Bub had desired Fae, and Sis had desired Hue. Both had gotten what they wanted, in this unlikely situation. Yet Hue could not hold it against them, because Sis had given him an experience like none other. It was surely better than combat would have been, though he still didn't like Fae's participation.
Now they were in truce. They picked up their weapons and put them away. Then they gazed out into the fire storm.
The rocks and ashes were piling on the ground. All the grass had burned away, and the nearby trees were still smoldering. The air was choked with smoke. They needed to get away from it.
They made their way into the dark recess. The women were afraid, so the men did it, with Sis and Fae close behind. Neither Hue nor Bub wanted close association with the other, but they were bound to the truce, as occasional words from the women reminded them. They picked up their stone axes and stepped cautiously into the darkness.
It was a disappointment. Not far beyond the wan light the walls closed up, leaving only small apertures they couldn't use. There was no good air here. Only a pool of water they could feel with their feet. It wasn't flowing, so surely wasn't good to drink.
But they had to have good air. All of them were coughing now, as the fumes increased. There was a strange, threatening sound outside. This was surprising, because the rain of fire was abating. What was making that sound?
Hue knew he should go outside and check. But there was still some ash falling, and he didn't want to leave the others alone in the cave with Bub. The truce existed, but was uneasy.
Sis solved that. “Hue Bub,” she said, pointing out. Fae saw the logic and agreed.
That made sense. If both of them went out, neither could bother the women.
So they took their bags and spread out the hides as protection, covering their heads and shoulders. Holding their axes, they went out together.
They had to step carefully, because the fallen stones and ashes were still hot. Smoke was everywhere, especially above, making dusk of midday. But it was somewhat easier to breathe out here.
They went toward the sound, which was getting louder. It was coming from the other side of the hill, in the direction of the fire mountain. Hue was frightened, but would not show it in the presence of his enemy.
They crested a small ridge. Bub made a cry. “Fire!”
Hue looked. There in the valley between slopes was a river of fire. The trees and shrubs by its banks burst into flame when touched and soon were swept under. Hue had never seen anything like it, and was sure Bub hadn't either.
It was coursing toward them. Soon it would flow over this low ridge and on around and into the cave.
They turned as one and ran back the way they had come. They had to get the others out immediately.
“Run!” Hue called as they came into sight of the cave.
Fae and Sis peered out into the gloom, not understanding. The stones had stopped falling from the sky, but the women did not trust that. They thought the cave was the safest place.
“Run!” Bub cried, reaching the cave and hauling on Fae's arm so that she stumbled out. She made an exclamation of displeasure and fear, thinking he was trying to abduct her again.
Hue arrived opposite Sis and did the same to her. She was similarly confused, but she moved as he hauled, trying to step into him. He pushed her on out, though aware of her wicked appeal despite their recent mating. Then he moved on in. “Run! Run! Fire!” He hustled Lil and the children forward and out.
Meanwhile Bub reached Sue and Blaze. They shrank away from him, terrified. Then they ran after Hue.
The woman and children were milling around before the cave, confused. They did not know where they should run, or where. They thought the fire was still in the sky.
Hue got a notion. “Bee Lee!” he cried, making a come here gesture. But he was already moving back toward the low ridge, so they had to run to catch up.
He led them to the ridge, and pointed. The flowing fire was much closer now; he could feel its heat. They looked, saw it, and gasped together. Now they knew what they had to run from.
Meanwhile Bub was herding the remaining group as if it were so many grazing animals. They were moving up the slope to the side.
Bee and Lee hastened to join them. “Fire!” they cried. “Run!” The others reacted to the children's words better than to the male's words.
Then the fireflow reached the ridge. It paused, blocked for a moment, forming a pool. Then it surged on over in a thin bright stream. The very ground seemed to catch fire as the liquid flame crossed it. Acrid smoke puffed up.
Higher on the slope, they paused to look back. The fire water was swirling into the cave, scintillating ferociously. The inner wall turned bright from the light of the fire. There was a loud sizzle as the fire found the water, and a cloud of vapor puffed out. They watched, fascinated. Now they knew it would not have been good to stay in the cave.
They moved on, staying on the elevated slope. The air got better as they left the flowing fire behind. But they could hear the fire hissing along below, destroying any trees that hadn't already been burned by the flying hot stones.
Then they spied other people climbing the slope. None of the valleys were safe. Would this mean more trouble? There were several big males, who did not look friendly.
Sue cried out, happily. These were folk from her band. She ran toward them, then paused, ran back to Hue, touched his hand, and ran off again with Blaze. She had thanked him for helping her find them.
This meant that there would be no trouble, because Sue had identified Hue as a friend. The surly males paused, not attacking, letting Hue and those with him go on up the slope. Bub and Sis got the benefit of this, though Sue would not have let them go if they had been alone.
Now Bub and Sis decided to go their own way. Bub lifted a hand in parting, and Sis came over to rub against Hue one more time. She was trying to excite him sexually, so that he would be sorry for her absence. She succeeded. Fae glared. Satisfied, Sis ran to join her brother, and they were gone.
It took time for Hue and the others to find their own band, but they knew where it had been and were able to follow the high slopes to that region. Joe and Bil and the others were there, and glad to see those they had feared lost. There were many embraces of relief and camaraderie. It had ended well, and Hue still had the good new stones.
But somehow his mind lingered on what it shouldn't: his brief association with the enemy woman, Sis. He had two mates already, who were attentive and obliging; why should he desire one who was not available? It was a question he could neither answer nor forget.
The sexuality of mankind was shifting from the practices of the chimps, and constrictions were growing up around it, but it still had a way to go before becoming fully “manlike.” It was used to defuse tensions and generate harmony, so that larger groups could assemble amicably. But the heyday of this sort of interaction was perhaps to come with the not deliberately punned Erect man, in the course of the next million years.
The volcano was Mt. Ngorongoro, in present-day Tanzania, in the East Rift southeast of Lake Victoria. It poured out its ash and lava about two million years ago and left a crater a staggering twelve miles wide. Today a complete community of animals lives within that crater, including a pride of lions and a herd of Cape buffalo; the vegetation has grown thickly in that rich volcanic soil. Perhaps this eruption helped form the fertile Serengeti Plain, so hospitable to mankind in the past. This type of event is typical of the Rift, which was formed by the constant upwelling of lava from the deeps.
The hand axe has been a mystery. It survived for two million years, hardly changing, while mankind progressed all the way from chimplike to modern, his already large brain doubling in size. What was the magic in this seemingly clumsy tool? It has been conjectured that the term axe is a misnomer; it was actually a throwing weapon, capable of doing significant damage to any animal it struck. But accurate throwing requires calculation—in fact, calculus, whose rules can be mind-stretchingly co
mplicated to perform on paper. Yet we do it without conscious mental effort, every time we throw and catch a ball. Indeed, we like to try our accuracy in this manner, and many of our most popular physical games are ball games. Today we throw for money or fun, but then we threw for survival. More brain meant greater accuracy, therefore greater success in hunting or combat, so this weapon may have been responsible for boosting brain size. At first. More likely, the axe was simply a remarkably versatile tool, effective for throwing, stabbing, and carving, so its design was a compromise between its various functions. Actually, there were variations, with the point elongated in some, and the axe might be sharpened part way around or all the way around, suggesting specializations we no longer understand.
The brain is perhaps the most versatile organ of the body, and when it grew, it found additional uses for its power. Foremost among these was language. Today communication is vital to civilization itself, and superior ability in this respect brings considerable rewards to both individuals and cultures. But nature cares nothing for potential, and everything for the advantage of the moment. Better communication helped, but perhaps not as much as physical strength and accuracy. So mankind added words to his vocabulary, and his brain grew to accommodate them. This hardly showed in a single generation. Yet in the course of a million years this seemingly slow accretion developed considerable impact. As we shall see.
CHAPTER 5
* * *
GIANT
About one million years ago, mankind's then-variant Homo erectus, Upright Man, found an avenue past the barrier of the Sahara Desert and moved into the continent of Eurasia. He was now close to modern humans in height, and more muscular. Soon enough he spread across the world as it was then available, in the process fragmenting into many subcultures and, in time, subspecies. He was probably somewhat xenophobic, fearing or hating all cultural variants differing in any way from his own. This was actually an asset to the species as a whole, for it promoted more rapid evolution in the small groups, enabling new traits to become established instead of being submerged by the much larger gene pool of the species as a whole.
Some bands came to a strange region, southeast Asia, where a specialized grass grew very large and useful: bamboo. There they also encountered unusual creatures, such as the panda and the largest ape ever: Gigantopithecus. This was a cousin of the orangutan standing ten feet tall, whose ancestors diverged from ours perhaps ten million years ago.
Note: bamboo is a grass, not a tree—but to the people of the time who had migrated recently from forested land, it seemed like a tree.
HUE hefted his bamboo spear. Fae and the other women were grinding grain for gruel, but he was hungry for meat. It had been many days since they had caught any animal of good size. Maybe today they would have success.
Bil gestured. “See print,” he said.
Hue and Joe looked, astonished. It looked like a crude human footprint, but it was twice the size of any they had ever seen. What giant had made that?
“Man big,” Hue said, awed, making a gesture indicating a height twice theirs. “Hide.” His signal indicated retreat from superior force.
Joe disagreed. “Kill,” he said, making a thrust with his spear. “Enemy hunt men.” He wanted to make a pre-emptive strike, to take out the monster before the monster learned of their existence and came after them.
“Big man smash,” Hue pointed out, pantomiming getting struck and hurled back by a more powerful opponent. He didn't want to go up against a man who could surely destroy him with one blow.
They looked at Bil, the smart one. He would decide whether to pursue the monster and try to kill it, or to try to avoid it. “Follow, find,” he decided. “Hide, see.”
With this both Hue and Joe could agree. They would follow the giant tracks and try to spy on the huge man, keeping themselves hidden so that the man did not see them. Then they would know more about it, and be in a better position to decide.
The trail was not hard to follow, because of the size of the prints. It paralleled the river by which the band of people had camped. Hue noted another disquieting sign: where the tracks went, the bamboo was broken off. The small bamboo trees had been cropped close to the ground, and larger ones higher up. What remained were scattered stalks shorn of twigs and leaves, with teeth marks on the stems. The giant was eating the bamboo—and what he ate was as big in diameter as the spear Hue carried. How could they even hope to prevail against that?
There was a sound ahead. All three men paused in place, alertly focusing on it. Something was there, in the small bamboo by the bank of the river. Something big.
They advanced toward it, low and quiet, using the larger bamboo trees as cover. They came to a thicket and settled in the brush, staring out.
There were several giant apes foraging, the males twice the height of men and many times as massive. They were eating bamboo, breaking it off with their powerful hands and chewing it up with their similarly powerful teeth. Their fur was reddish yellow, or golden, perhaps silvery on their backs. They did not walk erect, but put their arms down so that their knuckles took much of their weight. Even on all fours, their heads were as high as those of men, and much larger. Their mouths were enormous, making the rest of their heads look smaller than they were. Their teeth were truly gigantic.
There was a stir of wind that ruffled those bamboo leaves that were out of range of the creatures.
One of the monstrous males sniffed the air suspiciously. He peered around as if searching for something. Then he stepped directly toward Hue. The giant smelled him! Hue was upwind, and the random gust had carried his odor to the ape.
His mind raced. Should he get up and flee before the thing reached him? But he feared the giant could outrun him. Should he stay in place, hoping the wind faded and the ape lost the smell? But the creature was already so close it could probably see Hue. Should he stand up and fight, trying to drive his spear into the thing's gross belly? That might merely madden it.
Yet the ape did not seem hostile. It was not baring its teeth or growling or waving its fists. It was just walking forward as if curious. So Hue compromised by doing nothing. He remained where he was squatting, unmoving.
The ape sniffed him out. It stood on its hind feet, lifted its torso, put its giant hands on the bamboo shoots masking Hue and snapped them off as if they were twigs. Its muscular power was frightening. But still Hue didn't move, and neither did Joe or Bil. Everything depended on what the monster did.
The ape parted the bamboo stems immediately before Hue, then broke them off and tossed them to the side. It peered down at Hue, an unfinished bamboo stem in its mouth. Like an animal, it seemed to focus on just one thing at a time, so it was forgetting to chew. Yet it looked a great deal like a huge man.
Hue looked up at it, and his gaze met that of the ape. Then the ape reached out with one big hand. It touched Hue's head with one finger, stirring his hair. It was indeed curious—and seemed curiously innocent.
Hue did something that surprised himself. Slowly he lifted one of his own hands. He touched the ape's hand, which dwarfed his. For a moment the two hands were together, like those of a parent and a child.
Then Joe jumped up, a short distance away. “Haaa!” he cried, hurling his spear at the ape. It was deflected by a bamboo shoot, and missed, but it spooked the ape. The creature reared back, then turned and ran four-legged away. The others did the same, and in a moment all of them were gone.
“Why Joe jump?” Hue demanded.
“Ape eat Hue,” Joe said, going to recover his spear.
“No. Ape touch head. Hue touch hand. No eat.”
“Ape eat bamboo,” Bil agreed, joining them. “Chew teeth, no bite teeth.”
A grazer of bamboo, Hue realized. Not a predator. The ape was like a panda bear, but larger. So he had not been in the danger he had feared. Unless the ape decided to smash his head with that giant fist.
They returned to camp, as there was no chance of having a successful hunt at this stage. Bu
t their news was exciting enough to make up for the meal of grain-gruel and soup made from bamboo tree shoots and boiled rat tails.
“Big, big!” Joe said enthusiastically, gesturing to show the creature's height. “Ape break big bamboo.” He broke a thin twig to demonstrate. The others listened politely, for he was a man, but it was clear that they did not really believe, even when Bil and Hue endorsed Joe's description. They suspected that it was a joke, to make up for the bad hunt. That made Joe angry. “Tomorrow band see!” he said. “Hunt apes. Big meat.”
The others were happy to agree. This meant that the women and children could in effect go on a hunt, and they delighted in the opportunity. The prospect of fresh meat was appealing too.
But Hue was ill at ease about it. He knew that Joe wanted to hunt the giant apes, and certainly such creatures would provide a great deal of meat. But Hue's brief contact with the one ape, the sharing of glances and touches, had impressed him with the creature's man-ness. This was perhaps not a real man, but it was also not an animal. It was a cousin-creature who meant no harm and should be left alone.
His mate Fae became aware of his distraction. She tried to tempt him to repeated copulations, but after the first two he lost interest. Seeing that, his young stepdaughter Lee came across to him, to see if he merely craved variety. Lee was his little sister's friend, and both of them were on the verge of nubility. His sister Bee would mate elsewhere, but Lee evidently thought Hue was a suitable prospect despite his lack of interest. She stood before him, bent over, and wiggled her rear, offering, but he merely turned his back. Still hopeful, she circled him and lay on her back in front of him, lifting and spreading her legs enticingly. He turned his back again. He wouldn't hit her unless she became too much of a nuisance, but he simply wasn't interested. She was too much like his sister. Finally she gave up, and departed.
Fae sniffed with satisfaction. It was not her place to say when or with whom he should mate, but she preferred to keep him to herself as much as possible, now that his first mate Lil had become too old to be alluring. A man was entitled to all the women he could handle, but it appeared that Lee was not just available for spot diversion; she hoped to become his regular mate. So Fae stayed fairly close to him, in that way not only being ready, but keeping clear of other males. Any female had to yield to any male who desired her, except when with a proprietary male. Thus Lee had succeeded in avoiding mating with any others, despite her growing desirability. She pretended that Hue wanted her, and others honored that pretense despite the fact that Hue denied it. Because Hue was one of the dominant males, and just might be biding his time with Lee. It was not wise to annoy a dominant male, even in some potential manner.