This pithecine mother’s birth canal was narrower in comparison to her baby’s head than any previous primate’s. Her baby had entered the canal facing its mother’s side, to let its head through. But then it had to turn so its shoulders lined up with the canal’s widest dimension. Sometimes the baby would finish up in the easiest position, facing its mother, but more often than not it would turn away from her.
In the future, as hominid skulls increased in size to accommodate larger brains, still more elaborate redesigns of the birth passageways would be required, so that Joan Useb’s baby would have to twist and turn in a complicated fashion as it headed for the light. But even in these deep times, the first bipedal mothers already needed midwives — and a new kind of social bond had been forged among the pithecines.
At last the baby emerged fully, falling to the leaf-strewn ground with a plop, its small fists closing. The mother fell to the ground with a gasp of relief. One older pithecine picked up the child, cleared plugs of mucus from its mouth and nose, and blew into its nostrils. At the hairy little scrap’s first wail, the midwife peremptorily thrust the baby at its mother and loped away.
Suddenly Far felt strong hands around her ankles. She was jolted, leaves and dirt scraped under her back, and she lost sight of the mother and baby.
She was being dragged over the floor. Every time her head clattered on a rock or tree root pain exploded. Hooting, screeching creatures were all around her. These were all males, she saw now, with knotty pink genitals half-buried in their fur, and astonishingly large testicles that they would scratch absently. When they walked their gait was oddly awkward, the joints of their hips peculiar.
She realized dimly that they were hauling her deeper into the forest. But she seemed to have no strength, no will to fight.
Suddenly another bunch of pithecines came rushing out of the deeper green, howling angrily. The males who had taken Far rose to confront these newcomers.
For a time there was a festival of yelling, hooting, and displaying. The pithecines bristled their fur, making some of them look twice their usual size. The larger ones crashed through branches, ripped leaves from the trees, and leapt and slapped at the ground. One of Far’s group sprouted an immense pink erection that he waggled at the interlopers. Another leaned back and pissed over his challengers. And so on. It was cacophonous, baffling, stinking, a skirmish between two groups of creatures who looked identical to a bewildered Far.
At last Far’s captors drove off the intruders. Bristling with leftover aggression they hurled themselves around the trees, screeching and snapping at one another.
Now, calming, the pithecines began to forage on the ground, their long fingers raking through the debris of leaves and twigs. One of them found a chunk of black rock, a cobble of basalt. He quickly found another rock, and he turned the first over and over in his hands, his pink tongue comically protruding from his mouth.
At last he seemed satisfied. His eyes on the basalt rock, he set it on the ground, holding it precisely between thumb and forefinger. Then he slammed down his hammer-stone. Splinters sprayed away from the target rock, many of them so small they were barely visible. The pithecine rummaged in the dirt, rumbling his disappointment, then he turned back to his rock and started to turn it over in his hands once more. The next time he struck it, a thin black flake the size of his palm sheared off neatly. The pithecine hefted his flake in his hand, turning it around between thumb and forefinger while he studied its edge.
This stone knife was just a cracked-off splinter of stone. But its manufacture, involving an understanding of the material to be shaped and the use of one tool to make another, was a cognitive feat that would have been far beyond Capo.
The pithecine eyed Far. He was aware that Far was conscious, but he was going to begin his butchery anyhow.
His arm flashed out. The stone flake sliced into Far’s shoulder.
The sudden sharpness of the pain, and the warm gush of her own blood, brought Far out of her passive shock. She screeched. The pithecine roared in response and raised his flake again. But, just as she had crushed the scorpion, Far slammed the heel of her hand into his face. She felt a satisfying crunch of bone, and her hand was covered in blood and snot. He recoiled, blood gushing.
The pithecines fell back, startled, hooting their alarm and slapping their big hands on the ground, as if reassessing the strength and danger of this large angry animal they had brought into their forest.
But now one of them bared his teeth and began to advance on her.
She forced herself to her feet and ran, deeper into the forest gloom.
She clattered against tree trunks, got lianas and roots wrapped around her legs, and pushed through dense knots of branches. Her long legs and powerful lungs, designed for hours of running over flat, open ground, were all but useless in this dense tangle, where she couldn’t take a step without tripping over something.
And meanwhile the pithecines moved like shadows around her, chattering and hooting, climbing easily up trunks and along branches, leaping from tree to tree. This was their environment, not hers. When they had committed themselves to the savannah, Far’s kind had turned their backs on the forest — which had, as if in revenge, become a place not of sanctuary but of claustrophobic danger, populated by these pithecines which, like the sprites they resembled, would inhabit nightmares long into the future.
Before long the pithecines had overtaken her on both sides, and began to move closer.
She stumbled suddenly into a twilight-dark clearing — where a new monster reared up before her, bellowing. She squealed and fell flat in the dirt.
For a heartbeat the monster stood over Far. Beyond it squat forms sat; broad faces turned toward her, incurious, huge jaws chewing.
The monster was another hominid: another pithecine, in fact, a robust form. This big male, with an immense swollen belly, was taller and much bulkier than the gracile types who had captured her. His posture, even when he stood erect, was much more apelike; he had a sloping back, long arms, and bent legs. His head was extravagantly sculpted, with high cheeks, an immense, rocklike jaw filled with worn, stubby teeth, and a great bony crest that ran down the length of his skull.
Exhausted, in pain, her shoulder bleeding heavily, Far curled up on the ground, expecting those immense fists to come slamming down on her. But the blows never came.
The blocky creatures on the ground behind the big male huddled a little closer together. They were all females, with heavy breasts over those giant bellies, and as they stared at Fur, they pulled their tubby infants toward them. But still they sat and ate, Far saw. One female picked up a hard nut — so hard Far would have had to use a rock to crack its shell — placed it between her teeth and, pushing up on her jaw with her hand, cracked it easily. Then she began to crunch it down, shell and all.
But now the skinny pithecines came hurtling into the clearing. When they saw Big Belly they clattered to a halt, stumbling over one another like clowns. Instantly they began to display, stalking to and fro with their fur erect; they slapped the ground and hurled twigs and bits of dried shit at their new opponent.
Big Belly growled back. The truth was this gorilla-man was a vegetarian, forced by the low quality of his diet to spend most of his day sitting still while his vast gut strove to process his food. But this immense brute with his stumps of teeth, powerfully muscled frame, and cowering harem seemed a much more intimidating proposition than the skinny pithecines. He dropped to a knuckle-walk posture with a slam that seemed to make the ground shake, his huge gut wobbling. He stalked back and forth before his little domain, his own fur bristling, roaring back at the impertinent graciles.