by John Norman
She had not felt the pain now for more than five minutes. She recalled gentler times with Tree, among flowers.
"Tree!" she cried out
"Be quiet" said Cloud. "Do not disturb the men." Tree had left her, to go sleep elsewhere when it had begun.
William and Gunther had been brought, bound, and naked, to the camp of the Men. The women had thrown Gunther on his back over a rock, several of them holding him. Cloud, with a shell, had bent to cut his manhood from him.
"Please," had wept Hamilton. "Do not hurt him!"
Spear had looked at Tree, who had nodded. "Stop," had said Spear.
Half in shock Gunther and William had then been put in the brief skirts of the women of the Men, necklaces tied about their throats.
The women had much laughed. The children had struck them with sticks.
Then the Men had hurled them into a pit in the shelters, roughly circular, more than twenty feet in depth, filled with refuse, infested with the brown rat. They had been left there to die.
One night, the second night of the return to the shelters, Hamilton, with a torch, had crept to the edge of the pit.
"Gunther! William!" she called softly.
In the light, she saw William's face, raised to her. In his left hand he held, by the left hind foot, a dead rat, more than a foot in length. It was partially eaten.
He stood ankle deep in the bones, the filth. She saw there were pools of water in the pit.
"You're alive," she whispered.
He had taken the necklace from his neck. It was looped in the waist of the garment he wore.
"Gunther?" she asked.
"He is alive," said William, blinking against the light of the torch.
Hamilton fought nausea, the impulse to vomit from the stink of the pit.
Hamilton lifted the torch. At one side of the pit, not sleeping, staring into the darkness, sitting, his back against the stone, was Gunther.
"He's dead," whispered Hamilton, sick.
"No," said William.
Hamilton looked down, tears in her eyes.
"I make snares with this," said William, lifting the leather strands of the necklace of the Men. "Sometimes," said William, "I catch them with my bare hands, by feel. Sometimes I pretend to be asleep. Sometimes I let them crawl over my arm and then, like this," he making a sudden grasping motion, "seize them."
"You will die in here," said Hamilton.
"What the rats eat we can eat," said William. "But I must feed Gunther."
"He's dead," whispered Hamilton.
"No," said William. "He is alive." Then he added, "His body is alive."
"What is wrong with him?" she asked.
William shrugged. "He has met defeat. He has met hunters. He has met men greater than he himself. Inside his body, this has killed him."
Hamilton looked upon the body that had been Gunther, so mighty, so proud and fine. It now stared into the darkness. She suspected he did not even hear them speak.
"Do not worry for him," said William. "I shall keep him alive as well as I can."
The minds of men greater than Gunther, Hamilton suspected, might have broken under the dislocations of the last months.
"Is he insane?" asked Hamilton.
"I do not think so," said William. "It is more like the will to live is gone."
"Gunther was so much alive, so strong," said Hamilton.
"He was not a hunter," said William. "He thought himself such, but he was only a man of our own times, my dear Hamilton, a small man, greater than most, but frail, crippled, far from the mightinesses he envisioned. It is a tragedy. For such a man it would be best that he never met what he conceived himself to be, one worthy of the spear, the hunt and knife."
"You are a kindly man, William," said Hamilton.
William shrugged. "I respect Gunther," he said. "I admire him. He is, for all his faults, and mine, my friend."
"What can you do?"
"It is my intention," said William, smiling, "to continue to live."
"I must free you somehow," said Hamilton.
"Do not be foolish," said William. "They would kill you."
"Do you care for these men?" asked Tree.
Hamilton cried out. She almost lost the torch. Tree crouched in the darkness behind her. He had followed her. He took the torch from her. He held it up. William, in the pit below, stepped back. Tree looked down at Hamilton. "Do you care for these men?" he asked.
"They are my friends," said Hamilton.
Tree looked at her. It was strange for a man to be a friend of a woman.
Yet he did not think the concept could not be understood. Once on the height of the shelters, on the rocks, under the stars, they had lain together, looking up.
"There are fires in the sky," had said Tree.
"Someday, perhaps," had said Hamilton, "men will seek the fires in the sky."
"They are far away," said Tree. "Once, when I was little, I climbed a high mountain, to light a torch from them. I could not reach them. They are very high. They are higher, I think, than the tallest trees."
"I think so, too," she said, "but someday, perhaps, men will touch them."
"Do you think so?" asked Tree, turning to look at her.
"Perhaps," said Hamilton.
"But we would have to build a ship," said Tree.
"Yes," said Hamilton.
"There are seas in the sky," said Tree, suddenly, "for rain falls from them to the land. If we took a ship to a high mountain, overlooking the sea in the sky, we could sail to the stars!"
Hamilton kissed him.
"Let us build such a ship!" cried Tree.
"About these fires," said Hamilton, "about some of them, there are, warmed by them, lit by them, new worlds, new forests, new fields, game, places where the Men have never gone."
"I will make a ship!" cried Tree.
"And for every fire there is another fire, and another world, and for every fire a fire beyond that, and a world beyond that."
"I want to go there," said Tree.
"You cannot go there, my love," said Hamilton. "It is a long journey, my love, with many lands and skies to cross, more than you could know, and many lifetimes would it take to build even the ship, and who knows how many to complete even the first step, to place the first foot upon an island other than our own."
"An island?" asked Tree.
"We live upon an island in a vast and endless sea," said Hamilton gently.
"I want to see what is on the other islands," said Tree. "I will see what is on them!"
"Not you," said Hamilton, "not I, but others, perhaps the sons of your sons."
"The seed of the Men?" asked Tree, slowly.
"Yes," said Hamilton. "The sons of the Men." Then the life had stirred within her. She felt it, a heel or knee, tiny, vital.
"I want to go," said Tree, angrily.
"The sons," she said. "The sons of the Men." Then she had rested back, looking upward, looking on the stars. And Tree, too, puzzled, restless, biting his lip, watched the stars.
At the brink of the pit, holding her torch high, Tree looked down on the woman who had come, though it was forbidden her, to see the prisoners.
"I am your friend, not them," said Tree.
"Yes, Tree," had said Hamilton. "You are my friend. I am your friend."
"It is Tree who is your friend," he said, belligerently.
"They, too, are my friends," said Hamilton, boldly. Because of the life in her she knew Tree would not strike her. Women within whom the mystery of life waxed might not be beaten.
"I will kill them," said Tree, simply.
"No," said Hamilton. "One does not kill the friends of one's friend."
"You are mine, none other's," said Tree. It was rare of him to speak so possessively of her. Was she not, after all, a woman of the Men, belonging, like the other females, to all with equal justice?
"Yes, Tree," she whispered. "Though they are my friends, and you are my friend, it is to you, and you alone, that
I belong." Hamilton spoke truly.
"Do you want me to help them?" asked Tree.
"Yes," said Hamilton.
Tree regarded Hamilton's swollen body. "I will speak with Spear," said Tree.
Hamilton screamed again, her head back. She felt Cloud's hand on her arm. Then another body was beside them. She saw the head of Ugly Girl. Ugly Girl whimpered. Then Ugly Girl began to lick at the fluid on her body, cleaning her. "I want Old Woman," whispered Hamilton. Two other women entered the shelter, blond Flower, and the virginally bodied girl, who had been taken from the Weasel People. They knelt near her. The virginally bodied girl was frightened. Then Antelope was beside her, touching her arm. "Old Woman!" said Hamilton. "I want Old Woman!" "Old Woman says there is time," said Antelope. "She will come later." The girls knelt about Hamilton. Hamilton was silent. The pain was gone now. There were tears on her face. She began to sweat. "Old Woman says there is time," repeated Antelope. "She will come later." Hamilton felt Flower kiss her. Hamilton's fists clenched.
William and Gunther, bound, had been herded far from the shelters. The Men had traveled easily. William had indicated to them the way.
The judge, Spear, had made his decision.
"If Herjellsen has mastered the retrieval problem, we will live," said William.
On the way the Men did not cover their movements, for they trekked lands of people with whom they shared sign talk, with whom they traded. With them they brought their women, their children. They did not come to raid, or war.
On the plains, across the great forded river, they were joined by men of the Horse People, the hunters of the small horses, scarcely more than brush-maned ponies, many of them striped with brown and black. Sometimes these animals were hunted on foot, pursued, encircled, surprised, killed; at other times they were driven toward pits or between lines of bowmen, who leaped from the ground to fire their small, stout bows at them as they raced past. The Horse People wore the skins of horses and, some of the males, in their hair, crests, of leather and horsehair, resembling the manes of the animals they hunted, which headdresses terminated with a swirl of horsehair, which fell behind the back, formed from the tails of their prey.
On the sixth day they came to the place, the gate, the corridor. Gunther and William had marked it with a ring of stones.
"They may return to their own country," had said Spear, "but if they do not do so, then we will kill them."
These conditions had been agreed to by William. Gunther had not spoken.
William, unbound, stepped within the ring of stones. He stood there, in the circle, on the grass.
At a sign from Spear the men lifted their axes.
"I sense it," said William. "I sense it!"
The Men stood about the ring, their axes lifted.
"Good-bye, Brenda," said William. "Good-bye!"
The men of the Horse People cried out with amazement. They drew back, eyes wide. They jabbered. Fox looked pale. Hyena began a dance, shaking a stick. Hawk reached out, to touch a stone. Spear lifted his ax. Hawk drew back his hand.
Gunther was unbound. It was Tree himself who freed his wrists. Gunther looked at Tree, once, outside the circle of stones; then he looked down; he looked to Hamilton, then turned his eyes aside; he entered the ring of stones.
Tree regarded him calmly.
"Good-bye, Gunther," whispered Hamilton.
Gunther said nothing.
Again a cry went up from the Horse People, who fell back, then crowded about. Their leader thrust among them, with his bow, driving them back. The Men regarded the stones curiously. There were many things they did not understand. They did not know why the sun rose, or water flowed downward, or how a child was born.
Hyena began to chant and dance, making strange signs with his yellow-tufted stick.
Then Spear, and Tree, and the others, had turned away. Hamilton remained looking at the stones for a time. Then she, too, turned away, and followed the Men. Behind them they left the Horse People, regarding the ring of stones. Lastly came Hyena, shaking the yellow-tufted stick, dancing, uttering sounds in no language, but which seemed to him mighty in meaning, dream-sounds, of the sort which came to him in the night, when he, in his dreams, communed with the night hyenas.
"It hurts!" screamed Hamilton. "I'm dying! I will die!" It was impossible suddenly it seemed to her, that it should occur. It could not happen! "It will kill me!" she wept. She reared up, screaming, half sitting, then fell back, arching her back. "I will die!" she wept. "I will die!" Then she cried, "Kill me! Kill me!" Then the spasm abated, and she wept and sweated. Ugly Girl put her head to the side of her waist, to comfort her. The other women of the Men, one by one, came to the shelter. Only Old Woman and Nurse did not come. "Go for Old Woman!" cried Hamilton. "There is time," said Antelope. Then the pain came again, and Hamilton, crying out, felt blood in her mouth, where she had, with her teeth, torn open her own lip. She gritted her teeth, eyes closed, swallowed the blood.
It had been some months ago, toward the beginning of the fall, several weeks after Gunther and William had taken their leave of the Men, that the men, in one of the shelters, had come upon the bear, when Knife had fallen back, exposing Spear who had then been blinded. "Spear is blind," had said Knife. "I am first among the Men." None had gainsaid him.
For more than a week Spear, in one of the large shelters, had sat silent. Short Leg would not feed him. Some of the younger women came to him, remembering him, giving him food. Hamilton, too, had fed him. Sometimes Old Woman had come and looked upon him, staring out, one eye gone, missing from the head, the other without pupil, only scar tissue beneath the upper lid. He did not move. He did not speak. One day Knife had come upon him and, seeing Old Woman standing nearby, had said to her. "Take Spear hunting." Knife had given Old Woman a spear, Spear's own. Then he had gone to Spear and, by the arm, dragged him to his feet. "It is time to go hunting," he said to Spear. Then he turned to face Old Woman. "Take Spear hunting," said Knife. "Take him hunting on the high cliffs." Old Woman nodded and took Spear by the arm. He permitted himself to be led away. As they had left the shelter, Knife said to Old Woman. "Spear killed Drawer."
That afternoon Knife had been in a good mood. But in the evening, Old Woman had returned with Spear. Knife leaped to his feet, in fury. Old Woman led Spear to a place by the fire, and sat him down. "The hunting was not good," she said to Knife, who looked upon her with rage.
Hamilton, and Flower, gave Spear meat from the fire. He chewed on it.
The Men, and the women, too, gathered about "Old Woman," asked Tree, "who is first among the Men?"
She looked from face to face and then, after a silence, said, "Spear—Spear is first."
"No!" cried Knife. "I am first!"
"Spear is first," had said Old Woman.
"Spear is blind," said Short Leg, touching Tree. Hamilton had thrust her from Tree.
"Spear is blind!" cried Knife. "I am first!"
Old Woman said, "Spear—he is first."
"Who is first!" demanded Knife. He looked at Tree.
Tree did not meet his eyes, but bent to the meat in the firelight, cutting it. He looked down, but he was smiling. "Spear," he said, "is first"
Knife cried out with rage. "Spear is first," said Arrow Maker. "Spear is first," said Runner. Knife looked about the fire. Stone stood up, who had hunted with Spear since their childhood. "Spear is first," he said, without emotion. Knife glowered at Fox. Fox looked about from face to face. Then he said, "Spear—Spear is first;" "Spear is first," said Wolf. Knife looked at Tooth. He sat cross-legged, chewing on meat. Behind him, in a collar of the men, knelt Ugly Girl, frightened. Tooth threw a bone into the fire. "Spear is first," he said. Hawk, the youngest stood. "The first among the Men," he said, "is Spear."
"Give me meat," said Spear. It was given him. Knife, looking about himself, left the shelter.
Hamilton, on her back, put her hands on her belly. Then she threw back her head and screamed again. It was large and alive and moving and wild and
had begun its descent. She arched her back, shrieking, and pulled up her legs and threw them apart, her whole body caught up in the wildness of the contraction, the pain, even to the fingertips, the skin of the forehead and it would fight loose of her and the spasms more tight, more frequent, the impossible pain, the rocking, the violence, the escaping living thing unimaginable pressing from her and she saw the torch and Old Woman's face and she reached her hand to her and Old Woman said "Be quiet," to her and then, to the other women, "Gag her," and Hamilton, fur thrust in her mouth, tied in place with leather, was, as Old Woman had ordered, gagged and her arms were held and the thing, alive, coming, pressing, moving, the agony, the contraction and Old Woman's hands, sure, at her body, reaching and there was a tearing and Hamilton, arms held, gagged, back arched, silently, screamed to the silent, torchlit roof of the shelter her pain and the women pressed about and there was Ugly Girl and Flower and Antelope and the others and another pain, more terrible, and then less and from her distended body foul with stink and slime and life Old Woman lifted the thing from her body, cackling, the cord and tissue bloody, dangling from it, and, laughing, struck it, and Hamilton reached for it, tears in her eyes, and heard the tiny sound, the choking sound, and was terrified, and then, after a moment, the coughing, the intake of breath and the cry, the first cry, the lusty wail, the shriek of the offended life torn from her, lifted in torchlight among the primitive women, its lungs, tiny, widening, startled, contracting, instinctually drawing painfully within themselves the first shrieking, invisible draught of oxygen.