The chief didn't understand any of them. That was to be expected, though Kickaha had hoped that if their ancestors came from Earth they might speak a tongue that he at least could identify.
One good thing had happened. They hadn't killed him at once.
But they could intend to torture him first. Knowing what the tribes on the Amerind level of Jadawin's world did to their captives, he wasn't very optimistic.
The chief waved his feathered spear and said something to two men. These got down off their beasts and approached him warily. Kickaha smiled and held out his hands, palms up.
The two didn't smile back. Their spears ready for thrusting, they moved toward him slowly.
If Kickaha had been in his usual excellent physical condition, he would have tried to make a run for the nearest moosoid with an empty saddle. Even then, he would have had only one chance in twenty of fighting his way through the ring. The odds had been heavier against him in past situations, but then he had felt capable of anything. Not now. He was too stiff and too tired.
Both men were shorter than he, one being about five feet six inches tall and the other about an inch higher. The bigger man held his spear in one hand while the other reached out. Kickaha thought that he wanted him to hand his knife to him.
Shrugging, Kickaha slowly obeyed. There was a second when he thought of throwing the knife into the man's throat. He could grab the spear, snatch the knife out, run for ... No, forget it.
The man took the knife and backed away. It was evident from his expression, and those of the others, that he had never seen metal before.
The chief said something. The man ran to him and gave him the knife. The gray-headed graybeard turned it over, gingerly felt its edge with his palm, and then tried it on a leather string holding his warshield.
All exclaimed when the string fell apart so easily.
The chief asked Kickaha something. Probably, he wanted to know where his captive had gotten it.
Kickaha wasn't backward about lying if it would save his life. He pointed at the mountains toward which he had been traveling.
The chief looked as if he were straining his mind. Then he spoke again, and the two dismounted men tied Kickaha's hands in front of him with a leather cord. The chief spoke again, and the scouts moved on ahead. The chief and the two aides got down off their beasts and waited. In about fifteen minutes, the front of the caravan caught up with them.
The chief seemed to be explaining the situation to his people, making frequent gestures with his spear toward the direction indicated by his caplive. There was a babel of excited talk then. Finally, the chief told them to shut up. During this Kickaha had been counting the tribe. Including the scouts, there were about ninety. Thirty men, forty women, and twenty children.
The latter ranged from several babes in arms to preadolescents. The women, like the men were black-or brown-haired. The general eye color was a light brown. Some had hazel; a few, blue eyes. Some of the women weren't bad-looking. They wore only short kilts of tanned leather. The children were naked and, like their elders, dirty. All stank as if they'd been bathless for a month or so.
Some of the beasts of burden, however, carried big water skins of water. A woman milked a cow during the brief stop.
The travois, in addition to the piles of skins, weapons, carried a form of pemmican. There were no tents, which meant that when it rained the tribe just endured it.
While several men pointed spears at him, he was stripped by others. The chief was given the ragged levis and worn boots. From his expression and the tones of his voice, he had never seen anything like them before. When he tried to put on the levis, he found that his wide buttocks and bulging paunch would not accommodate them. He solved this problem by slitting them with the knife around the waist. The boots were too large for his feet, but he wore them anyway.
Finding the package of poison darts in the rear pocket of the levis, he passed them out to men whose spears lacked flint or chert tips. These tied the darts on the ends with rawhide cords and then had a good time play-jabbing at each other, laughing as they leaped away.
The only possessions left to Kickaha were his holey and dirty jockey shorts.
A big female moosoid was pulled out from the herd, fitted with reins and a saddle, and Kickaha was urged to mount it. He did so, holding the reins in his hands. The chief then said something, and a man tied the ends of a long thong under the beast's belly to Kickaha's ankles. The caravan started up then, an old woman-the only old person he saw-blowing a strange tune on a flute made from a long bone. Probably it was the legbone of a moa.
The ride lasted about an hour. Then the tribe camped-if you call such a simple quick procedure camping-by the channel. While Kickaha sat on the animal, ignored by everybody except a single guard, the people took their turn bathing.
Kickaha wondered if they meant to keep him on the moosoid until they moved on. After half an hour, during which time he was savagely bitten by a horde of blue flies, his guard decided to untie the leg thongs. Kickaha got down stiffly and waited. The guard leaned on his spear waiting until he was relieved to take a bath.
Kickaha gestured that he would like a drink of water. The guard, a slim youth, nodded. Kickaha went to the edge of the channel and got down on his knees to scoop up water with his hands. The next moment, he was in the water, propelled by a kick on his buttocks.
He came up to find everybody laughing at this splendid joke.
Kickaha swam forward until his feet touched the bottom. He turned around and cast one longing glance at the other side. It lay about three hundred feet away. He could get over to the opposite shore even with his hands tied before him. His pursuers could swim or ride across on swimming beasts. But he could beat them. If only there had been a wood nearby or a mountain, he would have tried for escape. However, there was a plain about two miles broad there. His captors would ride him down before he got to it.
Reluctantly, he hauled himself onto the bank. He stood up, looking expressionlessly at the youth. That one laughed and said something to the others, and they broke into uproarious laughter. Whatever it was he said, it wasn't complimentary to the prisoner.
Kickaha decided he might as well start his language lessons now. He pointed at the spear and asked its "name. At first the youth didn't understand him. When he caught on, he said, "Gabol."
Gabol, as it turned out, was not a generic term. It meant a spear with a fire-hardened tip. A spear with a stone tip was a baros; with an antelope-horn tip, ayava; with a lion-tooth tip, a grados.,
He learned later that there was no word for humankind. The tribe called itself by a word which meant, simply, The People. Other human beings were The Enemy. Children, whatever their sex, were summed under one word which meant "unformed." Adult males were distinguished by three terms: one for a warrior who had slain an enemy tribesman, one for a youth who had not yet been blooded, and a third for a sterile man. It made no difference if the sterile man had killed his enemy. He was still a tairu. If, however, he managed to steal a child from another tribe, then he was a full wiru, a blooded warrior.
Women were in three classes. If she had borne a child, she was in the top class. If she was sterile but had killed two enemy, male or female, she was in the second rank. If sterile and unblooded, she was a shonka, a name which originally was that of some kind of low animal.