I did not understand his meaning. Then the hair rose upon the back of my neck.
He had indicated time, by pointing to the sun, and days, by lifting his fingers.
He had now pointed to the sun, and lifted only the great, dry fist, obdurate, closed.
I then understood, in horror, suddenly, the meaning of his mission.
There were no more days left. It was the last day. It was a world’s last day.
“Surrender Gor,” had been the message to the Sardar, from the Kurii ships. It had been an ultimatum. The Priest Kings, of course, had been only puzzled; their response had been curiosity, inquiry; it had never occurred to them, rational creatures, what might be the enormity of the plan of Kurii. I sensed there might be different parties among them, creatures so menacing, so fierce, so aggressive, so proud, so imperialistic, so uncompromising, factional and belligerent. After the failure of the major probe in Torvaldsland, it seemed not unlikely a given party or tribe might have fallen from power. I did not think it would be desirable, among Kurii, to be among a party which had fallen from power. It seemed clear to me then that a new force had come to power among the enemies of the Sardar, one willing, if necessary, to sacrifice one world to gain another.
The Kur had held up a closed fist. There were no more days. I found myself struggling to keep up with the beast.
The slave runs had been stopped. Doubtless key operatives, particularly those, who spoke languages of Earth, had been evacuated from Gor. Others, ignorant of the horrifying, strategy of interplanetary warfare would remain. Even Ibn Saran, with all his brilliance, did not, I supposed, conjecture his role as dupe in this plan, precipitating tribal warfare, thus effectively, for almost all practical purposes, closing the desert to intruders, strangers, agents either of Priest-Kings or even of alternative Kurii parties. Kurii, I suspected, were as little united as men, for they, too, are jealous, proud, territorial beasts.
Gor, I understood, was to be destroyed. This would eliminate a world, but with it, Priest-Kings, and leave Earth unsheltered, vulnerable, to the attack fleets of the steel worlds. Better one world than none.
Though it was in the heat of the Tahari noon the beast did not pause. The Kur, like the great cats, hunts when hungry, but it is a beautifully night-adapted animal. Its night vision is perhaps a hundred times keener than that of humans.
It can see even by starlight. It would be blind only in total darkness, as in a brine pit at Klima. The pupils of its eyes, like those of the cat, can shrink to pinpoints and expand to wide, dark, light-sensitive moons, capable of minute discriminations in what to a human being would seem pitch darkness. The Kur, commonly, emerges from its lair with the falling of darkness. It is then that its nostrils distend and its ears lift, listening, and that it begins its hunt.
I had no doubt that the destruction of the world, as would seem fitting to a Kur, would occur with the coming of night. It is then that the Kur, commonly, chooses to hunt.
In the late afternoon the Kur cried out with rage. It stood on the crest of a dune, sand almost to its knees, sand sweeping about it. The wind had picked up.
I saw its fur blown.
The wind had shifted again to the east.
Within moments the storm fell. The Kur pressed on, through the pelting sand. The sky was dark. I held to the fur at its arm, fighting to keep my balance.
Suddenly the Kur stopped, and stood, leaning against the wind. I opened my eyes, and saw, briefly, before me, not more than a hundred yards away, in a fleeting gap in the storm, swiftly closed again by the hastened, stinging sand, crooked, leaning to one side, half buried in the sand, a cylinder of steel; it was perhaps twelve feet in diameter, perhaps forty feet of it exposed; at its apex I saw clustered thrust chambers; it was a ship; it had been crashed into the sand.
I felt the hand of the Kur close on my arm.
It is difficult to speak of what I then saw. The Kur, near me, removed his hand from my arm. With his right hand he took the ring on his left hand, that on his second finger, and turned the bezel inward, so that the silvered plate set in the gold faced inward. On the exposed side of the ring there was a circular switch, which he then depressed. For a moment in the sand, he seemed to shimmer and then I saw only the sand, the whipping, pelting sand. I was alone.
I knew then it hunted, in the vicinity of the tower. On my hands and knees I crawled a few yards in the direction of the ship. I saw it again, once, briefly, in a break in the storm. It seemed to me of primitive design. The thrust chambers suggested a liquid-propellant rocket. It was not disklike. I supposed it might have been an obsolete ship, perhaps a derelict, even an ancient ship, little more now than the fuselage for housing a bomb.
I shuddered when I thought of the power concealed in that casing of steel.
I wanted to run, into the storm, away from it. But I knew that nowhere on Gor would there be escape from that inert ship. “Beware the steel tower, “ had been written on the rock. It was a weapon, pressed to the temple of a world, set to be discharged with the falling of darkness.
I thought I heard, wild. Though it was hard to tell in the wind, the screams of men. Then I heard the howling of a Kur, and four sudden, swift explosions.
Then I heard only the wind.
I waited, for more than a quarter of an Ahn. Then I sensed it near me. The air shimmered. It stood unsteadily. The Kur was before me. Its, paws were red. In its left thigh was one, and across its chest, were three holes, three quarters of an inch in diameter. Its eyes could not focus. It turned it’s back to me. In its back, where the force had burst loose of its body, were holes corresponding to those in his leg and chest. I smelled burned flesh. A white smoke, tiny, in wisps, like the smoke of dry ice, rose from the holes, then was whipped away by the wind. The Kur sank to the sand. I knelt over it. It opened its eyes. They focused on me.
“Is it accomplished?” I asked. “Is the work done?”
With its bloodied paw the ring from its finger. It thrust it toward me. It was covered with blood, that I assumed of men it had slain. The circle of the ring was not made for a human finger. It was an inch and a quarter in diameter. It pressed the ring into my hands. With a bit of leather string, from the wrappings on my feet, I tied it about my neck.
The beast lay in the sand. It bled slowly. I suppose it had little blood to bleed. Too, the force that had penetrated its body had, apparently, searing, half-sealed the wounds it inflicted. It was as though a hot poker, chemically active, had been thrust through the body. The sand beneath the beast grew red. I took wrappings from my feet, to thrust into the wounds. The beast pushed me away. He lifted his arm to where the sun must be, could it be seen.
I stood unsteadily beside it. Then, I started for the ship, through the storm.
Beside the ship I found the remains of a shelter of stones and tarpaulins.
Scattered about were men. I did not think they were alive. I froze, as I saw, through the wind and sand, another Kur. It was armed. In its right paw it held a small device. It was hunched over, it peered through the storm.
I was startled that there would be a Kur at the ship. I think, too, the Kur with whom I had trekked had not anticipated this development. Kurii, no more than men, willfully commit themselves to destruction. Yet there was a Kur here, guarding the ship. I knew it would be a determined, desperate beast. It was willing to die, apparently, that the success of the plan of its superiors be fulfilled. I supposed many Kurii had competed for this honor. This Kur, of all, in the cruel selections of the steel ships, had survived. Kurii do not believe in immortality. They do believe, however, in glory. This Kur, of all, in the cruel selections of the steel ships, had survived. He would be the most dangerous of all. He turned toward me.
I saw the paw lift and I threw myself to the side. A large, square rock, near me, one of those which had held the tarpaulin, leaped upward, split in two, burnt black, and the slightest instant, almost simultaneous, afterward I heard the atmospheric concussion of the weapon.