Page 2 of Caveman Alien's Touch

I untie my ponytail and run my fingers through my hair, loosening it up. “They can’t expect us to choose anything other than this place. Seriously. Unless they ban us from the penthouse.”

“Piper has a point,” Alba says, poking a hole in the leather patch. “You know she went back to the beach so she wouldn’t be totally dependent on Korr’ax’s whims. Or Bryar’s, I guess. She only came back when she’d made it on her own and she’d made a life elsewhere. But the three of us don’t really have a place to go. Except for the tunnels, and I’mnotgoing back there. We have to do as they want.”

“Bryar seems nice enough,” I counter, looking out over the jungle. After years in dark tunnels, I could do that all day, just drinking in the light and the air and the freedom. “She’ll make sure we’re fine. But yeah, we won’t always be the new and cool kids. We’re only human. At some point we’re going to want different things.”

I spot movement outside the walls, close to the gates. It looks like two cavemen, and one of them is wearing a hat of some kind.

“Hey, girls,” comes a voice from the side of the plateau.

“Hi, Piper,” we greet her as one when we see the copper shine of her hair.

Piper climbs the last steps of the wooden stairs to the plateau and takes a deep breath. “I swear those stairs get longer each time I climb them. Someone’s carving extra steps in the dark of night, I’m sure. Everything cool?” She peers into the cave at Astrid.

“We’re good,” I quickly assure her, feeling protective and not wantingeveryoneto know about my friend’s issues. “Just processing that we’re safe and sound. And that we’re not starving to death. Makes for a refreshing change.”

Piper grins. “I know exactly what you mean. After years on that beach, when Bryar and I came here, even the caveman food tasted incredible. We must have eaten our own weight in grilled meat and fresh fruit in a couple of days.”

“We’re still busy doing that,” Alba says. “But we’re also thinking ahead. Bronwen will start a bakery one of these days, once she finds flour.”

“Oooh! Bryar and I were thinking about something like that,” Piper says. “We found some grass that we thought might work as wheat or rye. It’s probably still growing on that beach.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Any chance we could go and look?”

Piper gazes out towards the ocean. “The tribes don’t really go to that beach. It’s taboo to them, probably because the wildlife in the ocean tends to seek it out for mating and such. That attracts dinosaurs. Bryar and I were almost killed there several times. But it’s nowhere near as dangerous as the tribes think. Most of the time, it’s calm and safe. What I’m saying is that if you go, don’t tell the tribesmen. They may try to stop you.”

“Well, it’s not something I’m planning for right now,” I tell her and stretch. “Do you know those guys?” I point down to the gate, where the two cavemen have been let in.

Piper looks, and then her face breaks out in an excited smile. “I can’t see their faces, but Iamexpecting company. Come with me! There’s someone I want you to meet.”

I have nothing better to do, so I shrug and come with her down the stairs.

2

- Noker-

The gates to the Borok village are disguised as a cluster of reeds, and I’m about to walk right past them without a second look.

But Brak grabs my arm and stops. “Greetings, guard of the Borok tribe,” he calls to the reeds. “I am Brak, and this is my clansbrother Noker. May we enter?”

Only then do I spot the face among the reeds, high up. It must be a tribesman guarding the gate. One of the two doors of the gate swings open. Inside there are two orange-striped guards with their hands on their swords.

Brak walks in without hesitating, and I follow, conscious both of my unusual head and the blue stripes all over my body. This is not my tribe, and I feel that all through me.

The guards look at us without any expression on their faces. Brak raises his hand in a peaceful greeting, walking on as if he were entering his own village.

It’s my first time in the Borok tribe, and only my second time in a tribe’s village. The first time was when I was first taken out of the Lifegiver and my uncommon appearance was deemed unsuitable for the tribe I was born into. The tribe set me out in the jungle to die. But before I was eaten by a Big, I was Found by a clan and I became a Foundling.

As I glance up at the man in the watchtower, I wonder if he would let me in if he knew how uncommon I really am, and that my appearance is the least important part of that.

Brak stops and waits for me to catch up, a merry grin on his unsettling, irox-like face. “See? We are as welcome here as any triber. No need to feel out of place!”

“Uh-huh,” I mutter as I look around. “I would feel less out of place if they had some platforms like ours.”

The village has a tall, thick wall around it, a palisade made from sturdy logs. It looks quite fresh and solid, as if it’s always being renewed. The huts are large and also look new, with green leaves on every roof and walls that are sometimes made from solid logs, sometimes from braided sticks and thin leaves in square patterns. The ground is dry, but I hear the clucking of running water from nearby. Wide paths snake past well-kept grassy patches around the huts. Right in front of us, a red mountain seems to reach out of the ground like a broken shard of some huge, red pot. I spot rows of caves in it, as well as stairs that have been carved into what must be pretty soft rock. I also sense movement at the very top. Several men are up there. Or something else entirely.

“They don’t need platforms to keep them above the ground and the dangers of the jungle,” Brak says and cheerfully greets the tribers we pass. “Those walls keep them safe enough.”

I take in the impressive swords hanging from the belts of every adult tribesman. “And their blades.”

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