John Norman - Beasts of Gor

“The ship is ready,” said Samos, looking at me.

A ship had been prepared, set to sail to the world’s end. It had been built by Tersites, the half-blind, mad shipwright, long scorned on Gor. Samos regarded him a genius. I knew him for a madman; whether he might be, too, a genius, I did not know. It was an unusual ship. It was deep-keeled and square-rigged, as most Gorean ships are not. Though it was a ramship it carried a foremast. It possessed great oars, which must be handled by several men, rather than one man to an oar. Instead of two side-hung rudders, or oars, it carried a single oar, slung at the vessel’s sternpost. Its ram was carried high, out of the water. It would make its strike not below, but at the waterline. It was a laughing stock in the arsenal at Port Kar, but Tersites paid his critics no attention. He worked assiduously, eating little, sleeping at the side of the ship, supervising each small detail in the great structure. It was said the deep keel would slow the ship; that the two masts would take too long to remove in the case of naval combat; that so large an oar would constitute an impractical lever, that it could not be grasped by a man, that the oarsmen could not all sit during the stroke, that if more than one man controlled an oar some would shirk their work. Why one rudder rather than two? With lateen rigging one could sail closer to the wind. Of what use is a ram which makes its strikes so high?

I was not a shipwright, but I was a captain. It seemed to me such a ship would be too heavy to manage well, that it would be clumsy and slow, that it might be better fitted to cargo service when protected in a convoy than entrusted to confront, elude or brave the lean, lateen-rigged wolves of gleaming Thassa, hungry for the cargoes of the ineffectual and weak. Were I to hunt the world’s end I would prefer to do so with the Dorna or the Tesephone, a sleep ship whose moods and gifts I well knew.

Yet the ship of Tersites was strong. It loomed high and awesome, mighty with its strakes, proud with its uprearing prow, facing the sea canal. Standing beside the ship, on the ground, looking up at that high prow, so far above me, it seemed sometime that such a ship, if any, might embark upon that threatening, perhaps impossible voyage to the ,world’s end. Tersites had chosen to build the ship in such a way that its prow faced west; it pointed thus not only to the sea canal; it pointed also between Cos and Tyros; it pointed toward the world’s end.

“The eyes have not yet been painted,” I said. “It is not yet alive.”

“Paint its eyes,” said he to me.

“That is for Tersites to do,” I said. He was the shipwright. If the ship did not have eyes, how could it see? To the Gorean sailor his ships are living things. Some would see this as superstition; others sense that there is some sort of an inexplicable. reality which is here involved, a difficult and subtle reality which the man of the sea can somehow sense, but which he cannot, and perhaps should not attempt to explain to the satisfaction of men other than himself. Sometimes, late at night, on deck, under the moons of Gor, I have felt this. It is a strange feeling. It is as though the ship, and the sea, and the world were alive. The Gorean, in general, regards many things in a much more intense and personal way than, say, the informed man of Earth. Perhaps that is because he is the victim of a more primitive state of consciousness; perhaps, on the other hand, we have forgotten things which he has not. Perhaps the world only speaks to those who are prepared to listen. Regardless of what the truth should be in these matters, whether it be that man is intrinsically a mechanism of chemicals, or, more than this, a conscious, living animal whose pain and meaning, and defiance, emergent, must transcend the interactions of carbon and oxygen, the exchange of gases, the opening and closing of valves, ft Is undeniable that some men, Goreans among them, experience their world in a rich, deep way that is quite foreign to that of the mechanistic mentality. The man of Earth thinks of the world as being essentially dead; the Gorean thinks of his world as being essentially alive; one utilizes the metaphor of the blind machine, the other the metaphor of the living being; doubtless reality exceeds all metaphors; in the face of reality doubtless all metaphors are small, and must fail; indeed, what are these metaphors but instruments of fragile straw with which we, pathetic, wondering animals, would scratch at the gates of obdurate, granite mystery; yet if we must choose our way in which to fail I do not think the Gorean has made a poor choice; his choice, it seems to me, is not inferior to that of the man of Earth. He cares for his world; it is his friend; he would not care to kill it.

Let it suffice to say that to the Gorean sailor his ships are living things. Were they not, how could he love them so?

“This ship is essentially ready,” said Samos. “It can sail soon for the world’s end.”

“Strange, is it not,” I asked, “that when the ship is nearly ready that this message should come?”

“Yes,” said Samos. ‘That is strange.”

“The Kurii wish us to sail now for the world’s end,” I said.

“Arrogant beasts!” cried Samos, pounding down on the small table. “They challenge us now to stop them!”

“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.”