West of Eden

realized that it was age alone that had saved his life. Not that Vaintè had spared him because he was so young; she felt the most intense disgust for ustuzou of any age and would happily see them all dead. Ysel had been too old to respond naturally to a new language, particularly one as complex in construction as Yilanè. For her Marbak was the only way to speak and she used to laugh with the women when hunters from the Ice Mountains visited their tents and spoke so badly they could barely be understood. To her this was just stupidity, any intelligent one of the Tanu would of course speak Marbak.
    Therefore she had showed no interest in learning Yilanè, and was satisfied to memorize by rote some of the funny sounds just to please the marag and get food from it. Sometimes she even remembered to make body movements with her words. It was all just a stupid game—and she had died for believing that.
    Kerrick never thought about language as a separate entity: he just wanted to understand and respond. He was still young enough to learn a language without conscious effort, by listening and watching. If he had had any idea that there were thousands of conceptual areas in the Yilanè language—that could be combined in over 125 billion ways—he would just have shrugged. The numbers were meaningless, particularly since he could not count nor visualize any number larger than twenty, the count of a man.
    What he learned he had learned without conscious effort. But now, as the lessons progressed, Enge did draw his attention to certain statements, ways of interpreting things, and made him repeat sloppy movements until he did them correctly.
    Because of his inability to change areas of skin color he was learning what was referred to as graylight talk. In heavy jungle, or at dawn and dusk when there was very little light, the Yilanè communicated without color patterns, rephrasing expressions so that color was not necessary.
    Each morning of their imprisonment he had expected death when the door had opened. He remembered the slaughter of the sammad far too well, the extinction of everything living, men, women, children—even the mastodons. He and Ysel would be killed one day as well; there was no alternative.
    When the ugly marag had brought food instead of death in the morning he knew that their slaughter had just been put off for one more day. After that he would watch in silence, trying not to laugh, as stupid Ysel made nothing but mistakes, day after day. But he had a hunter's pride. He would not help her or the marag, would not answer when he was talked to, and he tried to accept the blows that followed in silence as a hunter should. After many days had passed he discovered that he could understand some of the things that Enge said when she spoke to the other marag that he hated the most, the one who beat him and tied him up. Keeping silent became more important after this, for it kept secret his knowledge; a small fragment of success where before there had only been total disaster.
    West of Eden - Harry Harrison
    And then Vaintè had killed the girl. He felt no remorse about that because she had been stupid and deserved to join the rest of the sammad. Only when Vaintè had seized him, the blood of murder still fresh on her jaw, only then had the hunter's strength failed. He had only hunted once, had not been accepted as a hunter, that was what he told himself later, trying to explain away his failure to accept death from those sharp and terrible teeth. In all truth he had been just as frightened then as he had been when his spear drew the marag from the water. He had spoken out of dreadful fear, scarcely aware of what he was doing, and had spoken well enough to save his life.
    Kerrick still knew that he would die some day, when the murgu had had enough of him. But that day was in the future and now, for the first time, he permitted himself a tiny bit of hope. Each day he could understand more and speak better. And he still had not been out of this room since the moment they had been brought here. Some day he would be let out of it, unless they intended him to spend his remaining days locked away, and on that day he would run. The murgu waddled, they did not walk, and he was sure he could run faster than they could—if they could run at all. This was his secret hope and because of it he did what he was asked and hoped that his rebelliousness had been forgotten.
    Each day began the same way. Stallan would open the door