She-ief
by Dawn Natelle

This is a one-parter. I won't continue it any further: Dawn

Walter woke up with a freezing back. A second later he felt a strange hand groping his breast … wait. Breast? Then he realized that there was another arm between his legs, and he could tell that there was no penis there. Finally, a small mouth went around his other breast and started to suckle on a milkless nipple.

He immediately pulled away from the bundle of about 20 bodies entwined together and stood up. He was naked, and felt small and young. He was a female now, and apparently 40 years younger than his old body. He had two sets of memories, one as a 53-year-old geology professor in New York. And other new ones as a girl who had just ended her first period here. “Here” was somewhere cold. It had been November in New York, and may well be the same time here: but thousands of years earlier. There certainly were no skyscrapers here. There were not even huts.

Walter cussed. For over 10,000 times in his life he had gone to bed praying to wake up as a woman, and now it had happened. Except it had been into a pre-Stone Age clan, who didn’t even have furs to keep warm in the winter. Whoever had done this had an evil sense of humor.

She shuddered as she recalled a horrific memory of the prior evening, when one of the teen boys of the clan had walked by with an erection. The Chief, a man of about 25, went ballistic and attacked the boy, not half his size, and had bitten into his neck, killing the boy, and then had drank his blood. An older woman in the group had shrieked: she was probably the boy’s mother.

The new girl memories made her realize that this was normal in the clan, with similar memories further back. The Chief protected his position as alpha male by killing any boy who matured enough to get an erection, killing the boys before they grew strong enough to challenge his position. She also had a memory of the Chief coming to her in the prior evening and sniffing her groin. Apparently he could tell that her period was still on, because he left her and took three other young women to the warmest part of the camp, a niche in the cliff, for the evening.

She could see the Chief having violent morning sex with one of his bed warmers in his nook. The clan was not in a cave, but had sheltered from the wind beside the cliff. She could hear water running to the east, where the sun was dimly rising. She started in that direction, needing to pee.

The Chief had finished, and intercepted her on the path. He grabbed her arm and sniffed her crotch. He seemed pleased, and then grabbed her hair, long and tangled, never having been cut. She screamed as she fell to the ground as he dragged her back to his nook.

Fucking great, she thought. I’m a girl for less than five minutes, and I’m going to be raped. The Chief was trying to turn her around: apparently they did it doggy style here. She kept spinning around to face him, and he was starting to get angry. Great again, she thought. Getting raped and she was probably going to be beaten as well. She weighed less than half of what he did.

But then her hand closed on a stone lying there. It was about the size of a softball, and her hand closed around it as the Chief roared his displeasure with her. Then she swung the arm with the stone and smashed it into the man’s head.

The man let go of her hair, and looked somewhat stunned. This was not good. He was going to be pretty mad soon, so she whacked him again with a harder blow. This time his eyes went to the back of his head and he collapsed. She dropped, and continued pounding his head until his face was a mass of blood and bone and she was sure he was dead. An old woman from the back screamed, probably his mother.

She stood as the older woman rushed forward to cradle her dead son. Another boy, probably 13 years old, stepped forward and chanted. “Me Chief,” and glared at the younger boys to see if any objected.

She still held the bloody stone. Apparently the title of Chief went to the oldest, biggest boy. She was getting sick of this macho attitude, so she said “No. Me Chief,” which caused the boy to get a confused look on his face. “You Bleeder. Me Chief” and took a threatening step towards her. The boy was probably her size, but she had an advantage: she had invented the first tool in this world. She didn’t back down, but swung the rock, hitting him in the side of the head. Another mother screamed from the back.

This time she did not hit the boy again, and the mother rushed forward to drag her young son to the back. She walked up to the next oldest boy, stood in front of him and said “Me Chief,” in a threatening way. The boy just looked at her until she held up the bloody stone, and then he fell to his knees.

The people did not have much language, so it was difficult to get her to make him understand that she wanted him to kiss her feet to show he would obey her. Eventually he licked her feet, and she was willing to accept that. She went to the next boy, who did the same, and eventually had all the clan lick her feet. She had just invented a ritual.

The woman who was moaning over the old Chief turned to look at her, and then said: “Go hunt. You Chief? Make food.”

It was part of the Chief’s duties to hunt. The new She-ief walked out into the morning. She was exhausted, bloody and thirsty, and she realized that she was hungry too, so after finally peeing she walked towards the sound of water: a river. She drank, washed the blood from her arms in the freezing water and then walked back to the people, who were crowded around as if she could have found food already.

Walter had been a baseball pitcher in college, and there were many baseball-sized stones lying around. She picked one up and tossed it towards a mark on the cliff. The ball missed by about 10 feet. Her new body seemed no stronger than a 10-year-old boy and she found herself throwing ‘like a girl’. The clan were all staring at her. So she needed to do something.

She noticed a hide from the last kill the old Chief had made. She picked it up and started to chew on it. She had read somewhere that chewing on a hide would tan it, and make it a blanket. She soon realized that there was still nutritional value in the hide that eased her hunger a bit. She held up the other end of the hide, and two other women started to chew, with eyes going wide when they realized it was still food for them. After about 10 minutes She-ief left the people chewing on that hide, and a few other older ones.

She was still hungry, and knew her people would want real food soon, so she went back to throwing rocks. She threw like a girl at first, but eventually got into a rhythm and was hitting the spot she aimed for more often than not. Then she sat down and used her killing stone to pound other stones. Almost immediately a bigger stone broke. Another few blows and there was a parallel break, leaving a rather sharp vee edge. She had taught the people how to use stones to kill: she needed to stay ahead in the weapons race. This was a stone knife.

One of the boys had spent his time watching She-ief, even throwing a few stones himself. She stood up, holding a stone in her right hand and the new knife-stone in the left. “Where food?” she asked.

He stood, picking up two stones, and started to lead her to a spot near the river. “Food come here to drink, and we jump there.” Apparently hunting without tools meant getting up close and personal with the deer when your own teeth were the sole killing method.

She-ief sat down about 30 feet from two pillars of rock that the deer trail passed through. She continued to shape stones by smashing rocks. Boy climbed one of the pillars, and nestled in about 8 feet up. She was pleased after an hour when she had made another knife, and then found a stone that sparked. Flint. With this she could make fire, she hoped. Just the thought made her shiver. It was still damned cold out here with no clothes on and only that feeble sun shining. What would it be like in full winter? Or even tonight, when the sun set. She made a mental list: fire, then clothes. Spears for the stones she had just learned how to shape.

“Hsst. Food come,” boy whispered, so she stopped working. She-ief lined up several baseball-rocks, and her knife near her and held one stone in her right hand.

A doe poked it’s head around one pillar, not the one that boy was on. He later said that Chief would have been on the other one, and had been upset when she decided not to climb it. But she had a better way. The deer took a few steps towards the river, its goal, and then She-ief threw the stone as hard as she could. Her aim was good. It hit the deer on the side of the head, and it fell, stunned. Boy jumped down and started to gnaw at the beasts’ throat, the only way he knew of to make a kill.

She ran up with the knife-stone, and made a slit across the beast’s throat, to the amazement of Boy. He clasped his hand over the fatal wound, and gestured that as the killer, she should drink first. The girl bent down and lapped up a little blood, realizing that it tasted better than she had expected. Meanwhile Boy had shouted “Chief make food” and all the clan started to approach. As aide to the kill, Boy drank heavily of the blood, then let the others drink in what seemed to be an orderly manner.

When the blood was no longer flowing freely, Boy knelt down again and started to tear at the skin of the wound with his teeth. She-ief realized that this was how they skinned the animal: with their teeth. She again pushed him aside and started to use the knife to separate the skin, with all the clan oohing as the new tool cleanly separated the hide from the carcass.

Soon Boy was tugging as She-ief cut the fur clean, occasionally slicing a small piece of meat and tossing it to the children who hadn’t gotten any blood. Eventually the entire animal was skinned, and she passed the hide to several of the women to chew on. She had cut out meat for all, in four-inch chunks for the adults and smaller pieces for the children. After about three hours, all were happy.

Boy brought the innards to her: the heart, liver and lungs. She started with the heart, and sliced it into thin slices, finding it very tasty. She gave a slice to Boy, and she could see he was bursting at the honor. She heard the women surrounding the deer claiming that she had fed her knife. They thought that when she was slicing the heart she was feeding the tool.

Next she looked around the trees, bare in the fall season. She saw what she wanted: a nest high in the tree. She gestured to make Boy know that she wanted the nest. “But Wing-food gone,” he complained, but she insisted, and he scrambled up the tree and started to climb. Soon he was back with the abandoned nest.

Meanwhile she had sent three of the oldest boys to find sticks and deadwood from the area, and they returned with their first load about the time Boy got back. She rewarded each of them with a slice of liver, to their glee, with Boy getting the largest slice. All four boys ran off to find more wood.

She took the nest, and had some of the older girls carry the sticks back to the cliff. She set down the nest, then ran off to get her flint stone. It took nearly an hour for the sparks to catch on the dried feathers in the nest, and she fed twigs in as she listened to all the clan oohing at her mastery of fire, something they seldom could capture and did not understand.

Soon there was a blazing fire burning, with branches spread out around it. As the fire burned the wood in the middle, boys pushed the branches in: feeding the fire. The clan stood in the warmth of the blaze, warm for the first time since summer. Then She took a large slice of venison and put it on a stick. Her clan thought she was feeding it to the fire, and were amazed when she took it out and started slicing pieces for the people. All were astounded at the taste of cooked meat after a lifetime of raw. There was a benefit: cooked meat would last a few days longer than raw, so the deer she had felled would keep them fed for nearly a week instead of just two days.

That night the clan huddled in between the cliff and the fire, with She and Boy getting up at times to push the branches in and keep the fire going. It was still cold, but nowhere as bad as the night before. She added another item to the list: housing.

That happened the next day. She left the women chewing on the hides while she and Boy explored. He knew the area well: the difficulty was for She to explain her needs to a people who only knew a few words. She wanted a cave, and finally scored a hit with “Big Hole in Wall”.

Boy took her to a place where the perfect spot existed. It was a cave deep enough for all the people and an added bonus: there was a small pool of clean water at the back.

It was noon when they returned and were surprised to see that the fire was gone. The clan had stopped pushing new wood into the center. They assumed that their new leader could wave her hands and make new fire. After Boy and She had eaten some of the cooked meat, she got the entire clan together and marched them to the cave. Boy had explained that they never stayed long in one place, but moved whenever food was found. This made it strange for the boys who were ordered to bring the deer carcass along. And the women brought the skins. The older one was starting to feel supple, and She decided she would sleep on it tonight. It was ratty with many holes in it due to the way it had originally been skinned with teeth. The new hide was intact and was going to give her some clothes so she would be able to hunt in winter. New item on list: pockets.

At the cave she built a new fire, and the clan was surprised to find that the enclosed space heated up much more efficiently than the open area outside had: it only had one wall, so to speak. The boys sought more wood while the women chewed on blankets.

She found her stone knife blade was dulling. She gave it to one of the women with the new hide, and showed her how to use it to scrape the hairs from the skin. She then went back and started making a new knife blade and a spear point.

The new knife was given to Boy, who she trusted, and he was told to find saplings and chop them down with the knife, then strip off the branches and top so she could have spears. She wanted six. Meanwhile she made more tools. There was shale nearby, so she cut some, and found it was easy to work, but the edge would not do much. She did manage to make three more scrapers for the deerskin with granite though.

Boy came back with his six spears just as she was making another stone knife. His was pretty much ruined from chopping wood. She showed him how to make stone knives and then dressed the spears.

The three oldest boys were sitting around watching, so she showed them how to throw spears. At first they were fairly inept, but with practice they soon gained some prowess and one boy managed to down a squirrel sitting in the tree. He bit the head off the stunned animal and drank the blood until he realized that he should offer some to the She-ief. He ran over to her and offered the mangled animal, but she refused, and instead pointed to his mother. He ran to her and the two feasted on the fresh meat, which was too insignificant to share with the whole clan.

Meanwhile She had taken two of the spears and fixed the heads to them with gut from the deer. When she had taken the entrails away and washed them, the clan had insisted “Not food”. But now she had good deer-gut for thread and lashings.

Over the next few weeks, as the weather got colder, most of the tribe stayed in the warmth of the cave, with boys going out from time to time to get more wood, or to hunt. The area teemed with deer, and with their primitive tools it was fairly easy to get one as it went to the river to drink.

The result was full bellies for the people and a growing collection of skins, which the tribe members dutifully chewed on to tan the skins, as well as scraping off the hairs. One morning She-ief woke to find that there was an inch of snow on the ground, and she shrieked at her cold feet as she went to the pissing place. Back inside later Boy rubbed her feet by the fire until they dried and warmed up. She decided that it was time for another project.

She went to the bone pile at the edge of the cave and found three leg bones, and brought them back to the fire. They had been cracked: marrow was a real treat to the people, but she managed to find sharp shards of the size she wanted. She brought over three deerskins, and started cutting them with her knife. She knew that it was time for her to invent clothes, and boots.

After she had hacked the skins appropriately she got several of the ladies to use the bone shards to punch holes in the skins near the edges. By the end of the day the first fur was completed and she had the women thread deer gut through the holes. Finally she stood up and wrapped the fur around her, covering her back and front, with lacing holding it on. Looking at it when finished she decided that the next suit would have to have a hood, and her bare legs needed trousers. But she wore the suit out when she went to pee next, and was amazed at how much warmer she felt with just her back and front covered. She still squealed at the cold snow on her feet.

The next morning they started working on boots. By noon she had a pair and a final addition to her clothes was a sling that looped around her neck and provided a pouch that allowed her to carry things: her pocket.

Food was getting scarce in the cave, so she took the boys out and they were in heaven with their new hunting gear. The boys were used to hunting naked, but did look at the strange get-up their leader wore. They killed a deer within an hour: about all the time the naked boys could last in the cold. It was cut and skinned and carted back to the cave, with the boys also picking up more wood, which they knew would be needed to warm them back up.

Over the next few days a second suit was made, with a hood and leggings, and Boy inherited the first one. He also had boots, as well as three other boys who wore them even though they were naked elsewhere. Just having warm feet doubled the time they could spend hunting and wood gathering.

She noticed in the morning that on some days wind and even snow blew into the cave. It was still far warmer than sleeping near the cliffs had been, but something still had to be done.

That morning when the boys accompanied her out to the river, they were a bit late, and missed the deer. Near the end of their time she heard a roar, and the boys all looked scared. “Not food,” they said, scrambling away from the sound. Soon she saw way. A huge grizzly bear appeared, standing nearly 9 feet tall. Time to show some spunk, she thought, and took her stone-tipped spear and thrust it at the animal, aiming for its throat. It was a good strike, and the animal that feared no other roared in displeasure and started the flail its arms about.

The boys returned, and started poking at the dying animal with their pointed sticks, annoying him more than hurting him. Boy rushed in with them, but she held him back, taking his spear from him. It was the only other one with a sharpened stone tip. She rushed up to the bear again, and landed a second blow, inches from the first. The bear staggered a few paces, and then fell and was twitching in the snow. She reached into her sling and pulled out her sharpest knife, and leapt at the animal from behind, slicing its throat.

The boys hollered in delight and rushed to get a drink of the warm blood. Even as they worked She and Boy started to skin the huge animal. As chunks of meat were exposed, she cut them into 20-pound pieces and sent the other boys home, telling then to come back when they were warm. She and Boy could continue to work in the cold.

Eventually the animal was skinned, and Boy and She dragged the pelt to the cave. At the door She unfurled it, and found it was large enough to cover the opening they all crawled through. Inside sticks were made into a frame, and the bearskin was attached to it. Soon they had a workable door, and without wind blowing through, they were warm and toasty as they ate the bear meat. She was not a fan of the taste, compared to venison, but the others were happy with any meat, which was more than could be eaten before it started to go bad. She added another item to the list: a smoker to preserve meat.

Soon it was near the shortest day of the year, with a foot of snow on the ground. She was out hunting with her boys, all of which now had trousers, jackets and boots and were comfortable for hours in the elements.

Suddenly a wounded deer flashed by, and two of the boys managed to stab it with the stone-tipped spears they all now carried to kill it. But there was more noise or something coming, and suddenly a naked man appeared, out of breath: he had clearly been chasing the deer. He stopped abruptly when he saw all the clothed boys. Was this some new kind of animal he had never before seen? At any rate they were drinking the blood of the animal he had been chasing: his deer.

“Me Chief,” he bellowed.

“No. Me chief,” She said, standing with her spear at the ready and a hand in her pouch to find her knife.

The naked man was confused. She was fur clad like the boys, but clearly a woman.

“Bleeder,” the man said, cautiously approaching.

“Chief,” She replied, lunging forward with the spear aimed at his throat. Unfortunately she nearly missed, only creasing his throat. It must have hurt, because he yelled as he jumped at her. This time she was lucky, and the knife in her hand sliced into his throat even as Boy and the others plunged their spears into his body.

Soon there were another 20 people entering the clearing, seeing their chief lying dead. A boy of about 14, the next oldest male, stepped forward, pointed at the body and said ‘Chief dead, me chief.’ She-ief didn’t argue, she just reached into her pack and pulled out a stone, and slapped it across the boy’s head, knocking him out.

“Me She-ief,” she shouted. Then she noticed three girls who were quite pregnant, yet gaunt looking. She pointed to the bleeding deer and allowed them to drink first. Then Boy helped her skin the deer and slice the meat into large chunks. She also cut smaller portions and handed them to each of the women and children there, and watched in pleasure as they ravenously devoured the meet.

The skin, hide and bones were carried to the cave where the new people were amazed to feel warmth for the first time in months. Two of them were ill, probably weakened from lack of nutrition. She knew that in the past only half the tribe would live through the winter, even though none of her clan had been ill so far this year. One of the two newcomers slowly regained her health, and the other woman died. All the pregnant women gave birth successfully, with the two who had sons wailing until the other women explained that here boys were not slaughtered.

In fact the next night She-ief called forth one of the older boys. It was the one who had tried to claim the chiefdom when She had killed the original chief months ago. She had noticed he woke each morning with an erection, although his mother tried to get him to conceal it.

The boy stood defiantly in front of his leader. She cupped his groin, and his penis immediately popped to attention. But he was not attacked. Instead she pointed to one of the original girls, who looked to be about 14.

The girl came forward with a woman, no doubt her mother. “You bleed?” She asked.

The girl nodded and the mother held up three fingers. Apparently she had been menstruating for three months. “You like?” she pointed to the boy, still with his erection. The girl nodded again.

She looked at the boy. “You like?” with a gesture to the girl. He nodded. She took the girl’s hand and put it on the boy’s penis, which surged harder again. “Go” she said and pointed to the darkest corner of the cave. The young couple darted off and soon the sound of lovemaking came from that area.

Marriage, another invention, She told herself.

Over the next two months, she had paired new girls with most of the older boys from the original tribe, and three boys from the newcomers with girls from the original tribe. She had not wanted to encourage mating before, since most children of the original tribe had the same father. But with the newcomers, genetic diversity would prevent inbreeding problems.

Over the rest of the winter the combined tribe grew and prospered, with the newcomers learning how to hunt with weapons and to make clothing from the hides. Several babies were born, and with the improved nutrition of the mothers, most survived.

Finally spring arrived, and all the people came out of the caves. The hunters spread out further, although there were still many deer coming to drink from the river. Two further tribes had been conquered and now there were nearly 80 members to feed. The original cave was too small to hold them all, but many of the new people stayed outside, where fires made the cool spring nights comfortable to people who had just gone through the winter outside. Pregnant women and those with babies were invited into the cave. However a goal for the new year was to find a bigger cave.

One day in the spring She returned to the cave and found that there was a strange mud on her boots. Scrapping it off, she realized it was clay. Time for another invention! The next day the boys were sent out and She identified several large stones that were to be brought back to the cave. Over the winter the women of the tribe had been taught basket making by She, and now several of the better baskets were taken to the clay pits and filled with the mud, causing no small amount of concern when the clay was dumped and the women needed to clean their baskets in the river.

It took several weeks but eventually She succeeded and made the first oven from the stones, with clay caulking the gaps. Then she roughly shaped a bowl on a slab of wood, and placed it in the oven. Finally the oven was fired, and kept hot for the next few days. Finally it was opened, and the first primitive pottery was pulled out. It was a small bowl, and the people were amazed to discover that they could now bring water from the river in something other than their bare hands.

Over the rest of the summer, the people continued to work clay and fire it, eventually getting five ovens of various sizes built. They even learned, through trial and error, to make a primitive glaze that waterproofed the pottery. She-ief tried to build a potters wheel, but could only come up with one that required several children to spin it as the potter made her pot. Crude, but another invention: the wheel.

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It was three years later, and the boys of the tribe were now young men. Boy was leader of the hunters, and She-ief’s mate, although she was not ready to become pregnant yet. The first fall She had taught the people to gather food. In the past they had only gathered berries from bushes and fruits from trees when they were hungry: now they went out with baskets and were able to gather more. As well, She had shown them that some plants had edible roots, and these were gathered as well. She also learned how to smoke meat, and now the people had a supply of smoked meat to last several months. In the second spring She taught them how to plant a crop, and potatoes and wheat were planted, both maturing nicely that fall. The crop thrived the third year as well, and that year there was enough wheat to make flour, and the first bread.

The tribe was now 250 people, living in four caves due to several other clans attempting to conquer them. While the pottery operation was still making an ever-improving product of bowls and bigger containers, She had also fired bricks in the oven when there was spare space in a kiln, and now there were nearly 1000 of the bricks piled outside a cave.

Cutting trees was difficult with stone tools, but there was now a large collection of timbers piled near the bricks. She wanted a real house, and was only stymied by the lack of nails. She had her woodsmen experimenting with dowels. Thatched roofing was another experiment, using the stalks from the wheat. Thatched porches were built over two cave entrances, and experiments slowly improved both the thatching and the wood frames around the entrances.

She had been introducing new words over the years, and had more than tripled the vocabulary of the people. She and Boy were in what she considered her “room”: an area in the cave with woven blinds providing some privacy. She had decided to let Boy take her completely for the first time. She had pleased him with her hand and her mouth in the past, and he seemed satisfied, but now she wanted to give him more.

Just as they cuddled under the blanket they were interrupted.

“She-ief,” the man who had burst in on them said, “We were making the new oven and the stone started to melt!”

She was irritated at the interruption, but soon realized what melting stone meant. She and Boy both dressed and hurried over to the cave used for pottery. As soon as she saw the “melted stone” she knew what had happened. The stone had crumbled in the heat, and a silvery metal oozed out of the gaps.

“Let it be tin, not silver,” she told herself. One day silver might be valuable, but to her now tin was priceless. She had already seen rocks that looked as they might contain copper nearby and she knew that copper and tin made bronze. This meant weapons, knifes, and axes that wouldn’t wear out in a few days.

It took nearly a year to get the smelting and casting operation running smoothly, but at the end of that time they had 24 bronze arrows, five sturdy spear points, three good knifes, and a rather rudimentary sword.

The start of metalworking had begun. They had found coal, and were starting to make coke for the pottery kilns and smelters. They had been using charcoal for a year now, finding it was less smoky for heating the caves. And iron ore was also discovered, and they soon would be able to make that metal. She didn’t even bother with bronze hammers. Stone ones would suffice until they could make steel ones. And she had plans to make an anvil. Several of the boys had filled out nicely, and she thought one or two would make good black smiths.

But now she was constrained in her activities. After a few months of experimenting with Boy She was now pregnant. That was why she had refrained from intercourse in the early years. There were no birth control pills here, or condoms, although she was wondering if something might be possible with deer gut.

She gave birth to a girl in the middle of winter, and was pleased at how smoothly the clan operations went during her absence. She had grouped the people into trades, and appointed capable leaders for each trade, such as the farmers, potters, seamstresses, basket makers, and metal workers. These leaders, not always men, handled the day to day operations of their group. There were five different hunting parties, going out in different areas: Boy was leader of one, and she insisted that it would be the largest, and best equipped. He would be her war leader if any others tried to revolt.

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She looked at her eldest daughter as She joined her with a hunter from Boy’s group. He was strong, and would be a good husband for her, and was thrilled to be marrying into the She-ief’s family. The proud mother had a baby son suckling on her breast, and another eight of various ages roaming the house that She had finally gotten built. She had gotten pregnant almost every year, and had only lost three in the 14 years she had led the clan.

The house was her dream. It was made with nails from the forge, and the planks had been sawed, not split logs. A thatched roof and a stone fireplace at the far end completed it. The downstairs only had two rooms: the bedroom and the living room/kitchen. There was a ladder upstairs to the two rooms under the roof, one for boys and one for girls. She had just had a long discussion with the senior carpenter about stairs, her newest invention. She hoped the man understood what she had been describing.

Soon She would turn over leadership of the clan: to Boy, probably, and eventually to a younger generation, at least at first. She was getting to be one of the old ladies in the clan at 28 or so, although it seemed that women were lasting into their 40s now that there was ample food and heat for the winters.

She had an idea: a school. All these tots running around needed to learn if the clan was to prosper after she was gone. That would help make sure that the people wouldn’t regress into the old ways later.