West of Eden

dotted here and there with vegetation and stunted trees. After a short distance the land became flatter and greener, with low shrubs stretched out in even rows. Kerrick wondered at this regularity until they passed a group of men digging at one of the rows.
    He marveled then at two things: the rows had been planted that way on purpose. And there were hunters working among the plants, doing woman's work. It was most unusual. But the Yilanè had planted fields around their city; there was no reason that Tanu could not do the same, that men should labor in them as well as women. His eyes followed the green rows to the rock wall of the valley beyond, up to the dark openings in the stone.
    They passed a group of women next, all of them wrapped in the soft white substance, pointing at him and chattering in high-pitched voices. Kerrick knew that he should be feeling fear here in this valley, among these dark strangers, but he did not. If they had wanted to kill him they would certainly have done it long before this. He might still be in danger, but his curiosity was overwhelming any fears he still had. There was smoke from fires ahead, children running, the cliffs were closer—and he stopped with sudden realization.
    "A city!" he said aloud. "A Tanu city, not a Yilanè one."
    The hunters he had been following stopped and waited while he looked about him. Notched beams of wood, they must have been entire treetrunks, reached up the cliffside to the openings above. The beams could be climbed for he saw faces peering down at him. There was a rush and bustle here, also like a Yilanè city, with many activities he could not understand. Then he noticed that the hunter he had first met was waving him forward, towards a long, dark opening in the base of the cliff. Kerrick followed him inside and looked up at the rock wall that slanted back above. He blinked at it in the gloom, barely able to West of Eden - Harry Harrison
    make out details after leaving the bright sunlight outside. The hunter was pointing at the rockface above.
    "Waliskis," he said, the same word he had used when he pointed at the water vessel.
    Kerrick looked up at the tracings in the rock and began to understand something of what the hunter was trying to say.
    There were beasts there, marked out in color upon the rock, many of them like the deer that he recognized. In pride of place above them all, almost life-size, was a mastodon.
    "Waliskis," the hunter said again and bowed his head towards the representation of the great beast.
    "Waliskis."
    Kerrick nodded in agreement without understanding the significance of the painting at all. It was a good likeness, as was the black mastodon on the bowl. All of the paintings were most realistic. He reached up and touched the deer, saying deer aloud at the same time. The dark-haired hunter did not seem interested.
    Instead he stepped back into the sunlight and waved Kerrick after him.
    Kerrick wanted to stop and look at all the fascinating activity taking place, but the other hurried him along to one of the notched logs that stretched up the cliff face. He clambered up to the ledge above, then waited for Kerrick. The climb was an easy one. There was a dark opening behind the ledge with a chamber of some kind beyond. They had to stoop to enter. There were pots and other articles on the stone floor, a heaped pile of skins to the rear. The white-clad hunter spoke and a thin voice answered from the skins and furs.
    When Kerrick looked more closely he saw that someone was there, a slight figure that lay under the coverings with just the head visible. A seamed and wrinkled face. The lips worked in the toothless mouth and the whispering voice spoke again.
    "Where do you come from? What is your name?'
    CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
    As his eyes adjusted to the gloom of the chamber, Kerrick saw that the old one's skin, though dark with age, was as fair as his, the eyes blue. The hair that might once have been light was now gray and sparse.
    When the thin voice spoke again he listened and could understand most of the words. Not Marbak as he knew it, but more like that spoken by Har-Havola's sammad from beyond the mountains.
    "Your name, your name," the order came again.
    West of Eden - Harry Harrison
    "I am Kerrick. I come from beyond the mountains."
    "I knew it, yes I did, your hair so light. Come closer so Huanita can see you. Yes, you are Tanu. See, Sanone, did I not tell you I could still speak as they do?" The weak voice rustled with dry