Читать книгу Origin - Stephen Baxter - Страница 10

Stone drops the branches. Sing rolls to the ground. Stone has forgotten her again.

The sun is low. They are close to a thick stand of trees. Fire can smell water.

Fire is tired. His stomach is empty. His hands are sore. ‘Hungry Fire hungry,’ he moans.

Sing, on the ground, looks up at him. She smiles. ‘Hungry Fire,’ she says. He thinks of her feeding him. But she is small and withered. She does not get up to feed him.

Stone walks over the branches he hauled across the savannah, the branches that transported Sing. He kicks them aside. He has forgotten he hauled them here. He bends. His hands seek out a piece of dung on the ground. His tongue tastes it. It is Nutcracker-man dung. The dung is old. The dung crumbles.

Fire is not fearful. There are no Nutcracker-men near here.

Stone’s feet kick aside more branches and twigs. He uncovers a round patch of black ground. Fire’s nose smells ash. Stone hoots. ‘Hah! Fire Fire.’

Fire crouches over the ash. The fire is warm in his hands.

Loud and Dig and others huddle near him. Their hands scrape dry stuff from the floor, dead leaves and dry moss and grass and bits of bark. Their hands pick up rocks, and rub the tinder against the rocks. Their fingers turn the tinder, making it fine and light.

Wood’s legs walk to the forest. She comes back with a bundle of sticks, of wood. That is what she does. That is her name. She piles the sticks on the ground.

The hands of the others push the tinder into the middle of the pile of wood.

Working closely, the people jostle each other. They are hot from the walk. Their bare skin is slick with sweat. They grunt and yap, expressing tiredness, hunger, irritation. But they do not speak of the work. They are not thinking as their hands gather the fire materials. Their hands have done this all their lives. Their ancestors’ hands have done this for hundreds of thousands of years.

Fire waits while they work.

He sees himself.

He is a child with no name. Another cups fire in his hands. He cannot see this other’s face. The adults’ huge hands make tinder. Fire is fascinated. They push him out of the way.

A woman picks him up. It is Sing. Her arms are strong. Her mouth smiles. She swings him in the air. The leaves are green and big.

… The leaves are small. The leaves are yellow. Sing is lying on the ground.

Fire’s hands push into the tinder. He makes his hands put his precious bit of fire inside the tinder. His mouth blows on the fire. His hands want to come out of the prickling heat. He makes them stay in the tinder. Flame flickers. The wood smokes and pops, scorches and burns.

People laugh and hoot at the fire.

Fire pulls out his hands. His hands are sore.