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Organized they were not. But they had broken camp in minutes! They tramped through silent streets. Ingrowths of jungle grew thicker about them, until the city became jungle. They passed a straight tree trunk that Corbell suddenly realized was vine-wrapped metal. He looked up to see where it joined other members in a hexagonal array: a part of the old dome.
The jungle bore fruit: small oranges, breadfruit, several kinds of nuts. The Boys ate as they walked, and picked raw nuts to replace the roasted nuts they carried. They talked among themselves. Corbell couldn't follow their conversation; it went too fast.
He strode along in their midst, keeping the pace he'd set himself. Incredible, the way his old body had healed! Tomorrow the aches would come; tomorrow he might not be able to move, except he'd damn well better. Today he felt fine. He felt like a scoutmaster leading his troop. Memo: Don't test your authority.
Three hours or so into the hike... and that could almost be a fight developing up ahead. Skatholtz and another Boy were spitting syllables at each other with unwonted vehemence.
Last night's singer loped to join them. Ktoffisp was a burly, big chested Boy with Skatholtz's black man's features and everybody's pale skin. He snapped one word at the two and they shut up.
Ktollisp looked about him; frowned; pointed. The troop went off in that direction. They found a clearing, a few bushes growing on otherwise bare ground. Corbell watched, not understanding, as the troop formed a circle and Skatholtz and the other Boy stepped into it.
What was this, a duel? The two dropped their knives and breechclouts (no pubic hair). They circled like wrestlers. The challenger kicked at Skatholtz's heart. Skatholtz swerved clear... and now it was happening too fast to follow. Fists and feet and elbows struck to kill: a momentary hold broken by an elbow between the eyes, the challenger kicked off balance and handspringing clear; Skatholtz jumping full over a bush and then using it as a shield. It looked like a damned dance! But Skatholtz was favoring one leg, and the other Boy was circling faster. He was going to run him down.
He caught a kick in the face as he closed. Skatholtz moved in for the kill.
Ktoffisp barked one word.
The bloody-nosed Boy cringed before Skatholtz, held the pose a moment, then straightened.
Everyone got up and started moving again. Someone else was carrying Skatholtz's cumbersome pack of cloth. His opponent was gri
In mid-afternoon Skatholtz said two words Corbell recognized. He said, "Stop talk."
They did. Now the silence of their march was unca
Skatholtz dropped back to walk beside Corbell. Very quietly he said, in Boyish, "You walk too loudly."
"I can't help it. Are we hiding from something?"
"From di
Corbell nodded. He didn't expect to see anything. It would be months before his brain could train his eyes to see what the Boys could see in familiar territory. The keen-eyed Indian sees things the white man can't, but only in his own environment.
Two Boys transferred their loads to others and slipped away. Corbell couldn't see where they had gone... but presently there was a weird and terrifying sound, like a clarinet screaming for help. Every Boy instantly moved off the trail to flatten against a tree. Corbell copied them.
The tortured clarinet sounded nearer. They heard branches snapping. What would emerge? A tentacled monster, descendant of aliens enslaved by a younger, space-traveling State?
The monster burst from the trees. It was crippled, its forelegs ru
A baby elephant!
Corbell caught up in time to see it die. It was murder; it left him sick to his stomach. He fought his squeamishness and moved close to examine the corpse. The beast was wrinkled and marked by old scars. No baby, this. It was an adult elephant four feet tall at the shoulder.
He asked Skatholtz, "Can I help?"
"You may not butcher. I ca
"Today I kill nobody." He meant it as a joke, but he didn't know enough Boyish to phrase or inflect it that way.
Skatholtz said, "And tomorrow? I think you make fiction-to-entertain, but lives might end if I am wrong. Do you understand my speech?"
"I will learn." He knew that Skatholtz was using baby talk for his benefit.
"Do you know the chkint?"
"Elephant. When I was young they were bigger, higher than your head at the shoulder." He wondered how elephants had come to Antarctica. Not as meat animals, surely. Maybe there had been a zoo...
Skatholtz looked dubious. "There are larger beasts in the sea, but how could such a beast live on land, without support? Still... I have wondered why the elephant's legs are so thick. Was it to support larger weight?"
"Yes. The legs were more thick when I was young. The beast was the biggest on land. Five million years ago-" he had divided by twelve, for Jupiter years "-there were beasts far larger. We have found the bones turned to rock in the earth."
Skatholtz laughed skeptically and left him.
Having finished butchering the elephant, they departed. Corbell carried a rack of ribs for awhile, but it slowed him down. A disgusted tribesman finally took it away from him.
The forest ended.
Far across a prairie of waving yellowish-red vegetation, Corbell saw a last sliver of the departing sun. Jupiter was a pinkish-white disk, rising.
Here they made camp. Presently Corbell ate roasted elephant for the first time in his life. He was too tired to sing for his supper. Someone was telling a story-it was Krayhayft, who had oriental eyes and gleaming white patches in his straight black hair-and the others were listening in intense concentration, when Corbell dropped off to sleep.
They tramped all the next day through waving pinkish-yellow grain. Corbell judged it wheat. "Who grows this?" he asked Skatholtz, and was answered with laughter.
Wheat took cultivation, didn't it? Maybe it had been gene-altered. Four gene-altered cats still lived among the tribe; they took their turns riding the necks of various tribesmen. A wheat that grew wild would be worth having: more useful than a cat that was all tail.
All day Corbell saw kangaroos and ostriches bounding through the wheat. They were fast and wary. Once there was a lone man with a spear, far ahead, a pale figure at a dead run behind a fleeing ostrich. The pair was long gone when the tribe got there.
Late in the day Krayhayft found the tracks of something large. The tribe followed. Near sunset their quarry came in sight: a big, shambling mass that ran from them on four legs until it turned at bay on two.
It was a bear. Its skin was hairless and yellow but for a mane of thick white fur. A nude polar bear? And no dwarf, either. It waddled toward the hunters and tried to maul them with its great claws; but it was fighting Homo superior in the prime of health and youth. They danced around it, slashing. It fought on long after it should have bled to death.
They ate bear meat that night, while the cat-tails hunted at the edge of firelight. Jupiter was full, banded and orange.
Corbell was dozing with a full belly when Ktollisp dropped beside him. He spoke slowly, enunciating. "Do you sing tonight?"
"If I choose, then no."
"Acceptable. What was this about growing grain?"
"The grain we used didn't grow without human help."
"Like Skatholtz, I do not read your face well. If this is fiction-for-entertainment, you do it well. We will be sorry to lose you."