"We'll need to discuss the research schedule at the next staff meeting."
"Yes. We will. Everyone is to be reminded that Tim-mie has a right to humane treatment. To human treatment."
Hoskins smiled. She gave him an interrogative look.
He said, "I was just thinking how you've changed since the first day, when you were so angry because I had foisted a Neanderthal on you. You were ready to quit, do you remember?"
"I would never have quit," Miss Fellowes said softly.
" Til stay with him-for a while,' you said. Those were your exact words. You seemed quite distraught. I had to convince you that you really would be taking care of a child and not some sort of little primate that belonged in a zoo."
Miss Fellowes lowered her eyes. She said in a low voice, "I suppose that at first glance I didn't quite understand-" and trailed off.
She glanced down at Timmie, who still clung to her. He was very much calmer now. She patted the little boy gently on his rump and sent him off toward his playroom. Hoskins looked in as Timmie opened the door, and smiled briefly at the display of toys that could be seen in there.
"Quite an array," he said.
"The poor child deserves them. They're all that he has and he earns them with what he goes through."
"Of course. Of course. We ought to get him even more. I'll send you a requisition form. Anything that you think he'd like to have-"
Miss Fellowes smiled warmly. "You do like Timmie, don't you?"
"How could I not like him? He's such a sturdy little fellow! He's so brave."
"Brave, yes."
"And so are you, Miss Fellowes."
She didn't know what to make of that. They stood facing each other in silence for a moment. Hoskins seemed to have his guard down: Miss Fellowes could see deep weariness in his eyes.
She said, with real concern, "You look worn out, Dr. Hoskins."
"Do I, Miss Fellowes?" He laughed, not very convincingly. "I'll have to practice looking more lifelike, then."
"Has some problem come up that I ought to know about?"
"Problem?" He seemed surprised. "No, no problem! Why would you think that? -I have a demanding job; that's all. Not because it's so complex, you understand. I don't mind complexity. But it's not the thing I'd be happiest doing. If I could simply get back into the laboratory end of things again-" He shook his head. "Well, that's neither here nor there. I've taken note of your complaint, Miss Fellowes. We'll see what we can do about easing up a little on Timmie's schedule of research interviews. In so far as we legitimately can, that is, considering the great importance of what we can learn from him. I'm sure you take my meaning."
"I'm sure that I do," said Miss Fellowes, in a tone of voice that was perhaps a shade too dry.
Interchapter Four. The War Society
IT WAS DAWN, and the sky was a dead-looking gray, with a hard wind blowing from two directions at once. A little white piece of the moon was still showing, like a bone knife hanging in the sky. The men of the War Society were getting themselves ready to go down the sloping hill to the shrine of the shining rocks at the place where the three rivers met.
She Who Knows stood apart, watching them from a distance, wishing she could go down there with them.
It was always the men who got to do everything interesting, and always the same ones, the young ones full of juice. The old men like Silver Cloud and Stinking Musk Ox and Fights Like A Lion made the pronouncements and issued the orders, but it was the young ones, Tree Of Wolves and Broken Mountain and Blazing Eye and Caught Bird In Bush and three or four others, who actually did things. They were the ones who were truly alive, She Who Knows thought, envying them fiercely.
When there was game in the plains, they were the Hunting Society. They sharpened the tips of their spears and wrapped dark strips of wolf fur around their ankles to give them speed and ferocity, and they went out and stampeded the mammoths over cliffs, or gathered around some hapless stray rhinoceros and stabbed it until it fell, or threw the rocks-with-strings at the swift reindeer in the hope of entangling their legs and bringing them down. And afterward they carried or dragged their kill back to the camp, singing and dancing triumphantly, and everyone came out to praise them and chant their names, and they were given the first pick of the newly cooked meat: the heart and the brains and the other good parts.
And when someone had transgressed, or a chieftain had come to the end of his days and had to be sent to the next world, they became the Killing Society and donned the masks made of bearskin and brought forth the ivory club of death, and they went off with their victim out of the sight of the tribe and did what had to be done. And then solemnly returned, walking in line one by one and singing die Song of the Next World, which only the men of the Killing Society were permitted to sing.
And when there were enemies lurking nearby, it was time for the men, these very same men, to become the War Society and paint themselves with the blue stripes across their shoulders and the red stripes around their loins, and wrap the yellow lion-mantles around their shoulders. That was what they were doing now, and She Who Knows was bitterly envious. The men were standing naked in a circle, edgily joking and laughing, while the old craftsman Mammoth Rider finished mixing the pigments. War was the only occasion on which the men of the tribe ever painted their bodies; and it had been a long time now since the last such occasion, so the pigments had to be mixed fresh. That took time. But Mammoth Rider knew how to grind the rocks and how to mix the antelope fat with the powder so that it would stick to the skin. He sat crosslegged, bending over his work. And the men of the Killing Society waited for him to be done.
He had brought forth the tubes of bone in which the pigments were stored and he was stirring the fat into the powder in a stone bowl. And now at last the colors were ready. Mammoth Rider handed the bowl of red color to Broken Mountain and the bowl of blue color to Young Antelope, and the other men lined up to be painted.
The laughing and joking grew even louder now. The men were frightened of what was to come: that was why they were laughing so much. The two painters used foxtail brushes to apply the color, and that in itself made them all laugh, because the brushes tickled so much. The shoulder-stripes were easy, one narrow blue one across the back, one wide one across the chest, and then a blue Goddess-dab right on the throat in the place where the hard part of the throat sticks out, and another one over the heart. It was painting the lower parts that caused all the amusement. First came a thick red stripe across the base of the belly just above the place where the man-parts are, going all the way around back and across the top of the buttocks; then a thin stripe encircling each diigh just below the man-parts; and then, what always made them laugh, the Goddess-stripe running the length of the man-organ and two more dots of red on the round parts that dangled below it. Broken Mountain put the paint down there on with a great flourish and the men made a pretense of rinding it unendurably ticklish. Or perhaps they weren't pretending.
Go on, She Who Knows thought. Paint me also! I have no man-parts but you can put the red stripes around my loins and on the tips of my breasts, and it will be just as good when the time of batde conies. Because I am every bit as much of a warrior as any of you. Every bit as much.
They were almost finished now. All die men were done except the two painters themselves. Now Broken
Mountain put the lower stripes on Young Antelope and Young Antelope put the upper stripes on Broken Mountain; and then they exchanged paint-bowls, and Young Antelope put the red on Broken Mountain, and Broken Mountain put the blue on Young Antelope. And they all tied their loincloths around their waists and their lion-mantles over their shoulders and picked up their spears and they were ready to make war.
Or almost ready. Goddess Woman had to say the war-words over them first, in front of the three bear-skulls. But even now She Who Knows could see the two younger Goddess Women setting out the skulls across the way, and Goddess Woman herself putting on the special robes that she had to wear when she administered the war-blessing.
She Who Knows looked down the hill, toward the shrine of shining rocks at the place where the rivers met. There was no one down there.
All this would be for nothing if the Other Ones had gone off somewhere else. Goddess Woman had reported that the footprints of the Other Ones around the shrine were fresh ones, but what did Goddess Woman know? She was no hunter. The footprints she had seen could have been three days old. The Other Ones might be far from here by now.