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Kappan way, he had become a shaman without first becoming a member of a tribe.
On that day, immediately after he had taken the drug, while the drums pounded
and the chant soared, he had seen with new and overpowering certainty how
right and necessary was the work he had already chosen to do to pull the
Kappan hominids through the sieve of testing, extracting from them the new
branch of humanity which some of them must be ready to form. This mystical
certainty had continued during the four or five days it had taken Magnuson to
arrange his own disappearance and flee to these remote villages. Then, though
he had never begun to doubt his work, a certain transcendent quality in his
belief had faded. He understood now that the drug had brought that quality
about, and had given him the courage that he might otherwise have
lacked, to act on his convictions.
But the truth of his convictions had in no way depended on the drug. During
his first weeks among these villagers, he had taken a good deal of interest in
the Water of Thought. But he was more anthropologist than biologist or
chemist, and in those early days the Kappans had not trusted him with free
access to the Water-vat in the
Temple. Soon his work with the hominids from the quarry had absorbed him, and
he had thought less and less about the Water. In fact he had never tasted it
again until just before the recent initiation, when all the candidates drank.
It had been a pleasant surprise to find that his earlier draught had evidently
given him immunity; if that was the usual case with Earthmen, the crime
syndicate was due to suffer a disappointment, which made Magnuson
feel somewhat better about his indirect involvement with them.
Now, the Water of Thought interested him hardly at all. On Kappa or on Earth,
the key to Man's future lay in his deliberate evolutionary selection of
himself, not in drugs.
He yearned intensely to get back to the Warriors' Village, where
the new man-hominid waited, newly human intelligence in his eyes. Living
proof, who must convince the Space Force that Magnuson's way was right! Oh, in
the name of Man, if only Kaleta was taking good care of the hominid!
Some distance below Magnuson, at the foot of the ridge, the suited
figure of
Morton now reappeared. The six warriors were with him, and one of
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them was carrying game. There was water down there, a small
tributary of the Yunoee. It would make a good place to camp for the night.
Morton looked up and waved imperiously for Magnuson to come down. It might be
fatal to irritate Morton again. Magnuson stood up with a sigh, and
began to descend the hill.
The sun was warm above. It came and went on Boris's eyelids as if
perhaps moving leaf-shadows intervened. Before he even opened his
eyes, he tried to remember where he was. He could tell that he was sitting
on grassy earth, his back propped against a rough-barked tree. Oh yes, of
course, the picnic. Brenda was so beautiful
An unearthly voice jabbered nearby, and memory returned with a rush.
Boris cracked his eyelids open cautiously. He beheld a daylight scene in the
shady forest.
Nearby and in the middle distance, a number of gray, two-legged
forms moved about. None of them seemed to be paying him any
particular attention at the moment.
Had they carried him here to be guest or dinner? He was still alive, which
argued for the former. And they had given him water, which was also a most
hopeful sign.
Boris tried to think his situation over, before he moved so much as a finger,
or even opened his eyes completely, while his accumulated physical
discomforts were still soothed by inertia.
At least he had escaped the villagers, Magnuson, Morton and Kaleta. Of course
Jones had died in the ordeal, and for all Boris knew the other Earth-descended
men might have also. It would be ironic indeed if Magnuson were killed in the
very ritual he loved so well and prescribed for all but Boris couldn't really
believe that he had been. Magnuson would survive if anyone did.
And Brenda at the thought of her, Boris opened his eyes wide, and
raised himself a little from his position against the tree. She was either
crawling about lost in the woods or the Kappans had taken her. If Boris was
going to have any hope of ever doing anything for her, he had to start from
where he was, by first finding out just what these hominids intended to do
with him.
A few of the gray figures noticed his movement, and heard the
accompanying groan. They turned toward him with mild interest. There was
nothing like a general alarm, no monkey-cry of alert. What jabbering took
place was between individuals.
Watching and listening, Boris got a strong impression that it was
genuine though doubtless primitive speech.
This was a gathering-place, obviously, but he could not call it a
camp. The hominids who had driven off the village warriors had been carrying
rocks and dead branches as weapons, but here not an artifact was in sight.
There was not a lean-to, a fire, a bed, a shred of clothing or an ornament.
With only his sleeve-socks and the remains of his net-garment, Boris
could feel overdressed among these leathery nudists.
On other planets he had seen primitive prime-theme people who lived almost
this simply. Yet something was very different here. Something was wrong in
this Eden,
something missing. A small crowd had accumulated and was watching Boris
with curiosity before he realized what the odd thing was. There were
babes in female arms, and there were hominids who appeared to be not quite
fully grown. But above the age of beginning toddlers, there were no
pre-pubescent children anywhere in sight.
Maybe it was a school day.
Boris decided that if anything like a joke could still occur to him, he was
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probably not yet dead. That made it necessary to sooner or later try to get to
his feet. Slow movement, with many grunts and pauses, interested his primitive
audience but did not startle them. Not that he could have moved
fast enough to startle anyone anyway. At last he reached something like
his full height, and began a planeteer's routine of supposedly friendly
gestures.
He towered, a bit unsteadily, over the crowd, whose taller heads
reached just about up to his armpits. These creatures were of the same form
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