Echoes of the Well of Souls

Amazonia

She was not old, she was ancient, although she no longer possessed the word to express it. The People believed that she was the daughter of a goddess and almost worshiped her, and after all this time she could no longer recall her own origin.

She sensed that in the distant past she’d been many things, but it was increasingly difficult to remember much of it. She did know somehow that the longer time passed and the more she remained in any one place, the more her memory faded, leaving only the present and immediate past. But the present and immediate past were such a long stretch of existence that she knew somehow that she was coming to a point where memories were falling into a deep and bottomless pit beyond recall. Some of the knowledge useful to the People remained, but it seemed now to come from nowhere, accepted as readily as magic, without question as to its origin but rather taken for granted as some divine gift. Vast periods of time passed when she never even thought of the Past, or that there had been a past, even in her dreams. She didn’t mind; in fact, she felt better for it, slept more soundly for it. The present was enough. It was sufficient.

The language of the People was simple and pragmatic; they had all the words that were necessary for them and could express any concepts that were relevant to their simple but demanding lives, but there was no subtlety to it, no multiple meanings, no indirectness. There were also no words for lying, deceit, dishonesty, or most other sins, nor was there a word for property or any great concept of it.

Although there were spirits everywhere—not just in the sky but in the trees, the rocks, the water, the animals, even the wind—who were prayed to in the context of a view of the cosmos both simple and complete, they had no names, only attributes and powers. The names of the People were also simple and generally descriptive: Little Flower, Big Nose, Soft Wind. They had named her Alama long ago, which meant “spirit mother.”

She had used no other tongue for so long that she recalled no other. Like the rest of her forgotten past, she had no need of another.

Even time was different here, for the climate never changed, and the only temporal reference, beyond the passing of day and night, was the births, aging, and eventual deaths of the others. She had tried on occasion to figure out how long she had been with the People by generations, but she kept going back and back so far that all the faces and personalities blurred together in her mind. She did remember vaguely coming across an immense river in a very large canoe powered by the Spirit of the Wind, with huge, ugly men dressed in bright cloth and metal, with four-legged animals that they rode. She recalled that sometime afterward she had been beaten and whipped by some of those men and had fled into the jungle, but even that was a blur now, fading and soon to disappear with the rest of the past.

She had a hazy memory, almost a dream, of fleeing inland, encountering a tribe, and settling with them. She had felt safe, but something had happened—an accident—and she’d lost a hand. She could never remember which hand it was, anyway, since it wasn’t important. It wasn’t the loss that had caused the trouble with the tribe but, rather, the fact that the hand eventually had grown back. She had been cast out by the tribal leaders, men who had come to fear her, and she had pressed on, learning when to stay with a tribe and when to leave it, until she had found the People.

Legend said it had been a tribe where the men had grown lazy and no longer provided for the women and children or respected the gods and spirits. The women had learned how to hunt and forage and do all the things men did, after which the spirits had slain the men for their evil abandonment of their natural duties. Since that time they had allowed no man in the tribe. Now and then they would find men of other tribes in the forest and capture some of them, and, using the ancient potions made from the forest plants, the prisoners would be kept drugged and would mate with whoever of the tribe chose to do so. After a while the men would again be put to sleep and carried back to where they had been captured, to wake up wondering whether their experience had been real or some kind of dream. Male children born of these unions would be taken to some other mixed tribe and left. Only girl children were kept by the People. It was a part of the blood oath taken at adulthood, and there was a stark but well-understood price for not agreeing to do so: death to the mother, although not to the child, who was then taken to another tribe. It was a hard rule, but this was a hard life in a very hard land, and it had kept them free.

Was that one of her rules? Or had that been here before her? She couldn’t remember. She wasn’t even really certain if the People had predated her arrival or had come about as a mixture of circumstance and her own invention. Certainly she strictly enforced the rules: Use nothing not of nature, or of your own making, or the making of those you know. All things of others, even of other tribes, are unclean, to be buried when found and the handler purified afterward. Refuse nothing that another needs; have nothing that you would not willingly give away.

She worried about that sometimes, that perhaps she was not helping these women but was instead forcing them into a system to meet not their needs but hers. But wasn’t that what a deity did? They did not seem to hate her for it, were not unhappy. If, perhaps, her perception of them as being happier than their counterparts in the more traditional tribes was colored by her own need to be right, they never seemed less content than the others. That would have to be enough. Provided that the tribe could continue to exist, that the forest would continue to exist, even her worries would not trouble her, for even now it was hard to imagine that she had not always been here.

She took no man herself, nor had she in such a long time, she could barely remember the experience. She felt no need for it anymore, and, more important, the survival of the tribe depended on procreation, particularly when they could keep only the girl children; she knew she was barren. There was only one man who was of her own kind, a man of godlike power that she did remember, but she could not remember even him with much clarity.

Still, while she’d banished all the worries of the past, she was concerned about the future. What made the People so attractive to her was their permanence, their unchanging yet challenging life, and their isolation. But it was getting a lot harder to maintain that isolation. The forest was being chewed up by monstrous machines, cleared, farmed, then abandoned because the land was neither loved nor understood by those new men and women who exploited her. The tribe had moved many times and more than once had barely escaped discovery, and it was getting harder and harder to find a place that would provide for the needs of the People in their jungle wilderness. Watching the cutting and burning of the forest had brought back old hatreds and fears; it was no less rape for being inflicted on the land rather than on a woman, and it was no less brutally violent.

That was why they were near the remote impact site, searching out a new place to call a home, a new refuge against the rapists of the land. It was a good region and held much promise, although there were others about— violent men, men with deadly weapons and a callous disregard for life, who were also planting and growing in the region. These men, at least, seemed to protect the forest to hide their activities from the rest of the world as much as she wanted to hide the People from those same eyes. That made them less of a problem to her and one she could accept. Their traps were elaborate and particularly nasty, but she could discover them easily, and they posed no real threat. And with the poisons and potions that were the legacy of tens of thousands of years of experience by the forest people, an uneasy truce was possible. The men understood that the People had no interest in what they were doing and wished only to be left alone. They also understood that in the forest their murderous guns and traps were little help should they decide to hunt down the forest tribes. After a few disastrous attempts, the men had abandoned any ideas of that.

This place would probably do, but locating a good site for a more permanent village would take some time. In the meantime, they would camp and move as one.

It had been quite late, and only the guards and the forest were awake. There had been good hunting, the Fire Keeper had a good flame, and everyone had a full belly and was content. The women had been sleeping off the large meal; even the Spirit Mother herself had been fast asleep, when it happened.

Suddenly she had awoken with a start, a horrible feeling sweeping over her like nothing she could dredge up from the most distant of remaining memories. It was an almost inexplicable form of dread, as if—as if she were dead, sleeping forever with nature, and someone was digging at her grave…

From above there came a crackling sound and a series of booms like thunder yet unlike any thunder she or the People knew. The night flared suddenly into day, and a great sun came almost upon them and vanished in a horrible explosion, beyond anything they could have imagined, powerful enough to shake the earth, collapse the lean-tos, throw the guards to the ground, and even topple some of the great trees.

Then, for a moment, there was a stillness almost as terrible as the crash, and suddenly, a searing wave of heat that burned and blackened whatever it touched swept over them. Women and children screamed both in terror and in pain, and there was fire, awful fire, all around.

Although in shock, she realized that somehow she’d received only a minor burn on one side and was otherwise all right. But others had been badly hurt and needed immediate attention. She got up on her feet and ran to the center of the camp, calling loudly, “Keep calm! Keep calm! We must help those who are hurt, and quickly!”

The sight of her and the sound of her commanding voice rallied those who were no more injured than she was, and the entire tribe went into immediate action.

Those who had been caught out in the open in the firestorm had suffered. Two were dead, struck full in the face by the heat, and another had been crushed to death by a falling tree. There were several broken limbs to be set, some seared hair that smelled and looked ugly but wasn’t serious, and three or four serious burns.

“Susha! The healing herbs!” the Spirit Mother snapped, examining the badly burned side of Mahtra’s face. There was a virtual pharmacy in the oils, balms, herbs, saps, and leaves of the great forest, and she had made certain that a kit of such things was always available. “Utra! Bhru! We will need water, both cold and very hot. Get urns! Bhru, fix the fire pit! The rest of you—if you are uninjured, help carry the hurt to the mats over there so they will be seen to quickly! Get any burning limbs out of the camp! Quickly! Time is all for the living! We will mourn and tend to the dead when we can!”

It was a frantic time, but in a way that was good, for the practical needs of their tribe, their family, drove out the terror that would have otherwise consumed them, and within an hour or two they were too weary to clearly remember their panic and fright. But though they were tired, they were not without curiosity. Something had blown up; something had exploded with enormous force very near to them. If it was something made by the Outside, what their tongue called “not forest,” it might bring other Outsiders. If it was something run by the men of violence, that would be important to know, too. And if it was some kind of evil spirit come from the night sky to Earth, then that needed to be known most of all.

Alama, however, could not go. As she was the religious as well as temporal leader, her duty was to remain with the injured and to see that the ceremonies of the dead were performed, lest their spirits, deprived of a return to the bosom of the Earth Mother, be doomed to wander eternally without rest.

“Susha will remain and see to those who are burned,” she ordered. “The guards must also remain, for none can travel until healed. Bhru, as Fire Keeper you will help me in the preparation of burial. The others, those who can, will go and see what has happened. Then you will come back and tell us what you see. Two groups, one under Bhama, the other under Utra, will go, one toward the great fire, the other below it here. Take care. The fire still burns at the tops of the trees, and there is much danger.” She stopped, feeling a sudden drop in air pressure. “Rain comes. Rain will help with the fires and will make your journey better. Go now. Come back and tell us what you see, but do not be seen yourselves. Those too hurt for such a thing but able to help here, stay. There is much to do. All must be back before first light. Go!”

The long and exhausting night wore on. The graves were quickly and expertly dug, and the victims were wrapped in leaves, in spite of the driving rain. Most of the trees in and around the camp still stood, and Alama was proud of that. She always seemed to pick just the right spot when unforeseen danger lurked.

The rain continued intermittently. Finished with all but the ceremonies and the actual laying in the earth, Alama and Bhru came wearily back into the camp and stopped dead in their tracks. Two naked strangers, Outsider women, were being kept by the fire under guard, and two others, naked Outsider men, were lying unconscious on the side of the camp opposite the wounded tribes women. The women knew that the men were not dead, for why bring dead men into camp and defile it?

“Bhama! Utra!” Alama snapped angrily. “What is this?”

The two squad leaders, as weary as their chief, jumped to her call.

“They all hiding in the trees,” Utra tried to explain. “One of the men, that one,” she added, pointing to Juan Campos, “attack the dark woman. We put darts in him to stop him. Mother, we cannot just sit and watch such a thing! She sees us. It is not a time for deciding but just doing. If others come, she will say that she sees us and how many we are. Then they come try and find us. You say the wounded cannot travel, so we take them with us.”

Alama sighed. She wished she’d been with them. Sometimes direct, pragmatic logic wasn’t always the best course, particularly when dealing with Outsiders. “And the other two?”

“Mother, it rains hard then,” Bhama told her. “We come up to the burning place from below. All at once we see this man there, under the trees. It was so sudden, we do not expect it. We are in the open to his eyes, and he sees us. Then he smiles. He reaches for something and holds it up to his face. We think it is some kind of weapon, and so we shoot him with darts. We still trying to decide what to do next, when the rain stops. Then this white woman comes toward us. She seems afraid of us when she sees us, but she does not try and run from us but runs to the man. We stop her. Then we hear our sisters nearby. We see that they have the others. We know there are no more. So we agree, all of us, to purify them. We bury their unclean things as the law commands. Then we bring them back with us for you to decide.”

In a direct sense, what they had done was exactly right, if the facts were true. “How do you know that it is only these? That no others are here?”

“We see them come,” Bhama assured her. “They come on a big, terrible bird that roars like thunder. They and their things get off, nobody else. Then the bird fly away.”

This was not good, not good at all. There were certain to be others coming, and they would look for the missing foursome. Still, they couldn’t just be released, not now. She looked up and sensed the wind through the charred and smoky atmosphere. It was raining again over there, and here soon as well. The sensible thing would be to destroy the camp, disguise the wounded, leave a few volunteer guards to watch over them, and move everyone away as far and fast as possible until they could find a place to hide. There would be a search, yes, but it would not be a major one, not in this jungle. But what then? The men couldn’t be kept, nor could they be left bound and drugged forever. Even now they would slow everyone down. If these two women were their wives, they’d never give up searching, and the places where they could continue to hide out from the encroaching Outside were becoming more limited each day.

But if they killed the two men, what reaction would that bring in the women? They both already seemed too old to ever accept and adjust to the life of the People; there were potions, of course, drugs that would dull the mind and control it so that one could never disobey. Still, it was a distasteful business, and she didn’t like it at all. In all these years she’d not faced a problem this complicated.

She looked at the two warriors. “And the thing that burns? What of it? Did any see it close?”

Utra nodded. “Yes, Mother. We see it. It is the heart of the Moon Goddess come to Earth. It is all black and burned around where it sits, and it is in a great hole that it makes for itself. It is bright and yellow, and it look like a great jewel the size of the full moon in the sky. And it beats, like the heart.”

Alama frowned. A big jewel? Beating like a heart? That made no sense at all in any traditional lore, nor did anything from that buried past come to explain it, either. This was something totally new. Like the horrible feeling that had awakened her and still made her shiver when she thought about it.

Still, her past of fog and mist did not totally desert her. Meteor, it said, and she had an instant vision of a great rock in space coming down toward the Earth and striking with enormous force. But meteors didn’t glow yellow and beat like hearts.

Now another concept came, like meteor without a true word but rather as an idea and picture: Satellite. In a world as primitive as this? Or had it been longer than she thought since she’d entered the forest? Far longer…

Bomb.The most worrying concept to come from that mental unknown and the most likely to be something that throbbed. How advanced might portions of Earth now be, anyway?

Spaceship.No, surely not that advanced. She was certain of that. But what if it wasn’t a human spaceship? What if it was from something or someone really Outside?

“I must see it, and soon,” she told them.

“But what of the ceremonies?” Bhru asked worriedly. “It is almost first light now.”

Yes, that was the trouble. It was almost first light, and at some point, perhaps even now, certainly within hours, others would come to search for these missing four. Others would come to see what had fallen here, as the four captives probably had, for why else would they be here? There just wasn’t enough time! And only a few hours earlier she had felt the luxury of timelessness.

There was no way around it, though. They had to break camp and play for time, no matter what. She gave the orders, and the two exhausted Outsider women watched as the camp became a frenzy of activity, turning a primitive campsite back into wild jungle.

“They’re covering up to run!” Lori hissed. “And taking us with them!”

“Nothing we can do now,” Terry whispered back. “At least Gus isn’t dead. I wish they’d used more of that stuff on Campos, though.”

“But we can’t go like this!”

“I don’t even want to go if I had on a safari suit, but we’re gonna go, that’s for sure. Either walking or carried like them.”

They heard rather than saw the burial ceremony. It was done quietly, with the sound of chanting coming from somewhere out of sight, and it was Terry who guessed the meaning of the sound, not from any experience but from the sadness on the faces of their guards and the workers who paused, many with tears in their eyes.

But when the burial party returned, it was all business. It was no longer dark, but the mist from the ground still obscured even the tops of the trees. Alama was counting on that heavy mist not only to keep the investigators away a little bit longer but also to allow them to cross the open patches of jungle caused by the impact. A last, unpleasant touch was to be smeared, almost covered, with a thin paste made of herbs and clay that dried a sickly pea green. The whole tribe did it, and one of the tough warrior women supervised treating Terry and Lori.

Camouflage. Primitive but effective.

And just as primitive and effective was the simple pantomime the warrior woman did for their benefit, taking an ax with a stone blade that was polished razor sharp and showing how easy it was to cut things with it using a large leaf. She then pointed to their mouths and put a hand over each in an unmistakable warning message. Then she stuck out her own tongue and pretended to cut it out. It was amazing how easy it was to get some concepts across.

They trussed up Campos and Gus Olafsson with rope made of tough vines and slid logs through so that they could be carried on poles. Clearly, they were being kept drugged.

Although Lori was taller than any of the tribe and felt she could hardly lift herself, it took only two of the tribes-women, one on each end of the pole, to carry each of the men with ease. All these women were muscular, many as well muscled as body builders. It was in its own way as intimidating as the blowguns and stone-tipped spears. And none of them was more intimidating than their leader, although she was perhaps the smallest of all the women there, certainly under five feet and thin and limber as an acrobat. It was her manner, her fire, her arrogance that commanded instant respect and obedience. She had the kind of personality and confident manner that a Napoleon probably had possessed.

There was something decidedly odd about her, though. She simply didn’t look like any of the others. Rather, it was like a Chinese or Japanese woman amid a group of Mongols. She even had the almond “slanted” eyes that had vanished, if they were ever there, from the Amerind over the millennia.

The trek was arduous, though they would break for short periods every once in a while, mostly for their captives’ benefit. Gourds were offered, one containing a fruit juice of some kind, another some sort of thick and nearly tasteless cold porridge with the consistency of library paste. Terry and Lori took it and managed to get some of it down, mainly because at this point anything seemed good. How the two trussed-up men were managing wasn’t clear, but they at least were barely, if at all, aware of their circumstances, and as terribly uncomfortable as they were bound and carried, they at least hadn’t had to walk.

Mercifully, they stopped for the day after what seemed like an eternity, deep within the thickest part of the jungle. Other than the occasional glimpses of the sun high above the nearly unbroken canopy indicating they were heading north, it was impossible to tell where they were. It was also incredible that so many of them—there must have been fifty or more, plus small children and supplies—could move through such dense jungle with confidence and leave no apparent trace.

Lori had not thought that she’d make it to the end of the journey, though when the day’s march ended, she wasn’t certain that it was such a good thing, after all. Too exhausted even to sleep, too uncomfortable even to relax, she could only think, and that was the last thing Lori Sutton wanted to do.

Just a few days before she’d been in a funk over her personal problems, which now seemed so trivial. The speed at which she had been plucked from obscurity and plunged into a dangerous but romantic adventure culminating in the professional event of a lifetime for an astronomer left her mind spinning. Now, naked, hot, exhausted, and in pain, she was trapped in the Stone Age, where virtually all her hard-won knowledge was totally useless.

She had to admit that she felt a little better that her captors were women. At least she would be spared the horrors that she imagined she’d be subjected to by a tribe of primitive men. Still, there were children here—all female, she’d noted—and that meant these women had to have mates somewhere. Had the meteor wiped out the men? Were they all away? It seemed unlikely, but it only made the puzzle deeper.

Terry looked only slightly better for the experience than did Lori, but Terry was younger and in better condition and was the kind of person who never gave up hope. She, at least, lay in a deep sleep on the forest floor, oblivious to the world.

They were probably the story now, Lori thought. Maybe the hunt for them would be massive, but it wouldn’t last forever. Not in this jungle—and these primitive women knew the forest as no one else did; it was their entire world. Where was all this massive deforestation the environmentalists were always protesting about? She could use a little open clear-cut land right now.

Alama checked on her people, then saw that the white woman was still awake and made her way over to her. It would take a while for these soft Outsiders to build up their strength and become wise in the ways of the forest; until then they would be both captives and liabilities, a fact on Lori’s mind as well as she eyed the leader nervously and wondered what was next.

The tiny but tough woman knelt, and black almond eyes looked deeply into the scientist’s own. After a moment the leader pointed to herself and said, “Alama.”

Lori realized that the woman was at least attempting to communicate. Alama was probably a name, possibly a title. It didn’t matter. She pointed to herself and said, “Lori.”

“Lo-ree,” the small woman repeated, nodding.

Sutton pointed to her sleeping companion. “Terry,” she said.

Alama looked over at the newswoman. “Teh-ree,” she said.

Lori sighed. She was now convinced that this woman, so different in appearance and manner, could not have been a member of the tribe originally. She wished she knew some Portuguese or even Japanese, but her languages had been German and Russian. Not much practical help here. Terry’s Spanish might do, but Terry was going to be out for some time.

Still, Alama seemed adept at this sort of communication and appeared to want to teach some basics of the tribe’s language.

She pointed to her breasts and genitals. “Seku” She pointed at Lori. “Seku.” Pointing to others of the tribe, she said, “Seku, seku, seku,” and to the two bound and drugged men, “Fatah. Fatah.” Then to the guard next to them, “Seku.”

Seku. Woman. Fatah. Man.

Walk in place. Kaas. Run in place. Koos. The lesson proceeded slowly, with much repetition when a new word was added. Alama knew what she was doing.

At the end of perhaps an hour Lori thought she understood the bare basics. Of course, when any one of the others talked, it still sounded mostly like gibberish, but that was to be expected. Attempts to return the teaching by matching words in English were abruptly rejected. This was not a lesson for mutual benefit and understanding so much as for the benefit of the tribe. The better to give orders, my dear, Lori thought.

Finally, Alama said, “Lo-ree sleep,” and it was understood. On the other hand, there was still no way to be as sophisticated as to convey “I want to sleep but I just can’t.” Alama, however, seemed to understand. She went away for a moment, then came back with a small gourd and taught another word. Kao. Drink.

Lori was still dehydrated, and she took it and drank. It was some sort of fruit juice again, with a slightly bitter aftertaste. Still, after a few minutes, the pain seemed to fade away and the inner turmoil quieted. She went over her new twenty- or thirty-word vocabulary in her mind, settled down, and was suddenly as deeply asleep as she had ever been.

The next few days were unpleasant but in some ways less traumatic. The men were allowed to come out of their stupor, although it seemed clear that repeated doses of the same drug on the blowgun darts kept them in partial paralysis. The guards were able to keep them quiet with a demonstration of what a Stone Age knife or ax might do to not only their tongues but their genitalia.

In the meantime the language lessons continued, sometimes with Alama, sometimes with others doing the teaching to both women. No talking in any language but the tribe’s was permitted. Absolutely none. Even an unthinking comment uttered in English or Spanish was punished with a quick lash delivered with a vinelike whip to the back or buttocks. It hurt and could cause welts or even draw blood. As bad as that was, it caused amused giggles among those nearby, particularly the children, which made it embarrassing as well. They were under constant watch during the day and were made to sleep apart with tribeswomen during the terrible pitch-dark nights. Alama had forbidden all use of fire, and under the thick jungle canopy not even the late, waning moon could be seen.

Eating without cooking was another thing, and it was several days and a bad case of gastric distress before their bodies, if not their minds, fully tolerated the raw—well, creatures —that were offered them and which the rest of the tribe ate with relish. Indeed, both had to be forced, more or less, to eat anything other than the fruit and greenery, which was only slightly more palatable.

A number of times they heard helicopters, often very nearby, and the sound of small planes, but neither seemed to come close enough. Once the sound of voices caused the entire tribe to hide in the underbrush, tensely waiting to attack, but the voices soon faded away. Clearly, though, there was a massive search going on, but these women were in their element, and soon the searchers moved on, finding nothing.

The two men continued to have the worst of it, and it worried both Lori and Terry. Not that either had much sympathy for Juan Campos, whose manner suggested that he knew he was going to die eventually and wanted just one chance to die fighting. Gus, however, was a different story. He just didn’t deserve this, and his former irrepressible spirit had gone out of him, almost as if he’d retreated into a world of his own.

For the two American women it was a total immersion into a culture and life and language in which all their education and experience meant nothing. They lacked even basic knowledge. What was edible? What would harm them? What animals were a threat, and how did one deal with them? What water was fit to drink? What water contained things that might harm or even eat one?

Still, the tribe quickly put them to work doing what little chores they could manage, such as walking with large gourds filled with water balanced on their heads. First they got lessons, then help, then they were on their own. Either they got it right the first time or they kept at it—all day, if necessary—until the job was done. They did fetching, hauling, even bathing the wounded, removing small bugs and other creatures from skin or hair. All the while they were derisively called dur or dua —child, or even baby—because they were so helpless and ignorant. They were in the tribe but not of it; to become one of the People, one had to earn and desire the privilege.

True to her nature, Terry did not lose hope that one day she would be able to escape or be rescued, and she kept seeing the book she’d write and the movie it would make. These thoughts kept her going, but they were also mixed with pragmatism: Such a time might not come soon, and until then, she wanted to be a member of the tribe, not a slave. In that sense, she was adapting better than Lori.

The scientist was in turmoil over the situation. She was no longer waking up each day surprised that it hadn’t been some awful dream; she wasn’t even daydreaming much about her nice apartment, bathtubs, showers, and flush toilets, but she hated this place and this existence. She was becoming afraid again, not so much that she might die at any moment but rather fearful that she might actually live, and that she wasn’t sure she could stand.

The worst part was that she realized that Alama’s sophisticated immersion system was working as easily on her as it would on a woman from another primitive tribe. The only way to avoid that wicked little lash was to try to think in their tongue. Both Terry and had learned enough to be able to do that, but it required constant observation and attention. Many of the women seemed to make a game out of trying to force them to make an accidental slip, which would earn another lash.

The language was more complex than it seemed. Terry had the basics down pat, but there were subtleties and nuances that were still a mystery to her. For one thing, they had no real concept of time except on a physical level: baby, child, child bearer, old. But “day” and “night” were all the clock or calendar they had or needed. The language itself was basically all in the present tense, as if they had no need of a past or future. The ideal of this culture was that every day be like the last and the next; change was evil.

Lori hated it. Hated it and knew that if this kept on and on, well, one day she’d just snap. And yet somehow she had to admit that there was some good as well. While there was individuality here, the tribe came first, and sharing and helping others were simply taken for granted. They had a genuine love for this hostile steam bath of a jungle and seemed to really respect it and all its inhabitants, even apologizing to the animals and plants they would kill and use. There were no signs of jealousy, greed, envy, or hate. Alama was still a curiosity. There was mystery, harsh experience, and much pain behind those enigmatic eyes. The tribe spoke of her not as a chief or leader but as some kind of deity; supposedly she had been here before any of them, never aging, never changing. But even with a deity living among them, there was trouble in the paradise of the People.

“Mother, the men cannot stay,” Bhru pointed out one day. “There is much unhappiness in them. One just stares and barely eats. The other has our death in his eyes. Both are weak and grow sick. They cannot stay as they are. They cannot stay if they are free. They are no good to us.”

Alama nodded. “I know. I think much on them. I try hard to say not to kill them. I pray but do not find a new trail for them.” She sighed. “I wait for the scouts to come back. Then I will say of them what is done.”

“As you will.”

“The two women do well.”

“We see the wisdom of your way. We do not give them rest to think. Their feet and hands grow hard. They grow strong. They speak no Outside, even when we trick them. The dark one thinks she plays a game with us, but the game is just to stay not People. White woman knows she is with us but does not like it.”

“Yes, if things are as always, they will come around in the seasons. Things are not as always. The People need a safe home. The People need more babies. That may bring us close to Outsiders who hunt them. It will bring us close to tribes who speak with Outsiders. We cannot wait for them. They must know that they are of the People to death. They must not want to leave.”

“But how would this be done?”

“I know a way. I know more of how Outsiders think. There is danger to it. They can go mad. They can think of killing selves. Like the men, I see no other trail. Can you make the mark of spirit potions?”

“Now that you say we can have fire, yes. What little I do not have, the forest has here.”

“Good. Then make. Chsua has the thorn needles. I will speak to her and say what is to be done. Mix the sleep herbs in their drink so they will not wake. We will do this at dark.”

Bhru now realized what the Mother had in mind. “But they cannot marry the forest, Mother! Not now! They need to be ready!”

“Do what I say and believe in my wisdom. I know it is not what is done, but this will make them ready. Just do and see.”

Alama sighed, wondering again if what she was doing was right or wrong, doubts she could never express or share with the others. But they had to move and, depending on what the scouts reported, most likely back toward the thing that had burned the forest. What they’d already done, particularly to the men, would cause them to be hunted down if it were known. It had to be done. Anyone could be broken. Anyone. It was just a cruel procedure.

She knew that well, even if the specifics were lost in that mental fog. How many times had she been broken? she wondered. More than once, that was for sure.

Sleep was odd and restless, even in these strange circumstances. When Lori awoke just after first light with the mists still hanging halfway up the forest heights, it was with odd memories of lights and chanting, but the memory was too distant for her to be certain if it was reality or dream. It wasn’t something to grab hold of; there were more immediate concerns. She felt, well, odd. Her skin tingled with a slight burning sensation all over, more an itch than pain, and her nose and ears actually ached.

She turned over, sat up, stretched, and reminded herself as she always did to think in the tribe’s tongue. She put her hand to her sore nose and touched something hard that hurt enough to bring her fully awake.

Something clicked softly on either side of her head, and she put a hand to her ear and discovered that she now had earrings of the type common to the tribe, fashioned from bone and held together with the epoxylike resins they distilled from one of the plants. She looked down at herself and saw that she also now had on the bone bracelets and anklets also common to these people, and a necklace of fresh green carefully braided vines. But… her skin!

It was still somewhat dark, but she could see that her skin, probably her whole body, had been dyed a dull shade between olive and brown, and around her breasts, upper arms, and thighs somebody had drawn a series of bold, primitive designs in the flat colors used by the tribe to denote rank and position. Those areas were particularly uncomfortable, with a stinging sensation, and she felt similar areas on her face. They also had cut most of her hair off, leaving only a thin fuzz on top.

“Lo-rhee pretty now,” commented Ghai, one of her keepers, sounding sincere. “Look like forest people. Is good, too, to keep hair short. Things live in hair.”

Lori wet her fingers and tried rubbing on a small part of a design on her thigh. It remained as it was.

“Spirit marks not come off,” Ghai told her, amused at the attempt.

Tattoos! They’d tattooed her!She was too upset at the realization to cry, although that might come later. That bitch Alama! She wanted to kill now but knew that she’d never get anywhere near the leader, and if she did, the leader would easily break her arm.

“Terry?”

“Same thing. You are wives of forest now. Do not worry. All pain goes away in one sleep, maybe two.”

Pain was not what she felt so anguished about. She sank back down, fully understanding the logic Alama had used. There would still be some kind of hunt on for them, and people would probably be looking for them for years. Not even this sort of group would be fully undiscovered forever. But now, tattooed, dyed, with bones in ears and nose—the last a cruel overkill, since few of the tribe did it—they would be indistinguishable from the rest of the tribe. Even if they were found, would they want to be rescued like this! With these tattoos and such? And even if the doctors could get the cemented bone jewelry out, removing tattoos of this size would be a massive job. They’d be just medical challenges to the doctors and freaks to everyone else.

Damn it! It just wasn’t fair!

She was happy that there weren’t any mirrored surfaces around. She wasn’t ready to see herself as they’d remade her, not yet, but she got some idea from seeing Terry. Of course, they had done nothing with her skin tone, since that wasn’t necessary, but she was still barely recognizable: her hair shorn to virtually scalp level, large bone earrings with another through the inside nostrils from which a larger curved and polished bone hung almost like a ring, solid blue ovals tattooed from the eyes out past the brows, cheeks adorned with yellow finger-width lines to her ears. her lips framed in a pale white, and her body covered with very obvious and suggestive fertility signs. Terry was clearly to be a baby maker, while Lori, it appeared, was to assist the Fire Bringer and learn the potions and ways of healing.

The tribe, it seemed, had spared no art or effort in making the two appear so primitive that not even their parents would recognize them.

Terry was taking it harder even than Lori; the older woman at least had already given up hope, while it wasn’t until now that Terry was forced to face the fact that this wasn’t merely a reporter’s hazard but a permanent condition.

Alama looked at them both, then gestured for Lori to come to her. As much as the American wanted to throttle the little woman, she obeyed.

The mysterious leader of the tribe, who came barely up to Lori’s shoulders, looked her over approvingly.

“You are now of the People,” Alama said after the examination. “Be one of us, take our way. There is no other trail for you. You join us, take the ceremonies. Lo-rhee die. You will take a new name. Think like us. Act like us. Be us.

There is us, and there is them. All that is not us is them. You must be happy here with us. What do you say?”

Lori sighed. “I think I will be dead soon. Killed by the forest and this life. While I live, I see no other trail.”

And then Alama took on a different aspect, almost soft and human, and she said quietly, “I did not wish this. We did not want any of you. The spirits of fate did this. You must know— I had no choices .”

It was so direct, so out of character, that it startled Lori for a moment. This small leader of this primitive tribe was actually sorry about all this! She realized suddenly that this had been an ordeal for them as well and that Alama, too, had been searching without success for a way out of the mess. Still, Lori could not forgive or forget. Not now. And because of that, she didn’t know what to say.

At that moment there was a commotion on one side of the camp, and Alama looked over, then stood up anxiously to see a very tired warrior woman come through the excited crowd toward her.

Lori was suddenly forgotten as Alama first hugged the scout, then pressed her for information.

“All are well,” the warrior told her. “Some of us stayed with the hurt. One hurt has died, Tagi, and was returned to the Earth properly; the others grow stronger.”

Alama nodded. “My soul goes to her and all of us. What of the Outsiders and their hunt?”

“It is given up, we think. No more go out. There was much busy stuff around the great fire pit, but now there are only a few there. They have strange things with them. Outsiders in green with big weapons guard them.”

“How many?”

“Of the ones that watch the great pit, it changes. As many as four hands are there, but mostly just one hand. Of the green ones with weapons, one hand and one. Two are on guard always. They watch the others, not the fire pit. But the fire pit is what they look at. A great bird like the one the first night comes two times a day, early and then late but in light. Sometimes men come and get off. Sometimes other men get on.”

“And the thing in the fire pit? You see it?”

“It is hard to see it and not be seen. Yes, we see it, by climbing trees at night. It still lights and beats like a heart. It is like a big gemstone, but with sides of many parts of one shape. At the top, one of the shapes changes. It gets deep black. Then it is the same as the rest again.”

Alama frowned. “This shape. Can you draw it here in the dirt?”

“Yes, Mother. It is like this all over, of what we can see.” The scout took a stick and carefully drew a series of connected lines.

Alama gasped and stared at it as if it were the worst kind of magic for quite some time, and it made some of the others afraid to see it.

Lori, peering over, making use of her greater height, recognized it immediately but could not understand why it had had any effect on Alama. Still, the scientist in her was fascinated not only by the shape but by the idea that the entire meteor was made of interconnections of this shape.

She didn’t think a sphere could be covered with hexagons.

Alama stayed by the fire most of the night, staring into it, deep in thought. The sight of the hexagon in the dirt had brought back memories so long buried that they seemed to be from someone else who had lived and died a long time ago. It was almost as if there were two of her inside her head: one Alama, the other someone she’d once been who was so totally different as to be some creature from another world.

But she was a creature from another world. She knew that now, although the details were far too distant, the concepts too vast to fully grasp.

This is what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? Waiting all those years, until you could find a hexagon that would turn dark? And here it is, come to you, far sooner than you expected it.

There was a sudden realization that she had not made the decision to find the hexagon, that she had not gone to it. Rather, it had found her. It was no accident, certainly; it had been sent. It had been sent to pick her up.

Those men with the “strange stuff.” Scientists certainly, trying to figure out what it was. She wondered what those very smart men thought of it. It must be confusing the hell out of them.

What kind of emergency would trigger it to find her? What could she do if she went? She had helped last time, certainly, but he had done most of the real work. He just didn’t want to do it anymore. Could she do it without him? Did she want to? Was it sent for her because he had refused? Or would refuse? As murky as memories of that time were, she could remember nothing covering this kind of thing.

And if she did decide to go, she would have to have the help of the People with all those guards around, but she had no doubt that somehow a path would be opened for her. She could make it, but what about her People? How many might die so she could get through? That they would do it for her she had no doubts, but was it right to ask? And if she didn’t go, he most certainly would. Somehow the system would make him go, and he would restart it all again, just as he always did.

She hated this world. It was filth and death and decay without end. She had been hiding from that, as much as she could hide, these past centuries, waiting, waiting, until one day she might again have the stars. When a woman could be a captain of a great ship and not a wife or lover or chattel slave.

She sighed. She would do what she could for the People, but like all others except him, they would die. Perhaps, just perhaps, she could at least try to solve her more direct moral dilemma at the same time.

In the morning she summoned both Lori and Terry to her. The language was inadequate for the task, but they had no other in common.

“The scouts say that there is a way out for all of you. All of us.”

“Us?” Terry asked, more than hateful at what had been done to her.

“Yes. Us. Not a way to your village or mine but to another place. A place where you will no longer be of or look like the People. A place where you may be free. It is a— different kind of place. It is where I came from many, many lives ago.”

“Where do you come from?” Lori asked, wondering where this was leading.

Alama pointed up. “From there. From after there. From the stars behind the stars.”

Oh, great! Terry thought sourly. First she’s the Amazon Queen from Hell, now she thinks she’s E.T.

Lori, however, while not ready to accept it, was ready to at least not reject it. “You come from the stars?”

The small woman nodded. “I am here since the first tribes. I am in a trap. My way out is sent. You can come or stay and be of the People. You choose. I must go.”

“The star that made the great fire pit that brought us here. That is a boat to the stars?” Lori, too, was having trouble fitting the language to these concepts.

“Not a boat. A door. A boat is not needed.”

“And if we go there with you, they can take away these marks? These bones? This glue?”

Alama smiled. “The sacred word of Alama. You will not see those things again if you go.” She paused. “One thing more. The men with you die. Left here, they die. They go with me if you help and live. You will have to carry them. Can you? Run and climb and carry heavy man?”

“I do not know. I can try.”

“You can leave the hateful one to die!” Terry told her. “I will not carry him!”

“Both must go or not one of them. I cannot choose on your saying. If the one is evil, he will find the other place a way to change or die. It has a way of law, it seems. You need not choose now. First I must find a place for the People to live and prepare them for my going. And it will be hard to get to the door. Many men, many big weapons so that no more go away like you. For now I give you leave. Go to the tree in back of me. There in quiet voice you may speak your own tongue on this. There and no other place or time but I choose.”

It was another unexpected gesture, but if she really believed what she was saying, then it hardly mattered to them anymore. They were anxious to take advantage of it, no matter what.

“Is she crazy or what?” Terry whispered in the first English she’d tried in she didn’t know how long.

“I don’t think she is,” Lori replied. “I know it sounds mad, but it’s no crazier than this. Look, I heard the other women talking. They were preparing to ritually kill Campos and Gus. Like you, I don’t care about Campos, but I can see her point. But if it’s Gus and Campos or nothing, I say take them both.”

“You really think you can just walk into this meteor and come out on some other world?”

“Probably not. If we aren’t machine-gunned by the armed guards, we’ll wind up splat on top of that thing as targets or we’ll be burned to death. But there was something really weird about that meteor. You remember it. And Alama—she knows too much about too many things to be only an aboriginal priestess. Besides, have you looked at a reflection of yourself? You look like something out of National Geographic. So do I. I know I couldn’t go back like this, and I probably won’t make it a year out here. Or, worse, maybe I will. Can you imagine living the rest of your life with these people? At this point I am willing to accept even space creatures. The bottom line is, if it really doesn’t matter anymore if I live or die, what have I got to lose?”

Terry shook her head in wonder at the situation. “I don’t know. I sure don’t want to live as one of the tribe forever, but I couldn’t go back looking like this. Some of the women said that the tattoos use some kind of stuff that penetrates deeply, that they’ve seen the color on skulls. So much for plastic surgery. But the truth is, I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately, and bad as it is, I’d rather live like this than die. I dunno—I’ve interviewed too many saucer nuts in my time to accept a story like that.”

Lori understood, in a way. “Still, how many leaders of Stone Age tribes could spin a story like that? These people don’t know anything outside the rain forest. Something was sure screwy about the way that meteor came in, the way it hit, the way it just sat there, the pulsing—even the dark shape on top that winked in and out. If I were normal, I would be on your side, but I’m not normal, I’m a Ph.D. turned into a Stone Age jungle girl. She may be crazy, but I’m desperate. Besides, think of poor Gus. If we try and Alama’s crazy, at least Gus will get out and get attention. If we don’t go along, they’re going to kill him.”

“You really think you can carry him all the way to that meteor?”

“Ordinarily, no. But I’ve got to.”

Terry stared at the strange little woman by the fire. “I wonder how she’s going to do it.”