"More like a horse, or an elephant. He was trained to obey simple commands, to carry his master, fetch things, and finally to undertake dinotherium hunts under the direction of a few overseers. You see, mainland Africa was too wild for a gentle, civilized species then, as it is today for different reasons. Yet they needed certain commodities such as ivory—"
Mrs. Rhodes saw a fragment of tusk among the displayed artifacts, and knew that neither elephant nor dinotherium had ever ranged Madagascar. Ivory had to be imported. But how could there have been such a culture on Earth before human civilization arose? "Who—" But she was unable to frame the question properly, afraid of the answer.
"Why, the Lemuridae, of course. Didn't I tell you about Archaeolemur, with the almost hominid skull? Here in this cave we have an offshoot new to paleontology, with a comparatively enormous braincase and distinctive configuration. 1,000 cc easily, if my wrinkled old fingers do not deceive me. Easily capable of mesolithic technology, in the circumstances." She hefted the broken skull. "Look at this marvelous specimen yourself! Plainly derived from Archaeolemur, but the placement of the foramen magnum—"
"Are you saying the—the lemurs are civilized? That they—"
"Lemuridae. Not today's lemurs, but their advanced relatives. Yes, they were the ones. They controlled fire, they were artistic." Miss Concher patted the skull affectionately. "But they made one fatal mistake in their choice of domestics. Not the first time a tutor has been out-stripped by his pupil, I'm sure, or the last. Australopithecus was almost as intelligent as this lemuridae, even then—and he had more potential, because of his size and fully bipedal stance. All he needed was a good example and some discipline. What took the lemuridae several million years to develop, man covered in a few hundred thousand."
Mrs. Rhodes stopped fighting it. "Where is Archaeolemur now? With that head start—"
"Extinct, of course. His mouth was too large, his buttocks too small, his skin too hairy, his taste too good. Alas, he has been replaced on Earth by his domestic. Man could hardly have been a docile, loyal pet—not when trained as a hunter."
WOOD YOU?
I was raised on a farm without electricity; we used kerosene lamps and a wood stove. Today I am raising my children in the forest so they can share the advantage I had. We do have electricity, but also a wood stove that we use to heat our house and water. I cut up fallen wood—I don't like to hurt living trees—and split it, and that stove keeps us comfortable in winter. I sit by it and write the first drafts of my novels, saving the typing for spring when my unheated study warms. Our bill for heating is zero, but that's an illusion. My working time as a writer is worth an amount you probably wouldn't believe, so that wood actually costs more in lost income than electric heat would cost. But the work is good exercise—I am about as fit physically as any figure in the genre—any mundane figure—and I like that feeling of independence and self-reliance. If civilization collapses tomorrow, we will still be warm. So this one time I drew on my wood-splitting background; perhaps I can say that in this case fiction is the splitting image of experience. "Wood" was published in the Oct-ogre 1970 F&SF "All Star" issue. Say—I had become a star at last! One critic remarked sourly that I had once again left a moral sticking out at an odd angle. True—but how those critics hate any suggestion of meaning in fiction.
Buddy was an only child in a family of eight. Specifically, he had five adult sisters ranging in age from the neighborhood of ten to the neighborhood of sixteen, the least of these more bossy than it was possible to be. In the distance beyond these were one or two harried parents, almost always away at work or home asleep, and of these only Dad was male. It was not a bearable situation for a young man, and Buddy kept to himself as much as possible.
When he was two he found a long, sharp kitchen knife under the sink, and brought it proudly into sight. There was an extraordinarily unpleasant fuss. So that diversion was a complete washout.
When he was two and a half he uncovered a broken rusty jackknife in the dirt under the back step. Since he was not stupid, he kept it out of sight. When unobserved—and this was much of the time, for the adult sisters had numerous and trivial concerns of their own—he studied it at leisure. The blade did not taste good, but it was fine for digging, and gradually the pitted, brownish surface became more shiny.
Behind the house a fair distance was a tremendous chopping block, where Dad periodically wielded a massive axe in an effort to reduce unruly chunks of wood to fireplace kindling. Chips and bark were all around, and the ground was scuffled intriguingly. It was a fascinating region, and he liked the smell and feel of the wood, and the fat cockroaches that scuttled under the bark. Because he knew from observation that this was Man's work, he took his knife there and commenced his private apprenticeship as a Split.
At first he cut himself, but had the presence of mind to hide the knife before the distaff commotion centered on him. The second time it happened he managed not to scream, and after a while the blood got sticky and hard. Judiciously applied dirt concealed the wound, and it didn't hurt any more. Soon he found out how to avoid such mishaps by bracing the blade away from his hand. He became adept at carving kindling.
When he was three he was able to render a given wood chip into sections hardly thicker than matchsticks. It was a matter of following the grain and being careful.
Then he came across a battered, gap-toothed hatchet in the garage. This was a splendid find, though it was horrendous to swing. Once he mastered this he was able to split larger sections of wood and do it with real dispatch. Here the lie of the grain was even more important, for if he struck a piece incorrectly, the hatchet could bounce back and fly out of his grasping little fingers. He also discovered that some chunks were harder than others, and some sappier, and others twistier. For each type he evolved a special technique.
At three and a half, Buddy discovered that he could split even the largest logs by hammering in a wedgelike scrap of metal until the wood strained and sundered. But his wedge was brittle and bent, and the hammer he used had a loose handle, so he had to be very careful. Not only did he have to study the grain, he had to analyze the general configuration of the segment, discover any natural cracks, and determine the general type of wood. There was quite a difference between soft, straight pine and hard, curved yellow birch! He also had to work around the knots, and sometimes to flake off outside sections along the circular growth-rings. But one way or another he could, in time, split any piece at all.
In fact, he was an expert wood-splitter by the time he achieved the independent age of four. His adult sisters had long since given up and let him play with his tools, for he could put up a respectable battle when balked. They had no comprehension of the intricacies of woodcraft and were forever and unreasonably scornful of what they called his tall stories about grains and types. "He's out of bounds!" they exclaimed, not knowing that all boys his age were out of bounds, but few were as specialized as Buddy.
One day a free-lance field agent for the Snurptegian Confederation happened by, attracted by the measured tapping of loose-handled hammer on brittle, bent wedge. The creature ascertained that no adults were present (for they tended to be narrow-minded about extraterrestrials), approached the scene of activity, and waited politely while Buddy completed his incision. A final series of blows, a judicious poke with the jackknife, and the piece fell cleanly cloven.
—Bravo! the Snurp agent exclaimed.—A masterful job.