Hannah Ross - The Last Outpost - An Antarctic Dystopia

Scott nodded, digesting this information.

“Careful,” Ri Omrek warned, “you stain soles with blood, my sister not happy.”

Scott heeded the warning, and stepped aside from the whale, the ground near which was soaked with still-oozing blood. Now that he thought about it, he was surprised at how dry his feet felt. Despite the prolonged exposure to icy water both at sea and when they waded to the shore, his feet felt quite warm and dry. The sealskin moccasins were virtually waterproof.

While most of the hunters and huntresses were still working on skinning the seals, the others were at consultation near the whale, debating how to deliver it to the village. It was obvious a lot more hands were needed to convey all the bounty home, and it was eventually decided that two or three men would be left to guard the whale from carrion birds, while the others would make their way home as fast as they could, and come back with reinforcements.

Since Scott took no part in the actual hunting, skinning or butchering, he volunteered to carry as much as he could, and was laden with a waterproof leather sack, also made of sealskins, under the weight of which he nearly staggered. He resolved to keep face, however, and was soon sweating underneath his parka, though his face stung with the icy bursts of wind as the weary but triumphant procession made its way back to the village.

The sun was beginning to lean low in the sky, and the twilight was growing longer each night. Though the days were still far longer than the nights, the cold at the bay was severe, and Scott expressed concern at the fate of the men who were left behind.

“Not worry,” Ri Omrek reassured him. “Soon as we come home, more men will go help. And meanwhile, they have plenty fat to burn, and plenty meat to eat to keep them warm.”

The entire village came forward to meet them when they crossed the river. Ki Tahan was there, beaming with excitement and chattering with her brother in the tongue of the Anai, and Scott, with a great relief, dropped the heavy sack at her feet.

“Good hunt!” she said approvingly. “Will celebrate when men come back with mulluvik, yes? But first, you will want to wash.”

Scott looked down at his clothes. Despite his generally staying away from the bloodshed, and being careful while handling the load he was given, there were bloodstains down the front of his parka, and some spatters of it on his breeches.

“I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. “I didn’t mean to spoil the clothes.”

“You did not spoil. I know how to clean blood stains well. And sealskin is easy to clean. You stay and sleep with us, then celebrate tomorrow, yes? But first, go wash.”

Scott hesitated. He had meant to go back up to AN-85 as soon as he returned to the Anai village, but he was bone tired, and he knew the researchers meant to stay for another day or two. Resolved, he nodded. “I will stay,” he promised, and Ki Tahan smiled.

He and Ri Omrek followed her to the house, where Scott stepped once more behind the partition and shed Ki Daygan’s clothes. He put his orange suit and terrain boots back on, and was surprised at how bulky it felt to move around, and at how much noise his steps made. The Anai clothing was far more comfortable, and did not take long to get used to.

While Ri Omrek was changing as well, Scott followed Ki Tahan outside, where she began to adjust her tanning frame for the new seal pelt. She wore a leather apron over her clothes, and it looked old and tattered and well-used.

“How was hunt?” she asked, carefully putting up the hide against the frame and stretching it with whalebone hooks. It had thawed in the warm weather of the valley, and Ki Tahan allowed the remnants of blood to drip into the ground before she began scraping.

“It was… gulluhug ,” Scott said, painstakingly pronouncing the Anai word for ‘successful’, which he had dug out of the rudimentary dictionary composed by the string of anthropologists who had researched the people of the valley throughout the years. His accent must have been atrocious, but Ki Tahan’s eyes sparkled.

“You have been learning tongue of the Anai!”

Scott nodded. “This way, I can speak with Egan,” he said half-jokingly, looking at the little boy who was playing nearby. Hearing his name, Egan looked up, smiled and waved.

“Anders, he try to learn some too, but say is hard.”

“Would you teach me?” Scott asked.

“Sure, I teach you. You teach me your tongue as well, yes? I want to know better,” she stipulated. “So you say, hunt was gulluhug . Not…” she frowned, looking for the right word, “not fun?”

“I’m not used to it,” Scott said.

She looked at him keenly. “You don’t enjoy kill,” she observed. Scott felt his face grow hot, certain he had just been caught at one of the greatest possible flaws an Anai man can display. To his surprise, however, Ki Tahan smiled and nodded understandingly.

“I know. I feel same way. Daygan did, too. I enjoy what hunt gives — food, clothes, bone, oil — but kill does not feel good. This pelt Omrek bring me,” she gestured at the tanning frame with the dense silvery-white fur of a seal pup, “it is beautiful, but I don’t like kill pup. Always tell men, not kill young if you can. But if mother is killed, how can they leave pup? It will die alone, with no mother.”

Scott nodded. Indeed, this young seal was the only suckling pup taken by the Anai hunters. The other juvenile seals were supposed to be independent from their dames.

“But fur is beautiful,” Ki Tahan sighed, admiring the pelt. “Will make good winter clothes for Egan, soft and warm. And what left over will make nice trim, maybe for parka. I will see.”

Ri Omrek walked out, wearing clean, well-worn leathers. “You ready?” he asked Scott. “We go wash now. I need wash,” he said, touching his hair, which was caked with blood. Scott thought to ask where they were going — were there, maybe, some public baths in the village? — but decided not to. He would soon see.

“I’m ready,” he said, “let’s go.”

To Scott’s surprise, Ri Omrek and the other hunters were going in a direction quite opposite from the center of the village, where he would have expected the public houses to be. Instead, they were heading for some rocky outcroppings at the side of the valley, a site Scott had never explored before, and he soon felt a surge of warmth and a smell of sulphur, which indicated that they are getting close to some geysers.

To his immense surprise, however, what appeared before his eyes was a small, secluded pool, with steam rising up from it, and a small rivulet trickling down into a crevice between rocks. It was obviously heated by the steam of the geysers, and served as a natural, constantly heated bath. The hunters, with joyful whoops, began shedding their garments and probing the water with their feet. Ri Omrek grinned with pleasure, seeing his guest’s wonder.

“Here we can wash,” he said. “This is men’s place. Women have other place, on other side. Theirs is bigger. Women wash more, and take the children,” he added. Then he proceeded toward the pool like everyone else.

Scott hesitated. Public bathing was not his thing, and he would really have preferred not to strip in front of Ne Tarveg, whose impressive musculature made him feel puny and weak. Still, there was hardly any way to hang back without losing face, and Scott took off his clothes, feeling very self-conscious of his thin arms and legs. His orange suit looked very odd piled up beside the leathers tunics and moccasins of the Anai.

He approached the pool and probed the water with his big toe. It was pleasantly, but not excessively hot, and Scott got in with an increased enthusiasm. A bath was a luxury he hadn’t known since arriving at McMurdo — the quarters, even of the high rank personnel, had nothing but showers, and the though the station boasted of a gym and a heated pool, it was not anywhere as hot or relaxing as this natural bath with its rising steam and the occasional burst of bubbles from under the surface.