limp envelope up so that the heat from the fire would go directly into the open neck of the bag. Gradually it inflated. When it seemed on the brink of rising, they grabbed the cords hanging from the network around the bag and pulled it out from under the roof. The wind caught it, sent it scooting across the plain, the basket tilting to one side. Some of the fire was shifted off the earth, and the basket began to burn. But the balloon, the envelope steadily expanding, rose.
Pale-blue smoke curled up from the seams.
Anana shook her head. “I knew it wasn’t tight enough.”
Nevertheless, the aerostat continued to rise. The basket hanging from the rawhide ropes burned and presently one end swung loose, spilling what remained of the fire. The balloon rose a few more feet, then began to sink, and shortly was falling. By then it was at least five miles away horizontally and perhaps a mile high. It passed beyond the shoulder of a mountain, no doubt to startle the animals there and to provide food for the dogs and the baboons and perhaps the lions.
“I wish I’d had a camera,” Kickaha said. “The only rawhide balloon in the history of mankind.”
“Even if we find a material suitable for the envelope covering,” Anana said, “it’ll be from an animal. And it’ll rot too quickly.”
“The natives know how to partially cure rawhide,” he said. “And they might know where we could get the wood and the covering we need. So, we’ll find us some natives and interrogate them.”
Four weeks later, they were about to give up looking for human beings. They decided to try for three days more. The second day, from the side of a shrinking mountain, they saw a small tribe moving across a swelling plain. Behind them, perhaps a mile away, was a tiny figure sitting in the middle of the immensity.
Several hours later, they came upon the figure. It was covered by a rawhide blanket. Kickaha walked up to it and removed the blanket. A very old woman had been sitting under it, her withered legs crossed, her arms upon her flabby breasts, one hand holding a flint scraper. Her eyes had been closed, but they opened when she felt the blanket move. They became huge. Her toothless mouth opened in horror. Then, to Kickaha’s surprise, she smiled, and she closed her eyes again, and she began a high-pitched whining chant.
Anana walked around her, looking at the curved back, the prominent ribs, the bloated stomach, the scanty white locks, and especially at one foot. This had all the appearance of having been chewed on by a lion long ago. Three toes were missing, it was scarred heavily, and it was bent at an unnatural angle.
“She’s too old to do any more work or to travel,” Anana said.
“So they just left her to starve or be eaten by the animals,” Kickaha said. “But they left her this scraper. What do you suppose that’s for? So she could cut her wrists?”
Anana said, “Probably. That’s why she smiled when she got over her fright. She figures we’ll put her out of her misery at once.”
She fingered the rawhide. “But she’s wrong. She can tell us how to cure skins and maybe tell us a lot more, too. If she isn’t senile.”
Leaving McKay to guard the old woman, the others went off to hunt. They returned late that day, each bearing part of a gazelle carcass. They also carried a bag full of berries picked from a tree they’d cut out of a grove, though Kickaha’s skin had a long red mark from a lashing tentacle. They offered water and berries to the crone, and after some hesitation she accepted. Kickaha pounded a piece of flank to make it more tender for her, and she gummed away on it. Later, he dug a hole in the ground, put water in it, heated some stones, dropped them in the water, and added tiny pieces of meat. The soup wasn’t hot, and it wasn’t good, but it was warm and thick, and she was able to drink that.