THE SHELTERS OF STONE

She started to pick up the bowl, had another thought, and ducked inside to get the waterbag so she could rinse out the woven basin. Then she picked up the smelly thing and started for the path. Gathering and storing food for such a large Cave of people is a lot of work, she thought as she headed along the trail, but so is taking care of the waste. Brun's clan just went outside, the women in one place, the men in another, and they changed their places every so often. Ayla thought about the process Ramara had explained and was intrigued.

The heating, or calcining, of limestone to get quicklime and using it to decrease the smell of waste products was not a practice she was familiar with, but for people who lived in limestone cliffs and used fire continuously, quicklime was a natural by-product. After cleaning a hearth of ashes, which would invariably include the accidentally accumulated lime, and dumping them on a pile of other waste materials, it wouldn't take long for the deodorizing effect to be noticed.

With so many people living in one place, more or less permanently except during the summer when various groups of them were gone for periods of time, there were many tasks that required the effort and cooperation of the entire community, such as digging toilet trenches or, as she had just learned, roasting the limestone cliff rocks to make quicklime.

The sun was near its zenith before Ayla returned from the trench field. She found a sunny place near the back path to dry and air out the woven bowl, then decided to check on the horses and refill the waterbag at the same time. Several people greeted her when she reached the front terrace, some of whose names she recalled, but not all. She smiled and nodded in return, but felt a trifle embarrassed about those she couldn't remember. She took it as a failure of memory on her part and made a decision to learn who everyone was as soon as possible.

She remembered feeling the same way when members of Brun's clan let it be known that they thought she was somewhat slow because she couldn't remember as well as Clan youngsters. As a result, because she wanted to fit in with the people who had found and adopted her, she disciplined herself to remember what she was taught the first time it was explained. She didn't know that in the process of exercising her native intelligence to retain what she learned, she was training her own memorizing ability far beyond that which was normal for her own kind.

As time went on, she grew to understand that their memory worked differently from hers. Though she didn't fully understand what they were, she knew that people of the Clan had "memories" that she did not have, not in the same way. In a form of instinct that had evolved along a somewhat divergent track, the people of the Clan were born with most of the knowledge they would need to survive, information that over time had been assimilated into the genes of their individual ancestors in the same way that instinctive knowledge was acquired by any animal, including the human one.

Rather than having to learn and memorize, as Ayla did, Clan children only had to be "reminded" once in order to trigger their inherent racial memories. The people of the Clan knew a great deal about their ancient world and how to live in it, and once they learned something new, they never forgot; but unlike Ayla and her kind, they did not learn new things easily. Change was hard for them, but when the Others arrived in their land, they brought change with them.

Whinney and Racer were not where she had left them in the horse meadow, but were grazing farther up the valley, away from the more well-used area that was close to the confluence of Wood River with The River. When Whinney saw her, the mare dropped her head, flipped it up, and described a circle in the air with her nose. Then she arched her neck, lowered her head, and, with tail outstretched, ran toward the woman, eagerly happy to see her. Racer pranced alongside his dam with his neck proudly arched, ears forward and tail up, high-stepping toward her in a smooth-striding canter.

They nickered greetings. Ayla responded in kind and smiled. "What are you two so happy about?" she said, using Clan signs and the language of words she had invented for herself in her valley. It was the way she had talked to Whinney from the beginning, and the way she still talked to the horses. She knew they didn't entirely understand her, but they did recognize some of the words and certain of the signals, as well as the tone of voice that conveyed her delight in seeing them.

"You certainly are full of yourselves today. Do you know we've reached the end of our Journey and won't be traveling anymore?" she continued. "Do you like this place? I hope so." She reached out to scratch the mare in the places she liked, and then the stallion, then she felt around Whinney's sides and belly, trying to determine if she was carrying a foal after her tryst with the stallion.