Then she found a Mimi. It was in the form of a wisp of mist rising from a crevice in a cliff wall. She halted respectfully before it, giving it time to see her. After a while it curled toward her, acknowledging her presence. “O Mimi,” she pleaded. “I beg you, tell me what I must know.”
The Mimi considered. Then it spoke, with a voice like that of a moth. “Kungarankalpa.” It faded away.
Rebel woke. She understood that word! It was the Seven Sisters. They were ancestral heroines of the north, who fled south to escape a lustful man named Nyiru, who wanted to rape the eldest sister. Their path across the continent was marked throughout, crossing the territories of many clans. East of Uluru was a string of claypans and rock pools, evidence of their passage. West of Atila they had camped for the night, building a windbreak which became a low cliff. In the morning they dived into the ground, emerging again at Tjuntalitja, a sacred well. But Nyiru watched them from a nearby sandhill. From there they walked to Wanakula, a rock hole collecting water. Then to Walinya, a hill on which they built a hut and camped again. That hut became a cave in a grove of wild fig trees, and one of the fig trees, standing apart, was associated with the oldest sister, the one fleeing the rape.
Nyiru watched until night, when he thought they were asleep, then burst into the hut. He was going to possess the woman he desired, and the others couldn’t stop him. But when he landed on her body, he found it to be a pile of brush and leaves. Meanwhile, the sisters were escaping through a low opening in the rear of the cave. No chance to catch them by surprise; they had anticipated his move.
The Seven Sisters finally made their way to the southern coast, where there was a great gulf reaching into the land. There, still fleeing Nyiru’s implacable pursuit, they plunged into the sea. The shock of the cold water caused them to jump into the sky; they weren’t accustomed to the chill of the southern waters. They became the constellation Kurialya, called the Seven Sisters. But Nyiru still chased them, and his footprints also marked the night sky, his toes becoming three bright stars nearby. He did not seem to have caught them, but if those three bright toes ever moved to the seven faint ones, that would be evidence of his victory.
Rebel considered. She was the younger of two sisters, so the legend didn’t seem to fit. But the Mimi had named it, so it had to be relevant. Her larger family consisted of seven, including her sister, three brothers, husband, and husband’s sister, who was about her own age. Maybe that was it. But Haven was the elder sister, and nothing had happened to her. So it still didn’t fit.
Well, she would have to ask Haven. Except that they couldn’t talk. That was a continuing frustration. Anyway, Haven wasn’t here right now. So there was nothing to do except ponder it alone.
She wasn’t sure whether it was a dream or a vision, or both, but was sure it wasn’t reality. If it was another aspect of Dreamtime, it was a strange one, as it matched none of the legends she knew. She was among monkeys, or rather apes, who dropped from the trees to the ground and scrambled across it, four footed. But this was awkward, because their feet were made for grasping branches, and they had to walk on knuckles. Also, there was danger on the ground, from predators like lions and leopards and hyenas and canines, as well as ornery hogs and buffalo and rhinos and elephants. It was difficult to eat enough on the ground before being driven back to the trees for safety. They needed to grab handfuls of food to take back to the trees, to be eaten at leisure—but that was hard when running on knuckles. So they specialized, making their hind feet more solid so they could support more weight, and the forepaws more delicate and mobile so that they could grasp and hold food more competently. Of course it was awkward climbing a tree with the hands holding food, so there had to be compromises, but this still worked better than the old system. Soon they were walking, striding, and running on two hind feet all the time, using the front feet for carrying or climbing, depending on the need.
But going two-footed led to endless complications. It straightened out their bodies, making it possible to mate face-to-face. Rebel did it many times, intrigued by her new ability to see her partner during the act. It made her front as interesting to males as her rear, so she developed frontal attractions, because there were advantages to being able to hold a man’s attention from any position. It provided her with greater control than she had had before, and that was nice. But it also made it harder for children, because they took time to learn the art of balancing on two feet, and had to be carried until they did learn. Carrying a baby had the same problem as carrying food: it limited her options, making it harder to climb trees or to forage. She couldn’t do them all at once, and that made survival harder. She needed help.
She solved that by intensifying her ability to attract and hold the interest of a man. Then he protected her and her baby, and got her food. Thus families were founded. But this required better social skills as well as foraging, sexual, and baby-raising skills. There was so much to learn and remember, and much of it could be learned from the experience of others. So she grew a larger brain, becoming smarter, to handle this more complicated two-footed life on the ground. Still, there were limits to observation of others, because the things she needed to know weren’t always happening when she needed to know them. Some of them were rarities, like getting burned by the fire from a volcano; it was better if someone who had experienced that, however long ago or far away, could tell her what it was like. But how was that to be done, with no way to express it?
Other species didn’t try. But hers did. They started showing and telling each other about things that existed or happened far away. To do this they needed to discover symbols: words or gestures that stood for other things. This was the hardest concept to grasp: that what was being indicated was not here but elsewhere. A hungry lion was in the valley, an angry river was flooding its banks, a fruit tree had just ripened. But those who were able to grasp the concept had a better chance to avoid the lion or river, and to reach the tree before others got its fruit. Thus a concept improved survival.
Once that started working, it got better. Those who were quickest to master concepts lived better and had more children. They became more facile at the art of elsewhere. “Good berries, that way,” Haven said as she pointed. Haven was in this vision, while she had not been in Dreamtime. “Bad leopard.” So Rebel knew she could get food, but would have to watch out for the leopard. She warned Haven’s son Risk, and went in the indicated direction. The leopard was there, and they had to leap for a tree. The leopard could climb a tree, but not as well as people could, so it did not pursue them there. But when the leopard left, they dropped back down and reached the berry patch and feasted. They had avoided danger and gotten their bellies full, because Haven had told them about both.
Rebel woke. The dream had seemed so real, and now reality seemed dreamlike. She was in a cave, and Haven was there. She wanted to tell her sister about the good berries and the bad leopard, but knew she couldn’t; she had no language, here in the cave. In the dream she had a very simple language, but that was vastly better than this. Haven also had a son, as she did not have in life. How could that be explained?
In a way, Rebel faced the same challenge here as she had there: to communicate efficiently with her sister. In the hot forest and field she had had just a few key words: the thing she was talking about, like berries or leopard, and modifications, like good or bad. But those had done the job. She had avoided the leopard and eaten the berries. She had survived, thanks to communication. Now she needed the same, to understand her present situation. For Haven surely knew it, if she could only tell it.
Haven spoke, and again it was a liquid and rather lovely flow of sound, with breaks and inflections and nuances and meanings, all of which were lost on Rebel. She spread her hands to show her continuing bewilderment.
Haven smiled sadly. She pointed to her mouth: food?
Rebel nodded, then pointed to her crotch: she had to pee. Gestures worked well, for immediate things.
Haven helped her walk out of
the cave. Rebel was feeling better, or less worse; her headache had faded to moderate, and there was very little new blood in her hair, and she walked with greater steadiness. She was recovering.
But what had happened? How had she gotten bashed on the head? Why had Haven dragged her to this cave, instead of home to her husband, whose name she could not yet recover? She trusted her sister, and knew that Haven would never do her ill. There had to be good reason. But what was it?
She would learn the answers when she learned to communicate better. Maybe she could follow the route her dream ancestor had taken, establishing simple words for simple concepts, and modifying them. Yet what word could stand for the whole of her unknown situation? She was unable to address it until she had developed a more competent language. One that went well beyond pointing to mouths or crotches.
Haven showed Rebel what she had brought: fruits and nuts. Rebel reached for the nuts, but Haven stopped her hand.
Oh—those were poison nuts. She could not name them, but she knew their nature. They had to be soaked to wash out the toxin, before they could be ground and baked into excellent bread. Rebel nodded. She poured some water into an open bowl-shaped gourd, then put the nuts into it, starting the soaking process.
Haven nodded, satisfied that Rebel remembered the food if not the language. She would not poison herself by eating the nuts prematurely. Haven must have found them and brought them directly here, trusting that there would be time and competence to process them. She was correct. Rebel was not in good condition, and could not speak, but she could handle this chore; it was time-consuming rather than demanding.
She ate the fruits that Haven had brought, pondering. Then she tried. She leaned over to draw a picture in the dirt. She tried to draw herself, but wasn’t very effective, so she pointed to herself and to the figure and glanced at Haven.
Haven understood. “Rebel,” she said, pointing to the figure and to Rebel.
“Re-bel,” Rebel said, forming her mouth around the unfamiliar word. Then she drew another figure, more solid. She pointed to it and to Haven.
“Haven,” her sister said.
“Ha-ven.” The name of her, the sound of it as unfamiliar as the name of herself. She focused on the two words, trying to remember them. Rebel, Haven, Rebel, Haven. It was a beginning.
Rebel drew a male figure. “Re-bel. . .?” How could she ask?
But Haven understood. She drew two figures together, male and female. “Rebel–Harbinger.”
So that was her husband. But it still didn’t tell how or why she had gotten bashed and brought here to recover alone. Neither did it explain the relevance of the legend of the Seven Sisters.
Haven had to go; it was clear she couldn’t stay long in the cave. Rebel hoped to learn why, as soon as their communication improved. This limitation was truly frustrating.
However, she had made progress. Now she was tired again, so she lay down and returned to sleep.
Her strange dream vision returned. Now she and Haven were larger, with projecting noses. They had developed a huge vocabulary, almost every word identifying a person or a thing. Every significant tree had its name, which distinguished it from all other trees. Every key fork in the river, every unusual rock formation, every useful place of shelter from the elements, including especially caves.
They were foraging for edible tubers near the edge of their band’s range. There should be good yams in this ground. When they found one, they would leave the top of the tuber attached to the tendril so that the yam would grow again, and later they would be able to harvest another from the same place. They would also spit out fruit seeds into the debris of fish and shellfish remains, as the rotting compost was very good for new tree growth, assuring more fruit trees in the future.
Then Rebel caught a whiff of a foreign scent. Male, and not one of their own. “Alien!” she said.
Haven understood immediately, for the word described foreign intruders, who were by definition dangerous. Both women dived for cover behind nearby trees, alert for the aliens.
It turned out to be a scouting party of two Green Feather, brutish neighbors who constantly invaded Family territory. The Family men needed to be warned right away.
Rebel saw Haven back away from her concealing tree, warily watching to be sure the aliens did not spy her. But in so doing she tripped over a fallen branch, and tumbled backward.
The aliens heard the sound, and recognized it as something not of nature. Both turned and oriented on it.
Rebel realized that it would not be possible to avoid these brutes. They were muscular and swift; they could outrun the women.
Haven realized it too. “Rebel go Family!” she cried, and scrambled for the most climbable nearby tree.
Rebel didn’t answer or move, for either could give away her presence. Haven was acting as a diversion, so that the enemy men would not realize there was more than one girl.
The two men quickly charged Haven’s tree. Haven screamed and climbed it as rapidly as she could, her bare legs flashing below her belly. She had good legs, firmly fleshed, perhaps her best feature, and from the base of the tree the men could see up between those legs. The men stood and gazed upward, fascinated, though in truth there was not much to be seen in that shadowed region. Men were dull witted about such things; they would freeze and watch any woman who showed or seemed to show more than the usual flesh, even if they were well familiar with the anatomy.
Haven’s necklace snagged on a branch and came apart. It fell down, leaving the woman naked. The men continued to stare up, licking their lips.
Rebel realized that Haven had exposed herself on purpose, to distract the men, so that Rebel could escape unobserved. In practical terms, a woman in her necklace showed just as much flesh as one without it, but in social terms there was a significant difference. A woman who divested herself of her ornaments was signaling her availability for sex, and one who was spied by a man in that state was sure to be approached, even if it was an accident. In fact many men actually preferred accidental views to deliberately presented ones, and hardly realized that women seldom really showed more than intended. The Green Feather men were caught; they desired her.
But her ploy was dangerous. Soon one of the men would climb the tree to fetch her down, so they could both rape her and drag her back to their own camp. But this would take time, because they would not want her to fall from the tree and be killed before they had their turns at her. Dead women were no fun. The men would have to catch her and drag her down, branch by branch, a complicated process. They might have hurled rocks until they knocked her out of the tree, had she not shown them her legs and crotch in the absence of her necklace. Now their suddenly aroused lust limited their options. They wanted her whole and healthy.
Rebel turned and sneaked away from the scene, knowing that Haven had given her time to bring help. She needed to get the men of the Family here before the Green Feather brought Haven all the way to the ground.
When Rebel was clear of the scene, she ran with all her speed. She was slender and healthy, and could move well through familiar territory.
In moments, it seemed, she was at the home base. “Greenfeather!” she cried. “Sweettuberpatch! Haven!” They understood. With three words she had identified the enemy, the place, and the problem.
For she would not have come so breathless and excited unless there was bad trouble, and naming the Green Feather identified the nature of it.
Where the scattered Family members were she didn’t know, but suddenly Hero was on his way to the sweet tuber patch, and Craft with additional weapons, and Keeper with his wife Crenelle and three eager dogs. Rebel followed, clasping her own favored weapon, a sharp stone knife. Harbinger was beside her, concerned for her welfare. She flashed him a smile to show she was all right.
When they got there, the climbing enemy had just reached Haven, and had hold of her ankle. The man on the ground took one look at Hero and fled, leaving his companion to his fate.
The man a
bove looked down, and realized he was in trouble. But he didn’t dissolve into despair. He drew on Haven’s ankle, lifting her leg out from the tree. He could send her hurtling to the ground.
The Family men paused. If the Green Feather man killed Haven, they would kill him, for he had no escape from the tree. But they didn’t want Haven to die.
“Truce,” Hero called. It was a word that transcended cultures. It meant that the combative parties would disengage without fighting. It was normally honored, because without it there would be situations nobody could resolve.
“Truce,” the Green Feather man agreed. He let go of Haven’s ankle. Hero and the others stepped back, putting their weapons at rest. Each side had backed off a stage. The dogs growled, but obeyed Keeper’s signal to stay clear.
The man descended the tree. Haven remained aloft. The man reached the ground and walked away. He might have wanted to run, but he was demonstrating that the truce protected him. The Family men stood unmoving.
Only when the Green Feather man was gone did Haven start down the tree. The Family men went up to it to help her. She embraced Hero, relieved to be safe. Then she turned to Rebel and hugged her too. Haven had provided the distraction that enabled Rebel to escape; Rebel had brought the help that saved Haven. The Family had protected its own, as it always did. Usually it was Rebel who distracted, and Haven who went home; this time their roles had been reversed, but the outcome was the same. Three words had done it.
Rebel woke. All the members of the Family had been in that dream. They had worked together to save Haven from the enemy. The elder sister, threatened with rape. But here in the cave it was Rebel who had suffered, and Haven helping her. Had the Green Feather attacked again? Were there three words to clarify the situation?