“I fear for my wife and child.”
“For yourself.”
“I am wary of the animal I must face.”
“I think that is not the same.”
Hero shrugged. “I do what I must do. If fear stopped me, I would have to abolish it.”
“That is why you are a great hunter and warrior.”
“Not if the lion wins,” Hero said with gruff humor.
They crossed a ridge, and entered the wide valley of the lions. The male was likely to be lounging near the den, while the females ranged out hunting. With luck he could settle with it before a female returned.
They knew where the cave was, because it was the only one suitable for lions and had been there as long as anyone could remember. They approached it. There was the lion, alone, lying before the entrance, gazing in their direction. It knew they were coming, but had no fear of them. Perhaps that was just as well, because if it fled, they would have trouble even catching it, let alone dispatching it.
Craft handed him a second spear, for once the contest began, there would not be opportunity. This one had extra little stone barbs behind the main head, so that it would cut coming out as well as going in. The first spear was more straightforward, heavier with a larger stone. It was intended for a quick straightforward kill. The second was for finishing off the animal if it were wounded or otherwise not yet dead. But either could be used either way, at need. Hero removed his pack, as he needed to be free to move quickly. Then he marched forward alone to challenge the lion, both spears ready.
The lion lifted slowly to his four feet, surely wondering what business this two-footed stranger had here. But there was a limit to its patience. When Hero came too close, the lion roared and made ready to charge.
Hero stopped and waited, bracing himself. He was now within range, but wanted to be very sure his first throw would score, for he might not get a second one.
The lion charged, then stopped and roared again. It was merely a feint, to make the other flee. But Hero did not flee; instead he hurled his spear.
It was a great shot. The spear went right into the lion’s open mouth and stuck in its throat from the inside. The animal stood there, casting his head back and forth, not realizing that it was doomed. It might not be a lethal strike, but it would not be hard to finish off the creature with the second spear.
Suddenly there was a roar from the side. “A second lion!” Craft cried, chagrined.
Hero whirled, bringing his second spear about. But, caught by surprise, he was not fast enough. The lion was on him before he could throw. All he could do was try to fend it off with the spear. Too bad he had lost his heavy spear; that would have been better for this.
The lion leaped. Hero tried to scramble back out of the way, but lost his balance and fell on his back, his spear held above him. This nevertheless caused the lion to miss him; only one paw came down on his left shoulder. The claws dug deep. Then the lion was off him, catching its own balance, skidding on the ground and turning for another charge.
Hero scrambled back to his feet. He brought the spear about, but again lacked time to throw. So he stabbed it at the lion’s neck. The blow was glancing rather than penetrating. Hero stabbed again, and this time the point lodged in the lion’s chest without sufficient force. He was not being effective.
The lion batted at the spear, shoving it aside. In a moment it would get its balance and launch at his throat. Anticipating that, Hero swung his spear back sideways, trying to use it as a baffle. But he knew that would be ineffective. So he grabbed for his knife with his left hand, though it was a relatively puny weapon.
The lion reared up, batting again at the spear. It didn’t realize that the weapon was relatively ineffective sideways; it had felt the sting of its point and was wary. This distraction was Hero’s chance to retreat.
Instead, Hero leaped forward, shoving the spear shaft in the lion’s face. The creature was so surprised it fell over backward. Hero bashed at it with the shaft, striking legs and snout, trying to slice flesh with the barbs. This was nuisance rather than deadly force, but until he got the chance to make a proper spear thrust it had to do.
The lion twisted to get its feet under it. But Hero’s forward momentum carried him onto it. As it tried to rise, he landed on its back. He stabbed, his left arm circling its body, his hand coming in from its front, going for its neck. This time he scored, glancingly; blood welled up on the fur.
“Yaaaaa!” Hero screamed, flush with his success of the moment. His mouth was near the animal’s ear.
Startled anew, the lion scrambled up and bounded away. Hero had inadvertently spooked it. It slowed, and turned to face him again, considering another attack.
“Yaaaaa!” he repeated, and took a threatening step toward it.
The lion didn’t know what to make of this strange aggression. It turned again and fled. This time it did not stop. Soon it was gone.
“Well done!” Craft said. “You scared it off.”
“I was lucky.” Hero went to the first lion, who was still trying to get the spear out of its body. He used the knife to slit its throat, and in a moment its struggles ceased.
Then he felt his shoulder. The contact with the second lion’s paw had been brief, but there was significant damage. The claws had penetrated deep, and now that the heat of action was fading, his shoulder was freezing up. The pain was burning and continuous. He realized that it was just as well he had used his knife quickly, because he would not be able to use that arm for a while.
“Let me see that,” Craft said, addressing Hero’s shoulder. “Haven gave me some balm. I don’t know whether it will be enough.”
They cut off the lion’s ears and tail, evidence of the killing, and started back. Of course the word of his accomplishment was already spreading, but this would make it official. The rest of the body they left for the carrion eaters.
“I thought there was only one grown male in a pride,” Craft said.
“Maybe they were brothers.”
Craft nodded. “Brothers stick together.”
They walked at a brisk pace, though the sun was hot. Hero was sweating more than usual. He drank water from his water skin, but his thirst remained.
It wasn’t long before the pain of the shoulder spread down the arm and across the chest. Hero didn’t say anything, but Craft knew. “That lion’s spirit is in you, biting inside.”
“Haven will fix it.” As he spoke, he wondered why he hadn’t said Crenelle. She was, after all, his wife. But it had always been his sister who had ministered to his hurts, from childhood on, and now in his pain it was her comfort he sought.
“Haven will fix it,” Craft agreed. “Keep walking.”
Hero realized with dull surprise that he had stopped walking. He resumed, but his feet were feeling heavy. His left shoulder had turned numb, and his arm just hung.
At some point Craft took hold of his right arm and urged/guided him forward. He must have slowed or stopped again. The heat was overwhelming, though the sun was descending. He had drunk all of his water, and Craft’s too, but the thirst raged on.
He saw himself as if from a distance, trudging along. His body was hairier, his spear was more crudely crafted, his face was strangely slanted back, but he was moving well. He was tracking a lame leopard who had eaten a child. For centuries the big cats had preyed on Hero’s people, and there hadn’t been anything to be done about it. But Hero had grown larger, and learned to walk on two feet all the time, so that he could carry things with his hands, and what he carried was a weapon. Once, when a leopard struck, his kind had dropped to four feet and run to the nearest trees for safety. But now there were fewer trees, and the spaces between them were greater, so such escape wasn’t as easy. But with weapons it was possible to fight off the leopard. So they spent more time on the ground, and when a leopard stalked one of their children, they went after the cat. A rabbit could not do that, but men were bigger and stronger, and had clubs and knives, and could throw rocks. A
fter a while most leopards concluded that there was easier prey elsewhere, and left them alone. But sometimes one did strike.
The leopard had fled to the sun-hot plain. But Hero followed it, in his continuing vision. He could go farther into the sun, and stay longer than his people had before, because he was larger now, and had a nose. It poked out from his face, and cooled the air he breathed. His father was smaller, and hairier, and had mostly two holes in his face for breathing. His father couldn’t handle as much heat. But Hero could, so now he was chasing the leopard.
He crossed a river, and paused to drink deeply. No matter how much water he sucked, his thirst remained. Then he went on after the leopard. He could stride for a long time. He knew he was getting closer, for the cat’s tracks were fresher, and were dragging more. The leopard was tiring. It wasn’t used to getting pursued.
At last it turned at bay. Its eyes glowed as it snarled, trying to scare him off. But he was here to avenge an eaten child. It was the rule: any creature that ate a child was killed. That was to make the world safe for children.
He strode directly toward it. The leopard sprang. He jabbed the spear point at it. The cat couldn’t stop. The point sank into its chest, but not deeply enough. But the pressure did cause the leopard to miss him, landing to the side.
The cat whirled, snarling. Hero stabbed it again, going for the neck. The leopard tried to spring again, and this time he shoved the spear forward hard, through the neck.
The cat pulled back, and Hero pulled back, and the spear ripped out of its flesh, leaving splinters. Blood spattered. Then he jabbed again, and again, until he got an eye. That blinded it somewhat.
The leopard kept fighting, and Hero kept jabbing. At last he got the point directly in the neck where the blood was. The blood pulsed out, and the creature sank down and died.
“We’re almost there.”
Hero opened his eyes. The vision dissipated. There was no leopard. They were in sight of the hut. Crenelle was coming out, with Tour. Then he knew he would be all right.
Hero’s vision was of his distant ancestor, Erectus, who had emerged from his ancestor Homo habilis perhaps two million years ago. As the climate fluctuated violently, in the throes of the ice ages, the tropics may have changed more than the arctics. It is true that the poles spawned ice sheets that covered enormous areas and dragged the sea level down several hundred feet, changing the configurations of the continents. But the tropics were hardly bypassed. They became drier, and the rich jungles shrank, sometimes to relatively tiny islands. So instead of covering most of central Africa, they became little enclaves at the equatorial coasts and by the Rift Valley. Since the richest diversity of life forms was in those rain forests, this had considerable effect on the creatures of those forests. Then the warmer conditions returned, and the jungles expanded again. This happened over and over, so that no species could count on a consistent environment. Tropical life was whipsawed by the irregular changes, and many species went extinct. Those that survived best were the generalists: species able to get along in diverse habitats. In this manner, Erectus emerged from Habilis, distinguished mainly by larger size, a larger brain, and a nose. The size enabled Erectus to stand up better to enemies that had overwhelmed his ancestors. The brain enabled him to better make and use tools like the spear and hand ax. And the nose not only protected his lungs from the harsher, dustier air of the dry times, it processed the water in his system. When he inhaled, it moisturized the dry air, making it more comfortable, and when he exhaled, it recovered some of that moisture, so it would not be lost from the body. This was why Erectus was the first of the hominids to become independent of the jungle: he conserved enough of his water to enable him to range far enough out to find another water source.
Our species evolved in wet conditions, and was at first poorly adapted to the drier plains. The animals already there could run up to four times as fast, had short light-reflecting fur, matured in two or three years, and could sustain higher body temperatures. They did not have large, delicate, heat-generating brains. Slow moving, slow developing, unarmored, pitifully weakly clawed and toothed, two-footed creatures like us were at a serious physical disadvantage. We had to run from tree to tree, or from forest to forest, seeking security from the predators and glaring sun of the savanna. Because mankind sweats to cool himself, his water is at a premium; his kidneys and bowels recover much of it at need, and so does his nose. Part of the price of this was the excrescence in the middle of his face, the nose, a redevelopment of the snout these apes had lost. Modern mankind was unable to do without it, so we too are blessed with this anomaly, along with our embarrassingly naked skin. But that sweating skin became perhaps the most efficient cooling system in the animal kingdom. Erectus used it to good advantage, salvaging his precious water in whatever other ways he could. We, too, conquered the world thereby. We owe it to the awful variability of the ice ages, that alternated jungle with savanna, tundra with ice sheets; once we could handle that, we could handle almost anything.
7
AMBUSH
Perhaps 22,000 years ago there were tribes in Central Asia. Some moved on to Beringia, as shown, while others remained in Siberia, continuing there for 10,000 or more years. One culture resided at a site called Mal’ta, in the Yenisey Valley just southwest of Lake Baikal. The time is 13,000 years ago, at Mal’ta.
In Chapter 3 Craft was given the choice of raping Crenelle and bringing her south with him, or yielding to her desire to go north so that he could marry her without rape. In Chapter 4 it was apparent that he had done neither, so lost her. But in this later reality he did go with her, and found the harsh northern climate to his liking after all.
“I must forage for supper,” Crenelle said. “The boys are yours for the afternoon.”
Craft nodded. Their twin boys were sleeping, but would soon wake; his wife was leaving now so that they wouldn’t fuss.
He watched as she walked down the center of the long house, past the hearths of the other families, toward the opening at the end. The house was dug partly into the ground, with sod walls buttressed above by stretched skins. Other women, Haven and Rebel among them, were going out similarly, making a party of several. It was women’s work; Haven liked it, but Rebel didn’t. But until Rebel found a man to marry, she had no choice but to assist the other women.
Meanwhile he worked to shape burins, which were routine tools yet uncommonly useful. They looked like slivers of stone, and they were that, but also much more. A good burin was as worthy as any other tool, because it was a tool to make other tools.
Suddenly it burst upon him: Tools to make tools! This was the secret of mankind. Not just utensils, but devices to accomplish many other things. Animals were specialists, growing formidable teeth or claws or hoofs or tails or whatever, to do what they needed to do. People grew none of these things, and were at a disadvantage when it came to competing with an animal on its own turf. But people made tools, and the tools enabled them to more than match the animals. A bear could stun an animal with one sweep of its great paw; a man could stun the animal with one swing of his solid club. A snow tiger could disembowel a creature with a snatch of its sharp claws; a man could do the same with a sharp knife. A badger could delve rapidly into the ground with its digging claws; a man could match it with a digging stick. A wolf could tear open the throat of a deer with its fangs; a man could do it with an arrow or knife. A man by himself was not much, but a man with the right tool—and a weapon was a tool—could do anything an animal could do. Tools made the man.
In fact, there were many kind of tools. The poles, and the thongs they used to tie poles together to make a roof support, were tools for construction. The sod they dug to make solid walls for their houses was a tool to shield them from the weather. The brush they used to thatch the roof was a tool.
He glanced at the low fire Crenelle had left in the hearth. Fire was a tool too! A most useful and versatile one. It could scare away a predator, or cook meat, or heat a house, or make light
to see at night. It would be hard to make it through a winter in this climate without the help of fire. People used tools, of many types, and so became masters of the land.
Bemused by his revelation, he contemplated the burin, thinking of the way this bit of stone, as a representative of all tools, had changed the way people lived. Without tools, where would people be? He couldn’t answer.
The boys stirred. “Daddy!” Dex called, getting up.
“I am here.”
“Where is Mommy?” Sin called.
“She is out foraging.”
“A www.” Then both came over to see what he was up to.
Craft held up the burin. “This is a tool. It makes other tools.” He doubted the boys would appreciate the full significance, but it was never too early to learn the use of a tool. “Take it.”
Dex took it. Craft gave another burin to Sin, and took a third one for himself. “Here is how to make a needle. First we split a section of antler.” He demonstrated, laying the antler on the floor and holding it in place by setting his foot on one end. Then he lodged the point of the burin against a thin crack in the antler, picked up a pounding stone, and banged it against the end of the burin. The point sank into the crack a bit, wedging it wider. He struck again, widening it farther. Finally he managed to split it lengthwise.
The boys were fascinated; they hadn’t realized that antler could be split. Dex transferred his burin to his left hand and took a stone with his right. “Gently,” Craft cautioned. “If you miss, you’ll hurt your hand.”
Sin took his burin in his right hand and a rock with his left. The two boys were pool-reflection images of each other; their hair curled in opposite directions, and they used opposite hands. Crenelle had tried to get Sin to use his right hand more, but the boy was resistive; only his left would do. Seeing how it was, they let him be, though there were members of the tribe who thought that preferring the left hand was a sign of possession by an evil spirit. Nobody said anything, because the boy’s uncle Hero was chief, but if there ever came a time when Hero was not chief, there could be mischief. Craft had seen others glancing across from their hearths, their gazes lingering a bit too long on Sin. That was a disadvantage of communal living; there were no secrets.