Climate of Change (10 page)

Haven slowly embraced the child. He accepted it, perhaps appreciating her physical warmth, or the additional support. “Will you trust me?” she murmured. Of course he did not understand her words, but he responded to her mood, hesitantly smiling.

She faced Grunge. “He is sick. He can't walk home. Let him stay here for a few days.” She pointed to the distant house, where the smoke rose from the constant hearth fire. “Warm.” She embraced the child again. “I care.”

Grunge just stood there. That did not necessarily mean she didn't understand, just that she hadn't decided.

Haven turned the boy around to face the house. “There. Warm. Good.” Still the Other woman stood.

Haven opened her cloak, despite the bitter cold. “I am a woman,” she said, showing the mounds of her breasts under the skin vest. She inhaled, and cupped them, making her femaleness as obvious as she could. The action gave her discomfort; the vest was too tight. “I will take care of a child.” She turned to hug the boy once more.

Grunge abruptly turned and strode away. She had agreed!

“We go to house,” Haven said. She drew her cloak back together, and took his hand.

But the moment he tried to take a step, he fell again. She would have to carry him. She put one arm under his shoulders, and the other at his knees, and tried to lift him, but he was remarkably solid. She couldn't lift him.

Then the others emerged from the house and walked toward them. Would the boy trust the men? Haven wasn't sure, so she turned him
back toward her, kneeled, and hugged him close. His face rested against her bosom, and he stood quietly.

Harbinger approached. Crenelle must have prepared him. Without a word he put his arms around the boy and picked him up. Haven took hold of the child's hand, and spoke reassuringly to him as they walked toward the house.

Craft picked up the pile of cloaks. Harbinger would return for the haunch.

A place had been made in the warmest part of the house, closest to the fire. Harbinger set the boy down, carefully, and stepped back. He went back for the meat.

“You are safe now,” Haven said to the child. “Warm and safe. Now you can sleep.”

Then she became aware of something else. There was a smell.

She looked up. “Crenelle—” she began. But the woman was already busy with the pot, dipping a bundle of soft dry plants in the water. She had smelled it too.

Harbinger returned with the haunch. He set it in the snow beside the house; it would keep.

The smell intensified.

Harbinger and Craft decided that this was the time to forage for more wood. They set off for the forest.

The two women opened the child's cloak and worked it off his body. It was warm enough here so that he did not have to be completely bundled. Then they drew off his loinskin. Sure enough, he had soiled himself. The stuff was watery and very smelly. But Haven had seen similar symptoms before; the fever cleaned out the system, and then recovery began. She knew what to do.

They used the plant bundle to wipe the region off, pouring warm water on it to rinse it out repeatedly. The boy's torso and limbs were thick with muscle and fat; he weighed perhaps twice as much as a human boy of that height might. They progressed to his packed groin, getting the voluminous refuse clear. Then they paused, staring.

“He's a girl,” Crenelle said.

“He's so solid, I just assumed . . .” But obviously she had been
mistaken. She might have guessed, because Grunge was as solid as any human man.

“What's her name?” Crenelle asked.

“I don't know. I never thought to ask.”

“Let's call her Cute,” Crenelle decided, glancing at the girl's thick waist.

Haven laughed at the irony. A young human woman had a narrow waist that opened out into broad hips below and projecting breasts above. This torso was more like a tree trunk with massive branches. But maybe when the girl matured, she would be attractive to Other men. She could be cute, by the standard of her species.

They got her into a clean loinskin, and cleaned off her cloak. Cute, comforted by the warmth and perhaps the attention, had relaxed into sleep. Her body remained sweatingly hot, but the fever would run its course if they kept her otherwise comfortable.

The men returned with loads of wood. “This is Cute,” Haven said, indicating the sleeping child. “She is female.”

“She's solid like a man,” Harbinger said.

“So is her mother.” Haven paused, then addressed another matter. “We will need clean clothing, and more cleaning leaves. She may poop again. It's the sickness.”

“We'll fetch more,” the men said almost together.

Cute did poop more, but a diminished amount. There was only so much a body could contain. They kept her clean and warm, and she slept.

Night came. The work of the house went on around the sleeping patient. Haven stayed with her throughout. But in the evening she glanced across at Harbinger, lifting an eyebrow: Sex? He shook his head. He preferred that she keep Cute clean, than to take time off to entertain him. So she lay down beside the child, bracing her against the intensifying chill of the night and diminished fire. She gave her some water to sip when she woke, knowing that it was too soon for food.

In the morning, Cute's fever was down. Haven had to go out to the latrine area. When she returned, Craft was with the child, tempting
her with a wooden toy of a new design: a ball in a cage. Cute smiled, liking it, but didn't actually take it.

Haven was relieved. The child was mending. She didn't know what they would have done had she died. She dipped out a small piece of cooked meat and proffered it. Cute took it and gnawed, her massive jaw crunching it more readily than a human jaw could have managed.

Then Cute frowned—and vomited it back out. It was, after all, too soon for solid food.

Cute stared at the vomit, and began to cry.

Haven sat beside the child and stroked her head. “It's all right,” she murmured as Crenelle cleaned up the mess. “You're ill. Not your fault.”

Later in the day, Cute was able to eat without losing it. Her fever came up again, but not as bad as before.

Harbinger settled down beside her with his drum. He beat out a rhythm with his hands, and sang a song. The child's eyes opened wide, staring at him; then she smiled and relaxed. She liked the music.

Later Crenelle settled down with her flute, and Cute reacted similarly, enjoying the melodies. They seemed to be helping her to recover. Haven was very pleased to see it. Had the child worsened or died, it would have been her fault, for she was the one who had brought Cute here.

By evening, Cute's strength was returning. The two women steadied her as she got up and went out to the place for urination. She was continent again.

This night Harbinger accepted Haven's silent proffer of sex. She went to the back of the house chamber, spread her clothing clear, and sat on his lap in a precise and special manner. His hands came up inside her loosened cloak and vest to find her breasts. By mutual consent they did not make what they were doing obvious in the presence of the child. Their winter's experience had made them proficient in almost any position, and they could do it with no seeming motion, efficiently and silently. This, too, was an interesting variant, because it was the first time they were trying to conceal it from another person.

“Thank you for singing to Cute,” she murmured. She wanted him to know that she wasn't doing this just to satisfy him, but because she was pleased with him.

Crenelle, knowing the situation, sat by Cute, who was now fascinated by the new toy. She kept poking her finger into it to touch the ball, trying to figure out how it had gotten into the cage.

Cute continued to mend. She watched them working on the cloaks, and Craft showed her how to punch the holes. Even weak in her illness, she had as much arm power as he did. She liked the work, and did several cloaks for them. On the third day she helped put wood on the fire. Harbinger smiled at her, and she smiled back. She had lost her fear of alien men.

Then Grunge returned. Cute was aware of it before the others were; she had very sharp senses. She got up and ran out to join her mother. The others followed, with the cloaks they had altered.

The mother and daughter were embracing. It was the first time they had seen Grunge express emotion. Then she picked up the pile of cloaks and started back, and Cute followed. It was over.

But the next time Grunge came, there was an Other man with her. The four of them watched nervously; if he came to the house, they would have to flee. He carried a huge bundle, twice the load any human man could have handled. He dumped it down and departed, and Grunge followed him after dumping her load of cloaks. Only Cute remained, dallying by the pile.

Haven went out and hugged her. Then the chunky child ran back to join her family.

Now they looked at the bundle. It was not just meat and tubers. It was an assortment of useful things, including several nice flint-stones, small animal furs, a collection of good thongs, and a skin of fermented berry juice. That last was precious, in winter.

These were gifts. The Others were expressing their appreciation for the help rendered to their child. Grunge must have had something to say about it.

Meanwhile, Haven was in increasing distress for a different reason. Her breasts had swollen and become tender, and her digestion was
queasy. Was she coming down with the illness? She confided her concern to Crenelle.

The woman laughed. “You had no blood.”

Haven stared at her. Crenelle was right! She saw what Haven should have. She had not bled on her usual schedule, but that happened on occasion. Now her breasts were growing. That explained it. She had a baby inside her.

She told Harbinger. He was pleased and very solicitous. Their association had started with a rape, but Haven had long since come to terms with that. It was clear that the relationship Crenelle had with Craft, though similar sexually, was different socially, for there had been no rape. They were not married. When spring came, they would separate. Harbinger and Haven would not.

Spring did come. The snow melted in the increasing sunlight. And Grunge and Cute stopped coming.

They went to the Other camp. It was empty. The Others had gone. Apparently it was getting too warm for them.

With the departure of the Others, the game returned. Now the men could resume hunting, both because there was something to hunt, and because they would not be subject to killing if the Others caught them at it.

But it was clear that this was not a region they could live in year round. They had survived the winter only because of the considerable help of the Others. True, they had traded for it, but not all Other bands might be amenable to trading. In any event, they would not care to be dependent on the Others. They would have to return south to report that this region was uninhabitable. It was too bad.

Yet Haven was satisfied. This excursion had gotten her a decent husband, a decent woman friend, and considerable experience. She had been a relative innocent; now she was a competent adult. And she would be a mother.

Then something went wrong. She began to have pains in her swelling belly, and suffered spells of dizziness. She got short of breath, and experienced awful sieges of tightness.

“Something's wrong with the baby!” Crenelle said.

“It's just indigestion,” Haven said. But she knew it was more than that.

The others made her rest and stay mostly off her feet, but the dizziness and contractions continued. Haven knew that Crenelle was right: the baby was trying to come out, and it was way too soon. She sank into depression. What would she do if the baby died?

In the course of a largely sleepless night, she came to an answer: the baby was the child of rape. If it died, it would be because the spirits knew rape to be an abomination, and destroyed its issue. Therefore the marriage based on rape was also evil, and would have to be destroyed too. She had come to love Harbinger, who was a good man despite his differences, but he had done wrong.

If the baby died, and Haven lived, she would leave Harbinger and return to her family. Then there would be nothing left of the rape. That was the only way to make it right.

That decision satisfied her, though it brought tears. She sank into sleep.

Europe during the ice age was simply too cold for modern man to handle, when there were better territories to occupy. So mankind expanded east rather than north, for several tens of thousands of years. Only when a combination of circumstances changed did he take over Europe. First, the climate: when the ice age eased for a time, giving the advantage to the species acclimatized to warmer weather. Second, population: when other convenient regions had been filled, and land was running out, and numbers were still growing. Third, technology: the assumption of this volume is that Africa was the source not only of all the original stocks of mankind, but also of the most advanced culture, though the final fruition of this culture occurred in Asia. More on that in
Chapter 4
. So
Homo erectus
spread across Eurasia perhaps two million years ago, evolving into regional types, of which Neandertal—here called the Others—was one, and modern mankind spread perhaps 100,000 years ago, displacing the prior variants because he was smarter and had better technology and cultural
devices for survival, such as the arts and superior language ability. This spread occurred in successive waves, noted not by the skeletal remains, which were almost identical, but by the level of technology. When the moderns had significantly better stonecraft, woodcraft, and other technologies, and the ferocious ice-age climate eased for a time, they were finally able to tackle the Neandertals in their home territory and prevail. That occurred about 35,000 years ago, and in only a few thousand years thereafter the Neandertals were gone, as were all the other
Erectus
variants who had the misfortune to occupy territory the moderns wanted. Though the climate may have eased for a time, it nevertheless remained the ice age, so the Neandertals were taken out from the situation for which they were best adapted. They were demolished during their strength, not their weakness. That suggests the power of the new order.