Dan Simmons - The Terror

Silence, how I wish you were here , thought John Irving.

“Greetings,” he said. He touched his chest with his mittened thumb. “Third Lieutenant John Irving of Her Majesty’s Ship Terror .”

The men mumbled among themselves. He heard words that sounded like kabloona and qavac and miagortok , but had no clue whatsoever as to what they might mean.

The older bareheaded man with the pouch and belt pointed at Irving and said, “ Piifixaaq ! ”

Some of the younger men shook their head at this. If it was a pejorative term, Irving hoped that the others were rejecting it.

“John Irving,” he said, touching his chest again.

“ Sixam ieua ? ” said the man opposite him. “ Suingne ! ”

Irving could only nod at this. He touched his chest again. “Irving.” He pointed toward the other man’s chest in a questioning manner.

The man stared at Irving from between the fringes of his hood.

In desperation, the lieutenant pointed to the lead dog that was still barking and growling while being held back and beaten wildly by the old man next to the sled.

“Dog,” said Irving. “Dog.”

The Esquimaux man closest to Irving laughed. “ Qimmiq ,” he said clearly, also pointing to the dog. “ Tunok .” The man shook his head and chuckled.

Although he was freezing, Irving felt a warm glow. He’d gotten somewhere. The Esquimaux word for the hairy dog they used was either qimmiq or tunok , or both. He pointed at their sled.

“Sled,” he stated firmly.

The ten Esquimaux stared at him. The young woman was holding her mittens in front of her face. The old woman’s jaw hung down and Irving could see that she had precisely one tooth in her mouth.

“Sled,” he said again.

The six men in front looked at one another. Finally, Irving’s interlouctor to this point said, “ Kamatik ? ”

Irving nodded happily even though he had no idea if they had really begun communicating. For all he knew, the man had just asked him if he wanted to be harpooned. Nonetheless, the junior lieutenant could not stop grinning. Most of the Esquimaux men – with the exception of the boy, the old man who was still beating the dog, and the bareheaded older man with the pouch and belt – were grinning back.

“Do you speak English by any chance?” asked Irving, realizing that he was a bit tardy with the question.

The Esquimaux men stared and grinned and scowled and remained silent.

Irving repeated the query in his schoolboy French and atrocious German.

The Esquimaux continued to smile and scowl and stare.

Irving crouched and squatted and the six men closest to him squatted. They did not sit on the freezing gravel, even if a larger rock or boulder was near. After so many months up here in the cold, Irving understood. He still wanted to know someone’s name.

“Irving,” he said, touching his chest again. He pointed at the closest man.

“ Inuk ,” said the man, touching his chest. He tugged off his mitten with a flash of white teeth and held up his right hand. It was missing the two smaller fingers. “ Tikerqat .” He grinned again.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Inuk,” said Irving. “Or Mr. Tikerqat. Very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He decided that any real communication would have to be through sign language and pointed back the way he had come, toward the northwest. “I have many friends,” he said confidently, as if saying this would make him safer with these savage people. “Two large ships. Two… ships.”

Most of the Esquimaux looked the way Irving pointed. Mr. Inuk was frowning slightly. “ Nanuq ,” the man said softly, and then seemed to correct himself with a shake of his head. “ Tôrnârssuk .” The others looked away or lowered their heads at this last word, almost, it seemed, as if in reverence or fear. But the lieutenant was sure that it was not at the thought of two ships or a group of white men.

Irving licked his bleeding lips. Better to begin trading with these people than to engage in a long conversation. Moving slowly, so as not to startle any of them, he reached into his leather shoulder valise to see if there was any food or bauble he could give them as a gift.

Nothing. He had eaten the only salted pork and old biscuit he’d brought for his day’s rations. Something shiny and interesting then…

There were only his ragged sweaters, two stinking extra socks, and a disposable rag he had brought along for his alfresco privy purposes. At that moment Irving bitterly regretted giving his prized Oriental silk handkerchief to Lady Silence – wherever the wench was. She had slipped away from Terror Camp their second day there and not been seen again since. He knew that these natives would have loved the red-and-green silk handkerchief.

Then his cold fingers touched the curved brass of his telescope.

Irving’s heart leapt and then wrenched itself with pain. The telescope was perhaps his most prized possession, the last thing his uncle had given him before that good man had died suddenly of heart trouble.

Smiling wanly at the waiting Esquimaux, he slowly pulled the instrument from his bag. He could see the brown-faced men tightening their grips on their spears and harpoons.

Ten minutes later Irving had the entire family or clan or tribe of Esquimaux close around him like schoolchildren grouped around an especially beloved teacher. Everyone, even the suspicious, squinty-eyed older man with the headband, pouch, and belt, had taken a turn looking through the glass. Even the two females had their turn – Irving allowed Mr. Inuk Tikerqat, his new fellow ambassador, to hand the brass instrument to the giggling young woman and the old woman. The ancient man who had been holding down the sled came over for a look and a shouted exclamation with the women chanting along:

ai yei yai ya na

ye he ye ye yi yan e ya qana

ai ye yi yat yana

The group enjoyed looking at one another through the glass, staggering back in shock and laughter when huge faces loomed. Then the men, quickly learning how to focus the glass, zoomed in on distant rocks, clouds, and ridgelines. When Irving showed them that they could reverse the glass and make things and each other tiny, the men’s laughs and exclamations echoed in the small valley.

He used his hands and body language – finally refusing to take the telescope back and pressing it into Mr. Inuk Tikerqat’s hands – to let them know that it was a present.

The laughter stopped and they stared at him with serious faces. For a minute Irving wondered if he had violated some taboo, offended them somehow, but then he had a strong hunch that he had presented them with a problem in protocol; he had given them a wonderful gift and they’d brought nothing in return.

Inuk Tikerqat conferred with the other hunters and then turned to Irving and began making unmistakable pantomimes, lifting his hand to his mouth, then rubbing his belly.

For a terrible second Irving thought his interlocutor was asking for food – of which Irving had none – but when he tried to convey this fact, the Esquimaux shook his head and repeated the gestures. Irving suddenly realized that they were asking him if he was hungry.

Eyes filling with tears from a gust of wind or sheer relief, Irving repeated the gestures and nodded enthusiastically. Inuk Tikerqat grabbed him by his slop’s frozen shoulder and led him back to the sled. What had been their word for this ? thought Irving. “ Kamatik ?” he said aloud, remembering it at last.

“ Ee ! ” cried Mr. Tikerqat approvingly. Kicking the growling dogs aside, he swept back a thick fur atop the sled. Stack upon stack of frozen and fresh meat and fish were piled atop the kamatik .