Evolution

Enraged, Cahl twisted away from Muti. "You want to lie with her? Is that it?" He ripped at Juna’s simple shift, tearing it away from her swollen belly. "Look! The sow is full of piglets. Do you want to hump that?"

Keram frowned. "The child. Is it Cahl’s?"

She trembled harder. "No. Though my belly excites him, and he uses me. The child is a man’s from Cata Huuk. He came here. He used me. He did not tell me his name. He promised me—"

"She is lying!" Cahl raged. "She was with child when I found her."

"I am not for this place," said Juna, gazing at the town with faint disgust. "My child is not for this place. My child is for Cata Huuk."

Keram glanced again at Muti, who shrugged. Keram grinned. "I can’t tell if you’re speaking the truth, Ju-na. But you are a strange one, and your story will amuse my father—"

"No!" Again Cahl broke away. The troops moved forward. "You can’t take her!"

Keram ignored him. He nodded to Muti. "Organize the collection of the tribute. You — Ju-na — do you have any possessions here? Any friends of whom you want to take your leave?"

She seemed to puzzle over his meaning, as if she wasn’t quite sure what "possessions" were. "Nothing. And friends — only Gwerei."

Keram shrugged; the name meant nothing to him. "Make your preparations. We leave soon." He clapped his hands, and Muti and the troops proceeded to carry out his orders.

But Cahl, restrained by a guard, continued to beg and plead. "Take me! Oh, take me!"

III

It would take them three days to cover the ground to Keram’s mysterious home, to Cata Huuk.

The grain and meat, what Keram called the "tribute," was briskly collected. Juna had no idea why the townsfolk — hardly well-off themselves — should wish to hand over so much of their provisions to these strangers. They didn’t even get beer back in return.

But now was not the time for her to inquire into such matters. The speech she had rehearsed for so long, since first seeing Keram, had paid off. Now was the time for her to keep quiet and follow where she was led.

The party formed up into a loose line. Keram and Muti took the lead. Their four squat guards followed, two of them with hands free to deploy weapons, the others loaded up with the tribute. Juna, carrying nothing but the spear with which she had arrived here, approached one of the guards, expecting to be given a share of the load.

Keram rebuked her. "Let them do their job."

Juna shrugged. "In Cahl’s town, it would be my job."

"Well, I am not Cahl. You must do as we do, girl. It is our way."

"I was taken as a child from—"

"I remember what you told me," Keram said, his eyebrows raised in good humor. "I’m not sure I believe a word of it. But listen now. In Cata Huuk, the word of the Potus is law. I am the son of the Potus. You will obey me. You will not question me. Do you understand?"

Juna’s folk were egalitarian, like most hunter-gatherer folk; no, she didn’t understand. But she nodded dumbly.

They set off. The young men, unburdened, strode ahead easily enough — as did Juna, despite her pregnancy and the four months she had endured of poor diet and hard labor. But the guards puffed and complained of their weary feet.

It was a great relief for Juna to be out of the squalid town and in the open country once more, a great relief to be walking rather than bending her back over some dusty field — even if, as they headed steadily east, she was entering countryside that was increasingly remote from the place where she and her ancestors had always lived.

They stopped each night in small towns, no more or less impressive than Cahl’s had been. The guards were plied with beer and girls. Keram and Muti kept themselves to themselves, spending their nights quietly in huts. They let Juna stay with them, huddled in a corner.

Neither of them touched her. Perhaps it was her pregnancy. Perhaps they were just not sure of her. Part of her, glad to be free of the grubby attentions of Cahl, relished not having to share her body with anybody else. But part of her, more calculating, regretted it. She had no real understanding of what this place, this Cata Huuk, would be like. But she suspected her best chance of surviving was to bind herself to Keram or Muti.

So she made sure that each evening and morning, as she cast off her shift, she showed them her body; and she was aware of how, when he thought she was not looking, Keram’s gaze followed her.

As they walked on, the landscape became more crowded with fields and towns. No trees grew here, though there were stumps and patches of burned-out forest. There was no open land at all, in fact, save for worthless rocky land or marshes. There were only fields, and patches of land that had clearly once been plowed but were now abandoned, useless, exhausted. Soon there was scarcely a footfall she could make without stepping into the track of somebody who had been here before. The extent to which these swarming people had remade the world oppressed her.

And at last they reached Cata Huuk itself.