With a click of his tongue, Tutuk commanded his mammoth to kneel. Then he threw his left leg over the mammoth's neck and simply slid to the ground, slowing his descent by holding onto the beast's long hair.
The Neanderthals would want to know how to become mammoth riders, of course, but that was something that Tutuk could not teach them. He'd caught this mammoth as a calf, had touched its mind and trained it from birth, and though it might obey others now, Tutuk would not part with it.
Instead, he strode up to the Maker, hand raised to show what he was, and the old craftsman lifted his chin slightly.
Tutuk grasped his cranium, sent an arc of electricity through his hand, and showed the old man things. He showed how the Neanderthal arm was strong and powerful, the arm of a hunter, but it was too short to throw a spear far.
So Tutuk showed the old man how to make a spear thrower. Simply by carving a piece of wood, some two feet in length, he could make a base where the butt of a spear would sit. On the other end was a handle that could be gripped. By balancing the spear in the base, and then hurling with his might, Tutuk showed how other Neanderthals had been able to cast a spear for three hundred yards, making it easier to slay the wildebeests, mastodons, and tigers that roamed these hills.
By the time Tutuk finished, the old craftsman's jaw trembled as he fought back a sob. He teetered for a moment as the fall implications of what he had learned struck home.
With these new spear throwers, his tribe would prosper. His young men would hunt beasts from afar, and the vicious, gangly human cannibals might at last be vanquished.
As Tutuk pulled his hands away, the craftsman's eyes fluttered, and tears began to leak down his cheeks, tears of pure revelation, tears of astonishment and hope.
That is what Tutuk had desired: to bring these people hope. The world in his age had too little hope, with giant mastodons tearing down Neanderthal huts on sight, and tigers dragging children into the night, and humans encroaching on every front.
Suddenly the craftsman gave a shout of joy and grabbed Tutuk by the shoulders, then wrapped him in a powerful bear hug. Such affection was shown only to the closest of family members, and all of the Neanderthals shouted and danced, for the old man was telling them, "This stranger is as dear as a brother."
The vision ended. Bron could think of no other word to describe it, except as a vision. He'd been able to see as Tutuk had seen, smell what he'd smelled. He'd tasted the foul scent of Tutuk's teeth, felt the weariness that made his aching back sag.
For a moment, he had been another person, and he longed for more.
Monique pulled back her hands and smiled. "Tutuk was one of the greatest of our kind. He was a teacher who traveled the northern wastes through what we would now call Germany. He sought to save the Neanderthals, whom he saw as a noble people, and in time he brought peace between them and the humans. For many thousands of years they learned to live together in harmony. These people understood something that in our day we tend to forget. Wisdom is survival. Wisdom is hope, and peace, and kindness and love, all rolled into one. That is what we hope to share with the world, the wisdom to live together in peace."
For a long moment, Monique fell silent, and in that stillness Bron noticed the sound of small waves lapping the hull of the houseboat, and wind hissing through the rocks.
"How did the Neanderthals die out?" Bron asked. "I mean, they were so strong."
"And wise and kind," Monique said. "But they died by attrition. The humans, with their penchant for cannibalism, wiped them out."
"The humans ate them?" Bron asked. Astonishment seemed to cover him like a sheet.
Monique nodded.
"But humans aren't cannibals," Bron argued.
"Take a look at Wall Street," Monique laughed. "Humans have always been cannibals, looking for ways to put one another to use. Whether by slavery or usury or eating each other wholesale, what is the difference?"
Bron longed to know more, and he realized that Monique had sprung a trap. She'd given him a taste of wisdom, but only a taste. If he wanted more, he would have to bare himself to her.
"Will it hurt?" Bron asked.
"I will not lie," Monique replied. "It hurts more than words can say. That's why I can only lay bare your memories with your permission."
Bron weighed the proposal, and whispered softly, "Do it."
Monique drew close, smiled reassuringly into his eyes. Bron felt uncomfortable. The day was scorching outside, and her flimsy dress revealed almost as much as it hid. Bron didn't want to think about the possibility of being with her. He wanted to keep such desires hidden, but the fact that he feared them only made them stronger.
"Don't worry," she said.
She put her hands upon his head, and began slowly. She started with his last memory, his desire to reach out and touch her. It blossomed hot and fresh in his mind, and then other memories came—every nasty little thought, every vile fantasy that he'd ever had about every woman he'd ever met.
The feelings that they engendered were inexpressible. At first he thought that he might liken it to someone taking an ice pick to his brain, driving it deep and then twisting, in order to dislodge every objectionable thought that he'd ever had.
Shame struck him first, like a physical blow, turning his face hot and clenching his stomach. The memories flicked before his eyes, like pages in a graphic novel, bright and colorful, but they were accompanied by sounds—the voices of women and girls that he'd known.
But it wasn't like pages flashing before his eyes. It was more like little explosions in his head, as if landmines in his brain were going off, and these dark thoughts were just bits of shrapnel. Hundreds of them blossomed like mushroom clouds by the second. Bron was shocked and disgusted by the enormous quantity of them.
He tried to pull away, to retreat into some dark corner of his soul and hide, but Monique whispered soothingly, "Don't worry. Your mind is relatively clean when compared to those of other men."
She probed through his darkest fantasies and learned of the time when he was a child that he let a girl from next door touch him.
He relived watching one of his foster mothers as she stood naked before a mirror, and he recalled paging through a dirty magazine when he was eight, kissing the pictures and laughing inanely.
Bron squirmed, embarrassed to the core.
Bile rose up in his throat, and he fought the need to vomit. He gagged, seeking air.
Why is she just touching these thoughts? he wondered.
Your memories are tied to powerful emotions, Monique whispered in his mind. Then she said softly, "Fear, revulsion, lust. Those are some of the most powerful emotions. I explored your lust."
Suddenly it seemed that she had exhausted the pornographic content of his mind. "Don't be ashamed. All of us face temptations, but you have not given yourself over to them. In time, I can tell, you can master all of your desires. You have a strong will."
Now she pulled out other incidents—quarters that he'd stolen from his foster parent's couch as a child, money that he'd taken from the table in a neighbor's house. He recalled all of the times that he had stopped and looked longingly at the neighbor's boat and wondered what it would be like to be wealthy. He felt astonished at how often he'd coveted the nicer meals that others were eating at restaurants.
Every greedy impulse that he'd fought down came roaring back to life, and for a moment it was like a fresh wound, hot and bloody, as he longed for things that he would never have.
I am a worm of a person, Bron thought, and he shrank inside himself, wishing to die.