Climate of Change (23 page)

Then the two other boats returned. Haven spied the scattered wet clothes. “What happened here?” she called.

“Keeper raped me,” Crenelle said.

Haven gazed at the scene. She well understood the significance. “It must have been quite an occasion.”

“It was. We are married now.”

“Where is Hero?”

They had forgotten him! “We went to the top,” Keeper said. “There was a big white bear. Hero distracted it so we could get back safely. Then—”

“And he's not back?” Haven tied the boat behind the other, and drew it to the bank.

“He was giving us time,” Crenelle said. “He should return soon.” But she was looking nervous again. “This passage—it's the bear's trail.”

“Then we had better go elsewhere,” Rebel said from the third boat. “After we make sure Hero is all right.”

Craft and Harbinger were already stepping from the boats and checking their spears.

“I don't know how well spears will work,” Keeper said. “The passage winds around, and there's not much room at the sides.”

“Better than arrows, I think,” Craft said.

There did not seem to be a better course of action. Keeper fetched his own spear. “Whitepaw is with him. He hoped to lead the bear astray, then follow us back. I know the way; I'll lead.”

They let him. He felt guilty for leaving Hero there, though it was what seemed best. He forged along the winding passage, his hands against the walls for guidance in the gloom, wishing it could have been done some other way. Had he been having sex with Crenelle while his brother died?

Then Whitepaw came bounding up. He knew her by her sound. That meant that Hero was close behind. “Hero!” Keeper called. “Are you all right?”

“I'm not sure,” his brother's voice came back.

“The bear—is it after you?”

“No, I don't think so. I don't hear it.”

It was fairly dark now, which would make it hard to see, apart from the twists of the passage. “You aren't injured?”

“I think I can't see.”

Keeper didn't like the sound of that. “You are hurt in the eyes?”

“No. Maybe it's just too dark.”

“I have a torch,” Craft said, coming up behind. He had lit one, and its light flared brightly.

Soon Hero stood in the illumination. “Can you see this?” Craft asked.

“By the smell, you have a torch. I don't see it.”

Hero was looking in the wrong direction. He was indeed blind. What had happened?

“Was it bright out there?” Harbinger asked from farther back.

“Brilliant,” Keeper said. “Crenelle and I had to shade our eyes from it.”

“I heard of a man who spent too much time in the sun in winter,” Harbinger said. “The brightness got in his eyes, and he couldn't see for several days.”

“That must be it,” Hero said. “I looked all over, leading that bear, to be sure I didn't step in a crevasse or off a cliff. I tried to squint, but the brightness hurt. I ignored it and led the bear away from the tunnel. Then I circled around and returned to the tunnel, but I couldn't see it. Whitepaw led me to it. Then I was all right, because I could feel the sides.”

“We must get you home,” Craft said.

“I'm not injured. I just can't see.”

“You won't be much good in combat or on a hunt if we don't get you home where you can get better,” Craft pointed out.

They reversed course and led Hero the rest of the way back. The women had the boats packed and ready. They got in and shoved off. There was no point in waiting for the bear to arrive.

The trip by torchlight was relatively swift, because they were going downstream. Keeper wasn't easy about the prospect of entering the sea at night, but it did seem best to get Hero home as soon as possible, so he could rest and recover in safety.

But as they reached the open water of the river, they were buffeted by strong winds, and the water got rough. “There's a storm!” Harbinger said.

They wanted no part of that! They turned the boats and paddled back upstream, getting away from the storm. They would have to spend another night under the ice after all.

“We don't need to go home because of me,” Hero said. “I can paddle well enough, and do other things, as long as someone tells me where. It's easy, here in the boat.” Indeed, he was doing most of the moving of the boat, while Keeper guided it by paddling on one side or the other.

“You're right,” Crenelle said reassuringly.

Maybe it was better this way. Hero back home would have to be largely idle, and he wouldn't like that. Here in the boat or in the gloom of a tunnel, he was at less of a disadvantage. If Harbinger was right, the blindness would last only a few days.

“We can make camp at another ice cave,” Keeper said. “Now we know how the ice protects us from a storm. It's better than a lean-to. We can fish, extending our supply of meat. It should not be difficult.”

“It should not be difficult,” Crenelle agreed. She smiled at him, and he realized that she was thinking of more than camping. They were, after all, married now.

Mankind did not make it to North America 20,000 years ago. The ice was impassable, considering the technology of the time. The melt described would have been a fringe effect limited to summer. As it was, human penetration to North America proper may have been a fairly close call, as mentioned in the forenote, because as the ice age ended and the continental ice shelves retreated, the melt from them returned to the sea, raising it to its present level and covering Beringia with water. Perhaps only the easternmost fringe of mankind's population remained in Alaska as the sea rose year by year to inundate the plain. That fringe probably followed an extending ice-free corridor between the Laurentide ice sheet that covered most of Canada and the Cordilleran ice sheet that covered the western fringe of Canada and the southern fringe of Alaska. This corridor was just east of the Rocky Mountain range, and may have been ten to fifty miles wide and a thousand miles long.

The evidence of human passage is scant; in fact, were it not for the incontrovertible indication that human beings did make it to North America, the balance of evidence would have indicated that no such passage was made. As it was, it must have been swift, with perhaps a small band moving through in as little as a year, leaving no traces. It was no easy passage; they might have followed the Yukon River east, then had to cross the Mackenzie Mountains to reach the lee side, then bear south between the endless glaciers. It could have been a migration of desperation, through a channel providing little sustenance. Perhaps enemy tribes cut off their return to the more fertile lowlands of central Alaska, so they had to go forward into the unknown, or starve. So they gambled that the corridor did not lead to oblivion. Until that tribe emerged below, and discovered a world more wonderful than any imagined. It was surely one of the more remarkable breakthroughs of human existence. The rest is prehistory.

But there are mysteries beyond this. There is growing evidence of human occupation of South America dating from before the ice sheets retreated, and some evidence of scattered North American sites. Where did these people come from, if not from Beringia? The obstacles to passage before the ice-free corridor opened are so formidable that it is
difficult to believe that any human colonization could have occurred. A boat culture might have done it, staying to the shoreline and not penetrating to the continental interior. Maybe a bad storm blew those boats far enough south to find the end of the ice, and they were unable to return to tell their fellows. Or perhaps the ice-free corridor opened at prior times, briefly, allowing a trace leakage of human beings. Neither of these prospects seems likely. Yet if the evidence of earlier settlement holds up, some such explanation will be necessary. At present it is a mystery that archaeologists would dearly like to resolve. The best present lead is from cores drilled in the continental shelf off the Queen Charlotte Islands along the west coast of Canada. These cores show that this area, which is now more than 450 feet below sea level, was above water 14,600 years ago. There was a wide flat corridor leading south, with herbs and pine trees. So this made human passage much easier. This could account for the presence of people along the coasts of America more than a thousand years before conventional dates. But the evidence is that there was ice across Alaska throughout this period, as shown in the story. How was that passed? Perhaps there were a few islands off the lowered coast that the ice could not reach, so that at certain times boats could hop from one to another, until they reached the Pacific corridor. The southward progress of such boat people might have been a mere intermittent trickle, compared to the later land corridor trek, but it might have happened. The key is surely associated with Beringia in some manner, for the immensity of the Pacific Ocean makes a more southern crossing even less probable. Like the fabled Atlantis, Beringia existed long ago, and sank beneath the sea, a victim of climate change. Unlike Atlantis, it was real.

Fifteen thousand years ago, Africa was similar to the way it is now, though in the intervening millennia it was warmer and wetter. Mankind had spread throughout the continent, just as it had through the rest of the world, except perhaps for the Americas. The ice age had not ended, but was slowly weakening.

Between the shrunken rain forest and the expanded desert was the broad savanna. Nomadic tribes crossed this, looking for sustenance. The setting is central Africa south of the Sahara. At this time the size of stone implements was decreasing toward what is called the microliths, or much smaller blades. This was not because anyone ran out of stone, or made smaller weapons or tools, or hunted smaller animals, but because they were learning how to make better use of smaller stone chips that would otherwise have been wasted. They dulled the reverse edges so they wouldn't slice the wrong things, and mounted them in wood. In this manner they could put one, two, three or more microliths in a single tool, and have a better instrument. They could make a sickle, or an adze, or spear with special projecting barbs, more efficient for its specialized task. This was another aspect of the technology that spread across Europe, Asia and Africa.

Chapter 1 ended with a decision to be made: would Hero marry Crenelle, accepting the implication that he had raped her? The following chapters pursued the consequences of his refusal. This chapter
follows his life the other way: he did marry her, and his siblings joined them and remained in Africa instead of traveling into Eurasia. Five years have passed in their lives since Chapter 1.

“Daddy play.”

Hero woke to the voice of his daughter. Tour was four years old, and the cutest girl in the tribe. He could never say no to her.

He sat up. Crenelle was outside the hut; he heard her working there. He had overslept, though he had no excuse; it had been several days since the last hunt.

Tour was holding a top. It was a rounded chip of wood, a knot, pointed on one end. She liked to watch it spin, but her little hands were not as strong as his; he could make it spin much faster and longer.