Savages of Gor (42 page)

"I am Pumpkin," he said. "Peace and light, and tranquility, and contentment and goodness be unto you."

"It was stalking you," I said, the kaiila moving uneasily beneath me.

"Sweetness be unto you," said the fellow.

"Did you not realize the danger in which you stood? I asked. "You could have been killed."

"It is fortunate, then, that you intervened," be said.

"Are you so brave," I asked, "that you faced the beast so calmly?"

"What is life? What is death?" he asked. "Both are unimportant."

I looked at the fellow, puzzled. Then I looked, too, to the others, standing about. I saw now they wore gray dresses, probably their only garments. The hems of these dresses fell between their knees and their ankles. Men, they appeared ungainly and foolish in these garments. Their shoulders were slumped. Their eyes were spiritless and empty. Rags were bound about their feet. I saw, however, to my interest, that two of them now held feathered lances.

I looked again to the fellow who had been most threatened by the beast.

"Sweetness be unto you," he said, smiling.

I saw then that he had not been brave. It had been only that he had little to live for. Indeed, I wondered if he had been courting destruction. He had not even raised his shovel to defend himself.

"Who are you?" I asked these fellows.

"We are joyful dung," said one of the fellows, "enriching and beautifying the earth."

"We are sparkles on the water, making the streams pretty," said another.

"We are flowers growing in the fields," said another.

"We are nice," said another.

"We are good," said another.

I then again regarded he who seemed to be foremost among them, he who had called himself Pumpkin.

"You are leader here?" I asked.

"No, no!" he said. "We are all the same. We are sames! We are not not-the-sames!" In this moment he had showed emotion, fear. He moved back, putting himself with the others.

I regarded them.

"We are all equal," he said. "We are all the same."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"We must be equal," he said. "It is the teaching."

"Is the teaching true?" I asked.

"Yes," said the man.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"It is the test of truth," he said.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"It is in the teaching," he said.

"Your teaching, then," I said, "is a circle, unsupported, floating in the air."

"The teaching does not need support," said the fellow. "It is in and of itself: It is a golden circle, self-sustained and eternal."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"It is in the teaching itself," said a fellow.

"What of your reason?" I asked. "Do you have any use for it?"

"Reason is very precious," said a fellow.

"Properly understood and employed it is fully compatible with the teaching, and, in its highest office, exists to serve the teaching."

"What, then, of the evidence of your senses?" I asked. "The senses are notoriously untrustworthy," said one of the fellows.

"What in the senses might seem to confirm the teaching may be kept," said one of them. "What might, mistakenly, seem incompatible with the teaching is to be disregarded."

"What arguments, or what sorts of evidence, if it could be produced," I asked, "might you take as indicating the falsity of the teaching?"

"Nothing is to be permitted to indicate the falsity of the teaching," said the fellow who had been foremost among them.

"That is in the teaching," explained another one of them.

"A teaching which cannot be disconfirmed cannot be confirmed, either," I said. "A teaching which cannot, even in theory, be disconfirmed is not true, but empty. If the world cannot speak to it, it does not speak of the world. It speaks of nothing. It is babble, twaddle as vacant as it is vain and inane."

"These are deep matters," said the fellow I had taken to be their leader. "As they are not in the teaching, we need not concern ourselves with them."

"Are you happy?" I asked. Verbal formulas, even vacuous ones, like music or medicine, I knew, might have empirical effects. So, too, of course, tight have truncheons and green fruit.

"Oh, yes," said the first fellow quickly. "We are wondrously happy."

"Yes," said several of the others.

"Sweetness be unto you," said another.

"You do not seem happy," I said. I had seldom seen a more tedious, bedraggled, limp set of organisms.

"We are happy," insisted one of them.

"True happiness," said another, "is keeping the Teaching."

I drew forth my blade, suddenly, and drew it back, as though to slash at the foremost fellow. He lifted his head and turned his neck toward me. "Peace, and light, and tranquility, and contentment and goodness, be unto you," he said.

"Interesting," I said, thrusting the blade back in my scabbard.

"Death holds few terrors for those who have never known life," said Grunt. -

"What is life? What is death?" asked the fellow. "Both are unimportant."

"If you do not know what they are," I said, "perhaps you should not prejudge the issue of theft importance."

I looked over to the two fellows who held the feathered lances. "Where did you find those lances?" I asked.

"In the grass," said one of them. "They were lost in the battle."

"Was it your intention to use them, to defend yourselves from the beast?" I asked.

"No," said the fellow. "Of course not."

"You would prefer to be eaten?" I asked.

"Resistance is not permitted," said the fellow.

"Fighting is against the teaching," said the other fellow, he with the second lance.

"We abhor violence," added another.

"You lifted the lances," I said. "What were you going to do with them?"

"We thought you might wish to fight the beast," said one. "Thusly, in that instance, we would have tendered you a lance."

"And for whom," I asked, "Was the second lance?"

"For the beast," said the fellow with the first lance.

"We would not have wanted to anger it," said the fellow with the second lance.

"You would let others do your fighting for you," I asked, "and you would have abided the outcome?"

"Yes," said the fellow with the first lance. "Not all of us are as noble and brave as Pumpkin."

"Who are these people?" I asked Grunt.

"They are Waniyanpi," said Grunt. "They have the values of cowards, and of idiots and vegetables."

The coffle, by now, had approached. I noted that none of the Waniyanpi lifted their eyes to assess the scantily clad loveliness of Grunt's chained properties.

I again regarded Pumpkin who seemed, despite his denial, first among them.

"To whom do you belong?" I asked.

"We belong to Kaiila," said Pumpkin.

"You are far from home," I said.

"Yes," said Pumpkin.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"We have been brought here to cleanse the field," he said. "We are to bury the dead and dismantle and burn the wagons, disposing likewise of similar debris."

"You must have been marched here long before the battle," I said.

"Yes," said Pumpkin.

"Did you see the battle?" I asked.

"No," said Pumpkin. "We were forced to lie on our stomachs, with our eyes closed, our limbs held as though bound, watched over by a boy."

"To guard you?" I asked.

"No, to protect us from animals," said Pumpkin.

"To the west," I said, "among the other wagons, there is a part of a body."

"We will find it," said Pumpkin.

"The field is mostly cleared," said Grunt. "There must have been other groups of Waniyanpi here, as well."

"That is true," said Pumpkin.

"Are they still about?" asked Grunt, nervously.

"I do not know," said Pumpkin. The object of Grunt's concern, potent as it was, did not occur to me at the time.

"How many of the large wagons, such as those to the west, were there?" I asked.

"Something over one hundred of them," said Pumpkin.

"How many of these smaller, squarish wagons, such as this one, were there?" I asked, indicating the remains of the nearest wagon, one of those, which had been with the mercenary column.

"Seventeen," said Pumpkin.

This information pleased me. There had been seventeen such wagons with the original column. They were, thus, all accounted for. The beasts, which had inhabited them, presumably one to a wagon, given the territoriality and irritability of the Kur, presumably would then have been afoot. Most then, presumably, might have been slain.

"How many graves have you, and the other Waniyanpi, dug?" I asked.

"Over one thousand," he said.

I whistled. The losses had been high, indeed.

"And you must understand," said Grunt, "the savages clear the field of their own dead."

For a moment I was stunned.

"It was a rout, and a massacre," said Grunt. "That much we learned from Corn Stalks."

"How many of the graves," I asked Pumpkin, "were those of settlers, those from the large wagons?"

"Something over four hundred," said Pumpkin. He looked back to the others for corroboration.

"Yes," said more than one.

"The settlers must have been wiped out, almost to a man," said Grunt.

I nodded. The first attack had presumably taken place there, on that part of the column. Too, they would have been less able, presumably, to defend themselves than the soldiers.

"Something in the neighborhood of six hundred soldiers then fell," said Grunt.

"Yes," said Pumpkin.

"Yes," said another of the fellows behind him.

"That is extremely interesting," I said to Grunt. "It would seem to follow that some four hundred of the soldiers escaped."

"That they did not fall on the field does not mean that they did not fall," said Grunt. "They may have been pursued and slain for pasangs across the prairie."

"The wagons seem to have been muchly looted," I said. "Our friends may have paused for plunder. Too, I do not know if their style of warfare is well fitted to attack a defensive column, orderly and rallied, on its guard."

Grunt shrugged. "I do not know," he said.

"Beasts," I said to Pumpkin, "such as that which threatened you, how many of them, if any, did you bury or find dead?"

"Nine," said Pumpkin. "We did not bury them, as they are not human."

I struck my thigh in frustration.

"Where are these bodies?" I asked. I wished to determine if Kog and Sardak were among the fallen.

"We do not know," said Pumpkin. "The Fleer put ropes on them and dragged them away, into the fields."

"I do not think they knew what else to do with them," said one of the fellows.

I was angry. I knew of one Kur who had survived, and now it seemed clear that as many as eight might have escaped from the savages. Indeed, many savages, for medicine reasons, might have been reluctant to attack them, as they did not appear to be beings of a sort with which they were familiar. What if they were from the medicine world? In such a case, surely, they were not to be attacked but, rather, venerated or propitiated. If Sardak had survived, I had little doubt he would continue, relentlessly, to prosecute his mission.

"Do you wish to know of survivors?" asked Pumpkin. "You seem interested."

"Yes," I said.

"Other than soldiers, and beasts, and such, who might have escaped?"

"Yes," I said.

"Some children were spared, young children," said Pumpkin. "They were tied together by the neck in small groups. There were four such groups. The Fleer took one group, consisting of six children. The other three groups, consisting of five children apiece, were taken by the Sleen, the Yellow Knives and Kailiauk."

"What of the Kaiila?" I asked.

"They did not take any of the children," said Pumpkin.

"The children were very fortunate," said one of the fellows before me.

"Yes," said another. "They will be taken to Waniyanpi camps, and raised as Waniyanpi."

"What a blessing for them!" said another.

"It is always best when the teaching can be given to the young," said another.

"Yes," said another. "It is the surest way to guarantee that they will always be Waniyanpi."

I wondered if the horrors and crimes perpetrated on one another by adults could ever match the cruelties inflicted on children. It seemed unlikely.

"There were some other survivors?" I asked.