Even then he had misgivings. Sims were stronger than people; if this one chose to grapple with him, he was in trouble.
But it had only freed its hands so it could use signs. You It give food, it signed, amplifying, Meat. You give to female. Yes, Quick agreed. I not eat fox, not want to, He hesitated. Hand-talk had no way to express waste; the concept was alien to the sim mind., put aside, he finished lamely.
Why not eat fox? Meat good, the sim signed, and the trapper's tight nerves finally eased a bit. Still, the male's next question took him by surprise: Hungry now? Yes, he signed again, with a rueful glance in the direction he had thrown the squirrel's smal bones.
Then he was surprised all over again, for the sim signed, You come with me to our fire, eat there.
Go there? he asked, not quite believing he had seen correctly. He had always made a point of staying away from at the clearing the sims used as their own. That was partly what with people he would have cal ed politeness, but more the simple desire not to draw unwelcome attention to himself. Wel , he seemed to have drawn attention, but not of the unwelcome sort
This wild band owned flint and steel now, fire
and the nary of the time when they had not been able to make it loomed large in sims' lives. Fire meant to this male what home meant to Henry Quick. come, he signed, stepping toward the sim. It picked up its weapons, signed Follow, and plunged the woods. Quick fol owed, as best he could. Again he ; reminded how wild sims perforce became masters of st craft. The sim glided along so quietly that he felt slow t and clumsy by comparison; sometimes only its lingering fir let him stay close to it. He suspected it could have gone er had it not been leading him. kinking on in front of his nose, a firefly made him Up. Other than that, the forest was impenetrably dark.
The sim pressed on with perfect confidence. Just when Quick was beginning to wonder if anything behind that confidence, he scented woodsmoke on the breeze. The sim must also have caught the smell, for it said no!', a breathy, throaty noise, the first sound it had made all night, and hurried ahead. A moment later, Quick smel ed charring meat along with the smoke. He hurried, and soon saw light ahead. The male hooted before it entered the clearing where its band was staying.
Answering calls came back to it. They made Henry Quick think of shouts heard on the breeze, with the words blown away but the sense, here, welcome, remaining. .
Quiet tell as the trapper stepped into the open area. With the male sims, it was a measuring sort of silence. Quick had entered most of the dozen or so of them as they and he hunted; he had traded tools for furs with more than half of them. Meeting them as a group, though, emphasized the Inferences between him and them as solitary contacts could not. The females and youngsters, on the other hand, had Wryer seen him before, except for the one to whom he'd given the fox carcass. Their stillness was more than a little fearful. But they were curious too. A child (for the life of him, Quick could find no better word, especially since young sims, like grown females, had a more human seemblance than did grown males) of perhaps seven came up to him. It touched his suede trousers and tunic, then looked up at him, the picture of puzzlement. Strange skin, it signed.
A couple of males growled warningly, and one hefted a stone as Quick stretched out his arm. Al he did, though, I was roll up the fringed sleeve of his tunic to show what lay beneath. No hair, he signed. That was not strictly true, but by sim standards he might as well have been bald. put on animal skins instead. Warm.
The youngster felt the trapper's bare skin, jerked its hand away with a grimace. Hair better, it signed.
Startled, Quick burst out laughing. The sims laughed too, loud and long. The male that had been holding a stone threw it on the ground, came over to Quick, and hugged him hard enough to make his ribs creak.
He wished he could have taken more credit for winning acceptance, but was glad to get it no matter how it came.
The male that had brought him tugged him toward the fire. Eat, it signed, and the trapper needed no further invitation.
One leg stil remained from the carcass of a buck, likely, Quick thought, the one he had heard the males chasing. The rest was bones, the big ones split to get out the marrow and the skull crushed for the sake of the brains.
A grizzled male had charge of the meat. As Henry Quick came over, the sim picked up a chipped stone and began to carve off a chunk for him. He started to offer his own steel knife instead, but stopped when he saw the stone tool gliding through the leg of venison. A steel knife lasted almost forever, was easy to hone again and again, and did not chip. None of that, however, meant stone could not be sharp. Quick's eyes widened slightly at the size of the piece the old sim gave him. Too much, he signed. Not eat al .
The sim shrugged and grunted. Someone, will if you don't, Quick thought it meant. Even the single gesture had been hesitant.
The trapper wondered on hand-talk had reached this band. Maybe it was so recently that the old sim had already been grown and only knew it imperfectly, as a man will have trouble speaking a foreign language he acquires after his youth.
Catching the meat bubble and brown as he held it on a stick over the fire drove such speculation from his mind. Beside him, the sim that had brought him here was roasting a larger piece. Less patient with cooking than he, it led its gobbet away from the flames, tossed it from hand to hand until it was cool enough to eat, then tore off one bite after another.
The venison disappeared with finishing haste.
quick sat beside the sim and tried valiantly to match its, but its bigger teeth and bigger appetite meant he was classed. Since they starved so much of the time, sims ate the most of good days like this one. The trapper was amazingly full by the time half his piece was gone, yet by then the male had almost finished and showed no signs of sing down.
He was thinking of offering it what was left of his venison when another sim touched him on the knee. He turned round to see the female he had met the day before. The female held out its left hand in a begging gesture, Meat? with the right.
He cut off a piece and gave it to the sim. Two youngsters begging from the male next to him, which gave them some scraps. A little one that could hardly toddle came up one of the children with its hand out, and in turn recieived a few tiny fragments of meat. It stared at the trapper as it ate.
The male turned to Quick. More, it signed, getting up walking over to pluck a handful of whortleberries off a branch heavy with the large, purple-blue fruit. The trapper ate a few himself; their tart sweetness cut through the greasy film coating the inside of his mouth.
