****
Every evening for the next week either Mouse or Talking Owl visited Ed briefly to mentor him, but otherwise he was mostly on his own as he honed his telepathic senses. Following his mentors' advice he started out as simple as he could, which required that he hike at least a mile away from all longhouses and the deafening mental chatter of their many inhabitants.
Mary, Jack, or Doc usually accompanied him on his hikes but they had to pretty much let Ed sit quietly on his own so that he could 'listen' and learn. Mary quickly became bored, and the energetic Jack became downright frustrated. Doc usually sat propped against a tree and sensibly dozed off. Ed learned the most when Talking Owl went with him and couched him step by step.
Ed's first breakthrough creature, the friendly great horned owl, also followed him on some days, and they continued to exchange simple owlish thoughts. In the course of improving his owl communications, Ed soon found that he was able to isolate the thoughts of other birds as well, and then the thoughts of nearby squirrels and other small nearby animals. He could also sense some of the thoughts of his human companions. He felt that most of the thoughts that he sensed, even the thoughts of the humans, were simple and direct: more feelings, senses, and suggestions for various basic activities than abstract, symbolic, word-like thoughts. Translation of all of it into things that he could understand would probably take a very long time, he suspected. Possibly a lifetime or longer.
Did this mean that all of these creatures were telepathic and had their own languages? Certainly not, Ed quickly concluded. But they did through their normal brain activity inadvertently weakly broadcast many repeating patterns that were specific to their species and even peculiar to each individual. Communication with each living creature was a set of puzzles to be solved, and Ed was rapidly becoming better at solving them.
That included wolf and bear clan animals, which frightened him even though he had been told by Talking Owl to expect them and that they would not harm him. Clan leaders Running Bear and White Cloud sent them. Several members of each species individually approached and then quietly watched him for hours at a time and poked at him with their noses to get a good whiff of his scent - which usually included Old Spice deodorant. When Ed probed bear and wolf thoughts he was immediately aware of keen intelligence that although not at a human level was far superior to other wild animals.
Wolf and bear thought patterns had odd twists to them, and were most strongly tied to immediate needs such as food. "NOT PREY" and "NOT RIVAL" were what they mostly thought repeatedly as they watched him, as though it was a notion that they were fixing more firmly in their minds. "FRIEND," he mostly thought fearfully back at them, though they seemed to be dismissive of that notion.
"They become familiar with you and your thoughts," Talking Owl explained, "and you with theirs. They will tolerate and to some degree respect you now as a recognized Tribe member and acquaintance, but do not expect more without having to work for it. In that they are not so unlike humans. It takes time and effort to establish true friendships." Apparently romping and foraging for food with them for a time in the woods would be required for actual friendship, and Ed couldn't imagine that ever happening. For now Ed was perfectly satisfied not to be attacked and eaten by them.
One day Ed found himself to be alone with grumpy Singing Moon in the Lodge. "As a white man born and raised, what do think of the notion of Stone-Coat giants, Ed Rumsfeld," she asked him.
"To me it sounds like some sort of crazy myth," Ed replied. "But in pluralistic America you are free to believe whatever you want to believe."
"I don't believe in Stone-Coats either," she admitted, surprising Ed. "Many in the Tribe no longer believe. The Stone-Coat myth keeps the Tribe from joining the modern world."
"Your daughter Talking Owl believes in Stone-Coats."
"She believes the web of nonsense that Turtle Man and Mouse maintain around themselves in this Great Lodge of deceit. Years ago they took my only child from me and brought her here to be further indoctrinated. But they have failed, for she remains honest. She does not claim to hear the Stone-Coats dream because they have died, if they ever lived at all. That is her truth that they refuse. Now they have brought you here to boost their waning power over the Tribe. You are supposed to lie and say that you hear Stone-Coats. Is that not what they pay you to do?"
"I'm supposed to try to hear them, but I wouldn't lie about it."
"If that is true I support your efforts, Ed Rumsfeld."
"That's good to hear, Singing Moon."
"But if you lie about it, that will be your last act on this Earth, white man!" Singing Moon said tersely, before she abruptly turned from him and walked away.
"Swell," Ed figured.
So far Ed hadn't distinguished any turtle thoughts, much less Stone-Coat thoughts. Of course Singing Moon was right: that Stone-Coat business was nonsense, it had to be. Maybe turtle talk was also nonsense. After all, people the world over swore that they talked with ghosts and gods and so-forth, without any objective evidence whatsoever. People could talk themselves into all sorts of crazy notions; they seemed to be wired such than many of them strongly needed to do so. Ed doubted that Stone-Coats were any more real than the Easter Bunny. However he had to admit that as he identified the thoughts of more and more forest creatures, the boundaries regarding what he believed to be possible were expanding significantly.
In every direction he hiked Ed encountered jant thoughts. They had established at least a dozen queen-inhabited Reservation nests already, and like the Mohawk, were busily preparing for winter. And like Ed, they were expanding their telepathic abilities.
What Ed learned, through their connection with him the Jants also learned. However they were reluctant to bite Mohawks in order to better read their thoughts; some of the Mohawk were naturally telepathic and might prove dangerous. They had encountered a few scattered telepathic humans elsewhere, but here there were more than a hundred concentrated in a single small community. Such a phenomenon deserved careful, cautious study. So did the Stone-Coats, if they existed. The jants were in no hurry. The jant collective mind was essentially immortal, and would exist as long as any of its colonies existed. However they decided that should bite a selected few members of the Tribe before winter sat in. As they studied Jerry, Ed, and countless thousands of other selected humans, they would now study the Tribe and its secrets.
Every few days Ed met very briefly with Turtle Man, but the visits were becoming fewer and briefer. The old man was clearly fading towards death. Talking Owl made it clear to Ed that the visits were mostly to keep up the old man's spirits, and not to impart wisdom that would help him talk with turtles or Stone-Coats. He wished that he could give the old man better news. Like Talking Owl he could now telepathically connect with just about everything in the animal kingdom except turtles, but it was not enough.
Doc and Jack focused on the plan to study the Bear Claw, aided by White Cloud, who turned out to be a mechanical engineer. "White Cloud, as thrilled as we are to study the artifact you do surely realize that this is an absurdly weak science team," began Doc.
"Very weak, and with very limited equipment availability," agreed White Cloud, "which is why I'm here to help." He stepped up to the marker-board that he had brought from his administrative office in town. "First let's list our requirements," he suggested, in engineer-like fashion. "We need to hold what you white folks call a brainstorming session, first on requirements and then on design."
"Despite our precautions what we do may be dangerous, so we should do the examination remote from any lodges," said Doc as White Cloud wrote 'isolation' on the marker board.
"That will mean using some sort of stand-alone structure," Jack added. "A laboratory building."
Under the 'design' column White cloud wrote 'lab' and underlined it. "We don't have the time or resources to construct a truly stand-alone self-sufficient lab complex," said White Cloud. "Frankly some in the Tribe, led by Singing Moon, oppose the use of any
resources at all. Anyway, one practical trade-off is that the lab can't be very far from the resources of an existing lodge."
"As a safely factor it should be possible to set the lab afire, and continue the resulting fire indefinitely without being overcome be the cold of winter," said Jack. "That suggests proximity to existing supplies of firewood and manpower. So you are right, White Cloud; the lab can't be overly remote from lodges."
White Cloud annotated the lab entry with a 'close to lodge' note.
"The object will have to be contained in some sort of container at all times," continued Doc. "We need to rigorously control what it comes into contact with."
"And contain it if it becomes animated," added Jack.
"It will eat what it is in contact with," said White Cloud, "especially if it is cold. The container structure must be renewable somehow. We have changed its location in the fireplace every few years, and replaced the stone blocks it rests upon. Otherwise over the centuries they crumble away." He wrote a great deal about the container under his design collumn.
"And its temperature will need to be monitored and controlled and recorded at all times," White Cloud added. "There need to be observation devices within the containment box itself."
"We need to write up a protocol on how to handle it and what we should do under various circumstances," noted Doc. "We don't want to be making up everything as we go along."
"Besides, it will need to be monitored night and day," said Jack. "Several other Tribe members will be needed. Everyone involved will need to be familiar with the protocols."
"We'll need measurement instruments, cameras and notebooks," said Doc. "We need hand tools and probes, needles and drills, chisels and hammers, water misters and microphones, fire extinguishers and propane torches."
"Most of that already exists somewhere on the Reservation, but we will need to purchase a few things," said White Cloud "And we need to do it immediately, before the snows cut us off from the outside world. We'll also need electricity 24-7. There is no power line from the outside world, but there are a few rechargeable nine-volt battery assemblies that we use in conjunction with solar panels, and more nine-volt direct current gizmo's than you'd imagine exist that were designed for truckers and RV folks. There are even a few gasoline powered backup power generators for full temporary A/C power, and a Tribe gasoline tank to draw fuel from."
Planning went on for hours. White Cloud's efforts were indispensable. He took notes, knew what Tribe resources were available, did most of the design of the lab, and identified a suitable location for the lab not far from Turtle Man's lodge. Jack suspected that this was not the first time that White Cloud had thought about building a lab to examine the artifact.
The next day the plans were presented to Tribe leadership and approved, though there was strident opposition from Singing Moon. Construction began immediately.
A week after the induction of the four white outsiders into the Tribe, the lab was completed. On that day the snow began to fall again and this time it didn't stop for three days. Two feet of powdery snow was deposited everywhere on the Reservation, with six-foot deep drifts in some places. Winter had arrived.