I don’t know how many sf stories I’ve read in which men travel back in time to hunt the beasts of prehistory . . . but Gordon Eklund’s story below is the first I recall in which the hunting is done in the far, far future—and the quarry are men, devolved and shambling, the last of their race. You have to wonder about a society that sends men on such an expedition. It’s a good thing we don’t have a society like that today.
by Gordon Eklund
Thalvin had remained inside the floater after the other two had bounded outside and gone running to inspect the kill. Thalvin wanted to take a careful look at the dashboard before going anywhere because once he’d heard a story about three hunters who’d forgotten to look and their floater had run away and fallen into a frozen lake and they’d been stranded a half-million years from home without any survival gear and two had died quickly while the third had miraculously been found by another party and taken home where he could relate his foolish story. Thalvin had gone hunting too many times to make such an elementary mistake, so he took a careful look at the controls. When he was fully satisfied, he slid across the seat and stepped outside into the sharp thin air of the dying Earth. Thalvin had been up front too many times to die for any but the best of reasons.
The sun was a red dot lurking in one corner of the gray sky. The haze was thick and full. Thalvin walked through it, breathing slowly and carefully, stepping tenderly across the wet rotting ground, and joined the other two.
The man was busy at the rear of the kill. The woman stood near the head. Thalvin went to her and said, “What do you think, Gai?”
She shrugged without looking at him. “I’m supposed to think?”
“No,” he said, kneeling next to the animal’s face. He rolled back the heavy thick eyelids and looked. The eyes were white, streaked with wide red zigzagging lines. He put his mouth close to the beast’s nostrils. “It’s dead,” he said, and stood.
“Doesn’t it have to be?” Gai asked. “Jorgan shot it.”
“Nothing is ever certain,” Thalvin said, in a deliberate and instructive tone. “Things don’t die easily up here. One time—”
“A hunter thought one was dead,” Gai finished. “But it wasn’t really dead, only playing, and it stood right up and laughed at the hunter, then gobbled him lightly up. Isn’t that it, Thalvin?”
“That’s it,” Thalvin told his wife. He went around to the rear of the beast, leaving the head in her care. It was a big thing, this beast without a name. Thalvin, who’d seen and killed many of them, thought they were descended from the elephant. They were smaller, only about half as large as an Indian elephant, but had everything else—the ears, the tail, the trunk and the tusks.
“Don’t do that,” Thalvin said.
Jorgan looked up from where he was cutting the tail with the sharp edge of a long heavy knife. He smiled at Thalvin. The ground was spotted with thick pools of dry dark blood, the last instinctive spendings of the dead beast. “Why?” Jorgan asked. He was little more than a child, only twenty-eight years old. He was eight years younger than Gai and twenty-one years younger than Thalvin. Only a boy, Thalvin thought.
“Just leave it alone,” he said. “It’s dirty. What do you want with the tail? Take a tusk if you need a trophy.”
Jorgan frowned and stabbed at the ground with his knife. “Every working woman in the city has a pair of tusks hanging on her wall. We want something more exotic. You forget?”
“I remember,” Thalvin said. “But a tail? How can you prove it doesn’t belong to a butchered cow?”
“Leave that to me,” Jorgan said. He turned the knife and went back to cutting the tail.
Thalvin went away. His boots dug deeply into the decaying earth. He walked slowly.
Gai was burning off the tusks with her heatgun. Thalvin smiled at her and touched her arm. He said, “Let me do it. I can do it without damaging the tusks.”
“Would you?” she said, passing him the heatgun. She smiled at him and moved away. Even after ten years of marriage Thalvin hadn’t had his fill of that smile. Gai wasn’t an especially pretty woman, nor was she intelligent or witty. She was not an easy person with whom to live—even Ginler had recognized that—but she had a smile. Men very high in the chain—men higher than Thalvin or even Ginler—had openly coveted that smile, but none had ever possessed it for more than a few brief fleeting moments. None but her husbands—Ginler, Thalvin, and now Jorgan. None but those three.
Thalvin removed the tusks easily and carried them to the floater. Gai came with him and they waited for Jorgan. The boy had removed the tail and was now performing one of his special rites at the back of the slain beast.
Thalvin smoked.
Gai asked him, “Are we going any farther today?”
He said no. “It’ll be dark soon. Here darkness means blackness. The haze never lifts. There’s a protected spot near a stream. About ten miles from here. If the boy finishes with his gods, we may be able to make it before nightfall.”
“This disgusts you, doesn’t it?” she said.
“What?”
“Religion. To a rational man like you.”
“No,” said Thalvin. “It doesn’t disgust me.” He looked up. “Here he comes. Slide over.”
Jorgan climbed into the rear seat of the floater. Gai turned to talk with him. Thalvin moved the machine across the landscape. Jorgan had delayed them and it was already moving toward darkness, but there was very little to worry about. The land was all the same here, flat and unmarked like a child’s torso. There were deep forests a hundred miles to the north and a massive ocean two hundred miles to the east. But this part of the future was all flat frozen plain that stretched for a thousand miles into the west and south.
Thalvin found the stream and followed it, looking for a good campsite. Jorgan and Gai chattered, comparing their trophies. Thalvin tried to ignore them. They were both acting like tourists and it irritated him. He expected it from the others but these two were his family. But, of course, neither of them had ever been up before. They had every right to act like tourists. Jorgan was too young and Ginler had never allowed Gai to come. Still, Thalvin didn’t like it.
Jorgan was talking to him. “Can we find something else tomorrow, Thalvin? Something better. After all, you did say—”
“I said this area was seldom hunted and that’s true. But I can’t guarantee that it’s worth hunting. We’ll have to see.”
“There ought to be a lot of game here,” Gai said.
“That’s true,” Thalvin said.
“I know you and Ginler used to come here. He would never have come if there wasn’t something to hunt. But where is it all? That thing back there with the big ears was all we’ve seen today.”
“What do we know?” Thalvin said. “Maybe at this time of the year all the big animals change into big fish and go off and live in the ocean. We know absolutely nothing about the creatures of this time. Except, how to kill them.”
Gai said, “Isn’t that enough?”
“Maybe so,” said Thalvin. “Here. This looks like a good spot to camp. We’ll stop here.”
He dropped the floater and helped the others out. It was cold here but not unbearably so. The three of them changed quickly into their heatsuits. The stream trickled gently in the night. In an hour, it would be frozen solid.
Thalvin went to the rear of the floater and got the gear. The first order of business was erecting the shield. This would prevent any big animals from straying into camp during the night and would also provide them with sufficient heat so that they could shed their thick heavy heatsuits. When the shield was set, Thalvin put up the tent, then opened three cans of concentrated food and passed them around.
The other hunters had all warned him; never bring your family with you, they’d said. All right, Thalvin thought. It was good advice. But how many other men had a wife like Gai? Not many, he knew, a wife who wouldn’t be able to recognize a negative reply when she heard it. Gai had wanted to come forward not because of herself but because of Jorgan. Thalvin had merely been an obstacle to be pushed easily aside. Gai had plans for Jorgan and these plans included a display of his courage and resourcefulness. There was only one way for a man to display these virtues in modern society. Go up, go hunting, and bring back something big and exotic and different. Gai had been fortunate that her other husband, Thalvin, was a researcher and hunter with a permanent permit allowing him open access to the far future. After that, everything had been simple. Now they were here, and all that was left was finding something suitably exotic for Jorgan to kill and making sure he pressed the lever at the proper moment. That was all. And then, up they’d go, she and Jorgan, climbing the chain toward success and dragging old Thalvin behind because he was too precious to be left alone. Gai wanted her station back. Ginler had died and she’d lost it. But not for long, not for long.
Poor Ginler, Thalvin thought. He and I make the same mistakes.
When they finished eating, Gai took Jorgan by the hand and led him into the tent. Thalvin sat outside watching their departure, then turned, smoking, and watching the stars of an alien night, dim flickering dots protruding vaguely through the thick obscuring haze. There wasn’t a moon here and Thalvin missed that more than anything. It had been gone a long time. There were a couple chunks of big rock still up there orbiting and many, many smaller pieces, but you could never actually see them because of the haze, and even if you could have, it wouldn’t have been enough for Thalvin. It was the moon he missed. That big calm yellow grinning moon.
Ginler. Thalvin was thinking of Ginler now, the old one. It wasn’t more than six months ago that he’d died, right near here, not more than a hundred miles from this spot. Thalvin had been with him at the time. He’d carried the body home and told the story. Crushed by some sort of giant ape, big as a house. Dead before he could be reached. Horrible. We were married, shared a wife and a station. Now he’s dead. I’m sorry he’s dead.
Gai had waited a month, then married Jorgan. With Thalvin’s willing permission, of course. But still.
Did she hold him to blame for Ginler’s death? He often thought so. Or maybe it was only that she no longer had time for him. She and Jorgan, right now they were in there, inside that dark tent, and they were making love. Thalvin could see it as clearly as if he were an actual witness. Gai with her close-cut black hair, each strand neatly located, large thick red lips and long narrow pert nose. Her eyes were big and blue and viciously expressive. Her breasts were round and small and hard like those of a young girl. Thalvin wanted her. Thalvin had always wanted her, but since Ginler’s death they hadn’t so much as touched hands. Well, afterward, he thought. Maybe afterward there’ll be time for that. But he knew better. He didn’t believe it. They were finished, a marriage of convenience only. And it was Thalvin’s convenience, too, not hers. It was Thalvin who had no place else to go.
Thalvin gazed at the thickening darkness and thought, It’s about time.
Gai emerged from the tent, pausing in the doorway and saying something over her shoulder. Then, laughing, she came toward Thalvin. Jorgan came after her, moving briskly. Both were dressed and Gai was beautiful. Jorgan looked big and brown and young and handsome. And satisfied, Thalvin thought, and stupid.
The two of them reached Thalvin together.
“Aren’t you coming in?” Gai said. “You have to sleep.”
“I was waiting for you,” Thalvin said.
Jorgan was the one who laughed. He started to speak, then pointed into the darkness. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” said Thalvin. “You mean the fire over there?”
“Fire?” said Gai. She turned quickly and peered at the small flickering fire that burned about fifty yards from their camp. She wheeled on Thalvin and said, “Damn you. I thought you said we’d be alone.”
“I said there’d be no other hunters.” He too stared at the fire. He shook his head. “That’s not a hunter.”
“Then what is it? A mirage? A monkey trying to keep warm?”
“Close,” he said, smiling. “It’s a native. A man of this time.”
Jorgan was laughing again. “I thought you were an expert, Thalvin. You missed that. There aren’t any men here. They’ve all gone to the stars. Leaving this dying world behind.”
“That,” said Thalvin, “is not true.” He smiled brightly. “It’s an official lie. Man did not escape to the stars. He stayed right here and he rotted. There are maybe a few thousand of us left. We look a lot like apes and have no civilization. We’re very happy and ought to be extinct within a few thousand years.”
“You’re joking,” Jorgan said.
“No, he’s not joking,” said Gai. “I’ve heard about them. Ginler saw them too. He thought it was amusing. All our striving for progress and this was what we’d become. He thought it was funny.”
“They live in the forest mostly,” Thalvin said. “You rarely find them here. They’re loners. You never see more than two together.”
Jorgan turned and looked at the distant fire, then raised his eyes to the stars. Thalvin wanted to go away, but Gai was nodding thoughtfully and muttering. She said, “What are they like?”
“Men with fur. Long arms and big hands.”
“They don’t look human.”
“No, but they are. Apes don’t build fires.”
“Or dead men.”
“What do you mean?” said Thalvin.
“I mean, this is it. Our trophy. We’re going to bag us a man of the future.”
“That’s the same as murder,” Thalvin said.
“Not hanging on the wall it’s not. It’s a dumb ape. Who’s going to know except a few men high on the chain? And they’ll think it’s bold and amusing. I know them. They’ll think it shows class.” She cupped her hands around her lips and shouted into the darkness. “Hey—man of the future. Better watch out. Better start running. We’re coming to get you.”
“Shut up,” Thalvin said, softly.
Gai was laughing now. She grabbed Jorgan and pulled him against her. The two of them danced, twisting around, once, twice. Then they stopped. Gai said, “We’re going to bed now, Thalvin. It won’t leave before morning, will it?”
“I don’t imagine he will. But I won’t permit it. You can’t kill an—”
“Oh, hell,” Gai said. She looked at Jorgan. “Did you hear what the old man said? He won’t permit it. Did you hear that? Come on, let’s go. Dawn, Thalvin.”
“Dawn,” he said.
He waited an hour before following them into the tent. They were lying together, both naked, Jorgan’s head resting lightly on Gai’s shoulder. Thalvin stepped over them and lay down as far from them as he could get
Maybe shell forget, he thought, but knowing better, he rolled over and he slept
* * * *
It wasn’t an easy thing to tell. It was morning. The sky had gone from clear black to dark crimson. The sun was a dull purple orb clinging to the misty sky like a bloodshot eye in a bare rotting skull. The haze was thick and impenetrable like a pool of brown muddy water.
The three of them stood in a loose circle around the remnants of the fire. The man was gone.
Gai said, “You’re going to find him again.”
“I am?”
“You are. You knew he wouldn’t be here. You knew that, and you lied to me. It’s not going to be this easy, Thalvin. You’re going to find him again and Jorgan is going to shoot him.”
Thalvin looked at Jorgan, who appeared less than interested in the subject. As Thalvin continued to stare at him, Jorgan dropped his eyes, then turned abruptly away. He walked to the floater, leaving the two of them alone, husband and wife.
Thalvin said, “He doesn’t want to do it.”
“I don’t care what he wants. I know what I want. You’re going to do what I say.”
“He’s gone home,” Thalvin said. “We might catch him, but I doubt it, even if we left immediately. And we still have to break camp. I’ve seen them move. They’re quicker than rabbits. They have to be in order to survive.”
“Then we’ll follow him home and kill him there.”
Thalvin shook his head.
“Well?”
“Their home is the forest. This one probably made for the woods north of here. It’s like a jungle. You can’t take a floater in there.”
“Then we’ll walk.” She turned away and went back toward the camp. Jorgan emerged from the floater and trotted after her. Thalvin waited a moment, staring at the bleak broken fire, the charred pieces of rotten wood. Then he followed her. He walked slowly, his head down.
* * * *
The forest began abruptly. One moment there was hard flat frozen plain. The next a single tree. Then another tree. Another. And soon nothing but trees, a forest as thick and deep as an ocean.
It had taken them most of the day to reach the woods. They hadn’t seen a sign of the man. If he’d come this way, he’d beaten them home.
Thalvin parked the floater and buried a directional finder, so that they could find their way out again. Then he went over to Gai and Jorgan, who were waiting at the edge of the forest.
He spoke to his wife. “It’s set. Are you ready?”
She nodded. “They better be in here.”
“They are,” he said. Then he looked at Jorgan. “You have the shield?”
Jorgan said he had.
There weren’t any more questions to ask.
Thalvin said, “Well. Let’s go.”
They entered the forest.
They hadn’t gone more than a few hundred feet before progress became nearly impossible, so Thalvin gambled and used his heatgun to burn a trail through the thick underbrush. He had guessed correctly. The wood was wet and cold, and the flames did not spread. He moved forward, walking gingerly over the still burning grass. The others followed him.
By the time the sun had set, plunging them into total and immediate darkness, they had come perhaps six miles. Thalvin burned a wide area and waited for the ground to cool.
“We’ll camp here,” he said.
“Why?” Gai asked.
“Because I say so. Because it’s dark and you don’t even have the moon and stars.”
“But we might find one. The other one—we saw it at night.”
“That was out on the plain. It’s different in here. I’m sure they’re all fast and snug asleep by now.”
“Shouldn’t one of us climb a tree? Look for their fires?”
“They won’t have them. There’s no reason for a fire in here. No large animals to frighten away. No meat to roast.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“It’s my job,” Thalvin said. “The future is my job.”
She smiled at him and went over to Jorgan. The two of them sat together talking while Thalvin moved off and began to erect the shield around the burned area.
Before heading for the warmth of the tent, Jorgan and Gai performed their evening rites, both lying prostrate on the ground for fifteen minutes, then standing on their heads for another ten minutes. The last five minutes they spent in a modified fetal posture. Thalvin watched this with a feeling of utter displacement It was part of a new and very popular religion called Amerism. Jorgan had introduced it to Gai, and she had gone into it with body and soul.
While Gai and Jorgan moved their performance to the dark interior of the tent, Thalvin went around and scooped up a handful of stray logs. The air was cold here in the forest, and damp. The shield by itself was unable to provide sufficient insulation to keep him comfortable. Thalvin built a fire with the logs, ignited it with his heatgun, and felt instantly better.
Jorgan came out of the tent and stood for a moment, staring intently into the dark forest. Then he came toward the fire and sat down beside Thalvin.
“How is she?” Thalvin asked.
“She’s fine,” Jorgan said. “Asleep.”
“Good, good,” Thalvin said. He nodded and smiled. This man, this boy, with whom he shared a wife and home was an enigma to him. In four months of marriage, they’d exchanged perhaps three dozen sentences. Thalvin did not like Jorgan, but neither did he know him.
“The other day,” Thalvin said. “Do you remember? When you killed the beast and you removed its tail.”
“I remember,” said Jorgan.
“Gai and I waited for you in the floater and you remained behind. I could see your hands and body moving. Was that part of your Ameristic rites?”
“Yes,” Jorgan said.
“Well—what was it? Can you tell me?”
“I was asking forgiveness,” Jorgan said. “For taking a life.”
“I see. It’s ... wrong?”
“Very wrong. Haven’t you noticed? I never eat meat.”
“No,” Thalvin said. “I’ve never noticed.”
“But it’s true.”
“I’m sure it is. But—Gai eats meat.”
“With her Amerism is a way to reach the top of the chain. Do you see? It’s an exotic cult, very popular at the moment. With me it’s a good deal more. Unfortunately. I could live more easily if it weren’t.”
“And you’re going to kill a man,” Thalvin said.
Jorgan looked at him and his tongue licked at his lips. Then he turned away and put his hands over his eyes. The boy was shivering. It was cold here. But it wasn’t that cold.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Jorgan said.
“You want my advice?”
“Yes.”
“Then look at me.”
Jorgan raised his head and turned. He looked at Thalvin.
“I can’t advise you on religious matters,” Thalvin said.
“That’s not what I need,” Jorgan said, keeping his eyes steady. “What I want to know is this thing. Is it really a man? Gai says it isn’t. She says it’s only an intelligent ape, that it’s a monkey of our time evolved into something more. I can kill an animal. It is forgiven. But a man...”
“It’s a man,” Thalvin said. “I wish I could tell you otherwise. But it’s a man. Evolved from you and me, but in the wrong direction, for reasons we’ll probably never know.”
“A man,” Jorgan said softly. He waited a moment, looking down at his open hands. He was shivering, trembling. He said, “But I have another idea. This time, it isn’t a real time. It’s the future but the future does not truly exist To kill here is not real.”
“I can’t answer that,” Thalvin said. “You’re hardly the first who’s raised that point. It’s the easiest way. I can only tell you this. The timewarp was discovered twenty-five years ago. In that time, this time has not changed. My opinion is only my opinion. But I think this is it. The future. The only future. I think we’re moving toward this no matter what we do. This is it.”
Jorgan nodded thoughtfully and got to his feet He said, “Thank you for talking to me.” He went away.
Thalvin watched him go. Suddenly he was very cold. He opened his hands and pushed them toward the flames. He thought: Was that wrong? Should I... ?
But he knew that it didn’t matter. Of them all, only Gai mattered, and she, alone among them, knew exactly what she wanted.
* * * *
If time had been an exact and firm condition in this world, if it had been something more than two hands spinning on a five hundred thousand year old watch, it would have been exactly ten thirty-two in the morning when they first saw the man.
It was Thalvin who spotted him. For the past few minutes (since about ten twenty-eight), he’d heard the trees above swishing and moving more than the wind should have caused. He had turned sharply to the left and led the others away at a right angle. The sounds from above had followed them.
Thalvin stopped suddenly and looked up. He saw it. A patch of brown against the green.
He shouted: “Up there! Look!”
Gai and Jorgan stopped and turned. Gai said, “Yes. There. I see it too.”
The patch of brown moved. Suddenly it was suspended in the air between two trees, and Thalvin could clearly see the man. His spine quivered with the shock of revelation. This was—what?—this was his great-great-great (multiplied a thousand times) grandson. The man was less than five feet tall. His arms were long skinny vines that trailed past his knees. His head was flat; his neck was nonexistent. His nude body was covered head to foot with a thick impenetrable coat of dirty brown fur. Then he was gone. He’d reached the next tree.
Gai shouted: “Shoot! Shoot it!”
The man bounded to another tree.
“Hurry. He’s getting away.”
Jorgan had not moved. He stood rooted to the ground, one arm dangling loosely at his waist, inches from the hilt of his heatgun.
Gai ran over and screamed in his face: “Shoot—shoot—he’s getting away.”
Jorgan did not move. He was watching the man in the trees. The man in the trees jumped again, his movements as clean and graceful as a ballet dancer.
Gai jerked the heatgun from its holster and thrust it into Jorgan’s hand.
“Please,” she said, gently.
The patch of brown was no longer moving. It waited in a tree about fifty yards away, a dim pool hidden in the depths of the morning haze. It feels secure, Thalvin thought. But a good shot. . .
Gai lifted Jorgan’s arm and left it suspended in the air.
Jorgan squinted. Jorgan held his breath. Jorgan fired.
There was a scream. A cry of mortal shock and pain. The brown spot was gone, swallowed by the haze. The tree shook and quivered. Leaves dropped toward the ground, floating and swaying in the breeze. The forest was silent.
“You got him,” Gai said. She jumped in the air and clapped her hands. She was grinning. “Damn it, Jorgan. You killed him.”
“Yes,” said Jorgan. He dropped the heatgun. “I killed it.”
“Let’s look,” Thalvin said.
The three of them went to where the man should have fallen, but it was not there, only the tree swaying in the wind, its top lost in the darkness of the haze.
“He must have caught in the tree,” Gai said.
“I’ll see,” said Thalvin. He stripped off his backpack and lunged at the lowest limb. He caught it and swung. The next limb. He wasn’t a young man anymore, and he wasn’t physically powerful. He moved slowly and carefully, testing each limb before trusting it to hold his weight. He found the man about thirty feet up the tree. There was a hole in the man’s stomach big enough to hold a ball. Thalvin pushed the body out and away. It fell to the ground.
Then he turned to descend.
When he reached the ground, Gai was alone. Cradled beneath her arm was the man’s severed head. The eyes had been closed. The nose was smashed flat. The hair was matted with rich red blood.
“The nose is broken, but the rest of it is fine.” She held the head in front of her, waist high. “Won’t that look grand in our living room?”
“Delightful,” Thalvin said. “What happened to Jorgan?”
“He went to bury the body,” Gai said. “To pray over it”
“Oh. Where?”
“That way.” She pointed.
Thalvin went into the woods. A few minutes later, he came back. Jorgan was with him.
* * * *
Thalvin forced them to hurry. The rational and irrational parts of his mind fought a tug-of-war. Neither part won a clear victory. The clock defeated them both. When the sun dropped below the horizon, they still had an hour’s hike facing them before they’d reach the end of the forest. Thalvin said, “We’ll have to camp.”
“Yes,” said Gai. “What a hell of a day we’ve had.”
“Yes,” Thalvin said. “A day.”
He prepared a camp for the night, burning away an open space, erecting the shield. His mind wasn’t on his work. His mind was elsewhere, remembering. It was remembering the other time here and the other trophy, the one with the open gazing blue eyes. It was remembering the old man and the old man saying I’m exhausted —let’s pause for the night. It was remembering the following day. Thalvin did not want to remember the following day, so he went over to his wife and her husband. They were sitting beside a glowing campfire, which Gai herself had built. Thalvin sat with them.
Jorgan turned to him. His eyes were like round pools of molten steel. They flickered and they flowed. He said, “I’m not going to do it. Don’t you see? I can’t do it,”
“You’ve done it,” Thalvin said. Gai was holding the trophy in her lap. The light licked at it but the shadows concealed.
Jorgan said, “Yes, but I don’t think it’s dead.”
“It’s dead,” Gai said. “Now shut up. You’re making me sick, really sick. Go say your prayers. Stand on your head for a few hours.”
“What was that noise?” Jorgan said. His head swiveled, eyes darting, looking here, looking there. “I heard something.”
“It was the wind,” Thalvin said.
“Oh, no. No, it wasn’t. I can hear it now. It’s the thing. It’s coming back for me.”
“He,” Gai said. “Not it—he. He’s a man—not a thing.”
“It’s coming. Listen.”
Thalvin listened. At first he heard nothing except the steady flow of the wind. Then he heard it. Oh, yes. They were coming. And so soon.
“I don’t hear anything,” Gai said.
“Neither do I,” Thalvin said. “Why don’t you go to bed, Jorgan? I think you’re tired.”
“But I do hear it,” Jorgan said. Then he got to his feet. “You’ll hear it too. Believe me. Just wait” Then he went into the tent
“He’ll come around,” Thalvin said, when he and Gai were alone.
“It’s religion. Can you believe it? He believes it.” She turned and looked at him and her lips parted. She was smiling. “I made a mistake.”
“Ginler is dead.”
“I know that now,” she said, smiling. “And he’s going to remain dead and I can’t create another man in his image. No, I can’t do that.”
“And me?” asked Thalvin.
“I blamed you at first.”
“And now?”
She shook her head and smiled. “No,” she said.
Thalvin put out his arms and she came against him. She was smiling and he placed his smile against her smile and then it was only one smile. Her nose was long and narrow, and her eyes were deep and expressive, and her legs were smooth and gentle. She was his for the moment—all of her now, lips and nose and eyes and legs. All was his.
He said, “We can go now.”
“Why?” she said. “Won’t morning come?”
He could hear them prowling in the forest now, testing the shield. They were waiting for morning too. And she was right. They could not move. Could not move and could not stay. But it was only the boy. When that part was done, then they’d be free to move. Thalvin put his hands on his wife’s legs and watched by the light of the campfire. He began to kiss her, and morning marched forward, drawing relentlessly near.
* * * *
Thalvin had not tried to sleep. He’d laid awake in the black void of the tent and listened, thought, remembered. He had sensed rather than witnessed the arrival of the shallow redness of dawn.
Now, softly, despising the sounds that he made, Thalvin stepped outside.
Morning was dark and dim. They were waiting beyond the shield. He counted them. There were twenty-seven evenly spaced around him, one every few yards in a neat circle. The shield was operating. The air was warm. He watched the men and they watched him.
Later Gai and Jorgan emerged from the tent together. They saw and they stopped.
Jorgan moaned and buried his face in his hands. “They’ve come for me,” he said. His words were muffled by the heaviness of his flesh. “Come to kill me.”
Gai said softly, “Shut up, Jorgan.” She asked Thalvin: “What do they want? Can’t we drive them off?”
“They want the trophy,” Thalvin said. “Give it to them.”
“Why? Why should I? Let them come and take it from me. They can’t hurt me.”
“Are you sure?” Thalvin asked.
“Those apes.” Gai turned and headed toward the tent. “I’m getting a gun,” she said. Thalvin watched her, then turned back again and faced the men.
They seemed to be staring at him, all twenty-seven of them, but Thalvin refused to lower his eyes. Instead, he looked back at them, one after another, and some were short and some were tall and some were fat and some were thin, just like people, just like men, but the fur that hid their faces—brown hair and black, two blonds and even a single redhead—their flat snoutlike noses and long wide sloping foreheads, these were not characteristics of a human being. But they are, Thalvin thought. A half-million years of human evolution had succeeded in producing men like gods, only the gods looked sub-human rather than super-human.
Beyond the men, the forest was dim, the trees waving in the wind like pillars buried beneath a deep sea. The haze had gathered at the edge of the shield and stood poised and waiting in thick dark clouds.
Gai emerged from the tent and came to his side, a heatgun clutched firmly in her hand. She trained it on the men beyond the shield and waved her arm slowly from side to side, covering as many of them as possible.
“Give the gun to Jorgan,” Thalvin said. He spoke softly, almost whispering. “Let him do it.”
“Why?”
“Give it to him!”
Gai went to Jorgan. The boy had drawn himself into a tight ball of muscles and flesh. Gai kicked him in the back. He snapped straight, flopping on his belly. Gai dropped the gun in front of his face.
“Were going to drop the shield,” she said. “If any of them move, shoot. And don’t miss.”
“He won’t do it,” Thalvin said, joining the others. “He’s gone.”
“He’ll do it. Watch.”
“All right,” said Thalvin. He went to the controls that operated the shield and quickly touched a button. The haze swept into the clearing like a moist wind. Thalvin lowered his head and gagged. It was cold now, freezing. He shivered and raised his head.
Gai was kicking Jorgan. “Get up. Damn you. Move.”
Jorgan rolled into a sitting position. He reached down and lifted the gun in his hand. He shook his head at it. He turned and looked at his wife. She smiled, then kicked him. He stood. He turned the gun on the men.
Gai got the trophy from its place beside the smoldering campfire. She stood at Jorgan’s side, holding the head in her hands.
One of the men stepped forward. He passed the edge and entered the camp. He came toward Gai and Jorgan.
Jorgan sighted.
Thalvin tightened his hands into fists and watched.
The man came closer. Jorgan’s hands shook and trembled. He placed them together and straightened the gun.
Gai shouted: “Now!”
Jorgan fired. A distant tree, above and behind the man, shattered into broken leaves. A flame quivered and died.
Jorgan screamed. The man continued forward. Gai dropped the trophy and ran to Thalvin. Jorgan lay flat on the ground, still screaming. A part of his head flew away. He stopped screaming. His body caved in on itself and snapped abruptly in half.
The man reached the head and picked it up in his hands. He looked down at Jorgan’s body, then turned and walked away. He did not look at Thalvin or Gai. He walked into the woods and joined the others. They were gone. Gai and Thalvin stood alone with death. Above, the sun was a red orb hidden by the deep gray haze.
Gai whispered, “They killed him.”
“Yes,” said Thalvin.
“Without touching him. Did that. Crushed him. Like-like an ape. A giant ape.” Suddenly Gai laughed. She shrieked, “Crushed by a giant ape.”
“Shut up,” Thalvin said. He went into the tent and got a blanket. He brought it out and covered the boy’s body.
Gai was talking again, but she was calm. She said, “You knew all the time, didn’t you? All of this was planned. You suggested the trophy. You brought us here, knowing what I’d do. You planned it, didn’t you? Poor stupid praying Jorgan dead in the dust. Crushed, broken in half, brains splattered across the landscape. Like Ginler. Just like Ginler.”
“I didn’t kill Ginler,” Thalvin said. “I loved him.”
“But you knew how he died. You knew these men up here could kill a man without touching him.”
“I knew that,” Thalvin said. “Come on. It’s time to go. We have to take the body to the floater.”
“You don’t think I’ll tell? Why shouldn’t I?”
“Why should you?” he said. “I’m all you’ve got left.” He stood facing her and he smiled. “I learned from you, Gai, how to scheme and plot and plan. How to fight my way to the top. I wanted you and now I’ve got you. Do what you want, but I don’t think you want to give me up. I’m too well-trained now.”
“You did it for me?”
“I did it for love,” he said. Then he turned away and began to pack their gear. They had a rough walk ahead of them. It was cold and the sun was moving.