Primal Estate: The Candidate Species

by Samuel Franklin

  Of course, Rick thought. “How long did you think you were away?”

  “I try no think it.” Some of the Provenger had talked about time issues, but Yootu wasn’t going to let Rick know about his eavesdropping yet. “I suppose I think again I see people my tribe I know.” Yootu said with a quick glance to the left.

  Left, creative, Rick thought. Then after a long pause, “Shainan loves my dogs, two, they’re outside right now,” said Rick, trying to act like he was changing the subject to something happier. “How many dogs did you have?”

  Yootu was a little annoyed with the question, but after a split second glance high and right, he replied, “I no remember. I have many.”

  High and right, recollection again. Good, Rick thought. He is actually trying to recall how many dogs he had. At least I think I can be sure he is who he says he is and not a Provenger. Question is, whose side is he on?

  Yootu turned to Shainan and took her hands. He spoke to her in their language, and tears welled in her eyes as she listened. They rose, holding each other, and he walked her back to their room, then he came back to talk with Rick. “I need know where my tribe. I too need know I trust you.”

  Yootu had been considering this carefully. I know Rick is human, I could tell by his stature and his smell when we embraced. What I need to know is whose side he is on. I don’t like his short hair. He looks like he is trying to be one of them.

  “Why do you work them?” Yootu asked, pointing into his palm.

  “I think you’re asking why I work with the Provenger, and that’s an easy answer,” he replied. Rick told him of his abduction and the tag. As best he could, he explained to Yootu the different harvest strategies the Provenger were following as they were explained by Synster. Rick emphasized the differences between Natural Proliferation and Managed Collectivization. He also told Yootu of the threats the Provenger had made against him. When Rick was done, he asked Yootu, “Did you come from the time when they arrived?”

  “Yes, but I born after first arrive. My mother almost killed from then. They make her live again.”

  “Did they bring you grain, wheat, like Synster said, and train you to farm it?”

  “We already have wheat, grab it when hunting, put in wet pouch, let it go soft or grow little green. Then collect all and put in large bag, make fun juice. Wheat they give different, bigger. It make me, others, sick, when we crush and eat from dry like they say, fat if too much was eat...en, eaten. Yes, they try,” Yootu mumbled in a low tone, “but some we not go that way. I was old ways. Over time they no want us hunt. They kill, take game.”

  That sounds familiar, Rick thought, thinking of how the west was settled by exterminating the vast herds of bison, depriving the plains Indians of their traditional resources. This guy is for real, Rick determined. “How can I help you trust me?”

  “Give what I need and no ask why,” Yootu replied. “And don’t ask me why,” he corrected himself.

  “I agree. What do you need?”

  “I need talk alone with Shainan, with tag here. I need find where my tribe. I need hunt, soon; I no wait. I need know what you work for Provenger. I need know where water, thirsty, and where I shit.”

  Rick’s eyebrows went up, and he realized Yootu had been there since last night and he hadn’t even eaten, let alone attended to the other necessities. “I think we can take care of that,” Rick replied, getting up briskly and showing Yootu the bathroom. Rick didn’t know what kind of facilities they had on the Provenger ship but thought they must be similar. Yootu was a quick study. One toilet bowl orientation later, and he caught on as quickly as Shainan. How many ways could one take a dump?

  But when Yootu objected to defecating in the water, Rick realized that both with his tribe and on a space ship, relieving oneself in perfectly good water would be a bad idea, very wasteful of a precious resource. It was only with sincere assurances that Rick got Yootu to comply. Shainan had only objected once.

  Learning from his experience with her, Rick emphasized to Yootu, “the drinking water comes out of the sink faucet, this one here,” Rick emphasized, pointing vigorously at the spigot. “The toilet is not for drinking!”

  Yootu nodded quickly. Then, with Rick smiling hard at him, he made the association that perhaps Shainan had done this. They both laughed very hard with the image in their minds of poor Shainan drinking from the toilet.

  “I joke her on this later,” he laughed.

  After a zealous fifteen minutes playing with the dogs, a romp in the yard, and Yootu’s own personal version of a reunion with Earth, he was ready to sit down to figure out where he came from. One hour later, Rick had completed Yootu’s orientation on the computer keyboard and mouse. Rick had him browsing the internet in search of where his tribe might have lived. It posed an interesting problem.

  Yootu’s language was dead. Terms could only be searched as they might be spelled in English. Yootu had no written language, nor did he know how to write. Rick showed him how to use the mouse to click on things and wrote down as many terms as he could that had to do with early cultures to include terms like, “first, agriculture, civilization, fertile crescent, cradle of civilization, grain, wheat, farming, ancient, Cro-Magnon, first modern human.” On a whim, Rick included all the phonetic spellings of Yootu and Shainan’s names as well as the most reasonable spellings for all of the place names they remembered. The list became extensive. He set Yootu and Shainan down at the computer to pound out the words as he’d written them, then hit enter and select the “images” to get pictures they could look at.

  Rick made food while they “survdanet,” as Shainan put it, trying to repeat many of Rick’s expressions. Yootu had asked for red meat as his first meal “home.” Rick was glad he’d put it that way, and was busy making them all a brunch of broiled steaks and eggs.

  Yootu had spent the first hour patiently working with the “technology” in front of him. He repeatedly asked Shainan for help thinking of names of the places they’d known, but it all came to nothing. They saw plenty of pictures of stone structures and wheat fields, muffins and pizza, statues and primitive people, but nothing that they recognized. Every time Yootu called Rick over to read to them the information accompanying the picture, there would be another dead end.

  “Shainan, we should search our own names just for fun. Maybe there will be a story on how the two most wonderful people, a handsome man and a beautiful woman, were forced out of paradise,” he teased.

  Shainan smiled at him and kissed him on the ear. “Why don’t we go to the bed for love?”

  “Soon. Let me search my name. What is the first way Rick drew it?”

  Shainan looked at the paper and found the section where Rick had written their names and circled them. “This one, then this one, then this one again,” she said, pointing to the correct keys on the keyboard.”

  “That’s U,T,U,” Yootu said, “Say it while you point to it.”

  Shainan pouted and pointed, “U,T,U, enter!” she said in English, proud of her progress.

  The images came up on the screen, and Yootu looked at some of the pictures. “Rick, you come and read this, please.”

  Rick walked over with some spices in his hands. “Sure, where?”

  Yootu pointed.

  “Okay,” Rick read:

  ‘From the works of Zechariah Sitchin, the god Utu/Shamash as he "rises" from Mt. Mashu to bring the golden dawn. He wears the horned crown of divinity and holds a "pruning saw" in his hand, as the rays of the sun emanate from his shoulder. Mountain, Mountain in the sky, break the god and make him die" is an actual quote from the epic. Gilgamesh and Enkidu chant this as they march toward Huwawa. Huwawa emits this "radiance" that the Sumerians call "melam". It is a blinding light or energy that makes Huwawa almost impossible to confront.’

  “That me. I Utu,” Yootu said with self-assured confidence. “I shaman my people. I call son of sun at birth!” Yootu exclaimed, motioning toward the sky. “Provenger come with mountain in sky, hot lights bu
rn under.”

  “Now, just hold on there, Hammurabi. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Rick Googled, “Utu.” And what he read was indeed interesting. It seems Utu was the Sumerian mythological sun god and was part of the myth of Gilgamesh.

  Rick took a look at Wikipedia for “Utu”. Rick read to them, “the god of the sun, justice, application of law, and the lord of truth. He is usually depicted as wearing a horned helmet and carrying a saw-edged weapon not unlike a pruning saw.”

  “You must see this me!” Yootu claimed. “My shaman dress has feathers, the sun arms. I fight Layrd Provenger with arm knife. Look like picture. I Utu!”

  “Well, I must admit, you do have a point. Frequently mythology develops from actual events through their retelling through the generations.” It was clear to Rick that he’d have to help them more. Maybe they could find something that would point to his origins.

  Shainan had been attentively watching everything since all the excitement had started.

  “Shainan,” Utu began. “I think we have found something,” he said in their dead language. “It seems that there is a story of an ancient god and his name sounds the same as mine. He is the sun god, and I was born with the title of son of the sun god. My shaman cape was the same as his, and the night I fought the Provenger, before we were taken, I had the gauntlet with the blade, just as they show here! Most of the tribe saw us fight. This internet is a wonderful thing.”

  “Utu, are you saying I am the wife of a god? Oh, please, great Utu,” she said, falling to her knees and bowing her head. “Bless me with your divine manhood,” she teased him as she laid her head in his lap and made eyes to go back in their room.

  He smiled at her. “Sure, it’s nice to be a god, but do you know what this means? We might be able to use this as a clue to find out where our tribe is…was. We could find it!”

  Shainan looked up at him with doubt. “I hope, for all of us, but I fear that our history is as dead as our language is.”

  “You know,” Rick suggested to Utu, tracking in the same direction without being able to understand their conversation. “If we research the foundations of this god or of your story,” Rick grinned at Utu, “we may just find the area where you lived.”

  Utu looked at Rick with increasing confidence. He seems a good man. I will keep testing him.

  “But first, I think the elk is ready.” It had been a long morning. None of them had eaten, and they were hungry. Carson, who had been sleeping late in Rick’s room in case there were any complications with their new guest during the night, was called out by Rick and introduced to their new Cro-Magnon.

  “Utu, this is Carson. Carson, this is Utu. He is the ancient Sumerian Sun God. If you’re good, I’ll let you take him to school for show and tell.” All of them but Shainan laughed as they sat down to the first red meat Utu had eaten in years. It was everything he remembered.

  Utu was amazed by the seasonings Rick had to flavor the meat and demanded a full tour of the cabinet where they were kept. Half way through the meal, Rick realized they weren’t going to have enough, and he put three more steaks on the grill. He made extra salad and threw some more spinach, almonds, carrots, kale, and garlic into the wok. They ate and talked for the next four hours. Rick was amazed at the amount of food Utu could shovel.

  While waiting for the second set of steaks, Rick let the dogs in, and they went straight to Utu, whining in submission. He’d missed having his dogs these last ten years and was on the floor, much as Shainan had been, talking dog and roughhousing. Rick could see they respected Utu the moment they saw him, and he was always in charge. Rick wondered if the dogs would begin to see him as the pack leader.

  After eating, subsequent searches that Utu conducted on the internet proposed the possibility that a Mt. Mashu, near the upper reaches of the Euphrates River, might be an area where they should concentrate further searches. The mountain existed only in mythology, but its location could indicate another clue in their search for an origin.

  Also, the myth of Gilgamesh seemed to provide further clues. One part in particular, Rick read, “His slave Enkidu answered him: ‘My lord, if today you want to set off into the mountains, Utu should know about it from us. Utu, young Utu, should know about this from us. A decision that concerns the mountains is Utu's business. A decision that concerns the mountains of cedar-felling is the business of young Utu. Utu should know about it from us.’"

  Once Utu determined what a cedar was, he realized his home was full of them in the hills. He felt he was close to finding the lost bolt.

  That evening Rick was the last one still awake. The newly-weds had retired early, per Shainan’s demand, and Rick could hear them. At first they talked briskly, with laughing and some screaming, then laughing again. It seemed to Rick that Utu was teasing Shainan about getting caught drinking from the toilet. Then there was silence, then noise again.

  Carson went to his room not long after. Rick put the dogs in their crates, threw on a jacket, and grabbed the keys to the Jeep. He had a date. Rick had given her the coordinates for the Primal Estate. He looked at his watch. 11:30. He snatched a piece of paper from the desk and wrote:

  Carson,

  I had to go out. Will be at the PE. Might be out all night.

  I’ll be on my cell if you need me.

  Love, Dad.

  He left the note for Carson on the kitchen table, in case something happened and he needed him.

  Rick drove like a maniac. He was late by about fifteen minutes, and she would get there before him. He didn’t want any complications. Rick put the pedal down and took care to be extra vigilant for deer, elk, cows, or horses in the road, continually scanning ahead of him side to side, like he did when he used to fly. Nothing was going to stop him from getting there. Rick looked at his watch again. Twenty minutes of back roads and I’m there, he thought.

  One hour later, Rick was lying on his back in the sand, wearing only a smile. The afternoon sun was warming his body and the sultry waves were receding around him from the most recent rush running back down the beach. He sunk his feet into the sand and put his hands behind his head.

  He was a little worried about sunburn on his scalp. But that was his only worry. Rick was on a tiny deserted island somewhere in the south Pacific. Nwella was sitting on top of him, also wearing only a smile.

  It doesn’t get much better than this, Rick thought. He was expecting conversation and a little romance, maybe at a campfire on his plot in Colorado, not a trip around the world. What a date! Nwella said she wanted to go running down the beach later... sounded interesting.

  Rick thought about how much his life had changed. He had millions in cash hidden away in various locations, many more millions in gold stashed in so many locations he could afford to forget half of them, and enough weapons and ammunition to start a small army. Nwella had been good for him. She would be an asset to all he had planned.

  She leaned down and kissed him on the lips the way he’d taught her. At first she hadn’t liked it, but she seemed to be coming around. Then she added her own variations. First, she’d nibble on his lip, then work her way around his mouth with both of her lips, then go in for the full kiss. She had initially been repulsed by kissing. She complained to Rick that it seemed too much like eating, but after a little experimentation she became enthusiastic.

  Nwella dismounted and strolled down the beach a short distance. Her sweaty body glistened in the sun. The combination of her feminine curves and her fit muscles on top of impeccable bone structure gave Rick an idea that he tried to suppress. He wanted to have children with her, but he knew that was impossible. They were different species, the politics were life threatening, and he might be dead soon anyway. It just wouldn’t work. Does this mean I love you? Rick wondered. He wasn’t sure.

  As he looked after her, she looked back. She wanted him to follow, he could tell. She glanced back again and with a smile, took off running. Rick jumped up and, with his new body taking him faster than he thought possible,
he sprinted after.

  Chapter 28

  DisappEaring and othEr rEcipEs

  Tony felt like his relationship with Rick was getting more pertinent. Each day, the news gave indicators of people disappearing. He knew the time was coming when something had to be done. In fact, he would force it if he had to. He hadn’t heard from his sister in two weeks and believed that he never would. His mother was in a depression about it, but even so, Tony still couldn’t convince her to get back on her anxiety meds or any others, no matter how hard he tried. She wasn’t taking anything right now, and the only reason he didn’t seriously fear for her life was that she was old. The Provenger wouldn’t target old people. At least, he didn’t think they would.