of charged particles, flung from millions of miles across space, raining upon an atmosphere, was very beautiful. On Earth this type of phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the Northern Lights or the Aurora Borealis. It occurs also, of course, in the south, in the vicinity of the southern polar circle.
I called Arlene out, and she came out, followed by Audrey. We stood for a time, quietly, watching the lights. Then I indicated that they should return inside the shelter.
Later, some Ahn later, Arlene lay within my arms. "It was very beautiful," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"The night is so still outside," she said. "How beautiful the north can be."
"Yes," I said. It was very quiet, very still, very calm, very peaceful.
"What is that?" she asked, suddenly.
"Imnak," I said, calling him.
"I hear it," he said.
We listened, carefully. For a time we heard nothing. Then, after a time, we heard the snow and ice crunch outside. Something was outside.
"Is it a sleen?" I asked.
"Listen," he said.
After a time Arlene asked, "Is it a sleen?"