Evolution

He was spotted first by a child, a chubby little girl playing with worn pebbles at the water’s edge. Aged maybe five, she was naked save for a string of beads around her neck. She looked up, startled. He smiled at her, eyes wide and empty. She screamed and bolted down the riverbank, as he had expected her to do. He walked slowly after her.

The signs of settlement were soon apparent. The muddy ground underfoot was pocked with footprints, and he saw fishing nets strung across the river. After following a tight curve in the river’s flow he came into view of the settlement itself. From a cluster of huts, roughly conical, threads of smoke curled up into the afternoon sky.

This was no temporary camp, he saw immediately. The huts had been built on sturdy logs driven deep into the ground. These river folk had been here for a while, and they evidently intended to stay.

A glance at the river showed why. Not far along the bank, the vegetation on both sides of the water had been trampled down, and he could see the glimmer of stones on the riverbed. This was a ford, where the migrating herds could cross the water. All the people had to do was wait here for the animals to come to them. And, indeed, he saw a great pile of bones, what looked like antelope, ox, even elephant, stacked up behind the huts.

But he was puzzled by the huts themselves. Their walls were solid, save for a break at each cone’s apex to allow the smoke out, and there was no way for light to get in. Who would live in such darkness?

Two adults came running toward him — both women, he saw. They carried unremarkable wooden spears and stone axes, and wore straightforward skin wraps, much like his own. Their faces were daubed with crude but fierce-looking ocher designs, and they both had bits of bone pushed through their noses. One of the women raised her spear toward his chest. "Fu, fu! Ne hai, ne, fu!…"

He recognized none of the words. But he could tell that this crude jabber was like the pidgin he had grown up speaking, with none of the richness that had been steadily developing among Mother’s people.

This was going to be easy.

He forced a smile. Then, moving slowly, he slid his bag from his shoulder and let it fall open. Watching the women, he produced a carved seashell. He put the shell on the ground before the women, and backed away, hands spread and empty. I am a stranger, yes. But I am no threat. I want to trade. And this is what I have. See how beautiful it is…

The women were disciplined. One kept her weapon aimed at his chest, while the other bent to inspect the shell.

The shell itself had last seen the sea a decade ago, and had since traveled hundreds of kilometers inland via tenuous, long-distance trading chains. And now it had been engraved with an exquisite elephant-head design by one of the people’s best artisans, a young girl with long, delicate fingers. When the woman recognized the elephant’s face, she gasped, childlike. She grabbed the shell and clutched it to her chest.

After that, the women beckoned Sapling to follow them toward the settlement. He walked easily, not looking back, confident his companions would remain concealed.

In the settlement of the river folk he created a stir. People glared as he passed, though they stared greedily at the carved shell. A couple of children, including the little girl who had first raised the alarm, tailed him, skipping, curious.

He was led into one of the huts. This was a typical living space, with an elaborate hearth, sleeping pallets, and food, tools, and skins stacked up. It looked as if ten or a dozen people lived here, including kids. But the family had cleared out, leaving only a couple of bearded men, at least as old as he was, and the women who had brought him here. The floor was well trampled and littered with the usual detritus of human occupation — bones, stone flakes from knapping, a few half-eaten roots and fruit.

The men sat before the smoldering embers in the hearth. They all had huge bones stuck through the septa of their noses. One of them gestured. "Horn!" The word was unfamiliar, the gesture unmistakable.

Sapling sat on the far side of the fire. He was offered a cooked root to eat and a drink of some thick liquid. As he laid out his goods he cast greedy looks around the hut. The hearth was elaborate — far more so than the simple holes in the ground made by Mother’s people. And there was a pit nearby, skin-lined and filled with water and big flat riverbed boulders. He could immediately see how the water could be heated by dropping in fire-hot stones. There was a structure of clay bricks and straw that he failed to understand: He had never seen a kiln before. There were a few unusual artifacts, like well-made baskets — and a bowl made of what he thought at first was wood, but turned out to be a strange kind of hardened clay.

But most entrancing were the lamps.