“Sheis mine,” the caveman says with obvious pride. “Her name is Aker’iz. She’s asleep. When she wakes up, you will know it. She’s a loud one.”
My hand is still trembling from the attack. Thrusting the spear into that monster was almost pure reflex, and I’m just happy I hit the attacker and not the caveman.
I take a deep breath of cool night air. That was a lucky thing. I did something good, and I fixed the whole problem. I can be happy about that. Now I just need to calm down.
I shift my grip on the spear. This makes me see the caveman in a different light. I completely misjudged him. “Where you take her?”
“To safety,” he rumbles as he opens a compartment in the backpack and takes out a jar made from a hollowed-out rock. “After I tend to my wounds.” He hangs the pack carefully on a branch, opens the jar, and scoops out some green goop that he starts to smear on the cuts he got from the dino that dropped on him.
I don’t know what to do with myself. I followed him because I thought he had abducted Callie, but it turns out I’m crashing some kind of family affair involving a baby that can’t be more than a few months old.
“I Theodora,” I tell him, as my brain doesn’t come up with something intelligent to say. “You?”
He scoops out more of the primitive wound-healing salve and winces as he applies it to a nasty wound on his shoulder. “Kenz’ox is my name. Of the Tratena tribe.”
“Your village is far?”
“Yes.” He closes the lid on the jar and replaces it in his pack. “Many days’ walk. Four moons we walked, little Aker’iz and I. Though I did most of the walking. She mostly sleeps and demands various things. And she grows heavier by the day.”
I look around and up, worried about more attacks. “Walking in the jungle dangerous.”
“Always,” Kenz’ox agrees. “But we’ve made it so far. We just have to learn not to speak to ourselves and forget where we are.”
“Why not you in village? With tribe?”
He takes the backpack and puts it on, one arm at a time, so that it hangs on his front. I know I’ve seen similar things on Earth, made for carrying babies in. What were they called again?
“The tribe didn’t want little Aker’iz, and tried to set her out in the jungle for the Bigs to eat, or to be taken by Foundlings. I would allow no such thing.”
Ah. I understand most of his words. And I know about the Foundlings. Sprisk is one, having been taken out of his Lifegiver with several dinosaur features, such as his spikes and horns. The tribe didn’t want to have to deal with a boy like that, so they put him out in the jungle. He was lucky and was discovered by a clan of Foundlings that took care of him. This baby must have some kind of deformation or other problem that means he’s not good enough for a tribe to keep and raise.
“You left tribe?” I ask for clarification.
He scans the jungle around us. “I told the tribe that if they didn’t accept little Aker’iz as one of the tribe, she and I would leave the tribe forever. They agreed to let her stay, but I sensed dishonesty in them. One night they tried to take her. But I was awakenedby their whispers and killed three of my tribesmen. Then I set fire to the chief’s hut and the shaman’s hut and brought the baby with me into the jungle.”
He says it so calmly, but behind his slow words there’s obviously a tale of great drama.
Cora told us that the worst thing that can happen to a caveman is to be cast out from the tribe. The tribe is both family and community and army and country to them, providing a home, safety, food, identity—everything they need to stay alive. Being cast out usually means certain death on this lethal planet. A caveman leaving his tribe willingly must be extremely rare. But I also note how calmly he speaks about killing three men. And I have to remind myself that calm doesn’t have to meansafe.
“That… very brave,” is all I can say. My mind hasn’t quite caught up with recent events.
“It was necessary,” Kenz’ox says calmly as he takes several items out of the backpack and sets them on the ground at the root of the tree. “Aker’iz needs a safer place. A better place.”
I nod. “You see other girl? Big girl? Big as me. Long hair.”
He slowly sits down and leans against the tree. “You’re the first woman I’ve ever seen. Aker’iz is a girl. Not yet a woman. Not for many years, if the shaman was right.”
I still feel like I’ve intruded into someone’s home. “I lost a woman. She my friend. This morning she not here. Lost.”
He gives me a sharp look. “Lost from the Plood ship?”
I shrug. “She in the Plood ship last night. Then this morning, not.”
“No Big came into the Plood ship,” Kenz’ox says calmly after thinking for a moment. “She went out on her own. And then she was taken by a Big. Not a Small—they would kill her, but not drag her away.”
The old coldness returns to the pit of my stomach. That’s exactly what probably happened. She went out to answer the call of nature after our day of sipping the alien booze, a dinosaur saw her, and that was that. She probably didn’t even have the chance to scream.
“Maybe she left,” I say weakly. “Left to go to others.”
