Mists of Dawn (51 page)

The
ten
warriors
milled
about
uncertainly
for
a
moment,
and
then
went
back
the
way
they
had
come. Mark
breathed
more
easily
again.
He
turned
and smiled
at
the
five
friends
of
Tlaxcan
and,
after
Tlaxcan had
explained
the
situation
to
them,
several
of
them smiled
in
return.
They
did
not,
however,
welcome Mark
with
open
arms.
Mark
knew
that
getting
himself accepted
into
this
tribe
as
an
equal
was
apt
to
prove something
of
a
job.
Desperately,
he
wished
that
he could
talk
with
these
people
in
a
way
that
would
make them
understand
that
he
meant
them
no
harm.

“I
am
your
brother,”
he
said
in
their
language.
“I come
in
peace.”
That
was
the
best
he
could
do,
and he
saw
Tlaxcan
smiling
at
his
accent.

Four
of
the
warriors
did
not
respond,
but
the
fifth, an
older
man
of
perhaps
forty
years,
iron-hard
but
with streaks
of
gray
in
his
long
hair,
came
forward
and
put his
hand
on
Mark’s
shoulder,
much
as
Tlaxcan
had done.
“I
am
Nrani,”
he
said
in
a
friendly
voice.
“I
am Tlaxcan’s
brodier.
You
are
Tlaxcan’s
brother.
I
am
your brother.”

Mark
nodded,
wishing
fervently
that
he
knew
how to
say
“thank
you”
in
Cro-Magnon.
The
term
“Cro-Magnon,”
of
course,
was
not
the
name
that
these
people
used
in
referring
to
themselves.
They
had
been named
the
Cro-Magnons
because
the
original
scientific discovery
of
five
modern-type
skeletons
had
been made
at
the
rock
shelter
of
Cro-Magnon
in
the
French village
of
Les
Eyzies
during
the
late
1800’s.
The
Cro-Magnon
peoples
themselves,
living
as
they
did
in
the dawn
of
man,
had
never
heard
the
name
by
which they
were
to
be
known
to
science.
They
referred
to themselves
as
the
Danequa,
with
the
middle
e
pronounced
as
in
the
English
“neigh”
or
like
the
a
in “ate.”
Literally
translated,
Danequa
meant
simply
“the people,”
which,
as
Mark
knew,
was
a
common
practice
among
isolated
primitive
groups.
Many
primitive societies
thought
they
were
the
only
human
beings
in the
world,
all
others
being
mere
animals.

With
the
five
warriors
for
an
escort,
Mark
and
Tlaxcan
made
their
way
across
the
valley
floor
and
climbed a
narrow
trail
up
to
one
of
the
rocky
ledges
where
the caves
were.
The
sun
was
gone
now,
although
there
was still
light
enough
to
see
by.
The
cold
night
wind
was already
whipping
through
the
hills,
and
in
the
distance the
great
waterfall
sang
its
lullaby
of
power.
The
whole scene
seemed
to
Mark
to
partake
of
the
unreal,
of
fantasy.
It
was
a
moment
sliced
out
of
legend,
the
time-frozen
landscape
of
a
dream
.
.
.

Or
was
it
the
other
world,
the
world
of
1953,
that was
a
dream?
His
uncle,
the
space-time
machine,
his dog,
Fang,
did
they
really
exist?
Mark
shook
his
head. It
was
useless
to
think
such
thoughts.
He
was
where he
was,
and
his
problem
right
now
was
staying
alive.