West of Eden e-1

by Harry Harrison

  Young I go, once to the beach,

  and I return.

  Twice I go, no longer young,

  will I return?

  But not a third, please not a third,

  for few return.

  Not I, not I. For if I go, I know,

  I’ll not return.

  Esetta* grew silent then. He had forgotten that Kerrick was to tell him about Inegban*, or perhaps no longer cared to hear about that distant city. He turned, ignoring Kerrick’s questions, and shuffled back down the hall. Even though Kerrick called out loudly after that no one else appeared. In the end he let himself out, pulling the door shut so it sealed behind him. What had Esetta* meant? What had killed Alipol on the beach? He could not understand at all. Inlènu* was asleep in the sun, leaning against the wall, and he jerked cruelly on the leash until she blinked vacantly up at him, yawned, and climbed slowly to her feet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The fargi was eager to deliver her message — a message to the Eistaa herself! — but in her eagerness she had moved too fast in the heat of the day. When she reached the ambesed her mouth gaped so wide and she breathed so fast that talking now was impossible. In an agony of indecision she lurched forward into the sun, then fell back into the cool shadows. Was there a waterpool nearby? In her confused state she could not remember. None of the fargi nearby paid any heed to her moving fingers and the play of colors across the palms of her hands. They were selfish, thinking only of themselves, never helping another fargi. She grew angry, ignoring the fact that she would have done exactly the same thing herself in a similar situation. In desperation she looked into nearby corridors and finally found a drinking fruit. She sucked the cool water from it, then squeezed the rest of its contents over her arms and body. Her breathing finally slowed and she hazarded an attempt at speaking.

  “Eistaa… I bring you a message…”

  Rough but understandable. Walking slowly now, keeping to the shadows, she circled the ambesed, pushing her way through the clustered fargi to the empty space before the Eistaa. Once there she stiffened her body into the position of expectant-attention, lowest to the highest.

  It was Vanalpè who noticed her after some time and drew Vaintè’s attention to the silent figure.

  “Speak,” Vaintè ordered.

  The fargi shivered with apprehension and had to force herself to speak the carefully memorized words.

  “Eistaa, I bring message. Message is from she who feeds the raptor. The bird is returned.”

  “Returned!” Vaintè was delighted and the fargi writhed with joy, believing in her simplicity that the pleasure was directed at her. Vaintè summoned another fargi with a quick motion. “Find Stallan. She is to attend me at once.” She turned back to the fargi who had brought the message.

  “You. Return to the ones with the bird. Stay with them until the pictures are ready for me to see then come and inform me. Repeat.”

  “Return to those with the bird. Stay. Return to the Eistaa when ready are the…”

  “Pictures, views, landscapes.” Vaintè said it three different ways so the stupid creature could understand. “Repeat, akayil.”

  Akayil, disgust-in-speech. The watching fargi whispered the terrible expression to each other and felt fear, moving away from the messenger when she left as though afraid of some contamination.

  “Vanalpè, how long will the process take?” Vaintè asked.

  “To start with, the information is available now. The memory store of the bird’s ganglion array will have been dumped into a larger memory bank. I have done this myself when recording growth patterns. The first pictures and the last pictures may be seen at once — but finding one’s way through the information in between is the time-consuming part.”

  “Your meaning is not clear.”

  “I am stupid in my explanations, Eistaa. The bird has been gone for very many days. All of this time, night and day, a picture has been memorized every few moments. The memory creature may be instructed to remove all the black pictures of the night, but countless more still remain. Then each picture must be brought to the liquid-crystal screen, to be ignored or recorded. This will take days, many days.”

  “Then we will be patient and we will wait.” She looked up and saw the stocky, scarred figure of Stallan approaching and signaled her close.

  “The bird has returned. We will soon know if the ustuzou have been found. Are we ready to mount an attack?”

  “We are. The fargi now shoot well, the hèsotsan are well-fed. More dart-bushes have been planted and many darts have been gathered. The boats have been breeding and some of the young ones are big enough for service.”

  “Ready them. Load food and water, then attend me. You, Vanalpè, your experience with pictures will be put to good use now. You will go at once to aid those who do that work.”

  For the rest of that day, and all of the next, Vaintè guided the city and put all thought of ustuzou from her mind. But on every occasion when she relaxed and there was no one close to speak to, instant memory returned. Had the ustuzou been found? If they had been found they must be killed, sought out and destroyed. Her nose flaps whitened with anger when she thought of the ustuzou. When she felt like this she took no pleasure from eating, while her temper was so short that one frightened fargi died after her savagely curt dismissal. It was a good thing for the well-being of the city that word finally reached Vaintè on the third day.

  “The pictures are ready, Eistaa,” the fargi said and a shiver of relief passed through all who heard that. When Vaintè left the ambesed even Kerrick joined the large group of followers who trailed after her, as eager as any to discover what had happened.

  “They have been found,” Vanalpè said. “A large picture is being processed and is almost ready.”

  The sheet of cellulose was slowly being extruded from a beast’s orifice. Vanalpè pulled it free with a wet smacking sound and Vaintè seized it ifp, still damp and warm.

  “They have indeed been found,” she said, and the picture trembled in her fingers at the pleasure in her movements. “Where is Stallan?”

  “Here, Eistaa,” Stallan said, laying aside the pictures she had been looking at.

  “Do you know where this place is?”

  “Not yet.” Stallan pointed to the center of the picture. “But it is enough to know that this river goes past the site. We attack by water. I am now following their trail, it is a way that I know and the first part is already marked on my charts. With the pictures I shall follow them until they reach this place. See, it is their lair. The shelters of skins, the large beasts, everything as before.”

  “And they will be destroyed as they were destroyed before.” She signed Kerrick to attend her, then tapped the picture with her thumb. “You know what this is?”

  The black and white patterns meant nothing to him; he had never seen a picture before. He took the sheet and turned it in different directions, and even looked at the back before Vaintè tore it from his hands.

  “You are being difficult,” Vaintè said. “You have seen these creatures and structures before.”

  “With all respect, Eistaa,” Vanalpè said, her interruption humble and apologetic. “But the fargi are like this as well. Until they have been trained to look at pictures everything that they see is meaningless.”

  “Understood.” Vaintè threw the picture aside. “Finish the preparations. We leave as soon as the site is identified. You, Kerrick, you will be coming with us.”

  “Thank you, Eistaa. It is my pleasure to aid.”

  Kerrick was sincere about this. He had no idea of where they were going or what they were doing. But he looked forward to the novelty of the voyage in the boats.

  His enthusiasm wore off very quickly. They left at dawn, sailed until dusk and then slept on the shore. This continued day after day until he began to envy the Yilanè their ability to lapse into an almost mindless state. He looked at the shore instead and tried to imagine what was behind the wall of trees behind the b
eaches.

  There were changes in the shoreline as they moved slowly north. Jungle gave way to forest, then to marshes, then low scrub. They passed the mouth of a great river but continued on. Only when they entered a large bay was there a change from their northerly route. Vaintè and Stallan in the lead boat altered direction and headed up the bay. This was something new and the somnolent fargi stirred to life. When they drew close to the reeds along the shore their passage stirred the birds that were feeding there, causing them to rise up in great flocks that darkened the sky; the sound of their honking was deafening. When the marshes gave way to beach again Vaintè signaled them to land — although the sun was only halfway down the sky. Like the others, Kerrick moved close to hear what was being decided. Stallan was touching one of the pictures.

  “We are here — and the ustuzou are here, on the riverbank. If we go closer today we may be seen. It will be wisest to lighten the boats here, leave all the water and food on the beach. In that way we will be prepared to strike fast at first light.”

  Vaintè agreed. “We will attack from the water, in the breaking-wave movement, since we cannot get behind them this time. I want them all killed, except for the few that Stallan has been instructed to take prisoner. Is this understood? Repeat.”

  The group leaders repeated the instructions while the fargi strained to understand. This was done over and over until even the most dim-witted knew what they had to do. Kerrick turned away, bored, but returned quickly when Vaintè signaled to him.

  “You will remain here with the supplies and await our return. I don’t want you killed by mistake during the fighting. Your work will come later.”

  Before Kerrick could answer she turned away. He had no desire to see any killing, even of ustuzou, so he welcomed her decision.

  They were up at dawn and into the boats. Kerrick sat on the shore while they boarded the boats, then watched their silent departure as they slipped away into the morning mist. Inlènu* watched as well, with apparent lack of interest, though she did open one of the meat containers as soon as they were out of sight.

  “You’re disgusting, a glutton,” Kerrick said. “You will get fat.”

  “Eat good,” Inlènu* said. “You eat too.”

  He really did not like the meat that was preserved in the bladders; it always had a musty taste. But he nibbled a little, then drank some water, knowing that there was no way he could get Inlènu* to move until she had eaten her fill. He looked closely at her and realized that what he had said was true; she was getting fat, a soft layer over her entire body that rounded the hard contours of her solid muscle.

  Though he was used to the constant presence of others he found that he could still relish the freedom of being alone. Inlènu* did not count. When the boats had gone silence descended. There were sounds, the breeze rustling the tall grass, the small waves slapping on the shore. But there were no voices, none of the constant talk of the ambesed.

  Kerrick led the way as they walked quietly along the clean sand, between the tussocks of grass, surprising birds that fluttered away almost from beneath their feet. They walked on, until Inlènu* muttered complaints and had to be ordered into silence. The tide was going out when they came to the ridge of high black rock. Seaweed hung from it in streamers and just above the water there were large mounds of dark shellfish clinging to the cracks.

  “Good to eat,” Inlènu* said, smacking her jaws loudly. Standing knee-deep in the sea she tried to pull some free but they were firmly fastened to the stone. She made no protest when Kerrick led her ashore and found a fist-sized rock. He used this to break some of them free and Inlènu* seized them and shoved them into her mouth and crunched down with her immense jaws. She spat the fragments of shell into the ocean and happily swallowed the sweet flesh inside. Kerrick gathered more for himself and used the metal knife about his neck to open them. They stayed and ate until they could eat no more.

  It was a pleasurable day, the best that he could remember. But Kerrick wanted to be there when the others returned, so they went back to the landing site in the early afternoon. They had a long wait. It was almost sunset before the boats reappeared.

  Vaintè was first ashore. She strode across the beach to the supplies, dropped her weapon into the sand, and tore open a bladder of meat. As she bit a great chunk from it she looked at Kerrick’s inquiring stance. She chewed and swallowed greedily before she spoke.

  “None escaped. The killers have been killed. They fought hard and we lost fargi, but the world has many fargi. We did what we came here to do. Now you will do your duty as well.”

  She called out an order and two fargi took a heavily wrapped bundle from one of the boats and dragged it ashore. At first Kerrick thought that it was a bundle of skins. Then it moved.

  When the fargi dropped it on the sand the skins fell open and Kerrick looked down at a bearded face. Blood had soaked into the creature’s hair; its eyes were wide with terror. It opened its mouth at the sight of Kerrick and strange harsh sounds came out.

  “The ustuzou speaks,” Vaintè said. “Or does whatever passes for speaking among these dirty creatures. What is it saying, Kerrick? I order you to listen and tell me what it says.”

  There was no thought of disobeying. When the Eistaa spoke one always did what she said. But Kerrick could not obey and he moved with fear.

  He could not understand the sounds. They meant nothing to him, nothing at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Is the creature speaking?” Vaintè asked, insistently.

  “Tell me at once.”

  “I don’t know,” Kerrick admitted. “Perhaps it is. I can understand nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “Then the noise it makes — it is just a noise.”

  Vaintè was furious. This was a setback to her plans. She should never have believed Enge with her insistence that the filthy beasts actually communicated with each other. She must have been wrong. Vaintè vented her anger on the ustuzou, pushing her foot into the thing’s face, twisting hard. It groaned with pain and called out loudly.

  Kerrick cocked his head, listening intently before he spoke. “Eistaa, please wait — there is something.”

  She stepped back and spun about to face him, still angry. He spoke quickly before she turned her wrath on him as well.

  “You heard it, it called out the same thing-many times. And I know, that is, I think I know what it was saying.”

  He fell silent, chewing at his lip as he searched through memories long buried, words forgotten, silenced.

  “Marag, that is what it said. Marag.”

  “That conveys no meaning.”

  “It does, I know it does. It is like, it has the same intent as ustuzou.”

  Now Vaintè was puzzled. “But the creature is ustuzou.”

  “That is not what I mean. To this one, the Yilanè are ustuzou.”

  “The meaning is not completely clear, and I do not like the inference, but I grasp what you are attempting to say. Proceed with the questioning. If you think this ustuzou is yileibe and cannot speak well we will find you another one. Begin.”

  But Kerrick could not. The captive was silent now. When Kerrick leaned close to encourage it the ustuzou spat into his face. Vaintè was not pleased.

  “Clean yourself,” she ordered, then signaled to a fargi. “Bring another one of the ustuzou here.”

  Kerrick barely noticed what was happening. Marag. The word turned over and over in his head and stirred up memories, unpleasant memories. Cries in the jungle, something frightening in the sea. Murgu. That was more than one marag. Murgu, marag, murgu, marag…

  He stiffened and realized that Vaintè was calling to him angrily.

  “Are you suddenly yilenin too, as unable to speak as a fargi fresh from the sea?”

  “I am sorry, the thoughts, the sounds the ustuzou made, my thoughts…”

  “They mean nothing to me. Speak with this other one.”

  Kerrick looked down into wide, frightened blue eyes, a tangle of blo
nd hair about its head. There was no hair on the thing’s face and its body under its wrappings was swollen and different. The frightened creature wailed as Vaintè grabbed up one of the stone-tipped wooden spears that had been taken from the ustuzou and prodded the captive’s side with it.

  “Look at me,” Vaintè said. “That is correct. I now show you what your fate will be if you remain silent like this other one and do not make your speaking.”

  The bearded captive cried out hoarsely as Vaintè turned and stabbed the spear into its flesh, again and again, until it was silent. The other prisoner moaned in agony and rolled about as much as it could in its tight binding. Vaintè threw the blood-drenched spear aside.

  “Loosen its limbs and make it speak,” she ordered as she turned away.

  It was not easy. The captive wailed, then coughed heavily until its eyes streamed with tears, mucus dribbled down its lips. Kerrick leaned close and waited until it grew quieter before he spoke the only words that he knew.

  “Marag. Murgu.”

  The answer came quickly, too fast for him to understand, though he recognized murgu-and something else. Sammad. Yes, sammad, the sammad had been killed. That was what the words meant. All in the sammad slain by the murgu. That was what she was saying.

  She. Unbidden the word was on his lips. Female. She was linga, the other dead one, hannas. Male and female. He was hannas too.

  Understanding grew, but only slowly, a word, an expression at a time. Some words he could not understand at all; the vocabulary of an eight-year-old, all that he had ever known, was not that of a grown woman.

  “You make noises at each other. Is there understanding?”

  Kerrick blinked at Vaintè, leapt to his feet, and stood gaping for a long moment before the meaning of her question penetrated the flood of Marbak words that filled his head.

  “Yes, of course, Eistaa, there is understanding. It moves slowly — but it moves.”