Evolution

The first thing Juna saw was a wall. Made of mud bricks and straw, it was a great circular barrier that must have been as high as three people standing on each other’s shoulders, and it bristled with spikes. Outside the wall there was a great ring of shabby huts and lean-tos made of mud and tree branches. The wall was so wide it seemed to cut the land in half.

A broad, well-trodden path led up to the wall itself, a path which Keram’s party followed. But as they approached people came boiling like wasps out of the huts, yelling, plucking at Keram’s robes, holding up meat and fruit and sweetmeats and bits of carved wood and stone. Juna shrank back. But Keram assured her that there was nothing to be concerned about. These people were simply trying to sell things; this was a market. The words meant nothing to her.

A great gate made of wood had been set in the wall. Keram called out loudly. A man on top of the wall waved, and the gate was hauled open. The party walked through.

As she walked into strangeness, Juna found herself trembling.

The huts: that was the first thing that struck her. There were many of them, tens of tens, strewn in great masses across the kilometers-wide compound inside the walls. Most of them were no better than Cahl’s dwelling, simple slumped mounds of mud and wood. But some, toward the center of the city, were grander than that, tottering structures of two or three stories, their frontages walled with woven yellow grasses that shone in the sun. The clusters of huts were cut through by lanes that sliced this way and that, like a spider’s web. Smoke hung in a great gray cloud everywhere. Sewage ran down channels cut into the center of each street, and flies buzzed in great linear clouds over the sluggishly flowing waste.

And people swarmed, the men walking together, the children running and yelling, the women burdened with heavy loads on their heads and backs. There were animals, goats and sheep and dogs, crowded in as tightly as the people. The noise was astonishing, an unending clamor. The smells — of shit, piss, animals, fires, greasy cooked meat — were overwhelming.

This was Cata Huuk. With ten thousand people crammed within its walls, it was one of Earth’s first cities. Even Keer had been no preparation for this. To Juna, it was like looking into a great murky sea full of people.

Keram smiled at her. "Are you all right?"

"What trickster god made this teeming pile?"

"No god. People, Juna. Many, many people. You must remember that. No matter how strange all this appears, it is the work of people, like you and me. Besides," he said with mock innocence, "this is where you were born. This is where you belong."

"This is where I was born," she said, unable to project much conviction. "But I am afraid. I can’t help it."

"I’ll be with you," he murmured.

With calculation she slid her hand into his. She caught Muti’s eye; he was smirking, knowing.

They walked down a radial avenue toward the great structures at the center of the city. Now Juna was truly stunned. Three stories high, these buildings were great blocks that loomed like giants over the rest of the city. The buildings were set in a loose square around a central courtyard, where grass and flowers grew thickly. Men armed with barbed pikes stood at every entrance, glaring suspiciously. Women moved with bowls of water, which they sprinkled on the grass.

Muti grinned at Juna. "Again she is staring. What is so strange now?"

"The grass. Why do they throw water on it?" She struggled to express herself. "Rain falls. Grass grows."

Muti shook his head. "Not regularly enough for the Potus. I think he would command the weather itself."

They walked into the largest of the buildings. Juna had never been in such a huge enclosed space. Stairways and ladders connected the mezzanine-like floors above. Despite the brightness of the day, torches burned smokily on the walls, banishing shadows and filling the palace with yellow light. People dressed in shining clothes walked through all the levels, and some of them waved down to Keram and Muti as they went by. It was like looking up into the branches of a great tree. Even the floor was extraordinary, made of wood cut so smoothly it felt slippery under her feet, and oil or grease had been worked into it until it shone.

They came to the very center of the building. Here was a platform, raised to shoulder-height above the ground. And on the platform, sitting on an ornately carved block of wood, was the fattest man Juna had ever seen. His breasts were larger than a nursing mother’s. His belly, glistening with oil, was like the Moon. And his head was a ball of flesh, completely devoid of hair; his scalp was shaved, and he had no beard, moustache, or even eyebrows. He was naked to the waist, but he wore finely stitched trousers.