The Kur (Beasts of Gor pages 364-65)
*I sat down, cross-legged, some twenty feet in front of the platform, and waited. I watched the thing on the platform. It was large and shaggy and curled upon itself, and alive. I was not sure, initially, if there were one or more things on the platfom. But then I beame confident it was only one thing. I had not realized he was so gigantic. I sat quietly, watching it breathe.
After a time it stirred. Then with an ease, an indolent smoothness of motion startling in so large a beast it sat up on the platform, regarding me. it blinked. The pupils of it's eyes, were like dark moons. It yawned. I saw the double row of fangs, inclined backward in the mouth, to move caught meat toward the throat. It blinked again, and began to lick it's paws. It's long, dark tongue, too, cleaned the fur about it's mouth. It turned away and went to a side of the room where it relieved itself. A lever, depressed, released water, washing the waste away. The animal scratched twice on the plates near where it had relieved itself, as though reflexively covering it's spoor. It then, moving on all fours, lightly, moved forward, around the platform, and went to the sunken basin of water in the room.It put down it's cupped paws and splashed water in it's face, and then shook it's head. Too, it took water in it's cupped paws, and drank. With one paw it gestured that I should approach, and palm open on the appendage, indicated that I might use the water. Crouching down I took a bit of the water in the palm of my hand and drank.
We looked at one another across the sunken basin. The animal, on all fours, withdrew from the edge of the basin. It projected it's claws and scratched on the rug like substance on the walls. Then, claws catching in the heavy material, it moved up the wall, stretching and twisting it's body. Then it dropped down to a pole in the scaffolding. It sat there for a moment, and then, lightly, swung from one pole to another, and then returned, dropping lightly, for an animal of it's weight, to the floor before the platform. It stretched again, catlike and then it rose to it's hind feet and looked down at me. It was more than eight feet in height. I would have conjectured it's weight at some nine hundred pounds. Then it dropped again to all fours and moved to the table on which there reposed the dark, box like object. It moved a switch on the box. It uttered sounds, low, guttural, inquisitive. It did not use human phonemes and so it is difficult, if not impossible, to convey the quality of the sound. If you have heard, if you have heard the noises made by great cats, such as the Bengal tiger or the black-maned lion, and can concieve of such noises articulated with the subtlety and precision of a civilized speech, that will provide you with an approximation of what I heard. On the other hand, the vocal apparatus of the beast was not even of Earth origin. Certain of it's sounds, for example, were more reminiscent of the snort of the boar, the snuffling of the grizzly, the hiss of the snake, than those of the large cats. The phonemes of such beasts are unmistakable, but they are, truly, like nothing Earth has prepared one to hear. They are different, not of Earth, alien. To hear these noises, and know they are a speech can be initially very frightening. Evolution did not prepare those of Earth to find intelligence in such a form. The beast was then silent.
'Are you hungry?' I heard. The sounds, seperate, had been emitted from the dark flatish box-like object on the table. It was, then, a translator. 'Not particularly,' I said, After a moment a set of sounds, brief, like a growl, came from the translator. I smiled. The beast shrugged. It shambled to the side of the room, and there pressed a switch. A metal panel slid up. I heard a squeal and a small animal, a lart, fled from within toward the opening. it happened quickly. The large six-digited paw of the beast cloased about the lart, hideously squealing, and lifted it to it's mouth, where it bit through the back of it's neck, spitting out vertebrae. The lart, dead, but spasmodically trembling, was then held in the beast's mouth. It then, with it's claws freed, opened it's furs and, by feel, delicately, regarding me, fingered out various organs which it laid on the floor before it. In moment it had removed the animal from it's mouth. Absently, removing meat from the carcass, it fed.
'You do not cook your meat?' I asked. The translator, turned on accepted the human phonemes, processed them, and, momentarily, produced audible, correspondent phonemes in one of the languages of the Kur. The beast responded, I waited. 'Fire, and cooked meat' I said, 'makes possible a smaller jaw and smaller teeth, permitting less cranial musculature and permitting the development of a larger brain case.' |
