Climate of Change (34 page)

But Eaglehawk and Crow were not necessarily on friendly terms. Sometimes Crow tried to trick Eaglehawk, or work other mischief. Once Crow killed Eaglehawk's son and tried to blame someone else, just as a joke. But Eaglehawk lacked a sufficient sense of humor, and discovered the truth, and buried Crow with the body.

But before Rebel could locate one of those spirits and plead for some insight into her situation, she was summoned back to her own realm. This was frustrating, but could not be avoided.

The third time she woke, her headache had retreated somewhat, and she seemed to be clean. Haven had made her comfortable. At the moment she was alone, so she tried to speak to herself. The words still wouldn't come. It was as though she had no language.

Haven entered the chamber. Rebel saw now that it was actually a cave. In fact she recognized it; it was one the two of them had discovered years ago, and kept secret. A retreat that they could go to, that no one else knew about. Haven must have brought her here to mend.

But how had she gotten this way? She couldn't remember. So she tried to ask her sister—and the words evaporated before she could catch them.

Haven spoke again, and again it was gibberish.

Rebel made another effort to speak, trying to force the words out. But all that happened was a frustrated groan.

Haven said something, and by the intonation it was a question. Rebel spread her hands to show her confusion.

Haven asked another question. Rebel put on a blank look.

Haven looked at her with dawning astonishment. “?” she asked.

Rebel shrugged. She could hear her sister perfectly well, but couldn't understand her. She was pretty sure Haven wasn't speaking a foreign language; how could she have so suddenly learned it? So it had to be Rebel herself who couldn't understand it—or speak it. She had lost her language.

Slowly comprehension came to Haven's face. “!” she said.

Rebel nodded. She was pretty sure her sister had come to the same conclusion.

Haven thought for a moment, then backed off, put her hand to the ground, and smoothed a section of the dirt. Then she took her forefinger and drew a circle. She drew another, smaller, beside it. Then she made a series of lines, extending from the large circle and connecting it to the small one.

It was a simple figure of a human being, with sticklike arms and legs and a funny face. Rebel smiled, recognizing its nature. This she could understand.

Then Haven added a little line between the legs. A penis, making the figure male. Rebel nodded. It was a relief to achieve some sort of communication at last.

Then Haven added wavy lines, signaling hair, and a heavy line across that hair. All at once Rebel recognized the man: the one who had been clubbed on the head during a fight. She couldn't find his name, but remembered how he had been rather crazy for some time after that. Apparently the knock to the head had addled his common
sense. The injury healed soon enough, but it took far longer for his personality to return to normal.

Then Rebel caught on to Haven's purpose in drawing the figure. Yes, this had happened to her! She had been hit on the head—she couldn't remember it, but her blood-matted hair was proof of it—and it must have addled her sense too. Or at least her language.

She touched the figure, and nodded, touching her own head. She was crazy because of the injury.

Haven nodded. She formed her right hand into a loose fist and raised it to her face, as if drinking from a cup. She raised an eyebrow in query.

Yes, Rebel was thirsty. So she made a similar fist and drank from it.

Haven went to the side of the cave and picked up a closed gourd. She poured it into a leaf cup, and brought the cup to Rebel. Rebel drank thirstily, gulping it down immediately. Haven filled it again, and this time Rebel drank more slowly.

Haven put her fingers to her mouth, as if conveying something here. She bit at an invisible fruit, and glanced at Rebel.

Rebel nodded. She was hungry. Haven went to the side of the cave, and opened a hide bag. She brought out a ripe fruit and brought it to Rebel. Rebel took it and bit into it, satisfying her hunger.

Then she needed to urinate. She gestured to the appropriate section of her body, and Haven nodded. Haven helped her stand and supported her while she wavered dizzily, waiting for the resurgent headache to fade. Then they went out of the cave, into the bright light beyond, and to the bushes nearby.

That was enough; she was tired. Rebel returned to her bed and lay down, and slept. She was feeling somewhat better physically, and much better emotionally, because she had established communication with Haven. Now she understood what had happened to her, and that gave her direction. She needed to discover who had done it, and why. The spirits of Dreamtime would know, if they cared to tell. But this could be complicated.

There were not just primordial ancestors of human clans in
Dreamtime. There were also ancestral plants and animals, as well as sacred rocks, wells, and ritual areas of great power. Hostile or trickster spirits might also be present, as they were in the real world. Such spirits might empty a fine bees' nest of its honey just before a person could harvest it, or inflict some awful disease or curse, or kill a person, ignore her, or teach her a new way to dance or hunt. Everything depended on whether the spirit was beneficial or evil or merely capricious, and on how it was approached, or perhaps on what mood it was in at the moment. A person could approach a spirit the wrong way simply by not recognizing it, and the spirits could masquerade as anything, so it could be tricky indeed. Rebel would be better off to approach none of them, than to accost one the wrong way.

She paused to consider, as this was best done
before
she encountered a spirit. She believed those of Dreamtime were similar to those of the real world, so that should be a guide. In the real world, the Wurulu-Wurulu stole honey by using bottlebrush flowers tied to sticks to empty the nest. They also caused mischief by putting their own paintings over those left by ancestral heroes. So probably she didn't want to approach one of them. There were the Argula, who were associated with evil sorcery. They painted distorted human figures in rock shelters and sang evil curses into them. That wouldn't do either. Then there were the graceful Mimi, who lived in cracks on cliff faces, and left their own paintings, which were said to predate the flood. They were not inimical, but could inflict sickness or curses if they were angered or suddenly surprised. Sometimes folk found a wallaby that seemed tame; that made it likely to be a pet of a Mimi, so it was left alone rather than hunted. That was perhaps the best prospect. Then there were the Namorodo, associated with shooting stars, so thin that they were no more than skin and bone held together by sinew. They traveled at night, flying through the air with a swishing sound and killing with their long claws. If a dead person's spirit was captured by a Namorodo, it could not rejoin the wandering totemic ancestors, but became instead a malevolent spirit wandering through the brush.

So she should seek a Mimi, hoping not to surprise it. Then, if she pleaded prettily enough, it might give her the information she wanted.
She set out, moving through Dreamtime at mysteriously variable speed, sometimes flying without wings, sometimes walking without moving her feet. It wasn't really by her volition; the dream terrain took her where it would, how it would.

Then she found a Mimi. It was in the form of a wisp of mist rising from a crevice in a cliff wall. She halted respectfully before it, giving it time to see her. After a while it curled toward her, acknowledging her presence. “O Mimi,” she pleaded. “I beg you, tell me what I must know.”

The Mimi considered. Then it spoke, with a voice like that of a moth. “Kungarankalpa.” It faded away.

Rebel woke. She understood that word! It was the Seven Sisters. They were ancestral heroines of the north, who fled south to escape a lustful man named Nyiru, who wanted to rape the eldest sister. Their path across the continent was marked throughout, crossing the territories of many clans. East of Uluru was a string of claypans and rock pools, evidence of their passage. West of Atila they had camped for the night, building a windbreak which became a low cliff. In the morning they dived into the ground, emerging again at Tjuntalitja, a sacred well. But Nyiru watched them from a nearby sandhill. From there they walked to Wanakula, a rock hole collecting water. Then to Walinya, a hill on which they built a hut and camped again. That hut became a cave in a grove of wild fig trees, and one of the fig trees, standing apart, was associated with the oldest sister, the one fleeing the rape.

Nyiru watched until night, when he thought they were asleep, then burst into the hut. He was going to possess the woman he desired, and the others couldn't stop him. But when he landed on her body, he found it to be a pile of brush and leaves. Meanwhile, the sisters were escaping through a low opening in the rear of the cave. No chance to catch them by surprise; they had anticipated his move.

The Seven Sisters finally made their way to the southern coast, where there was a great gulf reaching into the land. There, still fleeing Nyiru's implacable pursuit, they plunged into the sea. The shock of the cold water caused them to jump into the sky; they weren't accustomed to the chill of the southern waters. They became the constellation Kurialya, called the Seven Sisters. But Nyiru still chased them, and his
footprints also marked the night sky, his toes becoming three bright stars nearby. He did not seem to have caught them, but if those three bright toes ever moved to the seven faint ones, that would be evidence of his victory.

Rebel considered. She was the younger of two sisters, so the legend didn't seem to fit. But the Mimi had named it, so it had to be relevant. Her larger family consisted of seven, including her sister, three brothers, husband, and husband's sister, who was about her own age. Maybe that was it. But Haven was the elder sister, and nothing had happened to her. So it still didn't fit.

Well, she would have to ask Haven. Except that they couldn't talk. That was a continuing frustration. Anyway, Haven wasn't here right now. So there was nothing to do except ponder it alone.

She wasn't sure whether it was a dream or a vision, or both, but was sure it wasn't reality. If it was another aspect of Dreamtime, it was a strange one, as it matched none of the legends she knew. She was among monkeys, or rather apes, who dropped from the trees to the ground and scrambled across it, four footed. But this was awkward, because their feet were made for grasping branches, and they had to walk on knuckles. Also, there was danger on the ground, from predators like lions and leopards and hyenas and canines, as well as ornery hogs and buffalo and rhinos and elephants. It was difficult to eat enough on the ground before being driven back to the trees for safety. They needed to grab handfuls of food to take back to the trees, to be eaten at leisure—but that was hard when running on knuckles. So they specialized, making their hind feet more solid so they could support more weight, and the forepaws more delicate and mobile so that they could grasp and hold food more competently. Of course it was awkward climbing a tree with the hands holding food, so there had to be compromises, but this still worked better than the old system. Soon they were walking, striding, and running on two hind feet all the time, using the front feet for carrying or climbing, depending on the need.

But going two-footed led to endless complications. It straightened out their bodies, making it possible to mate face-to-face. Rebel did it many times, intrigued by her new ability to see her partner during the
act. It made her front as interesting to males as her rear, so she developed frontal attractions, because there were advantages to being able to hold a man's attention from any position. It provided her with greater control than she had had before, and that was nice. But it also made it harder for children, because they took time to learn the art of balancing on two feet, and had to be carried until they did learn. Carrying a baby had the same problem as carrying food: it limited her options, making it harder to climb trees or to forage. She couldn't do them all at once, and that made survival harder. She needed help.

She solved that by intensifying her ability to attract and hold the interest of a man. Then he protected her and her baby, and got her food. Thus families were founded. But this required better social skills as well as foraging, sexual, and baby-raising skills. There was so much to learn and remember, and much of it could be learned from the experience of others. So she grew a larger brain, becoming smarter, to handle this more complicated two-footed life on the ground. Still, there were limits to observation of others, because the things she needed to know weren't always happening when she needed to know them. Some of them were rarities, like getting burned by the fire from a volcano; it was better if someone who had experienced that, however long ago or far away, could tell her what it was like. But how was that to be done, with no way to express it?

Other species didn't try. But hers did. They started showing and telling each other about things that existed or happened far away. To do this they needed to discover symbols: words or gestures that stood for other things. This was the hardest concept to grasp: that what was being indicated was not here but elsewhere. A hungry lion was in the valley, an angry river was flooding its banks, a fruit tree had just ripened. But those who were able to grasp the concept had a better chance to avoid the lion or river, and to reach the tree before others got its fruit. Thus a concept improved survival.

Once that started working, it got better. Those who were quickest to master concepts lived better and had more children. They became more facile at the art of elsewhere. “Good berries, that way,” Haven said as she pointed. Haven was in this vision, while she had not been
in Dreamtime. “Bad leopard.” So Rebel knew she could get food, but would have to watch out for the leopard. She warned Haven's son Risk, and went in the indicated direction. The leopard was there, and they had to leap for a tree. The leopard could climb a tree, but not as well as people could, so it did not pursue them there. But when the leopard left, they dropped back down and reached the berry patch and feasted. They had avoided danger and gotten their bellies full, because Haven had told them about both.