Antediluvian

by Wil McCarthy

  By comparison, he began to understand that the old earth had not been pleasant: hot and cold and dusty and muddy and full of thorns. He went back there sometimes when he slept, and rarely heard the sound of birds, or saw any people, although sometimes their muttering voices seemed to be somewhere nearby.

  “Earths last some years,” Grandmother told him. “Then plants die and animals go to new earths. And people go, too.”

  Tik-Tik wondered if this would also happen to this new earth. It did not seem possible. A stream ran through the new earth, a short distance from the housing development, and in places the sides were tall and covered in willows and raspberry bushes, and to get a drink of water was difficult. In other places, the sides were low and flat, and drinking was easy. Here he found frogs, and sometimes killed them with stones and brought them home for Mother or Grandmother to cook. His own food!

  He ate the raspberries, too, and other foods Grandmother taught him to recognize. And soon he learned as much from other boys as he ever had from Grandmother. This grass is sweet! This leaf is sour! This flower is bitter! This larva (which will someday, somehow, turn into a bug!) tastes like meat, and if you put them all in your mouth at once, it is like eating dinner.

  He learned to run from snakes and jump away from snapping turtles, and to climb for fruit, and to dig for yams with a stick. He learned to wrestle with the other boys—playfully at first, but then with growing force that let them understand who was strongest. They also learned who was quickest, nimblest, most sensible, and although Tik-Tik was not particularly aware of it, this process was slowly making his body and mind into tools that would do whatever was needed of them.

  He learned not to wrestle girls, as this was forbidden, and always brought trouble. He once tried swatting !Ey-!Ey in her own private parts, and received a beating for it. But it was of little consequence; most of the time girls were no more than a distant screeching noise, easily ignored.

  When he used his ears, he would hear the women say, “Hippos and crocodiles can not live in this small stream. It is good to gather water without fear.” And he would hear the men say, “The game animals here are small, but they are stupid and easy to catch. And they do not attract lions! It is good to walk between the bushes without fear.” And he would hear the girls say, “Ever there are beautiful flowers here, and coal and ochre to paint our faces.” And the Grandmothers would say, “These bead stones are soft! We can drill holes in them without slipping and cutting our hands!” And the Grandfathers (of whom there were only two in the whole development) said, “When big birds sleep, I can hit them with stones. They are like fruit!”

  And when he watched the Mute people grunting and gesturing, he understood that they also had reasons to like the new earth. It was quieter, and simpler, and there was less strife among the people. This meant that there was less to talk about, and so less comparison between the Mutes and the Talking People.

  And in this way, Tik-Tik learned (if only indirectly) how to tell a good place from a bad one, and learned also that he lived in a very good place. When he slept, now, he rarely returned to the old earth, but remained in this one, wrestling boys and eating grubs.

  “Is this best place?” he asked Grandmother one day.

  “It is,” she agreed. “I have lived many places, and this one is best.”

  * * *

  Harv surfaced for a moment here, muddled and confused. The memories and experiences of this time felt vague and jumpy and incomplete. At first he attributed this to corrupt data—thinking perhaps he was losing his lock on the transcranial magnetic signal as his awareness drifted further and further back in time. He didn’t know when he was, but he could feel that it was more ancient than Kingdom or Nog La. But could the quantome data actually be corrupted? It seemed to him it should either be in a superposition of all possible states, or else collapsed into a single minimum-energy state. A row of two billion zeroes, essentially.

  Perhaps the confusion was because he was experiencing the mind of a child? But as Tik-Tik grew older, nothing much seemed to change. It was as if these people actually experienced their lives in a kind of dream state, where later concepts of time and space and self had yet to fully develop. Tik-Tik had no ambitions, no plans, and rarely any detailed thoughts about the future at all.

  And the language! Tik-Tik had several times burst into uncontrollable laughter—Harv’s laughter—because when the people spoke, regardless of age or gender or status, it came out sounding like babytalk. Their vocabulary was built around perhaps a hundred word roots, which they happily stretched and mangled and smashed together to form complex concepts. And although the language included a wealth of sounds—clicks and groans and pops and whistles that occasionally sounded almost like birdsong—the words consisted mainly of repeated consonant-vowel pairs. The word for “mother” was actually “mama”! Father was “pfo-pfo,” water was something awfully like “’glug ’glug,” and most food was some tonal variation of “goo goo,” “ki ki,” or “nom nom.”

  As for grammar, well, that was toddlerish as well. There was an almost total absence of articles and pronouns, although these could sometimes be conveyed through gestures, such as pointing repeatedly to someone rather than repeating their name over and over. Nevertheless, words were repeated for emphasis or pluralization, or else simply spoken in a louder voice. A few words, like “Mmm,” seemed almost infinitely versatile, and could mean almost anything depending on tone and context. Along with a small vocabulary of standardized gestures, this seemed to be the one area of communication where the Talking People were on the same level as the Mutes.

  And yet, puzzlingly, the Mutes were not stupid. With clever hands and expressive faces, they seemed at least the equals of the trolls of Nog La, if not quite of the Talking People themselves. It was hard to say exactly what was wrong with them.

  * * *

  Tik-Tik also learned to hunt. At first it was just frogs and bugs hammered with stones, and then birds and squirrels felled by increasingly accurate, baseball-like pitches. And then he’d made a spear (little more than a sharpened stick, really) and spent hours and days and weeks hurling it at rabbits. These throws rarely struck the target, and even more rarely pierced it. He never made a kill, and so finally, in frustration, he went to one of the Grandfathers and asked,

  “Why does Tik-Tik not spear rabbits?”

  To which the Grandfather replied, impatiently, “With that thing? Wood points are for poking, not throwing.”

  “Why?”

  “It is too light and too blunt. Boy needs sharp stone on end. Also, stick is crooked. Stick must be very straight.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Mmm? Does boy think boy is sensible? Show boy’s throw.”

  Dutifully, Tik-Tik raised his arm and threw the spear, with approximately the same overhand pitch he would use for a heavy stone.

  “Mmm,” said the grandfather. “Make boy’s feet like this.” Getting up from the ground with great effort and fuss, he demonstrated, putting one foot farther forward and one farther back than Tik-Tik had done. “Make boy’s hand like this:” He curled his wrist slightly inward, and the loose muscles of his arm tightened and bulged. “Make boy’s arm like this:” and he drew his arm back low, holding his hand at the level of his ear. “Now throw!” he said, snapping his hand forward very fast. Faster than Tik-Tik thought the old man could move.

  Tik-Tik tried to copy the movement, but his spear merely flipped around in the air like a frog.

  “No,” the grandfather clucked, shaking his head.

  * * *

  The noise was a tsk, tsk—very similar to something Harv himself might make, never thinking of it as an actual word.

  * * *

  “Not with that. Go get long stick, straight stick, and good stone for tip.”

  And so, grumbling, Tik-Tik spent the next several days scanning the environment for appropriate spearwood. The earth was green and flat, with bushes and trees. Tik-Tik understood that if there were lions in
the area, this could be dangerous. You needed to be able to see lions from a long distance away. However, the only predators in this earth were jackals—too small to endanger anyone but toddlers, who were never allowed to wander far from adults. Tik-Tik knew that jackals could bite if he got too close, but in fact they were shy and never seemed to let him anywhere near, and so he patrolled the area alone, without fear, and without anyone else being afraid for him.

  In his search for a spear, Tik-Tik began to realize there were different kinds of trees in the earth. Some had apples or figs or acorns or mongongo nuts on them, no two of which ever occurred on the same tree. The mongongo trees were light and breakable. The apple trees and fig trees were very crooked. The acorn trees were good, with straight, hard sticks. Other trees bore no fruit and had no names, but each type had its own leaves, and he learned that some had better sticks than others, but in the end he decided the acorn trees were best.

  He tried breaking off green sticks from the body of the tree, but found they splintered and tore, rather than coming off in a clean piece. He tried collecting the dead wood around the trees, but found it was too light and breakable. Eventually he determined that freshly dead branches, still attached to a living tree, were the best sources of wood. Eventually he found a stick that was as tall and straight as he was, and he broke it off cleanly at both ends, and rubbed the ends smooth on a stone.

  He then found another stone, and started knapping the two together, to form one of them into a spear point. He had seen spear points all his life, and assumed that making one must be easy. However, the stones refused to fracture. In a sensible moment, he went and found a softer stone, and hit it with the harder one. This time, at least, the softer stone broke. However, it crumbled into dust along the edge, rather than forming a sharp point.

  Frustrated, he went back to Grandfather, showed him the stones, and asked, “Why does Tik-Tik not make spear points?”

  Grandfather laughed. “With those stones? Boy can ask boy’s Father to help find good stone.”

  “Man in house is not Tik-Tik’s Father.”

  “Mmm. Boy can ask boy’s Stepfather to help find good stone.”

  Tik-Tik did not like that.

  He did not particularly like Grandfather, either, but at least Grandfather had never done him harm. Grandfather hadn’t replaced his real father, and taken him away from his sister and cousins and friends.

  “Will Grandfather help Tik-Tik find stone?” he asked, with a timidity that surprised him.

  Grandfather laughed a little, then sniffed, then mmm’ed. “Grandfather understands. Many boys do not like Stepfathers. But Grandfather is old; the wind no longer travels in and out of Grandfather’s belly. Does boy think Grandfather stays here in the housing development, with babies and grandmothers, because Grandfather likes it?”

  The old man looked away, then looked back, then away again. He said, “Grandfather was like you. Grandfather was boy. Boy was strong and fast. Grandfather was called !En-!En. Now Grandfather sits in dust.”

  This speech did not impress Tik-Tik, nor touch him emotionally. It was the sort of thing old people said, just as the sun gave light and the stream gave water. His answer was a complaint: “Tik-Tik’s Stepfather cannot teach. Tik-Tik’s Stepfather is Mute.”

  “Mmm,” said Grandfather, thinking and nodding. “Grandfather understands even more. But Mutes can teach boy how to throw. How to find stone. How to shape stone. Grandfather knows Tik-Tik’s Stepfather. Is good man.”

  “No,” Tik-Tik said, although he wasn’t sure exactly what he was saying no to. That Stepfather was a good man? That Stepfather could teach him?

  But this made Grandfather unhappy with him. He said, “Then ask another boy, or another boy’s Father. Grandfather can not help you. Grandfather is very busy, sitting in dust.”

  And that seemed to be the end of the conversation.

  Even more frustrated, Tik-Tik waited around the housing development until the men started to return home from work.

  * * *

  These were the actual words that formed in Harv’s mind—the closest equivalents to the words Tik-Tik was using to assemble his thoughts. The literal construction was something like, “Wait location house-build-build man man come house after work,” and while that would not have meant much to Harv in its native state, Tik-Tik’s own mind found it grammatical and sensible enough.

  The houses of the “development” were larger than the houses of Nog La, and rather than domes they were triangular tunnels of tall sticks tied together with jute twine, and covered with thatch rather than animal hides, although hides were still used as “doors” at the open ends. A large opening at the center allowed smoke to escape. The whole assembly was dependent on friction and good luck to hold it together, and it didn’t look to Harv like these dwellings could survive any serious weather. One strong gust of wind would collapse them into their own cooking fires. One cloudburst thunderstorm would wash the thatching off the sticks, and turn the jute strands soggy and weak.

  However, this area (eastern Africa, perhaps?) seemed mild in every possible way, and stronger dwellings might simply be regarded as a waste of time and materials. During the day these were a busy people, and at night they were both lazy and bawdy; caring for houses would not be high on their list of priorities.

  Interestingly, though, the spacing of the houses was quite similar to Sunrise Castle, as was the hard-packed look of the ground. But there was no wall here, and no sense of danger or foreboding about the outside world. Tik-Tik didn’t regard his stepfather’s house as a home, so much as a place to sleep and store things, and to eat cooked meals if he happened to be there at the right time.

  There were no discernible seasons here—just days of sun and days of light rain—and so like a child on perpetual summer vacation, Tik-Tik did not seem to hold himself accountable for much, or to depend on his elders for much. Needing something from his stepfather was a truly alien feeling, and one he fidgeted through with great impatience.

  * * *

  When Stepfather finally showed up, whistling, with a string of rabbits over one shoulder and a real, grown-up spear over the other, Tik-Tik pounced on him, as a jackal might pounce on a lion.

  “Stepfather! Tik-Tik needs stone for spear points! Tik-Tik needs this now! Stepfather must help Tik-Tik find good stone!”

  Stepfather listened to this, and then burst out laughing. “Muh, muh, muh!” he said, clearly doing his best to imitate Tik-Tik’s voice. He laughed again, then held a hand up and said “Mmm” in a tone that very clearly meant “calm down, boy.” He mimed the acts of eating, sleeping, waking up, and then going out to look for a stone with Tik-Tik.

  “No,” Tik-Tik protested.

  “Noooo,” Stepfather mocked. “Nowww!”

  “Stay here for dinner,” Grandmother said, emerging from the house with a scowl on her face. She shook a finger at Tik-Tik and added, “Tik-Tik does not eat enough real food. Tik-Tik eats bugs and apples and hard, uncooked yams, and cold leftovers. Tik-Tik drops into his bed as soon as sun is buried. Tik-Tik does not listen to stories around fire, and so Tik-Tik will grow up less sensible than Mutes.”

  “Tik-Tik is busy,” Tik-Tik said.

  “Tik-Tik will do as Tik-Tik is told,” Grandmother said, with uncharacteristic firmness.

  “Where is Mother?” Tik-Tik demanded, thinking he could appeal to her on both issues.

  “Mother is working late,” Grandmother said. “The ripest mongongo nuts are far, and Mother is filling basket with them for Grandmother to roast with rabbit meat, so that Tik-Tik can fill his belly with something that does not squirm.”

  Tik-Tik wanted to object, to nearly every part of that, but Stepfather grinned and held open the door, motioning for Tik-Tik to come inside.

  “Talllk,” he said.

  3.3

  Dinner was actually quite good, and as they all sat in the dust beside the fire, Tik-Tik was forced to thank Mother for collecting the nuts, and Stepfather for catching the ra
bbits, and Grandmother for putting the nuts inside the rabbits and roasting them on three rotisserie spits at the right height above the fire, for just the right amount of time, turning them at the right speed, so they tasted just the way Tik-Tik liked them.

  Tik-Tik ate his fill, and more. “Mother grows fat,” he said after this, noticing the way his mother’s belly swelled out above her loincloth.

  “Mother has baby inside,” Grandmother said.

  “Stepfather put baby inside,” Mother said, to which everyone except Tik-Tik laughed.

  Without getting up, Stepfather made a motion with his hands and hips that Tik-Tik did not understand, but that caused Mother and Grandmother to laugh even harder.

  To which Grandmother said, “This new earth is good. Many new babies will find their way here.”

  “Yes!” Stepfather said, with a tone Tik-Tik could also not interpret. But again, the women laughed.

  This annoyed Tik-Tik greatly, because he did not like thinking there was a difference between himself and the adults of the housing development. If they could speak things he did not understand—if a Mute could speak things he did not understand—then he wanted to be in on the joke.

  “What?” he asked. And then again, more sharply: “What?”

  Which only brought more laughter.

  Finally, seeing his look, Grandmother clucked at him and said, “Boys have no interest in babies, or where babies come from. But young men are very interested, as Tik-Tik will discover.”

  “Tik-Tik is young man,” he protested, although saying it made him sound even more like a boy.

  There were more jokes after that, some of which Tik-Tik understood and some of which he did not. Finally, impatiently, he said to Grandmother, “Tik-Tik is here for stories. Grandmother says Tik-Tik comes home too tired for stories, but Tik-Tik is here.”

  “Mmm,” Grandmother said. “Perhaps Mother can tell us about her day.”

  Mother agreed, and launched into a story so boring it actually hurt Tik-Tik to hear it. Mother went here, Mother went there. Mother dropped her basket. Mother saw a bird. Blah blah blah.