Free Out Of The Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis Page B

the hross tempted you to think of it as
a man. Then it became abominable - a man seven feet high, with a snaky body, covered, face
and all, with thick black animal hair, and whiskered like a cat. But starting from the other
end you had an animal with everything an animal ought to have - glossy coat, liquid eye,
sweet breath and whitest teeth - and added to all these, as though Paradise had never been
lost and earliest dreams were true, the charm of speech and reason. Nothing could be more
disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other. It all depended
on the point of view.
     

X
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    WHEN RANSOM had finished his meal and drunk again of the strong waters of Malacandra, his host
rose and entered the boat. He did this head-first like an animal, his sinuous body allowing
him to rest his hands on the bottom of the boat while his feet were still planted on the
land. He completed the operation by flinging rump, tail and hind legs all together about
five feet into the air and then whisking them neatly on board with an agility which would
have been quite impossible to an animal of his bulk on Earth.
    Having got into the boat, he proceeded to get out again and then pointed to it. Ransom understood
that he was being invited to follow his example. The question which he wanted to ask above all
others could not, of course, be put. Were the hrossa (he discovered later that this was the plural
of hross) the dominant species on Malacandra, and the sorns, despite their more man-like shape,
merely a semi-intelligent kind of cattle? Fervently he hoped that it might be so. On the other
hand, the hrossa might be the domestic animals of the sorns, in which case the latter would be
superintelligent. His whole imaginative training somehow encouraged him to associate superhuman
intelligence with monstrosity of form and ruthlessness of will. To step on board the hross's boat
might mean surrendering himself to sorns at the other end of the journey. On the other hand,
the hross's invitation might be a golden opportunity of leaving the sorn-haunted forests for ever.
And by this time the hross itself was becoming puzzled at his apparent inability to understand it.
The urgency of its signs finally determined him. The thought of parting from the hross could
not be seriously entertained; its animality shocked him in a dozen ways, but his longing to
learn its language, and, deeper still, the shy, ineluctable fascination of unlike for unlike,
the sense that the key to prodigious adventure was being put in his hands - all this had really
attached him to it by bonds stronger than he knew. He stepped into the boat.
    The boat was without seats. It had a very high prow, an enormous expanse of free-board, and
what seemed to Ransom an impossibly shallow draught. Indeed, very little of it even rested on
the water; he was reminded of a modern European speed-boat. It was moored by something that
looked at first like rope; but the hross cast off not by untying but by simply pulling the
apparent rope in two as one might pull in two a piece of soft toffee or a roll of plasticine.
It then squatted down on its rump in the stern-sheets and took up a paddle - a paddle of
such enormous blade that Ransom wondered how the creature could wield it, till he again
remembered how light a planet they were on. The length of the hross's body enabled him to
work freely in the squatting position despite the high gunwale. It paddled quickly.
    For the first few minutes they passed between banks wooded with the purple trees, upon a waterway
not more than a hundred yards in width. Then they doubled a promontory, and Ransom saw that
they were emerging on to a much larger sheet of water - a great lake, almost a sea. The hross,
now taking great care and often changing direction and looking about it, paddled well out
from the shore. The dazzling blue expanse grew moment by moment wider around them; Ransom could
not look steadily at