It moved a little and stopped, and moved a little, again, and stopped, again.
While it stopped there was almost no movement, save for the infrequent opening and closing of the eyes, large, and green, with their black, narrow, vertical pupils, better than two inches in height, and an occasional, small, agitated movement of the tail, white, whiplike, in the snow, betraying its excitement.
Then, more than two hundred yards away, as it lay eager, and trembling, and silken and white, almost flat in the snow, almost invisible, white on white, little more than its eyes and nostrils showing, it saw dark shapes moving about, shapes which stood out, clearly, even to its vision, at this distance, from the background, from the snow, which shapes, clearly, were the sources of the maddeningly exhilarating, irresistible odors, odors such that, in the month of Igon, they might drive such a beast mad. The smallest of contented, purring sounds escaped its great throat. It waited until none of the shapes was turned its way, and then it moved forward again, a little closer.
CHAPTER 19
“They are trussed like the vardas they are,” said one of the Heruls, stepping back.
“How,” asked Olar, “so tied, can we run at your stirrup, how, so tied, can we pull in the traces of the sledge?”
“It would be difficult,” said the leader of the Heruls, still mounted, as were four other Heruls. Two had dismounted to tie Olar and Varix.
“I do not understand,” said Varix.
“Break up the sledge, for firewood,” said the leader of the Heruls.
“I do not understand,” said Varix.
“It is not your bait trap, nor is it ours,” said the leader of the Heruls. “It will do for firewood.”
“You are cold?” asked Olar.
“Do you think we are beasts, to eat raw meat?” asked the leader of the Heruls.
“We have no kettles with us,” said one of the Heruls who was dismounted.
‘’Do you think we would run such as you for the dogs?’’ asked another, one who was mounted.
“No!” cried Olar.
“Why?” asked Varix.
“You did not fight,” said the leader of the Heruls.
“I can remember when Vandals fought,” said another.
“You are mounted, we are on foot!” said Olar.
“We are hungry,” said one of the dismounted Heruls.
“You will roast well,” said the other.
Olar and Varix, tied back to back, sitting in the snow, their ankles crossed and bound, struggled.
“Break up the sledge,” said the leader of the Heruls. He held his lance in his right hand, or, perhaps better, appendage. It was a multiply jointed, haired tentacle, now sheathed in a beaded, fringed, mittenlike fur sleeve. He had two such hands, or appendages, or tentacles, as did the others, an arrangement which tended to be common, given the selective advantages of paired, symmetrical structures. At the tip of each tentacle, recessed beneath a contractible callosity, there was a tiny anatomical feature, a small, caplike sensory organ. Its function has been likened to that of taste, and even to sight and smell, but these sensory modalities are available to the Heruls, and the Hageen, as, indeed, given their advantages, to millions of diverse species throughout the galaxies. To be sure, that two species have a sense of taste, or such, does not guarantee that their experiences are identical. Even in something as obvious as vision, it is not clear, for example, that the visual experiences of diverse species are identical, for example, with respect to what can be seen, and how it can be experienced. Similarly, it seems unlikely that the visual experiences of, say, insects and men are identical. And, too, the visual experiences of an organism which has eyes on the sides of its head may be rather different, in consciousness, than one which, say, has the eyes in the front of the head, permitting a binocular focus, and such. The visual experiences of a creature with eye stalks or seven eyes, placed at diverse places on the body, laterally, ventrally, dorsally, and such, may be different, as well. We shall not attempt to speculate on the specific nature of the sensory experience correlated with the small, protected, tentacular sensory organ of the Heruls. We ourselves have never had such an experience. To those who have had the experience, a verbal description would doubtless be superfluous. To those who have not had the experience a verbal description would doubtless be unilluminating, if not unintelligible. Figures of speech may or may not be helpful. There seems dispute on such a matter. For example, suppose that one lacked particular sensory modalities. Then, would it be helpful to say, really, for example, that the taste of an orange is like seeing the sun at midday, that the smell of wet grass is like the taste of wine, that the blare of a trumpet is like the heat of fire? But the function of the Herul organ, or one of its utilities, at least, is clearly recognition. It seems clear that, in some sense, it reads, or reacts to, on a cellular, or subcellular, level, with consequences in consciousness, the chemistry, if not the very hereditary coils, of an organism, in a very specific fashion. The organ, which is not vestigial, seems to antedate the development of other senses, such as sight and hearing, in the evolution of the Herul organism. It, or its predecessor, seems to have functioned in making determinations as to self-identity, and to what might be ingested and what not. It seems to have prevented, in the beginning, certain chemical macrocompounds from being self-destructive, for example, from predating on their own bodies, and to make determinations as to what might be absorbed profitably into their own systems and what not. To be sure, putting it in this fashion suggests a teleology. The compounds which, for example, were uninhibited in self-predation tended to perish, and those who found poisonous substances acceptable, or even attractive, for ingestion would be expected, too, statistically, over time, to fail to replicate their genes. Presumably the organ, too, as parthenogenesis came to be supplanted by sexual reproduction, was useful in identifying members of its own species, or type. Later, it doubtless functioned in mate identification, and recognition, for Herul conception, proceeding in stages, requires a considerable period. And later, too, as life forms developed, and tribalities became of selective advantage, it doubtless proved its value for group integrity and consolidation, much as might have a nest odor among certain social insects or a pack odor among social rodents. It may, too, have some sort of bonding effect among individuals. In any event, it is an interesting, and rare, organ, particularly among rational species. The butt of the lance, grasped in the right hand of the Herul, was sheathed in the right stirrup holster.
One of the two dismounted Heruls, in response to the leader’s injunction to break up the sledge, picked up the ax of Varix, which was in the snow.
In a moment he was before the sledge.
“Ota!” he said, an exclamation of surprise.
“What is it?” called the leader of the Heruls.
“There is something here,” he said.
“What?” called the leader.
“A body,” he said.
“It is dead?” said the leader.
“I think so,” said the Herul.
He gingerly pushed at the shape, lying within the ribs of the headless, half-eaten horse on the sledge.
“Yes,” said the Herul. “It does not move. It is dead.”
“There is a pelt on the sledge,” said the leader of the Heruls, referring to the folded, mottled pelt toward the back of the sledge.
“Doubtless it is that fellow’s bait trap,” said one of the mounted Heruls.
“What is he?” asked the leader of the Heruls.
“An Otung, I think,” said the Herul.
“Here?” asked the leader.
“It seems so,” said the Herul.
The leader of the Heruls and he closest to him exchanged glances.