“I come from far away,” I said, loud enough for their leader to hear me. “I have traveled a long, long time.” No lie, I told myself. “I am a stranger in your land and seek your help and protection.”

“Traveled?” asked the second one. “Alone? You travel alone?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head vehemently. “You lie! No one can travel alone. The beasts would kill you, or the spirits of the dead. No man walks by himself, without a clan.”

“I speak the truth,” I said. “I have traveled a great distance, alone.”

“You belong to another clan. They are hiding nearby, waiting to ambush us.”

So there was warfare here. Killing. I felt a great sadness wash over me. Even in this young Eden human beings murdered one another. But I looked past the two frightened, suspicious youths at the young woman standing by the leader’s side. Her eyes met mine. They were as gray and deep as those eyes I knew so well. But there was no spark of recognition in them, no hint of understanding. She was a woman of her time, a Stone Age huntress, as savage and uncouth as the rest of them.

“I am alone,” I repeated. “I have no clan. That is why I want to join you. I am weary of being alone. I seek your friendship.”

They glanced back over their shoulders at their leader, then turned back to me.

“You cannot be of the Goat Clan,” said the deeper-voiced one. “Who is your mother? Who is your father? They are not of the Goat Clan. You are not of the Goat Clan.”

It was all very simple in their minds. Either you were born into the clan or you were an outsider, a threat, a danger. Perhaps you could marry into the clan, but more likely a male took his bride to his own clan. Women could be traded back and forth, but not men, I was willing to bet. And the horned skull on the leader’s pole had been a goat. I smiled to myself. It was a good totem. The goat is a hardy animal, willing to eat almost anything and as tough as the flint these people used for tools and weapons.

“It is true that I am not of your clan. I have no clan. I would like to stay with you. It is not good for a man to be alone.”

They wavered, uncertain, and looked back at the leader again. He was scratching his red beard, frowning in concentration. He had never encountered a problem like this before.

“I can help you,” I coaxed. “I am a good hunter. My name is Orion. It means Hunter.”

Their jaws fell. All of them. Not merely the two youths, but the leader and the rest of the clan gaped at me. Even the dogs seemed to become more alert.

“Yes,” I said. “Orion means Hunter. What are your names? What do they mean?”

Both the lads started yelling and brandishing their spears at me. Their pupils were dilated with rage and fear as sweat broke out on their bodies and the veins in their necks began to throb furiously.

Beyond them, the whole clan surged and roared. Without a visible signal from the leader they hefted their weapons and swarmed down the slope toward me, dogs and all. The two teen-agers were jabbing their spears at me, working up the courage to make a real attack.

I made a very quick, very human decision. I turned and ran. I had no desire to frighten them further or to risk being swarmed under and hacked to bloody pieces by their primitive weapons. So I ran, as fast as I could.

They threw spears at me, but I easily avoided them. There was no organized pattern to their fusillade; over my shoulder I could see the individual shafts wobbling across the sky so slowly that I could have turned and caught them if I had wanted to. Instead, I simply dodged as I ran.

They chased after me, but their speed and endurance were nowhere near mine. Not even the dogs could keep up with me. Besides, they were merely trying to chase me away; you always run better when your goal is to save your own skin. In less than a minute I was beyond the range of their spears. Their leader sent a relay of four men after me, but their endurance was pitifully short. I jogged down toward the river, crashed through the underbrush, and dove into the cold water with a huge, belly-whopping splash.

I swam to the other side and crawled up into the foliage along the bank. My erstwhile pursuers stopped on their side of the river, pointing in my general direction, yelling and shouting angrily, but never so much as dipping a toe into the turgidly flowing water. The dogs yapped, but stayed close to the men.

After a while they turned away and headed back toward the rest of the clan. I crawled out of the brush and stretched myself on the grass to let the afternoon sun dry me.

By nightfall I had reasoned out what had upset them so badly. Names. Primitive tribes are naturally wary of strangers, and in a landscape as thinly populated with humans as this one, strangers must be extremely scarce. Primitives are also very superstitious about names. Even in the time of the Mongols no one willingly spoke the name of Timujin, Genghis Khan.

To these Stone Age hunters, a person’s name carried his soul and strength with it. To give your name to a stranger is to expose yourself needlessly and to invite witchcraft and danger, like voluntarily giving your fingernail clippings or strands of hair to a voodoo priestess.

Thinking back on the afternoon’s encounter, I could see that I had shocked them when I voluntarily told them not only my name but also its true meaning. And when I asked them for their names, they attacked me. Obviously they thought me a demon or a warlock. I had terrified them and made them triply afraid of me.

As the sun set behind the row of rocky hills across the river and the sky flamed into achingly beautiful reds and purples, I picked out a mossy spot next to a tree for my night’s sleep. I usually need only an hour or two of rest, but I felt physically weary and even more spent mentally.

Then the distant roar of a hunting lion echoed through the darkening evening. Reluctantly I got up from the soft moss and climbed the tree. A pair of squirrels chittered at me angrily, then scampered back into their hole. I found a sturdy notch and settled into it. The bark was rough and hard, but I fell asleep almost immediately, thinking of Agla.

But it was Ormazd who came to me in my sleep.

It was not a dream; it was a purposeful communication. I saw him shining against the darkness of night, his golden hair glowing with light and his face smiling, yet somehow neither happy nor pleased.

“You have found the tribe.” It was neither a question nor an acknowledgment of success — merely a statement of fact. His robes were golden, glowing. He was seated, but on what I could not see.

“Yes, I found them,” I reported. “But I frightened them and they chased me away.”

“You will gain their trust. You must.”

“Yes,” I said. “But why? What is so important about a gaggle of primitives?”

Ormazd looked as splendid as a Greek god, radiant against the darkness. But as I studied his face more closely, I saw that he was a troubled god, weary of struggle and pointless questions from mere mortals.

“The Dark One seeks to destroy this… gaggle of primitives, as you call them. You must counter him.”

I wanted to say no; I wanted to tell him that I would refuse to do his bidding unless he gave me the woman I loved, unharmed and safe from the wrenching separations of this endless quest through time. The thought was in my mind, the demand on my lips.

But, instead, I heard myself asking meekly, “What does Ahriman stand to gain from killing a small clan of Stone Age hunters? How would that affect human history?”

Ormazd eyed me disdainfully. “What matter is that to you? Your appointed task is to kill Ahriman. You have failed in that task twice, although you have managed to thwart his schemes. Now he is stalking this clan of primitives; therefore, you will use the clan as bait to stalk him. What could be simpler?”