It felt good marching up the aisle with Marianne to collect our medals.
*** *** ***
In the mean time I spent every spare moment in studying the plaque, and digging ever deeper into the roots of writing and linguistics.
I became totally obsessed with the various writings from the chamber. In the first place there were the pictographs on the walls.
A number of recognized experts in hieroglyphics were attacking these pictographs, but with little success due to the paucity of material.
The only consensus that was reached was that it was related - probably remotely - to both Chinese and Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Interestingly enough, there were strong indications that Egyptian hieroglyphics seemed to have appeared practically fully developed at least 5,000 years ago.
I had quite a bit more to work with. On the plaque I found quite a bit of writing – seemingly some form of proto-cuneiform.
Both the paintings and the pottery caused a major furor. As soon as the first pictures hit the media, allegations were made doubting the authenticity of both.
The paintings, it was alleged, as well as the pictographs were plainly anachronistic, since the styles involved were a lot in advance of works from later civilizations.
It was also “well known” that Jomon pottery could not have existed that long ago. According to the experts these jars had to be at best a later intrusion.
Unfortunately for the doubting Thomas’s, the initial age analysis was confirmed by three independent institutions, including Heidelberg. This really put the cat among the pigeons!
Proponents of the proved multiple evolutionary jump exultantly pointed out that this corresponded almost exactly with the Younger Dryas cold snap, and the final throes of the last ice age. Bloody battle raged in the learned corridors of archeological establishment.
*** *** ***
Meanwhile, back at the ranch house, I was starting to make sense of the writing on my plaque by correlating them to the pictographs on the wall.
Slowly I was getting a picture from the remote past. But it didn’t match any known theory of prehistoric man…
Interlude
Omo Kibish [Ethiopia], North Africa ca. 23000 BC – Godstone Day 14, month 1, Year 1
The Tribe was dying!
Anzashi looked about her tiredly. She could no longer deny the evidence of her eyes.
For the past two weeks she had been running all out, day and night.
When the strange new disease first struck, she drafted everyone who had any skill at healing to help care for the sick.
And they had all been working tirelessly, nursing the victims during the fever phase – watching those who entered the next, almost death like phase, and carting away those who were clearly dead – until, one by one, they in their turn started submitted to the disease.
Somehow the strange stone that had fallen out of the sky had to be the origin of this sudden epidemic.
It was unlike anything she had ever experienced.
When Awaki went off to find out what the object was that had fallen from the sky, she had a bad feeling about it.
The sky was the realm of the gods. Any inexplicable event in the heavens usually proved to portend some disaster for the tribe. Better to leave it a lone.
But he and L’ki had gone off anyway. When they returned they reported a great hole where something had struck the earth. And they brought back a piece of strangely colored rock. When she looked at it, it looked as if it could be porous – but the color was the strange thing.
Everybody in the village crowded round to see the strange rock which came from the home of the gods.
Within hours the first people started getting sick. They quickly developed a fever, then they fell into a deep coma.
Some got a rash at the back of their hands and in their necks before they fell into sleep.
When the first victims stopped breathing she thought that they were dead. Then she noticed that they stayed warm!
After watching one of them for a couple of hours, she managed to detect that he was actually breathing, although only once in a long, long time.
It was after the fourth or fifth victim came down with the disease that a number of the villagers fled. Nobody in their right mind wanted anything to do with a plague, especially one which left you, not decently dead, but in something halfway between life and death.
As the days went by she started recognizing certain patterns in amongst the victims.
After the initial fever stages all of them went into the coma. If they did not die within the first two days of the coma state, they remained stable thereafter. They did not seem to need food and water, they breathed shallowly and seldom, and showed little reaction to stimuli, although they would swallow if something was put in their mouths.
Altogether, it didn’t fit the pattern of any disease she had ever experienced. She was at a dead loss as to what she could do for the survivors.
All she could do was to treat them with febrifuge herbs like quinine and spirea, in addition to alliums and thyme to fight the curse the sky stone had brought.
For those who developed a rash before becoming comatose, a wash of boneset and comfrey seemed to help for the rash. However, even when not treated, the rash went away after a couple of days. This was fortunate because she just couldn’t keep up with anointing them all every day.
Slowly, one by one, her helpers had fallen away. The last two, Renpetet and Dumu had fallen sick two days ago.
And just that morning she saw the first tell tale rash on her own hands. But she had to stay awake.
At least one or two, amongst others Awaki himself, seemed to be responding a bit the last couple of days. All she could do was pray that one of them would start recovering soon.
Someone, anyone… But before it was too late.
By now she knew well, once the rash appeared, she had at most eight hours before she would go down - to the coma, or death.
The sickness itself she was not too worried about.
Although her medicines seemed to help for the fever and the rash, she was starting to believe that it served no real purpose once the victims entered the coma phase…
But she kept on treating them. If it helped even one survive who would otherwise have died, it was worth every effort..
She was sure that once the crisis had passed they would survive.
Her biggest fear was the thought of them all lying there without any protection against wild animals and enemies.
Not that they really needed to be concerned about enemy tribes. By now the ones who had run away would probably have spread the story of the epidemic far and wide. Which meant they would not have to worry about human predators – very few people would raid a village that dad been destroyed by plague.
She had herself ensured that the wild bull skulls that warned of plague were in place on all the trails as well as at the palisade around the village.
As to those who died: she had, once she was convinced that they were dead, taken great care to burn them. This would ensure that there was nothing to draw predators and carrion eaters.
Carefully she laid out the ingredients for the medicines she had used in. By their placement relative to each other, anyone who had ever worked with her, who woke out of this strange sleep, would immediately be able to see how she had been treating them.
Fervently she wished something would happen. She was starting to feel really ill as she looked in on the men in the chief’s hut one last time.
As she turned away to go to her own hut, where she had been nursing the women, she noticed it! Awaki was stirring!
Quickly she picked up the ostrich egg with water she always kept handy. When he started to move, she helped him sit up, and fed him some water. It seemed to her as if there was some recognition in his gaze, so she fed him some of the tonic she had been using.
Soon he started reacting more strongly. As soon as she was sure that he was actually coming round, she expl
ained what had happened.
She told him what medicines she had been using and how she had laid them out so that he could easily recognize them.
By the time she was finished, he was getting up shakily.
Knowing that her time was short she allowed him to walk her to her hut. This was something else that was different from normal disease: this quick recovery.
As he was helping her to lie down as comfortably as possible, under the conditions, she asked him to check if the others also recovered as quickly.
Within half an hour she who had held out so long, finally succumbed to the dread disease, and slipped gratefully into sleep, and from there inexorably into the coma.
Whether to wake again? Nobody knew…
Awaki
I woke suddenly as if from a deep sleep. When I opened my eyes, Anzashi was sitting next to me. She helped me sit up, and held an ostrich egg filled with water to my lips.
When I started coming to myself, she fed me one of her tonics.
At first glance, I thought that she looked incredibly tired.
Then as she told me of the plague that had struck our village, and how she had cared for all of us, as all her helpers succumbed until only she remained. I finally realized what she had suffered. Anyone else would long since have given up and allowed the disease to run its course.
I was dismayed when she told me what she thought had caused it. Was I truly the author of all this destruction?
I couldn’t believe that it was possible, that a disease could lay waste to our thriving village.
But looking about me at all the men lying as if dead, I could scarcely argue.
Slowly she rose and asked me to go with her to her hut.
As we walked I noticed that she could barely walk. She was a lot further along in the disease than I had believed. Yet she had forced herself to go on, nursing all of us practically by herself.
Would I have been able to do what this frail woman had forced herself to do?
At her hut I helped her to get as comfortable as she could, and fed her dose of her own medicine. Then I sat beside her until she seemed to go to sleep.
As her breathing quieted in the coma I suddenly realized that I was the only waking person – maybe the only living person - in the whole village.
For a moment panic threatened to overthrow my delicate mental stability. But slowly her last words overcame the panic, and I realized that she was right – had not I awakened from the death sleep. My respect for our medicine woman reached new heights in that instant.
I was used to being alone. Quite often I went out on extended explorations alone, although usually I was accompanied on my expeditions by my cousin L’ki.
But this was different.
I couldn’t forget the villagers lying there like so many corpses!
Among them lay my best friend, and (I suddenly realized) the love of my life. L’ki was tough – if I could make it – so could he.
But Anzashi had literally passed through hell these past couple of weeks. Did she have the reserves to last through the ordeal?
She looked so frail as she lay there. But on the other hand, which of us could have held out as log as she did. She was always a lot stronger than she looked. Maybe it was because she was a healer.
I started nursing the sleepers just to keep myself busy. At least the activity kept the ghosts at bay.
Fortunately Anzashi had told me carefully what to do, otherwise I would have been at a total loss.
As I moved about the quiet village, dispensing doses of her medicine, I wondered when someone else was going to wake up.
Anzashi seemed to think that some of the others should be recovering soon after me.
I hope they hurry!
I hope she makes it.
It just wouldn’t be fair if she didn’t. I must remember to give her medication exactly as she told me. She seemed to think it could prevent her from dying in the first two days.
It must have been terrible for her – endless day after endless day.
As far as I can see, less than a quarter of the tribe survived.
But she did mention that some had run away. I just hope they didn’t get sick after they left. Or even worse, spread the disease to other villages.
I hope someone else wakes up soon!
I don’t think I can really handle it all alone, and I can’t let her down!
Omo Kibish [Ethiopia], Godstone Day 16, month 1, Year 1
L’ki awoke in pitch darkness.
Everything was deadly quiet.
Where were the villagers? Even if everyone was sleeping, he should be able to hear the watchmen and smell the smoke from the watch fires?
He felt strangely weak and stiff. He was also thirsty.
He sat up and looked around. What was he doing in chief’s big hut? And why were these other people lying here about him.
They looked dead.
Finally he forced himself to touch the person lying next to him. Although there was no reaction to his touch, he found to his relief that he was warm, so he couldn’t be dead.
It seemed that there were at least seventeen of the tribe’s men lying there.
He rose slowly, favoring aching muscles. How long had he been lying there? Long enough for disuse to stiffen his muscles.
Carefully he walked to the door. There he found an ostrich egg with water and took a long drink. He walked through the door, and looked about.
There was a small fire in the communal cooking area, but there was nobody moving about.
As he approached the fire, he noticed someone sitting by it. It was Awaki. He was slumped down, fast asleep. He appeared to have been using the mortar and pestle to pound some herbs.
“I wonder where everyone is.” L’ki thought to himself, “There are no guards at the gate, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone in any of the other huts. And there’s only one fire.”
When he reached the sleeping Awaki, he suddenly grinned. However puzzled he might be by the state of the village, he could never resist playing a prank.
He picked a sprig of grass and, standing back from the sleeping Awaki, used it to tickle his nose.
Awaki woke up with a massive sneeze, knocking over the mortar he had been using.
L’ki stared. One minute the mortar was falling, the next moment it seemed to stop in mid-air. Then Awaki grabbed it.
“L’ki! I might have known it would be you.” Awaki put down the mortar, and grabbed his cousin in a hug. “You almost scared me to death. When did you wake up?”
“Just now. Where’s everyone?” L’ki was still staring at the mortar in Awaki’s hand. He hadn’t spilled the crushed herbs. “How did you do that?”
“Well, I put the herbs in the mortar, then I used the pestle to crush them.”
“That isn’t what I meant. You dropped the mortar, I saw it fall– it was falling, then it suddenly stopped dead and you caught it. I have never seen anything like it.”
As Gods Above Page 3