West of Eden

hunter had gone. Still, it would not have been proper to leave it where the carrion eaters could find it.
    "I would be with you," Kerrick said.
    "It is understood," Herilak said. "But it would not do to hurt the leg any more."
    When they had gone Armun came from the rear of the tent, but still stood hesitatingly to one side. When he turned towards her she reached quickly for her hair—then let her hand drop because there was still no laughter in his face when he looked at her. It had happened and she did not question it. But she was still unaccustomed to being stared at.
    "I heard you when you talked about being captured by the murgu." She spoke quickly, trying to hide her confusion. "Weren't you frightened, alone like that?"
    "Frightened? In the beginning, I suppose I was. But I wasn't alone, they had also captured this girl, I forget her name. But they killed her." The memory was still just as clear, the emotion just as strong. The murgu with the girl's blood on it turning towards him. Vaintè. "Yes, I was afraid, very afraid. I should have kept quiet, but I talked to the murgu. I would have been killed as well if I hadn't talked to the one who held me. I did, I was that afraid. But I should not have talked."
    "Why should you have kept quiet if talking saved your life?"
    Why indeed? He was no hunter then, brave in the face of death. He had just been a child, the sole survivor of his sammad. There had been no shame in speaking out, he realized now. It had saved his life, brought him here, brought him here to Armun who understood.
    "No reason, no reason at all," he said, smiling up at her. "I think that was when I stopped being afraid.
    Once they could talk to me they wanted me alive. At times they even needed me."
    "I think that you were as brave as a hunter, even though you were just a boy."
    These words disarmed him, he didn't know why. For some reason he felt close to tears and had to turn away from her. Tears, now, he a hunter? Without reason? Good reason perhaps, they were the unshed tears of that little boy alone among the murgu. Well, that was well past, he was no longer little, no longer a boy. He looked back at Armun and without intending to reached out and took her hand. She did not pull West of Eden - Harry Harrison
    away.
    Kerrick was confused by what he felt now, for he did not know what it meant, could relate the powerful and unknown emotions within him only to what had happened those times alone with Vaintè, when she had seized him. He did not want to think about Vaintè now, or anything else Yilanè. Unknowingly his hand closed, hard, hurting her, but she did not pull away. A warmth swept over him as though from an unseen sun. Something important was happening to him, but he did not know what it was.
    Not so Armun. She knew. She had listened often enough when the young women had talked, listened also to the older women who had children, when they told about their experiences, what went on in the night, in the tents when they were alone with a hunter. She knew what was happening now and welcomed it, opened herself to the sensations that overwhelmed her. More so because she had always had little hope, even less expectation. If only it were night now and they were alone! The women had been explicit, graphic about what was done. But it was day, not night. Yet it was so quiet. And she was too close to him now. When she pulled gently Kerrick opened his hand and she moved away. Rose and turned away from the look in his eyes.
    Armun stepped outside the tent and looked about her. There was no one in sight; even the children were silent, gone. What did it mean?
    The singing, of course, and when she realized this she began to tremble. Ulfadan had been a sammadar.
    They would all be at his singing, all the sammads, everyone. She and Kerrick were alone now.
    With careful, deliberate movements she turned and went back into the tent. With sure hands laced shut the tent flap.
    Just as surely opened the laces of her own clothing and knelt, pulling aside the furs, entering the warm darkness beneath them.
    Her figure loomed, half-seen above him. He could not move much because of his leg. But he did not want to, and soon forgot about the leg completely. Her flesh was soft, unexpectedly warm, her hair brushing over his face in silent caress. When he put his arms about her the warmth of her body matched his as well.
    Memories of a cool body began slipping away. She was closer, closer still. She had no hard ribs, just