CRO-MAGNON (46 page)

Gar surveyed what he could see of the short legs beneath the shaggy coat. “Look like good runner. Try kill here.”

Although younger than his
brut,
he was acknowledged as the clan’s best hunter. He knew that his success derived mostly from his inborn ability to run fast and far, but the other hunters had come to depend on his judgment.

The two men separated and began to scuttle forward in the time-honored fashion, clubs swinging from their waist-ropes, heavy spears held low. When they were a few lengths from the rhino its bulky head lifted, curved horn swinging.

“
Now!” Gar shouted, and the two men rushed forward, their spears ready for two-handed jabbing. The animal must have decided they were too close to evade, because it whirled to face them, lowering its horn. It snorted, is hoof-like nails pawing the frozen ground, small eyes glaring.

That fibrous horn could gut a man with one toss, Gar knew, and the feet could pulverize a hunter’s ribs. He scooted in and tried to thrust his spear at the shaggy underbelly. The rhino bowed its neck and hooked, and he leaped aside. Puk didn’t fare any better, a hind foot grazing his thigh hard enough to knock his leg from under him. With one assailant down and the other off balance, the rhino wheeled and bounded toward the vast plain to the north.

Gar let it go. Even with its massive body and stubby legs, it could easily outpace a man over a short distance. But not necessarily in a long run.

Gar glanced at Puk climbing to his feet. “All right?”

“
Bruise.”

“
Can run, you?”

“
Ay.”

“
We go.” Holding his spear and club at their balance points, Gar began to jog, settling into a ground-eating lope that he hoped would tire the fleeing animal. He had shaved the oak club until it weighed the same as his spear, so that he was able to maintain an energy-saving rhythm. Still he questioned whether he and Puk could catch their now-alerted prey. For all its bulk, a rhino could run for hours.

And run it did. As the afternoon wore on, the animal began to lumber; but so did Gar, and he knew Puk was even more fatigued. He could hear the rhino snorting in the frigid air. And, well behind him, Puk’s wheezing. He glanced over his shoulder and saw his
brut
stagger.

“
Fall back, Puk. I run him.”

With a weary nod, Puk slowed as his
brut
ran on.

Gar was having his own difficulty drawing enough air, and his pace was ragged. His nose, although large, had not been improved by being broken several times, and his left thigh ached where he had fractured it three seasons ago during a bison hunt.

A sun-unit passed, but he entertained no thought of giving up. The clan needed meat. At least the weather was cold. Had it been warmer, he would have been forced to remove his furs but still carry them as protection against the nighttime cold, and the burden would have unbalanced his stride.

A unit later, the rhino blundered through a stand of spear grass, wheeled to face his pursuer, and stood stiff-legged in a frozen mud wallow. Gar, glancing behind, spotted Puk in a snow-glare of distance.

He was alone with the enraged animal, which was tossing its shaggy head and snorting, steam rising from its distended nostrils. Gar felt a flash of envy for Leya’s people, who had the numbers to surround a group of animals, herd them together, and bring them down by repeatedly wounding them from a safe distance with their thrown javelins, using their short clubs only to finish the weakened animals.

The clans, their size limited by frequent territorial disputes, were forced to engage their prey at close quarters with thick spears and big clubs. On occasion, the hunters were gored or trampled, as their many scars and crooked limbs attested.

The newcomers’ way was better, Gar realized, but there seemed no way the clan could imitate them.

He needed to harry the exhausted rhino, deny it time to recuperate. He was close to the limit of his endurance, but he knew that if he allowed the animal to rest, it would bolt and he and Puk would have nothing from the long chase. Darting in, he feinted with his spear, jumping aside as the rhino hooked. He circled, darted, feinted, and jumped, looking for a chance to stab the animal or brain it with his club.

Time and again, he played tag with the rhino’s hooking horn and flashing feet. Finally his foot slipped on an ice slick and he landed on his rump. The maddened rhino charged, bent on hooking him with its thick horn or trampling him with its three-toed hooves. Rolling just in time, Gar scrambled to his feet and held the animal’s murderous gaze.

“
Huh!” The sound came from behind. Backing away, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Puk stagger to the edge of the wallow.

“
Hold him,” Puk said, squeezing the words between explosive breaths.

Gar circled to the north. The rhino’s snorting was beginning to settle, and he did not want the animal making a break. He moved in, feinted, and withdrew. Advanced again, miscalculated the animal’s reflexes, and barely avoided being gutted.

“
Ready,” Puk said, and Gar looked past the glowering prey and saw that his
brut
was in place, spear poised.

The time had come. Drawing a breath, he let his club dangle to allow two-handed spear-thrusting, and braced his feet, while Puk did likewise. The plan was to rush the weary prey from two directions.

“
On my command.”

#

Later, after they had gutted the rhino, roasted its intestines over a fire, and gorged on the cracklings, they lolled on a bed of reeds and bunch grass.

“
Eat too much,” Gar said, burping to relieve a bloated feeling. “Tomorrow, one stand guard. Other bring clan.”

“
You go,” Puk said, using a twig to clean impacted meat from his teeth. “Puk need rest.”

Gar smiled. “Maybe clan make
travois
,” he said, feeling a small thrill in using the term Leya had taught him.

Puk looked blank. “Travois?”

“
Shortface thing. Two poles.” His hands shaped a cradle. “Drag on ground.”

His
brut
nodded, looking impressed. “Travois.”

Leya.
Gar let his mind range over the barely successful chase, recalling his envy of Leya’s tribe having the numbers to hunt animals in groups.

When he had mentally compared the clan to the newcomers from the west, why had he thought of them as “Leya’s people,” and not as Shortfaces?

He had been trying to forget the willowy woman, because he knew he would never see her again. But her lush mouth and dark eyes kept popping into his mind at odd moments.

He rolled onto his back and gazed at the pale half-moon and the cold sparkles in the dark sky, which his
mut
claimed were the life-forces of dead people. Were life-forces the same as the Shortfaces’ ‘spirits’? Did people have spirits? Was there some mysterious attraction between his spirit and Leya’s?

Only in his own mind, he thought. A beautiful Shortface woman could feel nothing but revulsion for an ugly brute like himself.

A fast-moving cloud veiled the moon, which Wim said was the sun’s mate, and Gar felt his happiness over the successful hunt fade, to be replaced by a dull despond. He glanced across the dying fire at the rhino’s shaggy carcass. After the women had dressed the animal, he would take the pelt back to camp to replace his moth-eaten sleeping fur.

The meat would get the clan through another winter. Even if they found only small game from here on, they would last till spring.

He gazed up at the spirit-lights and heaved a sigh
. Kill, eat, and kill again.
Was this all there was?

Chapter 19

“
Caitlin.”

Blaine awakened slowly from her lunchtime nap, her mind clinging to the image of the two Neanderthals lolling by the fire after chasing down the rhino.

As soon as she recognized the concern in Calder’s face, she knew something had happened in her own world. She reared up, brushing sleep from her eyes, and saw Zinchenko looming behind her fellow scientist.

“
What is it, Ian?”

“
Fedor can’t find Gulnaz. Teague claims he knows nothing, but Fedor says he’s wearing his pistol openly and staying out of grabbing range.”

Blaine’s still-sleepy mind considered the news. Teague was obviously a strong man, but probably not enough to resist the big Russian suddenly wrapping him in a bear hug. The fact that the “facilitator” was staying clear of any such encounter might not bode well for Fitrat.

She peered around Calder at the camp master. “You looked for her?”

“
Da.”

Drawing her legs out of the bag, she swiped at her hair. “Could she have gone somewhere?”

“
No tracks.” He swept his arm. “Except path to hut.”

Calder said, “I’ll hike around there, though I can’t think why she’d go to Ayni’s cabin. You and Caitlin make a more thorough search around here.”

“
Is more,” Zinchenko said.

Calder frowned, and Blaine wondered what else could go wrong.

“
Ayni leave radio call. Can not answer. Transmitter . . .”

“
Broken?” Blaine said.

“
Nyet.
Burn inside. Teague say again he know nothing.”

Blaine glanced at Calder and back. “Could it have happened spontaneously?”

“
Spon . . .”

“
By itself.”

Zinchenko pursed his lips. “Possible. Wires sometimes get . . .” He held up his forearm and bent the wrist.

“
Short circuit?”

“
Da.
Blow fuse.”

“
Does it
look
accidental?”

“
Nyet.”

Blaine stood, felt her muscles stiffen, and wondered how much more cold and exertion she could endure. She prodded her tired brain. She couldn’t imagine why Fitrat would have gone to Ayni’s hut, since the game warden had told everyone he would not be back from his patrol until at least tomorrow afternoon. But she agreed that the possibility should be checked. Slipping into her parka, she followed Calder out the door.

The temperature had dropped. The noonday sun shone through a scattering of cirrus clouds, and the incipient afternoon breeze off the mountain ruffled the water.

While Ian started around the west end of the lake, she and Zinchenko conducted a careful search of the camp except for the closed bedroom that Teague had appropriated. They even moved the generator and scuba compressor in the lean-to that served as an equipment shack. Blaine also walked the perimeter of the compound, searching everywhere that tracks marred the snow.

But there was no sign of the Tajik director of antiquities.

When Calder returned with a similar result, it seemed there was no choice except to carry on with the afternoon dive. At least, she thought, they’d be safe until they delivered the samples to Teague. And probably until Salomon had picked them up in the morning and had them flown to the States and checked, although she knew it was risky to second-guess the industrialist.

Suppose Teague had orders to dispose of her and Calder, and perhaps even Zinchenko, as soon as they delivered the frozen samples? Might not Evgenii Delyanov as minister of nature conservation, with an obvious tie to the military since he seemed able order up a helicopter on the spur of the moment, be able to cover up the incident?

If that were the case, she and Ian should strike out overland right now and try to build a lead. But that would mean leaving the three prehistoric heads—with all they could mean for the future—in the cave. Probably to be sealed for all time, or even crushed to powder by the next earthquake.

And that, she promised herself, would not happen.

As she made a final pass over the snow in back of the equipment shack, Mathiessen’s words echoed in her mind:
Are you sure you’re doing this to ‘benefit mankind’ and not because you’ve turned your original obsession into an even larger one?

Could he be right? Could she be slightly mad?

More than slightly?

She didn’t know. She only knew there was no turning back.

#

The first offset in the tunnel was still tight, Calder noted, but did not seem any worse. He was congratulating himself on conquering his claustrophobia when the rock walls seemed suddenly to close around him and his heart began to pound. He dragged a lungful of air, closed his eyes, and tried to convince himself it was just a recreational dive in safe locale. He counted to ten, concentrating on slowing his heart.

When he looked again, the walls were still too close, but not crushingly so. Dismounting his tank, he pushed it ahead and wriggled through.

The phobia receded further, and he finned forward. Thinking about the small tremors that regularly shook the mountain, and the narrowing that had already occurred since he and Caitlin began their dives, he suspected that the test charge the geologist’s diver had set would eventually lead to the tunnel’s collapse. He knew that was one reason for Caitlin’s determination to get samples while they still could.