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could explore East Africa now and learn what types are living there. I suspect there'd be some
Caucasoid and Capsoid types and perhaps some Negritos.'
'You surely aren't thinking of taking us down there?' Rachel said.
'I would object,' von Billmann said. 'That would take us entirely too far from the vessel;
it would definitely imperil the expedition. Moreover, if we're going to roam far and wide, we
should be doing it in central Europe, preferably somewhere between the Elbe and Vistula. We should
be ascertaining whether proto-Indo-Hittite speech exists there, or ...'
Gribardsun smiled but shook his head. 'You're the greatest linguist of the twenty-first
century, Robert, and you have a very high intelligence. But I have to keep reminding you that
those rivers are buried under vast masses of ice. If you ever did find your proto-I-H-speakers, it
would be somewhere to the south. Maybe in Italy. Or in France, a few miles from where the vessel
emerged. Or maybe on this coast, a few miles ahead of us. Or behind us, a few miles inland.'
Von Billmann laughed, but his face was red. 'I know,' he said. 'But that's my blind spot.
My brain slips a cog every time I think of my love. I know that glaciers cover that area, but I'm
so eager to locate my language, my beloved language, that I forgot. But I have a hunch, an
intuition, worthless perhaps and only the expression of a wish, that my speakers are living not
too far to the south of the glaciers, perhaps in Czechoslovakia.'
'Next year, if circumstances permit, we'll go. to Czechoslovakia,' Gribardsun said. 'We
have to study the edges of the glaciers, anyway. And if we can go to North Africa, we can
certainly go to central Europe.'
Von Billmann had never looked so happy.
The tribes moved on slowly eastward. By now they could communicate fairly well with signs
and a mixture of each other's vocabulary. The structure of the two languages was dissimilar, and
each contained sounds difficult for a nonnatal speaker to master. The result was the gradual
building up of a pidgin. It contained sounds that both the Wota'shaimg and the Shluwg could
pronounce, and vocabulary items which the two tribes had agreed to accept, though the agreement
was apparently entirely unconscious. The structure of the pidgin tended more toward that of the
Wota'shaimg, since they were the dominant tribe. But it was considerably simplified, and before a
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year was up, its structure had been determined. Von Billmann was ecstatic at being present at the
birth of a new language. He recorded it as it developed and, in fact, since he knew more about
pidgins and synthetic and artificial languages than anybody in this or any other time, he played a
big part in the development of this one. He knew what the ideal language should be, and he used
his influence to shape the pidgin.
'If the two tribes stay together,' he said, 'they may abandon their own language and
substitute the pidgin. That would be the most economical and logical course.'
Though the two tribes were of somewhat different physical type, and their way of looking
at the universe differed greatly in many respects, they shared many similar customs. Their
attitudes toward marriage and their sexual habits were near identical, their methods of hunting
were identical, and their governmental systems were much alike. They ate practically the same
foods; the tabus of each were few, and neither objected to the other tribe eating its tabu animal
Then Tkant, the big man whom Gribardsun had defeated in the snow arena, decided that he
could provide for two families. So he asked for, and got, Neliska, Dubhab's daughter, as his
second wife. Gribardsun, as her protector, gave her away. He had one less obligation, though
Neliska had asked him, before she accepted Tkant, if he intended to marry her. Gribardsun
hesitated and then said that he thought it best if she married Tkant.
Laminak, Neliska's sister, was happy at this decision. She had just gone through her rites
of passage and so was, theoretically, eligible at the age of twelve for marriage. In practice, the
young females did not marry until they were fourteen; some not until they were sixteen. Most of
the early married did not bear children until they were eighteen or even older. This was not
because of any method of birth control; the women did not become fertile until relatively late.
On the other hand, some of the tribes along the coast had many females who bore children
at the age of twelve. The rate of death at childbirth was higher for both infant and mother in
these tribes.
The two tribes walked eastward, encountering peoples who either fled or were easily awed
by the display of Very lights or a few shots fired over their heads. No lives were lost on either
side in these encounters, and after Gribardsun shot a rhinoceros or two or some wild cattle for
the natives, a peaceful if sometimes uneasy relationship was established.
About the middle of January, the group arrived in what would be, someday, Tunisia.
Actually, they were in an area that would be underwater off the Tunisian coast in the modern age,
but the scientists made a number of treks from their base camp into the interior. Here the snows
lay not too deeply on the winter grass and on top of the many trees. A broad river wound through
the land and poured down into the Mediterranean. Gribardsun followed its course for two hundred
miles before reluctantly turning back.
'I get the same joy from seeing the vast herds of many different types of animals and the
great predators that feed on them as Robert does when he finds a new language,' he said to Rachel.
'This is the way a world should be. Few human beings, many animals, plenty of water and grass. I
would like this even better if there were many more trees, but I know that these do exist further
south. The air is pure, and nature works unhindered by man.'
'I long for the day when I can return home,' she said. 'But you sound as if you dread it.'
'Far from it,' he said. 'I look forward with joy to the day that the vessel returns.'
That was only one of the many puzzling statements he made. Rachel did not ask him what he
meant. By now she knew that he just would not reply.
After a month and a half at their Tunisian camp, Gribardsun gave the word to march again.
They set off toward Sicily. The stealing of water by the great northern glaciers had not only
resulted in a land bridge across what would be the Straits of Gibraltar. There was another, and
far greater, land bridge between Italy, Sicily, Tunisia, and part of Libya. The Mediterranean was,
at this time, two smaller seas separated by the extension of Italy.
The tribes moved on the western coast of the bridge with the hills high on their right.
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And the sixth day out, Drummond found their first human fossil skull.
Apparently, though he was still living in the age of twelve, he had not forgotten
everything he had learned since then. He was out walking near the camp, accompanied by Laminak and
a juvenile male for protection, when he saw a piece of the skull sticking out of a layer of
limestone halfway up a hill.
He told von Billmann of it. He would not speak to Rachel or John then - another indication
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