Tanar of Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Author:Edgar Rice Burroughs [Burroughs, Edgar Rice]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fantasy, General, Science Fiction, Sagas, Adventure fiction, Earth, Earth - Core, Fiction, Adventure
ISBN: 9780803262577
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Published: 2006-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Tanar of Pellucidar

As Tanar stood watching the disgusting spectacle he became aware that someone was standing beside him and, turning, he saw that Gura had returned. She stood there straight as an arrow, balancing the water vessel upon her head.

“It is terrible,” said Tanar, nodding toward the battling couple.

Gura shrugged indifferently. “It is nothing,” she said. “Her mate returned unexpectedly. That is all.”

“You mean,” asked Tanar, “that this fellow is her mate and that the other was not?”

“Certainly,” said Gura, “but they all do it. What can you expect where there is nothing but hate,” and walking to the entrance to her father’s cave she set the water vessel down within the shadows just inside the entrance. Then she sat down and leaned her back against the cliff, paying no more attention to the matrimonial difficulties of her neighbor.

Tanar, for the first time, noticed the girl particularly. He saw that she had neither the cunning expression that characterized Jude and all of the other Himeans he had seen; nor were there the lines of habitual irritation and malice upon her face; instead it reflected an innate sadness and he guessed that she looked much like her mother might have when she was Gura’s age.

Tanar crossed the ledge and sat down beside her. “Do your people always quarrel thus?” he asked.

“Always,” replied Gura.

“Why?” he asked.

“I do not know,” she replied. “They take their mates for life and are permitted but one and though both men and women have a choice in the selection of their mates they never seem to be satisfied with one another and are always quarreling, usually because neither one nor the other is faithful. Do the men and women quarrel thus in the land from which you come?”

“No,” replied Tanar. “They do not. If they did they would be thrown out of the tribe.”

“But suppose that they find that they do not like one another?” insisted the girl.

“Then they do not live together,” replied Tanar. “They separate and if they care to they find other mates.”

“That is wicked,” said Gura. “We would kill any of our people who did such a thing.”

Tanar shrugged and laughed.

“At least we are all a very happy people,” he said, “which is more than you can say for yourselves, and, after all, happiness, it seems to me, is everything.”

The girl thought for some time, seemingly studying an idea that was new to her.

“Perhaps you are right,” she said, presently. “Nothing could be worse than the life that we live. My mother tells me that it was not thus in her country, but now she is as bad as the rest.”

“Your mother is not a Himean?” asked Tanar.

“No, she is from Amiocap, My father captured her there when she was young.”

“That accounts for the difference,” mused Tanar.

“What difference?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you are not like the others, Gura,” he replied. “You neither look like them nor act like them– neither you nor your brother, Balal.”

“Our mother is an Amiocapian,” she replied.

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