Thoughtlessly the beast must have devoured fifteen or twenty of the hidden traps.

I thought now I had little to fear.

I went to the sled. There seemed little of use there.

Fortunately I glanced upward. Somehow it was again on its feet.

It stood hunched over. It looked at me. How indomitable it was. It coughed, wracked with the pain of it, and spat glots of blood on the ice.

Slowly, step by step, it began to move toward me, its paws outstretched.

It then screamed with pain, bent over, as another of the wicked traps sprang open.

It stood there, whimpering on the ice. For a moment I felt moved.

Then, scrambling, on all fours, it charged. I overturned the sled between us. It fell screaming against the head of the sled and, with one paw, swept the sled to one side. It rolled on the ice, leaving it dark with blood. It coughed and screamed, and raged. Then two more of the treacherous baleen traps sprung open. It looked at the moons, agonized. It bit its lips and jaws in pain. It tore at its thigh.

I moved warily away from the beast. I did not think, now, I would have great difficulty in eluding it.

It was bleeding now, profusely, at the mouth and anus. The side of its mouth was half bitten through. The ice was covered with blood, and defecation. Too, it had released its water on the ice.

I moved away from it, drawing it in a circle from the sled. I then doubled back and, taking up the traces of the sled, turned back toward the complex concealed in the ice island.

I pulled the sled, returning toward the complex. The beast, step by painful step, bloody in the snow, followed. I did not let it approach too near.

Judging by its cries, those uttered before, and those which it uttered as it followed me, it must have taken nineteen of the traps into its body. It amazed me that it was not content to lie still and die. Each step must have been torture for it. Yet it continued to follow me. I learned something from it of the tenacity of the Kur.

At last, on the return to the complex, some four Ahn later, it died.

It is not easy to kill a Kur.

I looked down at the huge carcass. I had no knife. I must use my hands and teeth.

"It is not a Kur!" cried the man. "Fire!"

Then I had my hands on his throat, and threw him between me and his fellow. I heard the dart enter his body and I thrust him back and away from me and I saw him, rent and scattered, burst apart. The other fellow, also in what seemed to be a suit of light plastic, with a heating unit slung at his hip, fumbled with the weapon, to insert another charge in the breech. I dove toward him and the breech snapped shut and the weapon, struck to the side, discharged and I flung him to the ground, we both half tangled in the white fur of the Kur. With my left arm about his neck I struck his head to the side with the flat of my right hand. He lay still, the neck broken. It is a thing warriors are taught.

I looked up. It seemed quiet. Yet two weapons had been discharged. The tubular weapons discharge with a hiss. It is not particularly loud. The explosion of the darts, however, timed to detonate an instant after fixing themselves in the target, is much louder. The first explosion had been muffled in the body of its victim. The second, however, might have been heard. It had burst, after a long, parabolic trajectory, over a thousand feet below, showering ice upward more than two hundred feet into the air.

I had returned to the complex, crossing the ice near it, with the sled. This would assure me, I hoped, that I would not be mistaken for a common ice beast. I did not know what signs and countersigns, or signals, the white Kur might have had at its disposal to protect itself in this regard. I, at any rate, had none. Ice beasts, or common ice beasts, of course, do not use sleds. I think the sled let me approach more closely than I might otherwise have been capable of doing. The fur of the Kur, too, in the uncertain light, of course, was helpful. I had kept, too, as I could, to the cover of the pack ice. I had left the sled at the foot of the ice island and, with the fur of the Kur as a camouflage, had climbed, crag by crag, projection by projection, foothold by foothold, to the height of the island. The hatch through which I had exited did not have an obvious opening from the outside. Again, I did not know any signs or countersigns, or signals. I had climbed the height of the ice island looking for some mode of ingress to the complex. I was interested not so much in official thresholds, of a sort which I supposed would be provided to facilitate the work of lookouts and guards, as apertures more practical to my purposes, apertures unguarded through which passage would not require any system of recognition devices. The air in the complex had been fresh. It was my hope that there would be ventilation shafts. If the Kurii relied on a closed system I must take my chances with more standard portals.

It seemed quiet. I reached again for the fur of the Kur.

It came so swiftly I was not sure I saw it. I may have heard or sensed it the object cutting the fur of the parka and lodging a foot behind me in the ice and I flung myself away from it and the ice shattering and exploding outward and the blast and ice pushing me like a hand and I struck a projection of ice and slipped downward, and then I saw them coming two of them both armed and I slipped and lay contorted at the foot of the ice projection.

"He's dead," said one of the men.

"I shall put another dart into him," said the other.

"Do not be a fool," said the first.

"Can you be sure he is dead?" asked the other.

"See?" said the first. "There is no breath. If he were alive his breath, its vapor in the cold, would be clearly visible."

"You are right," said the second man.

Neither of these men, I gathered, had ever hunted the swift sea sleen. I was pleased that once, in kayaks, with Imnak, I had made the acquaintance of that menacing, insidious beast.

"Aiii!" cried the first man, as I leaped upward, striking him aside with my right hand. It was the second man whom I must fist reach. He was the more suspicious, the more dangerous of the two. His weapon contained a dart, at the ready. The weapon lifted swiftly but already I was behind it. The other man had not reinjected a dart into the riflelike contrivance he carried. I turned to him when I had finished the first. I did not realize until later he had struck me with its stock from behind. His scream was long and fading as he fell to the ice below the cliffs.

I quickly sorted through the accouterments of the second man. I must move quickly. Not only was dispatch of tactical significance but exposure to the arctic winter could bring a swift death on the summit of the ice island. In moments I wore one of the light, plastic suits, with hood, with the heating unit slung at the hip. I did not know how long the charge in the unit would last but I did not expect to be needing it long. I then took the sack of darts from the second man and threw it, on its strap, about my shoulder. I gathered in the two weapons which they had carried.

Another object lay on the ice, a small, portable radio. A voice, in Gorean, was speaking urgently on the device, inquiring as to what was occurring. I did not attempt to respond or confuse the operator. I thought it better to let him ponder what might have happened high above on the surface of that rugged island of ice. If I responded I was sure I would be soon marked as a human intruder. If my voice would not betray me surely my failure to produce code words or identificatory phrases would do so. As it was the operator could speculate on possibilities such as a transmitter malfunction, an accident, or an attack of wandering ice beasts. An investigatory party would soon be sent forth to investigate. This did not displease me. The more men there were outside the complex the fewer there would be inside. The various hatches, also, I was confident, would not open from the outside. If they did, the mechanisms could always be jammed or destroyed. I knew I had at least one ally within, Imnak, who would risk his life to protect me. He had already done so.