Evolution

He found a heap of tools. A thick pile of spill showed that this was a place where stone tools were habitually made. He rummaged idly through the tools. Some were only half-finished. But there was a bewildering variety — he saw axes, cleavers, picks, hammer-stones, knives, scrapers, borers — and other designs he didn’t even recognize.

Now he saw what looked like an ordinary ax, a stone head fixed to a handle of wood. But the head was bound by a bit of liana so tightly wound he couldn’t unpick it. He had seen lianas strangle other plants. It was as if someone had put this ax head and its handle into the grip of a living liana, and then waited until the plant had grasped the artifacts, binding them more tightly together than any fingers could manage.

Here was a bit of netting like the one he had seen Harpoon wearing on the beach. It was a bag with tools of stone and bone inside it. He picked the bag up experimentally and lifted it to his shoulder, as he had seen Harpoon do. Pebble’s kind did not make bags. They carried only what they could hold in their hands or sling over their shoulders. He teased at the stringy netting. He thought it might be creepers or lianas. But the fibers had been twisted tightly into a strong rope that was finer than any liana.

He dropped the bag, baffled.

It was like his hut, and yet it was not. For one thing it was strange to have everything separated. At home, you ate where you liked, made your tools where you liked. The space was not divided up. Here there seemed to be one place to eat, one to sleep, one to make the fire, one to work on tools. That was disturbing. And -

"Ko, ko, ko!"

A man had come in through the entrance. Silhouetted against the daylight he was tall, skinny like Harpoon, and had the same bulging dome of a head. There was fear in his weak face, but he raised a spear.

Adrenaline flooded Pebble’s system. He got to his feet quickly, assessing his opponent.

The man, dressed in tied-on skins, was whip thin, with stringy muscles. He would be no match for Pebble’s brute strength. And that weapon was just a spear of carved and hardened wood, light for throwing: It wasn’t a thrusting spear, which was what was needed for fighting in this tight space. Pebble would be able to snap that scrawny neck easily.

But the man, frightened, looked determined. "Ko, ko, ko!" he yelled again. And he took one step forward. Pebble growled, bracing himself to meet the thrust.

"Ya ya." Here was Harpoon. She grabbed the man’s arm. He tried to pull away. They began to argue. It was a conversation just as might have occurred in Pebble’s hut: a string of words — none of which he could understand — with no structure or syntax, and only repetition, volume, and gesturing for emphasis. It took a long time, as all such arguments did. But at last the man backed down. He glared at Pebble, spat on the floor of the hut, and stalked out.

Cautiously Harpoon clambered into the hut. Watching Pebble, she sat on the trampled ground. Her eyes were bright in the gloom.

Slowly, Pebble sat before her.

At length Harpoon pushed her slim hand under a bark blanket and pulled out a handful of baobab fruit. She held it out to Pebble. Hesitantly he took it. For long heartbeats they sat in silence, representatives of two human subspecies, with not a word, not a gesture in common.

But at least they weren’t trying to kill each other.

After that day Pebble felt increasingly uncomfortable in his home, with his people.

The stringy folk seemed to accept him. The tall man who had found him in the hut, Ko-Ko — for Pebble would always think of his cries of "Ko, ko!" "Get away!" — never quite trusted him, that was clear. But Harpoon seemed to take to him. They worked tools together, she showing off the subtle skills of her delicate fingers, he his immense strength. They peered across the sea at the rich island that still tantalized Pebble.

And they tried to work out each other’s vocabulary. It wasn’t easy. There were many words, such as directional terms like "west," which Pebble’s ancestors had never needed.

He even went hunting with her.

These newcomers were by preference scavengers or ambush hunters. With their lithe but feeble frames they used guile rather than brute strength to make their kills, and their weapons of choice were hurled, not thrust. But they grew to welcome Pebble’s mighty contributions during the closing stages of a kill, when the prey had to be finished off at close quarters.

Meanwhile, the two kinds of people started a new kind of relationship. They did not fight, nor did they ignore each other, the only two ways people had had to relate to each other before.

Instead, they traded. In exchange for the fruits of the sea and some of their artifacts, such as their massive thrusting spears, Pebble’s folk began to receive bone tools, meat from the interior, marrow, skins, and exotic items like honey.