When I came across two sets of tracks in some soft earth, my heart beat faster. I felt choked with a sense of homecoming and of love. They were the prints of two Folk, a female and male adult.

I hurried to catch up with them. Tears ran down my cheeks. I had thought that all The Folk were dead, their kind gone forever.

The trail led to the tree house so directly that I was sure the two were deliberately heading for it. Other tracks showed that the dead man had come from its direction less than 60 minutes ago.

When I was just outside the small clearing, in the center of which was the great tree with my house, I stopped. I looked through a break in the green wall and saw the female sitting with her back against a tree. She was holding an infant not quite a year old. I was close enough to smell them, and the infant was sweating the scent of near-death. Its eyes were closed, it was breathing shallowly and rapidly, and its lungs bubbled. Its body was wet.

The mother was stinking of grief and hopelessness. Her dull gaze was fixed on the male and the female under him by the big tree.

I was surprised when I saw what he was doing. In the first place, ferocious as a male of The Folk can be under some circ.u.mstances, he is shy when humans are in the area. If not cornered, he will run. But it was evident that this male had killed the man and at once gone to the tree house with his present activity in mind. I don't know what made this male behave so unusually. Perhaps, as I later speculated, his abnormal behavior was caused by a combination of long isolation from his tribe (all dead), the sickness of the infant and the female's concern for it and refusal to mate with him, and the l.u.s.t aroused by observing the man's rapings of his woman prisoner.

Also, there was the sudden madness which sometimes grips the older adult males of The Folk. This results in their running amok, however. I have never seen the temporary insanity cause any kind of s.e.xual behavior; it always causes a desire to kill all within reach. And this male was not trying to kill the woman unless it was with his c.o.c.k.

If that was his intent, it was a failure. The woman was paralyzed with terror, but otherwise she was not being hurt. The largest erect p.e.n.i.s I've ever seen among The Folk was two inches long and 3/8ths of an inch thick (estimated). If she had been a virgin, she would probably have remained one (technically so) no matter how many times he banged her.

He was on top of her and giving a short subdued scream and his body was shaking. A moment later, he renewed his thrustings.

The Folk have b.u.t.tocks, which no true apes have, and hips constructed more like those of h.o.m.o sapiens than of the gorilla, just as their feet are more hominoid than simian. (Like a Neanderthal's, I should say.) The woman's arms were behind and under her, by which I deduced that they were tied. Her ankles had been tied together. Someone had untied them, although one end of the rope was around an ankle and the other end tied to a bush. Her legs had been forced open and up over the shoulders of the male. The Folk normally use this position, unlike the apes, who usually favor the rear approach.

The skin of the woman had the peculiar beautiful bronze hue of Doctor Caliban, and the long hair spread out on the ground behind her was his dark metallic red-bronze. Her face was not visible.

I moved around the edge of the clearing until I could see that the male was kissing her. (This way of showing affection or s.e.xual desire is customary among The Folk.) This probably horrified her far more than the relatively innocuous rape. That great half-apish face had been thrust against hers, and those chimpanzee-thin lips had s...o...b..red all over her face.

It was this that made me think he must be half-mad with s.e.xual frustration. To one of The Folk, a human is a very ugly and repulsive creature. Only a perverted Folk would want to kiss a human.

I scouted around carefully, making sure that no one else was in the area. Then I stepped out of the bushes, seeing at the same time the arm of the dead man under a bush where the male had thrown it. The genitals had probably been eaten.

I gave a soft cry, "Krhgh!"

The male stiffened and came up off the woman so violently that her legs were thrown forward and she was momentarily jack-knifed. He whirled to face me.

28.

He was one of the largest I'd ever seen. He was at least six feet two inches tall and weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds. He did not look as nearly gorilloid as my biographer has described The Folk. (As I have fully explained in Volume I, my biographer wrote his first story about me before he knew me. He got all his facts-and misinformation-from records and from a man who had known one of the persons who found me when I was eighteen. Using mainly his imagination, he described The Folk as much more apish than they are. By the time he knew the truth, he could not describe them correctly and maintain consistencey in his novels.) His arms, almost as thick with muscles as a gorilla's, were as short in proportion to his trunk as a man's. The legs were shorter, however, and bowed. The body was covered with thick straight rusty-red hair which formed a covering not as thick as a chimpanzee's. The skin was as black as a bush Negro's. The bones were approximately 2 times as thick as a man's, thus giving a broad attachment for the ma.s.sive muscles.

(My own bones are almost twice as thick as a modern man's. I could pa.s.s for a Cro-Magnon.) The head was large and long and had a sagital crest, like a gorilla's, for the attachment of the ma.s.sive jaw muscles. The jaws were quite prognathous, and the canine teeth were as large as a gorilla's. The teeth had a "simian gap" for the accommodation of the tips of the lower canines. The Folk are primarily vegetarians, though they eat small animals frequently and the meat of large animals when they get a chance. The chin was absent. The supraorbital ridges were ma.s.sive, and the forehead was very low. (The average adult male cranium capacity is 800 cubic centimeters, an estimate based on my study of four skulls.) The eyes were deep sunk and a russet red, although most of The Folk have dark or light brown eyes.

Under the lower jaw was a sac which swelled out when the male challenged another, or a predator, or just wanted to howl at the moon.

The male was sweating, although not as heavily as he would have if he had been a man. The Folk have always been forest dwellers and share a paucity of sweat glands with most forest animals.

All in all, he looked like a giant variety of Zinjanthropus, and he may have been a descendant of this supposedly extinct australopithecine.

The clearing seemed to crackle and to spark, like a cat's fur rubbed the wrong way. His hairs bristled; his eyes became even redder; his open mouth showed the thick yellow teeth and sharp canines and incisors, a red tongue, and the black pit of a throat. The sac on his neck swelled out.

The back of my neck felt as if my hairs were also bristling. I automatically adopted the stiff-legged sidewise walk of belligerency as I circled him. As soon as I became aware of it, I broke the stance, bent my knees, and opened my left hand. My right hand was empty, because I did not want to threaten him with the knife I had found in the gra.s.s. He might be talked into cooperation if I did not scare him with the bright human weapon.

The male growled and then said, "Yh shttb." That is, "I am Leopard-Breaker."

I replied in the same whispering speech of The Folk, "Yh tlhs." That is, "I am Worm."

The speech of The Folk does contain some voiced consonants, mostly back-of-the-throat sounds, but the majority of words consist of unvoiced consonants. They have only one vowel, similar to the sound of u in the English cut or of o in done, and this vowel is not often used.

Worm is the literal translation of my name. My biographer used a euphemistic translation, one which reflected his pigmentation orientation. The Folk, however, considered degrees of hairiness to be more important than color. I also had other names: Bird Nose, Big c.o.c.k, Smart a.s.s, Bright Eyes, Fat Mouth, and Monkey s.h.i.t. But I was generally known as tlhs or Worm. This name is not as derogatory as humans might think; The Folk consider the worm to be a beautiful creature and very tasty and nutritious. I could have taken a more dignified and impressive name after I came of age and killed the chief of our tribe, but I preferred Worm. To me, it meant the worm that turned.

He howled at me, "I am Leopard-Breaker!"

"I am Worm!" I shouted. "Leave the female alone. Or I will kill you."

"What? A worm would kill a breaker of leopards?"

"I have killed many many leopards," I said, flashing my fingers to indicate an immense number. "I have killed many of the great fighters of The Folk. I have killed many lions."

He looked puzzled, and I knew that he did not know the word which the west coast Folk use. He had probably never seen or heard of a lion.

"I will kill you!" he screamed.

I decided to brandish my knife. When he saw it, he looked around for another stick to knock the knife out of my hand as he had done to the first owner.

I said, "Let us be friends, Leopard-Breaker."

He screamed with all the air in his throat-sac, "Kill!"

And he charged.

I threw the knife. It should have gone in to the hilt in his paunch. He lowered his head, however, so swiftly that it protected his belly, though he did not do it on purpose, I'm sure. The knife struck the top of that thick-boned head, cut the scalp, and flew off. His head rammed into my belly, and his arms snapped together.

Not until I had thrown the knife had I become aware that my p.e.n.i.s was bristling as much as my hair. Moreover, just as the knife left my hand, I became aware of an approaching o.r.g.a.s.m. This disconcerted me and unbalanced my timing and coordination and slowed me. Otherwise, I would have sidestepped his arms.

He carried me up and backwards, as he ran swiftly forwards with the intention of crashing me into a tree trunk. My arms were free, so I interlocked my fingers and brought the edges of both palms down close to my belly and on top of that crest. Though he grunted, he drove on. Again, I came down with my hands but in a slanting blow on the back of that muscle-slabbed, heavy-vertabraed neck. He grunted and slowed down, and I slammed him again on the neck. If he had been a human, he would have had a broken, or at least fractured, neck.

He dropped me and then fell on top of me. I shoved him off and twisted away, seeing at the same time, a foot away, the tree against which he had meant to break my back.

He regained his senses very quickly and kicked out behind him. My feet went from under me, and my right leg between the knee and ankle felt numbed, as if a zebra had kicked it. He rolled over and bounded to his feet. Instead of leaping at me, which he should have done with my leg half-paralyzed, he ran off to get a thick heavy piece of thornwood, which was close to the woman.

She lifted her legs as he bent over to pick up the club, and she kicked. Her heels caught him on the side of his jaw. If it had been a man's jaw, it would have shattered. He dropped on his face without a sound.

Limping, I ran towards shth-tb, but he rose unsteadily and turned towards me. The woman, who had pulled herself along on her back with her heels-another indication of the strength in those long and beautifully shaped legs-kicked him in the ankle. This was done at the expense of a rope burn, because the rope around one ankle slid up her leg. It hurt her; her face twisted.

The male went down again. Roaring, though not as loudly as he had been, he again struggled to his feet. She smote him on the side of his jaw once more with her two feet, and then, after he had fallen, she rammed a heel into his nose.

I had picked up the knife. I rolled him over on his back. Blood ran from his nose, and his eyes were crossed. His jaw hung askew as if it were broken.

"Kghd?" I said.

He did not reply verbally. His big wrinkled hairy hand shot out and gripped the woman's ankle. She gasped and tried to kick loose but could not break the grip. He sat up and dragged her toward him, breaking the rope. He kept his crossed eyes on-or toward-me. He had acted so swiftly that he had caught me unaware; I had broken my own rule for just a few seconds and now must pay. Rather, she must pay for my lack of caution in approaching him.

He could break her neck before I could get to her, and if I raised the knife to throw it, he would crack it.

Despite this, I threw the knife. I could do nothing else. He was going to kill her no matter what I did.

My hurling the knife made him loose his grip for a moment, because he had thought he had me buffaloed. She bent her neck down instead of trying to jerk away and bit his p.e.n.i.s. He screamed with surprise and agony and threw his hands up in the air. My knife went into his solar plexus with a sound as of an axe hitting soft wood. His eyes uncrossed, rolled up, the lids closed, and he fell on his back. His hands clenched, unclenched, clenched, and then were still.

I had lost control then. I was on my knees, holding myself up with both hands, and jerking with the spasms of the o.r.g.a.s.m. The gra.s.s was puddled with the gray fluid. Of all my kills since this had started, this was the most intense ecstasy. It was as exquisite-and almost as tender and one-making-as when Clio and I loved.

I think it was because I had killed a great male of The Folk. I have always loved The Folk, but at the same time I have hated, deep down, the adult male. Too many of them caused me too much pain and terror when I was young. To me, killing one of them was a far greater feat than killing any number of human males. And there was the additional thrill (later, it was a deep sadness) of killing what was probably the last male of The Folk. I had paid them back fully and finally for the bullyings and horrors of my childhood.

29.

The woman stared as if she could not believe what she had seen. I rose, pulled the knife from the belly, and wiped it on his hairy skin. The female still squatted at the other end of clearing with her infant. Ignoring the woman's requests to cut the rope loose from her wrists, I walked to the female. She looked up with eyes black as the bottom of an open grave at night. The infant looked dead.

"I won't harm you," I said. "You may stay here and share my food, if you wish. I had to kill shth-tb. He forced me to."

She said nothing. Slowly, painfully, she got to her feet, looked once at the corpse of her mate, turned, and was gone into the jungle. I did not go after her. There was nothing I could do for her. Moreover, I did not have time to spare.

I cut the woman's ropes and helped her to her feet, since her arms and hands were in pain after the blood started circulating. She was at least six feet tall and very well formed. She had a fine haunch that curved out like an apple and looked almost as hard when she tensed her gluteus maximum on feeling my hand. I withdrew it and stepped back. She rubbed her wrists, said, "It hurts," and looked speculatively at me. The bronze hair was below her shoulders, wavy, and looked remarkably unmussed-up. She had no makeup but managed to look beautiful without it. Her pubic hairs were unusually thick and two shades darker than the metallic head hair.

She saw me looking at her and smiled slightly. I did not know what the smile was supposed to mean.

"If you're going to try to rape me," she said, "I hope you're not as inept as the last two. And let me rest first and eat something. I'm tired, sore, hungry, and shaken up. I've been abducted and mauled and chewed on and repeatedly splashed on the belly with the premature e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of that demented creature. Or do you know whom I'm talking about?"

"He's dead," I said. "The ape killed him."

She said, "Oh!" and then, "That's no ape. It's a subhuman if ever I saw one, and I haven't, except in anthropology books. I didn't know that these things really existed, I'd always thought they were native myths. But it certainly isn't built for raping a female h.o.m.o sapiens. Not that it tickled me so I felt like laughing."

I had to admire her. Most women would have been hysterical, nor would I have blamed them.

"That monster-the human one-thought he was you, you know. So did I. You are he, aren't you? Could we eat? There's plenty of food in the tree-house. Canned," she added with another smile. "That wild man had a year's supply of everything."

I said, "Be at ease. I have no intention of raping you. I couldn't if I wanted to."

"Every male I run into is e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. all over the place," she said.

Then she said something that startled me.

"It's almost as big as Doc's. And just about as useless, I'll bet."

She was very cool and very strange, though I suppose she must have thought me rather weird, too. I let her precede me to the house. She was a woman, but she had shown herself to be uncommonly dangerous. I did not want her behind me until I knew I could trust her.

The tree house was about fifty feet up and situated on a platform which ran entirely around the trunk and was supported by four huge branches radiating towards the cardinal points of the compa.s.s. It was built of bamboo and thatched with elephant's ear leaves and gra.s.ses. It had three rooms. The ascent to it had to be made by stainless steel rungs which I had hammered into the trunk. Wooden rungs would have rotted in a year or two.

Trish Wilde (she had not introduced herself yet) got a fire going in the stone fireplace and wrapped herself in a blanket before it.

The house was a mess. The floors were littered with opened cans, sc.r.a.ps of food covered by insects, and even a pile of excrement in one corner. If the crazy man had been imitating me, he must have thought I had the sanitary habits of a slum dweller. One of the bamboo and gra.s.s couches looked as if it had been taking punishment. One leg was broken off and the bottom was sagging.

The woman said, "Oh, by the way, I'm Trish Wilde, and I was a.s.sistant botanist to Doctor Everfields, a world-famous botanist, and we were searching for exotic plants when I was carried off. If the crazy man hadn't surprised me so, I would have kicked his kneecap loose and then smashed his b.a.l.l.s and that would have been that.

"Once he got me up here, he hammered at me until he broke the couch. He never did get his thing into me. He kept coming on my belly. But he almost bit my nipples off."

"I can see that," I said.

"He stank, and he had a big belly, and he s...o...b..red all over me. I think he wanted to stick his c.o.c.k in my mouth, but he knew I'd bite it off if he did."

She was well educated but she talked like a wharf-dock wh.o.r.e. Certainly, she must moderate her talk in other situations. I did not know why she felt she could speak so uninhibitedly with me. Perhaps it was because she thought, and quite rightly, that my infrahuman rearing had left me without emotional reactions to the so-called "tabu" words.

"How tired are you?" I said.

"I have some energy left. Why?"

It was necessary to tell her part of my story if I were to get her to come with me voluntarily. I knew she was a member of the Nine's organization, so I would not be revealing secrets. I told her what had happened since the dawn the Kenyan's attacked, but I left out all reference to her cousin. I also made it appear that Noli had escaped from me but had sworn to go to England and take revenge on Clio.

"Have you had this year's elixir?" I said.

"No," she said. "I'm not due for the caverns until next month."

Clio was also scheduled to go then. I did not tell her that. She would know that as soon as she saw Clio, who, presumably, had made the pilgrimage with her many times.

"I am leaving within the hour," I said. "I'll be traveling as swiftly as I can and sleeping little. If you want to come with me, you're welcome. It is easy for a stranger to get lost in these mountains, and I would not like to see you try to go it alone. Nevertheless, if you can't keep up with me, I will leave you behind."

"I could use a good night's sleep," she said. "But I don't want to wander around these mountains until I die or get picked up by some h.o.r.n.y natives. I'll go with you."

I was glad that she said that, because I had made up my mind that she was coming with me no matter what she said. She could be a trade off if Caliban succeeded in getting hold of Clio.

We ate and drank and then made up a bundle for each. This consisted of a rainhat, poncho, blanket, a breakdown .22 rifle and cartridges, matches, and cans of food. Immediately after, we set off.

Despite our pace, which was rapid for the thick heavy growth of the rain forest, she had breath enough to chatter on and on. She told me of her childhood, her high school and college days, of meeting Doc, of the mysterious deaths of her father and her uncle. She had gone off with Doc and his five colleagues on several adventures. She owned a nation-wide chain of clothing shops and much property. She had a master's degree in psychology but had returned to school, after many years, and gotten a Ph.D. in botany.

I strongly suspected that this was at Doc's request. He was undoubtedly attempting to find the elixir, and he would have wanted her to help him. The ingredients for the elixir might be in plants unknown or little known.

She said, "I might still be tied up in the tree house if I hadn't talked him into letting me come down so I could walk around. After he let me lope around the clearing, like a dog on a leash, he tied me to the bush and tried to rape me again. Then he just happened to see the subhumans through a break in the vegetation; they'd been watching us all the while. He chased them, calling the male 'Brother!' and demanding that he stop and talk to him. Apparently, he winded the ape-man, or else the female couldn't go any more. So the big male must have turned and fought and killed him, and then he returned to the clearing. He saw that crazy man trying to f.u.c.k me, and it must have put ideas in his head.

"That weirdo really thought he was you. And that he was king of the jungle and all that."

"He wasn't the first," I said.