Crude-looking carts were parked in the shadow of one wall, and other bits of equipment — what looked like spades, hoes, crossbows — were stacked in neat piles under bits of treated skin. There was even a neat, orderly latrine system: trenches topped by little cubicles and wooden seats.
The effect was oddly formal, like a barracks, a small piece of a peculiarly ordered civilization carved out of the jungle, which proliferated beyond the tall stockade that surrounded the huts. Last night McCann had been apologetic about the settlement’s crudity, but with its vegetable-fibre clothing and carts and tools of wood and stone, it struck Malenfant as a remarkable effort by a group of stranded survivors to carve out of this unpromising jungle something of the civilization they had left behind.
But the huts” sod walls were eroded and heavily patched by mud. And several of the huts appeared abandoned, their walls in disrepair, their tiny gardens desiccated back to crimson dust.
There was nobody about — no humans, anyhow.
A man dressed in skins crossed the compound’s little street, barefoot, passing from one hut to another. He was broad, stocky, like Julia. A Neandertal, perhaps.
In one corner of the compound two men worked at a pile of rocks, steadily smashing them one against the other, as if trying to reduce them to gravel. The men were naked, powerful. Malenfant could immediately see they were the Homo erectus types. They were restrained by heavy ropes on their ankles, and they didn’t seem aware of his presence. The display of their strength, unaccompanied by the control of minds, disturbed him.
But he could still smell bacon. Comparative anthropology could wait.
He followed his nose to a hut at the centre of the compound. Within, a table had been set with wooden plates and cups and cutlery, and in a small kitchen area another Neandertal-type woman, older then Julia, was frying bacon on slabs of rock heated by a fire. In the circumstances, it seemed incredibly domesticated.
Nemoto was sitting at the table, chewing her way steadily through a slab of meat. She looked at him as he entered, and raised an eyebrow.
“…Malenfant. Good morning.”
Malenfant turned at the voice, and his hand was grasped firmly.
Hugh McCann was wearing a suit, Malenfant was startled to see, with a collared shirt and even a tie. But the suit and shirt were threadbare, and Malenfant saw how McCann’s belt dug into his belly.
McCann saw him looking. He said ruefully, “I never was much of a hand with the needle. And our bar-bar friends make fine cooks, but they don’t have much instinct for tailoring, I fear.”
Malenfant was fuddled by the scent of the food. “Bar-bars?”
“For barbarians,” Nemoto said, her mouth full. “The Neandertals.”
“They call themselves Hams,” McCann said. “A Biblical reference, of course. But bar-bars they were to me as a boy, and bar-bars they will always remain, I fear.” His accent was clearly British, but of a peculiarly strangulated type Malenfant hadn’t encountered outside of World War II movies. And he gave Malenfant’s name a strong French pronunciation. He took Malenfant’s elbow and guided him towards the kitchen area. “What can we offer you? The bacon comes from the local breed of hog, and is fairly authentic, but the bird who laid those eggs was no barnyard chicken: rather some dreadful flightless thing like a bush turkey. Still, the eggs are pretty tasty.” He flashed a smile at the Ham cook, showing decayed teeth.
First things first. Malenfant grabbed a plate and began to ladle it full of food. The wooden utensils were crude, but easy to use. He took his plate to the table, and sat with Nemoto, who was still eating silently. Malenfant sliced into his bacon. The well-cooked meat fell apart easily.
After a moment McCann joined them. “I expect last night is all a bit of a blur. You did rather go on a bust, Malenfant.”
“Body fluid redistribution,” Nemoto said dryly. “Low oxygen content. You just could not take it, Malenfant.”
“I’ll know better next time.”
“Runners,” Nemoto said.
“What?”
“The Erectus/Ergaster breed. Mr McCann calls them Runners — Running Men, Running-folk.”
“Quite a danger in the wild,” McCann said around a mouthful of bacon. “That scrog of wood where we found you was hotching with them. But once broken they are harmless enough. And useful. A body strong enough for labour, hands deft enough to handle tools, and yet without the will or wit to oppose a man’s commands — if backed up by a light touch of the sjambok from time to time…”
Nemoto leaned forward. “Mr McCann. You said that when you were a boy you called the Neandertals — that is, the Hams — bar-bars. So were there Hams in, umm, in the world you came from?”
McCann dug a fork into his scrambled egg, considering the question. He seemed more comfortable talking to Malenfant than to Nemoto, and he directed his remarks to him. “Look here,” he said. “I don’t know who you are or where you’re from, not yet. But I’m going to be honest with you from the start. I don’t mind telling you that yours are the first white faces we’ve seen since we’ve come here. Aside from those dreadful Zealot types, of course, but they’re no help to us, and beyond the pale anyhow… Yes,” he said. “Yes, there are Hams where I come from. There. That’s a straight answer to a straight question, and I trust you’ll treat me with the same courtesy.”
“Where?” Nemoto pressed. “Where are your Hams? In Europe, Asia—”
“Yes. Well, they are now. But not by origin, of course. The Hams came originally from the New World.”
Nemoto asked, “America?”
McCann frowned. “I don’t know that name.”
Malenfant eyed Nemoto. “What are you thinking?”
“An alternate Earth,” Nemoto said simply.
Yes, he thought. McCann had come from an Earth, a different Earth, a world where Neandertals had survived to the present — a world where pre-European America had been in the occupation, not of a branch of Homo sapiens, but of another species of humankind altogether, a different flesh… What an adventure that must have been, Malenfant thought, for a different Columbus.
Nemoto said softly, “I think we may be dealing with a whole sheaf of worlds here, Malenfant. And all linked by this peculiar wandering Red Moon.”
McCann was listening intently Malenfant saw how deeply cut were the lines in his face, he might have been fifty, but he looked older, careworn, intense, lit by a kind of desperation. He said, “You believe we come from different worlds.”
“Different versions of Earth,” Nemoto said.
He nodded. “And in this Earth of yours, there are no Hams?”
“No,” Nemoto said steadily.
“Well, we have no Runners. The Runners may be native to this place, perhaps.” He eyed them sharply. “And what about the others, the Elf-folk and the Nutcrackers…”
Malenfant said, “If you mean other breeds of hominids, or pre-homimds — no. Nothing between us and the chimps. The chimpanzees.”
McCann’s eyes opened wider. “How remarkable. How — lonely.”
The Neandertal woman, with a bulky grace, came to the table and began to gather up their dishes.
They walked around the compound.
There was very little metal here: a few knives, bowls, shears. These tools, it seemed, had been cut from the wreck of the ship that had brought McCann and his colleagues here: like Nemoto and Malenfant, the English had got here under their own power. So the tools were irreplaceable and priceless — and they were a target for steady theft, by Hams within and without the compound. McCann said the Hams did not use the tools; they seemed to destroy them or bury them, removing this trace of novelty from the world.