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Gribardsun denied the requests. He said that Dubhab had been allowed to handle the guns only to test his reaction to them. It was thought wiser not to let anybody else try them, and, furthermore, Dubhab would be denied their use from now on. Dubhab smiled and said that whatever the strangers wished was his wish also. But Gribardsun wondered what was behind that smile and the big blue eyes. Dubhab continued to praise the charms of his older daughter Neliska and to say openly that Gribardsun should take her as a mate. There was no doubt that Dubhab hoped to profit from his position as father-in-law.
Neliska said that she would be honored to become Gribardsun's mate. Gribardsun said that Neliska was very desirable, but he had no plans for taking a mate for some time.
Dubhab then suggested, when he was alone with Gribardsun, that the Englishman take Neliska without benefit of the marriage ceremony. A great spirit such as Gribardsun would not be bound by the conventions that bound mere human beings. And Neliska would be happy to bear a child to the great spirit.
Gribardsun told Dubhab to shut up about this business or he would turn him in to the elders. And the elders might consider exiling Dubhab for even thinking of breaking the customs of the tribe.
Dubhab turned gray at this remark. Like all preliterates, he dreaded more than anything being cut off from his tribe. The mere suggestion turned his bones to ice.
Yet it was only two days later that he remarked to Gribardsun that a man equipped with firearms would be in a position to change the customs of the tribe.
'That man is not only the archetypal con man,' Rachel said. 'He is the Ur-Napoleon, the pre-Hitler type.'
The Basic-Napoleon-cum-Confidence-Man, however, was begging Gribardsun a week later to pull one of his teeth. He was suddenly suffering excruciating pain from an impacted wisdom tooth. The Englishman used his tiny sonic machine to take pictures, and found that the tooth was deeply abscessed. Moreover, the other three teeth were rotten and would have to come out. And all three would fall apart during extractions; they would probably have to be dug out.
Gribardsun explained to Dubhab what he had to do. And he also made sure that Dubhab understood that he now owed his life to Gribardsun. If the teeth were left to natural processes, or to the brutal and inadequate oral surgery of Glamug, Dubhab would die. Gribardsun took such pains to establish Dubhab's debt of gratitude because he wanted to insure bis behavior in the future.
The operation was a success, and the patient did not die, although there were times when he said he would almost rather be dead.
The entire tribe witnessed the operation. The most remarkable thing to them was that Dubhab slept through it.
Glamug asked for, and received, Dubhab's teeth, which were mainly fragments. He put them into a little skin pouch, waved his one-eyed baton de commandement over it while he chanted protective phrases, and then buried them secretly on the side of a mountain under a rock. No one would be able to use them in magical rites against Dubhab. But Gribardsun suspected that Glamug kept several small pieces of a wisdom tooth in case Dubhab ever became hostile to him.
Then again, perhaps Glamug was i
Dubhab recovered amazingly fast, helped by the antibiotics and Gribardsun's care. Three days later, the tribe packed their tents and belongings and moved southward again. Gribardsun marched at the head. Behind him were his three colleagues. Behind them was Glamug, shaking his baton or the pebbles in a gourd at the end of a stick. Then Thammash the chief and Angrogrim the greatest warrior. And then Wazwim, the singer, who was in one sense as much a witch doctor as Glamug, since most songs were sung for magical purposes. After Wazwim was Shivkaet, the carver and the painter, who did much of his work under the supervision of Glamug. His products were mostly used for magical purposes, too. Then came Dubhab, who had lost bis smile and seemed much withdrawn and grouchy. After him came other males according to their unstated but well-recognized rank in their society. And then the women and children according to their ranks.
The flanks and the rear were guarded by the lesser warriors and juveniles who had not been 'blooded' as yet. The 'blooding,' in most cases, would consist of a symbolic conflict during a ceremony. There was very little actual fighting between tribes. The hostilities with the Wotagrub had taken more casualties in a few minutes than even the oldest man, Kwakamg, remembered having taken place in his whole life. Occasionally a lone hunter or perhaps a couple of hunters had accidentally run into alien hunters and there had been some exchange of spears or rocks. And now and then a man had been killed or a woman or child ambushed. But these incidents were infrequent. In fact, several days later, while Kwakamg was recounting the largest battle he remembered, which had taken place during the Winter of the Red Snow, Kwakamg dropped dead. Whether it was the excitement of the memory coupled with an age-weakened heart, or whether his heart would have given way at that moment anyway, no one knew. Gribardsun dissected him because he was eager to get data on the incidence of heart disease among the Magdalenians. Kwakamg was white-haired and wrinkled and had had a slight palsy. But the dissection convinced Gribardsun that Kwakamg was probably not more than sixty. His heart was that of an eighty-year-old man. At some time in Kwakamg's life he had had rheumatic fever. He had also had rheumatism, smallpox, and had lost about twelve teeth. But six had been knocked out during an encounter with a cave bear. The others had been rotten, and Glamug had pulled them out without much trouble for himself and only great pain for Kwakamg.
Two days later, Gribardsun delivered the baby of Meena, a sixteen-year-old woman, wife of Shimkoobt. Both the mother and baby would have died if Gribardsun had not been there, since he was forced to take the infant by caesarian.
Glamug told him that caesarians were not unknown. But almost always the mother died and the baby was lucky to survive.
Gribardsun recorded this data. And he wondered when the first caesarian had been performed. No one would probably ever know, since no time machine could yet go deeper into the past.
'So you have affected the future materially,' Rachel said. 'Who knows? If it weren't for you, many of us twenty-first centurians wouldn't exist. Perhaps even you wouldn't exist.'
'Speculation is interesting but essentially useless,' the Englishman said. 'I have changed nothing. Before I was born, everything I had done in the past had been done.'
'Let's not get involved in any more of these time paradoxes,' Rachel said. 'I always end up with a dizzy feeling, and slight sickness at the stomach, after trying to untangle the metaphysics and supermechanics of Time!'
'Time is something man will never comprehend,' Gribardsun said. 'Partly because Time is outside man. Man is, of course, partly in Time, but there are elements of Time that are completely exterior to him. He can't even see those elements and never will because they can't be put under the microscope or telescope or be detected by radiation-sensitive equipment.'
He and Rachel were walking down the slope of a valley. He had three hares on a rope slung over his shoulder. The beasts had been caught in traps, and the two were headed for another trap they had set two days before. The snow covered the ground by about two feet. Tall green snow-laden firs and pines rose on every side, but presently they came to a clear stretch. A dozen or so large boulders were scattered around the clearing. Their breaths steamed, and above them a large eagle swung, ru