Caveman Alien's Trap

by Calista Skye

  I glance at Xark'on. Does he know about any of these things? It's weird that he's here alone, sitting where he can see that mysterious mountain that's forbidden to trod on for any caveman. It's as if he's waiting to see something.

  Anyway, the cave is further away than I thought. Much further. If I start walking tomorrow morning, I might make it to Bune before night falls. I don't cherish the idea of spending the night inside its eerie, deserted corridors. But there might be no way around it.

  Then I turn around and see another Bune.

  7

  - Xark'on -

  Caroline gasps, a sound that she manages to make exotic and alluring. But then, everything is alluring with her.

  “Who made this?” She's staring at the painting.

  “I did.”

  She touches the skin as if so in awe she has to check that it's real. “You? But... it's wonderful!”

  I manage not to smile with the boyish satisfaction I feel from her words. Nobody else has ever said that, and my tribesmen were never impressed. “It passes the time.”

  “You painted Bune. As seen from here. And it's so vivid!”

  “There are some old paintings in some of the caves around the jungle. I found them interesting. I thought I'd do the same. But not on rock. It's difficult to get the paint to stick. I use skins from Smalls and Bigs. Smalls are better. The grain is finer.”

  Her hand is in front of her mouth as she studies the picture. “I can't believe this. It's like seeing a photograph.”

  “A what?”

  “A photograph, a picture recorded with light and a device... Never mind. It's like I'm looking right at the real thing. Except this one is in daytime.”

  “Fodagaf or not, it's not finished.”

  She looks closer. “You still have to do the sky. And this part, here. But the detail is amazing! It must have taken you weeks!”

  “Two seasons so far.”

  “This can't be the first painting you've made. You must have been doing this for years.”

  I motion to the stack of skins on the floor. “Since I was a boy. Before the stripening.”

  “May I?” She lifts the upper skin and holds it out in front of her. “That's a T. rex.”

  Her speech is fine, apart from the sing-song quality of it, but she sometimes uses words I don't know.

  “It's a dangerous Big,” I correct her.

  “Yes, I know. We call it a T. rex?” She leafs through the skins. “This is a flock of irox. It's fantastic. And these... are they your tribesmen?”

  “Some of them.”

  “A hunting party, right? I can't believe how lifelike they are. What do you use to paint?”

  I point to the colors and the stick. “That.”

  She looks. “No, I mean your brushes and paints and palette and so on.”

  “That's it. I don't think I have a palt.”

  “It's a little board for holding your paints while you're painting. So you don't have to bend over and dip the brush all the time. You do have brushes, right?”

  I scratch my chin. “I have a brush for treating the skins of Smalls after I skin them.”

  “I mean for painting?”

  Again, I point at the stick and the colors, feeling stupid, not knowing what she means. “That's all I have.”

  She looks again. “That's it? But... how can you create something like this with a little stick?”

  I put the rope down and come over, picking up one of the jars of color. “This is green. This is red. This is as close to yellow as I can get. The white clouds I just don't color on the skin, because it's light in hue. This I use to apply.”

  I take the stick, dip the thinnest end into the green fluid and place one dot on the skin, among all the other dots of green that each make out a tree. So now there is one more dot than there are actually trees in that part of the jungle.

  Caroline leans forwards, and her sweet scent fills my nose and makes me dizzy. “That... but... this whole picture is just tiny dots! It has to be thousands of them! A million! More! I can't believe it!” Her eyes are very big and her mouth is open.

  I want to smile. I had no idea my simple pastime could give rise to such enthusiasm. And it seems genuine. A warm feeling spreads in my chest and my face. “I know of no other way to do it. Probably a waste of time that would be better spent hunting. But it gives me some pleasure.”

  “Xark'on, this is wonderful. You're an artist!”

  Another word I don't know. “I'm an ardis?”

  “Yes! Ar-tist. Someone who enjoys creating things. I know there's not much of that here on Xren, but you absolutely are one. And you're totally great.”

  I sit back down. I may be an artist, but it holds little value. Being a good hunter or warrior is much more important. Drawing lines on rocks and in the ground is what the young boys do. It's not for grown men with stripes. But I am both a hunter and a warrior. And I only make my pictures after the day is over, when other tribesmen prefer to sit around the fire and talk.

  Well, that's the way I mostly do it. That picture of Bune was begun in a feverish rush that lasted for two whole days, just so I wouldn't forget what happened. I needed a record of it so that I would later be able to believe what I saw that day and that it wasn't just a dream.

  Caroline clears her voice and points to the un-painted parts of the picture. “Will you paint the sky in the same way?”

  “I can't do the sky,” I grunt. “I have no blue.”

  “Can't you just make blue paint like you made the green and the red?”

  “No. I never had any blue. No creatures make the color blue. I've tried. I’ve tried to crush blue rocks, but they just turn gray. Small ponds of water look blue from a distance. Then when you get closer, you see it's just water. The sky is blue, but I can't reach high enough up to dip the stick in it. Even from up here.”

  She looks out at the jungle again. It's quite dark out there now, and the only light in here is the torch I've lit. I can't make rope in darkness, and it gets very dark here at night.

  “So dark,” the woman echoes my thoughts. “Can I stay here tonight?”

  For a moment, I'm standing beside myself again. This is too unreal. A woman, an actual woman, is standing in this old treehouse, praising my paintings and asking to stay here. It's like an old fairy tale like the ones that the tribesmen tell the younger men around the fire.

  I'm suddenly back there being told some outlandish tale and having an urge to draw it, to paint it and make it mine, just like I had when I was a boy. This woman. I have to paint her so I don't forget this strange event.

  But then what? Will she expect me to keep her alive every day, like today? To carry her on my back through the jungle? To keep her safe from Bigs and Smalls? To have her idly watch me while I do the work that will change everything forever?

  She is so small and soft, I can't imagine her hunting. She's like a child in the jungle, awkward and reckless and dangerous. I can't imagine her working. She's small and soft and weak, and she smells so dizzyingly sweet.

  I can't imagine her doing anything of value. I can easily imagine her with her legs apart and her slit presented to me, and indeed that's an image I have to constantly chase out of my mind.

  Does she expect me to keep her here? Will she do anything in return?

  Can I hunt for two while also doing my work?

  She made me feel good when she looked at my paintings. That's well and good. But apart from that, what value does she have?

  The Ancestors gave her to me for a reason. And now I think my first impulse was the right one. She's plainly as attractive to Troga as she is to me. That's why she's here with me.

  The Ancestors are telling me that I'm doing the right thing.

  And to show it, they gave her to me to use as bait in the trap. Very well, bait she will be. I will keep her with me until the time has come.

  I look at her and try a little smile to put her at ease. “Yes, you can.”

  8

  - C
aroline -

  It's the first time I see him smile. It's not a wide grin, just a mild stretching of his mouth. But I'll take it.

  I give him a smile of my own. “Thank you.”

  He gets up and walks back the way we came while the floor creaks under his feet. The house is circular, and the middle is taken up by the thick tree trunk, so I lose sight of him immediately.

  Once more, I lean in to study that huge picture of Bune. It's completely insane. It's painted on a dinosaur skin that's been cut into a large rectangle that stretches the height of the house and is at least six feet wide. It's gigantic. And it's been made by thousands of little dots of color, like pixels on a high-resolution computer screen. I don't know if anyone on Earth can do something like this, but my hunch is probably not. It would take too long. Nobody would have the patience to even try.

  Still, it's not perfect. There's something about it that just looks wrong. I can't put my finger on it, and of course it's not finished yet. But still, something about it strikes me as a little off.

  Well, I was never an art critic, and I'm not going to become one now. The artist is generously allowing me to stay the night here, and I'm grateful.

  I stare out at the jungle, which is now so dark that I can't even see Bune in the distance. This is the first moment I've had to myself today when I'm not in mortal danger out there.

  Just how grateful am I? So he caught me in a trap. After I spied on him for weeks. It's hard to tell who's morally right in this situation. Especially since that trap saved my life, and he didn't force me to come with him. You could argue that all he's done is save my life and give me food and keep me alive. I'm sure that if I were to tell him to help me get down from here and let me get home to the cave, he'd just shrug and do it.

  Somehow, that makes me not want to leave. Because how fucking cool is this treehouse? And he's an artist! And he's as hot as that torch he lit.

  I turn and follow him. I'm feeling a certain need, and I don't want to just squat and put my butt out over the edge. It might not be according to caveman protocol.

  I walk back to the hole in the platform. There's no sign of the caveman. He must have gone back down.

  Fine, that makes things easier. I tiptoe back to the other side of the platform so nothing will hit someone on the way down that rope and squat over the edge, holding onto a bannister that's so conveniently placed it might just be for this very purpose.

  I release the stream and sigh with relief.

  Then I squeal as there's a bang, the whole platform trembles, and then Xark'on is standing in front of me, looking at me with a shocked frown on his face.

  Well, I can't get up. And he probably doesn't know what exactly it is that I'm doing. “Turn around please? It's just... water,” I say, so he doesn't get the wrong idea. I'm embarrassed enough as it is. My face feels red hot.

  He finally turns around and replaces the wooden hatch in the ceiling where he came from, then calmly walks around the platform, out of sight. But I'm sure I can hear muffled laughter.

  I finish up and too late realize that I'll need a leaf or two about now. I rummage around the pockets in my dress and find mostly fluff but also a leathery rag that sometimes comes in handy. Well, this will be its last service for me.

  I get up, pull my dress down, and make my way around to the fireplace where Xark'on has lit a fire and is busy with something that looks a lot like not-sheep meat.

  “There's a place for that,” he says with his back turned. “On the other side of the entrance ropes. Just for emergencies, normally. Or perhaps you prefer your way?”

  “No,” I say and feel my face heat up again. “I just... I didn't know.”

  “I should have told you,” he says generously, and my opinion of him improves greatly. “You were not to know.”

  “It's okay. As long as I didn't offend you.”

  He places a flat rock over the fire and pours a little oil on it. “Would you like some water?”

  “I would.”

  He hands over a leather pouch of the kind that cavemen use, and I put the opening to my lips and drink without checking what it is. If he wants to somehow hurt me, then poisoning is the least likely way.

  The water is clean and feels good in my throat. I gulp down a good amount of it then suddenly have a thought.

  “How do you get water up here?”

  “The ropes.” He doesn't look up.

  “You have to hoist water up here?”

  “Yes.”

  I put the stopper back in the water pouch and hand it back. “Then I won't drink so much.”

  “There's enough water.”

  I sit down a suitable distance from him with my back against the trunk of the giant tree. I'm his self-invited guest. Or does he see me as an intruder? He's not unfriendly. But I get the feeling I've disturbed him in his work. Which is true. If I hadn't spied on him, that raptor wouldn't have attacked me, and he would have been able to keep digging.

  He puts the meat slices on the slate, and it starts sizzling.

  A breeze picks up, and the tree sways just a little. It's barely perceptible, but the treehouse construction isn't that tight, so it creaks from everywhere like a ship in a storm. Except in a ship, I'd be curled up in terror. Here, everything is so serene, I'm starting to feel sleepy.

  Xark'on isn't much of a talker. That's cool. Too many people talk too much. Still, he doesn't seem miffed. Or angry. Just peaceful as he calmly prepares the food and steals the occasional glance at me. I'm fine with that.

  “Why you trapped me?”

  He turns the slices over, and the sizzling intensifies. “Why were you spying on me?”

  Fair enough. I see no reason to keep secrets from him. “I saw you. Some weeks ago. I didn't understand what you were building. So I came back. I liked to look at you.”

  Only the rustle of the breeze in the leaves above us and the creaking of the house can be heard while he thinks. I lean my head against the tree, just letting the drowsiness run wild.

  “I see,” he finally says. “I set the trap in case you would try to ruin my work or attack. I didn't know who you were. I thought you were a boy from another tribe, and I didn’t want him to interfere. It can be dangerous to spy on other tribes. They might be doing secret things.”

  “Like you,” I take a stab in the dark.

  He gives me a violet flash that just looks like a luminous black in the light from the fire. Black light? Is there such a thing? Shit, this sleepiness is really coming over me hard. With the darkness outside and the swaying of the tree and the breeze and gentle rustling of leaves, I’m relaxing more than I probably should in the company of an alien who’s a total stranger. But his calmness is rubbing off on me. And no dinos can come up here. Dactyls can, of course. Xark’on doesn’t seem to worry about them, though.

  The food sizzles on the slate and fills the hut with a mouthwatering smell, the tree sways pleasantly, and the caveman seems frozen in time with the warm light from the fire making his face look mysterious and thoughtful.

  - - -

  “I’m awake!”

  Xark’on takes his hand off my shoulder as I survey my surroundings.

  He has a little smile on his face as he holds a green leaf out to me. “The meat is ready.”

  I rub my eyes. How long was I asleep? “Great.”

  I accept the leaf and just hold it in my hand while I blink to wake up.

  “Caroline is tired,” Xark’on observes.

  “Just a little. It’s been a long day.”

  “It has,” he agrees. “Many things have happened.”

  The fire crackles, and I take a bite of the meat.

  “Or rather,” Xark’on says. “Just one thing has happened. But it is a very strange thing.”

  “Not that strange,” I say as I chew the turkeypig filet. “You just met one of your neighbors.”

  He takes his time replying again. “A neighbor who is a woman.”

  “I know you don’t have women in the tribe
s,” I say with my mouth full. “So you’re all waiting for The Woman to bring them back. I’m not her. I just got abducted from my world by the Plood. Along with my friends. They dropped us on Bune. But we were attacked by irox all the time, so we had to move to a cave. And now we’re a tribe. As good as any other. Better.”

  It’s probably a pretty provocative thing to say to a caveman. But he’s so damn unshakeable. I would like some reaction from him.

  And this is one, I guess. He freezes with his slice of meat halfway to his mouth. “Bune? When was this?”

  “Three seasons ago. One of us got pregnant right after, and she gave birth just two days ago. Yeah, that probably tells you nothing. A pregnancy lasts about three seasons.”

  He resumes eating and the hut is silent.

  “Bune is forbidden for you, right?” I ask.

  “It is.”

  Which is no guarantee for anything. Some of these guys are too independent for their own good and go to forbidden places like other people go to the mall. “Have you ever been there? It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone.”

  He tosses a rind of fat out a glassless window. “No.”

  We eat in silence, and the sleepiness is creeping up on me again.

  Xark’on hands me another water pouch, and I take a good swig of it.

  Then my mouth is on fire, and I cough and splutter so bad Xark’on gets up to assist me.

  “What the death is that?” I cough while tears run from my eyes. “I thought water!”

  He takes a little swig, himself. “This we call krunik. It flows like water, but it tastes like flames. The tribe makes it to sustain warriors on long hunts and in battle.”

  “Booze,” I conclude as the worst of the fire sensation subsides and the alcoholic notes come to the forefront. I didn’t swallow much, but it feels like a little goes a long way with that stuff. “We have that on my planet as well. Except we call it rum.”

  I know all about that. My hiking fanatic dad would bring a little flask of Bacardi with him on treks and drain a bottlecap of it whenever we would finally get to the top of the peak we were going to. And one summer I asked for one, too. He laughed in surprise but did pour a little bit for me, even though I can only have been about fourteen. After that, I always got one when he did. Not because I liked it that much, but because it was part of the experience and that togetherness. I don’t know. Norwegians are weird, I suppose.