Blood Brothers of Gor

Chapter 41 HCI WILL COME WITH US

"I tell you it exists!" exclaimed Hci.

"Did you see it?" I asked.

"No," he said, "Mira saw it."

"She is only a slave," I said.

The girl, near the lodge at Two Feathers, amidst trees, knelt, trembling.

"You were gone," she said, shuddering, "with Cuwignaka and Canka, training tarns. It came like a great, black thing, screaming. Leaves were torn from the trees in its passage!"

"It is gone now," I said.

"It is rea, Tatankasa," said Hci. "Make no mistake about it. It exists!"

"It is only a tarn," I said.

"It is Wakanglisapa," said Hci, "the medicine tarn."

"I do not believe in the medicine world," I said. "I do not think it exists."

"It is following us," said Hci. "It is looking for its feather."

"That is absurd," I said.

"Get rid of the feater," said Hci. "Return it to the Barrens. Throw it away. Burn it. It is dangerous!"

"We may have need of it," I said.

"Get rid of it!" said Hci.

"It is only a feather," I said.

"Than the feather of Wakanglisapa there is no medicine more dangerous or powerful," said Hci. "That is why he has come looking for it."

"The medicine tarn does not exist," I said.

"She saw it," said Hci, pointing to Mira. Mira was half white with fear.

"It was only a tarn," I said.

"It was Wakanglisapa, the medicine tarn," said Hci. "He is angry." He looked at the sky, apprehensively. The moons were now out. White clouds scudded across the sky.

"I see no signs of a tarn now," I said.

"He has followed us," said Hci.

"It is probably a different tarn," I said.

"It is Wakanglisapa, the medicine tarn," said Hci.

"You are one of the bravest men I have ever known, Hci," I said. "How can you think in this way? How can you act like this?"

"You know more of tarns than I, Tatankasa," he said. "Do tarns behave in this fashion?"

"No," I admitted, "not normally."

"Then it is no ordinary tarn," said Hci.

"I do not know," I said. "Perhaps not."

"Do you not remember the warrior of the Kinyanpi?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. I shuddered.

"That could only have been the work of Wakanglisapa." said Hci.

"Wakanglisapa does not exist," I said.

"I am not afraid of men," said Hci. "I am not afraid of what I can see. I am not afraid of what I can fight."

"I understand," I said.

"Do these things seem normal to you?" asked Hci.

"No," I said.

"Do they not seem strange?" asked Hci.

"Yes," I admitted.

"Do you understand them?" asked Hci.

"No," I said, "not really, certainly not fully."

"Get rid of the feather," said Hci.

"No," I said.

"Get rid of it," he said.

"I do not believe in the medicine world," I said. "I do not think it exists."

"I know the medicine world exists," said Hci.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Once," said he, "I grievously lied. Later, in battle, my shield betrayed me. It would not obey me. I could not control it. It refused to protect me. Of its own will it rose, exposing me to the lance of my enemy."

"We know what happened," I said. "What we do not know, really, is why it happened. Such things are not absolutely unknown, even to the physicians in the cities. There are technical names for them. They are still not well understood. Often their causes are deep and mysterious."

"The shield rose," said Hci.

"The shield cannot rise by itself," I said. "It was your arm that rose."

"I did not lift my arm," said Hci.

"Such movements, over which we have no control," I said, "are sometimes connected with such things as guilt, and a conviction of the fittingness of certain behaviors. They result from undetected occurrences in the brain. It is like on part of you at war with another part. They seem to occur by themselves. They can be frightening."

"The shield rose, like a moon," said Hci.

"Doubtless it seems so," I said.

"It rose," said Hci, "as firmly and inexorably as a moon."

"We understand things in various contexts of belief," I said. "When something happens it might be interpreted one way in one context of belief and in another way in another context of belief."

"This is hard to understand," said Hci.

"That is because you are thoroughly familiar with only one context of belief," I said, "your own. Thus, you are not accustomed to draw a distinction between what is to be interpeted, so to speak, and its interretation. These two things tend, then, in your understanding to merge into only one, in this case that your shield betrayed you."

"It did," said Hci.

"Look up," I said. "See the moons?"

"Yes," he said.

"Do you not see how they fly through the sky?"

"It is the clouds moving in the wind," said Hci, "going the other way. That is why it makes the moons look like they are moving."

"Look again," I said.

Hci again regarded the sky.

"Can you see the moons flying?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, after a time. "I can see it that way."

"You see," I said, "there are many ways to understand what we see."

"I understand," said Hci. "Are all expanations of equal merit?"

"No," I said. "Most are presumably false."

"How do we know when we have the one true explanation?" asked Hci.

"I suppose we can never be absolutely certain," I said, "that of all the theoretically possible explanations, all expanations which would respond effectively to all conceivable tests, all explanations which would agree in explaining phenomena and in yielding predictions, that we have the one true explanation."

"That is interesting," said Hci.

"That we cannot prove that an explanation is absolutely correct does not, of course, entail that it is not correct."

"I understand that," said Hci.

"We can sometimes be rationally certain of the correctness of an explanation," I said, "so certain that it would be foolish not to accept it."

"I understand," said Hci.

"Good," I said.

"Do you know the medicine world does not exist?" asked Hci.

"I do not think it exists," I said.

"Do you knw it does not exist?" asked Hci.

"No," I said. "I do not know that it does not exist."

"Perhaps it exists," said Hci.

"Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."

"You do not believe it exists," said Hci.

"No," I said.

"I do believe it exists," he said.

"I understand," I said.

"Perhaps, then," he said, "It is your explanation which is false, not mine."

"Perhaps," I said.

"This is the Barrens," he said.

"That is true," I said.

"Perhaps things are not the same here as in your country," he said.

"Perhaps," I said. I supposed it was an act of faith that nature was uniform, surely an act of rational faith, but an act of faith, nonetheless. The universe was surely vast and mysterious. It was perhaps under no obligation to conform to our prefrences. If it did seem congenial to our limitations perhaps this was becuase we could experience it only within these same limitations. We might unknowingly live in the midst of dimensions and wonders, things beyond the touch of our tools, things beyond the reach of our imaginations and intellects, things too different to know. Yet what bold, gallant mice we are. How noble is man.

"You are determined to keep the feather?" asked Hci.

"Yes," I said. "Are you coming with us tonight?"

Wakanglisapa can bring ruin to all our plans," he said.

"Nonsense," I said. "Are you coming with us?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"We must start soon," I said.

"I must do something first," he said.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Sing my death song," he said.