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Though he was tired, Deyv had to hunt again. It was close to dusk before he returned with a half-grown piglike beast.
"There just isn't enough cover for me to get near enough to use the blowgun."
"It's time we made a new weapon," The Shemibob said. "This will be a simple but effective one, and it will have a far greater range than your blowgun or your spear. When we find a wood that is springy enough, I'll show you how to fashion part of it. It will be able to propel a short slim spear with great force. But it takes much practice to learn how to use it well."
Morning came again, bringing with it discouragement.
"How long do we wait here?" Deyv asked The Shemibob.
"We'll set up a camp, make lean-tos, and wait for thirty days. If they haven't come through by then, we look for a better place. We should go south, since I suspect we're in an area that gets snow and ice. You wouldn't like them."
Both humans were downcast and worried. Would their daughters have to bear children by their sons?
Eventually, according to Sloosh, their descendants would be inbred and would degenerate. The human species would die. The minimum number needed to perpetuate a healthy race was five hundred.
Another day passed; Before they went to sleep in the little hut they'd built, Deyv said, "This waiting is making me nervous."
"You always were impatient," Vana said. She kissed him. "At least, we'll have each other and our children. And The Shemibob and Sloosh will be with us, and our children and our grandchildren and perhaps their children. The Shemibob and Sloosh will be a big comfort. They're very wise and will teach us many things that would take us many generations to learn."
Deyv wasn't consoled. It was a long time before he could get to sleep. Suddenly, shockingly, he was being shaken by the shoulder.
"Get up! Get up!" Vana was saying.
"It can't be time for me to stand guard yet," he said sourly.
"No, no! They're starting to come through! Can't you hear them?"
He got up quickly. Sloosh was throwing more wood on the fire so that the big blaze would render the area more visible. Men were crawling out from the pile of grass. One by one, at a count of twenty seconds between, men were falling through, yelling or screaming.
The first of the men to carry a struggling, shrilling child dropped through.
The shaman of the Chaufi'ng staggered toward Deyv. He looked dazed.
"The sky was bright when we decided to enter the demon's mouth," he said.
He looked upward. "That is a strange Dark Beast."
"There is no Dark Beast here," Deyv said. "And when the light comes, you will see such a sight as you never dreamed of."
The shaman spoke slurringly, and his eyes looked strange. Deyv didn't know whether the tribes had taken drugs again to nerve themselves for the leap or whether they were suffering from shock. Entering this world was like being born. The psyche reeled under this strange birth and thus the body was stricken. All the leapers-forth would be in a trauma.
Tomorrow—a word Deyv had learned from The Shemibob—tomorrow there would be trouble when the six tribes discovered that their ancestors were not there. But they would be in shock, and they would follow those who were in full possession of their faculties.
Deyv and Vana and Sloosh and The Shemibob were so much more experienced. They had gone through many shocks. They had, in a sense, been born many times. They would be adults leading little children.
Sloosh came to Deyv from the bonfire.
He said, "You are smiling; you look as if you are about to start dancing. Why?"
"We were there, and now we're here! We live! Our children will live! Joy!"
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Philip Jose Farmer was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and has lived most of his life in Peoria, Illinois. He holds a
B.A. in creative writing from Bradley University. In 1953 he won the Hugo Award as most promising new science-fiction author. He is most noted for his novel The Lovers and the Riverworld series.