"We sometimes do," he said. It looked at me. "Cooked meat weakens the jaws," it said.
"Fire, and cooked meat," I said, "makes possible a smaller jaw and smaller teeth, permitting less cranial musculature and permitting the development of a larger brain case."
"Our brain cases are larger than those of humans," it said. "Our anatomy could not well support a larger cranial development. In our history, as in yours, larger brain cases have been selected for."
"In what way?" I asked.
"In the killings," it said.
"The Kur is not a social animal?" I asked, "It is a social animal," it said. "But it is not as social as the human."
"That is perhaps a drawback to it as a species," I said.
"It has its advantages," it said. "The Kur can live alone. It can go its own way. It does not need its herd."
"Surely, in ancient times, Kurii came together," I said.
"Yes," it said, "in the matings, and the killings." It looked at me, chewing. "But that was long ago," it said. "We have had civilization for one hundred thousand years, as you would understand these things. In the dawn of our prehistory small bands emerged from the burrows and the caves and forests. It was a beginning."
"How can such an animal have a civilizatioit?" I asked.
"Discipline," it said.
"That is a slender thread with which to restrain such fierce, titanic instincts," I said.
The beast extended to me a thigh of the lart. "True," it said. "I see you understand us well."
I took the meat and chewed on it. It was fresh, warm, still porous with blood.
"You like it, do you not?" asked the beast.
"Yes," I said.
"You see," it said, "you are not so different from us."
"I have never claimed to be," I said.
"Is not civilization as great an achievement for your species as for mine?" it asked.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Are the threads on which your survival depends stouter than those on which ours depends?" it asked.
"Perhaps not," I said.
"I know little of humans," it said, "but it is my understanding that most of them are liars and hypocrites. I do not include you in this general charge."
I nodded.
"They think of themselves as civilized animals, and yet they are only animals with a civilization. There is quite a difference."
"Admittedly," I said.
"Those of Earth, as I understand it, which is your home world, are the most despicable. They are petty. They mistake weakness for virtue. They take their lack of appetite, their incapacity to feel, as a merit. How small they are. The more they betray their own nature the more they congratulate themselves on their perfection. And they put economic gain above all. Their greed and their fevered scratching repulses me."
"Not all on Earth are like that," I said.
"It is a food world," it said, "and the food is not of the best."
"What do you put above all?" tasked.
"Glory," it said. It looked at me. "Can you understand that?" it asked.
"I can understand it," I said.
"We are soldiers," it said, "the two of us."
"How is it that an animal without strong social instincts can be concerned with glory?" I asked.
"It emerges, we speculate, from the killings."
"The killings?" I asked.
"Even before the first groups," it said, "we would gather for the matings and killings. Great circles, rings of our people, would form in valleys, to watch."
"You fought for mates?" I asked.
"We fought for the joy of killing," it said. "Mating, however, was a prerogative of the victor." It took a rib bone from the lart and began to thrust it, scraping, between its fangs, freeing and removing bits of wedged meat. "Humans, as I understand it, have two sexes, which, among them, perform all the functions pertinent to the continuance of the species.
"Yes," I said, "that is true."
"We have three, or, if you prefer, four sexes," it said. "There is the dominant, which would, I suppose, correspond most closely to the human male. It is the instinct of the dominant to enter the killings and mate. There is then a form of Kur which closely resembles the dominant but does not join in the killings or mate. You may, or may not, regard this as two sexes. There is then the egg-carrier who is impregnated. This form of Kur is smaller than the dominant or the non-dominant, speaking thusly of the nonreproducing form of Kur."
"The egg-earner is the female," I said.
"If you like," said the beast, "but, shortly after impregnation, within a moon, the egg-carrier deposits the fertilized seed in the third form of Kur, which is mouthed, but sluggish and immobile. These fasten themselves to hard surfaces, rather like dark, globular anemones. The egg develops inside the body of the blood-nurser and, some months later, it tears its way free."
"It has no mother," I said.
"Not in the human sense," it said. "It will, however, usually follow, unless it itself is a blood-nurser, which is drawn out, the first Kur it sees, providing it is either an egg-carrier or a nondominant."
"What if it sees a dominant?" I asked.
"If it is itself an egg-carrier or a nondominant, it will shun the dominant," it said. "This is not unwise, for the dominant may kill it."
"What if it itself is potentially a dominant?" I asked.
The lips of the beast drew back. "That is what all hope," it said. "If it is a dominant and it encounters a dominant, it will bare its tiny fangs and expose its claws."
"Will the dominant not kill it then?" I asked.
"Perhaps later in the killings, when it is large and strong," he said, "but certainly not when it is small. It is on such that the continuance of the species depends. You see, it must be tested in the killings."
"Are you a dominant?" I asked.
"Of course," it said. Then it added, "I shall not kill you for the question."
"I meant no harm," I said.
Its lips drew back.
"Are most Kurii dominants?" I asked.
"Most are born dominants," it said, "but most do not survive the killings."
"It seems surprising that there are many Kurii," I said.
"Not at all," he said. "The egg-carriers can be frequently impregnated and frequently deposit the fertilized egg in a blood-nurser. There are large numbers of blood-nursers. In the human species it takes several months for a female to carry and deliver an offspring. In the same amount of time a Kur egg-carrier will develop seven to eight eggs, each of which may be fertilized and deposited in a blood-nurser."
"Do Kur young not drink milk?" I asked.
"The young receive blood in the nurser," he said, "When it is born it does not need milk, but water and common protein."
"It is born fanged?" I asked.
"Of course," it said. "And it is capable of stalking and killing small animals shortly after it leaves the nurser."
"Are the nursers rational?" I asked.
"We do not think so," it said.
"Can they feel anything?" I asked.
"They doubtless have some form of sensation," it said. "They recoil when struck or burned."
"But there are native Kurii on Gor," I said, "or, at any rate, Kurii who have reproduced themselves on this world."
"Certain ships, some of them originally intended for colonization, carried representatives of our various sexes, with the exception of the nondominants," it said. "We have also, where we knew of Kurii groups, sometimes managed to bring in egg-carriers and blood-nursers."
"It is to your advantage that there be native Kurii," I said.
"Of course," he said, "yet they are seldom useful allies. They lapse too swiftly into barbarism." He lowered the bone with which he was picking his teeth and threw it, and the remains of the lart, to the side of the room. He then took a soft, white cloth from a drawer in the table on which the translator reposed, and wiped his paws. "Civilization is fragile," he said.