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spite of our efforts and our kindness, did not manage to learn our ways of
peace and harmony."
The men of Torvaldsland seemed stunned.
I looked at the great axes in the hands of the two Kurii who accompanied the
speaker.
"Too often have we met in war and killing," said the speaker. "But, in this,
you, too, are much to blame. You have, cruelly, and without compunction,
hunted us and, when we sought comradeship with you as brothers, as fellow
rational creatures, you have sought to slay us."
"Kill them," muttered more than one man. "They are Kurrii."
"Even now," said the Kur, the skin drawing back from its fangs, "there are
those among you who wish our death, who urge our destruction."
The men were silent. The Kur had heard and understood their speech, though he
stood far from us, and above us, on the platform of the assembly, that
platform cut into the small, sloping hill over the assembly field. I admired
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the acuteness of its hearing.
Again the skin drew back from its fangs. I wondered if this were an attempt to
simulate a human smile. "It is in friendship that we come." It looked about.
"We are a simple, peaceful folk," it said, "interested in the pursuit of
agriculture.
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Svein Blue Tooth threw back his head and roared with laughter. I regarded him
then as a brave man.
Beside me, Ivar Forkbeard, too, laughed, and then others. I wondered if the
stomach or stomachs of the Kurii could digest vegetable food.
The assembly broke into laughter. It filled the field. The Kur did not seem
angry at the laughter. I wondered if it understood laughter. To the Kur it
might be only a human noise, as meaningless to him as the cries of whales to
us.
"You are amused," it said.
The Kurii, then, had some understanding of laugher Its own lips then drew
back, revealing the fangs. I then understood this clearly as a smile.
That the Kurii possessed a sense of humor did not much reassure me as to their
nature. I wondered rather at what sort of situations it would take as its
object. The cat, if rational, might find amusement in the twitching and
trembling of the mouse which it is destroying, particle by particle. That a
species laughs bespeaks its intelligence, its capacity to reason, not its
goodness, not its harrnlessness. Like a knife; reason is innocent; like a
knife, its application is a function of the hand that grasps it, the energies
and will which drive it.
"We were not always simple farmers," said the Kur. It opened its mouth, that
horrid orifice, lined with its double rows of white, heavy, curved fangs.
"No," it said, "once we were hunters, and our bodies still bear, as reminders,
the stains of our cruel past." It dropped its head. "We are by these," it
said, and then it lifted its right paw, suddenly exposing the claws, "and
these, reminded that we must be resolute in our attempts to overcome a
sometimes recalcitrant nature."
Then it regarded the assembly. "But you must not hold our past against us.
What is important is the present. What is important is not what we were, but
what we are, what we are striving to become. We now wish only to be simple
farmers, tilling the soil and leading lives of rustic tranquility."
The men of Torvaldsland looked at one another.
"How many of you have gathered?" asked Svein Blue Tooth again.
"As many," said the Kur, "as the stones on the beaches, as many as the needles
on the needle trees."
"What do you want?" he asked.
The Kur turned to the assembly. "It is our wish to traverse your country in a
march southward."
"It would be madness," said the Forkbeard to me, "to permit large numbers of
Kurii into our lands."
"We seek empty lands to the south, to farm," said the Kur. "We will take only
as much of your land as the width of our march, and for only as long as it
takes to pass.
"Your request seems reasonable," said Svein Blue Tooth. "We shall deliberate."
The Kur stepped back with the other Kurii. They spoke together in one of the
languages of the
Kurii, for there are, I understood, in the steel worlds, nations and races of
such beasts. I could hear little of what they said. I could detect, however,
that it more resembled the snarls and growling of larls than the converse of
rational creatures.
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"What crop," asked Ivar Forkbeard, who wore a hood, of the platform, "do the
Kurii most favor in their agricultural pursuits?"
I saw the ears of the Kur lie swiftly back against its head. Then it relaxed.
Its lips drew back from its fangs. "Sa-Tarna" it said.
The men in the field grunted their understanding. This was the staple crop in
Torvaldsland. It was a likely answer.
Ivar then spoke swiftly to one of his men.
"What will you pay us to cross our land?" asked one of the free men of
Torvaldsland.
"Let us negotiate such fees," said the beast, "when such negotiations are apt.
It then stepped back.
Various free men then rose to address the assembly. Some spoke for granting [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]