Merging Minds (Caveman Chronicles)

The Index -|-

“Now, 34₅,” said Thoka.

“Urh… fourteen?”

“No, it’s nineteen. Look,” she held up a hand three times. “Five and five and five is what?”

“Fifteen, right?”

“Yes, three fives and then add four. Fifteen and four.” She tallied three groups of five on the wall and then added four more.

Kpleeb wrangled his fingers a couple of times before it clicked. “Urh, yes. Nineteen. This is hard.”

Thoka had been schooling Kpleeb intermittently for a few days, and he was becoming tired of it.

“What is the point of this? It is too complex.” He rubbed his sloping forehead for a moment before standing. “I already knew how to count to eight, and you taught me nine through twenty. Why do I need this five-grouping math?”

“You need more math for the future, just like you will need to know how to read and write.” said Thoka.

“I know the alphabet,” Kpleeb said, “and a few words.”

“Yes, and I will teach you more each day., but for now, we can stop this for a while and try some more hands-on things.” She walked over to one of her larger shelves and muttered a command at the wall.

Kpleeb could not hear the command, but he saw the wall open. Thoka reached into the hole and pulled out two objects. She turned and handed the first one to him before placing the second one on a high shelf.

The object she handed Kpleeb was a complex stone contraption with a square base. On opposite sides, two fingers rose out of the stone and supported a beam with a rotating piece suspended on it. The rotating piece had another; thicker rod attached to one edge.

Kpleeb turned the object over in his hand and the rotating pieces wobbled back and forth. He looked at Thoka. “What is it?”

“It is a prototype of a machine I want to build.”

“Pro-toe-type?”

She nodded. “Something I want to build, but smaller. For testing. Look.” She took it from his hand and placed it upright on its square base on the nearby shelf. Then, with her fingers, she held up the thicker rod on the rotating piece and dropped it. Gravity took the rod and swung its end down and between the supports before swinging back.

The piece was still gently rocking when Kpleeb picked it up. He looked at the round pieces and the support rod and the swivel-rod. With his index finger he pushed it again.

“What does it do?”

Thoka’s face flashed a momentary spark of annoyance before she took the device back. She placed it on the shelf against the wall. “Imagine that this device is very large, bigger than you, and this wall is the wall over there,” she said pointing to the cave wall a few meters away. She lifted the swivel-rod again.

When she let it go, the contraption swung around and the swivel-rod hit the wall squarely with a light tap. “We could break through the wall.”

Kpleeb could not believe what he was hearing. He shook his head and frowned. “That will not work, and anyway, what if the gods hear us? Will they not stop us?” He picked up the device. “We do not know if this will even break this stone.” He tapped the shelf as if testing its strength.

“These spirits seem to be in complete control, Kpleeb,” she said, “you could be one of them, or even me. They could be standing right here!” Thoka gestured next to herself vaguely and shrugged. “I am not one of them, of course, but the point is that we do not know. We have to learn and try our best to escape.”

She glanced up at the dimming sun. “Are you hungry? We can continue learning math tomorrow.”

[Not more math, please!] Kpleeb sighed and then spoke. “Yes, food is good. I want muskrat leg with dinga root.” He walked to Thoka’s food outcropping, but she spoke up.

“I want worm soup.”

He looked at her. “You go ahead so that it knows what how you want it. I will be back soon.” He walked to the gap in the wall and told his table what he wanted. For some reason he was feeling a little nostalgic for home, and in particular, his mam’s dinga. Thoka ate soup quite often. It was cold with soft and spicy worms. He did not understand the attraction.

He urinated and then looked around the cave while the muskrat leg was made. Almost all of the holes were filled in now. He had proven that there was no way through the grey stone, and it made no sense to keep the holes around. He bent and rubbed the knee that he had skinned two nights ago when he had tripped over one of the holes he had left in the floor.

His daily routine had changed in the few short sun-cycles since he had met Thoka. Having someone to talk to made the days go by far more quickly. He looked forward to waking, but sometimes had a difficult time falling asleep. There was so much to think about, even if he did not understand much of what she spoke about. The lessons could be excruciating, but deep inside, he felt that it must be worth it in the end.

The smell of lightly-roasted muskrat leg wafted through his senses, and he turned to gather his food. Next to the food outcropping was the platter that Thoka had made and named for him. He placed the hot legs on it and then gingerly lifted the dinga root pieces onto the plate. His fingers burned in the short moment that he touched them, but he did like them hot. Licking his fingertips, he crossed back into Thoka’s cave and met her at the low table that she used each meal time.

Thoka sat cross-legged. In front of her was a large and shallow bowl with a fat, stone tube resting on its rim. She smiled at him and wrinkled her nose as he approached.

“I do not know how you can eat muskrat. It is so gross.” She leaned forward and stirred the bowl before placing the end of the tube in her mouth and sucking on it.

Kpleeb watched in fascination. “That is an odd way to eat soup.”

“This is how it is done in the wet mountains,” she replied, taking another sip.

“What happens if you have chunky soup?” He rested his plate on the table and awkwardly kneeled and then shifted to a sitting position.

“We do not make chunky soup, but certainly one could drink it from the bowl.” She paused and lifted the large bowl to her lips in demonstration. “Let us talk about more important things.”

Kpleeb nodded and tore at his muskrat leg.

“There are no stars in the sky here,” said Thoka gesturing at the ceiling. “There is no sky at all, just the sun and moon, and they are false.”

Kpleeb nodded. It was slightly confusing, but the statement rang true inside him. “This is lo-gi-cal,” he said. “The sun does not set, it only dims.”

“Yes, and we are trapped inside a cave with no doors and a false sun. We are captives to the gods, Kpleeb.” Thoka paused and drank more soup.

[She is so smart, and very thoughtful.] Kpleeb ate a piece of dinga root and then spoke. “This angers me. It has angered me for many sun cycl- urh, days. I hate them, and if I escape, I will make them pay.”

“This emotion makes sense, but we must be careful to learn and control our own fate if we can.” She pushed her bowl away though it was not empty. “You and I are young and have much time to discover the workings of these caves, the gods that control them, and learn how to use what we have. Tomorrow, you can begin to learn more about breaking the stones.”

Kpleeb nodded and sank into thought. In a short while, Thoka announced her bed-time and they closed the gap between the caves.

Kpleeb toyed with the device that Thoka had given him for many minutes before drifting off to sleep. [Why does the rotating piece fall? What will make it fall faster or harder?] Full of questions, he finally slept.

Kpleeb sat on a rock overlooking the end of the canyon where the river spread out into the large and flat marsh that bridged the area between the tundra and the ocean. He saw a glint of light in the far distance, but the atmospheric haze covered all distant features in a general blur. The stunted marsh-trees grew twisted and blacked, and their trunks were partially submerged. The river flowed at a snail’s pace through the marsh, leaving a contorted path where little vegetation grew.

He heard a tinkle and turned his head to look over his right shoulder. He quickly scrambled backward on his hands and feet for a few paces. The death-white sat on its white yak a short distance away gazing across the lands below. [Why did I not hear it approach?] Kpleeb rose to his haunches in preparation for a possible escape.

“The river flows, and the world changes with it,” the death-white said in a smooth and emotionless voice. The yak stared directly at Kpleeb, and its eyes glittered with myriad colors.

Kpleeb felt an intrusive force from the yak as it analyzed him. Under its scrutiny all of his sins were laid bare, and he sensed that he was minuscule in its design. Time stretched and for many moments he was locked in place by the yak.

Suddenly, there was a painfully high-pitched buzzing sound, and though he tried, he could not turn his head to look. The yak’s penetrating gaze held him fast. A stinging sensation grew slowly until it was unbearable. His throat refused to cry out though every muscle in his body clenched tightly and his spine arched.

“You must accept,” he heard death-white say just as he lost consciousness.

There was a hand on his shoulder, and he opened his eyes. Thoka looked down at him with concern.

“Are you okay? I heard you scream.”

Kpleeb sat up and looked around the cave. The sun was very dim and the whole cave was draped in shadow. Though he understood Thoka’s words, his ears sounded as if they were stuffed with yak’s-wool. With her help, he stood and walked to the outcropping to gather a drink of water.

“Your neck,” said Thoka. She touched him, just below his hairline and he felt a growing pain. “There is goo here.” When she held out her fingers, he recognized the clear substance that he had seen in the past on his own fingers.

“I saw a death-white in my dream,” he mumbled.

Thoka nodded. “There is not enough light to see your neck. What did it say?”

Kpleeb hesitated for a long moment as he tried to recall the dream. “It said that the world changes and I must accept, but the yak held me in place with its eyes.” He shuddered involuntarily.

“Come sit down,” said Thoka. She led him through the gap into her cave and had him sit on the stool that she had requested the previous day. “Tell me as much as you can remember about your dream. Everything.”

“I saw the land from a high place,” Kpleeb began. “The river was below and flowed into the watery lands that I have heard of beyond the canyon. Then I heard something and turned to find the death-white. It spoke and the yak stared at me. I could not look away, even when the buzzing and pain happened. Then I woke up.”

Thoka smiled and patted his shoulder. “How do you feel?”

“My ears are blurry,” said Kpleeb. He stuck the tip of his index finger into one ear and twisted, but nothing changed. “What do you think it means?”

“In truth, I do not know, but I do recognize the same feelings I had. A dream followed by disorientation. I did not try to write what happened my dream, and now I cannot remember most of them.” She traced some lines on the table with her fingertip. “You should make a special mark on your day markings, Kpleeb.” Thoka stood and walked to her day marking list. “Mark where I touch,” she told the cave. With the tip of her smallest finger, she made her mark and then added an angled accent above it. “I made a mark for you on my wall. Maybe we can combine our markings into one.”

Kpleeb did not feel like making a mark of any kind. “Yes, yes that is fine.” He put his head into his hands.

The sun had brightened noticeably while they were talking and Thoka came to look at his neck. “There is a wound here,” she said quietly. “I can finally see one with my own eyes. It is small, white in the center and surrounded by a circle of red. The clear goo has dried on the surface.”

“Don’t touch it,” said Kpleeb, “it hurts.”

“I know. Do you want to do math today?”

Kpleeb turned to look at her. “Are you serious?”

She looked abashed. “Sorry, I… I guess I thought maybe you might be feeling better. We can wait until tomorrow if you need to rest.”

Kpleeb nodded. “I think I will lay down and rest for some time today.” He stood and went back to his cave. His thoughts circled slowly like tundra-buzzards waiting for a dying animal to cease its movement.

[These gods speak in dreams, but what does it mean?]

[What must I accept? Change?]

[I need to escape. There must be a way.] His thoughts drifted to Thoka’s device. [A heavier rod will break a thicker stone. I should test this, maybe with a smaller stone. If it can break stone, maybe it can be made to break the grey stone as well. It will take much force and a very big device.]

Kpleeb had many thoughts and plans that repeated over and over in his head. Eventually he fell asleep nestled in the warm hollow he had created near the outcropping.