Those instincts had served his ancestors well, in the days of warm rains and lush fertility, when food was to be had everywhere for the plucking. Now times had changed, and the inherited wisdom of the past had become folly. The man-apes must adapt, or they must die – like the greater beasts who had gone before them, and whose bones now lay sealed within the limestone hills.
So MoonWatcher stared at the crystal monolith with unblinking eyes, while his brain lay open to its still uncertain manipulations. Often he felt nausea, but always he felt hunger; and from time to time his hands clenched unconsciously in the patterns that would determine his new way of life.
As the line of warthogs moved snuffling and grunting across the trail, MoonWatcher came to a sudden halt. Pigs and man-apes had always ignored each other, for there was no conflict of interest between them. Like most animals that did not compete for the same food, they merely kept out of each other’s way.
Yet now MoonWatcher stood looking at them, wavering back and forth uncertainly as he was buffeted by impulses which he could not understand, Then, as if in a dream, he started searching the ground – though for what, he could not have explained even if he had had the power of speech. He would recognize it when he saw it.
It was a heavy, pointed stone about six inches long, and though it did not fit his hand perfectly, it would do. As he swung his hand around, puzzled by its suddenly increased weight, he felt a pleasing sense of power and authority. He started to move toward the nearest pig.
It was a young and foolish animal, even by the undemanding standards of warthog intelligence. Though it observed him out of the corner of its eye, it did not take him seriously until much too late. Why should it suspect these harmless creatures of any evil intent? It went on rooting up the grass until MoonWatcher’s stone hammer obliterated its dim consciousness. The remainder of the herd continued grazing unalarmed, for the murder had been swift and silent.
All the other man-apes in the group had stopped to watch, and now they crowded round MoonWatcher and his victim with admiring wonder. Presently one of them picked up the blood-stained weapon, and began to pound the dead pig. Others joined in with any sticks and stones that they could gather, until theirt target began a messy disintegration.
Then they became bored; some wandered off, while others stood hesitantly around the unrecognizable corpse – the future of a world waiting upon their decision. It was a surprisingly long time before one of the nursing females began to lick the gory stone she was holding in her paws.
And it was longer still before MoonWatcher, despite all that he had been shown, really understood that he need never be hungry again.
4 – The Leopard
The tools they had been programmed to use were simple enough, yet they could change this world and make the man-apes its masters. The most primitive was the hand-held stone, that multiplied manyfold the power of a blow. Then there was the bone club, that lengthened the reach and could provide a buffer against the fangs or claws of angry animals. With these weapons, the limitless food that roamed the savannas was theirs to take.
But they needed other aids, for their teeth and nails could not readily dismember anything larger than a rabbit, Luckily, Nature had provided the perfect tools, requiring only the wit to pick them up; First there was a crude but very efficient knife or saw, of a model that would serve well for the next three million years. It was simply the lower jawbone of an antelope, with the teeth still in place; there would be no substantial improvement until the coming of steel. Then there was an awl or dagger in the form of a gazelle horn, and finally a scraping tool made from the complete jaw of almost any small animal.
The stone club, the toothed saw, the horn dagger, the bone scraper – these were the marvelous inventions which the man-apes needed in order to survive. Soon they would recognize them for the symbols of power that they were, but many months must pass before their clumsy fingers had acquired the skill – or the will – to use them.
Perhaps, given time, they might by their own efforts have come to the awesome and brilliant concept of using natural weapons as artificial tools. But the odds were all against them, and even now there were endless opportunities for failure in the ages that lay ahead.
The man-apes had been given their first chance. There would be no second one; the future was, very literally, in their own hands.
Moons waxed and waned; babies were born and sometimes lived; feeble, toothless thirty-year-olds died; the leopard took its toll in the night; the Others threatened daily across the river – and the tribe prospered. In the course of a single year, MoonWatcher and his companions had changed almost beyond recognition.
They had learned their lessons well; now they could handle all the tools that had been revealed to them. The very memory of hunger was fading from their minds; and though the warthogs were becoming shy, there were gazelles and antelopes and zebras in countless thousands on the plains. All these animals, and others, had fallen prey to the apprentice hunters.
Now that they were no longer half-numbed with starvation, they had time both for leisure and for the first rudiments of thought. Their new way of life was now casually accepted, and they did not associate it in any way with the monolith still standing beside the trail to the river. If they had ever stopped to consider the matter, they might have boasted that they had brought about their improved status by their own efforts; in fact, they had already forgotten any other mode of existence.
But no Utopia is perfect, and this one had two blemishes. The first was the marauding leopard, whose passion for man-apes seemed to have grown even stronger now that they were better nourished. The second was the tribe across the river; for somehow the Others had survived, and had stubbornly refused to die of starvation.
The leopard problem was resolved partly by chance, partly owing to a serious – indeed almost fatal – error on MoonWatcher’s part. Yet at the time his idea had seemed such a brilliant one that he had danced with joy, and perhaps he could hardly be blamed for overlooking the consequences.
The tribe still experienced occasional bad days, though these no longer threatened its very survival. Toward dusk, it had failed to make a kill; the home caves were already in sight as MoonWatcher led his tired and disgruntled companions back to shelter. And there, on their very threshold, they found one of nature’s rare bonanzas. A full-grown antelope was lying by the trail. Its foreleg was broken, but it still had plenty of fight in it, and the circling jackals gave its daggerlike horns a respectful berth. They could afford to wait; they knew that they had only to bide their time. But they had forgotten about the competition, and retreated with angry snarls when the man-apes arrived.
They too circled warily, keeping beyond the range of those dangerous horns; then they moved to the attack with clubs and stones.
It was not a very effective or coordinated attack; by the time the wretched beast had been given its quietus the light had almost gone – and the jackals were regaining their courage. MoonWatcher, torn between fear and hunger, slowly realized that all this effort might have been in vain. It was too dangerous to stay here any longer.
Then, not for the first or the last time, he proved himself a genius. With an immense effort of imagination, he visualized the dead antelope – in the safety of his own cave. He began to drag it toward the cliff face; presently, the others understood his intentions, and began to help him.
If he had known how difficult the task would be, he would never have attempted it. Only his great strength, and the agility inherited from his arboreal ancestors allowed him to haul the carcass up the steep slope. Several times, weeping with frustration, he almost abandoned his prize, but a stubbornness as deep-seated as his hunger drove him on. Sometimes the others helped him, sometimes they hindered; more often, they merely got in the way. But finally it was done; the battered antelope was dragged over the lip of the cave, as the last hues of sunlight faded from the sky; and the feasting began.
Hours later, gorged to repletion, MoonWatcher awoke. Not knowing why, he sat up in the darkness among the sprawled bodies of his equally satiated companions, and strained his ears into the night.