There was silence for a moment in the room. Timmie, who seemed increasingly disturbed by the vocifet-ousness of the discussion, clung ever tighter to Miss Fellowes.
At length Hoskins said, "Those are your terms, Mr. Mannheim? Dr. Levien? A playmate for Timmie or you'll bring your hordes of protesters down on my head?"
Mannheim said, "No threats are being made, Dr. Hoskins. But even your own Miss Fellowes sees the need for implementing our recommendation."
"Right. And you think it'll be easy to find people who'll cheerfully let their young children come in here and play with a little Neanderthal? With all those fantastic notions circulating out there about how savage and ferocious and primitive Neanderthal Man must have been?"
"It should be no harder," Mannheim said, "than being able to bring a little Neanderthal child into die twenty-first century in the first place. A good deal easier, I'd like to think."
"I can imagine what our counsel would have to say about that. The cost of liability insurance alone-assuming we can find anyone crazy enough to allow their child inside the Stasis bubble with Timmie-"
"Timmie doesn't seem all that ferocious to me," said Mannheim. "He seems quite gentle, as a matter of fact. Wouldn't you say so, Miss Fellowes?"
"And as Miss Fellowes pointed out earlier," Marianne Levien said with icy sweetness, "we must not regard Timmie as being in any way subhuman, merely as unusual in certain physical aspects."
"So of course you'd be delighted to let your own small child come in and play with him," said Hoskins. "Except you don't happen to have any children, do you, Dr. Levien? No, of course you don't. -What about you, Mannheim? Do you have a little boy you'd like to volunteer for us?"
Mannheim looked stung. Stiffly he said, "That's neither here nor there, Dr. Hoskins. I assure you that if I had been fortunate enough to have children, I wouldn't hesitate to offer to help. -I understand your resentment at what you see as outside interference, doctor. But by transporting Timmie to our era, you've taken the law into your own hands. It's time now to consider the full implications of what you've done. You can't keep the boy in solitary confinement simply because there's a scientific experiment going on here. You can't, Dr. Hoskins."
Hoskins closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.
"All right," he said finally. "Enough of this. I concede the point. We'll get a playmate for Timmie. Somewhere. Somehow." His eyes blazed with sudden fury. "Unlike either of you, I do have a child. And if necessary, I'll bring him in to be Timmie's friend. My own son, if I have to. Is that enough of a guarantee for you? Timmie won't be left lonely and miserable any longer. All right? All right?" Hoskins glowered at them. -"Now that that's settled, do you have any further requests to make? Or can we be permitted to continue with our scientific work in peace?"
Interchapter Five. The Other Ones
SHE WHO KNOWS could feel the warpaint glowing like fire on her body beneath her robe as she descended the hill. If she dared, she would have gone down the hill naked, and let them all see how she was painted, both the Other Ones and the men of her own tribe. Especially the men of her own tribe. Let them know that a woman could wear the paint as well as a man; and that if they did not choose to strike a blow against the enemy, she was capable of doing it for them.
But of course she couldn't go down the hill that way. A woman covered her lower parts except when she was offering herself in the coupling-rites: that was the rule. If she were wearing a loincloth the way the men did, she could at least go bare-chested to the battle, as they did, and let the enemy see the paint that was on her breasts. But she had no loincloth. All she had was a robe, and that covered everything. Well, she would open it in front when she came before the Other Ones, and they would know from the color that was on her skin that they were facing a warrior, even if she was a warrior who had breasts.
She heard Silver Cloud shouting at her, far behind her on the path into the valley. She ignored him.
And now the men of the War Society could see her approaching them. They were still locked in their absurd stalemate, face-to-face with the row of the Other Ones; but they turned their heads and stared at her in amazement as they drew near.
"Go back, She Who Knows," Blazing Eye called to her. "This is no place for a woman."
"You call me a woman. Blazing Eye? Woman yourself! Women, all of you! I see no warriors here. You go back, if you're afraid to fight."
"What is she doing here?" Tree Of Wolves asked, speaking to the air.
"She's crazy." That was Young Antelope. "She always has been."
"Go back!" the men called. "Get away from us! This is war, She Who Knows! This is war!"
But no one was going to make her go back now. Their angry shouts were like the buzzing of harmless insects in her ears.
She Who Knows reached the bottom of the path and strode toward the shrine. The ground was spongy here, because of the three rivers. There must be water running under the earth, she thought. With every step her bare toes dug deep into the cold, moist, yielding soil.
Behind her the sun was getting higher, rising now over the crest of the hill on which the People were camped. The litde white sliver of the moon that had been showing before was no longer visible. The wind was in her face, brisk and hard, like a slap. She came forward until she was close to the line of War Society men.
Nobody was moving. The Other Ones warriors were frozen like statues.
Caught Bird In Bush was standing at the end of amp;e row nearest to her. "Give me your spear," She Who Knows said to him.
"Go away," said Caught Bird In Bush, sounding as if he was being strangled.
"I need a spear. Do you want me to face the Other Ones warriors without a spear?"
"Go-away."
"Look! I have the war paint on!" She opened her robe in front and let her breasts show through, boldly splattered with the blue pigment. "I'm a warrior today. A warrior needs to have a spear!"
"Make one yourself, then."
She Who Knows spat and stepped past him. "You, Young Antelope! Let me have yours. You don't have any need of it."
"You are a crazy woman."
Tree Of Wolves reached out across Young Antelope and caught She Who Knows by die elbow. "Look," he said, "you can't be here. There's going to be a war."
"A war? When? You just stand here and make stupid noises at them. And they do the same thing. They're just as cowardly as you are. Why don't you attack?"
"You don't understand these things," said Tree Of Wolves disgustedly.
"No. No, I suppose that I don't."
But it was poindess to ask any of them for a spear. They didn't intend to let her have one; and they were all holding tight to their weapons, no doubt remembering how she once had grabbed up Blazing Eye's spear and threatened him with it. That had been a defilement. Blazing Eye had had to make a new spear afterward. Stinking Musk Ox had told him that he couldn't go into batde carrying a spear that had been handled by a woman, and he had burned the old one and carved another, cursing and muttering all the while. But what good was the new one, She Who Knows asked herself, if Blazing Eye was too timid to use it?
"Very well. I'll do without one."
She swung around and stepped forward, taking two or three steps toward the line of Other Ones, who were watching her as though she were a demon with three heads and six tusks.
"You! You Other Ones! Look here, look at me!"
They gaped at her. She opened her robe again and let them see her painted breasts.
"I'm the warrior of the Goddess," she told them. "That's what this paint means. And the Goddess orders you to leave this place. This is Her shrine. We built it for Her. You have no business being here."
They were still staring, astounded.
She Who Knows let her eyes rove up and down the line of them. They were all tall and pale, with rank black hair dangling down past their shoulders, but cut short across their foreheads, as if they deliberately wanted to expose the hideous flat high-rising domes of their skulls.
Their arms were long and narrow and so were their legs. Their mouths were small and their little noses were absurd and their chins stuck out in a repellent way. Their jaws seemed feeble and their eyes looked colorless. The sight of them stirred old memories in her, and she saw once again the thin, lanky Other One whom she had encountered beside that little rock-rimmed pool, long ago when she had been a girl. These men looked just like him. She couldn't tell one from another, or any of them from the one she had once met. For all she knew, he was here today, that one from the pool. And then she realized it was impossible, for these men all looked young, and he would have to be old by now, nearly as old as she was herself.