Imnak.
'But you did not leave the complex,' I said.
'I was waiting for you,' he said. 'And for Karjuk.'
'Karjuk?' I said. 'He is an ally of the Kurii.'
'How can that be?' asked Imnak. 'He is of the People.'
'We have failed to find the destructive device,' I said to Imnak. 'I think it is in the chamber of Zarendargar, the high Kur in the complex, but it does not matter now,' I said. 'Nothing matters any longer. All is lost'
'Do not forget Karjuk,' said Imnak. I looked at him.
'He is of the People,' Imnak reminded me.
'Where did you find this new slave?' asked Arlene of me, not too pleasantly, regarding the slim, beautiful girl I had brought with me.
'I am not a slave, Slave,' said the pale, aristocratic, black-haired girl.
Arlene looked at me, frightened.
'She is not yet a legal slave,' I told Arlene, 'so treat her with the technical respect due to a free female.'
Arlene fell to her knees before her, her head down, and the girl straightened herself, proudly.
'Get up,' I said to Arlene. She did so. 'Though this girl is not yet a legal slave,' I told Arlene, 'she is actually a true slave.' The girl recoiled. 'Thus,' I said, 'she need not be treated with particular respect.'
'I understand perfectly, Master,' said Arlene. She regarded the pale, aristocratic girl, who shrank back. The other girls, too, regarded her. The Lady Rosa shuddered, not daring to meet their eyes. She knew that there was not one girl in that room who was not assessing her, frankly considering her, and comparing the quality of her flesh to their own. 'She will make good slave meat,' said Arlene.
'But not so good as you, Wench,' I assured her.
'Thank you, Master,' said Arlene, putting her head down, smiling.
'Check the prisoner's bonds,' I said.
'Did you tie her, Master?' asked Arlene.
'Yes,' I said.
'Then she is well secured,' said Arlene. But she checked the Lady Rosa's wrist bonds as I had instructed her to do. She did so a bit roughly. 'She is perfectly secured,' said Arlene to me, smiling innocently. The Lady Rosa tossed her head and looked away.
'There are furs here,' I said to Imnak. 'I think it best that you and Ram, and the women, try to leave the compound, and make your way across the ice.
'What of you?' asked Imnak.
'I shall remain here,' I said.
'I, too,' said Drusus.
'I, too, will remain!' cried Arlene.
'You will obey, Slave,' I said to her.
'Yes, Master,' she said, tears in her eyes.
We then heard pounding on the outside of the broad hatch.
'Surrender! Open! Open!' called a voice.
'We are surrounded,' I said.
'There is no escape,' said Drusus.
'Stand back from the hatch,' I said, 'lest they blow it in towards us.'
We stood back, dart-firing weapons ready.
Suddenly we heard a scream from the other side of the hatch. Then a cry of rage. Then we heard pounding, frightened, on the other side of the steel. 'Help! Help!' we heard. 'Let us in! Let us in!' There was more frenzied pounding. 'We surrender! we heard. 'Please! Please!' There were more screams. We heard something sharp strike against the steel. We heard a dart-firing weapon discharge its bolt. 'We surrender! We surrender!' we heard. 'Let us in!'
'It is a trick,' said Drusus.
'It is certainly a convincing one,' I averred.
We heard another man scream with pain.
Then, from the other side of the steel, we heard a voice call out. It spoke in the language of the People. I could understand very little of it.
Imnak beamed, and ran to the wheel. I did not stop him. He turned the wheel. The large, squarish hatch, some ten feet in height and width, studded with bolts, slid slowly to the side.
Ram let forth a cheer.
Outside, on the dim, polar ice, many on sleds, drawn by sleen, were hundreds of the People, men, and women and children. More were arriving, visible in the reflection from the moons on the ice. Karjuk stood near the entranceway, his strung bow of layered horn in his hand, an arrow at the string. Other hunters stood about. Men from the complex lay scattered on the ice. From the backs and chests of several protruded arrows. Red hunters stood about. Some of the men from the complex had been downed by lances. A few cowered, their weapons discarded, herded together by domesticated snow sleen, ravening and vicious, on the leashes of their red masters. Some men of the complex were thrown to their stomachs on the ice. Their hands were jerked behind them and were being tied with rawhide. Then, their suits were being slit with bone knives. 'We will freeze!' cried one of them. The red hunters were putting their enemies completely at their mercy, and that of the winter night.
Karjuk called out orders. Red hunters streamed in, past me. Imnak handed the dart-firing weapons to some of them. hastily explaining their use. But most simply hurried past him, more content to rely on their tools of wood and bone. The men with the domesticated snow sleen passed me. I did not envy those on whom such animals would be set. Drusus, with a dart-firing weapon, joined one contingent of hunters, in their vanguard, to cover them and match fire with whatever resistance they might encounter; Ram, seizing up a weapon, joined another contingent I looked outside the hatch, or port. Even more of the People, women and children as well as hunters, were making their way across the ice to the complex. They were detaching many of the snow sleen from the sleds, to be used as attack sleen.
Karjuk continued to stand by the port and issue orders, in the tongue of the red hunters.
'There must be more than fifteen hundred of the hunters,' I said.
'They are from all the camps,' said Imnak. 'There are more, before they have finished coming, than twenty- five hundred.'
'Then it is all the People,' I said.
'Yes,' said Imnak, 'it is all the People.' He grinned at me. 'Sometimes the guard cannot do everything,' he said.
I looked at Karjuk. 'I thought you an ally of the beasts,' I said.
'I am the guard,' he said. 'And I am of the People.'
'Forgive me,' I said, 'that I doubted you.'
'It is done,' he said.
More red hunters streamed past us.
I saw two men from the complex being prodded through the halls, toward a room. Their hands were bound with rawhide, behind them. A woman was being dragged along by the hair. Her clothing had been removed. Already her captor had put bondage strings on her throat.
'I would alter the garments you wear, if I were you,' said Imnak, 'for you might be mistaken for one of the men of the complex.'
I removed the suit I had worn. I donned boots and fur trousers. I did not wish to wear a shirt or parka in the complex, because of its heat.
More hunters came past us. Imnak explained to some of them the nature of the dart-firing weapons.
The prisoners, captured outside, shuddering, half-frozen, were herded within the complex, bound.
'Go to where it is warmer,' I told the girls shivering in the recessed room.
Arlene, Audrey, Barbara, Constance, and the others, hurried to a place of greater shelter.
Karjuk went then to direct the operations within the complex. He was accompanied by Imnak.
I stepped outside, into the arctic night, though bare-chested, to survey the rear of our position.
