Time's Last Gift Part 5

Their entrance to the campsite was a victorious one. The Silversteins turned their flashlights on them as they came up the hillside, and then torches flared as the people streamed down to shout with joy at the sight of the meat. Once on the ledge under the overhang, the four men recounted their adventures. The others looked with awe at Gribardsun. Gribardsun took advantage of his increased prestige to enter the tent where Abinal lay and give him another panacea. Abinal was sicker, and Gribardsun was not sure that the pill would do him much good. In fact, he would not have been surprised if the boy were dead by morning. He hoped not. Aside from his human concern, he didn't want to be blamed for the boy's death. He did not like the looks which Glamug, the shaman, gave him when he came out of the tent. If the boy lived, Glamug would try to take the credit. If the boy died, Glamug would put the responsibility on the stranger.

The shaman had put on a headband of grouse feathers and, with a bag full of medicine-magic objects and a reindeer's bladder filled with pebbles tied to the end of a stick, was dancing slowly around the tent. He chanted in a shrill voice while he danced. Amaga, the mother, stood by the flap of the tent with a pine torch and waved it around in circles. The father, Dubhab, had painted his forehead with a mixture of wood ash and some dark clay, but he took no part in the ceremony. He sat by a hearth and ate roast bear and seemed to be cracking jokes with some of his hearthmates.

After a while Glamug, tired by the day's hunting and the trek after the stolen meat, flopped down by the hearth. Rachel quit taking films of the ceremony. Drummond squatted by a hearth and chewed on a piece of bear meat while his black eyes moved from side to side. He looked tired and had already mentioned that he would like to go home. Robert von Billmann was recording a speech by Dubhab, who seemed to be telling of the raid.

The villagers (Gribardsun was thinking of the place as a village) were occupied in having a good time, though some were busy with ch.o.r.es that could not be put off. Some young mothers were suckling their babies, which were wrapped up in furs. A middle-aged woman had stuffed herself with meat and now was chewing on a piece of skin to make it soft. An hour and a half pa.s.sed, and most had crawled into their tents and tied down the flaps to keep out the wind. The fires in the hearths were covered with ashes; the coals would be revivified in the morning.

Dubhab and Amaga and the girl, Laminak, had retired into the tent with the sick boy. Glamug danced again around the tent, chanting in a low voice, shaking his rattle, and occasionally making a sign at the four major points of the compa.s.s. He folded his thumb and two middle fingers together and extended his little finger and index finger. All four of the scientists noted the sign; it was indeed an ancient one.

Glamug soon tired again. But he did not enter his tent, even though his wife had stuck her head out from time to time and looked at him as if she wished he would come home. Glamug got a huge bison fur and wrapped himself in it while he sat in front of the sick boy's tent. His head was hidden in a great fold of the fur, but one hand was out in the cold, holding the reindeer bladder. Evidently he was on duty all night, guarding against the spirit of sickness and death.

The scientists decided to call it a day. They started out on the cold and weary walk to the vessel. The village was quiet; there were no guards; even Glamug was snoring in the depths of his robe.

The next morning they ate a good breakfast and rehashed the previous day's events. Rachel and Gribardsun fed the bear cubs and played with them a little. Rachel seemed happier than the day before. Gribardsun wondered if it was because she was with him. She smiled much at him, laughed at almost everything he said, and reached out and put her hand on his arm or shoulder and once moved her fingertip along his jaw. He was aware that yesterday's events had raised him even further in her esteem. Whatever was driving the Silversteins apart was carrying her toward him. He did not believe that he was the original force that had split them. But he might get blamed before they settled their troubles.

He decided that he would have to talk seriously to her, perhaps to both of them, apart or together, and straighten them out. But he did not think that now was the time for it. He would put it off for a while. If he did so, then her interest in him might die away, or she might find means to sublimate it, or she and her husband might come to terms with their differences. He believed much in allowing time to effect cures.

The next job was to move the building materials to the site chosen for their camp. Carrying large packs, they hiked to the ledge, where it took them only an hour to erect two beehive-shaped buildings. Since these were so light that a strong wind could carry them away, they were enclosed around the bases with piles of stones. And some small boulders were placed on the floor inside to secure them even further. The Silversteins moved into one building; the Englishman and German into the other.

At noon they returned to the vessel and packed more materials. They carried these to the 'village,' where the women and children and a few men crowded around them in wonder. The people were amazed at the spraying and hardening of the foam. Only after some talk among themselves did they get courage enough to approach and touch the plastic. They watched as the four piled stones around these and placed some heavy ones inside. Gribardsun cut out the door and replaced it with hinges and a lock. This dome was to hold artifacts and records and specimens and to serve as a temporary home and workshop. Gribardsun walked around it twelve times chanting Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark and making meaningless gestures. He hoped by doing this to convince the villagers that magic was being invoked to protect the dome.

After that, he went in Abinal's tent and found the boy sitting up and eating meat from a bone. The boy, who had been laughing with his sister, fell silent as Gribardsun entered. But Laminak spoke a few words to him, and he relaxed somewhat. Gribardsun examined him, noticing that the boy shrank from the touch of his fingers. But his sister jollied him, and she even spoke to Gribardsun, though she knew he could not understand her.

When the Englishman and the girl left the tent, he pointed at various people or objects and asked Laminak their names. She caught on and entered the game with enthusiasm. She was a pretty girl in spite of the dirt and the c.u.mbersome fur she wore. Her hair was waist-length, wavy, and would, if washed, have been a rich chestnut color. Her face was broad but her nose was medium in size and well shaped. Her lips were full and grease-smeared, like those of her fellows, to avoid chapping. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were just beginning to swell. She had large dark eyes that looked merry most of the time. And she seemed to lack the fear for him that the others had.

He liked her very much, and this liking reinforced her att.i.tude to him. She was intelligent; she was soon putting the names of objects into short sentences for his benefit. Or, rather, as he discovered, incorporating them into words, since the language of the Wota'shaimg lacked sentences in the English meaning of the word. A Wota'shaimg 'sentence' was a 'word,' a string of syllables or single phones attached to each other in a certain sequence with the object-term as the nucleus.

Later, Gribardsun and von Billmann were to agree that the structure of the speech of the Bear Folk had striking parallels to the structure of both Eskimo and Shawnee. The sounds were different, of course, and Wota'shaimg had no relation to either of those two languages.

Von Billmann, who was fluent in both Basque and Georgian, could determine no relationship between Wota'shaimg and either of those languages. He admitted that his studies of a possible relationship were superficial and that a deep study by many scholars might reveal a kinship. But he doubted it.

Von Billmann's field was Indo-Hitt.i.te with Celtic as his specialization. But he had been highly trained in other fields, including American Indian languages. No one else was as competent as he to study the middle Magdalenian tongues.

Two.

The days and nights went by swiftly. The sun became hotter, and the earth bloomed. The women left the area to dig for roots and collect medicinal plants and edible berries. They also tanned the skins their men brought in, cut them into desired shapes, and sewed them with ivory or bone needles and thin gut-thread. They spent endless hours chewing hides to make them soft. They smoked meat in little huts on racks. They worked from dawn to far past dusk.

A baby was born to Gragmirri, a young woman. Gribardsun wanted to a.s.sist, or at least to make sure that the delivery was sanitary. But the birth took place in a specially erected tent to which no men, not even Glamug, the shaman, were admitted. And both the baby boy and the mother did well. Gragmirri was up and working the second day, and the men were handling the baby and exclaiming over its fine physique. Glamug sprinkled some milk on its head, and the bear cub licked the milk off while the baby cried and Glamug loudly chanted. By then the four were versed enough in the language to know that the baby, Shamkunnap, had been initiated into the tribe. He was now a member of the family of the Great Bear, and if he died he would go to a place where the Great Bear, some sort of ancestral spirit, would provide him with all the comforts of life.

The four scientists worked almost as hard as the Bear People. They made records and films and collected specimens. Drummond and Rachel took short field trips. He studied the geology of the area, she collected specimens of plant and animal life and of soil and made many photographs.

The days were getting warm enough so that they need wear only shorts and shoes. One day, Gribardsun started to wear native garb entirely. At this season, that consisted of a skin loincloth and a broad leather belt. He even went barefooted, revealing to his fellow scientists feet with thick calluses on the soles.

'If you had a beard, you could pa.s.s for a Wota'shaimg,' Rachel said. She looked admiringly at his powerfully muscled yet beautifully proportioned body.

'You could play Tarzan in the trivis,' she said.

Drummond did not look happy. He said, 'Where in h.e.l.l did you get those calluses?'

'I never wore shoes when I lived in Africa,' the Englishman said. 'You know that I spent many years on the Inner Kenyan Sanctuary. The natives there were barefoot; so I was barefoot too.'

Gribardsun's black hair was shoulder-length after the fashion that had come in two years before, and he wore bangs across his forehead. He looked even more savage than the savages, since his skin was a uniform bronze but theirs was pale except on the face and the arms. During the past few days he had taken to throwing a spear with an atlatl at a target of wood and gra.s.s that he had built. Though he practiced only half an hour a day, he was becoming very accurate. And he could already throw a spear about twenty yards beyond the best cast of Angrogrim, the champion of the Wota'shaimg.

This accomplishment did not lessen his attractions for Rachel.

I always thought that the Cro-Magnons, having much st.u.r.dier bones for muscle attachments, would be stronger than modern men,' she said.

'These aren't the very early Cro-Magnons,' von Billmann said. 'But even so, they are large, and their constant use of their muscles in hunting and labor should make them very strong. In fact, they are stronger than Drummond or me. Even their smallest, Dubhab, is stronger. But the duke seems to be an exception. Indeed, if I thought such a thing possible, I'd say he is an atavism, a throwback. But he just happens to be exceptionally powerful.'

Von Billmann sometimes referred to the Englishman as the duke, or His Grace. The reference was not altogether sarcastic. Von Billmann had a high regard for Gribardsun which was not, however, unmixed with envy.

The four were by the riverbank at the bottom of the valley below the village site. The German was sitting in a folding chair and transcribing notes from the playback of his recorder. Drummond was breaking open some geodes with his hammer. Rachel had been collecting pollen samples, but she had stopped to watch the spear-atlatl practice.

'John said he meant to take part in the first big hunt,' she said. 'He wants to carry only native weapons.'

'Admirable, this desire to get into the subjects' skin,' Drummond said, looking up from an egg-shaped rock. 'But I think he's carrying it too far. What if he gets killed? What benefit will that be to science?'

'I would think you'd like -' Rachel said and then closed her mouth.

'Like him to be killed?' Drummond said in a low but fierce voice. 'Do you really believe I'm jealous of him? Should I be? Have you given me any reason?'

'Don't be a fool!' Rachel said. Her face was red. She turned and walked away a few feet but stopped by von Billmann's chair.

'I don't know what's the matter with him!' she said, half to herself, half to von Billmann. 'He was acting a little peculiar a few weeks before we launched. But since then he's gotten terrible. Do you think that there's something about this world, or about being cut off from his own time, that...?'

'Has Drummond checked the excess or lack of certain ions in the atmosphere?'

'He has, but I don't remember the results,' she said. 'It should have been the first thing I thought of. But I haven't noticed any change in my behavior. Or yours. Or John's.'

'I don't know about John,' von Billmann said. 'I've always detected a certain je-ne-sais-quoi about John, a certain repressed - uh - what the nineteenth-century writers called animal magnetism. Do you know what I mean?'

'Yes,' she said, looking at Gribardsun as he straightened up after a throw. The hand that held the long notched atlatl turned, and the muscles leaped out along his arm.

'There's something strange about him,' von Billmann said. 'I've known him, off and on, for twenty years. There's something of the wild beast about him. I don't mean that he's b.e.s.t.i.a.l, or degraded. He's one of nature's gentlemen, to use another archaic phrase. But there's definitely something scary deep down under that handsome hide.'

'The spear went dead center in the bull's eye,' she said. 'I don't see how anybody using that stick can get any accuracy.'

That evening the four sat around a hearth with Dubhab's family and watched pieces of deer sizzle on the ends of sticks they held. They were visiting Dubhab today; tomorrow, Waz-wim's family would be their hosts. To avoid any show of favoritism, the four visited each family by turn. This rotation also enabled them to become more familiar with each family. And, since each had his own pet interests, the visitors could get a broader view of Magdalenian society. Dubhab, for instance, a short, very hairy man with bright blue eyes and thin lips, was a born trader. Rather, he was a born confidence man, since he was always trying to get something for nothing or, at least, for very little.

Dubhab also liked to listen to himself talk and so he would launch into a lecture on almost any subject if he thought he had an audience. The four picked up much information - and a lot of superst.i.tions and misinformation - about many things. But even the folk tales and the wrong data were information. They were part of the picture of what the Wota'shaimg believed.

Amaga was about Dubhab's age, somewhere between thirty-two and thirty-eight. She lacked five front teeth and a number of back teeth. Smallpox had scarred her face, as it had of half the tribe. Her naked beasts were huge and pendulous, though she informed them that they had been high and firm when she was a young woman. She had married Dubhab because he seemed to be on his way to the chieftainship. And he had been a very good provider. But later, he talked more than he acted, and he was always trying to get the better of others in a bargain. So he had become just another mediocre hunter, and he talked more than any woman, and she had, in effect, thrown herself away on him.

She did not say all this in front of Dubhab, of course, because he would have beaten her if she had demeaned his manhood in public. But, inside the walls of her tent, Amaga told him what she told the strangers.

Abinal, the son, was a 'normal' boy. He wanted to be a mighty hunter, and perhaps a chief, and he played at these fantasies when he wasn't working. His work consisted of learning to hunt, which was no work at all for him, and how to pick berries and other plants in the summer. He shuttled back and forth between learning a man's work and a woman's work. When he came of age - at twelve or thereabouts - he would go through the rites of pa.s.sage and no longer help the women.

Laminak's rites would be conducted by the women in the summer in some place hidden from men's eyes. In the meantime, she was becoming a woman without getting official approval. She worshipped John Gribardsun and frequently made a nuisance of herself by hanging around when he wanted private talks with others. But he did not get angry.