Chapter 2

He walked quietly and purposefully through his day. Working his way up hill, he stayed downwind from his destination. As he got close, he moved more slowly and carefully. When he was within fifty meters, he crouched down at the base of a tree and looked over a ridge line.

There, below him, was a small human encampment. There were four shelters in the camp. As he waited and watched, he counted five adult males and two adult females. There did not appear to be any juveniles present. He carefully noted that all of them appeared under nourished. None were over 1.66 meters tall. Compared to them, he was huge. His body was fully two meters tall and 125 kilos in weight.

He examined their shelters from his vantage point. They appeared to be fashioned out of tanned hides with hand woven fabric lacing. He saw them cook and eat with metal utensils, apparently bronze. He thought he saw a garment that looked to be woven plant fibers sewed into animal fur. He looked for signs of weapons. The men appeared to have bronze tipped spears and arrows, and the bows looked to be made of horn and wood. Behind the encampment was a roped off corral with horses in it. The women deferred to the men and at least once he saw one of the men strike one of the females and then push her into a shelter. The sounds that came out of the shelter after that seemed to him to be those of mating. He saw no sign of dogs, goats, chickens. The horses looked underfed. He watched them for most of the day. They were apparently in the process of breaking camp and moving. As night fell he huddled into his warm cloak and continued to observe them. He watched their camp fall quiet as the night waxed. When the camp had been quiet for some time, he allowed himself to nap. He awoke again before dawn. A light snow had fallen in the night. It lay about him undisturbed.

He watched them arise and begin their move. The goods were loaded on a travois, a set of poles with a blanket or fabric hammock between them, dragged behind the horses. When they left camp and were well out of sight, he made his way down to the fire ring they had left. He examined their scat and the bits of food left behind for spices, salt, other signs of development. He examined their footprints, the tool marks on the trees, his observation was thorough and complete. When satisfied, he set off at a lope to follow them. Over the course of the next three days, he followed them from a distance, closing in on their camp at night to observe them and listen in on them. He watched the men hunt for game and fail to bring home food. He listened to them talk at night before they went to sleep. He saw how the long and slow accumulation of snow might well doom them if they did not make it back to their village.

He broke off his observation of them early that night, leaving his stand once they had settled in. He consulted his inner map for likely game trails, using his enhanced sight to help spot prey. He made his way silently, seeming to almost glide over the landscape. Finding the heat signatures he was looking for, he threw one of his spears with a deadly straight and flat throw which hit a large doe resting in a hollow. She dropped to her knees, twitching and thrashing. A large buck broke cover, but the man, with superhuman reflexes, was able to launch his second spear and take down that deer as well. He gathered his spears, tied them to his bundle and lifted the two heavy carcasses over his shoulders. He walked slowly back to the encampment. As he got near, he was careful to move very quietly. He set the two deer down about twenty feet from the shelters and backed off another ten feet. He settled back down into his robe, ate some of his dried meat, and allowed himself to doze off. He awoke before they did, and waited. He loosened the string on his spears, just in case, but he did not bring them to his hand. When the first male stepped out of his shelter, the crouching man coughed once to get his attention.

The hunter looked around in alarm, and spotting the crouching man, gave a yell for the others. The rest of the men came out of their shelters, spears in hand. The crouching man did not move. Set in front of them were two large, fresh deer. The men eyed the deer and the man. His hands came out from under his bear skin blanket empty, palms up. He pointed to the two deer, and then to the men. He made a kind of sweeping, or 'giving away' gesture, and then slowly rose. He didn't rise to his full height, but shuffled back a few steps, and then made the offering gesture again. He'd gathered enough information to hazard a guess. Making it, he said quietly in what he thought to be their language.

"Eat". He said.

The men whispered to each other for a moment. The second largest stepped forward and never letting his eyes leave the crouching man, grabbed a leg of each deer and worked hard to drag them the rest of the way into their camp. The crouching man nodded to himself and to them. He sat still. The men called for the women. The two women came out, holding knives. They looked at the crouching man, at the deer, at the men of their camp. Quick, whispered discussion ensued. The women set to work immediately on cleaning and dressing the two deer. They butchered them quickly. He watched their technique closely, seeing them use sharp bronze flensing knives, clearly and accurately divide the organs up, cut the meat into sections and then roll the hides with salt and ashes for later tanning.

Cutting up a haunch, the women made a stew. Vegetables went into it, but not many. He watched, and when he judged the time to be right, pointed to his own mouth and said again. "Eat."

More discussion ensued. After some talk, the smaller woman, under the protection of the spears of the men, walked forward carefully and offered him some stew from a wooden bowl. He took the bowl from her, and she dodged back quickly. He used his fingers to eat the stew, burning them a little in the process. His belly rumbled so loudly at the meal that the men in camp heard it and laughed. He laughed as well. He used his fingers to scrape the bowl clean, and pointing to it, pointing to the hanging bronze cook-pot, again said. "Eat."

He ate three bowls. Then he rubbed the bowl clean with snow and handed it back to the frightened woman who had been tasked with serving him. He rose to his feet and backed away from the camp. They watched him go with wary eyes but full bellies.

The arrival of the two deer seemed to buoy up the hunter's spirits, and they went hunting that morning, but they left one spear carrier in camp to guard the women. From a long distance, the man watched the hunters and their camp. Then he went hunting himself, and dragged two more skinny deer into the camp that afternoon. While he had watched them hunt, he had seen one of the hunters lose an arrow. He made a note to return to that spot later in the day. When he arrived in camp with the two deer, the women shrieked, whether from alarm or joy, or a perhaps a combination of both. He smiled and set the deer down, closer to the camp this time before backing away.

He waited until the rest of the hunters returned. They came back empty handed, and were well surprised to see the stranger back, and with two more fat deer. Once again the deer were butchered with speed and experience. He ate at their camp again that night. He learned that the names of the men were Trask, who was the leader, Trovo, Trask's son, Frant, Droff, and Glam. The women were called Rena and Glas. From what he could gather from the conversation, Rena and Glas were servants of some kind, and the men seemed to all be related to each other some how. They indicated that they wanted to know his name. He paused for a moment to consider how to answer.

He pointed to his chest and said. "I am Roja."

They drank some mild beer that night from corked pottery jars. The men gave him several presents as thanks for the meat. He was given a soft leather bag that was decorated with a woven wool design. It opened and closed with a drawstring. They also gave him an old bronze knife and one of their pottery jars. He learned how to say 'Thanks' in their language, and picked up many vocabulary words from their pantomime. Late that night he bowed to them, which was their way, and backed out of camp. While he had made a good first impression, Roja was clear that they did not trust him. Once clear of their camp, he jogged to where he had seen the hunter lose an arrow. He interrogated the observation units in the area and was able to reduce the search area to just a few yards. It took nearly ten minutes in the dark, but he found the arrow.

He examined the arrow closely. The head was worked, tool marks remained. The edge was sharp. The shaft was made of some kind of straight, hollow reed, and fletched with feathers. From the look and smell, it had been assembled with hide glue. Everything he'd seen, touched, examined was consistent with a mid-bronze age culture. The planet had been fully terraformed, and whatever indigenous life had been here prior to the colonization ships had been completely displaced. The man knew that whatever life this planet had held before the arrival of the colony ship would have been wiped out completely. Terraforming always began with an in-depth analysis of the existing life, and then a methodical, patient program of designing plagues, viruses, mutations to eliminate that life. Sometimes it even involved bathing the atmosphere in the hellish radiation of a fusion flame.

The colonists had arrived at this planet to find it fully processed by the previous machines and ready for humans. Generations of earth's apex predators and terraforming technology had completely extinguished domestic life. It should have been a paradise for them, an Eden.

But, clearly, something had gone very badly wrong. There were no factories anywhere, no remnants of factories, not even any artifacts. No cities, no remnants of cities. The planet held a few million humans total, and the largest 'cities' held fewer than ten thousand people. From what the orbiting satellites and intelligence gathering units could piece together, the actual colony ship itself had crashed into the planet. That should have been so impossible as to defy description. Hundreds of systems and back up systems, even on the ancient colony boats, existed to ensure that the ships made it safely into a stable equatorial orbit. Those had all either failed or been overridden somehow. There was no record of any other event like this in any known record.

Yet somehow, again with no reasonable explanation, some people had clearly survived the crash. Apparently with no technology to speak of, and, from the lack of progress in the intervening hundreds of years, no major progress toward technology. Cortex 32 was completely baffled, and so was Roja. Their bodies were riddled with disease, their bones were weak from lack of trace minerals, their education was non-existent, and they were superstitious to the point of irrationality. Somehow, they had become a bronze age culture, and even more strangely, had stayed there. The next evening he brought them another pair of deer, and this time added a brace of rabbits to his offering. The other hunters had brought in a fox. They were stunned by his ability to hunt so successfully in the winter.

"Eat." He said, crouching near their fire. The woman brought him stew on a wooden platter. He took it from her, examining her closely as she did. The other men laughed, mistaking his glance. The woman looked frightened and backed away from him. Using simple words and hand gestures, Roja and the men talked about hunting. When conversation broke down as they tried to talk about game, Roja took out a stick and drew clear examples of moose, elk, deer, and buffalo. He learned their words for these animals.

"Hunt Deer, fill bags, go home." Trask said.

"Many?" Roja asked.

He watched them scratch lines in the dirt near the fire, and listened to them talk to each other, as they decided. Roja was glad to see that they had a system of numbers, and didn't just count scratched lines. The concept of zero was missing though. After some discussion, Roja was able to say, "Twenty?" and have them agree that the meat of twenty more deer would be enough for their hunting trip to be a wild success. He nodded to himself.

As the evening grew late, Roja pointed to a spot near the camp fire and said. "Sleep?"

He listened to them whisper to each other, then agree. When Trask had agreed, Roja opened his leather case and handed the arrows he'd recovered from the hunters. By this time there were seven of them. The hunters exclaimed in delight at having the bronze heads back. Roja smiled. He slept that night by the fire, able to listen to everything the men said. He listened to the sounds of the men mating the women.

Early the next morning, Roja left the camp silently as was his habit. Once out of visual range from the camp, he broke into a fast lope, far faster than any of the men from the camp would be able to achieve. He ran down a long valley and up over the ridgeline, descending towards where he knew a herd of elk was grazing. Taking his spears in hand, he closed on the herd from the rear, having circled around. One bull elk turned to confront him. The spear hit the big bull directly between his two front legs and passed a full foot into the chest. The bull dropped in seconds. There was time for a second cast, and Roja brought down a second elk, a large female without young. The herd scattered up the ravine, away from Roja and towards the hunter's camp. Roja retrieved his spears, and began dragging the bull elk up the defile towards the ridge. Once over the ridge, he stood facing the direction of the camp and yelled. He shouted Trask's name a few times. After a couple of minutes, he knew the hunters were beginning to work their way towards him. He raced back down the slope to the site of his kills and pulled the female elk up over his shoulders. He trudged very slowly up the slope carrying the 250 kg female. The hunters were near the ridgeline when he arrived and called for them.

Trask and his men stopped in wonder when they saw Roja carrying the female. He pointed to the bull elk, and their eyes widened. Roja dropped the female and returned to his hunting down in the valley. In the late morning, Roja returned with a third elk, another female, slung over his back. The hunters had skinned and butchered the previous two, and Roja helped them butcher the third. One of the men, Frant, had gone to camp. In the early afternoon, he returned with the women and horses. A travois for the meat was slung, and they all returned to camp. Roja claimed one of the elk hides.

"Mine." He pointed to the hide of the larger female. The men nodded in agreement. He pointed to the smaller woman, and indicated the hide.

"You. Work. Skin, Mine." She looked at the men. Trask nodded, and she went to work tanning stretching the hide for tanning.

This continued for another four days. Each day Roja hunted three elk and claimed one of the hides. The hunters were overjoyed at their luck and his prowess as a hunter. Roja's language skills grew by leaps and bounds. At the end of his eighth day with the men, everything about the camp was transformed. All around the camp bags of meat were humped over with dirt and covered with snow to preserve them. Hides were stretched out on drying frames made of tree limbs. The men and women were well fed, and their greatest worry was keeping the fire fed and the wolves and other predators from worrying at their stores at night.

Trask called to Roja that evening. "Roja, we talk!"

"Yes?" The huge man replied.

"Hunting done. Go home now."

"You go home, to your town?" Roja looked at the man. "what is town's name"

"All of this ... Tors. Village has no name." Trash replied.

"All villages from Tors?"

"Yes. You come with me?"

"You want Roja to go with you, to town?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I Make Roja hunter for town, get you clothes!" Trask laughed.

Roja nodded. "Yes, I go to your town." It had taken him a lot of time, but by making the hunt successful, Roja had won an in with the hunters. Trovo presented Roja with an old hunting bow and a few arrows. The men clapped Roja on the back, and together they drank the beer. The men went to their beds early that night. Roja allowed himself to nod off at the fire. He woke in the middle of the night to the sounds of movement. The smaller woman, Rena, slipped out of the shelter and, wrapped only in a blanket of wool, ran quietly to his furs. She dropped her blanket. She was nude underneath. Rena pulled up one side of his blanket and slipped under. The next thing Roja knew, his arms were full of a naked woman who began to kiss his chest. She reached down under his loincloth and freed his organ.

She giggled quietly and whispered. "Roja big everywhere." She pulled at him, trying to get him to roll on top of her. He did so gladly, and allowed his organ to stiffen to readiness. She brought her legs up around him, spat into the palm of her hand and rubbed it on her sex.

He positioned his penis at the entry to her sex, and tried to push himself inside. He didn't seem to have the hang of it. Rena giggled and moved under him. A moment later, her warm sex began to slide over his hardness. The sensation was new to Roja, and he decided that he liked it very much. He pressed deeper into her, slowly, trying to make sure she was not injured. Although he knew that she was able to mate with him, this knowledge did not prevent him from being worried that he might hurt her somehow.

She moaned under him and slapped at his chest. "Faster."

Roja nodded and complied. He withdrew and sheathed himself again, and then again, beginning to establish a rhythm. After a few thrusts, he was able to get himself fully inside her. Her breathing grew labored. As they mated, Roja knew that the woman would probably desire that attention be paid to her clitoris. He mulled things over for a moment and then returned his attention to Rena. Underneath the huge man, Rena struggled not to squeal out as she was completely filled with him and driven down into his furs. She noticed with astonishment that he started grinding his pubes down into her pleasure spot with each thrust, and worked his hips with a slow circular motion she was beginning to really enjoy. He lowered himself fully onto her and sped up his humping. Rena moaned into his chest and vainly tried to hug him across his huge back. Feeling thoroughly dominated and penetrated, Rena orgasmed with an ill-muffled squeal. Roja continued for a moment more and then pulled himself off of her. She was astonished to find that he was pressing her down with one hand, and trying to get his face down to her pubes. She suppressed a scream of alarm and hissed at him.