I began to move down the tunnel. I heard Imnak behind me.
At the outer end of the tunnel, gently, I edged out the snow blocks which, for most practical purposes, closed the opening. One does not seal the shelter, of course; that can be extremely dangerous; it must be adequately ventilated, particularly when the lamp is lit. Air from the entrance, or another aperture, moving into or through the shelter and, warmed, rising, escaping at the smoke hole in the roof, supplies the required ventilation.
When I emerged from the opening I, knife in hand, looked cautiously about. A moment later Imnak, knife, too, in hand, straightening up, emerged beside me.
It seemed very calm.
The girls, too, Poalu first, and then Arlene and Audrey, crept out.
It was very quiet, and desolate, and cold.
The Northern Lights still spun and played in the sky.
Imnak and I, knives ready, the girls remaining at the hut, scouted the terrain in the immediate vicinity.
"I have found nothing," I told Imnak.
"Nor I," he said.
"There was something here," I said, "for we heard it outside."
"Did you find tracks?" asked Arlene.
"No," I said.
"The ice is hard," said Imnak.
"But it was here, something," I said.
"Yes," said Imnak.
"There seems to be nothing here now," I said.
"No," said Imnak.
I looked about again. "It is gone," I said. We sheathed our knives.
"Perhaps there was nothing here," said Arlene. "Perhaps It was only the ice and the wind."
"No," I said. "Something was here."
"Aiii!" cried Imnak, suddenly, pointing upward. Arlene screamed.
In the lights in the sky, in those shimmering, subtle, shifting streaks and curtains of light, mostly yellowish green, some hundreds of miles in height, clearly portrayed, though it was for a moment only, was the gigantic, hideous visage of a Kur.
Imnak stood in silence, looking at it, and I, too. Poalu did not speak. Audrey screamed, and turned away. Arlene stood beside me, clutching my arm.
There was no mistaking that towering face etched in the lights and the darkness. It was clearly that of a Kur. Its outline was shaggy. Its eyes seemed to blaze, as though fires burned behind them. Its nostrils were distended. Its mouth was fanged. Then its lips drew back, in the Kur's sign of anticipation, of pleasure, of amusement. Then its ears lay back against the side of its head. Then the visage faded and disappeared, the eyes last, as soon as it had come. Before the ears had lain back against the side of its head I had seen that one of them, the left, had been hail torn away. Then the lights themselves were gone, and we saw only the stars and the polar night over the desolate horizon.
"What was it?" asked Arlene.
"It was that which you had served," I told her.
"No, no!" she said.
"Surely it is a sign that we should turn back," said Poalu.
"No," said Imnak.
"Do you not think it is a sign?" she asked.
"I think it is a sign," he said.
"Then we must turn back!" she said.
"No," said Imnak.
"Is it not a sign that we must turn back?" she asked.
"I do not think so," he said.
"Then what is its meaning?" asked Poalu.
"Its meaning, I think," said Imnak, "is that it is too late to turn back."
"I think you are right, Imnak," I said.
I looked up at the sky. It was too late, indeed, to turn back. I smiled to myself. I had come, after long trekking, to the country of Zarendargar, to the brink of the camp of my enemy, to the brink of the camp of Half-Ear.
"I think, Imnak," I said, "that I am close to finding him whom I have sought."
"Perhaps, already, he has found you," said Imnak.
"Perhaps," I said. "It is hard to know."
"Let us flee, Master," wept Arlene.
"I am of the Warriors," I told her.
"But such things," she said, "control even the forces of nature."
"Perhaps so, perhaps not," I said. "I do not know,"
"Flee!" she said.
"I am of the Warriors," I said.
"But you may die," she said.
"That is acknowledged in the codes," I said.
"What are the codes?" she asked.
"They are nothing, and everything," I said. "They are a bit of noise, and the steel of the heart. They are meaningless, and all significant. They are the difference. Without the codes men would be Kurii."
"Kurii?" she asked.
"Beasts, such as ice beasts, and worse," I said. "Beasts such as the face you saw in the sky."
"You need not keep the codes," she said.
"I once betrayed my codes," I said. "It is not my intention to do so again." I looked at her. "One does not know, truly, what it is to stand, until one has fallen. Once one has fallen, then one knows, you see, what it is to stand."
"None would know if you betrayed the codes," she said.
"I would know," I said, "and I am of the Warriors."
"What is it to be a warrior?" she asked.
"It is to keep the codes," I said. "You may think that to be a warrior is to be large, or strong, and to be skilled with weapons, to have a blade at your hip, to know the grasp of the spear, to wear the scarlet, to know the fitting of the iron helm upon one's countenance, but these things are not truly needful; they are not, truly, what makes one man a warrior and another not. Many men are strong, and large, and skilled with weapons. Any man might, if he dared, don the scarlet and gird himself with weapons. Any man might place upon his brow the helm of iron. But it is not the scarlet, not the steel, not the helm of iron which makes the warrior."
She looked up at me.
"It is the codes," I said.
"Abandon your codes," she said.
"One does not speak to a slave of the codes," I said.
"Abandon them," she said.
"Kneel, Slave Girl," I said.
She looked at me, frightened, and swiftly knelt in the snow, in the moonlight, before me. She looked up at me. "Forgive me, Master," she said. "Please do not kill me!" She put her head to my feet, holding my booted ankles. "Please do not kill me," she said. "Forgive me! Let me placate you! Let me placate you!"
"Crawl to the shelter," I told her. She did so, head down, trembling, a terrified slave, one who had displeased her master.
I looked after her.
"Please do not kill her," begged Audrey, kneeling before me.
Imnak struck her to her side in the snow. "He will do what he pleases with her," he said.
"Yes, Master," said Audrey, his lovely, white-skiuned slave beast.
Audrey entered the hut after Arlene. Then Poalu, followed by Imnak, entered the hut.
I looked once more at the sky, at the long, shifting lights, and then went into the hut.
Inside, Arlene had already removed her furs and knelt obediently, her head down, near where I would sleep.
"A girl begs to please her master," she said.
"Very well," I said.
Soon my wrath towards her had dissipated. I simply could not sustain it. What a sweet and clever slave she was. Even had it been my intention to punish her, which it had not been, I think she might well have won her freedom from punishment by the diligent and incredible merits of her helpless slave service. A beautiful slave girl, of course, has no official or legal power. Yet it would be naive to underestimate the weight and influence of her beauty, her vulnerability and service. Her display and submission behaviors, and performances, surely influence to a considerable extent the treatment she is likely to receive at the hands of a master. The sexual placation of the dominant male by the submitting female is universal among primates. It is, thus, presumably genetically determined, or a function of genetic determinations, In the end, of course, the slave girl is ultimately without power. It is the master, in the end, who will decide what is to be done with her.