Analog SFF, May 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He froze, leg still upraised, and stared.

  Slowly, Boumee lowered his foot. He reached out with his trunk. A length of twisted palm fiber was tied around the ape's throat. Boumee gave it a tug. The ape's head thumped against the ground as the twine snapped. Boumee lifted it up to see what was tied to it. Pale feathers cupped a large, pointed fang, the twine bound tightly around its root end. A lion tooth, Boumee realized in wonder.

  He stared at the cringing beast. An ape that kills lions and people. Boumee tucked the lion's tooth ornament into the corner of his mouth and cast about the battlefield. He picked up one of the apes’ fallen stick weapons. Bound to its end was a long flint, flake-sharpened to a wicked point and cutting edge. Just the way a person would make an axe.

  Boumee lowered his trunk. Could it be? A person in the form of an ape?

  He felt the thunder of approaching footsteps, saw the clan approach, snapping branches and trampling saplings in their haste. Nonna Ngeng and Boumee's mother, Uthathm, led the charge down to the waterhole clearing.

  His mother ran straight at Boumee, butting him hard enough to make him sit. She grabbed him by a tusk and rattled his head. “What were you thinking? You left your sister on her own when there was danger about?"

  Nonna Ngeng hit him from the other side. The ape's weapon tumbled from his grip. “What's this?” she bellowed, trying to get at the ape now lying between Boumee's forelegs. “What's this? One still alive?"

  The ape screamed as she grabbed its broken leg. Boumee strained against his mother's shaking and caught his grandmother's trunk. “Nonna! Stop!"

  Her good eye widened, her head came up and for a moment Boumee thought she might gore him for his impudence.

  Tucking his ears tight against his shoulders, Boumee pushed himself back to his feet. He could not hold back a cry.

  His mother noticed his injuries. “Oh, Tum! You are hurt!"

  Great-nonna Eyeyo chose that instant to give out a great moan of dismay. The sound turned Boumee's guts. Nonna released the ape and turned to see. Great-nonna stood over Mahouh, caressing his head and shoulders with her trunk. Mahouh was dead.

  Great-nonna moaned again, rocking her head with ears spread wide. Nonna and the elder aunts all copied the gesture. Great-nonna said, “What happened here?"

  "An ambush, while Mahouh sang to himself,” said Boumee.

  He quailed as Great-nonna's glare turned on him. “He lived when you found him?"

  "He did,” said Boumee. “But he was already fallen."

  Nonna looked around at the litter of broken ape corpses. “He gave an account of himself,” she said.

  "I killed those,” Boumee blurted, before he could think.

  Nonna gave a snort of surprise. Great-nonna stared at him appraisingly, her head held high. She grumbled deep in her chest. “Young bull,” she said.

  Boumee picked up the stick weapon for her to see. “Great-nonna,” he said, “these apes are people. Look . . ."

  Nonna Ngeng rounded on him. This time Boumee was sure she would gore him. He scooted aside, almost falling again as pain shot up his hind legs. Aunt Narraar, Nonna's elder sister, put herself between them.

  "Fool of a calf,” said Nonna. “Many apes and birds use sticks for tools. It does not make them people."

  "Speak, Boumee,” Aunt Narraar said.

  "Look,” he said. “It has a sharpened stone tied to its end."

  Aunt Narraar picked up the stick he had dropped and examined it closely. “So it does,” she said. “Who ever heard of such a thing?"

  "And see . . .” Boumee unhooked the twine from the corner of his mouth. “This one hung a lion tooth about its neck."

  Great-nonna took it from him. She looked at the ornament, then down at the ape. “Strange indeed."

  * * * *

  Two of the younger aunts were sent back to fetch the remaining members of the clan from the river. Great-nonna and Nonna and most of the older aunts stood around Mahouh's body, swaying and giving the deep, deep calls for a gathering of clans, that traveled for miles through the earth and made Boumee's bones tickle. Aunt Narraar waded into the waterhole and fished out the headless ape. She carried the living one over to sit out of the way against the trunk of a tree. The rest of the clan arrived with much fuss and commotion, bearing cooking stones and pounding stones and bark dishes piled with the day's forage. Aunt Narraar rounded up the calves to keep them busy with a game of tossing ape corpses as far from the waterhole as they could.

  Boumee's mother made him lie down while she fussed over his wounds, pressing chewed poultices into the cuts with clumsy tenderness. Ush shyly touched his trunk.

  "Big brother,” she said. “You were very brave."

  Boumee tugged her ear, but gently, embarrassed and pleased at the same time.

  Vultures and jackals squabbled over the ape carcasses. Hyenas paced impatiently a distance away, smart enough to know that the clan would chase them off if they approached, where they would not bother with lesser vermin. Boumee noticed the living ape, rocking itself gently as it watched the scavengers, making low noises that appeared to have nothing to do with its injury. Everyone else seemed to have lost interest in it. Does it grieve? Boumee thought.

  "Where are these apes from?” he wondered aloud.

  "Be still,” Uthathm said. “Be still.” His mother's tail swished in agitation as she turned away from him.

  * * * *

  Cook fires were finally built after nightfall. Ush and another calf squabbled over who would hold the flint and who got to hit it with the striking stone. Nonna chased them off and lit the fire herself with one of the younger aunts to hold the flint. Flat cooking stones were set over the flames to heat, for baking hard tubers and tough plant stems.

  Lions coughed in the darkness. Hyenas yipped and giggled. Aunt Narraar and Boumee's mother fussed and bullied the rest of the clan into preparing and eating an evening meal. Great-nonna and most of the elder aunts seemed barely interested, though they were normally the most enthusiastic for fire-softened food, all of them on their last sets of teeth or beyond.

  Egrets fluttered down to strut between the clan's legs, or perch on their backs, hunting insects. Few words were spoken, tension thrummed in every adult. The calves were skittish, sensing the unease of their elders. Their mothers and aunts swatted them in irritation.

  Boumee observed the living ape. It did not seem perturbed by the proximity of the campfire. In fact, it was staring into the flames as though entranced, just the way a person would. Its eyes shone red in the shadows.

  Do they make even fire? Boumee thought.

  The tree that the ape sat against bore a large oval scar on its trunk, as did many of the trees growing near the waterhole, where bark had been removed with tusks and flaked-stone blades to make a carrying dish. The various ages of the scars recorded the waterhole's long history of occupation by people.

  Great-nonna stepped abruptly away from the meal. Boumee doubted she had really eaten anything. He watched her pause before the ape, gazing down at it for a moment, before scooping up one of the stick weapons and walking away into the dark.

  Mothers started gathering up the youngest calves and herding them into a circle for sleep. Nonna and Aunt Narraar and a few of the other elder aunts talked with heads close together nearby.

  Disregarded, Boumee picked over the leftovers of the meal. He tossed a few morsels of fruit together onto a dish, then curled and uncurled his trunk indecisively until he saw Nonna shoulder her way into the sleeping circle. Boumee scooped up the dish and took it over to the ape.

  The ape started when it noticed Boumee's approach, and watched warily as he placed the fruit at its side. Boumee backed away a few paces. The ape stared at him, then down at the dish. Cautiously, it reached out with a clever forepaw to examine the steeply curved sides of the dish, the bark made malleable over a fire and then shaped and propped in place to harden. The ape hesitated, then picked up a broken piece of melon. Boumee watched it eat for a time in silence
.

  When the ape had finished the melon, Boumee raised his trunk to touch the tip against his forehead. “Boumee,” he said. “Boumee is my name."

  The ape's eyes were fixed on him, but it didn't respond.

  "Boumee,” he said. “Boumee."

  Slowly, the ape raised a forelimb and touched its forehead.

  "Boumee,” Boumee said. “Boumee."

  The ape said nothing. After a while, still watching him, it picked up another piece of fruit and took a bite. Disappointed, Boumee turned to rejoin the clan.

  Someone had come to see what he was up to. His heart thumped. But then he saw that it was Aunt Narraar. She curled her trunk, beckoning him.

  "It understands,” he said, approaching her.

  "I saw,” she replied, then added: “It killed Mahouh. Be mindful of that when Mahouh's clan arrive."

  "It was a mistake,” he said.

  Aunt Narraar regarded him seriously. “What if it was you and Ush the apes found, and not Mahouh? What if Ush lay dead? Would you be so forgiving?"

  Boumee lowered his gaze. Aunt Narraar swatted his shoulder. “Go. Sleep."

  He hurried away towards the sleeping circle as fast as his injuries would allow.

  * * * *

  The clan of Mahouh's mother and sisters were first to respond to the gathering call, arriving in the morning of the next day. With them came an enormous old bull called Aamanang, the biggest person Boumee knew, half again the size of Great-nonna Eyeyo. Dark lines of sweat stained Aamanang's temples and cheeks, signaling that he was in musth and not to be trifled with. Boumee lurked behind his mother and Aunt Narraar.

  Mahouh's clan gathered around the corpse to moan and stroke the dead flesh. There would be a funeral dance this night. For now, Great-nonna left them to their grief, her tail swishing impatiently as she bathed in the waterhole.

  Boumee slunk back to the ape. It had finished all the soft parts of the fruit. Boumee touched his forehead. “Boumee,” he said.

  There was a pause, then the ape touched its fingers to its own brow. It made a complex noise, monkey-chatter that Boumee could not hope to imitate.

  "Boumee,” he said again.

  The ape answered, tapping its forehead for emphasis. Its utterance sounded to Boumee the same as the first. It names itself, he thought. His skin prickled. It speaks.

  He jabbed his trunk towards the tree at the ape's back. “Tree,” he said.

  The ape twisted to look, then looked back at him and reached over its shoulder to tap the scarred bark. It said a different word.

  Boumee picked up a piece of melon rind. “Melon."

  He tossed it to the ape, which caught it deftly and squawked a syllable. Boumee pointed to the bark-carrying dish. “Dish."

  The ape hesitated. Boumee lifted the dish up, tipping out the other leftover fruit rinds. “Dish,” he repeated.

  Still the ape hesitated, its face scrunching. Boumee lowered his trunk. It does not know dish.

  The ape's gaze shifted past him. Boumee turned.

  Great-nonna had gathered up the matriarch and elder aunts of Mahouh's clan and was bringing them over to see, along with her own sisters, and Nonna Ngeng and Aunt Narraar. Aamanang was with them too. Boumee dropped the dish and scuttled aside.

  "Never have I known such a thing,” said Mahouh's oldest great-great-aunt, matriarch of her clan, peering down at the cringing ape.

  "Nor we,” said Great-nonna.

  Aamanang tapped one of the stick weapons on the ground. “I have heard tell,” he said, twining his trunk around the stick. “From the great Rift to the north. But I did not imagine this.” He squeezed his trunk, snapping the ape weapon into splinters. “Apes that are people."

  "What kind of people?” demanded Nonna Ngeng. “Mahouh carried his dishes and stones. They must have known that he, too, was a person when they attacked."

  "Do they make war with us?” murmured Mahouh's great-great-aunt.

  "It knows that we do speak of it,” said Great-nonna, thoughtfully.

  It can speak! Boumee wanted to cry. Aamanang's presence, the reek of his musth-sweat, made Boumee quail.

  "It does,” said Aunt Narraar. “Might it understand?"

  "Understand, it must,” said Aamanang, reaching out. The ape shrank back, but Aamanang curled his trunk about its middle and lifted it into the air. For a moment, Boumee thought the old bull just wanted a closer look, but then the ape began to struggle in Aamanang's grip, clawing frantically at his trunk as he squeezed. It gave a choking cry.

  Boumee rushed forward. “Stop!"

  Aamanang dropped the ape and rounded on him, ears flaring, his eyes sunken and red with the musth rage.

  Great-nonna crossed Aamanang's tusks with hers and spread her own ears. “Boumee has earned the right to speak,” she said. “He drove the apes from Mahouh."

  Several of Mahouh's aunts raised their trunks.

  "Young bull,” the matriarch said.

  Aamanang faced Great-nonna, his whole body vibrating as he struggled to keep the musth in check. With an obvious effort, he brought his ears back to his shoulders.

  "Speak, then,” he grated.

  Boumee tucked his ears and trunk in tight, making himself as small as possible. The ape lay face-down at Aamanang's feet. It breathed rapidly, plainly further injured than it had already been. “It spoke to me,” he said, and then the words all came in a rush: “It spoke its name, and it has words for ‘tree’ and ‘melon,’ but none for ‘dish.’ I saw it grieve for its fellows that I killed. It understands that we grieve for Mahouh. It does not fear our fire. It understands that we, too, are people, but I do not think it knew when it attacked Mahouh."

  Nonna snorted. “These apes killed a person."

  Aamanang shook his ears in agitation and said in a near shout, “People are not hunted!"

  Boumee saw, then, behind his affront and the madness of the musth rage, that Aamanang was afraid, an adult who had thought he had nothing in the world to fear but accident and—one day—a bull younger and stronger than he. He saw the same feeling reflected among the other elders. I am not yet a season into my adulthood, Boumee thought. I remember being small enough for lions to hunt. It does not yet hold the horror for me.

  "Fool of a calf,” said Nonna Ngeng.

  Great-nonna regarded him seriously. “These apes speak. They are people, this is plain. And they are hunters, too."

  Mahouh's great-great-aunt reached out to touch the fallen ape gently with her trunk. “A mistake,” she murmured. “An accident."

  "War,” said Nonna Ngeng.

  "The cost is fearsome when clans war with each other,” said Aunt Narraar. “People are hurt. Killed, even. What cost when one whole people wars with another?"

  "We must look to the safety of our clans,” said Great-nonna Eyeyo.

  The elders walked away to confer. Aunt Narraar put her shoulder into Aamanang and turned him away from Boumee.

  Left alone with the ape, Boumee gently flipped it onto its back. It whimpered.

  He waved his trunk close to its face, then touched his brow. “Boumee."

  The ape turned its head away.

  * * * *

  More clans arrived through the afternoon, and a small bachelor herd. Like Boumee, the other bulls stayed well clear of Aamanang. The waterhole was too small for such a crowd, and the matriarchs decided to move at least the calves and the younger mothers and aunts over to the river, once Mahouh's funeral dance was done.

  Elders from the newly arrived clans came to examine the ape. Boumee hovered nearby, flaring his ears nervously whenever any of them prodded at the injured creature. “It is hurt,” he would say, and they would either withdraw their trunks or regard him with heads held high while they considered whether to discipline him for his impudence. Evidently his role in events had been recounted, though, and even the bachelor bulls let him be.

  Aunt Narraar came to him as he stood brooding beside the ape, idly kicking rocks into the brush. “Help me,” she said.
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  Boumee hesitated, about to refuse, but Aunt Narraar was already walking back to where a row of aunts from the various clans knelt, with calves of varying ages opposite them. The trunks of the adults rose and fell as they crushed hard tubers and plant stems to bake for the very oldest and youngest of the clans.

  With a reluctant glance at the injured ape, Boumee followed to where Aunt Narraar was lowering herself beside a set of pounding stones and a pile of tubers. With a groan, he got down on his knees, his injuries stiff with his mother's poultices. Aunt Narraar picked up a river-stone pounder. Boumee placed a tuber in the center of the flat mortar stone, indented from generations of use, and with a couple of deft blows, Aunt Narraar rendered the tuber to fragments. Boumee swept the smashed tuber off the mortar stone and into a carrying dish with his trunk, got another tuber, and the process was repeated.

  They worked in silence for a time, before she said, “Aamanang might have killed you, if Mother had not stepped in.” Her mother, she meant—Boumee's Great-nonna.

  An egret strutted up her neck and stood like a conqueror atop her head. It bobbed about as it searched for insects among the sparse red hair at the base of her ears. Seeing the direction of Boumee's attention, she waved her trunk to shoo the bird away.

  "You agree with me,” Boumee said.

  "That these apes did not know Mahouh was a person when they attacked him?” she said. “I do. But Mother is right, we must look to the safety of the clans."

  "It is war, then?"

  She didn't look up from her pounding. “Yes."

  "Will war make us safe?” Boumee said. “Wars are for fools, you told me when I was Tum. If we make war, will they gather their clans, as we do? What will they decide for us? How many have come south from the Rift? If they are few, might more not come from the Rift to make war with us?"

  "Be still,” she said. “It is decided."

  Boumee gestured to where the injured ape lay curled on the dirt. “They speak,” he said. “They can understand. We need not make war. If there is war, then Ush might lie dead, after all."

  "They can understand. They might understand,” Aunt Narraar said. “We must be certain that Ush, that others, will not lie dead if we do nothing but speak.” She hit the tuber in front of her hard enough that bits of it struck Boumee in the face. “It is decided."