West of Eden e-1

by Harry Harrison

  “Then you are doing well.” The shadows were long, the sun below the horizon, and Vaintè had a cloak wrapped about her. “Tie it again so it cannot escape. In the morning you will continue. When you have perfected your understanding there are questions you will put to the ustuzou. Questions that will need answers. If the creature refuses — just remind it of the other’s fate. I am sure that that argument will be a strong one.”

  Kerrick went for a cloak for himself, then returned to sit on the sand beside the dark form of the woman. His head was filled with a clash of words, sounds, and names.

  The woman spoke some words — and he realized that he could understand them even though her movements were unseen!

  “I grow cold.”

  “You can speak in the dark — and I can understand.”

  “Cold.”

  Of course. Marbak was not like Yilanè. It did not depend upon what the body was doing. It was the sounds, just the sounds. He marveled at this discovery while he unrolled some of the blood-soaked skins from the dead man, then spread them over the woman.

  “We can speak — even in the night,” he said, wiping his sticky hands on the sand. When she answered her voice was low, still fearful, but curious as well.

  “I am Ine of the sammad of Ohso. Who are you?”

  “Kerrick.”

  “You are captive too, bound to that marag. And you can speak with them?”

  “Yes, of course. What were you doing here?”

  “Getting food, of course, that is a strange question to ask. We should never have come this far south, but many starved to death last winter. There was nothing else we could do.” She looked at his outline against the sky and felt a great curiosity. “When did they capture you, Kerrick?”

  “When?” It was a difficult question to answer. “It must have been many summers ago. I was very small…”

  “They’re all dead,” she said with sudden memory, then began to sob. “These murgu killed them all, all except a few captured.”

  She sobbed even louder and there was sudden pain in Kerrick’s neck. He seized his collar with both hands as he was dragged away. The noise was disturbing Inlènu* in her sleep and she rolled away from it, pulling Kerrick after her. After that he did not try to talk again.

  In the morning he was slow to waken. His head felt heavy, his skin warm. He must have been in the sun too much the day before. He found the water containers and was drinking thirstily when Stallan approached him.

  “The Eistaa has informed me that you talk with the other ustuzou,” she said. There was a wealth of rich loathing behind the concept of bestial communication that she used.

  “I am Kerrick who sits close to the Eistaa. Your manner of talk is an insult.”

  “I am Stallan who kills the ustuzou for the Eistaa. There is no insult in calling you what you are.”

  The hunter was filled with the fullness of the killing today. Her manner was normally as rough as her voice, yet not this venomous. But Kerrick was not feeling well enough to argue with the brutal creature. Not today. Ignoring her movements of superiority and contempt he turned his back on her, forcing her to follow him as he went to the spot where the bound woman lay.

  “Speak to it,” Stallan ordered.

  The woman shivered at the sounds of Stallan’s voice, turned frightened eyes on Kerrick.

  “I am thirsty.”

  “I’ll get some water.”

  “It writhed and made noises,” Stallan said. “Your noises were just as bad. What was the meaning?”

  “It wants water.”

  “Good. Give the thing some. Then I will ask questions.”

  Ine was frightened of the marag that stood near Kerrick. It stared at her with a cold and empty expression, then moved its limbs and made sounds. Kerrick translated.

  “Where are more Taru?” he asked.

  “Where? What do you mean?”

  “I am asking for this ugly marag. It wants to know where more are, other sammads.”

  “To the west, in the mountains, you know that.”

  Stallan was not satisfied with the answer. The questioning continued. After a while, even with his inconsistent knowledge of the language, Kerrick realized that Ine was avoiding clear answers.

  “You are not telling all that you know,” he said.

  “Of course not. This marag wants to find out where the other sammads are in order to kill them. I will not tell. I will die first. Do you want the thing to know?”

  “I do not care,” Kerrick answered truthfully. He was tired — and his head ached. Murgu could kill ustuzou, ustuzou kill murgu, it was nothing to him. He coughed, then coughed again, deep and chesty. When he wiped his wet lips he saw that there was blood in his saliva.

  “Ask again,” Stallan said.

  “Ask her yourself,” Kerrick said in such an insulting manner that Stallan hissed with anger. “I want some water to drink. My throat is dry.”

  He drank the water, gulping it greedily, then closed his eyes to rest for a moment.

  Later he was aware of someone pulling at him, but it was too much effort to open his eyes. After a bit they went away and he drew his legs to his chest and wrapped his arms about them. Unconscious, he whimpered with cold although the sun was hot upon him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  There was an awareness of the passage of time; there was a constant awareness of pain. Pain that very quickly became the most important thing in Kerrick’s life, an overwhelming presence that trampled him underfoot. He slipped in and out of consciousness, welcomed the blank periods of darkness as an escape from the fever and the endless agony. Once he was awoken by the sound of someone screaming weakly; it was some time before he realized that he was doing it himself.

  The worst of these times slowly passed away. There were still only brief periods of consciousness, but during them the pain had now subsided to a dull ache. His vision was blurred, but the strong, cool arm about his shoulders, supporting him so he could drink, could have only been that of Inlènu*. A constant attendant, he thought, constant attendant. He laughed at the idea, he didn’t know why, as he drifted off again.

  This timeless period came to an indefinite finish one day when he found himself conscious but unable to move. It wasn’t that he was held down or bound in any way, just that a terrible weakness was pressing him flat. He found that he could move his eyes, but they hurt when he did it bringing inadvertent tears. Inlènu* was beside him, sitting comfortably back on her tail, staring at nothing with silent pleasure. With great effort he managed to croak out the single word, water, unable to make the accompanying body motions to indicate that he wished some water to be brought to him. Inlènu*’s nearest eye rolled towards him while she considered his meaning. Eventually his intent became obvious, even to her, and she stirred and went to bring him the gourd. She raised him so he could drink. He slurped, then coughed, dropping back exhausted but conscious. There was a movement at the entrance and Akotolp swam into his vision.

  “Did I hear it speak?” she asked and Inlènu* signed an affirmative. “Very good, very good,” the scientist said, bending over to look at him. Kerrick blinked as her fat features, heavy wattles swaying, swam into view like a rising moon.

  “You should be dead,” she said with some satisfaction. “And you would be dead had I not been here. Move your head to show how grateful you are for that.”

  Kerrick managed a slight motion of his jaw and Akotolp accepted it as her due. “A frightening disease, raging through your entire system: those sores on your skin are the least part of it. The fargi wouldn’t touch you, too stupid to realize that an infection like this is species specific, had to tend you myself. Most interesting. Had I not worked with warm-fleshed ustuzou in the past your death would have been certain.”

  While she talked, mostly for her own benefit, Akotolp changed the dressings on his body. This was moderately painful, but nothing like the pain that he had felt before. “Some of the ustuzou we captured had the same disease, in a milder form.
Antibodies from their youth. You had none. I exsanguinated the sickest one completely, made a serum, did the job. There, finished. Now eat something.”

  “How… long…” Kerrick managed to whisper the words.

  “How long the food? How long the antibodies? Are you still delirious?” Kerrick managed to move his hand in the motion of time significance. “Understood. How long have you been ill? Very long, I did not keep track. It is not important. Now drink this, you need protein, you’ve lost a third of your bodyweight, it is delicious meat enzymed to liquid, most digestible.”

  Kerrick was too weak to protest. Though he did gag on the repulsive liquid before he managed to get some down. After that he slept, exhausted. But this had been the turning point. The disease was over, he was on the mend. He had no visitors, other than the fat scientist, nor did he want any. Memories of the Tanu that he had talked to turned over and over in his mind. No, not Tanu, ustuzou, degenerate, warm-fleshed killers. Flesh of his flesh. Tanu. The same people, the same creatures. He had a double-identity that he could not understand and he fought to make sense of it all. Of course he was Tanu himself, since he had been brought here when he was very young. But that had happened so long ago, so much had happened to him since that all memory of this had vanished. He was left more with a memory of the memory, as though it were something that he had been told about and had not really experienced himself. Though physically he was not Yilanè, could never be, he nevertheless now thought like one, moved like one, spoke like one. But his body was still Tanu and in his dreams he moved among his own people. These dreams were disturbing, even frightening, and he was glad that he remembered very little of them when he awoke. He tried to remember more of the Tanu words but could not, while even the words he had spoken aloud slipped from his mind as he recovered.

  Other than the perpetual silent presence of Inlènu* he was left completely alone. Akotolp was his only visitor and he wondered at this.

  “Are they all still away from the city, all of those who are killing the ustuzou?” he asked her one day.

  “No. They have been back twenty of days at least.”

  “But no one passes outside, not even the fargi, no one comes in other than you.”

  “Of course not.” Akotolp settled back solidly on her tail, her four thumbs laced together and resting comfortably on the thick roll of fat on her midriff. “You know little about the Yilanè, just about this much, the space between my thumbs.” She pinched them together tightly. “You live in our midst yet know nothing.”

  “I am nothing, I know nothing. You know everything. Enlightenment would be pleasure.”

  Kerrick meant what he said, it was not mere politeness. He lived in a jungle of mysteries, a maze of unanswered questions. Most of his life had been lived here in this city of secrets. There were assumptions and knowledge of Yilanè life that everyone seemed to know — yet no one would talk about. If flattery and fawning could get answers from this fat creature, he would contort himself into every position of obeisance.

  “Yilanè do not grow ill. Disease strikes down only the lower animals, like you. I can assume that there were once diseases that affected us. They have long since been eliminated, like the fever that killed some of the first Yilanè to come here. Infections may follow traumatic wounding; they are quickly conquered. So your illness baffles the stupid fargi, they cannot understand it or accept it — so they ignore it — and you. However, such is my skill at working with all forms of life that I am immune to such stupidities.”

  She expressed great satisfaction with herself and Kerrick hurried to agree in great detail. “There is nothing unknown to your Highest,” he added. “Could this stupid one presume upon your intelligence to ask a question?”

  Akotolp signaled bored permission.

  “Is there not disease among the males? I was told in the hanalè that many of them die on the beaches.”

  “Males are stupid and make too much stupid talk. It is forbidden for Yilanè to discuss these things.”

  Akotolp looked at Kerrick with one quizzical eye, while rolling the other at the same time towards Inlènu*’s stolid back, while she made up her mind.

  “But I can see no harm in telling you. You are not Yilanè — and you are male — so you will be told. I will speak of it simply, because only one of my great knowledge can really understand it. I am going to describe to you the intimate and complicated details of the process of reproduction. Firstly, you must realize your inferiority. All of the warm-fleshed male creatures, including yourself, evacuate sperm — and that is your total involvement in the birth process. This is not true of our superior species. During intercourse the fertilized egg is deposited within the masculine pouch. This act triggers a metabolic change in the male. The creature grows torpid, expends little energy, and grows fat. The eggs hatch, the young nurse in the protected pouch and grow strong, emerging only when they are mature enough to survive in the sea. A beautiful process that frees the superior females for more important duties.”

  Akotolp smacked her lips hungrily, reached out, and seized up Kerrick’s unfinished gourd of liquid meat and drained it in a single swallow. “ Superior in every way.” She belched with pleasure. “Once the young have entered the sea the male role in reproduction is finished. Very much the same, it might be said, as that of an insect called the mantis where the female eats the male while they are copulating. Reversing the male metabolic change is not efficient. Approximately half of them die in the process. While this is presumably uncomfortable for the male it has no effect at all on the survival of the species. You have no idea of what I am talking about, do you? I can tell that by the bestial emptiness of your eyes.”

  But Kerrick understood only too well. A third time to the beaches, certain death, Kerrick thought to himself. Aloud he said, “What wisdom you have, Highest. Had I been alive since the egg of time I would know only the smallest part of what you do.”

  “Of course,” Akotolp agreed. “The inferior warm-fleshed creatures are incapable of major metabolic change which is why they are few in number and capable of surviving only at the rim of the world. I have worked with animals in Entoban* that encase themselves in the mud of dried lake bottoms during the dry season, surviving that way until the next rains fall, no matter how long a time that may be. Therefore even you will be able to understand that metabolic change can cause survival as well as death.”

  The facts came together and Kerrick spoke aloud, without thinking. “The Daughters of Life.”

  “The Daughters of Death,” Akotolp said in the most insulting manner. “Do not speak of those creatures to me. They do not serve their city, nor do they die decently when turned away. It is the good who die.” When she looked at Kerrick now there was cold malice in her gestures. “Ikemei is dead, a great scientist. You had the honor of meeting her in Inegban* when she took samples of your body tissues. That was her undoing. Some fools in high places wished for her to find a biological way of destroying your ustuzou. She would not, could not do this, no matter how hard she tried. So she died. The scientist preserves lives, we cannot take them. Like a Yilanè rejected by her city, she died. You are an insensate male animal and I talk to you no more.”

  She waddled away, but Kerrick was scarcely aware of her going. For the first time he was beginning to understand some bit of what was happening around him. He had stupidly accepted the world as he saw it. Had believed that creatures like the hèsotsan and the boats were completely natural. How could they be? The Yilanè had shaped their flesh in some unknown manner — must have shaped every plant and animal in the city. If the fat Akotolp knew how to accomplish such things her knowledge was indeed well beyond anything that he could possibly imagine. For the first time he sincerely respected her, respected what she knew and what she could do. His sickness, she had cured that. He would be dead except for her knowledge. He fell asleep then and moaned in his sleep at the dreams of animals and flesh changing all around him, of himself melting and changing as well.

  Soon h
e was well enough to sit up. After that, leaning on Inlènu*, he managed to walk a few dragging steps. Bit by bit his strength returned. When he was able to, he ventured out of his chamber and sat against a leafy wall in the sun. Once here, and apparently as sound as ever, his presence was permitted again. The fargi came when he called and brought him fruit, all that he wished to have, to wash the taste of liquified raw meat from his mouth.

  His strength continued to return until finally, stopping often to rest, he even managed to venture out as far as the ambesed. Before his illness this would have been a short stroll. It was an expedition now and he was leaning heavily on Inlènu* and running with sweat before he reached his goal. He dropped against the ambesed wall, gasping for breath. Vaintè saw him arrive and ordered him to her presence. He struggled to his feet, stumbling when he walked. She watched his unsteady approach.

  “You are still ill,” she asked, expressing concern as she spoke.

  “The illness has passed, Eistaa. Just the weakness remains. Akotolp, she of endless knowledge, tells me to eat much meat so that flesh will return to my body, and with it my strength.”

  “Do as she orders, that is my command as well. Victory marched with us to the north and all of the ustuzou we met we destroyed. Other than the few we made prisoner. It was my wish that you speak with them, seek out information.”

  “As the Eistaa commands,” Kerrick said. Though he spoke with humble courtesy he was possessed of sudden excitement: his skin flushed and he trembled. He knew that he loathed the disgusting creatures. Yet he still longed to communicate with them.

  “You will speak, but not with those we brought back. They are dead. Build your strength. When the warm sun returns to the north we go there again for an even greater killing.”

  Kerrick signed supplication, wondering at his sudden disappointment.

  It was enough now to lie in the sun, to put the illness behind him as his strength returned. Many days passed before Akotolp sent for him. The fargi led the way to a part of the city he had never visited before, to a sealed and strangely familiar panel. It opened to reveal a still damp chamber.