Obsolete Theorem Read online

  Obsolete Theorem

  Across Horizons - Book 1

  Stan C. Smith

  Copyright © 2020 by Stan C. Smith

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To those who are mistreated simply because they are different.

  Obsolete Theorem

  Listen to me speak, bolup men. I will not submit to you, and I will take your strength.

  Skyra-Una-Loto

  Contents

  1. Skyra

  2. Lincoln

  3. Ripple

  4. Broadcast

  5. Strangers

  6. Decision

  7. Camp

  8. Conflict

  9. Escape

  10. Shelter

  11. Travel

  12. Homotherium

  13. Strength

  14. Gelrut

  15. Ilmekho

  16. Running

  17. Cornered

  18. Who Made Who

  19. Arizona

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  Author’s Notes

  Review Request

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Stan C. Smith

  1

  Skyra

  47,659 years ago - Zaragoza Province of Spain

  Skyra-Una-Loto wasn’t fond of hedgehog meat—a shame since this meal would probably be her last. She stepped on the creature’s head, thrust her stone blade into its chest, and sawed through skin and bone to its hind feet. A cooking fire here would reveal her presence, so she pulled out the heart and other chest organs and shoved them into her mouth. She needed food in her belly and strength in her arms and legs. Before nightfall she intended to kill some of the bolups who had taken her birthmate, and if Veenah was still alive, Skyra would take her back.

  Skyra rose to her full height, scanning the trees and hillside between her and the bolups’ camp. Satisfied there was no danger, she wiped the blood from her chin and dropped back into a crouch. She pulled out the hedgehog’s stomach and intestines and arranged them on a rock. She would eat them only if the rest of the body didn’t quell her hunger.

  Quietly singing to herself, she gripped the soft, spineless belly skin and began working it from the flesh, rolling the skin over itself to cover the painful spines. Her birthmother had taught her how to skin a hedgehog, which now seemed so long ago.

  Disregarding the risk of being heard, Skyra pounded the skinned body with a rock, pulverizing the bones and flesh into a paste. She scooped the paste up with her fingers and consumed it quickly. By the time the mashed body was gone, she felt full enough to leave behind the intestines.

  She took several long breaths, trying to soothe her fears. After four days of searching she had found the bolups’ camp. It was time to kill.

  Skyra scrubbed her hands with fresh dirt and then wiped the dirt off against a bare rock. She never wiped food or blood on her cape or waist-skin—furs of the lynx and woolly rhino were not easy to come by.

  She moved away from the stench of the hedgehog intestines and stepped onto a rounded boulder. Facing away from the bolups’ camp, she positioned both her arms behind her back, leaving her vulnerable abdomen unprotected.

  She spoke softly. “Kami-fu-menga-ulmecko. Ati-de-lé-melu imbo-oh-nup-tekne-té.” Her words meant, Listen to me speak, woolly rhino and cave lion. I submit to you in return for your strength. She then turned to face the bolups’ camp and covered her belly with her arms. “Kami-fu-bolup-mafeem. Ati-de-lé-melu-rha aibul-khulo-tekne-té.” Listen to me speak, bolup men. I will not submit to you, and I will take your strength.

  Skyra secured both her hand blades in the leather sheath on her wrist. Hedgehog blood still stained the heavy, stone blade of her khul, so she wiped it off in the dirt. After sliding the khul handle-first into the sling on her back, she picked up her spear. She hefted the shaft a few times and checked the tightness of the stone point. Recently she had replaced the spear’s point with one she’d found in her camp after the bolup men had attacked. Now she hoped to stain the point with bolup blood, perhaps even the blood of the same man who had so carelessly lost it.

  The morning after the bolups’ attack, Skyra also had found two smaller stone points, each of them affixed with strips of skin to thin spears no longer than her arm. Despite their tiny size, these spears had killed two of Skyra’s tribemates. The attack had taken place in the dark, so Skyra hadn’t seen how the bolup men could have thrown the small spears with such deadly force. Today, though, she would not underestimate their ability to kill her.

  She made her way up the hillside. Near the summit she paused and turned to look back. Dark, scrubby trees bordered a stream in the distance. She had left Ripple to wait there. Now she wished the creature was with her. Perhaps it couldn’t protect her, but its presence gave her courage. Actually, Skyra had no idea what kind of creature Ripple was, although it had been her companion through two cold seasons and almost two warm seasons.

  She muttered, “Aibul-meli-yabo-rha nokho lotup-mel-endü.” If I don’t return, my friend, find your way home.

  She turned away from the valley and traversed the hilltop. Soon she caught the stench of bolups, and she ducked behind a boulder to peer at the scene below. Another stream flowed by at the hill’s base, this one too small to support more than a few trees. Several breaths later she spotted bolups standing in the stream’s ankle-deep water. Skyra squinted, then a whimper nearly escaped from her chest before she suppressed it. Her birthmate Veenah was standing in the stream, surrounded by three bolup women. Veenah had been stripped of her cape and waist-skin. She was naked except for her two dayun, her leather footwraps, which were barely visible in the flowing water.

  The women were splashing water on Veenah’s body, wiping away blood and grime. One woman was working specifically on the area between Veenah’s legs, where there seemed to be an abundance of blood. Again, Skyra suppressed a whimper.

  A fourth bolup—this one a man—stood beside the stream holding a rope tied around Veenah’s neck.

  Skyra whispered, “Fekho-gédun-tekne-té-rha.” Where is your strength, sister? Veenah was just standing there, not fighting, hardly moving at all.

  After staring for a few more short breaths, Skyra pulled back behind the boulder and rubbed her eyes with her free hand, trying to push aside her fear. She reminded herself that she was actually lucky. Veenah was away from her captors’ camp, guarded by only four of the stinking bolups, and three of them were women. Unlike the women of Skyra’s own people, bolup women rarely hunted, and they never participated in attacks. They were frail. Skyra hadn’t killed one before, but she hoped to change that now.

  She scanned the hillside. Other boulders littered the slope, but they were too scattered to provide enough cover to hide her approach. She would have to descend the hill exposed. She closed her eyes for a moment, coaxing the rhino and lion strengths to enter her arms and legs.

  Skyra got to her feet. Instead of charging down the hill, she walked, moving deliberately. She carried her spear in one hand and cupped the back of her neck with the other, her fingers almost touching her khul’s blade.

  When she was halfway down the slope, the man spotted her. He shouted something using words Skyra couldn’t understand. She kept walking, hoping the man’s voice couldn’t be heard from the bolups’ camp. The three women had stopped washing Veenah and were staring. Skyra could now clearly see her birthmate’s face, which was swollen and bloody. Veenah didn’t even turn her head—she j
ust stared into the distance as if she were dead.

  The man shouted again. He tossed the rope to one of the bolup women and picked up a spear from the ground by his feet. The three women stepped out of the stream, pulling on Veenah’s rope. Veenah stumbled on the submerged rocks and fell, but instead of trying to get up, she just lay there, her face barely above the surface.

  Skyra was almost to the water’s edge. The stream was narrow—she could cross it in three or four running strides, although the rocky bottom might trip her. She stopped and looked directly at the man.

  He stared back at her, then his eyes widened. He looked down at Veenah and back at Skyra, confused by the two nandup women’s similar appearance. He shifted one shoulder and tilted his head slightly.

  At that moment Skyra’s fear faded away. From watching the man’s movements, she knew what he was going to do next. This was a skill she had possessed for as long as she could remember. The ability had nearly gotten her killed as a child because it frightened her tribemates, even her birthmother and the dominant men, one of which was likely to be her birthfather. It frightened everyone but Veenah, because Veenah had the same ability.

  This was a good time to confuse the bolup man even further. Without taking her eyes off him, Skyra tossed her spear into the stream. He frowned as he watched the weapon bob to the surface and start drifting with the current.

  Skyra could sense it now, almost as clearly as if the man were one of her own species. He was confident, convinced that he was not in danger, and he was about to cross the stream. He would come at Skyra and try to take her.

  He lowered his spear and took a step into the water, wobbling slightly, a little off balance.

  Skyra charged. She reached the man in three strides without stumbling. Before he could step back onto steady ground, she pulled her khul from the sling on her back, grabbed the handle with her other hand, and swung the weapon.

  Skyra sensed he would raise one hand to protect his face, but she didn’t care. Her blade shattered his arm, then embedded itself in the side of his head. He collapsed into the water, but her charge had been so furious that she collided with his body and fell over him.

  The three women screamed, dropped Veenah’s rope, and began running. Skyra rolled off the man, pulled her khul from his skull, and threw it. The khul’s heavy blade struck one of the women, knocking her off her feet. The woman writhed, still alive, but Skyra sprinted after the other two. The bolup women were slow, and she quickly overtook them. She pulled one of her blades from her wrist sheath and slashed at the nearest woman, cutting into her shoulder but not slowing her down. The next slash cut into her neck, and this time the woman fell.

  Skyra came to a stop. The third woman was now too far ahead, too close to the bolups’ camp. The injured woman at Skyra’s feet was still screaming. Skyra decided not to waste valuable time silencing her. Bolup men from the camp were almost certainly on their way. They would be drawn to the woman’s cries, which would slow them down. Skyra ran back to the stream.

  The woman she’d hit with her khul was now gone, so Skyra leapt into the stream and kneeled beside her birthmate. “Veenah! Veenah-Uno-Loto!”

  Veenah was still sprawled in the shallow water, making no effort to get up. One of her eyes was swollen shut, but her other eye met Skyra’s. She spoke quietly. “Skyra-Uno-Loto. Apofu-fekho.” Run away, sister.

  Skyra gripped Veenah by the neck and pulled her to her feet. With Veenah’s arm over her shoulders, she guided her birthmate from the stream and headed up the hillside.

  Veenah stumbled, almost unable to walk at all. “Apofu-fekho,” she repeated.

  Skyra kept moving.

  Shouts came from behind. Skyra glanced back. Bolup men—many of them—were already approaching. Skyra let out a wail. Veenah was her birthmate, the only person who truly understood her, and Skyra had failed to take her back. Veenah would surely die in the hands of the stinking bolups.

  She glanced back again. The men were crossing the stream and would be upon them within only a few breaths.

  Skyra said, “Tekne-té fekho.” Have strength, sister. She ducked from beneath Veenah’s arm and ran.

  Skyra knew the men would pursue her—she was of breeding age, like her sister. She also knew she could outrun them. Bolup men were not much faster than bolup women. She ran over the hilltop the way she had come. By the time she reached the bottom of the slope, she was panting hard. She turned to look back. Several men were running down the slope after her, with more appearing over the summit. The men in the lead were each carrying a weapon that resembled her khul but with a smaller stone blade.

  A lower hill lay before Skyra. She would have to make it over the hill and across a wide field of rocks before reaching the tree-lined river, the only place she’d have a chance to hide. She ran up the slope.

  By the time she’d descended the smaller hill and started across the rock field, Skyra began to suspect she wasn’t going to make it. The men didn’t seem to be tiring. How could they run so far without slowing down?

  She took another glance. Two of the men had outdistanced the others and were steadily catching up. She visually measured the distance to the trees and the rate the men were gaining on her. She factored in her diminishing speed, as well as the likelihood of actually losing the men in the forest. She let out another wail as she visualized the resulting outcome. Sand and jagged stones grated against her dayun soles as she came to a stop. She turned around, gripping both her hand blades, which were now the only weapons she had.

  The first two men caught up a few breaths later. From the way they were scanning the ground before them, she sensed they were about to diverge and get on either side of her.

  Skyra was, more than anything else, a hunter. She was a nandup, and the nandups of her region held a longstanding truce, rarely attacking other nandup camps. Bolups, though, ignored such agreements. They attacked any nandup camp that appeared weak, killing men and taking women of breeding age. Because of this, Skyra’s tribemates had taught her to fight. What they hadn’t taught her, though, was how to read an attacker’s intent. That skill had been within her and Veenah even before the two birthmates had stopped suckling their birthmother. The skill had saved Skyra’s life before, and she hoped it would save her now.

  Sensing the two men were focused on where to place their feet as they diverged, she chose an action they would not expect. She leapt at the first man and smashed her palm and the handle of her blade into his nose. She and the man were moving past each other so fast that stabbing with the blade’s point would have ripped the weapon from her hand or even broken her wrist.

  The man dropped his khul and fell onto his back. Skyra leapt over his body and slashed with her other blade as she flew past the second man, being sure to angle the blade back to save her wrist.

  The second man ducked to the side, avoiding the blade. Instead of wheeling around to attack, he continued running several paces, and when Skyra turned to face him, he was too far away for her to surprise him again. He held his khul ready, but he flicked his eyes over her shoulder at the others approaching behind her. The stinking bolup knew better than to fight a nandup by himself, even one who was armed with only two hand blades.

  The man bared his teeth at her and said, “Nu delo-do!”

  Skyra didn’t understand the words and didn’t care. The other men were almost upon her, and now she had no chance of making it to the river. The man she had knocked to the ground was starting to get up. She screamed and stabbed at the top of his head with one of her blades. The blade didn’t penetrate his skull, so she plunged it into the soft tissue on the side of his neck. She then flicked the blade toward the second man, throwing blood droplets at him in defiance.

  Without glancing down at his bleeding tribemate, the man bared his teeth again as he stared at her. Skyra thought maybe he was smiling, but bolups didn’t smile the same way her people did.

  The men surrounded her.

  Skyra screamed one more time, then she low
ered one of her blades, lifted her waist-skin, and held the blade to her groin. She gritted her teeth, preparing to drive the knife into the part of her body the stinking men cared about most.

  “Melil gu!” one of them shouted. He pointed past her toward the river. The other men were also staring past her.

  Skyra swung around. A creature had emerged from the trees and was flying across the field of rocks at about the height of Skyra’s shoulders.

  Several of the men muttered words Skyra didn’t understand, but they didn’t run away—they simply stared, like their feet had grown roots into the dirt.

  The flying creature—the size and shape of a large beaver—didn’t slow down, but still the bolups remained frozen in place. It came directly at the nearest man, who appeared to be too confused to move out of its path. It rammed into the man’s face and chest. His body flew backward and knocked a second man to the ground.

  The second man scrambled to his feet as the creature came to a stop and hovered above the first man’s motionless body.

  An orb of light on the front of the creature’s shell, almost as bright as the sun but now partially obscured by smeared blood, grew bright and then dim, bright and then dim again.

  “Mano telo pa-mon-do!” the creature said, although it had no mouth from which to speak.

  The men turned and ran, leaving their two fallen tribemates behind.

  Skyra watched them retreat up the hillside until they stopped at the summit and turned to stare back down the slope. She stepped over and picked up the khul dropped by the man she’d stabbed. She hefted it a few times. The man was still choking, trying to suck air into his body, so she swung the khul at his head, ending his struggle. She would prefer the weapon to be heavier, but it worked well enough.