Chapter 9

I do not understand.

Linda tells me I have come into the future. Very long into the future, so many years I cannot think it in my mind.

She says that all of the wonders in her dwelling were made by people, and that in this day such wonders are common to all. She says that in the time between when I hunt aurochs and this time humans have learned very much, and now make these things normally.

I have never heard of a person who passed through time in the way she says I have, and I tell her this. She says that she understands my feeling, and that she has never heard of such either but that it has happened.

She says there is no animal such as aurochs now. None such as mammoth. None such as many of the others I see in those pictures in what she calls a book.

I see that she speaks truth as she believes it, but it is very hard to accept. I ask how men make the pictures, thinking it is not possible to make pictures of animals that do not live. She says that those pictures are drawings made by men who have found the bones of these creatures and have sought to ... her word is “reconstruct,” which I think means to build again ... the images of creatures long gone from the world.

But are not all pictures drawings, I ask.

No, she says, the pictures of other creatures in the book are another thing, she names it photograph. And she shows me! She brings out a thing she calls a camera and points it at me and there is a flash of very bright light and camera makes a small noise, and then she takes camera to the thing on the table and I see myself in the light of the front of the box. She moves her fingers on the bosses before her and in a moment the image emerges from another thing beside the desk on the same thin material that is in the book.

I see this with my eyes, so I must believe.

When I look again at the book, I see that the pictures of the animals that she says live now are as the image she has made of me, but the pictures of aurochs and the animals she says no longer live are otherwise.

If it is as she says then I shall never see Siefert again. Never see the woman of my hearth, M’kamba; never see the sons of my loins, Ahkala and Okura and Amulala, nor my daughters, M’koka and Gamiel; never see Unkgat and be able to speak to him of my regret for my harsh words to him, nor to praise his bravery that saved me from the tip of aurochs’ horn.

All are long, long dead, by her speech.

I bow my head in sorrow as I begin to understand her meaning. Tears come into my eyes.

She comes to me as I sit and takes my head in her hands and draws my head to her breast.

This at least is clear to me. When a woman does this it is to say that she wishes to mate. My thoughts are far from mating, but it would be impolite to refuse such an invitation; and this woman has shown me much kindness.

I am still hurt, but I can mate if I do so with care. I pull her to me with strength, as a man should. For a moment it appears that she responds, her mouth presses to mine in a way that is not familiar but is very pleasant to feel. I reach my hand to the place between her legs where I will mate with her and touch her strongly.

Horror! I have given offense! She pulls away from me with as much force as is in her and strikes me with her hand in my face.

How have I misunderstood? She made to me the familiar gesture of a woman who wishes to mate, but then she drew away as hard as she could and even struck me.