'Perhaps,' I admitted.
'We have sought them in vain. We were helpless. We knew not where to look. Now they in their impatient vanity, in their mockery of our impotence, boldly announce to us their whereabouts!'
'Have they?' I asked.
''We are here, they say. 'Come seek us, Fools, if you dare! '
'Perhaps,' I said. 'Perhaps.'
'Do you doubt the message?' asked Samos.
'I do not know,' I said. 'I simply do not know.'
'They taunt us,' said Samos. 'War is a sport for them.'
'Perhaps,' I said.
'We must act,' he said.
'In what way?' I asked.
'You must sail immediately to the world's end.' Samos looked at me, grimly. 'There you must seek out Half- Ear, and destroy him.'
'None have returned from the world's end,' I said.
'You are afraid?' asked Samos.
'Why,' I asked, 'should the message be addressed to me?'
'The Kurii know you,' said he. 'They respect you.'
I, too, respected them. I was a warrior. I enjoyed sharing with them the cruel, mortal games of war. They were cunning, and fierce, and terrible. I was a warrior. I found them precious foes.
'Does not the fate of worlds weigh upon you?' asked Samos.
I smiled.
'I know you,' he said, bitterly, 'you are a warrior, a soldier, a mercenary, an adventurer. You fight for the exhilaration. You are frivolous. In your way you are as despicable as the Kur.'
'Perhaps I am an adventurer,' I said. 'I do not truly know. I have stood against the Kur. I have met men with steel. I have had the women of enemies naked at my feet, suing to be my slaves.'
'You are a mercenary,' he said.
'Perhaps,' I said. 'but I choose my wars with care.'
'It is strange,' said Samos.
'What?' I asked.
'We fight for civilization,' said Samos, 'against the barbarism of the Kur.'
I smiled that Samos should see himself so.
'And yet,' said he, 'in the world for which we strive we would have no place.'
I looked at him.
'In a civilized world, Captain,' said he, 'there would be no place for such as you.'
'That is true,' I said.
'Is it not a paradox?' asked Samos. 'Men need us in order to bring about a world in which we may be scorned and disregarded.'
I said nothing.
'Men seldom recall who it was who brought them the fruits of victory.'
'It is true,' I conceded.
'Civilized men,' said Samos, 'the small and pale, the righteous, the learned, the smug, the supercilious, the weak-stomached and contemptuous, stand upon the shoulders of forgotten, bloody giants.'
I shrugged.
'You are such a bloody giant,' he said.
'No,' I said. 'I am only a tarnsman, a nomad in unusual conflicts, a friend of the sword.'
'Sometimes,' said Samos, 'I weep.' He looked at me. I bad never before seen him in such a mood.
'Is our struggle, if successful,' he asked, 'to issue only in the victory of defeat, the triumph of the trivial and placid, the glorification of mediocrity?'
'Perhaps,' I said.
'Will our blood have been shed,' he asked, 'to bring about so miniscule an achievement, the contentment of the herd browsing among the dunes of boredom?'
'They will have their petty concerns,' I said, 'which will seem important to them.'
He looked down, angrily.
'And they will have their entertainments and their stimulations. There will be industries which will attempt to assuage their boredom.'
'But will nothing truly matter?' he asked.
'Perhaps men must sleep before they wake,' I said.
'I do not understand,' he said.
'There are the stars,' I said.
'The Kurii stand between us and the stars,' said Samos.
'Perhaps we labor,' said I, 'to open the gates to the stars.'
'Men will never seek them,' said Samos.
'Some men will,' I said.
'But the others will not help them, and the adventure will fall,' said Samos.
'Perhaps,' I said. 'I do not know.' I looked at him. 'Much depends on what men are,' I said.
'His measure has not yet been taken,' said Samos.
'And perhaps it will never be taken,' I said, 'and cannot he taken. Every bound you set him will show him a place beyond which he can place his foot or hand.'
'Perhaps,' smiled Samos.
'I have hunted, and I have been hunted,' I said.
'Why do you say this?' he asked.
'And in hunting, and in being hunted,' I said, 'I have been alive.'
'Yes,' said Samos. 'But why are you saying this?'
'Do you not see?' I asked him. 'The conflict, the struggle, even if it should issue in the triumph of the leveled herd, each smiling and trying to be the same as the other, will yet have been ours, and cannot be taken from us.'
'Yes,' said Samos.
'Ours will have been the war,' I said.
'Yes,' he said.
'It is our hand that will have grasped the hilt of the sword. It is we, not they, who will have met the enemy. Let them weep that they were not there.'
'Yes,' said Samos, 'I would not be other than I am, and I would not be other than where I am.'
'The meaning of history,' I said, 'lies not in the future. It is like a range of mountains with many summits. Great deeds are the meaning of history. There are many meanings and many summits. One may climb different mountains at different times, but each mountain glows in the same sun.'
'The Kurii must be met!' said Samos.
'Perhaps we will choose to do so,' I said.
'You are a monster, Captain,' he laughed.
'I am of the warriors,' I said.
'I know your sort,' he said. 'It is the fight you relish. What a wicked sort you are, and yet how useful!'
I shrugged.
'You see a fight you want, you take it,' he said. 'You see a woman you like, you take her.'
'Perhaps if she pleased me,' I said.
'You would do as you wished,' he said.
'Of course,' I said.
'Warrior!' said he.
'Yes, Warrior,' I said.
'The eyes will be painted, and the ship will be launched at dawn,' he said.
