Hamilton then looked at the broad-backed male of the Ugly People, squatting near his female, cutting the hide from the deer with the ax, and then ripping it with his teeth and fingers. He took a bit of meat from a rib and gave it to the woman, and then to the boy, and then to Ugly Girl, who joined them. They were not human, Hamilton knew. Then, no longer did she scorn the male of the Ugly People. Perhaps, to him, she was no more than a female monkey might have appeared to Tree, different, small, ungainly, of no interest sexually. This annoyed her to some extent, for she was vain of her beauty, but, too, she was relieved that he had not wanted her. He gave another piece of meat to the child. It was growing dark outside. Hamilton edged toward the mouth of the cave. They were of a different species. The innocence and cruelty with which a human hunter treated his human females was, apparently, not that of the Ugly People; too, she suspected, the deep needs in her own body, and in those of the other human females, to seek out and respond to sexual domination, were apparently much less pronounced in the Ugly People; they were less sexually driven, Hamilton conjectured, than humans; doubtless, they, too, had their dominance and submission behaviors, but such behavior seemed less clear cut, less evident, than in humans; their sexual drives were less she conjectured than those of humans; the sexes in the Ugly People, she recognized, shuddering, were much less clearly differentiated than in humans; she suspected they would not breed as well. They were an experiment in evolution quite different from that of humans, Hamilton recognized, an interesting alternative, one which humans would survive, but one which, in its long millennia, when all was said and done, should man destroy himself, might prove to have endured the longer span on the calendars of time. They seemed very gentle with one another.
Hamilton again eyed the large open mouth of the cave. It would be difficult to defend, she thought. They are fools, stupid. The shelters of the Men were more rational, more defensible. Hamilton did not realize that the best shelters were indeed those of the Men, and various other human groups. The Ugly People were peaceful. They were not as aggressive as men, nor as swift, nor as intelligent, nor as cruel. Accordingly they would take what little, if anything, was left. They would compete unsuccessfully with fiercer groups. As would Pygmies and Eskimos they would be driven farther and farther from desirable land, good hunting and adequate shelter; unlike Pygmies and Eskimos, clearly distinguishable as human types, the Ugly People were not human; human beings, loathing them, would not tolerate them as competitors; they, in a peculiarly intense fashion, with their mockery of human shape, would trigger the instinctual fear of the stranger, the different; they would be hunted down and exterminated. The man thrust a tiny piece of meat into the mouth of the boy, and then rubbed his bearded chin on the boy’s shoulder.
Hamilton suddenly bolted from the cave, running into the night.
In an instant Ugly Girl was up and after her.
Hamilton plunged through the night, cutting her feet, branches striking her body. She ran. Behind her, always, sometimes closer, sometimes farther, she heard Ugly Girl. Sometimes Hamilton stopped, to hide, to elude Ugly Girl, but each time, to her misery, Ugly Girl turned toward her, approaching. Then Hamilton realized that Ugly Girl, like a hunter, could follow her trail by smell; that, like a hunter, she might hear her breathing, even from yards away. Miserable, Hamilton would leap up and run again. Her hope was to outdistance Ugly Girl. But Ugly Girl seemed tireless. More than once, Ugly Girl called out to her, in the strange tongue of the Ugly People. Then, gasping, Hamilton turned and picked up a rock. Ugly Girl stopped, a shadow among the branches. “Go back! Go away!” said Hamilton. Ugly Girl spoke to her in the language of the Ugly People. “Stay away!” cried Hamilton, lifting the rock. Ugly Girl stepped toward her. Hamilton, with a cry of misery, flung the heavy rock. It hurtled past Ugly Girl. Hamilton struck at her. Briefly the girls grappled. Hamilton wildly bit and clawed, and scratched, weeping, screaming, at Ugly Girl, but Ugly Girl handled her with ease, with much the same ease with which a man might have handled her; the women of the Ugly People, Hamilton realized to her misery, were much stronger than human females; she was no match for her, no more than she would have been for a strong boy; Hamilton was thrown to her belly; Ugly Girl knelt across her body; the women of human beings had not been bred and sexually selected by males for sturdiness and strength, and independence, but for beauty, obedience, submissiveness, responsiveness to masculine domination; Hamilton wept as she felt the hide belt on her garment removed, and felt Ugly Girl pull her wrists behind her back, and, as though she might be a man, fasten them together. Ugly Girl then removed the belt from her own garment and tied its ends together and then, slipping one end of the loop behind Hamilton’s neck, passed the other end of the loop through the first, pulling it tight, putting Hamilton in a choke collar and short leash. She then dragged Hamilton to her feet. Since the leash was short